Behind The Freight

In this episode of Freight Nation: A Trucking Podcast, host Brent Hutto is joined by Evan Shelley, Co-Founder and CEO of Truck Parking Club. 
Join them as they:

• Explore Evan’s transition from real estate to truck parking
• Discuss the challenges of starting a company and building out a product
• Examine how the Truck Parking Club app solves the parking problem
• And more!

Evan Shelly is the Co-Founder and CEO of Truck Parking Club, a company committed to helping to provide parking for truckers by monetizing vacant properties for landowners. As a truck parking expert, Evan is working to help solve the truck parking shortage and bring awareness to the issue.

Episode Highlights:
[02:44] Evan’s background in trucking actually comes from real estate. He was working on commercial and industrial land deals and he came across an industrial land deal that he wanted for a warehouse space. It didn’t work out to be suitable for a warehouse in the end, so he spoke to the investors to determine what the land could be used for instead. One of them mentioned the high demand for truck parking in the area; that there wasn’t enough, and this location looked perfect for it. The municipality, however, was not a fan of the idea, and they refused it. This was in 2021 and it led Evan to talk to people in trucking about the problem. Eventually, this led to the founding of Truck Parking Club, leveraging technology to use existing space for truckers to book parking in real-time. 

[10:01] Truck Parking Club is approaching its one-year anniversary. Over the year, they have grown to a team of eight who are all dedicated to solving the problem of parking for truckers. As Evan explains, starting any company is difficult and he found it extremely hard to get going. He created the first product for bookings but, as a non-technical guy, he just created the bare minimum. It was a constant battle to get bookings in, and technology doesn’t always work perfectly. Bugs come up and have to be dealt with, particularly when, as Evan did, a product is taken to the market early. Believing they provide the most value to owner-operators and smaller teams, the team has focussed on providing value to them down-market, rather than large carriers. To help with this, they actually hired former truckers as their customer service representatives.


[19:51] In order to make sure the Truck Parking Club app solves the problem it is required to, Evan and his team constantly think about the “what”. What does the trucker need? The answer: they need to be able to find parking efficiently. They need a product that allows them to book it efficiently. It needs to be the fastest and easiest part of their day. Thus, Evan and his team designed the process to take as few clicks as possible, to be as seamless as possible. They also have a 24/7 customer helpline to resolve any issues that do crop up, maintaining a positive experience for all. As simple as it sounds, that is truly it. Their biggest focus is customer experience and that is likely what their success over the past year is owed to. 
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts, instructions on how to do this are here.
Behind the Freight is Truckstop’s trucking and logistics podcast for carriers, owner operators, small fleets and freight brokers. Hosted by John Howland, with new episodes every other week on freight fraud prevention, compliance, trucking technology and the freight market.
Find loads, vet carriers and protect your business at Truckstop.com

Connect with John on LinkedIn
Behind The Freight is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so

In this episode of Freight Nation: A Trucking Podcast, host Brent Hutto is joined by Tyler Johnston, Director of Operations at Mercer Transportation.
Join them as they:

• Explore what sets Mercer apart from other truckload carriers
• Share advice for managing negotiations between carriers and brokers
• Examine the three ways customers send carriers freight
• And more!

Tyler Johnston currently serves as the Director of Operations at Mercer Transportation, one of the USA’s largest truckload carriers with over 45 years in business. Tyler has held a number of positions with the company, including Brokerage and Freight Operations Manager. Previously he was Dispatch Supervisor at Core Transportation.

Episode Highlights:
[13:41] Mercer Transportation was founded in 1977, initially as an owner-operator company. Back then, you had to buy specific commodity tariffs, and so the company was founded as a water and sewage pipe-only hauler, specifically in North and South Dakota. Since then, they have expanded into an agent based company spread across the entirety of the USA. Their initial goal was to be the safest, fastest paying, truly driver-centric company in the nation. In Tyler’s role, this means that every conversation he has with his operations team is centered around what will make the drivers more successful. If they’re successful, the company will be too. 

[19:35] When carriers are in negotiations with brokers, Tyler advises against approaching the conversation in a transactional nature, as this is always incorrect. If you’re only talking about one load at one time, you’re missing out on a lot of the wider information that could get you repeat business. If you’re 100 miles away from a load, you’ll be able to explain why you need the extra money and build up a better relationship, rather than just seeming like you’re unwilling to negotiate. The faster you build a relationship, the more repeat business you’ll get, and the more time you’ll save in the long-run. Get everything on the table sooner so you can get to a solution quicker.


