That’s Delivered Podcast
Welcome to “That’s Delivered” – your ultimate destination for all things trucking and beyond! Here, we take you behind the wheel and dive deep into the world of trucking, delivering stories, insights, and experiences designed to inspire, educate, and entertain.
Our podcast isn’t just about transportation; it’s about reliability, accomplishment, and fulfillment. “That’s Delivered” reflects the sense of completion that comes with meeting promises and exceeding expectations—whether on the road or in life.
Whether you’re a seasoned trucker, a logistics enthusiast, or just curious about the backbone of our economy, this is the place for you. We’ll explore life on the road, uncover how technology is reshaping the industry, and break down the latest regulations impacting drivers and businesses alike.
So buckle up, hit the road with us, and join a community that understands the journey is just as important as the destination. From personal stories to industry insights, “That’s Delivered” brings the best of trucking straight to your ears, promising every mile together will be worth the ride!
That’s Delivered Podcast
From Real Estate to Rest Stops: How Evan Shelley is Revolutionizing Truck Parking
Ever wondered how a real estate background could transform the world of truck parking? Join us as we dive into a fascinating conversation with Evan Shelley, co-founder and CEO of Truck Parking Club, to explore how his expertise in construction and real estate is solving truck parking challenges across the country.
Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode:
The Journey from Real Estate to Truck Parking Innovation
- How Evan’s background in construction and real estate inspired him to tackle truck parking shortages.
- The creation of a tech-driven platform connecting truckers with landowners to create safe, accessible parking spaces.
- How this win-win solution benefits drivers with more safety and convenience while unlocking new revenue streams for property owners.
Marketing on a Budget: Practical Tips for Small Business Owners and Truckers
- Actionable advice on marketing authentically with minimal costs through organic content creation.
- The importance of networking at trade shows like the Mid-America Trucking Show and Iowa 80.
- Leveraging social media platforms such as Facebook and TikTok to connect with your audience.
- Why genuine passion and consistency are the keys to long-term marketing success.
How Truck Parking Club Works: An Airbnb for Truckers
- Explore the user-friendly features of Truck Parking Club, including real-time availability and easy reservation processes.
- Learn how former drivers on the support team ensure top-tier customer service, available 24/7.
- Discover how landowners can monetize unused space by offering it to truckers.
This episode is packed with insights into perseverance, innovation, and mission-driven growth—don’t miss out on how Truck Parking Club is reshaping the trucking industry!
Tune in now to hear Evan’s journey and explore how Truck Parking Club makes life on the road easier for truckers and landowners alike.
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Welcome back to another episode of that's Delivered. I'm your host, ray, and today we have a special guest, evan Shelley, co-founder and CEO of Truck Parking Club. Evan's company is solving one of the biggest challenges in the trucking industry finding parking. He's doing this in a unique way by monetizing vacant properties for landowners, and today we're going to dig into Evan's background, including his experience in real estate, the business model behind Truck Parking Club and his successful marketing strategies. We'll also touch on how small business owners and truckers can promote themselves and grow their business. Evan, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1:Awesome, so we'll dive right into it. Evan, before we talk about Truck Parking Club, let's talk a little bit about your background and what first got you interested in trucking and the parking situation? Was it something you always were involved in, or did you find yourself drawn into the industry through another path?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so my background is really in construction and real estate.
Speaker 2:I went to school for civil engineering and from that started working for some general contractor site developers just out of college and was from my late teens buying rental properties by pairing up with investors and so always in and around real estate and construction, and went out into the corporate world for 18 months or so after college and kind of got bored with that and wanted to go do my own thing.
Speaker 2:So I started flipping houses in Florida and from doing those deals I started trying to push to bigger and bigger things and ended up doing large scale commercial and industrial land deals in Florida.
