Making 6 Figures With A Non Emergency Medical Transportation (NEMT) Business!

[Music] better watch who knows [Music] hustle fam hustle fam um we have a special special show for you today um joining me today i have my guest eric from six figure transportation um eric has been in the non-emergency medical transportation uh industry for 12 years now right eric yes sir 12 years and and also ambulance services so you know we like to um bring to you different niches in transportation um you know teach you guys about entrepreneurship and there's more than one way to skin a cat man so you know when i was introduced to what eric was doing i was really impressed and i wanted to bring him on the show to to get more information man and share with the community so how are you today man i'm doing good man i'm doing good man it's a beautiful day outside just kind of like staying low today ain't nothing wrong with that man we all kind of staying low these days man yeah yeah that's the most definite most definitely all right cool so let's get into it man let's start with your back story a little bit um talk to me about how you kind of got into the transportation world where you from so forth and so on um i'm from atlanta you know and i've been here about uh about 35 years now and um basically i started out as i was doing i.t for about 30 years and uh 22 of those years i spent working with att and um you know they go through so many different layout phases and i kept coming up on the vulnerable list so i figured i had to try to find something else different to do so i just start trying different things and i tried my hand at selling a life insurance and that didn't work um i started selling some little products out of my trunk and you know that didn't work um i did look giblin dabbling a little real estate and that seemed to work pretty good for me because i was able to purchase about five properties before they found out you know i didn't really have a job and uh so one night i was sitting around and i was talking to my wife and she was doing in-home nursing care at the time and she was sharing me how frustrated she was because every time she would have to take her clients to the doctor she had to sit in the waiting room two and three hours you know to wait on her because the family member didn't want to take off work to take them so she said you know it's people that get paid good money to take people to the doctor sounds like really so i was like okay so one night when i was at work it was kind of slow i kind of searched around on the internet to see if i could find out what she was talking about and i found out it was called non-emergency medical transportation and that's that's how i got started and she planted that seed for me and i kind of like checked it out to see what what it all would entail to get started in it and i found out all i needed to do is give me a little white truck with a lift on it and just go from there okay okay cool cool cool so um so just to kind of recap so basically basically your wife was in in nursing um she used to take she had people that she was taking she was getting frustrated with the transportation aspect of it and we we found that there was a need a problem that needed to be solved right and she saw the money in it from because she was dealing with it you know from on the back end she's like there's a lot of people making money doing this stuff right exactly okay cool cool so you started exploring the idea so you said you kind of got online you you kind of just explore what'd you look into first tell me a little bit about that process um basically i just started researching what it was what it entailed to to to provide services you know the equipment that they use and different things like that so once i found that out and i basically just got on craigslist and started just looking for a van that would fit my budget okay me and a friend we travel way off into florida somewhere some little small town and i was kind of nervous about it at first because you know you hear all this stuff about these craigslist murders and stuff like that right now traveling somewhere with six thousand dollars cash you know to buy a van and um i went down there and everything worked out you know we brought the van and drove it back and basically after that that's that that's how it got started with it okay so so you said you had six thousand dollars at a time so that that was your budget that's how much you paid for the van that's how much i paid for the first round yes uh-huh okay cool so how do we get started we have our van now um what did you have to do next um basically i went to you know down to the to the county that you live in or the restaurant that's living and i went ahead and registered my business name and registered with the secretary of state um i registered as an llc and after that point once i got my business legalizations in order um i already kind of knew what i wanted to name it so i then i started doing more of a branding thing and started you know creating my brochures you know my business cards and just started getting out and everywhere i would go i would talk to people about my services and what i was offering you know i would have my little um my name on my t-shirt and a polo t-shirt so everywhere i went i would advertise myself because you know you you are the biggest marketing of you know of your business so you gotta you gotta market yourself wherever you go you're walking talking billboard let people know that you're getting in in this business and just kind of meet and greet and hand out brochures gotcha so did you just go knocking on different doors i mean because you're a real specialty niche so how did you know the places to go to find business well i knew the places to go because doing my research which is going to be your first um step you're going to take is you're going to do research look around in your areas determine what type of people need your services and what type of businesses need your services so we have plenty of hospitals nursing home rehab facility retirement homes physical therapy buildings specialty clinics and things like that so once i identify what these places were i had to identify who were in that place i needed to speak with about providing transportation services to them and most of the time they have some type of social worker or someone over the transportation that basically would um set up things for people that need transportation okay and what was like the initial response were people really receptive to it did you have a lot of no's i mean was it difficult getting the business um you have