Jose: [00:00:00] I had to drop off an empty trailer out there. I’m going in to drop it off. Security guards like, what are you doing? So they told me to drop it off. No man, he ain’t dropping it off. 

Caroline: Welcome to This Week in Trucking, the podcast that tells you what you need to know about the trucking market for the week.

Caroline: My name is Caroline. Today, I’m really excited to be here. to sit down with my friend, Jose Lozano. He is the owner of MKE Logistics, and he is going to tell us all about how he started and runs his very own power only trucking business. Thanks for being here, Jose. 

Jose: Thank you for inviting me. It’s great to be here with you.

Caroline: All right. Tell us, how did you get into the trucking industry in the first place? 

Jose: Before I got to the trucking industry, I did a restaurant business. Basically, I was a chef in a restaurant. And then from there I became a Amazon driver. It literally when Amazon decided to do a next same day, next day service, and I like it.

Jose: And then from there I became a, I started my own company doing like appliances. In Wisconsin, we did last about 10 months. And then from there went to, I learned the way [00:01:00] transportation on transportation. How can you make money? 

Caroline: Yeah. 

Jose: Not easy money because you don’t make no easy money. So when I did it, I studied the industry for a little bit more.

Jose: And then from being a appliances delivery and services went to Uber. I did it for about two and a half years and there was potential to make good money and I was making good money. But after that, the pandemic bring us a lot of challenges and thinking like, how am I going to get better? How did I can make more money for the future wise?

Jose: So I started going into basically what’s in the market. And I saw the trucking was a good market in that time because they were paying great money. But before that, I had my CDL license ever since 1986, 96. 

Caroline: Oh, wow. 

Jose: Never used it. Yeah. I did a school bus driver for about two years in Chicago. So I never give up on my license.

Jose: I always keep it with me. So when I moved down to Texas, decided to start doing my trucking company. And I just turned in my license and get my Texas driver’s license. That was basically the step from there, which is [00:02:00] find a way to go. 

Caroline: So you’ve had a lot of different types of work. You’ve done a lot of different types of work.

Caroline: It sounds like one of the main types of work though, has always been in logistics in some way or another, Amazon or in personal trips on Uber. How is trucking similar to those things, but also different? 

Jose: There is some difference between, I’ll say, being local, basically local, Uber. Uh, Amazon and truck, and there’s a big difference, but in the meantime, it’s similar to what you do, driving your mini car, your minivan, driving people or driving a semi truck differences.

Jose: There is no such a big difference though, because when you’re in a semi truck, every single person is around you. It’s basically, you’re responsible. If anything happened to your truck, if you have an accident, all those people around you, you’re basically responsible for whatever happened to them. As a normal driver, it’s the same thing, but you got people in your car, you’re responsible for those people.

Jose: So there’s, that’s how I see it. You follow me? 

Caroline: Yeah. But the business itself is obviously going to be really [00:03:00] different. So tell us a little bit about what inspired you to start. your own trucking business. How did you get your first truck? Did you lease on to someone? Did you just start your own business? 

Jose: I did a little study.

Jose: I had to become a homeowner operator. And the first thing that I did was I went to beneficial to lease with someone or start your own company. I opened my company back in the night in Milwaukee. It was basically MK is Milwaukee abbreviated. So I open it up and I leave it like that. I close it down and open in 2017, shut down in 2018 because there was no more business to do with appliances and reopen it back here in Texas.

Jose: But before I opened my company, I studied what was the beneficial to do it. And I see one person that’s a YouTuber. His wife is big. She’s from Philippines. And the guy used to talk about how transportation was. At that time, we’re in the middle of a pandemic. How they were making that much money, 20, 000 trips from Mississippi down to California.

Jose: I was like, man, that’s a lot of money. That’s a good money. So I thought it was going to be like that every single week. It didn’t happen like that. 

