Produce to Profits

Jared Flinn: You're listening to the Bolt Floats podcast, your number one resource for everything, bolt freight trucking. Hey, guys. Jared Flynn with the Bulk Loads podcast. Got Tyler with me. Tyler Allison: What's going on? Jared Flinn: You know, this week I. It's been a while since I've got on the road and went and visited some clients, but this past week went out and I can't stress how much it fills me up when I go out on the road. I know times are tough. We're seeing a little slowdown recession, but, man, when you're out there and seeing hardworking rural farming communities and these guys working and building these businesses, it's just, yeah, it warms my heart. And I got to visit several companies actually up in my old stomping grounds, which is up around. I grew up Truckston, Missouri, but up kind of eastern Missouri, but visited a client in Herman. And that's why I want to have Joe throw up this picture. But Mark and Dennis Ingaman and Tri county trucking, but just really cool to hear their story. Jared Flinn: They farming family, they still farm today, 2500 acres. They run cattle, but then they have an excavating business on top of a trucking business on top of a trash collection business. But it's just cool to see that they saw these opportunities, but they also needed to grow the business to sustain. And it was just cool. We sat down with them for a couple hours with Mark, who's the son, and Dennis as well, his dad, and just, yeah, it was just really cool. And I can't just say how much I love visiting people. If I could do that every day. Yeah, I think, and I'm gonna try to do more of that. Jared Flinn: Last year, I had like every week I was out there. But, yeah, if you want me to come out and visit, actually send me a note. I'd love to come out and visit. And, yeah, it's just, it's one of those I'm a people person. And again, it was in my hometown area, so we got to talk about, you know, back in the day, the hog market and our area had a. Tyler Allison: Lot of hogs do a little reminiscent. Jared Flinn: Yeah. So you get to name the same of the sound of some of the same people that, you know. And it was really cool. So, man, Mark, I know you listen to the podcast. Thank you for. For having us. And Dennis as well, man. It was really, really cool visit. Tyler Allison: Yeah, it's so cool to see. We have that whenever we have customer visits, you know, everybody kind of sends pictures in our group chat and stuff. And, you know, who they saw and it's so cool. Cause we're being an online business. We're always on the phone or, you know, communicating over email with our guys. And it's just everybody has a different story with what they're doing. And it's just always shocking with how much these guys are doing. Like, they're not just trucking, they're running multiple different businesses or, you know, whatever. Tyler Allison: So it's always cool to see they're. Jared Flinn: Different stories, but they all kind of intersect in the same thing. It's farming community. Not all, but farming community. They have to grow the business, sustain through the ups and downs, and they figure out these other opportunities and these niches, and it's just, man, it's cool. I can hear those stories all day long and never get bored. It's really, really fascinating. So anyways, we always do a truck feature. I'll let you kick it off. Tyler Allison: We got Adam Davis out of Liberty, Kentucky. The old cab overdemental. Been a member since 2023. We actually saw Adam at the mid America truck show a few years ago. That's how he heard about us and he signed up. But yeah, this picture, we don't see many cabovers anymore on the road, but even, even in pictures. And, yeah, this is cool. It looks like an old international movie. Jared Flinn: So I was telling you earlier, we had two cab overs growing up that we hauled, actually liquid. It was chicken manure liquid from a farm. But all I can remember about those cab overs was it was a rough son of a gun. They didn't have air conditioning. And I can remember just bouncing up and down in those seats. It was just so hard. And it was a lot of work. I remember seeing my dad, my uncle driving these trucks. Jared Flinn: And you had to be physically fit to operate these cab overs, at least those trucks that we had. Tyler Allison: Yeah, yeah. And cab overs are just like you see them on the road now. It's just like nostalgic. Like, it's just that it just a whole nother like world of trucking. Just like you see whenever you pass one by. Jared Flinn: Yeah. Awesome. Well, Adam, thank you for sending this in. That's cool. Pick if you want to have your truck featured, we always say this. Simply send us an email or anywhere on social media, get us a picture of yours and we'll gladly feature it on here. We love featuring this. We know our audience loves seeing it. Jared Flinn: And just like some of these visits, these guys are showing me pictures of their trucks. It's just something that, it's a universal, I guess, language that we have. And just kind of seeing these, these different setups of trucks. So, Adam, thanks for sending that, man. Get us your picture. We want to see that. Tyler Allison: Yeah. Awesome. Jared Flinn: So awesome. Well, this week I'm going to bring on Colby Varney and Colby, actually, they reached out to us. They run a produce brokerage company and wanted to really kind of, you know, drift a little bit away from. I mean, they do bulk, but a lot of it, it's just produce, the seasonality of it, you know, on bulk loads, we like to focus or we like to kind of really show all aspects of trucking and logistics. The more we know and can educate ourselves about industries, the better we can be educated about our own, make better decisions. So that's what this is really about. And. But there's some just solid wisdom how they've grown their business, and that's what we're going to showcase today. Jared Flinn: And we'll talk more kind of about specifics that he said at the end of this. So, yeah, with that said, here is my conversation with Colby Varney. Colby, thanks for coming on. Colby Varley: Yeah, Jared, thanks for having me. Really appreciate it. Jared Flinn: Yeah, well, you have quite the success story, and, man, I really look forward to unpacking that to our audience. And I think, you know, there's so many people at different stages of their business that listen to this podcast. Some in the driver's seat, driving down the road, company drivers, but even owner operators, some continuing to figure out how they improve their business and how they keep growing within the organization, whether it's theirs or another organization. And that's why I really look forward to give those little gold nuggets to our listeners. But, yeah, you started off as a truck driver. Let's. Let's just start there. Colby Varley: Yeah. So