Truck Designs, Service Process, and Customer Impact

Jared Flinn: You're listening to the Boat Floats podcast. Rhett Roberson: Your number one resource for everything. Bolt, freight trucking. Tyler Allison: Hey, guys. Welcome to the Bulk Loads podcast. I'm Tyler and I got Larry with me today. Larry Hurt : What's up, Tyler? Tyler Allison: What's going on? Larry Hurt : Happy New Year. Tyler Allison: Happy New Year. I can't believe it's 2025 already. It seems like, you know, I've always heard, like, whenever you have kids, time just flies by. And I really felt that this past year. Oh, yeah, it was just. Yeah. And so I'm not looking forward to that just happening every year. Like, everything just flying by. Tyler Allison: Like, I can't believe my boy's four years old already and my youngest one just turned one. It's just a shock to me. Larry Hurt : Yeah, every. Every couple, they keep growing and it's like the milestones just. They just start hitting and like, what's happening every new year, man, I say the same thing. I can't believe the year's over. I can't believe it's starting a new one. Tyler Allison: Last night I actually sat down with a journal and wrote down my goals. And I did it kind of different this year where I wrote like, actionable steps of how to get so and. But hopefully I can stick to them better this year, you know, with journaling and a couple other things. Did you set any this year? Larry Hurt : You know, I haven't yet. I do plan on doing it last year. I was really consistent for about seven months and then it fell off pretty drastically. Tyler Allison: Yeah. Larry Hurt : But looking for more consistency this year for. For sure. And I think we'll probably, you know, we'll do all of the bulk loads, company's goals for the years that's coming up here in January and then also do some personal ones. So it's always fun to look back and reflect on them every year. Tyler Allison: Yeah, well, we definitely recommend setting goals. Whether you're a company driver, owner, operator, you own a business, it can. It can help you out. We have some podcasts on Goal Sett Jared's done in the past, so check those out. But also we want to hear your goals. So if you drop down in the comments, write just one goal that you're trying to accomplish this year. And we'd love to. We'd love to see them. Tyler Allison: Other than that, we'll jump into the truck feature right here. We got Brian Vaughn with E.C. whitley out of Franklin, Virginia there. He's been a bulkless member since 2014. So, I mean, over. Going over 10 years. So, Brian, thank you so much for sending this in and just trusting us over the years and being one of our members. But this, this rig is sharp. Larry Hurt : Ye love it. Tyler Allison: Nothing, nothing too fancy going on, but it's just that classic. Like it's one of those rigs that's going down the road and you're just like, that's, that's nice. Larry Hurt : Black and chrome, man. It's pretty tough to beat that. Just the classic black and chrome looks sharp. I love it. Tyler Allison: Yep. Peterbilt. Yeah, it's a good looking truck. Well, today that's a good segue into our podcast today. Today we bring on Rhett Robertson with Rush Truck centers here out of Springfield, Missouri. Larry, you have a pretty strong connection with what. Yeah, back a little bit. Larry Hurt : Yeah, we go back to my C.H. robinson days. So Rhett was with a produce broker in the area and I reached out as a C.H. robinson sales guy and we got to know each other and did some business together. Broker in some produce back and forth. So that was fun. And then, yeah, we've both been in transportation. Brett was, or, excuse me, Rhett was at prime for a long time. Larry Hurt : And so he's got some good insight there. And so, yeah, we've just kind of gone back and forth. We've both stayed in logistics for a long time. A lot of people don't know this. I don't know if they talk about it on the podcast, but Rhett is actually a famous musician and actually won a country. Well, I know country star event. And so that's super cool. And so a lot of like local artists know him and yeah, he's a, he's a cool guy. Larry Hurt : What I, I didn't know about Rhett when he went over to Rush. I didn't know a lot about Rush. Cool to see Rhett go over there because obviously I've called him and we've picked his brain on, you know, what, what does Rush do? I drive past it all the time in Springfield, but I've never actually been in there. So we actually got to go do. And so that was. Yeah, it was cool. Tyler Allison: Yeah, I didn't. He. He did kind of mention the country singer thing in the end, but he didn't really dive deep into that. But that's. That's super cool. Larry Hurt : Yeah, it's awesome. Rhett's a great guy. Tyler Allison: Should have had him sing a little bit. Larry Hurt : Rhett's also, he, you know, he for a long time kind of helped start the Springfield Motor Carriers association. And so that's been fun to watch him. But he's always been a guy