Owner-operator Kelvin Schmidt, Trucker of the Month for January in Overdrive's 2023 Trucker of the Year program, didn't come to a formula for enduring success without a tour through the proverbial school of hard knocks, as it were. In today's edition of Overdrive Radio, hear his own account of his start as a flatbed-pulling hotshotter in a one-ton dually, his stumbles through other trucks and growing "as bad as an accountant" focus on costs, revenue and profit per-trip to keep a guiding hand on the business.

"You've got to know what your costs are, and I do that for absolutely every trip I do," he said. "Every trip." Diligence in tracking costs enabled some of the big early shifts in his approach to equipment. After bad experiences with a variety of used trucks -- then with a newer yet no-less-problematic glider, he changed tack and began purchasing new, realizing full well the costs not just of repairs of accompanying downtime. 

His end-of-year profit-and-loss statement for 2022 showed the above-average results of all of it, even with massive cost inflation and an ungodly-looking fuel bill for year. 

In this podcast, he tells his trucking story, which follows a childhood and decades as an adult in Canada. His move to U.S. citizenship set him on the course he's charting today trucking, likewise as a proud father of six young children with their mother and his wife, Jennifer.

As January Trucker of the Month, Kelvin Schmidt in the running as a semifinalist for the Trucker of the Year award. If you, too, have thrived even through the tough conditions of the last year, or if you know of a deserving owner-operator who fits that description, get over to our nomination page for the Trucker of the Year award and get in the running. It’s open to owner-operators leased or with authority, operating up to a maximum of three trucks as part of the business: https://www.overdriveonline.com/page/toptrucker

Read more about Kelvin Schmidt's journey via our January in-depth profile of his one-truck business, today pulling power-only for T Bros. Logistics out of Sioux Falls, South Dakota: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15306211/how-this-owner-built-a-trucking-business-to-deliver-consistently

Owner-operator Kelvin Schmidt: 'You've got to be an accountant' to ensure long-term biz success

The Overdrive Radio podcast is produced by Overdrive magazine, the Voice of the American Trucker for 60-plus years. Host Todd Dills -- with a supporting cast among Overdrive editors, contributors and others -- presents owner-operator business leading lights, interviews with extraordinary independent truckers and small fleet owners, and plenty in the way of trucking business and regulatory news and views. Access an archive of all episodes of Overdrive Radio going back more than a decade via this link: http://overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio

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After years of scheduling needed preventive maintenance and sitting out the Roadcheck blitz, last year Mike "Mustang" Crawford hauled through his first Roadcheck in years. As we did after last year's 72-hour inspection blitz, we’ll be riding along again in this Overdrive Radio edition through three days’ worth of scale reports from our friendly on-highway chicken-house correspondent. Regular listeners may well recall that last year on runs from the Midwest all the way down to Florida, Mustang didn’t cross a single open scale. 

Can’t say that’s the case this year, though. 

And, for the balance of the episode, shift into high gear with our talk with Sharon Lee, owner of the High Road small fleet headquartered between Nashville, Tennessee, and Boston, and making a name for themselves in the concert tour-trucking world. Lee jumped on our radar after her involvement with the Academy of Country Music’s "ACM Lifting Lives" program, through which she partnered with the Mechanics on a Mission organization as well to surprise a touring professional with the gift of an automobile at a TCW event early this year -- TCW's the Touring Career Workshop, and small fleet owner Lee serves as a board member for the organization. 

Since founding High Road in 2016, she’s made big inroads with customers in the music industry here in Nashville, but it turns out her trucking history is just as deep, stretching all the way back to childhood, when her father was an owner-operator in New York State and involved in tour trucking himself. Working with one-man, one-truck operations holds a special place in her approach to this day. 

More about High Road: https://highroadusa.com

More about concert/show tour trucking in Overdrive: 
**Mobile TV production: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15634571/a-unique-beast-behind-the-scenes-in-mobile-tv-production-trucking
**Events-haul in general: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/14894405/how-event-hauling-stands-out-in-the-trucking-industry 
**Clark Transfer's Broadway show hauling: https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/15294151/guaranteed-revenue-for-owneroperators-clark-transfer-commits

Roadcheck chicken-house wrap with the Mustang | Running the High Road with tour-haul small fleet

"Time is money," as the old saying goes, and as such "time management is money management." That was how the great Red Eye Radio host Eric Harley put it near the beginning of this our last in a series of Partners in Business short podcasts on Overdrive Radio, talks excerpted from a long roundtable conducted at the Mid-America Trucking Show this year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khKP2WHZjfg&list=PLc1lg9rs1dUBRbJKjvc7UUcJRRd4iI2v3 

