The Best Way To Start A Trucking Company, Is To Never Buy A Truck! 150 Truck Dispatch Comp. Exposed

what's up y'all this is rahmel Watley and welcome to truck and hustle the podcast for truck and entrepreneurs if you want to learn about the trucking industry from the business side of things you're in the right place every week I interview the people who are making it happen on a daily basis I get them to share their successes their failures and sometimes even their secrets the goal is to show you how you too can create financial freedom in the booming trucking industry so sit back relax and enjoy the show Georgia takeover welcome welcome welcome I'm here with a very very special guest today it's DeMarco Thomas he is the co-owner of Metro Max Metro max is a company that I would like to say is revolutionising the dispatch industry they're doing things different and they really really you know setting themselves up to make a really big impact and I'm blessed to you know have this opportunity to talk to DeMarco you know we connected you know a few months ago and we started talking and he was telling me about all the different things that he's doing you know with the industry and I was just it blew my mind so you know I said Amen I got a fly out I got it from see you know I gotta come see what's going on because this is really dope the way you're doing things on your operation so I just wanted to you know come and touch you live you know what I made like why and and and you really get to sit down and give the people inside look at you know what you got going on so welcome to the show my brother you know me say thanks for having me man you know definitely been looking forward to the podcast no-touching basic fuel you're doing great things and just glad you allowed me to join Jammu thank you thank you thank you for sure I so so let's get into it man let's start with the history let's start with how you got into this into this crazy industry man you know because you know it you know this industry is definitely something that we just kind of fall into sometimes it's like talk about it how did you get into transportation so you know wildly enough man I just fell into it you know I had a childhood fake plant I grew up with who was already in the truck and he was driving okay and uh you know he's just presented an opportunity to invest into him and get our first truck okay so in 2016 we bought our first truck semi with a drive-in and first three months was hail man you know no experience you know my background before trucking is actually corporate finance and operations okay so so not related to transportation at all even closely related to transportation all right but you know the business knowledge was there okay so in diving in the business and getting your first truck you know you think hey it's all about numbers right well you know you learned along the way that it's really about relationships mmm so you know diving into it we did we didn't have the best factory deal didn't have the best truck financing okay didn't have the best relationships in terms of getting low okay those first three months was kind of you know crucial to us right no life of death right but after we got over that 90-day mark okay you know things started to brighten up because we did make the right relationships need more research into you know how we should begin lows and you know how a financial performance should be okay and from then we took off man you know between you know April 2016 and the end of 18 you know we accumulated 20 trucks Wow okay yeah they're all off of just grit okay it kind of find an eye niche okay she was really in the drive-in and refrigerated space okay so you come from corporate finance what were some of the things when you when you started thinking okay we're gonna get into the trucking industry what were some of the things that you looked at in trucking that you saw would be something that could be a lucrative venture for you okay so the main thing is uh everything is moved by trucks right so if you look at that even during the recession trucks were still moving people got to eat right so I looked at the staple ability part of it no good when the second thing I look at was the profit margins okay you know I've seen that trucking companies the best ones were doing somewhere between 35 percent profit margin okay and I said okay you know that's a better return I can get on the stock market you know usually the stock market returns somewhere between 10 and 20 percent you know on average right if I can get 30 maybe I should be investing in that especially if it's stable and so I jumped in 2016 man where the market was just roaring between 2016 and 2018 okay and I pretty much rode that wave man and kind of built my company off of that way mmm guys you guys you got you all right so so so let's talk about it man you you you you get your first truck you come from the corporate finance background yeah like so you didn't even know any truck drivers at the time or any that went nobody other day my friend other there's none other just your one friend nobody in transportation alright so talk to me about those first initial steps you took to even know what truck to fly like you know yes so um the biggest the biggest step we made was on my research notice it's plenty of YouTube videos out there that you can get you can reference and we just started to pick the brains of people who's already in the truck okay you know I reached out actually and got a mentor okay and doing you know initially when you reach out to somebody and kind of tell them that you want to get into the business you know they'll take you as serious until they see you in the business you got some skin in the game correct oh great so when I first initially reached out it was more like hey you know yeah I know you probably want to get into this because you see the numbers you see some money to get it right money to be made right and uh but until you get your first truck right you know I ain't finna spend too much time so you know I jumped at that man we bought the truck okay you know researched online permit companies to use and actually get started and and we got rolling okay and once we got rolling though and we seen all the problems we had and we show him that hey man we actually serious about this business that's when he kind of took us under his wing okay and showed us different components of the business and thought of skillet because that's the key right I don't think nobody want to get into trucking and pretty much have one truck and just manage one truck right cuz you don't even make money off the one truck we ready make good money on two after three trucks yeah yeah so you know kind of and partnering with him and understanding what he's done to build his company you know it just propelled us got you and what what point in the journey was his where was his business at yeah so he was already at about a 150 