March 12, 2025 • 49 mins
Thinking about going into the Motor Coach space? Do your homework first...
In this episode, Ken Lucci welcomes Tom Holden, a DOT and safety expert, to discuss the intricacies and challenges associated with expanding into the motor coach industry. Ken and Tom explore essential strategies and considerations for operators aiming to elevate their services. In this episode, you'll hear:
- Why you should establish demand before investing in motor coaches
- The differences between operating a chauffeured transportation fleet and a motor coach fleet
- Effective strategies to navigate the insurance complexities in the motor coach sector
- How to use DOT compliance and safety management as a competitive advantage
- The benefits of using advanced tech solutions to monitor safety and efficiency
Whether you're contemplating a fleet expansion or already operating in the motor coach space, Tom's expert insights provide actionable advice to optimize your safety and profitability.
Connect with Tom on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-holden-418bb37/
Visit Tom's website: https://www.theadvisors.org/
At Driving Transactions, Ken Lucci and his team offer financial analysis, KPI reviews, for specific purposes like improving profitability, enhancing the value of the enterprise business planning and buying and selling companies. So if you have any of those needs, please give us a call or check us out at www.drivingtransactions.com.
Pax Training is your all in one solution designed to elevate your team's skills, boost passenger satisfaction, and keep your business ahead of the curve. Learn more at www.paxtraining.com/gtp
Connect with Kenneth Lucci, Principle Analyst at Driving Transactions:
https://www.drivingtransactions.com/
Connect with James Blain, President at PAX Training:
https://paxtraining.com/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ken (00:26):
Well, good afternoon and welcome to another exciting
episode of the groundtransportation podcast.
I am very excited to have as myguest today, probably the most
preeminent DOT and safety expertin the entire industry in the
chauffeured and motor coachindustry.
(00:47):
Gentleman named Tom Holden.
Tom and I have known each otherfrom, Back in the days when I
was a crazy out of controloperator and we worked together.
This is going to date us, Tom,but we worked together on the
2012 presidential conventions.
we took care of the Republicansdown in Tampa and then we moved
(01:08):
the whole fleet operation up.
To Charlotte, when you wereworking with an op as, as,
Tom Holden (01:14):
Yeah.
Ken (01:16):
of that operator.
And, uh, we killed it on theDemocrat side.
So, Tom Holden, uh, thank youfor being my guest and, and, and
tell us a little bit about yourbackground and then we're going
to, we're going to talk somequestions for the operators.
So hopefully you have someactionable advice.
Tom Holden (01:34):
Perfect.
Thank you.
And thank you, Ken, for theinvite to this event here.
you know, my background and I'm,I'm older than you, so I'm
dating myself even more, but mybackground has always been in a
management or ownership positionall the way back in my Jersey
days, born in Philadelphia.
you know, grew up the oldschool, hard knocks.
type of university.
(01:55):
Did go to college in Florida.
Um, Catholic college.
Believe that.
ultimately, by the time Ibounced around and and landed in
Charlotte, I came to Charlottefor an entirely different
reason.
I was hired by a corporationhere, worked for them for seven
years.
And then ultimately, Startedlooking for some part time work
(02:16):
and I was hired on by a local,limousine company at that time,
to do some part time work, youknow, nights and weekends, get
some extra green in the pocket.
And, uh, I was interviewed, by,a very well known person.
You know him well, CharlesTenney, uh, was a consultant of
the firm I was with at the time.
And, and he made it quite clearto me that, That I needed to be
(02:39):
on the inside working in theoffice versus doing part time
driving and that followingMonday.
There was a cubicle space open.
it was a single shift company atthe time doing about 1 million.
and as we grew, you know, we,we, we would just like most
other small companies, we wouldend up going to, um, an
(02:59):
answering service at the time.
And then you go home and try toeat dinner and answering
services calling you.
And so after putting up withthat nonsense, I said, we have
to create a second shiftdispatch.
And so we did that and wecontinued to expand.
And the further we expanded tothe West coast, the phones were
ringing after 11 o'clock andthen they started ringing at
four o'clock.
Right.
And so we created a third shiftdispatch and never.
(03:22):
Looked back, never turned itoff.
Even during the recession, wemaintained, our own, lifestyle,
right?
we could leave the office whenit was the appropriate time for
us to leave and then, and thendeal with family or whatever we
needed to.
to deal with.
But, you know, I, I think I waspretty instrumental in growing
that company from a milliondollars to a 10 million size and
(03:43):
operation.
We added motor coaches halfwaythrough my tenure there and, um,
grew that to 23 motor coaches,15 mini buses, four executive
vans, and then the rest of thefleet, you know, the sedan and
SUV world.
and we were the big gorilla forthis region.
We were the, we were thelargest.
At that time, the largestprobably in the state.
(04:05):
and, and, and.
You know, just doing phenomenalwork.
16 years.
Ken (04:10):
You, you were with them for 16 years.
evolved from the limousinesector, the limousine only
sector that you went into themini coaches.
Talk about the transition fromthe minis to motors, and then
talk about how you became soastute on DOT and safety from an
(04:33):
operator's perspective.
Tom Holden (04:35):
Yeah.
So for me that you'll, you'lllove the answer.
I'm going to give you for that.
But, but we went, uh, we wentfrom three mini buses at the
time, and continue to grow that.
And we were farming out motorcoach work, right?
was very profitable when wefarmed out motor coach work and
we got so much of it.
(04:57):
We had a, we had a Texacoaccount, NASCAR, a lot of NASCAR
business and so forth.
And, once you farmed it out likethat, there was very little
control, especially in Charlotteat that time.
they didn't want their driversto talk to the company like us
or whomever you had to gothrough their dispatch center.
And the quality just wasn't achauffeured quality.
(05:17):
Right.
And so, you know, we werefarming out about 245, 000 a
couple of years in a row.
Ken (05:25):
There you go.
A couple of mini buses rightthere.
Tom Holden (05:28):
yeah, exactly.
And so, you know, when, when anevent would come in Coca Cola,
600 or something in theCharlotte, and they would bring
500 people in for the race, howmany mini buses are you loading
up?
Right.
You have, uh, Two blocks long ofminibuses lined up just to move
that.
That's ridiculous.
And so two motorcoaches equalsone, right?
(05:48):
and so the need to grow thatmotorcoach, we bought our first
motorcoach.
and we decided a couple ofmonths after that we had
continuous growth.
So we bought a second one.
and just had to know how themotorcoach world worked before
we purchased.
They were bus companies with busdrivers.
Nothing wrong with that.
(06:09):
They still have existence andthere's, Well, there's companies
not too far from you that Thatjust announced their closing
after 140, 150 years, right?
They've done wonderful work, butthe traditional motor coach
company back when we gotstarted, you know, they didn't
get out of their seats.
(06:29):
They hate it loaded luggage.
They had coffee stains on theirshirt.
They just weren't pleasant.
and at, at that time when, whenthe true chauffeur
representation was necessary,you know, the bus driver didn't
cut it.
And so, we've taken those, thosefantastic CDL minibus drivers
and turned them into motor coachchauffeurs, right, and, and just
(06:52):
lit the world on fire.
Ken (06:54):
So this is pivotal for anybody who's listening as
operators listening to thingsfor the success of the
chauffeured space, infiltrating,if you will, the motor coach
sector or pivoting pivoting toinclude motor coaches is not
just buying a new unit, but it'sdelivering a higher level of
(07:14):
service than the typical busdriver.
Right.
Tom Holden (07:18):
That is correct.
and you're not going to bewelcomed into the motor coach
sector, uh, like you think youwould be, right?
If you guys go out and buysedans, SUVs, whatever, vans,
you're walking into an NLA show,chauffeur driven NLA show, and
people are greeting you withopen arms.
That is correct.
you step into the motor coachworld.
You are the redheaded stepchild,and I just kept pounding and
(07:41):
pounding and pounding, and wekept growing and growing and
growing,
Ken (07:45):
How do you avoid that?
And is it important to, is itimportant in the motor code
sector the way it is in thechauffeured sector to have
brethren that you can depend on?
Tom Holden (07:55):
Absolutely.
you have to have them notnecessarily for an affiliate
type of relationship becausethey don't.
work in a relationship likethat, right?
on an affiliate side, most ofthem are going to say, Hey, I've
got a friend in this city.
Give him a call versus thembooking it and assigning it to
their friend.
Right?
And so it's a lot different thatway.
(08:17):
But trust me when I tell yourunning a motor coach.
is entirely differentmaintenance wise than a, than a,
than a cutaway.
A cutaway is gonna be a freightline or a chassis, a Ford
chassis, maybe a Chevroletwhatever.
And, and you can pretty much getservice on those vehicles
anywhere you go on a motorcoach, that's not happening.
and so, you know, you're, you'regonna be stuck on the side of
(08:39):
the road for a couple of hoursbefore you're figuring things
out if you don't have a gameplan already set up.
And so if you have a friendthat's in a motor coach world.
And you are truly friends withthem.
You will be taken care of.
They've got most of the time theparts, or access to the parts a
lot quicker than you could findthem.
(08:59):
The tires are different.
Changing a tire on a motor coachis entirely different than
anything else, right?
the hoses and belts areconstantly going.
So no matter where you're at,you're going to run into that
problem.
Ken (09:09):
I 1, 000 percent agree.
And I think one of the problemsin the chauffeur transportation
industry.
In general is what I call theherd mentality, which is, Oh, so
and so bought a motor coach.
Now I should.
Okay.
motor coaches.
Cause I did that.
Okay.
When I bought a couple ofcompanies, they had four motor
coaches and I said, isn't thisfun?
and what, what a rude awakeningthat was.
(09:31):
And I remember, a gentlemanthat, you know, well who became
one of my mentors who was thefounder of the company that you
work with.
I'd said to me, Ken, you got tohave 20, 000 in cash laying
around per motor coach, just incase.
And I'm like, what, wait, you'rekidding me.
And he was absolutely a hundredpercent, right?
So from the perspective ofcapturing the business, you'll
(09:53):
agree that that's the easiestpart.
Tom Holden (09:55):
Yes.
Ken (09:56):
but the toughest part is to change your mindset from a
vehicle that typically you sendto a dealership or you send to a
service center versus now youhave to have a specialist take
care of this motor coach.
Tom Holden (10:12):
Not only the specialist, but you're going to
be on a waiting list to get in.
first of all, mechanics in truckshops don't like working on
buses.
I went to school to be a truckmechanic.
Right.
And so, you're put in the backof the line.
You might have to wait two weeksto get a major, a major repair
done.
Right.
luckily, roadside breakdowns aregoing to be that the tire blows
(10:36):
out, um, the, the, the, belts orthe hoses will, you know, burst
or, or break.
you know, those are the typicalroadside issues that take place,
right?
A serious engine problemdoesn't.
It can happen obviously if you,if you've ignored the signs
ahead of time, but you're notgoing to just, you know, chug
(10:57):
along down the road, all of asudden you blow an engine.
It just doesn't happen likethat.
Brand new units have problems,issues, you know, they have
warranty issues, thank Godthey're under warranty.