Time should be a factor in your analysis of any load to truly assess the potential for profit. Overdrive released a bit of a tool to help in that process -- it's a custom spreadsheet that was made available for download around the time of MATS and the big update to this year's Partners in Business owner-operator handbook: https://www.overdriveonline.com/partners-in-business/document/15666632/evaluate-any-loads-cost-in-relation-to-time-not-just-miles 

The tool clearly illustrates how added time within any load's schedule dilutes revenue and adds costs per mile as fixed costs continue to mount with any delay. It offers a way for you to calculate that impact more or less at a glance, with the input of just a few of your own numbers. The tool was developed by Overdrive contributor Gary Buchs in his efforts coaching individual owner-operators through business decisions large and small.  

In this episode, voices you’ll hear, in order of appearance, are that of our moderator Eric Harley, setting us up for discussion of time management, followed by myself, then ATBS Vice President Mike Hosted expanding with some market timing insight, and Overdrive contributor and now longtime business coach Gary Buchs, previously mentioned. 

Through to the end, all stress, too, the fundamental value of re-engagement with business fundamentals possible with the PIB program. Here’s hope the talk and broader program both give you plenty to chew as you assess prospects and performance of your own business throughout the remainder of the year. 

The educational program this year is sponsored by the great folks at the Rush Truck Centers dealer network, who share our vision for your success: https://rushtrkctr.com/4bLxbR4

As mentioned in the talk, Matthew Mickenberg's story of valuable timing: he saved $50K on the price of a new truck purchase on account of it: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15659622/its-a-deal-50k-saved-on-a-new-truck

What is your time worth? Re-engage with owner-operator business fundamentals to know the answer

This week's Overdrive Radio podcast edition features primarily the voice of Overdrive April Trucker of the Month, owner-operator Gary Schloo. The three-decade-plus owner's headquartered in Austin, Minnesota, leased to Long Haul Trucking out of relatively nearby Albertville. 

Today, Schloo runs dedicated to a particular customer in Long Haul Trucking’s network and can make a regular round in a day’s time, keeping him not far from his two-acre property throughout his week. It’s been his bread and butter now for nearly two decades, hauled since 2014 behind a Peterbilt 386 glider powered by a 12.7 Detroit Series 60 he bought new at the time. 

Ever with an eye on ways to save, the owner-operator adjusted his physical damage insurance shortly after the purchase, limiting the radius of his coverage to 500 miles with Great West Casualty, outside the policy he'd previously purchased through LHT. That's just one example of moves made and routines built through the years that have delivered long-term stability and profits for Schloo. Current LHT CEO Jason Michels, in Overdrive's prior story about the owner-operator, told of meeting Schloo early in his own trucking career, when he was just getting started with LHT as an owner-operator himself: https://www.overdriveonline.com/trucker-of-the-year/article/15669324/effective-insurance-exacting-analysis-deliver-gary-schloos-success 

Schloo and Michels met in West Virginia as both owners loaded there for a run back to Minnesota, then talking along the way. Schloo's generous with his time with young owners, Michels noted, and certainly was on that run where the pair met. Schloo schooled him on the importance of paying taxes so as not to get behind the eight ball with penalties and other wasted money, tracking and analyzing cost and revenue performance closely, and saving plenty as insurance against the rainy days.            

A lot of Schloo’s success comes back to insurance, in fact, building the business nest egg and other practices to guard against the unexpected: https://www.overdriveonline.com/partners-in-business/video/15667833/stock-your-trucking-pantry-against-famine-before-any-feast-ends 

That extends to health and disability. He’s carried a disability insurance policy for decades, and it’s proven plenty effective, particularly when 15 years ago now he had a heart attack that threw everything he’d built into question. Take a run through Schloo's story for more in this week's podcast. 

Owner-operator Gary Schloo is in the running for Overdrive's 2024 Trucker of the Year award, sponsor by Bostrom Seating. You can enter your own or another worthy owner-operator business for a chance at a new Bostrom seat among other prizes and recognitions, via https://overdriveonline.com/toptrucker

A short leash on long-term success: Trucker of the Month Gary Schloo

Today on the podcast, a brief look back into a little bit of Overdrive’s recent history, as you'll hear Canada-headquartered owner-operator Josh Giesbrecht intimate up top. Giesbrecht notes Overdrive gave him his "first big break" on the road to expanded influence around the world for his daily/near-daily series of video blogs he's hosted for nigh on a decade and a half at this point. His "Trucker Josh" Youtube channel to this day continues to bring the bedrock in-cab reality of Canadian and U.S. hauling to the masses all around the world: https://www.youtube.com/@Trucker_Josh 

Turns out Overdrive was among the first outlets to cover what he was doing way back near the start of it, as he tells it, and set the video blog off on a run toward a much bigger audience. The "Trucker Josh" channel's history is certainly a living one, though, as it continues to be a repository of everything to landscapes and tarping tutorials, to mini rants and safety outreach, and so much more. 

