Unfiltered Founders
Unfiltered Founders is a raw, real, and refreshing podcast for anyone ready to break free from the corporate grind and embrace the unpredictable world of entrepreneurship. Hosted by Darren Penquite and Andy Baker—two former corporate professionals turned business owners—this show dives deep into the highs, lows, and everything in between of starting and scaling a business.
Each episode features candid conversations about the unfiltered realities of entrepreneurship: the wins, the losses, the sleepless nights, and the lessons learned along the way. Whether you're just considering taking the leap or you're a seasoned business owner looking for perspective, encouragement, or the next big idea, Unfiltered Founders delivers honest insights and practical advice—with a dash of humor and a whole lot of heart.
Tune in for stories that inspire, advice you can actually use, and the kind of support every founder needs but rarely finds.
Unfiltered Founders
Logistics Entrepreneur's Journey Through Motherhood
Welcome to another episode of Unfiltered Founders. I'm Darren, I'm Andy. We took last week off man.
Speaker 2:We've been hustling what's new everything it feels like yeah yeah, I don't know, it's one of those things. It's like I haven't seen you in a bit and it feels like it's a lot more than just a a week. I know it's been one week off. Yeah, I think. Shoot, check it out. I think I was. I think I drove all the way to seattle and back from southern oregon that's right, basketball right yep, right, yep, yep so. I mean, it was good. I will tell you, I learned why I never do that.
Speaker 1:Um, but man, so soccer mom is a real thing Soccer mom, basketball dad yeah, that just doesn't work out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it was good. But I will say it is nice to have the the flexibility to be able to say, yeah, tomorrow's day off and I got to go do this. And what I will say is the fun part about this trip is we left around I want to say like 10 o'clock or something because we didn't have any commitments that night. We left at about 10 o'clock in the morning and I had phone calls for at least the first two, three hours of that drive. I handed my son my notebook and a pen and I said you're taking notes. I said everything. If I say to somebody hang on, let me write that down, or if I give you a cue that I'm writing or something I'm like you're going to make a note you need one of those little pocket recorders that'll just record it then you can transcribe it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but when you're like chauffeuring your kid, you know, across state lines and stuff they can do a little bit for you.
Speaker 1:You don't want to be an example of a distracted driver.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. So anyway, he took great notes. I had some follow-up stuff to do at the hotel and we made the best of it. But yeah, so then you took off to California.
Speaker 1:We went down to Santa Barbara, california, so I bought this Yakima rocket box thing for the roof of our van, okay, and we loaded that sucker up, probably to the max of its weight limit, and I bought these crossbars that the box mounts to and I'm like, okay, it's on there, it's sturdy. I went as cheap as I could on the crossbars.
Speaker 1:And that was a big mistake, because every time I'd hit 70 miles an hour, the things like on the roof of the car and so we were pulling over to the side of the road, getting out there adjusting things around and it was maddening, it drove me crazy oh, no, and what?
Speaker 1:should have been about a 10 or an 11 hour drive ended up being like a 14 hour drive, ouch, and it was rough. But I got there, I took it all apart and then I realized, hey, these things are adjustable and I shouldn't have gone cheap on the crossbars. So now I'm returning those and buying the expensive ones. And now I got to go back down there next weekend and, uh, get ready to take my family home home because they're spending most of the summer down there.
Speaker 2:And for the listeners that is an entire analogy of business ownership. Right there it is.
Speaker 1:We learn hard lessons and often those lessons cost us financially. Amen to that.
Speaker 2:Well, I am excited we have a guest today, Nashira, who is a friend of mine. I have just enjoyed working with her and getting to know her over the years. Nashira, welcome to the show. We're excited to hear about your entrepreneurial journey.
Speaker 3:Yes, thank you both for having me. I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 2:Awesome. You are calling from completely across the country. You're in Atlanta.
Speaker 3:That's correct. I'm in Atlanta, georgia. I've been here for several years, love the weather, originally from the DC area, so the moment I could run away from the snow and the cold weather, I hoteled it down the East coast.
Speaker 2:Right on. Well, all right, we want to hear, and and especially I'm interested in hearing, how you balanced being a mom with being a business owner, cause you were in the logistics space, you're, you ran a thriving business and how'd you do it? Like, tell, just tell us your story how you got into it. You know, yeah, and then we'll talk about how you balanced it, cause I mean, that's still my mind's still spinning.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I guess a great starting point is I'm very open about it. I share probably overshare about the whole mom bit. So I have two sons. They are in their elementary school years and I actually have my kids on my own so went through IVF, picked a donor from a sperm bank. So when I say that I'm entirely like these are my kids, they're my kids.
Speaker 3:And the donor is anonymous. Yeah, thank you. So the donor is anonymous. So when people say you do it on your own, I mean like yes, 100%, I do it on my own.
