00:08 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.

00:29 Hello everyone and welcome to the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport and we join you each and every Thursday. You know this is a space where we elevate and celebrate the drivers of Norton Transport, everything they do for us and everything they do nationally for the economy by the movement of trucks all over this great country and we certainly appreciate everything they do. Now we’re joining you from the home studios here in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia. I’m out on the front porch having a fine cigar here and it is beautiful weather for mid to late February. Sitting out here in the sunshine. It’s a great day and sitting in the sunshine down in Florida. Julien Rosembert. Julien, how are you?

01:05 I’m doing all right. And you?

01:06 Good, good, good. Now, you were telling me yesterday you had a situation. They’ve shut the road down. What was it exactly was going on yesterday? Oh. I was on a turnpike headed to Orlando and they closed one side. I don’t know what happened. I maybe it was an accident. I don’t know. They closed the road and we had to get off for exit and that took like two hours to get off the exit.

01:31 Gotcha.

01:32 And I was only 30 minutes away from my drop off location and I missed a deadline, the cut off point.

01:39 That’s that that that’s part of the business, I guess. Things like this you can’t control. Yes, sir.

01:45 Now, you were telling me though, the key is the things you can control.

01:49 I mean, you know, I had family over there, so it was easier. I had to get no room. I found parking and, you know, and I had to wait it out till Monday.

02:02 Gotcha. Well, it’s nice that you have family in the area and you didn’t have to spend any money on a hotel and you found parking for a what? A dump truck. You’re in a dump truck.

02:10 Yeah.

02:11 What kind of dump truck is What do we got there? It’s a international I don’t remember but I just know it was an international out of ox bodies.

02:23 Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Out of Alabama down to Florida. Now you’re I was looking at your profile here and you check all the boxes. You’re a Class A driver.

02:33 Got your tward right-hand drive specialty certified and you got your tanker endorsements. You’ve been driving for a while. What got you into driving?

02:44 Well, money really that money and like travel too and see everything. And plus, I had a friend, he told me about it, but I just never jumped on it and I finally did. And then since then, I just been trucking.

03:00 Yeah, you have been. I mean we were talking about that yesterday. You have been trucking. You do a lot. You don’t sit in one place for long.

03:07 No, I don’t sit on I keep the wheels rolling. About how much do you do in a day?

03:12 Okay. It depends on how fast the truck go too. I could do 700 miles in a day—

03:19 Up to—

03:20 Yeah, up to 700 miles. Depends on how traffic flow too. Depends what time everything goes right. I could do 700.

03:28 That’s a good day for you.

03:29 Most likely. Yeah, that’s a good day for me. That was driveaway. It was just for just regular trucking. With the trucking it wouldn’t be possible that much. I got you. Now, you used to own your own rig. You were an owner operator.

03:43 Yes, sir.

03:44 What kind of truck did you have?

03:45 I had a Freightliner Cascadia. 2016.

03:51 Oh, one of the 125s.

03:52 Yeah.

03:53 Those were a common truck. Were they a popular truck? And was it a good truck for you?

03:58 Oh, yes it did. Yeah, it was good. It was good. Just when it start breaking down and you’re not, you know, the wheels not turning. And then since like CO happened like the shops it take longer it takes much longer to get the truck out the shop now.

04:15 Yeah, I gotta—

04:16 So it’s like that that caused a problem for me.

04:19 So back when COVID hit that’s they kind of put a put the brakes so to speak on your business of being an owner operator.

04:27 Yes sir.

04:28 Were you able to come out up on the top side as far as getting out from underneath the truck and moving into driveaway? Yeah. I got a good price when I sold it. Yeah, it was good.

04:42 Gotcha.

04:42 But it just the overhead was it was too much going on.

04:46 How would you compare and contrast being an owner operator versus being an independent contractor in the driveaway space?

04:55 Okay. Well, it was easier for me because I was already owner operator. So, what I do with driveaway, it’s almost the same thing.

05:04 Yeah. It was easy transition. It’s like you do got really like your own business too. Same way like you control your time, your pay, where you’re heading and stuff like that. It was almost the same.

05:16 Gotcha. Now, you said it was a friend of yours who directed you to driveaway. How did that come about? How did that conversation unfold?

05:23 I don’t know. It just was talking about it. He was telling me that I said, “Okay, I’ll try it out.” And when I tried it out, the first two weeks, well just say a month had to learn a little bit. Then once you find your niche, then you start understanding more about it, then it become easier.