Speaker 2:And from doing those industrial deals I ended up coming across a deal, a truck parking deal, a deal that was zoned industrial, that I figured out would be a good fit to develop with truck parking, and went to the municipality to get everything zoned or get everything entitled for it, and was told that even though it was zoned industrial, that they wouldn't support it, that they didn't think any of the neighboring parcels would support it and that it wasn't a good idea. But from everyone I had talked to I had heard that there was a supply shortage of truck parking and that the demand continued to grow. So for me it was kind of that was the moment when I was like something interesting is going on here in truck parking. So that was in 2021. And for the next six to 12 months after that I really dove into the industry and tried to figure out what exactly is going on with truck parking and what what stakeholders are saying about it oh, that's a lot of background work that needs to be done, um, do you?
Speaker 1:you look at the real estate industry and you know that kind of sets you up a nice spot, you know, for the role of truck parking club. You understand that part about making those acquisitions. That's huge. Um, has your experience in real estate shaped the idea, or was it something else, a particular moment that you realized these two industries could connect?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think ultimately what it did since I was outside the industry is I just came at it from a different perspective, just looking at the entire issue. I was never a driver. No one in my family are drivers or anything of that nature. So I just came from completely outside the industry and then kind of surrounded myself with people in the industry and tried to make sense of the best way to go about being a part of the solution to the truck parking issue Nice.
Speaker 1:Every new business is facing with growing pains. There's unexpected challenges or roadblocks when you first get started. How did you overcome those with Truck Parking Club?
Speaker 2:I mean, we're still trying to figure that out. We're fortunate to be growing quickly, but it comes with its own issues. We're a tech company and everything breaks and you just got to figure it out and and continue to move quickly. I would just say just, you know, at a high level, just persevering, having great people on the team that understand that this is not going to be easy and that it's going to be a lot of hours worked and there's going to be problems and there's going to be challenges, and so really probably just a perseverance mindset and maybe most importantly, just mission oriented as well. Where half of our team is former drivers, they understand the complications that come with truck parking and we're all, on a daily basis, working hard to. Our mission is to help truckers save time and fuel by efficiently finding and reserving truck parking across the US. So every one of us is working very hard and we keep that in mind, that we're helping drivers get parked safely on a daily basis, faster, more efficiently, ultimately, hopefully, making their lives a little bit easier.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean the app you guys have is very unique. I mean you get to make the parking easy for the truck driver to get it done quick, not something that takes forever. That's huge. We appreciate that. Your business model is unique. Can you break that down for us a little bit about Truck Parking Club and how it works both for truckers and landowners?
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure. So Truck Parking Club is a two-sided marketplace where we help truckers find and reserve parking through our mobile app and website and we help property owners and businesses monetize their extra space with truck parking. That can be a trucking company with extra space in their yard, a tow truck company, truck repair shop, warehouse, cdl school any space that's suitable for truck parking. We can get you in the business of truck parking same day, and that's essentially the overarching business model and how it works and what our properties are.
Speaker 1:Wow, I mean your marketing and growth strategies really stand out. I mean it seems like you guys put a lot of work in it. What are some of the I guess early marketing efforts that you used or that first got you started? How did you make it work?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think in the beginning you're just like begging for your first customer, then your second customer, then your 10th customer. It's just trying to get in front of the right people and match the right properties. It's extremely hard to get any traction in the beginning and from there, as we started to get some traction, we just took a very much kind of a guerrilla marketing approach, just trying to be all over social and trying to be boots on the ground at shows, shows, we wrap vehicles, that we drive around the US, that we're driving past potential customers all the time. Really a grassroots approach to the entire thing? No, really.
