00:00:00:00 – 00:00:09:14
Unknown
The testosterone competition that we have to frickin have every single time. Dude, I get it. You’re a man. I’m a man. I’m a man. After telling you to do something, you don’t want to do. And you’re a man who doesn’t want to do it. Oh my God, like, I get so sick of that stuff.

00:00:09:15 – 00:00:17:21
Unknown
Welcome to this week in tracking the show that shares real business owners cost per mile and profits alongside conversations with industry experts.

00:00:17:23 – 00:00:39:00
Unknown
Don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an update. I’m your host, Amy, and today I’m joined by Robert Pedro Peterson, a senior agent at Synergy Freight and a self-proclaimed freight addict. Thanks for being here, Pedro. My honor, my honor. Thank you very much for, for having me. I will try my best to, not make this your only show and not get you canceled.

00:00:39:00 – 00:00:59:09
Unknown
Pedro. You’re also a co-host of the Logistics Lounge. Tell us a little bit about that. What types of conversations do you have? What types of guests do you have? The logistics challenge was, was actually something that was born from me being a broker. It was totally a ploy to try to get into shippers, into the door and make an easy conversation.

00:00:59:11 – 00:01:29:13
Unknown
You know, to, hopefully get their business. And, it never, ever became that, my friend and I just it kind of just becoming a gathering place, if you will, online. We do have guests, we have topics, and we have guests from all sides of the industry, whether I mean, shippers, brokers, tech people. You know, we even have, truck builders on our show, even people from outside the industry that, you know, just have an interest in logistics or maybe have some type of tie to our industry.

00:01:29:15 – 00:01:52:09
Unknown
So it’s just, just a gathering place, really, where, you know, we just have topics or discussions about whatever topics or pressing matters at the time, you know, maybe try to come up with a solution amongst ourselves that, you know, may not get widespread, but, you know, at least we’re talking it out and, and we’re involving each other and we’re involving our audience and helping them get information and, and also being, being part of the conversation through comments.

00:01:52:09 – 00:02:12:14
Unknown
And, you know, we’ll even pull people, up on screen live. So, yeah, it’s, it’s become become a wonderful, wonderful thing, made a lot of connections. Absolutely. Love everyone that we have on our show. It’s just, it’s a really good time. Cool. That sounds amazing. Yeah, I feel like that’s probably the most important thing about these types of podcasts.

00:02:12:14 – 00:02:34:21
Unknown
Just opening. Opening up, conversation with everybody and seeing what it’s like for different people and for different carriers and for different experiences inside the industry. It’s amazing. The comment sections can get interesting. I agree. And, you know, and I think it’s I think it’s also important to give, to give people a place. Right. You know, there’s tons of podcasts in our industry.

00:02:34:21 – 00:02:50:13
Unknown
There’s tons of podcasts, period. Just a lot of them don’t really involve the audience that they’re actually pandering to a lot. And, I would say that’s the one different difference that, we try to put out for ourselves is, we like to involve our audience, and, it’s it’s for the people that are watching you.

00:02:50:13 – 00:03:10:03
Unknown
The information is, is 99% for them. You know what I mean? The other 1% is from my co-host tonight. So, I agree, it’s very important to have that open dialog and discussions and panels where people are welcome and be able to talk things out and feel that they’re heard. That’s pretty cool. We used to a long, long time ago.

00:03:10:03 – 00:03:35:19
Unknown
We used to do, live shows also that were more like webinars, but also like the questions, you know, maybe like a 20 people webinar. The the questions would be hours long. So we kind of went away from that. And now we’re podcasting. But I wanted to ask you, with all the episodes you’ve put out and all your your time personally in the industry, do you have any crazy fraud stories you can share with us?

00:03:35:19 – 00:03:57:00
Unknown
Because I’ve been seeing some news and I’ll be talking about that a little bit later, but I wanted to see, in your personal experience, what have you had to deal with? So, to be honest with you, to my knowledge, I’ve only I’ve only dealt with one, dealt with one double broker past the point to where a load has been booked.

00:03:57:00 – 00:04:20:16
Unknown
The whole load has been picked up. I’m, I’m just fortunate the the gentleman that I work for, he is very tech savvy. He pays attention to all the happenings, usually knows things that are going on before other people. So, he has set us up for success, way from the beginning. So we we are not victims of fraud and, in depth, you know, but again, a lot of money goes into that so crazy story.

00:04:20:18 – 00:04:37:14
Unknown
I wouldn’t call it crazy, but here’s how the story went out. Booked a load out of California on a on a hot shot. I had really good money into it. That shipper ended up giving me trade on that. So, finding a carrier was easy. I just want to get out there. I’m not a broker.

