00:04 All right, we got a 2020 Peterbilt in front of us. How many dollars here we going to get for? How many? I got 75. Give 80,000. Give 80. I’m sending if I give 80,000 now. 85. 805. 85. I got 8,000. Give 85.85 to 81. Now 82,000. 83,000. Hammer’s high. 82 the bid now. 83,000. 83,000. Hold it right there. $82,000. Sold on John Marshall right there. 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. Let’s get to the show.

00:49 Hello everyone and welcome to the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport. And those of you who join us each week, you know this is a format where we lift up, we elevate, we celebrate the truck driver. Not always seen in the most favorable light in the public, but we know better here at Norton Transport. And of course, those of you who listen and have stopped by Norton Transport, you know, we’re located in Ringgold, Georgia, right off of I-75 going south, first exit off of I-75 going south once you cross Tennessee line. We’re a suburb of Chattanooga. And we are very pleased tonight to have with us John Marshall. John, where are you and kind of set the scene of what it looks like? Well, I’m was in Smithfield, Virginia. The ham capital of the world. Born and raised right here.

01:37 Now, the ham capital of the world. I’ve heard of the Smithfield, Virginia. I’ve seen them in the grocery stores. I’m guessing that you guys have a lot of hog farms around there.

01:48 That’s correct. That’s correct. With the— Well, it used to be it isn’t like it used to be. I come off a farm. I grew up on a farm when I was a kid. And my oldest brother’s farming now and my dad just retired from farming. And my dad used to be a hog buyer and for Smithfield Food and he was a farmer as well. So he also bought cattle. And that’s what led me to get into the trucking industry as well as the auctioneering industry with the livestock world.

02:20 I got you. I wanted to back up just a little bit. Coming from a family of farmers and anybody that’s ever been on a farm, worked on a farm or knows some farmers, that is a hard brand of work.

02:32 Absolutely.

02:33 And what have you become involved in or what did you as a younger person get involved in on the farm? Well, when back in the 60s and 70s when I was very little, my we used to have a livestock barn here in Smithfield, Smithfield livestock barn. And my family, my dad, my uncle were part owners of with another family. And every Wednesday we had a livestock barn there and we had a auction I could say. And then of course that was along with all the farming that we did with animals and grain and crops and stuff. But anyway, on Wednesday, I used to get off the school bus there in grade school. That’s how excited it was for me. And the auctioneer used to be a good friend and they just loved the lingo and I just loved the way that the idea of animals coming in the door and they would leave and go somewhere else. And after the show was over, the auction was over, my father owned a couple of semi trucks and we would took the cattle or the hogs all over the state of Virginia and North Carolina, even up into the Northeast.

03:32 So, I had the luxury of seeing the auction during the day on Wednesday and ride the truck on Wednesday nights during the summer throughout the we hours of delivering these animals. And it was just I just fell in love with it. And when I was in first grade, I told my first grade teacher to ask us what we wanted to be when I grew up. And I told him I wanted to be an auctioneer and a truck driver.

03:53 And I thank the Lord that I’ve had the opportunity to do.

03:56 You know, I was just going to say you’ve achieved your dreams. You’ve did you’ve done what you wanted to do and you obviously from the story you’re laying out there for us, you’re definitely a product of your environment. Sounds like a very happy childhood.

04:11 Yeah. Well, yeah. Yep. It was I was just when I went through high school, I was a big, you athlete, so sports was a big deal. And then I but I knew in the back of my mind I wanted to get in the auction industry. And so when I got out of high school, I wanted to continue playing football. So, I decided to go and play football, college football at the news apprentice program here in Yukon, Virginia. I had a chance to go to Virginia Military Institution and play football, but I decided not to. I wanted to I definitely wanted to get on the field and play. So, I knew that the apprentice school would allow me to. So, I played four years of there. And when I finished the apprenticeship up, I went to auction school down in Hornport, North Carolina. And then it wasn’t till several years later after I got my auctioneers license that I started my you know left the company and started working for myself in 1999.

05:02 Gotcha.

05:03 And we formed a business known as Marshall Enterprises Auctions and Realy.

05:08 Gotcha.

05:08 At that point.

05:09 Now you said you played football in high school and you played after high school in the postsecary world there. What position did you play?

05:18 I was a defensive back. I was the safety. What they call a rover back. I was the head hunter. I was the guy that was trying to break people in two pieces. I was that that guy.

05:30 Are you still fast?

05:31 I was like I don’t know if I’m fast. I’m a lot older.

05:37 But I enjoyed football was the it’s the sport where you get beat up, you get thrown down. It makes you humble real fast. I don’t care how good of an athlete you are, you’re going to get knocked down and you got to get back up. You’re going to have games where you’re going to get beat bad. You’re going to have games where you beat people bad. It’s just way life is. And it I treasure every moment that I did play and all the coaches that helped me through it. It just made me a better person. A lot better person.

06:05 It’s a great teacher of life.

06:08 Yeah, very much.

06:09 You’re listening to John Marshall here on the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport. Now, John, are you at home right now?

06:17 I am sitting at my house right this minute. Actually, I was looking at the load board here a little while ago. I’m getting ready to pick a load to go out probably leave Sunday or Monday to go out. I’m planning on going out for about 12 days.

06:30 Oh, 12 days straight.

06:32 Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I’m looking at. Looking at they look like we got some runs going up into Canada. I’m kind of excited about going up in there. So—

06:41 Yeah.

06:42 I’ve always looked at the trucking industry as a way to get paid to go on vacation.

06:49 That’s awesome, man. That’s awesome. I mean, that’s the truth of the matter. If you do your planning right and you play it in the seasons, and just to underscore and reiterate the importance of planning, you can see some fascinating places and get paid to do it. I going back to the farming days, you know, I had the luxury of driving a lot of trucks at a young age, you know, straight trucks and P semiis, but I never got to go out be a legal on the road. And it wasn’t until 2015 when I decided to take a step away from the auction business full-time. I wanted to be a legal CDL driver. So, I attended Tidewater Community College here in Sula, Virginia and got my CDL license and I went out and became a legal truck driver and my first stint out on the road was TMC Trucking and Flatbed really wasn’t me and I just didn’t like that environment.

