Came back with a bank window down yelling now money anything hey oh Got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when I'm getting to the back hey Got the foot on the gas pedal to the metal when the lane moving fast hey Let them all cross if they hate then let them hate them Make a bigger balls hey.
What is up ladies and gentlemen? We are back. We are live. 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, 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. Happy Thursday everybody. And today's guest truly embodies all of that, right, like it's, it's very rare that I get to talk to somebody who has been on multiple sides of the industries grown, excelled at all of that and just generally eat, sleeps and breathes transportation. So with that being said, I have my Good friend, the VP of Carry Experience at Truck Stop, Mr. Todd Waldron on the show today. Todd, thank you so much for joining me, sir.
Chris, what's going on, man? It's good to be here. I appreciate it.
Now I'm pumped to have you here and you know, especially now with, you know, I'm excited for what you got going on here at Truck Stop as well. But you know, to kind of give a little refresher out there, man. Can you. How did you get your start in transportation, man? Like, what brought you into trucking?
Yeah, absolutely. So I got my start out of College at C.H. Robinson. So I was at, I went to school at Minnesota State University, Mankato. Business degree, had an opportunity to go on an internship at a uniform distributor company, cleaning and distributor company was a suit and tie internship, more pay but a much more formal management training path. And then I went into C.H. Robinson. I had a friend's dad that worked there, went and saw just the energy of the low cubicles, footballs flying around and just the fast paced energy and I was like that's the place I want to be. That's the team aspect in nature. So yeah, started out in brokerage sales, carrier sales from the west to northeast, slinging produce freight.
So yeah, cut my teeth in that and then did some account management and some other things there and that was really the catapult into a great now 16 year career.
Yeah. And you know I, I love the fast paced environment about freight is like what aligns with my add, right. Like I need that change coming at me at all times. Right. Like I was just talking about this on the show yesterday with Harish, with Augment is I'm like man, I need different every day. Like boring is just sitting there and doing the same monotonous tasks day in and day out. And that's what I love the most about transportation is it just, it never stops. Right. Like, and there's so much opportunity that's out there but you know, it's also deciphering what's the right opportunity for your business, how do you want to build your business. And you know, and then there's a whole other component of it as well on the carrier side, right. Like how do you actually balance that out?
Because like yeah, as a broker you need to make money but your carrier needs to make money as well in this equation. And you know, it's getting and kind of building that longevity up with it. So it's like how are you leveraging that Todd, that experience in you know, growing a book of business as a broker, you know, working on the asset side of things as well. But then now kind of working in the carrier experience, you know, side of things. How are you kind of balancing all of that out to bring it down to your guys as customers?
Yeah, absolutely. I mean tied to those two points together that you made is one, the diversity of experience available in transportation. And so like as the foundation, being able to start at the best freight transportation brokerage and learn what building solid carrier relationships look like versus old school brokerage that seem to be a lot looser in relationships and accountability.
And see that company that really pioneered a lot of that, the way they handle relationships and then getting a chance to go start a branch brokerage branch for JB Hunt up in Minnesota, working in technology, digital marketing, single source sales and then running a transportation, a trucking company with 115 drivers with a brokerage as well, just understanding driver and carrier interactions from a variety of different levels and even below that understanding the individual people and drivers, behaviors, needs, desires, wants and how they like to Interact with their carrier company and also with brokerages and shippers just sets the foundation for now being able to step into technology, facing company and role at a long standing company like Truck Stop and to be able to apply that to how we learn, develop and innovate our technology across our platforms.
So I look at the care experience, it's looking at mapping out the journey from the marketing side of things and where we first interact with customers down to the signup and down to the interaction in each one of our softwares and systems and how do we bridge and really create a seamless workflow for carriers and meet them where they're at and provide the things that they need and desire and help continue to innovate for them and provide value to them. So yeah, it's been great. It's been such a foundational base to get me to where I am today and just learning how to understand and communicate with drivers and carriers has been a key to success for sure.
Yeah, it's, you know, I, I feel like as a broker at times and I know I'm guilty of this, right? Like I feel like we make it way harder on ourselves than we truly need to at the end of the day, you know what I mean? And especially when it comes to that carrier relationship and you know, when the market shifts next there's going to be an onslaught of content out there from the broker community about how we need to focus on relationships and it's like that, that's not necessarily happening right now from their perspective. They're not necessarily thinking about the long term. And I'll always use myself as an example. I didn't always think about the long term.