00:04:37:16 – 00:04:54:10
Unknown
It’s a race to the bottom guy. I understand everybody likes to make money, so when I book loads and I put loads out there to carriers, like, I try to put good money into it, so I get good care. I booked, booked someone that everything seemed good on the surface. They checked out, you know, they made it through all of our parameters at that time.

00:04:54:10 – 00:05:16:17
Unknown
And this was middle of Covid. Mind you, down a 2021, 2022, something like that. Anyway, load, carrier went in there, picked, picked everything up, and, you know, nothing nothing was a stray. My shipper didn’t see any red flags or nothing. None of that stuff. The driver who picked up the load got the beat when he got in his truck.

00:05:16:17 – 00:05:33:03
Unknown
And, he made it down the road a little bit to weigh everything out, and he looked at to be a well. And I used to make the be aware of this customer. He noticed that my name was on it as the broker. And, and not this person that he apparently booked the load from. So that was it.

00:05:33:03 – 00:05:50:15
Unknown
It was just my name and it said Synergy Freight on there. As the as a carrier. I’m sorry, not the broker. So he ended up finding our company’s phone number online, called us and said, hey, do you have a guy by the name of this that works? They’re talking about me. Person on the phone said, yeah, and put me right through quick conversation with this guy.

00:05:50:17 – 00:06:08:22
Unknown
Found out that we we had booked through a double broker and, this, this carrier who did the job that every single drivers should do when she only thing he did wrong was not check before he left. But at least he checked the bottle and all his paperwork before he made it a good ways down the road. So he did his job.

00:06:08:22 – 00:06:29:19
Unknown
He called me, and I said, hey, man, you know, like, dude, you know, I want to give you this money because he told me what he did for, and he booked it for, like, he was $800 less than what I gave it to the original carrier for it. So, you know, when I found that, I was like, hey, man, look, I for one, I want to make this right and let’s work together to screw this double broker over.

00:06:29:21 – 00:06:46:19
Unknown
Yeah. You know what I mean? And make them lose. And so, was able to get him set up. He’d actually been in been in business, I think, for less than a month, which is how a lot of these new carriers themselves are allowed to get, victims of Dover brokers because of their authority. They can’t run stuff, a lot of people.

00:06:46:19 – 00:07:03:02
Unknown
So, we had to pull some strings. Got him set up. I gave him the full rate that he gave the other guy, which he was totally ecstatic about, and, ended up using using the guy for, several more loads with that customer until they made some changes in how they handled their freight and pretty much what customer routed and pushed everyone out.

00:07:03:02 – 00:07:27:06
Unknown
So yeah. Not crazy, but, you know, I mean, that’s that’s the only story I have. And and thankfully, unlike a lot of others, mine has a very good ending. And, I think things went right. And we also learned from that, my boss, we learned from that throughout looking at that, the communication with the guy that we originally book it with, we found the one little piece that he slipped through on and we immediately implemented that.

00:07:27:06 – 00:07:52:06
Unknown
So yeah, that that is a rare case of like a happy ending with those stories because dang, that doesn’t usually happen. You were really lucky, I think, and think I was the carrier actually looked at it because when I first, for those of you who like me, don’t look at bios and recons, usually I do not know how this confusion could happen.

00:07:52:08 – 00:08:13:01
Unknown
Was like if all the documentation is there. But then you see actual we have a blog. I’ll put the link below where we have like an example of a forged recon. And it’s a beautiful recon. But whether the name is put it has a different type of texts. We all can see where they kind of messed it up.

00:08:13:03 – 00:08:34:10
Unknown
It’s those little, little details you have to be looking out for. And also that’s where we told people we had we have a video on the channel, double broker downloads. I think I’ll put the name below. And we were asking this person we were talking to from our red team, what can you do? Like what? What is actually something that a carrier can do to confirm that load?

00:08:34:14 – 00:08:59:16
Unknown
And it’s simple as calling the actual person you looked from to confirm, because most of the times the numbers don’t check out or the emails are different, and those little details are the little things that will kind of get you saved from doing the double brokered load. I was scrolling on LinkedIn this morning or yesterday, and I saw the news about Guy Fieri having a tequila load being stolen.

00:08:59:22 – 00:09:26:17
Unknown
It was a $1 million load with 24,000 bottles of tequila and the post said 24,000 bottles of tequila just disappeared. Free doesn’t just disappear. It is very much planned and strategically placed to be stolen because people think of freight fraud and haste as like people going into the truck and stealing the freight. This was all orchestrated online. Yeah, actually.