07:43 So, that didn’t last long. But, I ended up moving over with Swift Transportation and they gave me the opportunity to work and I spent a good year almost two years with them. And I work the Northeast and I’m the kind of driver I’m not scared of traffic. Traffic people get scared of Northeast because all the traffic and all the chaos. I kind of embrace it. I kind of enjoy it. It keeps me more focused—

08:06 Right?

08:06 So I all my experience of, you know, my year and a half experience driving was up in the Northeast and they gave me the opportunity to drive all over the country and too and that was nice. So right now I’m at a point where I need seven more states to cover all 50 states. I’ve been in 43 states in my life and in the Canada and Mexico. I told them I’ve been everywhere but I lack I like Washington, Mont, North Dakota, Idaho, and Oregon. Of course, Hawaii and LA.

08:41 That’s amazing. So you could knock them out in one or two runs if you get one going to the right place. I mean, up in the Northwest—

08:48 Well, I’ve been looking at the load board. I’ve been looking at the load board. I just can’t get my schedule right to make that trip, but I am definitely going to soon as I see what it fits my schedule, you’re going to see me shoot across the country pretty quick.

09:00 I got you. Well, that’s awesome, John. Now, you’re listening to John Marshall here on the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport. Now, John, I did a little research on your profile there before we got on the air here and you talked about going into Canada and you’ve been to Mexico. I looked at your qualifications. You check all the boxes literally. Class A, passported, got your TWIC card and your manual shift certified. So, you’re serious about driving?

09:31 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I’d rather drive a manual shift. It the only thing the only good thing about an automatic truck is in traffic—

09:44 Right? So, you—

09:45 Allows you not at the foot, you don’t wear your you wear your leg out trying to push in and out of the clutch.

09:50 Now, do you think your preference for a manual shift? Well, let me preface that by saying I’m 55, just turned 55, and I’m I looked at your profile, so 52. Is that right, John?

10:02 That’s right. That’s right.

10:03 Okay. Do you think your preference for driving a manual has more to do with your age? Cuz when we were kids, that was the thing was to see truck drivers, you know, downshifting and upshifting and the noise or the sound of the big machine making that. It was the thing. And you know, that was all there was back in the day. Or I shouldn’t say all, but the majority of trucks were manual. I totally agree. But I will say that when I first got into trucking, when I first got legal, I drove a TMC. We had a mass speed truck in those trucks and those pretty Peterbilts as I call them. And that those trucks are a little more sensitive and but when I left there I went to Swift. I jumped in automatic. So I drove automatic for two years and yes it was great but I felt like the fuel mileage ain’t quite as good in automatic in my opinion. I don’t think it worked as good in the hills because I can’t control the RPMs—

10:59 Right. Then here right before I started working for Norton, I spent the last four years pulling containers here locally and the guy I worked for had a lot of Volvo trucks for 13-speeds and I just love a 13-speed because I can control especially going through West Virginia in the mountains. I can control the leading momentum. You know what m you understand momentum when you going down that hill and you’re coming back up. You don’t want to lose all that moment because you eat heat up a lot of time if you got to back off the RPMs a lot and—

11:33 You build the energy back.

11:35 Yes. Right. So an automatic I think you’re constantly losing momentum whereas in a manual shift I can keep the momentum going.

11:42 Gotcha. I—

11:43 I could keep I and I feel like I save time. I told a person one time, I could leave right here where I’m at and go to Chicago because we always go to West Virginia and I could drive my 13-speed and you can drive your automatic and I guarantee I’ll be there about 20 minutes before you do and probably save fuel and save fuel mileage.

12:01 Well, if you can save money and beat time there, that’s a win-win there. You know, you mentioned the 13-speed. What about an 18-speed? What’s your book on those? To be honest with you, this last run I just did for Norton, I drove a truck from Ashlin, Virginia to Maine. Then was an 18speed, but it was a lightweight truck. So what I did, I just treated it like a 13-speed. I just drove it and then split the high side. I drove 18-speed one other time on the farm. It’s kind of nice if you if you’re really loaded, but if you’re not really loaded, it’s just a waste of gears in my opinion.

12:38 Yeah. You’re not going to use a lot of those, are you?

12:40 Yeah. I think it’s more of a show thing than anything. And you see these drivers with these great big long nos with the real tall stick, you know, the shifter up about to the ceiling and they’re grabbing it cuz 18-speed up. I’m not I don’t know.

12:55 Now, well, we’re talking we’re getting pretty into the gears here. Who do you think’s got the best transmission out there? Is it an Allison or who makes the best transmission in your opinion?

13:06 Well, if I had the automatic, it definitely an Allison and my Buttki. You I don’t even know the 13-speed. I mean, I’m a 13-speed guy. 10-speed alerts that cool. I mean, I don’t know. Transmission. Long as you take care of your equipment.

13:18 Yep.

13:19 I’m a firm believer of that. I think when you find a truck that’s been wore out or it’s got problems, it’s usually because the driver created a problem or somebody created a problem because I don’t see a situation where any transmission is better than the other. Pretty much it goes down to the driver and really preference. It’s what you like. I got you. Got you.

13:40 You know, some people love driving Mack trucks. I don’t like Mack truck. I’m not a Mack truck guy at all. I really ain’t.

13:46 What about a Cascadia?

13:48 Oh, yeah. The Freightliners are good. I like that. Yeah.

13:51 Gotcha.

13:52 The Volvo is about been my favorite truck cuz they’re more comfortable to live in without that obviously.

13:57 Just the sense of being around you there. The when you’re in the cab.

14:01 Yeah. You got more room in them, you know? That’s what I like about them.

