We have to be better about dwell time — it kills driver and truck efficiency. And even though that might be a hard conversation, it’s one that needs to be had to ensure the future of your operation.
We speak with Wayne Lalevee, Co-Founder of CNL Logistics, about the driver shortage, the challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic, and why more companies need to start talking about how to fix dwell time.
- Join us as we discuss:
- What’s causing the driver shortage
- The importance around dwell time & advice for carriers
- The biggest goal for Wayne over the next 12 months
To make sure you never miss an episode of The Road Forward podcast, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for The Road Forward in your favorite podcast player.
Transcript
WEBVTT
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We're in a free market, so
you know, everyone can choose to not
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do business with a call them problem
ship points or receivers. Welcome to the
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road forward, a podcast for trucking
industry leaders. This is the show for
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industry that's like you, hard working, honest leaders who know there's promise around
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the next bend and exciting future for
the trucking industry and a chance for your
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company to thrive. If you see
the opportunity ahead but don't want to travel
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the tough road alone, join us, as we talked with business leaders finding
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their way forward and a changing industry. Let's get into the show. Welcome
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to the road forward. I'm flunn
Hole Brook, your host. I'm here
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with Wayne Lela Vy, who's co
owner of CNL logistics, located in North
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Carolina, and I got to know
Wayne just a little bit a couple of
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weeks ago, and they are not
only a brokerage but they also own some
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trucks and use some power only owner
operators see. You know, primarily focuses
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on food distribution, so they're doing
truckload work primarily with reefs, and I
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thought it was pretty fun when Wayne
and I caught up a few weeks ago.
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He said that they tend to dance
to the beat of their own drum
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and he gave me quite a few
pretty interesting examples of why that's the case.
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They don't always follow the industry no
norms. So, Wayne, thanks
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for thanks for joining me today.
Thanks so much for having me, flint.
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So when I think we can jump
right in, I you look,
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when we talked a few weeks ago, you mentioned the driver shortage and I
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think everybody is feeling the driver shortage
across the board. You mentioned how how
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it's how it's really affecting your business. What do you think is causing the
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shortage? You know, I think
there's a couple different things that are causing
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a flint, last year was really
an eye opener for us because we had
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so many trucks that were sitting and
we recognized that we needed to do something
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different. So changing the way we
approach the just our normal activities, has
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helped to write our ship. If
you go and so like, what like?
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What are you seeing out there?
Do you think it's drivers leaving the
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market? And when you say right, right, your ship, what,
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what do you mean? You've been
able to recruit and retain. We have
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you know, we probably had thirty
upwards to thirty to forty percent of our
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fleet sitting last year for a couple
of months. So, you know,
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we did a couple things. We
hired an amazing person, Rosalind, to
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boost our social media presence. We
added a recruiter to help us to be
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more responsive to drivers that maybe just
inquiring about our company. But you know,
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there's this, there's so many factors. That's that's causing this. You
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know, we've got an aging driver
population. We got to increase demand.
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COVID has, you know, caught
caused everyone to buy more stuff. Look
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at how Amazon has grown so much
recently. My neighbors probably get no less
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than six deliveries a day. Me
Too, our us to my wife's doing.
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Yes, but you know, a
lot of the technology that's in the
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trucks nowadays and the you know,
the the requirement of the LDS has forced
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some of the aging population out and
some of this technology is also caused some
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of these independence to look to go
into other professions. So yeah, you
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know, another thing that's causing it
that we need to talk about or need
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to need to be cognizant of,
is just equipment availability. You look at
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all Om's and I don't know of
any fleet that has been able to receive
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one hundred percent of their orders.
Yeah, so there's challenges. There's challenges
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all over all over the industry year. Do you think pay has something big
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to do with it? I mean
our drivers, you know, the labor
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market is kind of in this big
upswing post covid our drivers looking out there
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and saying why should I drive when
I can go do x, Y and
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Z and make the same money and
work a forty hour week? Very good
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question and very good point plant it. Pay certainly needs to be addressed.
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Benefits to but along with having competitive
pay, with what where, every other
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character is, you know, transparency
and respect are huge as well, and
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I believe that that is, you
know, all of those factors are the
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reason for our recent success. Yep, so that's yeah, that's interesting.
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So how big of a factor do
you think dwell time is? I know
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that that's something that's been brought up
in the news a lot lately and there
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seems to be this you know,
push and pool of saying, well,
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we're not handling dwell time correctly and
shippers obviously don't want to pay it and
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so like. How important is dull
time? What's your view on it?
