Caroline: [00:00:00] Welcome to This Week in Trucking, the podcast that tells you what you need to know about the trucking market for the week. My name is Caroline. And if you’re a trucking business owner that wants to know how to get better loads, how to improve the profitability of your business, you should subscribe to our channel so that you never miss an update. Today we have Justin Lu from Truckpedia. Justin helped 20X the size of his family’s trucking business and went on to found Truckpedia, which is a TMS that helps carriers find direct shippers.

Thanks for being here with us today.

Justin: I’m glad to be here. Thanks for having me

Caroline: So can you tell us a little bit about how you got started on Truckpedia? in the trucking industry. What’s your history in this business?

Justin: I’m a second generation trucker. My dad was a truck driver for a long time As a kid, I never knew what I wanted to do, but I knew one thing I didn’t want to do which was actually trucking but working at amazon as my first job out of college or even during my internship there It made me realize that my assumption about my dad being old school, was completely wrong.

Everyone in [00:01:00] trucking is archaic. That led me to become very fascinated about hey, what can I do in trucking and what can I do to retire? My dad from trucking, so he’s been working for decades to support the family, and I decided to dedicate. Three years of my life, I was 25 at the time, to help my dad scale his trucking company so I could retire him.

So that’s essentially what led me to, work at Amazon, and work at Amazon, and figure out how our kit industry was, and then the desire to retire my dad from trucking. That’s what essentially got me into the industry.

Caroline: And when you say that trucking is an archaic industry, what do you mean by that? Because from my view, there’s a ton of technology in this industry and the equipment is really impressive technologically now, right? Like new trucks are pretty amazing things. Older trucks, some people just love their older trucks, but if you just think about how much technology goes into a truck these days, it’s pretty impressive.

So what do you mean that, [00:02:00] that trucking is archaic or the way that we run trucking businesses seems out of date?

Justin: For great question. I’m going to actually answer that in two parts. The first part was a lot of technology started to start up founders, investors, start focusing on trucking only since COVID, right? 2019, 2020 we saw a surge of startups focusing on trucking and you’re starting to see a lot of us markets from Harvard, Stanford MBA schools focusing on solving problems in trucking.

That’s the first part. So he lately, the last four years or so. Technology start coming to the trucking industry, in my opinion. Second part is, even now, a lot of people, the trucking behind, not in terms of technology inside the truck, but the way how trucking companies operate. And what I mean by that is trucking companies typically are owned by poor color people not a lot of it’s not, they didn’t really go to business, never really been to business school or even college, to family business.

It’s often started with one of the family, either the mom or dad being the truck driver and starting their own business, right? They’re doing, they never learned anything about how to operate a [00:03:00] business. They think that if I know how to drive, I know how to run a company that drives to make money.

And with that type of mentality, it actually becomes their greatest liability because they restrict the way how they think when it comes to business. And they’re going to low bourse. They’re relying on the spot market where 85 percent of the loads are actually contracted, right? But those people don’t even know the difference between contracted and spot market.

Most trucking companies don’t even know what RFP is, what it stands for. So they just are fighting for the 15 percent of a spot loads on the spot market. There’s nothing wrong with that if you want to keep your business small, if you just want to run one truck, two trucks, three trucks, trucking company, but if you want to scale That’s not where you can, you should end up at, right?

So in that way, it’s still very archaic where people are relying on free brokers, a hundred percent to run the business. It’s not a bad thing to rely on free brokers. I love brokers, but what people don’t understand is the needs of a healthy mix. You need to have your own dedicate customers and you also need to leverage brokers to get yourself back [00:04:00] to your home terminal so you can service your customers.

In my opinion, every company varies, right? 60%, 40 percent ratio, right? 60 percent of your load has got to be dedicated. 40 percent could be from brokers. So in that way, we’re still very behind, in terms of understanding the business, how to scale the business the right way.

Caroline: Yeah, that’s interesting. I think even if you were to go to business school, sometimes you, you still wouldn’t necessarily run a trucking business in a different way, right? I think it takes somebody with insight into the industry experience. It helps if you grew up around it, right? Because you understand all of these other aspects of the business.

There’s a lot more that goes into trucking than just getting loads, right? You’ve got to know about a compliance. You’ve got to know about maintenance. That means you need to know about trucks. That means you need to be able to hire good drivers. All of these things. It’s not just finding loads, but I will say that the number one challenge that we hear about from new carriers is how do I get loads?

How do I even get started to [00:05:00] forgetting loads? So you came into your family trucking business when you’re in your mid twenties. What did the business look like back then? What were some of the challenges that, that your family business was going through?

Justin: think there’s a. A lot of different challenges that they were going through. I think the first problem was Not understanding how a business should be operated, right? And what not knowing the, the numbers like, Hey, my dad didn’t even know his profit margin was less than 7 percent when I joined him.

