Lightning like Steve McQueen I'm in the fast lane when the light turns green and I built tough I ain't nothing but grit cause I made rugged blood, sweat and spit yeah like a horse I fly for a bumpy ride I like to play hard but I work harder and I under the storm cause.
I'm built stronger what is up, ladies and gentlemen, we are back. We are live. It is a furry coach morning show. The top morning show in transportation coming to you guys every single weekday, 08:30 a.m. Pacific, 1030 Central to break down some industry headlines and most importantly, 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 to transportation professionals because 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. Dylan Turner good morning. Has happy post Freedom day Monday. Amen to that, man. It is post holiday weekend and it is a wild morning over here already, man. We got, we already got a bunch of loads picking up, loading, loaded and driver delivering up. And like literally the furthest northernmost point in Canada I've ever gone this morning. And it is very much a great way to start the week out there. And before we get into the topic, so we're going to go over kind of like building customer loyalty a little bit, I also wanted to note this Friday I got an enterprise shipper who's coming on the show to do the Q and a show. Okay?
So if you have any sales related questions, if you have anything you want to ask a shipper, within reason, dm them on social media over to me. If you're, wherever you guys are watching this, whether it's on LinkedIn, whether it's on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, just send me DM's on there, you guys. And I'll compile a list of questions to ask the shipper on Friday for the Q and a day. Okay? So. So make sure you drop them in the chat, you guys. He is very experienced, he loves the show, and he is graciously coming on to give pointers for sales. Okay. You're not going to get better feedback from anywhere else on the Internet in regards to transportation sales than what you're going to get on this show well every day, but especially on Friday.
So sales related Questions Enterprise shipper coming on Friday's live show to answer it. Jamie good morning, SP freight. What do you do for carriers holding your load hostage? Do you have any more information you can provide on that one? Jamie I will gladly give you my advice on the situations that I've dealt with in the past, so if you have some more context that would be greatly appreciated. Corey Buchan, happy Monday, all. It is going to be so fucking hot in Arizona this week. It's going to be like 114 degrees literally every day this week. And I'm in the I just started phase two of live hard so I have outdoor workouts to do. I might have to be dropping them to the mornings, but I got to do one outside today. Yeah, it's going to be no joke out there.
Zena, good morning to you. Have a productive week, everyone, she says. Eric Ransom, good morning. Sounds good. Jamie yeah, if you could send it over, I might have to answer it tomorrow because I can't pull up. Or else just email me quick. Jamie, if you have my email, still email me everything and I will answer it on the show. But I want to talk about building customer loyalty, you guys, because there's so much focus on freight sales and everything else. But like, what do you do when you get the customer? How do you stay in with a customer and grow with them? Because I think that there's so much emphasis out there. And again, maybe this is just what I see, maybe. But I think there's so much emphasis on getting the business, which obviously is very important.
But what do you do when you get it? You know, I've talked about this a lot. Getting freight's the easy part, you guys. It's when a lot of these things start to come about that you need to focus on, you know, really separating yourself. Unfortunately, what Jamie's going through right now about carrier loading, holding the load hostage, that's a very real situation. But also that's really the only way you get to separate yourself because when things are going right, which nobody complains about and everybody's performing at a high level, like right now, for example, when it's very easy to cover freight, everybody looks good to customers. So it's really hard to differentiate yourself until you kind of got a situation like Jamie's talking about right now and how you handle these. That's where loyalty starts to come in.
You know, I had a situation here recently about a cross border load that was going on. And there was just some stuff where the paperwork, you know, it required us working after hours. It required us, you know, doing, you know, kind of going what some would say above and beyond. But I just say it's a standard procedure, right, where it's like, I feel like if me as the broker, no matter what, it's my job to contact all the facilities, especially in, you know, an example that we'll use where your customer isn't on site at the shipper or the receiver. I don't take anybody's word for anything, right? So I'm going to call all of these facilities or email them, whatever that looks like. I'm going to establish contact with them. I'm going to keep them informed.
I'm going to verify low details, I'm going to verify pickups, deliveries, all of that stuff. And I'm going to let my driver know all of that. And then most importantly I'm going to keep everybody in the loop throughout transit, right? Because that's the very big thing where it's very easy to let things slide when things are in transit, right? And you know, oh, I forgot to look at tracking and all of these excuses kind of start to come in. But you know, how you handle a lot of these things and then especially like being very responsive in these moments is so crucial. You know, like I hate it when things go wrong, right. Just like everybody does.
But I have found that the faster you deal with stuff, the faster you provide solutions, the faster you are, you know, responding to your carriers and you know, your customers and your carriers in these instances, the quicker to a resolution that you're going to become. And, and that's where I, the real value starts to show itself out there because again, if everything's going right, that's awesome. Don't get me wrong, but why does a customer want to work with you more? And I think how you handle the bad situations, air quotes, bad situations is crucial and it's just as crucial out there on the, when you're dealing with carriers as well because for some reason brokers only want to think that they have to service the customer. Your carriers are your customers too.