trucks oh man so when it came to time I'll come to him talking about hey I want to get one truck yeah and at me like I did this everyday you just like every other person who's just coming out of nowhere right because you know I got a hundred and fifty saying that you want to get in the truck right so you know I took those for three months just to show and prove mmm I you know put my money where my mouth is when they're bottle truck jumped out there tried to figure it out myself and then brought him pretty much the list of problems I was having God's who God calls me yeah what was his business model was he actually um his business model was different man and I learned it along the way you know never buy a truck mmm that's his business mom okay you know there's other options such as you know leasing which gives you an exit strategy when you're in the trucking business if you go out and buy a truck how you exit that right then you then you force at the end of it number one you have a depreciating asset right that's you know the values going down right you have a maintenance associated with buying an older vehicle right always got to be prepare for and have a reserve for ya whereas if you're leasing you're gonna vehicle less maintenance I know yeah but hired driver retention what driver doesn't want to be in new equipped for sure you know for sure all those different components that that just open my mind and when you think about it you can actually scale faster leasing versus buying the right time you buy a truck that's a big capital investment right that's a big investment on your balance sheet rights for us liabilities whereas leasing you just have a term that you have to pretty much for feel for that truck yeah yeah so so you said when you when you first got started you brought him your list of problems right boy got you got in a game you showed him proved then you brought in your list of problems give me an idea of some of those problems that you faced early um early on the first problem was really lows okay that was the biggest problem you know we were pretty much dependent on the load board itself and anybody who knows the load board they knows that you know sometimes it dries up you get in certain areas where there's no lows right or or from what I learned is that most most loads down the load board a secondary brokers and shippers already have that the preferred relationship right and when they prefer relationships don't work out the endings are the low right right right right right and then you're competing with pretty much the general population to being on the load and you're just being each other down until somebody just take the lowest rate so so it was about disconnecting man you know I you know we try to get off the lowboy and just establish relationships with a lot of brokers and a lot of shippers and we did that okay and that turned our numbers around that got us from making you know dollar ninety two dollars a mile to getting closer to three dollars a mile and actually seeing that rate per mile impact our bottom line okay which is the goal for anybody that's in trucking is to pretty much make money right right for sure yeah sure and sure so what was the process like to make that transition from pretty much being dependent on the load where we just you start reaching out to people calling calling coke cold calling when you do book a low with somebody just following up with them especially if you did job to say you know how often is this Lane available right can I be your go-to guy for this length right from from Georgia to Tennessee right you know I can consistently deliver that for you with that same service that I just did with that proud load okay so it's about building building relationship and standing there face man hmm you know that can be phone calls that can be email blasts that can be sending gift cards to him right you know make yourself a party time yeah yeah for sure so you said you start out with how many trucks right out with one well one truck yeah all right so so one truck at what point do we realize that it's time to get shot number two 6 minute mark six months okay you know six months you know first three months trouble Wentz but within that fourth and fifth month we found our rhythm and we started to close our gap as far as well we invested okay and now at the six month BAM pull the second truck mmm and then three months after their third truck mmm and then we start to double up mmm right you know you got your pattern you got your processes he got the team in place right only thing now to do is the skeleton the other foundation right yeah so we started to double up on trucks double up on trailers and uh man honestly before you knew it you know who's that 20 trucks and over 35 trailers I know that we had under our management you know with a fleet manager you know with five dispatchers on staff they're all our own grid don't know so so did you guys secure contracts like how did this widget this so assistant worked so most of it came through you know shippers okay know reaching out to them bidding on their lanes and you know about 50% with shippers and brokers right okay and then the other 50% we were actually getting off the lowboys steel because the people we established relationships just didn't have enough demand to hand our capacity you know you know Monday through Friday pretty much we was running through it with preferred brokers and preferred shippers okay and then we'll jump on the lowboys to pretty much hammer the overflow okay and what were you pulling Dr Vance and reefers drive and reefers yeah okay okay nothing else on flatbed nothing like that bisman not in my personal fleet not at that time okay okay okay though all right so you start to grow this company you said you started actually getting staff so that's different right tell me about you know transitioning into actually managing staff of them assuming when you first started out it's kind of like a solo project maybe you and your partner and it's like now we have an actual company now you know now we have you know 20 drivers right and we got five dispatch there's got 25 people that's kind of under our leadership and our guidance right and for any entrepreneur man the biggest thing is managing people hmm you know managing people and managing processes right if you can't manage people you can't you can't run a business mmm you know they gotta buy to your vision by to the things you said as far as frameworks right and and follow up and deliver on those things right so so what would you say is the first steps for somebody looking to kind of scale in that way what's the first thing what's one of the first things you start to thinking about when you start moving in that direction um what you want to think about is your angle and then using that angle you want to back into the things that you need to set up to deliver on that angle okay so for us we knew that at the