He just went asking about it. I said, Hey, what, how much money are you making? I think we’re money. As long as the money’s coming in, they don’t even think about, the profit margin. What’s my operating costs? Am I losing money to take this load? Or am I actually making money? That’s the first thing.

Second part is there’s no structure in place. Okay. My mom was helping out here and there, but mostly my dad, but then they don’t even have a structure in place. Whose responsibility is it to make sure all the loads were invoiced? There were literally loads that they never invoiced a customer.

They didn’t even know about it. [00:06:00] So it’s literally becoming a. A unorganized company. And then I think that’s a norm. That’s my parents were not alone. A lot of trucking owners when I spoke to them as the same thing, I actually did a survey in Houston at a conference asking, I think I asked about 20 plus people, almost 95 percent of the trucking owners didn’t know their margins, didn’t know the numbers, and it’s not uncommon for companies to complete loads and just never invoice the customer.

Because they just forgot about it where they thought the wife did it. The wife thought the husband did it. The husband thought that the kids did it. Lack of a organization is a number one thing that I noticed. Second part was my dad didn’t even know he can go to customers directly. And he thought that you need to become a broker first, before you can approach customers, directly for loads.

And that’s a common thing. I another common myth, right? There’s a lot of myth in trucking that. Unless you’re from the truck industry, there’s no way that you even know that. Even nowadays, when I talk to customers, like a lot of guys don’t you need to get a brokerage first to get [00:07:00] loads? But little do they know, a lot of brokers getting objections from shippers like, are you asset based?

The first question, one of the, one of the most biggest objection from brokers reaching out to shippers is, are you asset based? But trucking company didn’t know that. Trucking company thought, I need to be a broker first before I can get customers. So I say these two are probably two of the bigger things on that end.

When I came in immediately making that change, hey, that they’re going to be responsible for, servicing, making truck in the best shape they can and also hiring drivers. I’m going to be in charge of dispatching and put on a sales app, making sure that we are maintaining a good relationship with good brokers.

We’re not gonna work with all brokers, only the good brokers, work with them. And also the same time getting our own customers. So these are the two immediate changes I’ve made besides everything else,

Caroline: that’s incredible. So how many trucks did you guys have when you joined? And then when you, I don’t know if you’ve still, do you still work on the business with your family or you’ve sold it? What was that? Talk about that journey.

Justin: yeah, so they had three trucks at a time, one joint three [00:08:00] trucks, and we, I grew it to 50 before we actually sold, exited the business. And, there’s another story behind that, because when it comes to any business owners think, I want to diversify the risk, I wanna diversify the risk, I want to make sure I’m not putting all X in one basket.

My dad’s definition of a diversifying risk is I need to get a flap, I need to get a reefer, I need to get a reefer, and he’s gonna flap it and he’s gonna dry it. If I have three equipment type, that means, 

Caroline: I can do it all.

Justin: I can do it all, if one and I’m gonna do 48 states. I’m going to run 48 states.

So that way i’m flexible wherever the money is. I go after the money and if You know if it’s a produce season reefer will make me money if it’s peak season and holiday season drama is going to be money if it’s construction season five best money, right? so it In his definition, it’s not wrong.

But then what he didn’t understand is that it’s three different markets with limited funding limited resources You can’t even capture one market. How can you capture all three? Right and also running [00:09:00] 48 states, you’re known for everything, but you’re known for nothing If you have a customer asking you hey, I need a truck tomorrow.

My truck is in new york, right? You’re you live in california. How can you service them? You can’t they ask you twice the third time they ask you to have a truck They’re not gonna ask you again, right? You lose opportunity. So so I think you know being a driver it’s like Not having, the right resources to learn about those things.

It limits your growth, right? So a lot of people, it’s very common. It’s in the myth number three. If you ask me, Hey, debunking all the myth in trucking, number, this is the third one. Besides the two we mentioned earlier, this will be the third one, right? Having all type of equipments is not going to help you.

By focusing on one, running one region will be probably be a better off for your business growth.

Caroline: Yeah. That’s super interesting. We’re actually going to have a carrier on Pretty soon and going to talk to them and talk to more carriers about this, but, and it lines up with what you say. So this carrier that, that we’re going to interview in a couple of days here, Verk Express, which, if the episode is out by the time we publish this one, then we’ll link it in the [00:10:00] description.

Caroline: And they really narrowed down. Their business and their approach. So they got direct shippers out to a couple of different regions and then focused on getting loads back using the load boards and brokers, the classic way of finding loads just online. But they mixed that approach. The way that they were diversifying their portfolio, let’s say, and spreading the risk out wasn’t to get a bunch of different types of equipment.

It was actually to source loads from a bunch of different types. And that’s what I’m hearing from you that better than diversifying the type of equipment that you have and the types of loads or cargo that you can carry. It’s better to actually instead diversify the source of the loads that you’re getting for a specific equipment type or a specific cargo.