Speaker 2:Yet to find a silver bullet type scenario where, um, you know, you have one marketing strategy that just really does everything for you. It's it's, uh, just a bit of a shotgun approach where you, um, we're, we're always just looking to be in front of drivers and and we make some funny content. We, we make some business related content, uh, just for the most part, keeping it very light and just kind of entertaining and having a good time with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can tell I enjoy watching it. I like the colors that grab your attention and you guys just seem to take the bull by the horns there and just keep on putting yourself out there. You know that's huge. I think a lot of small business owners and truckers listen to the show. Many of them are trying to build their own brands. What advice would you give someone who's trying to market their own business, especially if they're working on a limited budget?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I you know, when I first started this company, I was faced with a dilemma deciding I had to decide where we're going to build this company, kind of quietly, and then, you know, kind of bring it to the public eye at whatever point we felt we were worthy of the public eye. Would we just market it like crazy from the very beginning and put ourselves out there even when our product, the app and the website wasn't quite perfect, but still putting ourselves out there, learning from our customers and taking that risk? And so we decided with the latter and we really did it with very little money, just making organic content, and fortunately, some of it took off. And I would say the advice would just be be yourself, make whatever content you see fit. Obviously, keep your customer in mind, but be yourself.
Speaker 2:You know all the stuff we put out, like this podcast that I'm doing with you, like I'm speaking from exactly what I would say to anyone else internally, externally. This is just who I am and this is that I'm doing with you, like I'm speaking from exactly what I would say to anyone else internally, externally. This is just who I am and this is what I believe and, and I would suggest anyone that's out there, you know, wanting to market, just put out content, it's free. You know, essentially, uh, like, pick up a phone, you know, record a video, it's essentially free. So, distribution channel if you make something that resonates with people, it's essentially free. So, a distribution channel if you make something that resonates with people, it's gonna spread.
Speaker 2:Uh, and and you know, I'm sure you've seen it a million times like there, there's people that just pick up their phone and start making content, uh, and before you know it they're super viral. You know, mother trucker's one of them that I think of. He does everything on his phone, everything, everything. It's just a phone. So if someone like Mother Trucker can get out of the truck and just start making content and get to where he's at now, I think anyone can do it. It's probably the biggest thing is just putting yourself out there and being yourself nice, uh, trade shows um, that's where I think we met.
Speaker 1:You know, trade shows events, large, huge. It's going to be a big part of the network in the trucking industry. Are there any trade shows or events that you have particularly uh shown to be beneficial for truck parking club?
Speaker 2:uh, mid-america trucking show, uh, for sure, iowa 80 is a good one. Um, the team just did Mayberry. That's a very good show. In North Carolina let's see All the like Florida Trucking Show, texas Trucking Show, california Trucking Show all very good shows. Most of them are in convention centers in like Fort Lauderdale, houston, uh, ontario. Um, any of those shows are are very solid a lot of truckers, a lot of vendors, um good turnouts typically. Um, those are.
Speaker 1:Those are the top of mind ones okay, and so when you approach these trade shows, do you use them mainly for networking or you also see them as opportunities to direct customer acquisition?
Speaker 2:Um, I guess both right For us. You know our we're fortunate with our business. You know somebody can come by the booth and you just start talking to them. The next thing you know they've got two acres of of land, um, somewhere that you could park a truck on tomorrow and on tomorrow. And so what starts out is just like a conversation, with maybe a little bit of curiosity. It turns into a new customer, which we call property members. So a little bit of both, I think.
Speaker 2:Kind of going back to the content thing, we're not know, we're not, we're not a super salesy company. We are big marketers but we're not super salesy. So when we talk to people we aren't just like, you know, kind of in your face. It's we love what we do, we love what you know, kind of talking about it. But we're also not like twisting your arm trying to get you to add your location or for, from the driver's perspective, you know, trying to get them to use the app. It's more of like, hey, here's what we created and here's how other people use it. Maybe it works for you, maybe it doesn't, but so I would say a lot of networking and a lot of times that ends up with doing business together.
Speaker 1:Awesome, and I think when I met you you were just super chill. I mean, you're very relaxed and your element showed that you really love what you do. That does come across in the marketplace. I really like that and also so glad that you had come on the show. How many podcasts have you done so far?
Speaker 2:I don't know the exact number, maybe 50, 75, something like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it was up there. That's pretty good, man, really getting putting yourself out there, that's good. And the digital space to social media is very powerful. Um, so how do you leverage social media engagement for truckers and landowners, any particular platforms that works best for you, that you you gravitate to?