five trucks we're gonna need another dispatcher okay right okay I'm pretty much I was the dispatcher guys was five guys he goes right and my partner was the fleet manager okay and so we got the five it's like okay I'm bogged down booking lols I need to get somebody who's just as customer oriented as myself right vested in trucking right to maintain the relationships between these shippers and brokers well I go out and generate more business right I go out and look at more trust okay more trailers in order to you know pretty much grow a compacity right so man I just put out a job bad man and found a young lady she actually had experience in a fast food industry okay you know no no experience that truck in exercise but people skills you know okay dispatching you have you got to have tremendous people skills right an ability to relate an ability to think fast on your feet right and and be flexible okay and honest you know the fast-food industry it kind of gives you there so you gotta be everywhere at one time you went tonight doing that the Cassie yeah working fries you never know who you going account that's effect right all the different type of personalities are coming through that drive-through window and is that yeah so um got homeboy pretty much you know trained ER and you know this fashion is something you probably can learn in a solid 30 days okay you know it's not something that's long and drawn now okay on to the right to turrets right good so got hold the speed and that allowed me to free up and start recruiting drivers and getting more equipment and you know bounced up and got five more trucks okay we need another dispatcher right then you know every fire trucks we add the dispatch and you know along the way you're just like damn I'm kind of growing fast you know I got a good team around me right but my profit margins are starting to deal okay you know even though I'm scaling I'm making more money dollar wise but percentage-wise I'm not growing as fast right be thinking you know I'm a compound thirty percent right truck right but it wasn't happening like that because my over here was wrong okay and so on I met another gentleman who had a trucking company he is Indian okay and and we just kind of talked about you know some best practices okay I know a lot of people in truck and don't do that a lot you know you don't sit down with somebody appear yours and just talk about what they're working on what you're working on is there any like synergies we can add right and together we write as trading lols or trading brokers right and in our and now for spend it was like man how can we trade costs you know how can we I think we sit together and figure out a way to save money bottom line to both of us yeah and so that led to us doing a couple things you know number one anytime we do a deal for factoring insurance etc we start doing it as a group okay I'm coming in with my twenty he's coming in with his ten he knows some other people and all togethers about 50 trucks of people so we're coming to a factoring company you know not as just one truck for twenty choice becomes mmm and we commanding like the best rate for 50 of us that's the jewelry that's we're doing the same thing in each service mmm the same thing when it comes to driver recruitment okay and then finally we said you know what we might as well do a win from a dispatching standpoint okay and so uh my partner my now business partner Mitchell max he's Indian and he said you know we can do this whole dispatching thing from India and I first I was like man this is no way like familiar from India it blew my mind it was like India India Georgia or in the Indian country India the country oh yeah the country so uh you know he just educated like you know you look at Amazon CH Robinson you know they have back off as an Indian hmm so you you're booking a load some of these brokers right you know and you're thinking that you're speaking the resources here in the states the right resources that that outside the states that are outsourced and still providing their level of quality and service when it comes to transportation okay and so on did our research informed our vision of what we wanted to do in terms of lowering our dispatch calls and and we went to Indy and we set our shop man mm-hmm you know Wow okay that's amazing all right so listen so you know we got a dive in today let's do it um let's start with man training go into a foreign country you know in trying to teach how to dispatch in American country yeah talk to me about that how was that process what what did you guys I mean the juice did you lay out lay it out first and then go there and then and then give it to them or did you go there kind of gauge well you know stuff to talk about so the way we did it was we did it in phases okay right the first phase is we introduced them to truck and in general okay you know you know gave them some videos books to read about trucking okay and then we we start them with back-office process you know simple things such as admin work like you know submitting loads the factory okay you know adding drivers to insurance okay managing driver and fleet records and stuff like that okay know stuff that that's really administrative but at the same time it gives you knowledge of trucking okay what listen you're gonna start to ask what's a broker or what's the factory right right right you know I was to be a whale you know and then from there we built on the now that you know what trucking is let me show you how to do it I mean you know we did a lot of training you like some of the resources that are already out there like oh you too there's plenty of people that already got dispatching courses right you know for free and some people haven't paid and we just had our people go and look at those courses okay and once they got familiar with just the concept of dispatching you know we actually went there and you start to showing the rules at a roll you slide to teach them I hours of service right you know fundamental things like you know how far is Atlanta from Houston right and you know Westray per mile how do I calculate it you know you literally have to it's like man it's like teaching the baby how to walk right where it imagine where you your hand-holding throughout the whole process but you know these are smart individuals right these are college-educated people who we just don't know trucking yeah so once you show him trucking yeah they gonna kill you guys yeah it is what's the industry like the trucking industry like there and India I mean yes so talk to me about that so um you know in India's a third-world country right you know it's still developing they do have transportation but but it's a lot more fragmented than ours right we're not really regulated not really regulate okay you know you you got you know you know cows and cars on the same road and surprises right they're still pretty rule right but a lot of companies