00:09:26:19 – 00:09:31:06
Unknown
Well, let me let me back up and say one final thing. Talking about

00:09:31:06 – 00:09:46:14
Unknown
the double broker thing, because I think this is really important for carriers to get is check all the paperwork, not just the rate con man. Check your check. There be a wells check. Every single thing that you get related to that load and match information up.

00:09:46:23 – 00:10:08:02
Unknown
Amy had really good point. Pay attention to text. A lot of these rate cons are made over a TMS system that only has one specific font. You can’t choose it, you don’t know what it is. And a lot of times, you can’t replicate that font using like Adobe or whatever these other programs. So I would say the biggest thing is just check your paperwork, make sure every step of the way things match.

00:10:08:02 – 00:10:29:08
Unknown
If you booked it with XYZ brokerage on the right client, make sure when you go pick it up that you know if it says carrier, it’s either you or XYZ brokerage. And I think that a lot of carriers could really forgo a lot of problems of dealing with double brokered loads, you know, from, from that issue. So or, and, and also, you know, seamless, shameless plug, you know, freight freight validate.

00:10:29:13 – 00:10:47:22
Unknown
My buddy Dale practice owns that. That’s, that’s that’s for everybody. That’s for brokers, carriers and shippers to check each other out. You know, a lot of these a lot of these systems are broker leaning. So, you know del del he allows everybody check everybody out. But and that’s a link in the description. Awesome, awesome.

00:10:48:00 – 00:11:07:18
Unknown
And I appreciate that. And talking about the thing about the Guy Fieri, I saw that. But, you know, who’s not getting a lot of attention from that is Sammy Hagar. You know who Sammy Hagar is? The, ex, I don’t know. Yeah. He’s a former former lead singer. Yes, yes, yes. But I guess he is partners with, guy in this in this thing.

00:11:07:18 – 00:11:25:17
Unknown
And so someone, someone posted that and they were like, hey, man, you know, like, poor Sam, he’s a victim of this, too, and everything, like, so, but but I, I yeah, I agree with you. You know, a lot of these, a lot of these high, high value thefts like this, are definitely, you know, definitely planned.

00:11:25:23 – 00:11:43:13
Unknown
Maybe. If not, then, boy, that was one heck of a lucky container that you just decided to snip the lock on or whatever. Yeah. I mean, so, you know, a lot of this, a lot of this random stuff, man, when you get freight is stolen in, like, truck stops or truck parking type locations, you know, that aren’t secured.

00:11:43:18 – 00:12:05:13
Unknown
A lot of that is, you know, can’t think of the term, but you know, a crime of instance, I can’t think of the actual term, but someone just sees it. They’re like, oh, that looks easy. And they just do it, you know? But the these high value type things you need to talk about this. And, you know, a while back there was like a shipment of, of, expensive Italian leather that was taken once it made it to the U.S was like a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of leather.

00:12:05:13 – 00:12:20:15
Unknown
That was stolen. So those things definitely take planning. You know, people have to know exactly which one to hit, and but, you know, you never know. It could be the broker that’s doing it could be the freight forwarder. I mean, it could just be the guy that works at the dock, you know, that gets the shipping manifest for the ship.

00:12:20:15 – 00:12:37:05
Unknown
It’s going to come in three days and says, oh, yeah, look at this container you got, you know, X amount of dollars worth of high end tequila in it. So, you know, I’m sure they eventually catch him, but I’m pretty sure it takes a while. Yeah. Because actually in the 60 minutes broadcast, they ask him like do you think this was targeted?

00:12:37:07 – 00:12:59:09
Unknown
And he kinda wants to say yes. He thinks he should say no. And he’s like, what I will say is that they it wasn’t a load of like, paper clips, you know, like they knew it was a high value load. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Like somewhere in the, in the communication. Somebody knew that this was a super high value load.

00:12:59:11 – 00:13:26:02
Unknown
You said you haven’t had too much encounters with scams. That’s a great thing. But as of lately 2025, are there any types of shady behavior you see carriers having maybe brokers having that other people should know about should look after? Because we were talking about, double broker loads and then and that we have to check our documents and to see that, that all the documentation and all the information is there.

00:13:26:03 – 00:13:48:11
Unknown
Are there any other type of weird, shady stuff you see that people are not maybe so familiar with? So you’re not going to like this answer? Yes there is. But no, I’m not going to elaborate on it. And the reason the reason is, you know, and this is from this is coming from the big circle within our industry that is fighting fraud.

