00:07 Welcome to Six-Figure Trucker, the podcast where we share advice on how to be successful in trucking and have fun while doing so. We’ll share stories, news, and advice on how to earn six figures in trucking, and we’ll speak to guys and gals that are already doing so. Next, it’s your host, Justin Scott. Let’s get to the show. All right, welcome to the Six-Figure Trucker. I’m Justin Scott here with me. I have Robert Stephens, Coach Robert Stephens here with me today. Very excited to have him on. He had a little marketing run with Norton here recently on social media where we had a little giveaway for one of the locations he was at. So, we’re excited to have Coach on the show with us today. How you doing, Robert?

00:51 I’m doing fine. How about yourself—

00:53 Man? I’m doing good. I’m too blessed to be stressed. Excited. The weather here in Ringgold is great. So, I think everybody’s mood’s been a little bit better recently than it was last month. So, love a little bit of springtime in the air, but wanted to get you on the show. A little clip last week that came out on Norton social media about something about a big ass beaver. I don’t know where that was, but tell me about that. Where were you?

01:16 I was up in going up to North Dakota and I went through Wisconsin and getting tired. The road was real bad. You know, I’m in a single. So, it’s not like I had options of anything because it was like I got to keep moving and I can’t stop because if I do, I’m stuck.

01:32 Yeah. Yeah.

01:33 So, I found the truck stop that I could stop at and you know, didn’t want to take up no parking spots from none the other trucks. I just found like where they was pushing the snow into.

01:43 Yeah.

01:43 So, I put there and you know, sat in the seat. I said, “Well, you know, I catch me a little 15, 20 minute little breathe up. I’m a little tense from the snow.” And I opened my eyes and looked and I thought I was hallucinating cuz I looked at this giant either beaver rat. I don’t know what it was but he’s looking at me smiling and I’m sitting there like did somebody put a roofy in my Coca-Cola this morning. What is going on? Yeah. So it was funny.

02:09 Dan, it was hilarious when I saw that clip. Like I just like started dying laughing cuz I didn’t know what the hell it was and your comments were cracking me up. Like I don’t see—

02:20 But I really didn’t know what—

02:21 You didn’t know what it was. So—

02:23 I couldn’t tell he had a hat on. So I’m like okay I need his if he had his hat off I could tell by his ears but I can’t tell what whatever it is. It was me.

02:31 That it was Oh man. Well that that was hilarious. So thank you for doing that. But man I’m glad to have you on the show. You mentioned you know you’re a deck driver. You were running a single for us. But man you’ve been a part of the Norton team for a while now. So you go back to oh gosh it’s been what two year two years you’ve been with us or has it been longer?

02:50 It might have been a little longer.

02:52 Okay.

02:53 I think it was a little longer because I took off for a while cuz we had some I was coaching. So might have been a little longer but consistently it was been it’s been two.

03:02 Yeah. Yeah.

03:03 It’s been two. But I don’t see me going anywhere anytime soon.

03:06 Well man that’s awesome. We certainly like to hear that. And when you started, you went you were already decking, right?

03:14 Yes, sir.

03:15 Okay. So, we know Coach Robert Stevens, the deck driver, knocks them out, been running with us. Who knows how many loads you’ve had with us, but you know, we certainly appreciate it. But how did you get started?

03:26 I actually got my license back in 99. So, it was an old movie back in the 70s called Convoy. Might be a little bit before your time, but it was a movie called Convoy. Okay. When I seen that movie, I wanted to be a trucker right there. Well, I didn’t get the memo that that’s not really how trucking is. I didn’t get that memo. So, after that took place, I ended up, you know, dipping and dapping back and forth in the trucking industry. I’ve had a couple of trucks of my own, leased on to a couple of companies, had the privilege of working with one of the largest brokering companies in the nation, Landstar. Yeah—

04:02 They walked me through being a broker, being a dispatcher, and being a BCO, which is a owner. I was the first Landar authorized driver, which mean I was the only person that worked at Landstar. They didn’t have a truck.

04:17 Oh, okay. Okay.

04:18 So, that mean I could drive anybody’s truck that was leased on the Landar. They just had to make arrangements with me. And I was their only driver. I was the first one that they ever did like that.

04:29 Wow. So that was exciting. So I got to do a lot of government loads. I got to do a lot of loads that you drop off and there’s a guy sitting with you in the truck with a briefcase not talking to you. Weary feeling. You know, you’re going up in the mountains and you drop the truck off and they pick you up in a SUV, take you to a room, come back and get you and take the truck and get the hell on. You know that that kind of— Yeah. I was a able to work the Alaskan pipeline through Lance Star. I was part of that team. And so I got to do a lot of little things and work for the railroad. And I just love transportation. I just love the way how it moves. Nothing moves without transportation. I base my life off of transportation. Everything got to move some kind of way.

05:14 Yeah.

05:14 So with that being said, so once I got into the transportation, you know, I could do anything on land. I work I was working on my pilot’s license. I can do I could do boats. So with that, I’m like, okay, I’m on my bucket list. So now I have to pick specific things that I want to do. And I started like, okay, did the car honing, did the oversize. Then I’m like, hey, I ain’t never did that. I want to try that. Bumped into a guy out there in Utah, gave me a number. I called them, started working with them, which is our one of our competitors that we’re going to knock out the box.

05:50 Sure.

05:50 Which is Truck Movers. Okay. We’re going to knock them out the box.

05:53 We gunning for them. We coming. We coming. And we ended up working for them. Learn learned what I learned from them and then I came over to Norton and never looked back—

06:06 Man.

06:06 And that’s how I ended up doing what I’m doing now. And it keeps me in shape. I’ll be 50 this year, July 24th. I feel good.

06:14 Keeps me in shape. Them chassis are not light.

06:19 They’re not light, but you know, during the right season, you know, I pick them up and take them where they got to go. Like I said, it really you can’t be a lazy guy doing decking. This is not like a hub move. You go from A to B. Anybody can drive forward.

06:34 But to actually, you know, to go from A to B and go back to A, you know, you might do A, B, and C and D, but to get back to A, that’s an accomplishment. And I tell anybody that I work with or train, it’s not about how fast you can get from A to D. It’s not fast you can get to C or get to D. Can you do A, B, C, and D and get back to A with any without any issues? That mean no delayed flights, no claims. You know, you didn’t have a problem with your Uber, whatever, something’s probably going to go wrong. So, if you can do all of that and get back to a without a problem, you had a fantastic trip. So, I guess for me when you say that, what are some things that you do specifically that allows you or maybe we even back up, how long did it take you to figure that out? And then what do you say to some of these younger guys that when you’re with them, you know, that you can tell they don’t have it figured out?

07:35 What I do is I don’t go anywhere I can’t get out of. I know how much my flight is going to be based off my destination. There may be a load coming out of Hubert, California that’s going to Wisconsin. What’s the closest airport to Wisconsin? That load might be paying five grand, but what’s the closest airport? Right?

07:55 You might have to spend $200 to get to that airport. So that’s $200 coming off that run. Can do they even have a Uber or cab service to get you to the airport? Most importantly, so you can’t really chase the money because that same load that’s going to take you a week to do, you may can do two or three $1,500, $2,300 lunch and make the same money that you did on that one load and put more in your pocket. Sometime you have to take them bad loads. None of them are really bad.

08:25 Just some better than other.

08:27 Some are better than others. Absolutely. So what I do, I always pre-plan myself. If I’m going to Wisconsin, I know what airport is close by there. I screenshot it. I send it to my dispatcher say, “Hey, this the flight that I’m going to need. I’ll be there on Wednesday. This the flight I’m going to need on Wednesday.” And this might be Friday, but they already got me out of the way. So, I make my dispatch because I used to be a dispatcher. I used to be a broker, so I know what they got to go through. So, I make their job a lot easier by here. Here’s the ticket information that I need. This is where I need the rental car picked up. I need a rental car close as I can to my last drop to get to the airport because it’s cheaper for me to go with the rental car versus catching the Uber because I already know what the Uber rate is.

09:13 Yeah.

09:14 So, I do all of that for my dispatcher.

09:18 And in a way, you’re training a dispatcher, too.

09:21 Exactly. And that’s what I used to do. I used to when I was with Lance, I used to train dispatchers how to be a dispatcher. And when somebody’s got it together like that where they know what they need, it’s it helps so much on some of these new folks that—

09:36 You know, somebody that’s seasoned like you, it’s easy for us to say, “Okay, well, you know, we need help. We got a new person, you know, that may need a little help along the way in terms of what they do.”

09:45 Right. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. But I like what I do. You know, being a coach, you got to like to train.

