“Old School Trucking Wisdom: 30 Years on the Road & How Owner-Operators Really Make Money”

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Transcript

Dolores 0:00

This… is where the real stories live From the highways of America to the heart of what’s really going on behind the scenes this is more than just trucking. This is real life, real pressure, and real truth from the road. Welcome to **The Trucker’s Radio Podcast**… powered by Sabren Group LLC. Where we talk trucking, politics, the economy, and the issues that impact the men and women who keep this country moving. No filters. No corporate spin. Just raw, uncut conversation from behind the wheel. Now… here’s your host **Stacey Yearout**. Welcome to the Truckers Radio podcast. We got Doug from Alabama on here. We going talk about some old school trucking. A little bit of everything. A little, maybe a little bit of, throw a little bit of politics in there. Go with it. So what do you got going on down there, Doug?

Speaker 2 0:50

enjoying retirement.

Speaker 0:52

Oh man. Long time cat there. Finally got to crawled out behind that wheel, buddy. That's hard to do.

Speaker 2 0:59

3 million miles.

Speaker 1:01

That's hard to do, buddy. Hard to do. I know. I'm, I'm, I'm hoping to retire one of these days, but right now I got too many toys I like to buy.

Speaker 2 1:11

Same

Speaker 1:12

here. Mm-hmm. But yeah, it's definitely, you know, kind of what, what brought you out of the truck?

Speaker 2 1:21

Medical got me out of the truck.

Speaker 1:24

Man.

Speaker 2 1:24

Diabetes.

Speaker 1:25

Diabetes,

Speaker 2 1:26

so I, yep. Couldn't, uh, couldn't continue. Couldn't get the medical card for interstate, so. I'm finding other little things to do and Right. Right. Try to keep active. And at 67, still able to get up on my feet every day and

Speaker 1:45

mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 1:45

But I survived, 34 years of commercial driving. 23 of it. Tractor trailer.

Speaker 1:52

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 1:52

3 million miles tractor trailer.

Speaker 1:55

You know, that's a real common thing with, with us drivers is, is medical. These trucks really do a number on us as drivers. We don't even realize a lot of times what it does to us. And the, the shit that they throw down their throat out here in these truck stops and, they call it comfort food. I call it Just kill you slowly, the biscuits and gravy. I mean, all that stuff's good, don't get me wrong, but. There's really very limited options for healthy things, you know, and I've been definitely trying to watch what I eat and trying to live a little longer and it's just hard to do. It really is. I mean, I'm having to just really eat on the truck a lot, just prep my own food and stop. Mm-hmm. The grocery store, grab some stuff, which I'm blessed with a really good wife, you know, so she meal preps a lot of stuff when I leave to go out, you know.

Speaker 2 2:48

Lot. That helps here A lot. Yep. We, I had to start cooking my own food mm-hmm. On the truck just to stay away from the stuff that they call food. Mm-hmm. On the road. 'cause you know, you, you end up getting convenience food, which is not good for your health. And you can only eat like a rabbit for so long.

Speaker 3:14

Right.

Speaker 2 3:14

It just, it gets tough. So you have to do it yourself. And after 10, 12, 14 hours, you, you really don't feel like cooking. So meal prep is, is helpful. And when you do have a good spouse, that helps that, that means a lot,

Speaker 3:32

right? Yeah, it does. It, it definitely does. You know, and that's the thing, you know, they really kind of take advantage of the drivers, and that's something I've been meaning to kind of bring up a little more is just how much, you know, we're just overcharged. You know, you go into a McDonald's or a Burger King, or you know, you'll see all the other McDonald's and Burger Kings. They're advertising hay, you know, they got specials and coupons. Well, they don't accept specials or coupons and truck stops. I wonder why that is.

Speaker 2 4:02

I don't know, but it's just in the time that I've been off the road mm-hmm. Which is less than two years.

Speaker 4:09

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 4:10

I've seen the inflation at the truck stops. 'cause I have three of them right around my house and all of the major national chains and it's ridiculous. Right. The cost of eating out. Oh, it is, it has gone up. It, it's gone up astronomically just like fuel has recently. Mm-hmm. And, it's not getting any better.

Speaker 4:36

And it makes it tougher, you know, a lot of your truck stops is going to to pay parking. I was just talking to a friend of mine the other night. He'd stopped at this little mall and Paul Place for years parked there and never had an issue. He pulled in there and it's like, he always does go to bed. Hour or two later you got some girl out there beating on the door with an attitude, you know, you need to pay us $20 to park. And he's like, what? What do you mean what? There's no sign or anything. It doesn't matter. There's, it is $20 to park. Well, thank God he had a little bit of time, you know, and he wasn't over on his clock, so he just went ahead and left and went somewhere else. They don't understand the loss of business. You do a couple, two or three drivers a week like that for especially a mall and Paul truck stop, they won't ever come by. They won't ever stop there again. And it don't take long where you start really seeing a dent It, it's just you got, uh, a lot of overhead and a whole lot of less customers,

Speaker 2 5:32

it does Stacy, and that was a comment that I saw on TikTok oh, two or three days ago mm-hmm. Is how do owner operators operate in this economy, with continued fuel costs going up food mm-hmm. Of maintenance, now parking.