00:13:48:11 – 00:14:14:19
Unknown
People like Del Prax with freight validate, you know, I have my friends run the freight freight fraud task force, all of these people. Yeah. Yes. So a big thing that that they’ve all talked about, we’ve all talked amongst ourselves about in our circle is that the reason that the that these criminals are in these scumbags, as Dale likes to call them, are able to keep doing this is because we’re on line talking about what they every day.

00:14:14:21 – 00:14:29:09
Unknown
Every day. Oh, well, this is what you’re doing. This is the program that I use to, you know, get around that, you know, and it’s it’s like you’re literally you’re giving them a map to the treasure. And so, yes, there are some things, but no, you know, I don’t want to I’m not going to elaborate for that reason.

00:14:29:09 – 00:14:53:20
Unknown
And I’m sure everyone can appreciate that. But here’s what I will say is the people who are just named, you know, Dale, Dale Prax follow him personally, validate, follow them. Jeff Dickinson, John Cantera, the freight fraud task force, Claudia Catlett all of these people are really heavy on LinkedIn, just getting mixed in with them and, and just pay attention to what they post and the things they talk about.

00:14:53:20 – 00:15:09:12
Unknown
They don’t spill all the beans, but they give you enough. And, they’re also very approachable. So, you know, you’d be able to maybe come to them directly with some questions and give them your maybe specific, scenario that you’re dealing with and see if maybe they could they could help you. So hope you get, like, Brett.

00:15:09:12 – 00:15:26:01
Unknown
Like that. Answer it. That makes it for sure. For sure. We did have Jeff Dickinson a few months ago, and that was his same answer. Like I, I could give some examples, but let’s steer the conversation away from actually giving them more I would want to do.

00:15:26:01 – 00:15:30:09
Unknown
I think that honestly, the the biggest thing is just pay attention.

00:15:30:11 – 00:15:55:10
Unknown
Common sense wins at the end of every day. Every single day. The saying goes, I mean, it looks too good to be true. It probably is. If something doesn’t look right, it’s probably not. You know, like, that’s really the best advice I can give you. Just pay attention. I think so many people get so wrapped up and I just want to get this freight moved in the carriers, like, I just need to get to another location and make some money that, you know, everything in our, in our industry is run on this expedient timeline.

00:15:55:15 – 00:16:06:04
Unknown
And, and, you know, because of that, let’s be honest, like, nobody likes to be rushed. When you’re rushed, you forget, you forget stuff, you know what I mean? And so I think that’s the biggest thing is pay attention. You know

00:16:06:04 – 00:16:13:20
Unknown
for sure. Paying attention to the details. Because Caroline used to say, if if it’s too good to be true, it probably is.

00:16:13:23 – 00:16:38:15
Unknown
That’s it, that’s it. If every other load that you’re looking at for that lane pays 2500 bucks and someone’s offering you 35, why? Why? No, nobody just gives away $1,000 unless there’s a good reason, you know? So for sure. So here this week in trucking, we like to help small carriers specifically with good actionable tips on what they can do to improve their business or prevent fraud, if possible.

00:16:38:17 – 00:17:01:02
Unknown
Do you have any, tips on smart ways or simple ways carriers can protect themselves from freight or identity theft? In this year, 2025? Yeah, stop sharing your information. There’s one thing. There’s one thing. I mean, not not dumping on dispatchers here, but man carriers a lot of carriers you dispatch, you go through 3 or 4 things a year.

00:17:01:04 – 00:17:22:18
Unknown
How are these people protecting your information? You’re giving them all these Pin numbers on passwords and all that stuff like that. Stop doing that. Stop sharing your information. That is probably the biggest, biggest thing. Again, I’m not I don’t get paid anything for this. And I’ve said this guy’s name many times freaking straight. Validate, man, I’m telling you, like, deals, you know, has a lot of parts of his service that are free.

00:17:22:23 – 00:17:47:14
Unknown
You know, I mean, you can just do a simple check and he can give you some information. They can arm yourself to make to make a good decision. And I really feel though, and pay attention all the things we’ve already said. That, that that’s it. And then on the same topic of how we can help small carriers with your expertise in this trucking industry, what is something that for you that makes a carrier stand out?

00:17:47:14 – 00:18:06:15
Unknown
What is something that makes you say, I’m going to keep using this guy or girl mainly with me? I’m just the person that just do your job. Stop. Don’t don’t call me whining every five minutes about them taking five more minutes to load you like, it sounds rude. As a broker, I drove for ten and a half years.

00:18:06:15 – 00:18:23:10
Unknown
Let me just say that I. There is nothing. No driver is going to come to me and say they have experience and I have not been there. So, I, I honestly just like people to do what they’re hired to do, just like they, you know, want me to do what they’re. I wouldn’t say hiring me to do, but what our partnership is, communication is great.