Caroline: Yeah. You’re [00:04:00] not alone in seeing all kinds of people talk about how much money they were making on YouTube and get inspired that way. What was the first time that you realized, Oh, shoot, this is not exactly how it’s portrayed on social media.

Jose: As of right now, it was like, maybe I’ll say in the beginning of this six months, I was producing money, but enough money to survive. So I had to take money out of my pocket and just make it happen because I get so passionate about what I do. And I think that’s where it helped me to keep going because I was making in from 5, 000 a week to 10, 000 a week.

Jose: place. And that’s how I try to keep it like that. At least between 20 to 30, 000 a week a month just to buy. 

Caroline: Yeah. What did your costs look like when you first started out? Or what kind of truck did you buy? What kind of finance options did you have? 

Jose: I did buy a Volvo. BNL 760, 2020, and I was in 20, she only had about 250, 000 miles.

Jose: Spent six months trying to shop for the best truck. That was so crazy [00:05:00] because from 30, 000 went up all the way to 130, 000 in six months. 

Caroline: That’s insane. 

Jose: That’s a lot 

Caroline: of money. 

Jose: So I had to put almost 50 percent down and finance the rest in four years. This coming year, I’ll be done without payment. So basically, but it was like a lot of money that I had to spend on.

Jose: But it 

Caroline: was, but you still think it was worth it, even though that was the height of the market. 

Jose: It is because there’s the learning process though. That’s the only way you can learn if you get into the business. 

Caroline: Totally. I think a lot of people did that. Unfortunately, a lot of people did a lot more than just buying one truck.

Caroline: They ended up buying a whole businesses that they bought a dozen trucks because they had the money signs in their eyes and got into a lot of debt that they then couldn’t pay for in the end. But it sounds like you were able to manage it pretty well and that you’re pretty close to paying off that truck.

Caroline: What will it look like when you do pay that truck off? Are you going to keep that one on? Will you, do you think of ever about getting a new one, upgrading, or are you pretty satisfied with the Volvo that you’ve got? 

Jose: I wanted to add a second truck to my fleet and I almost did it a few months ago because I was doing so good in [00:06:00] market and then it dropped from one month to the last three months.

Jose: I was like, Oh my God, so happy that I didn’t buy it. But eventually to answer your question, I will might keep it for the next, at least. My goal is to keep it for 2 million miles without any extra main service, like overhaul or anything. So I keep well taking care of that truck because I don’t want to spend 20, 000 the next year on that truck.

Jose: So that’s my goal. First, I want to see if I can make it for 2 million miles. Before I do any maintenance, big maintenance, I do whatever needed to be, you know, just maintenance, oil change, tires, the stop on a bigger one. I wanted to do my best to do not overspend money on that truck. And then after that, I might want to go.

Jose: Yes. To answer your question. I want to upgrade. I want to get something new or I want to get something hot, but I can’t just get what I want it to. I had to be more honest to myself and to the market, into the business, like what we can get and how far you can get. 

Caroline: Absolutely. That’s smart. Yeah. I think a lot of people like fall in love with those really [00:07:00] beautiful, brand new trucks.

Caroline: And, and they can, there’s some sales people out there that will just sell the pants off. Do whatever, 

Jose: they will do whatever it takes to get you money though. That’s the thing. They don’t know what’s going to happen to you in six months from now. Only you can 

Caroline: make that decision. Only you have that information.

Caroline: And 

Jose: sometimes we don’t even know. 

Caroline: You run a power only trucking operation. Explain to people who. Might be new to this industry. Explain what that means and how you decided to go power only. 

Jose: The reason why I did a power only was because I have a trial. I didn’t want to spend no more money in the business and I want to see how did that work.

Jose: So when I got into, like I say, learn what was the basis, what was easier. And I do power only because I got connected to Uber freight. That was my first love at Uber freight. And that was basically what I became more afraid of and say, okay, I want to do Uber because I know Uber and I know Uber can get a lot of markings.