[28:46] No matter who you are, there are only three ways that a customer sends a carrier freight. The first is contract freight. That’s your big companies, such as Pepsi, Walmart, whoever, and they send giant spreadsheets to people like Tyler that detail everything they’re going to do over the next year. The people like Tyler then make bids on each contract. Then the corporation awards the freight to carriers. The second way is spot market freight, or Rolodex freight, where a shipper emails all of the brokers and asset-based carriers that have tried to contact them with their purchase orders and everyone bids at once. The third and final way is, “He’s a good guy” freight. This is when a broker has been dealing with one company for many years, always providing them good business, and can then essentially give them a good reference to carriers, so carriers are more likely to accept the load. 
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts, instructions on how to do this are here.

Behind the Freight is Truckstop’s trucking and logistics podcast for carriers, owner operators, small fleets and freight brokers. Hosted by John Howland, with new episodes every other week on freight fraud prevention, compliance, trucking technology and the freight market.
Find loads, vet carriers and protect your business at Truckstop.com

Connect with John on LinkedIn
Behind The Freight is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so

In this episode of Freight Nation: A Trucking Podcast, host Brent Hutto is joined by Rahmel Wattley, Founder of Truck N’ Hustle.

Join them as they:

• Explore Rahmel’s start in dispatching
• Discuss Rahmel’s first entrepreneurial venture: Ultimate Driver Staffing
• Shine a light on the impetus behind the FreighFest conference
• And more!

Rahmel Wattley is the founder of Truck N’ Hustle, the fastest growing network for transportation and logistics professionals. He connects and empowers professionals in the industry, providing them with insights, opportunities, and inspiration. In 2022, he launched the first FreightFest conference, attracting hundreds of attendees and speakers from across the sector.


Episode Highlights:

[01:58] Rahmel has been in transportation for around twenty years, entering the industry as a means to an end. He was unemployed, looking for a job that would pay him a good wage, and the marketing of the time was showing trucking as a career where you could easily make $50,000 a year. He found a place sponsoring people to get their commercial driver’s license (CDL) and saw it as a no-brainer: they were going to pay for him to make a large sum of money. While completing the class for the CDL, he realized he didn’t really want to be a truck driver but figured he would give it a go since he had the license. Very soon, he found an opportunity to instead become a dispatcher, managing drivers instead of driving himself. He was hired on the spot, and learned a lot about the industry from that role. It turned out that the man who hired him was committing fraud, so he was fired, leading Rahmel to end up taking over that position, becoming a 23 year old running a multimillion dollar account.


[11:11] After eleven years in the trucking game, Rahmel’s entrepreneurial bug started to kick in. While he was learning a lot, he was getting stressed out from dealing with a minimum of fifty drivers at any one time. He figured that, if he was getting so stressed, he might as well start his own thing. During busy periods, the company would reach out to driver lease companies, adding to their normal pool by drawing from another. Working behind the scenes and looking at the invoices, Rahmel realized the company was making a good profit on each driver they leased. He then started up his first driver staffing company: Ultimate Driver Staffing, earning $1.2 million in revenue in his first year.


[27:47] At Truck N’ Hustle, Rahmel is constantly building relationships with others in the trucking industry, it’s almost like a family. People always said to him that he should run an event, bringing all his guests together and creating a space for networking between them and his followers. Last year they started running events, the FreightFest conference, bringing the community together to network. They’ve run five so far, and have more planned, and the very first one was so successful that the fire marshal had to stop people entering the venue.

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts, instructions on how to do this are here.

Behind the Freight is Truckstop’s trucking and logistics podcast for carriers, owner operators, small fleets and freight brokers. Hosted by John Howland, with new episodes every other week on freight fraud prevention, compliance, trucking technology and the freight market.
Find loads, vet carriers and protect your business at Truckstop.com

Connect with John on LinkedIn
Behind The Freight is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so

In this episode of Freight Nation: A Trucking Podcast, host Brent Hutto is joined by Ellen Voie, Founder of the Women In Trucking Association. 
Join them as they:

• Discuss the early days of the Women In Trucking Association
• Explore Ellen’s drive to get more data on gender disparity in the trucking industry
• Delve into the wins and challenges the Association has faced
• Examine what it’s like to be the leader of a brand
• And more!

