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.

00:23 Let’s get to the show. Hello everyone and welcome to the six-figure—

00:28 Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport. And each and every one of you know if you join us each week, this is a platform where we elevate and celebrate the drivers that work so hard for Norton Transport. We got a special guest with us out on the road, but he’s found a nice place to find some quiet time there. Phillip Miller, also known as Phil, goes by Phil. Phil, how are you?

00:51 I’m doing fantastic, John. Great to be with you.

00:53 Yeah, thank you for joining us. And you went above and beyond to score. Tell us where you are specifically right now.

01:01 I’m in good old Amarillo, Texas.

01:03 Amarillo by morning.

01:05 Yeah, that’s right. I’ve been singing that song ever since I’ve been here.

01:09 Every time I hear it, that song pops into my head. I don’t know why. But you were able to get a coffee shop that would cooperate with you.

01:18 Oh, yeah. Well, it’s Texas. Everybody wants to cooperate with you here. So, yeah, I lucked out. You’re in a conference room in a coffee shop in Amarillo.

01:26 That’s correct.

01:28 Now, you’ve been with us, we you and I were talking earlier. It’ll be three years in March.

01:34 Yep.

01:34 That’s right.

01:36 How would you describe that three years?

01:39 The first word that comes to mind is growing pains. You know, being a new to driveaway, I had a lot of teeth to cut and Norton helped me cut those teeth and deal with the hard times and the learning process that comes with doing driveaway. But it’s been a good experience. The attitudes at Norton have made it much easier than it would have been otherwise. I got to say before we get rolling too much into this Phil did us a solid last week and full confession, that’s why I wanted to have him on the show. We had a truck that we had to get to Amarillo from I believe it was Durant, Oklahoma.

02:24 Yeah, that that sounds about right. Yeah.

02:28 And it was urgent. I mean, a lot of them urgent, but this one, I don’t know if you’d heard the backstory on it, but there was a big, very large monetary deal in the background hinging on this truck.

02:40 That’s right.

02:41 And Phil came through with flying colors. We certainly appreciate for doing that, Phil.

02:46 Oh, my pleasure. I like going the extra mile if I can. And you know, it’s rewarding to know the backstories of some of these trips that we do. We rarely know what impact we’re having if any, but it was good to do this one because the customer was extremely relieved and they let me know how much they appreciated us and that that felt really good to make such a big impact.

03:15 That’s fantastic, Phil. I appreciate it. Now, you were able to make it to Durant because this one came as a last second thing. I get the call from my customer. He’s like, “Can you pick it up today?” And so we’re like, we’ll try. We’ll try. And you’re a towbehind driver and I guess that’s why it was all able to come behind come to fruition.

03:35 Yeah. It just happened. I was only 20 minutes away, which is rarely the case. So it was, you know, it was like a God thing, you know, for this to come about. And I wasn’t even supposed to be there. But the stars aligned and it worked out for everyone. And this was a rolloff truck, right?

03:58 Yeah, a rolloff. That’s correct. You know, fortunately, I have a good setup that allowed me to connect to it. And so got it done.

04:08 Yeah, that was my next question. I saw the pictures of the back frame of the rear of the frame. Was it complicated to get connected to it or did it go pretty smoothly? Yeah, I have a you know again trial and error has basically helped me create a universal system that will connect not only to a truck frame in any ball hitch situation, but also to bumpers if they’re sturdy enough to handle it. I can connect to those without any problem. And so yeah, I was confident going into it once I saw the pictures that I was going to be able to connect to it and get it down the road.

04:48 That’s what Kelsey told me that she felt confident about it and proved to be true. Now tell us about the towbehind. When did you decide to do the toe behind and how has it paid off for you?

05:02 Yeah. You know spending enough nights in hotels greyhounds, airports, Ubers, you know that will basically move you into a toe behind situation, especially the older you are. A lot of these young guys, you know, they like the adventure and you know, they can handle, I think, a little bit more of the you know, that just flying around. But for me, I wanted something a little bit more settled and I decided to go with the toe behind. And I, you know, I saw some other guys doing it and I thought I think there’s some money that can be saved in doing it and help me to get more jobs and not miss as many and yeah.