When I was building a book of business, I was more like how do I get as much money as I possibly can today and not even think about tomorrow? And now as a business owner though, I need revenue 12 months out of the year. And I want to create as much stability as humanly possible in an unstable industry that is transportation. There's so much stuff that is out there, whether it's weather, traffic breakdowns, delays, all of this stuff that can hit you. But it's like how do you create stability? And for me it is truly utilizing in network carriers, it's finding them where they want to run as opposed to where I want them to run for me. But most importantly, setting them up for success.
You know, for me it's like I've never received a bill of lading from a shipper that didn't have weight, commodity Piece counts, load requirements, addresses. I've never had any of that happen. And if you have, I can't speak to that. But from my perspective, I want to give my drivers everything that I have because that's going to set them up for success. And if they're set up for success, ultimately my customer downstream is going to want to continue to work with me because there's none of those small hiccups that I feel like are truly inexcusable as a broker.
Yep. Yeah, absolutely. And it's, you know, as you look at the foundation of those relationships, the hardest thing in transportation and in freight brokerage particular is managing the competing priorities. So we have the shipper's priorities, we have the carrier's priorities, and then we have our own internal priorities that whether it's the compensation structure and how we incent and motivate profitability or margins or other things happening within the business as far as the amount of resources and time we have to put against shipment coverage. And so as you balance all of those priorities, it gets incredibly difficult to do the right things for the long term success of the organization.
And so often we get hung up in short term priorities and short term profitability and short term margin success and load success that we forget that giving up a little bit today will really result in a lot stronger, better success in sustainability as an organization. And so as we get stuck in this rut of the chaos of operations and things that are happening and moving the freight and the next thing that hits your desk, it's difficult to step back and engineer this process and operations as well as the relationships and margin negotiation that can really impact negatively the relationships that we have with carriers.
And so it's like stepping back and saying, where do I want to be in a year as a broker and what's the decision in the moment that my team and individuals need to understand that leads to that the hardest thing people coming into transportation brokerage struggle with is that there's no black and white, it's all gray. And you can say, yes, cover that load with that carrier today, tomorrow they go and do the same thing, or what looks like the same decision. And you said, no, we should have done this because X, Y and Z. So it feels like this constant moving ball. But there's multiple things that impact that decision and make a difference. Dan and Dale, how are you.
Out there assessing, you know, the carriers that you work with, you know, and because looks like for me it's you know, I, I understand what you're saying, you know, like if you're always winning no matter what, as a broker, for example, and like you're refusing to take the necessary losses on loads, at times you might be given freight back because, oh our, you know, whatever, insert any excuse in there if you're ever doing that, you know, again, I feel like your days are numbered with your customers and your carriers. Right? Like, you truly need to look at it as like, hey, at the end of the day you're gonna have to take some Ls to service the account that's out there, you know, because if you quoted a load wrong, it's not your customer's fault. At the end of the day, that's on you.
You need to take that accountability that comes along with it. But you know, from a successful carrier relationship that's out there, you know, and because I'm convinced it's a market shift is going to happen way sooner than later. And especially with a lot of legislation that's being passed right now, you know, it's all to be determined, but I think like there could be a bullwhip effect that's going to be happening sooner than later depending on how far people push it. So how have you navigated a successful carrier relationship through a market shift?
Yeah, great question. I think the first thing is understanding the expectations of your customer, the shipper and your carrier that you interact with and what are their expectations, the way they behave in a market. Just because a carrier operates out of the last minute spot market and gets the highest spot rates and tends to feel like they're gouging you in a tight market doesn't mean that they're a bad person or a bad carrier. They just have a certain place that they're gonna fit in. So I'm not gonna take it personally, but I know that's how I'm gonna interact with them. So there's carriers that can be great service providers and they provide a good on time service, but yet they wait for the higher rates and that's just the way they want to manage their business.
And so then the other might be someone who's desired to have a long term contractual or handshake agreement as to the rate in lanes that they're gonna run for you. And so you want to have them in your routing guide and relationship tool as such. And so it's really about understanding where are your boundaries that you will not work with. So you define those in a tool like rmis where you can sit there and set your minimum requirements or boundaries and then you have your exception categories of okay in certain situations we're able to accept this level of requirement and then you have your strong regular carrier base that you work with. And so it's really about coming at that strategically and not and knowing what the boundaries is so that you can communicate and articulate that to your team.