Speaker 1:Is it like in the movies, where you get to shop the, where you get to shop the donor?
Speaker 3:yeah, it's like going to carmax, seriously like you can like oh man, there you go, no like. Truly, you can pick height, you can pick eye color, hair texture, how far they've gone in their educational status, what their Zodiac sign is like. Down to the nitty gritty, it's genuinely like going to ComEx and buying a vehicle.
Speaker 1:Wow, it's like a dating site for your future baby mama.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, there you go, nailed it, yeah, so, so, like, bearing that in mind. So that way as I like delve into the business side. Bearing that in mind, I always have to have all of my I's dotted and all of my T's crossed as it relates to the kids first, before I can do anything else. Functional, right, and so balancing the two always looks like extended help. There's always a nanny at play, always a babysitter at play, or always like some type of play date or friend who you know I've grown to like, be really fond of and trust, where I can say hey, you know, are you available to watch the kids or have the kids or do a play date? And you know where it nets out is yes, great. Where it nets out is no, is where it gets a little tricky. Thus the nannies, babysitters, et cetera.
Speaker 3:I will say that balancing the two has been challenging, especially because, of course, your kids want your time and they deserve your time, right, like they're the first beings that should get most, if not all, of you. And when you're also running a multimillion dollar business, the juggling act that ensues is chaotic, to say the least. And so I will tell you when I kicked off my logistics company for the first four months I only saw my kids at breakfast time. Once they were off to school, I didn't see them again until the following morning, and that included weekends. And it was mainly because when I initially started in the logistics world, I was working 18 to 20 hour days 18 to 20 hour days.
Speaker 3:So by the time I got home at, let's say, 11 pm at night, I was back up, you know, by, let's say, three or four o'clock in the morning, balancing books, getting my call log for the day going. I mean just doing all the things. And so I would have enough oomph in me to do the breakfast bit with the kids and then off to daycare, off to the bus stop they would go, and then they would be in the hands of whomever was picking them up that day, and again, I wouldn't see them until the following day. So there was a lot of trust that went into those who helped. It is definitely. It stabilized eventually, but the first four months, oh my goodness.
Speaker 1:So logistics is very complicated and very diverse in what you can do from you know, package delivery to letter distribution to serving people. What specifically did you do?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so, um, I was in the package delivery uh, space, and without naming names. I was a partner to one of the biggest retailers that most people shop online for, and I was responsible for territories and delivering those packages to customers.
Speaker 1:So you had to hire people. You had a lot of capital to buy vans delivery vehicles. You had a lot of capital to buy vans delivery vehicles, insurance policies, All of that.
Speaker 3:So I will tell you, because in a partnership, which is different than just jumping into the business as an individual person starting from scratch, some of those things are given to you, but not in the financial way, but in the hey. We have vendors that you must use, kind of way. So, for example, there was a vendor for the vehicles and you were promised a certain number of vehicles to get started. However, those promises were never fulfilled, so you had to go down the rental van route. So sometimes we had the vehicles with the branding on the outside. So sometimes we had the vehicles with the branding on the outside, Sometimes it was a creepy white van. Just depending on what you had In terms of things like payroll, you were required to use one of two vendors.
Speaker 3:And so, again, because there were already partnerships in place with the vendors, you may have gotten a discounted rate, but you were still very much locked into who they required and that was of course, at your cost. Things like uniforms again very specific vendor, but it was at your cost. Insurance very specific vendor to get started, because, as a new company, pretty much no insurance company wants to pick you up. So you're now kind of pigeonholed again into a very specific vendor and there isn't negotiations, there isn't wiggle room, there isn't bartering. There is hey, here's your price. You either take it or you leave it.
Speaker 1:What made you want to get into that industry?
Speaker 3:Without naming names. I'd actually worked for them before getting into the partnership with them and so, having had many years of experience being an employee, you know hearing about the program and being kind of like supported by some internal colleagues saying, hey, we think you can knock this out of the park, that there aren't too many people that we think can do it, we absolutely know, without a shadow of a doubt, that you can do it. And I was like my immediate thing was I have two kids by myself. What do you mean? It's already hard enough being a nine to five employee at the layer of managing your own business. I had my initial doubts but I was like, well, you know what? Nothing beats a failure but a try. I'll go through the process, and if they pick me, then it was God's will, and if they don't, then I maintain the job that I have. And then, lo and behold, I was selected.
Speaker 2:And it was, it was. It was quite the journey that you went through too, and I'm still. I want to go back for a second because, juggling your kids and everything you did there while you started a business, I mean you have to have some nuggets from that to share that you learned, like how do you maximize your time with your kids? How do you make something special with your kids? Like, tell us about that Because.
Speaker 2:I think that's one thing that everybody who owns a business wants. You know, we think it comes with freedom and flexibility, and it does but it comes with a price because you have to get there right. I mean, there's a quality of life that you got to get there first and you have to go through the sacrifices to get there right.