09:52 Yeah. Gotta like to train you know and as long as the person you know anybody that I train mechanics of body mechanics is physical therapy type or if it’s with the job with north I ask certain questions you know what made you do this why are you doing it then I know what I’m dealing with if they doing it because man I you know I lost a job I a no jobs I had to do something then I know this person is just doing it for the you know doing it to stay afloat right—

10:18 So they’re a little more hungry a little more anxious is than the season guys. We know it’s already late when we get it—

10:28 Right?

10:28 There is no reason to drive that truck 75 80 miles an hour. You’re already late.

10:34 You’re late. Yeah, you’re when we get—

10:36 You was already late when we picked it up. It was already— If it was sitting there, it was already late.

10:41 Take your time.

10:41 That’s so funny you say that. It’s such the— That’s the right mindset. I mean, cuz you’re right. I mean—

10:46 You know, take your time because something go wrong you later than that.

10:52 Yeah. Too much is riding, you know, don’t let it, you know, where you get in such a hurry where, you know, you’re going to make mistakes or cut corners and, you know, too much stuff can go wrong. And the one thing I could say doing when you’re doing I call it specialty freight, your mind has to be clear because you got to keep both eyes on the road in the mirrors in front of you looking at the back of the fish tailing. When you get to the destination from that point on is you and nothing but steel. The plastic is the least of your word getting a little abrasion or getting a little cut. That’s least your word. Your mind is not clear. Your mind is at home. Your mind is on that last phone call. Your mind is on that bill. There’s a possibility you’re going to the ER.

11:40 Yep.

11:40 There’s a possibility that you’re going to end up having to call Justin or you going to end up have to call David and explain to them what happened.

11:49 And those two guys you really don’t want to call. I talk to Justin very few times and this is one of the few times I try to keep out of Justin’s ear. I try to keep I stay in David’s ear because he’s so knowledgeable.

12:05 He’s a good— Yeah.

12:06 He mentors me. He mentors me. He’s my go-to guy. If it’s something I don’t know, I’m going to him. He’s going to tell me—

12:15 And then sometime he like, “Why are you asking me these question? I just want to double check.”

12:19 Yeah.

12:19 He said, “But I know you know.” You know, you know it. I said, I just want to double check. He said, “Okay.” So, you know, he’s my go-to guy. Sometime he may even call me and ask me a question—

12:32 Right?

12:33 Which I be flattered when he ask that. It’s like, oh lord. Oh my god. You know, you know, I’d be like, man, I don’t think I’m going have to cut the roof off this truck again.

12:46 Yeah.

12:46 It might explode.

12:48 Yeah. My head is big. I’m going have to buy all the windows out.

12:52 But you said, I mean, you’re right. I mean, the knowledge that he has, I mean, bidding his ears and the fact that he’s more than willing to help us out with those questions.

13:01 And him being in management, that’s the thing. New drivers and drivers have to feel comfortable. And when I was working with last night, something that I picked up myself, you can’t be afraid to talk to your dispatcher. You can’t be afraid to talk to management. Don’t lie.

13:21 That’s right.

13:22 If you messed up, up, tore it up, it up, scratched it up, just say it.

13:28 Yeah. Don’t make it worse.

13:30 Yeah. Just say it and let Norton figure out what they want to do, how they want to approach it. I had a story of a truck. It was a grain truck. His tarp came off on a curb. I was coming around. We getting ready to come around the curb and his he passed me and his tarp came off and he covered my whole truck, the whole cab. I couldn’t see nothing for about probably about 4 seconds. I couldn’t see anything coming around this curb. I know I couldn’t from my experience. I couldn’t panic cuz I know I’m coming up on a curb. All I had all I was doing was just keep the wheel where it’s at and listen to see if I hear the rumble strip on the right. If I knew if I heard the Roman strip on the right, I’m coming off the road and it’s a guard rail right there.

14:19 So, I’m just hold it. The tarp went right back on like nothing never happened. It was like a faith of God. It just happened. And the truck kept going. I flashed my lights. He pulled over and he was freaking out like, “Are you okay?” I’m like, “I’m fine.” He like, “How did you pull that off?” I said, “I didn’t do it. It was just a faith of God that carried me through because I didn’t even have time to say, “Oh—

14:47 It just happened.

14:48 Yeah. You know, it was no time to pray. Oh, God. It was none of that. I couldn’t say anything because I didn’t have time to say anything like this is happening. You know, and you know, so when that happened, you know, it of course is always the driver’s fault.

15:02 Well, yeah, that’s— Yeah—

15:04 It’s all even though it happened to me, it’s still my fault. But, you know, that’s above my pay grade thing that would always have, you know, it’ll be taken care of. It’s not my fault. They know it’s not my fault—

15:15 You know, but it was one of those things that of—

15:18 When you’re out there on that road, things are going to happen.

15:21 Just like in life, things are going to happen.

15:23 It’s not what happened, it’s your reaction to—

15:28 And how we deal with it and how we get in front of it. And you said something too, you know, it’s sometimes it’s not in our industry, it’s not necessarily what’s happened, it’s the lack of communication with what happens on some things. And that’s where I think we find ourselves in the most trouble. So it’s getting in front of that and communicating that and then, you know, nine times out of 10, that’s all that that needed to be done and it can work itself out. You know, like one of the things my dispatchers could say, he say he did it, he did it. No. If he say he didn’t do it, then wait for the rest of it cuz he’s going to tell you what happened.

16:07 Mhm.

16:08 I didn’t do that. This is what I did. This is what they said because it’s always our fault. And I learned in this industry, you can take all the pictures. You can get all the signatures. You can get all that. They didn’t put it on the bills that this was short or this was damaged or this was that. It’s still going to always fall back on the driver or the company. That’s just how the industry is. Cutthroat industry.

16:36 But if you that upstanding guy and you are pretty much they know what happened, call them, ask him what happened. He tell you what happened and then let the company fight for you.

16:48 And we will in that scenario—

16:50 You know, let the company fight for you. But you got to be that character. You got to be that person that they know if you say you didn’t do it, they’re going to go to bat for you.

17:01 You can’t be—

17:02 Oh, well, seven out of 10. Seven out of 10. He didn’t lie.

17:06 It don’t work like that, does it?

17:07 Yeah. You got to be 10 out of 10.

17:09 The boy that cried wolf mentality.

17:11 Yeah. You got to be 10 out of 10 for the company to go to bat fight.

17:14 So, let me ask you this. Being a leader and teaching some of these young folks that and learning through the years that you’ve done this and been in business and been in dispatch and you know worked in different roles within the transportation industry when it comes to the decking side of it, can you or have you seen that folks that come in that are decent drivers, if they may not be the best when it comes to mechanical mindset, but yet they’re willing to listen and willing to learn, can they eventually you know, make it as a deck driver or a good deck driver, if you will.

17:49 Absolutely. Absolutely. I couldn’t hit a ball if it was a beach ball playing baseball, but I was on the baseball team.

17:56 Yep.

17:56 Because I had to drive to be that triple multiple athlete. So, all I got to do was get on the base. And if I get on the base, I’mma still love the three.

18:07 I’m still the three cuz I was fast. So, I’m still three. Just give me the head start and I’ll take it from there. So, I feel like if anyone that wanted to come over to the decking transportation of what we do, if they’re willing to learn, listen, it don’t matter what your mechanical background is. There’s women out here doing it.

18:33 Yep.

18:34 You know, there’s, you know, there’s people from different parts of the world that is doing it. They have the broken English, so they don’t can’t really speak things. They’re doing it. But are you willing to— You may have worked at a mechanic shop, but that don’t do nothing for what we do because you didn’t have to do this in no mechanic shop.

18:55 That’s true.

18:56 This You didn’t never had to take no airline loops, no mechanic shop.

19:02 You don’t know what the little red plugs are because a lot of time they don’t give you no red plugs. So, what are you going to do?

19:08 Yeah. Do you even— Yeah. Do you know how to hook the truck up? Right. So when you lift it, you’re not, you know, damaging a bumper or ruining the truck.

19:16 How you do this? Sometimes you may have to take the bumper off to get this truck off.

19:20 You know the when you when you’re doing the decking the shop is not thinking about the guys who have to undeck it in the field. So we have to be very strategic about how we operate. When you get that truck, you look at that truck before you even pull it off that yard to see what kind of issues you’re going to have when you get to your destination. Okay, I’m going have to take the bumper off on this. Then you might need to make a phone call be like, “Hey, ain’t no front tires on here. Hey, there’s no bumper on. You know, the bumper is no way for me to hook up to the bumper. It don’t have no holes in it. I got to take the bumper off.” You’re talking about, you know, 100, maybe a 70, 80 pound bumper that you got to try to take off. That’s three, four and a half ft up in the air off the back of the truck. You got to try to take this bumper off. Do you take the top bolts off, bottom bolts? A lot of this is common sense. Some of this stuff you just have to be on the safe part of it. But I do feel anybody that wants to do it—

20:18 They can do it if they want to do it. Yeah.

