Overdrive Radio

Looking out at the year ahead, there's quite a bit more market pessimism among owner-operators in Overdrive’s audience than optimism, that’s sure, at the start of the new year here. Welcome to 2024: https://www.overdriveonline.com/voices/article/15660801/poll-ownerops-whats-your-business-outlook-for-2024

This Overdrive Radio episode features the voice of longtime former owner-operator and current biz coach Gary Buchs with what amounts to a series of potential New Year's Resolutions for you, whether you’re among the rough quarter of recent poll respondents who think the year’s going to be worse than the tough one we just ended. Or: If you’re one of the just 16% who are optimistic for improvement.

The plurality of voters in that same business-conditions polling, by contrast, expected more of the same transitioning from 2023 to 2024. Depending on whether you’re in one or the other of those categories Buchs delineates at top of the podcast -- the haves or the have-nots -- could well be the difference between your own optimism or pessimism.

In any case, the new year offers opportunity to reassess, and Buchs urged first and foremost an awareness of your own psychology, particularly when it comes to unusually dire or, otherwise, rosy prognostications over the airwaves and bytes hammering away at the brain day in and day out.

Talking to our finalists in the Trucker of the Year competition this week yielded something of a theme of resignation -- of banking on a slower year -- among some, indeed. But also some bright spots in new customers -- or, rather, at least one example of the use of tactics similar to what Buchs recommends on the customer engagement front, learning to really sell oneself in every interaction you have. Doing that yielded a new contract for Veterans Transportation Services owner-operator John Schiltz that should cover his and his wife Sarah's operation through much of this year’s first half. With it, they make good on a goal to avoid reliance for that half-year on spot freight -- there’s little indication we’ll see much improvement in demand in truckers’ favor there anytime soon.

So, for the owner-operator’s New Year's Resolutions this year, for Buchs it’s back to basics in his work coaching a variety of business owners to better performance. Listen on for more.

Past stories and podcasts mentioned throughout the broadcast:

**Overdrive's split-sleeper tutorial: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/14897907/how-to-log-the-new-73-splitsleeper-in-the-hours-of-service

**Owner-operators' best negotiations tool: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/14897683/best-freight-negotiations-tool-for-owneroperators

**Matt Mickenberg's successful truck-purchase negotiation: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15659622/its-a-deal-50k-saved-on-a-new-truck

**Parasitic costs: 15 ways to save: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15540906/15-ways-to-eliminate-truckings-parasitic-costs-and-build-value

**A plan to thrive through the bottom of freight markets: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15658960/how-to-thrive-through-the-bottom-of-the-trucking-freight-markets

**Red Eye Radio Partners in Business roundtable: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15448522/owneroperator-business-evolution-roundtable-on-overdrive-radio

This week, a toast to the year that was (and still is for a couple more days, anyway). We’re counting down through 14 of the most-listened-to podcasts of the year, and to start off, part of a strong current of tactics aimed at building value for the business with customers, host Todd Dills shared an anecdote from a past Trucker of the Year, owner-operator Henry Albert. Looking to cement your value with a direct customer? (Or broker or your leasing carrier, for that matter ...) "Ask them what their toughest load to cover is. Ask them what nobody in their right mind ever wants to do for them? And, you know, there's a chance that you can. And if you can, you're going to have that guy for life."

It was just a small part of No. 5 among the most-listened-to Overdrive Radio episodes of the year, our Partners in Business program roundtable moderated by Red Eye Radio’s Eric Harley at the Mid-America Trucking Show: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15448522/owneroperator-business-evolution-roundtable-on-overdrive-radio

That anecdote, a little piece of advice acted upon years ago by owner-operator Albert to success, slotted into a discussion of building value in a year that has been most certainly a struggle for many.