no's but i didn't go in trying to just be there you know that bonafide transportation company i went in with from the side of saying hey you know you got to ask people yes questions i learned that from selling the insurance so you ask people okay a series of yes questions that would lead them to you know nodding their head in a yes in an agreement with you and you kind of close on that because you know i would go in and say well um is reliable transportation important to you hmm okay so you you're going to say yes is affordable transportation important to you you're going to say yes okay well i'm pretty sure you already have a transportation company in-house already you know i just wanted to just big stop by give you our information if you ever have a need to where someone uh has a comment that's scheduled and and it's overbooked or whatever and the person gets forgot or or somebody you know needs to be discharged immediately just just give us a call and we'll be there for you got you what what are your responsibilities as a medical transporter i mean because obviously the transportation is one aspect of it but there's probably a little bit more to that right you have some other additional responsibilities as well because you're caring for older people you're caring for sick people yes but um the only responsibility it is is just basically get those people there safely okay on time get them there safely and the key that i found is just try to build relationships that's the whole thing that's the most important thing i've discovered in this process is everywhere you go you got to be building relationships you know you've got to treat the people that you're taking to the to the doctor as if that's their own family members to take them you wouldn't just take them just put them outside the van and leave them no you're going to spend time getting them to their appointment getting them signed up getting them registered and things like that got you so so let let's go back um 12 years when you first got started tell me about that day you first got your first van um talk about that experience because it's new to you you've done your your research you know your due diligence so you feel like you know what you're doing right now now here you are with this van and you actually got to do it talk to me about that first day well that that was it was real nervous you know because first of all when i started it was like map quest i had to print out mapquest and and um you know everything i had to had a paper copy i didn't really have a gps when i was starting out so you're kind of nervous about where you were where you're going to stop the day before the night before i would kind of look at where i'm going to be going at the next day so i can make sure that i wasn't going to be nervous or you know make sure everything was going to be on point with that so i can get the people where they need to get to but um you know starting out man it was like it didn't just jump right off you know it was like it was it was days and weeks that you know my van we still parked in the yard and i'm driving around and watching all these other fans out on the streets moving about you know right man so it was it was really it was a transition it was a big transition for me but um the the thing that kind of pivoted me and really man my wife she sees the she's the one that kind of like just by her she's a she's a real friendly young lady you know she don't meet any strangers wherever she goes she's constantly talking and talking and talking and so what we would do is if i'm somewhere i tell share with people about what she does and when she's somewhere she shares with people what what i do so she had a patient one time that was in a rehab facility and she met the lady at the um at the front desk and she just just running her mouth just typically you know and so the lady was uh they kind of hit it off and the lady told her hey um you know we're looking for another transportation company yeah you know they're not satisfied with this particular company she was like oh my you know my husband does the very same thing she was like um well i want to have him come by and i'll introduce him to the lady that's over transportation um i went by and talked to the lady and they was like well if you can be professional you know you got the job you know so that was my very first contract okay okay got you and and what did that turn into what was it something that you were just doing them uh specifically on a regular basis like how i had that kind of work i was doing them on a regular basis you know most facilities they're gonna have more than one transportation company that coming in and out of there so but i was one of the main two that they had coming in and out of that building so basically once i was in there all i had to do was just provide excellent service be there when they call and build those relationships and it was a cinch after that got you and they'd have you just pretty much working every day would they call you they give you a schedule like ahead of time and you just fulfill that schedule but they'll you know we tell them to call 24 to 48 hours in advance so that we can make sure that people are scheduled properly and uh but sometimes you know we'll take same-day requests but that's how they'll do they'll give you the schedule for uh for a whole week sometimes and sometimes you know it's it's like spare at the moment but uh people don't go to the doctor every day in a facility so the key is to to get multiple facilities that you're connected with so therefore you're going to be working every day because you know it's you know like i say somebody might fall today and uh somebody will be sick tomorrow but not every day nobody's sick so nobody goes out of those facilities every day got you got you got you all right so you were able to eventually scale to additional additional equipment right more more vans right tell me a little bit about that so you started with the one um you you got really familiar with this one contract you started building when did you know it was time to scale and get more vans and start building your business and tell me about that process a little bit well i know i knew it was time to start building the business when you can't handle all of the calls that are coming because see when someone um signs a contract with your service agreement with you you know when they call you and have a request they don't want to hear i'm booked or i can't do it so i i'm going to make sure that every time they call me that i'm going to be there for them so one with with that even sometimes