Speaker 3:Yes, correct. So I'll say this One of the big things is that I've always maintained really solid structure. So my kids, as an example, when they come in the house from anywhere, they know to immediately go use the bathroom and wash your hands, right. And then, depending on the time of day, they know, they already kind of have an idea of here's what you can select from to go do, of here's what you can select from to go do, and then they understand by six o'clock it is shower time, going through the motions, and then by seven o'clock they're in bed, right. This is every night, including the weekend.
Speaker 1:You sound just like my wife.
Speaker 3:I mean because it's for my sanity right, Like everybody thinks I do it for them, I actually do it for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah right, yeah, no, we know, we're parents, we get it Now. I go to bed at seven.
Speaker 3:And I'm like right behind them at eight o'clock because I know that everyone's tucked in. So having that groundwork in place before any thought about being an entrepreneur helped a great deal. It also allowed for when I had to select nannies or sitters. They were more than happy to help because they didn't have to deal with any tyrants like running around and being just obnoxious. They kind of they knew like all right, this will be easy. So so to you know, be fair, that was like the first bit, but this was like before I even knew I was going to get into becoming my own business owner. Right, the initial months were rough because I understood how much chaos happens from the time you create your you know your business name with the secretary of state to getting your EIN and like your bank account. Everything after that turns into 10,000 miles per hour. And so what I realized was that I was going to have to maximize that literal one point in my day where I saw my kids. So I took the opportunity to make it like a full fun. Every morning kind of thing was like our time. I got to hear about their day. We would have like morning dance parties. I would do the whole chefing it up whatever you want, a la carte, whatever you want you get to, because I felt like I was neglecting them and, honestly, there was like a little bit of mental toil and emotional toil that happened within me, because as a mom you kind of feel like man, I'm failing my kids because I'm only seeing them once a day. But with that once a day I made sure they thoroughly enjoyed themselves with me. My goal was to give them the best memories for that once a day. They were going to have a really good time and so also the nannies were very as I've had them. They were very, very helpful in giving me updates when they picked up the kids from school. So if there was anything I needed to sign or anything I needed to like buy or, you know, have ready for Halloween or I could do that while I was also, you know, working that particular, let's say, the next day to ensure my kids didn't go without Right?
Speaker 3:I wanted to make sure that my children never were the kids that didn't have whatever was needed. You know what I mean. So I had to like incorporate it throughout the course of my day and then on the occasion yes, it was four months of just pure manic, and on the occasion, yes, it was four months of just pure manic. But there would be a time or two where I could leave, let's say around five o'clock, because things were a little slow. Or maybe let's say like four o'clock, things were a little bit slow, and I would dash home and it would be like a surprise for everybody, right, like, oh, mommy's here.
Speaker 3:So you know, whatever I could squeeze in for the next hour or so, I would it. And so if that meant it was an early dinner and it was like some fast food, well, guess what, today you're eating fast food. I don't care if the nanny prepared something, we can freeze it and you need it tomorrow. Because, again, like those moments were, you know, integral for them to feel like I just didn't abandon them, from having seen me every day to seeing me once a day. You know what I mean. If that sometimes it was tough, it was. It was definitely a juggling act. It was definitely sometimes I had to sacrifice things with the business and I had to be okay.
Speaker 1:I forget if it was somebody who we had on our podcast or if I was listening to another podcast, but I heard somebody say the biggest regret of entrepreneurs you know, looking back 10 years ago when you first started out was not setting boundaries, and it sounds like you did that right off the bat, yeah which is commendable because, thank you because the vast majority of us who start businesses miserably fail at that.
Speaker 2:We don't even think about it and what I love about Nashira's story is how you were creative, and it reminds me of a mentor of mine early on, who you know. He ran his own advertising agency and he was talking to me about when I had just become a dad and I was traveling a lot and his advice to me was do something special, something different. That's going to stand out.
Speaker 2:He said there were times where I would come home late and my son was asleep and I hadn't seen him in a week. He's like I woke him up and we played video games. He's like I didn't. I want to go to bed. There were certain things I want to do, he's like. But that's a memory and you're building memories as opposed to just time together, because you know, let's be honest, when you have a corporate job, you kind of get into a routine and that routine can easily be taken for granted, like any routine in life, but these things can stick in your kids' heads and as a core memory for them.
Speaker 2:And it that's such a valuable thing to know that if you're going to be an entrepreneur, you've got to be creative with your time as well with your family, and not just hey, you know what, you upset your wife because you stayed a little extra long in the office or you worked a little too much. You don't just send her flowers. Maybe what you do is you get creative and you do something different that sticks out in her mind.
Speaker 1:I still go home and wake her up when she's over sleep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I'm trying to take my own notes right now.
