Jared Flinn:
Any moments that you can share with our audience that that really were at that moment was was defining, but even got you to where you are today?
Mike Bennet:
Well, there's there has been a lot of struggles. I gotta be honest with you. I try not to focus on it. I I think that's just real. For me, I always knew I'd I'd work hard. I'd outwork anybody. Kind of a motto I had, we would always, you know, pray like it depends on God and work like it depends on us. That's awesome.
Mike Bennet:
And then we'd be smart.
Jared Flinn:
Mike, thanks for having us down here at your place, especially on a as we're recording this very snowy day, I think we're expecting you up to, 12 inches down here.
Mike Bennet:
We're glad to have you, and and today's a good day to do that because we want to be inside today.
Jared Flinn:
Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, we had Beau on our podcast several years back, employee of yours Yeah. But wanted to come down here and talk to you, but also get a tour of the facilities. We'll we'll do that and show some of these clips as we do this show. Okay. But, I'm a storyteller.
Jared Flinn:
People wanna hear stories. Talk about your humble beginnings. You grew up you and your wife here in Purdy. Right?
Mike Bennet:
Locally. Yeah. We, and you'll just have to cut me off because it can be a short story or a long
Jared Flinn:
That's great.
Mike Bennet:
We went to school over here just less than a mile from here. Graduated in '79, and we, both we moved to Springfield. I got married shortly after that, and, she went to school to be a nurse. And, I went to GraphBotec, and that's probably before your time in the area. It, it is now OTC. They absorbed all them smaller, private schools and and technical area. And, I got out of there on a, late in September of seventy nine. I started to work in October the first of seventy nine, working on trucks.
Mike Bennet:
I was making $4.50 an hour fueling trucks, greasing trucks, oil changes, and I was eager to work. And so, they sent me to a lot of schools. I went all all over the place to go to school. In the seven seven years I was there, I became the shop foreman and, but I always knew I wanted to have my own company. I did not want to work for anybody else.
Jared Flinn:
I wanna step in there. Where do you think that came from? I mean, number one, why did you wanna have your own company? But then also going into diesel mechanics because today, obviously, you know that that they're they're hard to find diesel mechanics, but that was something you wanted to be.
Mike Bennet:
Well, I grew up in a mechanical family. My dad was a a heavy equipment mechanic, and so it's really kinda what I knew, so I knew I could excel at it. And then I watched people in this community that had their own companies. They weren't diesel mechanics, but they they, had machine shops and different things going on. And I, would see them in my church and around the community, and I I just thought I wanna have that lifestyle. I wanna have the control of my life and, you know, and so that was the goal. I mean, I didn't I don't think I realized what it was gonna take to do that, but that's what I wanted.
Jared Flinn:
So you move in. You talk about, the muffler shop that you helped?
Mike Bennet:
Yeah. Me and, so I was trying to transition from I mean, I I still wanted to be in the trucking company business, but it was a way for us to get out. And I had already bought a truck from the company I work for. And I had a a driver on it, and I was running it. And the muffler shop give me a place to work on that and a place to, kind of, get started. And we did that for about, oh, I think, till '91, and then we sold that to a a large company in Springfield. And then we got an opportunity in '98 to move back here. But me and my brother run that, and did very well at it.
Mike Bennet:
But we did some truck stuff on the side, so it was transitional.
Jared Flinn:
Yeah. Hey, guys. We are getting so much interest for our Bulk Freight Conference twenty twenty five. You know, we started this two years ago. We've had two phenomenal conferences. It keeps getting bigger. Our first conference, we had over 200. This last one, over 500.
Jared Flinn:
And we have a lot of people that wanna show up. We wanna make sure that you can get your ticket reserved. It's gonna be the April. We hope that you can make it, but go ahead right now. Go to bulkfreightconference.com and put your email address in there, and we will notify you when tickets go on sale. That way, you will be the first one to be notified before they sell out. It's gonna be amazing show. We have a new venue that's gonna be even bigger.
Jared Flinn:
We're talking actually having show trucks inside the venue, breakout sessions, and, man, just a world best to get you connected. I was just talking yesterday. I had had, dinner with a lady that was at the conference last year and just talked about the connections that she made and the business that she's doing now by meeting those clients face to face. So we want you to be there, ma'am. Go to bulkfreightconference.com. Enter your email address. Get signed up. It's gonna be phenomenal.
Jared Flinn:
We'll see you there. God bless. You and your brother run-in the muffler shop, but talk about why did you have the ambition to get a truck and run a truck out of any other businesses that you could be doing?
Mike Bennet:
I I guess because I I knew that business. I mean, I had worked up there for seven years, and I'd come up from the very bottom to not the service manager, but the shop foreman. And I felt like I could accomplish that, and it's something I was just kinda always interested in. Had I had a chance to do things over, it might go a different direction, but it was what I was good at. And, that gave us a means to do that. And so when we sold that, my brother went to raise some chickens down here for, Tysons, and then I came down. And my dad was already a little bit in the trucking business. He had, three or four, and he was pulling refrigerated, chicken out of a local area here.
Jared Flinn:
Yeah.
Mike Bennet:
And, it helped him a little bit, and, he didn't want to excel or grow that very much. He I mean, he was fine with a little bit, but if it got very big, he was gonna be uncomfortable. And I did not want to stay there. So I, built our own shop, and we started our own business. And that's about the time that Vogue came on with us is when we built the new shop and and wanted to take it a lot farther.