The struggle becomes if you draw hard lines and hard no's in the process without the proper escalation approvals and also explaining the why behind it to your people brokering and in building the carrier relationships. And so as the market and industry shifts and changes I think it's about having those conversations with your carrier in preparation for that and saying, you know, I want to understand before the change happens what's this relationship supposed to be to you? What do you expect from it? What do you desire it to be? And so we can set those expectations then as the market shifts. And if you get burned, same goes with the shipper relationship. If you get burned and someone doesn't live up to those expectations, then you learn from that. But, but it's given people a chance.
It's the fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me scenario. That's like don't not trust people. Give them a chance. Trust them with the reasonable information you have and then communicate when expectations might not being getting met.
Yeah. And I mean you guys put out a study here. This came out pretty much right between, right before the TIA conference. And you know, trust, I'm bringing it up because it is kind of like trust is the literally top priority for brokers that were out there. You know, from your guys's press release here, you know Kendra Tucker, your guys CEO said, you know, we understand the critical balance that brokers have to strike between speed and security. In today's freight market trust has never been more important. Which is why you guys at Truck Stop focus on developing solutions that build stronger, more reliable partnerships that minimize the opportunity for fraud. And then in fact Truck stop saw a 57% decrease in customer reports reported fraud from Q1 of 24 to Q1 of 2025.
And you know, obviously trust is thrown out there just as much as relationships, right. Like you have to trust, you know, your partners. But like trust is a two way street at the end of the day, right. Like you have to trust that you're doing and I'm talking about the broker, the individual. You have to trust that you're doing your job to your fullest abilities on every transaction. Calling ahead to the shippers, verifying the products ready, calling ahead to the receiver, verifying that they have the right equipment to offload it, that they're expecting the free rate. You know, doing your job to set your carrier up for success. Because at the end of the day, no matter how you want to spin it, they are a direct reflection of you as a provider to your customers.
So why wouldn't you go above and beyond to kind of build that up? And I understand there's a whole other side to this equation, but we're not here to talk about that. We're here to talk about you holding yourself accountable to do your job, to ensure that you're setting all parties up for success.
Yes, absolutely. And going above and beyond to do that. And it can be a challenge when business priorities are making it difficult to do the little things. That's strong service related, but taking that extra step initiative to check the boxes and make sure that you're double confirming whether it's pickup numbers or appointments or making that a red carpet experience for the carrier. But the other aspect is how you react when something goes wrong or you mess up with or you make a mistake and how you handle that. Do you run and hide, avoid the carrier, not answer the phone, try to just brush it under the rug or blame somebody else. But when you step up and take accountability and communicate when the expectations weren't met, that's going to really reinforce trust.
There might be pain in the initial interaction, but it reinforces trust in the long term having that vulnerability, ownership and putting in a plan to repair it and fix it. But yeah, you have to be putting your carrier relationships on par with the way you manage your customer relationships because they're just as integral and important to the business and relationship.
So, so with, you know, obviously fraud is, you know, it's rampant, right? Like it's all over the news, it's all over a bunch of stuff. But you know, how are you guys working to help highlight the carriers who are doing the right thing? You know, because you guys are working with carriers and brokers all the time, you know, amongst others. But I, I look at that as, you know, there, there's an opportunity out there where it's like, hey, how do we highlight the guys who are doing the right thing, they're running the right operation, that they're trying to survive, that they might not get the opportunities out there because there is so much that's kind of like bogging them down or maybe there's people out there who have too stringent of requirements to get set up and haul somebody's freight.
Yep, yeah we see that. I mean there's a lot of things that we're doing to provide insights for the carrier to understand the broker's behavior and days to pay. And same with the broker understanding the carriers, you know, profile and makeup. One of the cool things that we've, were just released is the broker authority age filter. And so we got a, a driver came on after we kind of launched this on YouTube and showed an awesome video of just how beneficial that is for him. Because one of the biggest opportunity areas is the new authority carriers that are good actors, they want to start building their business but because the rampant fraud over the last two years people have really toned down. They feel like there's an increased risk with new authority carriers.
So what we're doing is elevating the brokerage expectation to the carrier. And so now a broker can go in and enter their age authority filter. If they're an RMIS customer, it's defaulted to their RMI settings or if they're not then they can go in and have their primary user enter their requirements for how long a carrier must have had their authority. So now carriers can save a ton of time by filtering. The ones that are working will work with someone with their authority on the load board. So now I'm not calling a bunch of different brokers and only being told I don't work with somebody that's only got six months authority or whatever it is so they can whittle, get a lot closer to the ones that they can actually work with and building that relationships with the appropriate size and requirement provider.