Speaker 1:Careful where you go with that Right, but a kid.
Speaker 2:I don't think she listens, so I'm good.
Speaker 1:A kid. My wife wouldn't let me do this. But if I came home late and I missed my kid's bedtime and they were already in bed, going in there and waking them up and saying, hey, wake up, get up. We're going to go do this fun activity real quick play a video game or whatever the case may be, that kid is going to remember that for the rest of their life. Oh, remember that time when I was 12 years old and you came home from work late and you woke me up to spend time with me.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll give you an example of when I actually used the advice was I had a corporate job, and part of the reason why I left it was because for two years in a row I missed both my kids' birthdays, and so I had to get on an airplane and I woke my son up, and so, you know, flights around here leave at six in the morning just to get somewhere on the East Coast at a reasonable time, and so I had bought him just some small gifts you know, I didn't want to totally put mom out or anything like that and we had a gift together for him, and so I got him this really little like he was in golf big time as a little guy, and I got him a little golf towel and some golf stuff. And we, uh, I woke him up early and we I say, hey, come here, buddy, I got something for you. And we go down, we open up his birthday presents and he's 14. He was just telling me about how he remembers that this day, right, and that was maybe four or five ish. So we're talking 10 years and that's what he remembers and he still keeps those gifts and they're just. That's a core memory.
Speaker 2:So being creative with your time, with your family as well, because I think that's when people say how do you balance it, the work-life balance. Everybody mark cuban, I think, is the one that says it it's. It's not a real thing. I mean, we all like to think it is because we have social media influencers out there completely messing up what reality really is. But you have to find your balance through the creative time that you can, through creative ways you can spend your time. So absolutely.
Speaker 2:So you were successful in what you did. I mean, this is when you know. When you and I met, your business was humming and everything was going great. So what were some of the tools that you used and learned to make yourself successful?
Speaker 3:Sure, it was a learning curve, but I will say I've done a lot in my professional career so I kind of took a little bit of this and a little bit of that from everything. But one of the big keys that I learned was getting to know your people. A lot of times I hate to say it, but you know, we end up in you know the workforce and then we just become, you know, a conveyor belt of you know people, right, you, I mean, do you even remember your first boss's name? And then the bigger question is does your first boss remember you Right? And so I know that feeling. I've had that feeling before where I was just another number and, because of the type of opportunity this was, you hired all of your own employees and it was up to you who you chose. And so I decided very, very early on I was going to set a standard as it related to the culture. So some of the things that I learned and some of the things that I still cherish is getting to know each of them one-on-one. Now, does that mean that I know, knew or know all of their birthdays by heart? No, but I did all of my own orientations right. So whenever somebody would come in, I eventually, at first I was hiring on my own people, literally taking them through the entire background check process, interview process, et cetera. Eventually I hired someone to do that on my behalf.
Speaker 3:But the one thing that I did not give up. I tried to give up and then I realized it was best for me to do it. After maybe once or twice, I did my own orientations, which is where they learned about my company. They learned the name, why the name was the name. They learned about me, they learned about my leadership team. But then I also took a chance to learn about them. I, you know, every time I ask, tell me one thing about you that I cannot tell by looking at you, right? And you know, some people are like, oh, I don't know. I'm like, well, I don't know you, so you can literally tell me anything you know and whatever that is. And I remembered that thing. And then, of course, where relevant, I brought it up.
Speaker 3:I also, a part of the onboarding process, captured some of their favorite things, right? So what's your favorite chip, what's your favorite fruit, what's your favorite, anything? And so, as I would have like little tokens of appreciation throughout the month or a week or whatever it was, I made sure in their vehicles they had a thing that they actually liked, because I used that list. Getting to know your people to me was key, so when I had to give them hard news like you're doing a terrible job I may not have said it that way, but when they were getting any type of feedback, they didn't feel as defensive because they knew it was coming from a good place, versus I run this show place, and while some people might feel like I catered too much, honestly I don't feel like I catered enough because at the end of the day, I can't run all of those routes.
Speaker 3:I know I think I'm superwoman and I have, like this miniature cape on my back, but the reality is, you know, I ended up having over 300 employees, and where you net out is you cannot do everyone's job, and if you are, you're not doing, you're not running your business well, and so it was important to honor my people, even down to their religious preferences.
Speaker 3:Like you know, some people, with certain parts of the year, couldn't do certain things because they were in celebration Right, and so making sure you honor their fasting Right and so ensuring that anything that you could provide in the beginning part of their day or after the time frame for fasting ended. I made sure to pass out things that honored them and showed them like, hey, I know what you're going through. You're running these routes in 95 degree weather, 10 hour shift and you cannot even so much drinking water. You know what I mean. So it's just being very kind, being very aware, getting to know your people, I think to me is key. I know everyone doesn't feel that way, but I garnered so much more respect because I treated them like humans and to me that mattered the most. So that was like one of my biggest, biggest lessons is making sure I understood my people and that way I could reach them in good times and then, you know, really get through to them in hard times.