00:18:23:10 – 00:18:38:13
Unknown
I’m not a I’m an over communicator, but not to the point that I bother carriers. Just accept my tracking link. Do and I’ll leave you alone. And if I do call your text, you just answer me. But honestly, just do do do what you’re you know you’re supposed to do. I’m not gonna say do your job, but do what you’re supposed to do.

00:18:38:13 – 00:18:57:01
Unknown
Do the things that, you know, a professional carrier and a business owner who wants a great reputation in relationships would do and, and communicate, and communicate early, like, don’t, don’t blow a tire and then call me two hours after you’ve been sitting on the side of the road. Hey, man, I blew a tire. I’m going to be late.

00:18:57:01 – 00:19:17:20
Unknown
So that’s it? Really? Me, and that’s that’s my the thing I, I am that type of person that I just want. I just want to do what you asked me to do. So I’m a pretty easy guy. Guy to make. To make happy. Honestly. But on the flip, with, like, a lot of us, you know, I mean, it’s easy to get on my my bad side, too, but, I like I like to just deal with a lot of same people, man.

00:19:17:20 – 00:19:33:20
Unknown
I like to have fun and do, but do right by folks, so they’ll do right by me. I do think that’s really important, because if you’re doing good stuff, the people will see the good stuff you’re doing and hopefully that will come back to you. All right, I agree, I agree I’ve got so many carriers that they like.

00:19:33:20 – 00:19:50:17
Unknown
We do favors for each other all the frickin time. And sometimes, like I have to screw them and sometimes they have to screw me. But like, we tell each other’s, like, I got a carrier I use all the time. His name is Jericho. I love this guy. Love him. I’ve been using him for two and a half years at this point and something goes wrong.

00:19:50:17 – 00:20:13:03
Unknown
I tell him, hey Jay bro, I got to do you dirty on this one, okay? But I on the next one. On the next one I got you. I’m gonna take care of him, you know? And he’s like, all right, just do what you got to do. Let’s just get this done and that’s it. And, you know, whatever the damage is to him, whether it be time or there be money or whatever it is like, we find a way to make that work between us and make it up, amongst each other.

00:20:13:03 – 00:20:24:22
Unknown
But so I’ve been using the guy for two and a half years when I need something done, I call him, and and all I got to say is go here, here’s the pick up number. This one, it picks up this when it delivers. Call me if you have a problem. That’s it. I don’t have to give him nothing else.

00:20:25:04 – 00:20:45:22
Unknown
And I love that. Like he just needs the basic stuff. He’s like, dude, I got it. I know exactly what I’m doing. So yeah. Yeah, because we’ve had a lot of, brokers in the past in the channel. And one of the things we say, like, how can you make a better relationship with a broker? And mostly they talk about creating bonds, but we sometimes forget that a bond implies that sometimes it’s not going to be great.

00:20:45:23 – 00:21:12:22
Unknown
But when it is, we’ll try to do the best we can. So the bond is still great and the relationship broker carry relationship is still fluorescing even when the times are hard. Another question I have for you is maybe if you could give us some tips or some ways you see carriers leaving money on the table. So maybe not exploiting every, tool that they have or asset that they have to their benefit.

00:21:13:00 – 00:21:32:00
Unknown
Okay. Yes. First off, I’ll tell you the biggest way carriers are leaving money on the table. They don’t know the cost per mile. And what I mean by that is how much does it cost to make your truck go up and down that road per mile? And I’m gonna give you a little hint, drivers. It ain’t just your fuel in your payments.

00:21:32:00 – 00:21:54:16
Unknown
It is literally everything that you do to run your business goes into your cost per mile, and you should swing it on a 90 day, on a 90 day thing, because fuel rates change, fuel prices change, insurance rates go up and go down. So you should always know what your cost per mile is. If it cost you 250 to run your truck and you’re running $2 and two and a mile freight, you’re leaving.

00:21:54:16 – 00:22:11:04
Unknown
You’re leaving money on the table. But I mean, I think right there is the number one thing. And and here’s the thing. It to me is ironic about this. Why does a broker know this? But a carrier does it. That leads me to my second thing is where I think that carries me money on the table. And this is not a dig at them at all.

00:22:11:04 – 00:22:30:18
Unknown
Have massive respect for me. Again, I drove for ten and a half years. But they they are not as well informed as brokers and shippers and the information they do have usually comes from other drivers who are also partially informed and not always totally informed. And again, not a dig it, just that we move in in different circles.