straight out of high school, I went straight to an asset based local trucking company here in Salinas, and they specialized in LTL within California, so their bread and butter was going to, you know, serving Los Angeles and San Francisco metro areas. So started there, got my license, started doing local pickups here. We just bring it to a yard and mix it and send it out. Went to Fresno State, still worked there with my schedule back and forth. And after I was driving through college, started working on the loading docks. So then I was physically loading the trucks every night, going to, you know, what deliveries we're going to go to. Then I did a few runs in a semi, graduated college, came back, got on the desk and really excelled. Colby Varley: Just being able to understand how it all worked, where all the places were, what fits, whether it's how many pallets or how much it weighs. And that really helped. You don't really realize it at first. And then had an opportunity to come here to ATS. Did that came in 16. So pre eld, which I don't think I could have made the jump at a better time. I mean, our leadership at that time was really in the game on the eld, on Capitol Hill, how it was going to work, how it was going to kind of affect the industry. And I felt like we had a little bit of a leg up of kind of what was coming down the pipe and how it was all going to work and changing the customer's perspective on, you know, how the industry is going to change a little bit, that you can't just run people to death. Jared Flinn: Yeah. Colby Varley: So, yeah, I've been on the sales desk ever since. And then this year had the opportunity to, you know, buy out three of the existing retiring partners and come the vice president and principal. There's one other partner now. And, you know, now we're doing 20,000 shipments a year. And, you know, I'm in the sea level, but I'm still on the sales desk every day. But that's kind of the fast and furious of it, of how we got here. Jared Flinn: I look back on my 20 years in logistics and similar story. Started off driving a truck on a local level, but really was just fascinated with the side of the business of really learning, figuring out the puzzles in between. But I guess from your perspective, you drove the truck, but where did you see that need or that opportunity to grow to that next level? Colby Varley: Well, I was always really interested in the trucks. And my family's actually from the state of Missouri and my dad's from St. Louis. So he started with the Tom Lane company and came out here to Salinas. But I was always just kind of amazed as a kid. I mean, I grew up in a produce brokerage office with him, but just, you know, he would just call his truck guys with the pickups, you know, it didn't matter if it was 10:00 a.m. 02:00 p.m. whatever. Colby Varley: And they just took care of it, you know, and I just thought, like, man, like that, that's just incredible. You know, he calls an order in on Friday afternoon, and, you know, it's sitting in the east coast on Monday morning. Like, how, how is that even possible? You know, team drivers are just rockets. So that, that's how I kind of really caught the bug, I guess. And I knew that there was going to be a need and I mean, everything moves by truck, rail, ocean, freight. Any kind of transportation is just 100% necessary in the world that we live in. I mean, even more so now with Amazon prime, same day delivery. I mean, people are just accustomed to that in our, in our lifestyle. Colby Varley: But, you know, I had some good mentors right out of high school, and my dad kind of sat me down and said, you know, hey, you, you can come here and work for me. And, you know, probably do real well as a produce broker, but he felt that that kind of, the business was becoming archaic and kind of dinosaurish that, you know, a lot of the vendors and whatnot are just going directly, and there's always kind of a need for a transportation intermediary broker. Like, you know, I mean, I'm sure there's carriers out there that don't want to hear that and customers out there that don't want to hear that. But at the end of the day, like, that's the reality is there's always going to be a need for very good transportation, whether, you know, it's a broker or an asset. Like we. It's just something that our society needs to survive. Jared Flinn: Hey, guys, thank you for listening to the bulk loads podcast. Many of y'all may not know, but four years ago we started a TMS platform specifically for bulk. TMS is a transportation management system. We knew that a lot of companies, even large Fortune 500 companies, were still using Excel spreadsheets and scratch pads to manage their freight. We compiled all that together in one simple software solution called Bulk TMS. It allows you to do everything from scheduling to dispatch to ticket capture. Everything that you would need to do to take out those manual processes we have encompassed in bulk tms.com dot. So if you get a chance, check out bulktms.com dot. Jared Flinn: We'll put the link below. We want to give you a demo. It's really simple to see how we do it. We now have hundreds of companies from, again, Fortune 500 companies to small one, two truck companies that are using this system and saving a lot of time and money every day. So check out bulktms.com dot. If you don't have a robust solution that is geared towards bulk, bulk tms.com dot. God bless. And I guess, like, in your words, you know, unpack that a little bit because that's always a, you know, it's always a topic of discussion about, you know, and again, as we record this, we're in a pretty good slump with freight. Jared Flinn: So, yeah, there, you know, that pie that's out there it's getting smaller and smaller. Obviously, these volumes, sometimes you can see obviously lower rates, maybe a little cutthroat, but speak about why there is really that need for that intermediary, that broker that's serving that client. Colby Varley: Well, I think it just goes to everybody's needs. Everybody's needs are different. I mean, and that's on both sides, whether you're a carrier or a customer. I mean, we handle customers that could call us at 10:00 a.m. and say, hey, I got a load of strawberries picking up in McAllen, Texas. And at lunchtime they're calling back saying, hey, that moved to Oxnard, California. And then by the end of the day, at 03:00 p.m. they're telling me, hey, I need to load it in Salinas, California. Colby Varley: Well, if you're an asset based carrier, that's kind of real difficult of a customer for you to service, right? You can't just teleport a truck from Texas over to California. You either have the truck or you don't. So from a customer standpoint, that allows us to be pretty nimble, you know, and feel these changes and, okay, well, you know, I'll cancel that truck and I'll