The Movers in the Entertainment Industry: A Conversation with Ghislain Arsenault

Today’s guest is Mr. Ghislain Arsenault, President and CEO of Truck N’Roll, a Canadian company leading in live-entertainment transport in North America. As the founder and head of Truck N’Roll, he has spent decades navigating one of the most complex, high-pressure forms of logistics: moving entire concerts, productions, and touring ecosystems across North America under unforgiving timelines. His world is a masterclass in decision-making under uncertainty—balancing regulatory constraints, cross-border operations, environmental challenges, talent shortages, and the unpredictable nature of live entertainment. Mr. Ghislain's experience and leadership extend beyond trucking. His long-standing involvement with Concordia University’s John Molson School of Business—coaching and mentoring students in elite case competitions—reveals a commitment to developing the next generation of leaders.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

In North America, there are approximately 4 million professional truck drivers who ensure goods arrive at their destination. Yet, even with millions employed, fleets remain short by tens of thousands of drivers as demand for freight rises. Within such a massive industry, subject to labor, cost, volatility, pressures, how exactly does one sustain and grow a specialized trucking operation when quality, reliability, and people management are strategic differentiators? Welcome to Bringer at Laws Lanyan, where we provide a little extra perspective through conversations. I'm Maurice Bringer, your host. I enjoy engaging with experienced, knowledgeable, and passionate individuals for the opportunity it affords to enrich our understanding of the world through their eyes. The more we learn, the more likely we can become better versions of ourselves, guide others towards the same, and perhaps have a little fun along the way. Today's guest is Mr. Gislaim Arsenault, president and CEO of Truck and Roll, a Canadian company leading in live entertainment transport in North America. Mr. Arsenault has served as an entrepreneurship and business strategy coach at Concordia's John Molson School of Business, working with the John Molson Competition Committee to prepare teams for national and international case competitions. Welcome to the program, Mr. Arsenault. Thanks for having me. Well, this again is a lucky treat for me as always, you know, having a variety of guests, and you definitely are a unique individual. So why don't you go ahead and tell us about your journey, starting uh with how you got involved in trucking and the entertainment world?

SPEAKER_02 1:39

Well, it's pretty much like many people started in a family business. My my dad had a trucking company, started a trucking company in uh 1957, and I was born pretty much to a family of, you know, truckie. He was a mover. He started uh Atlas Van Line in Canada. Atlas is very well known across North America. So my dad was a mover, did uh residential move, office move, delivering furniture. So ever since I was young, I was, you know, pretty much involved. My mom was in the business, my dad was in business, the whole four kids of the family working the business at some point. So from the age of 14 on, you know, at 14 I was a helper, and then at 16, I was driving trucks.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

For context, where was your family's trucking business at this time? All in Montreal. All in Montreal.

SPEAKER_02 2:27

Born and raised in Montreal, but like anything with moving, it it give it brings you to other places. We do move everywhere in North America, overseas. So I got, you know, I got to, you know, I would say uh the bug for you know transportation and trucking very young in my life. Fun, fun, fun facts though, like it was a family business. And my mom, you know, like women were in the 50s and 60s, didn't have the opportunity to go to school. She loved school and she pretty much ran the business. Everybody thought it was my dad, but it was my mom. She was like the brain of the family. Well, it's true. And my mom wanted to make sure that, you know, she paid for all of education, the four kids, and she said, I only ask you for one thing. Please do not ever work in trucking or transportation. So I kind of failed her right from the beginning, but you know, I think I think she would be proud of, you know, what I've done in the last 40 years. So by the age, like I say, 16, I'm driving trucks. I raised my summer job. Um, what I didn't never realized, it was the best training ever if you're an athlete. I was uh I played baseball and hockey when I was young. And doing moving is like going to the gym every day. So I was always in good shape because of my my my part-time job.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:43

And I did that for for many years. I went to school, went to Concordia, like you said, but I finished my school at Arizona State in advertising. So my background technically is advertising. The only problem, if you go back to 1984, there's no like, how do you get a job from from Tempe, Arizona to Montreal in advertising? So I have a I have a degree, but I don't have a job. So I've made a deal with my dad to say, hey, can I get a job for the summer until I until I get a real job in advertising? And he says, sure. He says, so I'll put you in sales. You speak English, because my dad didn't speak, didn't speak much English. So he said, you you do all the you know overseas English, US customer, and you know, for the summer, and by the fall, I should get a job. Well, I was there. I stayed with my dad for 10 years. So that part-time job became a 10-year, you know, adventure, which I learned a lot. And sometimes, like, you know, whether it's a part-time job, whether it's a family business, all those little things that you accumulate um with those years with your part-time job. So the good part, you know, I was not, you know, really thinking of starting my business when I was young, but I learned about you know, sales with my dad, I learned about operation and admin with my mom, but HR, because we had, you know, something like you know, over 50 employees. So you learn quick. And when you're 21, 22, and you put in a situation, uh, always say the easiest thing on a family business is get the job. Then you have to be better and work harder than everybody else to prove yourself. And I pretty much learned a lot. And the good story is like, you know, by I would say by the five or six years I was with him, the company grew. We were like doing really well. And then you're a 26-year-old, you know, you think you know everything, you want to take over the world. Two of my friends from school were now working for my with with my dad. So we had these three guys that, you know, that we had fun and were making money. So we came to our my dad and said, hey, we wanna we want to buy the company, which means nothing when you're 26 year olds. You know, like, what do you mean you buy the company? First, when you're young, the things you don't learn at school is like, how much is the company worth? Like, I really like you know, when you're young, you don't know what a company is worth. You don't understand ebida, you don't understand multiples, you don't understand nothing. Plus, the beauty of working for your dad is you don't get paid much. So I was spoiled, I had a lot of benefit, but I had no money. So how the hell am I supposed to buy a company with no money and no financing? Unfortunately, uh, my dad's accountant did not see us, or my dad didn't see us as a good thing. You saw the first thing my dad would think is like, God, you're gonna buy me and kick me out, which was the last thing we want to do. We didn't I didn't want to kick my dad out. He was the best person I knew and hardest worker I I've ever been with. But in his mind, when you don't talk, when you don't ask the right question, when you don't you don't have the right people around you, which in this case would have been his accountant, would have said, hey guys, you're young, you're broke, you have talent, you have potential. Here's here's how it's gonna work. You know, we're gonna sell you 25% of the company, and with the dividend, well, you you get to pay that back. And when you're done with that in about three or four years, now we'll talk again. Well, unfortunately, the accountant pretty much shut us down. Uh, my friends left to go to a bigger, great career. I and I stayed a couple years and left because I had this accountant took the fun out of my job, which was built things with my friends. It's a team, I'm a team guy. I love working as a team. So unfortunately, I left my dad, you know, to go work in advertising, and you know, it was the end of my um career with my dad, and fortunately also like 10 years later, his company closed. So that was really, really hard. There's a couple tough Christmas after I left. Um, which I use sometimes to tell people when I teach at Concordia, you know, all the things that, you know, I wish I'd known, I wish I'd said better, I wish I, you know, sometimes asking asking the right question or explaining people what you want to do saves a lot of aggravation. Turned out okay with me, turned out okay with my dad, you know. I think he he had a good retirement, you know, he was able to, he had a building real estate, so it was okay. But what he built, he doesn't exist anymore. And that's pretty much, you know, that's pretty sad, I think. I wish I wish his company would still be around.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

Uh at that time, did this create uh a slight tension uh with your father?