Justin: Absolutely, when you, I actually like when you mentioned there has never been a trucking company that focus on one thing that’s not doing well. From my experience, I met people making a lot of money hauling dirt, [00:11:00] hauling rocks, right? They’re very specifically haul. So they’re known for that, right?

And if you start focusing on that type of equipment, for me, let’s say you do medical equipment, right? If you type in medical equipment warehouse near me, right? You’re going to find a lot of them and they say, Hey medical equipment conferences or plastic packaging conferences, you’re gonna see a lot of those, audience, those opportunities where you can go and network.

Imagine you go to a conference as a trucker, say, Hey, I haul nothing but packaging product. I’m an expert hauling packaging. Nobody has ever introduced themselves as a, I’m a trucking company, especially hauling dirt, hauling plastic, hauling whatever a commodity is just for you to blend. Imagine if you brand yourself as that, approach every single customer in that way, you stand out immediately.

You don’t have to run across the country to make money. You can just stay regional, stay 500 miles. Right within your backyard area, focusing on that part. If you want to go long, that’s okay too. But like you mentioned, being specific with the regions that you want to be known as a, Hey, I serve at these lanes along the I 10, along the I 40 freeway, right?

[00:12:00] That’s where my bread and butter is. I, anyway, anywhere along the route, I can pick up and make deliveries. Go for it. You want to be known for that so that your customer knows, Oh, I got a load. Let’s say from California to Texas. I know he can do that. Every time we go, they go to you, we have something for them, right?

With top notch servers and guarantee they’re going to come back to you. Not only that, but because. Every people in a circle know people in their circle, right? If you ask any trucker their network are all truckers if you ask a shipper dealing with I don’t know water bottles Most of the networkers are going to be shippers in the net water bottle industry.

They’ll be like, oh, I just work with a carry a broker They suck. They didn’t pick up and i’m struggling with that because oh, yeah, I know this guy Let me introduce you to them or you can just ask them for a referral Turn them into a loyal fan of your service and ask them. Hey, by the way I’m thinking about growing my fleet Do you know anybody I can talk to?

A lot of people are more than happy to make that referral for you if you do a good job for them. So I agree with everything you mentioned there

Caroline: Yeah, this is it’s fascinating to me. [00:13:00] A lot of small trucking companies are family businesses, family owned and operated. I imagine that there’s probably a lot of people that were, that are in the situation that you were in a couple of years ago when you were starting to try and grow your business.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Your dad’s business. What was that like to come in and say, Hey, we really got to change the way that we’re doing things around here. Was that well taken?

It difficult to make that change?

Justin: Very difficult. Like it’s a, it’s a, it’s difficult to work with your family because you’re going to butt head, you’re going to disagree. You’re going in there and telling them what you’ve been doing for 30 years is wrong. We need to approach things from a different perspective, different angle, and you get questions about what do you know about trucking?

I’ve been doing this for so many years. This is what I’m seeing is what everybody’s doing and why, I don’t think that will work. Especially the older generation are very stubborn. They’re very. Not open to new ways of doing things. Initially, we were butting heads. I was butting heads with my dad.

We were getting into arguments [00:14:00] about, how to approach certain things. And what happens is, just, hey, just give me a couple weeks. Let me try this out. If it doesn’t work, we’ll do it your way.

Caroline: you’ll see it. You’ll see it if it works or not, right?

Justin: if it works or not and then here’s my proposal. I have a actionable guide on how we’re going to execute.

This is what i’m thinking Just hear me out. Let me explain my thought to You let me know if it’s worth a try or not, right and i’ll do it on my own time, right? I won’t we’ll keep doing the thing that we’re doing now But let me try this in my on my own time to see if it works This is what we’re going to do, you know presenting to you in a way that it’s digestible as oh that actually makes sense You So that was my approach initially.

Hey, I’m going to do this. I’m going to knock on doors, say, Hey, their warehousing near our parking lot, where we park, have you ever introduced ourself to them? No. Okay. No, I’m going to introduce ourselves to them and I’m going to create a carrier packet, and then here’s where I’m going to be our company website.

I’m going to introduce myself as a neighbor. I’m your neighbor, just down the street from you. I want to introduce myself. So yeah, so stuff like that, simple things, different channels, inbound, [00:15:00] outbound marketing channels, to present to. Two jobs. I hate this. We’re going to do right. I’m actually execute on that.

So over time, when they see results, okay, that makes sense, right? Wow. Oh, wow. This actually works. So the more times I prove that I’m able to make changes fast and it makes business sense, the more trust that burn. And at a certain point, it just started. Hey. Let’s just divide and conquer, right?

