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. hauling is a huge part of trucking, particularly in California, where a lot of Bobtail customers are based.

Caroline: Trucks are responsible for 83 percent of agricultural freight movements. Fresh produce is a particularly difficult thing for some obvious reasons and some not so obvious reasons. It’s fragile. It spoils. Temperature control is super important. So today I’m talking to Colby Varley. VP of sales at Advanced Transportation Services. Colby has been in transportation for 15 years in dispatching and sales, specializing in fresh fruit and vegetable delivery. So we’re really excited to talk to Colby to see what small carriers can learn from his experience.

Caroline: Thanks so much for being here today, Colby.

Colby: Thank you. I appreciate you having me.

Caroline: So tell us how you got into the trucking

Colby: Sure. My dad was actually a truck driver back in the early 1970s. He ended up transitioning out of the truck into produce [00:01:00] sales. And growing up around him, produce was just a way of our life. So in and out of different produce offices, different shippers, different wholesalers going to different terminal markets, all of the United States.

Colby: So just been around it right out of high school, went to work for a local LTL refrigerated company here in Salinas. And that, that was the start.

Caroline: Nice. So you didn’t go to college for this at all. You didn’t go to a business school. You just got right into it after high school.

Colby: So right after high school, I was working and then I went to California State University Fresno State, which is actually a, quite a big agricultural school here in California, majored in ag business. Didn’t go for the supply chain or a logistics degree, just went with a standard ag business degree.

Colby: And I feel like it’s served me well. I feel like it was more dealing with some things that we don’t necessarily deal with too much here in California the grains, the corns soybeans more Midwest type stuff, but just a good broad understanding of the agricultural industry and economics as a whole.

Caroline: Yeah. I [00:02:00] think sometimes people think that if they get a degree in something that. And when you get a degree in transportation, there are people that can get degrees in transportation who have never even, been inside a truck before in their life. So I wonder how much of what you do every day how much of that, the knowledge that you use to power what you do every day, how much of that came from school and how much of it came from just on the job learning?

Colby: I would say mostly on the job, 100%. Besides maybe some computer skills the thinking, the understanding, how things work, being able to drive a truck. I still have my Class A license today. So doing all that, loading the trucks, building the trucks, dealing with customers, dealing with drivers, dealing with shippers and receivers.

Colby: Like the only way you’re going to really learn that is, is by doing it. Unfortunately, we like to joke, there’s not a manual that you can just hand a new hire and say, here, this is in chapter five, subsection B under rejection or whatever the problem is. There is really no official manual or book to [00:03:00] read.

Caroline: So can you talk a little bit about what is really different? There’s some really obvious differences between hauling other products and hauling fresh produce, but maybe what are some of the other things that people don’t necessarily think of off the top of your head that go into managing produce on a truck?

Colby: Yeah, so I, I think one of the main things is a lot of these products that we’re shipping, especially highly perishable produce, it’s picked, packed, cooled, and shipped all in the same day. So just, think about one truckload of strawberries, that’s 3, 300 boxes. That’s just one. And those 3300 boxes are picked by hand.

Colby: There’s eight cartons in a in a box. It’s just the amount of work that is required to get it from the field into the box, onto the pallet, onto a field truck, to the cooler, pre cooled, put in inventory, sold, put on the truck, loaded, and the driver’s on the way. It’s just, There’s such a huge chain and there’s a lot of things that can go wrong.

Colby: [00:04:00] And unfortunately there’s a lot of factors that are out of everyone’s control. Probably number one being Mother Nature. This stuff is grown outside. It is grown in the dirt, . So those are some of the mega challenges that I think people probably take for granted when they’re at, Walmart, Sam’s Club, target, Costco, and they just.

Colby: Pick it out of the box and put it on their cart, like what it actually took How many hands did it touch before it landed in their fridge?

Caroline: Makes sense. So how much can a small carrier make hauling produce? How profitable is hauling produce?

Colby: Unfortunately right now the freight business is not great, we’ve really been in a recession For the last three years. It’s really now the survival of the fittest unfortunately And carriers are struggling. We’ve had multiple carriers that were working with us that deactivated authority sold their trucks and moved on to something else or they’ve gotten out of produce and they’re, hauling something else.

Colby: So it is cyclical just like anything. And unfortunately right now we’re not in the best of places. Um, [00:05:00] and everybody’s different, right? It depends on what your costs are. So I, I don’t know if I could give you an answer on that, but right now it’s not great.