Jared Flinn:
Yeah. So that would have been what year? How
Mike Bennet:
o '5, something like that.
Jared Flinn:
Okay. So o five, you guys start the shop down here. You start a trucking company.
Mike Bennet:
Yes, sir.
Jared Flinn:
What type who what type of freight are you hauling then? Because you you dabbled you dabbled in a little bit of all different types of
Mike Bennet:
We had, at that time, we had a a trailer leasing company we had put together, and then we leased trailers to a company locally here, and they had some other stuff in Arkansas on different places. We, supplied refrigerated trailers to them and open top, in dump trailers to haul, chicken products in it. And we tried to specialize in that kind of a deal because, I mean, it just made sense for us to do that. We were good at the repair side of that. And, then we got chance to do the trucking side of that with them, and, and that got pretty big pretty fast. And in 02/2008, we bought this facility and moved down to here or out here. And, at the time, we thought there's no way we'll ever outgrow this. And, and that's, you know, since o eight, and it has been pretty good.
Mike Bennet:
I mean, really good. And then, of course, we're setting in a new facility that we just got done with that's an additional 12,000 square feet onto our 10,000 square feet shop that we currently had before that.
Bo Prock:
So this is the new part of our shop, the business. This is the fabrication bay. We moved all of our fabrication equipment over here. We've got c and c plasma cutter, metal workers, lathes, mills, brakes, rollers, and this is where all of our longer term projects come in and we can kind of keep those over here like this trailer. Mike just put a new floor in that trailer a couple weeks ago. It was all aluminum. Now it's all wood. We're gonna put a Conestoga kit on top of that.
Bo Prock:
So this is kind of the long term repairs and then fabrication for anything that we want to build.
Jared Flinn:
Well, you were talking earlier you did just license plates alone.
Bo Prock:
Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
License plate holders, you know, like $70 if you buy them. Yeah. But you guys were able to fabricate them for a fraction.
Bo Prock:
Yeah. So it's I mean, it's a stupid simple it's just a piece of sheet metal that they bend a corner on you know to mount it up and they're like 75 or $80 if you buy them from utility or something like that now. And so we we've got everything we need we use the cnc plasma and just cut a square and then take it over to the break and bend the end up and drill some holes, and we probably make it for 2 or $3 instead of 75.
Mike Bennet:
And it's like a lot of other things we do. We didn't buy it for that, but since we have it, we find all kinds of uses where we can save money and do better. Because I think the the original bracket plastic in
Bo Prock:
Yeah. Yeah. Original. Yeah.
Mike Bennet:
The the one they sell to you then now is metal. But, we're gonna you know, anytime we can do that, we do. Besides that, what do what do
Jared Flinn:
you think the most common usage like, common things you'll be doing in this shop more than anything?
Bo Prock:
Probably the repair stuff. I mean, we're probably gonna do more of that than anything. But as far as the equipment over here, the the saw on the end and probably the metalworker that we've got there in the middle, probably see the most use out of everything on this side. But this is this is really gonna become just a a really handy repair shop side. We've got the 10 ton crane that Mike put in himself, that we're gonna be able to do so much with that that we couldn't do on that side of the shop.
Mike Bennet:
Yeah. Yeah. We we own the the the bridge part of that. We've had it for, what, three years?
Bo Prock:
At least. Yeah.
Mike Bennet:
But that's kinda how long this project's been in play. And I was looking for one about forty foot, and that's 37 and a half. So we engineered this bay around that crane.
Jared Flinn:
Okay.
Mike Bennet:
We didn't wanna have the legs out in the middle of the floor, so made the bay on the architecture. Like I said, I just want a foot on each side, and then we built all the legs and all the runways and and put it up. And well, we put the all the building up. We built the whole thing. We didn't hire anybody to put the building up. We did it.
Jared Flinn:
Oh, wow. Yeah. That looks great.
Mike Bennet:
The only thing we hired out was the the electrical work and the concrete. Everything else we've we've done.
Bo Prock:
Now it's gonna
Jared Flinn:
get loud.
Mike Bennet:
This where the old shop used to stop right here. Oh, yeah. So when we were designing that, here's our plans for all the engineering. But I just made it to where there's enough space here whenever we overhang on this building. That when we got done, we could take this wall out, add this wall, and then extend the concrete there. And that kinda adds a little bit more to this side now. Yeah. That's smart.
Mike Bennet:
And we put this crane in, I don't know, six or seven years ago or something like that. Oh, yeah. Me and my brother.
Bo Prock:
So this is one of our older trailers, and it had a airbag bracket broke on it. So we just lifted it up and dragged that the whole undercarriage out from underneath it. They're gonna refabricate all that, on the axles, make it all right again. But this is what's always been nice is Mike's always had the equipment. We needed to do it the easy way instead of the hard way. So we just lifted that up this morning, undid the pins and the two or the four brackets and just just ripped it
Mike Bennet:
out from underneath. Headed out thirty minutes
Jared Flinn:
or less. Yeah. And the money you can save by doing all this stuff and then having
Bo Prock:
the right equipment to do it. We built I mean, all this, we built so we could have the oil tanks, you know, away from the work area and you didn't have to move them to clean underneath them and everything. So all that's ran overhead, the drop downs.