This is the task we’re going to focus on. What I need help with is keeping trucks in good shape, keeping trailers in good shape, making sure that we’re hiring the best drivers. Drivers are doing their job, right? So focus on that part. Let me focus on operations, let me focus on dispatching, let me focus on organizing all the files, all the loads into numbers, putting the system together.

So by doing that, it really helps things, right? Winning the works with divide and conquer.

Caroline: Yeah. Did, so you mentioned that you went door to door to a couple of places in your local area. Did that work? Did you get business from people that you knocked on doors? And this was just a [00:16:00] couple of years ago, right? We’re not, we’re talking, this is internet age.

Justin: Yeah, we’re talking about 2018. We’re talking about 2018. Me knocking doors. Absolutely. It works. I still think one knocking doors one of the best way. But here’s the thing. A few tips I always share with people is the coming objections and how you should approach them. So I didn’t approach any of the bigger warehouses because chances are decision makers not going to be there.

Number one, number two, I don’t go to the front door. Okay. Where the gatekeepers are, the gatekeepers that are hired for a reason for gatekeeping. They don’t want you to talk to the just manager because they hired them to pay them to keep you out of the gate. So what I normally did would just. go straight to where the loading docks are, where you where drivers check in, right?

So if there’s no guard shack, it’s a smaller warehouse. Many times the forklift driver might be even be the owner decision maker themself. So you get straight to them and dropping the name the dropping the the neighbor card. I’m your neighbor. down the block from you. How are it, I see trucks coming in and out a lot.

How are you guys currently finding [00:17:00] trucks? Oh, we work with broker when I hear that to me that’s a golden nugget because They’re if they’re working with brokers, then chances are trucking company would not reach out to them Or they don’t know how to find trucks themselves So i’m a trucking company here by one to see if we can potentially work together, right?

A lot of time people don’t like people soliciting business, so Yeah, give me your business card. We’ll reach out to you when we have a need And the moment you walk, people say, oh, here’s my card give it to them and they walk away. What happens most of the time is the business is lost. The moment you walk away, that business card is going straight to the trash can.

They’re not going to call you. So many people slip from the business. So initially I was getting those objections, getting rejection too, feeling awkward, feeling like uncomfortable, not at ease because I’m still soliciting for business. But the more you do it, the more rejections you get, the more patterns you recognize.

Oh, rather than just me handing my business card to them, let me ask for their business card in return. I don’t have my, Oh, do you mind if I take down, I take a notebook. I said, do you mind if I take down your email? After getting an email, they seem friendly, small chat here and there, say, Hey, by the way, can I get your number [00:18:00] too?

Ask for a phone number. And then before I walk away, say, Hey, I know your things can be busy. If I don’t hear back from you, when can I call you? And they tell me, Oh, check with me, in 10 days or next week. I was like, got it. So now I got their permission. Now I got their email. If they don’t call me, I’m going to call them in two weeks from now.

It’s the time to call me two weeks ago. Hey John, this is Justin. I stopped by your warehouse two weeks ago. You told me to give you a call today. It’s a good time to chat. They notice, oh yeah, I do remember that guy, oh yeah, I did get permission to call me. So they tell me no, I say, oh, sorry, I’m busy right now.

When’s another good time to call you? They would give me another time, right? But that time, I write it down again, I make a note, I call them again and say, hey, Justin, here. You told me to call you today, last time was busy for you. So now if they say Tommy, no, I’m busy again, they feel bad. They feel like human psychology.

They feel that they owe you is, Oh crap, I have to push him again. But so they give me another time. I call again, third time. They’re not, they’re going to make time for me. Give me a few minutes of my time because I’m polite. I’m politely being persistent on talking to them. It works. It just, I think a lot of times it’s in the follow up.

Are you actually following up with them? [00:19:00] Or are you just giving try, getting rejected, and get your feelings heard, and never try again? Or are you gonna be persistent and politely to keep following up until they tell you either we work together, or no, I don’t want to work with you.

Caroline: Right. Maybe some people think that it’s either a yes or no, but when you’re just giving out the business card without following up or collecting any information from them, you’re not getting a maybe, you’re getting a soft no. You’re getting a softer, more polite no, because they, like you said, Business card is just going to go in the trash.

But if you do that whole follow up, then you start to gain that trust. Plus, I think some things that people don’t realize is that you can do call, cold calls all day long to all kinds of markets. It’s another thing to meet your neighbor. And try to do business with your neighbor who you are probably going to pass and wave to them or see them in the drive through a couple blocks over, or see them at the football game.

You’re, there are like ways that you might actually interact with them. [00:20:00] And especially if you’re from a small town or a smaller community, if you interact with those people on a more regular basis, they don’t want to reject you because they see you more often. Whereas a cold call, I can just say no, thanks.

