S1E19 The Breaking Point and the Diesel Prophet — A Freight Storm Forecast and Interview with Todd Waldron from Truckstop.com

S1E19 The Breaking Point and the Diesel Prophet — A Freight Storm Forecast
Interview with Todd Waldron from Truckstop.com
Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Ten four drivers. Welcome to the Channel one nine Experience Trucker podcast . This is where the real stories roll straight from the blacktop.
Breaker Breaker one, nine villains. You got your ears on. I’m your host, Tony. Welcome to the Trucker Podcast. It’s Sunday, June 29th. Whoa. Pretty much half the year is in the books. That’s amazing. And it’s episode number 19, this week in the pre-trip this week, we’ve got a bulletin board item from Cool Hand, Danny C Hall, with a story he shared this past week from his friend Pat Hill.
And we’ve also got a letter from down under titled Breaking Point, talking about the state of trucking in Australia. And we will do a little contrast and comparison with, , how we feel things are going here in the USA in the money line. This week I’m gonna build off some of those [00:01:00] breaking point thoughts and roll that up with a new character that I thought of this week.
Diesel dus. Kinda like Noster, Damas only forecasting and prognosticating, , the diesel world, the trucking world. And, we’ll talk about what I’m seeing as some of the moves as the market shift, as the government shifts, and what the longer term impacts of that are likely to be. In the interview this week, I’ve got Todd Waldron.
Joining us. He’s the Vice President of carrier experience@truckstop.com, and we’ll talk about his career in trucking and the latest features being released on truck stop.com. Don’t forget to hang on after the interview for the post trip. Let’s get this rig rolling. If you’re not driving, it’s a great time to like, follow, subscribe, and share the podcast with your friends.
Breaker, Breaker, one nine can I get radio check [00:02:00] pretty, pretty quiet out here on Channel one nine, there’s a plain white wrapper taking pictures at the state line. Hit the Jake Brake quick. We ain’t paying no fines. Drivers swing into the interstate body shop south at exit five. Buddy trucking ain’t the same as it was.
We’re the last of our kind.
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Pretrip Inspection HornPretrip Inspection

Pretrip Topic 1 – Truckers and Trucker Wives by Pat HillPretrip Inspection
Grab that safety vest and let’s go do our pre-trip.
Let’s kick things off with a quote. I try to get into routine. I’ve done a couple quotes before and I try to be consistent, but. I’m a little bit incorrigible and, uh, you know, danger. Dave talked about the proper steps of decoupling an RGN so that you don’t do anything damaging.
I tend to struggle with following a routine at times. Um, and, uh, and therefore i’ve had a few glad hand dents in the back of my cab over the years to prove that point. But let’s try again this week. This week, the quote is from aas [00:04:00] Nin. She’s a French American writer, uh, from the early 20th century, and the quote goes like this, we don’t see things as they are.
We see them as we are. We don’t see things as they are. We see them as we are. Let’s let that one marinate a little bit. I’m gonna touch on that a couple times this week in the podcast, we don’t see things as they are. We see them as we are.
Pretrip – Bulletin Board – Pat Hill Story from Danny C Hall (aka Koolhand)
First up on the pre-trip. We’ve got a bulletin board item this week from Facebook and from someone I’ve mentioned before on the podcast, Danny C Hall, a k, a cool hand.
Danny’s a veteran Vietnam War veteran, former trucker, author of several books and countless stories about his trucking days, his life in general, but also a lot, a lot of the stories revolve around, um, trucking and his experiences. He’s retired from [00:05:00] trucking now, but he’s still the mayor down in Turnip Hill, Alabama.
Uh, I’ll share his social links out and he’s old school bonafide. Old school trucker this week. He shared something written by a friend of his Pat Hill. She wrote it a few years back, he said, and, um, and I, I wanted to share it all with you. She’s passed on now. Um, but I thought this piece that she wrote for Danny gave some lovely and poignant insights into the trucking life, especially the trucking life of maybe years gone by.
But definitely touches on the reality still of trucking. It’s called Truckers and Trucker Wives by Pat Hill. I can tell you a few things. Back in the day before cell phones, we had landlines and CB radios. Wives only heard from their trucking guys once a day at best. More so it was every few days, if at all, until he [00:06:00] blew that air horn.
As he was pulling in at home, we learned how to handle problems and make decisions. It got embarrassing to call his dispatcher to get a message to him that the car won’t start, the washer is leaking or the baby is sick. So we learned how to fix things or to get them fixed so that by the time he called to give instructions or advice, we had already dealt with that problem and had another one.
Now, I’m not saying that our problem solving or fixes were always the best options. Nevertheless, that’s what we did. , We couldn’t get ahold of him somewhere between here and Southern California we. Then when you did get home with your nasty diesel smelling self, multiple loads of dingy, smelly, greasy laundry that had to be done in two days or less.
We were so glad to see him, but go take a shower sometimes it took more than one to get rid of the diesel smell. It was always better to get that Glad you’re home sex over with before you started talking about home problems [00:07:00] or give him that honey do list.
After the return of the breadwinner was celebrated and the money changed hands for the bills and there was never enough to go around next trip, we can pay for that. It was time for him to load up into that big rig with all that chrome freshly shined and put himself into that air seat and blow that horn again.
He’s off now. Did I leave out the part of about scrubbing the interior of that grease magnet on the wheels? Sparkling up the windows inside and out, and making that sleeper feel as comfy as home. Or better yet, him teaching me where the grease fittings were under that 40 foot trailer because it would be easier for me to get to them.
We both should have been on the payroll because it was a joint venture. I went with him sometimes merely out of boredom. I got my license. It was easy to do back then, drove on the interstate at night. Nothing ever passed me. He slept for those [00:08:00] hours. Another of my contributions to make his job easier.
When he was between jobs or home for a long, he started to want to tell me what to do and be the boss. Hey, , I was doing just fine at that role. Now we’re gonna disagree. I hated for him to leave home mad or upset, so I always made up with him before he left ’cause I really did love him.
Both of my husbands, I didn’t want bad juju with him in that truck. That was truckers and trucker wives by Pat Hill. Thanks for sharing, Danny. That sure brings back a lot of memories of what it was like for many of us as kids with trucker parents. And it makes me think of a comment I read on another post this week.
The post was on Reddit, was young driver, not sure if this whole OTR thing was for them. And one of the comments was, you need to figure out if you’re a truck driver or a trucker. The commenter didn’t flesh out what they meant, but I think we’ve all got an idea [00:09:00] of what they probably meant. You know, a, a truck driver does this.
As a job, an occupation, it’s a transaction. It has boundaries. A trucker, on the other hand, it’s who they are, all of it. The good, the bad. Pat and her husbands were truckers. If you’ve read any of Danny’s stories, you know he was a trucker and his wife as well, and I think I was a trucker for a little while.
, The years that I’ve been sharing up until now on the podcast and for a few more years of stories that I’ll tell, I was a trucker. My second stint behind the wheel, I tried to put trucking in the box of truck driver. I. Yeah. And even though I owned the truck and bought the fuel and owned the plates and whatever other arbitrary definitions that, , people want to argue about on Facebook, including me sometimes, uh, about what’s, uh, owner operator or lease operator or company [00:10:00] driver, right.
Regardless of which role you, you play in that spectrum, um, there’s always been this love-hate relationship that we all have with trucking. , And that’s okay. Rarely is anything that big in a person’s life as simple as black or white or lover hate danger. Dave talked about it some last week when he was talking about his challenges.
And even Verlin touched on it, I think a couple episodes before that, right? The, the feeling of , watching a sunrise come up that, you know, how much went into earning, being able to see that sunrise that morning, or, uh, just some of the beautiful things that we get to see, ?
, But contrast that with the days like, or the weeks like danger. Dave had, you know, breakdowns, challenges, nothing going right, one thing after another. , But one of the beautiful things. In Pat’s story to me is that unwritten acceptance of the reality. The choice made right? The choice made. [00:11:00] That meant, if I love him, then I love all the things that come with it, and that includes trucking because he’s a trucker.
Her
and , her writing was very real. It explained the reality of things , in ways that really make them resonate. , And it wasn’t littered with griping. We all know that there’s, underneath those stories, there was a ton of work, physical work, pain, sadness, people leaving and returning and, and all the challenges that go with it, but kind of , what broke through to me was the realness of the little things in how Pat described them.
What it felt like to smell those diesel fumes when dad made it home and gave us a hug, what it felt like to wait for that phone call at night and what it felt like when it didn’t, when that phone call didn’t come and you wondered when it would come and why it hadn’t come, and trying to push [00:12:00] down those worries, knowing all the bad things.