Caroline: Yeah. Compared to other products, if you are thinking about hauling fresh produce versus just really anything else that you can haul in a reefer, how does that compare? How does that stack up? Where would you say, is it better than some things, not as great as other things?

Colby: For me, it’s the best, but that’s what I know. If you ask me about drive rate or like heavy haul or over dimensional I couldn’t tell you, I don’t know what that’s like. Yeah. I don’t know really what it pays. And that’s okay. You know our niche or my niche is highly perishable food and produce.

Colby: That’s the game we play we stay in our lane and we try and be the best at it Absolutely

Caroline: a couple of other people in the industry about when you’re getting into this business or when you’re trying to improve your business as a owner operator or as a carrier, what are some of the things that you can do? And one of the [00:06:00] answers to that is specialize, specialize in something, make something your thing, because if you are the trucking operation for everything, then you’re really a trucking operation for nothing.

Caroline: a produce shipper, like the ones you work with, they’re not looking for the carrier that can do it all. They’re looking for the carrier that knows how to haul fresh produce. And so if you can specialize in that, then you can do really well. Is this something that you’ve, is that something that you look for when you’re looking for new carriers to work with you?

Caroline: What are you looking for specifically with them?

Colby: So for us, I mean there’s a few things number one, Somebody that’s hauling produce knows how to haul refrigerated So usually they have an abundance of reefer trailers and they’re in the refrigerated space. Number two is we’re looking at equipment. That’s one of the things that kind of sets us apart.

Colby: We go to these carriers, we try and meet with them. Obviously here in California, we’re blessed. A lot of our companies are up and down California, so it’s very easy for us to get eyes on [00:07:00] and You, when you go to a company, it’s like going to someone’s house. You’re gonna see You know, okay, is the yard clean?

Colby: Is it organized? Do they have a shop? Do they have a mechanic? And I’m not saying you have to have all that but the guys that do have that it’s okay, this is a reputable Company, they have a clean office The dispatch is organized. The owner can take you around and say, Hey, when the trailer comes in, it’s good.

Colby: If it’s loaded, it’s parked on this side. If it’s empty, it’s parked on this side. It’s inspected. It’s made sure it’s clean. We checked the shoot and we know that trailer or driver can come pick it up and it’s ready to go. So having those different things looking at that, another big one in our industry lately it’s technology.

Colby: Everybody wants visibility and we’re no different than everybody else. We need that visibility. Our goal is to come in the morning and we know where the truck is, I don’t want to have to call a driver 15 times to get a check call. I don’t want to have to call the dispatch to find out where the truck is.

Colby: And sometimes it’s mind boggling. You got, I don’t know, 250 to 300, 000 piece of [00:08:00] equipment and they don’t know where it is. It’s like I wouldn’t let 300 grand be rolling around the US and not know where it is, And it’s not that we’re worried about, you know Where our freight is like we work with very trusted carriers that we have relationships with we’re not the load board warriors by any means we need to update our customer on the status of their shipment the location How many miles away is it?

Colby: Is it good for on time delivery? and You know We’ve really gotten a lot better with technology but having As a carrier having that technology available for a broker or for your customer is You know that’s like a standard now if you don’t have that you’re behind the ball

Caroline: So I know that there’s some controversy. With that that comes along with that, because there’s obviously a lot of really good things about that, especially for the broker or the shipper to be able to track that truck. But I’ve also seen some scenarios where the carrier ends up getting charged a pretty hefty fine for losing the tracking.

Caroline: And that can happen to no fault of the driver or the carrier, right? Sometimes it goes out of signal. Sometimes, shit happens, [00:09:00] right? Like if there’s any tagline for this industry, it’s shit happens and you have to be able to deal with it. But I’ve seen some carriers get some really really hefty fines for having that happen to them.

Caroline: How do you deal with that? As. with when you’re dealing with carriers and how do you how do you manage that so that you keep the carriers on and but also make the shippers happy?

Colby: Yeah, so for us we don’t do that I don’t have the time nor the patience to You track and say, Hey, this one stopped tracking. Let’s find them a hundred bucks. I think that’s just not a great business practice. I don’t know, luckily for us, I don’t have a customer that is charging me.

Colby: So why brokerage is trying to charge a carrier. For example I’m just going to use an example, right? Every. brokerage seems to have their Form of tracking that they prefer whether that’s like mac point trucker tools Whatever it could be. If trucker tools fails or it goes out like you said and it’s no fault of the driver why are we as an industry trying to charge?