Mike Bennet:
That bit
Jared Flinn:
that company I was saying in Lancaster, they did the same thing. All their all the oil tanks, so you're not dragging hoses across. Yeah.
Mike Bennet:
So we try to do our services here and here.
Bo Prock:
And this is where all that fabrication equipment used to be was underneath this mezzanine and in this little short bay here.
Mike Bennet:
Yeah. Back in through there. So it freed up some space here. Plus, like, my toolbox is over here, and then there's different things in between each bay that just opened this shop up a lot more.
Jared Flinn:
So you really spend a lot of time out in the shop?
Mike Bennet:
About 90% of it, isn't it?
Bo Prock:
At least. Yeah. I'm telling you, we don't see Mike on that side of the wall.
Jared Flinn:
So if you need Mike, you come out
Bo Prock:
and find him Yeah. Truck or Yeah.
Mike Bennet:
I probably should spend a little more time in there. But
Bo Prock:
I like it. Yeah. We just come out and see Mike out here and go, hey. We we need to talk about this or that, and we talk about it and go back to work.
Mike Bennet:
Yeah. Because this part is really I mean, the part that I do out here is what's made it work in the beginning because I didn't have to have much office help in the beginning. And so the money that I made in the beginning on the trucking company was not because I was smart at the trucking company. It's because I could repair the truck. I didn't have to take it
Jared Flinn:
no more.
Mike Bennet:
Savings. Yeah. So I could run the truck and whatever I got all stayed with me other than parts. And so that's how that started. This is the shop the knowledge of the shop is what made it go and then, you know, be able to Yeah. Not farm that stuff out. That's a little different program today, but Yeah. That's how so I'm pretty fond of that part of it, and I don't like office work.
Mike Bennet:
No.
Jared Flinn:
I guess when it comes to mechanic stuff, what do you prefer doing, and what do you not prefer doing?
Mike Bennet:
Engine stuff. Anything in-depth anymore, we don't wanna do it. We're very capable of doing That
Jared Flinn:
was your back gun originally. Right? Do you still have hands?
Mike Bennet:
Well, yeah. I mean, that's what I did most of. But,
Bo Prock:
Owned a block cutting business. Like, went around cutting blocks for guys whenever the overhauls happened and all that.
Mike Bennet:
Yeah. Cut the countervores for them. But, yeah, that's my background.
Bo Prock:
But But that's why he doesn't like it today.
Mike Bennet:
Yeah. Well, it's just, you know, you just throw I mean, we wanna be good at service and repair and maintenance and keeping our eye on the truck before it becomes a major breakdown.
Jared Flinn:
Yeah.
Mike Bennet:
Because all that's just,
Jared Flinn:
you know, running down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's money going.
Mike Bennet:
Yeah. I mean, we're running we're not we don't have very many, but we've got some 16 model trucks that are still in really good shape. And now we only got four of them. That's we bought them new. And then this series here is 20, and that truck still looks good for a 20.
Bo Prock:
Yeah. This got half a million plus on it. That 20 does.
Jared Flinn:
Now were you guys ordered any trucks last couple years?
Mike Bennet:
No. New trucks? We we'll we'll have to look at that here in the next year or two. Yeah. But
Jared Flinn:
That seems like that's an old mathematical game and everybody's everybody's math is different on
Mike Bennet:
Well, yeah. And the justification is different too, I think. Why they're doing it? Why they're not doing it? I mean, they've got
Jared Flinn:
been smart not past couple years, I mean, you're hoping that the truck prices are gonna come back down a little bit. They should.
Mike Bennet:
Yeah. Hopefully, they will. They haven't yet, not a lot. I mean, they come down some, but, you know, it's once they start charging for something, it's hard to bring it back down.
Jared Flinn:
Yeah. I've been meaning to ask. I was gonna ask this podcast. I forgot. But, like, what's the the Eagle Logistics? Where did that come from? And, is that there's any meaning behind The
Mike Bennet:
splat was just, just try to be so the the type of load we're hauling. I mean, we
Bo Prock:
Yeah. It goes to a lot of schools and stuff.
Mike Bennet:
Playground.
Bo Prock:
Mike wanted a more kid friendly Oh. Kind of indoor.
Mike Bennet:
Because the playground equipment we deliver. Yeah. So so we're trying to think something that'd be kinda cool, and the trucks are all different colors, It's kind of a gray on color.
Jared Flinn:
That makes perfect sense.
Mike Bennet:
Yeah. So we
Bo Prock:
That's why he did I mean, all of the 20 series trucks and the 23 series trucks are all different colors. Like like, we purposely kinda try to make a skill split as far as colors go. And they're all they're all bright colored, you know, and just kinda look a little nicer going into schools. That makes it fun.
Jared Flinn:
Yeah. And I mean
Bo Prock:
Yeah. Yeah.
Mike Bennet:
Yeah. Now when we get the next ones, they'll probably all be one color. I mean, there'll be a that might be a solid blue truck. It'd be a solid red truck. Yeah. We won't two tone them. It's more expensive now. That is?
Jared Flinn:
Yeah. Yeah. Most of the fleet, you said all Peterbilt?
Bo Prock:
Yep.
Mike Bennet:
You know, we have a relationship there. It's worth a lot. Yep. So
Jared Flinn:
So today, '2 '2 thousand '20 '5, how many trucks are you all running on the road?