I can just reject a cold call because I know I’m never going to see that person

Justin: Exactly. And I personally think all channels work. It’s just once you once you have a team big enough, financially stable, give all channels a try, right? Cause knocking on neighbor’s door, amazing. But then there are going to be people you can knock on the door, can travel somewhere, knock on the door.

So yeah I a hundred percent agree with you in that case, maybe cold call work and become a numbers game. Just like you have to be comfortable with getting rejections, getting out of your comfort zone, being okay with getting rejected. Yeah.

Caroline: So is that how you got your first direct shippers for your dad’s business? Was just going door to door, just

Justin: Go into our door to door meeting neighbors. It’s exactly and then, trying all different channels. And I realized that I’m the type of person who. Like I like to learn about new things and I would I [00:21:00] would apply them right away, right? So hey, I learned about a door knocking it works.

Let me learn about email marketing, right? So first thing is most people challenge from a carrier’s perspective One of the biggest challenge is that where do I even find? How do I even know who the logistic manager is from those different warehouses? How do I get a contact people email phone number?

And I would actually make the effort to dive into it, dive deep into it where can I find them, how can I find them, right? And then with that information, there’s gonna be the, there’s different channel to channel, linking, code linking message, connecting them on LinkedIn, if they’re, if they are active or not, and then calling them, emailing them, knocking on their doors if it makes sense.

Or even, they’ve been on my target, I’ve been wanting to work with them, those are my dream 10 customers. And then going to a conference, seeing them in person, knowing that their company’s going to be there, they will be there themselves, and hey, you know that they’re on your target. So having different channels of doing things became my main go to, right?

When I’m putting my sales hat on, it’s I’m just applying all different channels. And then from there, over time, customers will convert, [00:22:00] right? You have customers convert, and once you get a few customers, what happens is, referral becomes a thing, right? Asking for referral politely and, or just they will refer people to you organically, say, if they like your service, I got a friend here, any truck too, can you help out?

Absolutely. So I, that’s how we start growing from the customer side is it’s after learning the first few, just keep on diving to different go to market channels.

Caroline: That’s fascinating. You said that you wanted to retire your trucking dad, but that is the, you said once in a post that every son’s dream is to retire their trucking dad. Explain that. What is it about, trucking business owners, that they just, is it that they don’t want to retire? They don’t think that they can, Or they just, they’ve bought themselves a job with their truck.

And that was the extent of the plan. How do you help people move on from that?

Justin: 100%. I think it’s for me, I just appreciate everything my parents have done for me. I [00:23:00] seen how hard he worked his life. I never been a driver myself, but I can imagine, being on the road, not always 24 seven, not spending time at home. And looking at the lifespan of drivers, I think it’s what 15, 20 years shorter than the regular people.

It’s challenging to be on the road. And I think a lot of those drivers, maybe don’t even have the option to retire because that’s their only source of income. That’s all they know how to do their lifetime is they know how to drive a truck. They know how to be in a truck so And they don’t have an option to retire.

So for me, at least I wanted to Thank You know, because he’s been providing, for me growing up and I wanted to give back, I want to see how, what can I do to help him out, right? At least give him options. If you want to retire, he can, if you want to keep on working, he’s not feeling financially that I have to try to make a living, I have to, keep on, Stay in the industry to make a living so and that’s my dream is like I want to retire him I want him to be comfortable.

I want him to have options to do whatever he wants [00:24:00] And

Caroline: not every trucking business owner has. A son like you . So what is it that you are building now that hopefully will allow other hardworking trucking entrepreneurs and drivers, owner operators, small family run, business owners

Justin: and that’s it

Caroline: make a business that they can then. Use to retire on

Justin: That’s exactly why I decided to build truckpedia right now I’ve reached the success to retire my dad now You know, what can I do to retire all trucking parents? Giving them the tool resources that I Figure out myself, right? So that’s why I build Trackpedia. Trackpedia is essentially two tools.

One’s a TMS, one’s marketing, right? These are the two tools I use myself to solve my own problem. The TMS, really the 5 task. Why are you doing the same data entry three times every single load? Why are you manually giving an update when there’s technology like you mentioned inside the trucks? I can provide all the tracking updates to your customer through brokers.

And [00:25:00] why are your drivers giving you the paperwork? You’re scanning manually yourself. Again, those I call them the 5 task. Keep the trucking company busy. The owner is too busy working, in the business rather than on the business. So let’s automate as much as we can with a TMS. Your profit margin, how much money is coming in.

You’re making sure all loads that you haul are built properly and you get paid for them. And secondly is so that all the time you save from doing this five dollar task Focus on five five dollars task, which what is that which is finding customers? How do you find more customers for yourself?

Building an online website, allowing customers to get real time quotes. Having a database where you can find shippers information. Oh, my neighbor, there’s 10 neighbors down the street from me. Who is the logistics manager? What’s their phone number? What’s their email? If I can’t reach out personally myself, can I call them?