SPEAKER_02 8:38

Oh yeah, father and mother, family. Okay, old family, because I'm the oldest, so I was supposed to be the one, you know, to take over and continue the company. And I had, you know, I had the I had the passion, I had the tools. Uh you know, I have 10 years almost in the books, you know. So yeah, it was uh and it didn't make sense. I mean, I had no when I left, I really left because you know, I I had no more fun. And as much, it doesn't matter how much money you make, doesn't matter, you know, how great your boss is if you don't have fun at one point. And I said, I I went back to say, hey, I want to work in advertising, which that was a big mistake, man. I knew I was like, it's hard, you know. By then I was like 30, I was 32. Uh had no experience, married, two kids, one on the way. You start at the bottom again. That was a that was that was when I look back, it was it was not very smart. But I always wanted to do so. I did the advertising for for about six months a year. And then all my friends, when I left, what one thing I didn't tell you is like when I worked for my dad, my dad did all a lot of the arts in Montreal, which means we have a civic center, like every city has a civic center, which you have the opera, the ballet, the theater. So we used to move sets on the weekend, and I was at the civic center every weekend loading trucks, which, like I said, it's very um, it's not like it looks very glamorous to be entertainment, but you know, think about it. You work every weekend almost forever. So that's you know, you really have to be passionate to work every weekend because most people want to have a life on the weekend. So when when I left, my dad decided that he also didn't want to, you know, I was the one working on the weekend. So the guy at the Civic Center, the opera, start calling me, say, gee, your your your dad doesn't want to do this anymore. Why don't you do it? Well, so I know I don't do trucking anymore, I'm into advertising. And he pretty much told me to shut up and listen. I really, you know, that's what friends do to you. It's like, yeah, right. You know, you're not an advertiser, you're a trucker. So get me two trucks this weekend, 11 o'clock at the Civic Center, and we were moving the set. And I said, okay, so now I have two jobs. So I was doing advertising during the week, and I was doing uh theater and opera on the weekend, and I did that for about two years. And two years of doing advertising or marketing, my advertising move into marketing. I was more like a marketing person than uh advertising.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

I I I take it when you got these first few jobs at that time, you still hadn't even established a formal company entity, like in an LLC or anything. You just I don't even have a name.

SPEAKER_02 11:23

I don't even have a name.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 11:25

I'm just sending a bill with no name on it and they're paying me. And it became clear though. It's like I was making, I don't know, I was making, seriously, I was making no money. If I was making back then, you know,$500 a week, you know, in advertising in the 80s or night, early 90s, you know, that was good. And then one day I did the first time the opera, the ballet, the ballet, my first tour was a ballet. I went on tour for a month. It took me about five minutes to do the job. You need a truck, a trailer, a driver, a credit card. I did that. So it was my first touch with brokerage. Um, the toughest thing was insurance. I had to find a way to insure the truck, but I made$2,000 in about 10, 5, 10 minutes. I'm like, wow, there's something in here. You know, my my knowledge of the industry, my knowledge of knowing all my friends were truck drivers. So, you know, there's a demand. Uh, and I I can supply truck and driver and make money and just tell people this is what they so that was my first taste of a tour, was the a ballet tour in the early in early um 90s. And back then there was no such company in Canada. Like there was no trucking. There was big one in the US. Back then, the big one, there was a few, there was three or four big ones in the US, but there was none in Canada.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

By that you mean like a specialized trucking company.

SPEAKER_02 12:53

Specialized company in the arts. Okay. You know, and they're still there. It's the same one, they're still there in the US. Um, so I start, you know, I started doing that because there was no need. And people say, well, you should say you should start a trucking company for the arts. There's none. And if you know numbers, I would say, yeah, I could I could show you the number why there's none. There's not enough demand for one company to do that all year. Trucks are expensive, you know, trailers are expensive. So in order to build a fleet, you need contracts, and you guys, you know, go out two days a month. It's not enough. So that was pretty much, but I started doing it, you know, like I would say part-time and a few tours, then it became I was making enough money to basically um pretty much have a truck and a trailer, like a few trailers. So I was ready when people would call, I would have the bars, I would have the straps, I would have the ramps, because rock and roll is all about, you know, it's all on wheels, so you need a ramp. So I would have the ramp ready for them. So everything that pretty much needed to be a rock and roll guy, I was building myself slowly. So that was like the first couple years, and then pretty much in mid or would say early 296, this is where uh Rene Angelil, Celine Dion's manager, gave me a call. He says, Listen, you know, uh, we're gonna take Celine for the US for the first time. We're doing our first tour, and we hear that you know what, you know, you're the only one around here that knows about that. You know, would you like to do a quote? And I'm like, okay, this is not a one-tour ballet for a month. This is you know, Celine Dion, which in Quebec was already well known. Uh, mind you, she, you know, she was the beginning of her career, she was starting to sing in English. And so it was three trucks, it was about six weeks on the road. And one thing, like anything else, the good thing about you know, what I've learned with my family business is I could do budget. Everything's about budget. You know, if you know numbers, trucking is not complicated, it's a very basic commodity. You've got your labor, you've got your truck, you've got your fuel, you've got your maintenance, you've got your insurance, you've got your tolls, put all that together, little profit at the bottom, and you get your price. You know, very simple. There's no RD, there's no like, you know, plus I have no employee, so my my costs are really, really low. My overhead is almost nothing except me and my kids, my family. So I see it as an opportunity, and you know, in in in marketing, you sometimes you have what you call in retail a lost leader, which means you'll drop the price of an item to get people to sell more. Well, that can apply to any business, I think. Yes, especially in the beginning, because I had no no brand, and that's pretty much about the same time also that I thought of the name truck and roll. I was driving on a highway, and you know, I said I should do trucking for wreck and roll band. It just became it just it's it's very simple. You think about it truck, king, roll, you know, truck and roll. And I'm like, and then I went online and nobody had that, nobody has ever put that together. So incorporated the name, and then people thought it was cute. And then I got the shirt, the t-shirt, the logo. Yeah, and also you create a brand. This is where I started building the brand. Was that name? Because it could, it could, I could have been acme trucking, like you know, like the roadrunner, but acme doesn't excite people as much as truck and roll because people like the word truck and roll or rock and roll, something like that. So that was the beginning of something a little fun, which is funny enough, the advertising thing that I wanted to do. Well, I kind of did when I became like the name Truck and Roll Came. So anyway, I I you know I put the quote together, but and I know this this this could be special, but so I put the quote together, I send them the quote, they call me back, they say, okay, well, thank you. And it says, uh, you know, are you sure about your price? And I'm like, Yeah, um I know that my price is what I want to charge you. But I'll be honest with you. I said, uh, I've never done a tour. You know, to do a couple of shows on a weekend here and there is one thing, to go six weeks on the road with you know an international talent, I've never done it. Well, they pretty much Renee and this production said, Well, at that price, we'll teach you. So it was it was talk about honesty and transparency, but if if you're if you have the passion and you could see that I was passionate about doing that, and transparency, you know, if I would have gone there, it's like I've done this, I've done that. Right from the beginning, they watch you and they say, you know, see what he can do. But by saying I was I didn't know what I was doing, they said, Wow, we could tell him what how we want things to be done, he'll do it right away. So my demeanor became almost like, you know, uh, how do you say it it'd be it became something good for them because they said instead of dealing somebody that is gonna do it his way, we can teach him to do it our way. And that created something very special in the beginning. It created a bond between production and us because we didn't come in and say, hey, this is how it's gonna be done. Because for the first time, they had a you know, local company, Canadian company, um that you know was willing to learn and do it their way. And that would that created something really special from the beginning. You know, we go on the road, everything goes well, and then you know, less than a year later, the Titanic song came out, My Heart Will Go On would sell in, and that just like it was that was insane. Like in and I think when whether it's the music business or the movie business, if you're part of a crew or a team that their movie or song goes number one, it changes your life. And that's what happened with that. That after that song, the first tour was uh three trucks, the second tour was 22 trucks.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 19:11

From one song. Wow. That changes your life. And now I needed like two million dollars to buy trucks, but she was stuck on top of the world. It was easy to get financing, it was easy to everybody wanted to be part of that. That was a it was a beautiful moment in time when that that song and you know we had brand new trucks, and people we'd go in the city, people had no idea we were like we're like the you know, we're like the rookie of the year that has a shiny new toy because all the trucks are new, and then people start calling us, which is a beautiful thing. Because the big there's a big difference if I call you for work and if you call me. Yes, it's just it changes the and you know that that was the beginning of something very beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

Well, it sounds uh very much like serendipity. Uh one the opportunity came to you, but also the confluence of events, you know, who your customer was, right? And you know, they're now starting to break out of the Canadian market. Uh and they're also, from what I'm gathering here, at that time, a source of cultural pride for Canada. And you're you're uh tied to that. And then all of a sudden it explodes, and everybody else, yeah, they want to be able to support you, not just because they see also uh a rewarding financial opportunity for them, your lenders, uh, but it's also, hey, you know, it's Celine Dion, you know, a a symbol for Canada, or am I wrong?