And let me tell you, Ken, whenyou were playing in that, in
that field, and I was in thatfield, You know, the, the
reality of a repair, I could doan engine replacement on a motor
coach and a, on a Cummings or aDetroit engine.
(11:18):
And I w we'd spend about$27,000two years ago.
I helped one of my clients witha, Detroit engine replacement
and it was almost$60,000 and twoweeks ago, I'm in conversation
about a Cummings, replacementand was getting a very light,
quote that started around$80,000Okay.
(11:39):
And so, and so that$20,000 cashlaying around, you know, goes
away a lot quicker today than itused to.
Ken (11:45):
A hundred percent.
A hundred percent.
Tom Holden (11:48):
other thing of that is the difference in a motor
coach industry back in the daywas that most traditional motor
coach companies, they kept theirbuses 20 years.
In a chauffeur driven world, ifit, if it had dust on it in
three years, he had to get ridof it.
years, whatever.
you know, the murder coachcompanies, they kept them
around.
And I remember we won't mentionnames, but I remember people
(12:10):
that got into the murder coacharena from the chauffeur side of
it after we did and, and said,Oh, we're not, we weren't going
to buy brand new.
We have to buy brand new.
and then I said at dinner, I'llUh, with a group of people and
that particular owner was in theroom and I said, Hey, listen, I,
I hear your original brand newbuses you have up for sale.
(12:30):
Would you recommend to thiscrowd here at the table that,
that they should buy them?
And he says, well, of coursethey're in fantastic shape.
we've taken care of them.
I said, so it's okay now topurchase a used bus.
Ken (12:42):
Right.
Tom Holden (12:43):
Okay.
And so you're right.
You had mentioned that, youknow, you had to buy a bus, you
were following your friend'sfootsteps.
I've seen it way too many timesand they ended up being out of
business today.
and the other thing that, thattook place was if you're buying
one, you may as well buy two.
Well, I don't know when the lasttime your listeners checked in
on a price of a motorcoach, butyou know, I'm hearing 620 000 to
(13:08):
750 000 for motorcoach.
You're not buying two.
Ken (13:11):
Absolutely.
it's crazy.
We did a financial reviewanalysis with a, with a
chauffeur company that wasentering the motor coach space.
We deliberately talked to himand you know who the operator
is.
He great guy, you know, 10million on the chauffeur side
alone.
And I said, look, if you'regoing to enter this, we're going
to do it the right way.
We're going to analyze yourbreak.
Even we're going to analyze yourasset utilization.
(13:32):
We're going to do a set asidedollar amount for repairs and
maintenance.
And he argued with me, Ken, it'sunder warranty.
I said, okay, so what happenswhen breaks on the side of the
road?
How much do you think the towingis?
And his guess was wildly off,right?
So when we created the breakeven, I said, okay, if you're
happy with this, you have to doX amount of revenue, which by
(13:56):
the way was three times morethan he thought he had to, to do
a break even.
So, so what we're talking abouthere is number one, absolutely
100%.
The market is there for motorcoach and high end mini coach
work when you're delivering abetter customer experience with
a better piece of equipment andbetter customer experience, but
(14:19):
that is the tip of the iceberg.
That's what lures people intothe space, right?
What's underneath the surface ofthe iceberg.
Okay.
Is the repair and maintenancechallenges we've talked about.
I can assure everybody in theaudience and so can you and
you've got more stories than me.
It's wildly more expensive thanyou would ever consider.
Tom Holden (14:41):
absolutely
Ken (14:42):
In addition to that, you cannot enter into this space.
without a different trainingplan for your coach driver than
you have on the chauffeur side.
I always laugh.
The chauffeur side is, he'sgoing to sit in the passenger
seat of a sedan.
I'm going to show him theairport.
I'm going to basically, youknow, maybe I'm going to put him
through the PACS training,right?
And then guess what?
(15:02):
Here are the keys to thevehicle.
You do that on the motor coachside.
You've given someone the keysto, first of all, it's,
definitely over half a milliondollar asset.
And second of all, it's how muchdoes a motor coach weigh?
You've given them a literally anuclear bomb.
So,
Tom Holden (15:20):
So let me, let me add something right there real
quick to you just for a littlepiece of, togetherness here.
Somebody called me the other dayand said, listen, all my motor
coach, it's governed at 70 milesan hour and the drivers are
complaining.
They want it to go faster.
People are passing them on thehighway.
And I said, look.
You know, obviously you're theowner of a company and you do
whatever you're going to do, butI'm going to tell you what you
need to consider first is learnabout that 70 miles an hour on
(15:44):
that motor coach that has agross weight limit of 54, 000
pounds, okay?
And then you're doing 70 milesan hour.
How long does it take to stop 70mile an hour bus?
And then, if you're going toincrease it to 75, how long is
it going to take?
I've seen accidents happen.
I've, been on accident scenes.
I know the damage that canhappen, right?
(16:04):
And I said, I said, why don'tyou just go get in the bus and
have a driver drive?
You go, go on a back highwaysomewheres, uh, with no other
vehicles around.
And and have them do 70 and hitthe brakes and then count how
long is it going to take to stopthat bus, right?
Ken (16:19):
It's like literally trying to stop a jet plane on the,
tarmac instead of a prop plane,a tiny little prop plane.
I don't think you canunderestimate that.
so give me the top five thingsthat, you would say to an
operator that they have tobefore they ever consider it.
You hit up on one that was, wascritical before you got into
mini buses, you guys did 240,000 for two consecutive years.
(16:42):
Okay.
So you built up the demand.
So on the motor coach side ofthe world, before you would go
out and buy your own assets,what would you try to do to
prove out that there's actualdemand?
In your market.
Tom Holden (16:57):
Yeah, so that you you're going to first of all
learn what demand is out therealready what operators are in
your market Okay, calculate howmuch they're making so that two
or three other motor coachcompanies that are in your
market This one's doing threemillion dollars.
This one's doing five milliondollars.
This one's doing ten milliondollars You say okay, there's
leverage room there I know thatmy performance as a chauffeured
(17:19):
company in the motor coach arenais going to be able to pick up
clients from each one of thosethree.
Okay.
already farmed it out, so I knowhow it works.
I know how the start works andthe finish works.
I understand the rules.
Right.
I know the driver can't drivemore than 10 hours and so forth.
And so I'm going into thissaying, all right, these are the
people that I've farmed out aquarter million dollars to, and
(17:41):
the clients I have already,right, I'm going to just let
them know that here we are,we've got our, we've got our own
vehicle.
It'll, it'll be our branding ona vehicle.
That's going to show up thistime.
and we appreciate continuing todo business.
So right off the bat, you've got250, 000 already on the books.
Ken (17:59):
Would you try buying a motor coach if you had less than
that?
Tom Holden (18:03):
I would not in today's
Ken (18:04):
I agree with that I would not unless you've unless you've
been able to sell the productunless you've been able to sell
Motor code services andsupervise it track it and with a
farm company I would I agree athousand percent do not do not
make an investment Of at theleast a few hundred thousand and
(18:25):
at most it could be six hundredthousand
Tom Holden (18:27):
Right.
Exactly.
So the other, the other secretbehind that most people can, and
you probably see this in yournumbers is the fact that say,
well, I did 500, 000 in motorcoaches.
Wait, did you do 500, 000 in onemotor coach through the entire
year?
Or was that five large eventsthat you needed 10 motor coaches
at?
Ken (18:47):
Agreed.
That's a great, that's a greatpoint.
Cause that, yep.
Tom Holden (18:51):
And so does that determine if I had one motor
coach, how much am I going toget one out of five jobs?
Okay.
Ken (18:58):
Exactly.
Tom Holden (18:59):
And so they think they're doing phenomenal
business because of that.
And they're really not.
Ken (19:04):
And Tom, you want to, you want to really scare the shit
out of somebody and I can saythat word because this is my
podcast.
Do a financial pro forma thatshows them how much it costs to
have that motor coach sit for aday, for two days, for three
days.
For four days for five days andsay you've got to have the free
cash flow to support that andand to your point, they look at
(19:29):
the raw number of 500.
They're not happy making thefarm out delta the gross margin
and they say, I want that formyself.
And I think that's the wrongheaded approach.
I think you build it.
I think you build it from thebottom up, meaning knowing your
cost structure, knowing yourbreak even now, the guy that we
(19:52):
were talking about, he flat outsaid, can I can't get the
quality.
I can't get these people to doweekend work.
I can't.
I people are calling us left andright and and we're turning them
away.
Okay, great.
So that's how we're going to do.
We're going to do the polarplunge on this.
We're gonna do the polar plunge.
First of all, do you have thecapital?
(20:13):
Second of all, do you have moneythat you can set aside?
Okay.
That's the second thing.
And talk about the changes tothe operational infrastructure.
Tom Holden (20:24):
I mean, there's a lot of, a lot of directions.
The infrastructure is, has, hasbeen heading, you know, First of
all, back up a hair on that,besides the cost and, and, and,
and the cash that you have tohave available, there are too
many people that are buying amotorcoach before they even talk
to their insurance company,okay?
(20:45):
And so, so you get a motorcoachand then you struggle getting,
insurance, or they're calling meup and they're bitching that,
that, and I guess I could saybitching because it is your
show, but
Ken (20:55):
Tom.
Let it roll.
Tom Holden (20:57):
But the reality is is that they're complaining that
the cost of insurance.
Oh my god I didn't realize itwas going to be this much.
Well, you didn't do any homeworkNone Just like you said you they
should hire you to go overnumbers before they make a
decision to buy that bus
Ken (21:12):
And get real live quotes from insurance companies and
real live quotes on loans andleases.
Don't guess.
Tom Holden (21:19):
Right, right.
On top of that, the insurancecompany that they have most
likely if they're a chauffeurdriven company, most likely
won't insure a motor coach.
Okay.
And so then what you're going todo now, you've got to go search
for a whole different company.
Now you open up a can of worms.
This is going to cost me fivemillion dollars across the board
for all my vehicles becausethat's the way this new
insurance company Wants me to doit.
Ken (21:40):
Correct.
It'll put a spotlight on yourexisting organization.
so what tactics do you recommendfor that?
I mean,
Tom Holden (21:48):
Yeah, I mean there are a lot of people today that
are that are opening up aseparate corporation With a
separate dot number, you knowwhen I was in the game we
weren't allowed to do to do that
Ken (21:58):
we, we see a lot of that now.
we see a lot of secondarycompanies, but we also see a lot
of leasing companies.
In other words, you, the personthat owns the chauffeur company
sets up their own leasingcompany.
That's going to not only buy themotor coach, but ensure the
motor coach.
And just, just clarifysomething.
(22:19):
You can do this and yourinsurance company's never going
to find out.
Right.
Right, right.
No, the answer is no.
You can, you have to doeverything in the sunshine.
You absolutely, if you treatyour insurance company or the
insurance age, uh, agents orcarriers that you interview for
this, right?
Thinking that you're going tonow have a separate
(22:40):
relationship, forget it.
It's not going to happen.
You have to treat them like apartner and you have to say,
these are the business decisionsI'd like to make.