Can I email them? Or can I knock on doors and say, hey, can I speak to John from the logistics department? Knowing that information, Becomes huge for your business growth, right? So that’s what I do. Two products in Centropedia [00:26:00] TMS automate the operations marketing. Let’s help you find direct customers to increase your profit margin.

Caroline: now in I’m interesting, interested in this because I’m a marketer myself. So through truckpedia, what can I do? We all understand what the TMS does, but what can I do through truckpedia to market my business? Do you, is it’s like a database that people can sign up for and get contact information.

Does it help you follow up with people on that? Is it like a CRM sales type platform?

Justin: Yeah. So it has first is a database, right? Database of shippers in the U S logistic managers, warehouse manager. We’re constantly adding more and more. Data pertaining to trucking to our database. That’s the first part. Second part is building your website. You just need a logo or pictures of your trucks.

You can build a website for your company to connect your domain to your websites up and running modern looking website that establish media credibility. Number three is in my opinion, a lot of trucking companies. Don’t feel comfortable knocking on doors or making cold calls. So what happens is [00:27:00] email marketing becomes crucial, right?

Email marketing. How do I introduce myself? Now I have a website. Now I know who those people are. How do I send email to market myself to them? Automatically. So that’s our bread and butter is email marketing tool and email marketing your email marketing mission that A lot of people try to send email either from their gmail or from their own company domain If you say your company domain is called abctrucking.com You send 500 emails, 5, 000 emails, the 80 percent of the market is spam, 80 percent of the market is moving to trash. What’s going to happen is your email, your domains burn. Not only you won’t be able to send co email, but also you won’t be able to receive an email from your customers. So that’s not good for anybody.

What Truckpedia has is the ability to connect as many domains as you want. It doesn’t have to, if your trucking company is called ABC Trucking, ABC Transportation, ABC Logistics. com. Connect those domains to your account and then warm up email account. So limit no, send them more than 30 emails per email address.

So that way you can maximize deliverability, but at the same time without [00:28:00] burning your own domain. Right and having the system to keep track of recurring email sending out having the system a basic CRM We’re not nowhere near like HubSpot or Salesforce But just a tool where you can keep track of that Hey this shipper told me to call them back something simple something all you want something simple This shipper told me to call them back in two weeks from now Let me just create a quick task right call back in two weeks and set a reminder for yourself We also have AI built into it to help you write the sequences.

If you don’t know how to write sequences, AI will set up for you. Almost like an autopilot, where it says, I want to find out shippers hauling plastic bottles, medical equipment. And these are the areas I’m wrong. You tell the system what it does, the system will automatically figure out who those customers are and reach out to them on your behalf.

When they reply to you, AI will Read your email responses and notify you. Hey, this is you got a response from this person now go take care of it

Caroline: Now I have to say, Justin, this sounds a little too good to be true. This, like this platform that just automates it for you and you [00:29:00] can, get as many customers as you want. Can you tell me about a time that a carrier used this to grow their business?

Justin: Absolutely. Every single day. We had a customer named shaft cat. It’s probably when I first started truckpedia He was one of the early customers on our tms site and then he went on the marketing side this was like 2020 Three, I think sometime 2023. He downsized the four trucks from 20 plus trucks to four trucks on the edge of going to business.

He lived about 30 minutes away from me. We were hosting an in-person seminar that to be canceled last minute. He didn’t get a message. He actually came to the seminar. I felt bad, so I drove to the office and met him at a coffee shop. So we started talking about this, like before the marketing product was released to help him.

So now he’s back to 22 or 23 trucks now. But a year, a little over a year on our platform. She’s back at 20 plus trucks using our software. A lot of trucking companies are seeing the same same thing. Now it’s not as simple as you just plug in, you sign up, you get customers. No, you have to put in the work.

You have to follow up, right? When, what we can do is help you open those [00:30:00] doors. But it’s the trucking company’s job to follow up with them, make sure that you’re full up you’re presenting yourself to them. So yeah so there are people seeing success, not just myself, but people on our platform are seeing those type of successes from managing their business.

Caroline: That’s awesome. Now you were just at the Broker Carrier Summit in Dallas. So what did you think of that event and would you recommend that carriers go, even if they’re a small trucking business?

Justin: Absolutely. A broker care summary is actually it’s a very wholesome event where a lot of attendees who went to the event, Adam Winfield and I actually led a seminar on how to find dedicated freight. We want, yeah, there’s about a hundred plus trucking companies there. Everybody stay there for the entire session time.

And what we talk about was you’d be surprised how many carriers are actually ready to learn. It is like we mentioned earlier, there’s a lack of resources in the trucking industry to teach them that. Adam has a industry, has an experience of scaling trucking companies, coaching trucking companies, and I share some of the background.