Speaker 2:Um, so we're, we're on, you know, facebook, tiktok X, linkedin, youtube. We're on all those, and specifically probably Facebook TikTok, where we see a lot of results. And that's just in the beginning there was like no results, right, and now we've got a few hundred thousand followers on both of them and it's yeah, we have a lot of bandwidth there and it's been very good to us. But we've also put out probably a few thousand pieces of content too. So, um, it's uh, you put in the work and and it ends up being a good funnel and a lot of drivers are on TikTok and Facebook. So it just makes, it makes sense that they've done well.
Speaker 2:But even kind of these other tertiary platforms, like you know, linkedin has been been incredibly well, although not, you know, as many drivers and stuff on there, but a lot of property owners, and that that's worked well for us. Um and um. You know, x is like relatively small following on there, but but it's also, um, shown some results. But if I had to choose, uh, to, it'd be Facebook and Tik TOK. They're. They're really good platforms to connect with drivers and property owners.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Yeah, I feel the same way. What do you think would be some of the biggest marketing mistakes? Marketing mistakes for small business and trucking? It could happen. What are some pitfalls that you would avoid?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, honestly, it's probably just not putting out enough content, which is, I know, not the answer you want, but like, just put stuff out there. And you know, sometimes you like we put stuff out and it's like rub people the wrong way or whatever. It is what it is. It's okay, like people just move on. 30 minutes later everyone's over it. So, um, I would say, just what I see is not putting up out enough content, or you put out maybe too much content because there's just no like, no actual thought in it. It's just kind of like spam.
Speaker 2:Um, I would say kind of that line of just posting enough times a day, uh, to where, and and I'm putting a little bit of thought into your content and not worrying about what, what people think. Um, I would say something else is like being super transactional. You know, like every like, so a person's content, every single piece of content, is like use my business, use my business, use my business, you know, and and there's no real value. Um, I would say that's probably a mistake as well. Just like you know, people don't always want to be sold all the time.
Speaker 2:Um, a lot of times, what's good enough is just putting out some interesting content and just your brand is somehow like even as simple as you're wearing a shirt or your logo somewhere you know. Like a lot of times that's enough to like get someone's attention on that thing, and you don't have to be super transactional, just like use our app, use our app. Use our app because I think that you're you're not going to really grow a following that way. You're going to just kind of wear people out and they're they're not going to really grow a following that way. You're going to just kind of wear people out and they're not going to want to see any more of your content.
Speaker 1:Awesome. And now that I touch on Truck Parking Club and how it works the unique value let's dive in deeper about the platform. For someone who's never used Truck Parking Club before, how do they get started? Could you walk us through some of the steps, from signing up or booking the parking spot?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so really built the app to make it a self-service app, so think like Airbnb, where when you go on to book a vacation rental, you can do it all yourself right through the app within a few minutes. And we really built truck parking club, uh, with the same mindset. And so any driver can go on, sign up and book a location within minutes. Um, very simple sign up process. Just, you know I think it's a first name, last name, email, phone number, um all the stuff that we need to know to make sure that you have a good experience. And then we have 24-7, 365 customer service made up of former drivers to complement the app in case you have any questions, especially at this stage in our company, drivers are just curious about the company in general and the app, and there's some, as I'm sure you're aware, with with truck parking and paid parking. There's been a lot of kind of bad actors out there. There's been a lot of people that just haven't done a very good job of it. You know, uh, reservable parking has historically you reserve a spot and then you don't have one. You know all those things. So there's a there's still some skepticism in the market, even though we I think we've done a good job. It's. It's just, um, uh, you know, if, if someone books a reservable spot at, let's say, one of the major truck stops and shows up and they don't have a spot available, that's, that's a scar and they're not, you know, they're not going to just trust the next time they reserve a spot. Um. So you know, having that customer service is is great to ease the driver's concerns. Then you go through and you can, you know, search by your current location to find what's closest to you, or you can, you know, let's