SPEAKER_02 20:49

No, you're you're right. And it it the the the good story about that is that you know we're doing a Celine Dion tour. We just finished it, and a friend of mine knows somebody who works at Cirque du Soleil. Everybody knows Cirque du Soleil now. It's one of the biggest companies in the world in entertainment. So uh he says, hey, let's go see the. I know the guy who works there who takes who's in charge of you know the difference. If you, you know, like right now, like a tour with Selim, but all those big top shows that you see with Cirque du Soleil, uh, the average is 72 trucks. The show that you see in your city with the big top, the yellow and blue top, that's 72 trucks that moves all the time. So anyway, I go, I go to the to the production tent, you know, and I introduce myself and I say, you know, and the guy knows. He's been in business in Quebec, he knows who I am, he knows I don't know a lot. But he's very organized. He's one of, you know, like I said, we're we're still friends like 30 years later. And he says, Why should I hire you? It's like, you know, how many trucks do you have? Well, I need this, I need this. Well, I know people that have a thousand trucks. You know, back then I had maybe, like, you know, maybe a dozen trucks and I would rent a Rest. So tell me why, you know, you I should give you my job, this to move those those, you know, critical equipment. Well, I said, you know, the good thing is I don't have a lot of work. So you are gonna be my most important client, and I'm gonna be here the three or five days that you need me nonstop. I will be here work doing the job. And I said, and hopefully, you know, I'll learn from you how you want to do. And that's the key sometimes is don't be afraid to ask the person, you know, I want to learn what you do so I can be better at it. And I I've used, you know, it's a little bit of humility sometimes will go a long way with a new customer. And I did that with Circ. And he said, Well, okay, I like I like your approach, your honesty. He says, Here's the deal. The guy that's supposed to do the show was supposed to call me, you know, today, you know, to finalize the deal. If he doesn't call me by five o'clock, you got the deal. The guy that never called. Oh and I was there. I showed up. Talk about a cold call. People say cold call. I showed up, but the other guy it didn't do shows. He had a thousand trucks, he did food, he did everything. Cirque, you know, for him, 70 loads in a week was meant nothing to that company. It meant everything to me. So I've been doing Cirque for 30 years now. Silin, stop touring. Cirque toured for 30 years on one call. So I can, I know every I work every show in Vegas for Cirque. Like I say, and then again, it was local. Like it was a little bit of luck and coincidence that all those amazing talent were all around me. You know, it could have been in LA, it could have been in you know, in New York, which were the the hub of music back then. But there was something about Montreal that at that time there was a lot of creativity. And you know, trucking is pretty boring, but essential. And I I was able to build, you know, uh uh a team of people with you know those those talent. But then it, you know, Circ went to Vegas, uh Cylind became world. You know, we even have a we I didn't mention that to you, but we have an office in Nashville now too. So it became at one point, so now we have US Driver, Canadian Driver. We we're the only company that with two office in the two country. Um, so it it you know it it became again the demand. You know, Nashville is booming in not only in country music, but in music and production. Um they're building they're building a new place called Rock Nashville, north of Nashville. It's gonna be one of the most amazing uh creative area in the country. So that's you know, there's a lot you have to adapt to your customer because SoloTech, some of my customers moved to Nashville. You have to you have to be aware of you know where the industry is moving. And right now, Nashville is is a big hub in the music world.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

Share with us a bit of the complexity uh behind uh the logistics of supporting these concerts. What does it take to move a major tour from one city to another?

SPEAKER_02 25:11

Well, the key when when you have a tour, uh the key word is a tour, which means you know it's gonna be a calendar. The key for uh our company is the calendar, okay? Um because you said you made you mentioned safety a little bit earlier today. Um when you drive in North America, you have 10 10 hours of service. Okay, a truck driver can drive 10 hours, then you have to, you know, shut down or sleep. So every, you know, every every time there's a show, people by the way, there's no two or three sets when you do a show. It's one set. When you do a tour, the average arena tour will be, let's say, 20 trucks. We'll take uh you know an even number. Well, 20 trucks, you have to you come in at eight in the morning, uh, you unload the trucks. Usually by noon, you're all done unloading the 20 trucks. You set up all day, four o'clock, five o'clock, you have sound check. 6:30, you open the door, eight o'clock, opening act, nine o'clock, the band, eleven o'clock, you pull at the last song after 11 o'clock. Sometimes there's um what you call uh uh overtime for the crew. So the bands start, try to stop by 11 o'clock, and usually in three or four hours, you reload everything is reloaded in the truck and you move on to the next city. There's there's area that you know the distance is is short. You know, if you go to from Boston to Providence, if you go from uh you know, anywhere from let's go you go from Atlanta to uh let's say uh Charlotte. So there's there's distance, anything under 500 miles, usually we can do an overnight, which means we should we do a show that night and then the next day because of hours of service. We cannot, you know, if if you calculate an average of 50 miles per hour, I know trucks can go faster, but if you're driving in and out of a city, there'll be traffic.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 27:11

Even if you drive at night, there'll be traffic as you come in. So you do an average of 15 miles. So my biggest concern when I look at a tour is distance between each city. So the first thing I do is I calculate everything and see if there's a problem. Okay. And sometimes we'll have a travel day, a travel day, which means there's a day off between two cities, which gives me a little bit more time because I could do, I leave at two o'clock in the morning, I could do 10 hours, I could sleep eight, then do another 10. So that'll give me, I could drive almost 900 miles on a day, a travel day, and be okay with it. Everything uh, you know, everything over that, there's a flag. That's where my flag comes in. Then I have to tell production, this is not happening, or we're gonna need to fly team drivers, which means two drivers per truck, which just increases the cost because you need hotels, you need airfare, you need like, you know, a drive, you know, it's just it's doable, but then becomes very expensive for production. And production, like any business, you know, they don't like to add costs if not necessary. But there's always availability of arena. So we're, you know, when when a band goes on tour in a in a in the winter, well, we compete against basketball, we compete against hockey, we compete against college ball. So all those factors make arena available. So sometimes we're like, you know, we're in Chicago, we should play the next day in Detroit, but we can't because there's a hockey or a basketball game. So they send us to let's say Cleveland, and then we so we what I call like almost like you know, darts are pink ping pong.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:48

So the first thing about a tour from for you know is logistics. Can we do it with one truck, one one driver? Can we be efficient? Um, you have the Northeast that's really easy, and then once you're done east, you have to drive all the way west.

SPEAKER_00 29:03

I'm willing to bet that over time your company has done uh what I would call site surveys, that you know what's at the venue, if you'll be able to accommodate your trucks there, how to load them. And you've probably built these over time, and now you have your own like proprietary uh repository of information. Um is that correct?

SPEAKER_02 29:25

It's correct, but you have to understand that there's a lot of pieces when there's a tour. So every every artist have, you know, they have their record company on one side, they have the production company on their side to do the touring. This is what we were, and those people will work with other people, like you know, the live nation of the world that you know sell tickets or book arenas. And it's again, it's always about availability. So it became it becomes a puzzle for them, and then whatever is available because they want to do on average, uh, an artist will do four or five shows a week. That's the average in order to, you know, it's a big investment. You go see a show when you see the production, the stages and everything, it's millions of dollars investment. So you want to do shows in order to recoup that investment? Well, again, distance, availability are two of the big issues in our world.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

How do you how do you balance safety of your employees uh when it comes to one, just driving on the road and you have that sort of mental exhaustion? Now we start factoring in weather. Um how do you balance that against the demand to meet the expectations of your contract with your uh entertainers?

SPEAKER_02 30:45

It's it's probably the the hardest thing is it's it's like you say, it's the fatigue of driving at night. Anybody who's worked night shift, understand that it's not for everybody. You know, because most I would say, you know, most of the world, you know, work from, you know, you start in the morning, you finish, you know, in late afternoon, you have dinner. When you're our part, you know, the bus driver, because there's the trucking, there's also the bus, because the bus carries all the people, you know, when you see all those nice tour bus. Um, so the toughest thing is not to drive five hours or six hours. It's really to have your body conditioned to, you know, you finish the show, it shows that you know 11 o'clock. You you have to sleep during the day. So in the beginning, the conversion of going from daytime, the humans always, you know, most humans, you know, they live during the day and they sleep at night. In rock and roll, we can't. Because we have to sleep during the day, we drive all night, and you finish like around like, you know, noon, 11 o'clock noon, which the end of your shift. So technically, you've been up for like 14 hours, you should be tired, you should you have to go to bed, but it's not always easy when the sun is like 80 degrees and beautiful outside, and there's people, you know, to shut your body in. So that's the toughest part is that to make sure that you can adapt your body to sleep, you know, to to to be 100% sharp, to you know, to drive, to load the truck. Because doing a show, there's an uh there's a an adrenaline when you do a show. Like, like, and we're not even on stage. We're like, we're the backstage people. And we there's a rush of when we finish loading, we we give each there's like there's high five. It's like we finish something and we try to sometimes we try to push ourselves to do it faster and quicker. So if you do a loadout, the first show of the tour, you'll probably load out in five hours, and by the end of the tour, you'll do it in three hours. Well, that three hours might not mean a lot to most people because we save two hours, but the crew that has been working 18 hours all day, well, they get two more hours to sleep. So all those details, the efficiency in the crew of working together means a lot. And then if we quicker to go, which means we'll have more time to get to destination, which means if something happens, we have a buffer, another two hours of buffer because trucks will break, it will snow, they will be like there'll be accident on the road. An accident on the road delays us, and there's not sometimes there's nothing you can do except take a detour that just added an hour to your trip. This is life, and it happened. It's not it's not if if if it's gonna happen, it's when it does happen. And uh and when happens, we we train our people to to do certain steps to make sure that everybody's on the same page.

