What It Really Takes To Run A Successful Reefer Trucking Operation x Virk Express
In a rapidly evolving trucking industry, companies like Virk Express demonstrate that success comes not just from seizing opportunities but from balancing long-term strategies with careful cost management.
In this episode, I talk to Sim and Sunny from Virk Express who shared their journey, offering invaluable insights into running a thriving trucking company, even in unpredictable markets.
Episode Highlights
Navigating the Challenges of Trucking
In a rapidly evolving trucking industry, companies like Virk Express demonstrate that success comes not just from seizing opportunities but from balancing long-term strategies with careful cost management. Recently, Sim and Sonny, the driving forces behind Virk Express, sat down to share their journey, offering invaluable insights into running a thriving trucking company, even in unpredictable markets.
A Calculated Approach to Truck Purchases
The volatile trucking market has shaped Virk Express’s philosophy on acquiring trucks. While some might gravitate toward brand-new vehicles with hefty down payments, Sim prefers flexibility:
- Low Down Payments: “Cash is king,” Sim stressed, emphasizing the importance of liquidity in tough markets.
- Used Trucks: To avoid steep depreciation, they’ve strategically opted for slightly older trucks with manageable payments, ensuring operational stability regardless of market swings.
Even with rising interest rates, the team prioritizes manageable payment structures over ownership risks tied to sudden market downturns.
Consistency Over Opportunism
During the COVID-19 boom, when many companies capitalized on sky-high rates, Virk Express took a different approach. While others raised rates or aggressively expanded fleets, Sim and Sonny prioritized their relationships with clients. “We kept our rates stable because we knew the food industry wouldn’t stop after the pandemic,” Sim shared.
This consistency paid off post-COVID when many competitors struggled with repossessed trucks and financial strain from overexpansion. “Some went from two trucks to 15 in months, only to collapse when rates normalized,” Sonny added.
Adapting to Market Cycles
The trucking industry has always been cyclical. Reflecting on past downturns, Sonny shared, “This isn’t the first time we’ve seen challenges. Fuel was $5+ a gallon back in the housing market crisis, but we survived by sticking to the basics.”
Their mantra? Avoid chasing trends and focus on fundamentals. Whether hauling reefer loads or managing fleet costs, staying grounded and maintaining a boutique approach has ensured Virk Express’s resilience in the face of industry shifts.
Lessons for Aspiring Fleet Owners
For those looking to grow in this space, the Virk Express story offers several lessons:
- Know Your Numbers: Understand your cost per mile and maintain strict oversight of all expenses.
- Plan for the Long Term: Avoid overexpansion during market booms to shield your business during downturns.
- Build Relationships: Prioritize trust and consistency with clients over short-term gains.
- Stay Adaptive: Success requires adjusting to market conditions without losing sight of core principles.
As Sim put it, “There are no shortcuts. Treat your business personally and know your limits. If you spend more than you make, it’s a recipe for failure.”
Virk Express continues to thrive by following these principles, proving that steady, disciplined growth is the key to enduring success in trucking.
Full Transcript
Sim: [00:00:00] We were one of the few companies that didn’t raise our rates, that didn’t jump on the bad leg and oh yeah, we can run this lane for four or five, 6, 000. Why should we keep doing it for this price?
Caroline: Welcome to this weekend, trucking the podcast that tells you what you need to know about the trucking market for the week.
Caroline: My name is Caroline. And today I am very excited to have an opportunity to talk to Sim Singh of Verk Express and talk about how he’s grown his business. Despite the downward trend in the trucking market and see what we can learn from him. We’re also going to be joined by his business partner, Sunny.
Caroline: Thank you so much for being here. Something that we like to do on this show is to talk to carriers and figure out what they’re making, how much it costs to run their operation and get an idea for what is normal in this industry or what you should be reaching for. Because there’s a lot of information out there that’s this is how much I made in a day.
Caroline: Isn’t that amazing? Except if you don’t know what the costs were of running that operation, then sure, you could make a million dollars, but if you’re paying 2 million in [00:01:00] costs, then it means nothing. It’s meaningless. Can you, do you have an idea, a ballpark of what your current cost per mile is and how that breaks down?
Sim: Cost per mile, I would say right now. We’re probably around 1. 67, somewhere around there, dollar, between 70.
Caroline: And in terms of driver pay, fuel?
Sim: Yeah, that’s all in it, yeah.
Caroline: What’s about the percentage of those different costs?
Sim: I would say we’re looking at around 20 cents for the truck payment. I like to break it up into the cents, right?
Sim: We pay per trip. So our, sometimes my drivers are making like 75, 80 cents, depending on if the route just doesn’t have that many miles, so we paid for trip. And obviously depending on the experience. So I just go by the highest cost I have for the driver and I just say, okay, I’m paying my driver a thousand dollars a trip and that’s my fixed cost for driver pay.