Colby: somebody for that Our preference, from what I [00:10:00] can tell is samsara is the best You system out there that we’ve come across bar none. I don’t think they have anybody that’s close to them and the visibility that they provide and the accuracy, there’s never a problem seems with Samsara.

Colby: So for our guys, it’s really, it comes down to a conversation. And our guys know what we expect. And ultimately it comes down to, if you’re not going to comply, we can’t risk our customer’s business for, you not getting on board with what we want. So it’s a, we might have to cut them back or move that business elsewhere until they can it on board and get it figured out.

Colby: But we’re not the, Hey, we’re going to ding you a hundred bucks. That’s

Caroline: Yeah. It’s really ridiculous. I saw somebody posted on LinkedIn, the 700 charge for loss

Colby: that’s just absurd 

Caroline: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Insane. It sounds more like what you’re saying is, hey, if it becomes a pattern where you’re having some issue with your tracking or you’re refusing to use tracking, then we’re just not going to, we’re not going to be able to work with you anymore, but [00:11:00] it’s, it doesn’t happen halfway through the transaction

Colby: absolutely not and we’ve we understand sometimes I mean it’s gotten better I feel like with the ELD, you know You can get a better connection but we’ve when we first started when the tracking was becoming a big deal we Decided that we were going to try to deploy as many locus tracks, which is a temperature recorder on board that we have our shipper, put that in the shipment and it works off a 5g cell.

Colby: It’s not a hundred percent either, but it basically cuts out the driver and it cuts out the dispatch. If they’re not going to comply, we don’t need them to do anything. You know we can see where it is and just that’s really made it a lot easier as well Just a different option, right?

Colby: How can you Get the same result without you know with changing your approach

Caroline: Another big point of contention in hauling refrigerated freight is temperature control. Okay. And that can turn into a battle as well when you’re trying to collect invoices as on invoices as a carrier. 

Colby: Can’t be

Caroline: that’s when. One place you got one temperature, someone else tells you another [00:12:00] temperature at the end.

Caroline: Once you deliver, it was actually supposed to be another temperature. And I’ve heard that, that, even with all of the technology that we have available to us, communication can still break down and you can still have a mistake that happens and it causes a, load to spoil or some kind of damage on the freight, how do you deal with that?

Caroline: When that kind of thing happens and how do you avoid it as much as possible?

Colby: So to avoid it as much as possible we could start there What we do, technology has helped us a ton, right? And actually one of the main things that’s helped us is You Drivers being able to send us a text message with the picture of the bill lading and the reefer setting as soon as they’re loaded That have been really helpful for us so we can verify Okay, shippers saying that the set point needs to be at 42 Continuous and the driver is also sending us a picture of his reefer setting Confirming.

Colby: Hey, I got it set on 42 continuous So those two things alone have helped tremendously and the other thing for us is we really try and get our hands on the driver. We haul a lot of strawberries, a lot of berries, and [00:13:00] those drivers can be a little scared of them. Companies can be a little scared of them, but they’re actually quite easy to haul.

Colby: It’s just a matter of doing a few things in the summer months. You need to plug your drain holes, in a reefer trailer. There’s four. holes on each corner. Obviously if you’re hauling a wet load, you want to get that water out, but plugging those up, pulping the berries, nothing warmer than 35 degrees.

Colby: You’re going to pulp every pallet. And if there’s a berry 2, it’s like an all stop, all hands. Hey, stop, call us. We’re going to get involved. From what we’ve seen as long as that fruit goes on the truck. cold and you have that proper set point, you’re going to be fine. But it’s when you don’t check the pulp temps and the cooler got a, let’s just say it’s a big day.

Colby: It’s very hot outside. They’re trying to get the trucks out and they’re, let’s say they, they shorted it 15 minutes on the cooler. The berries aren’t, they’re close, but they’re not there yet. Which it doesn’t happen often, a lot of these strawberry shippers and produce shippers They have that down to a science.

Colby: They know that [00:14:00] hey, this product is going to take four and a half hours to cool so we don’t really see that too often and then obviously Back in the day, there was just a ryan recorder that went on the back of the truck that wasn’t transmitting To you all it was good for as you showed up and you pulled out the tape and it said hey this ran at 40 Degrees.

