From Solo Freight Broker To Business Owner | Episode 320

Ready to stop “owning your job” and start owning a brokerage that grows without you? This episode maps the move from solo broker to small business owner—how to know when you’re maxed out, who to hire first, and how to set up systems that make growth calm, not chaotic. We’ll cover reclaiming selling time with support roles, automations, and clear expectations; managing money with smart cash buffers, credit decisions, and key KPIs; and choosing the right structure—cradle-to-grave, pod, or split—plus the nuts and bolts of payroll, taxes, and compliance. If you want a brokerage that runs when you step away, this roadmap will get you there—with fewer headaches and healthier margins.

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:19):
All righty.
Welcome back to the Freight 360podcast.
We're up to episode 320.
And today we're talking aboutgoing from being a solo broker
to becoming a small businessowner.
So most folks start off as thatone man show doing everything on
their own, making the calls,booking the trucks, billing, et
cetera.
And there comes a point in timewhen it's time to grow and uh

(00:41):
let go of some of those controlsand responsibilities.
And we're gonna dig into thattoday.
So, but first, make sure tosubscribe, leave those reviews
and questions in the commentsand contact form on our website
and um share us with all theother folks in your office or
your friends in the industry,and check out all the other
content right on our website atfreight360.net, or a lot of

(01:03):
folks are checking on our stuffand engaging on YouTube.
Um, the Freight Broker Basicscourse, you'll find that on our
uh website as well.
That's a full-length educationaloption for yourself.
And it's really, I mean, ourtopic today, right, is you're
growing a team, um, training isa big part of it.
So definitely give that a a uhuh checkout if you haven't done

(01:23):
that yet.
Uh, Ben, how did you make outwith the uh polar vortex and the
iguanas in the trees, man?

SPEAKER_01 (01:30):
Dude, it's so funny.
One is it like I just keptlaughing in my head because you
sent me a picture of the snow acouple days ago, and I texted
you back.
I'm like, I like I have thislike nostalgic and also like I
grew up playing in the snow andskiing.
Like, I have very very much wasa winter person before I moved
here.
So every time you send me thosepictures, I'm like, oh man,
that's so nice.

(01:51):
Like, build a fire, it's coldoutside.
24 hours later, it was 40degrees when I woke up, and I'm
like, this is horrible.
And I'm like, I took my trashout.
I was like, I am so gratefulthat I don't have to live for
months of this now.
And it was funny because it wasa little colder this morning,
like it was like 45 yesterday,but this morning it was like 50.

(02:12):
And even just the mental blockto go in my cold plunge was so
much harder because like thewater's 37.
So, like, does it really matter?
I walk eight feet and 50 degreesto get into it, right?
But just in your head, knowingit's not warm, yeah.
Okay, and just knowing it's notwarm around you, like just in
your head makes you feel I'mlike, it was so much harder.

(02:32):
I'm like, literally, I check thetemp, same temp, do it every
day, and I'm like, it felt likealmost unbearable because my
brain's just like, you're notsupposed to do this.
Like, this is a terrible idea.

SPEAKER_00 (02:42):
Yep.

SPEAKER_01 (02:43):
Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 (02:44):
Well, in the uh in the world of sports, yes, the
Buffalo Bills are just stressingeverybody out in Western New
York.
They fell to six and threeagainst the uh the dolphins.
So I bet a lot of folks down inSouth Florida were loving that.
We've got some of the some ofthe folks at Pierce work in our
um, we've got a truckingterminal and a brokerage
operation in in central Florida,and they're they're big Finns

(03:07):
fans.

SPEAKER_01 (03:07):
So they were Did you hear about the Dolphins coach
trolling the Bills fans at theElbow Room?

SPEAKER_00 (03:14):
No, I didn't see that.

SPEAKER_01 (03:15):
You didn't see it?
No.
Um apparently Mike the the ElbowRoom's like a famous bar in uh
Fort Lauderdale, and um MikeMcDaniel lives in Fort
Lauderdale.
Okay.
So all these pictures showed up.
They were first on social media,but like they were talking about
it on the local news where heliterally drove in front of the

(03:36):
bar because all the Bills fanswere hanging out there after the
game.

SPEAKER_00 (03:38):
Oh, yeah, that's like every year when there's the
away game, like Bills fans allit's isn't it like right on is
it on right on like A1A orsomething like that?

SPEAKER_01 (03:45):
A1A.
It's like I think it's on thecorner, and it's again like it's
a really popular, very old bar,but there were pictures of him
driving back and forth in frontof the bar yelling at Bills fans
from his car.
And the funniest thing is yougot to look up the interview
where he's asked about it.
Somebody was like, you know, oneof the press conferences, they
were like, Was that you?
Like there are pictures, it'sclearly your car, your watch

(04:08):
that you had on.
You could see it was you, and hegoes, You know, AI, I live in
Fort Lauderdale, so you know,and that's literally his
response.
And the reporter's like, So areyou saying that was you or not
you?
And he just goes, You know, AI.
Next question was so funnybecause he's like almost admits

(04:31):
it, but doesn't admit it.
It was like clearly him.
It's funny.

SPEAKER_00 (04:35):
Um, just a weird, weird week around the league,
though.
Let's see, you got Pittsburghloss to the Chargers.
Broncos are eight and two, man.
I it's it's probably I don'tknow if you saw that Thursday
night game, or it's 10 to 7against the Raiders, like just
very little scoring, but likethe Broncos Broncos are eight
and two, man.
So wow, Colts pulled one off.
It was an overtime game umagainst the Falcons.

(04:57):
They went they won 31-25.
So we're midway, we're halfwaythrough the season.
You're gonna start seeing theplayoff picture pan out here.
Who's gonna make the playoffs,who's not, who's gonna take
their division, and who's gonnabe a wild card.
We we shall see.
Um, anything else around thesports world?

SPEAKER_01 (05:10):
Yeah, it was just depressing Steeler game.
They look terrible.
No really positive takeaways,nothing else that I know of.
At least not the top of mineanyway.

SPEAKER_00 (05:20):
News.
I mean, I haven't seen thismorning yet.
It's Wednesday right now, butthe government shutdown looks to
be like looks like it should beover this week.
It's kind of what it like I Iknow the house, the house
approved the spending bill, andit's what they had the I think
they had like the some committeelast night, and then it's
supposed to go the, I believe,to the Senate today, and then it

(05:43):
would go to the president'sdesk.
So um I think that's a you know,call it a you know, uh a sigh of
relief on one side, and thenrealize that the uh January is
right around the corner where itbasically extended it through.
So we maybe we'll be dealingwith this again, but just crazy,
man.
I I didn't realize like mysister is uh she's in the Air

(06:06):
Force, but she's like a um she'sa federal technician, so like
she wears the uniform every day.
She's considered a civiliancontractor during the week and
then a reservist when they havedrill and like deployments and
stuff.
And she's like, I haven't gottena paycheck in like five weeks.
I'm like, Jesus, like that'sinsane.
So just wild, just wild.

SPEAKER_01 (06:26):
But yeah, and also what's gonna be really
interesting, at least what I'vebeen reading, is like none of
the data is getting out to WallStreet, none of the government
data.
So like jobs, oh yeah, jobs,deployment numbers, all that.
Yeah, it's gonna be veryinteresting to see.