that's been well connected in the transportation space in the Springfield area. And so that's always fun when we get somebody that is really passionate about what they do. Help bring other sects together. Tyler Allison: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he does a good job of just explaining what Rush does. Like you said, I had no idea what they do either, really, or I guess I knew they were a dealership. I didn't know the extent and how big they were. He said they got 140 locations across the country. But he does a good job explaining what they do and then stay till the end because he goes into leadership and what he thinks about leadership and the things that he does himself to execute and lead a team is really insightful. Rhett Roberson: Yeah. Tyler Allison: So without further ado, here is Rhett with Rush Truck Centers. Jared Flinn: Rhett, thanks for coming in. Rhett Roberson: Yeah, absolutely. Glad to finally get to do this. Jared Flinn: Yeah. Local 417er. We've got to know each other over the past couple years, which has been an honor. You're a fellow podcaster as well. Rhett Roberson: Yeah, I. I don't know if mine counts as a podcast. I've gone for the. The written medium. I've gone backwards where you have gone forwards clearly, and. And turn this into a whole nice thing. I take all of the audio, just listen to it myself, and type it into LinkedIn. Jared Flinn: So Red did this. 52 cups of coffee is what it's called. And you did a podcast every week for the whole year of 2024. Rhett Roberson: Still got a few more to go. Jared Flinn: Are you going to Continue that for 2020? Are you going to do 52 cups for the. Rhett Roberson: It's an amazing experience, but as you know, this is. It's a commitment to put something. Put a lot of content out. So I'm definitely going to not do a weekly one, but if they come up, you know, maybe I'll just take monthly or at least quarterly. I don't know. But I probably should have done it just as a podcast, like you're doing it here, because I'll take all the audio and then I have to listen back to it and edit down the way we speak. We say, but. And, you know, so I got to take all that out of there. Rhett Roberson: And that takes twice as long as it took just to interview. And so it was much more of a time commitment than I expected. So I'll probably slow it down. I'd like to really consolidate it down and pull the major themes because I talked to some really interesting folks and, yeah, learned a lot, kind of. They almost felt like mentoring by. It was like speed dating, speed mentoring throughout the year. Like an hour at a time. But I think there are valuable themes in that that people could get something out of. Rhett Roberson: And it really represents our area. Jared Flinn: 417. Rhett Roberson: 417 area really well and shows how many great people we have around this local area. Jared Flinn: It's amazing when you're talking to people how you really get so much out of it yourself. Rhett Roberson: Yeah. Jared Flinn: By bringing them on the show. Interview them. I always say a lot of times, like, selfishly, like, man, this is benefiting me just as much as our audience listening to this. But you're with Christensen Transportation. Actually, we've had several. Steve Perryman's been on. Barry has been on the Safety Guy, especially since it's been cool since they. They're here local to come on into the studio. Jared Flinn: And they have a vast, you know, years of experience and wisdom they've been able to share on the show, which has been awesome. You're there. But you've changed gears over the past few months and are with Rush. And I, quite frankly, I mean, I've heard the name. Rhett Roberson: Sure. Jared Flinn: And really didn't know anything about it because I was like, I knew that there was something with parts, maybe something with sales, maybe something was server, but, like had no idea. So that's why I wanted you to just high level, break down who Rush is overall. But yeah, I guess we'll start with that. Just. And I know you're still a newbie there. Rhett Roberson: Yeah. Jared Flinn: And you've taken over the dealership here locally, but high level for those that have no idea who Rush is or maybe you've seen it on the side of the road. Talk about that. Who they are. Rhett Roberson: Yeah. Yeah. You come running down 44 here in Springfield area, you're gonna pass us coming down the highway. You'll see the big international badge out there. So our dealership is an international dealership. Rush, depending where you are in the country, is Peterbilt or international for the most part. Jared Flinn: And you said they're actually one of the largest. Yeah. Or the largest Peterbilt dealership, which the 417ers here know that. Rhett Roberson: Yeah. Down the street. Yeah, they've got it here. So Rush actually came into the Springfield area three years ago before, I mean, for people around here that would know it. Maybe not everybody who listens, but we had diamond