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I believe that dwell time is a
major factor in the crisis that we're faced
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with today as far as driver availability
and also capacity. We're members of the
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American trucking association and we're firmly aligned
with their stance. That which has been
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no other industry offers free time.
Why should trucking offer free time? We
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believe that the truck should be compensated
from the time they arrive and not offering
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any kind of free time. And
you not only believe that as a human
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being right sitting sitting here thinking,
but you've actually implemented this in your business.
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Correct. We have. We've made
the decision to part companies, with
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our company, with some clients,
when we couldn't come to terms on an
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equitable dwell time policy. But overall, in the industry, Flint, I
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would say that we I'm seeing more
and more customers migrating to lower, lower
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times that they're asking trucks to sit. And by that, do you mean
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that the shippers are being more efficient
and actually getting the trucks loaded on the
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road, or is that you only
sit now for an hour for free?
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Instead of two hours for free.
Is that what you mean, or is
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it but and we actually both very
good listening. Yeah, I would say
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that shippers are definitely becoming more responsive. I think they're hearing and seeing the
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driver shortage out there and realizing that
they they play a key role in this,
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and then they're also in order to
be a shipper or customer of choice,
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they are lowering some of those times. Yep. And so you own
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your own trucks and obviously you're also
a broker, and so tell me,
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like, how important is dwell time
in your operation, especially for your the
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trucks that you own in the drivers
that you pay? If you end up
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with a bunch of dwell time,
what does that do? It kills the
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drivers efficiencies in the trucks efficiencies.
So we implemented guaranteed pay for drivers.
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So if we do, for whatever
reason, have a truck that's delayed somewhere,
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by no fault of the driver,
that drivers still going to receive a
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guaranteed minimum for that week as long
as he or she, you know,
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is available for that that time.
Interesting. Interesting. Okay, so maybe
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that's something like if I'm sitting here
as a carrier listening to this interview.
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What can I actually do right to
begin addressing this problem? What advice do
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you have for a carrier, and
maybe that's one item right, is is
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guaranteed pay. So that's something we
do on the driver end. But I
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think the question I'm hearing you ask
is what advice could I give to other
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carriers or even brokers as well?
To have that conversation and and that's exactly
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what it is. It's a conversation
with the client. You know, I
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heard someone say a very long time
ago the one with the most data wins.
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And you know, if you have
that documentation, whether it's a eld
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or, you know, trailer tracking
or or a, you know for kites,
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trucker tools, type of tracking device, if you have that data and
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you could present that to your customers
and say look, we're seeing an excessive
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amount of dwell time at this location
and we need to do something about it.
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Just having those difficult conversations, you
know, some sometimes they're not very
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difficult, sometimes they're. They may
not recognize that they've got a pinch point
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in their organization and they need to
do more hiring or maybe change some some
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hours. Yeah, that's that's that's
really good advice. So in the past,
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when you've had those conversations, that
generally go well and your customer understands
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a situation helps you remedy it.
I mean, how often do they say
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I don't care? The very few
clients that we've had that conversation with?
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That said, we just don't care. We no longer we choose not to,
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you know, we allow our competition
to do business with them. Interesting,
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okay. So, so obviously this
is a big industry wide issue.
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As a broker, do you see
like a right? Let me back up.
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If I am a carrier and I
want to do what you just did
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and okay, fine, shipper,
you don't care, you can do business
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with my competitor, is there always
a competitor out there that's willing to take
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that work? Like, at what
point does the competitive dynamic shift to say
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now most carriers are going to expect
we all time. So now we actually
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have to do something about that.
Does that make sense? It does.
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And you know we're in a free
market, so you know, everyone can
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choose to not do business with a
call them problem ship points or receivers.
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But you're you're right. Someone will
always come in there and you know,
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maybe they'll be a change of management
and hopefully, you know, that facility
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will be will be corrected that behavior
right. So obviously it's an industry wide
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issue. So what do you think? If this issue can get solved industry
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wide, and obviously we're making a
lot of headway towards that. Right like
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this is now a topic of discussion. And so if if do well,
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all of a sudden isn't free acrosss
the industry. What is how does it
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change the industry? Do you think
that that there's a massive shift here?