Mike Bennet:
Just short of 30.
Jared Flinn:
30 trucks?
Mike Bennet:
Yeah. Just short of that.
Jared Flinn:
And you also have the brokerage business. You do you still do some leasing, equipment leasing?
Mike Bennet:
Well, we we you mean as far as
Jared Flinn:
the equipment? Well, equipment or truck.
Mike Bennet:
Do we lease the equipment? Now we we don't lease any. We have some owner operators that have came on with us. All the equipment that that we have, we're currently running ourselves and in our own company. But, if that's the right answer, I'm not sure if that's what you're looking for. And we do virtually, I think, 97% of all the repairs are done here. Okay. We do hardly anything subbed out. We do body shop repair, type work out, and that's about it.
Jared Flinn:
I guess so this is a this is gonna be a really big question. Probably gonna camp out here a little bit. But when you look at a lot of these freight businesses and, you know, I've been traveling all over the country. I've kinda shared some of these stories of some of these other companies, and it seems like these companies, they kind of evolve wherever they're at. But it seems like you guys have figured out where the opportunities are. Has that come from you, Mike, or the employees telling you that or different leadership? Because, again, you guys are a lot different company than you were twenty years ago.
Mike Bennet:
Yeah. I I wish that I could take all the credit for that. I I probably I might hold us back more than I help us in that area because I I'm a little bit old school that we're just used to working really hard and making it happen. And and I think some of the technology and some of the opportunities out there today that I'm a little slower to catch on to. And and Beau catches on to that and and the other folks here do too, and he keeps them abreast of that. But, I mean, we we have just tried to be aware of what companies we're with. And as they evolve, we do not wanna be left behind. And we're currently working on some expansions with the companies we're with now, and, we've been trying to do that for about five years, I think, or six with them.
Mike Bennet:
And, you know, you just can't let your guard down. When something comes up, you gotta be ready, and you gotta be prepared to tell them that we can handle that. And I think this last pitch we give was we can be ready in thirty days. You know? And, you know, that that'll be an obstacle, but we'll make it happen.
Jared Flinn:
Yeah. And just generally, today as a company, the freight that you guys haul primarily, you don't have to talk about details, but, I mean, there's a bunch of dry vans out here. Mhmm. You guys do a lot of general freight. There's companies here in this area that it's a lot of dedicated loads out, right, in the glass industry.
Mike Bennet:
Yes. So virtually, just about all of our freight is is dedicated. We got a couple of smaller, customers that we do some, piece work with and but virtually all this is dedicated to go out, from this area, and it takes all the trailers. We have to have about a 40 trailer pool or so in our system that, where they're able to load or unload and and get staged and ready. And, you know, of course, about a third of a mile on the road, about a third are loaded, and about a third are in the process of coming back. So it takes a lot of equipment for that, but, I'm not sure if I answered that.
Jared Flinn:
Yeah. Yeah. Just talking about just the the the freight that you guys haul today because I know over the years, you guys have experimented in different types of avenues. I know you shared even I mean, it was not I mean, seven, eight years ago, you guys had a business that you guys were doing government stuff. Right? To Yes. That you ended up selling and
Mike Bennet:
We had, yeah. So that's kind of a short part of our, life in, I think it was was it 02/2016 or so, I think, Beau, that, you know, a local company in Joplin had sold out, and he's a friend of ours. And we got to capture a piece of that out in Idaho, and we ran that for, till 1819, and then we sold that. It was a good opportunity. And but we it was headed in a direction that we were gonna have to get very heavily involved with. And we already had this. We we got good people here. We didn't wanna sacrifice what we had already built here for something we weren't sure that was gonna happen.
Mike Bennet:
And a lot of that depended on, things around the world. The the the classified freight, a lot of times it would depend on whether there's conflict here or there in the country as to how our business was going to grow. And you can't I mean, we can't sit here and say we want there to be conflict. Yeah. So we have more business. So it it's just I mean, a lot of it moves anyway, but it does make a difference. And so we stayed here. We want to focus on that.
Mike Bennet:
We also had a mail company out of Springfield, for a while with that. And when we sold that, we sold the mail company also.
Jared Flinn:
Yeah. I guess, overall, just learning this from you. Like, you're just over the years, you've kind of adapted to find where those opportunities are and, have looked to see if that if the opportunity continues there or, you know, if that door closes, then we move over and shift.
Mike Bennet:
Yeah. Exactly. We I I can't tell you that we won't be doing something different in five years. I we like what we're doing, but, it's not been that long ago that we had a lot of reefers and a lot of other type of freight. We've had stinger trailers and other things, but, where were the opportunities at is where we're gonna go. And we do know that you can't just get idle. You know? If your customer's growing, you gotta grow. If you don't, you'll not have it that long.
Mike Bennet:
Somebody else will get it. So, we're willing to grow. And, you know, I'm to the stage where I am gonna think about maybe retiring one of these days. So but these guys, they'll take it a lot further than I have.