Yeah, it's, you know, dude, this is like one of the things that is just not spoken about enough in starting a business is truly like you can do all the right things but like you just might not be in business long enough. You know, like I look at it from like a business credit perspective.
You're going to have to put a lot of personal guarantees out there early on in your business until you establish it long enough and you have healthy enough financials to where they will only loan directly to the business and not the business plus a personal guarantee and you're going to be faced with that, you know, and that's probably, that's one of the hardest lessons that you're going to have to learn is that sometimes it's Not a knock on your abilities, your capabilities, but that's just how the system is, you know, and it's not just trucking. This is business as a whole. You're going to have to jump through a lot of hoops because it is an inherent risk for anybody to set up a new vendor or provider on anything. And brokers, I want you to pay really close attention to this.
Sometimes it has nothing to do with your abilities as a broker to shippers. They just do not want to take on the risk of setting up a brand new provider or a brand new vendor who might not be around in six months. It doesn't matter how healthy your financials are, there is a risk that comes along with it. Right. And I'm bringing up a lot of this because I want to help people deal with like the personal effect of it. Because Todd, you know me pretty well. I can run hot at times. But, but at the end of the day, I understand that it's not Chris Jolly, the person that is being told no, it's the business. Right? So it's like it's kind of drawing that hard line in the sand. But it's also an opportunity for you to take these necessary steps.
And there are companies out there, like you guys who are helping these small carriers really try and separate themselves earlier on in the process to where you can get noticed faster. And you know, rest assured, not all brokers out there have a million hoops for you to jump through and that they're only going to use you one time. Right. Like I, as a broker and I measure our success by how many times we reload carriers, you know, and if we find you out there and we're, and you're doing a great job for us, I don't want to change that. Right. Like we're texting drivers that hold freight forest last week asking them about loads that we have going next week. Right. Like literally we have freight picking up on Monday. We're reaching out to these guys. We started yesterday.
Hey, are you going to be in this area on this day? This is the load that we have. We can send it over to you right now. I want them to know that because there is a lot of freight that moves that is on the, you know, that's behind the scenes, you know, that doesn't necessarily make it out there because, and I want the, you know, the people with the newer authorities to know about this because the right brokers are planning ahead. They don't want to go out there. Like if you're doing a good job for me, I want to go direct to you. I don't want to go and search for any other capacity out there.
Yep, yep, absolutely. And it's in it. And it comes down to it doesn't matter the size of the company, the number of trucks, that matters to a certain extent. But what matters is the intent and heart of the individual and the desire. And you can only get that through personal interaction via phone call or in person visit. Zoom is great, but that's one of the risks. With the increase of digital freight matching and digital digitization. It's a good thing and a positive, but we have to find unique different ways to engage relationally because just having a negotiation or even over email or digitized relationship is you can't get a feel for that individual you're working with, which is at the crux of the relationship.
It's just talking to them on their phone, understanding their challenges, hearing the way they talk about their passion for moving freight and their intent in moving freight and what they care about and how they balance family versus work. Just that tells you so much more than any of the data that you're going to see from any of the data sources. And so a lot of times data can get misrepresented or disjointed. So understanding the context and the person behind it is such a great step and truly understanding, okay, am I willing to take on a numerical risk or what the numbers show is a risk because I have this additional pieces of information about this person and so that's, you know that's what really helps just build this core foundational relationship.
Yeah and dude, I, I believe in just always picking up the phone man. Like literally yesterday I like my favorite feature that you guys have on your guys's load board is the views and shows like what carriers are actually clicking in on there. Because you know I move some specialized stuff at the end of the day and it's not to standard and it's the ability to call them, just to vet them. You know, like we picked up a, you know, a shipment this morning, needed a low boy with a winch, needed self loading, self offloading capabilities on this trailer.
It's not exactly common but on side of your guys's, you know, load board you guys have the ability to put all of that information in there and the right carriers were clicking on it and I was out there and to develop that and then obviously I used it as you know, the truck search tool as well. Because you know, again, like I've never done this at scale, you know, so it's like I'm not going to tell my existing customer who I've been working with for three years now, hey, no, go find somebody else, I'll figure it out. Right? Like I, I had an idea for it, but that views thing, I honestly man, I think that's the, one of the best features. It might be simple, you know, and your guys's developers are like, come on bro, really? That's it?