What are the best practices andwhat do you suggest as well?
Tom Holden (22:53):
you're right, right.
Ken (22:54):
And by the way, there's, If they want to get into the space,
they're a hundred percentfoolish not to talk to you
first.
Tom Holden (23:01):
well, I appreciate that, you know, and, and, and
you've done tremendous work withthe numbers and laying out the
numbers and how it has to be.
I mean, that, that uncovers theworld right there.
I could certainly guide thepeople in the right direction on
what homework that what elsethey have to go through.
complete.
Not only are they going tostruggle to get insurance, but
there are insurance companiestoday that are refusing certain
type of motor coach work.
(23:23):
And so you need to know what,what am I getting into?
Am I the chauffeur company or abus company that's going to do
charter work?
Okay, that's standard.
You're going to get a policy forthat.
Am I going to jump on abandwagon and start doing line
run business?
Because, you know, as, as ourgovernment has been changing
over the last 10 years, line runbusiness, Uh has been growing
(23:44):
right and there's a couple ofdifferent brands that are
popping around the country somebigger than others and and then
one of them even purchasedgreyhound, right?
and so There's only oneinsurance company right now.
That's insuring line run Type ofwork,
Ken (23:59):
And it ain't, And it ain't, cheap.
Tom Holden (24:00):
No
Ken (24:02):
So again, so you're, you know, you're talking about
something.
You the lure of the revenue,right?
So these there are techaggregators in the motor coach
space And we we don't have touse names But there are there
are a bunch of them out therethat what they do is they get on
the top of Google in every cityor try to, and then what they
want to do is they're going tofarm you the work.
(24:22):
Right.
And they're approachingchauffeured companies and
saying, if you get a motorcoach, we will provide you with
all of this work.
Right.
I will tell you, I've never seenany of them that have a gross
margin anywhere close.
To doing a five hour charter runand you perhaps are doing 12 or
(24:43):
more hours on the road withrelay drivers for line run.
So watch your watch your ifyou're thinking that you're
going to be your entry into themotor code space.
Tom Holden (24:54):
Yeah, again I mean all you have to do is go on the
internet And you're going to seewho's paying their bill and
who's not right?
so if I were going to take a a aride from a broker,
Ken (25:05):
Yep.
Which they are.
That's all they are is a techbroker
Tom Holden (25:08):
That that's all they are.
you know, then they're gonnathey're gonna pay me up front
Okay, I'm going to get theirmoney in my bank before I rolled
the door because because againyou mentioned 20, 000 in your
pocket just for breakdown issuesyou start and I hear this all
the time Oh, so and so owes metwenty five thousand thirty five
thousand on motor coach farm outwork I'm, like you better have
(25:30):
real deep pockets if you'regoing to allow that to happen
You've been in this industrylong enough that you can
remember the people that hadthat kind of money That was owed
to them from affiliates of thepast, right?
Ken (25:41):
on the chauffeured side.
100%.
And I, and I fired a couple ofthose networks.
When I was an operator, peoplesaid, you're cutting your
throat.
I said, are you kidding me?
I mean, I'm making it best.
At the end of the day, I'mmaking a gross margin of 30
percent and a net profit of 8 to10%.
And you're telling me you wantme to wait 90 days for my money.
Tom Holden (26:02):
why do you think that they're targeting the
chauffeur driven area for you todo their motor coach work?
Ken (26:08):
Oh, it's totally ignorance.
It's financial ignorance.
It's, it's, the industry in manycases is financially agnostic.
They don't know their numbers.
They become enamored with, I canpay you.
X or I can, I'm doing 300, 000 amonth in your area or 25,
whatever the number is, but whatyou don't realize is you're
putting so much wear and tear onyour motor coach that you're
(26:32):
going to get upside upside downfairly quickly.
So that's the lore of, you know,that's nothing more than.
Then the, the, the, the lure ofthe, the, the swan song, if you
will.
It's the lure of, oh, all ofthis revenue is going to change
my life.
It's not profitable revenue.
So talk to us about yourbusiness.
Tell it, give us a rundown, giveus the three minute commercial
(26:52):
on what you do because you'rethe best in the industry at it.
So transition us, transition us.
So how did you start?
How did you start this thing onyou, this odyssey on your own?
Tom Holden (27:02):
After 16 years of being in the operator's seat and
growing that business andactually, you know, technically
having, The ability to have apiece of that pie.
I walked away from it all.
I walked away from that piece ofpie at the age of 60 and decided
that I wanted to, to open up atthe time it was called bus
advisors, right?
And I wanted to go out there andhelp, many companies versus just
(27:25):
one.
Right.
And so I opened up and it was,it was already gangbusters in
the very first year.
And we, we went from a homeoffice to a real office in two
months.
we started building, my daughterwas the first person I hired.
And then we kept building fromthere.
And, now we have, 10 people thatare working.
Ken (27:44):
What's your discipline?
What do you do for operators?
Tom Holden (27:47):
Yeah, so you could, you could call us a virtual
safety department, if you will,with, the fact that you have my
experience of backing it up.
My son in law works for me herein Charlotte.
My son works for me on the WestCoast.
And so we, we run this as afamily business, but they're
learning what I've had.
Over the past 23 years, andthey're learning what's going on
(28:08):
in today's audit world.
Today's audit world is entirelydifferent than it was 10 years
ago.
The questions and the demandsthat are happening now is a lot
different, right?
And so they're, they're learninga whole new set, you know, for
their next 10 years to go on.
and things that would never havehappened when I first started
out.
Ken (28:26):
So, when you say a virtual safety department, you're being
modest.
You've, you've developed a greattechnology.
And so talk to us about that.
Now, how you interface withwhat's out there already.
Tom Holden (28:37):
yeah.
So, so shortly after I startedthis and doing it the long way,
uh, I decided I wanted to createa software.
So I hired a tech firm, to startbuilding a software.
They're still building for me.
I'm never going to be donebecause it's very addictive.
You know, I want to add this andadd that, but we have a software
product called my dot docs.
(28:59):
People can look that up at, youknow, my dot docs.
com.
and that is a, software that'svery interactive and integrated
with, with a specific, um, ELDcurrently with more expansions
coming, but it has every pieceof detail that is in there that
the feds are going to want toaudit you on.
(29:20):
It's got built in reminders.
It automatically assigns dates.
very color coded.
So you as an operator looking atyour product and here, here's a
big difference.
There are very few products thatare on the market today that
are, that are 100 percent legit.
you know, you go into myproduct, you're capable of
opening it up, printing it out,emailing it to the inspector as
if that file was in your filingcabinet, right?
(29:43):
Within within seconds, you couldhave all the paperwork you want
to hand to the inspector if youwanted to.
But in today's world, it's alluploaded, right?
And so you're going to click acouple of buttons and boom, it's
in his setting already.
Ken (29:54):
So talk to me about the interface with an EID.
Pretend I don't know what an ELDis.
and do you want to talk aboutthe one that you're
Tom Holden (30:02):
yeah, sure.
I mean, I, I, we we're, we'reintegrated with Samsara, only
because the majority of myclients are running Samsara.
So I and ELD is an electroniclogging device, so anybody
that's a CDL or had CDL drivers,there was original paper logs
that you had to do.
Uh, the government did away withthat, and, and it, it had to be
(30:24):
an ELD, the ELD, can be selfcertified, they have to be put
on a list government's hands,but if that, ELD is not meeting
the required state, then thefeds will shut it down.
Right?
So we're constantly, every weekwe get an email on what ELD is
no longer approved.
Right?
and so the ELD is out there.
(30:44):
There, there, there's a set ofrules that they have to follow,
and so almost all ELDs are goingto be very, very similar.
What is it that they do with thedata?
That's the difference, okay?
How much data can you pull outof it if you're going to even do
that?
then what is it tied into?
Is it tied into a camera system?
Most of them can be or you don'thave to buy both, but if you do,
(31:08):
you better study that becausethere are very, very, very
smart, very intelligent camerasthat are on the market today
compared to what it was aslittle as eight years ago.
Okay.
The quality, the AI that's builtinto it, facial recognition,
that is there to, says, oh,alert, Tom's got a phone in his
hand.
Ken (31:28):
So let's talk about this for one second.
So the Samsara system isinstalled in the motor coach
Tom Holden (31:33):
Yep.
Ken (31:34):
and not only, it is interfaced with the, with the
actual motor coach computers andit has cameras inside and
outside.
Correct?
Tom Holden (31:45):
So it has a camera in the windshield,
Ken (31:47):
Yep.
Tom Holden (31:47):
Which is looking right at your eyes, right?
And there are, differentversions of companies with
different technology andcameras.
Some are off to the right.
And so it sees a side view, butwhen that thing looks directly
in your eyes, it knows what youreyes are doing.
It will call out distracteddriver.
It knows you're falling asleep,right?
I've, I've watched the video andthank God the person was driving
a Volvo.
(32:08):
and that chauffeur was fallingasleep at the wheel
Ken (32:11):
Jesus.
Can you imagine that?
55, 000 pound vehicle and he'sfalling asleep.
Tom Holden (32:16):
vehicle stopped.
Right.
And so luckily the accidentdidn't occur.
We've seen way too many peoplethat have the, you know, the
drivers look into the left andhe run into the vehicle in front
of them, you know, it was just.
The intelligence in the cameratoday is very, very, very,
exciting to
Ken (32:32):
So you built this software on your own to interface with
SIM, the ELD, the specific brandis SIMSERA.
So what does the integrationgive you?
What do you, what's the benefitthere?
Tom Holden (32:43):
yeah.
So, so let's talk about thecamera first to get that out of
the way.
The cameras are still monitoredby humans here in my office,
right?
So when an alert triggers, wehave humans that are looking for
it because AI is just not goingto be there
Ken (32:55):
So the alert being distracted driving, what are the
other alerts?
Tom Holden (32:59):
So you'll have following too close, you have
speeding, hard braking, rollingstops, cell phones, you know,
that type of stuff.
You can, do that.
And then the companies can say,well, you know what, while
you're watching those alerts,what else was that driver doing?
Was he, was he eating anddrinking while driving?
Was he smoking in my car?
You know, I want to know thesedetails, right?
(33:19):
And so then our job is to takethe very important ones, I've
seen companies that have almost200 a day, but let's just assume
you have, you know, 25 videosfor the day.
You don't have to sit there andwatch those videos.
We'll do that and we're going tosend you the one that is real
important.
Ken (33:36):
So you're literally the ground traffic control
department and safetydepartment.
Wow.
Tom Holden (33:42):
You could say that.
So we're looking at that.
And then God forbid there's anaccident, which they, they
happen often.
You know, the, my team willbring me the video.
We'll look at it and that I lookand see exactly, you know, I've
been doing this a very longtime.
So I'm going to look at thatvideo 2030 times and I'm going
to make a call to the owner I'lltell him exactly what I see,
what went wrong.
(34:02):
I've been told by owners in thepast, I'll call them and say,
Hey, just had an accident.
Did you watch the video?
Nope.
My dispatcher told me whathappened.
I said, what'd they tell you?
They said the driver, the driverwas hit by a truck.