Speaker 5:54

Right.

Speaker 2 5:54

How do you live?

Speaker 5:56

It is tough and even

Speaker 2 5:57

the company drivers can't do it.

Speaker 5:59

It's tough. It, it is really tough. I've got a few clients that I work with, with the owner operator consulting and, and I, I go in and try to fine tune their company and get them profitable. You know, I take, I deal a lot with the small one-on-one owner operators, sometimes 2, 3, 4 trucks, five trucks. I think to most I deal with right now, I got one dude that's got 10 trucks and he does pretty good. We hooked him up with a good dispatch service and they're rocking and rolling, but everybody's gotta play the same part. You gotta have good drivers. You gotta have drivers that's not out there tearing your equipment up and that's cooperating that's going to play the game to win. And it is super important when you're an owner operator and you've got multiple trucks to have drivers with an owner operator mindset. You know, and I see so many trucks time and time and time again, you know, they'll pass me on the highway 75 miles an hour and fuel $5 a gallon, and they're, they're running 75, 80 miles an hour. I'm like, dude, come on, man. Right there is your problem. I guarantee if you talk to him at the next truck stop, he's mad. He ain't making no money. He's about to lose his truck, and he just don't know why. That's exactly, he

Speaker 2 7:18

can't find, that's, he can't find that sweet spot in his truck.

Speaker 7:23

Well,

Speaker 2 7:24

where he's gonna get good fuel economy.

Speaker 7:26

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 7:27

And manage his money better.

Speaker 7:29

You know, it depends on the gear ratio and everything in a truck, 13 speed, 10 speed, whatever it may be. Or automatic, you know, you got your little automatic 12 speeds. And you gotta take into account your gear ratios and everything. You know, 62 miles an hour is most generally your sweet spot. And in most trucks especially, you know, you got your, your different gear ratios and stuff. That has a big deal. I got one guy right now, man, he has just knocking it out of the park now. He pulls a step deck, which is even worse 'cause you got that drop. You wind resistance, everything else. And he's got the, the brake liner with the DD 15 and he is pulling between nine and a half and 10 and a half miles down outta that truck right there consistently. And he's making, he's making money in this economy. But that's, there's the thing, you can make money, but you got to know how to manage your expenses and you also gotta know how to say no. And that's a huge thing that I've talked about time and time again is. Negotiate your loads. Don't just let these brokers handle you. You know, and that's a huge thing. I went over it and I actually, as part of my consulting stuff, is, you know, we go over how to, how to book loads, how to negotiate. Because if you don't negotiate that, that broker's eating your lunch, you ain't gotta be rude. You just gotta hold your ground. Know your worth, know your lanes. That's half the people that jump into a truck out here. They don't know how to be an owner operator. They're a, they're a great truck driver, but there's a, there's a miles of difference between a great truck driver and an owner operator. And I'm not trying to insult anybody by saying that you gotta learn to play ball in the big leagues when you jump into an owner position. And that's, that's just the bottom line. There's things you gotta know. That everyone else in that back office of that big company does for you that you don't see. You have to be that responsible driver. You have to be paying attention to your lanes. You know, I always say, Hey, you gotta know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em. And when you're sitting into a bad area and you're playing Russian roulette with a, with a broker on a load, you know what? You may play around and and sit there all weekend. Or you may be in a good area and a broker's trying to low ball you and you've got a truck, the load ratio, you've got 10 trucks and 25 loads. Well, you gotta know where you stand. You say, no, no, I need more money and hold your ground because you can't hold your ground because there's. Twice as many loads as they are trucks. You've got the ball in your court. But don't try to do that where you're sitting there and you've got 20 trucks and 10 loads. 'cause that's going to, that you're gonna sit there all weekend. And that's what I say about knowing your lanes. You've got to know when, mm-hmm. To push your luck and when to demand your money and when to this, take what you can get and go. Sitting is always a loss. You can move a truck from one point to another as long as you've got enough to cover your equipment and your your fuel. Sometimes you just gotta get out of there. Sitting there another two or three days is not going to get you any more money. They're not going to pay you any more Monday as they would Friday. You're not gonna get this magical load. But they just say, well, we got Jim Bob sitting over here. We might as well go ahead and give him at $3 a mile. They're not going to do it. 'cause they don't give a shit about Jimbo. They're going to, they're gonna get their freight moved and they're gonna leave you sitting there. And you see a lot of that.

Speaker 2 11:25

And like what you've said before, you can get a great load going from A to B.

Speaker 11:31

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 11:32

But when you get to B. And they don't want to give you the money. It'd be you move to C.