That could go wrong. And I was just a kid, I didn’t even realize all the bad things that could go wrong. , But I could see the worry in my mom’s face and it made me think back to that quote. We don’t see things as they are. We see them as we are. I was a kid, ? It’s a different experience for my mom as a wife, as a co-venture owner in that trucking enterprise.
. I couldn’t know what it was like for her on all those aspects. , I could only see it as I was, not knowing what to do when the phone call doesn’t come. How long to wait, what do you do in that age, it was very different. I mean, now you blow up somebody’s phone and they have 57 missed calls. Back then, there was no one to call.
except, the choice to do I call dispatch? Do I raise the alarm bells? Do I call and see if they’ve heard from your husband or wife? , Have they delivered the load? What was the plan? [00:13:00] You know, were they supposed to be somewhere? Are they just taking a nap and didn’t want to go find a place to make a phone call as they’re waiting to do a night delivery?
Or what happened? Right? There’s a thousand things that could have went on and there was no way to communicate ’em. , But the reality was in that era, dispatch probably didn’t even know any more than she did. Sometimes the dispatch , we’d call their wives and have you heard from them? So it’s really a great story that in so few words.
It can resonate so many different feelings and emotions. So rest in peace. Pat. Thank you for the story that you shared with Danny. Danny, thank you for sharing it with us. I’ll share out some links, , so y’all can see that and read it for yourself. Also to Danny’s page. He’s got a lot of great stories. , I’ve read one of his books so far, , working on the second one.
The one I’ve read is called, what Is It With Me? And it’s a journal style book of Danny just telling a bunch of stories through his growing up and , through his [00:14:00] experiences in Vietnam and then, , starting off in his trucking journey after that. Great book, fun book.
Without using a thousand words, Danny can put his finger on the feeling of the moment and sharing that with you. Some of them are easier to understand than others, right. I think, , you have to live some of those things to be able to feel it in that way. , But when, When he hits on it, man, it really hits home.
Pretrip Topic #2 – The Breaking Point by Brendon Ryan
finally, on the pre-trip, let’s dig into something a little heavier on the industry side. A four page white paper rolled across my dashboard this week. I. Written not by a politician, not by a journalist, but by a trucker, a working man named Brendan Ryan out of Australia. Now, Brendan isn’t just some armchair observer to the trucking industry.
He’s a seasoned former driver, a compliance expert, [00:15:00] and managing partner at Prodrive Compliance Group, which he co-founded back in 2013. His company helps fleets across Australia navigate, , all the regulations. So in other words, he doesn’t just know the rules, , . He knows how they impact the real world in trucking operations. And if that wasn’t enough street cred, Brendan also co-hosts the Copy southbound podcast.
Their podcast dives deep into the stories of a Australia’s heart working drivers and transport legends. It’s the kind of show that makes you be proud to be a trucker no matter where in the world you’re a trucker. I met them for a minute down in Kentucky at Matt’s and, uh, really nice guys messaged back and forth them quite a bit, um, and just great all around , trucking folks.
so when. Somebody who’s been in this business as long as Brendan has, takes the time [00:16:00] to put together four pages of, , hard earned truth on paper, something he called the breaking point. It makes a person sit down, take a minute and read it. I’ll post the letter on Facebook so you can dig into all the details for, for yourself.
But here’s the short of it. And this isn’t fluff. This is a warning. Hopefully it’s a wake up call and not just for folks down under, because what he’s describing, we all know it’s been happening here too, like this is our reality. In the paper, he lays out the crisis brewing in Australia’s transport industry, and it’s like looking in the mirror for us.
You know, he talks about a mass exodus of skilled truckers, folks walking away from the job, burned out, worn down, disrespected, and the next generation trying [00:17:00] to come into the industry. There’s not a ton of people fighting to get in. And can any of us blame them? Right? We’re asking new drivers to jump through thousands of hoops, spend thousands of dollars on training, and then join a world of low pay, cutthroat pay, brutal delivery schedules.
We got beeping and vibrating gadgets all over the cab, and dispatchers and machines barking at ’em like drill sergeants. He also writes about how small companies are drowning in regulation, not smart safety rules, those matter. We need smart safety rules. But what they’re dealing with down there is bloated, overlapping mandates that feel more like paperwork completion exercises than a plan to actually impact safety [00:18:00] positively.
Sound familiar here in the US We’re not short on rules. What we’re short on is smart rules and efficiency. Every year there’s another layer. New software, new inspection protocols, new compliance traps, apps. The problem isn’t regulation itself. There’s always been some level of regulation. I mean, at least for a hundred years.
, It’s regulation that’s inefficient, inconsistent, disconnected from the real world. Policies that treat trucking companies like they’re the enemy instead of the backbone of the economy that we are. And let’s not make a mistake about this. Everyone pays for this mess. Every delay, every redundant safety check.
Every dollar wasted on compliance theater, that cost rolls downhill and it hits the grocery store shelf. It hits the Walmart shelves, the [00:19:00] target shelves, the Amazon shelves everywhere. Everyone spends money. It hits their pocketbook, and it lands the hardest on small trucking companies and independent carriers.
Single truck operations, right? The overhead of regulation is disproportionate to bear on the smaller carriers,
and the reality is when trucking breaks down, when Trucking’s inefficient, America slows down. But interestingly, this week there was a ray of hope in in the United States. US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy dropped into the What The Truck podcast. So shout out to Tim Dunner over there on that show.
He did an awesome job with the interview. I’ll post the link to that episode. Um, again, I already did earlier this week when it first came out, I think on Friday. and Tim and Secretary Duffy talked [00:20:00] about something that might sound familiar. It was a little topic, but, secretary Duffy talked about updating the DOT website.
Now, that doesn’t seem like much, not a headliner, right? Won’t make your Google newsfeed, but we’ve got a system that is clinging to the nineties, harder than faded blue jeans and hairspray.
And so even a little progress towards modernization is a step in the right direction, and let’s keep shoving them along.
You know, secretary Duffy talked about improving transparency, making tools that are actually usable, building systems that serve people that depend on them. Drivers safety managers, dispatchers. Everybody involved in the transportation industry. Now, hopefully that talk turns into action. I mean, if we’ve seen anything over the last, what we’re going [00:21:00] on, six months, they’re getting some things done.
You may not like all of them, , but they’re having an impact and they’re not afraid to move and kind of fight through the malaise that is Washington. So maybe we’re just, we’re starting to see Washington realize that government doesn’t just have the right to regulate us. And we’ve kind of went through some administrations that really embrace their right to regulate us.
But what goes along with that right, is always an obligation. And the obligation and responsibility is that the government does it efficiently. And because all this comes down to balance regulation and market forces have to walk together. You need safety, you need profit, you need worker pay, you need service.
You need affordability. But when any one of those metrics gets overvalued, or [00:22:00] an organization gets overly focused on one of those metrics, when safety becomes an excuse to crush profitability, when profit becomes an excuse to crush fair wages, the whole system starts to shake. And when it gets too far out of balance, the wheels start to come off.
But it’s possible to strike a balance for the industry, for the regulators, the shippers, the drivers, all to get a seat at the table and create a freight ecosystem that works for everybody. And we’re all part of the consuming public. So when all of that happens, when we have balance. We all win the non truck driving consumers as well as US truck drivers, and it keeps us competitive, scalable, and stable.
So go check out the paper that Brendan wrote, thank you, [00:23:00] Brendan, for putting it down and speaking the truth from your perspective down there and sharing what it’s like to be in Australia. He called it the breaking point for a reason. Um, and that title doesn’t just belong in Australia. You know, we’ve we’re seemingly walking ourselves back a little bit, stepping away, relieving some pressure from the breaking point that I think everybody was feeling.
and let’s be fair, everybody who was still in the game was feeling ’cause we’d lost a lot of folks, um, but. we’re thankfully getting some relief and so godspeed to our Aussie trucking brothers and sisters out there and to everybody else, you know, whether you’re hauling Steel Outta Gary, produce out of Fresno or oil field gear.
. Out of the Permian, our voices matter. It took a while. It took a hell of a long time, but we got some [00:24:00] folks who are willing to press some buttons and move some things along, uh, in there right now. And, uh, we’ll see how it turns out. I’ll talk a little bit about that in the next section of the podcast.
Like, where does this all go? Now that we see some buttons getting pressed, and some things moving, how do we prepare for changes that occur because of that? But. make sure to share your voice, keep writing, keep speaking up. If we want to keep this machine running scalably, stably, competitively, we’ve gotta listen to the folks like you, like Brendan, the people who live it every day, every mile.