you know such as the ones I mentioned and some that I worked for they already have solid foundation India in terms of back-office support okay what we just found is that a lot of it hasn't really hitting the transportation industry like so it's already being an IT guys they're already IT companies are huge in India right and hey I mean he employed millions of people right same with our hospitality okay I saying with the medical field okay but the transportation is I tell me so Wow that's what we come to play in it that's what Metro maxes are looking at pretty much put on stake in got you so did you guys um did you guys outsource a company that was already in place or no we uh my partner's Indian right okay it was from India live that 30 years okay and so uh it was simply going there and starting the business just like we were doing the US okay under for a business license find an office space hiring hiring resources and training okay no virtually and in person okay okay talk to me about some of the bumps in a role because I know this couldn't have been a second totally smooth transition it all up and you could tell me tell me about some of the bumps ro tell me about a huge failure like what did he do I know I know you had to have up what did he do moment well the biggest thing was arm I mean booking below that's mr. Britten but right right right so we just had a couple of dispatches initially you know that they understand the concept of deadhead - okay they you know they would see a low let's just say we're in Atlanta they'll say alone in Chattanooga a child maybe let's just say it's plus two hundred miles away right it goes from Chattanooga to Ohio they'll say wow you know that's you know you know maybe 600 600 miles you know rate of $2000 okay that's a good low right we're gonna take that jump on that yeah they'd even consider the fact like yo they they're in that mountain and they gotta try to try to move oh they're gonna spend gas right it hit another Chattanooga they get to load and once you combine all that together right the numbers don't make sense right right and so just the simple concepts of that as well as hours of service okay you know from from a dispatching standpoint there was just thinking the moment the most loathsome revenue I can make this traveled okay the happier they're gonna be okay it's not about revenue it's about rate per mile and it's about making sure you know the legal limits of what they can drive hmm so you can't book lows to close and you can't you can't drive 24/7 right and so the dispatchers had to learn to space their time out which was out which is pretty crucial and luckily we started with our own trucks okay you know my clients never feel that in pain oh that's good if anybody got taken I took it for six months okay you know okay but but at the same time I was taking those is I was reducing my cost - right right so financially I was still okay even if I was doing more deadhead miles even if I had a truck sit for a day okay it was cool because my cost bucks was in the right place got you so what is the formula that you would teach in into a new dispatcher sure if you want to just give them the basis like what this is what you should be looking for when you're dispatching a little what would be that formula I would say you want to look for the hot markets you know you want to especially just get in you're not gonna have a lot of relationships and so for the most part you're gonna have to chase chase lows okay and you want to and you want to get your clients in the areas that are that are pretty much pretty much have a high ratio of lows versus trucks okay so you command a higher rate and you can start the build your business and build your credibility with your client because you need to keep them moving and they want to see that right but also build your relationships with the brokers along the way um you know it's not easy you know you know a lot of people think you can just you know get a laptop do some training and then do dispatching right and which is true the barrier of entry is low right but the ability the ability to maintain it and grow it is as more as more on how do you say it's more challenging okay you know most most mom-and-pops dispatches then they main dispatch 10 trucks you know that wasn't our goal you know we kind of came in with you know how can we lay out our dispatch company to dispatch a thousand trucks right you know and in a year you know we go to 150 you went flying a dispatch right now Wow 150 trucks and it fit dispatch touch every day and it in addition to your own fleet of course no no so okay so that's 130 130 outside of my own fleet of all together that's it okay okay got you do you do you deal with your own fleet any differently than you deal with no of course not of course not man you know this is business okay okay I'm looking to make money both ways like there's one way right so I actually used the relationships I got from you know my fleet to spread it to other clients okay you know I don't I don't do insurance I don't do you know factoring all those other different components so as I grew my company I built relationships with driver recruiting okay I built relationship with a factoring company okay insurance company okay and then once I get a client I expose them to net okay no I you know I get them under the umbrella and I said man let me look at your P&L let me see how you you know where your call said yeah that's that's what I do yeah yeah I know how to minimize calls from guys yeah that's what it's about that's what we're in business for of course you know you know you think about revenue only about I'll say 15 or 30 percent of top-line revenue go to your bottom line go think about that feel same than 30% okay well calls a hundred percent of the calls go to your bottom line mmm some ways to spend more time in you should spend more time with your we should cost costs yeah for sure cuz it goes straight to the buy my own yeah yeah revenue only 15 and 30 so you wanna also you know revenue pays the bill so you want to make sure you got good revenue numbers yeah but the cost is what separates you and make you profitable mmm so you know managing your few managing your cause as far as operations your insurance your factoring you know all those different components is was what's gonna make you successful okay yeah dope so let's talk about your company let's let's talk about Metro max let's like you said there's a lot of dispatch companies out there yeah there's a lot of dispatchers out there independent and it's a very you know this is very talked about in the industry now because like you said the barrier to entry is low what sets you apart what makes metro makes it different on everybody else out there a couple of things the number one thing is our cost of doing business no we'd meet dispatch loads for you know around three percent on average 3 percent 3 percent 3 percent at least and Dan