SPEAKER_00 (06:39):
I think I saw it a big data dump within the first
few days, right?

SPEAKER_01 (06:42):
You'd imagine by the end of the week, is again, I
think the hopes are what theywere saying this morning, but
like they think we lost jobs inOctober, so it's definitely not
looking great.

SPEAKER_00 (06:53):
So yeah, well, we'll see.
Yeah, it's as as of thismorning, uh House is expected to
vote today on ending therecord-long shutdown.

SPEAKER_01 (07:01):
So you know what irritated me.
And again, like I know it'spolitics, I'm not trying to go
down a rabbit hole, but like Ijust keep seeing like clickbait
articles of like Trump saying,Well, if the Supreme Court rules
against these tariffs, then likeit's gonna be a giant mess and
the economy's gonna just uh takea tank.

(07:22):
And I listened to some of theSupreme Court hearing when they
had it last week, or at leastwhat was public, and like it did
seem like the tone was more thatlike it they're going to be
repealed or they're not gonnagive the president basically
unilateral authority to justnegotiate taxes because that's
Congress's purview and alwayshas been, and it's in the

(07:43):
Constitution.
And I just keep thinking it'slike well, if if the economy is
theoretically going to be tankedeven more if they repeal them,
like maybe we should havethought through this before you
just decided to do somethingwithout verifying whether or not
you had the authority.
Like the what's the old sayingof like beg for forgiveness
instead of ask for permission?

SPEAKER_00 (08:05):
Or uh beg for forgiveness instead of asking
for permission.

SPEAKER_01 (08:07):
Yeah, you kind of did that with the entire global
economy, and then now you wantto yell that like if the thing
you did, which you probablyshouldn't have done, is gonna
have horrible repercussions.

SPEAKER_00 (08:18):
Did you see the uh the whole concept of the um
tariff dividend checks?
Like two thousand dollars, twothousand dollar minimum checks
to out to every taxpaying adultor whatever.
Again, I think that's moreclickbait, right?

SPEAKER_01 (08:34):
And it would do literally nothing.
Like, I mean, okay, so a bunchof people spend two thousand
dollars in the next week andthen it's back to the same
position you're in.
Like it it's effectivelynothing.

SPEAKER_00 (08:44):
But it that's uh I'm hopeful.
I'm cool.
I hope it works out.

SPEAKER_01 (08:48):
I'm not at all trying to be pessimistic.
I'm just like, it's a lot.
Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (08:53):
Freight market, what have you been seeing in the uh

(09:43):
anything out of the ordinary?

SPEAKER_01 (09:44):
I mean, uh, people I've talked to seem to be doing
pretty good for all the talk ofdoom and gloom and rates going
up.
I mean, it seems like peoplekeep talking about capacity of
leaving the market, but everybrokerage that I have as a
client that I'm looking at theirnumbers seem to knock on wood
look pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 (10:01):
Yeah, I was looking at um I was doing this, let me
see if I can pull it up here.
I was looking at like Pierce,like kind of like trends
throughout the year.
And it it sat kind of flat likethroughout the summer, and we
have seen a slight um tick up inin overall just numbers across

(10:21):
the board the last um couple ofmonths.
What I found interesting,because I like track a lot of
really I track a lot of statsthat I think are important that
I think a lot of people shouldkeep their eye on, like things
like your revenue per load andyour profit per load, right?
Not just your load count or yourtotal profits, but like Well, I
look at all three, right?

SPEAKER_01 (10:39):
Yeah.
What does the top line looklike?
What does the profit margin orgross profit look like?
And what does the truck costlook like?
Because the truck cost creepingup tells you what's going on on
the carrier side.
If you start seeing yourcustomers paying a little more,
you know they're facing sometightness or on-time percentage
issues.
And if your margin's lookingbigger, but the top number and

(11:01):
bottom number doesn't change.
It's like you really care aboutthe middle number, but you need
to know which one's moving more,the top or the bottom one, cost
or revenue to know what'shappening in the market.
Because I think revenue is agood leading indicator of like
other brokers having issues orcarriers like not showing up
because your customer never paysyou more unless they have to.

(11:21):
So if your customer is startingto pay you a little bit more,
something is not going well ontheir end, right?

SPEAKER_00 (11:27):
Yeah, like I look back, I'll just give you a
couple like litmus tests here.
So, like if I go summer of 2022,right, revenue per load was
about$3,000, right?
Today it's like 60% of that.
Like we're seeing anywhere from$1,400 to$1,800 a month of

(11:48):
average cost per load or uhrevenue per load.
Our margin percentage has alwaysbeen pretty healthy.
We I think we just we do we havepretty good uh customers, and I
think we've got really goodprocesses in place to get
efficient and get the rightcarriers on the right load.
So we've we've done very wellthere.
But I look at like it's wild tome when I see a decrease in

(12:09):
overall revenue, but an increasein gross profit.
Like that, and to me, I mean,that's obviously we're doing
something right, right?
We're growing in the rightareas.
Um, but it just feels like youput so much work in to grow and
you grow at such a slow pacebecause rates have suppressed so
much.

SPEAKER_01 (12:25):
So and here's there's like a lot that goes
into that.
I don't know if we want to godown this rabbit hole, but like
the other things that I thinkare just good for the listener
to hear about like what to lookat when you're evaluating this
is the next thing I look atafter what you would have just
told me is I'm like, okay, whatis the load makeup?
Because, for example, if in 2022you were doing a lot of long

(12:47):
mile runs with your customers,and now you're doing more like
regional stuff or short hauls,your average revenue per load is
going to go down just becausethe types of loads you're moving
are different length, right?
And that also has to do with themarket, because like I've seen
this with some customers.
Okay.
We had a client, I looked attheir, you know, the same thing
we're looking at loads, grossprofit, the types of loads

(13:09):
they're moving and where.
And they had very low grossprofit margins.
But the reason they did wasbecause, but their average
margin per load was high.
So let's say they're making$300per load, right?
Across average, which seems likea high number.
But then you look at it andyou're like, well, these are on

(13:30):
like$4,000 loads, right?
So when you're making$300 onfour or$5,000 loads as a
percentage, that's very low.
So you could see a lot ofdollars per load, but if it's
all on long mile runs, yourgross profit percentage is very
low.
And in this example, like theyfactored.

(13:50):
Well, when you have a 5%holdback from the factoring
company and you're payinganother 1.5%, none of that money
actually benefits from factoringbecause the factoring company
doesn't disperse anything unlessit's above a 5.5% margin.
So when you're running freightat 6% margin, you're literally
not seeing any of your profitmargins until your customer pays

(14:12):
the bills.
And that is also something likeyou really want to kind of look
at not just the dollar marginper load, but as a percentage
per load and seeing, like, arethey long miles, are they
shorter miles?
And what does that actually playout as?
Because that is a function ofyour cost.

SPEAKER_00 (14:28):
I just added a calculation in the profit per
mile.
I that's that's a metric I'venever looked at, but that's
interesting.
So, like every mile, how muchprofit?
Um, I won't disclose that on theuh podcast here, but but again,
it it's it's helpful tounderstand a few things.