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I don't know that I would say
massive. kind of hard to quantify,
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but I think we would see a
substantial you know, capacity would increase because
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the driver availability would increase. So, you know, just simple things like
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that. Autrey is a great resource
as well. You know, they talk
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about the pinch points in the country
with with delays, with traffic and and
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how, you know, changing,
you know, laws, with allowing drivers
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to, you know, me do
more slip split, sleeper Earth type scenarios
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would increase productivity as well. But
this this you know, dwell time alone
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could have, I believe, a
substantial impact. Yeah, I mean at
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the simplest level. I've got to
think less sitting in the parking lot and
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more time with your wheels turning has
got to increase capacity a huge way.
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Absolutely, absolutely, I would.
I would pay your drivers, yeah,
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and APP your well better paid drivers. Yeah, exactly. It's a win
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win. Yeah, so that's that's
that's pretty cool. So really the big
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takeaway here's have a conversation with your
customers, it sounds like, and this
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isn't the first time I've heard this
way, and I'm I'm happy that you've
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said this again and that most people
are pretty reasonable and actually understand where you're
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coming from. Well, thank you. I just you would think that we
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plan this, but it's I feel
like it's quite simple. My partner,
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Rick Coats, and I have been
transparent and straightforward all these years and and
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have never shied away from the difficult
conversations. Yep, that's great and and
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and you've got to right in this
business, like, if you're going to
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own a business and be successful,
you got to take the bull by the
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horn. So waiting. I really
appreciate you joining me today. I think
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we've covered some really interesting information and
given some pretty solid advice to listeners out
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there. This has been a real
pleasure. Look, the biggest thing I
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want to just ask this last question. What is the biggest thing that you
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have your eye on over the road
for word for the next twelve months?
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Growth, growth and growth, but, but, and just in your business,
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you guys are so heads down focused
on growth. Threatening we are.
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We just open an office earlier this
month. We're getting ready to open another
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location. So you know we really
have some aggressive growth plans for this year.
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That's awesome. So if you're listening, you just heard Wayne say that
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00:12:24.440 --> 00:12:28.320
he's Modi's is big focus is growth. So if you haven't done so,
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I highly suggest that you go to
our website, the road forward podcastcom,
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00:12:33.000 --> 00:12:37.679
and subscribe to our email list because
when I wrap this interview with Wayne,
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00:12:37.679 --> 00:12:41.120
we're going to ask the fast five
questions and some of those have to do
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with growth in his business and how
he looks at that and what are his
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KPI's? So I think you're going
to want the answers that Wayne is about
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00:12:48.720 --> 00:12:52.759
to give us. So again,
the road forward PODCASTCOM. Typing your email,
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00:12:52.799 --> 00:12:56.519
subscribe the list and if you're enjoying
the show, remember to subscribe wherever
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you get your podcasts. Just click
the little subscribe button so that you'll see
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00:13:01.679 --> 00:13:05.519
our new episodes. Wayne, this
has been such a pleasure. Thank you
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00:13:05.559 --> 00:13:09.720
so much for joining me today.
Thank you, flend it's really been enjoyable
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00:13:09.799 --> 00:13:13.159
and great to see you again.
Yeah, yeah, same here. It's
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00:13:13.159 --> 00:13:15.639
a lot of fun. So,
folks, just remember, if you listen
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00:13:15.639 --> 00:13:18.360
to the show, that our industries
changing really fast and until next time,
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00:13:18.399 --> 00:13:24.159
you need to keep your eyes on
the road forward. If you manage a
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00:13:24.200 --> 00:13:26.919
truck feet, you go to bed
every night driving that three am phone call,
183
00:13:28.080 --> 00:13:31.440
because that call is never a good
way. Either your drivers tell you
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00:13:31.440 --> 00:13:33.480
they have a flat tire and the
shipment's delayed, or they were shut down
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00:13:33.519 --> 00:13:37.200
and take it it at the way
station, if the thought of those middle
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00:13:37.240 --> 00:13:39.759
of the night calls keeps you up
at all hours. Trucks by can help.
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00:13:39.799 --> 00:13:45.399
Trucks by gives managers total visibility into
what's happening on the road. Companies
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00:13:45.480 --> 00:13:48.840
use our hardware to make sure their
fleets are productive and safe, so that
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00:13:48.879 --> 00:13:52.919
managers like you can see in real
time where their trucks are and what they're
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00:13:52.919 --> 00:13:56.240
doing. More trucks make it on
time and without issues or losses, helping
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you rest easy. Learn more at
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