1007. #TFCP - Building Relationships With Your Customers!

So you can take all of this information, apply it, utilize it and see a meaningful difference in your business and your life. Tracy St. Clair, good morning to you. It's a solo show today, you guys. I got a guest coming on tomorrow and Friday. I'm going to be sprinkling in some of these live or these solo shows out there. I do have a lot of guests in the hopper that are bound to come on here, but some days, you know, it doesn't work out and you're just going to have to deal with yours truly only because, you know, again, you guys, I, all of my guests actually have jobs, you know, so we're out here making that world turn one truckload at a time. Quick Newsletter dropped this morning.

It highlighted my episode last Friday with my man John Brewer, who's the shipping manager for a very large company and he provided a ton of insight. And we have a newsletter that we drop once a week on that. You guys, if you guys want to register for that, just go to the freight coach.com and just, it will prompt you to automatically sign up for it. I'm not going to sell out all my email contacts and sign you all up for it and spam you because I personally don't like that when people do that to me. So I'm not going to do that to anybody. But that email list is growing. It's kind of exciting to see it because the reality is you start, you always start with one. And seeing how many new subscribers we're getting every single week on that is pretty.

So just go to the freightcoach.com to check that out. Let's go into diesel fuel is dropped again. I'm still not like cheering or anything because I still think it's incredibly way too high. The national average is at 370 a gallon nationwide. I get all of that on EIA, the EIA dot gov and yeah, that's just what I think is a good indicator on where things are trending, where things are going, especially if you have customers out there who charge line haul plus fuel. That gives you a great idea on where rates are trending for the upcoming weeks or stuff like that. And, you know, again, I think that's a, it's a very real thing that a lot of customers do, line haul plus fuel, especially out there in the RFP season. So pay attention to that, you guys.

It gives you a better idea on the fluctuations of fuel prices throughout the year. Yeah. Also, you guys want to know a really good way to predict some rates out there? Green screens. Green screens. AI, I literally use them every single day inside of my brokerage and it's crazy out there. I mean, just last week we had one we want to load based on that price and it was $7 difference between what green screens told me were going to pay and what we actually paid on it. So I like that margin of error there of $7. So definitely check that out. You guys. Go to greenscreens. Dot a sunny Sharma, my man. Good morning. Happy. Good morning, freight freaks. He said, excuse me, Lamar Watts, work ethic king. I appreciate that, man.

You might have been self proclaiming that for yourself, but I'm going to take credit for that one, brother. He's watching over on YouTube, ladies and gentlemen. I go live on YouTube as well, you guys. And just, you can find me at the freight coach anywhere and check that out and get registered. But I did have a long time or excuse, not a long time. He had said that he had just found my show here recently and he dropped in a question and I'm going to be sprinkling this in. You guys doing the Q and a style shows out there throughout the week? Because if I normally did them on Friday, but if I have a guest coming on to talk about a specific topic, I'll still answer your guys's questions throughout the week.

So you just have to dm them over to me and I will gladly answer them for you. Or if it's one that my guest would be more qualified to answer. I will make sure to save it for them. But this one came from Chambers Moore. He. He wanted to know what my thoughts are on a trucker transitioning into a brokerage. If I could elaborate on that, he would have greatly appreciate it. For context, he's been driving for nine years. He has a million miles under his belt, and he is looking to change the trajectory of the career. Of his career. Excuse me. He says, thanks, and I love the energy you have on the show, by the way. This is a very common question, and I look at it like this.

I am very much willing to take risks because, you know, I'm self employed. I've been self employed for the last four years, which, you know, are arguably some of the most challenging for economic years that are out there. So I don't necessarily process risk very well. I'm just like a fuck it all, figure it out kind of guy. But I. I look at it like this, man. They can never, ever take away your driving experience, right? So I think if you ultimately pan back far enough here, chambles, look at it like this. You've been driving for nine years. You got a million miles under your belt. You'll always have a job driving trucks, no matter what.