Jared Flinn:
Yeah. You know, the shop that we're sitting in today, brand new shop. We also have the trailer wash out over here, or, excuse me, trailer wash, not wash out that, we're gonna show, the listeners of this, which is cool. Like, it's it's awesome to see these brand new facilities put up. But I guess my question is, like, as a business owner, company owner, like, obviously, this was a pretty big investment coming in. Oh, wow. But how do you figure out you know, talk about the opportunities, but how do you figure out to pull the trigger to to build this shop, build that wash? Those are decisions I think as a business owner, especially when you go, like, should I be doing this? Is this gonna support? Am I gonna see an ROI with that?
Mike Bennet:
Right.
Jared Flinn:
But if you don't mind, kinda share share your reasoning or rationality of what was his decision on all of this?
Mike Bennet:
Well, again, when we moved out here in 02/2008, we didn't think we would ever, build the shop, let alone have to build on. But as our trailer pool grew, our our assets grew, we run our trailers through here every time they're in. Whether they may not get service, but they get looked at, they get checked out, the lights get checked, tires, brakes, sweep them out, get them ready to go. And so that part of the shop over there has to be, pretty accessible. I mean, we need things to move in and out of it. And so this was gonna be the bay where if we had something that was down, we could get at least two trailers in here. Well, not least. We could get two trailers, and we could do longer term repairs in here.
Mike Bennet:
And Yeah. That would dedicate that shop to trucks only and the the trailer pass throughs is what we call them. And, you know, we shouldn't know we were gonna grow that much, and it was a good thing. But we needed a place. We were gathering up some of this equipment that's in here over there, and it was making the shop really, really cluttered up and close. He's having to walk around things. And so we wanna get all our fabrication type stuff, all of our repair equipment over here, and just deal with trucks and trailers only over there for service type work, and we would do the heavy stuff over here. And with that many trailers, you really there's just a window of, spring and fall when it's really good to wash.
Mike Bennet:
Mhmm. And because in the summertime, the soap dries before you can get it clean, and the wintertime, it's so cold. You know? And with this amount of trailers, I think we figured we'd have to have about five guys washing all the time by hand, and that used to be right here where we're sitting on an open slab. And so we knew we needed to do something for the wash. And so we investigated, and this is what we come up with. We're gonna do it primarily for us, but we are gonna open it relatively quickly to the, public to help, offset some costs.
Jared Flinn:
When you're thinking about those decisions, is that something you're you're sitting down in a meeting with the executive team, Beau, and all them trying to just formulate a plan like, hey. This is where this is going. Because, again, these are big investments. I mean
Mike Bennet:
Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
There's a lot of zeros I can imagine with this investment. But, like, to really know that, hey. We wanna do this. Because I guess in any business, when you're looking at that expansion, those numbers seem so scary. I guess, even for me when we look at adding on a new business unit or how much that's gonna cost before you're gonna see an ROI out of it, you know, it may take one year, two years it may be a five year play before you've seen that payoff. Right. But talk about that process. Is that
Mike Bennet:
Well, yeah, we we sit down and talked about it quite a bit for probably, I don't know, three years or maybe longer than that. And Yeah. I'm not sure and that it was real popular because you never know where your business is gonna go. And and even with my Especially trucking. I would sit down at night, and I go, this is what we need to do. And and then we would kinda have a little hiccup, and you go, ma'am, I we we better not. You know? But in the end, we've we've decided to go ahead and go through with it, and I think it'll be a great thing moving forward. It's gonna be good for now for sure.
Mike Bennet:
I mean, we, we've got some stuff lined up to go in here and and, be repaired and and utilize this bay relatively quickly. But the wash is being used every day since we put it in. We're keeping our equipment a lot cleaner, and we're cutting down time on the road, which we were stopping, you know, spending time at the Blue Beacon and cutting back, you know, for the the drivers. They'd lose time. We would lose time and, plus the expense. So we can do that now when they're not on the clock Yeah. Speed. And after repair gets done on that side, then we bring it through, wash it, and it's ready to go.
Jared Flinn:
How so this process, truck and trailer, how long does that take to wash one?
Bo Prock:
So without any hand washing, we're like six, seven minutes
Jared Flinn:
Okay.
Bo Prock:
To do a truck trailer with just the automatic system. Now the way it sets right now, they're they're doing some hand washing like we're going ahead and washing out the wheels and, you know, we may put extra layer of soap or acid on on a part that is extra dirty, but it'll run front to back and get everything clean with the automatic side in six seven minutes.
Mike Bennet:
Yeah. It's wash It's gonna take 90% of the hand work out
Bo Prock:
of it,
Mike Bennet:
which is a lot of time.
Jared Flinn:
What's y'all's policy with the trailers? Like, how I mean, I know you wanna keep them clean, but is it is there a set schedule on how many times they get washed? Or
Bo Prock:
As often as possible. Yeah.
Mike Bennet:
I mean, as they need it to. I mean, if they don't need it, we're probably gonna call and say, you know, let's don't do that. But
Bo Prock:
because with I mean, we're up to a hundred and two trailers now, so there's always gonna be something dirty to wash. I mean, without having to go back over and wash the clean stuff. Yeah.
Mike Bennet:
Yeah. You just get a lot of road grime. I mean
Bo Prock:
Yeah. Especially in, like, today, it's empty because it's cold enough outside that, you know, spraying water all over breaks and stuff is a horrible idea. So Doesn't that freeze them up? Yeah. So it's probably gonna be empty most of the day today, but then by Thursday, we'll be back up and running, and be dirty by then because of the snow. So
Jared Flinn:
Silly question. Not that you would do this for outside, but, like, could you
Mike Bennet:
run your pickup through here? Oh, yeah. I We
Bo Prock:
do run our pickups. Okay. I'm like,
Jared Flinn:
that is a perk that is an employee perk right there.