rebook another truck and, you know, we'll still get it picked up and it'll still be on the road. So from that aspect, you know, just the versatility, you know, I think that's important to a customer. And then for a carrier, you know, I mean, if you're a smaller fleet, you know, it's a, I feel like it's very difficult to have a direct deal. I mean, how do you go to a major shipper and say, hey, I only have three trucks and they're shipping four or five loads a week on one lane. That's not really going to help them. But if they're working with someone like us, we can go to that shipper and say, hey, collectively I have 150 units that want to run this lane. Colby Varley: Like, how do we put something together, you know, which we've been pretty successful with that, you know, so, and then, you know, we're going to help that carrier that needs that, you know, traffic lane. Jared Flinn: Yeah, I 100% agree. And I think it can get kind of controversial or there can be friction when, when you talk about this, because, again, at the end of the day, you want the customer taken care of and you also want the carrier to be taken care of. And you're trying to, you're kind of wearing this hat at both, you know, service to both levels and making sure that absolutely products picked up and all that. But I guess we've even seen, you know, and it's not for all people, but, you know, it seems like sometimes the next evolution for a carrier, if they want to get bigger or grow, like, they almost have to have a brokerage as well or to tie that into their asset base, which I guess, and I assume that's where ats is today. You're an asset based carrier, right? Or. Colby Varley: No, we're strictly brokerage. Jared Flinn: Okay. Colby Varley: That's on our MC number. So we're 100% brokerage. Jared Flinn: Okay. Yeah, so. And I guess just to answer that question, though, I mean, some of these carriers that are trying to get to that growth stage where they can get more access to loads to service those customers, you know, what would be your recommendation to them? Colby Varley: Don't put all your eggs in one basket. You know, and I see it and it sucks, you know, like, sometimes brokers have a bad rap and, you know, that's not everybody. And there's guys, like, I've gotten referrals to and, you know, they won't even hear me out. And it's like you wonder, like, especially in a market like this, like, you know, I'm not saying that we have the golden ticket by any means, but if you're not listening to everybody that's bringing you some sort of opportunity, I think you're doing yourself a huge disservice. But for somebody looking to grow, I think it's, you know, if you can find a customer that you can get in with, do a really great job, people want to help other people, you know? So if you're a 510 fleet operation and you find a smaller shipper that wants to work with you and, you know, you tell them, hey, we want to grow. I think, you know, people want to help other people, especially if you're doing a good job, you know, that they're going to want. They're going to want you to get more trucks. If you're doing a great job for them, you know, you could haul more for them. Jared Flinn: Yeah. Colby, you've really moved up the ranks, you know, within the organization to become, you know, to have ownership and all that. But, man, if you kind of talk about a little bit, kind of how that was moving up into those positions and how really your role has changed from being, you know, working directly with the trucks or maybe you're still doing that, but how, how has that transition been to get to that next evolution of your job? Colby Varley: Yeah, so we're, we're strictly cradle to grave. That's our model. So we handle both sides or I handle both sides and I still do that now. I feel like for us, that's one of our separating factors is when you deal with the truck and the customer, I make sure that it's the right truck and making sure that it's the right load, vice versa. But before all I did was just focus on sales. Right. When you're in a sales role, that's all you're really working on. And now it's HR and overtime and workman's comp and insurance and rent and buildings and everything else, which it's good. Colby Varley: We have a great team here. So I'm able to, you know, take care of my stuff and, you know, then I try and carve a couple hours a day to work on all that other stuff that's important to the business, you know, always looking for new talent, all those type of things. So my day is a little bit different, but at the end of the day we are a sales company. Without sales, you know, the companies don't run too well. So that is at the forefront. Jared Flinn: Yeah. And I think that goes, you can almost say with even smaller carriers, there's got to be a sales aspect that you're always out there, you know, selling your services to others, that people know that your availability. And at the same time, obviously you're running a business too. And the operational aspect of that, you know, we're in a tough freight slump, I mean, across the country or just the industry as a whole. And I wanted you to kind of speak just on your side. How are you guys experiencing that and how are you all, I guess for lack of better terms, kind of surviving kind of through this slump. Colby Varley: Yeah. So, I mean, we're going on 40 years this year. So the firm was started in 1984. So this is not the first slump that we've kind of gone through. And, you know, our leadership has got some real good ideas and wisdom and, you know, things that have worked for them and we really just, you know, we're not the cheapest game in town. We don't want to be the cheapest game in town. I mean, we're looking to be the best value to both our customers and our carriers. I mean, we're not trying to put anybody out of business over here by any means. Colby Varley: And I'll be the first person to tell you, I mean, I've, I turn freight down. You know, I give customers quotes and they come back and say, hey, we need to be here. And it's like, you know, I'm embarrassed to even take that to the market. You know, I just, I won't do it. I know what these guys are, what they need and we really, really emphasize on relationships. I mean we're still loading the same guys that were helping us at the, at the peak, you know, when, when trucks were just so hard to get and customers are just begging for trucks. I mean we're taking care of those guys that really took care of us. You know, we're making sure we pay them fast. Colby Varley: You know, obviously getting them paid is half the battle. You know, they don't have to worry when they're loading with us. I mean that ach is gonna hit. So those are probably the main things is just taking care of those that take care of you, you know. And you know I had, I had a talk today with a driver and you know