1096. #TFCP - Prep For 2025 With My Top Sales Books!

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It is the Freight Coach Podcast, the top podcast in transportation coming to you guys every single weekday, 8:30am Pacific, 10:30 Central to break down some industry headlines. But most importantly, you guys provide some actual insight into what you can do with all of this information. If this is your first time tuning in, welcome. This is the real side of freight, ladies and gentlemen. And I say that before every single show. And what I mean by that is I only speak with transportation professionals because at the end of the day, you guys, I want to talk to the right individuals who have done what you're looking to do or who are currently doing what you're trying to achieve so you can take that information, apply it, utilize it and see a meaningful difference in your business and your life. Corey Buin Happy Thirsty Thursday everybody.

Sunny Sharma Good morning Orange Shirt gang. Both of them are on YouTube. You guys, I go live on YouTube so if you're watching this on any other platform, YouTube is where I'm trying to migrate everybody over to. I've just heard that the stream quality is like exponentially better over there and if you Guys do check it out on YouTube. Do your boy a solid. You guys subscribe to the show and you know, as I always share that out as well. Also I'm gonna do a little bit of a rundown here. Weekly newsletter, you guys, the Freightcoach.com if you want to go there. We do a weekly industry newsletter. It drops every single Wednesday. If you want to go to my website, the FreightCoach.com to auto register for it'll prompt you on there. I put a poll out there a couple weeks ago.

Resounding response was don't add me to your. To a newsletter if you have my contact information. So I'm just going to continue to put that out there. I'm just trying to grow all of this media stuff out there, you guys, because I'm simultaneously growing this out with my freight brokerage and I want this media stuff to be solely focused on the business inside of transportation. I think that if anybody goes on social media in today's day and age, it is just an absolute dumpster fire of garbage. And although some of it's funny, I have a business to run. I have a business to build, just like a lot of people who listen to this show. And I like literally have every dollar I've ever made in my life invested in making this grow.

So I'm going to continue to focus on the fundamentals of business. What I'm doing inside of my business that's working, what doesn't work and things like that. And you know, because I got a future to build and I, as funny as some of this stuff is, the bickering, the back and forth, it's just not productive, all right? It is not productive for my business at all. And I'm just going to continue to do what I do and that is to talk top tier professionals inside of this industry from all walks of it. And I'm just going to continue to focus on the education piece of it because I don't know everything. But my guests that I bring on are very intelligent. They're in the day to day, they're building, they're doing all of that.

And that's what we're going to continue to do with this platform that we're building up. Right. Because ultimately I want to help everybody succeed as best as I possibly can. And I am the, the test piece of a lot of what we talk about on this show. Just stuff that I've experienced over my, you know, almost 15 years now inside of the transportation industry. So today's show is going to be a little bit different. I mean, at the end of the year here, I want to talk about kind of some of the things that I've invested in throughout this year that have like, really helped me out. And you know, reading is something that I never really did up until a couple of years ago.

And I have found as somebody who's going out there and bootstrapping their businesses and, you know, you might not have a ton of money to go to conferences, or maybe you might not have a ton of money to get into any entrepreneur groups or anything like that. Picking up books, podcasts, audiobooks, all of this stuff is a phenomenal first step. And you know, realistically, if you just commit to reading like one book a month, you know, I, I pay for Audible every single month. Audible is not associated with this show at all, but it's the best, like 15 bucks a month that I spend because I get one title on there and then I average about a couple of books a month. And then I'll buy one text.

And when I say text, I mean like, you know, one of these books, not like an actual textbook. And I will read that throughout the year. And it's just, it's a very cost effective way to get a ton of great information that you might not have access to out there. You might not like listening to podcasts or anything like that. But if you're listening to this one, obviously you like podcasts. But needless to say, I think those are two very good things to invest in.

Right, so like an Audible account running like 15 bucks a month and then just go into a Barnes and Noble or Amazon if you hate people and want to get it shipped to your house and just going through there and finding some good books based on people who've built businesses or succeeded in sales and, you know, I think it's kind of getting increasingly hard to find actual people who've built real things putting information out there because it kind of gets bombarded by people who have clever marketing and everything else. So I went through this year and I'm about to Finnish probably my 30 something book for the year, which is literally the most I've ever read in my entire life. But there's a.