SPEAKER_00 33:50

Aside from the training that you give them, and not to get into the details of that, but more importantly, are there any particular mottos or uh guidance that you give your team that it trickles on down for them to adhere to? So, in in a particular situation, as an example, so with many like police departments to serve and to protect. Um we had uh former US Marine Corps uh General Matis uh told the troops, do no harm. Uh, is there any particular guidance that you give to your own people? If you don't remember anything else, remember this.

SPEAKER_02 34:33

Well, the you know, the there's the the queen, the queen of I'm sure everybody's heard the show must go on. Okay, so but at the end, I would act almost at any cost, you know, fix the problem. What's the problem? People sometimes are worried about man, that's gonna be expensive. Like if I have to, I will tow a truck 200 miles to make the show, and then I'll worry about the money after. You know, you why? Because it becomes you've got 15,000 people that bought our ticket, you know, and whether it's the like last year with the Taylor Swift event or whatever show, whoever, if it's your daughter, your son, your wife, it doesn't matter. Sometimes that person comes to your show, like your town once every five years or so, and sometimes more than that. This is a special event. So we become part of where you know, music. It's you're selling a dream, you're selling, like, you know, that two hours or three hours of show, that's a very special moment. So for us to deliver that, you know, the last thing we want is you cannot, you don't want, and that does happen sometime. You don't want to have to have the PA tell the crowd, we're sorry tonight, the show's been canceled because blah, blah, blah. They never say exactly what, but sometimes it could be trucking. You know, it could be trucking. So everything we we live for, like it because it it truck will break and winter will happen and there'll be accidents on the road, but we do everything we can to make sure that the show is not canceled because of trucking. Safety is always, like I said, not I'm not saying to do anything illegal, but if like I said, if I have to use a tow truck and pay whatever amount of money to break the venue, you don't even ask how much. You have to do it. Yeah, that's part of that business is you know, you can't say, well, you know, my truck broke down, you know, I'll I'll be there tomorrow. You hear that in most industry in trucking. And you might get a little$50 penalty, maybe more sometime with all the big chains and all that, because they work on the supply chain and all that. You know, I don't even have a contract that says, you know, in my contract with the band, it's like, you know, I know I have to get it there. And it's never gonna be my truck broke down. It okay, what sometime we'll do a relay. So we'll do, and that's the culture that you're saying earlier. You know, this is this is when we tell people when they start training. And it's fun because I've I've got some of my lead drivers been with me over 30 years, and they pass on that culture that you know what we do is more than delivering from A to B. We bring something special to the people in the stands.

SPEAKER_00 37:21

Uh, you said two things here. One, you bring something special, but to me, more importantly, when you talked about some of your drivers being with you for so long, 30 years, retention. Um, how do you build trust among your personnel? You know, from those that are working uh alongside you at the higher echelon of leading the truck and roll, down to your drivers that you retain individuals for this long. How do you pull that off?

SPEAKER_02 37:52

Well, it's first some of those were there in the beginning with me. So, like they kind of build a company. There's there's a you know, like I said, first you have to have a little passion for that industry. You know, it's people think it's all party, it's not because when there's a show, you know, we're in a truck and then the minute it ends, we load and we go. So it's not glamorous, but it's it's you know, it's part of something very special. And sometimes I I it's funny they call it a tour. Um, the military calls it a tour, also. And I always found it interesting that military and music both call what they do a tour. Well, they both go on the road for a long time. Okay, and they both when they come back, the people that they went on tour with becomes very special to them. So you have to have, like I said, the thing about uh truck and roll or the music industry is I I took a job that is at the base, very individual, very lonely. A truck driver, if he drives from A to B, whether it's West Coast, any job, like you know, he does this 10 hours a day, usually pretty much decides the time he gets up. And he decides what you know what time he's gonna eat and the shower, and he's got a delivery time that's on, okay, I gotta be there, but he can do whatever he wants to get there. Not the music. The lead driver becomes your chief, and he tells you what time you're gonna get up, what time you're gonna eat, what time you're gonna take a shower with. So it's it's almost taking the military aspect that the teams become more important than individual. The show is more the mission, the show becomes more important than you. So why would you become a truck driver to work as a team? It does not make sense. But if you're if you're a team person, and I was in sports all my life, and I work in moving, moving is a team. You need your number two to load the furniture. You can unload a fridge by yourself. So it becomes it could it work as a team is fun to do office move. We used to be 90 kids moving furniture up and down the building downtown. You you load, if you never seem to load uh a show, you've got like 100 people unloading and loading the trucks. It's it's a military operation, it's beautiful when it's well done. And if you feel that if you like the team, if you like, even though trucking is a very solitary job, it can be the most amazing team effort. And that's what I that's the people I was looking for. I was looking for team players that want to be truck driver, and it's tough that want to go on tour for six weeks or six months. But you know, those people you you find it. The lifestyle is it's really tough. We have a a lot of people will stop because they want to see, they want to see their kids. Say, I want to, I wanna, it's the best job in the world, but I miss my kids too much. And a little bit, like I said, the contrast with military. You know, you watch military, it's hard on the family. It looks, it's not glamorous. People will leave sometime and they'll come back. Like we we have an open, like I said, it's it's a very unique, like I said, the show is the mission. The show is the mission to make to make it at 8 o'clock in the morning to load out. It's such an adrenaline drug when it goes well. It's an amazing. I mean, there's nothing, you know, if you deliver a load of 24 pallet to a warehouse, sometimes they won't even let you in the warehouse. They open the door, the forklift get the 24 pallet, they sign your bill, go. Sometimes you don't even have a conversation. We live like uh, you know, we're we're a unit. We're like, we we we somebody makes a mistake, we're as strong as, you know, if the guy cannot back up the truck, and a lot of drivers have huge shoes backing up, you know, we don't laugh at him, we try to help him because the better he gets, the better we get. So it's a very unique um approach to to uh you know something that's very lonely. It's like, you know, if if you're good, if you're if I make you better, you're gonna make me better. And that's that's that's what and it's not only truck and roll, it's every every company that does that, you know, whether it's uh staging or stagecall or roadshow, there's 304 in the US, and we all know each other, we all respect each other. The beauty of our business, if if their truck breaks down near me, they'll call me. My competitor will call me, and I will help him in a second to get his truck to destination um to make the show happen. And they I've done in 30 years, they'll they'll do the same for me. It's a very unique industry that your number one competitor will set a truck at three in the morning to help you so that the show makes it. I don't I don't know if there's a lot of industry that do that to their competitors.

SPEAKER_00 42:57

So are you attributing your success with your company that it comes to the front end when you're bringing on new people, you're looking for individuals who want to be part of something beyond themselves? Uh, or what what is this? Because you focused a lot on the team aspect, but one of the things I was asking again was how do you create this culture? Now, what do you find you've personally done to create this culture that people uh feel they're included, they're part of a team, uh, and they can trust one another.