SPEAKER_01 (14:45):
How and what's going on with the cash flow of the
brokerage, but two, it alsohelps you understand like what's
going on with your customer.
Why is my customer giving memore long hauls all of a sudden
as opposed to this, right?
Like all of these little thingsgive you some indicators into
understanding just what's goingon in the market with your
particular customers on thecarrier side and on the shipper

(15:06):
side.

SPEAKER_00 (15:06):
Well, I'll tell you this as like a little teaser.
Our profit per mile is abouthalf of what it was in the
summer of 2022.
So just to give you context.
Interesting.
Um, all right, well, cool.
That's uh fun little sidebarthere.
Today we're gonna talk, youknow, going from being that solo
broker to, you know, a smallbusiness owner and then and

(15:28):
beyond.
So, like I kind of teased earlyon, when most people start, it's
just them.
So you, you know, whether you'rean agent or you get your own
authority, or maybe you start asa new hire at a you know, as a
W-2 somewhere and it's just youand it's cradle to grave, right?
Um, you're wearing a lot ofhats, right?
And depending on the businessmodel, like if you're an

(15:48):
employee, you don't wear everyhat.
But let's let's look more so atlike if you're an independent
agent or you start at abrokerage, which we have a lot
of people that listen to thisshow that are getting into
brokerage on their own, havetheir own authority, et cetera,
right?
Uh this a lot of this stuffstill applies if you are an
employee somewhere.
It's just a matter of who'sgonna pull the trigger on, you

(16:09):
know, make taking the next step.
Is it gonna be a manager or umthe owner or whatever, right?
So, but eventually it gets to apoint where um, you know, you
you know, when you're wearingall the hats, it's great.
Ton of experience, right?
You get exposed to billing andclaims and all you like
literally everything thathappens, you get experience in,

(16:30):
but you are limited on yourgrowth potential.

(17:25):
Like I was talking with one ofour guys last week, and um, it
was actually a greatconversation because he just
like he started off and he didum he used to be at like TQL
years ago, and I'm curious ifyou if you um know this number,
but he's and I think I told youabout this.
It was I gotta do the math so Ihave it right.

(17:47):
It was$19,231.
Does that number ring a bell toyou at all?
You stepped away, so I'll justanyway, I'll I'll fill it in
here.
So that is if you do$19,231 perweek in profit, that makes you a
million dollar broker, meaningyou're gonna do a million

(18:08):
dollars in profit for the year.
And he's like, he's like, here'swhere I'm at.

SPEAKER_01 (18:12):
It's a title change too.
A T12, they call it, which meansonce your rolling 12-week
average, which is a quarter,hits that number, you become an
S it's senior logistics accountexecutive, right?
Like that's their highest brokertitle, at least it was.

SPEAKER_00 (18:30):
Okay.
And so like we've got we've gotuh agents at our company that do
that, right?
And he's like, you know, how doI get there?
Here's where I'm at now.
And everyone that is doing thatat our company now, they have
gone through this process thatwe're gonna talk about today,
which is going through theexperimental phase of hiring and

(18:52):
figuring out who to hire andwhat to hire for and who not to
hire and all that stuff, right?
Um, and we got we kind of justhad a really good conversation.
I started talking about stuffthat he was like, What?
I was talking about like taxesand retained earnings and LLC.
Like he's just like, ah, this isso over my head.
I'm like, well, this is goodthough.
Like, this is why like the ageof model for a lot of people

(19:14):
makes a lot of sense, right?
Or if you're, you know, ifyou're just a um you got your
own company, having someone toconsult with, right?
Whether it's a coach or a mentoror whatever, because you don't
know what you don't know.
And having someone who has theexperience and understands um
the things that you should beconsidering and looking out for,
that's gonna give you a really,really good just second

(19:36):
perspective on where you'reheaded and maybe you know where
your blind spots are.
So um the uh the one man show,what I've always found is that
like when you I think that thegood thing is like being aware
of like when, when is it time?
Like when is it time to get tothe next step?
And I think the first thing isyou have to want it, right?

(19:56):
Because the guy, the guy wasasking me, he's like, you know,
how do I know when?
And I'm like, look, I'm like,he's like, like, you know, if I
just stay the same size likefive years from now, you guys
are gonna fire me.
And I was like, no.
I was like, there are plenty ofpeople in brokerage and in
business that like they don'thave a desire to build like a
large organization.
They just they want, theybasically just want to own their
job, right?

(20:17):
They and that's essentially whatyou're doing when you're a solo
broker, is you just own yourjob.
Um, because if you were to tryand sell your business and you
know, you are literally the thething that ties it all together,
um, there's no guarantee thatthat business continues on
without you, right?
You've got to have people andrelationships in place that go
beyond just you.

(20:37):
And I think that's the dangerthat a lot of folks have, or a
misconception that they have islike, oh, I've got this great
book of business, I'm justgonna, you know, my exit
strategy is you know, when Iturn whatever age, I'm just
gonna hand it off to my kid, orI'm just gonna sell it.
And it's like, well, in theory,that could work.
But there's a process and thingsyou've got to do in order before
the likelihood of that being asuccessful transition actually

(21:02):
happens.
So um, what would you say, youknow, in your experience, what
are some of the like the the keythings to look out for that
start happening when yourealize, hey, I think it's time
for me to look at the next step?
And I'll kind of give you likejust to kind of lead you into
it.
One of the first things I tellfolks is like, if you find

(21:23):
yourself not having the adequateamount of time to do your
regular prospecting, that is onekey indicator that you've got a
lot on your plate and it's timeto consider looking at the next
growth point.
But what what would you say aresome other uh maybe indicators
that you're focusing too much onone thing and not the other?

SPEAKER_01 (21:42):
So just so that I understand where we're at and
what we're asking, we're talkingabout like an agent that is
making the decision to grow fromone person to a large
organization, or we're well, itcould be it could be an agent
who's just a solo agent, right?

SPEAKER_00 (21:57):
They're cradle to grave doing everything, or it's
someone who started their ownbrokerage and they're wearing
every hat, you know, they'redoing the billing and literally
everything.

SPEAKER_01 (22:05):
So this isn't a W-2 transition to 1099, right?
Or growth from agent more.
It's like, okay, I'm one person,I'm doing everything.
When do I decide I'm eithergoing to start hiring or what my
next step is to grow more,right?

SPEAKER_00 (22:21):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (22:22):
The the first thing I always try to understand when
someone I'm talking withsomebody about this is like not
just the time, but like, whatdoes the the in in like
investment they call it like theburn rate?
But like at the end of the day,it's pretty simple.
It's like, how much money areyou bringing in and how much do

(22:43):
you need to survive, right?
And what is the differencebetween your bills to survive
and how much money you'remaking, right?
Because I think that is a bigpart of this, right?
Because at the end of the day,if you're making 10 grand a
month and your bills are 10grand a month, okay,
theoretically you probablyshould be hiring somebody if
you're out of time, but how areyou going to pay your bills next

(23:03):
month if you got to pay yournext employee, right?
Which is really, I think, wheremost people are in some of these
is like they want to grow, butthey either haven't saved enough
or they're spending more thanthe business makes and they're
kind of stuck.
And I think that's one of thefirst things people need to
think about is like if you wantto grow a business beyond being

(23:24):
like a sole proprietor, it justbeing you, which is really a job
where you don't have a boss,your boss is just the market and
getting it.