when they would call my schedule will be clear i wouldn't have nobody but i would say hold on a minute let me see you know and i'll i'll put them on mute for a little while and i'll come back i was able to work something out for you know and that makes them feel good that i'm being there for them to help them out when they have a need so now they're going to call me more often so once that happened i said well i'm gonna need another van now because you know you're getting more calls and you don't want to say no you don't never want to say no to them right so therefore then that's that's when i saw everything started to pick up i would get another van but i want to get another van as the business picks up got you got you got you um so what with the vans do you have customized vans or also like wheelchair accessible vans or right the vans come wheelchair accessible okay they they come that way yeah they come in there you want to buy pretty much that that's the standard you want to definitely get the wheelchair accessible van so you got that for six thousand the initial van had the wheelchair accessible yes uh-huh and do they do do they have those like the little lifts and everything too like that's all the lift and everything everything's already in there so you want to start from that that way you know when you think about transportation you don't want to like i was speaking with a guy that called me one-on-one um last week he's just starting in the business but he he started with a minivan and that's it i'm like well really i mean that's not you're gonna need more than a minivan because if you get the the van that has the lift on it you can do several things you can get your ambulatory you can get your wheelchair and then you can add the necessary equipment to where you can start pulling stretches when someone calls whatever they're calling about you got it for them got you you got a minivan and someone calls needing a stretcher you lose the business that day got you how long did it take you to get from um to get to your second van or or get to multiple units um i got to the multiple units within the same year that i started okay okay the same year so business must have been pretty good because like you said the business is going to pretty much dictate the the buying more vans so everything was pretty much moving and this was with the same contract or you started some more relationships now that was with the same crimes right but at the same time i kept going around talking to people so again that i would get another i would get another contract and okay contract then you know i get another van okay okay so that way i can kind of keep up with the because like i said one facility you're not going to get a call out of it every day right you got stand in place orders like people go to dialysis monday wednesday uh friday and tuesday thursday saturday sometimes it stands in it may seem like you're going every day but in general people don't have a doctor's appointment every day you don't have a doctor's appointment every day you see right right the same thing in that facility so it's a it's a peak in in um peaks and valley thing it's kind of like sometimes it's you're on the peak and you need more vans than you have and then sometimes you don't need as many fans that's how this business go got you so is it majority people with doctors appointments that you're servicing no no no i service anything i used to be tunnel vision like that with just just uh medical transportation and just taking wheelchairs and i started thinking outside the box i'm like okay what what other type of transportation can i can i can i do so i started looking at um kids that um have specialty needs and things like that um i have people that go basically any any kind of transportation that a person does that's going to need i provide it for them you can go you need to go to a funeral you need to go to a luncheon you need to go out on a uh you know go out to a theater or something like that or weddings you know i don't just do just medical transportation i do it all if you need to get there and you are in a wheelchair or even if your ambulatory i'm going to get you there got you so as you grew now you had to start hiring employees correct right yeah so you had to talk to me a little bit about that process of transitioning from a um solopreneur just just just driving your own vans and now you have to start hiring people and building how was that when i when i started when i started you know i was uh after i got laid off from att um i started with ups and i started with a job there doing the exact same thing that i was doing it at uh at the att but what was good about it man it was like god scripted the whole thing out for me we worked 10 hour shifts four days on and three days off so i would volunteer to work nights and weekends that way it would give me the middle tuesday wednesday thursday off to work the business monday and friday i had to do both so therefore that that that um tuesday through wednesday i was working pretty hard in there on a monday friday so i had to schedule someone else to be with me you know to do the monday friday and what i would end up having to do is just basically try to handle things from from from work which was very was very difficult so as as the build as the business started to build you know it came to be more stressful on me and i had to come to the determination that i i really needed to quit but i was afraid to quit you know because you know i've been right at this particular time i'm working now for 30 years in it so you're getting kind of dependent on that check coming in every week so i was really i wanted to quit and then but i was just fearful of quitting you know okay so um so one day um i was i had left work and i was driving home after off after working night shift and i fell asleep at the wheel and when i woke up the car was headed into the to the median wall and i jerked it back and i'm like man you're gonna sit up and kill yourself because you're too afraid to quit this job you know right so i was like you know i came home and i was telling my daughter about it the situation she was like you know dad she was like um you know we have career day at our school and different parents come in and out and she said you know what i noticed i noticed that she said we as blacks are afraid to take risks i'm like man i'm like that's really true what she's telling me because here i am i got something on the side but i'm too afraid to leave it because of the security of this job right so so that was a sunday that monday i got another confirmation from it