before, which was international diamond because of the logo. Of course, Summit came after that. And then Rush took over from Summit three years ago. So Rush is, I guess, relatively new to this area, but Rush is celebrating. Rhett Roberson: I hope I get this right. I think it's the 65th anniversary this year. Jared Flinn: And corporate is where. Rhett Roberson: Corporate's in Texas. Okay. Yeah. So started down in that. That area, and it branched out and really been focusing on growth. And it's the largest dealer network in the country. So, you know, between service parts and sales, there's really not a lot of places in the country that we. That we can't touch. Rhett Roberson: And it's great for us, even locally, to just have access to a massive parts network. A massive network to. When you're. When you're dealing with a dealership, there are, of course, pros and cons of the large and small, different dealerships. It's great to have a direct line with your manufacturers. And. And so that's. That's an advantage of. Rhett Roberson: Of Russian, in my opinion. This, of course, is my first foray into the vendor side. A lot of my carrier friends were shocked and some appalled that I had left. I got plenty of messages that were like, I didn't see that coming. And honestly, neither did I. So it is. It is a. A little bit of a jump for me, but it's. Rhett Roberson: It's been great. I haven't, you know, I can't speak for the. The whole Rush network. Haven't been around enough to. To do that, but I, you know, I can speak to my store, and we have just a really incredible staff, great technicians. I'm lucky to have. I thought I was coming into a full renovation, a full, you know, kind of recreation of this place, but I walked in, really lucky to have a really great team to work with, so I'm lucky in that regard. Jared Flinn: I'm not a native of this area. Tyler Allison: I think. Jared Flinn: I know you are, and. But I know you have also not been on this side of the business, but, you know, we have two of the most largest highways that intersect down here, so this has become a big trucking hub, you know, among some of these other cities. But I assume, because if we got, again, Larson grew mhc, I mean, massive dealerships here, I assume this has got to be one of the. One of the key spots for truck sales, service, parts. Yeah, talk about that. Rhett Roberson: Yeah, we've got some large carriers around here because of that. This is a convenient area to get to just about anywhere in the country. And for that reason, yeah, you've got a lot of dealership and a lot of part representation here, which makes it tough. You know, there's a lot of competition, and those guys are good. You know, TLG is good, MHC is good. And so it's exciting to have Rush in town now as a local, not that, you know, a lot of people really loved Summit and Summit was good as well. But I think it's cool to have such a large network represented locally for those people that do have the internationals in their fleet. And you know, we do Isuzu, we do, we're Cummins as well. Rhett Roberson: So it's not that international is the only thing we work on. But you know, it's important to these larger carriers a lot of times to have some diversification in their, the hoods that they put out on the road. And so, yeah, I mean, it's a tough market. There's, there's a lot of business to be done here. But I think we all get along to, you know, I see the TLG truck pull up to our warehouse, I see the MHC trucks pull up to our warehouse and we do the same. You know, we all, we work against each other, but we work together as well. You know, I go over on Friday mornings to prime and they've got their safety meeting and you know, I sit with the GM of TLG and you know, everyone gets along. We all know what the game is and I think the area is better for having some great sales and service options here. Rhett Roberson: And we're all better as dealerships because we can't get complacent. You know, it's, it's, it's always grinding for, for the next thing we're talking. Jared Flinn: About PR and I'm talking about over the road trucks. Hey guys, we're getting ready to launch a new version of bulkloads.com before you panic, hear us out. We actually have made some changes to enhance the load board. Now again there's going to be new features on there and a lot of this is to make it more user friendly, make it more efficient and really to provide more features. As we've grown, we've added more features and some of that we need to do different designs just to make the user experience better. But for you out there that don't like change, you will still be able to use the old version for a limited time. So we just want to give you a heads up on that. We know that sometimes change is difficult, but also we are in the business of improving our website software, getting you the best value for your service. Jared Flinn: So just want to give you a heads up. Look for a new version of Bulk loads coming soon. Again