say, you're three or four hours out from where you're, where you're going to stop for the night. You can go ahead and reserve in advance and go through the booking process. It's going to ask you when you're going to arrive, whether that's today, tomorrow, next week. It's going to ask you about your vehicle information. So when you arrive on site that the property owner knows that you're going to be there and they'll have that in their dashboard so they can know. And then from there it's as simple as just payment info, um, and clicking book, uh, so kept it just super simplistic process. And so, after you book the first time assuming you're not switching trailers and trucks and stuff like that. If you're driving the same truck and trailer, you can book, can book within seconds. The second time you book you just find the location you want to book and book and I would say, on the listing pages you've got photos, you've got details about where you need to park, you've got a description of the property, you've got all listed amenities, whether that's security fence, gated cameras, showers, free or paid showers everything that a driver needs to know to make an informed decision about if this spot is suitable for them for their parking, whether that's they need to park for an hour, they need to park for a day, they need to park for three days a week, a month, really everything they need to know about the location and it will show you availability in real time at those locations as well. Nice Is there a special feature that truckers like the most, that they love or gravitate to?
Speaker 2:It's the first time a few minutes. It's the second time a few seconds. They know they've got a place to park that evening. They know that if they run into any issues, they've got 24-7, 365 customer service to answer any questions they have. I think it's just kind of the overarching experience of helping them remove one of the headaches of their day. I think that's kind of that's the goal, right? The goal is is to help drivers. I think, on average, drivers spend 56 minutes a day driving around looking for parking, and our goal is to get that to 10 minutes or less. And and I think we're, we're, we are starting to push the needle on that where you know, once drivers get used to using us, um, you know, we, we can really save them a lot of time during the day and, probably most importantly, just stress you offer daily monthly, anything like that on your plans for your options.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we do hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, the plan. There is no like there's no cost to be on the platform, so think like there's no. Like you know, amazon Prime, subscription, prime subscription.
Speaker 1:Right, it is just pay-per-use, just like airbnb. Nice, I like that, um. It makes it easier, um, for people to get involved and engaged instead of feeling a little reluctant to do so. So, yeah, thank you for your time. Uh, I think that shares a good eye for our listeners. They can get on that app and get involved and learn more. When they get their hands on it, I think they're going to really see how easy it is and how much time it saves. So, evan, it's been a really insightful conversation. Before we wrap it up, is there anything else you'd like to share with the listeners? Maybe some advice or final thoughts on trucking, parking or just running a business?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, first off, appreciate you having me on. Secondly, I would just say when I started this company didn't know anything about the industry, but I'm super happy to, and feel fortunate to be part of the industry and getting to know a lot of people in the industry and understanding what drivers go through on a daily basis. And it's quite incredible, once you kind of you dive into trucking and transportation, what these guys go through out there on the road and I'm glad to be a small part of that. And we're working very hard to create more parking at locations all across the US and just appreciate everyone's business out there. We've, you know, been fortunate to grow very quickly and we'll continue to do so. And if you have any questions or anything, feel free to call in our customer service anytime, 888-899-PARK, 888-899-7275, 24-7-365. And you can also go to the contact us page on the website or you can hit us up on any of the socials and we'll connect with you there.
Speaker 1:Well, that's awesome. Thank you so much, evan. I appreciate you joining us today and being on the show and for our listeners out there, if you're looking for parking solutions and you're a landowner interested in monetizing your property, make sure you check out Truck Parking Club. They have a lot of options for you. You can find the details on their website. You can also reach out to, like I said, the number that he provided, so they're always there willing to help. You can tell that they got your best interest in mind. So thank you again, evan.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much.
Speaker 1:All right, hey, take care. If you guys like what you hear, please leave a review. Reach out to us on all the platforms. We'll be there. We'd love to hear from you and again, this is your go-to guy, Ray.