Sim: And then fuel is usually the way it is right now. It’s about for the trip. It’s going to [00:02:00] be another. 1, 000. And so that’s 2, 000 off the trip right away. And for me, for us, for any of it to make sense, we have, our trip has to total about 4, 000 at least. If it’s anywhere below 30, 000, that’s worth making anything.
Caroline: And that’s the trip from where to where?
Sim: That from, that’s California to say, Utah to back to California. Yeah. Minimum has to be 4, 000. And I feel like that’s reefer. Drive in could be a little bit less I’m pretty sure, but I wouldn’t know about the rates on that. But with all that working out, my goal per trip for every refurload that we do is right between 2 and 20 cents to anything above that, basically.
Sim: That’s the bottom line. If we’re making if our trip is averaging less than 2 and 20 cents a mile, we’re either breaking even or we’re losing money on it.
Caroline: And when you are acquiring new trucks. What kind of trucks do you like to get? Do you get them used? Do you get them new? And what kind [00:03:00] of rate are you getting on those?
Sunny: Currently we just have
Sim: Max.
Sunny: Brand new ones.
Sim: All Max. Max Antonia. Started off with one. Which actually will be paid off this month. By the first hotel. It’ll be paid off. And then we just stuck with those because they were cheaper than the Volvos. And man, what is one hell of a truck. He attacked one hell of a machine.
Sim: Again, we built a good relationship with him. He’s not working for Volvo anymore, but he still was changed. He
Sunny: could call in midnight and be like, Hey, this is what’s going on with my truck. What’s going on? And then, okay, try this, try that. I went from a Freightliner Century to a heater belt, which was a huge leap forward.
Sunny: And then going from that back to a MAG, I’m like, what the heck did I get myself into? What is this truck?
Caroline: Hey, I don’t think Mac is known for being super comfortable.
Sunny: I’m still not used to these tracks. We were debating about trying to get a W900 as a joke today. I’m really pumped out. And then eventually he comes down to cost per mile.
Sunny: They’re great on fuel mileage. The repairs are okay. They’re, the [00:04:00] mechanics are fine. I don’t know about other people’s thing, but we get warranties with them and everything and they’ve been running strong. So we’re going to get Torque’s narrative.
Caroline: You buy new?
Sim: Yeah, we buy new and our goal is to, so ever since we started, we’ve been adding one truck a year.
Sim: I think next year we might not do any, we might not expand just depending on how the market is going because it did slow down a lot this year. The only bright spot was when two weeks ago, right before Thanksgiving a week ago where we were just slammed and it was, it felt good because we’re like, okay, we’re actually making money and I don’t care how busy it is as long as we’re making money on it.
Sim: That evened out. Yeah, we’re at, we’re basically, the way everything is, we could potentially add a truck at the end of next year if everything goes according to plan, but we’re adding one brand new truck, full warranty, and we usually don’t like to put any money down. So we’re, we like to start off the, we don’t want any cash into it.
Sim: The payment is a lot higher. But the way I look at it is that cash can always [00:05:00] be used for figures in the mud and you can grab a wrench. How about with that part? Rather than to put a big down payment and then you’re stuck. And if that truck gets in an accident or, and, and the way the market is, last year, COVID time, all of our trucks were worth 300, 000.
Sim: And, Right after COVID they’re not even worth 80, 000 because it slowed down. So it doesn’t make sense for you to go out and buy a brand new 200, 000 truck and put 50, 000 down. And then six months later, it’s not even worth a hundred thousand. So you might as well just the way I like to, they just take, just don’t put anything down, the bigger payment is fine because as long as you’re busy and work is busy, you’ll be able to afford the payment.
Sim: And you’ll make money, but if it does slow down, then at least, okay, I got to make at least this much just to pay my bills. And that’s why you keep the cash. So if it does slow down, you can, use that to get through the flow time.
Caroline: What kind of interest rate would you expect to get on a truck if you bought one next year?
Caroline: Or is that the [00:06:00] reason, is that the reason you’re like, hesitating to buy a new truck? Yeah, who’s interested? It does factor in a little bit, but honestly, it hasn’t weighed on any of our decisions as far as since we’ve been buying new trucks, I would tell you right now, the lowest we have right now is probably like six and a half on one of the trucks.
Sim: That’s great. And the hottest just tip the interest rate up. Yeah. And then the highest was 10%. And that’s on the latest. That’s
Caroline: not the worst I’ve heard though.
Sim: Yeah. I’ve, I, we had a driver, he was a really good friend of ours. He drove for us for about a year, saved all his money and went and bought a used truck at 28 percent interest rate.
Sim: And his payment was just as much, if not higher than if the brand new truck we got. And I’m like, what are you doing? I was like, why? He’s Oh, I’ll be able to make the money. I was like. No, do you not know what’s happening with the market?