Like there's situations where, you know, if there's a layover because layovers happen, right? Things happen in this industry. I don't wait for my driver or my customer to approve an accessorial, a layover, stuff like that. I pay the driver with the anticipation that I'm going to get reimbursed from my customer. And if I don't get reimbursed from my customer for whatever reason, I'm going to question if I want to work with that customer ever again because it's not the driver's fault. And a lot of these situations out there. Right. So as a broker you have to balance both sides of the equation here because, what it, from my perspective, if we don't handle these things, if we don't take care of the driver because the driver's in possession of the freight, right.
The literal last person I want to upset when there's a delay is the person who's in possession of the freight. It's so much easier to just pay them because again, they want to be paired a fit, paid a fair rate for things. Right. I don't know of any driver who enjoys it when things go wrong. Nobody does. But I think that drivers will understand a lot more if they don't have to go through the back and forth of, I don't know if, you know, I got to wait for my customer to approve it. Mark your in and out times. We all know, you know, whatever your company policy is, what it is, but all that time that you go back and forth with somebody could literally be solved by just paying them and moving on with your day.
Because it's a lot easier to do that than it is to go back and forth. And then if you don't get reimbursed from your customer for whatever reason, you need to question whether that's a customer that you want to work with long term or not, you know, because it's not the driver's, duty to pay for anybody's inefficiencies. It's not my duty to pay for anybody's inefficiencies, but it's my duty to work with them in those moments as a broker to make sure everything gets resolved, because that should be your only focus when there's something going on is the resolve of that issue to get it taken care of. John Rad Vansky. Rad man in here from north Texas. Good to see you, John.
And that's like, which is one of those things that again, like customer loyalty goes a lot deeper than what I was talking about right there. But again, once you get in the door, you guys, and once you start moving freight, everything's great until it's not right. And then you really need to be available to handle issues, take care of them, and I think like that. If you do that and you're responsive to your customers and your carriers in those moments, that is the best way to build loyalty on both sides of that there. Jamie says he's also demanding that I now pay him to lay over in full payment upfront and us rep up. And after we pay him. Yeah, Jamie, again, I'm going to need more context. So please just email that over to me. Micah Campo. Howdy from Texas.
Good to see you. Micah's and her husband are a heavy haul carrier, you guys. I saw her put a post out there this morning. If you guys have any heavy haul freight in Texas, hit up my friend Micah here. Okay. She's on, she comes on, she tunes in all the time. They are all over the place. Well, at least in Texas, I know that for sure. Hit them up if you guys have any legitimate heavy haul freight, okay, for her and her husband, hit up Micah campo. All right, let's get into some articles here. We are going to, let's see here all the links to the articles, that you guys.
That we're going to break down or put up on the freight coach YouTube channel, as well as the coffee with the freight coach audio only replay, which is available on iTunes and Spotify almost immediately after the show. And as always, you guys, if you guys get value in what you hear, rank the show, you guys, if you guys could do me a favor. If you're listening to it on itunes and Spotify, rank the show over there. We're, you know, or like subscribe to anything, you guys, because that's just what helps us get the message out there to more and more people. Let me see here. Here's an article that I found. It's very interesting, right? Because we talk about lease purchase, options out there. I just had my main jam, my man James Currier on the show last week. He's with Finlock, you guys.
And they, we come on, we talk financing all the time, for purchasing, and this one was about lease purchases. This was from overdriveonline.com. Dot carriers lease purchase program should be outlawed. The FMCSA task force chairman, the last meeting that was held on June 13, open with something of a reckoning for committee members after the public session that was in the mid America truck show in March, their task force members heard from truck operators with direct experience in truck lease purchases with motor carriers. The direct testimony came alongside an information collection request for real world truck lease contracts that reps the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau out there. CFPB reps.
Ryan Kelly and Emma Oppenheim plan to present findings of a contract terms analysis at the next task force out there, yet underscored a need for more examples from around trucking to help with this, truckers and motor carriers with lease purchase programs are encouraged to send in example contracts to TLTF. That is Tom, Larry. Tom Frank TLTF Dot gov dot otherwise, the July 18 meeting sets task force members to take up discussion of an opportunity that equitable leasing agreements provide for drivers to start or expand trucking companies. And then examples from carriers who feel this, who feel their approach to lease purchase sets operators up for eventual truck ownership.