SPEAKER_02 43:35

Yeah. I think our job, so you've got, you know, you've got HR that recruits driver. Okay, and like any job, you know, you hopefully you've either you've been, you know, driving for for a while or you just came out of very good school. We we need you know people that have been in school. We don't take the two week out of school truck driver once somebody has been at least a year in in truck driving school. So we want the best. Of the best. We'd have road tests. So we're very picky on having the best driver. So it's more like just a driver. We have guys, oh, I've been driving for 20 feet, 25 years, this and this, but you know in about two minutes that he will never fit. So that's a challenge. You take a guy that's been driving for 25 years, that cannot be taught anything, doesn't want to work as a team, but he can drive. But you're going to tell him, listen, you're going to go there, you're going to go to sleep. Never. He'll never change. It's tough to change people after 25 years of doing a job. So sometimes we like the new one because the new one, like they do in military, you know, you don't come in military after 20 years of experience in another unit. You start from scratch because you can say, hey, this is what the culture, this is what we believe. And then it becomes the unit. The unit they take care of each other. The lead driver, the co-lead, everybody in the team, when you're new, will take you on. And they'll know after a couple of weeks, you know, the personality of the driver, the person uh will come out and you'll know if that person is made for this. The beauty of what we have, Sue, is we have a lot of women. Like one thing that people don't talk is this trucking is one of the industry, probably with construction that has a very low uh ratio. I think women in your four million driver, you said earlier, for sure there's less than 10% of those drivers are women, you know, and it's probably closer to five. We have 20% women driver. So that that part of working as a team, the safety part, you know, of always being a pack together, you know, it becomes a very good safe environment for women. So we we attract a lot of women. And it's there's funny stories. Sometimes I remember like we just finished a tour last year with Pink. I think we had out of 50, you know, we had something like 17 women on that tour. It's it's and we had two women that were co-lead. So I think I think rock and roll also is very open to you know women being lead and women being drivers that you know, some of the old-fashioned male said, you know, you're not as good. You know, you know, if you're if you can drive, you can drive, you know. So it's fun to see that, you know, the world is changing it a little bit, and the you know, music is attracting a lot of women to drive because it's a very family fun environment. The unit, you know, you're not alone. You know, there's always somebody that you know is there to help you. And it's fun. It's fun to be part of something that's changing the world a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 46:45

Do you find that also your demographics among your drivers and and your personnel uh have changed in terms of people's ethnic uh backgrounds uh over the last 30 years?

SPEAKER_02 46:58

Um for sure. Yeah, of course, there's, you know, I mean, I would say the demographic of if you if you go back 40 years when that started, you know, it was, you know, most drivers were male, you know, a lot of white male, of course, you know, that is changing more and more. First, you know, there's there's a shift also, like the baby boomer that the baby boomer that used to drive, you know, our our generation are retiring. And there was there was a time that you know the men work and a woman was at home, and she raised a kid and you brought the money. And trucking was a big part of that. Well, that the world has changed. And it's tougher also to say, okay, I'm gonna be gone for six months, you stay home with the kids, I'll be back, I'll send you a check. So there's a lot of changes that are happening also in society that make trucking tougher and tougher. You know, we there's a lot of the Indian community is very family-oriented. And when we tell them, listen, you're gonna be gone for four months, they say, No, I can't. I don't want to be out far from my family for four months. So when family is important to you, so it's some culture, the family is so important that they will not go on tour because you know it's more important for them to be with their family on the weekend than to you know to rock and roll with Mick Jagger. But it's it's okay. Once you know that, it's you know, but they're amazing drivers. They drive, they could drive the Monday, Friday, they they get their job, but they don't fit with us. So we like I said, it's it's sometimes it's cultural, sometimes it's family. It's tough. It's really tough to, you know, it's the toughest thing is to find, you know, like HR. It and it the business grew, there's more demand, and it's tougher to find people that are gonna go on the road. We change one of the first things we did, like in in every trucking world, you get paid by the hour, you get paid by the mile. That's so we pay them by the week. So don't worry about you, you you're gonna know exactly how much you're gonna make when you so we changed that like 30, 40 years ago, because you know, you're on the road. Sometimes you're sitting for two days. So we changed that approach of paying by the week. So we you you get you know, their salary is better, you get better pay. Um, you know, usually the band will get you catering, so the band feeds you. Uh, you know, you get fixed salary. It's it's there's a lot of plus, but the hard part is to be away from your family for so long.

SPEAKER_00 49:33

Can you uh reflect on um so let's take the name of your company, truck and roll, and I'll make a twist on that decision making in motion, so to say. Um, can you share an example of a split-second decision that someone in your company had to make that you know nearly saved or lost a production?

SPEAKER_02 49:54

Uh I would say it's there's always demand, it's always communication with production. So production will come um and you have to have your to have your lead that communicate with them. Um save, like I said earlier, save is a question of communication. Okay, here's how it works. So the truck will break down, truck breakdown, okay. And there's when you have 20 trucks, rigging is the first one, first one in, last one out. So that's so you need that. You cannot start a show without that. If you don't have rigging to hold everything, yeah, so if the rigging truck breaks, the lead driver. So the most important thing is when everybody's together or driving at night, you know, whether it's a CB or phone, whatever they use nowadays, um you have to communicate the minute it happens, you have to the chain of command. I I'm coming back to my tour, the chain of command. Your lead needs to know what happened. You'll say, What truck do you have? Where are you? Okay. So and then you'll decide, okay, you know, where we are, you know, and you'll say, Okay, everybody stop. You will tell almost everybody stop. You'll call everybody, everybody stop. We have we have a we have a shutdown. It's the rigging truck. If the rigging truck doesn't get there, the first one is gonna mess up the show. You can push a couple hours. You have a couple hours of room, but you don't have that much. So what he did is the last, the last, the one of the last truck to go in is the merch truck, the t-shirt truck. The t-shirt truck doesn't have to be there before six o'clock, really, because nobody is buying a t-shirt before 6 30. So what he did, he told the t-shirt guy, you stop, you unhook, you're gonna pull the truck that's broke, you're gonna pull under the rigging, you're gonna take rigging, and you're gonna stay on the side of the road. The guy on the side of the road is broken is gonna stay with the t-shirt truck. And that just gave us four hours of room to fix the problem.

SPEAKER_00 51:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 52:00

That's one example that I've seen is you have to know every truck, the number, who are you? So you be you're assigned to your to your load. What you have, you know, you're the rigging guy, you're the lighting guy, you're the sound guy, you're the you know, stage guy. What do you have on? And the lead driver in his head knows exactly the order of going in, going out, and he can make decision, split-second decision when the truck breaks down, so that you know there's no delay the next day. Sometimes it doesn't work, sometime, you know, it's a small tour and it's only one truck or two trucks, and there's no backup. So then it becomes communication. You need to, sometime very hard, you need to call the big bus, the production manager at four o'clock in the morning. You wake him up, he's been he's been up for 18 hours, he's sorry, truck broke down. It's it's better to be honest and let your customer know what's going on. So when he gets there, he can he can rearrange his day knowing that that truck is not coming in. Because there's nothing worse in life than being on a loading dock with so many people and not knowing what is going on. That is the worst thing you can do in an industry is not communicate when you're in trouble. Because that will get you in bigger trouble.

SPEAKER_00 53:22

Well, key word there, communicate. And I have found talking to uh all my guests, and then from my own personal experiences, uh communication is the main ingredient for success or failure. Uh, you know, who are you communicating with? You know, what are you communicating? When, and then at the end of the day, you could have everything just right, but you can lose your message in the delivery. Um and I once had a conversation with someone about that when he was having difficulty with someone on his team, and I said, it's all about your delivery. I mean, what you're saying is right, your timing's right, you're talking to the right person, but you got to change the delivery if you want the message to get through. Uh, then it shifts to the other individual. Speaking of communication, uh and you taking your experiences and uh trying to deliver that in public education, uh, share with us what's inspired you to participate in these sort of educational endeavors uh at Concordia and also how you're able to translate trucking to students who might actually not have any interest in logistics. How do you make it real for them?