We need Washington to do things, but real change. Smart change doesn’t happen or start off in Washington. People in business suits discuss what happens and they influence what’s going to happen. But the men and women [00:25:00] in work boots make things happen.
That’s the pre-trip for this week. No defects detected, but that’s just my opinion. If you find some defects, let us know. Reach out, shoot us an email. Hit the contact us button on the website. Get that seat adjusted. Let’s push the buttons in. We’ve got work to do.
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Channel 19 Experience Sweeper

Money Line
Welcome back. Let’s pop it up to line three here and knock out the money line. This week
we talked in the pre-trip about the breaking point and how we’re walking back in some respects from our own breaking point here in the US trucking market, but. In the money line. This week, I wanted to take an alternative view. Now, let’s zoom out for a second. We’ve been riding through a persistent inflationary cycle ever since COVID one that’s pushed prices up and kept them stuck there.
I. Everything from groceries to gear, oil costs, more interest rates. They’ve been cranked [00:27:00] up in an effort to slow things down, but what they’ve really done is make big ticket items like houses, cars, semi trucks, downright unreachable for a lot of people. You want to upgrade your equipment, good luck. And financing.
It’s a whole different animal than it was five years ago. And for small fleets, owner operators, that pressure’s real and rising. If you’re in the household mover segment, you’ve felt this pain, even sharper. People aren’t moving. Folks are locked into their homes with two to 3% mortgages from 2020, and with home prices sky high and interest rates six, 7%.
Who can afford to move? Right now? If they’re in a house, they’re staying put, and if they’re not, they’re priced out of it. That means fewer loads, fewer contracts, and another entire slice of trucking left sitting still and reorganizing. And let’s not kid ourselves. We’re not out of the woods yet. We’re just starting to clear the [00:28:00] brush at the edge of the forest.
Now, this past week, we saw the beginning of enhanced enforcement of the English language proficiency standards. Now some folks are gonna cry foul, but let’s call it what it is. Basic safety. If you can’t read a road, sign a low clearance warning, an emergency instruction on a sign, you shouldn’t be behind the wheel of an 80,000 pound truck.
Hell, you probably shouldn’t even been behind the wheel of a 2000 pound car at times. Like I talked about a couple weeks back in my Waymo experience like this isn’t about politics. It’s about putting a stop to the demolition derby on our highways. I. And right alongside that, secretary Duffy announced the DOT will begin auditing all non domiciled CDLs that’s foreign based drivers holding us licenses through third party loopholes.
It’s a cleanup move one aimed at restoring integrity in part of the system that’s been exploited for years. [00:29:00] We’ve got drivers on US roads who are never properly vetted, never verified, never trained the US standards, and it’s not just unfair to the industry. It’s dangerous, but those tactical things aside, it’s not just all sunshine and steering wheels here, the industry’s been in a down cycle for three years and just when it looked like the bottom was behind us.
We added in tariffs. Global trade tension, poured more weight onto an already slow moving recovery Freight rates are still weak, and it seemed like it’s been death by a thousand paper cuts. And now we’re hearing new pressure on the immigration front too. The Trump administration’s renewed its focus on illegal immigration and deportation.
This is gonna ripple hard across industries that depend on low wage labor, agriculture, warehousing, local freight, so yeah, there’s a lot of moving parts and a lot of unknowns going on right now. We’ve got the big beautiful bill awaited passage. I haven’t checked, , in the last couple hours to [00:30:00] see if that thing’s moved at all.
But, , it’s looming on the horizon and there’s a lot of stuff baked into 941 pages worth of government ease. What we’ve got is an economy overall that’s still in a pretty fragile and precarious situation.
At times, the numbers look okay from 30,000 foot, but down here on the ground, when you look past some of these tactical improvements, there’s a storm brewing on the horizon. Now, I could sit here and drone on, lay this all out for myself, But sometimes times when the fog gets a little thick in my head and the static gets loud.
I’m gonna have to hand Mike over to a different part of me. The part of me that’s a little bit older, a little bit meaner, and , a little bit less filtered. Maybe you could call him my alter ego. Maybe it’s just the defense mechanism might be a psychological break, but born from years of watching this industry.[00:31:00] Eat its own at times and somehow keep rolling. , I’ve got an alternative personality that I’ll introduce and I’m gonna call ’em diesel damas. Don’t worry, . I don’t have a car neck. The magnificent turbine turban, not yet anyway, but diesel dous, he doesn’t need costumes or crystal balls, even if we might add ’em in later for fun.
He’s not an a Wall Street analyst. He’s not some policy wonk. You’re gonna see on M-S-N-B-C. He doesn’t have an alphabet soup of credentials after his name, he’s my diesel soaked other half the voice that shows up when the chrome dreams start rusting and the CB static starts telling stories.
He sees patterns, he smells cycles, he makes gut calls. And up next he’s gonna drop the hammer and lay out what I really think about what all this really means.
So welcome . Diesel dom is [00:32:00] to the chat Here’s the reality.
This economy ain’t healthy. It’s being held together with duct tape and deferred payments, and the one thing that it can’t take right now is a freight rate spike. We’ve already lost capacity over the last three years. Companies downsized. Some folded rates stayed low because the system quietly leaned on drivers that , shouldn’t have been here, folks without English proficiency, questionable CDLs cross border loopholes.
The Biden administration didn’t talk about it, but they leaned into it to help cool inflation. That cheap labor cushioned the blow.
. But now the cushion’s getting yanked enforcement’s here, audits are coming. Sabotage is under the spotlight, and once that capacity stripped out, rates are going to climb fast. And , this capacity purge didn’t start with en enforcement.
It’s [00:33:00] already started out of the fear of enforcement. In April, almost 7,500 trucking companies shut down a 12 month high and a 26% jump from March net, DOT authority revocations are now averaging 1500 plus per week the fastest since the early COVID collapse. Essentially the market is self-correcting.
Again, not through bankruptcies, but through quiet exits, outfits, skating, unlimited English, non domiciled. CDLs and cabage know their numbers about up.
That’s people getting out before the hammer drops.
And with that hidden freight capacity disappearing ahead of schedule, spot rates, they’re starting to come up. Tender rejections are already ticking upward. In May, the rejection index passed 6.6%. You’ve probably heard it on other podcasts or other sources. that’s up. A couple percentage points from just a couple months ago, but the reality is [00:34:00] this economy can’t take it.
Prices are already too high. Tariffs added pressure. Interest rates have locked buyers out of capital. Add a freight rate hike to that, and what you’re gonna end up with is the last straw on an overloaded camel. During COVID Freight could go to the moon because everybody was sitting on .
Government money. COVID Grants, PPP loans. But those days are gone now. Every added cent hits the end consumer and they’re already running on fumes. So what I see, what diesel DOMA sees is rates going up and the squeeze beginning.
The squeeze is coming for the consumer, and the consumer is a weak link.
It lays a trap for the government,
and here’s the trap. Higher freight rates mean higher prices, and the consumer’s already bleeding out. Credit card debt hit $1.3 trillion according to the New York Fed. That’s a record and not the kind of record you want to make. [00:35:00] Delinquencies have spiked to a 12 year high. 12.3% of card holders behind on payments auto delinquencies are up to, particularly for subprime borrowers.
Real wages stagnant or declining in most sectors.
The COVID cash masked this pain for a while, but now it’s starting to hit like a freight train. Look at rents. Average rent in America is reached 40 to 50% of gross income, and that’s just not sustainable. And freight rates aren’t gonna be the only thing added to inflation here. the new immigration enforcement that Trump has ramped up over the last six months, it is gonna continue to expand.
The ripple effects are gonna hit hard when agriculture loses labor. Food prices go up when construction loses labor, housing costs go up. You can’t yank a million workers out of the backbone of the economy and expect prices to just stand still. The labor wasn’t just cheap, [00:36:00] it was essential, and now it’s gone and you’re gonna feel that at the pump, at the store, and at the back of every warehouse.
I predict consumer pullouts not gonna be gradual. It’s gonna be sharp. It’s gonna be sharp. Like that jolt when you, when you’re pull starting someone and they’ve got it in first gear and there’s gonna be a reaction, ? Shippers are gonna respond with cuts. They’re gonna stop buying, which is means freight’s gonna slow down starting at the port, just like with tariffs.
And you’re gonna watch freight volume drop like a transmission without any fluid in it. Now, it’s not gonna happen overnight, and like I’ve said, there’s going to be a good run, but it’s gonna burn fast and hot,
and here’s what happens next.