The year will likely go down as one most can be proud simply to have survived with some profit to show for it, as my colleague Alex Lockie suggested in his own Year in Review look at some of the biggest stories of the year: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/15660631/if-you-survived-2023-give-em-hell-in-24-truckers-year-in-review

There's more here in the highlight reel, too:

**How one owner-operator set himself up to weather the storm of declining rates in 2023 with years, even decades of preparation, cost control, bedrock frugality in business and life and a rig well-maintained, long paid off: https://overdriveonline.com/15447251

**A little whip cream of reality on top of the May week that this year was the Roadcheck inspection blitz, with longtime independent “Mustang” Mike Crawford, when you fully expect the chicken houses not to be "locked up, nobody home"... Sometimes, luck is on your side: https://overdriveonline.com/15448049

**No small amount of music, including the modern trucking classics of one Tony Justice, as regular listeners also recently got another taste of: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15660911/2023-retread-tony-justices-best-of-the-best-with-greatest-shifts-record

**Tales of learning the OTR work-life balance mismatch and building an operation to improve it long-term with direct customers on both ends of preferred freight lanes out of the home area to effectively achieve growth goals: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15540815/owneroperators-can-master-worklife-balance-in-trucking

And plenty more. Note that there’s a playlist that features the top 10 most-listened episodes as well as four honorable mentions just outside the top 10. Find it via this link: https://soundcloud.com/overdriveradio/sets/2023-in-review-the-top-10

Happy New Year! Here's wishing you a profitable 2024. And stay warm out there. ...

Overdrive Editor Todd Dills was at the conference of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies in Nashville, Tennessee, in November, in conversation with a small fleet owner there for the event, when the owner's phone rang. He glanced down at it, and tried to ignore it as the pair talked on. Then it rang again. “I've got to take this,” he said after glancing down, and wandered off to the side.

Turns out, one of his drivers, pulling a big liquid tanker, non-hazmat, had been in an accident. Luckily, all parties were OK, but the equipment, not so much. In the aftermath, the owner was presented with a huge tow bill for the nonconsensual, police-ordered tow, occurring in Indiana. It just so happens the state of Indiana ranked No. 1 for the intensity of reported “predatory towing” events motor carriers shared with the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) as the organization researched the extent of outsize bills and other egregious practices -- and their impact on trucking around the nation.

ATRI's new, about-as-comprehensive-as-you-can-get report on predatory towing is out now. Find a link to it in Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole’s reporting on ATRI’s work here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15659826/predatory-towing-how-common-is-it-and-how-can-truckers-avoid-it

In this podcast, sit in on Matt Cole’s attendant conversation with ATRI Research Associate Alex Leslie, who brought a variety of additional insights to the questions of just what owner-operators and small fleet owners can do to combat so-called predatory behavior when they feel like they’re seeing it.

It can be difficult to know just how to approach unfair practices, given towing rules and regulations are a patchwork of local laws, by and large, when not covered by statewide rules. Those statewide rules, where they exist, furthermore, often apply only on state highways and when the state highway patrol is involved, as Leslie explains.

Dive into the details, too, of the small fleet owner’s tow. He questioned some of the charges on the itemized invoice he received in the aftermath -- totaling well upward of $9,000 with just a single night of storage.

Charges for use of the tow company’s expensive heavy-duty rotator were billed for a four-hour minimum at a whopping $1,500 an hour, for instance. The small fleet owner questioned the need for charges for not one but two service trucks on the scene, both charged at $350/hour for that minimum four hours for a grand total of $1,400 each. Attempts to transfer the liquid load to another trailer were met with resistance and demands of overnighted payment to release the load. Access to the yard where the tractor-trailer and load both sat was denied after 5 p.m. the day of the early-day crash itself. The tow operator claimed that, since it was a police impound lot, rules in the locale prohibited outside access after hours. The owner, though, remains unsure just whether the tow company may have simply made that one up, or not.

In his view, they simply “held the load captive until a check was overnighted to them.”

There's more where that came from, including measures trucking companies and operators can take to protect themselves on-scene, or seek redress when wronged, too.