05:43 So—

05:44 I saw you’ve been with us for 13 months and—

05:48 You’ve been driving for a little bit more than five years before that.

05:55 What’s the learning curve? I mean, what was the hardest part for you to overcome? Cuz I know we had just established that you do up to 700 miles and you keep the wheels rolling. You stay on track. What was the learning hurdle or was there a learning hurdle to get to that point where you’re so successful now?

06:18 Just stay focused. Just stay focused. You have some, you know, bad days. Just keep on pushing. Just stay focused. You know some stuff you can’t control just stay focused—

06:31 Right—

06:32 Just come—

06:34 Everybody I mean almost to a te all the experienced drivers we have here on the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport really points to planning I mean obviously in driveaway it’s all about connecting the dots and—

06:48 What’s your strong suit in planning I mean is there a way that you do it approaching it say I will do this I won’t do that I want to do this. I don’t want to do that. Do you kind of go through that checklist?

06:59 Yeah, I tend to go to the same area that I know. Cuz I know how to get out of there. With me, I make sure I just like I try to find discounts. Like for one, like with Frontier, they have this thing. You sign up for a year and it works good for me. And so my flight is 16 bucks or 32 bucks.

07:25 You just pay—

07:26 That’s a lot.

07:27 You just pay one price up front. Is that right?

07:30 Well, you pay one price for the year. I forgot how much it was. I think like 600 bucks for the year.

07:38 But say you get to a destination and Frontier fly out of there.

07:43 The only way it works if you fly out the same day or the next day.

07:47 Yeah, we’ve heard some drivers talking about that. That’s a great program. The Frontier, they’re really big out west. Is that more their stronghold?

07:54 Yeah, they run— Yeah. Out west. West. I mean, they go pretty much everywhere. They get you places to get out and I tend to check my list off and see what area they are in and I go as planned. And once I deliver Uber to my Uber cost me more than my flight sometimes.

08:15 Yeah, that’s a pretty thing.

08:16 That’s funny. But you found a good deal. I mean, we’ve heard other drivers saying that that Frontier is the way to go.

08:22 Yeah. Frontier. And I fly with them a lot. I’ll be like—

08:27 I don’t know in a week I might fly about six times.

08:31 Do you have do you get perks from that or for the extra mileage?

08:36 I mean, not really. It’ll give you the perks, but— Well, the price is good. I can’t complain. The price is real good.

08:45 Mhm.

08:45 Yeah. That’s it. If I can’t get out of there and Frontier’s not flying out of there, I might just have to pay you know, pay this one time, like a good 300 bucks, but I’m fine with that. I’m fine with that. At least I have to pay the one time.

09:00 Yeah, cuz I can get out of there.

09:01 Yeah. You’ve saved the money on the other ones there.

09:03 Yeah. Yeah.

09:05 And—

09:06 So—

09:07 What about are they direct flights for you or do you have to do some layovers somewhere or—

09:12 Mostly direct flights for me?

09:15 Direct flight. I might, it depends where I’m at. If it’s a small town, small city like—

09:21 Then I might have to do direct I mean a layover.

09:26 Mhm. I got you.

09:28 Mostly being in Denver. So I’m fine.

09:30 Well, I was going to ask you about we had a show last week which was actually a rebroadcast from last year but because the thing that was really crippling a lot of us was the weather. I mean, nothing we can another one of those things you can’t control. And it wasn’t just the snow itself or the ice itself. It was the temperature and the problems it presented for people on the roads trucking and specifically jelling of the fuel and of the diesel. How do you get around that when you know you’re going through those ice those bone chilling states, be it Nebraska, be it South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin out that way? How do you get around it?

10:14 Okay. With me, I try I watch the news. I watch, you know, the weather app and I if it’s I see a storm coming that direction, I just tend not to go that way. I try to stay south. Stay away from the freezing.

10:27 What if you get caught in it and I mean there’s no way out and you are in that type of temperature.

10:32 I just weigh it out. Wait it out. Get a hotel and I was stuck. Well, I wasn’t stuck. It just my B had a wrong address on it and it was the weekend so I couldn’t find it so I had to wait it out to the weekend and the storm came but I was in I was parked anyway I couldn’t go anywhere—

10:53 So so yeah I was in Ohio—

10:56 I got you and yeah storm came through and I watch it snow and yeah it pretty much I didn’t really go nowhere till that Monday and delivered then I was out of there flew out—

11:08 Gotcha Yeah, we talked about it last week in the reair about anti-elling additive using diesel one instead of diesel 2 to prevent the diesel from jelling up. Do you do that when you’re in those cold weathers? I mean, go ahead and spend 10 15 bucks on the anti- gel.