People forget, trucking doesn’t just move freight for factories and farms and warehouses. It moves stuff for people with paychecks, and as the inflation numbers creep and the prices rise, we’re [00:37:00] gonna continue to see a trend that’s been going on for a little while under the radar, which is a white collar recession.
We’re already seeing it in tech finance. Logistics, e-commerce. These are discretionary spenders that keep the middle of this freight market alive. Now, truckers may not cry for the cubicle crowd, right? But when their cards start getting declined, freight stops moving, ? And those people don’t have jobs.
They stop buying and we stop hauling. What I predict is those are some of the first sectors we’re gonna start to see that discretionary spending start to get hammered here, collapses in apparel, home goods, office supplies, electronics, and then this is when the trap fully springs, ? The Federal Reserve is stuck.
Full stop. They don’t have any options that they like. There’s no. Wiggle room.. If they cut rates, it’s like dumping gasoline on inflation. If they raise rates, they’ll collapse. Demand even further and trigger a deeper [00:38:00] recession. Bankruptcies, business closures, if they do nothing, inflation just stays sticky.
This pain continues. It’s like starting off with a blunt force trauma that just turns into a continuous slow bleed. So it’s a pick your poison moment for the government and the Federal Reserve, heart attack, or stroke. And here’s the kicker, the government already used its shadow subsidy by allowing , under the radar truckers and cabage to artificially keep freight cheap.
Now that the enforcement is public and political. I don’t think we see Trump turning back on this, and that’s what an inflation trap looks like. You’re boxed in and now the box is on fire.
So what are some signs that good old diesel dus has made good predictions here? Well, first thing we’re gonna see is the rise of freight prices, and we’re already starting to see that. It doesn’t take a genius to predict that we start rounding up drivers and shipping ’em out or taking away their CDLs, that freight prices should go up.[00:39:00] So we’ll start to see that here. All the indicators are pointing that direction, and that’s the indicator that we’ve entered the eye of the hurricane. But then start watching things like inflation numbers, ? Especially as the freight. Rates go up and not bs. Government inflation numbers or consumer price, , index numbers because a lot of those bake out things like energy cost.
We’ll know it’s hitting when the freight rates start getting good because every dollar we make. Trucking comes at the expense of a consumer somewhere because the shippers aren’t eating all these costs. It may get billed back to the shipper, but it just gets baked right into the cost of goods sold. So watch for the numbers , and be careful to watch the real numbers also the government’s numbers are lagged behind.
The government’s very good at creating some metrics that don’t mean a darn thing. Also, their numbers are far behind, like they’re not tracking in real time and they go back and [00:40:00] revise things typically for the worst after they publicly state how good it is. As the saying goes, there’s liars, damned liars and statisticians.
So take the statistics with a grain of salt and then you’re gonna start to see some cracks in other places. Like the stock market, we see , the quarterly filings. Coming out of the stock market, there’s always a delay to them, right? They’re reporting about what just happened. Usually there’s a month or so delay just to accumulate the numbers, and then there’s the shenanigans of what they do with the numbers before they ever get , to Wall Street.
But what you’ll start to see is some things showing up in the headlines. And they won’t be popular opinion, ’cause the numbers will still be going up. Right? When inflation goes up, your sales numbers goes up, just like in trucking, right? If the freight rates go up, your top line, gross revenue goes up. But if fuel goes up and all your other expenses go up, it didn’t really help you any.
But the immediate impact is the numbers are gonna look good. Okay, but then they’re not , and the speculators are gonna know that out in front. [00:41:00] So you’re gonna start to see their bets start to move first. And what I really think is gonna be the telltale indicator of the crap really starting to hit the proverbial fan is the big trucking interests.
Will start to ramp up their rhetoric. And what I mean by that is when freight rates go high, we’re gonna start to see the chance of old the driver shortage Headlines will start to appear. And behind that, behind those headlines will be the lobbyists fighting for things that we’ve seen time and time again.
While the headlines say driver shortage, what they’ll be trying to get past is lowering the CDL age to 18 longer trailers, heavier trailers, expanded hours of service, exemptions, preemption of of various state level labor and wage protections, fast tracking, [00:42:00] driverless trucks, subsidized driver training pipelines, AKA taxpayer funded labor.
All signs that the trap has already sprung and now , the wolves are circling and the government is willing to chew off its own leg to do anything to try to get out of the trap. sounds pretty gloomy, right? I promised unfiltered diesel Dous doesn’t pull punches.
But I’ve been thinking about this and I’ve been watching the various government shenanigans over the years. Sorry, Cal had to steal your line. trying to see if there’s still a rabbit left in their hat. And frankly, I don’t see a hat, let alone a rabbit. The government, they’ve pulled off surprise rescues before.
During COVID, they broke out the global money printing machine and showed just how coordinated, creative, and desperate world powers can get when collapse is on the line. But in this case, [00:43:00] reversing enforcement is politically impossible. Trump’s just not going down that road. He’s not gonna let, he’s not gonna open up the border in the other direction.
You’re not gonna turn the planes around and fill ’em back up . Subsidizing freight is fiscally reckless at a level we’ve never seen before. And all just so people can buy more stuff that they can’t afford and that our government can’t afford to subsidize. Like, , it’s one thing to do that for things like heating oil to keep people warm, but to do it for iPhones and crap off of team move.
I like, I don’t see anybody having the. Political fortitude, especially Republicans, to go down that path. , Now, . Is there something to be said for improving efficiency in transportation? Is it possible? Yes. We all know how much inefficiency there is, but the problem is technology’s not gonna save us in transportation, Deadhead miles. They’re not getting fixed by fancy dashboards. Shippers aren’t gonna magically stop causing detention. . Now, don’t get me wrong, we need [00:44:00] all these tools to reduce friction as fast as we can get them right. Anything would be better, but.
They’re not magic, and we’re gonna talk to Todd Waldron here in a minute from truck stop.com. He’s the VP of carrier services over there about some of their new features, and there’s a lot of great stuff in there that helps minimize effort, reduce friction, eliminate fraud, make sure you’re doing business with people you want to be doing business with.
All kinds of things like that. All of it helps, don’t get me wrong, but efficiency via technology. It can smooth an edge, but it’s not gonna revamp the entire industry overnight and keep the price inflation of lack of trucking supply from having an impact. There’s no magic. There’s no rabbit in the hat.
And also the world’s not gonna go for another synchronized currency devaluation. Stunt again. Yeah, there’s no globally coordinated [00:45:00] bailout waiting backstage like COVID, the magic’s gone this time. The math is real and it’s brutal. So what am, what am I recommending? What’s the call to action here? Well, , this is a moment of clarity.
To think about what your future actions are going to be. This boom is gonna feel like a comeback, but it’s bait. Like I said before, this is the eye of the storm. The other storm wall is coming. If you’re making a profit right now, or you’re going to start making a profit here soon as rates start to uptick.
Save it. Be responsible with it. Don’t over expand. Don’t fall for fake upcycles. And by all means, get your books in a row. I’ve said it before. Hopefully you hear it in other places. Understand your numbers, watch your costs like a hawk. Invest in efficiency. Whether that’s technology. [00:46:00] Or something else, how you do your processes, how you run your business.
Many businesses make the mistake of when times are good, they care less about efficiency because they’re already making more money than they usually do, it usually takes investment to get more efficient, and when times are hard, their capital’s being sucked up in all other directions and
they don’t have any left to invest in getting more efficient. And so you’re stuck and your only choice is really brute force, right? Pour more effort onto it. So get ahead of that. Take some of the profitability that it’s about to come and invest it in getting more efficient, and then finally keep an eye on your investments.
There’s going to be a runup, but there’s going to be a decline coming right behind it. That’s likely to be steep and harsh. You look at some of the greatest declines in Wall Street. Came right [00:47:00] after what seemed to be really good times. It hits like a ton of bricks and it goes deep and it hits hard.
Get in a financial advisor. You know, I talk about trucker’s wealth, that’s one source, but make sure somebody’s looking after you and your money. Make sure you know where the hell your passwords are because you may need to make decisions quickly, don’t worry about timing the market at the top or the bottom.
It’s always better to be a day early before a hard run like this down than being a day late. And just to be clear, this is not a sky is falling chicken little moment. This isn’t gonna happen overnight. This takes time to unfold and we’ll watch for other things that either , are accelerants that get thrown onto it, onto these various scenarios.
There’s also a big difference between what Washington talks about doing and what actually happens on the ground. So we’ll watch for that to see what the [00:48:00] gap is between what they say is being enforced and what actually happens. , So you have time and like I said, there’s gonna be a good runup here.