from i used to listen to like steve harvey in the morning and he does this little mentor thing early in the morning he was talking about um how he ended up getting into comedy and how he quit his first job because he did a little comedy stand up one night and he and he did pretty well at it and he wanted to leave the job but supervisors kind of talked him out of it he said it's gonna come a time in your life when you're gonna be standing at the edge of the cliff he said you're either going to jump off that cliff and trust that god is going to open your parachute are you going to stand at the cliff and die right i thought about that and i thought about what my daughter said i was like you know i gotta trust god and have faith and i took that leap of faith you know and it's been such a great journey for me right now um i'm so excited about it uh you know it's it's been a it's been a rough journey too you know but i'm learning as i go and i'm learning that to be successful you're going to have a lot you're going to have some rough patches you're going to have challenges and things like that you're going to have to overcome to continue to because if success was easy everybody would be successful yeah yeah for sure man that's that's that's really powerful um so six figure transportation um let's talk a little bit about the money the money you can make in this business because everybody's always interested in the dollar signs how does how does it work financially just give us an idea of how you get paid um just so somebody can wrap their their their minds around how how the process works getting paid how much you get paid what the rates kind of look like industry standards stuff like that well um basically you can you can write your own paycheck you basically write your own paycheck with it you you go into a facility or our location there and you get a chance to negotiate what you're going to get paid and basically i'll start out a little high with them just to see where they go with it and sometimes they'll take it and sometimes i have to come down a little bit but once i get that negotiated rate set with them that's a done deal i get that rate plus you know plus mileage with it so you can set up what you want and i basically researched the industry and you know i didn't go quite as high as the other guys were but i didn't want to i didn't try to lowball the industry either because you know you're going to do the game damage doing that so i i came up with a price that was affordable okay i found out that that that was the best thing because people you know when they're at home going back and forth to the doctor's appointments you know they're going to fix the income to start out with anyway so if you can get them something that's affordable to them then you know you're going to get that return business and that's what i was after i didn't want to hit you over the head and charge you what i would normally charge you i give you a specialized rate for you that hey you'll say hey you know what this is affordable for me and i'll use it so i might not get a hundred dollars out of you today yeah i may just only get 60 right but you're going to return visit right so because i'm looking for future services not just to get a one a one-time thing so you can write your own paycheck so it's like there's nothing none of my prices are really just set set unless i'm dealing with the facility it's got you that then it's set because you got a service agreement but anything else you can you can write on any kind of price you want to write so so just just so i have an idea especially how you do things um with is it more so the the the client who's paying for this or is it the the the the facility who's paying for this or the insurance who's paying for this who's putting the bill you have clients that pay when they're at home you know they pay or their family members pay well you have a facility that pays when a person comes into the facility and perhaps they don't have the insurance coverage or uh the insurance coverage is not the connection haven't been established yet so they're gonna be there for six weeks and they just got there but they haven't made the necessary calls and and to fill out the paperwork to get the process started so for me that's a little niche right there that's somebody right there i can get from them so the facility would pay for it on the front end i guess they get reimbursed on the back end okay and then you have insurance companies that you can also set up yourself with as vendor as a vendor to get you know your your united healthcare's uh your blue cross blue shield things like that you can set up and um with them to become one of their vendors and you can get paid that way got you which one is the which one is the the most difficult um out of them all are they all like the same for the most part and like is it difficult to get set up with a blue claw like a united healthcare to be a vendor is that a tough process um we're not registered with united healthcare that's i'm just i was giving you this oh okay okay gotcha that you can get registered with um but um we basically private and we deal with rehab facilities and uh especially places like kaiser stuff like that okay none of it was none of it was difficult you know you gotta you gotta get you some you know make a list of people that you want to go after and just go in there and get your nose out the way go ahead and get your nose out of the way don't take it personally because i just basically went out and just planted seeds everywhere and waited and you know one day somewhere where i planted to see that they'll call me i'm in i'm you know in i'm in trouble i need some help can you help me right right thank you for helping me and then you help them again the next thing you know it leads to a service agreement right right i mean like when you started your journey because you said you were you you're nervous you're right coming from um you know the regular typical nine to five when you you know jumping out like you said jumping off that cliff right um like like like when you transitioned into that like what were the the emotions that you were going through um um to to get to that point to where you start like you know making your own money you know what i'm saying like what was talk to me a little bit about that i was nervous i was i was scared because like i said i've been getting that paycheck for 30 years every friday you know so now going from getting um checks every friday getting paid uh maybe maybe 45 days or whatever it's a big difference when you when you're waiting on money like that you know