Sunny: Parts tricky because they’ll talk [00:07:00] with us or someone like, Hey, I’m getting this truck at this interest.
Sunny: And we’ll be like, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Obviously you don’t want me to get a truck. You want me to be your driver forever? Oh, that prison too. You be our driver all the luck to you, but sometimes they take it for wrong. The
Caroline: 28 percent is just, that’s criminal.
Sim: I’ve heard stories. People getting in the forties.
Sim: I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I’ve heard stories that people have gotten interest rates above 40%.
Caroline: See, this is why we like to talk about this stuff on this channel, because people don’t know what’s normal. And especially, I think if you’re coming from, you’re either coming from a background where you haven’t taken out debt before, so you don’t know, maybe you’ve had a car loan, but if that’s your only experience, you don’t know at all what commercial debt should look like.
Caroline: Or if you’re coming from another country where interest rates are super high, right? I lived in Ecuador for about 10 years and a 20%, 30 percent interest rate isn’t unheard of because just interest rates are really [00:08:00] high there. But in the U S things are different, right? We have the U S dollar and the Fed usually keeps them pretty low.
Sim: This kind of connects to the way we started actually, because we, I was driving my own truck, he was driving his own truck and that’s how we were running when we first started the company. Hey. Nobody, if he wanted to, he’d be like, Hey, book me a load. And it just happened to be where he just ended up taking care of the equipment in the yard.
Sim: Oh, Hey, your tire is bad. Or you need an oil change or this. And I’d be like, okay, let me go get that done. And then I’d be the one booking the loads or I’ll be like, Oh, Hey, there’s a really good paying load. Do you want to do it? Yeah, go ahead. Book it for me. And we had a good friend of ours who called Sonny, he was Sonny’s friend, I didn’t know him at the time.
Sunny: High school friend. And he
Sim: called and he said, Hey, I’m heading up from Sacramento to Denver. And I got a deal with a leasing company and I’m going to pay them like 900 a week for a truck.
Sunny: 900
Sim: a week?
Sunny: 1. 60 a mile? Or something like that. It was pretty high, I was a little
Sim: over the moon. [00:09:00]
Sunny: And I basically tell him, don’t
Sim: sign any paperwork yet.
Sim: And then he talked, I was in Idaho. I was in Utah going into Idaho. He called me, he goes, Hey, we have such and such is doing this. And he’s going to Denver and charging them this much money. I was like, is he crazy? I was like, you’re paying. Cause at that time I was paying like 2, 200 a month for my truck.
Sim: And Sonny was paying like 2, 500, right? 2, 500 something. And he. Yeah. And I was like, dude, tell him if he just wants a truck, we’ll help him out. Like we’ll get him, can talk to the right people. And he doesn’t need to spend nine and that’s, that’s
Caroline: 3, 600,
Sim: there’ll be 600 a month. And at that time that was way.
Sim: And so he turned back around and he waited for me to get back and send me to get back. Then he met with us and I was like, look, you saved his
Caroline: marriage.
Sim: Probably, I don’t know. We went back and we talked to the salesman and the guy’s Hey, we have this truck. It was, at that time it was a Mac Anthem 2019 for 155, [00:10:00] 000.
Sim: And we got him a trailer, a reefer trailer, in the same loan and his loan came out to be like 195, 000 altogether. And his payment was 3, 400. For the truck and trailer. Wow. And he was just, he was like, and he’s Hey, I only have like I have I’ll put down some money and can I run with you guys?
Sim: And so we didn’t expect him to do that. But then when we’re like, okay, fine. And there’s that son. He’s Hey, if you want, you can run them. Just let he, he’s going to be driving his own truck. And when I saw that he got in, when he got in the mix, that’s when it made sense that, oh, okay, we do have more work.
Sim: Yeah. And that’s when me and Sonny were like, okay, maybe we could. And then that’s when I traded in my truck and I got the same exact truck that guy got. And I immediately put a driver on it. And that’s when I was like, I was telling Sonny. I’m like, dude, I’m at home making money. You’re still driving. And he’s yeah, but you don’t want to put a driver in a road trick.
Sim: Yeah, no one’s going to dump. I was like, yeah, we have, you sell it, trade it in for that one. And then that’s when that part, that’s
Sunny: when the [00:11:00] prices were just starting to rise during COVID and I got more money than I was expecting to get for that truck. And I’m like, yeah, I’ll trade it in. And then we picked up two trucks at the same time, two more Mac Anthems.
Sunny: And brightest we got delivery from that’s when the prices just really
Sim: kicked up. At one point someone did offer us and I was like, Hey, we’ll sell you the whole company during COVID for a ridiculous amount. But then I’m like, what are we going to do? So we decided not to. And some guy was offering our very first truck had 400, 000 miles on it at the time.
Sim: He’s Hey, I’ll give you 160, 000 for the truck. And I paid the 145 for brand new.