Just be cautious about how you react and. Buy into the runup because there’s some inescapable realities coming for the economy. You know, it’s kind of like standing on the beach and you’re knee deep and the waves are coming in and you watch the waves and you kinda move accordingly, right? You can see a little bit bigger wave or a couple waves stacked back to back and.
You sometimes move forward a step or you scurry backwards a step. You know the first waves, they may catch you a little off guard, hit you with some cold water down in your nether regions, and then sometimes the waves get stacked up and they pop you and they knock your ass over Tea kettle. The difference [00:49:00] between.
What the impact is of those waves as they start to hit is where you’re standing and how closely you’ve been paying attention to what’s coming. So that’s all from Diesel Damas here on the first go round. Hope you enjoyed it. Hopefully you’ve got questions or thoughts or rebuttals or tell me I’m crazy.
That may be true. , But. It seemed there were too many things, too many variables rattling around my head. I had to give him an escape path and I gave him a voice. , Who knows, maybe I’ll even give him an outfit going forward, and you’ll see more of diesel DAMA here soon. That’s all for the money line this week.
Up next, we’ve got our conversation with Todd Waldron, VP of Carrier experience over@truckstop.com. Ran into him a few months back down in Kentucky at the MidAmerica Truck Show. , Had a great conversation with him. We talk a little bit about that and we talk about some new features they’ve got on the way there [00:50:00] over@truckstop.com.
And then we’ll catch you on the flip side for the post trip. , We’ve got work to do.
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[00:51:00] Interview 1 –
all right. This week on the show we’ve got. A Minnesotan, a fellow Minnesotan special guest, Todd Waldron. Uh, it’s funny, a person who we’ve probably orbited our orbits have been probably pretty close to one another over the years, uh, right in each other’s backyard, but we kind of accidentally met one another down at Matt’s standing at the same booth talking, listening to the same, uh, kind of pitch about product features from another company.
And, uh, and turns out we’re nearly neighbors. So welcome to the show, Todd. Nice to see you again. Uh, Tony, it’s great to be here. It’s, uh, yeah, it’s, it’s a small world in logistics, but yet can seem so big sometimes. But, uh, yeah, it was pretty funny when I’m like, uh, standing there talking to this vendor and, and Tony’s up there peppering him with these strong operational questions.
I’m like, man, this guy knows his stuff. And then we started talking after that and it’s, it’s, uh, been great to get to know you better since. [00:52:00] So it’s a pleasure to be here. So my audience has heard a bit about my trucking story and, and the Minnesota roots of it, but let’s hear about your logistics story and how you’ve, uh, you’ve come up through the business.
Yeah, absolutely. So I started, uh, my career at CH Robinson, um, and worked in produce, transportation brokerage. And so, um, grew up in, uh, transportation brokerage, moving freight from the west to the northeast, um, produce off the west coast. So that was a great way to kind of cut my transportation teeth. I worked in account management and then also, uh, uh, led a, a consolidation team, um, an LTL at at ch as well.
I moved over to JB Hunt. Then in about 2013, I want to say it was, and um, opened the brokerage branch for JB Hunt up in Minnesota. A couple years after that, relocated down to corporate down in Arkansas, um, where I worked on JB Hunt 360 marketplace development and, and a lot of other fun stuff down there at corporate.
And I had the great opportunity. So I had spent six [00:53:00] years at Hunt, uh, four of which were down in Arkansas, and then had the opportunity, um, to come back up to Minnesota. And, and one of my good friends, uh, dad had, uh, founded Q Carriers, um, back in 1981, um, and was looking to retire again. And so my, my. Friend was, um, uh, gracious enough to consider me to, to be CEO and run the organization.
So I stepped into that in 2019, um, where we led that through 2024, um, and ended up selling the organization or selling the company, um, in 2024. So we’re running about 115 trucks when I got there, refrigerated food and beverage. Um, and then we had a brokerage division as well. Um, and so that was a great run in transportation, um, and that the asset side of, of trucking and, and refrigerated trucking.
Then I joined Truck Stop, uh, after we sold the organization end of, uh, 2024. Had the opportunity. I, I knew Brent Hu very well and he was, [00:54:00] uh, gracious enough to connect me. Um, and yeah, I’ve been here since and, and really been enjoying the technology side of things and looking at how can I. Take all of my 16 years in transportation and logistics background and apply technology to improve the lives of the people we interact with, um, particularly the drivers and the carriers.
And so now as the vice president of Carrier experience here at Truck Stop, that’s my sole focus is how do we as an organization make a more streamed line? Uh, streamlined, um, product offering and processes that support the driver and that support the carriers in executing their business. And so it’s, it’s been, um, just a lot of fun to, to apply all that learning into solutions that can continue to, to, um, improve the lives of, of the people we work with.
Right, right. That’s, that’s what it’s all about. Right. Learn some, yes. Learn some things sometimes the hard way, sometimes the easy way, but, uh, you know, and then come back and apply ’em and, [00:55:00] and try to build a better value somewhere else with that information. Yep. Absolutely. Well, you know, one thing I wanted to ask you before we jump into some of the truck stop features that have come out, you know, with your background in.
In brokerage in particular, and CH Robinson and Jimmy Hunt. Like one of the things I see get questioned a lot on the trucking social media sides is like. Why can’t we just get rid of brokers? Why? Like they, they’re just vipers. They’re just stealing money from hardworking truckers. Like they, we should just eradicate earth from brokerages and three pls altogether.
And I wanted, because you’ve worked on that side much more than I have. Like what? You have, there’s a sales pitch, right? I’ve been on the receiving end. I worked for Cargill and managed, you know, flower milling, uh, for them for a little while, logistics, um, truck logistics. And, and so there’s a sales pitch, right?
There’s a [00:56:00] reason for these companies to exist. But you lived it for, you know, a decade, more than a decade. So what’s the, what’s the pitch? Why did they exist? Yeah, I could talk on this for days. Um, but there’s, there’s, there’s a few components to it I look at is, is. One. Yes. Let’s, let’s get this outta the way there, there are bad performing ill-intentioned brokers out there that are trying to take advantage or are not operating in a, in a, in a, um, ethical way.
As the same way as there’s, there’s carriers and shippers that do the same thing as well, that, that are, um, not operating, um, in something that would, um, be either, uh, you know. Ethically sound or, um, also like respecting the needs of the other folks, right? And so if we separate that conversation for a minute and we look at the ones that are trying to better the industry and, and perform a service, the value of the broker, um, has evolved over the last 10 to 15 years.
[00:57:00] People like CH Robinson has really pioneered this dedicated hands-on approach to brokerage. Where previously and many years ago, it was really a, just a hands-off. They were just passing the, the shipment on, making a margin, and then to the shippers, uh, kind of hands-on, I’m just the broker, you gotta contact the carrier.
Mm-hmm. And so that evolved into a more hands-on service oriented approach. So one of the values of the brokers is to say, Hey, I can provide an additional layer of communication and service that benefits the shipper. But also benefits the carrier and the driver. So the driver doesn’t have to worry about, um, you know, making as many of the communications that shippers have come to expect in their daily lives.
But one of the primary roles that brokerages have fit into the value, uh, component is aggregating the, the small carriers, the one to five trucks, and being able to vet. Manage that level of [00:58:00] carriers. Shippers, were not able to effectively build, um, a, a transportation team that could effectively utilize those carriers.
So one way to look at it is saying, as a smaller carrier, it’s often incredibly difficult to get access to freight from those large shippers and brokers enable the ability to do that. So if I can find a broker that cares about. How I move my truck where I want to be and respects me and also advocates on behalf of me to the broker or to the shipper.
Um, there’s a lot of health that can be found in that relationship. Um, IQ carriers at 115 trucks, right? We had our strategy of being shipper direct in the majority of our freight, but we would still utilize brokers and have good relationships with solid brokers where it made sense, whether it was for back haul.
Whereas for loose times, loose season times to fill maybe 15% of our head haul. Shipments. Um, there were still that value in the relationships that they had and bringing [00:59:00] that, um, connection, um, to, to the shippers that they might’ve been worked with. It’s also evolved the technology space. Brokers have really developed a strong, um, portfolio of technology and there’s new vendors that are providing a lot of technology to the brokers so they can provide an, uh, a level of data, um, analytics.
Um, as well as, um, information and automation and things like that, that, um, they’re focused on in, in developing. And so that there’s, there’s obviously some carriers that can do that too, but some of the smaller carriers don’t always have the resources to add all of those layers of technology. And so I think there’s, there’s multiple aspects to it.