05:50 So now you’ve been with us for three years. Have you had a time to do some analysis to see how much money that towbeahhind operation has saved you?

06:02 That’s a very good question. It’s in the thousands of dollars. I mean, let me say that. It’s saved me a lot of money, but what it more importantly to me than the money is the quality of life that it’s given me because it’s allowed me to stay longer in areas and not have to rush off, fly off to somewhere else. So, it’s allowed me to spend time in our great national parks. It’s allowed me to spend time in the great cities I found myself all over the country. It’s allowed me to, you know, have some sort of a social life. So it yeah, it’s given me a quality of life that to me is worth more than the money saved.

06:47 Well, I mean to your point you’re in Amarillo and I know you delivered there would have been what Friday, Saturday morning, Friday morning.

06:57 I delivered Friday. Yeah.

06:59 And you’re still— And because you have your car, you can do what you want.

07:04 I can do what I want. I even have a little popup tent on the bed, so if I want to go to a national park or an RV park, I can stay in places like that. But I, you know, I tend to I like to play pickle ball, so I tend to stay close to pickle ball court, so that’s what I’ve been doing today.

07:25 Play. How’d it go?

07:27 It went great. You know, I meet great people. You meet the best people here on pickle ball courts. Very friendly, cordial people. So, it’s a great outlet and that’s another thing. It gets lonely on the road and so so having pickle ball, being able to kind of settle down in a town for a weekend, it helps with some of the loneliness component of being on the road—

07:49 And it’s a great sport for being you don’t need much equipment. A couple paddles and a couple balls and—

07:56 Exactly. Exactly. And that’s the big thing staying you know— There’s some things that are very important as a driver. Taking care of yourself, taking care of your dispatchers, taking care of the trucks you’re in. Those things are very important. If you if you’re not doing it, if you’re leaving any of that out, it’s going to be a hard road to hope. You know what I’m saying?

08:24 I got you. I got you. Those are all very important things. You talked about taking care of your dispatchers and every driver we talked to a lot of times they talk about it’s like a marriage I mean between the two sides and you know Kelsey and Laura they were both really bragging on you and Kelsey particularly what’s it like working with them I’m sure you work with them every day—

08:49 Yeah it’s been a pleasure and this is what’s divided Norton set Norton apart from any of the other competition is your dispatchers are the happiest dispatchers I believe in the industry. They come every day with a positive attitude and Laura and Kelsey have been no exception. You know, like any marriage, it’s not always sunshine and roses. We, you know—

09:19 We’ve had our moments, but we always get over them and new day and we come with our best face forward, try to help each other because I don’t have an easy job, the drivers don’t have an easy job and the dispatchers don’t have an easy job. It’s challenging. So is the more stress we can take off of each other by being positive and supportive, that’s only going to be a win for everybody involved in the long run. So, I’ve learned to just, you know, have patience, take it easy, and be as nice and as upbeat with my dispatch as possible.

09:56 I’m sure that’s like you had said, it’s a two-way street. They do the same with you. And, I looked at a little bit of your stats here. They’re impressive. They’re impressive. And before we get into those, you hit the big 5 this year, didn’t you?

10:11 Very good. I sure did. I appreciate Thank you, John, for mentioning that. I’m an old guy out. Thank you. Now the world knows.

10:20 You don’t look you man. You look great.

10:22 Oh, thank you. I’ll— Yeah, I’ll write the check later. Thank you.

10:26 Okay. Okay.

10:28 But you live down in South Florida, right?

10:31 Yeah, that’s right. Fort Pierce. Yeah. One of the oldest cities in Florida. Yeah.

10:36 Right up there with St. Augustine.

10:39 Yeah. Not quite 1550s, but yeah, it’s an old one from 1833. We got ours.

10:46 Right. Right now, I looked at your stats here. I’m reading the stats off my notebook here. 100% check-in, 85% completion, and this is the one, the next one is the one that gets everybody excited. Completion obviously does, but 77% on time. That’s a good on-time percentage. And you’ve been averaging almost 4,600 miles per month. Now, I want to kind of drill down on this on-time percentage. You strike me as a guy that’s got his stuff together and being on time matters to you.

11:21 Yeah. How do you do it? What’s your key?