00:22:30:18 – 00:22:52:00
Unknown
No drivers are on LinkedIn. I tell truckers you need to be on LinkedIn and reading and following brokers and shippers and listening to the stuff that they say and the things that they post, because you’re going to learn a lot of how you need to be adjusting, how you can adjust and be more successful. So, yeah, that, that would be that would be my my biggest piece of writing right there.

00:22:52:00 – 00:23:12:10
Unknown
Oh, and and you get back to you, you just do what you say you could do, like, just do what you say you’re going to do. And, and communicate. The next question I have for you is, do you have any pet peeves when you’re talking to a carrier and trying to get a load delivered, something you absolutely hate, or maybe something you absolutely love when having this interaction?

00:23:12:10 – 00:23:28:23
Unknown
I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you the thing I hate to tell you, thing I love when I actually, I kind of wanted this goes to a lot of the stuff we’ve been saying today, but more so in this past few minutes. Thing I hate the most is the way I’m trying to think of a PG way to say this

00:23:28:23 – 00:23:34:01
Unknown
t testosterone competition that we have to frickin have every single time.

00:23:34:01 – 00:23:50:01
Unknown
Dude, I get it. You’re a man. I’m a man. I’m a man. Asked telling you to do something you don’t want to do. And you’re a man who doesn’t want to do it. Oh my G like, I get so sick of that stuff. It really does. It is so. It’s so draining. And I. You deal with it with customer shippers and stuff too, you know what I mean?

00:23:50:01 – 00:24:03:14
Unknown
Like, nobody likes to be told what to do when they’re a business owner. You know, but it just goes back to sometimes that kind of dude you got to do, you know what I mean? This is just what needs to be done. And I’m telling you, it’s gonna work. Like, just frickin do it and stop arguing.

00:24:03:14 – 00:24:08:10
Unknown
Or even that, you know, the, you know, just that whole testosterone thing.

00:24:08:10 – 00:24:22:16
Unknown
I don’t know what it is with, with with guys and no matter their profession, but, supposedly there’s money involved, like, everyone has to seem like they’re the. They’re the king of the hill or something, I don’t know. So that’s my biggest one. That’s my biggest one. I just want to call and talk to you, man.

00:24:22:16 – 00:24:36:17
Unknown
You know what I mean? Like, hey. Hey, Jimmy. Look, check this out. Dude, this supposed to deliver to this place, man? They messed up, bro. They ain’t got ruined. Warehouse. It’s got to go five miles down the road. Look, I’m gonna give you next 50 bucks. Ain’t really good cause, you know, fuel. You just put there $50, buy some denim from me.

00:24:36:19 – 00:24:49:13
Unknown
But that’s what I need you to do. Thank you very much. And I’ll send another recon with that on there. That’s it? That’s it. We don’t need any arguing. Oh, well, I’m not going, dude, you’re going to or you’re going to sit there with 40,000 pounds of freight on your truck. What do you want to do?

00:24:49:18 – 00:25:01:04
Unknown
You want to argue or do you want to get this stuff off? And I give you another 50 or 100 bucks, we can all go about our day. So that’s the thing I hate the most. I hate arguing with people about stuff that it’s just in the end, it’s going to be done this way. I’m not trying to be rude.

00:25:01:04 – 00:25:20:11
Unknown
It’s just how it fiasco now thing. I love the best working together. Like I love that. I’m telling you, that is we’re all in this together. And and my point is the point underlying point here is carriers and brokers have a huge rift between us. I listen, I get it, man. You know, all of the carriers out there they’re brought up to brokers are the worst.

00:25:20:11 – 00:25:38:01
Unknown
They take all the money, they control everything. But, sweetheart, I’m. I’m sorry to tell you all, but we do not. We don’t control rates. The shippers do. And we promise you again, if you you know, you can learn this. And I don’t want to screw you. I don’t want you to make less money. Here’s a crazy thing. You know, I work on percentages.

00:25:38:01 – 00:25:55:00
Unknown
So the more money you make, the more money I make. So why would I want you to make less money? That does me no favors at all. But, you know, I. I love the honesty. I like when we can. My favorite thing is when we can work well together. When we can see that, hey, we’re in an industry that sometime treats one of us like crap.

00:25:55:00 – 00:26:13:19
Unknown
It treats the other one better and vice versa. You know, but at the end of the day, we’re all really just trying to keep shelves stocked, keep paychecks in our bank account, and our bills paid and, you know, not go home and listen to the kids freaking yell at each other, all, you know. And so, yeah, they say I and I look at things different.