Josh Giesbrecht is the latest well-deserving honoree in a Hall of Fame hosted by a company regular listeners will no doubt be well aware of. You can find the fine folks behind the Howes Hall of Fame at https://howesproducts.com/hof -- and find our initial reporting on Giesbrecht's induction via this link: https://www.overdriveonline.com/life/article/15666875/trucker-josh-giesbrecht-new-howes-hall-of-fame-member 

Overdrive Editor Todd Dills sat down with owner-operator Giesbrecht and Howes Executive Vice President Rob Howes II at the Mid-America Trucking Show, where the Howes company announced the Hall of Fame induction. In the podcast today, the results of that talk, in which Giesbrecht ultimately centers on this central reason for his continued, dogged pursuit of sharing the life of the over-the-road driver and truck owner day-in, day-out: "I want this to go throughout my life," he said of his daily chronicling, to be "the thing that I leave behind to my kids, my grandkids. Hopefully it's something that can earn their respect. 'He started from here, he ended here, and he did good.'"

For the trucking community, then, Giesbrecht's will be a legacy of improvement in public appreciation of the brass-tacks work of hauling. Said Overdrive Radio host Todd Dills, "It’s somewhat easy to underestimate the impact video blogs like Trucker Josh’s have had on the better appreciation of the work of trucking by the general public. Geisbrecht’s was certainly among the first, and now with a subscription base in the six figures, it’s continuing to strike a nerve, or strike a chord, as it were, with a worldwide audience." 

Other talks with Howes Hall of Fame inductee owner-operators: 
Kate Whiting: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15542803/cherry-pie-owners-road-to-trucking-with-a-custom-1973-w900a
Angelique Temple: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15304180/hazmattank-veteran-driver-now-on-her-own-meet-angelique-temple

Trucker Josh Giesbrecht building a legacy for family, fellow truckers, people all around the world

Here find 2024's third mid-week special edition in Overdrive Radio's series of Partners in Business shorts culled from a long owner-operator business-focused talk at the Mid-America Trucking Show last month with Eric Harley of Red Eye Radio.

This episode extends from the first couple, expanding on the necessity of close business analysis in near-real-time to keep tabs on costs and profits, the start-up necessity of stocking that pantry and doubling down on saving when markets are hot for the lean times. We’ve been in one of those, by some estimates, going on two years at this point. 

Voices we'll hear: 
**The great Eric Harley of Red Eye Radio. Find the full talk in an episode of Red Eye's Extra Mile podcast here: https://www.redeyeradioshow.com/the-extra-mile-podcast/ 
**Overdrive Editor Todd Dills
**ATBS Vice President Mike Hosted
**Overdrive contributor and now longtime business coach Gary Buchs 

The subject here is "work-life balance," of a fashion, though that term doesn’t do a whole lot for a small business owner, for whom those two elements – work, life – are virtually inseparable. Nonetheless, there’s plenty owners can do to set themselves up for life at home with the work, particularly as it relates to building long-term business with solid customer relationships. 

For more on that subject, catch Part 2 of Overdrive Radio's talk with Surinder Gill: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15669640/small-fleet-owner-determined-to-sharpen-value-to-direct-customers

Likewise, Jason Cowan's MATS talk about nurturing and maintaining relationships: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-radio/podcast/15668024/how-to-leave-trucking-better-than-you-found-it-with-jason-cowan

Garnering respect from customers over time, solidifying those relationships so that you don’t have to turn to dime-a-dozen brokered loads on the boards so often: It’s the little things described in this episode, pursued day-in, day-out, that serve the best chance of getting you there. 

Track back the Partners in Business series from the Red Eye Radio roundtables this year at MATS, and last, via this Youtube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcMsOnx-zFs&list=PLc1lg9rs1dUBRbJKjvc7UUcJRRd4iI2v3 

This special edition in the long-running Partners in Business program is sponsored by Rush Truck Centers, the 140-plus dealer location network for sales service and so much more. Find them via this link: https://rushtrkctr.com/4bLxbR4 

You can visit https://OverdriveOnline.com/pib to download the 2024 updated Partners in Business book and learn plenty more from our online series there, too, about so many topics germane to trucking as an owner-operator.

Owner-operator Kelvin Schmidt: 'You've got to be an accountant' to ensure long-term biz success

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