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. Hello everyone and welcome to the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport and each and every one of you as you join us each week. You know this is a format where we elevate and celebrate the drivers of Norton Transport. Of course, we wouldn’t be the company that we are today without them. They are the backbone of our company. And we have a very special guest joining us from his home tonight. That would be Jeffrey Njoroge. Jeffrey, how are you?

00:51 I’m fine, thank you. How about you?

00:53 I can’t complain. There’s no reason to. It reminds me of a story. Oh, it’s been 10 years ago or so. I was in the gym, much better shape then than I am now. But, I was walking out of the gym and this man about 80 or 85 years old, he asked me, he said, “How you doing?” I said, “I can’t complain.” He said, “Boy, let me tell you something about complaining. Half the people don’t care and the other half say you probably had it coming.”

01:19 That’s true. When you talk about the gym.

01:24 Yeah, most people don’t want to hear people complain and I understand why.

01:27 Yeah, we truckers have a lovehate relationship with the gym. We want to—

01:32 And it’s a thought in our mind, but getting to that point of taking yourself to the gym. I kind of want to do the load, you know, got to go get that money.

01:46 I bet it’s hard to get to the gym when you’re on the road. Getting to the gym when you’re on the road. I personally I’ve never been to a gym on the road. I’ve thought about it. I’ve planned for it, but I’ve never actually been able to do it. And that’s more on the side of pro procrastination and just having that comfort zone inside the truck. You know, it’s comfortable, it’s private, it’s you’re just there in your little cocoon and you just don’t want to leave her, leave. And—

02:24 Plus also what makes it a little bit tricky is the changing seasons. So you— Yeah. You’d want to say that, you know what? I’mma walk out this winter and prepare myself to have a six-pack for summer, but it gets snowed in. And the place that’s open is a McDonald’s.

02:45 I got you. I’ve got more of a loosely arranged 12-pack.

02:49 Yeah. Yeah.

02:52 Yeah.

02:53 So, you come back home with one pack and the wife looks at you like she never knew you before and you’re like, “Hey, as long as I bring home the bacon, Got to bring home the bacon and let it sizzle.”

03:05 Yes, sir.

03:07 All right. Do you get in the gym when you’re not on the road? Is that something you try to do?

03:11 I try and walk around a lot. That’s as far as I got. I know I should be doing more, but honestly—

03:22 Yeah, sometimes.

03:25 Now, do you live in Texas? Is that right?

03:28 Yeah, I live in Dallas, Texas.

03:30 Okay. Do in your neighborhood is there are there some good places to walk?

03:35 Yeah, like around just around the neighborhood, you can just walk outside the apartment and just walk a block or two round, you know—

03:42 Do a couple of miles, probably two or three miles and yeah, you can come back home and say, I got a victory today. I didn’t walk from the truck to the receiving office and back. At least I did a—

03:56 Did a lap. A victory lap.

03:58 Yeah. Victory lap. Yeah. Now, Jeffrey can I call you JB? That’s what most people know you as.

04:04 Yes, sir. You can call definitely call me JB.

04:08 Well, JB, how long have you been behind the wheel? I understand you’ve been behind the wheel for quite some time.

04:13 Yeah, I started driving in 2016. I started with a company called Prime, Inc. Went through their training program and started driving their trucks. I became a trainer. They used to train students to become truck drivers. Yeah. And we had a good run. Up until 2019, that’s when I branched out on my own. Then COVID happened, the market spiked up, then it came crashing back down—

04:46 And yeah, as we were finding—

04:50 Good place to base yourself on, that’s when I came across Norton. Okay, we’ll go back to that in just a second, but you started up your own company in 2019.

05:02 Yes, I did.

05:05 And bad luck would have it that CO hits the next year.

05:08 When CO hit everybody was indoors, so the supply the demand of goods was high. So guys who are on the road I mean they used to pay us crazy money just to be out there to deliver the goods cuz everything was shut down. And frankly speaking it was one of the best times because there was no traffic. There was no one there. So it was just easy in and out.

05:35 You would go to Walmart and people would be waiting for you because they would think that you got toilet paper—

05:41 And—

05:43 And everyone was Santa Claus.

05:45 Yeah. Had the kids all waving at you and well, you know, the thing they do and yeah, you were all happy and all stuff and all that. Then it the market just went up then came back down.

05:58 Yep. Yep. Yep.

06:00 Yeah.

06:01 Now, when you started in 2016, was that otr trucking?

06:05 Yes, it was otr trucking.