14:04 Gotcha. Now, let’s go back a bit. We’ll shift the gears back a little bit back to when you said that you knew you wanted to be an auctioneer and kind of walk us through that process. It was so you started in livestock. Is that what gave you the bug?

14:24 Well, yeah. Yeah. What happened officially got into the auction world is I grew up in a livestock barn. So, I knew I wanted to be an auctioneer. And then when I got my auction license back in 1994, I got married to my first wife and we had a child and I was getting my engineering degree and all that different stuff. So, I was going to night school. So, I didn’t really have time to concentrate on my auction career like I wanted. I was working at the big shipyard here, New Ship Building as an engineer. And then later on me and that young lady split up and I met another woman that I’m married to now and she was very supportive of me taking off and starting my auction career. And so I did. And so how I got started was that I answered a ad in the paper. There was a local county here in Williamsburg, Virginia that was looking for an auction in here to come in and do some auction services for them.

15:21 So I added I mean I answered it and they called me on the phone. And I was like, “Wow.” So I got that contract. It was my first government contract. So the first items I actually sold were police cars.

15:31 Okay.

15:31 So I sold police cars and then it led me to selling school buses. So I sold a lot of school buses and then that blossom. That contract went on for about three years. Then I picked up this city of Tupper contract which I held for nearly 18 years. And we sold everything under the sun from police cars to dump trucks to trash trucks to school buses to county vehicles, county furniture, school furniture, you name it. Anything to do with the government with that city, we sold it. And then that led me to take my old our old farm that my bought from my father and turn it into an auction yard where we had a consignment auction we did the first Saturday of every month and we sold everything from a pair of shoes to a live animal to a farm tractor and that still got to be where it was an 8 to 10 hour auction every first Saturday of the month. It was a big event.

16:27 So I’m guessing in Virginia and that part in your part of Virginia you’re pretty widely known.

16:33 Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, good and bad, I guess. Yeah, everybody knows that. I still do now I do a lot of Ducks Unlimited auctions. Those are conservation stuff for hunters.

16:45 Yeah.

16:45 And I do a lot of National Wild Turkey Federation auctions. And I do several charity events. And then I’ve got a farm equipment auction we’re doing November the 4th of this next month. And I got a company here in Virginia Beach that I sell guns and ammunition for. And that’s an online event as well as a live sale. So sometimes I’m selling to a crowd and sometimes I’m selling to a bunch of computer monitors.

17:15 Yeah. Now the Ducks Unlimited is are you guys what are you auctioning off there? Is it hunting equipment? Guns.

17:22 Well, no. It’s a few guns. It’s a lot of ducks unlimited like paraphernalia artifacts. There might be some travel packages in there. I got—

17:33 Hunting trips stuff like that. What they’re trying to do is they’ll come L’s got chapters all over the country, different locations and they try to raise money—

17:42 For each group and we’ve got about 20 different chapters in this end of Virginia and I do about 12 auctions a I do more than that. I actually do about 18 auctions a year for Dale.

17:54 Gotcha. So I do a lot of auctions and I enjoy it. It’s a good event and of course you know hunters like to spend money and they like their thing and of course people like their guns. I am not going to lie. They’re not scared to spend money on guns. Now, as an auctioneer with so much experience as yourself and you’re diversified in the things that you’re selling, when you go to these different auctions, do you have a kind of a thought in your head of how much each item is going to go for, or how does that start as, you know, all right, we’re going to start the bidding at X amount? I mean—

18:28 Well, that’s the 30 years of experience that I have to get me to this point. You let the crowd dictate to you, but you control that crowd so they won’t get stupid with their money. Case in point. So, let’s use a hand that the gun usually deduct on limit. They usually range anywhere from about $1,800 to about $3,000 a piece. That’s what it usually do. And so, and you don’t want somebody to buy it for 500 bucks. So what you try to do is you kind of let the crowd dictate to you and then you try to create a competition between them and then you try to create a little friction amongst them in a different way because mad buyers spend more money, you know, especially men. When men are mad, they’ll spend more money.

19:16 So you kind of play against that and you play the emotional thing. It’s a fine line, but you learn it over time. But I always have a theory in the auction industry that you start high and come backwards and somebody will bid and every once in a while somebody will jump in at a high number to keep the show going. The first 12 items of the auction are always the most important because they kind of dictate how the sales going.

19:46 I got you. They’re the trend setters.

19:48 Yeah.

19:49 Or the tone setters, I guess we should say.

19:51 Yeah.

19:52 Now, do you see people in an auction? It seems like when I was a teenager, I drove cars in a vehicle auction, used car auction. And do you see people that kind of they’re there together and they’ve got a little game going, you know, particularly when it’s something that they have a outside interest in where they’re trying to drive it up. Do you see that? And can you detect when it’s happening and see right?

20:15 Well, it there’s a fine line in that world, too. And that’s where you go to auction school and you learn a lot how to handle that, what to do, what not to do. Sometimes the best buyer in the house is you, the auctioneer.

20:29 Gotcha.

20:29 And sometime you got to learn to control that person. If you get, say there’s three people to show up and they want to be a collude together and say, “Well, you buy that car and I won’t bid against you and you buy this car and I won’t bid against you.” And after a while you sense that—

20:44 Then as an auctioneer you can look at right now and say you either going to stop that and call them right out in front of everybody or you just run them up and have a and just keep them honest. So when in the automobile world especially everybody’s looking at that NADA book everybody looks at that thing hard especially the auto auctions—

21:05 Right—

21:05 Because they don’t do a lot of that more but so they’re looking at that number and everybody’s trying to make sure they get top dollar for the car top dollar so I imagine back in the day and they still do a little bit of that they’ll have the auctioneer up there in the block and then the owner of the vehicle be standing right beside the auctioneer and then of course you have the crowd and then the car comes across and the owner will look at the auction and say about what he needs for it and then sometimes the auctioneer will run it up to that price or sometimes they’ll get a number and he’ll look the owner eye this is the best I got what do you want to take it or not so the automobile world’s a little more sensitive especially when it comes to the dealer type sales but it’s a fine line you got to control your crowd and you got to know how to control them and once you get a good relationship with them and they trust you and you trust them it really works well when you get into a crowd where they don’t trust you and you don’t trust them, that’s when it gets a little tough.