and what's the industry standard just to put that in with somewhere between 5 and 10 you know probably average is about 7 okay so we like four points below the average Wow and we're still delivering the same quality okay and we provided 24/7 support and we handled in billing and invoicing so you know you deliver a low you don't feel like factoring in no we got a mobile out man load it up time won't have your driver take a picture and loads up time over half my man Goff is taken and instead of submitted to your factoring company or your ship or a broker get you pay within 10 minutes man Wow yeah no you know what talk to me some of the other services that you guys do cuz I know it's yeah other things as well so number one from a dispatching standpoint you know he kind of spoke over just a dispatcher injury is a lot of dispatch there's a lot of mom that pops dispatch there's a lot of people who were building their company around dispatch right we're starting to collaborate with them as well okay so you know dispatching is a 24/7 365 job for sure and what we've done over the last couple of months is we partnered with a couple of dispatching companies okay um you know they like hey man we tired of working weekends right working nights you know can you come in and help us with that okay and so we've offered them on a service offering what Mitchell max I come in we handle the after our support for you that's done and allow you to still be the face of your clients and represent and manage your clients the way want to ant helps kill your business why you know you don't have to be a dispatching company and feel like you can't work with us because we're looking to work with you because it's power in numbers I know you got things we that we can learn from you and we definitely got some things that we can show you as well right and most importantly I can help you scale right right right I have been scaling fast at a low rate as a dope that's dope so some of the other functions win insurance we got a great partnership with ourself Atlantic where we get some great rates in terms of insurance pretty much I think we probably can beat any rate okay long as you're safer score okay good condition okay okay okay factory we offer a factory in Bonner deal dispatch and factoring 6% if you got one to five trucks but you know if you got a fleet man we can get aggressive and you know all way down there like three four percent mmm factoring and dispatching Wow some people fixing it right that's what unheard of no people factoring a rate of 4% bro yeah and and I can factor and dispatch you for less than that Wow well I know so you know economies of scale man yeah ain't able to offer something to help carriers bottom line and other thing is next track you know they're their partner without us a TLD he'll D Company you know we form a relationship with that because we noticed that a lot of our clients didn't have good eld systems you kept running into issues or didn't have good onboarding right they never got in so you know I use them personally right so I better than myself right and then formed a relationship with them with an awesome to a lot of our clients now we're you know I know they got a reliable LD system that I can speak to - yeah as a company to say hey if you got a problem you know you need to make these changes with you log or you know this is these are the analytics that you need to look into when you're managing your fleet right and pretty much educating them mmm partner with temps Crete you know first company to have a referral program attention Metro man that's crazy that she's huge there man four million drivers for Minnie Driver so so our clients don't worry about drivers right you know because we got a funnel to make sure they consistently have drivers and drivers are the lifeline of the trucking company right that's any fleet on it if they don't have a driver they don't have a trucking business right right right so you know the goal is to protect them and you know all of these different partnerships are cost-effective and that's the goal of it right yeah and I cannot reduce costs and the trucking company because the person you want to take care of most is the man behind the wheel right you know that should be your biggest cost right it's the man behind the wheel it shouldn't be insurance it shouldn't be factoring it shouldn't be overhead is that guy who's waking up day-in day-out busting his ass to get one low from this debt from A to B right doing it on a consistent basis and when you were rewarding you have no problem with driver retention ya have no problem with driver recruiting right driver drivers attract drivers they don't they're gonna be your biggest advocate they guarantee the ones that the truck stop I mean you need to be on our show for sure for sure for sure yeah so I mean you guys offer a suite of services it's like you pretty much cover everything and you said earlier an interview when you started the company you you kind of like reverse-engineered you had your vision yeah was this intentional did you know you were going in this direction or did it kind of evolved into this we knew it right I as a carrier I knew my pain points okay so I knew if I wanted a dispatching point a company if I was gonna hire a dispatching point company and I got to the point where I was about to write cuz I'm like man you know I'm at 20 trucks but I'm still like stuck into the normal routine of things right and you know maybe I should just hire dispatcher company and let them man it's just the operations and let me just focus on their strategic growth right but I couldn't find one that offered all those different components of what I would want as a dispatcher companies do you start your own right yeah and so I started it with that vision of knowing what I wanted and then reverse engineering and building and putting those things in place right and then along the way your right some things just pop out you know like I never thought that I'll be you know I'll be no servicing the other dispatching comes right right who would thought but they're their allies now but we don't have to be compared respect I don't have to go out here and yeah I don't have to go in here and compete with you I can come in here and collaborate and complement your business yeah and that became my goal well I you know we're securing who we are in terms of rate and the amount of volume we have as a company you know we're not a small operation right Grover 20 people on staff not including the you know 150 drivers that we support and that manages you know we got a whole social media team right and everything that is dedicated to the success of Metro max okay and we can take that same model and we can start do the support you know other dispatchers and other trucking companies in different ways Wow dope let's let's get back to the house so a second I always want to talk touch on that a little bit more so mmm