00:26:13:20 – 00:26:33:14
Unknown
Amy, a lot of people want to give, like, all these business answers and all that stuff. Great. But that stuff’s plentiful. You can go online all day, and someone can tell you about all your analytics and your businesses and your prospecting and your sales calls and whatever. But what a lot of people don’t talk about, which is what, not trying to do a shameless plug here, but what our show is a big thing on is people just being friggin people, man.

00:26:33:20 – 00:26:48:21
Unknown
But at the end of the day, the CEO still watches Netflix of, you know, the CEO still goes home and may argue with his wife about dinner or, you know, even the the secretary same thing. She goes home, maybe has a glass of wine, watching Netflix argue with her husband about dinner. We’re all just people at the end of the day, man.

00:26:48:21 – 00:27:09:00
Unknown
Yeah, we all got problems. You don’t know my problems. I don’t know yours. But darn it, let’s just work together and try to make find a happy medium for sure. And that’s something that that became really clear when we had the live webinars. We used to joke around that they kind of became therapy sessions because it’s where people just came in, like gave everything that they were going through.

00:27:09:00 – 00:27:36:23
Unknown
They shared experiences like little therapy groups. And it’s it’s not talked about enough that it actually involves emotional labor to be having conversations with people, to be having these testosterone fights all day. It is an emotional pressure that carriers, brokers and everybody in the industry, which is already a difficult and heavy industry to be in, have to go through, and I do I do appreciate that conversation.

00:27:37:01 – 00:28:04:11
Unknown
Yeah, I, I agree, I agree and testosterone tantrum that’s we’re going to call them testosterone intros because I think that’s, that’s what they were are what they are for. So I have a little question for you to see how your mind works and where would you go with this type of situation if you right now had to build a one truck owner, operate your business, what are the three things you would do to become quickly profitable?

00:28:04:13 – 00:28:15:16
Unknown
That was hard question because I mean it is really dependent on a lot of things. Ideally, ideally, let’s say you got good credit.

00:28:15:16 – 00:28:30:00
Unknown
Let’s just start with that. Let’s say you got good credit by you, buy you a good you do some research. Don’t just buy whatever’s cheap. Look around, take your mechanic, pick out the right equipment for your business.

00:28:30:00 – 00:28:39:07
Unknown
That is the most important thing. Is the truck it all going to break down. But I would say that is probably the first thing you need to do is put yourself into into that position.

00:28:39:07 – 00:28:44:03
Unknown
Actually, I want to see this where because the first thing I would say, I have a lot of capital, to be honest with you.

00:28:44:08 – 00:29:03:05
Unknown
Number one thing, I mean, number thing that a lot of drivers start out with, you know, is they’re upside down. They’re immediately upside down. You just bought 75,000 our truck, a $20,000 trailer. You got nothing but payments and no work. You’re immediately upside down. So I would like to say have capital, but, let’s just go with what the common carrier deals with.

00:29:03:05 – 00:29:24:23
Unknown
When is equipment, money and, and maintenance. Right. So truck put put good time into the truck. Truck that you buy. That’s that’s what I would you make sure that if you’re going to have to factor but do your research and check and read the contracts, try to find the lowest percentage you can that doesn’t have any long term limit.

00:29:25:01 – 00:29:45:05
Unknown
Doesn’t find you for cancellations. Are they recourse. Non recourse. And you know, obviously if you have capital that will not apply to you, but most people do not. And they have to factor. Huge mistake people do is they lose 2%, 3% off every single load they do. Doesn’t sound like a lot, but added up at the end of the year in maintenance.

00:29:45:11 – 00:30:06:15
Unknown
Actually, I’ll do four things. I do my fourth, last maintenance, take care of your trucks. And this is something that, I mean, they call it preventive for, for a reason because it prevents things. Do not wait until that is a problem to fix it. Take care of it beforehand. I know money’s tight and all that stuff, but would you rather be out $500 now that you can’t afford possibly a Wedgewood?

00:30:06:20 – 00:30:23:11
Unknown
Would you rather be out $10,000 later because your truck was down for a week and you made $0, plus you had to pay for that repair? So check on your truck, buy yourself a really good truck, get it checked out, date. Don’t get screwed over. Find a reputable place to buy it. Personally, I would say bring your own.

00:30:23:11 – 00:30:36:23
Unknown
Bring your own financing. You know? I mean, I do that with all my stuff. I think it’s really smart to just bring your own financing. Most car dealerships are most dealerships. They want to get you in the door and get you on their financing. They mostly have deals. Work out with these credit companies. They get really good kickbacks.

00:30:36:23 – 00:30:52:09
Unknown
Do not tell me how I know that. Oh. But that, do you factor in make sure you get someone that is going to treat you right and take care of your maintenance. That is very, very important here is probably I don’t know where to put it. I would say probably the most important thing, but

00:30:52:10 – 00:30:54:12
Unknown
know what you’re going to do.