06:07 Gotcha. Now, you joined us about my notes say five months ago.

06:12 Yes, sir. And you were referred by a buddy of yours. Tell us about that. How it happened.

06:19 Now while we were out trying to figure out since the market wasn’t doing that good and you’re just trying to hold on to see okay are the loads going to be a little bit better and you’re just hoping. Then my buddy Clive, he joined Norton and he was like this a little bit stable than what we used to because he had parked his truck—

06:43 Right?

06:43 So definitely with trucks would be like ah give us two or three settlements first before we actually believe your story. You got to buck it up with the settlements—

06:53 Not just one time, got to be a couple of weeks. Then that’s when he sent us the how you guys pay how Norton pays and all that and like okay I can do that. I can do that. That’s definitely better than waiting for a broker and there’s all these hoops that you got to jump. You go to a place and you have to now fight for your detention fighting for what’s rightfully yours. And you come to Norton and everything is just smooth. You even get surprised. I you know am I missing something or—

07:34 Did you like that JB when you came on board five months ago where you get paid basically right after your load’s complete?

07:40 Right after the load is complete. And that’s this how I put it. It’s like you’re getting spoiled cuz out here you have to wait for about a week then factoring where they take 3% then now deductions come in then everything comes in versus Norton where you have fuel money up front you have all these things now it’s up to you to try and decide and plan yourself—

08:09 You know versus otr everybody’s trying to plan for you—

08:15 You got to be here by this time. If you’re not here by this time, then there’s a detention fee. There’s a late fee or you know, you get there probably an hour or two hours late and this might be circumstances that are beyond your control. You can have a flat tire—

08:35 And that takes on the minimum four hours before they get to you and replace the tire and truth be told sometimes we drivers are just lazy and probably woke up late and you know things happen—

08:50 Right?

08:50 But when you get there and you’re late and they said on a Friday, you got to reschedule for Monday.

08:56 That’s right.

08:57 And you’re just sitting somewhere and you know you’re not home. You know, it’s just crazy now that compared to Norton where I can call the receiver and ask are you guys available over the weekend? It’s either a yes or a no. And if it’s a yes, most times it is, sometimes it’s not, but that having that hope that it might be. M—

09:26 And when it comes to delivery, there’s no set appointment that you have to be here by 9:00 in the morning. It’s a it’s like a whole day appointment. You can be here from 9 to 3 or 9 to 5 or 8 to 3.

09:41 So, you have the whole day to figure yourself out. So if there’s something that might have happened over the road, there’s a window where you can try and fix it up and get there before that time, before the deadline.

09:57 Now, I wanted to ask you in your nine years on the road, what’s the craziest thing you’ve ever seen on the road that you would not have seen if you were not on the road?

10:07 Oh, there a lot of crazy. You could have a lot of crazy stories, I can tell you. Oh man. Oh, this there a lot of things out in the road. The craziest one that that that did scare me is I was training a student and we were going through the tolls. I was asleep cuz he had driven for about 20,000 miles. So I was a little bit confident with him.

10:39 Right. So as we were in on a line to go through the tolls something told him that you know what we can switch lanes.

10:50 Okay.

10:53 So he did he decided to switch lanes. And one thing I always told my students is whenever you find yourself in a bind stop the truck call me before you mess up even more because if it’s a little bit of a mess then you know we can try and fix it. But if you now, you know, dent the truck or it’s something even bigger, now we have to involve the company.

11:16 Right.

11:16 So, as he tried to— Yeah. As he tried to change lanes, he realized he couldn’t get to the other lane that was moving a little bit faster because of the trailer. And now we were stuck—

11:31 Blocking two lanes after to—

11:34 Oh boy.

11:35 Making friends in a fast way.

11:37 Oh yeah. So he woke me up. Yo, JB, wake up. So I wake up. I’m like, what’s going on? She’s like, I think I’m stuck. You think you’re stuck? You are stuck. Ain’t going nowhere.

11:50 So the two guys at the toll booth, they actually got up and one guy had a cigarette. He gave his body, the other cigarette, and they just started smoking, looking at, let’s see how this guy.

12:04 So I had to wake up. How did you get out of— How did you get unstuck?

12:09 Yeah. I had to wake up, put on my safety vest, and then come out, tell the traffic on the right side to back off a little bit cuz now we’re going to back out and go back to the to where we were supposed to go through in the first place.

12:26 So went to my side and also told the drivers to back out a little bit. Some of them went to other tolls. Then we managed to back out and he straightened up the truck. Then now we went through the toe.