I've deduced it down to a couple of books that I think are very effective regardless of where you're at in business. But even if you want, like you're just looking for a good book to start, you know, maybe to get something to read here over the Christmas break because, you know, like, let's be honest, you guys, between the 23rd and the second, it's going to be minimal work being done out there. It naturally slows down. So how do you maximize your time that you might have to get the most ROI out of it? One really good book that I'm going to lead in with. I've talked about this on the show throughout the year. I think everybody should read it. It is how to Make a Few Billion Dollars. Brad Jacobs's book that's on there.

I don't know if he sells it direct on his website. I bought it off of Amazon, but I think that book is it. It really changed the way that I'm going to be approaching things kind of as I grow and scale my company. I do think that this is a book that would, might best suited for you to read possibly later on in your. In your career or in your entrepreneurship journey or maybe if you're just looking for a good book to start. You know, it is a great book because obviously there's no denying that Brad has built very successful companies. He has built multiple billion dollar companies. He sold them all off. He's been through the wringer. So this one for me, you know, I, I got.

Obviously Brad built xpo, which then was rxo, and there's a bunch of them that are associated with it. But I was, when I had first started in the industry, he was, they had just bought us out and it was like their XPO second acquisition I think at the time. And you know, we got to have some firsthand experience in working with Brad early on and kind of building some stuff up within XPO in the early days. And it was crazy to read this book, you know, 10 years after I, or, you know, 12 years after I had personally experienced that everything that he had talked about in this book, like I actually lived that. So it was kind of awesome from that standpoint.

But, you know, it boils down to, you know, it's, you know, his approach on leadership, decision making, navigating challenges and everything else. And you know, he talks about a vision in there and that's, you know, having a clear vision on where you're going and then, you know, identifying, you know, the opportunities inside of the market that you're operating in. Right. So again, inside of transportation and I talk about this is, you know, have that vision. What are you going to go after? Choose your niche and stick after that. And then like, where is that needed? And I've identified this in building up my brokerage right now. Is is there is an ever clear need for specialized brokers. Right. Like the jack of all trades days I think are done at least from an opening sales tactic.

I have personally noticed that when I'm out there cold calling shippers, the more direct I am about why I'm calling and the mode that I'm calling about, the more of an opportunity that there is to speak with them. And then you know he talks about risk taking and that you know, taking calculated risks and embracing innovation, you know, to drive growth and stuff like that. And you know there are some pretty well publicized things that they talk about in the book as well about you know, like when their stock price crashed essentially. And I, I could be wrong on that but like XPO bought back a bunch of their own stock at that time and then they turned it into like a $4 billion profit or something ridiculous like that. But it was, you know, it was risk taking for sure.

And then you know, one thing that I really enjoyed about that is he talks about the system and I think that Brad has done a very good job of showing that you just need a winning system. And then that system is applicable to most industries. Right. Because you know, like with United Waste I think is what it was and then United Rentals and then obviously within XPO and now he's doing within QXO is they have a system that they follow and they stick with it on literally everything that they've done. So I think it's only a matter of time before I think QXO is the next one here within building materials before QXO is churning out those exact same results.

But you know, you look at what he's doing today and this all started back in like the 1970s when he first started his own company. So you know again, public school math here, that's like over a 50 year career here essentially. Or is the, the trials and errors of all of that to get to this point. So I think this is a must read book for people in any industry, especially with inside of the transportation industry because it's not very often that you see somebody write a book like that who kind of built their business up through the industry and became very successful inside of freight. You know, just wait around 20 years. I'll be doing this at some point I'm sure. So we'll read my book at that time. Cody Kaler last audiobook was how to Make a Few Billion Dollars it's gold.

Even as a leader and not a business owner, I would agree, man. It is. And then another. So, like, say you don't want to read the book at all for whatever reason, which I think is dumb, but you should. Obviously Cody said he listened to it on audiobook, but you guys can hit it up. Go to the Founders podcast is. It's just Founders. It's David Senra. I don't know you guys probably. Yeah, there you go. He breaks this book down on there. This is another I would put up in there. If you're looking for a good podcast to listen to, I would listen to this. And this is also where I've gotten a lot of my books that I'm going to be reading in 2025. I got it off of the founders podcast, so I would check that out.