Speaker 1:So back at the, at the beginning, when, when you first started this venture, what came to fruition as you expected it to, and what was kind of a rude awakening or a differing reality?
Speaker 3:Sure, Sure, I think everything was a rude awakening. I don't know that anything initially came to fruition as I expected. To be quite honest, I didn't have any expectations. I was just ready to get the job done, whatever that meant. Everything was a rude awakening. So when you are under the corporate veil, you don't have to be aware of the numbers, you don't have to be aware of the policies, you don't have to be aware of the fine print, whereas when you're your own person, your own boss, you are the corporate veil. You have to know all of these things forward, backward and inside out Did it give you some
Speaker 2:sympathy for the corporate or the corporation bosses.
Speaker 3:Absolutely not. No, they pay attorneys to do that. Yeah, exactly. And the thing is, you almost immediately become your own attorney, right, like you become. I literally wore every hat. I was the CEO, cfo, coo, ciso, I mean everything, every C name that you can come up with. I was all of the things, and I was all of the things from day one, because, of course, I didn't know anyone. So, as I'm hiring anyone on everyone's like, I want to be a leader and I'm like I don't know you, I don't know your capabilities, I can't just say yes, and so I did get burned. There were a lot of harsh realities, one being, for example, georgia is the highest cost state for insurance, for auto insurance and some other insurances, but auto insurance specifically, and it's higher than California, it is higher than New York, it's higher than places you just would assume would be, you know, just insane in terms of price.
Speaker 3:Georgia is number one, and there is no bartering. There is no. Hey, what can I do to lower the rate? I'm brand new, they're like'm paying. You know, depending on the month, depending on the number of vehicles, I could be spending anywhere between $50,000 and $60,000 a month on auto insurance alone. And it's like what do you mean that that's my tab and I didn't even make enough to carry that to cover it, and I didn't even make enough to carry that to cover it. So now it's the how am I going to cover this while also paying payroll that I ran every week? So it was the massaging of everything and hoping that next month or next week's payout was gonna be better.
Speaker 2:And how much of business is risk aversion and management too right? I mean it's?
Speaker 3:you know, I was telling my kids.
Speaker 2:it's not so important how much you make, it's how much you keep.
Speaker 3:How much you keep Right.
Speaker 2:You don't just go out and spend like there's. I'm sure there's people that make a whole lot more than I do, but I can tell you I own everything I have and that's different than a lot of folks out there. Right? It's like you know, and we just had a guest on a couple weeks ago that said, if you look at the actual financial crisis and what happened when everybody lost their jobs, that's when all the bankruptcies and foreclosures start happening because people were living paycheck to paycheck, right, Right, and so it's so important on how you manage that risk, and every decision you make at that level is a risk calculation, ultimately, Absolutely what trade off, and I honestly live my life that way.
Speaker 3:So, for example, the insurance was insanely expensive, right, but I may have had a vehicle that, let's say, a driver wasn't paying attention and knocked off a side view mirror, and now, because the side view mirror is gone, I can't run that vehicle. Well, side view mirrors, depending on the you know make model, all that fun stuff, and if it has you know electrical wiring or if it's just like a you know pop in a side view mirror kind of thing, could cost you around $1,200.
Speaker 1:I know, I just put one on a Mercedes.
Speaker 3:It was like $950.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, there you go, yeah, and. But you know, who would have thought? Who would have thought that thing would have cost so much? I have no idea. So definitely rude awakening. So then you're playing the balancing act. Do I squeeze $1,200 from somewhere and replace the side view mirror so at least I can have that vehicle on the road? Or do I say, well, I'll fix it at some point when I have the extra $1,200, but I'm still paying insurance on it and it's not making me money, right? And so it is that you know what's the trade-off. And, of course, the side view mirror being fixed always one, because you need vehicles. You know, you never know if another vehicle is just going to collapse the next year.
Speaker 1:You work a thousand dollars a month and do an incidentals budget.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there you go and you know what. Honestly, I hate to say it, but it's like when you do that, something else more goes wrong, right? Or a higher cost item. So you were being proactive and then you end up feeling reactive, right? So like, for example, there are parts of the year where you're at peak. What does that mean? During the typical year, right, regular parts of the year.
Speaker 3:Let's say you have 20 vehicles in your fleet. Well, during the high tide of the year you need to increase it to 30. Well, you don't really want to go acquire those vehicles permanently. You want to rent them. But some of these companies they God forsaken companies, rental companies will not let you do a month-to-month. They require you to lock into a six, 12, or more month contract. So now you're stuck. After your high tide has gone back to a low tide. Now you're stuck with 10 additional vehicles that you essentially probably won't be able to use because you don't have the package count to support it. So then you have to decide do I break the contract and pay all the extra penalties At some point you break even, right? Or do I just keep the vehicles and hope that some glitch in the matrix happens and you just get enough packages to help cover that cost.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm thinking you get the insurance and it's like a days of thunder moment where you just go like thrash the vehicle and then return and be like I don't know what happened.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and listen you. Look, trust me. Look, I think we all kind of thought through like, well, you know, if we do this, then what will happen?