12:38 Were the horns blowing, people screaming?

12:40 Oh yeah. People were cussing out.

12:42 Oh yeah. Oh yeah. They were having us. Yeah.

12:47 Yeah. I guess. Do you see that a lot on the road? I mean that’s an exception, but impatience from drivers toward truck drivers.

12:56 Oh yeah. Drivers are very impatient. And as a truck driver, you kind of get this sense of trying to figure out what the next move of a driver would be, which I see that missing nowadays cuz what when you’re out in the road and say you’re stuck in traffic, got to give yourself a some room because you know somebody will be very very impatient and try and cut you off—

13:26 Right? And if they jump in front of you and cut you off and you hit them, then you’re at fault because you didn’t maintain this space. Then and that becomes now he say she say now the cameras that can try and you know mediate the thing. But it’s just more like you got to just try and guess a little bit what that driver might do and prepare for that.

13:53 Right. Talk about I mean the physical reaction when someone does cut in front of you aggressively and you’re driving such a heavy piece of equipment particularly if you had a trailer on there how do you stop it without causing an accident I mean what’s the first thing that goes through your mind when somebody cuts right in front of you—

14:14 Now how I how would classify their there are levels to it the first level is depending on your load you can tell I’ll be able to stop and there are times depending on your load you know you will not be able to stop no matter what you do that’s what I call the oh moment—

14:41 Excuse my language you know—

14:42 You’re fine that describes perfectly—

14:45 Yeah the oh you know like when a deer jumps just jumps in front of you there’s that moment you’re like Okay. Ain’t nothing I can do about this.

14:55 So—

14:57 Do you try to get over to another lane if it’s available?

15:00 If it’s available, you can move on to the other lane, but you don’t want to risk that because of the trailer you’re hauling. And, the conditions of the road. It might be rainy and you don’t want to just swerve like that. The speed you’re driving at also comes into a factor. And the surrounding of everything cuz you might want to swerve but there’s another car here on your left side or on your right side.

15:27 If you swerve and hit them, that’s on you—

15:31 Right?

15:31 And this guy’s just—

15:33 Jumped in front of you and he’s now slamming on the brakes.

15:37 Yeah. Those are the situations we— So you as a trucker when someone does that—

15:44 Just let go of the gas, you know, it’s okay. It’s all right. Yeah. Just give yourself that distance and you’ll be fine.

15:54 Leave a lot of space between you and whoever could do that kind of maneuver.

15:58 And you and the thing is that they don’t come with a signal saying I’m a I’m I’mma hit the brakes on you. Nope.

16:06 It just happens.

16:07 It just happens. So you have to everyone can do that.

16:11 Right. That leads me to my next question. In your former life as an otr trucker and a trainer, what was the most difficult thing to do within that space and what’s the most difficult thing to do now as a driveaway trucker? With the otr it’s more of following a set schedule putting into factor your time and time zones and it’s more of a planning thing.

16:47 Mhm. But with a driveaway planning is a little bit easier but more complex because you got to factor in your travel times. You got to factor in the cost of it versus OTR where you’re just in the truck. You got to factor in now the timing. I know I got to get to this shipper by 2:00 in the morning. So I got to drive from probably 6:00 p.m. To 12:00 p.m. And I didn’t sleep well. I didn’t sleep during the day because the previous load delivered the last time, you know, last evening. So, I was sleep at night. I wasn’t sleep during the day and I got to drive at night.

17:29 Now, with driver, you can always plan your hours as soon as you get the load cuz you know, this load picks up on Tuesday. I need to deliver it on Friday. It’s 1,000 miles. That’s 500 a piece. So I can plan, okay, I’mma drive 500 miles, probably go stop somewhere in Tennessee, get a hotel, take my 10our break, then go deliver the load versus where there’s that you really have to plan for the time.

18:01 Gotcha.

18:02 Yeah.

18:03 Is it harder in otr to keep up with your logs than it is now in driveaway? Driveaway logs and otr logs. I would say it’s pretty much the same because you have to but a little bit easier on the driveaway side because we got to we have flexibility when it comes to pickup and deliveries—

18:26 And yeah and we make our money after the delivery.

18:30 Ootr you make your money after delivering the good. Now with OTR, you have a specific time where you got a pickup. You have a specific time where you have to drop off the load. Some loads are open. Some pickups are open with OTR, but they’re on the minimal side. With driveaway, all loads are pick up during the day, drop off during the day.