Sunny: This is where people mess up because the trucking industry is never straight. It’ll go up and down. Like even during the housing, I still remember when my dad was driving at that time, fuel prices were almost five above in California for a gallon diesel.
Sunny: And we were struggling at that time. And then that’s the words, it became great. And it was stagnant for a while. During COVID, it got good, and now it’s [00:12:00] dipping down again, and oh,
Sim: COVID, it might. It’s dipping down again, but people don’t realize if they look at the numbers, they’re better than 18 and 17.
Caroline: Today, in 2024.
Sim: Yeah, the rate is better. It’s so different.
Caroline: From two years ago. That’s what people are comparing it to.
Sim: In 17 and 18, we didn’t have ELDs. We didn’t have all this other extra stuff you had to pay for. So Insurance was
Caroline: cheaper back then, too.
Sim: Insurance was cheaper. Fuel was a little bit cheaper.
Sim: But if you were to look at the numbers, I don’t think it’s that much of a difference. The rates are higher than what they were that day. It’s just the cost around it has gotten up. So it looks okay. And then COVID just Messed the perception up for everybody. Definitely.
Sunny: I was
Sim: gonna be,
Sunny: I
Sim: can get 9, 000 for a thousand miles.
Sim: Yes. You got that one time in COVID, but that’s not going to happen every single time. And like I said, Sonny knows we were solidly one, I’m sure other companies did it too, but we were. We were one of the few companies that [00:13:00] didn’t raise our rates, that didn’t jump on the bad lagging of, Oh yeah, we can run this lane for four or five, 6, 000.
Sim: Why should we keep doing it for this price? But because our customers depended on us and we knew that after COVID, the work was still going to be there. We’re in the food industry. Food’s not going to stop. Hence why we, our rates are still the same. As they were in COVID and everybody else is, Oh, what the hell’s going on?
Sim: Why is it so low? Why is it so cheap? We, right after COVID we started hearing stories and somebody left or someone’s trucks that repoed or somebody had either house got foreclosed or their car got repoed or whatever, because. They ended up taking PPP loans and buying, went from two trucks to 15 trucks and within two months.
Sim: And bottom
Caroline: at the top of the truck market. Exactly,
Sim: bottom expensive and now they’re having, either they’re closed or they’re back to driving their own stuff.
Sunny: It’s the same thing that happened during the housing market collapse is they were owners of a couple 910 trucks and then When everything went [00:14:00] down, they started driving her people and it’s just money management and all this stuff.
Sunny: It ends up repeating itself every five, six, seven years. But you just gotta know that if times are good, I shouldn’t really expand my expertise
Sim: at this time. The companies that sting in the business that have been staying for a long time are the ones that are just consistent. They don’t, yes, it’s, you’re supposed to keep up with the market and adjust accordingly.
Sim: You have to do that no matter what, in any kind of business, you don’t want to be the, you just don’t want to jump on the next big trend and think that’s the be, there’s no shortcuts. There’s not a 1, 000, 000 load that you’re going to get and you’re like, yep, I’m going to retire. That’s never going to happen.
Sim: Whatever it is, whether it’s reefer, drive in, or if it’s like heavy haul or whatever it is, you just, if you treat it like a boutique and you treat it at a personal level, no matter what, you’re going to make money. You just have to know that, hey, this is how much I’m willing to spend. To make this much and that number can’t be over what you’re making.
Sim: Then it’s, then it [00:15:00] just makes sense. So that’s basically the rule me and him follow this year. We’ve had to cut back. It hasn’t been all good. Yes, we’ve been growing, but we’ve had to cut back on a lot just because of what we saw, the fuel prices going up, driver pay at one point during COVID because the rates were everything, we were paying drivers like a dollar 20 cents a mile.
Sim: Yeah. And we were making money because we could afford it. What happens when it slows down, that number has to come down and then you have to have competent and understanding drivers that understand that, okay, yes, the market has slowed down. I’m not going to make the same amount of money as I did when they were big.
Sim: And then they realized that too, they go, okay, so you are treating me just as I’m the order, because when you’re making money, I’m making money. And if you’re not making money, then I’m not making, and they understand that. And they understand the fact that for us to run the business, we have to make money.
Sim: No matter what, or else it wouldn’t be possible to do what we’re doing. So it’s just one of those things. I think people, they shouldn’t at least take a basic business classes, profit and loss, [00:16:00] what my baseline is, what my assets are, what my liabilities are, and then move into something like this.
Caroline: Did you do any of that before you started the business or before you got into creating or growing Vark Express?
Caroline: Did you have any business? Classes or certificates that you did?
Sim: No, I learned through, as I was growing up, my dad was always in business. I was always helping them out, making calls and taking care of bills and stuff. Just, he would tell me what to do and I would just do it. And I didn’t know at the point that I would, it would all come in handy today.