cuz I'm still just trying to wrap my head around how you guys do everything so with the in India how wonder how many touch points do you have on a regular basis with your team in India like okay do you guys talk daily like how do you work that whole process out because I mean in another country yeah yeah so so number one is it's a self-sustaining operations where you know you have dispatchers then you have a dispatching manager and then you have what's called a center here look at an ascendant here it looks at our whole operations a dispatching manager the social media manager and really the process and building management all reports for the center is okay the remaining areas of operations okay what we what we try to try to focus on initially was back office okay once we master back office and got a manager for that then we went to dispatching okay once we built our dispatching court and got a manager for that then we went to social media mmm so we did everything in phases not like they want you can just jump into it in and and just have everything all at one time right like you literally have to build a fountain blocks and take those stepping stones to get there right and that the most important part is finding the right people right you know it's the hiring part you know you want to hire people that has the transferable skill sets because they're not necessarily gonna have the transportation skill set because they haven't been exposed to transportation in the US right but they have been exposed to customer service you know working with companies like Merrill Lynch they have been exposed to billing and invoicing because maybe they work for the back office a CH or office right right right in that right they have been exposed to you know negotiations because they they handle negotiations for certain bathing companies okay they're you know doctor you know patient building right or instant collections right a lot of collection companies are based out of India where they're calling you and trying to you know negotiated they're no different than negotiating the load right and so it's just you know taking those skill sets and identifying those skill sets in in different industries and saying okay you got something I can transfer into trucking you already got a foundation let me just teach you about the business right for sure for sure yeah um talk to me about the industry now and compared to when you first got started yeah so on it was beautiful when I first got started man like you know rates was up it was way more trucks then and then Freight in 2016 2017 as well as you know the majority of 2018 and so you know the margins were a all-time high for trucking country right you know things and what were those margins at that time um for us it was like around 35% okay you know we was running to know their every dollar we we we brought in in revenue you know 35 to 36 rides going to the bottom line right so uh we was killing it and that's why we was able to grow so fast right right as we taught that way even we and we just climbed up it okay but uh you know as a lot of trucking companies experience in 2019 I was pretty much a bloodbath for trucking companies yeah if you looking at the news man you know you know millions of truck drivers lost their jobs graduates of trucking companies to shut down yeah the highest level of trucking company shut down in 2018 2019 and probably the last 10 years or something right and you know and what happened was it was so so much build-up in and in trucking companies from 16 to 18 that 19 it just an overflow of oversupply should I say fracking company right and then everybody started to compete for the rate that's Rove the rate down right once the rate is down your cost of business is still right here right anything but your profit Mars is no shrinking right and what happened was a lot of people got either to the break-even point or they got negative right and so if a lot of companies just crashed out you know the blessing we had was that we were already ahead of the game you re-establish already established number one but number two we already had a low call structure Oh going into 2019 with outsourcing right gotcha and so when you know the rate per miles the cut and the contracts race actually fluctuated down you know not making it as much money but you know still you know 20% 25% gross margins a lot of people feel negative or fail you know 10% or less okay and that's the difference and you know for me I had a lot of people in 2019 approached me about getting into the truck of is right where I was you know honestly it was not the right time okay in my opinion now get started a new authority now to start a new MC and then kind of compete against more established companies where it where they have better relationships already and it's less demand for trucker mm-hmm that's the key right don't get into anything if the demand wasn't there right and you got to look at the news man if these trucking companies that own you know 500 trucks thousand trucks they're going out of business why would you get in it right right you know that they have way more knowledge of trucking they have way more resources there at a thousand trucks right and they're failing right so you think you can get in with one truck with less resources and succeed they know yeah you know just take a step back man you know take 2018 and just learn and research mmm and get ready for the industry to turn back around for the truck and recession to kind of shift in the area indeed jumpin gotcha you know and so that that's kind of my whole process behind it and my number one thought is you shouldn't buy a truck you know and it comes from somebody whose bulk to us right all right all right he's bought 10 right you know I was 10 in before I figured out him I shouldn't be buying he's got to know that there's other ways God should what are some of the signs that you think people should be looking for - when is the right time the right time is when you're seeing rates consistently go up you know I would say that uh January of this year isn't as bad as January of last year okay you know so 2020 it appears to be so far I mean we are on a couple right right right but it looks like his training in a good positive position but and that's because you know so many trucking companies failed last year right dad you know the demand is kind of burnished and and so there is no room for Hesketh capacity but still you got to get in in the right way you got to get it in a cost-effective way mmm you know you can't get it in a traditional way that people that I did you know four years ago and that people who's done decades ago you got to come in with an approach that uh that's less money for your product for your from your pocket and then you're having the budget or the line of credit right to deal with a couple hiccups along the way right that's why I think a lot of people feel that you know it you