SPEAKER_00 (23:31):
Yeah, you just own your job.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (23:32):
Correct.
And like, I think the first stepin this, where most people don't
spend enough time and thought orplanning, is like, if you want
to grow, most of the time beforeyou're gonna hire that first
person, is you either need to beable to reduce your expenses, if
they're the same number, whatyou bring in and what you spend,
or you've got to first make moremoney and save enough to create

(23:56):
some type of savings or cushion,right?
The other way is you can borrowmoney, but borrowing money in
some ways makes this harder andis not as what easy as most
people think.
If you don't have a house to beable to mortgage, like most
banks aren't just gonna lend youmoney to grow your business
unless you have some assets, oryou can show some reason why

(24:16):
you're leaving money on thetable unless you borrow some
money, right?

SPEAKER_00 (24:19):
Yeah, I mean, I go ahead and then I'll give you my
perspective.

SPEAKER_01 (24:22):
Well, the last thought is like somebody used
this analogy, and I always thisis the one that I have like as a
mental image in my head, is theysaid, you if you have a pizza
shop, right, and you have acouple people coming every day,
you probably shouldn't borrowmoney to hire more staff before
you get more customers.
But if you have a pizza shopwhere the line is around the

(24:44):
block and you can't make enoughpizza to fulfill everyone's
demand to buy it, you need to goto a bank or you need to go to
someplace and grab the moneybecause you're leaving money on
the table every day.
If you got a hundred customersat the door and you're only
feeding 50 of them, it makessense to go borrow money from
the bank to buy another oven andto hire somebody because you're
literally leaving 50 customersunsupplied every day, right?

(25:07):
So if like the demand is higherthan what you're able to
produce, like now it makes senseto borrow.
So, like in freight brokerage,if I've got customers asking me
to move their freight and I'vegot business and loads I'm not
moving and I'm leaving money onthe table, even if what I make
and what I spend are the samenumber, now it might make sense
to talk to an investor or tosome place to get money, because

(25:28):
like there's literally moneyright there that you can use if
you plugged a person in.
So like you're not spendingbefore you make it.
Because the time piece is reallyimportant, right?
If you've got customers like,hey, I want to give you more
business, when are you gonna beable to take more of my freight?
Okay, now theoretically, if Ihire Nate at whatever dollar
amount, Nate has business I canjust give to him to feed him

(25:49):
once I get him over thattraining hump.
And I think the timing aspect isreally important because if you
misjudge that, everything kindof goes and falls apart.

SPEAKER_00 (25:56):
Yeah, so my I got a couple thoughts there.
I think the first one is the theleveraging or borrowing money is
um it's kind of a shortcut in alot of people's mind, right?
Instead of instead of having thecash flow available to do it at
that pace, you could, yeah, youcould look at a line of credit
or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 (26:13):
Or using or making the difficult decisions of
cutting expenses and not buyingthings you want, which to me is
really where you get at.
Because like you and I talkedabout this a lot.
And what's the like Dave Ramsey?
Like, he's the huge advocate oflike you should restrain your
spending to save money, not justincrease your income.

SPEAKER_00 (26:29):
Short-term, yeah, short-term sacrifice for the for
the long-term, yeah.
Right.

SPEAKER_01 (26:33):
And I don't think borrowing money is the way to
solve that.
I think you should be doingboth.

SPEAKER_00 (26:37):
And I'll tell you this for I've been I've been in
this industry for a while now,and the folks that I have seen
do this successfully have doneit organically, but at the speed
at which they can, you know,they feel comfortable and it's
without having to borrow money.
And it's not just because of,you know, not borrowing money,
it's because if you try to do ittoo fast, things can kind of get

(26:58):
out of your control.
Not not unrelated to the moneypart.
So like I mentioned, you know,if you're um if you find it your
your bandwidth is uh thin or youknow, absent altogether, um,
that's a big that's a bigindicator that it's it's time,
or maybe it's way past time tolook at hiring somebody or

(27:19):
outsourcing something, right?
It doesn't have to necessarilybe a full-time hire.
Um things like you can't getyour all your check calls done,
or you've dropped the ball onsomething, or you're not
prospecting enough, those areindicators.
And I think that in amargin-based business like this,
um you're right that there arepeople who they they'll say,
like, I'm I have no bandwidth,and I'm you know, my outgo is

(27:42):
just as much as my the moneycoming in.
I don't have money to hireanybody.
Well, in that case, you probablydon't have the right business
right now that's going to becorrect uh able to hide to
support hiring somebody.
Like either your your pricing'stoo low or you're not excuse me,
you haven't fine-tuned your yourcarrier uh pricing and selection

(28:03):
criteria to make it as optimalas possible.
So I think you need to you needto like fine-tune the solo RV
first, right?
Because you have to put someoneelse into it.

SPEAKER_01 (28:13):
And here's an example, right?
You have somebody that's new tothe industry, they've been
moving freight for a year,they're paying their bills, but
like all their freight they'removing at 7% margin, right?
Which is very low margin, andthey're moving lots of building
materials, lumber, things thatare traditionally just low
margin customers, because thoseare the ones you get first.
That's how you learn.

(28:33):
But they typically aren't thekind of business that you could
really build a big brokerage on.
Like you need the longer-termcustomers that take a long time
to get in, that areservice-oriented, where you can
make margins enough to likesustain a business.
And where I see people make andmistake here is like they've got
a bunch of transactionalcustomers with no loyalty.
They've got 50 of them, andthey're like, Oh, I got so much

(28:55):
freight I can move, I need tohire somebody.
And it's like, but it's all jumpball freight.
And you bringing somebody elsein doesn't really increase the
profitability per load, to yourpoint, which is really the
issue.
And in that case, that personshould be spending more time
prospecting and being patient toget one or two larger customers
or service-oriented customers.
They don't have to be bigcompanies, but a company that's

(29:17):
going to pay you enough marginwhere you've got enough money
coming in to generate businessgrowth.
Like if your expenses on whatyou spend to just operate the
business are very close to whatyou're making, there might not
be enough juice left to adding aperson doesn't solve that
problem, right?
Maybe you bring a sales guy, butthat's the other thing is
everyone goes, well, then I'lljust hire the sales guy to get

(29:39):
me the hard-to-get customersproblem solved.
Okay, but that's also theriskiest person to hire, the
person that cares the least, andthey're going to want a salary.
So now you're spending moremoney than you're making in the
hopes that the new person can dowhat you didn't, right?

SPEAKER_00 (29:51):
Yeah.
So I don't want to get ahead ofmyself, but somebody made a
comment to me last week that Iwas like, it blew my mind.
And he was like, he's like, Idon't know any other industry
where if I just dedicate alittle bit of time every week to
prospecting and I get one newcustomer that does a few K a
week, he goes, I can just getmyself a hundred thousand dollar

(30:11):
raise in a year.
He's like, I don't know anywhereelse that you can do that.

SPEAKER_01 (30:15):
And I did that training like three days ago
with a whole company, and that'sliterally the analogy I used.
I was like, it's likeinvestment, right?
Like you're not trying to get a25% or 100% win on investment.
Like you want to add 1% perweek.
And your investment isn't moneyin this industry, it's effort
and time, and that's a phonecall.
Do that an hour a day if you'renot doing it now.