Sim: And it does. And then when I, when we were working for that company where we met. That’s where I did learn a lot of the ins and outs and okay. How do you book a load? What are these load boards? Like these dispatch board systems that you can literally maintain that we use as dispatch. Like we manage a lot of our, most of our company through that driver pay loads, profit and loss, everything it spits everything out for.
Sim: 70, 80 a month. A lot of people don’t even do that. They handwrite everything or [00:17:00] they don’t even have a system. And that’s where you don’t get that idea. If you can’t break it down per mile or you can’t break it down per trip. Hey, I’ve got to make at least then you’ll never know. You can’t track how much you made or lost.
Caroline: Yeah, that’s a really good point. We’ve had another guest on here that was using another platform like that called Trucker Calculator. That’s not quite the same thing, but for financial aspect, we’ll give you your rate per mile, what your cost is per mile and what your profit loss is.
Sim: It keeps records and that’s what these big corporate, because they email you and if you can reply to that email in an instant, here’s the paperwork.
Sim: Yeah. They’re like, okay, great. Like this guy’s they have it, and usually they just need an excuse not to pay you. Totally. They just, Oh, you don’t have the paperwork? Sorry. We’re going to have to charge you something or we’re going to have to deduct this because you didn’t, you couldn’t get us this delivery paperwork or that, or this, whatever, that’s these little details matter. Me and Sonny always he’s focused. Like he’ll tell me, he’ll be like, Hey, tire’s bad, [00:18:00] gotta get it fixed. And I’m like, we don’t have any money. If we don’t get the tire fixed, then it’s going to cost a hundred dollars now. It might cost 300 down the road. And I’m like, okay, fine.
Sim: Let’s go back and
Sunny: forth
Sim: on what
Sunny: the priorities are and what we should do and not do. Yeah.
Sim: That’s one thing too. We don’t always agree, which is good for business. Because that’s when you realize, okay, what, why is he saying what he’s saying? And he’ll be like, okay, this is why he’s saying what he, you understand why that aspect, that part of the business.
Sim: And then he’ll understand something that I’m trying to explain to him. And then you always come to a compromise. We can still make money this way. And let’s just do
Sunny: it. Buying the next truck, what brand it should be Freightliner, Kenworth, or what we should look at, what he sees from his point of view, or what I see from my point of view, mechanically.
Sunny: These strikes have these issues more, this is what I see or not see and all it helps a little bit of a fighting back and forth is always see each other’s point of views.
Caroline: Yeah. You can’t make fire without friction.
Sunny: There you go.
Caroline: I can’t remember where I [00:19:00] heard this the other day, but it was someone in business leadership at the and research that was talking about how really high performing teams actually have a lot of conflict.
Sunny: The
Caroline: difference is that they talk about the conflict.
Sunny: Yeah. So they say, Hey,
Caroline: we’re having this conflict. We’re having this disagreement about this thing. Let’s figure it out. As opposed to suppressing it or hiding it or trying to talk around it, they actually talk directly about the conflict.
Sim: Yeah. That’s the whole, yeah, that’s exactly right.
Sim: Because one person can’t do everything. Like we only have five trucks. And if I was to say I’m running every, like I can’t. Dispatch and chain, get the tires changed and make the deliveries and do the pickups. You have to have a team and me and him, yeah, we could, we do 80, 90 percent of the times, but our wives are always come in and do something.
Sim: Or if I’m on the road, I’ll call my wife and be like, Hey, I need you to email, go to my computer and email this person or them or the same thing with him. People like, okay, let me go get this paperwork or whatnot. And it’s a team effort. It’s always a team effort, no matter what kind of business it is.
Sim: And [00:20:00] it’s. You’re not true to each other, meaning you don’t tell it like it is. Okay. This is, this happened this month, this Thanksgiving weekend. We, so this was another reason why we couldn’t get on the show earlier is we had, our yard had diesel get stolen from one of our trucks and a few other trucks.
Sim: Yeah. Three of our
Sunny: trucks got hit. And then I think about 10 other, 10 to 11 other trucks, just Thursday night, Friday night and Saturday night. They came three times. Anywhere from 12 to 4 in the morning or 10 to 4 in the morning. In Israel. Yeah. Cleaned out everybody.
Sim: And that’s the first time that’s
Caroline: happened.
Sim: That’s the first time that’s happened with us. This is, we’re in Sacramento where this is in West Sacramento area. And we, you always have break ins and stuff normally, but not every time, not like once a year or something, someone will just come out and open their reefer door, try to open it or break a seal or something.
Sim: And our yard is. Fenced it’s secured. It’s got cameras and everything, but it still happened, and [00:21:00] that’s another Unexpected there’s
Sunny: more look the apps on the fuel car jacks. Hey, it’s two cents cheaper Try getting fuel from this spot and you know Then do this or that and then you know You get almost like seven or dollars or six hundred gallons getting stolen out of your trucks really mess with your parents
Sim: And then do you call the insurance because then your deductible is really high in this way.