20:20 If you’re doing it because you have to do it, it’s going to be a lot harder for you to grasp it because you under pressure to—

20:28 You need a job.

20:29 Yeah.

20:30 If you just need a job—

20:32 And I tell if you just need a job, this is not for you.

20:34 Right.

20:36 You have to have the mindset.

20:37 Not for you. Yeah. This industry is not for you. If you just need a job, you have to be intrigued about what you’re seeing. When I go down the road, I love doing specialty freight because people look at you like you’re in a parade. So they looking at it like, “Oh, wow. Look at this.”

20:53 Is in a parade, you know? So—

20:55 That’s true. It turns heads, right? And probably still, I mean, you’ve been doing it for a while. But there’s no way you’re not turning heads on a four-way.

21:03 Oh, yeah. If you ever go up to New York—

21:05 If you ever go up to New York and you would see—

21:09 They looking at you like, “What in the are you doing is that?”

21:12 Yeah. Like how where are you taking all those to?

21:17 Yeah. Yeah.

21:17 Honestly, I don’t know. I’m lost.

21:21 Oh man—

21:22 I’m lost. Yes. And you know the sense of direction and what you know with the new guys, you can’t use Google—

21:31 Being a deck driver.

21:32 No—

21:33 You have to get that Garmin that’s made for trucks and you have to put your settings in there. That the settings is probably going to I use both. I use Google. I use Waves and I use my Garmin truck GPS to do my routing to see what’s my best options to go around different cities to go around different constructions because the GPS on your Google is going to take you to car route—

21:59 And you can’t do that.

22:00 And when you’re in the Northeast with you know 13 foot deck set you know you can’t be—

22:08 You got a plan.

22:09 Yeah. You know, you 90 ft long and you 132 high.

22:16 You better know where you’re going. You better know where you’re going or you’re going to have a bunch of convertibles—

22:22 And that’s a lot of money.

22:24 Yeah. Just don’t there’s no reason to call and see if you can get you another load or whatever because there’s a great possibility. No.

22:33 Yeah.

22:34 Yeah. That ain’t happening.

22:35 And then there’s a great possibility they may keep you on so they can get that money back. It’s gonna take a while there.

22:42 Yeah.

22:42 So, so what did you coach? Like what?

22:44 I coached football, track, lacrosse, soccer, strength and conditioning, speed, and agility.

22:51 Wow.

22:52 Yeah.

22:52 What age groups? Just any and all.

22:54 Didn’t matter if they can comprehend and understand. Yes or no. I work with them.

22:59 That’s great. And how, you know, has that that helped you with what you do now? Actually being an umpire, a referee actually taught me more patient. It made me a better coach because I understood it from—

23:13 The rules side person, right? Learn from the rule sign. So I coach from the rule signs back to coaching.

23:20 So that way my kids never have fouls, never have, you know, scratches, never have, you know, penalty boxes or whatever like that.

23:30 Yeah.

23:30 You know.

23:31 Yeah.

23:31 That’s I learned to coach backwards. That’s awesome. I could see I could definitely see that. You know, you’re seeing it from a different perspective and you’re able to teach in a way that’s going to better prepare this person to play the game better or to watch out for things that you might not have seen if you weren’t on the rule side of things.

23:54 Right. Absolutely. Absolutely.

23:57 And it makes it make and then it makes the kids more thankful for the referee know. Hey, thank you. Thank you for coming out and helping us today.

24:06 Yeah—

24:07 They remember that. And when they see you again, now you got a referee that may not be as quick on you. Just like the DOT, you know, you go in there, you got all your paperwork together. And I’ve had that happen to me recently. Went into a station and this lady was looking for this registration. I called Justin. I called David. I called dispatcher. I called Payton was which one of my old dispatch. I called everybody because she said she didn’t have my restroom. I’m like, “Man, everything is right here. Right here.” I said, “I travel a lot, so I can’t walk around with no binders and whatever. I’m on a weight limit. So, here’s everything right here.”

24:44 It didn’t look the way she wanted it to look cuz the paper was shrunk instead of a regular 8 by1. She didn’t know what it was. So, one of the troopers came out. He didn’t know what she was looking for. He came back in and say, “That’s what you’re looking for.” And she like, “Oh, I’m just not used to seeing it that way.” So, I didn’t know what it was. I said, “But is that everything that I showed you earlier today?” Cuz I went to the restroom to stall time. I got to use the bathroom. I ate something bad. I got the bubble guts cuz I’m trying to wait for somebody to call me back. Like, hey—

25:16 I’m at the scale house.

25:17 Yeah. I got it.

25:18 They say I’m overweight on my third axle. There’s nothing I can do about it. Just give me the ticket. It’s $76. Give me the ticket. I’ll pay the ticket now. Just let me go.

25:26 Yeah. Yeah—

25:27 Just let me go. And I’m not trying to tee her off because I know she’s getting irritated because I’m telling her it’s right there and she’s not looking at what she’s looking at. She’s looking for what she expect to see.

25:42 Yeah. And you got to play that in a certain way because you know you could, you know—

25:47 Make it worse. No, this is going from a $76 ticket—

25:51 For being overweight on the axles to going to getting put out of service—

25:56 Then running a level one and they’re going to find something wrong with them trucks.

26:00 Yeah—

26:01 They brand new. They’re going to find something wrong. And now it’s a domino effect.

26:05 So you I try to prevent that. I, you know, ma’am, I’m not trying to upset you or anything, but help me to help—

26:10 You on what you’re looking for. Can you show me a picture? Act like I’m a foreign. Can you show me a picture? So this way we can get this out of the way.

26:20 Let’s break it down.

26:22 Yeah. And you know after everything she like, “Oh, I’m sorry. No harm done.” And I just learned when that scale is closed to go there when it’s closed and they’ll go it’s open.

26:32 That’s the perfect moral of that story. By the way—

26:35 One let’s switch gears a little bit. So, we talked a little bit about, you know, your strategies, how you got in the game and what works for you, but let’s talk a little bit about changes in the industry and what we’ve seen this year and into last year or even with last year with co, you know, money’s good, right? The money’s good in this industry. There’s no doubt. But what is something that you’ve seen a change whether it be recently or from last year to this year? You know, really the—

27:06 Once they cut the world is not going to move without trucks. Yeah.

27:11 I don’t care what they do. I can honestly say the pandemic slowed us down a little bit, but in the industry that we were in—

27:19 We were blessed enough that I didn’t have to go get no stimulus checks. I didn’t have to apply for no food stamps. I actually made more money the pandemic. So I don’t get into the politic part of—

27:32 Sure—

27:33 Who was the reason why I was the reason I industry kept moving and I normally don’t run in the winter time cuz I don’t like to do the snow in them kind of trucks and whatever but I was able to still stay afloat during the time of the pandemic. So I was very fortunate and happy about that. So the pandemic with our industry, you know, every like any other industry, you know, things got to shut down to get cleaned up and get ready and safety checks and stuff to go out the other batch. But our industry really don’t stop.

28:06 No—

28:08 It don’t stop. So the pandemic, if it rolls back around again, as long as they don’t shut down the plants, there are still enough trucks on the ground that we can be able to move. And then that’s where you know your worth comes in handy as far as are you worthy enough to take this deck load. We got 400 drivers and you take one load a month. You’re not getting no load.

28:36 Yeah.

28:37 You’re not getting that load. We got 400 drivers and your last five loads something was wrong with claims. You’re not getting that load. So the I would say do the best you can, be honest, be truthful, be safe out there, and you will always be able to work 52 weeks out of the year if you choose to.

28:56 That’s absolutely right. Well, what I mean, let’s talk about when you know when deck traffic went down with the factories shutting down, what did you do? Did you do some singles here and there? You did a lot of singles. Okay.

29:08 I won’t say I did some singles here and there. Singles became my life. No—

29:14 That was the only thing that was keeping me afloat. And singles, you know, they are what they are.

29:19 Yeah.

29:19 You know, the pay is it is what it is. But—

29:22 You know, everything is negotiable. This is transportation. So, everything’s negotiable.

29:27 And, you know, I have, you know, have to think about it on the business aspect. Hey, you can’t expect them to pay for all of you, pay for all everything that you’re doing to take that truck—

29:35 Right?

29:35 But you can kind of negotiate your way through things to make it feasible for everyone.

29:41 That’s right. That’s right. You know, they can’t expect any company to pay you more than what they got into the truck. Sometime it happens—

29:50 They have to do it to keep that account.

29:52 Yeah.

29:52 But that’s not a that’s a rare case basis. And you and some of the guys have to realize you’re working for someone. You can’t make more money than them.