Effective profit during lease term and future success in particular, could be instrumental at this stage of the task force work members are driving forward, or, excuse me, driving towards a final set of recommendations later this year. As he noted in the past meetings, attorney Paul Cullen Junior reiterated he wanted to keep on the agenda one possible recommendation we have, namely that these programs should not exist. Full stop at once. Colin acknowledged testimony from task force member and owner operator Tamara Brock, whose story of success starting out as a contractor in the lease purchase with a motor carrier herself, early, in the task force, exists and swayed some members. The potential value we have heard, including, Tamara's experience that these relationships can work. If those, if those do exist, it would be interesting to get documentation of equitable arrangements.
If those arrangements do exist, we need to know why was underwriting built into the decision to bring an operator into the lease purchase? The task force, Ryan Kelly asked, offered an offering an example of the kind of practices, namely risk based pricing in a traditional loan that could be relevant or it was a no credit check situation. Settlement sheets to Colin said, any financial accounting of the relationship, that usually occurs at the end of the relationship. I'm just kind of jumping around here. All right, committee. Okay. So it seems like they're trying to get this on the docket here to talk more about it in the month of July. But, you know, I kind of commented on this earlier this year about, you know, the lease purchase agreements that are out there.
And, you know, I still stand by my earlier statements that I had made about this and that is this, if you sign, you know, if you are talking to somebody about a lease purchase agreement, okay, a lease purchase agreement, and you can't afford to have an attorney review that document, or if they don't allow you to leave with that document to go have it reviewed by an attorney. I don't think you should be going through with anything, all right? Because, you know, frankly, you guys getting financing early on in business and getting off the ground, especially when you don't have any money, is very risky. Okay? It is a very challenging route, and especially in a capital intensive industry that is trucking and owning a truck.
And I think that in the moment that you want to go through with this, you need to hire an attorney. All right? Plain and simple, before you sign anything, this is not legal advice. This is just what I would do, okay? I have my attorney essentially on standby for any contract that comes across. I will always pay that, especially if people are wanting to make it sound like a really good deal because the emotions are high and, you know, it's exciting in the moment, right? Own my own business, go out on my own, do all of this stuff. But predatory lease purchase are only there because people continue to sign for them, okay? Nobody is forcing you to sign up for this stuff, right?
Just like if you sign up for a high interest credit card or one of those dumb ass loans about buying furniture for 100% interest and shit like that, I really think you need to take a step back and go and pay an attorney to review those documents, all right? It's just like buying a vehicle if you don't fucking know what the fine print says on any of this stuff. Maybe take time, research it on your own, present this stuff before you go through with it, because I don't have sympathy for individuals who sign up for this stuff if they had an opportunity to go and review it with an attorney, because you need to be. You're accountable, all right? You're accountable for your actions. And I know how that can sound.
But frankly, I don't care if you're offended by what I just said there. If you're in one of these lease purchase agreements because you should have taken yourself more seriously as a business owner and protected yourself because people are not your fucking friends in the real world, all right? I'm not saying everybody's evil, all right? I'm not saying any of that. But at the end of the day, you guys, you got to hold yourself fucking accountable here, all right? It's your name that's on the line here. It's nobody else's. So I, you know, and then I just look at it that, you know, there needs to be accountability. Spend $500, go speak to an attorney, all right?
Bring this documentation to an attorney, have a better understanding of it, and then go through it if you want like, I just had my man Stephen Lusk on my podcast a couple of weeks back. He's with Evergreen. Evergreen transport. They have a very successful lease purchase program that's out there. So if you're interested in it, go. Go and talk to them. We. I actually questioned him about some of these topics and we talked about what they do to protect, you know, obviously themselves as a company. But the individual who would be signing up. But that drive, that information. That article was from Overdrive online.com. Robert Calton. What's going on, man? He says way too many owner operators get into a truck without any reserve funds and no business plan. That's a fact, man. I mean, gosh, it is so expensive to run a business.
It's so expensive, you guys. And as soon as your name's on the dotted line, you are fucking responsible for that shit. Anyways, sunny sharma. Good morning. Orange shirt gang. We are on it right now. Give me just 1 second here. Perfect. Winning freight, you guys. Winning freight live. You guys know where I got that rate from, right? Sorry. There they are right there. Green screens, you guys. I literally price all of my freight through green screens. I just want to load on this show right now live through the price that I got from green screens, you guys. So check them out, you guys. Just let them know that the freight coach sent you. Second article, we're gonna break down. And this is another one, too. I. I have a. This is from ttnews.com. This is the Atri report.
Cost of operating in a truck up 6.6% in 2023. But operating margins went down in most industry sectors. I understand that there has to be, like, national averages for stuff like. Cause that's just kind of how fucking data works. Again, I did go to public school, so take that with a grain of salt. But to say that there's one thing, one break even point, one break even analysis, out there to operate a business is highly false. Highly, highly false. I got, you know, I should have hit up Adam Wingfield to come on the show. If you're a small carrier out there, talk to Adam Wingfield. He breaks down this a lot on his content. But it goes on top. Total marginal cost of operating a truck in 2023 rose to $2.27 per mile, despite fuel that fell 8.8 cents per mile.