Mike Bennet:
I run mine through yesterday.
Jared Flinn:
Yeah. That is a huge employee perk.
Bo Prock:
It's it's nice. Yeah. And I mean, more than anything, just being I mean, it's warm in here, isn't it? Yeah. Like, it's not it's not cold. I mean, you can come in here in the middle of winter with shorts and a t shirt on and wash something if you wanted to. But we've got, heat, you know, rain up top to keep everything warm, and then plus just the hot water and everything from him washing this morning. I mean, it's, I mean, pretty damn warm in here. Yeah.
Mike Bennet:
It's nice.
Jared Flinn:
I, I haven't done any research. What does it like, the Blue Beacon, what does that cost to run a truck through there?
Bo Prock:
So we don't I don't really remember exactly what the Blue Beacon is.
Mike Bennet:
8,200.
Bo Prock:
Yeah. If you run
Jared Flinn:
trucks simple one, that's not a Yeah.
Mike Bennet:
I I mean, it's it's probably a decent wash. I mean, I but but that cost is not what it costs the driver. You know, he's gonna lose two hours minimum, you know, drive time. Oh. But he don't you know, if his tires ain't turning, he don't get paid.
Bo Prock:
Yeah. Yeah. What we're gaining is guys are coming in on Fridays, and, you know, our wash guys are working a lot of Saturdays, so they're running all these through. So over, you know, 37 trucks in the company saving two hours a week It'll make us money. It it alone is gonna make money.
Jared Flinn:
Yeah. Wow. That's that's really good.
Mike Bennet:
Because, you know, with the ELD, every every minute's accounted for. And so if they're set and they're on the clock and then they run out of drive time, which hurts them and us
Jared Flinn:
Yeah. Hey. That's smart. I didn't think about the thing.
Bo Prock:
It's been nice. Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
Yeah. Because yeah. That you gotta keep that truck moving Yeah. At all possible in that loud time. So this is just another
Mike Bennet:
And if we the cleaner we keep them, the less attraction we get with, inspections. Yeah. You know? So
Jared Flinn:
Yeah. I think even just I I think even driver pride too, like, running clean equipment, the way you conduct your business and just look better.
Bo Prock:
Yep. For sure.
Jared Flinn:
It's, like, looking nice. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a turnkey operation. I know not at this current time, but, though, it is in the forecast for this wash bay to be open to public trucks or other outside companies to come in
Mike Bennet:
Yes, sir.
Jared Flinn:
And utilize too.
Mike Bennet:
Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
Is the would the is the mechanic shop, or is that not an
Mike Bennet:
not We've steered away from that, for a lot of reasons. I've I've been involved in that in in the past. Yeah. And, you know, we did a lot of engine overhauls and transmission clutches and all that, and it's just a different time in the mechanical side of it. It takes a lot more equipment. A lot of it's just, you know, you gotta plug in, see what's going on, and there's that depth, of course, is part of it. But there's we we just don't want to do that. We wanna focus on ours.
Mike Bennet:
We may do some outside trailer work. And and, again, we may do some truck work, but we're gonna try to stay away from it if we can. We just don't feel like that's a a place we wanna be at because if we tie that part of the shop up with that and then we have something go down, we've only got so much room.
Jared Flinn:
Yeah.
Mike Bennet:
And it's amazing again to think that that could be a problem.
Jared Flinn:
I got two more questions, and these are gonna be big ones, and we'll kinda, we're gonna get a tour too and and see some of this, throughout the facility. But, as a business owner over the last forty years being in this business Mhmm. Obviously, you've had the highs and lows. We can see the success here, but talk about those low moments, those challenging moments where that was really, you know, as a you know, being a business owner, which a lot of people strive to be, you know, it does sound good on the outside, but, man, there's a lot of struggles in that way. But, I mean, any any moments that you can share with our audience that that really were at that moment was was defining, but even got you to where you are today, some of those struggles? Yeah.
Mike Bennet:
I well, there's there has been a lot of struggles. I I gotta be honest with you. I I try not to focus on it, but I I think that's just real for me, I always knew I'd I'd work hard. I'd outwork anybody, especially when I was younger. Kind of a motto I had, we would always, you know, pray like it depends on God and work like it depends on us. That's awesome. And then we'd be smart. I mean, we you couldn't just work to be busy.
Mike Bennet:
It had to be towards something that was gonna get you where you wanted to be at. But, I mean, to make big jumps in any business, there's always the financial part. You know? Can you convince your banker that, you know, this will work? And and then the interest side of that, what what happens if you get loaded up and then, you know, the the industry changes on the money, and your rates are set to, you know, a contract or something like that, and then you're kinda tied to that. It there's there are definitely times that pinch you pretty bad. And the the one of the things I've been fortunate to do no matter what business we had, focused on, we we tried to make sure that we burned the bridge, so to speak. You know, if you've heard that story about people, we we kinda maybe had a plan b, but not much of one. And so when we burned the bridge, you know
Jared Flinn:
All in.