Sim: Does it make sense because what are they going to do, give us 1, 000, like we’ll pay the deductible and maybe we can get more. But it’s like with any business, you have a restaurant where anyone can have a break in and stuff like that. These unexpected costs are going to happen. You have to be ready.
Sim: That’s why you have
Caroline: those reserves, right? Yes. That you have to have at the beginning. That’s why you have a couple of months of all your copies. Yes.
Sim: Exactly. You’ve got to, you have to, because if you don’t, then you know, what’s the, we, one time we had brakes lock up on a trailer and the driver, all six, but all tires, I think two, except two popped on the trailer and that’s a set of eight tires is 3,
Sunny: And it was a one time thing.
Sunny: It never happened again on that [00:22:00] trailer. Got everything checked out. Randomly three axles, three of the drums locked up, didn’t want to open. And by the time he realized it, that the trailer was smoking, they already had little indentations in it where the truss would bump if he drove.
Sim: Yep. That’s the part of the industry that’s unexpected that users have to deal with.
Sim: It’s, I don’t even know why we’re doing that. Existential crisis about
Caroline: your trucking business on my trucking business podcast.
Sim: It’s all good and good. It’s just it’s a 24 seven. We have two trucks on the road road, three trucks on the road right now. I’m actually scheduled to leave later today to Utah.
Sim: It’s a never ending, never, there’s all, but that’s the fun part about it. That’s the exciting part about it too, because one of the reasons I did wanted to drive in the beginning was because I was like, yeah, I get to travel. I get to see all the, my office window is like the road and if you’ve ever been to Utah and those mountains, you can never get tired of it.
Sim: And so I was like, I’m traveling and I’m making money. So I still see that part of it, even [00:23:00] though we’re in the office. But we’re never, that’s one other thing too. Somebody gets four or five trucks. They start thinking they’re Bill Gates. You have to be hands on. You have to be in their truck, everything.
Sim: You have to, Pick up and you have to be ready to go if a driver is sick or you get an extra load or something. Hey, you I’m always ready to go. So it’s sunny Hey, do you want to go? Or should I go? Okay, I’ll go this time. Or you can go next time or whatever. So we’re, we never, we don’t think of ourselves as, Oh, we’re, we have five trucks and we make this much money.
Sim: No, we’re like, we’re still drivers. And if we can get one more load and make some extra money, that’s great. That’s good for everybody. Everybody wins in that situation.
Caroline: Yeah, absolutely. As business owners, do you set aside a salary for yourself? Because that’s something that I’ve heard a lot of business owners don’t do and they get into trouble because they’re not actually in bad months, they’re not actually bringing anything home.
Caroline: And if you have a family that’s dependent on you [00:24:00] or even just your own personal living expenses that can get complicated. So how do you deal with that? Absolutely.
Sim: So that’s a really good question. Cause what, when we started this, we, yes, we were all under one company, but we were more like, okay, that’s your truck.
Sim: That’s my truck. And we put drivers on them and we were running them and we were making good money. But it got to the point where I was like, Hey, Sonny, we’re not going to be able to make any money if we run it like this. If it
Sunny: creates friction in between us, if they’re talking to each other.
Sunny: And then, do you always have other people filling in your ear? Okay, Sims doing this, why are, why isn’t your truck doing that? And then it doesn’t work out. So we’re like, we just, let’s consolidate all everything, the equipment and just run it as one, whatever we make at the end.
Sim: So when
Sunny: we,
Sim: yeah, when we made that switch, we made sure that, okay, we’re going to take a minimum salary, no matter what, like we have to make that much.
Sim: Because, you Why else are we doing it? If at the end of the day, yes, it’s great. We love the business and we’re [00:25:00] passionate about it, but if we’re not going to make any money, then there’s no point to it. And because we see that we will, we’re always looking ahead. Like I always tell someone that we’re, this is what’s going to happen in three to four months.
Sim: If whatever’s happening in the market and economy and everything, it’s going to get better or it’s going to get worse. Let’s do this. Let’s cut down on costs or let’s, let’s invest in more equipment or whatever might the deal might be. So we’re always just. Keeping up with the trends. I’m always reading, the emails that you get, like the whole, the you guys got in contact with us because of the magazine that was Yeah.
Sim: Overdress. I was just bored and I’m like, you know what, I’m gonna fill this out. And I gave them the silliest answers because I was trying to prank Sonny just turned into this, oh, we’re gonna interview. You guys are gonna be one of the runner ups and this and that. I’m like, what the heck is going on? And all of a sudden we, that’s awesome.
Sim: We’re like. Yeah. And I’m like, okay, this is cool. And we learned a lot too. Cause I’m like, okay. Cause when you guys contact us, that’s where I saw your show on their website, right? The first time. And then I read a bunch of these articles and what other companies are doing. Twitter actually came [00:26:00] in really helpful when like this trucking community on there.