Speaker 11:39

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 11:40

Where you've got tons of loads and you know what you're worth.

Speaker 11:44

Well, I always try to tell people running a triangle effect, you've got a good load, goes to point B, and then you're going to take what you can get to get out of point B. 'cause you got pay real good going in. And you know, and that's the thing, you gotta make your money going into a bad area. And that's all in part of knowing your lanes. You've got to know and see the lanes change by the season. Depending on what you're pulling. If you're pulling a reefer, you're pulling a dry box, you're pulling a step deck. These lanes transition as the year transitions around, you know, spring, summer, fall, winter, you know, freight dies off in areas and picks up in another areas. So you've got to know. I know people out here knows what I'm talking about When they, when they talk about running the produce trail, you know, I used to do a lot of the produce trail and that freight moves, that produce moves when it's in season all around the country and you've got a certain season, you know, Florida becomes the highest paying state and the union. And then other times you couldn't buy a damn load out there. You couldn't pay somebody to get a load to come out there. It's just the way it works. But they're three to four months outta the year. Florida's rock and rolling. But then you gotta move on to the next state that's paying and you got the apples outta Washington so many months out of the year. We used to pull a lot of apples outta Washington. I had that big account up there, man, I tell you what, no boy contact. I remember that there, boy. We made some money and that was when I had that. Had that set up with pulling the tobacco, that smokeless tobacco up there. We were getting paid. Like, I ain't even going, I ain't even gonna lie. We were getting paid bank both ways and pulling them apples out of there, going back into Miami, three, four drops, pulling them apples down there. Man, we were making some money. I mean, it was just ungodly the money we were making on that. And, we all reminisce about the. The tobacco money and apple money and you know, we talked, some of that was some of the best money I ever made in my life as I'm operator and

Speaker 2 13:49

mm-hmm.

Speaker 13:50

Like I told all my buddies, I pulled in with me there to, to, to pull the stuff, you know, I said, boys, we're gonna make our money 'cause good things like this don't last forever. We milk it for everything and, and we just have to go on, you know, when it falls apart. And sure enough, you know, we eventually got underbid on, on the tobacco and. You know, that was our connecting thing that made everything go round. So it, it definitely kind of fell apart. But I mean, there's money to be made out here, but you gotta know the game. You don't go into a, a, a casino and set down at a, at a black deck table if you don't know how to count. If you don't know how to count to one to 10, you know you gotta play. You gotta, you don't sit down at, at a poker table if you don't know how to play poker. You gotta learn how to play poker and learn how to play it real damn good if you're going to expect to win. And I think that's the biggest thing. I mean, I've made money in the worst economies and I've made money in the best economies. And you have to run your ship efficient. And that's, that's no different between trucking or if you own a convenient store out here, you can't just mismanage your. Your money and you can't buy things and waste money and expect to be profitable. This is a business that's like any other. I guarantee most of them guys right there live in that truck and that's all they got. They may have a little something else, but either that or they got a wife. That makes, makes a lot of money because you are not gonna make money at at 75 miles an hour and no damn truck. I've had people argue with me up and down say, okay, well show me your settlements. They won't do it. They don't wanna talk about it. They won't change the subject. Everybody can claim they're making money and everybody claims they're making $5 a mile. No, I mean, there are, what are they taking to the bottom line? Mm-hmm. Well, I mean, you may get $5 a mile. They ain't saying that can't happen 'cause it does all the time. But if you spend six to get it there, what good is it going to do?

Speaker 2 16:02

Exactly.

Speaker 16:03

It's just common sense, man. It's just, you gotta operate a business. It ain't about. The, the glamor and the chrome. You know, I love chrome, I love lights and I've had them big chicken trucks and I mean, it's, I've had all them Nice ass truck custom ordered. Hell, I mean, it, it's, nowadays it's about making money, aerodynamics, fuel economy. If you've got everything paid for, great buy you one of em big W nine hundreds, but. Unless you're a really good experienced owner operator, I suggest staying away from that truck to start with 'cause you ain't ready for that truck. I hear people all the time, heard a guy the other day say, man, I'm gonna quit my job. Had a hell of a good job. I ain't gonna say where he worked, but he had a hell of a job. I wouldn't be quitting that job to to be going. Being an owner operator, I can tell you that. And, today's gonna cash out his 401k and go buy him a W 900. Pay him a down payment. I said, you're gonna pay cash today? Oh no, no. I ain't got that much money. He said, I'm going, I'm gonna pay a down payment. Get me a W 900 stretched out, all the, all the work.

Speaker 2 17:13

$300,000 truck.

Speaker 17:15

Yeah, exactly. Even if you paid a hundred grand down on it. I mean, you're still looking at $200,000. I mean, you're looking at still damn near 25 to $3,000 a month payment. And not to mention the fuel mileage that that thing gets, that's what's going to kill you. A truck payment's not going to bankrupt you, the ability to make money with that truck's, what's gonna bankrupt you? If that truck's got a $3,000 a month payment on it and you can't get more than five and a half, six mile gallon out of it, you in trouble or you better be pulling some good shit. And I can tell you that.