Mike Bennet:
You gotta make it work. Yeah. And I've been all in. And I so I tell people when I look at this now, I mean, my whole life is wrapped up in this little five acres here. And, because everything that I've done so far has built this up to where it's at. I mean, this it's took a lot of time. It's took forty years.
Jared Flinn:
Yeah.
Mike Bennet:
And, there's been a lot of blood and blood and sweat, and, you know, my wife has been really, really good. You know, a lot of times, people don't get the support from their spouse to borrow money and all that. She never ever she might raise an eyebrow, but she has always just signed up and said, I'm whatever you wanna do. Yeah. That's that's been real real good. And I I know I've heard my dad say several times. He said, you know, if your mom would have been more supportive, he said, I could have gone a long ways. And he didn't mean that in a bad way.
Mike Bennet:
They were good together, but she just could not handle the the debt. But, you you know, you've gotta you gotta be willing to take a risk. That's for sure.
Jared Flinn:
Yeah. The last thing I'll do, and this is one thing I've learned is as I've done more and more of these interviews with the different guests and successful businesses, is the diversification aspect of business. You know? It seems like the companies that I see that are, you know, riding through the storm, staying the test of time are the companies that really diversify. They don't you know? It's not just one thing that they're doing, but they have especially in freight, or especially in trucking, they have a a wash bay. They have a mechanic shop.
Mike Bennet:
Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
They, have different programs. But talk about just you're doing it here, but talk about that importance, to be successful, specifically in this industry to be diversified.
Mike Bennet:
Well, you you mean as far as diversified of of the trucking industry or what?
Jared Flinn:
I'm just saying to be diversified, like, don't don't just have one just one revenue you know, one stream of revenue, that you're solely depending on Okay. But making sure that you're kind of diversified, that you're thinking strategically, you're doing things different than other companies that are out
Mike Bennet:
there. And you you have to be aware of that, I think, no matter what. You've got to be willing to to subsidize a little bit. This wash bay will subsidize us a little bit. This is a customer trailer right here. It's, and it's one that it, is from that past business we've been acquainted with before. It's a DOD trailer, and it's gonna haul ammunition on it. It'll have a Conestoga kit on it, and it should be here next week.
Mike Bennet:
And one other, bay we have over is a fuel island, which isn't necessarily a revenue stream, but since we don't have to go out and get it, it it it does help us. We save money on the bulk fuel. And, so, I mean, I think everything we have here is trying to keep it all in house as much as we can where they can come in, we can wash the truck, we can service the truck. That where we really are a little short now is just on our our driver and and employee parking around here. We've gotta do something about that, and, we plan on doing that. Bose getting us a a vacuum order, you know, for our fuel island. That way, guys can keep the trucks clean and things like that. I don't think I quite answered that like that.
Jared Flinn:
But you actually answered probably in a better way than I thought because it's not not not necessarily your you don't have to have another business that's making a profit over here, but you're doing additional things to support the business and save money with the fuel island, with the wash bay, with the mechanic shop versus having to outsource or pay somebody else to do that.
Mike Bennet:
Yeah. And and we've had other, in the past, we've had other sources of revenue with the trucking company, but it can get a little spread out. I mean, you can get riding herd over a lot, and and maybe you're make making some money. Maybe you're just handling money. Yeah. And, we wanna make sure we're making money. The goal here is to, we would like to do well enough that we don't ever have to worry about anybody that that's a part of our team looking for a job. Yeah.
Mike Bennet:
And I don't mean that sound like we don't like somebody, but if they're a good employee and we want them to be like our family, we wanna make sure they stay. And we're not quite there. I mean, we we're I'm something I've been thinking a lot about the last few days is what where do we gotta get these people to to where if they're leaving us because they're moving. Yep. And and we don't want them to leave.
Jared Flinn:
Yeah. That's really good.
Mike Bennet:
They've still not got our fuel pumps in, but they're on their way. They'll go right up in here where them poles are at, And they'll be
Jared Flinn:
So I imagine all the tanks aren't buried? They're.
Mike Bennet:
Oh, they're right there. Okay. Never mind. Yep. Yeah. And that's been in here a while. We had some setting about where the forklift is, but when I built this, I thought, you know, we might as well cover it. And, of course, it's not doing much good right now, but, that way they can fuel when it's raining or whatever and have light.
Mike Bennet:
Yeah. The lights in here come on automatically at night, and we've got some air host places here. We're gonna hang a couple of big truck wash or car wash type vacuums out here where they can clean them up.
Bo Prock:
DEF tank is sets just on the inside of the wall. We can pump DEF out here.
Mike Bennet:
Yeah. Yeah. That's huge. So we think that'd be pretty nice.
Jared Flinn:
Yeah.
Mike Bennet:
And we built this to where it could be enclosed if we want to someday. It could totally be enclosed for the foundation.
Jared Flinn:
You've never had a fuel station here.
Mike Bennet:
Yeah. Yes.
Bo Prock:
Yeah. We we've had that for ten years probably.
Jared Flinn:
Oh, so they can fill
Mike Bennet:
up right now using this? Okay.
Bo Prock:
Yep. Mhmm. Yeah.
Mike Bennet:
We're still in construction in here, but we're just about to wrap it up. We've just remodeled most of these offices, and we have new doors coming. And Nice. And then we have, redone this the bookkeeping Get all
Bo Prock:
the employees on camera.
Mike Bennet:
A little
Bo Prock:
bit. Make them uncomfortable.