21:59 I gotta now being so experienced as an auctioneer, 30 years experience, still doing it. That’s correct, right? Still doing it.

22:07 That’s good. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Not doing it full-time. At one time I was selling 4,000 items a week.

22:14 Oh my goodness. That’s a lot of stuff to move.

22:17 We were moving a lot of stuff. I mean, that’s how much I was selling—

22:20 Is—

22:21 And that’s why I had to go to drive a truck and get away from— That that business was killing me.

22:26 I bet. I was going to ask not asking you how much you make as an auctioneer, but is the money good as an auctioneer?

22:31 Oh yeah, it has it. They the problem with the ultra business is labor. You know, let’s use this. This is what led me to get in the real estate business. Let me explain this to you. So you call me up and you say, “Hey, John, my mom and daddy have died. I need to sell their stuff.” Okay. So I walk into the house and it’s packed. Now, the older people collect everything, but the house is slam-packed with furniture and china and all that different stuff. And the garage is loaded, the car in the driveway, and they got this house that they’ve had and the kids grew up there and then up in the attic. They got all their toys that they had, you know, 70 years ago.

23:06 And John, can we can do All right. Well, I tell you what, I’ll get everything out of this house. We’re going to load it all up, carry it back to my auction yard. What are we going to do with the house? Well, I don’t know yet.

23:15 Well, I could be your realtor. So I go in there and I talk tell the people I can sell your house. I can sell the content. I’ll get it all sold for you and send you a check. Great. And that’s how I got in the real estate world because I was leaving money on the table by walking in and cleaning the house out and got and then leaving the house behind and not selling it. So what I get back to what I’m saying is now we got all that stuff in the house. Now I got to get it out of the house. So now it takes labor to get it out of there. And that you’ve got it took 70 80 years to get all that stuff in that house. We’re going to try to move it all out of there in two days.

23:55 So you got to think and you got to work through that. So anyway, you load it all up, you carry it to your auction yard, you pack it all up, the kids are all happy, everybody’s good, going put the house on the market, and there’s a table in the corner that mama paid, you know, $500 for that. I don’t think two bucks. I sell it at auction. To bring $5 and get their money and the money’s really good and then they complain about this one little table that didn’t bring no money. They look at the junk that was in the garage that brought two or $3,000 or the toys in the attic that they were going to throw away that brought a lot of money. Just look at that one little table. That’s just an example.

24:30 Sentimental value there.

24:32 Yeah. So, you’re dealing with that and you’re dealing with their emotion. That’s a problem. And then also when you deal with porters or packrats, whatever word you want to use for it, those people seem to think everything’s worth a million dollars. In reality, it’s not. So, and we all know those people. We’ve met them. But, you know, you make your in the auction world, you make your living off that kind of people, and you just got to work with it. But labor is a big headache and especially nowadays finding anybody wants to help work to lift stuff out. I mean, we’ve had to lift sleeper sofers from upstairs down a circle stairs, washer and dryer. We’ve had to come down the, you know, the stairs, you know, just a lot of labor. Move a piano from the third floor.

25:24 Oh my goodness.

25:24 Oh yeah. I’m just many things. You walk in the garage and there’s a car there and you can’t see it cuz it’s completely covered up in boxes and books. The this one particular guy we had years ago had we took a 53 foot semi trailer back in the front of his garage. We completely filled it up from one end to the other. Nothing but tools.

25:45 Oh my goodness.

25:47 This was in the two garages in his back shed. That’s how much stuff he had. Most of it was branded. He just bought it. Didn’t do nothing with it. You’re listening to John Marshall here on the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport. And if you’ve been listening in here with us on the first half hour, you’ve probably concluded that this is a John of all trades. He’s got a lot of diversity and a lot of background there and many things other than trucking, but he’s very experienced as a truck driver as well. And 30-year auctioneer and he’s also delved into the real estate world. Let’s talk a little bit about real estate. You had told me before we started recording that you were in the commercial side but still kind of dabble in the residential as well. What’s the market like now? I know a couple years ago it was red hot at least down here in the Chattanooga, Tennessee area. Was that true in Virginia as well?

26:50 Yeah, it’s it residential stays pretty hot in this area because we’re in a military area. So, people are coming and going all the time. So, one military family leaves, here comes another one in commercialwise, it’s starting to fade away. The economy is really killing everybody right now. But in the state of Virginia, of all states in the union, and I would say Maryland, too, the these two states always strive and do well because we’re right close to DC.

27:20 Mhm.

27:20 Northern Virginia really keeps this state rolling financially. So, I don’t know of any really bad spots in Virginia or even Maryland. Different spots in Carolina where this the bottom is falling out. But overall, commercial world’s kind of tough right now because people are scared of what’s going on with the economy and the government. Residential is kind of holding its own. But the interest rates really dictating the residential stuff. When the interest rate falls out, homes jump, but you know, residential is can be tough. I don’t like to do a lot of residential because you get the house listed and you go in and you get the family just to paint this room and fix this carpet and fix this door and they do all that stuff and then you show it and here comes another family to look at it. Oh well, I don’t like that color and we got to get new carpet, sweetheart. Yeah, we need to change that door and I’m like, damn, we just spent all this money with the family. They don’t even want it—

28:15 Right.

28:16 And I can’t I it just it’s frustrating. I and I’ve been to closing, you know, a couple days before closing on a residential house and something comes up because well, the husband wife going to argue it the night before and she ain’t happy with the interest rate and that just screws the whole closing up. So I what I do now and here you are just licking the chops getting ready to get your, you know, your big paycheck and you haven’t gotten it yet. You know, spent, you know, three or four months licking the chops to get it and now you don’t have it. So I usually refer all my residential. So I try to get it retained and then I give it to another company, let them handle it, and then I get a percentage of their money.