Jose: And they can get a lot of business in that time was good. My, my role was in that time was going over power only for Amazon, but Amazon, it was [00:08:00] holding back, holding me back. And I was like, I can’t do that anymore. So I had to hire a dispatcher to help me out with a power on me. And there’s. Well, when I hear from people, power only, it’s a great start for people.

Jose: They’re new. Those that want it to start up and they don’t want to spend so much money. I say, besides buying a truck for a hundred thousand dollars and buy a trailer for 50 just buy a truck, at least 70, 000. If you had that money, 70, 000, save the rest, just in case you need it in the road. Whenever you get into the business and you see what you really want to do, because you can do a drive in, you can do reefer, you can do flatbed.

Jose: And there’s a true big difference right there. It’s not the same, even though you’re rolling, but it’s different. If you’re more like a laid back person that you want to chill, I say, go for it. The right band, cause right band, you go by the appointments, whatever you go, you need an appointment to load up, to pick up, but you need an appointment to drop.

Jose: So that’s the big difference right there between right back. I use a flat bed. Because I got into first, I did [00:09:00] a Uber freight for a month. And then from there I started moving into different companies. I did Amazon, I did for JVC hunt and some Schneider moving some boxes, but it was not what I wanted to.

Jose: Friend of mine that I met at a truck stop, he told me just do the flatbed. He connected me to the company from California that was doing power only. The, you can basically, they call it something like a load out trailer. You pick up the load, you pick up the load, try it out. And that time I was picking out of San Antonio, going to all over the United States and use their trailer for five days and you don’t have to pay nothing.

Jose: They were paying for maintenance just in case you got a flight tight on the road, coming back. They will call the road service. We’ll fix it for you. That’s how great it was in that time. That was the main thing. Now, reefer requires a special insurance for that. Those people that want it to do, they like to do reefers.

Jose: They want to do dry bands and flat back. There’s a three difference right there. Like I say, I like me personal flat bed because a lot of exercise. You get basically a lot of work to do on, and there’s no, hardly ever you get an appointment, but I pick up [00:10:00] my loads. I need no an appointment. I can go in the jar 24 hours a day.

Jose: They’re open for anybody. Pick up my load, drop it off, sign a low coming back. And that’s basically like right now, this company where I’m doing just. A dedicated routes right now. I pick up a load out of Eagle pass, basically drop it off and you got to come back in two days, drop off. 

Caroline: Let’s talk about that a little bit.

Caroline: How do you get loads today versus when you first started and you’re talking about dedicated lanes. How did you end up there? Getting connected with Dedicated Freight. 

Jose: I want to go back a little bit more. When I had him at dispatcher, he was looking for my load. And one day we had a controversial conversation.

Jose: That was, you don’t want to hear about this, but it’s, and decided to say, you know what, from now on I go on my own. Cause using a dispatcher, first time he dropped me off up in Florida. For the weekend, it was a mistake calling between two dispatchers. One say yes, one say no. And I had a low that I was going to pick up in Tampa Bay.

Jose: When I get there, it was canceled Friday, 3 PM. Right. That was [00:11:00] first strike. Second strike. He got, I got a low from Texas, North Carolina, and then North Carolina to Pennsylvania, Indiana from Pennsylvania down to Indiana. So low from North Carolina to Pennsylvania pay almost 4, 000. From J. B. Hunt, a load from McCannsburg, Pennsylvania, down to Indianapolis, Spain, 2011.

Jose: I was like, what happened over here? He said, I don’t know. I had to drop off the empty tri la uh, Mayors. I had to drop off an empty tri lat out there. I’m going in to drop it off. Security guard’s like, what are you doing? So they told me to drop it off. No, man. He ain’t dropping it off. I said, why not? The J.

Jose: B. Hunt. I don’t care who J. B. Hunt. I was like, J. B. Hunt’s the biggest one in the world, in the United States. I don’t care. You are not dropping off unless you’re picking up one load. Yeah. We spent a whole day dealing back and forth, and next thing, please send me all the way down to Detroit, Michigan to drop off the end.