to come so i was very nervous about it you know um i was when i first started i was trying to get all my little ducks in a row and save up money to pay my mortgage and everything and do all this stuff and more and more i tried to get the ducks in a row the more they were running all over the place man and that's why i just come to the conclusion that hey i'm gonna have to trust god right i have to trust god and um man i quit on a wednesday on a saturday i woke up the whole left side of my jaw was swollen wow and uh my wife's like man you need to go to the hospital or a dentist or something so i went to the dentist and the guys he took a look at he was like yeah you're going to have to have an emergency oral surgery to the tune of 650 i'm like what i'm thinking to myself that's all i have in the account basically you know i just quit no benefit right right right the benefits back there he's like well let me know what you want to do so i'm sitting there in the dentist chair man and god spoke to me i thought you said you were going to trust me they say that he said well the first little thing happens here you panicking and worrying and stuff so that was a saturday man i went ahead and wrote the check and and paid for it and that monday i got so many calls coming in from private pay customers that i didn't even know was going to come i made more than double the amount of money that i had spent at that dentist office and that was at that point man my eyes were open and i started to see you know god got me you know he he watched over me for 22 years when i was at atnt he led me into this this thing about medical transportation he gave me a perfect job to work along with me while i was there to help me to build it you know because it was and then it just from that point on i started to notice that hey i'm making more money you know you know in a day then i was making another week with a tnt and he just when the light came on i was like man what i made in a month at at i made in a week so now i'm getting so excited about this thing now man i'm just believing god right now for whatever i was making a year at att to baby making a month in medical transportation you can do that god you got you dope so what is the difference between the the medical transportation and transitioning into the ambulance services talk about that a little bit basically the ambulance service is going to require more um more uh certification for you you know okay you're gonna have to have a vehicle that's that has all the equipment and things that's needed um per regulations you're gonna have to have your uh your emt drivers too so they got to be certified and um but other than that just having someone just to to certify you and check and check on you and stuff like that that's basically about it okay operation the operations are the same because we're still going to pick someone up okay okay and transporting them somewhere so it's a non-emergency type of thing and what they do basically is pick up a lot of people and take them to dialysis oh diana okay god you don't say i'm not yeah i'm not talking about the mlm per se like an emergency mlms they go to people houses and handle emergencies we're talking about a non-emergency service got you got you got you okay okay you don't get to run down the street with your lights [Laughter] right right right i got you i got you so are you are you currently doing that as well is that a part of the business right now the the ambulance services too um i'm doing a part of that by okay but i say that we take people that are that are on stretches you know okay support to dialysis that's basically the same thing i'm just not on the certified end got of guys and see that would allow that would allow us to be able to build medicare got you got you okay so your your first year in business if you don't mind sharing like what was like your revenue around like how what what just give me an idea like what'd you guys do um we probably did about um i probably say probably about 60 or a year okay okay for your first year that's that's pretty good yeah probably about 60 a year and that was and that was and that was um let's see yeah that's that's probably about 60 a year but see that and i was i was still working at the time so i wasn't really stressed about uh not making a whole lot of money i basically was just trying to get it get it going i had i had time to just you know ride out the rough times and everything because i still had a job and everything right but the key to it is though is is just having multi-you know multi-streams of uh of vendors that you can use like we were working with the county i work with rehab facilities i work with specialty places like kaiser i did people privately um if you got somebody that your uncle needs to go to um dialysis all the time i took him there with that so it was a whole lot of different opportunities um i did some special needs kids that would go to this training uh five days a week so i would look and find different ways that people had to get places so that's what kind of built it up like that got you talk to me about some of the struggles in medical transport i know it can't always be you know all gravy talk to me about some things that are difficult um some of the learning curves that you have to kind of get through as as you you know advance in business um i would say definitely getting getting paid on time um they're they're their time talk to me talk to me about about that because you said something about 45 days earlier in the podcast why would you have to wait for 45 days because that's that's that's the payment structure you know you what the work that you do for this month you would turn it in at the end of the month and you don't get it that much you get a month after so it's at least 35 45 days till you get your you know your check from these different facilities somewhere you know accounts payable like that uh but when something goes wrong when accounts pay but it might be 60 days for you to see some money um is there a way to like offset that like through factoring or something like that to where you can get that money up front um it probably would be but i kind of just toughed it out with that um and the key is to have different other streams of uh income coming in from different vendors okay some some vendors pay every you know pay differently okay but the pr but the private when you deal with um actual you know people they pretty much pay you they on the spot right they pay on the spot right they pay on the spot okay it's kind of like it depends on how frequently they're going to use you um if they're