So us two on [00:31:00] the stage sharing with customers how to do it, having live interactive actions, having truckers pitch their business and to shippers live on stage. It’s amazing. So I highly would recommend carriers of any size to go to Broker Carrier Summit. We need more, conferences like Broker Carrier Summit in the industry where carriers can go network with each other, learn from each other, share best practices.

For the first time, if you go online, especially in Facebook groups, you see all trucking companies talking trash about brokers online. But if you go to the actual Broker Carrier Summit, Especially the happy hours.

Caroline: Different story.

Justin: Different story. 

Caroline: Everyone’s buds.

Justin: Everybody’s so happy, buds, and they network with each other. But in a way where it’s so crazy when you see. Brokers and carriers getting along well in that way I think it is a platform a place where people to network to really understand each other right to truly truly network and talk to each other seeing each other’s perspective Brokers are great salespeople.

[00:32:00] They’re really good at their job doing sales. Trucking companies are great operators. What trucking companies need to do is learn from brokers. What are they doing that work for them to land customers? How can brokers without any assets lend shippers? And this is something I think carriers rather than complaining about how much margin brokers making is what can we learn from them?

What are they doing? If you actually ask a broker, how are you learning customers? They’re not gatekeeping I spoke to brokers and the conference was asking them how you learn your customers They literally break down step by step guy what’s working for them, right? Brokers are not gatekeeping their information from carrier just that no carriers ever ask them.

Hey, Can you share some tips with me on how you like customers? I don’t think any carriers are asked that question with brokers Even if you call a low board moving a few loads together start asking though, right? How are you learning? How are you learning? Customers And then you’d be, I think people will be shocked at how willingly a lot of brokers are to share with them the strategies that work for them.

It’s the same.

Caroline: I think too, there is that [00:33:00] element of in person. Once I get to know you, once I see you, that you are a real person, that you exist in the real world and that you like to make your coffee the same way that I do, or, right? Like you find something in common with people when you meet them in person, very similar to the dynamic that we’re talking about going, knocking on doors, meeting your neighbors, doing business with them.

It’s the same thing when you go to a conference and you start actually meeting people. Oh yeah of course there are some. Really dirty brokers. And you know what? There are some really dirty carriers too. So there’s going to be, there’s going to be bad actors in every part of this business and every part of every business.

But at the end of the day, when you meet people in person and you start to create those ties with them and you start to actually create a real relationship that goes beyond just, Hey, do you have, what can you give me for this load? You do a lot better in business 

Justin: A hundred percent.

It is. I like how you mentioned the last [00:34:00] part, a lot of fun, like I think trucking people are not having enough fun, especially carriers. They’re always stressed about lowest trucking breaking down. Going to this event, everybody was having fun. Broker Care Summit is not just about learning about networking, but also having fun.

It’s a lot of those carriers first time ever going to a conference, going to a networking event. And One thing I noticed everybody had in common is everybody’s having fun If you look at linkedin, there’s a lot of people posting pictures posting Everything sharing about their experience like broker care or something.

I think just everybody was having fun.

Caroline: That’s a good time. Yeah. And no one deserves it more in my mind 

Justin: No one deserves more.

Caroline: Because it has been such a rough couple of years in the industry. Can you tell me a little bit about what you think is different in trucking? How has the trucking business changed since the, In the last five, seven years that you’ve been a part of it, what are the biggest changes that you’ve seen?

Justin: The biggest change was 2019 when eld mandate went live. I [00:35:00] think that just changed the entire landscape trucking and made a lot of startups, actually a lot of startups were able to do their thing because that mandate. Now you got much more data, right? From the driver, their hours are driving, the miles driven, you can calculate driver pay based off the LD because it calculates how many miles drivers drove, right?

You can track location from the LD, no longer require tracking their phone number because every truck must have equipped with the LD. So I think that’s probably. The one of the best thing the government mandated, to public that actually had ripple effect because of that, a lot of things became possible.

I think the last five years or so. The changes in the next five years will be bigger than the changes we saw in the last five years, just because of how much AI is actually capable of doing things, rather than cheap people saying that, Oh, I’m going to do this with AI, chat GPT, ELD mandate, combining the two together, and how many, how much attention, how much money is flowing to trucking, in the next five years, I [00:36:00] think we’ll see a bigger impact, from that perspective.

And then another thing is I’m noticing a lot of younger. Second generation trucker going to industry, helping their family. I, from the broker care summit or every conference I go to, I almost every single conference I meet a second generation truckers, Hey Justin, your story inspired me. I want to do the same thing for my parents.

I’ve seen many of those stories from people. Hey, I’m 25. I’m 23. I’m 28. And my dad was a trucker. I want to retire my dad as well. I want to help them grow. At first I didn’t know if I can do it, but seeing what you have It gave me more reassurance that this can be done. This is doable, right? So I think is this the second generation, the younger generation is finally, coming into trucking, trying to make a change and adopting technology and accepting technology as part of the operations rather than doing everything manually.