00:30:54:14 – 00:31:18:05
Unknown
When you’re out there, you’re going to do van, you’re going to do flatbed, you’re going to do reefer. And don’t choose that just because that’s the cheapest type of trailer you can get right now. You know, reefers are cheap. So I’m going to go reefer freight. Do some research into markets, into freight rates, how they, how they operate and build yourself out a good triangle or square when you do your lanes.

00:31:18:07 – 00:31:29:02
Unknown
A lot of these lot of carriers, they just like to bounce wherever, you know, they really have no plan of where they’re going or what they’re doing. They’re just going to go here. And then as long as they end up back home in two weeks, that’s all that matters. Yeah.

00:31:29:02 – 00:31:39:13
Unknown
Do your research, learn your lanes, learn seasonality, what lanes are paying more at what times, you know, and over time, if you have the ability, get you another trader of a different type.

00:31:39:18 – 00:32:00:19
Unknown
I know a lot of carriers that have actually started expanding and they’re have they have a dry a van and reefer. I know a couple guys that have, I mean a dry van and reefer, a van, a flatbed and a reefer. I’ve got one, buddy. He’s got a reefer, a tanker, a flatbed and two drive vans. And he’s only one truck, but he, you know, over time he’s done that.

00:32:00:19 – 00:32:30:00
Unknown
So that’s what I would say. Those are my four things. Kind of long winded question. Really kind of hard to pin down a few things. Again, it’s situational, but I to me those are the things that I see the people make the biggest mistakes on starting out initially, my last question to you, with all this knowledge of the trucking industry, with all that you can see from the freight market, with all the noise currently in the market, what are some changes you see coming next year that owner ops need to be ready for?

00:32:30:02 – 00:32:46:14
Unknown
I don’t know, because I don’t like to make predictions. I’ve always said that, I’m not a prediction guy. I’m because I’m not an analyst. And, and let’s, let’s, let’s be real. How many we’ve been people have been predicting that this was going to stop two years ago, right? Ain’t none of one of them been right. And none of them ever.

00:32:46:14 – 00:32:52:20
Unknown
None of them ever will be, though. That’s why they’re called predictions. So, I don’t know. I can’t really say. Besides,

00:32:52:20 – 00:33:01:04
Unknown
besides, if, you know, we don’t get a hold on this tariff stuff and that stuff doesn’t come down, we don’t come to some agreement to stop this trade war. Things are just going to get a lot tighter.

00:33:01:04 – 00:33:16:16
Unknown
There’s going to be just continue to be less and less freight. Because people are just going to order in larger batches to try to get it all and suck. That cost up at one time and just spread it out. Over the year. I’ve already seen, stuff in LinkedIn about people talking about them doing exactly that.

00:33:16:15 – 00:33:19:21
Unknown
One thing that could be that folks should be on the lookout.

00:33:19:23 – 00:33:44:09
Unknown
Regardless of how you feel about it, don’t let your political feelings get involved. But with the whole crackdown on the Eld, the English language proficiency, the non domiciled CDL, the visas, blah blah blah blah blah, man could really be a hot take for the market, right? Depending on how many people that pushes out, could be a really a really decent swing in, in where things go.

00:33:44:09 – 00:33:54:22
Unknown
So yeah, I mean, again, I can’t make any predictions on what’s going to happen, but I would say those would be some, some good things to be, to be looking out for. So you are, are prepared for it. And, yeah, that’s

00:33:54:22 – 00:34:02:16
Unknown
about it right there. Thank you so much. Those were all my questions to you. Is there anything else you want to let our viewers know?

00:34:02:21 – 00:34:22:12
Unknown
No. The thing I want to I want to let everybody know is, just go follow me. I’m, on pretty much every social media. It’s either Robert Pedro Peterson or just Pedro Peterson. Also, go follow our show Logistics lounge. Again, we are on every single platform out there. Or you can just go to our website logistics lounge show.

00:34:22:18 – 00:34:39:22
Unknown
Com all our socials on there, I guess. I guess I’ll be it in a beat. Be nice to everybody, right? Understand? Again, everybody’s got problems and you don’t know what they are and they don’t know what you are. So you know, just have a little bit of freaking patience with people sometimes. Well, Pedro, thank you so much for this conversation.

00:34:39:22 – 00:34:57:12
Unknown
It was really insightful for me and it for sure will be insightful for many of our viewers. Thank you so much for coming on everybody. I will leave the links where you can find Pedro and his podcast down below in the description, and thank you for watching. Safe.