30:02 So you got to have business. You can’t make more money than what the people who paying because how they pay is other people. Everybody’s hand in this. Everybody, we got the dispatcher, got payroll, you got the lights at the building, we got internet, all everybody got to pay for this—

30:18 Insurance. Woo. No, but that that’s good. Yeah. I mean, we all work together and everybody plays a role and I think that that, you know, that’s a good, you know, sums it up. I mean, you know, the most important role, you know, is the driver and I mean, because we need that to get the job done, but there is a lot of other roles that that are playing behind the scenes and on the front lines sometimes. And, you know, we’re all working together to take care of our customers. And it’s like you said, sometimes we’ve got to take care of them and that may not mean, you know, we’re profitable on something, but you know, we know it’s going to come back around to us on the end. So, yeah, you’re absolutely right there. You know, you’re absolutely right. And I mean it could be personal but you’re going to lose—

31:02 Because it’s not your company.

31:03 Yeah.

31:04 It’s business.

31:05 So if you do business first and maybe squeeze in personal—

31:10 It may work out better for you. But if you want to be personal like, “Hey man, we just hung out at the bar and you know, and you know, we ate barbecue. Hey, we went to school together, man. Why can’t I get this load?” Well, I’m not going to pay for you to come from Miami to go all the way across country to pick up this $5,000 load when I got a guy that’s right there in—

31:31 Right—

31:32 Arizona and it’s only going to cost me $200 to get him there and he’s going to get there tomorrow. You’re going to get there later on that day and you’re going to be so tired from being jetlag you’re not going to be able to run nowhere.

31:45 Yeah. It’s just such that’s and that and I try to think like that too cuz that’s you know traveling is you know you think of you know sometimes it’s not easy and you may have layovers and different flights and next thing you know you’re to your destination to get your load and you’re exhausted.

32:01 Yeah. Yeah. You know it’s just not it’s not going to happen. And you know, and you know, something I could tell to the new guys is like when you’re getting ready to take a look, you got to really know what you got going on and you know, they have to check and see what flights, you know, time zone changes. So, if you catching this 6:00 in the morning flight, okay, you’re probably going to be tired when you get there cuz been up since about 5:00. You know, you’ve been up since 5:00. So, are you going to be ready to get up and start driving? So, if you— My rule of thumb is if I’m there before two, if I’m there before 2, I can still drive to about 8:00, 9:00 at night, which most people start getting tired anyway.

32:50 That’s right. Yeah. If I get tired and I usually lay down from like nine from 9 to like 3:00, 4:00 in the morning and I get up and I got the rest of my day to either do my drops or whatever.

33:04 But I’m going to take a flight at 11:00 cuz I don’t want to get up at 6. Okay, that’s going to put you there probably 4:00 in the evening. Okay, now you got to fight through all that traffic and then you only drove 300 miles. If anybody’s ever drove through Dallas, you know what I’m talking about.

33:25 Oh yeah.

33:25 If you ever had to come through Cleveland or come through Atlanta, you already know what I’m talking about. You’re only going to get 150 miles. It’s going to take you five hours.

33:35 That’s true.

33:36 It’s going to take you five hours. You lost the whole day cuz you didn’t want to leave at six o’clock in the morning. So what you did? You’re stuck on a load for a whole extra day. Now, I don’t never try to drop a load off that I can’t drop off on Friday or Monday. If I can drop it off on Saturday, I call them people ahead of time, make I drop it off on Saturday and I 90% of the time my approach gets me what I want. 90% of the time. 90% of the time in this industry. Talk about that approach because your approach is really important in anything and I you know I’m from sales and sales background that’s what I’ve done that’s what I know you know—

34:19 If you want to get something that’s going to benefit you’ve got to find a benefit for that other person and you’ve got to approach that the right way—

34:29 How do you absolutely how do you do that what do you do—

34:33 I just feel like I can sell sand to a—

34:38 Sell water to dolphin. Yeah. You know, so I just I looked at I put my I’ve been in that position as a owner. I’ve been in a position as a worker. I’ve been in a position as a driver, you know, and all three of those are different scenarios. So, I put myself based off of who I’m going. You walk up to an office or to a desk with a frown on your face, you already setting the chemistry for rejection.

35:11 Oh yeah. Yeah. The tone.

35:13 Yes. You So I go in, I’m a star.

35:19 I’m the star player. I’m a star. This is who I am. I don’t know if I’m being punked or being on candy camera or whatever, but when I come out of here, you going to know who I was and you’re gonna be thankful that I came because I hear it a lot, man. We really appreciate you, you know, coming, man. We wish I had more drivers like you.

35:37 Yeah.

35:38 We wish we had more drivers like that. I said, “I’m working on it.” And that’s what I said. I’m working on it. I’m working. They like, “Who are you with? You with Auto Transfer?” “No, sir.” “Who you with? Truck Mo?” “No, sir.” “Well, who are you with?” “I’m with Norton Transport.” “Nor.” “Okay.” Okay. You haven’t heard of us? No. I said we up there in Ringgold. We they ain’t call it Ringgold for nothing. And you know, so I always try to put that everlasting oppression, a good impression.

36:03 Well, that’s—

36:03 Because it doesn’t matter that I work for Norton. Robert Stephens is the one that’s in front of them.

36:10 That’s true.

36:11 Yeah.

36:12 So, if I don’t represent myself, how can I possibly represent a company?

36:16 Absolutely. And it may be hard. I mean, there may be some stuff going on and in your day or something that’s bothered you, but you know, wash it all away. And—

36:24 My issue today don’t have nothing to do with this podcast—

36:28 Right?

36:29 That’s why when we talking about doing the podcast and I, you know, kind of push off where I don’t I’m not in the truck. I’m focused. I can concentrate on your questions. I can give you truthful and honest questions without, hey, they’re calling me. I can go ahead and here’s the record truck pulling up. Yeah. Hey, I got to do this. I’m dirty. I’m hungry.

36:50 I’m in I’m in a coffee shop.

36:53 Got my coffee. Got my Danish.

36:55 I got— You got my undivided attention.

36:57 That’s correct.

36:58 Back to what you were saying with the approach when they’re they are expecting us to be the dumb ass truck drivers, the dirty truck drivers. They expect that from us.

37:12 And we’re using this show to wipe that clean. Robert, I’m telling you now—

37:16 You know, and you know, and I tell guys, you know, yes, you going to get dirty. Now, you got to you have to think you have to be on a plane. You have to go talk to the customer. So, what clothes are you wearing?

37:32 Yeah.

37:33 A lot of guys, they try to book flights the same day. You dropped off at 9:00 and you trying to be to the airport at 11. I don’t want to sit next to you. You just dropped off three, four trucks. I don’t want to sit next to you. A lot of these dealerships that we have, they have driver’s lounges. They have places for you to go shower.

37:56 Yeah.

37:56 You getting at that plane at 11:00. You’re not going to get where you’re going until 7 8:00 that night. You got to get a room.

38:04 Yep.

38:04 Unless you just going to jump straight into that truck that’s unmanned yard and you’re just going to take off. Okay. So now you got that funky—

38:13 All day yesterday in another new truck—

38:16 And it’s growing.

38:18 You know what I’m saying? And you’re growing like Mo. You’re growing like a play quick—

38:24 You know? So that that approach every they look at that. They look at your appearance.

38:30 Are your face clean? You know, yeah, your hands might be dirty, you know, but if you see hand sanitizer, do the hand sanitizer so they can see you at least trying to be clean.

38:40 Yeah. But you’re dirty. You know, have your mask on trying to be in compliance. You know, I rarely really rarely have an issue that I have to call my dispatcher about a customer not treating me fair or I’m having issues. Very rare. I think I had to call you one time about one where the guy couldn’t drive the truck. He didn’t know how to drive trucks. And he had me move the trucks three times. And on the third time, oh, it’s too dark. I can’t see it. You got to come back.

39:16 I remember.

39:16 You got to— You remember that? And I got to come back. I was hot.

39:20 Cuz I’m like, dude, I can go. I can leave. I could be dropping this off in the morning. I got to come back.

39:26 And you know what Justin told me? Robert, I said, Justin, I’ll do it if you tell me I got to do it, but if not, I’m out of it. Robert, you got to go back. And all I can say is like a humble kid. Okay.

39:41 I was I understood though. I mean, God, what I mean—

39:46 What a crazy situation, you know.

39:48 And the next day, the crazy thing the next day when I get back there, the guy says, “Man, I apologize for being a dick. I was I know I was a dick yesterday.” I said, “Yes, you were.” He was a big one, too. He was a big one. And he’s like, “Yeah, I know. I apologize, you know, but you know, if I have checked the truck in and couldn’t see it, you know, it would have been all on me. I said, but I moved the trucks three times. I moved the trucks three times and it was daytime. So, you took another two hours after I moved them. You took another two hours to check them in. That’s why I couldn’t— You couldn’t see. I said, “You should have just told me you couldn’t drive the truck and I could have put the truck where you wanted at the first time.” I end up going back to that same place again.”