11:25 I had I haven’t done none of that yet cuz I wasn’t really into like in that area. And most of the time I was driving like the CNG.

11:37 Okay. So I didn’t really have to drive diesel that much.

11:42 I got you. Now that CNG can get a little finicky when the weather gets cold, too, because of the—

11:47 Oh. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

11:48 Yeah. Because the reaction with the gas under the pressurized gas there.

11:53 Yep. Now, let’s see. You’re dropping in Orlando. That’ll be tomorrow, I guess. You’re dropping.

12:01 Yeah, in the morning.

12:02 And what’s next for you? Well, I looked at the globe board, but I didn’t look at it that much. I just want to I want to drop it off first. I’m in a good area. I’m in Orlando and Frontier fly out of there. So, soon I drop it off and I start looking on the load board and start mapping out where I’m headed to.

12:20 Gotcha. Do you see the coming week as a busy one? Do you want to be on the road five, six days?

12:25 Oh, yeah.

12:26 That’s why you like them all, isn’t it?

12:29 Like them all busy.

12:30 Yeah. Yeah. How has it been for you? I mean, you’ve been with us for 13 months. You’ve you’re a veteran of the roads and the ins and the outs and the knowledge, the tricks. What’s it been like for you income wise?

12:43 Not asking how much you made, but it’s how’s it been?

12:46 Oh, no. It been good. It’s good. It’s good. It’s kind of fun, too. See, like can you outbeat the numbers you did the following week on the pass? And I do pretty good. Do pretty good.

13:03 You do. Your numbers reflect that. I did a little research before we got on the phone here. Your on-time percentage is this month, February’s 80% monthto date. And then for the quarter of the year here is 79%. And you got an 83% completion rate. So that those are good numbers. They speak for themselves. I knew just whenever I would see Julien’s name next to a load of mine, I’m like, I felt good. And then I did the research and I see why I feel good because you put up good numbers.

13:32 Yes, sir.

13:33 Now, speaking of numbers, you just had a birthday last week.

13:36 And guess what? I was stuck in Ohio that that that weekend.

13:41 That’s the weekend I was in the hotel for three days.

13:44 Turned 43 in Ohio.

13:47 Yes, sir. It was okay. I’m fine.

13:49 Did you do it?

13:50 My kids called me up, told me happy birthday. So, I was fine.

13:53 That’s cool. So—

13:55 You just never know what you’re going to run into. Did you have plans to be home for your birthday or?

14:00 Not really. Not really.

14:02 Gotcha. Now, what would your counsel be, your advice be to someone who were considering jumping into driveaway but didn’t know all the ins and outs? I mean, since you come from the side where you’ve had your own equipment—

14:18 And you’ve done the driveaway where you’re driving other people’s trucks, what would your advice be to somebody who may be considering it?

14:26 Okay. My advice is drive safe. Drive safe. Take your time. Network. Try to get all the discounts. Get like sign up for the rewards for like gas. I mean, just drive safe.

14:45 That’s smart advice right there. You can’t make the money if you’re not safe.

14:50 Yeah. Yeah. I seen a lot of I see a lot of stuff through the years. I’ve seen a lot of stuff. So, I avoided all that. Just take your time. Take your time.

15:02 Take your time. Make the money.

15:03 Do everything right. Yeah. Yeah. And do everything right, then it pays off. Yeah. You have some bad days.

15:09 Yeah. I mean, I guess that’s true with anything in life there. And how do you bounce back from those bad days? What kind of things do you do to bounce back?

15:16 Just forget about it. Just forget about it. Like you can’t control it. So, well, you can control it, but try just try to do better execution plan. Just do a better planning and or go to the same place that you know already cuz it makes it easier.

15:36 Sure.

15:36 And true.

15:37 And then you try to go, you know, just go out further out and then just try it out. But some me, I just go to where I know then if I need to go somewhere that I don’t know yet and I plan around it to see all the ins and outs, how to get out of there. The main concern, how to get out of that. That’s it. Once you start to get out, it’s easier. That’s great advice from Julien Rosembert here on the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport. Julien, thank you for joining us. We really appreciate your time.

16:05 All right, thank you.

16:06 All right, have a good day and be safe out there after you get onto that next run.

16:10 All right, take care.

16:15 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.