Colby: That doesn’t really do anybody any help on the wall So now with the new technology with the recorders out there They’re hooked up to cell service and we set parameters on each one Like hey, send me an alert if it goes below 31 send me an alert if it goes above 36 And we’ll get an email alert whenever that happens.

Colby: And we have a team that’s their job. They just monitor that and they get on the phone with the driver right away. Hey, are you sure you have it? Please send me a picture. And, we’ve been able to save shipments because of that. And we’ve also been able to divert trucks into a Thermal King or a carrier dealer to get, Hey, Is this thing operating correctly?

Colby: It says it’s, blowing cold air, but the internal box temp on a different reading saying something else, [00:15:00] like we, we need this checked. And so that’s been really helpful, but dealing with those on the back end, when something does go wrong it is very difficult. And, I think the consensus in the industry is if you’re a driver that the broker is always just trying to pin the claim on the truck So there is a bad rap for that in our industry

Caroline: Yeah.

Colby: We are not those guys, We’re looking to Assigned blame to where the blame needs to be assigned not necessarily the carrier And I can tell you i’ve had multiple times which it’s very difficult and you have to be sincere and caring and not let emotion get in the way, but where you’re Literally sitting down with a customer like hey Here’s the facts like this is not a truck issue this is a shipper issue or this is, we sat at the receiver for eight hours with the door open because they’re not, they’re too busy to unload us, and I think being able to have those conversations and articulate the facts and, that’s being an expert in your field really makes it a lot easier.

Colby: And unfortunately, there’s [00:16:00] not, there’s more non experts than experts, so when it comes to. Carrier has a claim, those are the guys that are feeling the broker trying to pin it on them

Caroline: sense that it’s the carrier that ends up at the end of the day holding the bag

Colby: Yeah

Caroline: Because they’re the end of the whip, right? That’s the last, you can always kick the can down the road until you get to the driver.

Caroline: And he’s the one that, that has to handle that. But it’s refreshing to hear about someone who is trying to figure out, all right, where did this responsibility really lie and. We’re going to actually have the tough conversation with the shipper and not just do the easy way out, which is to, charge back or not pay the carrier for their work.

Colby: Yeah. And just being knowledgeable and knowing, what your rights are what you can do for us I firmly believe in the USDA, there’s been times where it goes our way and there’s times that it doesn’t go our way, but if a retailer or a wholesaler wants to reject something, um, I’m going to take it to a professional and have them give us a diagnosis [00:17:00] rather than, some QA guy on the dock that thinks he’s a produce expert.

Colby: Let’s take it to the government, have, that’s what they’re there for, right? That they’re there to do a federal inspection and let’s see what the federal says. And usually once you get a federal involved it makes it a lot more cut and dry kind of to where to assign blame.

Caroline: That’s interesting. Can you explain a little bit about that? Because I’ve heard that this situation happens at Bobtail. We do factoring. And we come up with this situation quite a bit where if a customer is not paying for an invoice that someone has factored, then obviously that’s an issue for us and more so for our, for the carrier that tried to factor that load.

Caroline: So can you talk a little bit about that? What kind of recourse does the carrier have when something like that happens? And can a small carrier access that avenue?

Colby: Absolutely. The USDA is the one that’s in charge of doing a federal inspection. They have field offices all over the United States. I think there’s a few areas that they don’t, but they’ll fly a agent there if needed. But usually the way it works is [00:18:00] say you have a rejection and there’s a difference in opinion on who’s responsible for that product.

Colby: That’s usually a really good time to get in touch with your local USDA field office and request an inspection. Usually you’re looking for quality and grade, so they’re going to inspect the whole load. They’re going to get pulp temperatures and they’re going to grade it on quality and grade.

Colby: So depending on how that comes out, for example, if a retailer kicks a load of lettuce. Because they say it’s bad and the shipper says, Hey, that stuff was good. The recorder shows it might’ve been a little warm, it’s carrier claim. So that would be a good time to start a USDA inspection, you’re going to get inspected by the USDA.

Colby: The USDA is going to do all the inspection on that load and they’re going to come out with a finding of what that load is. So if the pulp temps come back good and it makes grade and it’s good quality, then it’s falling back onto the shipper. But if the pulp temperatures are out of range, there’s some quality [00:19:00] defects that they say, Hey, this could be linked to warmer temperatures.

Colby: Then that’s going to end up on the carrier. Hey, you didn’t maintain that temperature. You have a warm recorder and you have product that’s at the same temperature. That’s a pretty good indication that there was an issue. But yeah, anybody has access to that. You can find their information online.