Ellen Voie is passionate about creating a more gender diverse culture in the transportation industry. In 2007, she recognized the need to support women in the sector, founding the non-profit organization, the Women In Trucking Association. Since then, she has grown the membership to over 8,000 corporate and individual members in ten countries.

Episode Highlights:
[04:27] Working as Manager of Recruiting and Retention Programmes at a large Midwest carrier, Ellen was tasked with determining how to attract and retain nontraditional groups, such as ex-military, women, and seniors. The industry kept saying that they didn’t care about an individual’s demographics, they would just hire the best person for the job, but Ellen saw them completely ignoring 50% of the population, women. At the time, she was working towards her pilot’s license and was a member of a women’s aviation association and she couldn’t help wondering why there wasn’t a similar association in the trucking industry. So, she built one: the Women In Trucking Association. Mirroring the structure of the aviation association, Ellen put together a board of directors of influential women she knew and worked with her attorney to write the mission statement. The mission has never changed, it is simply to encourage the employment of women in the industry, to address obstacles that might keep them from either entering or succeeding, and to celebrate success.

[11:11] Leaders of non-profit organizations need to act as a resource of information, and when she first started, Ellen had no data to go from. Very few fleets truly knew what their percentage of female drivers was. Ellen would go to any and every conference asking the same question, “Do you have your data broken down by gender?” Every time the answer was no, and she’d ask them how to get that data. She was getting the train of thought and conversation started on the experience of women in the industry. She was in charge of getting the data out to companies, reaching out to the Association’s members and female drivers at trade shows.


[27:32] Ellen led the Women In Trucking Association for sixteen years, only recently retiring. As the leader of the brand, she has been pleased by the reception in the industry. People have listened to what she has to say and she was able to establish her credibility to be able to change the future for women in the industry. The biggest challenge, other than people not knowing how to pronounce her last name, has been extricating herself from the brand. It’s her baby, and now she has had to pass the baton on to someone else to lead the Association.  
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts, instructions on how to do this are here.
Behind the Freight is Truckstop’s trucking and logistics podcast for carriers, owner operators, small fleets and freight brokers. Hosted by John Howland, with new episodes every other week on freight fraud prevention, compliance, trucking technology and the freight market.
Find loads, vet carriers and protect your business at Truckstop.com

Connect with John on LinkedIn
Behind The Freight is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so

In this episode of Freight Nation: A Trucking Podcast, host Brent Hutto is joined by Adam Wingfield, Founder and Managing Director of Innovative Logistics Group.
Join them as they:

• Delve into the educational side of Innovative Logistics Group
• Explore why Adam wishes he’d hired more people sooner when founding Innovative Logistics Group
• Shine a light on the four things every driver and every owner-operator should be tracking
• And more!

Adam Wingfield is a passionate Managing Director within Innovative Logistics Group, a North Carolina-based company providing resources and success guidance to small carriers. He is also the Co-Founder of InnoPortal, a trucking dispatch TMS system that has amassed over 50,000 dispatched loads. He truly is a trailblazer in the world of logistics.

Episode Highlights:
[12:51] According to Adam, owner-operators often lack insight into where operational expenses lie and how to run a business financially. They don’t truly understand their variable expense costs and thus cannot improve them. At Innovative Logistics Group, they focus on educating owner-operators on what variables they can control. Taking time to focus on these elements and improve them will give you more time to put back into your business. They further see owner-operators struggling with decision-making, specifically with weighing cool equipment against its financial implications, so they aim to help them with their financial acumen. The third trend is the coaching mentality. To succeed in the business, you must be obsessed with efficiency and your business acumen, so they further help owner-operators build on this.

[17:32] Adam’s biggest mistake when starting out? Not scaling his team soon enough. When he started, he felt that taking on extra responsibilities, rather than outsourcing them, was saving him money. Realistically, he was just stretching his abilities too thin. In fact, his biggest growth period was when he hired more people, seeing his ROI triple. He realizes now that his focus wasn’t on where he wanted the company to go but simply there and then. He advises others starting out to reflect on their mentality and set some goals. If you want 100 trucks in ten years, you’ve got to start now. Position yourself several quarters ahead so you can recalibrate when things go wrong. 