going to use you three times a week i don't just have them paying every day that takes out you know that doesn't make it personal you know every two weeks or at the end of the month got you got you okay cool all right let's talk a little bit about six figure transportation which is what you're currently doing now also you evolved um into a brand to where you actually teach people to do what you've done over the last 12 years um why did you think it was important to start getting this information out there to help other people do the same thing that you did well actually my daughter she she's uh she's a young entrepreneur a millennial and she's got her hands on a few things and she does some consulting and things like that and she i guess she was thinking about the idea and she put a little feeler out there and she got back a response from a lot of people saying they were they were interested in this type of business and so she approached me and stuff like that have you ever thought about like reinventing yourself and just stepping outside the box and do something a little different you've been doing this 12 years you obviously know what you're doing and she's like well i looked out here on the internet and did google and google says it takes three hundred thousand to start this business it didn't take you three hundred thousand i was like no i'm gonna take me three hundred thousand she's like well you wanna show people how you got started and the things that you did and um you know go from there with us he says a lot of people are interested in this right i i started thinking about it and i'm thinking well you know i'm just the average joe that picked this up 12 years ago and started doing this so if i can do it i can go back and tell people the things that i did and they should be able to do the same thing right why do you think google inflated the the the cost to get started so much man like why do you where's the disparity in that number i mean maybe maybe because as as time goes on things cost more all the time and they could be and they could be looking at equipment a brand new van like that they're probably looking at brand new vans and all this kind of stuff and you know having a nice large office [Laughter] right right right so so so so how has it how has it been now being on this side were you educating and talking to people and consulting them on this business talk to me a little bit about that um it's it's it's been great man i'm still learning a lot about it you know got to learn to communicate what i know to somebody else and so i'm working on that and getting better with that but um i've had quite a quite a good response and quite quite a good uh encouragement from people that are uh speaking to out on instagram and facebook and things like that so i'm motivated about it pretty good there got got you and are you are you doing like consultations or like exactly how do you do your training i'll do one-on-one right now um through um um video conferencing things like that you know with these uh pandemic going on right now so you can't really meet anybody right initially everything's down on video right now okay and what can people expect when they sit down with you for a console what are you going to kind of walk them through and uh to help them start their business well i'm trying to get them lined up with like i say the things that i did from from step from step one you know i i learned that if you if you draw some steps and at the top of the step you place the thing whatever it is that you want to do it don't even have to be non-emergency transportation you put at the top of that step the thing that you want to accomplish you go back to the beginning and you start labeling the steps with each thing that you need to accomplish to attain that what you're trying to get to and it's going to be inevitable because you're not going to get there you're going to get there there's no time limit on it if you fall down a step you can get back up on stand up on the step that you're on and you go from there but if you take the time to write it out like i say write your vision make it plain and go through each step you're going to get if you start getting excited because i start that's when i was doing it i started to get excited and further i went up a step and realized i'm getting closer to reaching that goal right so that's that's basically what i started them out with is doing this okay you say you did this you you did your research right yes okay you got your business plan right yes okay um you did um you got your business the logistics and everything uh legalizations you got the business legalizations in order yes right so you got your brand name yes right so each one of those things i kind of line them up with that and just keep trying to bring them forward the same way that i came forward got you and when you got started what was your top step what was my top step my top step was the you know was to be able to leave that job and be independent um got you so that was your ultimate goal so basically you just had to get yourself there hey yeah that was my my ultimate goal was to be able to leave that job and become independent okay got you i was like i'm starting the whole process oh i'm gonna start the whole process over again and now at the top of that process is amalam services um okay so that's that's where we're going to the ambulance services now got you got you and how how big do you see this thing like how how how big do you want it do you want to get i mean is there a cap is sky the limit you want to keep on growing is there a point to where you feel like okay once we get here we're good we'll move into some other other other areas well yeah i just want to build something man that's that i could leave as a legacy you know and not just have it just go in the ground when i die you know why is that important because i got grandsons i want them to have opportunity to you know to do some things too you know um you know my father had a business he he just went right into the ground with him he didn't pass it along he just worked hard all his life and business went right in the ground with him so now that i'm doing this it's like okay you know i want to have something to build something that i could leave behind pass on right right what what do you think is the most important part when you think about um setting up a business um is it the processes the systems like your business plan what do you think is the most important thing you need to think about it it's all it's all of it's important it's all key you got to have you got to do all of it you got