Sim: And. You, there’s these companies out in the Midwest that are doing great stuff with trucks and their company and how they’re going and dealing directly with shippers and receivers and stuff like that. So you learn a lot from socializing in, in this community like that. And get off truck. I’m not sure what the.
Caroline: It doesn’t matter.
Caroline: We consider yourself as business owners. And you guys answered,
Sim: we, we set a base salary up and we were like, what’s the minimum? That was it? What’s the minimum we need? What’s the minimum? We need this much great. And that, that we try to do no matter what. And if we can do more, that’s great, but we do that minimum every month no matter what, because then it is extra stress.
Sim: ’cause if. We, if you don’t pay yourself and you have bills, you have proof.
Caroline: And running a business is stressful enough. Like you don’t need to be thinking and stressing about home life too, because you’re not bringing enough home. Yeah.
Sim: Then you’re gonna, you’re gonna bring that into work and it’s just gonna, everything is going to start to feel personal because you’re like, [00:27:00] Oh, what’s going on?
Sim: So we had to, that was a main important thing. We, Sonny, I think he’ll, he can tell this better. Like when we started this, he said, he goes, Hey, friendship is, To the side, like family’s to the side, but money is black and white. If I owe you something, I owe you something. You owe me something, you owe me something to keep it down with very black and white.
Sim: Someone owes somebody, they owe it. There’s no pay, no you pay that. You pay your debt, you pay or you pay someone. Whoever owes you, they owe you. But we’ve kept separate and it’s very and it’s a good thing. I think everyone should do this because it just the. Basically, if you’re good friends and you’re family friends, the financial side of the money side could be like a taboo, like topic to talk about or something, but if you just keep it separate and you’re okay, hey, we’re going to be, this is, this has nothing to do with our friendship or anything then it’s so much easier.
Caroline: Yeah, absolutely. The last question I always ask is, who do you think that we should talk to next? Who are some of the people that you’ve learned from about this business that we [00:28:00] should interview?
Sim: Are you just talking as far as like carrier? Could there be any? The
Caroline: people that you were talking about in the beginning, Kevin, I think was his name, like that kind of person too, other carriers though, that you think are doing well.
Caroline: Or carriers that didn’t do so well or have gone out of business. I wouldn’t mind talking to them too, because you learn just as much from, if not more from failure than you do for success.
Sim: Yeah, we have a few friends carriers that, that you could definitely talk to and they could give them, they could give you their perspective and all this.
Sim: Cool. I wouldn’t. Yeah, my, my thing would be Kevin. I can ask Kevin if he’s interested. I don’t know. He’s a 68 year old grumpy old man, but he’s taught us so much about this industry. A lot of trucking yourself before you get into this. Him and his brother did trucking and then they did their own brokering and then brokerage.
Sim: And then [00:29:00] he finally just took a job and he’s, Hey, there’s so much, there’s so much to the so exact, for example there’s a lot of double brokering happening now. A lot of people are aware of it and this and that, but funny thing is, I spoke to Kevin about it and Kevin’s, this has been going on since this industry started.
Sim: He’s, I have people that do it and they tell me that they do it and I have no problem with it because. All they’re trying to do is make their little bit money in between. And I understand that perspective when it gets to like fraud and someone’s like actually stealing the freight and stuff, that’s what you can turn
Caroline: into.
Caroline: So exactly.
Sim: Yeah. And with these new people that are coming in, the technology is trying to catch it. We have technology that can surpass trucking. I feel like with AI and all this stuff, but I feel like the There’s two classes of truckers now. There’s the people that are be here before 2010, and they know, Hey, there’s this, there’s certain unwritten rules and unspoken rules and the way we do things.
Sim: And like Sonny was saying, like [00:30:00] nobody pulls over anymore. If you see a truck stalled. People keep driving used to be like if you saw a trucker that had a flat or no one
Sunny: can get to help Back up. The first thing they do is pull out their phone and oh, I hope you wrecked so I can put this on Whatever social media thing and gets dudes likes and no one will take time to be like Spottum, basically, back up this.
Sim: It’s just no there’s no more camaraderie, it’s just more of a They’ve turned it into just another industry after it’s just, Hey who’s the next one, fastest one to the next load? And I think if everybody just stopped and was, like, assessed, Okay what are we really doing here? Why are we doing this?
Sim: Yes, it’s for money. How can we make the most amount of money? Without having to, pull the other guy down, basically,
Sunny: everybody’s away from home and, miss Thanksgiving. Some will miss Christmas coming up and no one’s just takes the time to ask anybody like, Hey man, you’re right.
Sunny: You’re working on your equipment. Anything I can do to help or whatever. I
Sim: can recommend a few brokers. Honestly, the carriers, I can, we can probably get you like two or three [00:31:00] people. Oh, a friend of
Sunny: mine, I’ve learned a lot of mechanical from mechanics. Fine. Cool. I can ask him, but he’s a good friend.