It was a hit and run.
and brought it back.
And this was a brand newescalate, brand new escalate.
(34:23):
and I said, well, that's notwhat happened.
You need to look at your videobecause your driver fell asleep
at the wheel and hit theguardrail
Ken (34:28):
unbelievable.
Tom Holden (34:29):
or a different one again.
My dispatchers told me whathappened.
I said, well, You need to lookat it because it was truly your
your driver's fault They were ina right hand turn lane only and
went straight
Ken (34:41):
You know, and the reality is, it's funny, it's funny to
hear you talk about this.
This is not, to me, what you dois absolutely not optional
anymore, right?
You're literally an outsideentity that is, managing the
safety department and managingthe data, uh, for an operator.
(35:04):
There aren't too many operatorsthat can afford to have a full
time employee do what yourservice does.
And you're not an expense to me.
You know what you are?
You're a savings to me.
You are an investment to mebecause I can't tell you how
many customers and you've, youknow who they are.
And, and we, we, you know, we'vegot operators, joint operators
(35:25):
that are mutual customers thatwhose insurance has gone up 40
to 50%.
And we lament the fact thatthey're absolute amateurs when
it comes to safety and they'reonly.
Doing safety to check a box andyou can't you absolutely cannot
do it that way.
So, Talk specifically about yourintegration because you invested
(35:46):
a ton of money in your software.
Tom Holden (35:48):
I have and and continue to do so.
you know as as you well know,there's nothing cheap, right?
And if you're going to do it,you may also do it the right way
and my integration On ourdashboard, as we call it, when
our customers are logged inlooking at it, or we're looking
at it, there's a specific grayarea that is integrated with Sam
Sarah, and it's it's pulling thedata from Sam Sarah into the
(36:12):
system, right?
So the data is already there.
I don't create the data, and sowe're pulling it in.
So we see a safety score is inthe first column, and I want to
talk about that in a second.
the next to that is going to beThe, the driver has 10 hours.
This is on CDL drivers now,right?
The driver has 10 hours todrive.
Today, he's got 15 hours of onduty.
(36:33):
He's got 70 hours for the week,and then, and then starting
tomorrow.
How many hours does he haveafter,
Ken (36:38):
is tracking all that
Tom Holden (36:40):
All of that.
And so on a, on a 30 minuteinterval, it's refreshing the
screen, counting down 10 hours,nine and a half hours, nine
hours.
When it gets to three hours, itturns red.
Okay, now the people that you'vegiven the authority to log into
that system and we could havedispatchers logged in under
separate credentials where theyonly see this part of the
(37:02):
dashboard.
They don't see the confidentialstuff.
so they could watch thatcountdown.
You got red and you could hit abutton and bring all the red up
to the top.
So you don't have to go through10 pages you know, 100 drivers.
And you'll see this guy's gotthree hours.
Okay.
Well, Johnny, Johnny's got threehours to get back to the shop.
And according to my Google, he'sfour hours away.
(37:23):
I have to react as a dispatcher.
I have to react.
I got to do something.
Okay.
And so if you go over 10 hours,You know, I'm going to say that
was approved by somebody.
Okay.
I don't even want to say aloudthat was approved.
The dispatcher approved thatdriver to bring it back at 10
(37:43):
hours and 15 minutes or 10 hoursand 30 minutes.
Okay.
He made the conscious decisionto not get that driver out of
the seat.
Okay.
And so we're giving you anotice, which is again, the data
comes directly from Sam Sarah.
So instead of you logging intoSam Sarah, bouncing around
internet, whatever, we're havingit right in front of your face.
(38:04):
You can watch the countdown andget them out of the vehicle.
Ken (38:07):
And what else is your software do?
Tom Holden (38:10):
it's going to keep track of all of the records that
are required by FMCSA.
And then we're very, capable ofadding columns and sections.
So all the, the New Yorkcustomers enjoy having all of
their 19a records right there ona dashboard.
Ken (38:24):
What is 19 a for those of us who don't know what it is?
Tom Holden (38:27):
So 19a is, is, actually in, penalties and fines
is worse than a feds, right?
Uh, it is just horrible.
I mean, you talk about 70, 000penalties for You know, six
missing documents.
Ken (38:40):
unbelievable.
And that's any operator thatmoves in New York.
Or is that just New Yorkoperators?
Tom Holden (38:45):
no, that's going to be any operator that's operating
within New York.
was an operator again inCharlotte going to New York, I
would not have to participate in19 a.
And New Jersey has toparticipate in it because that's
what they decided to do rightacross the border.
New Jersey people have toparticipate in it.
New York's offices are auditedmore so than Jersey offices are
(39:07):
right.
And so it actually has some verygood stuff in there that might
think is overstepping.
But there's diabetes forms.
There's high blood pressureforms.
They have to be updated everysix months.
I mean, New York cares.
A lot of times when you,participate in a program like
that, the care part of it,becomes very, very stringent and
expensive,
Ken (39:26):
Well, look, and why tell us why?
Tom Holden (39:29):
it's all about safety, right?
I mean, you, you know, theaccident that took place upstate
New York, you've seen it toomany times.
you see bus accidents happening.
Uh, and this, this 19 a ruleonly applies to passenger
carrying world.
It doesn't apply to the truckingworld.
And so, so other states haveother things that they need.
California, they have certainthings that they'd like to see.
(39:51):
So if you have a state that'sheavily controlled by PUC, we,
we could build it specificallyfor your company, city and
state.
Right.
And then those documents arealways right in front of
Ken (40:00):
Well, and the other thing that I like about it, and we,
both know operators that havebeen audited, know, when you are
audited, and there's an outsidecompany.
That you've outsourced to?
Frankly, I believe that theylook at the data with less of a
jaundice eye.
They look at the data as beingkept by a company that is
(40:21):
specifically in business totrack and manage all this stuff.
Okay, so we're coming up on theend.
do people reach you by the way?
Tom Holden (40:30):
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, there's, there's a lotof different ways you can find
us.
The advisors.
org is my website.
Our phone number is 980 9998484.
um, I'm going to be at the UMAshow.
Mark, myself, and Nicholas willbe at the UMA show.
And we'll also be at theChauffeur Driven NLA show right
after that.
Ken (40:49):
uh, look at the end of the day, the revenue margin, the
gross margins are better on manybuses.
They're certainly better on theright kind of motor coach
business, but it is night andday compared to the sedan and
SUV business.
If you're going to.
risk your life and livelihoodand your, own personal money to
get into minis and motors, youabsolutely need to take the DOT
(41:14):
regulations and safetyregulation seriously.
You know, and the sad part is itwas always the case.
You always had to do it when youwould just worried about a DOT
audit.
But now the other facet is.
The insurance company.
So as we finish, Talk to usabout the changes on the
insurance audit side and theinsurance industry side.
Tom Holden (41:34):
Yeah, so the insurance comes in now and
they're auditing your books verysimilar to the Feds do.
They don't do vehicleinspections, you know, but, but
they know how many vehicleinspections you've had.
And so they're going to come inand look at your books, they're
going to ask for the same set ofdocuments.
And, you know, I was thinkingabout this while you were just
talking, I've seen companiesthat would not get approved by
(41:54):
the insurance company becausethey have no motor coach
experience or no bus experience.
Okay.
And so their sedan SUV world,their management, their owners,
they have absolutely noexperience in it at all.
And they're being deniedinsurance coverage for that
expansion.
you know, that's part of theother homework.
If I want to do this, who'sgoing to actually manage it for
me?
Who do I hire to put into thatseat?
(42:16):
You know, the insurancecompanies come in, they want to
see the same thing.
They're now holding youaccountable for stuff that's
outside of the realm.
You know, and, and you reallydon't have a choice.
You have to go with the flow.
You're going to pay for it.
And, and there's never going tobe a decrease in insurance.
Ken (42:30):
No way.
Tom Holden (42:31):
know an operator, it's very large operator in the
motor coach world that just hadhis, his premiums, 100%, they
were doubled,
Ken (42:39):
that we're double and, and you know what?
And it's, and it really, wecannot stress this enough.
Okay.
If you're not managing yoursafety and you're not mitigating
your risk, I don't give a shitif you're a two car operator.
Okay.
If you're not actively have asafety and risk management
program in place, your nextpolicy could put you out of
(43:01):
business.
Tom Holden (43:02):
Well, it will, it will put you out and I, you
know, I was looking at yourquestions earlier and I know we
only have a couple of secondsleft here.
But you asked about it in thevery beginning, you know, what
did I do when I was an operator,and how did I successfully, you
know, manage that part of it?
The reality is, is that I'm notgoing to go to prison for
anybody, My, my dispatchers verydemandingly, you better not let
(43:28):
this driver drive more than 10hours or we got a problem.
Okay.
And so what I broke down hereearlier was insist on having a
true safety culture.
If the owners and managers don'tHave the time.
It will never work.
Okay, if you're owner and you'rea manager and you don't want to
be invested Into that safetyculture your product will never
(43:52):
work,
Ken (43:53):
No, you, you, you just said a mouthful there.
And, and, and here's what, youknow, you and I deal with, we
deal with people that on yourside, they're safety agnostic,
right?
You've got to try to convertthem into thinking that they
don't need safety in their life.
Okay.
And I've got to try to convincethem that they need finance
knowledge in their life and theyneed the right financial
(44:15):
reporting.
I don't know about you.
I don't deal with thefinancially agnostic anymore.
If all you want to do is tell meabout your top line revenue and
you have no idea about yourgross profit margins or NOI, I'm
sorry, go with, go with whoeveryou've got is, but I, I'm not
dealing with you because you'reYou're going to come to me when
you're in such bad shape.
Right.
I can't help you.
You get the same situation, butthe one thing I want to leave
(44:38):
you with is safety cells.
If you can demonstrate thatyou're a safer operator and you
have the scores to prove it andyou use your, you use your
system and you use, you know,the telematics, um, Sarah system
to say, look, our driver safetyscore is X.
(45:00):
Do you really want to save 15percent by going with a company
that they can't even tell youwhat their score is.
So, you know, I would telloperators that safety sells.
And if you know your numbers andyour numbers have improved, and
same thing with the insurancecompany, demonstrating all of
your safety metrics and doingbusiness with your company and
(45:21):
saying, look, Before I startedwith Tom, this is where I was.
Look at where we are today.
Those numbers speak forthemselves and, you can't be
safety agnostic today.
Tom Holden (45:29):
No, no you're 100 and on top of that, you know
when you're looking you'relooking to get into the
insurance world You're trying todo better with those guys maybe
you've reached the point.
You're going to sell yourcompany.
My system tracks everything.
And so I could easily turn thescreen around to an inspector.
I can turn around to theinsurance company or to you if
you're marketing them toselling.
(45:50):
Look, here's the owner andhere's the management.
This is how many times they'velogged in.
This is how much time they'veinvested in our software that
they know exactly what's goingon in the safety world.
Ken (46:01):
Listen, Tom Holden, it's absolutely great to have you on
the podcast.
I look forward to seeing you inVegas.
give us your website again.
Tom Holden (46:08):
It is the advisors.