she's like hey there, there might be something paying a little better today but I know you're, you've been here and you're going to be here until the end of summer. Like I don't have to worry when I come west to find a load, you know. And so those are the kind of people that we're looking for you know, and that we're working with you know, and it's just the relationships are key. Jared Flinn: Yeah, im glad you brought up that on really focusing on service versus price because again with the current state of the market, obviously some of the lower price tends to get the jobs or the bids. But talk about that how you guys stay I guess strong or really focus on the service aspect of it and really overselling service and value versus price, especially in a market where it seems like a lot can be driven on bottom line price when it comes to freight. Colby Varley: Yeah, well I mean believe it to, you know, believe it or not, there's customers out there that do care about value. You know, they care that their load picks up on time and delivers on time and they can call in the middle of the night and get an update and or whatever, you know. I mean we're just, we're all about it. You know, it's like we want to provide first class service. Like that is what we strive for, that's what we believe in and you know you got to pay for that. It's not, you know, it's not cheap and it's not free. You know, we're not looking to make a million dollars on one order but you know you're going to pay for what you get for, you know, and that's just, that's just the reality. And it's okay. Colby Varley: I think, you know, a lot of people really struggle with saying, hey, you know, like, I can't do it for that. It's okay, you know, I mean, it's not, it's nothing personal. Like, you know, you quote a price and the customer says, hey, it's too high. It's like, okay, you know, no problem. I mean, I've done that enough times that you'd be surprised. People come back around, you know, like, hey, you still got that truck available? And if you have it available, sure, if you don't find them another one, you know, but, you know, I've been doing it long enough. Like, I don't need the practice. I don't think anybody does, right? I mean, we're all in this to make, make a buck. Colby Varley: And, you know, I think, you know, to your point, it can be, you know, people get a little, a little weird, like, you know, talking about making a profit and I making money and it's like, I mean, that's what we're here to do, you know, and it's okay, you know, you should be able to. That's why we're in business. Jared Flinn: Yeah, no, I agree. I mean, would you have any just like practical recommendations? I mean, for companies out there to really, to really focus on the service aspect, how do you really sell that to a customer that, that they know that, hey, I may be paying premium or I know I can get it done less over here, but I'm going to go with this guy because the service is going to outweigh the lower cost that I may find somewhere else. Colby Varley: So, I mean, I'm not sure how prevalent it is and like in your guys's side on like the bulk. But what we've really seen is a real push, the term visibility, visibility, visibility. And having that to where either you have some sort of gps that you can give your customer on where that truck is that's live or they're on macro point or Edi API, you know, whatever you need to do to give them access to that truck at whatever time. I think that's a huge factor. I know that for us it's like we'll give loads to certain carriers because of the visibility that they're giving us. And I think sometimes that carriers get maybe a little boxed in and not really knowing what's going on around them. They just see what's in their camp. But the visibility that, you know, people are providing, those are the guys getting the business and when you're talking about service, you know, that's the key, you know, and being available, answering the phone, you know, I mean, it's tough, you know, I get it if you're an owner, operator or whatnot. Colby Varley: Like, you gotta sleep, but you gotta figure something. I mean, even if it's just an answering service, just to get somebody to answer the call, it's like, that's probably better than, you know, voicemail. And the voicemail box is full, you know, those are some key factors. And then, you know, obviously we've been around long enough that, God forbid there is an accident, you know, we ask for that invoice on that freight immediately and we pay it. You know, we don't hand them over to the insurance company and say, hey, good luck, you know, I mean, obviously you've been in the business long enough and I'm sure you got a claim or two that's like, sometimes it takes us 90 to 120 days and it's like, dude, this is a cut and dry one. Like the trailer burned to the ground, you know, like there's no maybe what if, like, you know, you need to pay the claim. And I think, you know, customers, they don't really think about that until it happens. Right. Colby Varley: And then they're chasing somebody around for 120 days on $120,000 invoice of me. You know, it can change your perspective real quick. Jared Flinn: Yeah, yeah, totally like that. Have you guys in specifically, you guys deal with a lot of produce and all that? Talk about, you know, one thing. I actually just come up conversation today with a carrier. He was in our office visiting and he was talking about where load got rejected. Yeah. Then he spent an hour or two there and they trying to figure out where to take it to the next. He had taken it somewhere else, diverted and all that. But sometimes, I guess sometimes the carriers and I even feel this way sometimes. Jared Flinn: A lot of that. The, the trucking company is on the wrong end of that because number one, they're, they're spending their time, then they're having to reroute it. When it's all said and done. They really didn't probably get the compensation that they should to justify it. They missed the next load or the next opportunity. So they're missing out on that next load they're already behind. But talk about how you guys maybe deal with that or combat that or really help the carrier from that standpoint because I'm sure it happens in produce just like it does in our business in bulk. Colby Varley: Yeah. And we're not on anyone's side, we've kind of gone with the approach of what's right is right. Right. And sometimes doing the right thing is not the easy thing. I mean, I can tell you that I've gone to bat with shippers that give us a lot of business, you know, and if I think that this is a wrong claim or, you know, they're coming after me on a temp issue or something, and I feel that, you know, there's data that supports that. You know, we did our job, you know, we maintained temperature, we pulped the product. It was, you