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 you know, this is a place where we elevate and celebrate our drivers. We get to know them. That’s one thing we like to do. Get to know them how they work on the road, how they work off the road, what they do for fun and entertainment. And joining us this morning is Medley Fleuranvil. Medley, how are you?

00:49 I’m doing well. How about you?

00:52 I can’t complain. You know, it’s a Sunday morning. We’re talking with a great driver here with us. So, it’s a good time.

00:58 Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Appreciate it, sir.

01:01 Now, tell us where you are right now.

01:03 I’m currently right now my buckle down. I got me a hotel in the great Columbus of Ohio right now. Can’t complain. It’s a little rainy outside, but besides that, I’m happy I’m alive.

01:15 I got you. I got you. Now, you were saying you’re in Columbus, and we’ve talked previously. You like Columbus.

01:21 Yes, sir. What appeals what about it appeals to you?

01:25 The environment. I would say I recently became a fan of Ohio State really and also the scenery. It gives me a bit of like it reminds me of Florida in a sense. It’s it tends to be hot sometimes and it give me a mixture of the cold, you know? So that that kind of like I would say appeals to me in a sense. So yeah. Columbus is a nice vibe.

01:54 Yeah.

01:54 Got a mix of seasons there. Good vibe.

01:57 I wanted to talk a little bit about your driving here. Where are you? You’re in Ohio now, but where are you going?

02:04 My drive I originally picked up in Elizabeth Town, Kentucky, and I’m trucking all the way down to Melbourne, New Jersey. Yes, sir.

02:17 Gotcha.

02:18 Now, what kind of truck are you in? Oh, right now I’m in a F550 bucket truck, diesel truck.

02:25 Yes, sir.

02:26 Okay.

02:26 Yes, sir.

02:27 Gotcha.

02:28 Now, you’re a non CDL driver, so tell us a kind of a range of what type of units you can drive.

02:35 It ranges like I’m not going to lie, it ranges from all type of vehicles, which I like. It’s not just, you know, sticking with one vehicle. It ranges from like pickup trucks, box trucks the bucket trucks. I would say those basically those three, but it ranges, you know.

02:58 Yeah.

02:59 Do you have a preference? Which ones you prefer to drive?

03:02 I’m not going to lie to you. My favorite are the pickup trucks. I’m not going I’m even thinking about getting a pickup truck myself, you know. Most likely one my favorite ones are the F350s.

03:15 Yes sir.

03:16 They handle well—

03:17 They handle very well. Yes sir.

03:19 Now I look in looked at your re into your statistics here your things we monitor drivers by. You’re a runner. You get on the road a lot.

03:31 Yeah I do. Yeah. Do you have a if you had to guess how many miles do you think you do in a day on average—

03:42 On in a day? Oh well you know I tend to stay within my limits of according to my logs and stuff within a day I do the full 715 miles per day. Yeah I try to there’s not heavy— Sorry you—

03:59 Oh no go ahead. Yeah. If it’s not heavy traffic and the roads is clear, I squeeze in that full 700 miles. Yes, sir.

04:08 You are spot on. 697 miles a day.

04:12 Yeah—

04:12 That’s efficient.

04:15 It definitely is. Yeah—

04:19 That gets you from point A to point B.

04:21 Definitely. Definitely. That definitely get me from point A to point B.

04:27 It’s all about making the money.

04:29 Yeah. Because if the money’s not going to come to you, you have to get go get the money, you know.

04:35 That’s right. That’s right. Now, the 697 miles a day equates to 8,218 miles per month. So, you are definitely a runner and you’re consistent.

04:49 Yes, sir.

04:50 Now, the reason we pulled you on here, your team, your dispatch team, they were bragging on you. I was talking with him a couple weeks ago. He said, “You need to have Medley on.” And I’m like, “Oh, yeah. They love you, man.” What about you I guess makes you appealing to them.