28:57 I gotcha.

28:58 Commercial wise, I like that because you don’t get your money really up front, especially when it comes to retail. You can put it out and rent it out and then you get a check each month off of it.

29:09 So it kind of works out real well.

29:11 I had I was going to ask you this question. I’ve been curious about this myself. And being a commercial realtor, you could probably shed some light on it. When COVID came around, particularly in large cities—

29:22 You saw a lot of people working from home, and that trend still continues, as everyone knows, and you’ve got a lot of empty office space at places all across the nation. Now, some of those places, some of those cities have adapted and made turned them into condos or whatnot. But what do you see with all this vacant office space? What’s going to happen to it? Well, that’s a good question and actually I am looking at a strip mall up on another county over that’s completely vacated and I’m trying to get it dirt cheap for that reason. What I what the first of all re everybody’s buying online we know that Amazon has taken over everybody gotten a little lazier now. So they go pick the groceries up and don’t walk to the grocery store. But that’s really hurt all the retail. Antiques are took it by the chin because the young kids don’t buy that stuff.

30:17 So mom and daddy stuck with all this furniture that grandma gave down that they can’t do nothing with antique the glassware. You can’t give that away now. And there’s some spots in Pennsylvania still selling that well, but that’s about it. M—

30:29 So what I’m getting at is the res the commercial mall areas they just going to demo the buildings and they’ll probably put apartments up or it’s we’re going to degress back to open land. That’s what I see happening. I just there’s a big shopping center here in Chesapeake Virginia that’s been there probably about 30 years now and they’ve got one shop left in there. Beers pulled out the other week. This place covers about 80 acres. It’s a big mall. And now the argument with the city is do we put apartments up? Do we demo it? Who’s going to demo? Who’s going to pay for the demo? What are we going to do? I think and it’s all over the country. It’s not just here. I think in time it’s just going to get to a point where we’re not we’re going to have less building. They’re going to you’re going to start seeing them dissipate over time.

31:21 Gotcha.

31:22 And it’s going to go back to trees or apartments or something. We’re going to backpedal a little bit. That’s what I think will happen.

31:28 Well, let’s steer the conversation back to the tractors, the cabs, the box vans, those kind of things that you move and you get back into so you’re not doing your other two things as frequently kind of. How do you balance those three things? I mean, the real estate.

31:45 Well, I tell people I work three part-time jobs. I’m an auctioneer. I’m a realtor and a truck driver. I It keeps me focused. It gives me like entertainment in a way. Norton Transport has given me an opportunity to travel and drive in so many different varieties of peoples and allows me to not feel like I’m trapped. So, we use I use the word trapped. All right. If I get in the truck and I haul a load to Florida and I get down, well, I don’t have I don’t know what I’m coming out of Florida coming back with. So, I might be stuck down there for three or four days waiting for a load to come back. Well, I know if I plan right and I go down to Florida, I can fly out whenever I soon as I get through and pick up another load somewhere else and go. I really like that diversity. It keeps me moving. It doesn’t allow me to have to sit around and worry about or wonder what the next load looks like. And that’s what I like.

32:44 So when I get I try to drive at least one to two weeks a month and then I try to book on the auction part of it in between. Real estate I pick and choose my spot. I don’t I kind of let real estate come to me. I don’t go chasing it.

33:00 I got so if it falls in my lap, great. If it don’t—

33:04 You got two other—

33:05 As we know.

33:07 Yeah. Yeah. That’s right. And so and I don’t have enough auction business, enough auction work to keep me working full-time like I used to. I do appraisals. I did one here recently for a farmer. So I do a lot of that. You know, we have to do that with the banks and different stuff. That’s kind of fun to do. We create booklets for insurance reasons and stuff like that. But I just like driving. I like getting out on the road. I mean I love the open road. I love getting away. It seems like when I get in the truck and I dip up here, I don’t the whole world stopped until after a little while.

33:40 That’s a great feeling.

33:41 Hey, it is, man. I the other day when I was coming back, I was going across on an interstate 80 from Pennsylvania over to Ohio. I had about three hours of straight road. I was just like, man, it’s kind of nice just sit back, listen to my XM radio and just ride. I just kind of listen.

33:57 What’s on your XM radio? What are you listening to?

34:00 I listen to Road Dog Trucker channel a lot. I listen to Kevin Ruffer’s podcast as much as I can. I listen to I’m a Joel Osteen nut. I like listening to him all day.

34:16 Mhm.

34:17 He’s my motivated speaker, I call him.

34:19 Yeah.

34:20 I love listening to news. I’m a news nut. I get tired of CNN. I go to Fox. And if I get tired of Fox, I slide back to Gen Beck. If I get tired of all three of them, I go to sports. And I like listening to oldies music. So—

34:34 I was going to ask you if any music was in the mix. Now, you say oldies music.

34:39 What’s the oldies music you like to hear when you’re driving down the road?

34:42 Oh, I love old country. I love old rhythm and blues. I listen to Elvis Presley. BB King is another one I like listen to. I listen to Sinatra. Sinatra is like I think he’s channel 70 on XM. And then DB King’s like 74 and then Everly 75 and then you know this like listen to old age music.

35:08 I got you Alan Jackson.

35:09 But I like Oh yeah. Listen to that 90 stuff. Sure. But I love flipping through the news and listen to all the chaos. That kind of makes you going, you know, you make me feel smart and intelligent when you listen to all these people on the news.

35:24 You know, I got you now.

35:26 You know what I mean? Oh yeah, I know exactly what you mean. Now we were talking and we were joking before we got on the air. Your name, John Marshall, and we were talking about the law school, the John Marshall Law School up in Chicago. And I did a little bit of research before we got on the air here about John Marshall, who was a statesman. He was a lawyer, chief justice on the Supreme Court for 34 years. And he also, this is a bit of trivia here, was a congressional representative and was a US Secretary of State. I forget under which president, but he is one of the few Americans that has served in all three branches of the federal government. And I’m like, is there any connection? I mean, that were you named after him or is that just a common name first and last?