know, everything that we did. If I feel, you know, I'm going to go to bat for the carrier. Colby Varley: I mean, I can't do what I do without the carrier, right. So it's like I can't screw them over just because, you know, because my customer wants me to. And, you know, there's also, we're kind of the firm believer that if we made a mistake, we'll be the first one to raise our hand and admit it, and, you know, we'll make it right. And that's won us a lot of points on both sides of the court with the customer and the carrier. And, you know, I feel like a lot of these customers that we deal with, we have real, really good relationships, and it's like, you know, that they'll do what they can to mitigate it if it's kind of, you know, not, not the best of circumstances, you know, they don't want to shove a big claim on our lap. So, you know, it's just working through it. But, yeah, to your point, missing the next opportunity, it's kind of, you know, sometimes it takes an hour or two or more to get disposition. We do the best we can. Colby Varley: You know, sometimes it is out of our control, obviously, but we're really trying to do what's best for everybody, you know, I mean, obviously I don't want the grower to take it in the shorts, you know, so it's just, it's, it's a delicate situation. I don't know if there's a right answer, but, you know, you just got to look at it like a long term type relationship. I mean, I can tell you that I, you know, we don't profit anything off of a recon signment rejection. You know, I mean, it's just we're trying to mitigate the loss for everybody. Jared Flinn: Yeah. No, yeah, I think that's great. Colby, we've seen through Covid and these supply chain crunch. This is more people in the business, more trucking companies and all that. Obviously we're seeing that churn and giving out of the business. I just want to hear from your perspective on the produce side, I assume that you guys are seeing the same thing where you had abundance of carriers that got into it and now some of those are exiting the market. Are you, are you continuing to see that? Are you seeing some stabilization on the produce side? Colby Varley: Yeah, so, I mean, we've seen our fair share of guys that were working with us that have gone by the wayside, unfortunately. And to be honest with you, I thought it would have happened at a little bit faster of a clip than what we're seeing. I'll give it to everybody on the asset side. I mean, those are some resilient individuals, you know, to keep pushing through a market like this. You know, a lot of the factors are out of their control, you know, but we're trying to do the best we can to support them in the hopes that that's going to come back tenfold. Right. I mean, I think everybody that has their head on straight that's trying to take care of people is doing it. Number one, it's the right thing. Colby Varley: And number two, you know, when this deal does swing the other way, you know, it's like, hey, don't forget about me. Um, but yeah, you know, it's an unfortunate thing. And you know, every conference that I've been to, the economists get up there and they're all kind of touting the same thing. Like, you know, more guys need to go by the wayside and it sucks. You know, it's just not what you want to hear. But hopefully something else happens that that's not the case. You know, I mean, don't wish that on anybody. Jared Flinn: Yeah. You know, on the bulk side of the business, we deal with a lot of small companies, owner operators. There's really not a lot of big, quote, mega carriers in bulk. Since I've been in this, you know, there's probably five of them that can name on my hand that, you know, that are running 100 plus units on that produce. Though I've seen different. I mean, there's a big mega carrier here in, in Springfield. They run one of the largest refrigerated divisions. I'm not saying that's produce related, but talk about that industry. Jared Flinn: I mean, I think that you all have a lot more larger asset based carriers moving produce than what we see moving bulk on our side. I just want to see, can you explain to maybe the differences and maybe why that is? Colby Varley: Yeah, so for us, I mean, we're not opposed to the owner operator at all. We, we do work with them and then we work also up to, you know, the mega carriers. I mean, we deal with everybody from big to small. And in between what we've seen, especially with these newer trucks, is dealing with an owner operator can be a little bit more difficult in the fact that it seems like the new trucks seem to break down more and when they do break down, they take longer to fix because the shops are just completely overwhelmed and that doesn't really work out too well when you have a load of highly perishable food or produce on your trailer. Jared Flinn: Yeah. Colby Varley: And with a straight owner operator, they don't really have a way to recover. So now you go from a bad situation to a worse situation when you have a load of fresh strawberries on that. Now you're four or five days late. And it's like, it's not, it's not good now. You know, the receiver doesn't want it and it's just so for us, it's kind of like we've said, hey, like, you know, ideally we're looking to work with guys that are five or more just for the recovery ability. You know, I don't know how that is in the bulk world or, you know, if your guys is more regional. But, you know, we try and utilize guys that run the same lane. Right? Like guys that are always running the 40 or guys that are always running the ten. Colby Varley: That way, you know, if there is a breakdown, it's like, hey, I got somebody coming the opposite way. I'm going to swap them out, you know, and he's got a dry load, like no big deal. And I'll pick up that trailer and have him turn back just for the produce side. It just seems a lot better in that aspect. And that's, I think, why probably, you know, it's just nobody wants a claim because of that. I mean, we have the rider and we have the Penske and all that, but obviously during COVID that was pretty much useless because everyone that wanted to be a truck that couldn't buy a truck was renting a truck. Um, now they're a little bit more available, but it's just, it's a lot more hoops to jump through than just getting on the phone with the load planner and saying, hey, what, what are, what are our options? You know? Jared Flinn: Yeah. You know, with bulk, obviously we're rare. We see a lot of seasonality, especially when it comes to harvest. We get into the summer weed harvest in the midwest, but really you get into the late summer fall harvest, so you see capacity tightening quite a bit, um, on the, on the grain movements and stuff like that. So lots indicative of having a good harvest and good, good rains, you know, no drought conditions, no severe