Jose: Right. And then drive back from Michigan, Detroit, all the way down to Indiana to pick up another load that I was sketched to pick 

Caroline: up. So that’s, how many deadhead miles would that be? 

Jose: I was about 200 miles. 

Caroline: [00:12:00] 200 at least. Yeah. 

Jose: Yeah. Something like that. Because that 

Caroline: if you were coming from West Michigan to over to Detroit, that’s at least a hundred miles.

Caroline: And then from there down to Indianapolis would be another. Probably how do you, 

Jose: exactly. Yeah. So you’re talking about 200 miles and they didn’t want to pay nothing. 

Caroline: Wow. 

Jose: And I say, you know what, we’ll do this, but it’s the last time we’re doing business. So the guy was not happy about it. Then I had to decide to let it go.

Jose: By that time I met a driver, the friend that I tell you that he was telling me like how to do these things. I didn’t know how to do my own dispatching. There’s a lot of work to do. Basically, there’s a lot of work to do. You got to call for order for loads. You got to do the paperwork. You You got to do the sign.

Jose: Some brokers, they do have a electronic system. You just go in, click, blah, blah, blah. So easy to do it. But some others, you got to take the information, transfer over to a, fill out the forms and then send it. That’s more work to do. Yeah. 

Caroline: You have to gather a carrier packet. It has to look nice. It’s got to look professional.

Caroline: Got to have all your information in there. Got to be super organized. And everybody has a different system. And if [00:13:00] you only depend on the guys that have really good systems or really good is, is too nice of a word for it, but who have, let’s say, electronic systems where you can send all your information, you’re probably going to be hauling some pretty cheap freight most of the time, because that’s, because the ease of use is what you’re paying for a little bit when you only on those brokers.

Jose: Pretty much, it’s just what happens. If you get technology, it’s simple to do it. It’s a hard way to learn, but it’s either you pay somebody to tell you what to do, or you tell yourself, I can do it without spending a thousand dollars a week. Do 

Caroline: you think though that because you worked with a dispatcher, were you able to learn from that person?

Caroline: Was it a good idea? To get a dispatcher at first so that you could learn from them what to do and then break out on your own. Or did you really have to learn from scratch? 

Jose: No, I say my recommendation is a hundred percent use a dispatcher to start up. And the way on you decided when to say, that’s enough.

Jose: I learned now is [00:14:00] my way. Basically they don’t teach you nothing. Okay. They, the way I did it because I wanted to learn the roads, the trucks, how to be more carefully, how to be basically professional. And learn the system there’s in the roads. And after that, when I was able comfortable driving and say, I got it, because I’ll tell you the truth, never drive so much truck in my life, not even in training, because when I was training, I was school bus driver.

Jose: When I did my switch to Texas, only thing I did was the driving test, not even a driving test, a reading test. Oh, wow. Or, yeah. I was so lucky though. I went out there, gave them my driver’s license, the guy’s like, okay, UDL class A, alright, commercial, air brakes, combination, alright, you’re good to go. And I didn’t put any attention to it until I got my driver’s license.

Jose: I shouldn’t say that, but it’s true. 

Caroline: I, actually, I was talking to somebody, and that’s not the person’s fault. That they don’t know what they’re doing. That’s the system’s fault for giving people permission to do that. Good for you, cause you probably saved some time and money, but there are a lot of people.

Caroline: I was just talking to another carrier yesterday that they said [00:15:00] it’s. The sort of caliber of driver these days is, has really gone downhill because everybody gets trained now on, on automatic transmissions and people don’t really know how their truck works and they don’t know the ins and outs. And sometimes we’re, we have these drivers that come in with two years of experience and we still have to explain really basic stuff to them.

Caroline: And that’s not their fault, right? That’s the fault of the system that gave them a, that gave them the license. 