36:19 No, I’m the last of three two other brothers. My mother named us after the Bible. My oldest brother’s name is David. My middle brother’s name is Philipton. And I’m named John.

36:29 Okay.

36:29 My middle name happens to be my mother’s my grandmother’s maiden name on my dad’s diet. Mingi. M I N G A.

36:38 What is it?

36:39 Do research on that. Mingi. M I N G- A. Mingi.

36:44 Okay. It’s it was an English name that when the settlers came into Jamestown back eons ago, there was a ming there. He migrated up into Charles City. That’s where we m we come off that that group.

36:59 Gotcha.

37:00 And my family, a marshall name come from the Eastern Shore over there in the Delmarva right here on the Maryland Virginia line on the Eastern Shore. Mhm. Now, you were talking about you’re looking at the load board and you want to be out for 12 days. I was going to ask you that question when you said you like to drive for two weeks and then take care of your other vocations for the other two weeks. Do you break it up into two week spans? Do you go two and two or do you go one? You know, where you got like a week of driving? How do you break it up?

37:34 Well, nor— Well, first of all, money talks. So, when I see the load board and I see the numbers on the load board, that kind of gets me a little excited. That’s the first thing I’ll say. I mean, I’m just like any other trucker as far as that goes. The last me backpedal, too. Last three years pulling containers, we were really doing well and I spent a lot of time driving last three years. The money was good, but here about December, it started getting really tight, but the economy was getting the best of the container world. So when I went to Norton, they allowed me the opportunity to work part-time. So it allows me to concentrate on other things where I’m not really worried about losing my job because I’m not working all the time. So that made me feel good. So when I look at the load board, I kind of make it fit my schedule. So case in point, I know that I’ve got an auction on November 1st, an auction on November the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th.

38:27 So I got four days in a row in November, first week of November, I got an auction. So I need to be on. So, the next two weeks I know I’m not doing a whole lot and because I got a family member, my uncle does not deal well. I’m a caretaker for him. So, I got to worry about him right now, too. But he’s good to go right now. I got somebody watching him. So, I can physically leave out of here Sunday and be gone until really the following Wednesday. So, I’m looking at the load board and I’m thinking, all right, I got 70 hours I need to utilize through my time clock and I just want to that’s how I’m really thinking. I want to make sure I use every hour that that’s how I’m looking at it. So, make sure I utilize all my time correctly and then probably reset it on the next weekend to get something back.

39:11 What loads are you bidding on?

39:14 Well, I haven’t bid on that yet. I got to let her know in the morning. I was going to do it tonight, but I want I saw this load going to Nova Scotia, Canada. Never been up there. And I’m licking my chop to get my hands on it. The only problem is I’m thinking about how I can get from here to Nashville, Tennessee to pick it up. I don’t want to really jump on the Greyhound if I can help it. I’m not a Greyhound fan, but I’m trying to think if I can get a load to kind of get me that way. That’s what I’m really kind of looking at it.

39:44 Something else—

39:45 But they got a load.

39:47 Yeah, it goes They got one going from there to Toronto. You come back and pick another load up and it runs up to Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada. And I just kind of excited to get up there and I was looking at the airline flight out of Nova Scotia back. Hell, it’s cheap to tell out of Canada back here than it is to me to fly from here the next state. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, but just it’s weird how that works.

40:13 Well, it’s cool. It sounds like it’s lining up for you. If you can just get to—

40:18 Yeah.

40:18 Get to the country music capital of the world there, you’ll be in business.

40:22 Oh, yeah.

40:22 Now, you’ve been let’s see. I was looking at you had 134 months, excuse me, of driving experience before you came to Norton. When did you come to Norton?

40:33 I came to Norton. I actually July 4th was my really my first when I got hired on. I didn’t start really moving anything till August. Like I said, my uncle’s been real sick. So, we’ve been dealing with him. I really couldn’t take running till August. It was the first week in August I made a run. First the first run I made was on the school bus. And how fitting because that’s what I used to sell in the auction business.

40:58 And then I did some research and found out the North was created off the school bucket.

41:02 That’s true.

41:02 I thought, well, this is kind of cool. That fits right down my alley cuz I have a I have an old pupply t-shirt that shows the logo of us, you know, Marshall Enterprise. It got a picture of a school bus, you know. So, I’m like, this is kind of cool. But anyway, first run I made I drove a school bus and down to Alabama and that was what blew my mind. I’ve never been in a new bus as I was going down the highway and these bus these buses will they will roll on down the road comfortably.

41:35 Well, if you had a new bus, I’m guessing you had air in it.

41:38 Well, hold on. No, I’ll get to that in a minute. I drove one to Alabama and then I brought a trash truck from Alabama back to Richmond, Virginia. Mhm.

41:46 And trash truck was an experience, but I mean it was brand new. Going south, all the buses south have air condition. All the buses going north have no air conditioning.

41:56 Mhm.

41:57 So I drove a bus. This is my third trip I think it was. I drove a bus from High Point up to Toronto and I was going up through Virginia and of course it was 100°. I had no air. I had all the fans running. I had all the windows open on the bus. I was cooking. That was a hot but and I’m going north you know and of course you get to Canada it’s like 50° different so I see why they got it but yeah they don’t need air conditioning in Canada so why do you put air on the bus but I knew some of the truck trucking companies bad cuz here I’m coming down the road this bus going 65 miles per hour and I’m passing some truckers and I’m like they probably stupid the school bus pass them—

42:40 Best—

42:40 I know I would—

42:42 Best thing about driving a school bus with air conditioning in the south. There’s no children on it.

42:46 Yeah. Yeah.

42:48 Now, I’m doing some quick math here. 134 months. That’s 11 years before you came to us. 11 and some change.

42:56 What kind of things have you seen on the road that blew your mind?