Ken (46:11):
Love it.
And there's no better, betterknowledgeable individual in the
passenger transportation on DOTsafety.
Don't listen to another operatorwho thinks he knows what the
regs are.
This man knows the regs.
And again, Tom, great, greatspending time with you today.
And thank you very much forbeing on the Ground
transportation podcast.
(46:33):
We appreciate it.
Tom Holden (46:34):
Thank you, Ken.
Have a great day.
Thank you for listening to theground transportation podcast.
If you enjoyed this episode,please remember to subscribe to
the show on apple, Spotify,YouTube, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
For more information about PAXtraining and to contact James,
go to PAX training.com.
And for more information aboutdriving transactions and to
(46:56):
contact Ken, Go to drivingtransactions.com.
We'll see you next time on theground transportation podcast.
Well, good afternoon and welcome to another exciting
episode of the groundtransportation podcast.
I am very excited to have as myguest today, probably the most
preeminent DOT and safety expertin the entire industry in the
chauffeured and motor coachindustry.
(00:47):
Gentleman named Tom Holden.
Tom and I have known each otherfrom, Back in the days when I
was a crazy out of controloperator and we worked together.
This is going to date us, Tom,but we worked together on the
2012 presidential conventions.
we took care of the Republicansdown in Tampa and then we moved
(01:08):
the whole fleet operation up.
To Charlotte, when you wereworking with an op as, as,
Tom Holden (01:14):
Yeah.
Ken (01:16):
of that operator.
And, uh, we killed it on theDemocrat side.
So, Tom Holden, uh, thank youfor being my guest and, and, and
tell us a little bit about yourbackground and then we're going
to, we're going to talk somequestions for the operators.
So hopefully you have someactionable advice.
Tom Holden (01:34):
Perfect.
Thank you.
And thank you, Ken, for theinvite to this event here.
you know, my background and I'm,I'm older than you, so I'm
dating myself even more, but mybackground has always been in a
management or ownership positionall the way back in my Jersey
days, born in Philadelphia.
you know, grew up the oldschool, hard knocks.
type of university.
(01:55):
Did go to college in Florida.
Um, Catholic college.
Believe that.
ultimately, by the time Ibounced around and and landed in
Charlotte, I came to Charlottefor an entirely different
reason.
I was hired by a corporationhere, worked for them for seven
years.
And then ultimately, Startedlooking for some part time work
(02:16):
and I was hired on by a local,limousine company at that time,
to do some part time work, youknow, nights and weekends, get
some extra green in the pocket.
And, uh, I was interviewed, by,a very well known person.
You know him well, CharlesTenney, uh, was a consultant of
the firm I was with at the time.
And, and he made it quite clearto me that, That I needed to be
(02:39):
on the inside working in theoffice versus doing part time
driving and that followingMonday.
There was a cubicle space open.
it was a single shift company atthe time doing about 1 million.
and as we grew, you know, we,we, we would just like most
other small companies, we wouldend up going to, um, an
(02:59):
answering service at the time.
And then you go home and try toeat dinner and answering
services calling you.
And so after putting up withthat nonsense, I said, we have
to create a second shiftdispatch.
And so we did that and wecontinued to expand.
And the further we expanded tothe West coast, the phones were
ringing after 11 o'clock andthen they started ringing at
four o'clock.
Right.
And so we created a third shiftdispatch and never.
(03:22):
Looked back, never turned itoff.
Even during the recession, wemaintained, our own, lifestyle,
right?
we could leave the office whenit was the appropriate time for
us to leave and then, and thendeal with family or whatever we
needed to.
to deal with.
But, you know, I, I think I waspretty instrumental in growing
that company from a milliondollars to a 10 million size and
(03:43):
operation.
We added motor coaches halfwaythrough my tenure there and, um,
grew that to 23 motor coaches,15 mini buses, four executive
vans, and then the rest of thefleet, you know, the sedan and
SUV world.
and we were the big gorilla forthis region.
We were the, we were thelargest.
At that time, the largestprobably in the state.
(04:05):
and, and, and.
You know, just doing phenomenalwork.
16 years.
Ken (04:10):
You, you were with them for 16 years.
evolved from the limousinesector, the limousine only
sector that you went into themini coaches.
Talk about the transition fromthe minis to motors, and then
talk about how you became soastute on DOT and safety from an
(04:33):
operator's perspective.
Tom Holden (04:35):
Yeah.
So for me that you'll, you'lllove the answer.
I'm going to give you for that.
But, but we went, uh, we wentfrom three mini buses at the
time, and continue to grow that.
And we were farming out motorcoach work, right?
was very profitable when wefarmed out motor coach work and
we got so much of it.
(04:57):
We had a, we had a Texacoaccount, NASCAR, a lot of NASCAR
business and so forth.
And, once you farmed it out likethat, there was very little
control, especially in Charlotteat that time.
they didn't want their driversto talk to the company like us
or whomever you had to gothrough their dispatch center.
And the quality just wasn't achauffeured quality.
(05:17):
Right.
And so, you know, we werefarming out about 245, 000 a
couple of years in a row.
Ken (05:25):
There you go.
A couple of mini buses rightthere.
Tom Holden (05:28):
yeah, exactly.
And so, you know, when, when anevent would come in Coca Cola,
600 or something in theCharlotte, and they would bring
500 people in for the race, howmany mini buses are you loading
up?
Right.
You have, uh, Two blocks long ofminibuses lined up just to move
that.
That's ridiculous.
And so two motorcoaches equalsone, right?
(05:48):
and so the need to grow thatmotorcoach, we bought our first
motorcoach.
and we decided a couple ofmonths after that we had
continuous growth.
So we bought a second one.
and just had to know how themotorcoach world worked before
we purchased.
They were bus companies with busdrivers.
Nothing wrong with that.
(06:09):
They still have existence andthere's, Well, there's companies
not too far from you that Thatjust announced their closing
after 140, 150 years, right?
They've done wonderful work, butthe traditional motor coach
company back when we gotstarted, you know, they didn't
get out of their seats.
(06:29):
They hate it loaded luggage.
They had coffee stains on theirshirt.
They just weren't pleasant.
and at, at that time when, whenthe true chauffeur
representation was necessary,you know, the bus driver didn't
cut it.
And so, we've taken those, thosefantastic CDL minibus drivers
and turned them into motor coachchauffeurs, right, and, and just
(06:52):
lit the world on fire.
Ken (06:54):
So this is pivotal for anybody who's listening as
operators listening to thingsfor the success of the
chauffeured space, infiltrating,if you will, the motor coach
sector or pivoting pivoting toinclude motor coaches is not
just buying a new unit, but it'sdelivering a higher level of
(07:14):
service than the typical busdriver.
Right.
Tom Holden (07:18):
That is correct.
and you're not going to bewelcomed into the motor coach
sector, uh, like you think youwould be, right?
If you guys go out and buysedans, SUVs, whatever, vans,
you're walking into an NLA show,chauffeur driven NLA show, and
people are greeting you withopen arms.
That is correct.
you step into the motor coachworld.
You are the redheaded stepchild,and I just kept pounding and
(07:41):
pounding and pounding, and wekept growing and growing and
growing,
Ken (07:45):
How do you avoid that?
And is it important to, is itimportant in the motor code
sector the way it is in thechauffeured sector to have
brethren that you can depend on?
Tom Holden (07:55):
Absolutely.
you have to have them notnecessarily for an affiliate
type of relationship becausethey don't.
work in a relationship likethat, right?
on an affiliate side, most ofthem are going to say, Hey, I've
got a friend in this city.
Give him a call versus thembooking it and assigning it to
their friend.
Right?
And so it's a lot different thatway.
(08:17):
But trust me when I tell yourunning a motor coach.
is entirely differentmaintenance wise than a, than a,
than a cutaway.
A cutaway is gonna be a freightline or a chassis, a Ford
chassis, maybe a Chevroletwhatever.
And, and you can pretty much getservice on those vehicles
anywhere you go on a motorcoach, that's not happening.
and so, you know, you're, you'regonna be stuck on the side of
(08:39):
the road for a couple of hoursbefore you're figuring things
out if you don't have a gameplan already set up.
And so if you have a friendthat's in a motor coach world.
And you are truly friends withthem.
You will be taken care of.
They've got most of the time theparts, or access to the parts a
lot quicker than you could findthem.
(08:59):
The tires are different.
Changing a tire on a motor coachis entirely different than
anything else, right?
the hoses and belts areconstantly going.
So no matter where you're at,you're going to run into that
problem.
Ken (09:09):
I 1, 000 percent agree.
And I think one of the problemsin the chauffeur transportation
industry.
In general is what I call theherd mentality, which is, Oh, so
and so bought a motor coach.
Now I should.
Okay.
motor coaches.
Cause I did that.
Okay.
When I bought a couple ofcompanies, they had four motor
coaches and I said, isn't thisfun?
and what, what a rude awakeningthat was.
(09:31):
And I remember, a gentlemanthat, you know, well who became
one of my mentors who was thefounder of the company that you
work with.
I'd said to me, Ken, you got tohave 20, 000 in cash laying
around per motor coach, just incase.
And I'm like, what, wait, you'rekidding me.
And he was absolutely a hundredpercent, right?
So from the perspective ofcapturing the business, you'll
(09:53):
agree that that's the easiestpart.
Tom Holden (09:55):
Yes.
Ken (09:56):
but the toughest part is to change your mindset from a
vehicle that typically you sendto a dealership or you send to a
service center versus now youhave to have a specialist take
care of this motor coach.
Tom Holden (10:12):
Not only the specialist, but you're going to
be on a waiting list to get in.
first of all, mechanics in truckshops don't like working on
buses.
I went to school to be a truckmechanic.
Right.
And so, you're put in the backof the line.
You might have to wait two weeksto get a major, a major repair
done.
Right.
luckily, roadside breakdowns aregoing to be that the tire blows
(10:36):
out, um, the, the, the, belts orthe hoses will, you know, burst
or, or break.
you know, those are the typicalroadside issues that take place,
right?
A serious engine problemdoesn't.
It can happen obviously if you,if you've ignored the signs
ahead of time, but you're notgoing to just, you know, chug
(10:57):
along down the road, all of asudden you blow an engine.
It just doesn't happen likethat.
Brand new units have problems,issues, you know, they have
warranty issues, thank Godthey're under warranty.
And let me tell you, Ken, whenyou were playing in that, in
that field, and I was in thatfield, You know, the, the
reality of a repair, I could doan engine replacement on a motor
coach and a, on a Cummings or aDetroit engine.
(11:18):
And I w we'd spend about$27,000two years ago.
I helped one of my clients witha, Detroit engine replacement
and it was almost$60,000 and twoweeks ago, I'm in conversation
about a Cummings, replacementand was getting a very light,
quote that started around$80,000Okay.
(11:39):
And so, and so that$20,000 cashlaying around, you know, goes
away a lot quicker today than itused to.
Ken (11:45):
A hundred percent.
A hundred percent.
Tom Holden (11:48):
other thing of that is the difference in a motor
coach industry back in the daywas that most traditional motor
coach companies, they kept theirbuses 20 years.