He breaks down Brad's book on there very well. Next book, and I've talked about this on the show as well, that I would highly recommend is the Way of the Wolf by Jordan Belfort. You can say whatever you want about that, dude. From a personal standpoint, it's a very effective book. I personally thought this book actually helped organize my brain more on business development than I have been able to personally do over my, you know, almost 15 years in the industry. Here he talks about the straight line selling, the straight line system inside of there. It's his proprietary. I don't know if it's proprietary, but, you know, I'm not a lawyer, so I just talk. The system it's about, you know, selling that emphasizes, you know, controlling the conversation and leading it in a direction that ultimately closes the deal.

And I, you know, I found it very applicable to what we are, what I'm going through in building my book of business, right? Because, like, I came out here a couple of years ago and we started out, obviously, we're an agent with spi and, you know, they took a chance on me because, like, yeah, I had industry experience, but, like, I didn't have an existing book of business. I had no customers. I had, like, my old customers that I had worked with that I had a chance to call, but, like, that didn't lead to anything, right? So it's like I have literally had to rebuild this from. I have had to rebuild this from. From scratch, right? So went from $0 in revenue to, you know, we've since surpassed a million dollars in total sales over, you know, 23 months now, 24 months now.

But it was all new business in a. As everybody says out there, the Worst freight market in human history and everything else that you want to put. So this book very much helped clarify a lot of the. The internal hiccups that I've always had about sales. Right. So it's like a lot of what I'm doing now is. Is all right. Even though it might be a no. Right. Because they're not adding. Adding anybody. How do I get a yes out of that phone call? I think we've always been in a. In a position to where you're calling somebody, you're getting a voicemail, you might get them on the phone, they're not interested. But now I can go in there and find out because again, back to that niche. I do full truckload. I primarily move open deck transportation. Right.

So it's like, how do I get that information out of them? And then an extra bonus on top is how do I find out if they're utilizing brokers, which we all know that they are, but I like to know that on the front end as well. And then I get that yes. And then I'm going in to a follow up knowing that I got a yes. It wasn't a yes. Here's all of our business. But it's a yes in the moment right now. And then it's an opening for the next time we reach out. And this book in particular really breaks it down. It is a definite sales manual out there. It's, I think it was like know again, 15, 20 bucks on Amazon. I would check that book out.

If there's any book that I would start reading, I would start with that one right there. Especially as you might be planning for 2025 on business development that goes on. Yeah, Cody 100. He is definitely one of the best salesmen in history. Sunny. I will do that. Actually. I actually really like that idea about putting the list out all the books that I had read. So I would check that book out. Now the next one that I did today is the next book I would actually recommend in this unison is. It is called unfuck yourself how to get out of your head and into your life. And this is by Gary John Bishop. This is another. If you know if we're going to go in priority of read here I would go. You could even interchange this with the straight line system.

This was another one that really kind of helped clarify a lot of things for me because I'm just a regular dude ultimately, you guys, I'm just out here trying to figure out my life. Just like every single one of you. I don't have it all figured out, far from it. But this book really helped me. Kind of pushed me through some of the darker times over these last couple of years. It helped made a lot of things a little bit more clear for me. It's in, you know, shorter chapters. It's a quick read. You could probably get this done in an afternoon if you really wanted to push through it at day at most. But, you know, it talks about taking responsibility and then it, you know, talking about personal growth accepts with the full responsibility of your life and your choices.

I am a firm believer and I've said this on this show numerous times. I don't care what goes on in the freight market, the macroeconomics and all of that. I pay attention to it, but that does not stop me from doing what's required to build my business up. Right? So I took responsibility that, like, if I want this business to work, it's on me, all right? I don't have any venture capital funding. I don't have a rich family member that can come in and bail my fucking ass out, anything. It's all on me. And I like that. And I've taken responsibility for that. And then, you know, another very big point in this book is stop making excuses, all right? That one really, it really gets you. At least it got me.