So if you want to take that risk, if you want to take that bet on yourself and try something new, I would definitely go for it, because I feel like no matter what, you'll always have a job, man. Drive quality drivers, especially ones that have a million miles under themselves. You'll always have a job driving trucks if it doesn't work out in the long run. But I look at it like this, man. If I were you, go out there and learn the industry from an organization, all right? Don't go out there and take that risk on your own right away. And I'm going to tell you why here in a second, because I don't think jumping into that side of the industry without having any sales experience or operations experience is the best thing to do right away.

I would go and work for somebody. I would learn the industry. There are a lot of great companies that are out there. Hell, man, there might be even be a company out there that has a brokerage and also has assets, and you could have an agreement with them. Like, hey, I want to try this out for a couple of months. If I don't like it, can I start driving? You know that I'm sure that's something that could be out there, but I would go and I would just learn the industry from that perspective, man, because building a book of business, if you're going to get into, because like, if you're going to be a broker, man, you got to sell. You have to be willing to make cold calls.

You have to be willing to go out there and meet people in person and do it that way from a business development standpoint. But I look at it as I would do it, man. I would. What's the worst thing that could happen? Honestly, the worst thing that could happen is you try and then you realize that it's not for you, and then you just go back to doing what you seemingly love. I mean, if you've been driving for nine years, man, I would say that it's probably a passion for you. You probably love it. Again, this is all an assumption. I've never talked to you, but just, this is just my assumption here. But if I were you, man, I would go work for somebody for a while.

I would learn the industry, get that experience, because it is a different side of the equation that's out there. But I think you can do it, man. And I think ultimately, when it boils down to it, if it doesn't work out. But I think that you'll never know unless you try, right? So I would check that out. And, you know, it was funny, I was talking to a buddy of mine last night, and he's a multi time founder, very successful one. He's, one of his companies is like, does 30 million a year, and then his new startup is, you know, they're probably get about 4 million this year, and it's not in the transportation industry. But, you know, I was talking with him and, you know, he was asking how things were going inside of my business and, you know, what we're going through.

And, you know, I told them, I said, it boils down to it like this. My mind sets this. No matter what, you could take away everything from me, from my business, from everything. You could take all of that away. But what you can't take away is my greatest asset, and my greatest asset is my work ethic, all right? My work ethic to me is unrivaled out there. I will literally, it doesn't matter if I lost everything. I'll go get two full time jobs. I will do everything to make sure that I keep my house and keep my family fed. I will do that no matter what. So that's the way that I kind of process a lot of these things out there is, you know, they can't take away. They could take away my business, but they can't take away my. My work ethic.

And that is my. The greatest gift I was ever, that I was ever given in my life. You know, I was actually on road dog radio yesterday with Dan Ronan, a good friend of mine, and, we were talking about that, and, you know, because he, you know, he knows that my dad was a driver. And, you know, I said, I'm like, you know, when I, ultimately, when it boils down to it, I didn't get an inheritance from my dad, but I got a blank check from my father. And I actually, you know, for context, my dad passed away a few years ago. Not. It's not for. From a sympathy standpoint here, but when I was giving his eulogy, I mentioned this.

I said, you know, my father never gave me an inheritance, but he gave me a blank check life, which is invaluable, which I will use to do a lot of good in the world, and which I think is better than an inheritance. And he gave me a work ethic. He instilled in me from a very young age what a work ethic is, why a work ethic is required, and why you need to work for things from a very early age. And I will take that over anything. I will take that over, you know, and, yeah, if I somehow got, you know, a couple million dollars, cool. I'll know how to better allocate it now. But I think a work ethic, in my opinion, is the blank check aspect of things and chambles.

I'm bringing that up because, man, if you got that work ethic, which it looks like you do, bro, you'll figure it out, man. So just go out there and go for it. Let me see here. Steve Setka, orange shirt gang. Let's go. Clark Wellman. God damn it, Clark. Why'd you have to do that, bro? I was, you know, I was actually just about to text another friend of mine, Ken Adamo, who's a da, you know, he's. But he's a Buckeyes fan as well. I wasn't a talk shit to him today, and now I'm definitely doing it. Man, fuck ohio state. That's my statement on that, Lamar. I appreciate that, man. And, dude, it's just one day at a time, Lamar. That's it. Dude, it's one. One day at a time when shit gets real insane. 1 hour at a time is how we.