43:01 Well, one thing at the truck driver that I’ve had to learn is patience. And it I’m one of those guy. I could be a hot head in a minute. You know, it’ll blow up. And if you don’t have patience in trucking, you’re not going to survive. You’re not going to survive. You’ve got to get paid. And they don’t teach you that in CDL school. They don’t teach you that when they train you. And so many different companies won’t tell you the truth. And that’s a problem. But that’s one thing I’ve had a trouble with, but I’ve learned it. That that’s number one thing is patience and understand that you’re not going to be told the truth all the time. But you got to learn to be your own man and make your own decisions and be able to have you control how you deal with that. The second thing that always bugs me and this is something that I saw it again the other day. Police officers I know we need law enforcement. I understand what we need them for. But there’s a couple things that bug me about them and I see why people feel the way they do about— So little blue light.

44:02 So here we’re going down the interstate and we got a load of trucks and we’re all along and all of a sudden the cop pulls a car over cuz he’s speeding or whatever it may be or tags are out. So he pulls on me throws a blue light and everybody slows down to a crawl. We’re all getting over to the left lane and we’re slowly bottling neck and all up and so that cop has pulled somebody over to collect 150 maybe a $200 ticket and he’s slowing down a $100,000 worth of commerce behind him. There’s I want to make a law that when you pull a person over, you cut your blue lights off. You’ve already got them. You don’t need to keep your blue light on. That way everybody else won’t slow down and bottleneck. It just bugs me. Everybody slowed down. You got this one dude just riding along. We’re all riding along about 65 miles per hour. All slows down to 45.

44:50 Mhm.

44:50 We’re all on our brakes slamming on brake and you got this one guy that’s not paying attention. They bottled any rearing somebody. Now we got another problem. But that bugs me about that. I really with all the modern technology out here nowadays and if all the tolls, the way they can check people’s tags and find, you know, and send a bill in the mail, why can’t you send a bill in the mail for that person that’s speeding or whatever—

45:15 Right?

45:15 And if they’re doing something rough, that’s different. But some of it, most of it’s man. Okay. The second thing that bugs me, do and I’ve seen it everywhere. They always seem it’s like when you pull across the scales it’s like the fourth truck they going to pull in. All right. They the second the third and the fourth truck and then roll on and that that third truck’s got you know straps holding up his fuel tank. His muffler’s about to fall off. His doors bungee cord to death. He’s got a crack in the windshield. Let him roll on. But then the fourth truck that’s in he shape. They pull him around to the back. So, I wish DOT would be a little more aggressive on finding trucks that need to be checked.

45:58 We especially fought that at the ports and it just bugged me to see a lot of the trucks that roll down the road that could be on the road.

46:05 That that’s another good topic to talk about being a Twix certified driver having your TWIC card. What’s it like dropping at the port—

46:13 Here again about patience? Patience. It the ports are cool. I mean, you got to understand you’re dealing with product that’s coming from another country and some of the stuff is it’s got a you know, usually the customs will check it all out. But the container world’s kind of cool. It was I mean the last four years was really good to me. It’s very lucrative to it. I made a lot of money doing it. But it kind of goes with the economy. You know, we went from the numbers I heard the other day at Portsmouth alone, there was like 1,200 containers a week that was coming out of Portsmouth. Now they’re down about 350.

46:53 Wow.

46:53 Because that’ll tell you what how bad the economies hit them. But—

46:57 Did that—

46:57 The porch cool you know—

47:00 Did that impact you to move into driveaway when the economy and the impact it was having on the container world? Did that was that an influence to move into driveaway? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. But when I was working for the I was working for Gillum Incorporated and stuff, he him and his brother, they were great to me. And they knew I like to ride the road. So, they would hook me up with long hauls and but the local runs, I didn’t want much of that because when I get in the truck, I want to stay in it for, you know, at least a week and then I’ll take some time off. But he lost the long runs because it just wasn’t there and didn’t have enough work to keep the crew and me being versatile where I can do other things. He knew that he had drivers that he needed to that need to put food on the table.

47:48 So, he needed to keep them busy. Therefore, I decided best thing to step away from that for a little while because the workload wasn’t there. I mean went we went from working six days a week to cut it down to four days and then it got to the point was three days because you just wanted enough workload and then you go out and he started sending some guys out over the road and then that gets to be a cutthroat world where you know you get out there you steadily looking at the load board trying to get loads to get back and that didn’t work out. So I decided to step away from him and then of course I ran across Norton and I’m just tickled pink to be with this company. I really am. Well, we’re lucky to have you, John Marshall, here on the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport. I got to ask you the obvious question. You’ve got your hand in many pies there. And of the three main pies there real estate, auctioneering, and truck driving. Do you have one that’s a favorite?

48:45 That’s a good question. That is a real good question. I could leave the real estate alone. I’m not that excited about the auction. I like the idea of having a microphone in my hand and 500 people in front of me and I’m selling state farm machine. That’s a good feeling. But the idea of being in a semitr driving here to California and going down Interstate 40 and just riding all day long is a good feeling, too. So, that’s hard for me to pick that one. I like riding the roads. I really do. That’s a good thing. It a good auction is good to go, but as I get older and I realize there’s more work. I don’t know. It’s hard that’s really hard to pick. I mean, I like driving the truck. I really do.

49:29 Well, let’s dig a little deeper here about each profession. What within that particular profession motivates you or inspires you in that respective profession? I mean, what gets you going in truck driving? What gets you going in being an auctioneer? What gets you going in being a realtor?

49:49 All three professions create a problem. Let me tell you how that problem is. When a family calls me and said they need to auction their stuff off, there’s a problem. I need to get it going. If somebody needs to sell a piece of equipment, that that’s a problem. I need to get it. So, I got to figure out somebody to buy it. What can I get for it? How we going to disperse the money, etc. Real estate is now same situ. I got to get this house sold. We need to get top dollar for it. I need to get advertised. Trucking is the same thing. I got to get this truck delivered at this time. We’re going to pick it up at this time. I got to get fuel. I got to figure out my travel expenses. I got to get back. Am I going to have enough time to get another load? You know it. What’s the weather like? So, all three of those jobs create a problem that I have control over. And that’s one thing I like.