SPEAKER_02 54:42

Well, I think the the usually the fun thing is I tell tell them all about my mistakes because people love the good story of man, that was that was tough. You know, that day was tough. And it's it's like as I start usually with the the story with my with the family business, the uh, you know, how my life would have changed in so many ways if the accountant would have met me, understood me, communication, but it's at so many levels, whether it's accounting or lawyer, you know, it's like what's more important? Is it is it the individual or is it the company? And that's why I bring sometime to when I when I, you know, I I lecture in family business and entrepreneurship, but I did some coaching also for case competition, which I really like, you know. So I do coaching, you have business case, and you have uh a family that, you know, you have a, you know, the the dad is retiring, he's got two uh two kids, he's got the the son that's been working there for 10 years, that's got a high school diploma, you've got the daughter that went to school, that's got an MBA, the dad's retiring, who's the next president? I love those cases. Cases like that for me are like that. So I did that and I learned a lot by doing that, and that's why I became I did lectures after I became a coach. But there's sometimes there's you know, I like the debate part. I like to tell my stories of all the mistakes that I've made, whether it was, you know, with communication with my dad. Um you know, you know, always say, you know, I I you always get hurt with the people that are close to you that you trust the most. You never get hurt by people you don't trust. You don't trust them. But I've you know, I've had two of my employees start, you know, try to start a business, take 10 of my employees, and you learn from that. You learn from that. And I tell them stories that, you know, you know, then I get COVID, COVID story. We shut down for two years. So I could tell them what it is to have 125 trucks on the road on March 11, 2020, and in 24 hours everything shut down, and you never know if you're gonna when you you know, we were shut down for almost two years. I mean, that was that was that was a challenge of a lifetime to survive that, to you know, and then when it came back, it came back with a vengeance, you know, because everybody wanted to go on the road at the same time. Yeah, which was possible because uh I had lost 75% of my crew because good people were finding jobs, and I had the best people, and I could not keep them because I had no revenue. So, you know, if you do this for 30 years, um you get good stories. You you gotta get some fun ones, you get some, but the bad ones are the ones that are juicy or the thing that you know um makes you humble that yeah, we all make mistakes. How do you recover for them? That's that's the that's what I teach them sometimes is we're all gonna make mistakes. But find something that's your that's fun, you know, have a good team, surround yourself with great people that you love work. You know, I'm really close to my customer, they trust me. I don't, I never lie to them. Um, if you don't, you know, if you're honest with your customer, you know, they'll they'll stick with you in hard times, even when you make a mistake. But just be honest with telling them, you know, what happened. And same thing with your employee. Employee will make mistakes, just make sure they don't make the same mistake again. That's what I've been telling my crew forever. It's like we're all gonna make mistakes. Just be honest, let me let me know what happened, let me you know where did I fail you in not teaching you that, and I take that, and then I become better. That's the key for me is mistakes, there's always an opportunity to get better. I always use it as a teaching tool instead of you know managing and telling people, you know, you you know, this, this, you did that. No, okay, what happened? Why? How did you when I said that? What did you understand? You know, you said that earlier, communication, huh? I could tell you something, and but you you heard me, but what I've learned throughout the years is repeat to me what I just told you. What did you understand when I said that? And that I you know, as you get older, you you want to make sure when you you know you you have a project that everybody's on the same page as you and they understood what the message was. And because that again, if you if you if you if communication is good, there's usually no problem, but usually problems are created through communication. And how do we get better at that is you learn from the mistake. And I that's that you know, the the rest, the the you know, the the the the budget part, the the driving part, all that, you know, together, it's you know, again, it's you deal with a lot of people. We work probably over almost, I would say, 50 to 100 tours a year. So you get a lot of different people with different needs, with different ways of working. So you also have to adapt to your customer, but by keeping the same idea of you know, we have to be eight o'clock show day, we have to be there no matter what. And at the end, if that part they under they remember, and and we always say, okay, load in is at eight, which means you have to be there at seven. Because if you're there at eight, you're late.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:06

So it's it's all stuff like that that you you repeat and you repeat and you make sure that everybody um and I think I think the toughest thing that's happening now also is people we used to talk more on the phone, and now it's everything's like on Teams, everything is text. I'm afraid a little bit of that part of the new technology. I I'm I think fee talking to somebody, you can feel if they're understanding or not.

unknown 1:00:33

True.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:33

I think you're missing something, it's more clear, it's more perfect by by email, by text, or by Teams, but you're missing the vibe of the feel of the other person. And I'm a little worried about you know, the next generation not having the feel of the tone of the other person. The person's tired or in distress or as having a bad day. Sometimes just you know, the the tone of your text doesn't always connect the reality.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:01

That that's true. And uh I think what you're raising it's the efficiency of the communication vice the effectiveness, right? Uh I mean I can uh communicate a lot of sort of task out or request um via email or text, you know, within 30 minutes to multiple individuals. Uh but then again, it's gonna take me more time if I speak to each individual. And I think the important thing is identifying, you know, when is an appropriate time to actually do the actual talk. Vice, I can just do this in in a written communication, or when I need to do both, perhaps. Uh I think also when you were talking about mistakes, uh, I wanted to ask uh if part of what you're communicating to your folks and others, it's don't ever see a mistake necessarily as a failure. You know, this is a this is a moment where you're receiving information and you need to see it as that, not as a personal failure. It's a moment to learn from and you just keep moving on. Um and when you were talking before about the accountant and sort of the mistakes he had made in communicating with you, the mistakes you had made and how you were communicating to your father, uh trying to buy out the company. So at that time, you know, it seemed like a setback, right? Uh, but the irony is had you actually communicated effectively with your father or the accountant with you, truck and roll never would have been born. And who knows? Yeah, so uh sometimes I think we have to see even those moments where something doesn't work out, it's not necessarily the end of the world, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:50

It's it was not, and like I said, I knew after a few years that you know I I could run a company. I was doing it with my dad early on. I, you know, I my dad gave me the tools. So I was lucky enough to have parents who had a business that you know gave me the opportunity to do that, and I could do it. So very young, I knew I could, you know, I could I could do this. I had fun doing it. Uh, but again, when you're an entrepreneur, you want things your way. And that's the transition is tough. The transition just for me. So I've like I'm on my exit now. I'm planning my exit. Well, I'll tell you, Maurice, the entry is the exit is as tough as the entry in business. Because there's no there's no class, you know. The exit 101 of your business class at school, I didn't see it yet. So you have to learn that on your own. And like, you know, do you sell 100%? Do you find your your replacement? There's there's a lot of equity fun in the world that if you have a good business that's profitable, then they're gonna go knock knock. But most of them are gonna say, okay, now you're gonna stay for five years and double my money. Okay, what part that I'm retiring goes with I'm staying for five years to double your money? It's true. I mean, it's it's the it's the it's the playbook of private equity. And listen, for 30 years I never thought I give it a thought of my exit or private equity, and that's what I'm doing now. So my new life also is now I'm teaching or coaching a lot of entrepreneurs how to exit. So I there's two things in my life, how to pretty much, you know, pretty much start your business and how to exit. And I tell you, the exit is harder than the entry. Because it's your baby. When you start, it's not your baby, you have nothing. You have a name, you have an idea, you're not really attached to it. But if you work 40 years with your baby and your children all on it, and you know what I've learned during COVID, because you know, it's like, okay, I need to replace it's easy to sell the company, find somebody who's going to do my job, who can, you know, do what I do and lead a company for the next 10, 20 years, that was tougher than selling the company.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:02

Speaking of COVID, I wanted to ask you. So I'm going to deviate slightly back to 9-11, uh, when we had the terrorist attacks in the United States. And then, you know, within days, weeks after that, the airline industry, you know, across the board, except for I think Southwest Airlines here in the States, but every airline was then asking, you know, I'll euphemistically say a handout. This is going to ruin us. Um, and at that time, I was actually uh still working as an attorney. I hadn't joined the government yet. But I was thinking, okay, I'm not part of a big corporation, but you know, something tells me you know, a single event doesn't break you. You know, this might be the straw that broke the camel's back, but no, you've probably created in an entire environment or situation. Where now this is gonna break you. And then I hear your experience of going two years of when things were shut down and being able to survive through that. So would you agree with that? There's really not one singular event that will crush a business.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:27

For me, a lot of people that were struggling is people that are in debt. Like the leverage, if everything you own, if you have big debt and you have no revenue coming in, you know, it's like, and it's not illegal to have a debt. It's not you want you're you're you're growing, you're creating a job, you're you're paying taxes, you're you're bringing a lot of money to the the big pool of the the system. Okay, but your plan was you know to you know, you buy those planes that are expensive, you buy trucks, trucks are expensive. You know, I was lucky enough to have very little debt. A lot of the trucks I had were rental with Ryder and Penske and all that. Some of the trucks I owned, you know, what happened during COVID is I was able to make a deal with all my you know people and say, hey, I'm gonna pay you everything I owe you when until after the first show. The question was, Jismike, when's the first show? There's not even a vaccine yet. People get a little weird when it comes to money. I understand you have a problem. Can you fix my money problem? And you're like, listen, I don't know when you're gonna come out with the vaccine. So it became a reverse sell. I had to sell you that I will pay you everything that I owe you, but we need we need to talk work together, otherwise, I'm going bankrupt and I'm gonna give you your truck. And because the economy came back six months later. Um, I was able to re-engineer myself. I was doing like transportation in other industry, making zero money. Because people look at you, it's like, okay, my it's like they would they would tell me, Oh, your driver, you your driver are too expensive. Okay, so I'm gonna get penalized because my driver, I pay my driver too much, and yes, they're the best in the world. They do what they do because they're the best in the world. So to deliver, like you know, food that you know, a could a store and all that was something that you know people loved us because we're always on time. We were never late. People were freaking out in the other industries, like these guys are always on time. Yes, they never break down. No, we break down, we just fix it before we tell you. So that that became fun. And we did that. So six months were shut down totally, 18 months we survived, which means we paid our bill, and then it came back with a vengeance. So, you know, whether it's Southwest, you know, until you know the person's debt and agreement, and this is where people need to talk. It says, you know, I need help for what? What do you need help for? I'm not you don't give people money, like the government was offering us back then in Canada to give money to the employee until you know, because of COVID. Well, I had zero revenue, like a lot of people took a hit during COVID. It was 100% for us. And when I didn't do shows, I would do trade shows. I thought I was diversified because I had hundreds of customers. My Biber customer did trade shows in Las Vegas. Everything I did was event and the world of event stopped. So it was tough. I got I survived because my debt was very low. I was very conservative businessman, even though I live in a crazy rock and roll world. Um, I survived because of that. Um I negotiated a lot with banks, with suppliers. Nobody lost a cent because after 25 years, my I think my word was good enough because there was forget the contract now. That doesn't exist. It's COVID. Yes. Happened when you know, maybe never happen again like it happened last time. So again, relationship, be there, had a relationship with all those people. They knew who I was. Um I had never missed payment in 25 years. I told them, listen, and everybody knew it was gonna come back, which didn't know when. And that was the tough part. So whether it's 9-11, whether it's COVID, I think each business is unique because of their cash flow, their their situation with their, you know, obligation.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:26