How we do it. All right, so we're going to do a little bit on, hold on. I got show notes now, you guys. And we're going to do a little bit on, building a relationship with a customer. I I saw, I don't want to take credit to this, but I got the idea because Eric Williams, known him for a long time, he had put a post out there yesterday about building a customer relationship. And, you know, I'm like, you know what? I want to talk about that because I, you know, I've done that numerous times, and I'm in the process of something right now, which, once it's all cleared up, I will provide further insight into it about what being a partner and building a relationship really is. And I think that there's a lot of emphasis put on just, like, printing money, right?

Like, ultimately that's what it boils down to, right? We're all, we're all here to make money. But, you know, a relationship isn't one sided. A relationship isn't just you winning at your customer's expense or at your carrier's expense. And I know that there's a lot of people out there that might operate in that capacity, and I'm not here to talk about that. But I think as a broker, you do have to have that balance, right? Because my carriers are my customers. My carriers are a direct reflection of me and my organization, out there in the market to my shippers, my receivers, and my customers alike, right? So I want to set them up for success from day one, from very first shipment. I want to give them everything that they need to be successful with us.

That's calling, verifying information, making sure the loads ready, making sure that the receivers, what, you know, if there's an appointments, you know, yada, yada, we can go down the list on that. I want to set them up for success because ultimately that reflects onto my customer and building a relationship with them, because anybody can do this job when it's easy, all right? Anybody can go out there cold call a shipper and then post a load, and then you get a truck, and then you make a little bit of money on that. Anybody can do that when it's easy, but very few people. And I might be just pulling this number out of my ass, but I've been on this earth for 38 years, and I feel comfortable saying 99% of people fucking quit. When things get hard, they quit.

When things get challenging, they back into a shell and they wait for the storm to pass. But what you're missing in that moment is what is required to build a relationship. Right? Like, we all go, you know, I look at it like this. Building a relationship with a customer is kind of like building a relationship with your wife, your husband, or, you know, your significant other. The first couple of months, we all know what they're like. They're fucking phenomenal. And then reality sits in. You know, maybe this person isn't as cool as I thought they were, but if you love them and you're committed to them, you kind of find a way to work things out, and then you find a way to work together.

You know, I'm not a relationship expert, and I'm not here to give relationship advice, but for context, I've been with my wife for ten years now, and she's Latina. So if that says anything about my ability to juggle shit. But anyways, on top of that, it is. It's one of those things where, you know, you. You learn to work together. But the greatest strides in relationship building happen when things go wrong. It is, are you holding yourself accountable in those moments? Are you doing everything in your power? And most importantly, are you not blaming somebody else? Because ultimately, my customer, my. Their relationship is with me. All right? It's me. They don't need to hear an excuse about what happened. They need to hear I, as the person that they hired, are dealing with it.

And most importantly, we're going to come to them with a solution. Same thing with our drivers, right? The thing that drives them up the fucking wall is when a broker says, I got to go get that approved for my customer, the carrier is in contract with us, right? As the broker. They're not in contract with your customer. That's. That's not their problem. That. So it's like, I think that's why there's so much resistance that gets built up there, because there's no accountability. It's just easier to try and switch, sweep those things under the rug. Mistakes happen, you guys. I think we all know that mistakes are going to happen, and you just have to own them up. Own your fuck ups. The world gets a lot more simple when you just hold yourself accountable when you mess up and just own it.

Yeah, that was me. I dropped the ball on this one. Here's why. And here's why it won't happen again. I've made a ton of mistakes, and, you know, I say this often, the real value in working with somebody like me is I know more of what not to do than what to do sometimes. And I think that there's more of an upside in knowing what not to do in those situations. But I think, you know, as you're going in, everything's great right away. But then when the real world starts to creep in, that is, you know, maybe your customer's not paying their bills, or maybe there's accessorials that aren't getting paid and stuff like that. And then, you know, you gotta make those decisions. You gotta walk away from those moments, or you gotta, you know, have tough conversations.