Speaker 1:One of my employees' favorite things was margaritas, so I left a margarita sitting there. One of my employees' favorite things was margaritas, so I left a margarita sitting there. I don't know what happened. That's a whole other world of trouble.
Speaker 3:And I have crazy stories for that. But the problem becomes so. For example, my first year's quote and it wasn't the actual numbers, but my first year's quote was $330,000. Right, the next year ended up being I want to, yeah, say 565, right, wow, don't be wrong, I had I think I had about two losses, but I can assure you the total of those losses did not equal up to the additional amount. But I also understand how insurance works. Right, but it did not equal up to what the additional amount was tacked on. You know what I mean. So it's, you know. So I hear you, andy, like, trust me, I get out. I thought about many ways how do we just like accidentally, you know something happens, but the reality is they just tack it on later.
Speaker 1:So you jumped into the logistics business both feet. You know sink or swim time. You swam. You were abundantly successful at it. If anybody else out there is wanting to get into the logistics business like you did, what advice do you have for them? As far as personality type, what does it take to get into this business.
Speaker 3:So my honest feedback is don't do it. But if you are so brazen to do it, I think the first and foremost is having a nest egg. You need to have extra money. There is no way you're going to make it out of the first year unscathed, whatever that means to you. That's number one. Number two having support. And this is not even from the single mother by choice perspective. This is the. You have to have people you can trust going into it, no matter what, because if you try to find those people later you might be kissing a lot of frogs. So it's just better if you have, you know, your your team up front that can help you at least get you know, get going, and then you can develop it out more. I think that if you want to get into the logistics space, you need to have a realistic plan. I mean, there are so many tools out there, like ChatGPT as an example, that can build out everything you need to know and tell you all the gotchas right.
Speaker 2:All the.
Speaker 3:Hey, look around this corner right, because if you don't, you know, know what those things are. When they come as a surprise, not only will your eyes pop out of your head, your bank, with your bank account, will fill it too. And so try to do as much research and become very aware, and then know, if you're going to do it on your own, what that looks.
Speaker 1:Looks like, because that is a whole different ball game so you work, or if you're going to do it with a partner you worked in the business of warehouse to consumer right yes, that's right what about the logistics business? Like warehouse to warehouse, like the long haul stuff?
Speaker 3:so I don't have a ton of knowledge in the long haul stuff, but I will say everyone knows your biggest pain point, or your biggest money factor, is going to be payroll Right. And then next I feel like, is insurance and all the other fun bits that the government wants to get into. You know, get in the business and make sure you're paying it. I don't, like I said, I don't know enough about long haul, but what I will say is it all nets out to a dollar and you have to be prepared to make zero dollars for your first year while also sustaining your own life. And if you think that you have enough to be able to do that, knock yourself out. But if you feel like, hey, I could only survive for three months, you're not going to make it.
Speaker 2:Well, that's. That's interesting advice too, because I think a lot of people think that, hey, once I'm in a business, it's just gonna generate revenue, it's gonna feed me yeah, constantly, yeah.
Speaker 1:No, it's not.
Speaker 2:What's gonna generate revenue is you and your effort. And it's funny because you know again I think everybody knows, at least that listened to this is that you know I'm to start a business. They don't want to take the whole risk on, but they also don't have the funds that are going to sustain them for time. So it's like you know, you have maybe three, three months of working capital, but what happens when that's out? Or do you have the ability? Because a lot of people say to me well, how do I get sales? I was like that's on you, bro yeah, got to sell it.
Speaker 1:You've got to, you've got two feet you got keys to a car, get out there and get it done.
Speaker 2:One of the most successful entrepreneurs I knew and met with. Um had had grown and sold multiple businesses and done phenomenally well, and when I was in college I was talking to him. Like you know, I want to do something, but I don't think I want to do sales, which I think is what everybody, at some point or another, is where they're at. He looked at me. He's like everything you do in life is sales. And from that moment on I looked at it. I'm like he's absolutely right. Yes, everything you do in life is sales. And what's funny is the people they don't want to do sales. It's just even.
Speaker 1:it's even that Even when you got the job, when you do a good job and you make that customer happy, that's sales, because they're going to refer you. They're going to review you Sales.
Speaker 2:we give some negative connotation, but I think what people need to understand is sales is is if you are convinced enough to buy a business and put money into it and put your lifestyle and family on the line for it, then that's a message to share with people, and that's sales.