Sunny: He is. Been in this industry, yeah. As long as I have. And he’s done the same thing with him and his brother, basically trying to work on their own equipment, get some softwares to figure out how to do it instead of taking him to the shop. And a lot of that stuff,
Caroline: I can try to have an intelligent conversation with a mechanic, but that I might face in that loss
Sunny: in the, that might go right over my, but another part of it too, if Sonny didn’t have that knowledge, a lot of people jump into this industry and they go from one to three to five trucks or 10 trucks, but they have no, they might not have, they have zero idea of what the maintenance side of it is, how much a tire should cost, how much should an oil change cost, how much is this part or can I get it cheaper somewhere else, all that stuff.
Sim: And is warranty a good thing? Warranty is always a good thing on a used, on a new truck. It’s just like an extra insurance policy and a lot of these guys don’t know that and I feel like [00:32:00] the system takes advantage of them But then they also don’t want to they just see the money and they’re like hey Let’s just get up and go get up and go and because Sonny knows so much about the maintenance side of it I can’t even put in the number like how much money we’ve saved dumb stuff to sometimes Tool
Sunny: proactive about it, certain things like ours, but a brand new reefer 2030 or 2014.
Sunny: And when you go into the computer, the reefer, it’ll tell you how much, what the temperature is it’s throwing into the product and what the return temperature is, right? Like that way you can figure out, okay, the reefer is working as maybe the product’s hot and the return temperature is a lot.
Sunny: Higher than it should be. So he bought a brand new reefer and he picked up oranges out of Fresno. Those little oranges things. And I think it’s Memorial day weekend or veterans day or one of the other. It’s on the weekend and he calls Thermo King. Hey, the reefer is throwing codes. The box temperature is out of range.
Sunny: It’s not bringing you down. Maybe it’s not working 550 an hour to [00:33:00] learn to come out and look at the reefer. But if it’s brand new, it’s all under warranty. Thermo King will cover it. No worries. It takes about 10 minutes to go through it. Okay. You have it set at 42 or whatever it is. The box is throwing free on or cold air into the, box at what, 38 or something, but your product’s so hot that the return temperature that it’s collecting the air is at 60 or 65 degrees.
Sunny: Everything’s fine. They just noted your product hot. And. Now it’s about an 1, 100 bill for him to just explain how to run a reefer. How a reefer works. He’s rough. He’s rough. It goes on to this day. It’s just a small thing like what the suction pressure of the reefer is and how much free on it’s pulling in or using or evaporator temperatures and all that.
Sunny: It’s either online or YouTube, but, or you pick up over to, Bert. Going with this stuff over. You
Caroline: just have to know what to look for. You
Sunny: can’t, you
Caroline: gotta know what to search for. And you have to be able to do a sniff test on it to see if it’s actually good information or not.
Sunny: That’s true. You have to be able to mess around.
Sunny: And
Sim: sometimes you fail. With [00:34:00] social media, With BitTalk and Instagram and YouTube and everything. I still feel like truck drivers before 2010 got a hands on training with this kind of stuff. Where to now it’s like a video like oh this could happen and that can happen and if it’s never happened with you and you’ve seen a video and it actually happens in real life.
Sim: I feel like watching the video isn’t gonna be as good as if someone actually showed you like oh hey if this ever happened. This is how you do it. This is what you do. And we learned that this is back when T Mobile had like your five favorite people that you could call unlimited, right? So there was no internet.
Sim: That’s the time we started trucking. So we were actually really out there. So the mechanic friend
Caroline: was one of those top five. It’s not a,
Sim: it’s a dress code or something. Back then it was, we would fit the truck without a mechanic on the road. If it was a silly air leak or a leveling valve or something just on the phone.
Sim: And they would explain,
Sunny: you can
Sim: find
Sunny: it or how to airbags and how to bypass that airbag. So you still got three other airbags where the [00:35:00] truck can still. Run on those and still be mobile or
Sim: do basic fiber haired
Sunny: hoses with their pneumatic power tools, just in case if they need it.
Sim: Drivers today don’t even, they don’t even, they can’t even tell if they have an air leak.
Caroline: Yeah.
Sim: How it is but the original cause I’ll recommend a few people. If you want to email me, I can send you. A few brokers that are, have really good insight on all of this. And I’m sure that their perspective would be a fresh thing into this because they’ve been doing it for 40 plus years, and they really know like where it was and to where it is now.
Sim: And yes, they’re always complaining about new technology and stuff, but they’re still doing it. They’re still making money. They know what’s going on. And that’s where we learned. That’s where I learned and hopefully continue learning that way.
Caroline: The wait was definitely worthwhile. Thank you. Thank you so much again.
Sim: No, thank you. Thank you for having us on. Thank you.

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