(30:36):
And pretty soon in a month ortwo, you'll have another one.
And then another one.
And then it compounds, right?
You give yourself your own raiseby investing time and effort
into prospecting.

SPEAKER_00 (30:45):
Yeah.
So the we kind of gave you likethe indicators, right?
You're out of time, you'redropping the ball, you just
don't have time for theprospecting.
So then it looks like, well, whowho to hire and what roles?
And are they gonna be anemployee?
Are they gonna be an intern?
Are they gonna be a 1099?
And those you're gonna justdecide on your own with what
you're comfortable with.
Um, but and we've we've saidthis a lot.

(31:07):
But the the I the guy I wastalking to last week, I said
when he's like, he's like, whatdo I even hire for first?
And I'm like, I'm like, here'swhat I want you to do.
What's that?

SPEAKER_01 (31:16):
Not sales.

SPEAKER_00 (31:17):
Yeah, exactly, right?
And I told him, I said, I wantyou to write down everything
that you do in a given day.
And I said, and then after aweek is done, I said, let's talk
and let's look at everything onthat list that is not directly
um producing revenue or profitsbecause those are the things
that you're doing because youhave to do, but someone else can

(31:40):
supplement you with those andyou could slowly ease them in,
and then you can focus more onprospecting and getting that
next 3k week customer, right?
And um those are things likecheck calls, uh load entry.
It could be automation, right?
It doesn't Always have to behiring somebody, right?
It could be it could be usingsomething like Levity for email

(32:01):
automation.
It could be adding a compliancetool to help you verify and
select carriers faster, right?
It could be a mix of both,right?
And what I he told me is like,you know, I got a few guys that
I'm in a uh a group chat with,and um, you know, a couple of
them have been interested andyou know, asked, like, hey, what
do you know, what do you do?
And I said, tell them.

(32:21):
I'm like, if if any of them areserious about wanting to come
work for you, I said, have themjust like sit with you for a
couple hours one day and youknow, experience the the calls
that you're receiving, the callsthat you're making, the emails
that you're sending andreceiving, some of the common uh
things that you run into in aday.
And somebody might see whatyou're doing and be like, yeah,

(32:43):
dude, not for me.
Right.
And someone else might be like,I could totally do this.
Like, this is totally up myalley.
Like you get to just talk topeople all day long.
You get you find someone who'sgot, you know, thick skin and
can can take a nasty uh phonecall either from a customer or a
carrier or a scheduler orwhoever, right?
Um, and handle itprofessionally, right?

(33:03):
Those are those are are aregreat folks to get in.
But those are some of thosetasks that if you can find time
in your day where you can spendmore time growing your existing
customers and prospecting newbusiness, that is going to be

(34:35):
your key to growth.
And I always say if you're notgrowing, you're ultimately
shrinking because you you willeventually lose a customer or a
lane of a customer, or acustomer gets bought out by
somebody else, or they get, youknow, there's someone gets hired
or fired or whatever, right?
Like things will change.
And if you don't have thiscontinuous growth mindset, you
will find yourself in a badspot.

(34:56):
So um interns, like I'veactually had people that have
had great success where like,you know, someone's home from
school for the summer, and likethey're in college and they're,
you know, maybe they're insupply chain or business or
whatever.
And for the summer, like theycome in and intern either for
like really cheap or like forfree.
Like we had a guy that we at mylast company that came in and it

(35:17):
was like, you know, I wouldn'tsay it was low pay, but it was
intern pay, right?
Like he's just a kind of on atrial basis for the summer and
um he loved it and he was becamea full-time hire after
graduation.
So like those those are ways todo it.
And I I also tell people toolike if you're gonna hire
somebody, like have expectationsset.
Like we're gonna do this on atrial basis for 30, 60, 90 days,

(35:41):
whatever it is.
And after that point, then ifyou're meeting all my
expectations and we you'reperforming at a level that I
think is sufficient and it'shelping me out, and I decide
this is the right fit and youdecide it's the right fit.
Now we'll look at full-timeemployment or you know, 1099,
whatever makes the most sense.
And then here's your actual pay,right?
Or maybe you get some kind ofbonus in there too, right?

(36:01):
But it's gonna be a you knowtrial basis at a lower rate to
start off because you gottayou're spending time to train
them, you're paying them to gettrained by you to ultimately
potentially you know setthemselves up to be running
their own book of business andand all that.
So, but those are some of the umsome of those like key roles and
tasks.
I'm I'm curious, like when uhhave you guys hired anybody like

(36:25):
in the last year um to come in,like just to uh help out
operationally or anything likethat.

SPEAKER_01 (36:32):
Yeah, a couple clients and TLX and that I've
worked with absolutely broughton some people, some near shore
overseas, some domestically.
I think the first thing I wouldsay is like the things you would
want to hire for first are, likeyou said, tasks that are easily
or the shortest time frame totrain somebody else on.

(36:55):
Because the shorter the timeframe to get somebody to know
what you need help with, thefaster they can start to provide
value.
So check calls, knowing whereyour trucks are, building loads,
right?
Maybe helping with invoicing,all that stuff, setting up
tracking, doing those things area great way to get somebody to
learn the business and don'ttake forever to get somebody

(37:15):
that can actually help thebusiness, right?
The opposite end of thatspectrum is the prospecting,
right?
And like I would say too, on theother side of that, is almost
every single brokerage I've seenthat has stalled out in growth.
And I would categorize as like,you know, a one person doing a
half a million to evenbrokerages doing like 30, 40

(37:38):
million, all stall out for thesame reason from what I've seen.
It is there's a really goodsalesperson or a couple, two or
three, right?
They leave either a bigbrokerage or go to start their
own brokerage, right?
And they grow and they addcustomers.
Then they hire for the supportroles and then they keep
growing.
So those are the ones that hit20 million or 30 million.
So you got two or three peoplethat were just killers, really

(37:59):
good, prospecting every day,making sure they're always
focusing on adding newcustomers.
And then they kind of reach thepoint where they're either
making enough money or are justhonestly like the personality
side of it have gotten older orjust kind of don't want to do
that anymore.
They're just kind of burned outand they're just like, hey,
we've built this business, it'sworking, we've hired people, and

(38:21):
then they start hiringsalespeople.
And in some cases, like they'vesaved enough money that they're
not taking big risks to do this,right?
But the people they hire, likeit is for sure like a one in 10
person you hire in sales isactually going to grow your
business, right?
So it's like you got to gothrough a lot of them, and
usually like they just kind ofget frustrated, they hire a

(38:42):
handful, those folks don'treally work out, and then pretty
soon nobody's prospecting.
And now it's all focused onexpenses and operations and
efficiency.
And the three or two or one guysthat grew that business to what
it was aren't willing to do itanymore and aren't spending
enough time recruiting to findthe salesperson or going through

(39:05):
enough of them to find the rightone, and they all just kind of
plateau.
Then it then the nextconversation is, well, let's
sell this or let's figure outhow to save money and expenses.
And at the end of the day, likeyou can't grow a business by
cutting expenses.
You can keep a little more ofthe money, but they don't grow.
And like to me, everyone I'veever been brought into is some
version of that.
And like I'll say to some like,hey, how did you get to the 10

(39:28):
million or the 20 million or the30 or the five or whatever it
is?
Like, oh, well, you know, me andmy partner or me or me and my
two buddies.
Well, how much are you guysprospecting now?
Oh, we don't have time.
Why don't you have time?
Oh, because we're dealing withall the operations.
Okay, well, you've hired allthese operations people.
Are they not doing what youthought they were?
Well, they are.

