Ex-Nurse builds 7 truck fleet operation in 2 years interview

 Chicago, then Alabama for school. interned in NICO in a hospital, changed major to nursing.

married, her husband was an entrepreneur. went from the hospital to the other businessess. barbershop and realty real estate investment company.

- car hauling from brother in law. then brother in law father, i am retiring. this is a great industry and i have resources if you want to enter this industry. 

-car hauler, brother in law's father ran semi trucks. her and her husband made a business plan and then executed. how can we leverage ourself? #1 branding, INTEGRITY TRANSIT CO. 2. Husband and other partner, go and get your CDL, insurance will be lower and in case of abandonment. 3. wanted to get into government contracting. 51% owned by her, so company is minority owned. 

HOW GET STARTED?

purchased a 09 international pro star, did its job. and that's how we got started. no trailer, started out as power only. familar with the equipment. ran power only, owned truck out right and husband was the driver. so no monthly payments. in beginning, I did all the dispatching. I love dispatching, i'm a researching and i like negotiating. 

Chicago, great airport, great rails. its a good place to run. Dispatching is about knowing the region, their hours of service and knowing how to negotiate that load. 

power only, not highest paid freight but we did it. HOW FOUND LOADS? found them in load boards. i learned about how to dispatch. pay attention to mileage, weight, what are you getting when you get out. 

EARLY CHALLENGES:

first 6 months, not knowing the true bottom dollar. my own units bottom line is different from lease unit. i use lease model is today. fuel costs, big one. insurance, not understanding the responsability of being a fleet owner. going to wrong region, not knowing they dont pay well when we get out of there.

PROFITABLE:

In any business, you start out i red. i dont pay myself or husband in first year. not too much in the red but yes we were in the red. we quickly got out of that, because we know business. 

we started handling 

YOUR CLOCK IS YOUR MONEY. that's what i tell the drivers. 

This business is about who you know. i cant scale running off the load boards. you cant run an empire off the load board. make those connections. still dispatching? no. Being over a year, outsourcing a dispatching company, to a foreign company. they have been essential. 

SCALING: 

added another unit on, after a year. still in red. purchased another truck and financed another truck, got good drivers and understood the business. husband was still driving. if driver is going on vacation, he will jump on that truck. 

-how to retain good drivers: make them understand what the mission and goal is of the company. you have to pay them well. dollar speaks. 25% of gross load revenue. we did 1099 model. offered medical insurance, retirement plans, making them feel comfortable. they live out of our units. making them comfortable. 2 step orientation. direct deposit. 

-big companies want to know about the product, not concerned about the driver. we do monthly zoom calls. how was your week, we have healthy dialogue. have that table talk as a family. 

-feedback: not pushing them too hard. how to dispatch them appropriately. some downtime between loads. how are they doing? 

-why lease model? due to my mentor. experience, dealing with repairs was eating at my bottom line. tow truck, hotel.. now lease, abs light came on. driver wasnt comfortable. i make one phone call. they towned a new unit to him, towed his unit, got it fixed, brought it back to him and brought the rental back. 

FINANCIALLY:

-cost of how much to lease? Ryder and penske. i use penske. leverage your negotiation power. steadly growing and adding more units. 

-You get what you negotiate. do research. they know, speak to them from knowledge. negotiate waht cent per mile are going to be.

-7 trucks right now, in 2 years. ONLY DO REEFERS. study your area. in chicago, refeers is what works. average on dedicated 6500, bottom dollar. and dedicated, how i got it? networking. put them on a line. this line was good, sweet. do this and not right after you delivered it. 

who is transportation manager is, who is transportation coordinator is. tap into that, its linked in. what their pain points, where you can provide them relief with the broker, or rate per mile. crunch your numbers and do numbers that work for them. 

never arrive late, always one hour before your appointment time. over communicate and over deliver on that line. 

GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS:

-I didnt know much. I knew it existed. My aunt is a grant writer. I didnt know much about it. Research, what is this and what would it look like? 

-minority and woman, certified. first contract took 4 months. She kept bidding. know who's buying your services. is it on city level, state level? i wanted to stay within my state. haul lumber wood, it was 1 year, 3 year extension. 

-Contract was purchase lumber and deliver. got more contracts? yes. 

-WHY YOU GOT AT LEAST 2 SOME HAVE NONE AFTER LOTS OF YEARS?

I'm hungry and I stay hungry. 

HOW DID THAT CHANGE YOUR BUSINESS?

-Now that I understand it, who purchases my services and what contracts i can execute on. 

It has changed the trajectory, that revenue is additional to what my trucks do.

-I outsourced the containers. I was the middle man. the business allowed to start a business outside of trucking. i prayed for this, but i didn't know it would come to this. it took us to a different level. 

-2 years of trucking and 10 years of entrepreneurship. I used the models from real estate, barbershop. getting a business plan, capital, you have to use your personal capital. leading by example. discernment who to onboard to the team. same vision as you, the employees. 

-this empire is not built my melody. i have a team behind me i'm the face. 

-trucking has been there for some time. they are willing to do business with you. 

-willing to share the information. that platform is used for entrepreneurs to enter the industry and sustain and build a organization. this is true generational wealth. right mentor and resources, and networking. 

a-z how to get started. all forms and templates needed on back office. network and marketing. 

-how to get started on government contracting. 6 week mentoring program. what to outsource, what not to outsource. my personal resource list of brokers and shippers. driver contracts, eol logs, list goes on. 

-going into full 3pl, government contracting and we're looking into warehousing. they're not asking how many trucks do you have? can you fulfill this? I don't need a fleet of 50. 

-govt contracting and trucking side? love both. 

PCF software, my pms system. it helped me to grow. I onboarded based on that software. they love the software (dispatchers in India). they got it right. i stand by PCF software. dispatching, issues, invoicing. bol are uploaded, direct invoice to factoring company, paid same day. they dont really deal with small fleet, it changed the game. I'll talk to smaller fleet owners and how i bought efficiency to my back office with that software.