Speaker 2:I believe enough in this that I have put my life on the line for this, my lifestyle on the line for this, and it's really just sharing the story. It's not trying to pressure somebody into doing something they don't want, which I think is where a lot of that comes from. But I digress, I'm sure here.
Speaker 1:You're absolutely right. So before the podcast you dropped a bomb on us. You revealed some updated information to us. Fill us in on what led to this decision, how this decision played out and kind of what your next steps are.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely so. The bomb that I dropped was that I actually shut the business down after being in operation for about a year and a half. So I wasn't in it terribly long, but I promise you I was in it long enough to have all of the scars to prove it to you. So, ironically, I ended up receiving an award for being the number one newest partner in the region. My numbers, my metrics, all of the things were outstanding, stellar, rockstar.
Speaker 3:However, my bank account would have argued differently, right? So when you're a partner to any company, you know there's always going to be some KPI that you're being assessed on, right? Even in marriage, right? Your wife or your husband is like all right, you've done this, you haven't done this, you know they're looking, and then you have these talks and then you sort through it same thing, right and so ultimately, while my numbers and metrics and checkboxes were all great, the cost to have a business became too much. It ate up my margin.
Speaker 3:So, case in point, I mentioned the insurance earlier. On average, as I mentioned, I may be paid between 50 and 60K a month, but then there were some months where my insurance payment was like 90K and that was for a month like 30, you know, american days like $90,000. Right. And then my other big bill, of course, was payroll, and some weeks my payroll was, you know, over 100K. But eventually, you know, when you start having accidents, or more than one side view mirror that is knocked off, or someone runs into an awning at a church, or you have people who like to go mudding on someone's front lawn by the way, I've paid for more sod than I have ever actually had in my entire life- that actually happened.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I paid for so much sod.
Speaker 1:It is insane.
Speaker 3:Like I could, probably. I'd probably have paid for easily five acres worth of sod in total. Yeah, so you know, um, when you start to add up those little by little, I had a driver one day. He was in a van and he could not figure out how to put the code into a customer's gate, so he decided to run through it just full on, just like I'm just going to plow through the gate. The package was. I don't know what was in the package, but it probably wasn't worth more than a hundred dollars. Right, I ended up paying out about 10,000 to fix that gate because it was wrought iron.
Speaker 1:And it had all the mechanicals.
Speaker 3:Oh, absolutely, but the best part is they don't come back and tell you. You find out through the partner, because the customer reaches out to the partner who they order through. Then the partner sends you a notice that says hey, you have a new claim for $9,800 and some odd dollars. So just round it up to 10K. I'm like, I'm sorry, what I'm like? I need more information and at the time I didn't know this. You're not supposed to actually go see the damage. So I was like what's the address? So I drove out and met with the homeowner and he was so gracious he let me record on my phone his ring app and, lo and behold, driver filed, right through it. There was. There was no like well, could it have been somebody? There was, I couldn't argue it at the pay it.
Speaker 1:See, and in hindsight, in hindsight and if anybody listening to this is thinking about getting into logistics. Spend $80,000 a year and hire a driver instructor as part of your orientation. Yeah, there you go right.
Speaker 3:Well, you know what's so funny about that. I'm so happy you brought that up. The partner company provides your employees with training, and then I turn around and provide my employees with training, so they got hit with two levels of training and then you still have people who do not care enough to do the right thing. I remember one of the higher ups at the partner. They asked me well, what could you have done differently? I was like short of having like a crystal ball that told me do not hire said person. What else could I have done?
Speaker 3:You drove that vehicle through the gate when you have been given tons of tools. Call the customer. In fact, bring the package back. If you can't get through the gate, just come back with it. They can wait another day. And if I have to which I have I'll go deliver it. You don't need to drive through the gate.
Speaker 3:And some things I didn't realize. I had to say just like on, there are certain you know types of petrol for vehicles. On the tank it says diesel only, or 89 only, 87 only, 93 only. There was one guy in particular who put diesel, which is insane because you know diesel pumps literally are sized differently than that of a regular pump. So how did you even fit it in the hole? But maybe you didn't, you might've just held it at the hole, who knows? He put diesel in three of my vehicles and they were all rentals and he didn't say a word. If he had said something, we could have dropped the tank, we could have drained the tank and we would have been all well and good. Instead, he didn't say a word and he knew he did it. He did not say a word and that diesel ran through their entire system and literally killed three vehicles in a matter of days.
Speaker 3:And someone might ask well then, why did you keep letting them drive? Well, when people work what is called front half or back half, you don't put them in the same vehicle every day. Every day is a brand new day, right? Every day you switch things up because maybe someone knocked off a side of your mirror, Like you adjust as things go along. So the vehicle he was in on Wednesday was not the same vehicle on Thursday. And then maybe the vehicle on Thursday we didn't run on Friday and by the time it ran again was on Saturday, and that's when everything went belly up. So I mean, there's so many things that can happen where you just don't know what someone has done until days later.