weather, uh, catastrophic storms and stuff like that. But can you kind of give us light or shed light to how, how that works on the produce side? Because I imagine there's peaks, you know, and I've heard that before when, you know, when the citrus is moving out of Florida, you know, and that all of a sudden it tightens up. And then certain areas, Texas watermelons. But, man, give us kind of maybe an overview of kind of how the seasonality works on the produce side when you see kind of the ups and downs and capacity really tighten up because of a produce harvest. Colby Varley: Yeah. So, I mean, I would say here in California, they call it peak season. And that's really from, you know, April, may into the 4 July. And then, you know, after that, it usually demand kind of tails off. But what we've seen here specifically, like in the Salinas Valley, you know, that that's going to be, we're the solid bowl of the world. So any lettuce, romaine, iceberg bag salad that you picked up, if you look at the label, it probably came from salinas. High probability. But what we saw, like, especially this year, is there's a lot of fallow dirt. Colby Varley: There's a lot of ranches that did not get leased. You know, these farmers, they kind of got killed last year. It was over planted. You know, pesticides are too expensive. Labor is too expensive, you know, like you're at a loss before you even put in the box. So a lot of guys, you know, they only planted for what they got contracted for. So that that's really raised the vegetable price, and there's just less loads because of that. You know, I mean, that's just the reality. Colby Varley: So there's SOmE outside factors, you know, like you said, whether it's a harvest or storm or WHAtnot. I mean, right now we're getting kind of a heat Wave. It's going to be, you know, eighties and nineties, and thAt's kind of, you know, too warm for what we do here. So, you know, they're going to be pulling crews out of THe field, not harvesting. You know, stuff's going to take longer to cool. They got to get the heat out of it. So there's some factors there. But, you know, for the most part, like, the peak season for here in CaliFornia is, you know, April, May, through the 4 July and then it just tails off until we get to November and then we transition back down into Yuma, Arizona and go through Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's. Jared Flinn: Yeah, I mean, it's quite amazing when you look at the food supply chain in America, like you can, any time of the year, you can really go to the supermarket and pick up a head of lettuce. I mean, whether it's, whether it's December or July or whatever, I think sometimes we forget how fortunate we are in today's age to have, I mean, technology and the supply chain to where we can have produce pretty much year round to consume in our economy and in our industry. The last question I kind of have, and then we'll kind of wrap up here. But just from my experience on the produce season, again, like, the time sensitivity is huge, it seems like, and ive heard just sometimes stories of where sometimes loads can come in of produce, lettuce or whatever to these markets. And some of these markets, they just dont have the room for it, so they just reject the load. So its not even the carriers fault. And again, this may just be hearsay, but then theyre stuck trying to figure out where to move this or to find another outlet for it. Then they got to whoever the trader is, its buying and selling it. Jared Flinn: They got to take it at a loss and really had nothing to do with any damage or anything on the load. They just did it because whoever was that receiver was, they, they didn't need it or they, they'd already bought up. Colby Varley: Yeah. So I think there could be some truth to that. I don't know. Uh, in this day and age, with the amount of technology that's out there, I think it's a lot, lot harder. I mean, you got to imagine that back in the day, they, they put recorders on trucks, right, to track the internal temperature. But the only good it was is when you got there and you opened it up and looked at it and said, oh, this ran hot for the last four days. I mean, now we have the technology that they put the recorder on there. They pull the pin and it's connected via, you know, cell service, you know, and we're monitoring it the entire trip. Colby Varley: So if it gets out of range, like, I mean, we're on it instantly. Hey, get the driver on the phone, get a picture of the reefer. Like, make sure this thing's dialed in, you know. So in that regard, a lot of it's gotten a lot better. You know, these guys, they can't reject just because, oh, it was hot. You know, it's like, no, we watched it the entire way. You know, I think there's some truth to, like, if it's a falling market, right? Like, let's just say it's a cherry deal. And, you know, cherries today are $120 a box. Colby Varley: You load them up, you know, you're going back to Bronx, and on Friday morning when it arrives, you know, the cherry market took a dive and it's at 60. You know, like, that guy's like, hey, like, I'm not receiving that. You know, like, yeah, I bought it at 120, but the market's at 60 now. And then it's kind of like, okay, well, what's your reasoning? And then, you know, if they're saying it's quality or temperature or whatever, I mean, for us, we just go straight to the USDA. Like, you know what, I'm not going to argue. Like, I'll get a USDA federal inspection and we'll see what they say. And, you know, I mean, if the shit's good. Sorry, shouldn't have done that. Colby Varley: If it's good, you know, the USDA is going to say, hey, it's good, you know, and then it's like, hey, you know, you have to take it. Or, you know, the shippers got to figure something out. Like, we're not responsible. We did our job right. We maintained temperature. We got it here on time, you know, we have no bearing on what the market's doing, you know, on the price, and, you know, we're not going to be the scapegoat. So I think just dealing with somebody that knows, you know, if you don't know or you're not confident that your broker or your customer knows, you know, yeah, maybe you got to be pretty careful. But if you're dealing with somebody that knows how all that works and, you know, I mean, I. Colby Varley: We've. We've gotten. We've protected a lot of people, you know, I mean, that's what we're here for. You know, we don't want to put a claim on somebody unnecessarily. I mean, that's just not okay. Jared Flinn: Yeah, no, for sure. Kind of. Last but not least, and I'll kind of end this more on a lighter note, I guess, Colby, like, if you could fix or change something in the industry right now, what would it be? And then to end on that, what would just be, again, for people listening to this podcast, looking at the market, especially where