know if you only got thirty thousand in the bank you shouldn't go by truck right right you know you just should because you can you can blow a motor for twenty thousand you can blow a transmission for 10,000 10,000 and you know you can have you can get warranties for these things from trucking companies but when you look at the fine print of some of those warranties there's so many stipulations right around what they can cover and what they were not covered right there you know the devil in the details they can kill you in a detail that's a fact that's a fact what do you think are some of the the major things that are impacting the industry right now like no political scale I show the world view of what's going on right now I think you know definitely the political climate you know any unrest in politics you know especially with trade trade with China trade with Mexico that's a lifeline for trucking right now you know getting things imported and then moving it within the United States so when there's any any questioning in regards to what's the future the man of death right that affects recce right no shippers become tighter in terms of who they want to deal with how they want to deal with right their rates become lower because they have less in flowing revenue on their hands so they're looking to save money as well right so you know I think you got to definitely look at politics insurance you know insurance has been a killer lately mmm because to reason right you know accidents right but the second reason is because of so many companies going out of business right you know what companies going out of business the risk becomes aggressive right and you know now the insurance companies are really like targeting people who don't own who don't have CDL licenses so you may get one quote if if if you're the actually CDL driver for that for like that's it right but they may quote you completely different if you're just saying hey I'm an investor and I'm a hired driver and put them in the truck they gonna poach you higher because you're high your wrists right you can't even move that asset right without a third party that's a fine they're gonna look at it what do you think about Amazon well we should take on it was what Amazon is doing right now it is or would I'm not against a man you got it you gotta find a way to to where women I mean they got Amazon army relay they got the DSP program and it offers a lot of opportunities for startups right you know and they pretty much giving you the infrastructure mmm which which is key because that's coastal right and then you know use that time they parked his way deeper than yours right and so it's a good way to get started and maybe branch off on your own you know down but I mean you look at the man Amazon is doing same-day delivery now right you know how can they accomplish that they got a partner with mom-and-pop strike encounters that you know owner-operators people who own trust from when the five units they make about 90% of the trucking industry right there on one to five trucks make up 90% of trash that's a boy and a supermoto so they got to tap into you yeah and you need to just be ready to to take advantage of that guys have it having your infrastructure in place you know having your having your your business together to do business with all right do you think them kind of having a strong hold on on transportation is good for the industry as a whole I'm not gonna say it's good up there I'm gonna just say it's change okay you know that's a that's part of any business right you know there's nothing you're gonna stay in that's going that's gonna be consistent and constant so as a business owner you you got to stay ahead of that change and see how you can still make money within it right yeah so I don't think it's bad I think it's it's forcing people out of their comfort zones that they have for years whereas logistics right and just making people you don't thinking thinking outside the box yeah yeah so um it seems like you know just and listening to me Tom listening to you speak it seems like you just go with the flow of things you're not about resistance it's like whatever cut you don't want to clash what anybody is kind of like I can't control whatever is in the way like I'm not trying to knock you over I'm trying to see how I can help oh you know what I mean is that kind of just your approach to everything man that's the way I always being man I'm a networker like I got no problem reaching out to people and learning from them I got no problem I don't know everything right so I'm a sponge right I look to learn right you know I look to work with people right I know that you know power in numbers right you're on growing this you got good people in your network and a good team around you right so so I'm always willing to look at different different ways of doing this hmm I'm a businessman because I was said it done I'm not a trucking guru I'm not a person who is specialized in one area right you know I can look at multiple areas and make my marketing and this assessment what do you think is your biggest strengths I think my biggest strength is uh vision okay the strategy okay you know I think I think outside the box when it comes to a lot of things man okay I got the ability to to pretty much look at where I want to go in a certain space right and then re-engineered and put the things in place to accomplish it got you guys you and what you think is your biggest weakness oh I think my biggest weakness is uh that's a good question I would say evolve around a little bit of time management okay because uh you know I'm surprised I think your time management skills what kind of good yeah but because I'm once I'm locked in the zone sometimes it's tunnel vision ah you overdo it some guys Rob backs when I thought about you know dispatching outsourcing I walked into it yeah you know I put all my energy into it and then until my partner you know took your team right I tell me hey you know we really going hard on this dispatching thing don't forget about billing and invoicing right seven support right you know and just you know you know it changes my lens to be more broad and that's what you that's what you want as a team right no you're not gonna be strong and everything right but you want people who can balance out your weaknesses that's a fact that's a fact for the entrepreneurs out there people trying to get in the business in general and specifically in the industry talk to me about some of the mindset things you know routine you know people some people have morning routine okay what are some of the things that you've done to be successful Oh structure okay you know 4:30 every morning on waking up 5:00 a.m. I'm in a jam hell they Fitness okay I'm in that man and by 7:00 a.m. I'm back I'm back at the crib I'm showering by 9:00 I mean that in the office or I'm home line you know getting getting ready you know catching up with my