[26:14] According to Adam, less than 5% of owner-operators he talks to know their cost per mile. That is crucial to know, as some freight may look good while being very financially damaging. When he works with such owner-operators, the first step is to help them fix their variable expenses. These are much easier to solve than fixed expenses, and there tend to be a lot more of them. They ultimately focus on four things: variable expenses, fixed expenses, average price at pump, and miles per gallon. Just by being aware of these four metrics, owner-operators can take steps to lower their overall expenses. 
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts, instructions on how to do this are here.

Behind the Freight is Truckstop’s trucking and logistics podcast for carriers, owner operators, small fleets and freight brokers. Hosted by John Howland, with new episodes every other week on freight fraud prevention, compliance, trucking technology and the freight market.
Find loads, vet carriers and protect your business at Truckstop.com

Connect with John on LinkedIn
Behind The Freight is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so

In this episode of Freight Nation: A Trucking Podcast, host Brent Hutto is joined by Henry Albert, President of Albert Transport
Join them as they:

• Discuss Henry’s career journey to running Albert Transport
• Shine a light on Henry’s top tip for convincing a shipper to use him to haul freight
• Explore how Henry now averages at 10 miles per gallon of fuel
• And more!

Henry Albert is the President of Albert Transport, which he has run for over 25 years. He has been involved in every aspect of the business, from driving trucks to participating in truck shows and creating the company’s sales and marketing strategies. He also contributes to the Team Run Smart website, a dedicated trucker and Freightliner industry pro community.

Episode Highlights:

[03:01] Henry’s career started with private carriers. The first was a food service business that was a standalone division from the main company. When their salesman left, the business changed and their product changed. Henry started taking samples along on his routes, building up his sales skills. He moved from there to another private carrier, where he was in charge of their three trucks that they ran. He was in the office one day and he heard the high-up boss talk about the “idiots” in the warehouse. To Henry, it was funny, because he could speak to any department and they would blame another department for the low performance of the company, and he said as much to the manager. Within a year, the company became more holistic and they went from ranked 38th to 2nd in the country. From there, Henry moved into setting up his own business.

[18:54] Often, shippers don’t want to do business with owner-operators because they are only one truck and one person. When asked his main piece of advice to convince them to do business with him, Henry answers toothpaste. No, it’s not just to make sure you have fresh breath. He shares a tale of making a business plan to show someone, purposefully making it the worst possible scenario but explaining that he would be able to support himself and his family on it, the other man leaned back in his chair and asked him why anyone would ever consider him to haul their freight? Henry was given a week to come up with an answer, even though he was ready then. When he got home, there was a sample of Colgate toothpaste in his mailbox. He normally used Crest, and so started thinking “why would anybody use Colgate?” He’d hit his jackpot. People are loyal to their brands, and shippers already have someone hauling their freight before you walk in the door. So the question became, how could he switch them to his brand? He realized that he could learn from the toothpaste sample and offer introductory rates to give them a glimpse into his service before upping the price to his normal rates.

[24:27] Henry has always been passionate about efficiency. When you’re running a business, of course you’ve got to provide a quality service, but you also have to be aware of your operating costs and the fact that markets could get tight and you’d have to lower your rates. As an owner-operator, one of Henry’s biggest considerations is fuel. Everything you can do to save fuel is worth doing, you don’t need to go faster than it would take to get there on time. Until 2007, he had never idled his truck overnight, and he claims that is how he can afford to pay for his son’s college. His trucks now average 10 miles a gallon, crushing the typical average, all through stacking and running the truck right. 

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts, instructions on how to do this are here.

Behind the Freight is Truckstop’s trucking and logistics podcast for carriers, owner operators, small fleets and freight brokers. Hosted by John Howland, with new episodes every other week on freight fraud prevention, compliance, trucking technology and the freight market.
Find loads, vet carriers and protect your business at Truckstop.com

Connect with John on LinkedIn
Behind The Freight is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so

Behind the Freight is Truckstop’s trucking and logistics podcast for carriers, owner operators, small fleets and freight brokers. Hosted by John Howland, with new episodes every other week on freight fraud prevention, compliance, trucking technology and the freight market.
Find loads, vet carriers and protect your business at Truckstop.com

Connect with John on LinkedIn
Behind The Freight is handcrafted by our friends over at: fame.so