Jose: Yes. But talking about this automatic truck is, I say to those people that want to start up a business trucking, automatic truck. Use an automatic semi truck, because you learn so many things if you’re driving a stick or a stunt truck.

Jose: If you don’t have that much experience coming out of the school, buy an automatic truck. Sure. It’s going to help you to learn in the way you are going to. 

Caroline: Sure. And yeah, a lot of people use automatic trucks. Transmissions. It’s huge, right? The transition to that has been enormous and there are some benefits to a fuel mileage being a big one.

Caroline: There are still some people that will claim [00:16:00] that they can get a better fuel mileage on a manual. I think that might’ve been true like 10 years ago. I don’t know how true that is anymore. People can debate it in the comments. I’m going to get all kinds of hate comments for that first thing, but, but it is true that you do have to think a lot more and know how the truck works a lot more when you’re driving a manual and that has benefits to it as well.

Caroline: Downhill, 

Jose: uphills is different still. Right. When you’re uphills, you don’t have to fly. You’re going to have the hill with load the truck. It’s just letting them do their job. With the sticks, there’s a different system to work on. Down the hill, the same thing though. In my truck, I’m loading 45, 000 pounds down the hill.

Jose: The jet brakes do the work. I don’t have to hit the brakes. Letting them do what the system does by itself. That’s the benefit to have an automatic truck. For those people who are new. So now imagine, back off to factory. You’re doing your, trying to find your load. Trying to drive a stick truck and be, it’s.

Jose: Too much to do on the road, too much. 

Caroline: Right. So learn the business to learn the mechanics of it first and then start to look and get your own [00:17:00] loads. When you started trying to get your own loads, were you using load boards? Were you doing, looking for local shippers? What did you do to get loads when you were first, when you stopped using your dispatcher?

Jose: My friend, Charlie Ray is. That’s the one that I met up in the truck stop. I believe we’re dropping up a lot. We became so friends that he became basically my advisor. 

Caroline: Oh, cool. 

Jose: He was telling me exactly what to do, when to do and how to do it. And I’m still using his logo. Nice. He is truck stop logo. And then we will share because he’s just he and me.

Jose: We basically do the same thing. We all, if you, we go, let’s say we go to California next week. We only need to look for the laws coming back to Texas because we cannot go nowhere else. That’s beneficial too. So that’s basically what I was doing. After, when I met up with him, we talk about it and he, his recommendation was like, okay, get rid of your dispatchers, start working yourself.

Jose: Any help, listen to, and sometimes as we, as the Trump drivers, listen to other drivers, the advice, they’re on the road, they see different things that we do, and that was basically what I did, I was listening to this person and he helped me [00:18:00] out too. To grow and be success. 

Caroline: So you said that you’re doing mainly dedicated lanes now.

Caroline: How did you get those dedicated lanes? How did you get in touch with those? 

Jose: There was a company that was, they posted on a law board their loads. Say the name of the company. 

Caroline: Understandable. 

Jose: And they, I went to the low board and I see loads going from pickup area, basically going directly to the dropout, but a V4 was like, they pay 30 percent less, but you gotta pick up your load and use, you use their trailers.

Jose: So the same thing, you pick up the load, drop it off, get empty and look for your own loads and coming back and three, four days, you’ve got to drop off the truck. So one day I went to Boise, Idaho with their load and there was five trucks going that direction. We all left the same day. And some of the drivers.

Jose: stop right before Boise because I was snow going on into Boise, but they didn’t know that going around different area, you were able to get to that drop off location without getting hit by the snow. So when I went there, I went drop it off [00:19:00] my log and I came back and I met up with those guys. And the dispatcher called me, say, where are you?

Jose: Are you able to drop off the load? I was like, just drop it off. What do you mean? It’s yeah. What are those trucks are hanging out there? So I don’t know. Mostly people from Texas, they don’t have that much experience driving in snow areas, but I live in Chicago, Wisconsin. That kind of helped me to deal with, but was a little bit of snow, but not as much as you can drive.