(39:48):
Well, what are you spending yourtime on?
Well, we're just making surethat they're doing everything
great.
And it's like, okay, that's justanother version of creative
avoidance.
Like, you don't want to pick upthe phone and prospect.
So you're convincing yourselfyou'll somehow make more money
by making sure these people workharder or more efficient.
And like the truth is, like, youneed to do some of that, but

(40:09):
most of the time they'respending all of their time in
the business just avoiding thething that would grow the
business, which is picking upthe phone, like you said,
prospecting.
If two or three or one persondoes it an hour and a half a
day, that business wouldprobably be growing.
And then there's just it's themental block where just
internally they just avoid thatlike the plague and focus on

(40:30):
every other thing in thebusiness.
And the business just starts toshrink little by little by
little.

SPEAKER_00 (40:35):
Yep.
So one thing I wanna, I wanna umhit on before we fly past it is
when you when you bring thatfirst person on, like the guy I
was talking to last week, he'slike, Do I need to do like an
LLC?
Like, how do I handle expensesand write-offs?
And I was like, I said, Hey,look, I'm like, right now you're
a sole proprietor.
I said, What I would recommendis if you if you establish an

(40:55):
LLC and you get a business bankaccount, that is like step one.
And now, because one of theexamples that came up is, you
know, he was talking about hiscell phone.
He's like, you know, I like, youknow, I get pay, I get my
commission because he's anagent.
He's like, I get my commission.
He's like, and then I like payfor the stuff that I use to do
the job.
He's like, Am I supposed towrite those off?
And I was like, I'm like, well,you can.

(41:15):
I was like, or I'm like, if youjust have a business and a
business account and thoseexpenses run through the
business account, I'm like,though those are all, you know,
you don't have to write off thetaxes later, like you just don't
ever pay the taxes on it becauseit was a business expense paid
for by the business.
And I said you gotta make surethat you're like pay spending uh
you know appropriate expensesthrough that, right?

(41:38):
Like you're not like taking yourgirlfriend out to dinner and
putting it on your businessaccount.

SPEAKER_01 (41:42):
But you would be surprised.
It's there's a lot.

SPEAKER_00 (41:45):
There's a lot you can do.

SPEAKER_01 (41:45):
So to that, I have a good friend of mine.
Um, he's a dentist, has been adentist for a long time, um, a
little older than us.
And um, he just bought anotherdental dental office.
And I was talking about themliterally during the Dolphins
Bills game on Sunday.
I was asking him because we weretalking about just vehicles.
And I was like, Yeah, I waslike, I think my lease is almost
up and I need to get a new one.

(42:07):
And he had bought like acouple-year-old used car.
And I'm like, I'm like, that'sgreat.
And I'm like, I used to do that,but now that I own a business,
like when I went through with myaccountant, an entire lease you
can write off.
I mean, like your whole carpayment is a write-off as a
lease through a business.
But if you own your car and youhave a business, you write off
the mileage, which is a muchsmaller number, right?

(42:29):
So, like for me and just likeour family and how long much we
drive, I'm like, it makes waymore sense to lease my vehicles
from a tax perspective than toown one, even if I paid it off,
because like the tax write-offis significant.
Health insurance, all thatbecomes a tax write-off, right?
Yep.
There are things that you spend,like even prescriptions and
stuff that you do on like thehealthcare side that is all tax

(42:52):
deductible.
There are a lot of things andadvantages to running everything
through a business that I thinkfor sure you should be talking
to a good accountant aboutbecause and that was the big
thing where I told this guy.

SPEAKER_00 (43:06):
I was like, this is like, you know, I'm like, get
your LSEA.
I'm like, when you do yourtaxes, I said, you're no longer
doing like your little freeturbo tax.
I'm like, you're going to paysomebody a little bit of money
to spend.
That's also tax deductible, bythe way.

SPEAKER_01 (43:19):
Exactly.
Literally, literally, myaccountant, our accountant,
like, we write off the bill thathe gives us to do these things
for us.
Yeah.
And it's like, the more you getinto it, and here's the thing I
would say is like, it seems, Ithink, overwhelming, or like, I
need to understand all thesethings to do it.
But honestly, like if you spendhonestly two hours a year, maybe

(43:42):
every couple of months at first,with your accountant, go out to
lunch or whatever, like askquestions.
Once you get it set up, it'shonestly easier.
Like, because from myperspective, it's like what you
said.
Like, we have I have twobusinesses, we have one
together, like we have businesscards for it.
So like when we go and spendmoney for free 360, you just use

(44:02):
that bank account.
So it's not a deduction, it'sjust literally from the money
that's expense.
It runs right through it.
That just gets spent from it,right?
Like, and same thing with our myother business.
It's like, I just know whichpurchases are categorized.
And I'm like, oh, I use thiscard, I use this card.
So at the end of the year, I'mnot counting receipts and going,
hey, can you look at this?
Let me go look at everything Ispent at this store.

(44:23):
It's just like, okay, here's allthree of the bank accounts.
Everything that happened allyear, I paid out of that
business.
There's not really anythingleft.
Yeah.
And like it gets actually easieronce it's set up.
And like your effective tax rategoes down.
I pay way less as a percentagein taxes as a business owner
than I did as a W-2 employee.

SPEAKER_00 (44:42):
And that's like the thing I kind of explained to
this guy last week.
I was like, you know, when yourun expenses through the
business, whatever's left, thatis what you then pay yourself,
and you will pay your personalincome tax on.
So having a good CPA is is gonnahelp help you make that so much
easier.
So you're not like getting allthe money and then trying to,

(45:05):
like I said, keep receipts andtry to write them off when you
file.
The other thing, too, is like ifyou're doing payroll, like under
understanding the differencebetween having someone as a
payroll cheaper versus a$1099,right?
The employment taxes, payroll.
Um, you can I mean it's verysimple to get like a cheap
payroll software for like$20 amonth that you just type in the
amount and it pays out the rightperson, the right amount, and

(45:26):
all that stuff.
Um but yeah, like these arethese are things that like you
don't have to think about whenyou're just a solo broker,
right?
Now, now you're dealing withsomeone else's earnings and
taxes that you might have to payif they're W-2, or you know,
when you get to like a certainsize, and depending on your
state and everything, like youmight have a requirement to have

(45:46):
a um to offer certain retirementoptions if you're doing it for
yourself.
Like there's a rule that if youif you set up your own solo, and
I I might botch this, but likethe solo 401k, if you get to
like over five employees, likethen you've got to start
offering like a match orsomething like that.
I forgot I forget the specificson it, but like understanding

(46:07):
this is where you're gonna pay aprofessional that's gonna assist
you with those business umquestions, right?
Uh but yeah, I don't I justdidn't want to skip past that
because that is a big part ofwhen you first hire somebody,
right?
And then you got to think like,are they in person?
Are they remote?
Are we in an office space that'sgonna require a lease and maybe
require us to have a generalliability policy?
These are all things that you'regonna you're gonna come across.

(46:28):
This is why we say doing it at apace that not only you can
afford, but that you're going tofully be able to keep it under
control and not like miss someof these big, these big steps.