Because when you're doing stuff like you, there's always work to be done, right? Like when you're, when. Whether you're building a business, a book, a business, or there's always work to be done, but we always know that we're pushing off the work that needs to be done with busy work, you know, that's less confrontational or anything else. And you can have a direct correlation of building your book of business, all right? Cold calling. I just put a post out there this morning. Most effective way to sell freight. All right? I tried email, I tried everything else. Don't blow up my inbox. I don't give a what you're selling. We are sticking with cold calling and site visits because that is the most effective way. But again, I was making excuses, all right? I was making excuses. Oh, this is it, this is it.

And then frankly, what it boiled down to, I just didn't want to do the work, all right? I didn't want to do the work that I knew was required that came along with it. And then this also talks about your inner dialogue, you know, like, I'm very big on self talk. I'm very big on a lot of that stuff. I'm very big on manifestation, all right? I know that you can speak shit into existence because I've done it over these last couple of years. I've surprised myself here a few times because, like, I. I truly believe that. And then, you know, it's also talking about, you know, a commitment to taking action. All right? You need to take action. I talk about this a lot. Action will cure all of your anxiety. All right?

If you're just like me, because I've had cold call anxiety before, I'm not afraid to admit it. I've had anxiety before on going out and doing shit that I know I needed to be done. But guess what? Every time I just said it and did it never turned out to be as bad as I had made up in my head. So when you can take that action and run with that is one of those situations where I truly feel you can actually really separate yourself from everybody else. Because, like, you just doing the work, knowing what you do and what's required, that builds the real confidence that you need to keep pushing through. And then obviously talking about mental toughness and resilience and everything else.

And, you know, I am a firm believer, if you are where I was a few years ago, work on your mental a little bit, right? Have a better understanding that you are the one who is actually stopping you from achieving anything. Because, like, frankly, harsh reality is nobody else gives a. You know, like, really nobody else gives a. They have their own problems to worry about. We. We think everybody's worried about us, but they're not. They don't give a. Not saying you don't matter as a person. I've been told by my attorney I need to drop that in there. But people care about you. Yes. But when it comes down to it, you got to be mentally tough to really go through a lot of this stuff.

So that book, Unfuck Yourself by Gary John Bishop, another good one that you could definitely knock out in a day. If you're looking for an iconic book, just to read Made in America by Sam Walton. It's an autobiography of Sam Walton. That book fundamentally changed my life. It really did. It fundamentally changed my life on everything. When it came down to what we're going to be doing in the future with our future employees and everything else, I would. And then also, if, like, Walmart's the biggest company, I might be like the biggest company in the world. It's up there, right? But that was all started out a little Bentonville, Arkansas, little old Arkansas in that area.

And that scene where that came from, seeing what he did, and it was all about controlling costs and everything else and how if you can control your costs, your customers can save money, and. And then they come back and they'll buy. It's a fantastic book. I would definitely read that one. I don't want to go into too much of it because it. It, to me, it just breaks down everything. And. And Sam Walton is like, in my opinion, one of the greatest Americans up there. He. He might be up there on the. The Mount Rushmore of greatest Americans of all time, because what he did and what he built, the odds that he overcame in that book is insane. And I would recommend anybody, if you want to understand a little bit more about Walmart, I would check that book out.

I loved reading it. And then the. The final book that I'm going to talk about here. So this one, and this is another one that was featured on Founders Podcast as well. So if you want a breakdown of it on there, I think it is episode. I don't remember what it was, but it's definitely on there. And again, I'm not associated with the Founders Podcast. I've just found it here recently, and I really, really enjoy it because it's a break from politics. All right? Everything. Every other podcast that I listen to out there is about politics right now. And I get it. I already voted. I know where I stand. I don't need. I know how we are in a lot of areas. I don't need to hear about it every single day. So the Founders Podcast has been a welcome repro.

Grieve from everything. But this next book, though, is called Zero to One Notes on Startups and how to Build the Future by Peter Thiel. And Peter Thiel is. I forget what I think he might have been from PayPal days. I actually, I feel bad for not even remember. Here, let me. Let me do a quick Google. Yeah, here we go. He was a founder of PayPal. Excuse me. Yeah, and definitely this was a very good book, right? Because, like, I think we see a lot of situations right now where, you know, people get, you know, especially a couple of years ago, people got like, napkin investments, right? Like, hey, I have this idea. Cool, here's $10 million. Or at least that's what it seemed. And this one really breaks down about getting from zero to one.