Caroline: Yeah. Yeah. I think that there’s something to be said for kind of a fear of technology. I think particularly around when you talk about [00:37:00] AI and how that’s going to transform the trucking industry. I think a lot of people are thinking about 100 percent autonomously driving trucks and that’s a really scary thing, scary technology that people have a lot of concerns about for very good reasons, right? Or the switch to electric or zero emission or hybrid, trucks. Those are big changes to the, equipment that you run. But potentially even more impactful is the technology behind The equipment that is deciding where you’re going to go, where you’re going to fuel, how much to fuel, what kinds of loads you’re going to book what rates you’re going to accept, like those kinds of things that right now, every trucking business owner or most trucking business owners are doing in their head or on back of the napkin kind of calculations the technology that’s behind that is potentially even more impactful to a business.

Justin: Absolutely. Absolutely. The fundamentals the technology improving [00:38:00] that a hundred percent agree. Yeah.

Caroline: So the holidays are coming up. And this can be a really tough time for fleet managers. I think you had written something about this last year. Tell me about your experience being a fleet manager during holiday times and what advice you might have for other fleet managers. Let’s say second generation, truck, trucking operations managers that can help them navigate this time a little bit

Justin: Holidays are tough for fleet owners. Everybody gets a break besides fleet owners. Your trucks don’t stop. That’s your peak season. Thanksgiving, Christmas, those are the time when you make the money. Especially if you’re on the spot market, you see the rates would triple, double how much you get paid.

Just because a lot of people want to be at home with their family. So if you’re wanting to be on the road because of higher margin, lots of drivers do that. And my best advice for people during holidays, there’s a couple of things. Number one is having a process in place. I think trucking companies, a lot of them do not have process in place.

And what I mean by process is number one [00:39:00] is the process should be check with your wherever you’re picking up from, where you’re delivering to make sure that they are actually open during that time, because a lot of time you drive for those hundreds of miles to go over, they just realize they’re closed, right?

You get paid 200, 100, 300 of a layover fee per day. It doesn’t offset your time with family. Remember, that’s the first thing. Second part is your trucks are going to break down. Like it’s always break down in the middle of nowhere. During on the holidays right map out make sure your trucks are in good shape your tires Your brakes everything is good shape before you take off during the holidays.

Secondly is That’s the second part, right? And then thirdly, third part is making sure that you’re mapping out the mechanics along the route. I think just not during holiday season. A lot of time in trucking, people look for roadside service when the truck, when trucks break down. Not when they have a, and then they’re looking up, it could be the same person, same shop they’ve been to in the past.

We’re looking up each time. What I did was, because I only run the I 40, the I 10 freeway from California to, to, to Tennessee, to Texas, to Georgia, [00:40:00] along this route, every few hundred miles, I had a repair shop map out their people. I got to know them. So it made it easy for me when things happen is, hey, I know I can go to them.

They’re going to prioritize me because, I give them all my business. Whenever my truck breaks down in that area, I give it to them. I refer people to them, right? So I think it’s really important to have those processes in place. Make sure that even if you’re not there as an owner, you’re not there. Your team know how to execute, right?

How to execute, how to make sure these are happening when these things happen.

Caroline: So last question to wrap it up. If you wanted If trucking business owners took one thing away from our conversation, what would you want it to be?

Justin: Execution. A lot of people hear my story, hear about what I shared. That makes sense, right? I should do that. But what happens is most people don’t take any action. Right execution what I mean by that? You don’t have to use truckpedia tms for marketing But what I do want to challenge you is start thinking that you can get your own customers, right?

Execute [00:41:00] if you have an idea don’t be afraid to execute You have to you must execute one of my mentor my favorite saying is having the spirit of a pirate and execution skilled navy seals if you want to be successful regardless what industry you go into You Execute. Just execute, right? Execute, be scrappy by your idea.

Go above and beyond, outside of a box. Literally go outside of a box just having the spirit of a pirate and just execute on your idea. I guarantee it works. If you put in the effort, put a time into it, it will work for you.

Caroline: Great advice. It was awesome getting to know you and your story a little bit. Justin. I hope that everybody got a lot out of this conversation. I know I certainly did and we’ll be posting a summary of it on our blog as soon as we publish this out.

So many good things to learn about. We’ve I’ve heard from a couple of people about how to get direct shipper loads, but I don’t think we’ve ever had someone explain it so plainly of how you actually do this. So thank you so much, Justin. If you [00:42:00] enjoyed watching this conversation or listening to this conversation, please subscribe.

If you want to learn more things that can help your trucking business, we’re on Apple podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. So go ahead and hit that subscribe button so that you never miss an update from This Week in Trucking. Thanks and drive safe.