SPEAKER_01 (46:41):
And here's another big bucket.
And again, it's not all infavor, is the last thing I want
to say on just like the LLC andtax perspective, right?
Is that like some things itmakes less sense to write off
than it doesn't, right?
Like it's not like you puteverything through it because
it's just, hey, I want to payless income.
Some things actually work in theopposite direction.
Life insurance is one of them.
Like, because if your businesspays your life insurance and

(47:03):
something were to happen, youpay taxes on it because it goes
through your business in adifferent way.
Like there are pros and cons.
That's why, to your point, likeyou want to have someone you
trust to set this up correctly.
And I think you should revisitit at least once a year to make
sure you're not you're takingadvantage because these things
also change.
They're not the same.
And tax and all the things gapand what you can write off and

(47:23):
where changes.
But the other thing, too, andwhat you were saying about like
hiring, even your first person,right?
As like a rule of thumb, I thinkthis is pretty true almost all
the time.
If you hire somebody remote faraway, they tend to be cheaper.
But what you save in money, youwill spend in time.
Yep.
If you have somebody sittingnext to you, you will probably

(47:44):
pay more, right?
Especially if they're at anoffice, but the time it takes to
train them is exponentiallylower.
And your oversight goes throughthe roof because like you're
just next to them.

SPEAKER_00 (47:55):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (47:55):
Like I don't need to watch what somebody sitting next
to me is doing all day.
I've got a pretty good idea ofwhether or not they're working
and doing what they should be.
If somebody is remote, and I'vebeen doing this with you for
like seven years now, where likeI have every screen, I've got
two or three computers I can setup to have a Zoom and a screen
share and this no amount oftechnology solves that, is I

(48:17):
would say at the end of the day.
Like there was the push at thebeginning of COVID, everyone's
gonna work from home, and theneveryone's pull back.
I think at the end of the day,like we've all kind of learned
that it's a trade-off, it's notgood or bad.
It's that you will save moneyand spend time and you'll have
oversight risk when they'refarther away and you're not
sitting next to them.
If they're next to you, you'reprobably gonna pay a little
more, but you'll be able to getmore out of them sooner because

(48:39):
they're gonna learn faster.
And you just kind of know whenpeople are at work and whether
or not they're working.

SPEAKER_00 (48:43):
Yep.
And again, 100%.
And that that's theconsiderations I always tell
people is like if you think, youknow, oh yeah, my cousin, I can
trust him, he's great, and he'llwork from home.
Like, it's gonna take him solong to learn because no one's
going to care about yourbusiness as much as you will,
right?
That's super important to me.
Like the I will say this.

(49:04):
One of the ways that I found Igot a group of guys um at our
company that work together andthey don't have an office, like
they just all work from home.
They literally have like a Teamsmeeting open all day long that
they're all in.
And if like someone's on thephone, they just like mute
themselves and turn their volumedown and turn the camera off.
But like they can just like chatwith each other through the

(49:26):
messaging or like if someone'savailable that can talk.
Like it you can kind ofsupplement that and um you can
kind of replicate that in-personthing.
But like, even like I've gotI've got two guys in Buffalo
that work on my team that arethey work from home.
We get together like at leastevery two weeks um and just work
together at someone's house.

(49:47):
Just because like you cannot getthat efficiency remotely.
Like you, like you said, it's atrade-off, right?
Um, the next thing I want to hiton too is like when you're
starting to grow it out, you gotyou, you're gonna decide the
business model that you're gonnaroll with.
And when you just have you knowyour first hire um versus you're
up to 10 people, it's you know,it's gonna look a lot different.
But you know, you have to decideis it gonna be kind of like the

(50:10):
big three models that we tend tosee in brokerage are uh cradle
to grave, and I'll break eachone of these down cradle to
grave, pod, and then um the whatdo they call it when it's the
split.
Yeah, the split model.
So cradle to grave is like, youknow, once someone's fully
trained up, they will be thesales rep.

(50:33):
So that they they're gettingtheir own customers, they're the
operations person that they'resecuring a truck and getting
them, you know, negotiating therate and they're doing all the
track and trace, right?
That's that's an example ofsomeone that's cradle to grave.
Um, the pod model sometimes islike you have different groups.
So like maybe team one has fivepeople on it, and maybe one
person's the sales team leader,but you might have another like

(50:54):
a system broker, and then youhave a couple other folks that
are assisting with like pricingand carry procurement, etc.
All right.
And then you kind of have thesedifferent like teams.
The split model is where youhave like one giant sales team
and one giant operations team,like a procurement team or a
track and trace team.
And you could even split it upthree ways where you have like
business development goes andgets new business, and then you

(51:16):
have account management thatjust does day-to-day operations
with those existing customers,and then you might have an
operations team that just doeslike track and trace, finding
carriers, booking the trucks,all that stuff.
So um, those are three of thecommon ones.
Um the I think like the Chicagomodel is what that split model,
that's what it's also called.
It's because it's common in alot of the brokerages in in the

(51:38):
Chicagoland area, which is likeyou're either on the sales side
or you're on the carrier salesside, right?
Um, but either one of those, oryou could do some sort of hybrid
between all of them.
Like you might, your first hiremight just be like become an
operations person, but then youknow, they get really good and
they're like, hey, I would loveto give it a shot at at making
some calls to customers.
And maybe in their free time,they start, you know, getting

(52:01):
some nibbles on that, and thenthey've got a couple of
customers of their own, and thenmaybe you hire an another person
to come in as operations tosupport both of you now that
have some customers, and youkind of like grow it out as as
you see fit.
And there's no there's no rulethat says, like, once you decide
I'm gonna have this model thatyou can't switch it.
Like, if you look at uh PierceWorldwide Logistics, where I
work, if you look at it sixyears ago versus today, the

(52:23):
business model has almostcompletely changed from when I
came in and we pivoted to a veryheavily agent-focused business
model, um, which is a wholenother animal in and of itself.
Um, we'll be answering aquestion on that for the final
mile.
So tune in for for Tuesday's uhedition on that, where we break
down some agent questions.
Um, but you can always pivot,you know?

(52:45):
You can all and you could pivotback into one that you've maybe
shied away from.
Maybe you come across someonethat like we've got we've had
folks come to us and they'relike, yeah, I don't really want
to be an agent.
I I really prefer to be in theoffice.
I'd love to be on on salary withcommission.
I just I'm more structured thatway.
You can you can support multipletypes of models as long as you

(53:05):
have the the processes and andfolks in place to you know to
take care of the differentscenarios and types of folks in
your company.
So yeah, that's a that's a bigdecision to make.
And then ultimately, like whenyou go through this, and this
takes you know years and yearsof time, and you you know, you
you you kind of tweak things andfigure out what works and what

(53:27):
doesn't work, and eventuallylike you you have now got
yourself to a place where you nolonger own your job, like you
own a business, right?
You have a you have a businesswhere if you if you were removed
from it for a day, or if someoneelse is removed from it for a
day, it still operates.
And that is ultimately the goalof where you want to be able to
get to for a business to trulybe a business and not just a

(53:50):
job.
Um, and I think a lot of peoplestruggle to get to that point
because they think, you know, ifI hire someone, they're gonna do
things exactly the way that Ido.
And there's that whole likepersonnel hat you gotta wear
where you have to understandsomeone's strengths, their
weaknesses, their communicationstyle, and things like that.
And um, everyone is different.