And, you know, as somebody who's built their business up over that mark is. It's so much harder than you think. And this book breaks all of it down, right? And. But, like, One of the big things here, you guys, the big overarching theme that at least from these books in particular. But you know, obviously it talks about, you know, and I'm sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself, I'm excited about this one. But you know, it's talking about vertical progress or horizontal progress, you know, creating something entirely new or expanding on what exists. And businesses should focus on 0 to 1, creating novel products or services that break new ground rather than copying or incrementally improving existing solutions. And then talks about monopoly and competition. The importance of tech power, of building a strong team, definite and indefinite plans.

The secret to success that was going on that Teal believes that every successful startup is based on a secret, unique insight approach that hasn't been discovered. And that the entrepreneur should identify and explore these secrets, creating solutions that others should have. And then, you know, this is another one where I could go, I could probably do an entire episode on this one. But this book, Brad's book, the Way of the Wolf, and I mean even unfuck yours, all of these books all boil down to one thing in my opinion, the importance of systems. And this is something that coming from somebody who doesn't write anything down or historically didn't write anything down, this is what gets you from that.

I mean really any level in business, whether you're getting started, getting that system, identifying what is that system that you can build off of and scale off of, but that's what really gets you going after you've kind of like got the ball rolling a little bit is the best way to put it right. Is, is the importance of systems, I think is everything. That's what takes most people from their first dollar in revenue to their hundred millionth and billionth dollar of revenue is the systems inside of their business that they create. And a lot of it is through trial and error. Right. Again out in the real world, you guys, nobody gives you a list of anybody to call that has all of this business. None. You have to create it. You have to create your own system.

And then this is where the R D phase comes in. In a service based business like freight brokerage, you got to make a shitload of calls, you guys, you got to see what hits, what doesn't hit, and then what hits at a higher percentage than others. But mainly you got to do the work and then you got to document all of that stuff. Stuff. And then I, I talked about this when I was at dat, speaking about this is, you know, creating customer profiles and everything. There should be a system that people should follow, that they knew what to do and everything. And I was talking to a friend here recently who said, yeah, that's exactly what I did. In my startup, we even have a system for how to reload paper into the copier and ink into the printer and like that.

Like, everything's documented. And I think if you start doing that into, like, day one, your life is going to be so much easier as you grow and scale and, you know, and especially in today's day and age with. With AI. All right, this is where I'm a fan of tech, where you can drop this entire episode. I can. Into a transcriber, and it spits everything out. So if you don't have the time to sit there and type everything out, you can use this, record yourself talking on your iPhone, and then you can build that out like that, where it's like, hey, step one, do this, step two, do that. You can take that audio file, drop that in a transcriber, and it'll have a document for you. So, you know, again, you guys, systems is everything.

And I think that if you can do that and you can implement that from day one, that is probably my biggest takeaway from a lot of the books that I've read overall about business and everything else is just that. So the books that I would recommend, if you want, start with number one. Here is the un Yourself book. Number two, the Way of the Wolf. Number three, I would do Made in America, how to Make a Few Billion Dollars Zero to One by Peter Thiel. And, yeah, that's where I would go with that. And then I'm gonna take Sonny's idea. I'm actually after I. On the.

Probably the week of the 30th, when I do my weekly newsletter that week, because we're not going to put one out on Christmas because, like, for sakes, nobody wants to see my take when they're with their family. But I'm gonna put that out there. I'm gonna put my read list out there of what I read this year. And one thing that I do as well is if I listen to it on audiobook, I'll buy the. The written copy. And that actually helps me. Like, it's almost like reading a new book when you do audio and then you read the actual text format of it. But that's going to be it for today, you guys. I got a guest coming on tomorrow. We're just going to continue to break down because, you know, again, I got a business to build.

Just like all of you, but that's going to be it, 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. As you know, we're on Apple, Spotify, YouTube. Just look for the Freight Coach podcast. It will show up on everything. Just do your boy a solid, subscribe and share. I appreciate you guys. I love you guys, and we'll be talking to you soon.