team in terms of the deliverables for the day you know between 9:00 and 11:00 I'm just looking at the normal course of business mmm 12 I'm starting Network okay okay it's okay I'm making calls I'm a former lady you know ideas on things that I want to deliver on around 3:00 to 5:00 right you know I'm pretty much going out and setting up meetings and meeting people in person okay that's Lee if they're in Atlanta or doing a lot of heavy conference calls and in terms of in terms of new developments okay and that's my pattern you know beginning of the day I start off getting my energy up me a date I'm checking in with my team early afternoon I'm following up on calls from maybe the prior date or the same day uh-hmm and then the end of the day I'm always looking at heat god she's always looking ahead to end of the day I'm always trying for the name planning tomorrow exactly I said where'd you get that from the military millets housing I was in the Navy okay and they and they put me on a regimen you get used to it yeah you know they had a morning meeting to kick off the day they had a touch pointed at the beginning of the day yeah how everything was going yeah and they had an end of the day yeah you know rally to make sure you did what you said she was gonna do and you getting ready for five o'clock in the morning the next day right and so it just gave me that discipline man no doubt no doubt so so what's next for Metro max man I mean you guys are just like really like like revolutionize this dispatch industry what what what what's next for you guys oh we're gonna touch everything so we're gonna partner with with well we've already partnered with our two factoring companies and we're doing that back office okay so we had in like accounts receivables and their accounts payables we're gonna do the same thing that some freight brokers okay you know we're gonna we're gonna partner with them and I post loads on their behalf and negotiate lows and book notes on the other hand oh and this is from the Metro man's solutions lens so Metro max is two entities as Metro max dispatch which focused on getting lowe's and dispatching the carrier's etc etc okay and then there's Mitchell many solutions which is really focused on outsourcing and supporting companies from an outsource standpoint okay that could be transportation companies that could be medical companies like dental offices helm in their scheduling right there could be real estate companies in terms of bid bidding and handling their data research in terms of property you know you know the scope of Mitchell Max is why and you know we were just starting off in the transportation space we're gonna dig a little deeper into that you know we're working with more insurance companies factoring companies brokers doing some training as well I'm not looking to have a training class or a training module that's not my sprint right you know and I know that right but I am gonna partner with some companies that do training in order to you know give them my perspective on it some things I've learned and maybe come in and speak you know just in general couple times and pretty much just build awareness you know because the more educated people I can get in transportation the better off my business is right right and so for me even you know our clients we can solve it for free right you know once you're signed on with us on with dispatching our information is free right Wow so that's that's why I see a man outsourcing is so broad as there's no function that you can't outsource mmm there's no function I want to say anything outside of driving the truck right but uh in anything that's behind the phone or behind the computer no matter what industry you're in it can be outsourced and so Mitchell max is going it's gonna bring that to our culture to our community right you know very minority community we're you know underserved in terms of the knowledge of outsourcing and the ability to outsource well we're gonna inform you about that and empower you to do it wow that's really dope man man blowing my mind today man you're really giving a lot a lot of information a lot of insight and I'm just excited to watch you guys grow man I'm glad I met you at this point in your business I mean you guys are already doing great things but I could only imagine with the business model the way you guys are set up to scale you know what the future looks like for you guys so you know I always end my shows it's very important that I let my guests give a final jus a final thought whether it's a mindset spiritual wherever you want to go with it just something you want to leave everybody with to just kind of encourage you know the entrepreneurs out there and the people aspiring to get into business and into this trucking industry what was your telling because you'll be creative you know be creative and be yourself it's a lot of ways of doing business don't just look at the traditional way and feel like I gotta follow this blueprint you know look at a blueprint blueprint but take it and make it your own and make it something that fit your fish mmm and be creative about that and along the way continue to be yourself you know you'll be surprised by then the number of people that are graduate eight to your natural self versus you trying to prepare yourself to something that you're not right and so those are the two things man be creative and be yourself I like that I like that I like that and where can people reach out to you where could they connect with you learn more about Metro mr. Mitchell Mex dispatch calm as I is our main website we're also on all social media platforms okay Instagram LinkedIn Facebook and also we have metrobank solutions website that just got lunch last week okay so check that out man you know I think you'll be impressed by what we offering what we can do and we love to work with you and and if we can't do this this man will love to just network and collaborate and learn from you so give us a holler go go Marco Thomas mine I appreciate your time thank you sir thank you thank the gathering spot for allowing us to UM to shoot here today listen truck and hustle we are out you know what I'd like to say if you smell something burning it's only a desire alright job we out let's go

Channel: Truck N’ Hustle

Views: 545,098

Rating: 4.916708 out of 5

Keywords: trucker, trucking, trucker brown, truckinglife, dispatcher, dispatch, truck, 18wheeler, how to start a trucking company with no money, how to start a trucking company step by step, #earnyourleisure, alix good energy, how to start a trucking company, trucking business, entrepreneur motivation, entrepreneur, cdl general knowledge questions and answers, dispatcher training, outsourcing in bangladesh, outsourcing, trucknhustletuesday, rahmelwattley, trucking podcast, dispatching, metromax dispatch

Id: 1gtsvUg4zeo

Length: 55min 24sec (3324 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 18 2020