to have your business plan you got to have some good marketing you got to have the brand you gotta um have good people around you only higher quality people don't spend your time hiring somebody when someone says well you know my nephew he he at home on the couch and uh he needs something to do not gonna waste your time with that right surround yourself with quality people pay them good get them you know believing in what it is that you're doing because that's going to be very key because otherwise you're going to keep repeating the same process over and over you know but i learned what i'm learning is that regardless of what you're doing whatever things that go along with the business that you're doing you're going to have to experience all the challenges that go along with that business whether it be hiring a driver that's not doing what he's supposed to be doing or problems with vendors or or problems with your vans and equipment all of those things you're going to have to experience so now i've learned more so is not to panic now when something happens and i'm realizing that you every problem got a solution right deal be a problem solver don't panic realize that you want everything just to go really you know to be roses when you started business i don't know why we all think that way that we're going to start something and it's going to be so easy and you're just going to do it and you're going to make all this money you know you're going to have some problems and you're going to have some issues but you know just keep working through it i mean it's been a lot of times that i thought about quitting a whole lot of times tell me about one of those times [Laughter] insurance is astronomical you know so i stopped focusing on the insurance being astronomical and focus on getting more business um right now that's going to make that insurance number it's going to be small when you get more business and you build more right right right did you ever have a situation that was like really a a a moment that was like a terrible day like like get like bring me like to one of your worst days in business where you were like man like not not a financial thing but just something happened just give me a story that that just i know i know you over 12 years i know you had to have something crazy happen think about that one what did i have that happened to me um [Music] well i had i had this crazy idea that once i got inside a facility that if i provided this excellent service i built all these relationships if i can just put it on the background it'll just be just about you know just be running to be smooth right didn't take into mind a uh them bringing in a new administrator and then wanting to go in a new direction and i had that experience where that new administrator came in and basically kind of knocked the legs out from upon me a little bit because they didn't want to uh they wanted to do their own transportation and that particular facility was a big piece of my pot and so i kind of had to endure that by you know looting my numbers were way down but i still kept going there smiling whenever they called and eventually you know it worked itself out back around to where they said okay you come on back we can't do this transportation behind this is a lot you know i'm like okay now you see right so what did that teach you what did that experience teach you it taught me one thing is that see once i started realizing that i was making a lot more money and i was making that att i got so comfortable and that was the thing that happened when i was at atm t i was very comfortable we were making 15 15 um hundred dollars a week i was 13 i'm sorry it was 1300 a week so i got so comfortable and that was the thing man it was like when when i was getting when i got laid off there was this test that i had to take and i could have stayed on that job well when i took the test i passed the test and i'm looking to get this job but then the jobs they didn't pan through so that's when i got hired on at ups when i went on at ups i i made half the money that i was making it at att and i had to work long hour and i'm like okay god um i asked you for this job but what is this you know why are you why am i making half of what i really need you know right and i started it they didn't hit me to not to recently man god knew that if he would have gave me uh uh another opportunity making the same land i made att or more i would have fell right back into that laser mentality that i had been in it to where i was just in this little comfort zone and you got to always be reaching and stretching and looking to grow and that's a bad that's a bad part of mind is that i'll sit back and get kind of like content and that's that's what happened with that with that rehab facility i got content when that lady came in and knocked the legs up and i realized hey i got to get a move on here you know you got to always be looking to grow always looking to be to be able to reinvent yourself and keep your eyes open for all different types of opportunities that may come your way but you never know whose path you're going to come across that's going to have some a little nugget for you that you can grab a hold to right right someone in your position um or who was in your position um before you transitioned and left that job when you were working the two jobs that's listening to this right now that has their their foot halfway in to to their side hustle right but they're still working their their their job because they're afraid to transition to that business what would you tell them whatever it is that you're waiting on um it's never going to line up right if you're trying to just get stuff in order it's not going to line up right because the more like i said the more i try to get into order more life kept kept happening you're going to have to make a decision you're gonna have to step out on faith you're gonna have to trust god man because it it's just been so many different opportunities that i didn't even know about that he would bring me to you know like uh i was thinking about doing stretchers i drove by a building one day and saw an abandoned um uh like somebody was parked out of ambulance i stopped by there just to see what was going on the man said hey i got a stretcher for sale for you boom right into doing stretch of transport right you can't you can't you just got to get out there and go after and get after it man and just and like i said the biggest part is just learning to trust god um it's not going to seem like it's going to work for you sometimes there's going to be so many obstacles and things like that