05:09 Ah, well, for once I would say, more certainly I want to say I want to give a shout out to my team. Kelsey and Laura and Casey and I believe there’s Jake. I want to give a shout out to them. Most importantly before I start talking to myself. Without them, I wouldn’t be here. I’m not going to lie. So, but to be honest, it’s just about like me being kind, you know, being on time with the things that I do and being efficient, following the guidelines, you know. So, that’s what I think that kind of stands out that put me that stands out from I would say other drivers in a sense, but I hope everybody’s doing going according to the guidelines and stuff like that. But, you know, I just stay by the book and, you know, and, you know, just keep on going, you know, never stopping.

05:59 Well, you’ve got numbers that bear that out. Your completion percentage—

06:03 It’s 97%. That’s amazing. So, when you get a load, you stick with it.

06:08 I stick with it. Yeah, I stick with it because beforehand the thing I do I plan out or I just don’t quickly grab the load because I had my you know trials and tribulations with like choosing the load and not doing the research you know and it kind of like messed me up a couple times. So what I do is tend to do my research figure out how I’m going to get out of the drop off and how I’m going to get to the pickup location. So, I tend to do my research. Once I do my research and I know it’s good to go, I quickly book the load because also the loads don’t wait for you. You know, you got to hurry up and hop on them, you know. You have to.

06:51 Yeah—

06:52 That’s a good one, man. You mentioned trials and tribulations. Now, we usually talk about this kind of thing with drivers and you talked about planning and getting out. Talk a little bit about I guess you’ve been with us almost two years. Was it challenging at the beginning?

07:10 Yes, it was because beforehand the company that I came from before I came to you guys, they were basically I wouldn’t say they babysit us, but they basically had everything like it wasn’t like how I would say like we didn’t really have a load board in a sense. So, it was just like basically like here you go, this is what you got and you know, you stick with it. But now I have like options to choose what I want to do and stuff like that. So when I first started I was like, “Wow, this is like a bigger ball game in a sense, you know.” So when I first came out, I believe my dispatcher at the time was Rachel. So you know, they kind of helped me set me up and stuff, but after that first load, it was like you’re on your own. You know, you’re on your own.

07:56 So from there I just had to I kind of you know messed up choosing like loads that were I would say I didn’t like in a sense but there were in areas that I was like h there was other loads that were closer and that were easier to get to. So it was all about plan. I was like okay I messed up on this next time I know what to do to prevent that mistake you know. So, like I said, like the trials, it was just trials. And also, I’m still learning every day, you know, every as you grow up and stuff like that in life, it’s all about learning. You have to learn something every day, you know. So, yeah, basically that—

08:36 That’s some sage advice right there. That’s very—

08:38 Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

08:39 Now, you’re from West Palm Beach or you live down in West Palm?

08:44 Yeah. Currently located still in West Palm Beach, born and raised. Yes, sir. Do you try to stay close to home or are you wide open to go wherever the road takes you?

08:54 I’m wide open and go anywhere. If I could go to Hawaii, I would. Or Alaska.

09:00 That’d be nice, man. That’d be nice.

09:02 Yeah—

09:03 We have made a run to Alaska before. I think it was a CDL truck, but we have made one run to Alaska—

09:10 In our past. That’s quite a transport.

09:13 Okay. Yeah, that made that one.

09:15 Okay. You’re listening to Medley Fleuranvil here on the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport. Medley’s sharing some of his experiences on the road. Wanted to kind of drill down on that. What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen on the road? Really the craziest things I seen on the road were basically sorry to bring it up but it’s mostly like I would see like accidents like terrible accidents but really with the semi trucks being turned over and like but mostly it be like in I would say in the Midwest or like windy areas. I remember I literally seen a truck like literally tilt over in front of me when I was heading to South Dakota. It was very windy around that time. Yeah, very windy. And that’s something, you know, you can’t control mother nature. Mother nature’s is going to do what they gonna do, what she’s going to do, you know.

10:05 So, basically, I seen a lot of trucks flipped over and it was quite a scene.