50:35 All three of these jobs I have control. And I that’s really what I like best about it. I am in the truck. The company has given me the opportunity to drive that truck. I’ve got to get it to Maine and I got to go. Do I drive through New York City? Do I drive around it? Do I go through DC? Do I go around it? What time of day is it going to be raining? Do I want to pay all the tolls? Etc. Etc. If I got an auction, is there enough money here where I can make some money and they make some money? You know, is it the right time of the year? Is any value here? In real estate is the economy right? Is it worth the money? Is there any EPA concern? Is the house falling down? Is there a house leaking? That what I like about all three of those jobs. They allow they got a problem and I’ve been asked to help solve it.

51:24 We spent about an hour with John Marshall here on the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport. And what from what you’ve laid out, I think we can glean from our hour with you, you like the challenge.

51:36 That’s correct. Does it feel does it give you a feeling of accomplishment in each of the professions when you deliver the load? You deliver the load on time, you pick up the next one on time, and you deliver it without any problems, or when you have an auction, you sell all the items, everybody’s happy. The real estate world, when you meet the goals, what’s that like to get that feeling of accomplishment in each of your three professions?

52:03 It’s a good feeling. It’s a real good. It’s a sense of pride. I’ve always like that. It really ain’t about the money. It’s about doing something that a lot of people just can’t do. I mean, I take pride in driving a truck. There’s a lot of people out there that can’t drive a truck. They want to drive a truck, but they’re not healthy. They’re not focused. They don’t understand it. They’re not just not good drivers. And then in the auction business, not everybody can get up and talk for 8 to 10 hours and talk bad. And then in real estate, not everybody’s got patience enough to figure out where to market it at to get it here. And thank the good Lord that I’ve had a lot of success in all three of them and hope it continues.

52:44 How much do you lean on your experience, your diversified experience as a truck driver, everything you’ve moved in driveaway? I mean those what we say 11 12 years of past experience, you’ve hauled, you’ve done containers. How much do you lean on that in driveaway? I lean on a lot. One thing I don’t know where I get this from. The good Lord and I’m a faith-driven person. I’m church going as much as I can get in the church, but the good Lord has given me a good memory. If I’ve been there once, I know exactly what it looks like the second time. So, case in point, I’ll give you when I left Ashland, Virginia the other Middle, Virginia to go to Maine, I made a wrong decision. I should have gone around. I decided to drive 95 up through DC, Baltimore, through Philly, through New York, and I’ve drove it a 100 times, but I figured, all right, I’m going to do all right.

53:37 Well, I should have gone around. It took 80 full around, but I didn’t. But I’ve been up there. I know what it’s like. I know what it’s like to pull a truck through the Lincoln Tunnel into Manhattan at rush hour. Done that. And so I treasure that experience. I know what it’s like to be in Houston, Texas on rush hour or Atlanta, Georgia on a Sunday afternoon trying to get around that. That’s always fun.

54:01 You know, yeah. Or going down 95 into Miami and every car in the world’s driving 100 miles per hour and you go the speed limit, you’re like dang gone. Everybody’s, you know, but so that experience is you can’t teach it, you can’t buy it. You just got to learn it. Earn it. And, I tell all the young people that want to get in the truck driver, the new people that want to get in truck driver, get in a company and spend exactly a year out over the road. It is priceless. Get in it, live in the truck for a whole year and do the best you can. Don’t look at your paycheck. Just do the job. And when you get done, everybody in the world will want to hire you because they you prove to the world that you can drive. M—

54:49 And that’s what’s helped me out. You got I you got to live in the truck for years. Just get up there then do it. Don’t and don’t look at the paycheck and when you get done after that year and you can start dictating what you want moneywise and you’ve got the experience and the knowledge and you can figure out where you want to go and where you don’t want to go.

55:06 You’re listening to John Marshall here on the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport. It’s been a fascinating conversation. I’m gonna throw you a curveball here John as we close it out here. A little role playing here.

55:18 We’re going to sell a 2020. Let’s say it’s a Peterbilt.

55:22 2020 Peterbilt. It’s on the auction block. Take us through. Put us there like we’re buying it now. Give us a little of that auctioneer 30 years experience. Tell us how it would go and go ahead and do it for real. You’re selling that truck.

55:39 All right. We got a 2020 build in front of us. How many dollars here? We going to get one. How many here? Give $80,000. Give $80,000. 80. Give 80,000. I got 50 in the back. 55,000. I got 50. 55. Get 60,000. That’s 65,000. And 70,000. Get 75. 75. I got 70,000. Get 75. No. 80,000. Give 80,000. Bill. I got 75. Give 80,000. Give 80. I’m send 80,000. No. 85. 80. 85. 85. I got 80,000. Give 85. 85. Take 81. No. 82,000. I’m 81. No. 82. Now 83,000. I’m 82 to bid. I’m 83. You want 83 there? 83. 82. 83. 83. 83. 83,000. Hammer’s high. 82 is the bid. Now 83,000. 83,000. Sold it right there. $82,000.

56:18 Sold on John Marshall right there here on the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport. John, thank you so much for joining us. Hang with me when we wrap it up here. But one last question, one common one we end with. What would your advice be to somebody who’s seeking a profession in driveaway?

56:36 Well, it especially it’s a great deal. Just got to plan. You got to plan and you got to understand where you’re going and what you can and can’t do. And you need to be thinking ahead. So you got to be thinking ahead all the time. If you don’t think ahead, you’re going to get yourself trapped and you going to get frustrated and get mad. And it goes back to patience and planning. Trucking is about planning and patient. If you got those two, you’ll last and last forever.

57:05 There you go. Great words from John Marshall here on the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport. John, thank you so much for joining us. John Marshall on the Six-Figure Trucker.

57:17 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.