In a chauffeur driven world, ifit, if it had dust on it in
three years, he had to get ridof it.
years, whatever.
you know, the murder coachcompanies, they kept them
around.
And I remember we won't mentionnames, but I remember people
(12:10):
that got into the murder coacharena from the chauffeur side of
it after we did and, and said,Oh, we're not, we weren't going
to buy brand new.
We have to buy brand new.
and then I said at dinner, I'llUh, with a group of people and
that particular owner was in theroom and I said, Hey, listen, I,
I hear your original brand newbuses you have up for sale.
(12:30):
Would you recommend to thiscrowd here at the table that,
that they should buy them?
And he says, well, of coursethey're in fantastic shape.
we've taken care of them.
I said, so it's okay now topurchase a used bus.
Ken (12:42):
Right.
Tom Holden (12:43):
Okay.
And so you're right.
You had mentioned that, youknow, you had to buy a bus, you
were following your friend'sfootsteps.
I've seen it way too many timesand they ended up being out of
business today.
and the other thing that, thattook place was if you're buying
one, you may as well buy two.
Well, I don't know when the lasttime your listeners checked in
on a price of a motorcoach, butyou know, I'm hearing 620 000 to
(13:08):
750 000 for motorcoach.
You're not buying two.
Ken (13:11):
Absolutely.
it's crazy.
We did a financial reviewanalysis with a, with a
chauffeur company that wasentering the motor coach space.
We deliberately talked to himand you know who the operator
is.
He great guy, you know, 10million on the chauffeur side
alone.
And I said, look, if you'regoing to enter this, we're going
to do it the right way.
We're going to analyze yourbreak.
Even we're going to analyze yourasset utilization.
(13:32):
We're going to do a set asidedollar amount for repairs and
maintenance.
And he argued with me, Ken, it'sunder warranty.
I said, okay, so what happenswhen breaks on the side of the
road?
How much do you think the towingis?
And his guess was wildly off,right?
So when we created the breakeven, I said, okay, if you're
happy with this, you have to doX amount of revenue, which by
(13:56):
the way was three times morethan he thought he had to, to do
a break even.
So, so what we're talking abouthere is number one, absolutely
100%.
The market is there for motorcoach and high end mini coach
work when you're delivering abetter customer experience with
a better piece of equipment andbetter customer experience, but
(14:19):
that is the tip of the iceberg.
That's what lures people intothe space, right?
What's underneath the surface ofthe iceberg.
Okay.
Is the repair and maintenancechallenges we've talked about.
I can assure everybody in theaudience and so can you and
you've got more stories than me.
It's wildly more expensive thanyou would ever consider.
Tom Holden (14:41):
absolutely
Ken (14:42):
In addition to that, you cannot enter into this space.
without a different trainingplan for your coach driver than
you have on the chauffeur side.
I always laugh.
The chauffeur side is, he'sgoing to sit in the passenger
seat of a sedan.
I'm going to show him theairport.
I'm going to basically, youknow, maybe I'm going to put him
through the PACS training,right?
And then guess what?
(15:02):
Here are the keys to thevehicle.
You do that on the motor coachside.
You've given someone the keysto, first of all, it's,
definitely over half a milliondollar asset.
And second of all, it's how muchdoes a motor coach weigh?
You've given them a literally anuclear bomb.
So,
Tom Holden (15:20):
So let me, let me add something right there real
quick to you just for a littlepiece of, togetherness here.
Somebody called me the other dayand said, listen, all my motor
coach, it's governed at 70 milesan hour and the drivers are
complaining.
They want it to go faster.
People are passing them on thehighway.
And I said, look.
You know, obviously you're theowner of a company and you do
whatever you're going to do, butI'm going to tell you what you
need to consider first is learnabout that 70 miles an hour on
(15:44):
that motor coach that has agross weight limit of 54, 000
pounds, okay?
And then you're doing 70 milesan hour.
How long does it take to stop 70mile an hour bus?
And then, if you're going toincrease it to 75, how long is
it going to take?
I've seen accidents happen.
I've, been on accident scenes.
I know the damage that canhappen, right?
(16:04):
And I said, I said, why don'tyou just go get in the bus and
have a driver drive?
You go, go on a back highwaysomewheres, uh, with no other
vehicles around.
And and have them do 70 and hitthe brakes and then count how
long is it going to take to stopthat bus, right?
Ken (16:19):
It's like literally trying to stop a jet plane on the,
tarmac instead of a prop plane,a tiny little prop plane.
I don't think you canunderestimate that.
so give me the top five thingsthat, you would say to an
operator that they have tobefore they ever consider it.
You hit up on one that was, wascritical before you got into
mini buses, you guys did 240,000 for two consecutive years.
(16:42):
Okay.
So you built up the demand.
So on the motor coach side ofthe world, before you would go
out and buy your own assets,what would you try to do to
prove out that there's actualdemand?
In your market.
Tom Holden (16:57):
Yeah, so that you you're going to first of all
learn what demand is out therealready what operators are in
your market Okay, calculate howmuch they're making so that two
or three other motor coachcompanies that are in your
market This one's doing threemillion dollars.
This one's doing five milliondollars.
This one's doing ten milliondollars You say okay, there's
leverage room there I know thatmy performance as a chauffeured
(17:19):
company in the motor coach arenais going to be able to pick up
clients from each one of thosethree.
Okay.
already farmed it out, so I knowhow it works.
I know how the start works andthe finish works.
I understand the rules.
Right.
I know the driver can't drivemore than 10 hours and so forth.
And so I'm going into thissaying, all right, these are the
people that I've farmed out aquarter million dollars to, and
(17:41):
the clients I have already,right, I'm going to just let
them know that here we are,we've got our, we've got our own
vehicle.
It'll, it'll be our branding ona vehicle.
That's going to show up thistime.
and we appreciate continuing todo business.
So right off the bat, you've got250, 000 already on the books.
Ken (17:59):
Would you try buying a motor coach if you had less than
that?
Tom Holden (18:03):
I would not in today's
Ken (18:04):
I agree with that I would not unless you've unless you've
been able to sell the productunless you've been able to sell
Motor code services andsupervise it track it and with a
farm company I would I agree athousand percent do not do not
make an investment Of at theleast a few hundred thousand and
(18:25):
at most it could be six hundredthousand
Tom Holden (18:27):
Right.
Exactly.
So the other, the other secretbehind that most people can, and
you probably see this in yournumbers is the fact that say,
well, I did 500, 000 in motorcoaches.
Wait, did you do 500, 000 in onemotor coach through the entire
year?
Or was that five large eventsthat you needed 10 motor coaches
at?
Ken (18:47):
Agreed.
That's a great, that's a greatpoint.
Cause that, yep.
Tom Holden (18:51):
And so does that determine if I had one motor
coach, how much am I going toget one out of five jobs?
Okay.
Ken (18:58):
Exactly.
Tom Holden (18:59):
And so they think they're doing phenomenal
business because of that.
And they're really not.
Ken (19:04):
And Tom, you want to, you want to really scare the shit
out of somebody and I can saythat word because this is my
podcast.
Do a financial pro forma thatshows them how much it costs to
have that motor coach sit for aday, for two days, for three
days.
For four days for five days andsay you've got to have the free
cash flow to support that andand to your point, they look at
(19:29):
the raw number of 500.
They're not happy making thefarm out delta the gross margin
and they say, I want that formyself.
And I think that's the wrongheaded approach.
I think you build it.
I think you build it from thebottom up, meaning knowing your
cost structure, knowing yourbreak even now, the guy that we
(19:52):
were talking about, he flat outsaid, can I can't get the
quality.
I can't get these people to doweekend work.
I can't.
I people are calling us left andright and and we're turning them
away.
Okay, great.
So that's how we're going to do.
We're going to do the polarplunge on this.
We're gonna do the polar plunge.
First of all, do you have thecapital?
(20:13):
Second of all, do you have moneythat you can set aside?
Okay.
That's the second thing.
And talk about the changes tothe operational infrastructure.
Tom Holden (20:24):
I mean, there's a lot of, a lot of directions.
The infrastructure is, has, hasbeen heading, you know, First of
all, back up a hair on that,besides the cost and, and, and,
and the cash that you have tohave available, there are too
many people that are buying amotorcoach before they even talk
to their insurance company,okay?
(20:45):
And so, so you get a motorcoachand then you struggle getting,
insurance, or they're calling meup and they're bitching that,
that, and I guess I could saybitching because it is your
show, but
Ken (20:55):
Tom.
Let it roll.
Tom Holden (20:57):
But the reality is is that they're complaining that
the cost of insurance.
Oh my god I didn't realize itwas going to be this much.
Well, you didn't do any homeworkNone Just like you said you they
should hire you to go overnumbers before they make a
decision to buy that bus
Ken (21:12):
And get real live quotes from insurance companies and
real live quotes on loans andleases.
Don't guess.
Tom Holden (21:19):
Right, right.
On top of that, the insurancecompany that they have most
likely if they're a chauffeurdriven company, most likely
won't insure a motor coach.
Okay.
And so then what you're going todo now, you've got to go search
for a whole different company.
Now you open up a can of worms.
This is going to cost me fivemillion dollars across the board
for all my vehicles becausethat's the way this new
insurance company Wants me to doit.
Ken (21:40):
Correct.
It'll put a spotlight on yourexisting organization.
so what tactics do you recommendfor that?
I mean,
Tom Holden (21:48):
Yeah, I mean there are a lot of people today that
are that are opening up aseparate corporation With a
separate dot number, you knowwhen I was in the game we
weren't allowed to do to do that
Ken (21:58):
we, we see a lot of that now.
we see a lot of secondarycompanies, but we also see a lot
of leasing companies.
In other words, you, the personthat owns the chauffeur company
sets up their own leasingcompany.
That's going to not only buy themotor coach, but ensure the
motor coach.
And just, just clarifysomething.
(22:19):
You can do this and yourinsurance company's never going
to find out.
Right.
Right, right.
No, the answer is no.
You can, you have to doeverything in the sunshine.
You absolutely, if you treatyour insurance company or the
insurance age, uh, agents orcarriers that you interview for
this, right?
Thinking that you're going tonow have a separate
(22:40):
relationship, forget it.
It's not going to happen.
You have to treat them like apartner and you have to say,
these are the business decisionsI'd like to make.
What are the best practices andwhat do you suggest as well?
Tom Holden (22:53):
you're right, right.
Ken (22:54):
And by the way, there's, If they want to get into the space,
they're a hundred percentfoolish not to talk to you
first.
Tom Holden (23:01):
well, I appreciate that, you know, and, and, and
you've done tremendous work withthe numbers and laying out the
numbers and how it has to be.
I mean, that, that uncovers theworld right there.
I could certainly guide thepeople in the right direction on
what homework that what elsethey have to go through.
complete.
Not only are they going tostruggle to get insurance, but
there are insurance companiestoday that are refusing certain
type of motor coach work.
(23:23):
And so you need to know what,what am I getting into?
Am I the chauffeur company or abus company that's going to do
charter work?
Okay, that's standard.
You're going to get a policy forthat.