(54:12):
What they value is different.
Like some people value time offor work from home flexibility
more so than they valuecommission levels or salary
levels, or you know, you nameit.
So you kind of shift from thatum being the worker bee to being
like the cultural leader withinthe organization.
And um, you know, I've I've seenpeople scale it in three to five

(54:37):
years if they do it very well.
And I've seen people that like10 years in, like, still just
for some reason that they theyjust lack either the the desire
or the ability to just to leadand like run a business versus
just managing themselves.
And typically the the folks thatyou and you probably have like
you probably met folks like thiswhere like they're so

(54:58):
disorganized themselves that itwould be a disaster for them to
try and be someone's boss.
So yeah, you might kill it atsales and put up good numbers,
but if you're superdisorganized, like um it's it's
gonna be a ball of fire if youbring someone else into the
equation before you fix your ownyour own issues there.
So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (55:18):
I think that's a really good too, kind of final
point.
It's like again, just from likevery simple, like first
principles, like if the wholebusiness is in your head and you
make decisions on how you'redoing everything step by step
just based on feel, it's reallyhard for anybody to know how
you're making those decisions.
So it's gonna be really hard foryou to get somebody to be able

(55:42):
to help you.
If you can't standardize ororganize how you're doing it,
the likelihood that someone elseis going to be able to just
mimic what you've learned andhow you've done it is almost
zero, right?
Like, because like you said, itjust stuck with me the way you
phrase it.
You're like, people thinkthey're just gonna be able to do
everything the way they want it,and someone else is just gonna

(56:03):
be able to step in and do it thesame way.
Like that's very unlikely.
Yep.
And again, like I think at theother extreme of that is you
have a very big company thatmakes everybody do everything
the same, because you need to tohave something that big,
efficient, or not fall apart.
But also, like the advantage ofa one-person brokerage growing

(56:24):
or just a couple people hiringsomebody, like you can offer
things a big company can't, justlike you said.
Like, when people always ask me,it's like, what should I pay
this person, or what isstandard?
I'm like, just a I don't thinkyou should start there.
I think you should start byasking that person what they're
looking for in the role and whatwould make them a good
performer, and then work towardssomething that fits because you

(56:46):
can.
You don't have to apply the samepay structure to everybody in
your company.
You could have one person cradleto the grave, and you can have
the whole rest of your companybe in a pod scenario, right?
Like they're not mutuallyexclusive.
Like, if you found a really goodsalesperson that wants to be
cradle to the grave and yourwhole company is running in a
pod model, like, hey, that'sgreat.
Find a way to make that work.

(57:06):
You don't need to disrupt whatyou have to bring this person
on.
You can give them a differentcommission structure, let them
have different responsibilities.
Like you have more flexibilityas a small company, which is
your advantage over a largecompany, right?
And I think that shouldn't beoverlooked either.

SPEAKER_00 (57:22):
So I'll give you like to give it context to kind
of put a bow on this.
Like if you look at I look atPierce specifically right now,
and I look at the differentroles that we have that didn't
all used to exist as individualroles, right?
A lot of them were like somebodydid three of them.
We have um folks that just dealwith um, they're just analyzing

(57:44):
credit for customers, newcustomers or increases for
existing customers.
We have people that just docarrier compliance.
So analyzing our rules,analyzing our override criteria.
We have people that just dealwith accounts receivable, that
just deal with accounts payable,that just deal with claims, that
just deal with agent recruiting,that just deal with tech

(58:04):
support, right?
These are roles that at onepoint somebody wore all the
hats.
And over time, someone takes ahat off and puts it on someone
else's head, right?
And eventually, then you've gotwhat's really wonderful when you
get to that point is likesomebody becomes so specialized
and and and such an expert inone specific field that it

(58:26):
starts to snowball, right?
When you have when someone'ssole job is to look at carrier
compliance and analyzing youknow the risks and the fraud
that's out there and what kindof measures can we put in place
and what kind of rules should wehave and what tools should we
use, then that and that's thatperson's sole job.
Well, then someone else doesn'thave to think so hard about it

(58:46):
because they've got the processin place and they can focus on
what they're doing well, whichcould be, you know, securing
loads from their customers orgetting new business or focusing
on accounting or whatever thecase might be.
So, and if someone else is like,you know, just focused on the
books and the profitability ofthe of the of the company, well
then the the person that's doingcarri compliance doesn't have to

(59:08):
worry about that.
They can focus on what they'redoing, right?
And you get all these peoplethat are just experts and
they're in their one niche.
And I think ultimately everybusiness that is is massive now
and has grown to the size thatthey're at is going to have
those specialized folks.
Like if you think back to yourdays at TQL, like you probably
have people, well, youdefinitely have people that were
hired in to do accounting thatnever once did anything sales

(59:30):
related, right?
They're just, you know, theymight have gone to school for
for accounting and they got ajob in the accounting
department, right?
Nothing to do with carrycompliance, nothing to do with,
you know, making cold calls, uh,nothing to do with like the tech
side, just accounting, right?
HR is another example, right?
Like all they're doing isdealing with hiring, um,
promotions, um, addingpositions, benefits, like this

(59:54):
the stuff that literally hasnothing to do with freight
moving, but is essential to anorganization at that scale.
So um, yeah, man, taking one hatoff at a time, and that's that's
really that's kind of like how Iguess how you would put it all,
uh, like summarize it.
So any other uh any other partswe missed here?

(01:00:14):
There's a lot that goes intothis.
Um, the different businessmodels and all that, but that's
kind of like the general theconcept of growing.

SPEAKER_01 (01:00:21):
Um I the only thing I would add is if you're curious
as to what the next step wouldbe, reach out to us.
This is what we do all the time.
So happy to jump on a call.
This is 90% of what we do incoaching and consulting, is
getting in, asking questions,and helping that person weigh
the pros and cons of each.

(01:00:43):
We're not, I don't ever come in,I don't think you do either,
ever come into a situation andgo, you should do this, right?
It's not that.
It's helping the the client beable to weigh which is the right
fit and the right decision ineach of these scenarios.

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:57):
Yeah, and that's a good point too, like on the
consulting side of it, becausewe're, I mean, you and I are
both busy people, but we do, wereally enjoy helping others, and
we've got some good clients thatwe work with, um, where it's
like, you know, we like yousaid, we don't say you need to
you need to do this.
We might say something like,here are a few ideas that you
could consider.
How do you think each one wouldplay out in your scenario?

(01:01:18):
Given your team, given yourstructure, given your desires,
right?
Those, and that's really howcoaching and consulting can
work.
It's funny, like remember wetalked to these guys earlier
this year, and they like broughtlike a full-time consultant in
or whatever, and like the dudewas just telling them to like do
all this stuff, and they'relike, What?
Like, we're paying you to tellus to go pay other people to do

(01:01:39):
stuff.
Like, what's going on here?
So, yeah, don't don't fall forone of those.
So, anyway, good conversation,good discussion.
Final thoughts, Ben.

SPEAKER_01 (01:01:48):
Whether you believe you can or believe you can't,
you're right.

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:52):
And until next time, hope for a bounce back weekend
here.
Go bills.