Blue Ribbon Podcast

We don't have a plan for this one. That's up to you. We're going to open the show and take your questions live.

It’s more important now than ever to lower your fuel cost. Lowering the price you pay and then getting better mileage are the key. We’ll talk about how to do both and we’ll talk with our best fuel mileage driver.

Surviving a down market isn't possible without knowing what it takes to run your business. You MUST have an accounting system, and you must be able to calculate the real profits and losses with data, not with a "feeling." There aren't many people better at accounting than Larry, and we're going to show you how we use the numbers to make decisions and guide the fleet.

We are going to sit down with Chris Long who is an Executive Vice President of one of the largest Warehouse Management companies in the world. Chris has a lot of experience running Warehouses and is going to give us some insight on how they work and the history behind them. He's going to be able to explain where Lumpers came from and how the industry has evolved over the last couple decades.

It’s not up for debate. The “Bloodbath” is coming. Rates WILL drop. There WILL be too much capacity, and those who aren’t prepared WILL suffer.

A lot of people don’t want to hear it, but we have the cure and we’re going to share it in this episode.

Back in November 2020, Larry came up with the idea to offer an opportunity to BCO’s that had trucks they weren’t utilizing to bring them over and let us run them in our program. Phil Frese from Cullman, AL was on of the first to answer the call. Phil is an experienced Heavy Hauler with Landstar. In 2021, we saw the opportunity to put a driver on platform freight, but Chris and Larry don’t have much experience in that world. Phil agreed to be our Platform dispatcher and is now an integral part of the Blue Ribbon team. Phil is going to offer some insight on the opportunities available at Landstar pulling platform freight.

One of the foundational principles we teach is "Find the WHY and the HOW will work itself out."

Asking "Why?" keeps you from doing dumb things just because "Everyone else is doing it!"

So, WHY do you change your oil?

Have you ever thought about it?

What makes oil go bad that you have to throw it away?

How did it survive millions of years in the ground, but only 6 weeks in your truck's engine?

Is there a better way?

The answer is YES!

Larry is going to present for you the OPS - Oil Purification Systems Seminar he gives at Blue Ribbon Live Events and Driver Orientations. He will show you why we only change our oil if the lab analysis says so, explain how we use oil analysis as a preventative maintenance tool, and how using an OPS on Larry's first truck saved him $136,000 over the life of the truck (1.85 MILLION miles).

We’ve been warning about the end of the record market for a while, and now the headlines are saying it’s coming. We will talk about how we are prepared for the coming market crash.

We will wrap up our time at the Mid America Trucking Show and make an announcement about OPS and Max Mileage Catalyst.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've seen the cost of fuel skyrocket in the last two weeks. A lot of people are worried. Are we? No. We welcome it. It will benefit those of us that have prepared for it.

Most people have no clue how Fuel Surcharge works. We're going to break that down and explain it. We will also talk about rates and lanes, and how we pick loads to avoid the pinch.

When I invited Larry onto the American Truck Driver Podcast in 2019, neither of us had any idea the impact the show would have on Blue Ribbon. It's turned into an amazing recruiting tool that has introduced us to some amazing people that have joined our program. One of the very first was Seth Coberley. He was eager to learn and came to us with the drive and desire it took to become a successful owner/operator. There have been some ups and downs along the way, but he has successfully graduated the program and is now the owner of THREE trucks leased to Blue Ribbon. We have also brought him on staff to act as a backup fleet manager to Chris. He helps with dispatch and our live events and other activities. He truly is the "poster boy" that represents what it takes to complete the program and be a successful owner/operator.