you'll be able to use the old version, but man, we want you to be excited for this because we were doing this to help you out to make the experience that much better, to make it that much more successful for you to find loads, trucks and better for your business. So, man, I hope you enjoy this new version. As always, we always want to hear feedback how we can improve it better because again, we're here for you as our clients. So man, just want to give you a heads up on this. God bless. I guess in our industry in the bulk, you don't hear international mention much, it doesn't seem. Jared Flinn: But talk about your, who is your target audience? And are these large fleets, are they running multiple makes and models? Rhett Roberson: Yeah, yeah. And I think, you know, you want to keep, especially in a large fleet, you want to keep a little bit of representation from each so you can keep an idea of what's going on in the market. We want to talk a lot about, you know, kind of the overall cost to operate the vehicle for the lifetime of the vehicle. And they're all watching that. They're watching that really close. You know, it may be, you may be able to buy a, a more affordable truck on the front side, but do you end up paying more in the long run? You know, and so I think they look at that type of thing. You know, it's, it's not lost on us that especially in your business, the, the old long nose Pete is something that people love to have a look at. And, and that's, that's why our buddies down the street at the Peterbilt dealership keep a bunch of them right on the high, right on the highway there. Rhett Roberson: So. But yeah, I think, but I assume. Jared Flinn: Are most of the clients that you're dealing with and it could be all over. And from what you've gathered, is it more those large fleets that they're buying 50, 100 units at a time over the road, pulling vans? Are you dealing with dedicated contractor, you know, contract haulers? Rhett Roberson: It's a whole mix. And the thing that's interesting about what we do international holds a lot of the, the work truck market, like the municipal government stuff. Dump trucks. Yeah, of course. Jared Flinn: See the co op trucks and a lot of those are. Yeah. Rhett Roberson: So we do a lot of work with the city and surrounding cities, with the counties, you know, everyone in kind of in our area. But you know, on the big truck side, we've got everything from your smaller carriers up to prime, you know, and larger than that, of course, across the nation there are plenty of very large fleets that are operating international to a large degree. It seems like the larger the fleet, the more likely they are to get into the internationals okay. International tends to be, you know, a good cost of ownership across the, the life of the piece of equipment. So, you know, you'll see when I see things like ups. UPS runs a lot of internationals, although. Jared Flinn: They don't take the, they take the, the, the name off. Right. I think UPS is known for like there's nothing visible showing the brand, maker, model of. Rhett Roberson: Yeah. Jared Flinn: Of their equipment. But yeah, they're side note. Rhett Roberson: Yeah, but they're, you know, I, I think it's a, it's a good stretch of everything. You know, we still have owner ops come onto the lot that want to look at used inventory. I get a lot of calls. I don't know if you're familiar with the old Lone Stars, but the, that was a nice international kind of winter direction trying to do a super flashy kind of looking front end truck. These long noses, these long grills. Jared Flinn: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I do remember. Yeah. Actually I just saw one the other day on the highway. Yeah, yeah, they come up with that new. With the. If I'm thinking right, it's been a. Rhett Roberson: While back now, but kind of futuristic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When I remember when those first came out, I was like, that's, that's cool. They're doing something cool. I never would have thought I would be on the international team or that I would be again on the vendor side. So. But yeah, so we get a lot of calls about those and we don't have any on the lot anymore. They're kind of hard to find. Jared Flinn: So people are demanding those. They want those. Rhett Roberson: Yeah, those. Jared Flinn: And are they still. But they're not making them anymore or. Okay. Rhett Roberson: So. Yeah, it's all used market now. Wow. Jared Flinn: Yeah, I know International, they had some issues, some motor issues and I don't want to go in the weeds on that, but. Can you speak? Rhett Roberson: I wish you wouldn't. Jared Flinn: Okay. Rhett Roberson: I'm just kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Yeah. So. Yeah, and I think that's kind of an elephant in the room with International, you know, especially in our industry, people know that, you know, you have these engine issues that come with these different