Towing coverage in Overdrive through the year:

State legislation to rein in: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15542568/maryland-mtas-predatory-towing-bill-explained

Tow company perspective: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15540918/towings-predatory-pricing-a-tow-company-owners-perspective

Owner-operator experience: https://www.overdriveonline.com/channel-19/article/15540095/truck-drivers-share-predatory-towing-fee-stories

A particularly over-the-top example: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15635856/truckers-carjacked-roughed-up-by-a1-towing-in-memphis-report

As we work toward counting down to the new year with our most-listened-to episodes of 2023, this special edition of Overdrive Radio episode separates one that stood out from the rest, our long talk with Tony Justice, who took listeners on a tour of his new record in August. Next week: A closer look with the American Transportation Research Institute at their big study on the prevalence of -- and countermeasures against -- predatory nonconsensual tow practices, whether after an accident or on the hook of one of the growing number of Parking Pirates.

Justice has been a leading light amongst trucker-songwriters, and "Greatest Shifts" record features six new tracks, five originals plus a fantastic rendition of Jerry Reed's classic "Eastbound and Down," and 14 previously released highlights from four records -- "Apple Pie Moonshine," "Brothers of the Highway," "Stars Stripes and White Lines," and "18 Gears to Life." Those records comprise a decades' worth of music from Justice, excluding unfortunately his first trucking-themed record, "On the Road," for reasons he explains in this Overdrive Radio edition. Herein, Overdrive Radio host Todd Dills' recent conversation with Justice about the new material on the album and the background behind the production is interspersed with plenty opportunity to hear some of the music.

("On the Road" you can hear via this link: https://open.spotify.com/album/5gsluBHAVUqMjotVyxbvli?si=VJklYb17TVWsm9KFMnjt-A )

Among previously released material is a "dance remix" of Justice's “Last of the Cowboys” tune, first featured a couple of albums and a few years ago now. It’s arguably his absolute greatest shift in terms of its general popularity out there, as he notes in the podcast. But in other ways, as he also notes, all of these tracks have a special meaning for him. Listen on for more of the previously released material, all of it remastered and sweetened in various ways, and plenty discussion of the new material. Find links to conversations with Justice about most of his prior records, too, via the links below:

"18 Gears to Life": https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15066892/tony-justices-18-gears-to-life-record-inside-the-music

"Stars, Stripes and White Lines": https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/14892637/audio-tour-through-tony-justices-new-stars-stripes-and-white-lines-album

"Brothers of the Highway": https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/14890756/podcast-tony-justices-brothers-of-the-highway-the-trucking-brotherhood-reinforced

"Apple Pie Moonshine": https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/14885429/podcast-behind-the-new-tony-justice-record-more-song-samples-too

"Don't be afraid to ask questions." --Owner-operator Steve Massat: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15546000/ownerop-overcomes-physical-challenge-for-successful-career

This Overdrive Radio podcast features Part 2 of our “exit interviews” with 2023 Trucker of the Year contenders. All put a special emphasis on short-term tactics, on proven long-term strategies, others might also adopt on the drive toward success with healthy profits.

This exemplary group, too, delivered a strong current of advice for aspiring owners.

Owner-operator Chris Smith operates Dreamline Trucking, our February Trucker of the Month with his wife and team owner, Ruth, leased to Southern Pride. Smith, as with Massat, advised not to get too starry-eyed out custom equipment with a big price tag associated starting out. "That's not what's going to make you money," he said, noting decades of hard work led to where he and Ruth Smith are today, pulling in veritable custom showpiece, a move made after considerable research and deliberation: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15307364/how-this-owneroperator-team-earned-success

Massat, who pulls with a vintage 1989 Marmon tractor, does as much work on his rig as he can himself, stocking parts he knows he'll need when he sees deals on them. He reduces both his cash outlay and, given ready availability in his truck and/or at his home shop (he's home every weekend), costly downtime, too. Massat was Trucker of the Month in September.

Rita and Roger Wilson preside over the two-truck Rita’s Absolute Trucking, Truckers of the Month for October: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15635072/lifes-a-lot-easier-ownerops-find-sweet-spot-with-two-trucks

The pair have downsized considerably from early parts of this century when they were consolidating LTL freight from a Chicago-area warehouse with a much more sizable small fleet. Though we caught up with them on Sunday, what Rita called the Wilsons' "no-truck day" in efforts to build in the work-life balance that eludes so many over-the-road, she was also quick to note the necessity of giving it 110% for new owners to get past rough early days.