40:30 No.

40:31 Same place again. He looked at me kind of funny. I said, “You remember me?” He said, “Vaguely, your face look familiar.” I said, “If we have the same problem, I refresh your memory.”

40:44 But if we don’t, no harm.

40:46 No harm, no fail.

40:47 You know, let me— Did you have the same problem?

40:50 No, I didn’t have the same problem, but it was I had a different problem. It was a in-house problem. They tell me to go to the new sales. New sales tell me to go to used sales. And when I went up there to the front, it was a little older lady there. She had a beautiful sweater on, like a little blouse. So, I’m complimenting her on a blouse and she like, “Shivery get you nowhere.” I said, “But it always put a smile on your face.”

41:15 That’s right.

41:16 And she said, “You are absolutely right.” She like, “You know what? You standing right here. I’mma get to the bottom of this.” She got on the phone call. Next thing I know, I’m seeing people come out with collar shirts on hard bottom line. They looking like the feds.

41:30 Okay. Okay.

41:31 Coming in. I’m like, “Oh.” She like, “What are these gentlemen here? Get you checked in.” And they like, “What’s going on?” They like, “No, that’s Hold on. Let’s make this phone call.” Matter of fact, I’ll walk you over there. Hey, this guy need to be checked in.

41:45 Well, we was told that’s your job. Check this guy in.

41:49 Right. They was they were signing the papers without even checking the truck in because they was like, “We’re in trouble.”

41:55 No. Yeah. Yeah.

41:56 You know, we’re in trouble. And I’m like, you know, the guy was like, “Man, we didn’t know we were supposed to do it. They told us the other day that they were supposed to do these new trucks or whatever.” I said, “Man, I wasn’t trying to get nobody in trouble.” I’m like, “No, you ain’t get nobody in trouble.” That’s what they told us.

42:10 Yeah.

42:11 That’s why we sent you over there. I said, “But like, you know, I’m coming. I always look at it as in this industry. I’m gonna see you again eventually.”

42:19 Exactly.

42:20 And I don’t want to have a bad tour with you because I gotta come back to you.

42:25 So, you can’t burn your bridges out here.

42:27 Well, like you said, you know, burning your bridges and then knowing that, you know, you don’t want anything to come back and screw you over somehow and you know, whatever somebody may do and you never know. So—

42:39 You know, and I hear people always have our stories about Penske and oh, you go to Penske this, you go to ride at this, but 95% of the time when I go to I don’t have no issues—

42:51 Right?

42:52 I really don’t have no issues because I go in like I’m one of Penske’s people. I go in like I’m working for Penske. When I leave out of there, I’m leaving like I work for North.

43:04 Yeah. And but that that your mindset is spot on. I mean, that’s what, you know, that’s one thing that that I love about this whole show that we have here is, you know, and I’m sure some of that’s come over time, but it, you know, a little bit about how you were taught and raised, too. There’s some foundations that that were built, but you know, before any of this trucking stuff ever come about—

43:22 You know, I believe probably none of these guys really even look at what these trucks run. We’re running up and down the road with three quarters of a million to maybe $800,000 worth of trucks that someone that you probably never met in your life gave you the opportunity to put $1,000 in your on your table—

43:43 And you’re doing what?

43:45 Right.

43:45 You’re doing what? You’re doing what? You got three quarters of a million dollars and you can take that—

43:51 And put on your resume. I was working with a multi-million dollar company and at on several days at a time I was in charge and responsible for $800,000 worth of products on a daily basis. That sounds politically like, oh he was with a fortune 5,000 company. I was just a damn truck driver doing decking. But it sounds very impressive.

44:16 It and it is. But it’s it is the truth though.

44:20 But it’s the truth. Hey, this is why we’re here, you know. Let’s, you know, hats off, you know, to our truck drivers and that’s the way we want to spin it because you’re, you’re absolutely right. I mean, the things that you guys are doing, you know, we’re, you know, we’re trying to break through these stereotypes on here about, hey, the old, you know, greasy truck driver driving down the road. Man, these you guys are out here talking to customers, being on the front lines, you know, driving the brand new, most expensive equipment that’s out there, industryleading stuff that’s right off the assembly line, putting it back, you know, unstacking it, putting it back together, having to, you know, think on the fly when certain situ I mean, anytime you’re doing anything mechanical, you know, yeah, you know how to do it, it goes smooth, but it’s different. It’s something different’s going to happen. And I’ve had situations, Justin, where I had a four-way. They’re all going to the same spot. I got all axles in, airlines disconnected, plugs in, everything in a bag, and I’m probably done in two and a half hours.

45:19 Yep.

45:20 With the record truck.

45:21 Yeah.

45:21 I’ve had a three-way and it took me two days.

45:27 Exactly.

45:28 It took me two days because something go wrong with the axle. Can’t get it in. Shop mechanics are coming out. Nobody can figure it out cuz a lot of new trucks, they went from having two axles, now they got four different axles and they’re not the same size. So you rule of thumb, they always want to put the differential side in first because if something goes wrong, you can still move that truck—

45:52 Right?

45:53 But if you put the wrong side in first, which would be the driver’s side, you’re not going to be able to move that truck.

45:57 Nope.

45:58 And now you going to see how strong you are cuz I’ve had it happen. I had to literally push a truck out the way and it’s not fun cuz everybody looking at you like what’s wrong with the truck?

46:08 Yeah. What’s this guy doing? That’s not an ideal situation. I—

46:13 Yeah. You know, but it happens and it may not never happen while you with your trainer—

46:19 Right?

46:19 But it going to happen with you when you’re not with your trainer. So, I always suggest that a new guy that’s never done this before go out four times with one trainer and go out four times with another trainer.

46:37 Yes, you’re in his money. You’re definitely in his pocket. But my tactics and somebody else tactics is totally different. What I’m going to tell you, what they’re going to— Yeah. What I’m telling you and what they’re telling you is going to be totally different. Is going to be totally different because I’m going to tell you what’s going to be most profitable for the for you that the company is not going to have an issue with you’re doing where you may be with another driver. He’s going to tell you from the book and you’re going to learn from the book which is correct but he’s not telling you nothing else on when you should try to get a room when you should not try to get a room but where not to go where to go.

47:16 Yeah. What time of the season to go. If you don’t have a passport and he has a passport, his mindset is totally different than yours because he can go anywhere. Yeah. But when you’re limited to where you can go, you’re know don’t take no load unless you got experience.

47:31 That’s right.

47:32 Up there in the Dakotas and God center and all these places—

47:37 If you don’t have experience because you’re going to freeze to death.

47:40 Yeah. You got to be I mean at one point, God, we took a load. I had one, you know, one of our drivers here that was on our podcast, Keith Holiday, he took a load to Saskatoon there in Canada and—

47:53 You’re talking negative 20 negative 30 and I’m like that that’s dangerous. I mean—

47:59 You know what? My first year and this the reason I didn’t run in the winter time. This the first winter I ran in three and a half years I’ve been in this industry. My first load by myself. I’m in Duluth, Minnesota with a four-way all Volvos. I get there the night before. I’m excited. I’m by myself. I got this. I got all my gear. Got all my tools. Yeah. I go to the room, get my room. I come out the room. I go back up there to the shop cuz I was there the day before that night. I go in, it’s another driver there for the same company that I was working for. He pulls right up under the hoist. I’m like, “Why you pull up under the hoist?” Well, he they said they didn’t know where you were at. Well, I was here yesterday, right when they got ready to close. But anyway, so me being me, I help him put his axles in.

48:48 He drop his crates. He throwing everything in his crates this and it’s already minus 7. I was out there from 11:00 that day to 8:00 that night. I had frost bit on all of my fingers.

49:03 Oh no. On every I tried to I applied for a job at Disney World at Disneyland. They rejected me because I said I could take Mickey Mouse out of business. He only got three fingers. I got—

49:16 I got five fingers and all of them sw I’m the new Mickey Mouse. I’m the Mickey Mouse 2.0. They rejected me, of course. So, you know, the plant came out, they helped me, and they sent out an email that that driver, cuz they had his name, they don’t ever want him on none of their properties based off of what he did. There was another coworker there with that you was experienced, and he wasn’t. He helped you, and you left him out there to die.

49:48 Wow.

49:49 And it’s almost go back to being military. You never leave a man behind.

49:53 No.

49:54 If he’s able to move, you know, I offered the room. Hey, I already got the room already. So, if you ain’t got your travel, hey, you can come through and do the travel. You know, you can sit here with me. You know, we can figure out we can fly together. I’m trying to fellowship with another coworker of mine that I thought was a coworker of mine cuz I’m new. So, you the only the second person I know besides my trainer.