Speaker 2 18:01

And even with the best gear ratios

Speaker 18:03

mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 18:03

You're hitting it right on the money at six. Mm-hmm. Oh yeah. And when you're talking $3,000 a month payment and then $3,500 in fuel a month.

Speaker 18:15

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 18:16

You better be running 24 7.

Speaker 18:20

Well, the reason I say that is I used to be that guy with that big W 900, that big 86 inch stretch sleeper and all that. Man, that was a beautiful truck. The only difference was is I didn't have a truck payment. I paid cash for that truck. And it wasn't new. It was an older truck, but the fuel mileage still stayed the same, even with the truck being paid for. You still, man, the fuel mileage just ate your lunch, and if you don't have the contacts to get the freight to uphold that truck to support it. You're in trouble.

Speaker 2 18:56

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 18:57

So many people, they, they got these big, big dreams and stuff and I, I don't knock anybody for dreaming, but no means dream all you want, but be realistic. When you go to look at a, a, an investment or something that you're going endeavor, you're going to jump into, Hey, you gotta have plan A, plan B, C, and D. If A falls apart, well you can roll into B. If B falls apart, well shit, there's always C and then D is the last resort to crawl your ass back out of the damn mess. If you can make it work, plan A, B, C, and D, chances are, if you're being realistic, you can make it work, success is all in how honest you are with yourself. You can't be one of these guys, man, I gotta be home every weekend. I don't wanna work but eight hours a day, you know, you hear them cats too. I wanna do what I want to do. I hear that all the time, man. I wanna be an owner operator. I'm gonna go get my own authority so I can do what I want to do. I laugh. That is the most hilarious thing I've ever heard in my life. Because when you get your own authority and you get your own truck, guess what you going to do? You going to do what the hell you gotta do. You ain't gonna have no choice. There ain't going to be no worrying about no dispatcher telling you you can't go home. 'cause you gonna be looking in that mirror saying, look dude, you can't take your foot off that gas bubble. You're gonna go bankrupt. You are gonna be running for your life. To take to support that shit. It don't work that way. When you say, I wanna be an owner operator,

Speaker 3 20:32

This isn't just a book, it's a lifeline, a voice for the unheard. A fight for the broken. Silence of Humanity is a raw, powerful story born from trauma, recovery and survival. But it's more than a story. It's a movement. Every single dollar from this book, every penny of profit, goes straight to the SAING group, LLC, to help real people battling mental health struggles, addiction, trauma, and emotional scars They never asked for. We don't define people by their pain, we help them rise beyond it. When you purchase Silence of Humanity, you aren't just reading a book, you're donating hope. You can also donate on our website, srin group.com. Read it, share it. Be part of the change. Thank you for all you do. You can make a difference.

Speaker 21:31

I'm gonna work twice as hard as I do right now today. So what you think and you've done it? Oh yeah, I've done it for many, many years. I was, it just, and, and don't get me wrong, man, I mean, I'm still, still out here plugging the lawn, man. I mean it, I like, I, I tell people all the time, I don't just come in here and look at this camera and talk to people and act like I know what trucking is. You know, I'm out here every day with everybody else, you know, just like everybody else, you know, and I see what's going on. You know, I don't just sit here and act like I know everything because I don't. Honestly, all the stuff I talk about, I've been there, done that, screwed that shit up and learned the school of hard knocks. I've, I've had to learn I was that guy one time about the left lane running 80 miles an hour. But, you know, I started wondering, damn, that load paid pretty good. Why didn't I make any more money than that? And I started figuring that out. Like, holy shit, man, I, I should have made way more money than that. And I started slowing it down and paying attention and. You know, when I really started paying attention to that is when the economy fell out in 2009 and you couldn't buy a good load, man. You were, you were running on just chicken feed. Chicken feed, man. I mean, that was the first time I ever seen companies lay drivers off in all the 30. 30 years I've drove a truck. That was the only time I ever seen a company lay drivers off like that. I mean, you, you talk to your UPS drivers. Yeah. Seasonal this, that they'll, they'll pull drivers in, they'll lay 'em off. That happens all the time. That's normal. I'm talking about OTR companies laying drivers off. You don't see that. You've seen trailers parked in drop lots just packed full because they didn't need them. They had 'em, they didn't need them. That was a really, they downsized. Yeah, they did. Yeah. A lot of companies downsized after that. But then everything kind of come back after that, as it came up into, the 2012, 13, 14, 15, you know, it kind of teeter tottered back and forth, but, it's done. It came back too late. Yeah, it did. It did. And that's the thing, you know, when you run. A lien operation and you run your truck like fuel is $5 a gallon every day. Well, you've got enough money stacked back to to prepare yourself to go through those hard times. But when you live like a rock star and you run out in that left lane, the 80 mile and error, just because fuel's cheap this week, well you ain't pair, you ain't preparing for tomorrow. And, and that's where people screw up. You've got to run a business, you've gotta build a nest egg. And another thing, I see people that jump into trucks and they'll get into lease trucks. Now I hear people all day long, oh, you can't make money with a lease truck. Bullshit. I've seen it done. I've done it. You just gotta pay attention and you gotta run a truck. You know? And I tell people all the time, like, if you're. In a good lease. Now, don't get me wrong, there are some bad leases that's just you're dead in the water before you get started and I'm not gonna start calling out no names. I think most people already know the majority of them, but there are some decent leases out here now. Some of 'em nickel dime you a little bit, but you still make this, you could still make some good money. And, uh, I can name a few. Oh yeah. You know, you can still make some good money if it's a fair lease and they want you to succeed. And it ain't all about just them making money and rolling drivers over. If you can't survive in a good lease, why do you wanna go jump into the deep end of the pole and go marry a truck? That don't really make any sense. 'cause now you can't get out of it. Now you're going to go bankrupt to get out of it. Where if you can't survive in a lease, maybe that's, that's not for you. Buying a truck don't necessarily mean that's gonna make things better. Now you can go out there and get in a really shitty lease. And then go buy a truck. Yeah. That may be better. But if you, if you pick and choose and you find yourself a good lease, a fair lease, and you can't make money out of that, there's a problem.