Colby: I think it’s like a few hundred dollars to get an inspection done, but it just makes it a lot easier assign blame and get it figured out.

Caroline: Yeah, it sounds like that’s something that has to happen really quickly, right? Let’s say I’m going in, let’s say my, the broker is maybe not so on my side about this. And I get into unloading and the shipper is saying, Hey, there’s something wrong with this this shipment.

Caroline: I should have that office on speed dial or I can does it have to, it must have to happen like

Colby: Yeah. Most of the time, if you give them a call there’s a good chance depending on how busy they are that they could do it that day. If not, they’ll get to you first thing in the morning. So obviously they understand it’s produce, right? So they’re working as [00:20:00] fast as they can.

Colby: And, sometimes they have other inspections that they’re doing, but for the most part, they’re pretty good. It’s not one of those things like, Oh, we’ll see you next week or two weeks from now. For the most part that we’ve done it, they either, you’re getting the same day that you call, or you’re setting it up for first thing in the morning.

Colby: And they take all that into consideration. When they’re looking at the product they understand how many days that it’s been picked or harvested and how long it’s been on the truck. So they look at all that and they have, their calculations that they use to figure out what normal breakdown would look like or what issues they might find due to the time.

Caroline: So what kinds of trucking companies are working with you specifically? Are you working with smaller fleets, owner operators, or is it mainly big. Carriers, like how many, what’s the truck count of a normal carrier that would work with you?

Colby: Yeah, so I don’t know if there’s like a normal. I mean we work with The owner operator all the way to some of the largest mega fleets in the u. s and everybody in between so we’ve found that There’s a good place [00:21:00] for everybody in our business I would say that the smaller mom and pop or owner operator type companies Are much more nimble they can move faster.

Colby: They can react faster compared to a mega fleet. So there’s a advantage and disadvantage to both of them. Like a kind of a disadvantage I would say for an owner operator is, especially with what we do is, breakdowns are going to happen. We know that. And being able to repower or relay that truck.

Colby: Within 24 hours is, invaluable to us. That’s like a prerequisite. So having that ability, the bigger fleets have that ability, especially guys that are running that run like a certain lane, traffic lane, that let’s just say they’re a California to Texas carrier.

Colby: They always have trucks on the 10 and on the 40 coming both directions. And so for them, it’s a lot easier to. Relay something or, Hey, this guy’s broken down, swap, this load’s got an extra day on it so we can park it for a second. So those are probably some of the pros to a bigger carrier.

Colby: They can [00:22:00] recover when things are on the road a little bit better compared to an owner operator, but there’s definitely a space for everybody in our business.

Caroline: Now, you mentioned that you don’t. Use the load boards or you what you said was you’re not the load board one of the load board warriors So can you talk a little bit about that? If you’re not using load boards? How do carriers get in touch with you to haul for you?

Colby: Yeah. Not that we don’t, but I would say 97, 98 percent of our freight never touches a load board. And the reason that is, is that’s just not our business model. We’re not looking for the cheapest or the one and done transaction. We have built our business on relationships on both sides, our customers and our carriers.

Colby: And having that relationship on the carrier side is just wouldn’t be where we are without it. We’ve had guys that stick with us when the highs are the highs and the lows are the lows. And we’re there for them, guys that took care of us when the market was extremely crazy.

Colby: Those are the same guys that are getting the loads today. So that’s our mentality [00:23:00] and a good way of finding it. When I started on this over the road stuff, like I didn’t have a book of trucks for over the road. And I would just go to the truck stop and write down MC numbers and call that company and say, Hey, I’m here in Salinas.

Colby: I saw your truck. It looks like a good looking truck. I’m interested in what you guys do. What traffic lanes do you run? And just started developing relationships with people. And you call a company like that. And you tell them that, Hey, I was at the truck stop, you’re going to get their attention.

Colby: You’re not somebody sitting in a cubicle that never been to a truck stop, let alone inside of a truck. So that’s one way that we’ve done it. The other way has been referral. We do so many we do a lot of business and we do a lot of business with the same carriers, and those carriers are very happy and carriers talk.

Colby: Just like in our community, in any community carriers talk. And so the amount of referrals that we’ve gotten is just crazy. So that’s how we’ve built it.

Caroline: that’s awesome I’ve never heard of a broker doing like the sort of door to [00:24:00] door. I guess you could say cab door to cab door marketing or sales. I’ve heard of carriers that will do that in their local area, that will go to different yards that they see shippers or who will network with brokers locally.