50:17 Yeah. You’re putting your neck out there. You know—

50:19 You know what I’m saying? So, you know, he’s like, “Oh, you already know how to do axes.”

50:23 And once he seen that I was green behind the ears, he took advantage.

50:28 I see.

50:28 You know, he got in his Uber, left and left.

50:31 How and right.

50:32 How did that change like did that—

50:34 It changed my mindset.

50:35 Yeah, that’s— Yeah—

50:37 It definitely changed my mindset. It made me—

50:40 It was wor I felt worse than being in a racist situation. No—

50:47 I felt worse than being in a racial situation because here’s a driver that I work with. They may not ever work with him again, but he’s part of the same company. We went like, you know, we are two different companies. We’re the same company. We getting paid and working under the same rules. And you didn’t have the dignity to look out for your fellow guy. So, I look back at the company and ask, you know, what are we going to do? Well, of course, we ain’t going to do nothing because he’s seasoned. He’s been doing this for a while or whatever. We’ll say something to him. What you going to do?

51:28 Yeah.

51:28 What? You know, that’s going nowhere. That’s absolutely going nowhere. Did I want the guy fired? No. I just really want to chin check him.

51:35 Yeah. Yeah. Any knee check. Knee check. You know, I really wanted to chin check them. And at that point, you know, I just never felt the same with working with that company because I felt like these are kind of people we have over here.

51:48 Yeah.

51:49 I don’t want to be part of this. And I was blessed—

51:53 Enough to run across another driver that worked for Norton—

51:57 And he turned me on to Norton. I put the application in. Deianne was my recruiter.

52:02 Oh yeah.

52:02 Yeah. That’s my girl. She was my recruiter. She got me in right away and I never looked back.

52:10 Man, that’s—

52:11 I never looked back. So, you know, you’re gonna have issues with drivers cuz everybody ethics and work ethics and home training is not the same. Get it? But at the end of the day, if I see another driver work for Auto Truck, you work for JJ, what any of these competitors that that’s against us, I won’t say against us, that’s in the same industry.

52:34 Yeah. If they’re there and I can help them, I’m going to help because the last thing I will want to see is I’m seeing him struggle. And I’ve had guys that been doing this for 10, 15 years and I had to help them put the axles in. I had to help them do certain things because the trucks are changing constantly.

52:54 They are.

52:55 The trucks are changing constantly. And he had no idea this was something. He like I didn’t even know nothing about this. I said, “Yeah, yeah, if you know, if you’re only doing two style trucks, yeah,”

53:08 Yeah—

53:08 You might not, you know.” So, I showed him what I needed to do and I helped. He’s like, “Man, I appreciate.” He’s like, “Where you at?” Nort. I said, “Yeah, man.” He said, “Man, I heard y’all guys.” I said, “Man, I tell you what, I think I gained 15 pounds with Norton. I don’t know if that’s from my pocket or from me eat.” I said, “But it might be 750 750.” I said, “We do.” I said, “We doing good and we really need some good guys. We don’t need some people that’s coming up for a job. We need some really good guys—

53:38 That have the mindset, you know—

53:39 You know, and I said, you know, if you’re getting tired of, you know, being forced to take this load or take that load or whatever, you know, we got a board. Look at it. You want it, you ask for it, you get it, you take it. You don’t want it, don’t take it.

53:56 Mhm. They’re not going to offer you five loads and that’s all you got to choose from.

54:00 No, no. I mean, and—

54:02 He’s like, really? Like, no.

54:04 But that’s the thing is, you know, we try to be a little different in areas that I think really not even that. We just try to listen and you know, there’s things that we could change that. But, but it’s about listening and trying to adapt to the changes that are in our industry today. It’s listening to our drivers to hey this is how I like to do things and maybe this is a better way to do things whatever it may be but it’s about listening and listening to our drivers you know our founder and CEO you know Michael you know our founder Calvin Norton you know he started you know as a driver and you know with that you know he puts that mindset you know into us every day so we’ve got to keep that mindset and listen and know when we need to change and knowing when we need to make something better whatever it may Hey.

54:52 So, and one cool thing too that I’m hearing on our podcast about talking to everybody is, you know, our guys are going to help not only our guys, but you guys are out there helping other people’s guys, too. Other companies guys, you know, it’s—

55:06 Oh, yeah.

55:06 It’s such a cool mindset to hear cuz, you know, I don’t—

55:11 First got into when I first got into trucking back in 99, August, let me see. I got my license July 27th, 1999. August 8th, I was working for a company. Very unheard of to get your license. In less than a week, you’re working a full truck and trailer on your own by yourself, no trailer. I was blessed and always looking at that. But I’ve all I was sometime I was told things of you know don’t help the competitor, don’t help this, don’t help that, you know, don’t talk to that coworker, don’t talk to this one, you know, don’t do this. But when you leave at 6:00 in the evening, Justin, you’re home with your family. I’m out here with these workers.

56:01 That’s right.

56:02 These drivers, the same ones that nobody want me to talk to, but I’m broke down. I’ve turned around five miles. Turned around to go back to help a guy that I know left—

56:16 Man.

56:17 Left and he said his water hose came off. The record truck was behind me. He said, “You broke down, too?” I said, “No.” He said, “Man, I’ve been following you the whole time up the mountain.” I said, “Oh, okay. I’m sorry for holding up.” He said, “No, it was cool.” He said, “Is one of your coworker looked up in the window?” I said, “Nope.” He said, “Really? You turned around to come back?” I said, “I had the time. I’m new in the industry. I wanted to know what happened to his truck so I know what to look for.”

56:45 Yeah.

56:45 So, I said I was coming to help if I could, but be nosy in the same breath.

56:50 Two birds with one stone there.

56:53 Yeah. You know, I want to be at the same time—

56:55 But while I’m at it, can I get your business card just in case I break down in this area? I know who to call.

57:00 He said, “Absolutely.” And I build relationships with record truck buyers. Build relationships with them because they know we’re coming and they’re going to fluctuate them rates based off the time of day, what’s going on. You can do two trucks and they may charge you 475. You may have two trucks and it’s 575. Like what happened? It’s the same truck. It’s same Freightliners I brought two months ago. What happened? What? They can do it. They can fluctuate their rates the way they want to fluctuate. There’s no lock in rates with them, but that’s another story.

57:37 That but that’s awesome that you mean you understand that you see that hey this is a relationship build you know business you know from anywhere from you know customer to driveaway to driver to tow truck to driver to customer. There’s so many webs of connections of how we do things, but at the end of the day, it’s all those connections, you know, building relationships with each other so we can operate efficiently and be successful. So man, that you know what you’re saying just shows you know how much thought you’ve put into to how to make your business better, how to make your job more efficient and to help others. You know—

58:16 You know, this what I want the guys to look at Norton is just a platform just like social media. It’s just a platform for you to make money.

58:29 It’s your business. They give you a tag. They give you, they give you the means. They don’t give you the tools. They give you the means to provide for yourself and your family. Here’s a tag. Here’s all the paperwork you’re going to need to move those trucks there. You’re a business owner. And a lot of guys coming in from trucking companies, that’s what they don’t understand. You are independent. Independent means you’re on your own. You have a support team. You work for Norton, but you’re independently working for Norton, which means you’re responsible for everything that you’re getting ready to do from this point on. Your taxes, you know, whatever it is, that’s on you.

59:21 Yeah—

59:22 That’s on you. You have a support system, but don’t Hey, they won’t take me. Okay, you let them know. Okay, they won’t take it. Why they won’t take you? They said I was late. Okay, then take it back tomorrow. This is not free. It’s not like, you know, you got to set an appointment. Some of these places you may have some appointments where you call ahead of time. You know, you’re independent. You have to I would say probably 99% of the time I don’t never have my paperwork. I never have my paperwork when I go to these some of these shippers. But my attitude, my approach is so on key and so on point. They don’t have no problem printing my paperwork out for the next three drops.

1:00:08 Coach Smooth.

1:00:10 It’s not Coach Robert, it’s Coach Smooth.

1:00:13 They don’t have no problem. Oh, I went ahead and printed out the other ones for you. I appreciate you so much. Thank you so much.

1:00:20 I dance at your wedding.

1:00:21 Tell them whatever.

1:00:23 Little gratitude.

1:00:23 Their ego—

1:00:25 Stroke their attitude. Thank you. I, you know, I really appreciate you. I’ve went and went to a customer more than once. And when I came in, I had them a t-shirt from the airport because I knew where I was going. I got them a t-shirt from out of North Carolina. When I got over to San Anton, I had already gave him a t-shirt. You know, you can’t win over TSA. I’ve tried it several times.

1:00:50 It ain’t— Yeah. You can’t win the more. You can smile. The more you smile, the more they going to pull you over.