Speaker 3:And then, of course, I had processes so I knew exactly who drove, what vehicle had what keys, and I had gas cards so I could see when you pump what you selected. But some of those reports didn't come out for 48 hours and there was nothing I could do more about that. Right, Some of that stuff is not like right on time. It's a two day delay, so you don't know these things. So now I'm replacing engines so that eats further into your margins and so, while the business can be quite profitable, I know people who are making millions in terms of profit, not revenue. Profit. I was clearing over 5 million in revenue. That was easy to do. What I actually got to keep my drivers made more money than me, to be honest so what do you miss about the business?
Speaker 3:I miss the people. I know I've said that a lot. I miss the people and honestly, I miss the fast pace. Um, in that space you're on an adrenaline kick all day. Um, some of it is pure anxiety. Part of of it is because you know you have you can have 50 vehicles on the road. That's 50 different people, 50 different personalities, 50 different opportunities, you know, and that can go wrong with a person in a vehicle. But I do miss the hustle of it, right, because it makes you feel alive.
Speaker 3:And that particular business was seven days a week, 361 days a year, so, short of a few holidays, it ran all the time. So there was always a problem to fix and I'm a fixer by nature. There was always a challenge to overcome. There was always a how are we going to navigate this crazy issue today? So I felt alive. I cannot lie to you, I felt completely alive.
Speaker 3:I felt like I was really being customer focused and and um employee focused. It was enjoyable. I used to do all the types of give back to my employees hibachi days, um, bring in a ton of donuts and a ton of bagel days and then pass it out to other teams and people that weren't even on my team, like I thoroughly enjoy just the camaraderie of having a business and getting to know the people and knowing that they enjoy coming to work for me and that they didn't make poor. Some of them didn't make poor choices, or a lot of them didn't make poor choices because they enjoyed me, my company and how I respected them. So I I I think about my team all the time. You know if I could come up with another idea that could allow them to come work for me again. I've heard that they will all come back and work for me, or most of them will come back and work for me, and I would absolutely bring them on.
Speaker 2:Uh, and I think that that's a testament, I think, to how you run your business too. I think, you know, a lot of people can be successful and have a staff that says I'll never go work for them again. But you know, I think, what you did you created more than just a business. You created a community, which I think is really pretty cool.
Speaker 1:So are you giving up on entrepreneurship, or are you taking a break from it, or are you?
Speaker 3:just looking for your new business venture. I think that for now I'm taking a break and then I'm also looking for my new venture. So I will say, once I shut down, I think, one big thing that people do not scream from the tippy top of a mountain loud enough. Shutting down a business is actually far more difficult than starting one. And I had no idea, no idea how difficult it was to shut down a business and how time consuming. And I can only laugh about it now because I thought I was going nuts, I was really losing. I thought I lost my mind during the business. I really lost most of it after it was shutting down.
Speaker 3:But shutting down took a lot out of me and then, as I mentioned, I was on a high every day for a year and a half. I had to learn how to like normalize my nervous system and I know that probably sounds crazy, but if you've done a business that's like high powered, fast, constantly moving parts and dealing with hundreds of employees, like going from that to silence, I was like, oh okay, that's a lot, it's a lot to decompress from, and so I've taken that time to decompress. And then also I'll bring it back to Andy's topic or point earlier on my kids. My kids are like, yeah, mommy's back, because outside of the fact that they didn't have me physically, they also didn't really get me at 100 percent in every other way, because while I may have been around, so after four months I had the proper support, right, and so I was able to be home more. But I have two phones. My other phone was constantly going off because of the business and so once, like I said, all of it came to an end.
Speaker 3:I had to like learn how to reintegrate myself into being an actual functioning mom. So that was a great chunk of the break. But now I've done all the things, I've taken all of the rest and the relaxation, so I'm definitely keen to getting back into the entrepreneurial space. I do want to find a really good business to either start or to franchise with. You know, hint, hint, wink, wink, andy. I definitely think that a lot of the experience I've had will guide me into making a true, sound decision for the future, because I can never do a seven day a week thing again, right, like it's just not okay for me because of my you know situation with having kids as a single parent, but I do know that there's likely some company out there where our values are aligned, where the expectations of the franchise owner are aligned, and I, just you know, I got to find my diamond in a rough.
Speaker 2:You can do it Absolutely Well. I will definitely be giving you a shout this week, that's for sure. We've got to talk. I've got some things for you, but, nashair, this has been awesome. I think you've got a story that is unlike any other and, uh, I always enjoy talking with you, so thanks so much for spending your time with us.
Speaker 3:Pleasure. Meeting you, my pleasure enjoy your work. Thank you for having me. We'll see you next week.