While this marked a new record high in cost, it increased by only 0.08% over 2020. Two's total, said the report. An in depth ATRI analysis of 2023 operating costs and trucking marginal costs on a per hour basis were $91.21, $0.27, excuse me, up. .5% fuel cost per mile fell $0.55 last year from $0.64 in 2022. The report was made public in June. It says June 25 costs, excluding fuel, went up 6.6%. Even in a year when we had a freight recession, higher than a lot we're hoping and expecting. Despite the increase cost increases, the Atri report said that in 2023, inflation rates cooled. I'm trying to find where the, what parameters were in this report, because in the freight market, however, contract and spot rates fell out there also.
The report concluded that 2023, expenses rose moderately across all most categories, with average cost line items increasing at less than half of the rates that were out there. Truck and trailer payments grew eight by 8.8% to driver wages grew 7.6% out there, and repair and maintenance costs grew 3.1%. And the exception to the trend was the truck insurance premiums, which grew 12%. Okay, so, you know, again, here, it doesn't look, it doesn't list off any line items, but again, you're talking about truck and trailer payments that grew 8.8%. Excuse me. We all know that interest rates were rising out there. So there. There is a, clear, reason behind why that number went out. Driver wages grew, and then repair and maintenance and insurance. Right. Insurance, I think, is one of the. The biggest threats to.
To the overall owner operator market is, as yet, insurance premiums keep rising up out there. And again, I'm not saying that any of this stuff, like, people should just suck it up or anything like that, but, I just want to point out that there are some correlations between why rates are what they are. You know, the cost to operate. You know, interest rates are a big point. Part of truck and trailer payments going up, annualized, one one hand, less. All right, I'm operating. Margins were declining. And let me see here. I'm trying to skip ahead. On one hand, we saw wages go up. That was predominantly driven by less than truckload, due to the market shifts happening in that space and union contracts as well. But we didn't see. Okay, so this is trucking as a whole.
If they're talking about LTL and driver wages going into that. In the truckload sector, the operating margin was 3% on average, down from 8% in 2022. Leslie said in the refrigerated space, it was 2% in 2023 versus 6% in 2022, going down the line, you had several factors where operating margins were half of the way they were in 2022. The one exception to that was the less than truckload sector. That's largely, because there were more of a market out there. Okay, so this was speaking very much in general terms out there and, talking about the cost of operating a truck. But to, based on my, perception here, they, blended Ltl and truckload into the exact same, category. But I look at it like this to say that, you know, to look at that and then think like, hey, 227 a mile.
And then I got to put my margin on top of that as a, you know, and, you know, but I don't want to speak too freely about this because Adam Wingfield is very much the subject matter expert on this, and I'm going to text him and see if he's available to come on and talk about this here coming up.
But I just think, like, if you're going to take what national averages are and price your services based on that, I think that you're, you know, you're going to have a very challenging time out there because not all 500 miles is the same, you guys know, especially if you're going out there and trying to price your freight out and then thinking that you need, 227 a mile, for example, on every single mile that you move, you know, you got to factor in a lot of these things, right? Like, are you making exponentially more on certain lanes going out and does it average out to where you're pricing it to where you're pricing in your profit and you're not just taking freight for the sake of taking freight, I think that learning and studying freight markets is going to help you through this.
But to sit here and say that, you know, it, Robert, you know, it's at 227 a mile, out there nationwide. I don't think that is applicable to every single business that is out there. And that's not how you should price all of your freight out there as well. You really, really need to know your costs, you guys, I would say at this point in the year, it being halfway through the year, you guys should do a p and l assessment, all right? Profit and loss assessment. You guys should look at all of your books right now and see where is all of your money going. How can you clean up your balance sheet, all right, to make, you know, and really get a better understanding of it.
And if you're operating in a business and you do not know what your profit margins are at. And if you do not know what a balance sheet is in a p and l, please hire a CPA. Please hire a bookkeeper right away and get your shit in order because that is going to help you stay in business for the long term. But, that is going to be it for today, you guys. I got a guest coming on tomorrow. We are going to be discussing the new, Federal Maritime commission ruling about detention. And, they'll be on the show tomorrow. And then I got. I think I got guests coming on Wednesday. And then I got, again, the shipper, enterprise shipper, coming on the show on Friday. So if you have any sales or operations related questions for the transportation industry, dm your boy here.
We'll get them answered live on the show. But that will be it for today, you guys. As always, if you guys got value, subscribe to the show. You guys share it out there. Dear 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.