1:00:55 Yeah, that’s true.

1:00:56 They don’t try TSA.

1:00:58 They ain’t going to win.

1:00:59 Yeah. They ain’t no charmers. It’s not going to happen. Well, Robert, there’s something that I got to talk about for just a second and it’s a little bit off subject from what we’ve been talking about, but I always got to throw it in there because—

1:01:10 You know, you guys are traveling. I have to travel. You know, I don’t do what you guys do. I’m at home with my family most of the time, but I love being able to get in front of customers, being able to get in front of drivers. It’s one of my favorite things to do. And you know, I always like to visit different places that have people have recommended, whether it be because they have good food, whether it be because of the atmosphere, the people that work there are really nice. What you know, out of all these lanes you’ve done for as long as you’ve done it, there’s got to be maybe one, maybe two, however many places that you just like going to because you love you think they’ve got great food, you think they’ve got good atmosphere. What’s your favorite place to eat when you’re on the road? I gotta say it depends on what your lifestyle. If you trying to be healthy, then you need to go out there to California.

1:01:55 Oh yeah.

1:01:56 You got to go out to H. That’s they going to be on that healthy tip.

1:02:00 If you trying to get round around the belly and get ready for winter, you got to go to Texas. You got to hit San Anton.

1:02:08 You do.

1:02:09 I can say Dallas, but I like San Anton because you got all of Dallas to get hungry. You got all of Texas to get hungry again. You know, it’s not too there’s not too many places you can’t go and get some real—

1:02:24 Brisket—

1:02:25 You know, burnt ends.

1:02:26 Yeah. The real deal—

1:02:27 You know. So, I would say Texas is my one of my go-to spots to far as food. I haven’t had one that I really didn’t like. I had some that I’ve took videos of the guys cooking the steak and right there in front of you and you know, it’s a barbecue joint, but they M—

1:02:48 They true to what they do in Texas and that’s the people.

1:02:51 That’s true. Yeah. Get that good brisket.

1:02:53 Yeah. I all I can say is really, you know, you go to Texas, you buy you some brisket, you eat your brisket there, and then you get you about a half a pound or a pound to go because when you start getting to these drops, breakfast is not in your vocabulary.

1:03:11 Right. Right.

1:03:12 Lunch is probably in your mind. Dinner is in your bed cuz you’re tired and you’re—

1:03:20 Tired. Yeah.

1:03:21 So, you can go a day real quick without eating. So, you have to—

1:03:25 You got a plan.

1:03:26 Before you drop, you got to go get your water. It don’t matter if you spend $12 or $20, you might have to throw it away because you got to travel, but you rather throw it away because you got to travel than to not have it.

1:03:41 Exactly.

1:03:41 You know, you got these little two for five waters. You get your little two for five waters. You get your little go to loves and get your little fruit cups. Get your pineapples or your mango. Whatever you want to eat, you get you that. Maybe get your ham, you know, get your honey bun and get your little sugar rush or whatever you’re going to do the whatever you want to do. Have that the night before you get to start dropping because you’re not going to have time. You know, you might have a good day. You get there at 7 and you’re done by 8:30. You ain’t dropped off three trucks by 8:30. You only got to drop that single off. That mean you’re going to be done before 2:00. You can catch that 5:45 or 670 flight. The 7:00 flight.

1:04:25 You excited. You didn’t eat.

1:04:27 Yeah.

1:04:27 Now you got to go to the airport. You ain’t got time to eat at the airport. You didn’t upgrade your ticket to first class. So, you’re hungry at the airport. So when you get to your destination at 10:00 at night, everything is closed.

1:04:42 Yep. You can’t.

1:04:43 So you eating down there at the marketplace or you eat a candy bar or whatever. Yeah. Did nothing for your body. So when you wake up the next day, you’re worse than what you was if you—

1:04:52 Was didn’t eat for two days because you starved your body to death. So I always recommend get your food, get your water the night before because you’re working. You might, especially coming into the summertime, you’re going to have to stay hydrated. So, you’re going to have to get your 7-Eleven hydrate waters. Get your little pH waters. Get your, you know, try to stay away from a lot of the sugar drinks cuz it’s going to bring you up and it’s going to drop you dead on your face. Don’t drink too much water because it’s going to have you bloated and you can’t get rid of the water. Either going to sweat it out or piss it out and it’s not going to happen.

1:05:28 That’s man, that’s you’re hitting the nail on the head. It’s such a—

1:05:32 And me being that coach, I know about elements. I know about what you need to do to far as hydration, what you need to try to eat to carry you through the day during this time. You can’t eat heavy and think you going to go out there and be climbing up and down these trucks.

1:05:48 No. And hydration, how you know what the importance of water.

1:05:51 You know, you don’t Everybody say, “Oh, Denver, Denver gets hot. Denver, Colorado gets hot.”

1:05:57 It does.

1:05:58 It gets hot. It might not get as hot as southern Alabama, but it gets hot and you will know it. So, you know, you got to, you know, stay hydrated. You know, don’t be afraid to ask, you know, where’s the water fountain? You know, you go to some of these shops, they may point to the water fountain that look like you thought it was a toilet or a giant. You know, that water fountain is filthy and you looking like, “No, I want the water that you drink out of.” Oh, then they’ll take you into the office.

1:06:30 You’ve said something funny about California. I just have to share this with you because we’re talking about healthy and talking about the differences in food. We were in, you know, Palm Springs at the UTA convention in 2019 and we’re at this sushi restaurant and they’re saying, you know, oh yeah, this is a good sushi restaurant. This guy’s got a black belt in sushi. And I’m like, a black belt in sushi? This is I’ve got to try this sushi. You know what is a black belt and sushi? I’ve never heard of anything like that.

1:06:57 Yeah, me.

1:06:58 You know, so I was like telling everybody when we got back, y’all won’t believe the sushi we had in California. This guy had a black belt in sushi and I Hey, he did what? Whatever he was doing back there. He had black belt, yellow belt, purple belt. I don’t know. It was good. I’ll tell you that.

1:07:14 Oh, wow.

1:07:15 Yeah. I used to live up there in mid California like Magic Mountain area.

1:07:21 Yeah. Yeah. I used to live around Magic Mountain R. So very familiar with California and they I love they wet burritos. They call them wet burritos. So it’s the burritos with the queso sauce and the red sauce and the green sauce on top of—

1:07:36 A stuffed burrito. Oh my god.

1:07:39 What time is it? You got me. You got me thinking.

1:07:43 Yeah, man. Oh my god. When I say I can see why it’s a lot of overweight people why they try to be health conscious out there now because you get a lot of food for the money.

1:07:55 You get a lot of food for the money.

1:07:58 Oh well, I love talking about that and I tell you what, Robert, I’ve had a blast. I think you know some of the insight that you’ve shared is just you know there’s no no price for our drivers out there. They you know listening to you and some of the things that you do and what you’ve done is has been awesome to hear. And—

1:08:15 And put my number at the bottom. I have nothing to hide. I’ve have drivers call me from north quite a bit—

1:08:24 More than y’all probably realize. Oh yeah. Quite a bit.

1:08:27 Yeah.

1:08:28 Ask me on how to do certain things and which way how they should handle this. Hey, you know, I haven’t worked in a while. I think they’re black balling me. I’m like, no. Did Justin call you yet? And they like, “No, who is Justin? When you ain’t black,”

1:08:45 You good.

1:08:45 You good.

1:08:46 I said, “When I said you good when the Reaper call you,”

1:08:50 It better be a podcast.

1:08:52 That’s right. That’s right.

1:08:53 Cuz if it’s not a podcast, it’s a goodbye.

1:08:56 No, no—

1:08:58 You know, I’m just pulling their l— No one is calling you about, you know, you got to, you know, they gonna call you, hey man, you need to pull a load or whatever. You know, tell them what you got going on. It could be personal, whatever. Just tell them what you got going on and then they’ll go from there.

1:09:14 Hey, and that that’s true. Tell us. Hey, I tell my folks and you know, everybody’s going to listen to podcast, but this is true. I tell my folks, hey, call them. You know, you don’t you never know what’s going on. But and I’m tell you this, if you don’t call them, somebody else will.

1:09:28 You want me to tell you, and I tell anybody, when I was training brokers, that’s one way of training. Dispatchers. That’s another way of training. But when you’re training management, when you’re training management, it’s totally different because the average management has no idea who’s on their team, when their birthdays, when their anniversaries, none of that. And when you have a small company, it’s very hard to do it with Norton unless you put everybody’s birthday on a Google calendar and when it pops up, you can send them a text—

1:10:00 Right?