Speaker 2 26:04

Well, like you've said before, you gotta have what's in between your ears straight.

Speaker 26:10

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 26:10

Uh, like you said, there are good truck drivers out there.

Speaker 26:15

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 26:15

But are they good managers of their own business?

Speaker 26:19

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that's, that's a huge thing, man. And I, like I said, I don't, I don't, I don't knock anybody, but you gotta be willing to learn. You gotta be able to accept somebody. Giving you information to make to better yourself. And you see so many people, no, no, no, no. I know what I'm doing. I don't need you to tell. I, I actually had a guy tell me one time, look, I know what I'm doing. I don't need you to tell me how to do this. I'm like, okay. Never said another word to him. About three months later, he was packing his truck up. He'd done filed bankruptcy, and they were coming to repo it. All right.

Speaker 2 26:59

And sometimes, you know, you have, there's something that you hadn't mentioned and you mentioned it to me a couple years ago, is you have a lot of these leases or dispatch operations. They're good. There are bad, some of them major companies that have apps for loads

Speaker 27:21

mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 27:21

Be cautious of those.

Speaker 27:23

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 27:25

Because. You can't negotiate with an app.

Speaker 27:30

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 27:31

No. Or you can negotiate with a human.

Speaker 27:34

You know, and the thing about it is now they are companies, and I will say this like Mercer. And Landstar, stuff like that. Now they have load boards, they have app,, you can get on there and look at stuff. Now that's a little bit different case scenario because they're transparent. You see exactly what the money is in that load. The agent has to post that load for what's on the board for what he's getting, because if he don't, he's cheating Landstar, and then he's cheating you and Landstar and that ain't, they ain't going, that ain't gonna fly. So those boards are really transparent. There's really not much negotiating with that. You know, you can negotiate some of the accessorials a little bit. Sometimes you can negotiate a little heavier on the stops, maybe a little heavier on the fuel surcharge. They can make it a little sweeter, but not much. There's really not a lot of play in those companies, and those are okay. Now, I have to say, I, I've done very well with Landstar and I'm not a spokesperson for Landstar, but I've had a good experience with Landstar and I'd recommend them to anybody. But there again, you're not gonna go to Landstar and they're not hand holders. They're not gonna hold your hand. They're gonna give you a briefing of what you should already know if you own a truck and they expect you to do your thing. They don't babysit. I've went months and never heard a word out of them and they just don't babysit you. They expect you to keep your maintenance up upon your truck. They're not gonna call and remind you, Hey bub, you need to get your oil changed. They gonna remind you that the only thing they're gonna remind you is when you need to get that damn annual inspection done. Every, I think they do 'em every three months over there. Mm-hmm. Which stands to reason? I have no problem with that, man. I always keep my, my equipment immaculate anyway. I don't wanna be pulled over in the scales and paying somebody five, five times as much for a, a used tire. Somebody to bring it out or not to mention if it's anything major. Ah, you don't even wanna deal with that in the scale house, man. I'm telling you, man, but you know, as an owner operator more than once. Yeah. As an owner operator, that's a big hit. So you gotta pay attention to your equipment and as an owner operator, you gotta do preventative maintenance. You can't just let something go and go and go until it costs you twice as much to fix either it, it just goes back to good old common horse sense. And that ain't as common as you think, but it can happen. And people's gotta be willing to learn. And that's the biggest thing is you can, you can do whatever you want to do. You're capable of being whatever you wanna be, but you gotta be willing to learn how to do it, and you get a lot of that hardheadedness, you know, they're a great truck driver and they don't need nobody telling 'em nothing. And they, they go out there and they fall flat of their face and they go back home with their broke pride and blame it on everything else and blame it on the trucking companies and the freight. And you gotta be able to, to survive in any, any economy and to do that, I have a pretty good system. But all of my drivers, I mean, I've got guys that I've trained in this system that is doing really good. I mean, they're not, they're not living on chicken feed. They're living in half a million dollar houses. I had one particular guy, he's done so well. He literally paid cash for his last truck. He did. He paid, he paid the the first one off and the second one when it came time to. Purchase it. He paid cash right straight up for it. Brand new owner operator spec.