Am I going to jump on abandwagon and start doing line
run business?
Because, you know, as, as ourgovernment has been changing
over the last 10 years, line runbusiness, Uh has been growing
(23:44):
right and there's a couple ofdifferent brands that are
popping around the country somebigger than others and and then
one of them even purchasedgreyhound, right?
and so There's only oneinsurance company right now.
That's insuring line run Type ofwork,
Ken (23:59):
And it ain't, And it ain't, cheap.
Tom Holden (24:00):
No
Ken (24:02):
So again, so you're, you know, you're talking about
something.
You the lure of the revenue,right?
So these there are techaggregators in the motor coach
space And we we don't have touse names But there are there
are a bunch of them out therethat what they do is they get on
the top of Google in every cityor try to, and then what they
want to do is they're going tofarm you the work.
(24:22):
Right.
And they're approachingchauffeured companies and
saying, if you get a motorcoach, we will provide you with
all of this work.
Right.
I will tell you, I've never seenany of them that have a gross
margin anywhere close.
To doing a five hour charter runand you perhaps are doing 12 or
(24:43):
more hours on the road withrelay drivers for line run.
So watch your watch your ifyou're thinking that you're
going to be your entry into themotor code space.
Tom Holden (24:54):
Yeah, again I mean all you have to do is go on the
internet And you're going to seewho's paying their bill and
who's not right?
so if I were going to take a a aride from a broker,
Ken (25:05):
Yep.
Which they are.
That's all they are is a techbroker
Tom Holden (25:08):
That that's all they are.
you know, then they're gonnathey're gonna pay me up front
Okay, I'm going to get theirmoney in my bank before I rolled
the door because because againyou mentioned 20, 000 in your
pocket just for breakdown issuesyou start and I hear this all
the time Oh, so and so owes metwenty five thousand thirty five
thousand on motor coach farm outwork I'm, like you better have
(25:30):
real deep pockets if you'regoing to allow that to happen
You've been in this industrylong enough that you can
remember the people that hadthat kind of money That was owed
to them from affiliates of thepast, right?
Ken (25:41):
on the chauffeured side.
100%.
And I, and I fired a couple ofthose networks.
When I was an operator, peoplesaid, you're cutting your
throat.
I said, are you kidding me?
I mean, I'm making it best.
At the end of the day, I'mmaking a gross margin of 30
percent and a net profit of 8 to10%.
And you're telling me you wantme to wait 90 days for my money.
Tom Holden (26:02):
why do you think that they're targeting the
chauffeur driven area for you todo their motor coach work?
Ken (26:08):
Oh, it's totally ignorance.
It's financial ignorance.
It's, it's, the industry in manycases is financially agnostic.
They don't know their numbers.
They become enamored with, I canpay you.
X or I can, I'm doing 300, 000 amonth in your area or 25,
whatever the number is, but whatyou don't realize is you're
putting so much wear and tear onyour motor coach that you're
(26:32):
going to get upside upside downfairly quickly.
So that's the lore of, you know,that's nothing more than.
Then the, the, the, the lure ofthe, the, the swan song, if you
will.
It's the lure of, oh, all ofthis revenue is going to change
my life.
It's not profitable revenue.
So talk to us about yourbusiness.
Tell it, give us a rundown, giveus the three minute commercial
(26:52):
on what you do because you'rethe best in the industry at it.
So transition us, transition us.
So how did you start?
How did you start this thing onyou, this odyssey on your own?
Tom Holden (27:02):
After 16 years of being in the operator's seat and
growing that business andactually, you know, technically
having, The ability to have apiece of that pie.
I walked away from it all.
I walked away from that piece ofpie at the age of 60 and decided
that I wanted to, to open up atthe time it was called bus
advisors, right?
And I wanted to go out there andhelp, many companies versus just
(27:25):
one.
Right.
And so I opened up and it was,it was already gangbusters in
the very first year.
And we, we went from a homeoffice to a real office in two
months.
we started building, my daughterwas the first person I hired.
And then we kept building fromthere.
And, now we have, 10 people thatare working.
Ken (27:44):
What's your discipline?
What do you do for operators?
Tom Holden (27:47):
Yeah, so you could, you could call us a virtual
safety department, if you will,with, the fact that you have my
experience of backing it up.
My son in law works for me herein Charlotte.
My son works for me on the WestCoast.
And so we, we run this as afamily business, but they're
learning what I've had.
Over the past 23 years, andthey're learning what's going on
(28:08):
in today's audit world.
Today's audit world is entirelydifferent than it was 10 years
ago.
The questions and the demandsthat are happening now is a lot
different, right?
And so they're, they're learninga whole new set, you know, for
their next 10 years to go on.
and things that would never havehappened when I first started
out.
Ken (28:26):
So, when you say a virtual safety department, you're being
modest.
You've, you've developed a greattechnology.
And so talk to us about that.
Now, how you interface withwhat's out there already.
Tom Holden (28:37):
yeah.
So, so shortly after I startedthis and doing it the long way,
uh, I decided I wanted to createa software.
So I hired a tech firm, to startbuilding a software.
They're still building for me.
I'm never going to be donebecause it's very addictive.
You know, I want to add this andadd that, but we have a software
product called my dot docs.
(28:59):
People can look that up at, youknow, my dot docs.
com.
and that is a, software that'svery interactive and integrated
with, with a specific, um, ELDcurrently with more expansions
coming, but it has every pieceof detail that is in there that
the feds are going to want toaudit you on.
(29:20):
It's got built in reminders.
It automatically assigns dates.
very color coded.
So you as an operator looking atyour product and here, here's a
big difference.
There are very few products thatare on the market today that
are, that are 100 percent legit.
you know, you go into myproduct, you're capable of
opening it up, printing it out,emailing it to the inspector as
if that file was in your filingcabinet, right?
(29:43):
Within within seconds, you couldhave all the paperwork you want
to hand to the inspector if youwanted to.
But in today's world, it's alluploaded, right?
And so you're going to click acouple of buttons and boom, it's
in his setting already.
Ken (29:54):
So talk to me about the interface with an EID.
Pretend I don't know what an ELDis.
and do you want to talk aboutthe one that you're
Tom Holden (30:02):
yeah, sure.
I mean, I, I, we we're, we'reintegrated with Samsara, only
because the majority of myclients are running Samsara.
So I and ELD is an electroniclogging device, so anybody
that's a CDL or had CDL drivers,there was original paper logs
that you had to do.
Uh, the government did away withthat, and, and it, it had to be
(30:24):
an ELD, the ELD, can be selfcertified, they have to be put
on a list government's hands,but if that, ELD is not meeting
the required state, then thefeds will shut it down.
Right?
So we're constantly, every weekwe get an email on what ELD is
no longer approved.
Right?
and so the ELD is out there.
(30:44):
There, there, there's a set ofrules that they have to follow,
and so almost all ELDs are goingto be very, very similar.
What is it that they do with thedata?
That's the difference, okay?
How much data can you pull outof it if you're going to even do
that?
then what is it tied into?
Is it tied into a camera system?
Most of them can be or you don'thave to buy both, but if you do,
(31:08):
you better study that becausethere are very, very, very
smart, very intelligent camerasthat are on the market today
compared to what it was aslittle as eight years ago.
Okay.
The quality, the AI that's builtinto it, facial recognition,
that is there to, says, oh,alert, Tom's got a phone in his
hand.
Ken (31:28):
So let's talk about this for one second.
So the Samsara system isinstalled in the motor coach
Tom Holden (31:33):
Yep.
Ken (31:34):
and not only, it is interfaced with the, with the
actual motor coach computers andit has cameras inside and
outside.
Correct?
Tom Holden (31:45):
So it has a camera in the windshield,
Ken (31:47):
Yep.
Tom Holden (31:47):
Which is looking right at your eyes, right?
And there are, differentversions of companies with
different technology andcameras.
Some are off to the right.
And so it sees a side view, butwhen that thing looks directly
in your eyes, it knows what youreyes are doing.
It will call out distracteddriver.
It knows you're falling asleep,right?
I've, I've watched the video andthank God the person was driving
a Volvo.
(32:08):
and that chauffeur was fallingasleep at the wheel
Ken (32:11):
Jesus.
Can you imagine that?
55, 000 pound vehicle and he'sfalling asleep.
Tom Holden (32:16):
vehicle stopped.
Right.
And so luckily the accidentdidn't occur.
We've seen way too many peoplethat have the, you know, the
drivers look into the left andhe run into the vehicle in front
of them, you know, it was just.
The intelligence in the cameratoday is very, very, very,
exciting to
Ken (32:32):
So you built this software on your own to interface with
SIM, the ELD, the specific brandis SIMSERA.
So what does the integrationgive you?
What do you, what's the benefitthere?
Tom Holden (32:43):
yeah.
So, so let's talk about thecamera first to get that out of
the way.
The cameras are still monitoredby humans here in my office,
right?
So when an alert triggers, wehave humans that are looking for
it because AI is just not goingto be there
Ken (32:55):
So the alert being distracted driving, what are the
other alerts?
Tom Holden (32:59):
So you'll have following too close, you have
speeding, hard braking, rollingstops, cell phones, you know,
that type of stuff.
You can, do that.
And then the companies can say,well, you know what, while
you're watching those alerts,what else was that driver doing?
Was he, was he eating anddrinking while driving?
Was he smoking in my car?
You know, I want to know thesedetails, right?
(33:19):
And so then our job is to takethe very important ones, I've
seen companies that have almost200 a day, but let's just assume
you have, you know, 25 videosfor the day.
You don't have to sit there andwatch those videos.
We'll do that and we're going tosend you the one that is real
important.
Ken (33:36):
So you're literally the ground traffic control
department and safetydepartment.
Wow.
Tom Holden (33:42):
You could say that.
So we're looking at that.
And then God forbid there's anaccident, which they, they
happen often.
You know, the, my team willbring me the video.
We'll look at it and that I lookand see exactly, you know, I've
been doing this a very longtime.
So I'm going to look at thatvideo 2030 times and I'm going
to make a call to the owner I'lltell him exactly what I see,
what went wrong.
(34:02):
I've been told by owners in thepast, I'll call them and say,
Hey, just had an accident.
Did you watch the video?
Nope.
My dispatcher told me whathappened.
I said, what'd they tell you?
They said the driver, the driverwas hit by a truck.
It was a hit and run.
and brought it back.
And this was a brand newescalate, brand new escalate.
(34:23):
and I said, well, that's notwhat happened.
You need to look at your videobecause your driver fell asleep
at the wheel and hit theguardrail
Ken (34:28):
unbelievable.
Tom Holden (34:29):
or a different one again.
My dispatchers told me whathappened.
I said, well, You need to lookat it because it was truly your
your driver's fault They were ina right hand turn lane only and
went straight
Ken (34:41):
You know, and the reality is, it's funny, it's funny to
hear you talk about this.
This is not, to me, what you dois absolutely not optional
anymore, right?
You're literally an outsideentity that is, managing the
safety department and managingthe data, uh, for an operator.
(35:04):
There aren't too many operatorsthat can afford to have a full
time employee do what yourservice does.