Mike Bennet:
So we've just redid these here a couple years ago. Something like that. I know we're doing each oh, it's not been that long, has it? Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
What was this building before you all bought it?
Mike Bennet:
Trucking company.
Bo Prock:
Oh, it
Jared Flinn:
was another trucking company? Yeah. Okay.
Mike Bennet:
Yeah. So it
Jared Flinn:
was somewhat built out
Mike Bennet:
before. Yeah. So trying to put all new floor and paint the walls. This was all paneling before, so we just changed that. Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
That's nice.
Bo Prock:
You're gonna have to show Jared your your toys. Oh, and he Jared will like that.
Mike Bennet:
Don't get a there's a mess in here, but I'm again, I'm not in here very much.
Jared Flinn:
I tell you, every Every in these. Everybody's got them.
Mike Bennet:
What's that?
Jared Flinn:
We're talking about, like, these the models, especially the the one sixty fourth scale, like, the little die cast models. Mhmm. Like, you go into any truck owner's office and they got
Bo Prock:
Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
A lot of them.
Mike Bennet:
Yeah. I've got a few of them and some Snap on stuff.
Bo Prock:
Tractors.
Mike Bennet:
Old tractors. I like old Cockshut tractors.
Bo Prock:
The Snap on shop is my favorite, Jared, because I've never seen anybody else with that. That was a Snap on collector's deal.
Jared Flinn:
I guess that's when I was asking that podcast, like, those decisions, like, I guess for me, it's always like I'm always second guessing, like, is this gonna be big enough? Is this gonna be the right deal? Are we gonna outgrow this? And I get you can't always be second guessing, but, like, that's what I'm looking at. Like, we're gonna spend x amount of thousands of dollars. We better make sure this is right, you know, exactly the way we want it. But Yeah. You know? And it's God willing, it's gonna if it if you're out of it, that's a good thing. You know?
Bo Prock:
Yep.
Mike Bennet:
Yeah. And this will look quite a bit better. We he's coming down to finish the kitchen up and then these doors and here in the next, oh, I don't know, two or three weeks. Isn't that what he said?
Bo Prock:
Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
You don't spend much time
Mike Bennet:
here, do you? No. I don't. I I come in and print a couple papers off today.
Bo Prock:
I hadn't told Mike yet. Mike's got a big head too like I do. Oh. He's getting the, Richardson one twelves, but they come in XL now.
Jared Flinn:
You gotta get the extra large ones right there. We're versus
Mike Bennet:
big headed people. See, I'm on two snaps there.
Jared Flinn:
Well, so if you get the big ones, you don't you can still be
Bo Prock:
That's what as soon as I got that last hat, I texted Jared and I said, now bulk loads is in the business of miracles because I just snapped four snaps on the back of my hat. Yeah. Never been able to do that. No.
Jared Flinn:
Well, you get a I mean and I'm a hat guy. I love it, but you get a hat and it's like, I like this man, but I'm not gonna be able to wear it.
Bo Prock:
Yeah. And it right it looks like a yamaka on top of a big head. It sets up so high.
Jared Flinn:
And I don't like I like it loose. Like Yeah. If it's if it's tight, I can't I get a hat.
Mike Bennet:
I don't even like that. Yeah. Yeah. You get that indention.
Bo Prock:
Yeah. Hat snobs.
Jared Flinn:
Alright. Last question, and I'm a put you on the spot here because you said it earlier, you know, working really hard, but but praying. How is your faith tied into this business?
Mike Bennet:
Well, it's got better. We, I mean, I I I just do a lot of things on faith. I mean, I probably too much. And I know when I was I was sitting in church Sunday morning, we just finished up the whole, through Matthew and the sermon on the mount, and and he was talking about the different things that, you know, if you're not where you need to be, you I mean, you definitely have heard where you need to be. And it made me reflect on a lot of things that I go, you know, I don't deserve what what has been I've been blessed with. But I'm thankful for it, and I do think that, God will bless you if you're open to that, if you're willing to receive that. But you gotta do good things with it.
Jared Flinn:
Yeah.
Mike Bennet:
You cannot be selfish with the good things that are that are give to you. And I know some guys were asking me the other day at church. There's some young guys wanting to go into business. They said, what do you do on that kind of deal? And and when is enough or when is it too much? You know, when are you crossing that line? I said, I don't think there is a line. I just said, you just gotta do good things with it. You know, you cannot hoard it and you gotta do good things with it. So my goal is not to be rich. I I wanna have a good life.
Mike Bennet:
I grew up pretty humble. Mhmm. But I didn't wanna have to worry about money. But, but God has definitely been good to us. We're, we're very undeserving people, most of us are. And, that we're definitely thankful for what god's done in our life.
Jared Flinn:
Yeah. Well said. We have a scripture on our wall that, you know, God blesses those who bless others.
Mike Bennet:
Yeah.
Jared Flinn:
Absolutely. We it's something we believe wholeheartedly with our organization, and and, you hit it spot on. Mike, this has been an awesome interview podcast. Thank you for taking the time, in your busy schedule to come out here. And, I know our listeners will, will get tremendous value from this. So thank you very much. God bless you.
Mike Bennet:
I appreciate it, and it's been awesome. And, you guys come back.
Jared Flinn:
Thank you. Appreciate it.