The other thing I, I, I, I really hit on is the margin discussion that at the end of the day, brokers aren’t making some exorbitant amount of margin. Some are, but some, and some might be in, and sometimes. In a small window where you see a shipment that has a certain margin, but [01:00:00] brokerage margin is managed throughout the year where there’s ebbs and flows to that, especially those that, that are managing contracted freight.
And so it’s a, it’s an incredibly difficult thing to price contracted business to a shipper to sustain through the year. Um, and so there’s a risk component to that that also has to be managed within the brokerage margin. But the average margin might be 15% in the industry, but the net. Profitability or, or net margin is only in the four to 6% in a healthy performing brokerage or a, a, a fairly, uh, good state of brokerage.
So, yeah. And the brokers, you know, like you said, they’re providing a service, right? They’re providing updates just like a shipper. As a large shipper, when I was in that role, I didn’t want to deal with 503 truck companies when you’re, uh, you know, a 30 truck company, excuse me. You also don’t want to deal with 900 shippers just because that’s how many different people you actually haul [01:01:00] freight for, right?
Yep. So there’s, there’s a mutual bene mutually beneficial helpfulness that the, that provi that the broker provides. And I think. Uh, I’d like to say that I had a plan when I asked that question. More of a blind squirrel wandering around, but it, it has a direct relationship to what you’re doing right now and the role the truck stop plays in the industry, right, of facilitating the ease of interactions, the safety of interactions, all those things.
Yep. Absolutely. When you look at, uh, uh, like from a brokerage standpoint too, the shipper has evolved where they used to have brokers just as an overflow model, but they realize is that if you have brokers on the routing guide in a sustainable, um, you know, kind of long-term relationship that you don’t see the ebbs and flows in the peaks and valleys, they can smooth those out a little bit.
But then you step into then the load board. From like a truck stop perspective, which is one of the products and tools that we [01:02:00] use to kind of help the relationship between brokers and carriers. Um. But that’s another thing that sometimes will get a bad rap, right? And the noise often takes the external conversation because everybody’s talking about that, whether it’s the fraud or things that are happening.
And fortunately, our load board has gotten, um, very great, um, reviews and feedback as far as not, uh, you know, not having the fraud present, um, you know, on the load board. Um, but that negative connotation, it’s like a load board is a tool. And a thing that can really support this relationship between brokers and carriers.
And they can also introduce people into deeper levels of, of relationships. And so a lot of the tools and the releases that we’re, we’re coming out with are saying, how can we have additional features that make this more beneficial to the carriers and, and the brokers and also the relationships and bringing them together.
And so you’ll see that in some of the features that we’ll talk about that, that, [01:03:00] that we’re coming out with. Yeah, let’s start to talk about some of those features that you guys just, uh, just came out with and how they help facilitate these sorts of things for, for both sides of the equation. Right. The whole logistics network benefits when everybody’s operating as efficiently as possible.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So one, one thing that, that some brokers have requirements is, is a certain age, uh, a tenure of authority, having your authority for a certain amount of time. And so one of the challenges we were seeing in our carriers that they would find a shipment and then call a broker and then run into this requirement and they might not meet that requirement.
So we added an age authority. Authority age filter that allows a carrier to filter on showing them just loads and shipments that will work with their authority level. So if I have six months of authority, I can filter to see the brokers that will work with me loads. So it saves a lot of time. We’ve gotten great feedback on this.
It saves a lot of [01:04:00] time in, in navigating, um, where I’m at. My, um, tenure as an organization or as a carrier, and who are the people that I’m gonna work best with? Yeah. And the primary driver around that is just with the amount of fraud that we’re seeing in the industry. It’s just people are leery certain, uh, everybody’s got a different risk tolerance.
And so, you know, there are certain people who just say, you know what, six months, a year, whatever your age on your mc, um. You know, how long you’ve had, it is a, like a cri a criteria that you know they’re gonna set their policy for and, and kind of stick to that line, right. I. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. And so, you know, that’s kind of one of the downfalls of, I mean, there’s significant, a lot of downfalls, but the downfalls for the good, um, people that wanna start a, a good, relevant healthy business is that with the increase in fraud, there’s a lot more skepticism that has then impacted people’s ability to start a trucking company or start, [01:05:00] you know, running their own truck.
And so this is one way to help, um, folks at least have, manage and have visibility. Then the other thing I’m, I’m kind of working on trying to figure out is, well, how do we add legitimacy and, and some type of a footprint to those folks, the drivers that are new but have a longstanding history as, as a company driver at a certain company or something like that?
How can we, I. Make that resume, if you will, more present and more, you know, open to the, the brokers they wanna work with. So you get the full picture. Because right now you see that authority agent, it just looks like, oh, you’re, you’re just new to this and you just bought a truck and decided to go hit the road.
Right? Like, yeah, you could have been an owner operator, you could have been a. You know, a master contractor with 20 trucks under Landstar for 20 years. Yep. But you go and fill out that, you know, authority application and it looks like you just fell off the turnip truck, right? Yeah. With the new guy. Yeah. [01:06:00] I mean, that’s where, it’s interesting, you look at platforms like car, um, Reddit, for example, right?
And like you can set the, basically the tolerance for your group that says you have to have so much air quotes, karma. You have to have contributed so much to the group as. Like a guest or a commenter before, we’ll let you post anything because we don’t want people just jumping in and. Spamming us with their, you know, spamming, buy, buy our insurance or buy our, you know, fuel plan or whatever the case.
Right. So there’s almost like that kind of mafia, you know, vouch for somebody to get ’em in the network, right? Yeah. Yep. Absolutely. Uh, so that, that, yeah, that’s, that’s one vein, uh, load popularity, um, you know, recognizing the challenge of competing for popular loads. And so, um, this is, uh, meant to kind of show and assess the views on a shipment and, and externalize, um, how many, how many views are out there on a shipment, and see the ones that are gonna be highly competitive.[01:07:00] The ones that are gonna be less competitive, that might have a better chance at winning. Um, and, and, and getting in with a, a new broker or, or interacting with somebody. Um, so that’s kind of like a, just a visibility of to some of the data and activity happening, which is something we want to continue to do.
Um, a back culture, there’s nothing more, nothing more disappointing than getting excited about a load. You found one and then, you know. You, you don’t, you don’t, you don’t realize that Yeah. 50 other people got the same feeling about that load. You better move fast. Right? Yeah. Yep. Yep. It gives you a sense of, uh, you know, the timeliness to respond.
Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. Um, and then, I mean, there’s a simple thing like backhaul search where we’re seeing, you know, people might search, uh, uh, location A to B. Um, and then search the inverse. And so we just inserted a, a swap button, right? Something simple, but just making it easier for them to interact with so you can hit the swap button and it swaps it into searching for a back haul.
Mm-hmm. Um, so that was once, [01:08:00] um, thing, and then we’ve been talking a lot and working a lot on recommendations. Recommendations is a broad term. A lot of people use recommendations, load recommendations, and so the, the intuitiveness and how it works and interacts is really the key. To it. And so one of the ones we, we rolled out was a similar load recommendations, um, to look at.
Um, you know, similar to what I’ve hauled in the pla past or what the carrier search criteria is, we wanna help them discover more relevant opportunities. Um, and then we’re working on like a lane suggestions. So carriers will often search to anywhere, some will that, that have more flexible destinations, and so we’re gonna want to provide some suggestions.
Are loads that that might be, the rate is better or the, the, the shipment has better characteristics or things like that. And so if you’re searching anywhere, we might say, Hey, we wanna, we wanna highlight some of the suggested ones that we see that might be a, a, a better fit for you. And so just. Adding additional [01:09:00] tools, intelligence research to kind of, um, help, uh, make the search a little bit easier.
’cause you, you’ll often, there’s, there’s often a lot of loads that can return on results and so we want to just highlight, um, ones that we think would be a great fit for you. Yeah, well that’s one of the challenges, right? Of. You know, a long time ago when I started, when you started, you know, the, the tools were very minimal.
Yeah. And I was gonna ask you about like, how do you, how does your team or you go about looking at some of these, because right, you can add a million features, right? A million search criteria, and now you got like three pages to scroll through of which, where was that search and how do I do a. You know, semicircle radius search that faces to the east out of Memphis.
You know, things like that. Yep. How do you, so the complexity of all the things that people ask for and, but also trying to make it so that the software is still actually usable and doesn’t drive people nuts. I. Yeah. Yeah. They, I mean, there’s, there’s a lot that [01:10:00] goes into that is, is we have a lot of mediums for gaining, um, customer feedback, right?