10:11 Yeah. You know, you were talking about it being windy, the plains states, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, out that way, Montana. Talking about the wind and being a non CDL driver that puts you in a lot of box trucks. What’s it like in a box truck out there in the high wind situations?

10:32 Really? And when doing those situations, I tend to what I’m taught to do is like you basically have to lower your speed to the minimum because driving at the normal speed, you’re going to tilt over definitely. So I tend to do is because I will get there. Even if it takes me the whole week, I will get there. But safety is number one. So I tend to lower my speed down to the bare minimum and I just keep on trucking all the way till I get there. You know—

11:02 Keep on trucking. Have you had any close calls with the wind?

11:06 Yes, I have. I have. I have. Literally during that same trip I’m talking about. Literally driving to the bare minimum. I It almost got me. It almost got me. When that happened, I literally had to b like I literally pulled over, stayed for a little bit, like just stayed part for a little bit and waited it out a little bit. It this the wind started to like, you know, lower down in a sense and from there I just kept on continuing. But I almost had a close call. Yes, sir. Definitely.

11:37 Was that some pucker factor there?

11:39 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now, you know, you talked about your we talked about your completion percentage. Very good. Very good. And your on-time percentage is also very good. How important is it to you to be on time on your deliveries?

12:02 That right there is number one. And I would say number one for me being on time because if I’m not on time it basically it creates a domino effect for me cuz time is really the key thing because time waits for nobody absolutely no one. If it’s waiting for somebody that person needs to tell me how it’s waiting for you but overall time doesn’t wait for nobody. So what I tend to do control what I can control like planning ahead which what helps me. So, with me planning ahead, I tend to what I tend to do on my Google Maps, I tend to bookmark the gas stations that I would stop at. That would creates an helps me, you know, you know, like not stopping on over on the road like pulling over to look for a gas station cuz you don’t want to like look for a gas station while you’re driving.

12:51 So, what I tend to do is bookmark my gas stations and also I sort of been all over the states, you know, I’ve been to 47 states, so I tend to know which gas stations are going to be there at the time, you know. So, that’s what helps too. But bookmarking my gas stations, calling out to customers, knowing what the what time the businesses are open and from there that’s what helped me get there on time and also looking at the weather once again, looking at the weather, seeing if it’s going to be nice to me or not—

13:21 And that’s what help and looking at the traffic, of course.

13:24 Sure. Now, you were talking about being in touch with the businesses with the companies where you’re delivering and finding out their hours. Now, we’ve seen in the past with some other drivers, not you, but some other drivers when they try to drop after hours, that tends to lead to problems.

13:43 Yes, it does. It does. It does. If anything, I probably had a if it’s not like with the business, all tech industries that tend to do like the after hour drop offs. I’m not really comfortable with the after hour drop offs, you know, cuz that would tend to create a problem, especially if the customer doesn’t know. Yeah, that’s a big issue. A big no no, you know.

14:05 Yeah.

14:06 And that kind of falls in line with you being on time. And I dug a little deeper into your on-time percentage. 77% on time overall, but you’ve you’re taking it even better this month. 83% on time. Is that numbers that are those numbers that you’re proud of? How do you react to those numbers? Well, really it could I always could be better, you know. I always strive to be better, but you know, that’s basically what I can control at the moment. There’ll be times that I would say flights are delayed. Ubers are not picking up at the time. You know, those would be most of my issues. But, you know, like I said, I try to plan reserve rides when I can if that helps me, you know, to get to loads on time and then from there, you know, getting to the destination as fast as possible and safe as possible.

15:02 Nedley’s got a great outlook. We’ve had Medley Fleuranvil here on the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport. Natalie, I love what you said earlier. Keep on trucking.

15:11 Yes, sir.

15:13 We appreciate you. It’s up to New Jersey for you next and we want to join you next week if we can and talk a little bit about what you do off the road including a business venture.

15:25 Yes, sir.

15:26 All right. We’ll join you next week. Thank you very much, Medley. And thank you for joining us on the Six-Figure Trucker.

15:32 No, thank you. You have a wonderful day. 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.