but just continue to trust in him because it's always been on time for me i can speak for me he's been on time for me with different opportunities and things like that now just like now with this kovic 19 that's going on you know we've been deemed an essential service so we're still working right whole process right for sure for sure what's your favorite part about entrepreneurship the favorite part man is just every time the phone rings i know it's money chasing me down this money chasing me down every day you know every time the phone rings and it's just like sometimes i might not know how something's going to happen and then next thing you know boom it's it's just blowing up different opportunities man different opportunities and and i can't i just can't keep reiterating that um how important it is to build relationships um when i go in places i don't care if you're the janitor if you the cna you a nurse you're a family member you're a patient i'm building relationships every day i'm like going in there shaking hands hugging babies all kinds of stuff you know because you just never know where your next opportunity is going to come from i had one young lady worked in the office that i met i compliment and i'm learning you know i learned these things from my wife that's what she don't meet no strangers she goes into places and she's constantly yapping yapping yapping the whole time but she comes out of there with relationships and so this young lady that i met in a facility she got a job down in atlanta somewhere and she called me out of the blue one day and said hey um we got these 20 people that came from the virgin islands this was back when they had a hurricane a couple years ago yes um we need somebody to take them to dialysis she says um and i thought about you and why she thought about me her only conversation with me would be in the morning hey how you doing your head looks nice today just building relationships that lady thought about me she called me out there she went into the meeting with me with the administrator she she tooted the horn for me i didn't really even have to say much i just gave them my proposal they took it and bam that was another contract right there wow wow that's dope that's dope you got to stay on that relationship thing man don't take it for granted got you got you so where's the company at today what are you what are you looking like as far as vans and so forth and so on where you guys at um we have four vans right now we're still with four vans um okay you know my brother he's he he's out in california he's always constantly on me about growth growth all the time and i'm like look i'm growing at the pace that i'm you know that i am i'm i'm again i'm comfortable with the pace and i know i should be doing doing more but it's right now it's steady for me right no i've seen people come in and i'm seeing people go out um i talked to some of my counterparts and he says uh so you know what do you do i'm like well i'm private it's like you're private how are you private i said i've been private for 12 years you know that's like that's how you got signed up with logistic care or southeast trans i'm like man i've been private for 12 years i was like well whatever you're doing continue to do what you're doing because obviously it's working right right i'm not in a rush to just grow you know i like to be able to provide the service and that's that's the thing that's very important in this entry is is being on time and being reliable because i see that the other larger companies they got so much work but they leaving people waiting at the doctor's office for two hours yeah yeah they're saying i can't come back and get people but that's not me right cause i'm not going way above what i know i can handle right no as it grows i get another van right get another van i keep going like that okay okay now i love it man i love it all right cool man so um we're gonna kind of start wrapping up man um but before we kind of go i always ask my guests to kind of give a final thought right i always like to leave the leave the guests with a final thought and then um i just want you to let everybody know where they can connect with you connect with six-figure transportation and learn more about um your consultations and everything you're doing on that end so let's start with which what's your final thought what do you want to leave the uh the audience with my final thought is that you know when you dream and dream big the same energy it takes to dream small go ahead and dream write big vision make it plain put some god in it take action give him something to put his hands on and then be persistent and and realize that failure is not an option whatever it is you set out to do you're going to have uh the road is not going to be easy for you just keep just keep just put your head down and just keep being persistent keep being persistent that's and that's what i can can offer for someone i love that i love that and where can everybody connect with you on social media you can connect with me at six figure transportation.com on um on instagram and facebook and um you can once you go to the web page there you can you can do sign up for a one-on-one consultation we have an e-book out there we have business essentials out there things that are just going to help you get started all of your documents and things that you would need in this business to get started and we can go from there sounds good eric six figure transportation thank you so much for joining us on truck and hustle today we appreciate it um you know this this is something that we haven't covered yet so i'm i'm glad i was able to have you on here to to tackle this niche man i think people are gonna be really interested in hearing more about it well thank you for having me thank you for having me sir for sure thank you so much hustle fam we out if you twisted confused or stuck about trucks don't be dumb this is the place to come truck and hustle let's go [Music] you

Channel: Truck N’ Hustle

Views: 144,426

Keywords: How to start a non emergency medical transportation business, Courier, service, Wheelchair accessible, Nemt, non emergency medical transportation business, non emergency medical transportation insurance, non emergency medical transportation driver, how to start a non emergency medical transportation business, transportation, transportation and logistics industry, transportation and logistics business, transportation and logistics, non-emergency medical transportation, Podcasts

Id: bzhloPNZzC8

Length: 51min 52sec (3112 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 30 2021