And you're not an expense to me.
You know what you are?
You're a savings to me.
You are an investment to mebecause I can't tell you how
many customers and you've, youknow who they are.
And, and we, we, you know, we'vegot operators, joint operators
(35:25):
that are mutual customers thatwhose insurance has gone up 40
to 50%.
And we lament the fact thatthey're absolute amateurs when
it comes to safety and they'reonly.
Doing safety to check a box andyou can't you absolutely cannot
do it that way.
So, Talk specifically about yourintegration because you invested
(35:46):
a ton of money in your software.
Tom Holden (35:48):
I have and and continue to do so.
you know as as you well know,there's nothing cheap, right?
And if you're going to do it,you may also do it the right way
and my integration On ourdashboard, as we call it, when
our customers are logged inlooking at it, or we're looking
at it, there's a specific grayarea that is integrated with Sam
Sarah, and it's it's pulling thedata from Sam Sarah into the
(36:12):
system, right?
So the data is already there.
I don't create the data, and sowe're pulling it in.
So we see a safety score is inthe first column, and I want to
talk about that in a second.
the next to that is going to beThe, the driver has 10 hours.
This is on CDL drivers now,right?
The driver has 10 hours todrive.
Today, he's got 15 hours of onduty.
(36:33):
He's got 70 hours for the week,and then, and then starting
tomorrow.
How many hours does he haveafter,
Ken (36:38):
is tracking all that
Tom Holden (36:40):
All of that.
And so on a, on a 30 minuteinterval, it's refreshing the
screen, counting down 10 hours,nine and a half hours, nine
hours.
When it gets to three hours, itturns red.
Okay, now the people that you'vegiven the authority to log into
that system and we could havedispatchers logged in under
separate credentials where theyonly see this part of the
(37:02):
dashboard.
They don't see the confidentialstuff.
so they could watch thatcountdown.
You got red and you could hit abutton and bring all the red up
to the top.
So you don't have to go through10 pages you know, 100 drivers.
And you'll see this guy's gotthree hours.
Okay.
Well, Johnny, Johnny's got threehours to get back to the shop.
And according to my Google, he'sfour hours away.
(37:23):
I have to react as a dispatcher.
I have to react.
I got to do something.
Okay.
And so if you go over 10 hours,You know, I'm going to say that
was approved by somebody.
Okay.
I don't even want to say aloudthat was approved.
The dispatcher approved thatdriver to bring it back at 10
(37:43):
hours and 15 minutes or 10 hoursand 30 minutes.
Okay.
He made the conscious decisionto not get that driver out of
the seat.
Okay.
And so we're giving you anotice, which is again, the data
comes directly from Sam Sarah.
So instead of you logging intoSam Sarah, bouncing around
internet, whatever, we're havingit right in front of your face.
(38:04):
You can watch the countdown andget them out of the vehicle.
Ken (38:07):
And what else is your software do?
Tom Holden (38:10):
it's going to keep track of all of the records that
are required by FMCSA.
And then we're very, capable ofadding columns and sections.
So all the, the New Yorkcustomers enjoy having all of
their 19a records right there ona dashboard.
Ken (38:24):
What is 19 a for those of us who don't know what it is?
Tom Holden (38:27):
So 19a is, is, actually in, penalties and fines
is worse than a feds, right?
Uh, it is just horrible.
I mean, you talk about 70, 000penalties for You know, six
missing documents.
Ken (38:40):
unbelievable.
And that's any operator thatmoves in New York.
Or is that just New Yorkoperators?
Tom Holden (38:45):
no, that's going to be any operator that's operating
within New York.
was an operator again inCharlotte going to New York, I
would not have to participate in19 a.
And New Jersey has toparticipate in it because that's
what they decided to do rightacross the border.
New Jersey people have toparticipate in it.
New York's offices are auditedmore so than Jersey offices are
(39:07):
right.
And so it actually has some verygood stuff in there that might
think is overstepping.
But there's diabetes forms.
There's high blood pressureforms.
They have to be updated everysix months.
I mean, New York cares.
A lot of times when you,participate in a program like
that, the care part of it,becomes very, very stringent and
expensive,
Ken (39:26):
Well, look, and why tell us why?
Tom Holden (39:29):
it's all about safety, right?
I mean, you, you know, theaccident that took place upstate
New York, you've seen it toomany times.
you see bus accidents happening.
Uh, and this, this 19 a ruleonly applies to passenger
carrying world.
It doesn't apply to the truckingworld.
And so, so other states haveother things that they need.
California, they have certainthings that they'd like to see.
(39:51):
So if you have a state that'sheavily controlled by PUC, we,
we could build it specificallyfor your company, city and
state.
Right.
And then those documents arealways right in front of
Ken (40:00):
Well, and the other thing that I like about it, and we,
both know operators that havebeen audited, know, when you are
audited, and there's an outsidecompany.
That you've outsourced to?
Frankly, I believe that theylook at the data with less of a
jaundice eye.
They look at the data as beingkept by a company that is
(40:21):
specifically in business totrack and manage all this stuff.
Okay, so we're coming up on theend.
do people reach you by the way?
Tom Holden (40:30):
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, there's, there's a lotof different ways you can find
us.
The advisors.
org is my website.
Our phone number is 980 9998484.
um, I'm going to be at the UMAshow.
Mark, myself, and Nicholas willbe at the UMA show.
And we'll also be at theChauffeur Driven NLA show right
after that.
Ken (40:49):
uh, look at the end of the day, the revenue margin, the
gross margins are better on manybuses.
They're certainly better on theright kind of motor coach
business, but it is night andday compared to the sedan and
SUV business.
If you're going to.
risk your life and livelihoodand your, own personal money to
get into minis and motors, youabsolutely need to take the DOT
(41:14):
regulations and safetyregulation seriously.
You know, and the sad part is itwas always the case.
You always had to do it when youwould just worried about a DOT
audit.
But now the other facet is.
The insurance company.
So as we finish, Talk to usabout the changes on the
insurance audit side and theinsurance industry side.
Tom Holden (41:34):
Yeah, so the insurance comes in now and
they're auditing your books verysimilar to the Feds do.
They don't do vehicleinspections, you know, but, but
they know how many vehicleinspections you've had.
And so they're going to come inand look at your books, they're
going to ask for the same set ofdocuments.
And, you know, I was thinkingabout this while you were just
talking, I've seen companiesthat would not get approved by
(41:54):
the insurance company becausethey have no motor coach
experience or no bus experience.
Okay.
And so their sedan SUV world,their management, their owners,
they have absolutely noexperience in it at all.
And they're being deniedinsurance coverage for that
expansion.
you know, that's part of theother homework.
If I want to do this, who'sgoing to actually manage it for
me?
Who do I hire to put into thatseat?
(42:16):
You know, the insurancecompanies come in, they want to
see the same thing.
They're now holding youaccountable for stuff that's
outside of the realm.
You know, and, and you reallydon't have a choice.
You have to go with the flow.
You're going to pay for it.
And, and there's never going tobe a decrease in insurance.
Ken (42:30):
No way.
Tom Holden (42:31):
know an operator, it's very large operator in the
motor coach world that just hadhis, his premiums, 100%, they
were doubled,
Ken (42:39):
that we're double and, and you know what?
And it's, and it really, wecannot stress this enough.
Okay.
If you're not managing yoursafety and you're not mitigating
your risk, I don't give a shitif you're a two car operator.
Okay.
If you're not actively have asafety and risk management
program in place, your nextpolicy could put you out of
(43:01):
business.
Tom Holden (43:02):
Well, it will, it will put you out and I, you
know, I was looking at yourquestions earlier and I know we
only have a couple of secondsleft here.
But you asked about it in thevery beginning, you know, what
did I do when I was an operator,and how did I successfully, you
know, manage that part of it?
The reality is, is that I'm notgoing to go to prison for
anybody, My, my dispatchers verydemandingly, you better not let
(43:28):
this driver drive more than 10hours or we got a problem.
Okay.
And so what I broke down hereearlier was insist on having a
true safety culture.
If the owners and managers don'tHave the time.
It will never work.
Okay, if you're owner and you'rea manager and you don't want to
be invested Into that safetyculture your product will never
(43:52):
work,
Ken (43:53):
No, you, you, you just said a mouthful there.
And, and, and here's what, youknow, you and I deal with, we
deal with people that on yourside, they're safety agnostic,
right?
You've got to try to convertthem into thinking that they
don't need safety in their life.
Okay.
And I've got to try to convincethem that they need finance
knowledge in their life and theyneed the right financial
(44:15):
reporting.
I don't know about you.
I don't deal with thefinancially agnostic anymore.
If all you want to do is tell meabout your top line revenue and
you have no idea about yourgross profit margins or NOI, I'm
sorry, go with, go with whoeveryou've got is, but I, I'm not
dealing with you because you'reYou're going to come to me when
you're in such bad shape.
Right.
I can't help you.
You get the same situation, butthe one thing I want to leave
(44:38):
you with is safety cells.
If you can demonstrate thatyou're a safer operator and you
have the scores to prove it andyou use your, you use your
system and you use, you know,the telematics, um, Sarah system
to say, look, our driver safetyscore is X.
(45:00):
Do you really want to save 15percent by going with a company
that they can't even tell youwhat their score is.
So, you know, I would telloperators that safety sells.
And if you know your numbers andyour numbers have improved, and
same thing with the insurancecompany, demonstrating all of
your safety metrics and doingbusiness with your company and
(45:21):
saying, look, Before I startedwith Tom, this is where I was.
Look at where we are today.
Those numbers speak forthemselves and, you can't be
safety agnostic today.
Tom Holden (45:29):
No, no you're 100 and on top of that, you know
when you're looking you'relooking to get into the
insurance world You're trying todo better with those guys maybe
you've reached the point.
You're going to sell yourcompany.
My system tracks everything.
And so I could easily turn thescreen around to an inspector.
I can turn around to theinsurance company or to you if
you're marketing them toselling.
(45:50):
Look, here's the owner andhere's the management.
This is how many times they'velogged in.
This is how much time they'veinvested in our software that
they know exactly what's goingon in the safety world.
Ken (46:01):
Listen, Tom Holden, it's absolutely great to have you on
the podcast.
I look forward to seeing you inVegas.
give us your website again.
Tom Holden (46:08):
It is the advisors.
Ken (46:11):
Love it.
And there's no better, betterknowledgeable individual in the
passenger transportation on DOTsafety.
Don't listen to another operatorwho thinks he knows what the
regs are.
This man knows the regs.
And again, Tom, great, greatspending time with you today.
And thank you very much forbeing on the Ground
transportation podcast.
(46:33):
We appreciate it.
Tom Holden (46:34):
Thank you, Ken.
Have a great day.
Thank you for listening to theground transportation podcast.
If you enjoyed this episode,please remember to subscribe to
the show on apple, Spotify,YouTube, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
For more information about PAXtraining and to contact James,
go to PAX training.com.
And for more information aboutdriving transactions and to
(46:56):
contact Ken, Go to drivingtransactions.com.
We'll see you next time on theground transportation podcast.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.