Some people will need alpha government, whether it's a loan, whether it's I don't know. But I think every situation needs to be addressed depending on the industry and the the their debt in their situation. So there's no one answer to what you're asking.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:41

Uh I was going to ask um what misconceptions you find people have about trucking, but I'd rather uh transpose that to entrepreneurship and running a business. What misconceptions do you find people have about this? And particularly the students that you interact with. Misconceptions about running a business, uh being entrepreneurs.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:07

Well, I think I think the misconception uh I think what people have to understand is when you're an entrepreneur, there's going to be sacrifice. Sacrifice is the balance between your family, yourself, and your business. Who goes in first? And I I teach, I'm teaching new new business now. I do some coaching, and sometimes I hear, well, you don't understand. You know, I have a kid, I cannot work on the weekend. I'm like, wow, you know, if you want to be an entrepreneur, it's gonna be a seven-day-a-week job. It's not the Monday to Friday job. Uh, you gotta have to balance your life, your kid, your partner, and everything that it's you have to make hard decisions. So that's that's for me the misconception. It's you know, you're on top of the food chain, it's all it's glamorous, and you you get all the profit and everything that comes with it. People don't, I most people I know don't go in business to because they, you know, they they're chasing money. I think if you do what you love and you're passionate about what you love, the money will come later. But if you start your business, like money, money, money, I think you're doing it the wrong way. You know, I would go more into finance. Go in place that the money is good. If you're smart, go in a place that the money is going to be there no matter what. To be an entrepreneur is it's it's it's a lot of sacrifice for your family, for your time for yourself. Um it's very hard to sometimes put your business in front of you know your family. People don't understand that. And sometimes when the business needs you, it pushes everything out. It will push your holiday out, it will push you know your kid's birthday, it will push your kids' birth, you know, being there, like they do with preferential sports. Um when you commit to something, it's it's like I said, it's it's it has to be a balance. And it's the journey is is a lot of fun, but there's more sacrifice when you're an entrepreneur than people imagine.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:13

Well, it's something I'm hearing in this, and it's beyond the private sector. So even someone, you know, who has a sincere interest in serving, say, in the government uh or in politics, I mean, as much as we critique our politicians, uh, but someone who's actually uh they they found what they want to do, they're going to have to turn it into, as you say, a seven-day a week thing. Uh if if they're really going to make the most of what they found they enjoy uh and that they're good at. Again, whether it's, you know, being a lawyer, a special agent, uh truck, trucking industry uh CEO, uh, you're gonna have to put the time into it, sacrifice. And some people may share in that vision, and some people may not, and then you gotta choose, okay, what do I do at this point? Do I continue on or do I give up this part of myself, right? And speaking of passion, um, everybody you hear this cliche, you know, follow your passion. Uh, but I've heard other ways of looking at that, and that is you have to be careful about you know finding or following your passion because everything at some point is gonna be frustrating, you know, even the thing you initially are attracted to. Uh and what would you suggest to folks in terms of finding their passion or you know, realizing what they're good at and continuing to do that, and you actually become passionate about that.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:50

So imagine if you find passion in what you're good at, that's even better. And that's kind of what happened to me. I love music, I've always loved music from the time I was young, you know. Trucking, it's not glamorous. I mean, you don't you don't go to college to become a truck driver or you know, like blah, blah, blah, like what it was 40 years ago. So, but it it was kind of it was kind of two things that like music, I love music ever since I was young. I always have a collection of albums. I listened to music all the time, but in my mind, everybody did what I did. I didn't understand that I was really like above the average of per when it came to music, you know, listening to music, understanding every genre of music, whether it's you know, opera or you know, disco or rock and roll. I listened to everything. And I did not even realize when I was working at the civic center that I was in a music business. It's it was that it's funny because I did not realize it. I was just loading trucks with a bunch of guys. I was I did not, because I was 18 years old, I did not know. I was just it was just a job. But you know, when I started doing the beginning, it was a lot of fun because I was at every show. Because I, you know, every I was driving trucks myself and I was I was at the show, so then I became part of it. And and a lot of people I s like that, there were so many people that could have done what I've started. Like there was it was there, everybody knew it should be done. And in the beginning, I I asked two guys to partner with me, like two of my friends. I said, Come on, leave your job. Are you mad? Why would I leave my job? Why would I leave my job with my guaranteed salary every week? To to and that's what people don't understand is the first couple of years, get you know, you pay everything, you you get paid last. And like I said, I I'm lucky that you know, been with you know my wife 35 years, like her dad was military. I think that's it. There's so many little details. If my wife's dad would not have been 32 years Navy, I think that would have been tougher at home. Maybe I would not have succeeded because she was used to having her dad gone for six months. So when I went away for three weeks, it was like, well, it's okay, take care of the kids, you do this. So the unit at home was strong because of her upbringing. Um, every nobody wanted, I remember risk. I played poker too. I like risk, I like probability, and I was having fun, and the money came later. The first couple of years were like there was no money, but trucking was there, music was there, there was a need. I was having fun, and like I said, still and change everything. Yeah, and then it grew, it grew, it grew. Uh, and then my people became, like I said, which we I was able, I always say, you know, surround yourself with people that are good at what you're not. I think that was probably what I did best in my business, is I was able to find people that were detail oriented, that are safety-oriented, that all those little details. I'm not a detail guy, I'm low, I'm more like a tornado, and I need people behind me to pick up the pieces to make it again. So, you know, what I tell people is like, don't be afraid to surround yourself with people that are better and smarter than you. I'm I'm I could sell. That's that's what I could do. I could sell people and I like quality. But when you have great people, this is where the company can grow. When you surround yourself with people that are better than you and things that you're not good at. And you you admit to it. Don't be afraid to admit what you're not good at.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:33

Speaking of people, your company, uh, the industry. No, companies like yours, what do you think they're going to have to change? Uh, if anything, to remain relevant as removing forward? Uh, and then also the impact of electric vehicles uh on the industry and governments beginning to impose uh on industry to adopt this technology. Um what's the future?