That's the side of business that nobody ever talks about, right? If you scroll through social media, especially LinkedIn, you're only going to see how everybody did this great and that great, because it's a highlight reel, right? Nobody wants to talk about all the times that they fucked up, lost customers because they lied and then got caught in those lies and everything else. Nobody talks about that. I try and do my best with that, but I mean, I'm a human being. I fucked up a lot in my career. I fucked up a lot. And that's why I feel so confident when I go into a lot of situations now, because I know my capabilities, I know my limits, I know what we can do, but most importantly, I know what we can't do.

And I don't want to risk somebody's business by taking on something that I know that I can't accommodate. There's a difference between taking a calculated risk and just like recklessly trying to do something just to, and you're putting somebody out there, somebody's business at risk there, you know, and I don't know if a lot of brokers, and again, I can't speak for truckers because I'm not a trucker, but I'm a broker. I've been a broker for 15 years. I look at it like this. I am, I'm in that situation where I, you know, as a business owner, I have a very unique perspective on things when I'm prospecting customers because, you know, I've been fucked over by vendors that I've worked with, right? I've been fucked over for the tune of thousands of dollars.

And that might not seem like a lot of money, but, I'm a startup, I'm a bootstrap fucking founder. Thousands of dollars is the difference between me being able to pay my rent at my office and not, or pay my team or not, right? So it's like, I know the risk in working with people. I understand that there's going to be resistance and there's a vetting process and everything that comes along with it. And I, you know, so it's like I try and let that kind of come out in my prospecting and when I'm talking to people and, you know, most importantly, I don't want to waste anybody's time. And, you know, that post I put out the other day about the positive feedback I got from my cold calls. Guess what? The cold calls I made yesterday, not positive feedback at all.

I got told, we don't work with brokers. Don't ever call us again. Remove us from your list. I got, I got told all of that, but I didn't change my approach. Right. My approach that I put on Monday was the exact same. On Tuesday, it worked out for a couple of the prospects. On Monday, it did not work out with anybody that I talked to yesterday. But again, I'm not going to change who I am because I know how I operate is a great way to operate and I'm going to stick with doing that.

And I think that as I'm going on out there and the selectiveness of people and working with who they are, and then most importantly, I think the greatest quality anybody can apply to their business, whether it's you're an owner, whether you're a broker, or whether you're a trucking company, hold yourself accountable and hold yourself to higher standards, because what you will realize is the overwhelming majority, again, 99% of people out there do not hold themselves to high standards, do not hold themselves accountable. They think business is recycled and you can just go out there and find more. If you hold yourself to those standards, you will stand out in the mat en masse and then that's where the success comes in.

And I think that is the greatest quality to building a relationship out there is holding yourself accountable and doing what is required of you. We all know what is required of us. So that's kind of my thing on that, on building a relationship and, you know, and we're going to continue to talk about that. Right? Like, I'm very fortunate to have a lot of very successful people who are willing to come on this show and break things down for us, you guys. So let me see here. Steve Setka says, I agree 100%. When money is asked from carrier to broker, it's a broker's responsibility, not shipper. That is why it's important to operate with fair and healthy margins. Lamar says, true. I'm still waiting to check for a check to post for my client for a past due invoice at five k is.

It's 86 past, 86 days past due and been losing sleep over this dude. I get it, Mandy. I've been burnt out of that amount of money and other amounts of money. And I know exactly what you mean. But I'll say this, Lamar, nobody fights for your business like you're going to fight for your business and you got to do what it takes, man. And then, you know, I would also look into, again if you. I don't know what your book of business looks like or what your business looks like, Lamar, but, you know, factoring is a great option in those moments to help out with a lot of that stuff, man. And I, if you're interested in talking to anybody, let me know. Just, send me a message on, LinkedIn or YouTube or whatever. And, I can get you in contact with some people.

And. All right, let's go in. I'm going to do a little bit of a market update here. And so just for some. Oh, hold on. Steve says, question. Are you open to speaking about how your faith supports your belief in business and operation? Absolutely, man. I would love to talk about that. I've never hidden behind the fact that I'm a man of God. I believe in God. God is real. But I'm not the type of person who is going to the holier than thou crowd and tries to overly shove it down people's throats or anything like that. I truly, ultimately, when it boils down to it for me, man, it's not my job to convince you that God is real. It's my job to let you know that when you're. Well, when you're ready for him, God will be there for you.