11:24 Yeah. I mean, it to me it’s I look at it myself as the face of the company. I’m interfacing with a customer, your customer, my customer—

11:34 And you know, how I come across how I look, how I present myself, and when I show up is all part of the package. And that reflects not only on me as a driver, but it reflects on Norton as a company. And so that on being on time, being where I say I’m going to be is extremely important. And you know it comes down to you know being prepared knowing what it takes to get across country, get across the state and being realistic about those miles and not taking anything for granted. Just, you know, dotting the, you know, the eyes and crossing the te’s and being, what I was saying, being realistic about what it takes—

12:22 And actually giving myself some time. You know, I’m trying to give myself a time because I want to be there as quickly as possible, but sometimes it helps just to pad that a little bit. Even though I want to be there, you know, five hours sooner or a day sooner, I need to be realistic about when I’m going to be there because I like to o underpromise and overd deliver. That’s what I try to do. My I’m going to be there on time most of the time unless something unforeseen comes up. Yes—

12:54 You’re touching on a great point there about being realistic because we both know in delivering trucks, so many things can come into play that would have an impact on your delivery time. I mean, it’s just, you know, you’re not thinking straight if you don’t think that can happen because it does.

13:12 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Now, you’ve been doing with us almost three years in March and you had a couple years with a couple other companies. What’s your I mean, you talked about at the beginning about the learning curve and cutting your teeth. What have you learned from it? That’s helped you the most.

13:38 Patience is the first thing that comes to mind. Being patient, not trying to force jobs or rush to the next job. Take the time to allow the right job to present itself. That doesn’t that’s not very intuitive, but I’ve learned this week trying to rush things actually put me not in the best place to get me the best job. So, patience is one thing that I’ve learned. That’s probably the biggest lesson I’ve learned is to be patient.

14:14 Gotcha. Now you’re in Amarillo and then tomorrow you’re up and back to Fort Worth, then out.

14:21 Yep. Yep. Driving five hours to Fort Worth and yeah, that’s another thing I’ve learned too is not to be afraid of dead head miles. You know, don’t, you know, don’t turn down a job just because you’ve got a lot of unpaid hours on the road. It’s going to pay off. That little money you put in the gas tank, you know, just get to the job. It’s going to pay for itself.

14:48 It’s going to balance out.

14:50 Going to balance out.

14:51 Now, what kind of car do you have as your toe behind?

14:53 Oh, I’m glad you asked. I’m so proud of my tow vehicle. It’s a Ford Maverick hybrid and it weighs as much as a small car, but you know, it has that utility of a truck—

15:07 And that hybrid system in it allows me to keep the climate controls on while I’m sleeping without burning fuel all night long, which I just I love that feature of it.

15:19 And being a hybrid, I’m sure your MPG is pretty good.

15:23 Oh, yeah. I mean around town I can get 50 miles to the gallon. A lot of my miles are all electric even just running around and it’s been a good vehicle to have on the road.

15:36 That’s ideal, man. That’s a money saver there, too.

15:39 Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

15:41 What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen on the road since you’ve been doing this? The craziest thing that I’ve seen was I was going down through the Mojave Desert somewhere out in California, Nevada, somewhere in there. And I passed this old truck and he must not have liked me coming past or that day he decided he was going to try to win the lottery. So he came past me, got in front and slammed on his brakes as hard as he could. And I think I was in a Peterbilt Bobtail—

16:17 Semi sleeper birth, I believe. And you know, those things don’t stop on a dime.

16:23 No.

16:25 But somehow that thing stopped better than his old Dodge did. And I was able to avoid hitting him even though I had to swerve off the road and he swerved with me to try to force me hitting him.

16:38 Oh my goodness.

16:39 And that was an interesting moment. That’s air raising. No doubt.

16:45 It sure was. That’s probably the craziest thing that’s happened.

16:48 Wow. Well, Phil, we certainly appreciate you joining us here on the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport. And Phil and I talked a little bit before we got on. He’s got a very interesting part of his life off the road. And we’re going to talk about that next week. And I’ll give you a little teaser from Florida to Hawaii.

17:09 We’ll leave it at that. We’ll leave it at that. We’ll see you next week, Phil. Six-Figure Trucker is brought to you by Norton—

17:16 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.

17:39 That’s Six-FigureTrucker.com.