Speaker 2 31:31

Nice.

Speaker 31:32

And you don't see that very often, but he's been disciplined and no, he don't live in the truck either that he's the same guy, lives in a half a million dollar house too. His wife got a decent job, but it ain't nothing over the top. You gotta be smart with your money. And you gotta learn how to operate a truck where it's paying you as much as you wanna make, I've seen him, he he'll negotiate brokers. See, they hate to see him coming. I ain't even gonna lie. They hate to see 'em coming 'cause boy, he, he'll wear 'em out and, but he makes these money, he knows his worth and he knows what he brings to the table and he demands his money and he knows his lanes. He does really good. He's probably one of my, most successful people that I've trained from ground up there and put through the program, so he's done well. But where are you living at now? You down in Alabama, or are you in Mississippi? Mississippi. I was thinking that said over in Hattiesburg, I said Alabama to start with on the show. And I thought, man, I forgot I, he moved down there to Mississippi. Man, I'll tell you what, they got some good food down there in Mississippi that they did. They got some of the best catfish there.

Speaker 2 32:56

For

Speaker 32:56

They used to be a little truck. They got catfish that, oh, they got catfish. Man. They was some catfish. They was a little old truck stop, man. Hey damn holes in this parking lot. This truck not probably big enough to get stuck in. And it was down there on 59. And I'll tell you what, this place right there, it had a little bitty buffet of Cajun food, a Cajun catfish, deep fried gumbo. Oh man, I don't remember the name of it. You lived down that way, so I'm sure you probably remember it.

Speaker 2 33:30

I'm thinking it may be further up on 59.

Speaker 33:40

Yeah, it is. A little mall and Paul place. Well, you talked about some good food. Oh my god. Homemade hush puppies. That cat man, they were, as of that catfish, it was probably eight, nine. Nine inches long and two, three inches thick. Mm-hmm. Man, it was just unreal. I'll tell you some of the best catfish I reap in my life,

Speaker 2 34:02

well, you know, it's not too far from here, is where they raised most of the catfish just mm-hmm.

Speaker 34:08

Across the line.

Speaker 2 34:09

Over there. Off of US 80.

Speaker 34:11

Oh yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 34:13

And they have shoot anywhere from a dozen to 15 trailer loads of catfish coming out of that plant every day.

Speaker 34:24

Yeah.

Speaker 2 34:25

And they sell to every grocery store from small to large.

Speaker 34:32

No, I'm tell you man, they,

Speaker 2 34:34

that's good food.

Speaker 34:36

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I, I love me some good catfish and gumbo. Barbecue. I mean, I tell you, they, they got a lot going on, I have to say. Now Arkansas's got some good barbecue too. They got some good catfish up in Arkansas. They a little place they used stop just west of, little Rock over there. It was a mall Paul Place set across the street, but they just had a handful of truck parking sit across the street with one of the loves. I don't remember the. The exit. Oh my God. They had some of the best catfish, barb pull port. Oh, that's so good.

Speaker 2 35:10

Oh, I know what you're talking about. Mm-hmm. And it's a, uh, it, that place has been around and around. Mm-hmm. And they had. Two truck stops over there, ma and Paul.

Speaker 35:24

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 35:25

And you were within walking distance?

Speaker 35:27

No, this

Speaker 2 35:28

looks like

Speaker 35:28

was a truck stop. It was just a little restaurant that had some truck parking. It was just right west of, little Rock right there. This, it was still on 40.

Speaker 2 35:39

Okay. The one I'm thinking of is over there. Oh, shoot. Before you turn south. To go to all the rice mills. Mm, I gotcha. And they're, they're down there. Oh, I guess 40 miles south is where all the rice mills are and that's, that's the world supply of rice. Right. Gotcha. And beside, besides that, they have all the good food and, you know, it's a good sit down. Restaurant and mm-hmm. I mean, they're hard to find because they are closing up because you know, you have all of the major food chains that are trying to force the mom and pops out.