And getting thoughts and ideas, whether it’s an NPS survey or it’s an in-app, um, feedback experience. Or we have some forms that are even a simple way to, to provide feedback. And so we have a process for collecting all of that. And then the committees that discuss and, and, and, um, talk about what that feedback relates to, whether it’s.
A process where it could be in the customer service vein, it could be in the, um, you know, the, the sales vein or, or some other vein, or it could be in the product side. And how do we one, communicate to understand with that person that provided the feedback, but then two, um, incorporate it or see where it fits on the product roadmap and see how it aligns.
And then from there. It really takes, there takes on a, a life of its own and trying to say what’s the, what are the details? I always say in transportation, the devil’s in the details. And so an idea like you get a [01:11:00] title of a product or, or something and it’s like, that’s a great idea, but then something X, y and Z could make it so it’s not even relevant to the driver because we didn’t account for that.
And so there’s, there’s, that’s a part of, of. You know, my role too is stepping in and saying, okay, as we dig into releasing this product, what are the specifications we’re building into it? How’s it gonna look? Where does it live in the workflow, and how does it interact with the rest of the, the product and the rest of the features?
And does this deliver the value? The person who gave the feedback intended it to deliver is the things that you have to connect. Yeah. ’cause scope creep and everything else in technology development can often take you on this path where you end up way over here and you’re like, well, this is so and so feature.
And you’re like, yeah, but the person who recommended this meant this. Yeah. They was trying to solve a totally different problem. We slowly evolved into this. Yes. Yeah. That’s where I, I I, I love being a part of that and, [01:12:00] and, and, um, and so that involves not only, you know, us talking through it, but then also reaching out to folks, um, and, and carriers we work with and relationships we have to get their feedback and input.
Um, and, you know, so that, that’s, that’s a big part of, um, the process as well. So what challenges that, especially on the carrier side and the, the, the, you know, from the one truck owner operator to the, you know, the smaller carriers. Like what, what are the things that you guys are working on coming up next to continue to make their experience the best possible one you can provide?
We have a lot coming up and a lot we’re working on. And so as, as we talk, as we release Scott Moss script, our, our, our founder stepped back in and as interim CEO and is, um, uh, really pushing a fast pace of product delivery and say, and, and customer focused. And how we listen to and react to our customers.
So there’s a lot happening on our product side. Some of the things are the [01:13:00] lane suggestions I mentioned coming up. Um, factor ability data, the ability for a factoring customer to be able to see which brokers, um, are factor, which not only tells you which ones you, you can factor against, but it also gives financial legitimacy to brokers because you know that they’ve gone through some financial approval process.
Buy a factoring company to be able to get that, that banner or that, that mark. Right. Um, and then also like RMIS, um, you know, are, are vetting and onboarding software. The ability to, to be able to see, um, which loads are posted by brokers I’m already onboarded with. So now I can see, wait, who am I gonna have to go through the onboarding process with again versus who am I already set up with?
And being able to see that in the load board is another feature. So you’ll see those are just some examples of the things that are coming down the pike that are like we continue to. Take out the friction [01:14:00] between, um, the carriers and the brokers, as well as enable a deeper level of trust and truth to happen in that.
And so the more information that that, that, that’s relevant to being able to interact together. Um, and so there’s a lot more happening from there. And, and yeah, it’s gonna be, uh, it’s gonna be a lot of fun and you’re gonna see a lot of, um, innovation and new things continuing to come from us here in the coming months.
So. Yeah. And from a practical level, right? I mean, when, as a driver, as an owner operator waiting on dispatch, you know, you’re sitting around going, why? Why the heck is it taking so long? Or I get the dispatch, Hey, I got a load. Just gimme a minute and I’ll get you the details. And then three hours later, you’re still sitting there twiddling your thumbs, right?
These are some of the things that Yep. Are create the. Thumb twiddling moments that you’re trying to pull that, pull that time out of there and go, Hey, we’re already, bro, we already know each other. I already know that you have some financial credibility. So I’m not sitting here hemming and hawing [01:15:00] doing. I mean now, you know, before you might be calling your friends, but now you might be Googling looking for bad reviews.
Is this broker gonna stiff me? All that kind of stuff, or these guys crooks you, you get that instantaneous feedback. You can move on faster and get people doing what they, you know, makes money in this business. Yep. And, and that’s, that’s the thing that perpetuates the negative relationship. Mm-hmm. Because your narrative starts to be, they’re screwing me.
They’re looking for a, a lower pay carrier to pay. They’re looking for somebody else. Which could be the truth, but coming from and sitting in that broker seat, the things that can happen or go wrong, whether it’s technology and I didn’t get the rate compromise or the, the, the, the paperwork or there’s an issue with the paperwork or there’s a system issue in getting it approved.
It’s like. There’s a slew of things or shipper wants to change the load but didn’t, didn’t tell you this, and you’re trying to confirm, but they won’t answer their phone and you’re trying to, and so it’s like I always say [01:16:00] like assume good intent. There could be something that’s, that’s, um. That’s a, a positive or negative that’s happening behind the scenes, but assume good intent and, and see how communication can help enable that.
And so from a broker’s perspective, I would always teach over communicate. If you’re having an issue with the insurance or the this person that you’re trying to work on, communicate that. To the carrier so they, that they know you’re working on it. In the same way, like in customer service, if I send an email to customer service, getting a response that it was received is so, like, it’s, it’s mind easing in the same way that carriers and brokers work together and everything is, is some people will receive these and just sit and, and think that the other person should assume they’re working on it.
And that’s, that’s just not how communication should be handled. It’s like over communicate. Less assumptions, no assumptions. You know, it really helps to say, Hey, let’s give each other the benefit of the doubt and not [01:17:00] assume negative in an intent until that person. Proved us wrong in doing something that actually, um, you know, is proven to be a, a not good business practice.
Right? Yeah. And I mean, it’s funny, right? Last week I was talking with Danger Dave, ’cause he had a myriad of breakdowns on his load from. I forget where he was coming out of. I think it was somewhere down by Texas going up to Buffalo, New York, and he made it to Nashville. And you know, it was breakdown after breakdown, the record breakdown he’d break down, you know, then he’d go 50 miles up the road, check engine light comes on.
And you know the thing, it’s funny, like his commentary mirrored your commentary, which was over communicate. Don’t assume. If you’re upfront and explain things to people, like, these things happen and yeah. Can we still get frustrated or, you know, impatient or have things that you need to get done? Yes, absolutely.
Yes. But you don’t What? You don’t what, [01:18:00] what all those things help do is root out those assumptions, the erroneous assumptions. Yeah. And, and get everybody on the same page. ’cause just like if you’re a driver. You know, there’s a lot to navigate to make a load happen. It’s not just, you know, Chicago to Kansas City and, you know, it’s eight hours of peace and joy.
Right? Yeah. Um, the flip side is also true that just because the person hit the send button on a dispatch to your truck doesn’t mean that they have eight hours of peace and joy on the paperwork, on the updating. Absolutely. And all the other things. Things, right, or, or the brokers in the same shoes, right?
There’s a lot of stuff that goes on that you just don’t see, and quite frankly, everybody should be happy. You don’t have to see it or participate in it as little as possible. That’s what tools like you, you’re talking about help facilitate, right? Yeah. As a driver, I don’t want to know, Hey. You know, they, I don’t want to hear their sob story about, well, we did this with this broker that doesn’t seem to pay us.
And, you know, you know, is ghosted us now. Or, you know, [01:19:00] everybody benefits from good, transparent data rich relationships that are as easy as possible for everybody. Absolutely. And it goes both ways. A good, a good friend of mine runs a trucking company in northern Minnesota who’s posted on LinkedIn about this interaction with the broker that, that they, they had a legitimate truck breakdown, was in the shop, could prove it, et cetera, et cetera.
They notified as soon as they found out, right? They did all of the right things. And then the broker comes back and says they’re gonna enter a freight guard on them. And it’s like, uh. You can’t just go from zero to 60 and assume everybody’s bad in trying to cheat the system, just because we have so much of that, um, fraud and mistrust happening.
It’s like, let’s, let’s take a breather on both sides and, and try to get the, the, get the. Positive, great people working together in positive ways. Um, and that’s, that’s something that really drives and motivates me is, is being in brokerage, being an asset, and being in carriers [01:20:00] inside of things. It’s like there’s, there’s a purpose and healthiness to these.