South Mississippi-based Jay Hosty kept his eye on the finsh line, with a tip particularly for younger starting owners to set up a retirement investment account and contribute as much as you can to it from the get-go. The Roth IRA, in particular, he finds attractive given it's not taxed when you pull the money out in retirement. " Hosty pulls dry vans leased to Landstar, and pulled in the monthly nod in April: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15383689/frugality-focus-on-costs-pays-off-for-owneroperator-jay-hosty

Finally, with advice to simply “never give up” on the mission for those choosing the owner-operator route in trucking, Walkabout Transport independent Debbie Desiderato, based in Virginia today, was our Trucker of the Month for June: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15544055/direct-freight-can-provide-consistency-in-topsyturvy-market As with others in this roundtable, she noted owners are best served when they devise ways to make themselves more valuable to whoever happens to be their customer. In her case, that's lately come in the form of trailer purchases to better serve one in particular on some new lanes out of her area.

The story of how Desiderato came to that direct customer as an independent might be a veritable testament to the "never give up" mantra. Read more of that story in this feature from early in the year: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15541324/independent-debbie-desideratos-keys-to-trucking-success

Those were but a small sample, a few little bites out of the apple of advice from this brain trust, though. Find more in the podcast and via all 10 of the 2023 Trucker of the Year profiles: http://overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year

This edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast features a roundtable of sorts with four small trucking businesses among 2023 Trucker of the Year contenders. We’re in the process of wrapping up judging of 10 semi-finalists for the final award, with a huge amount of operational diversity among them -- from food-grade and hazmat tanker to car-haul, flatbed and step deck, reefer, hopper, dry van and more.

Here, owner-operators John and Sarah Schiltz with their independent Veteran Transportation Services business were joined by fellow independents and now-four-truck Tim and Shelley Pulli of Pulli Express, owner-operator Matthew Karr of K-Mac Trucking, and Texas-based car-haul owner-operator Crystal Rives.

It’s been been a tough year on the customer front for Rives’ car-haul operation, yet as with many an owner-operator, a stick-to-it-iveness, hustle and quick-on-her-feet nimble quality as a business owner yielded new opportunities, even in this market.

The same can be said for others in the roundtable, including Karr, who when he was featured as our Trucker of the Month in May was playing the waiting game on final registrations, insurance and more to go back out under his own authority after a big profit year leased in 2022.

The conversation amongst the four businesses was centered on the year just passed -- the challenges faced, and just how they chose to overcome (or at least start the process of overcoming) the worst of them throughout 2023.

Stay tuned next week for the remainder of the 2023 Trucker of the Year contenders. Read about all of them via http://overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year

Catch a playlist, too, featuring all 10 of the contending operations via https://soundcloud.com/overdriveradio/sets/overdrives-2023-trucker-of-the

"If you do what you've always done, you will only get what you've always gotten." --Kevin Rutherford

Reticence to change has been the downfall of many a life, and many a business. Small fleets and owner-operators aren’t exempt, of course. If you recognize the name after the quote here, you’re probably not alone among Overdrive Radio listeners and Overdrive readers who’ve taken motivation from Rutherford in the past. The longtime radio host is a past contributor to Overdrive who found his particular, singular talent for motivating and helping owner-operators in part through decades-past appearances in early installments of Partners in Business seminar series at the Mid-America Trucking Show.

Since, Rutherford’s been a lot: in addition to a radio host a fitness and wellness coach, writer, owner-operator business advice man and group leader and more.

But he started back in the 1980s just like so many here. One man, with one truck, and an ability to learn from mistakes made.

This Overdrive Radio podcast drops into Rutherford’s story as he told it several weeks back now to attendees of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies’ annual conference here in Nashville.

His mission that evening was to walk attendees through a plan to solidify the business base to take advantage of opportunities at the market's bottom to excel for long-term trucking at the top. Rutherford’s plan may be simple-sounding, but it's plenty complicated and variable in the execution. And he's a real pro at delivering it and making any trucking business owner think hard about how, and why, you do what you do.

At the annual conference of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies a couple weeks back in Nashville, TA Petro Truck Service VP Homer Hogg presented results from his analysis of recent-history fault codes seen by the three leading all-model diagnostic equipment providers. He analyzed codes data to determine the five biggest parts of the trucks those codes were related to.