Speaker 36:22

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 36:23

Where you get good food to sit down that's healthier than this stuff at the fast food. Mm-hmm. And and again, you know, we gotta take care of our bodies because this stuff's gonna poison us. Yeah, they even started taking a lot of the

Speaker 36:37

iron skillets out. I don't even know if there's any iron skillets

Speaker 2 36:40

even in existence anymore. I mean, it's just unreal. There's maybe one or two because they had, there was a big. Big mix up, between pilot and, and Flying Jay and they got rid of all of their restaurants. Mm-hmm. And they had Denny's, but then there was one of the, one of the, restaurants, I think it was, there was one in Alabama that caught fire. For not keeping up, you know, with the grease. And then there was one in Indianapolis and that one completely burnt down.

Speaker 37:19

Yeah.

Speaker 2 37:19

And that was with Dennys.

Speaker 37:20

I remember that. I actually, I was over there in Indianapolis, I think when that happened.

Speaker 2 37:27

Oh, that was, yeah. Inferno.

Speaker 37:30

Yeah. That was, that was a mess that it was.

Speaker 2 37:33

they got that rebuilt and then they rebuilt the one that was, right up there. Exit 1 0 4 south of, the 59 20 split at Birmingham.

Speaker 37:52

Right, right.

Speaker 2 37:53

No, that's that newer,

Speaker 37:55

I forget what they call that up there. I can't remember, but I, I've been in there several times.

Speaker 2 38:00

They got the Chrome shop and all that in there. Yeah, I had to go in there and, well, it's, it was, well, it was just because it's, they have a Home Depot. DC that's there and you know, I've delivered there one time and you can't even get, get your rig in there because, you know, Schneider controls that one, you know, 'cause they do all the inbound and outbound out of that DC and on any given day you're gonna see 40 to 50 loads going in and out of there.

Speaker 38:37

Wow.

Speaker 2 38:38

Okay. And it's, it's just nuts.

Speaker 38:41

Yeah.

Speaker 2 38:41

But you know, this is the kind of stuff that, we've run into and, all the big companies are controlling the freight now. And even your contracts that you might have with a smaller company, you can't always trust that a lot of times you have to back up with the brokers.

Speaker 39:02

Right, right.

Speaker 2 39:03

And, and even in the last couple years. That, you know, I was driving, my management, they, they hated to say it, but even our contracts weren't paying as good as the brokers.

Speaker 39:17

Right.

Speaker 2 39:17

So a lot of times we wouldn't even take a contract back haul if we didn't have to, and if we could get a broker to give us more money, okay, we're gonna take the broker's money

Speaker 39:30

Right.

Speaker 2 39:31

Instead of our contracts.

Speaker 39:33

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 39:35

Well,

Speaker 39:35

a lot of companies, again, they always, they, a lot of companies, they'll get the contracts and they always maintain the right to broker that freight out and they still take care of the company. It, it may be third party, but a lot of your smaller companies will still have a brokerage. I did that when I had, my trucks and stuff. I had the brokerage for, you know, what contracts we did have, we broker out, that that worked fairly decent. You know, you get some, the problem with brokering out your contracts is you don't really know what you're getting on the other end. It's better if you can get, regular people there that, that run that stuff a lot and just work with Al you know who they are. And that's the same thing with Landstar. You know, once the agent gets to know you, oh, he'll call you before he ever put that load on the board. You know, back when I used to run out in California all the time, I had a guy out there, man, the agent man, he was, he was really good to me. Every time he'd see me coming out that way, I had that step deck when I was running out there. And he, he wanted me to haul them drones, that Atomics Corporation, he'd want me to haul them drones up to the testing grounds there were several Air Force bases and I had all the clearances and everything to go into the Air Force bases and military bases and I'd haul down drones for him. Soon as he'd seen me come, you'd never see that load on the board, but he'd call me and Landstar would tell you, and they come in through orientation. 50% of their loads never hit the board. You build relationships with them agents and you get the meat and potatoes. You really learn and you do a good job. A lot of it's based on you. You do a good job and you raise the eyebrow. This guy like, man, you did a good job. It got to where a lot of times when I had the step deck, I didn't even have to get on low board. I had people calling me as soon as they seen where my next delivery was. They'd watch my truck. Mm-hmm. And. Yeah. That's where you really make your money. You can make a good living Landstar even out the gate, but you just gotta, you gotta build yourself up, you gotta earn your trust. Mm-hmm. You gotta, you gotta pay your dues. It's like anywhere else. You're not gonna go into any company and get fed the cream of the crop right out the gate. You, you know, it's the stupid for you to think so they don't know you and you don't know them.

Speaker 2 41:53

You know, when I was with Freear, that was my last carrier. Mm-hmm. You know, I with them for seven years and they had a rep with many top-notch, and we're talking Fortune one hundreds. Mm-hmm. And one of them was Dow Chemical, and we did over $7 million worth of business annually. With just a hundred trucks and they had the broker stuff out because we had so much on contract. And so if somebody just had a tractor and they were willing to, take a load, say over to Georgia, then we could get 'em a load coming back. They drop the trailer off.