platforms and they happen to every one of us. You know, it happens to Peterbilt. They have their recalls and International, it's been over a decade now, really with the Max Force platform, they did have some, just some consistent issues. Ended up being in the shop, had a lot of downtime and so International kind of went back to the drawing board, came out with the A26. A26 being a new platform, had some issues of Its own as they all do as new platforms. Rhett Roberson: And I think the. As International moved through the, moved through these engines, it's now a Volkswagen. All part of that Volks, Volkswagen conglomerate or under that umbrella. So they've started teaming up with. Jared Flinn: Is that who International is owned by? Volkswagen? Rhett Roberson: Yep. Jared Flinn: Okay. Yeah. Rhett Roberson: And so this new engine platform that's just now hitting the road. Prime's getting a handful of them delivered next month was a combination of engineering with our partners in Europe and they've been running lots and lots of miles over there. So kind of tested prior to hitting the road in the United States. And so we're all really excited about that and you know, taking your bumps and bruises, but you learn from them and come along with a, a better product down the line that we can trust a little bit. You know, we've put a lot in that basket. We're excited to see them hit the ground and start getting some real data. Yeah, yeah. Jared Flinn: When I think of International, you know, I think of this, the sleek look over the road, you know, pulling a van, reefer, flatbed. But there is a model, and I'm not aware of this, but you were explaining this. There is a kind of a classic look model that when you put a sleeper with it, it's a pretty truck. Rhett Roberson: Yeah. Jared Flinn: And we're looking at just images of. Rhett Roberson: That a while ago. Jared Flinn: Talk about that. Rhett Roberson: I think a lot of people don't know that you can get the HX in a sleeper hx. The HX is, yeah, it's a cool looking truck, but it's primarily like a work truck platform. You see a lot more of those HX trucks and like utility trucks or. Jared Flinn: Concrete trucks or more. Rhett Roberson: But when they do the sleeper model, of course you got the dual stacks and, and all that, the chrome and the whole, the whole works. It's interesting and I'm surprised that, I'm surprised that, you know, more folks don't end up seeing those out there. We don't take more orders for those, but it is a cool looking truck. If they'd let me carry some inventory of that, I'll get some order. I need to do that. This next year might be a little. Jared Flinn: Flashier from the highway, might attract more people. Rhett Roberson: We got that one ramp down there at the end. Just need to put an HX sleeper up there on that ramp. Jared Flinn: Yeah. I want to kind of pivot and talk about service because you being the gm, I mean you're over all of this service is crazy huge in our industry. Rhett Roberson: Yeah. Jared Flinn: I mean you have to. I mean it's part of running a trucking business, but also a trucking dealership to serve the service. Those. Can you just talk about that process because. And I hear these horror stories from owner ops that. And I know maybe it's gotten better, but especially when it was busy, that sometimes they get a truck, send a truck in and it could be days, if not weeks, especially for a small company that they don't have backups, that, I mean that truck has lost revenue every day. But high level, how do you all manage that to ensure that you're doing the best job for the customer? Rhett Roberson: Yeah, I think that's another advantage of taking this move over from the trucking side is you lived and breathing on that side. I know what it costs and I know that every one of our clients out there has a number in their head for when that truck's down. What it costs them that day, whether that's missed revenue or paying for a hotel for some of these guys, for the drivers or whatever that may be, every day down costs. And they know what that cost is. And I'm really aware of urgency behind that. And so I'm really trying to run our service department as a, a carrier side representative to some degree. That's awesome. Again, the advantages of Rush being as big as it is, we just have a lot of technological advantage advantages. Rhett Roberson: You know, our, our service connect platform. Whenever we bring trucks in, not only do we have an initial check in process is supposed to be really quick to at least get you a diagnosis and an idea of what we think's wrong. You're going to get constant updates all the time, automatic updates as we log new things into the system. If we have to order parts, you're going to see when those parts are ordered, when they're meant to come in, and just constant communication of when you can expect it. Beyond that. Rush is really serious about watching our dwell time. So we get graded on how long we work on trucks. So we