At No. 1, probably no surprise, were aftertreatment-related codes, and his talk featured here then provided an informative look at persnickety emissions systems in 2010 and later trucks -- with actionable steps owner-operators and small fleets can take to guard against some of the most common issues seen.

Among the recommendations he makes:

**When the dashboard lights up, don’t clear those codes. Techs need them to properly diagnose any issue.

**Clean the DEF doser once a year, at least.

**Change your DEF filter according to manufacturer-recommended intervals.

**Keep a “clean room” approach around the DEF tank, particularly when you’re pumping the fluid.

**Keep SCR-system efficiency tests in mind to periodically examine it to prevent NOx sensor failures.

**Most importantly, perhaps, don’t fall for the "delete kit" trap, if you want qualified mechanics to be able to help you work issues out.

Other helpful emissions-related coverage: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15066117/emissions-maintenance-how-to-get-the-correct-diagnosis-repair

https://www.overdriveonline.com/equipment/article/15290372/how-to-delete-emissions-issues-without-breaking-the-bank

https://www.overdriveonline.com/maintenance/article/15540134/fuel-treatments-becoming-part-of-owneroperators-pm-routine

This edition of Overdrive Radio features a special spotlight of sorts on what a wild and wooly year it’s been -- for everyone is some way, that's sure, yet no less for Overdrive’s 2023 Small Fleet Champs.

As was noted up top of our previous podcast, last week at the National Association of Small Trucking Companies’ annual conference we recognized four finalists as well as several other past semi-finalists, finalists and champs in attendance. Ahead of the presentation Thursday, November 2, Overdrive Radio host Todd Dills sat down with this year’s four contenders with a particular topic of discussion in mind.

That's the biggest challenges each fleet had faced throughout the year so far, and just what steps they'd taken to address the difficulties, from freight slowdowns from lynchpin customers in some instances to pressure on rates from customers, too, and recruiting struggles, equipment devaluation concerns and more.

Featured herein are:

Champs in the 3-10-truck division:

**Bill Barhite, owner of Silt, Colorado-based Butterfly Xpress: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15546088/butterfly-xpress-offers-big-benefits-as-a-small-fleet

**Larry Wallace, owner of Henrico, Virginia-headquartered Wallace and Sons Transport: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15544008/wallace-sons-transports-bakery-residuals-trucking-niche

And in the 11-30-truck division:

**Adam Johnson, K&D Transport owner out of Spring Valley, Wisconsin: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15544771/kd-transport-owner-in-the-groove-with-thirdgen-flatbed-fleet

**Larry Limp, owner of LNL Trucking of Bedford, Indiana: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ/article/15546199/lnl-trucking-stands-on-strong-financial-foundation-to-thrive

More profiles of Overdrive's Small Fleet Champ semi-finalists in addition to the final four: https://www.overdriveonline.com/small-fleet-champ

Today on the podcast we’re featuring Overdrive News Editor Matt Cole’s talk with October Trucker of the Month John Schiltz, nominated for the Overdrive 2023 Trucker of the Year award by his wife and now fully-minted, CDL-holding business partner, Sarah Schiltz: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15637523/owneroperator-john-schiltz-a-keen-eye-on-maintenance

The pair run a two-truck fleet as a team and pull alongside each other in a pair of Kenworths (a 1999 W9 and a 2013 T660) running fresh vegetables to canning operations in the Midwest during harvest season, flatbed and RGN platform freight much of the rest of the year. You can probably guess just what they’ve been up to in recent times out of their Wisconsin home base as vegetable harvests wrap up.

What emerges from this talk with both John and Sarah, though John officially gets the Trucker of the Month nod, is a spotlight on the teamwork it truly takes to excel as an owner-operator business. John’s quick to credit Sarah with a large part of his recent-years’ success, buttoning up the biz to where it is today.

More from the Trucker of the Year program this past year: http://overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year

Find all Overdrive Radio episodes featuring 10 Truckers of the Month for 2023 via this playlist: https://soundcloud.com/overdriveradio/sets/overdrives-2023-trucker-of-the