But how that supports my belief in business and operation, you know, again, man, I wasn't always like this, but I truly feel like it's just so much easier to operate within truth than it is to mask behind lies. And it's just a web of lies and, you know, it's. It just reaches a point where you've lied so much, you don't even know what's true anymore. And I just think from an ethical standpoint, man, it's just so much easier to operate and not. And, you know, ultimately the golden rule, you know, treat others as you want to be treated. And I think that, you know, the more you have good intentions behind what you do. And if your intent is true and your intent is good. I think good things are going to happen, and I think you're going to be rewarded for that.

And, you know, I, I want to lead by example. Right. Most importantly, I don't want to just talk about things. I want to. I want to lead, and I want to act upon it because, you know, I truly think most words are meaningless, and I think everybody's actions will always tell a completely different story out there. I really do, man. I think, you know, I was given some really good advice earlier this year, and they said sometimes you just got to watch everything as a silent movie because people will always tell you what you want to hear. But, you know, again, actions will always speak louder than words. And I think that, you know, I always try and put my best foot forward in, being the best person I possibly can. I'm not perfect. I'm. I know I.

I sin every day just like everybody does. And I'm just trying to be the best version of myself, put and build the best company that I possibly can that can positively impact this world and this country to the best of my abilities. You know, I love the United States of America. What it's supposed to stand for, not what it. What I feel like is kind of going on right now, but that's a topic for a different show. And again, I want to be a part of the change. I want to be a reason why things got better, especially in trucking. You know, again, my trucking is. It's the only industry I've ever worked in. It's the only industry I'm ever going to work in. My family's been in this industry since my great grandparents immigrated here from Germany back in the 1930s.

I mean, we're almost at fucking 100 years in the industry, and I want my family's legacy to be tied to positive change, this industry. And that's, you know, what I'm going to focus on. I'm just going to put my best foot forward on that every single day, man. And I. And I, you know, again, I think that's what we can all do, right? We just got to try our best. We got to treat others as we want to be treated. And I think good things are going to happen long term, and that's what I'm committed to out there, man. So. But, I was going to talk a little bit about the market, but I'm going to just bring up some stats here for you guys that I found, that, you know, van loads, load postings out there across everything. We're down.

Line haul rates are down out there. It's dollar 63. Net fuel load to truck ratio is at 3.9, which is also down. Reefer loads are up though, 10% week over week, which is a good thing. Line haul rates are unchanged. That are two dollar 97 net fuel flatbed. The flatbed market, they're down a lot, 5.6%. Line haul rates are down as well to dollar 99, net fuel out there. And you know, there's, again, I think that there is, you know, California is kind of starting to rear itself out there, you guys. So pay attention to the California market when it comes down to drive in and reefer.

So driving a reaper market, a lot of my friends that I talked to who operate in and out of Southern California have said that they are already starting to see exponential price increases on a lane by lane basis. It's not everywhere, but there are your typical dead zones that freight goes into out of Southern California that is starting to see a steady rate increase because there is just nothing coming out of those markets, you guys. So start paying attention to that stuff, right? And again, a lot of us, when we're getting our starts with my costs, with our customers, when we're getting our starts with, you know, newer, you know, again, back to the relationship building, really play to your strengths out there in there, especially right now as the market continues to fluctuate and we will see how things tend to shake out.

But that will be it for today, ladies and gentlemen. We will be back tomorrow. We got a guest coming on tomorrow. We got a guest coming on Friday. Good buddy of mine is coming on Friday. And yeah, we're going to talk about how some drivers can win some more direct freight out there. Tomorrow is going to be about a warehousing company and their expansion out there. And how do you guys get in contact with them about cross border freight? But as always, you guys, if you guys got value in what you heard, subscribe to the show. You guys share it out there to your network, because if you see value, your network's going to see value as well. I appreciate you guys. I love you guys and we'll be talking to you soon.