18:54 Obviously, you worked under a world there of forced dispatch. Not so with driveaway. We don’t have forced dispatch. No. And tell us a little bit about you’re on Kelsey’s team along with Laura and Haley. Tell us a little bit about what they’re like.

19:08 My dispatches are awesome. I mean, I would call them at any time and talk to them about anything, you know, whether I’m stuck somewhere, whether the truck has a problem, whether I’m running low on fuel, whether I have no money for hotel or I need money to go pick up the next load or I need a car rental, they will organize that for me and it just makes my work a whole lot easier. Year and particularly on my team. One thing that I love about my dispatches is you’ll pick up a load and they will ask you do you know how to get there and how to get out of that place because that place as per my experience it’s hard for drivers to get out of.

20:04 So with that kind of insight and it’s coming from your dispatch and we drivers that are hauling your loads, you know, it kind of makes you feel, okay, I’m in I’m in a safe place. They really care about me—

20:20 Right? Well, you were recommended by them, so obviously they care about you. Recommended to be on the podcast on the show here. They said that they said you need to talk to Jeffrey. He’s a great guy. Now, do they call you JB or is that or do they just call you Jeffrey?

20:36 No, JB is my nickname. They call me Jeffrey. Yeah.

20:43 Okay. Okay. Wanted to ask you about Clive Matiku, the guy that referred you.

20:49 Yeah.

20:49 Did you know him before he referred you? Obviously you did. Did you know him from your trucking days?

20:56 Yeah, Clive. We started working with him. I knew Clive when I was in prime. Yeah. I think I was a year into trucking and he just came on and I kind of showed him a little bit of hoops here and there. Yeah. And we started growing together from there and that’s how we became friends.

21:15 Now, I looked at your stats. You’ve got a 100% check-in, 100% completion, and you average 10,000 miles a month. Is that about where you want to be? Do you want to see yourself drive more? Are you in a good level right now?

21:29 I wouldn’t say that’s the best level. I usually aspire to get more. I’m very competitive.

21:37 Yeah. I would just say that’s the average. I want to do a little bit more.

21:42 Mhm.

21:42 Yeah. And get my stats up there.

21:45 Now, you’re a Class A driver. You can drive a manual.

21:48 Yeah.

21:48 And specialty qualified. And for people who are watching, the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport. Specialty qualified means you can drive a garbage truck and other vehicles that are not your normal type trucks to drive.

22:03 How important was it for you to get that qualification?

22:07 The qualification just means the company trusts you a little bit more. You’re trusted more. That’s more like getting a credit card increase. If you had a $1,000 limit and they give you a $10,000 limit, the bank knows you’re more responsible to handle $10,000 than versus $1,000. Same as Norton, you can drive any other vehicle, but once you get to that level where they trust you more, it’s because they’ve seen that you’re capable of doing of driving specialtity vehicle. Now, did you being a manually certified, did you drive manuals when you first started, did you learn on a manual?

22:51 Yeah, I learned on a manual. I was skeptical about driving automatics when they came out, like how do they handle when going down a hill cuz with the manual before you start going down a hill, you got to set your brake, set your Jake brakes, you got to know the incline of the hills. You got to keep in mind your the trailer weight. You have to have all that in mind. With a manual, it’s just easy. You just set the speed and that’s it.

23:23 Right.

23:23 You don’t have to—

23:25 Yeah. You don’t have to listen for the RPM. You don’t have to listen for anything.

23:29 Right. Now, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about what got you into trucking. How did you fall into it?

23:37 Now, what got me into trucking? I love traveling. I love traveling a lot and I love the open roads and a friend of my uncle did trucking and most of the times when we were out driving I was the one who used to drive so he told me why don’t you become a truck driver since you love driving so much like I’ll think about it then I went to Prime and they trained me and I loved it and I’ve never gone back.

24:12 It’s like the first time you ate KFC. You’re like, I love this chicken and I am—

24:19 I had KFC last weekend for a football party that we had. My team didn’t win, but the KFC was good.

24:26 Yeah.

24:28 Well, JB, thank you so much for joining us and sharing your stories from the open road, some of the crazy things that have happened, all the success you’ve had, the success you’ve brought to us. We’re thankful for what you have done. We really appreciate you joining us. Now, there’s a lot more to JB than what you’ve just heard. JB is going to tell us next week about his home country and his passion that developed there. JB, we look forward to hearing from you next week.

24:55 All righty. Thank you so much for having me.

25:03 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.