But like to me, seeing who it is because like at the end of the day man, I want to get that feel. I want to have a conversation with them. I want that carrier to know that, hey, I know what I'm talking about. I didn't just post this up, you know what I mean? Like, hey, let's have a real conversation. Because I again, like, I want to build that relationship over time. Are you running this lane often? Is this just a one off move for you? Are you looking to be here all the time? Because that's how you develop all of this stuff. And then when you take this, and especially with specialized equipment, guess what? I just developed, ladies and gentlemen, an ability to go develop more business inside of that vertical that not a lot of people are actually going after.
And then when you have that carrier base that's out there that you know, has the right equipment, they have the right capabilities to execute upon that freight, I'm going to go out there and develop more customers based off of that. So that's why it's like for me, utilizing your guys's tool, it's a multi pronged approach for me. It's not just posting it's like when you can get into that specialized equipment or you know what, maybe it is a standard drive in or reefer load and you're able to make an outbound call, have a conversation with that carrier, find out, hey man, actually I'm in St. George, Utah seven times a week with, you know, and multiple times and these are the lanes that we turn and then you can go and deliver that consistency to your customer. Because ultimately that's what people want.
They want consistent freight. Whether it's the carrier or the customer, you want that consistency. And as a broker you can utilize a tool like Truck Stop to go out there and develop that.
Yeah, well, and that's such a benefit for the carrier too because you build that relationship and then the broker becomes your sales agent in a sense and selling for you. So you find somebody you trust and that you can go to this as a true partnership and try to increase both of your books of business together. And so it's like, that's at the foundation of like this evolution of brokerage is people and the building, you know, where broker used to be taboo from both the shippers and the carrier's perspective, but now there's new tensions in this relationship. Yes, but there's also a lot of great progress in the fact that once people get to know and understand and trust the motivations of the broker and get to know the humans, it's like that they're interacting with, that's who they do business with.
You hear that often of people wanting to only work with a certain person. It's because that person's proven that they're going to be honest, they're going to do what they say they're going to do when they, you know, treat each other with respect and work together.
Yeah, it's, you know, and I think ultimately that's what is at the forefront of my mind at all times. You know, like again, I only speak from Chris Jolly's experience. I try and use this platform to put best practices out there that everybody can use and apply inside of their business. And you know, this is just what's worked for me. You know, again, I, I jokingly say I've only moved about three truckloads in my career but at the end of the day I, I've, I apply this stuff. Right. Like I don't just sit up here and talk like this is how I'm building my brokerage. This is how we are going out there and developing these carrier partnerships. Because you know, it might be easy to cover freight right now, but it's not always going to be that way.
And you're going to have that ability to make outbound calls. You might have to make 50, 60 outbound calls just to cover a load for break even or at a loss if you're lucky in a market that is not like right now. And I feel like a lot of people have short term memories but at the end of the day there's tools that are out there that are at your disposal that have a list of carriers who are running the lanes and they have the right equipment type and you need to maximize that. Right. And, and I truly hope people take this time before it flips from a somebody who wants to see everybody succeed perspective, I hope you guys take this time to hone your skills and making outbound calls from a competitor standpoint, I Hope you don't.
I hope you guys wait too long and then I'm going to be in your customers here to, to get that freight at the end of the day. But Todd, I, I appreciate your time, man. I want to be mindful of it. We're already at that mark and most of my listeners have day jobs just like you do. So how does anybody reach out to you to find out more about what you got going on?
Yeah, you can connect with me on LinkedIn. Otherwise, Todd Waldron@truckstop.com or truckside.com for our website. But yeah, I love to connect with people at the Broker Carrier Summit this week, Tappa next week and then freight fraud symposium the following week. So I'll be out and about and just love connecting with the different sides of freight and keep trying to make this industry improve and be more enjoyable. So I love it.
Todd, thank you so much for your time. That's going to be it, ladies and gentlemen. If you can't find Todd for whatever reason, hit me up. I will gladly put you guys in contact with him and my friends over a truck stop. But that is going to be it for today, ladies and gentlemen. As always, if you got value in which you heard, subscribe to the show. You guys, if you're feeling really ambitious after this one, which you should be and you haven't ranked the show yet, rank it on itunes and Spotify because if you saw value, that's how 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. We just end the stream. Todd. I don't.