the freight market is today, what would be just some really good advice words of wisdom that you would give to them. Colby Varley: I think something that I would like to change that I think it would be beneficial for everybody is all the misconceptions. There's just so many misconceptions of, you know, that, like, for example, brokers are making 20, 40% on an order. I mean, there might be guys doing that, you know, I don't know, but, I mean, I can tell you we're not, you know, I mean, we're not doing that, you know, so that's just some of the misconceptions, you know, that we're, you know, people are just out to screw everybody over. And it's like, you know, there are good people out there. I mean, yeah, there's some bad apples, too, but that's an indie type of industry. But, you know, one size does definitely not fit all in any aspect. So that's something that I'd like to see change. And then, I guess for anybody else, you know, looking to grow or, you know, in this tough market right now, just stay resilient. Colby Varley: I mean, it doesn't. I know it seems hard and, you know, but if you just have a little bit of drive and stay disciplined, like, good things happen, you know, I mean, I know it doesn't seem like it today, but just keep trying, you know, just keep fighting. Don't. Don't give in, don't give up, you know, good things do happen, you know, but nothing good comes easy. I mean, I don't think there's anything better to say than that. Jared Flinn: Yeah, no, totally agree. We. We have a sign in our. In our hallway that says, adversity only makes you better. And as much as we cringe in these times and again, we know that there's real struggles and people are out there that aren't making ends meet. But, man, these are the times where you can really sink your teeth in and grow from here and hopefully see those rewards when the market turns and becomes more favorable for trucking, so. Colby Varley: Absolutely. Jared Flinn: Yeah. Cool. Well, Kobe, buddy, thank you so much for reaching out. And, man, appreciate you coming on the podcast. We're going to put your information in the show notes below. So if you're listening right now and want to learn more about Colby, we'll put links that you can reach out and get in direct contact with him and his organization. And, yeah, thanks for just giving us a little bit of a glimpse of what the produce industry is. Again, the Bulk loads podcast. Jared Flinn: We do a lot just on bulk freight. Obviously, that's our clients. But, man, I think we're better, more well rounded when we can bring guests like you on and show us just some of these other industries. So we kind of know how these others operate to make better decisions for ours. So, man, thank you. Thank you so much and God bless you. Colby Varley: I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on. Jared Flinn: This is kind of an interesting podcast. I know we weren't talking about bulk and this was about produce, but it is crazy. Just the seasonality of produce. It's just that feast or famine. And I can remember just even hearing from other drivers that do reefer freight and, well, actually even flatbed freight, man, when produce hits, man, everything's, I mean, everything changes, you know, all of a sudden, like in Florida, you know, a lot of times that's a dead area to go into. You gotta find. Find something to get out of there, bounce out. So there's usually round trip rates, but when produce hits, now, all of a sudden, that's the head all coming out of there. Jared Flinn: And we pricey the same with harvest, too. You know, we're the food supply chain, so we see grain, but, man, it seems like produce. It can be really, really just feast or famine. Tyler Allison: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Whenever it's high, it's high. Whenever it's low, it's low. There's, you know, it's. It's one or the other. It's not really, uh, riding that middle line. Um, yeah, Colby, I mean, with 40 years of experience in the reefer industry, he brought some outside knowledge, but I think there's a lot of similarities that separate that we see consistently with good brokers versus bad brokers. And he touched on service over price, and it's all about customer relationships, especially in down markets like this. Tyler Allison: It's all about, if you're working with a good carrier, how can you make sure that carrier is getting a better rate now and then? Whenever the market may flips, you know, the carrier will kind of be on your side and scratch your back. Jared Flinn: Yeah, yeah. Cool. Well, Colby, man, thanks for reaching out for us and coming on the podcast. Really appreciate that. And we hope you, as listeners, got value out of that. A couple things before we head out, dude, we are always trying to figure out how to give away better gifts and items. One thing that we've really saw the past, I guess just this year, you know, we always do different hat shirts and all that, but, man, we know that Carhartt, out of all brands, is like number one in our industry. When you. Jared Flinn: We get pictures with clients or we go to shows, Carhartt, that is what people wear the Carhartt jackets, the shirts and all that. So we are actually flipping a lot of our peril to buying Carhartt, which is very, very expensive. It's a very big investment. But we also want to give that to our audience. You know, one thing I've always said from the very beginning, you know, people say you need to have a store where you can sell stuff. I was like, if I can continue to give stuff away, that's just as valuable for us. We want to give things and be generous with what God's given us as well. So we're going to give away Carhartt stuff. Tyler Allison: Yep. Yeah, we got, we got some shirts coming. We also got some of our guys at the conference, or actually everybody who attended the conference kind of got a sneak peek of us doing the transition because everybody got Carhartt backpacks, which were very expensive backpacks and other expensive items in there. And so that's what our focus is, is how can we really give away good quality stuff. And so we got some Carhartt shirts with, with our logo on them, and we're actually picking them up today. And we want to give a few of those out. And all you have to do is just comment down below on this specific podcast. Jared, what do they need to comment? Jared Flinn: I want a Carhartt. Tyler Allison: There you go. That's all you have to say is I want a Carhartt. And we will go through and we will pick who we will send that to and we'll reach out and get that sent off to you. Jared Flinn: Yeah. Seriously, right, right now down below, if you're listening on other mediums, you have to go to YouTube and comment in the comments below. But just say, I want a car. Heart, dude, just for takes you 5 seconds and we will send you a car. We're going to