Jose: So I talked to this guy and I said, listen, I’ve been doing a lot of loads for you guys for the last two months. And I guess. They forgot about me last week because for two weeks, I didn’t have any load. He’s don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of you, man. And after that day I was getting almost two loads for a week.

Caroline: Wow. From the same broker. 

Jose: Yeah, same broker. And all the loads that we take in right now is coming out of Mexico. I can say what exactly we’re running is a power poles. So there is times that you can pick up a load out in Houston, drop it off the whole loaded trailer at a border. And it goes away to Mexico.

Jose: They build the materials and then bring it back to same trailers loaded. So that’s. Basically what it was 

Caroline: nice. And [00:20:00] how did you, have you had other instances where you’ve met good brokers on the load board and been able to get other dedicated lanes out of those brokers, or is this the first time that you’ve been able to do that?

Jose: Is that a first time happened to me? 

Caroline: And how many years have you been in the business? 

Jose: And the almost three years now, I did a work for this company. They call it Fisher, Fisher Bros from California. Okay. They do the same thing, but their pay is like less, almost half price. But see, you can use their equipment for a week.

Jose: You pay basically the rental, which is almost 500 per day to use their equipment. Cause when I compare their prices with their company are like same thing, exactly the same thing, but it’s 60, 40 percent off what one person pays to compare to the other person. The only beneficial is that if you go to somewhere, say you go to Chicago with a load or Indiana, you go down to Chicago.

Jose: You might be able to pick up a law that pays more money coming back to Texas. And those are the metal sheet steels from Indiana right in the border between Illinois and Indiana. And it makes [00:21:00] 6, 000 one trip. But is that enough money for trucking? Maybe not. The reality of this thing is not listen to the people, how much money make.

Jose: It’s what. It’s going on right now. And I’m not going to say do not watch any YouTubers, watch them, look, learn from them, learn from their mistakes, because there’s a lot of you like to say, what’s the best, what’s the best, what’s the worst. And then you do a balance. What’s the best, what’s the worst. All right.

Jose: You like driving? Welcome. You don’t like driving. Don’t even get into this business because this business keep you away from home. It takes about two years to feel like, okay. That’s exactly what I wanted to do. If you’re passionate about what you do, driving, if you think that trucking is want to be your solution, you got to sit down with a wife and have a nice conversation.

Jose: And I will say, ask yourself, are you sure you want to do this? Do you have the money to invest? But do you really want to do this? Go ahead and do it. If you’re not secure, not sure about it, don’t even try. Money is not going to come to your pocket. You got to go for, you got to look for the money. You got to look for the opportunity.

Jose: It’s basically you, who’s going to [00:22:00] be working in that truck. Nobody else. Even if you have a dispatcher, you got to keep calling your dispatcher. You got to know what you’re doing. That’s what I’m saying. Look at those YouTubers, see how they talk and take the best from them. That’s my advice. You can, I can say so many things that are not true, but it doesn’t help anybody.

Jose: Study, look at the market, go through whatever. There’s a lot, like I said, there’s a lot of tools out there. You can learn the reality. 

Caroline: And this show is one of them. If you like this kind of content, like seeing real life examples, the perspective of the trucking industry from the people who run the trucking industry and make it happen every day out on the road, make sure you like this video, comment below with your questions for Jose, we will answer them.

Caroline: Send them, send your questions to him and get answers from him. If you have more questions and subscribe, so you don’t miss out on any more of our interviews with people like Jose. 

Jose: Yeah. We’ll be open. Any help, anybody, any questions I’m able to answer. I’ll be more than happy [00:23:00] to help anybody and answer any questions.

Jose: And thank you so much for having me. It was great. And we got to keep working together. Remember nothing is free in this life, man. 

Caroline: Yeah. Yeah. You said it. Thanks so much. And everybody who’s watching drive safe. 

Jose: Thank you. See you.