Caroline: But I’ve never heard about it the other way around. So I think that’s really neat. When, about what time of year were you doing that? Or what, sorry, what Sort of era, were you doing that? Was that pre COVID? Was it crazy high market during COVID? Or was

Colby: that was pre COVID pre electronic log book.

Caroline: Oh, wow. Okay.

Colby: yeah, so that would probably have been in like 15, 16 probably. And obviously we’re blessed. We’re here in the salad bowl of the world. So when it’s summertime up here. The truck stops are just overflowing. So it’s not like it’s a major inconvenience and you’re talking to trucks that are coming to areas that you want to load.

Colby: So you just got to find out where they’re trying to go. And then once you figure that, then it’s you know that you’re going to offer somebody that runs to Florida, you’re going to offer them Florida freight, somebody that wants to run to the [00:25:00] Northeast, you’re going to offer them Northeast freight.

Colby: So we’ve been really successful because of that.

Caroline: And if a carrier wanted to get your attention today, really wanted to work with you what are some things that they could do?

Colby: We’re pretty easy and just, a phone call, an introduction an email here is what we do. And just, you gotta follow up. You gotta follow up. I’ve had guys that have called and they just keep calling back. And Persistence and then one day they’ll call and say hey, like I have a truck and I had just had a load come over For that lane that they’re looking for and it’s hey, you know what?

Colby: Let’s try it out and they do a good job and we’re still working for them, you know working with them. To this day. So I think that’s a lot of it. You just got to be persistent

Caroline: Yeah. So this is a question that I’ve been asking to a lot of people the holidays are coming up by the time we publish this, it probably won’t be the holidays anymore, but we’ll have just gotten through it. But it can be a really tough time for. For business owners it’s a time, especially in freight that usually the market is pretty high and you can get, really good rates if you’re willing to work on the [00:26:00] holidays but that’s a huge personal sacrifice can mean a big sacrifice for your family.

Caroline: If you’re busy around that time. What advice do you have as someone who works in this industry and has worked in this industry for a long time? What kind of advice do you have for people who are trying to get started? They’re trying to do well in their business. But the holiday time is tough.

Colby: Yeah, so for us as brokerages I feel like Our customers rely on us most during those tough times we’re trying to get into the brokerage or freight The holidays are very tough like with my family everyone wants to They’re off for a week or two weeks or whatever and for me, that’s just not the case and it becomes very stressful my wife was in the business so she understands you know I think if you’re in the supply chain during the holidays, like you’re probably grumpier than most unfortunately, and it sucks.

Colby: It really does because half of you under, empathizes with people that want to be home, drivers, sheds closing early, not open We had customers on Thanksgiving that closed early on Wednesday and [00:27:00] didn’t reopen until Monday, and it just throws a huge wrench into the bicycle spoke, and trying to accommodate all that.

Colby: And I feel like sometimes two weeks before a major holiday, I feel like the most major ones are obviously Thanksgiving and Christmas. Everything else is okay, but you, sometimes you feel like you become a travel agent, because you’re trying to get people to a place where, it’s either close to home or it is home.

Colby: And some of these guys rely on you and you give them your word and it’s like you gotta come through Hey, I gotta be home. So it can become very stressful, but it seems like no matter how stressful it gets, I feel like we always get it done. And just trying to keep that in the back of your mind.

Colby: Hey, I know right now it sucks. And you’re in the middle of it and it’s two days before Christmas and you’re trying to get loads covered. And it’s just a nightmare. And then, Christmas Eve rolls around and it’s okay, everything got covered. We might’ve lost some money.

Colby: There might’ve been some blood spilt, but everybody got to where they’re supposed to be. And all the customers are. Have their loads picked up But it’s definitely a battle, you [00:28:00] know during the holidays

Caroline: Yeah, definitely. Is there anything else Colby that you want to share about your business, how people can get in touch with you, where people can find more information about you?

Colby: Yeah, absolutely so we are all over the internet social media I have an office here in Salinas. I have an office in Visalia, California, and we also have an office in Chicago And we’re actively looking to add great marketing people to our team. So if you’re interested, this is a great place to be employed.

Colby: It’s fun. And you can make a really good living. I would encourage people to reach out and, let’s start a conversation.

Caroline: Awesome. Thanks so much, Colby.

Colby: Yeah. Thank you.