1:10:00 Your boring day is a day that nobody can ever duplicate—

1:10:04 Right? And it’s the little things never change, you know, telling, you know, happy birthday. And I think, you know—

1:10:11 If we don’t start with the birthdays just because the birthdays, we got so many people on our team, you know, and the family, it’s hard to probably do that. But I think if we can do their anniversary of, hey, happy anniversary, we’re being with Norton, you know, one year, two years a you know, and just kind of acknowledge drivers like that. Just like you call a driver when they ain’t went out for a while, acknowledge the driver that’s been there for a while.

1:10:39 And that’s run and that’s and it’s, you know, running hard or you know, I look at this stuff all the time. You know, some of these guys I’m like, “Wow, how in the world,”

1:10:47 Man? It’s a guy.

1:10:48 Did they do that?

1:10:49 I think it’s C. I think it’s something Ryder.

1:10:52 Oh, it’s CC Ryder. I know who you’re looking at—

1:10:54 Man. Man, I’m I need to find out who what he’s doing because I want him. I can I can’t never c I’m like—

1:11:04 He has to be pulling lows that’s like—

1:11:06 15 points 20 points or higher.

1:11:09 He’s definitely not putting no points.

1:11:11 No—

1:11:11 He ain’t doing no singles.

1:11:13 No, no, he ain’t doing singles. Now I connect you with Joe. I love Joe. I want to have Joe on the show. He’s such a cool guy out of Georgia. Joe Baker, man. This guy is—

1:11:22 CC Rder. CC Rider kills it. Every quarter I’m s I think one quarter I was on Payton’s team and I was first on for like one day.

1:11:35 Here he come.

1:11:36 I was first for one day and then I went to second and then next thing I know he took off and I’m like what is he pulling? I’m like Payton what is he pulling? What is he pulling? And Pton like I don’t know. I’m like Pton I can’t do favors. I said I can’t do favors. I know I’m doing something, but I’m trying to be that I’m trying to be in that top 20 all the time. I’m trying to be in that top 20 all the time.

1:12:03 You know what he’s doing, right?

1:12:04 What is he doing?

1:12:05 Field deck.

1:12:08 Oh, that’s why. So, he’s getting 30 40 points.

1:12:16 Yeah, he’s decking. He’s out there and he does a little bit of new stuff, but he’s one of our, you know, lead field deckers and he’s going out there and he’s stacking and moving.

1:12:27 That’s why. Yeah, that makes sense.

1:12:30 Yeah. Probably one of the most efficient ones that I’ve ever seen. That’s why cuz I looked into they’re getting ready to change from doing the boom trailers where the truck is sitting in the middle in between the trucks and they’re going to come out with the trailers that look like Z- Wings. It’s just going to be a trailer that hooks up to a regular F-150 or 250. Don’t need no DY cuz it hooks up to the ball of the truck. And you instead of the truck going like a glider, you will face it just like you do a Z-Wing—

1:13:03 Right?

1:13:03 They’re switching over to those slowly because it’s cutting down on the weight tickets and trying to balance out the weight because that truck in the middle and you got fuel and tubes and all this stuff in there. It’s kind of hard to balance that weight. So they switching over to I talked to a couple of client if not clients but people that’s in the industry and ask them you know what kind of trailer this is what kind of and normally I see those when I’m going to like places to pick up singles.

1:13:31 Yeah.

1:13:32 I run across those kind of trailers.

1:13:34 Yeah. Cuz they’re multiple singles at a time with those.

1:13:37 Yeah. Cuz I’m interested in doing like the pickup truck and maybe pulling two trucks at a time. The only thing I’m I’m worried about is if I’m not pulling from east to west, then I’m never going to be able to get that deck load coming from west to east.

1:13:56 Yeah.

1:13:57 You know, so that’s the way I would rather would try to run because I’m not a pilot yet. I got like 12 15 hours left become a pilot.

1:14:06 You come pick me up now.

1:14:09 I wouldn’t pass that. It be your last broadcast. I would test that. We can get off the ground, but we got the parachute out.

1:14:20 We’ll give that one a little while.

1:14:22 Yeah, we got to wait on that.

1:14:24 We’ll wait on that one.

1:14:25 Yeah. So, but that’s something, you know, I think if we were to have the new guys go through like that training that we spoke about earlier, but also go to see what it takes to deck a truck. Then they can understand the opposite cuz everybody that deck undeck can’t deck.

1:14:53 That’s true. It’s totally different method that it’s easy to take the loose because you see it—

1:14:59 But do you know how to set it up?

1:15:02 Can you set it up? Do you have the right equipment?

1:15:05 You know, just to set it up, you know, all them little airline fittings and this and that. You need to keep some of those to yourself because you get in a situation you may be dropping off your lead truck and then you got a switch and your second truck is your lead truck. Now, what do you do? Yeah. And then on the back end of that, you know, you’ve got different types of trucks. So you may be, you know, dropping off some Freightliners and now you’ve got some internationals that’s that that have—

1:15:35 You know, frontational tools, you know, international tools that I haven’t used in three years.

1:15:41 Never had to use cuz I never pulled an international in the three years I’ve ever been in this industry. Never touch one. I’ve drove to singles, but I’ve never had to do any decks. If you pulling from Van Army from the Laredo, the axle nuts are totally different sides than if you pull out of Denton, Texas. There are different sides. They’re two different size nuts. They’re two different size nuts to take the axle loose from the frame—

1:16:21 Right? Two different sizes.

1:16:25 I didn’t know that until I it actually happened to me. I’m like, well, why would they do that? Well, you got Kenworth and Peterbilt. They’re going to do the thing their way where they only going to take the axles out of one axle out of one set of axles instead of both. And then you have Freightliner that’s going to take them out of both. I don’t know what’s the difference between the automatic transmissions and the Kenworth and Peterbilts versus the Freightliners, but Freightliner take both axles out. Well, me being me, I ask. Hey, why we take that? Does it mess up the transmission? No. They just get more money for taking out the other axle. Oh, makes sense.

1:17:11 Makes sense. So, y just making more work for— Yeah. So, y’all just making more work for us cuz we the only ones. Laredo is the only ones in the country that do this. I said, “Why we just don’t take the drive shaft out? Wouldn’t it be easier just to take the drive shaft?” Oh, it cost more money to actually replace the knuckles. And the knuckles are what? I said, “When they break down, that’s the first thing the tow truck guy do. Zip, zip, zip, four bolts, tie it to the frame, gone down the road. Everything free spent.” Oh, no, no, no, no. Is you get more money for taking the axes out than actually doing that. Of course. Gotcha. So I understand. So when these new guys or whatever, nobody ever knew why they do it that way. It’s about the money.

1:18:01 That’s an interesting— It’s not about the convenience of what’s going to work for us. It’s about the money.

1:18:07 It’s about the money.

1:18:09 It’s about the money. Well, I hope that that who you know who all that’s listening to our podcast that hears this, they I know they’re going to learn something, coach. And I know I have, too. And I can’t say enough that it’s been—

1:18:22 It’s been a pleasure having you on the show. You know, I think we’ll do it again. I mean, we’re going to keep this thing going. And, you know, tell your friends. I mean, this is a way for us to, you know, we’re taking our industry and we’re highlighting the good. We’re letting people know the bad, but I think we’re breaking through those stereotypes that exist today for every level. So, I just want to say thank you, man.

1:18:43 Yeah. And I appreciate you, Justin, and I appreciate all the upper management for giving a lot of guys the opportunity. Some of them really don’t deserve it, but I appreciate you giving them the opportunity. And I really appreciate y’all appreciating the value of me and keeping me on the team. And I’m looking forward to more things to come with Norton Transport because I do see the growth. I do see the growth and I believe in what Michael and his team is doing and I want to make sure I’m part of that team. So, I try to do what I do, not just to put money in my pocket cuz I want to be part of that team like you are. I want to be that the little Justin Jr. Where I can delegate some things and can’t tell me, you know, like a Justin and David type. I don’t want to be like Michael cuz everybody’s scared to Michael. I want to be like David and you, you know, they’re going to talk to David, but they don’t want to hear David.

1:19:47 They know you, but they don’t want to talk to you. So, some somewhere in that category.

1:19:51 I like it, man. That is awesome. And hey, and to answer the first part you said, we’re glad to have you, man. I can’t wait to see what’s down the future for Norton. The future continues to be brighter and brighter and you know we’re learning and we’re doing good things and man are—

1:20:06 Again man. Thank you.

1:20:08 Thank you. I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to do the broadcast and I’m looking forward to doing another one in the future.

1:20:16 Hey, we’re going to make it happen. Six-Figure Trucker is brought to you by Norton Transport. Norton Transport is a driveaway trucking company that customers can rely on. It offers excellent independent contract driving opportunities to professional, courteous, and qualified drivers that can provide the kind of service we deliver. If you’re interested in learning more about Norton or just want to subscribe to the show, check out Six-FigureTrucker.com. That’s Six-FigureTrucker.com.