pick some dry. We can't send everyone. These are pretty pricey, but we want to send a select few out there. Carhartts. Jared Flinn: But, man, again, we always want to give back and appreciate you all being listeners on here. So cool. The last thing, a couple things before we head out of here. One thing, and I always want to try to give something or encouragement to other people. You all know this, but years ago I actually wrote my own eulogy and. Sounds kind of morbid. Maybe this last week I was actually at a funeral. My wife, one of her sorority sisters passed away. Jared Flinn: Very, very rough and tough emotionally. She left two daughters, twelve years old. And, man, you just don't realize how short life is. But one thing I did, I wrote my eulogy because it's something. I go back and I keep this in my drawer. I look at it from every so often, but am I living the life that I want to live? And when I pass away, did I fulfill that? And I'm not going to read it verbatim, but if you have never done that, really encourage you to do that, write your own eulogy. And again, it's something that's just as a reflection. It's like, and again, put on there, like, how you want to be remembered, you know, how, what kind of person you were, what you did for your family, your community, anything that you want to be remembered by. Jared Flinn: And again, this can be something that you can always go back and reflect, you know, in different times of, like, man, am I taking the steps now, you know, when I pass away, is it going to match up what I wanted to be, my eulogy? So, yeah, mine's right here. I may post it up sometime for people to see, but again, it's something that. It's very crazy, but I look at it all the time. If you get a chance, man, write your eulogy out, and I think you'll be surprised of the steps that you'll make psychologically in your head to get to there. Tyler Allison: Yeah, that's good. I think I might actually do that. Jared Flinn: Yeah. So cool. I'll share with us because, again, there is a template that I use. Actually, Donald Miller was one of the ones that really encouraged this, and there's a template out there that you can use and I'll share with people. Tyler Allison: Awesome. Yeah, we'll drop that in the show show notes, if we can find it here. Yeah. Other than that, one thing I did want to mention is, you know, Colby in the episode was talking about service over, you know, price, and one of the services that he offers to his customers is the availability or the visibility of his trucks to his, his shipper clients. I just want to let. Let all the brokers on here now is that we do have that available on bulk loads, and it's through our TMS platform, and you can basically track the trucks that you are dispatching through there, and it's all through the bulk list app. You don't need any other external platform or whatever. They can just turn. Tyler Allison: A carrier can turn on their location services on the app, and you can see that truck, and you can actually send a link to your customer for your customer to view that truck. So we are doing a whole webinar on the TMS here in a few weeks, so we'll drop that in the show notes. If you're interested in learning about all these other features that we offer on bulk loads of how to control the entire freight cycle, simply you can sign up on that webinar and if you can't make it live, we'll send you the recording. Jared Flinn: I know right now a lot of people are in survival mode, but man, these are the times to really dig in but continue to make the steps that when the economy picks back up, business starts really rock and roll and you have the technology, the tools that are really going to propel you above the rest. So yeah, definitely check those out. TMS, we're pretty proud of it, man. We get, we're seeing more and more companies sign up with it and really grow and manage your business. It really puts it on autopilot for people. Like, it really reduces the time that you have to sit there, manage your business and allows a software and a system to do it. So, yeah, definitely check out both teams. That webinar coming up. Jared Flinn: Yeah, awesome, awesome. Last not least, if you've been a listener, you know that we pray at the end of this. And we had quite a few prayer requests last week and some that were pretty heavy, actually, some that were encouraging as well. There was one listener that I, you know, he asked if he could pray for me and I replied back and told some things that were heavy on my heart just being a leader of this organization and this industry and being a light out there for others. So, man, I appreciate that. But, yeah, Tyler, if you want to, before you, before we close, if you have a prayer request, send it to prayer oakloads.com. again, we do not take those lightly. I think some people may gloss over and not think, but, man, send us a prayer request. Jared Flinn: We want to put you on our list. We have a team of people that praise, pray over that. We keep it in house here so it's not going out there. We're not sharing on social media or anything like that. But, man, we'd be honored to pray for you. You want to close this out? Tyler Allison: I will. Lord, we come to you today just to thank you and praise you. Lord, we know that you are able, big God, and can do big things. Lord, right now we just tug on your sleeve and just lift up all of our members out there and all of the trucking community. Lord, we ask that you just give them financial peace and lift that burden off of them. Lord, we ask that you just give them the strength and the courage to continue on and be resilient in this market. Lord, we ask that anybody who's having any relationship problems or I any outside problems, Lord, we ask that they're just able to be so bold, to rely on you and to give those up to you to handle. Lord, we ask that we just pray over everybody who's going through any natural disasters right now. Tyler Allison: Lord, we pray for our sister company up in Omaha, smart freight funding, Lord, and anybody in that area that was affected by the storms who are still out of power, Lord, we ask that you just bless all them and keep everybody safe. Lord, we love you and we praise you. Amen. Jared Flinn: Amen. Colby Varley: Thanks, Tyler. Jared Flinn: Thank you as always for listening to the bulk loads podcast. If you haven't yet, there's a little subscribe button down in the left hand corner. Just click subscribe. That way you don't ever miss an episode. And if you can do us just one small favor, man, share this out there with someone. A lot of anywhere you're listening, there's easy share links to share. So if you know another drive driver, another business person that can benefit from this, we would be very thankful to you to share this out there. So thank you very much for listening and God blessed.