Two different roles in the industry, and I’m just like, how do we make this more enjoyable for both sides? Transportation’s a tough business. Yeah. But you know, our, our vision became at Q carriers delivering an enjoyable transportation experience. And everybody, when I, when I brought up enjoyable, everybody was looking around the room like, this is trucking, man, let’s, but I’m like, wait a minute, like.
You no matter our our shop, our director of the shop said raises their trucks are broken down when they come to me. What’s enjoyable about that? I said, if you asked every one of these drivers when their truck’s broke down, where the shop they wanna bring their truck to, they’d be able to name a shop. I.
Because that shop was respectful, build them correctly, treated them well. Something made in spite of the circumstance being poor, made it a more enjoyable experience than it could have been. And so it’s like, that’s what it’s all about for me, is like, how do we continue to make this more enjoyable because it’s such a [01:21:00] necessary.
Component of our economy, but yet it can be just so challenging, um, in many ways to just execute and, and make things happen. So, yeah, and it’s in those toughest moments, like your friend, the carrier, it’s in those toughest moments where you have the opportunity to build the strongest bonds if you’re open to it.
Right. Absolutely. ’cause every you know, you, you don’t have that much trust with somebody. You know, it, it trust builds pretty slow if everything goes okay. Right? Yeah. There’s nothing extraordinarily good, nothing extraordinarily bad, okay? If you do that a thousand times, then I start to trust, you know, or a hundred times or whatever your magic number is, okay?
Then we have a certain level of trust. But if we went through something tough together, and I know how you react in tough situations and that you’re communicative and respectful and all those things in the in, in the goofy scenarios that pop up in trucking all the time, I know a lot more about you, a [01:22:00] lot faster than any other way.
Yes. I’ve built so many stronger relationships that were in a very negative situation with like shippers or and or carriers. But the way you handle and they see your, your dedication through that can really turn those into to even more positive relationships. Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes you gotta be tough.
There are times for that in this business, but there’s also a lot of times for grace and, uh, being generous. Um, yes. That, that you can build a lot and gain a lot. In the long run. Right? Yeah. And I think that kind of goes with circling back to kind of where you started too, which was around just. The, the difference between the people who are out for a one time gain as fast as possible, and the actors who are actually trying to build something mutually beneficial because that broker who thinks he may be doing himself a solid by, you know, putting a fleet guard on on a particular carrier, he actually just shrunk his [01:23:00] available capacity for his business in the future.
Yep. And he, he, he’s likely costing himself money. Yep. Absolutely. It’s a short-term mindset. Short-term mentality. Yeah. Just for an emotional response, most likely over something that was frustrating or, you know. Yeah. And yes, brokers take heat. I was on the shipper side and I gave, and CH Robinson was one of my vendors, uh, my three pls out of, uh, out of, uh, Topeka.
And, um, you know, there were times when I gave them hell, but that, you know, but there was also times they bailed me out of a thousand icky scenarios of, you know. And, and, and a lot of, a lot of it’s like bail, bailing, bailing people out of scenarios that are actually good things. Like, Hey, our customers ordered way more than we could have planned for, we have way more freight to haul.
Can you help? Right. Like yeah. Those are the bailouts that are good. Right. The salesman over there. Yeah. They’re high fiving each other. We did, and we got some more sales and, and we’re over there going, oh my God. Like, what do you think? Trucks grow on trees, [01:24:00] but you know, they kind of do when you have a partner who’s got access to a much bigger network than you have organically, right?
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. There’s a lot of value in that. So there’s a lesson today. Trucks do grow on trees. No, man. Well it was great talking to you. I love hearing about your new features. I hope to get you back, you know, as more stuff comes out and talk about, you know, where truck stops going and uh, and all the cool stuff you bring to the marketplace for, especially for, you know, the carriers.
’cause that’s what your focus is on. Absolutely. Would love to. I appreciate you having me on. It’s been great chatting. Thanks.

Post Trip
Quick reminder to pay a visit [01:25:00] to friends of the show on social media. Big Cow’s Trucking. Wait, hold on. Breaking news this week there’s been a name change. It’s now trucking with coffee and cow, so go check out Big Cow over there. Paige is the same, but if you haven’t been there yet, you’re gonna have to search a different way.
It’ll be trucking with coffee and cow. Superior Trucking payroll service. Be sure to visit Mike Rizo over there and check out all his information. He’s been kicking out a lot of social media stuff , this last couple weeks. So a lot of fun he’s been having, with content there. Also, we’ve, gotten ourselves into it.
A couple interesting conversations around per diem. Evidently there’s dissension in the ranks of the trucking community about per diem. I guess some folks would rather pay more in taxes so that their income line on their 10 40 EZ form is higher. Not sure how that math works out, but I know Mike’s fighting the good fight out there, wherever he can.
Sure to visit I [01:26:00] 95. Truckers support Al on social media. He’s always supporting us. We need to get little brother trucker or danger Dave over there so we can get some live action photos of those guys. Trucking, not just these still photos they keep posting. So go check out AL’S page over there. I 95 Truckers Trans Carolina permits.
They’ve been putting a lot of fun posts up lately. Also, sheet trucking, the organization of Charra Moore. , I read her poem last week on the program. And also I just got her book delivered while I was away this last week. , So we’ve got a holiday weekend coming up to , get some extra reading time in.
So I’ll be letting you know how that book goes. Speaking of which, yes, I’m back in Arizona just in time for 114 degree weather. So that sizzle on your toes on the asphalt. lets you know that you’re home. We’ve got the holiday weekend, 4th of July, coming up here, this coming Friday. Get those flags out.
Dodge those RVs and tourists out there. Make sure you get home safely. [01:27:00] Make sure you come back to work afterwards with as many fingers that you started with. I’m almost there on the new website, and we’ll have some new etiquette segments to release along when the website comes out. I’m, I keep saying that man.
I’m close. I just gotta, now it’s almost all on me now to make sure I get all the ducks in a row. My wife did a great job helping me test it, making sure all the links actually went somewhere and corrected all my spelling and grammar errors. So I. You know, with a little bit of help, maybe even I could pass an English language proficiency examination.
, Also on the website, you’ll see a couple new releases of things where I’m aggregating a bunch of trucking industry information, like other trucking podcasts, trucking songs, trucking movies, trucking books, trucking products, things to make your life easier on the road.
So, of course, I’ll be looking for y’all’s input on the things that I’m missing. Big cow. That means you, buddy. I know you’ve got all kinds of movie recommendations to throw at me. So, um, we’ll have a spot to put those out there. We can share ’em with the world. , Summer [01:28:00] show seasons in full swing. Of course, I.
Check out the website, the truck show list.com. Southern Idaho Truck Show was going on this weekend. , Actually there was lots of shows this past weekend. I recall seeing a couple different A THS, American Truck Historical Society. I joined them as a member here in the last week too. So shout out to me for being a member of the, uh, American Truck Historical Society.
I’ve also got my stuff all booked, my hotels and flights and all that stuff to head up to the Walcott Jamboree that’s coming up here in two weeks. So up in Iowa just west of, , the Quad cities there, Davenport. I’ll be there all day on Friday. You know, I was thinking I probably only ever stopped there maybe a couple times in all the years.
no particular reason why. It’s just a lot of trucks and a lot of traffic that wasn’t really a spot where I was gonna stop to do anything or at least spend the night or anything like that. So I’m, I’m excited. I’m gonna actually get to go, have enough time to take a look around and admire some of the things there that, , I’m pretty sure when I went there before, I, I don’t [01:29:00] even think I’ve ever eaten there.
I just bought fuel there a couple times in and out so that’ll be fun. There’s plenty more shows to check out this summer. The truck show list.com will tell you where they’re all at and when they are. Oh, speaking of shows, that reminds me of my favorite, , trucking term of the week. My wife and I, we went to the theater to see a play on Friday night, the Scarlet Pumper Nail.
I. Yeah, evidently it’s a flower. ,, it’s a play about the French Revolution. It was decent, had some funny moments, but the trucking term that I heard this week was compliance theater. Uh, the act put on to make it look like compliance and safety is actually happening to comply with nonsense government regulations.
So there you’ve got a new word. I’ve tied it all together for the show. I tied together truck shows go into the theater and compliance all into one compliance theater. I’m sure little brother Trucker will he’ll, he’ll like that one. He’ll find [01:30:00] a way to use that in a sentence this week that puts a bow on things for this week.
Be sure to keep reaching out if you’d like to be on the program, like follow, comment, subscribe, leave us a review. Email us at inbox at channel one nine experience.com. There’s also a contact form on the website. Keep sharing the show with your friends. Thanks for listening. See you all next week. We’ve got work to do.
Outro