Speaker 42:40

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 42:42

And if there was nothing, it was nothing for us to have to broker out a half a dozen loads a week because of the rep that we had with a major plastics corporation.

Speaker 42:57

Right,

Speaker 2 42:57

And you just cannot believe what Rep does. You do it right. You do it well, and you're gonna end up. Having a rep where you're gonna make money. Mm-hmm. And that's what we bid.

Speaker 43:12

Yeah. That's for sure. You just gotta know how to play the game, you know?

Speaker 2 43:15

Gotta know how to play the game. That's it. You got six plants all with the same company.

Speaker 43:23

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 43:23

And you know when you have anywhere from 20 to 25 loads coming out a week outta one plant. And that's just the preloaded trailers. Then you have another 30 a week over the other four plants. I mean, that's just, that's good business.

Speaker 43:42

Right, right. Yeah, that's for sure. And that's that definitely, it's it's way better, when you've got good customers and all that stuff, you just gotta really roll your sleeves up and. And build a business around your reputation, your, it's like my daddy used to tell me, if a man's word ain't any good, he ain't worth a shit either, you know? Mm-hmm. Worth everything. Mm-hmm. My dad was a pretty hard man, that is a t-shirt I seen the other day that says, you can't hurt my feelings. I used to hand my daddy wrenches, and I'm going to tell you that's the truest statement I ever heard in my life. 'cause I'm gonna tell you. My dad was rough, man. He expected you to pay attention and you had to be a mind reader. I mean, he was hard. He was hard man. But, I wrote a song about him. I haven't released it yet or anything. It's called Learn Learning How to Walk. And I wrote it shortly after he died there up for Christmas last year. And. I'm, I've got mixed feelings whether I'm gonna release it or not, but, we've just got a lot of stuff going on too, i've got so many other things that going on and we're in the middle of building a new studio and moving into another place, and new house and everything's that. We're building a whole new studio and got a lot of things coming and I know I ain't been putting a lot of stuff out for the Truckers Radio podcast, and I want people to think we're just going to go away. Fly by night, but no means we're not, we got a lot of big things coming up here when we get everything situated and moved into the new studio. Hopefully it'll be a lot nicer set up, better cameras and, you know, it's got a lot going on, but just, you know, one of the things I just wanna let people know, we ain't going nowhere. We may be slowing down on the episode right now, but we just got a lot of arms in the fire. Trying to take care of everything,? Once my dad died, everything kinda changed and we had to make some different arrangements, to take care of my mom and that's something that, we gotta do. We're going to take care of mom and make some arrangements, needed to do a little bit bigger house, and kind of excited with that. 'cause, it gives me a bigger studio. Mm-hmm. You know me, I already got thinking a whole lot of other stuff. I can put my music studio in the podcast studio all in, in together, 'cause I do the songwriting too. And, I got a new book that I'm working on too that's getting ready to come out here probably toward the end of the year. Uh, that's gonna be a pretty good surprise. I'll have some more information on that a little bit later on this year, but. So anyway, you can still check out my, the one book I got out called Silence of Humanity. It's on Amazon. It's on all the platforms, Barnes and Noble and all that. If you wanna jump on there and check it out, I wear a lot of different hats, so

Speaker 2 46:35

you have a lot of irons in the fire

Speaker 46:38

that I do, and then I still run a 70 air clock in a truck every week to go with it. I tell people, everybody wonder, well, how do you do it? I said, well. God gives you the time and it's up to you what you do with it., I literally, I work six days, six days sometimes in the truck, and I never rest. I do rest, but this ain't work to me. I just sat here in my office chair and talk, this is just as natural to me. I tell people, trucking is something I know as well as breathing. This is just natural to me. This is one of the biggest things. The majority of my life's been trucking and trucking industry. I've been in the trucking industry from one end of this to the other. I've been the dispatcher. I've been the broker. I've been the owner operator, the company owner. I've been the company driver. I've done pretty much everything. I've pulled tanks, chemicals. I've pulled oversized. There ain't really much I ain't done in this industry, man. And I mean, uh, it's, it's a, I've got a pretty well-rounded vocabulary when it comes to trucking and I try to take that and give back, and that's a big thing, I try to give back to my industry and this, this is my industry 'cause this is who I am. And I try to give back and help people all I can. You know, I do have the consulting business for, for owner operators and stuff. I don't charge a whole lot for it. I mean, but I do have to get paid for my time, just like anything else. But I always leave my email in the comments and stuff, I mean, you can drop me an email if you've got any questions, anything like that. But, well, buddy, it's been good talking to you. I'll have to drag you back on the show kicking and screaming here one day. But I think, we're gonna wrap it up here for this episode of the Truckers Radio podcast. Sounds wonderful to look forward to it again, and thanks for today. All right, bub, see you on the flip side.

Dolores 48:34

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