SPEAKER_02 1:19:06

Well, I've been working, listen, you cannot be in trucking and not be aware of what's happening. I, you know, if I could have electric trucks tomorrow, I would do it. You know, I've got kids, I've got grandkids. If I could save my planet tomorrow and you know, it makes sense, I would do it in a second. But right now it's not there. The technology is not there. Um, you know, to you know, to want to power the whole world. I mean, we don't have the electricity, we don't have the structure to do the dreams of our politician to say, hey, by 20, 30, 35, 40, let's all be trucking, electric. It's it's there's so much missing. There's like there's a great, there's a lot of great ideas, you know. I remember like in a couple of years ago, I did a tour with uh Neil Young, Willie Nelson, you know, oh let's go bio diesel. And we smell like we're driving French fried truck, you know, it smells like you know, it was insane. And then if you went to Buffalo in the fall and it it was around like around 35 degrees, it would freeze. Oh the truck would stop, you know, and then we get like the the the truck company would say, Well, you're not insured because our you know, the book, the 50, the 50, the 500-page book, you know, it says you cannot do that. So what do you do? You know, do you follow your warranty or do you save the planet? Because you're so and then there was nitrogen, Nikolai, a guy out of Salt Lake City. Listen, I've looked at it all. I've looked at it all. It's I care about it. Uh we're not we're not there yet. Like, I wish we could say we're gonna go electric and you know, like I said, because let's say I have so many hours, we go back to safety, we go back to hours, we go back to efficiency. Listen, if if if I drive uh six hours and the truck's shut down for 10 days, it's like that's it, there's no show. So it's some something's not working. There's there's something not working, the equation of entertainment, environment, laws, geography, you put all that together and something doesn't add up for the next, I would say, the 10 years. When they say 10 years, this is the goal. You know, we know here Quebec is a big you know electric. We have more water and power than you know anywhere in America. And if we electrified all the trucks, there would not be enough power to do it. And we have the you know, we have power, we have electricity. So that it's like I at one point there's gonna be a lot of people that have to talk to each other as far as you know, manufacturing and you know, energy, government and business to say, hey, how can we make our planet better, greener? Uh the trucks now are much more clean than they were 15 years ago. Remember, you used to go on the highway, there was a black smoke coming out. It was like, you know, you don't see that. The air that comes out of the truck is sometimes cleaner than it goes in with all the technology and investment that the trucking company, but nobody talks about that. You know, so let's let's talk about the real stuff, which is you know, what do we need to make our planet safer for our kids and our grandkids? Trucking will still be trucking. It's you know, like you said earlier, there's four million trucks or driver in the US. It's a big chunk of you know, the environment, and there's a lot of fuel, and there's not electric trucks now, they're just local delivery. Every city has local delivery trucks, you know. You can see that being the the FedEx trucks, the uh you know, all the local delivery trucks, 100%. I think that's where the future is going. Long distance, when they say 10 years, let's do that, California. Like I said, I'm very aware of what's happening in California. It's a great idea. I I wish I could believe that it's doable.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:00

Well, it sounds like uh, in terms of trucking and government regulators, whether at the state or national levels, they could actually learn something from, say, the cheese industry in Wisconsin. Uh, one of my previous guests in Wisconsin has a very unique environment wherein it's this effective collaborative relationship among the cheese industry, between the cheese industry and the state regulators, where it's actually supportive of one another. Uh and it sounds like this is what needs to occur because right now what's occurring is instead it's uh a confrontational relationship. No, don't impose this on us. Uh, and then the others, no, you need to keep the environment green. Um what what does success mean to you today? Looking back, and you you've talked about you know, exit. Uh you know, for you, again, what does success mean? And uh what do you want someone who is starting a business uh or starting whatever it is they're doing, uh young, old. Uh what would you like to share from your definition of success?

SPEAKER_02 1:24:13

I think success is, you know, when you're all said and done, that the people you work with are still you're still in contact with them. Um, you know, uh I've worked with Michael Bublis manager, he's become one of my friends. Like he's like, I'm not involved anymore, less and less in the business, but I still the people that I've encountered throughout the years, even the employees, like I go to the office once in a while, and somebody, my older guys are there, and we're like, we're we're still like when we look at each other, we still like kids, remember, like we remember the the the fun part. And that's it. It's when you're all said and done and you see somebody that you work with, you're happy to see that person, you remember the good times. Um, you know, because life goes quick. 40 years goes quick. And if you're lucky enough to last 40 years and healthy enough, and you know, those those relationships for me that I've built, that I still have once I'm done with the work, means that it was more than just trucking or a show. It was what it's about the people that you you encounter. And sometimes I'm very happy that I I took the time to get to know those people. That when you're done with your job and you're done, you know, selling your company, uh the the relationship with your employees, with your customer, with your suppliers, all that. The human part of it, I think for me is still I I I get more uh out of my relationship and friendship that I've built throughout this bubble of business than you know, like how much money the company would make or how many trucks I had, all that. That's doesn't matter at the end when you're all said and done. So for me, it's it's the relationship and what we did together, what we accomplished, like working on a big tour. Like I've had people push me to do things I thought I could never do. But at the end, it's it's because they believe in me and they knew I could do it, and I was afraid to fail, failed them, failed for the company. But when we're said and done, like we look at each other, man, we did this. It's not how many tickets we sold, how many trucks is pushing each other to be better, is what I remember of you know, working 40 years in in rock and roll.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:38

I like that, you know, uh true leadership, getting people to accomplish things they didn't think they could actually achieve. Um a cliche question in terms of reflection is always, you know, if you could go back and do something different, what would you do? I'm not gonna ask that. I'm gonna ask you what is something you looking back on. You are damn, I'm happy I did that.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:06

Um it was, you know, for me, it was uh it's a mix. I don't think there's one thing for me. It's it's it's um it's like I said, I I don't I don't think my career was built on one thing. It was a lot of moments um that made who I you know uh there was moment like for me investing in in our building 25 years ago, which nobody did back then. It was a it was a hole in the wall that today it's funny, huh? I I think it was that is I think I I got your answer is there's a moment in life that it's gonna set up for growth.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:55

Okay. So how do you set up yourself for growth? And I I that again if you're in a if you're in a small place or shop or warehouse you know and you can do so many widgets it's very comfortable you're you know if tomorrow you guys hey I'm gonna build a hundred thousand square foot warehouse but I don't have the demand for it which which what should come first the demand or the product and I think there was a time that I was able to you know go to a bigger place to have more trucks you know if you if if you buy a building or a yard and you have 20 trucks but the place can take a hundred what do you think is gonna happen and the other thing I did is about 10 years ago I started the vision which what's called brokerage brokerage means so I had a bandist I think it was Lady Gaga at the at the time Lady Gaga had 30 some trucks I had only 20 available had to subcontract 10 for like 20 years I did not subcontract yes if I don't train you if you're not part of mine if you don't have my culture my you know brainwash technique to make you better you cannot work for me I gave up on that rule of you know I control the quality I'm gonna sit I'm I I'm gonna give that to my lead and he's gonna train them as we go that was my for 20 years I stuck to that rule and when I let that go that I let the control go and let my people train them we tripled our company in the next five years. So two real estate you know like you're in the box and then let go control over you know demand because the demand there's no way that could have been done this when I say to do stuff. Yes it happened with Gaga it happened with Rammstein when I did Rammstein I said listen I have no trucks the guy said no problem he called everybody else nobody had trucks he comes back to me and he said we're gonna we're gonna do this we're gonna succeed or fail together that was the his manager and the you know the German are very like organized and I'm like this is gonna be the biggest flop of my career but I you know and it was it was like an amazing success because I had to find a right leader to do it. So it it's you know it's it's it's the failure that stops you it's the risk of doing something you don't want to do that takes you to the next level these are the two things the real estate and you know letting quality go my plan like my vision I say I control everything I control the reason I'm so good is we control the the labor and the minute I let that go yeah maybe there was some mistakes but it it took the company to another level as we come here to to the end so to say um reflecting favorite tour memory that always gives you a smile and I'm sure there are many there's many but the the big one was I was invited uh by you two in England in uh Scotland um I had designed a trailer long story short I designed trailers with floors that go up and down uh and you u2's manager heard about it invited me uh to go to Scotland and I was underneath the stage uh there was the 360 tour for the spider tour that U2 did in 2010 uh and I was on I signed a contract underneath the stage while the Edge was practicing guitar on top of me and I'm like wow I can't believe they're paying me to do this one of my favorite bands on below the stage uh with their manager and he's practicing in the afternoon and I signed a contract I had 30 trucks on the tour for a year after that um there's moments like that just like wow you know I'm still a fan you have to be a fan of what you do you have to be a fan the other one that always remember is the first tour I did with the Backstreet Boys if you're older remember the Backstreet boys oh wow in 97 right after Celin they called us and I went I was I was backstage and the noise that the girls made when it went through your body I felt okay this was the Beatles felt like you hear all those you know McCartney's around his own tour right now and you know you you couldn't hear anything because they he had 4000 screaming women at the Beatles but that to have to have 2000 teenage girls screaming at the backstreet boys and it went through your body I'm like wow you can't make this up so those two things for me the backstreet boys sound and you two under the stage these are these two are the fun parts that I can remember right now.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:03

Well Mr. Arsenal thank you tremendously for sharing your story your observations and and lessons learned uh a special shout out to all those around the world out on the road ensuring delivery of goods uh to all our Canadian neighbors uh you know it's it's great having you all up there to to the north if not truck and roll probably wouldn't have been born uh to our listeners thank you for joining us on Brun Laws Lanyat where we provide a little extra perspective because the devil's always in the details please join us again next time and invite others to follow along. Give us your feedback and suggestions via the link. Mr. Arsenal again gratitude thanks for having me it was a lot of fun