don't want your trucks in any longer than you want them in really, you know, and, and we don't get paid till the job's done either. Rhett Roberson: So there is that advantage. But I think, you know, knowing what it costs our carriers and knowing how important that is and knowing right now how tough this market is that one day off the road can be the difference between making the, you know, making the northern truck this month or not. It's really important to me because I've always been an advocate for the trucking and for the, the driver really, you know, I've spent A lot of time with Missouri Trucking association up in Jeff City. I've spent time in Washington D.C. with American Trucking associations. You know, that the life of a driver and what it, the sacrifice of a driver and what it takes to be out there and be successful as a driver is something that I don't think people really understand a lot of the time. And so I'm constantly harping on my team. You know, I'm sending emails saying like, we gotta, I'll give you a good review instead of a negative situation. Rhett Roberson: Our marketing team always lets us know when we get a good Google review, right? We got a great Google review last week and I sent it out to the whole team, the whole Springfield location and just said like, you know, this is an owner operator, this is one person with one truck, right? Like you got this in here, you got it done. She'd been having issues. She came from Indiana, brought it down to us, had issues at a different dealership, brought it to us. We got it diagnosed and Fixed in like 2 and a half days or something like that. She'd been having this issue forever. And just what I told the team was like, this is more than just you guys doing your job. It's more than checking a truck in and doing diag and then ordering your parts and getting it put together. You know, like, we don't know her specific story, but it's Christmas time, right? You guys got her back down the road, you guys got her paid for another load this week. Rhett Roberson: And the truck's more dependable than it was when it came to us. And so like you might have put dinner on the table, you know, you might have put presents in the stockings or you know, like she did the work she did, she put the stuff on the table. Jared Flinn: But no, I know it 100% what you're saying. Rhett Roberson: That's the kind of stuff that resonates with me that like this is important work. It's not just shop work, it's not just order, it's not just turns of inventory, you know. Jared Flinn: You know, that'd make an excellent commercial if you put that together and ran it up to corporate. Rhett Roberson: I'll let corporate know. I'll clip this and send it out. Jared Flinn: Well, I got one last question on what are the, like just in your short term there, what's the most common shop work being done? I mean this is, I'm not talking specific to international, but like trucks coming in, getting worked on. What typically is the most reoccurring theme that you see? Rhett Roberson: Man, those guys do everything I mean, it's everything from your pms, but, you know, you find wheel seals and, you know, turbos go out regularly. We flip a lot of turbos out. A lot of change in injectors. I don't know. I have such a great. Jared Flinn: A lot of recall. A lot of warranty stuff. Rhett Roberson: Oh, yeah, sure. You know, and coming from, you know, our buddies up the road at prime, we're. We're literally like, you can back road it over to prime, right? Jared Flinn: That's right. Rhett Roberson: They're four or five minutes away. All the stuff that they buy, they keep under warranty, so. And they have their own shop, so they'll do a lot of this stuff themselves. And if it's warranty work, they'll send it to us. So we do. If we see a Prime in the shop, it's almost always warranty work. So, yeah, a lot of warranty work, but, you know, they'll do everything. And it's not just internationals over there. Rhett Roberson: Like I said, we're. We're able to do Cummins as well. So, you know, I know we're going to have a Kenworth in the shop, we're going to have a Peterbilt in the shop. It just kind of depends because a lot of our customers, it's easier for them to go to one place. And I'm sure that TLG sees the same thing, and I'm sure that MHC sees the same things. So it's nice to be able to do that Cummins work too. So it's hard to say what one thing they're going to do. Yeah, they may have a whole front end ripped out of a truck for a couple of days, or they might be replacing brakes. Rhett Roberson: So little this, little that. Whatever it takes to keep them on the road. Jared Flinn: Yeah, absolutely. I want to again, pivot one other spot because I think this is where your strength is, if I can be so blunt. You know, you've. We've known each other a little bit now, but I know your story coming, you know, working at prime for a while, you working for, you know, shipping company, you've been at Christians to see that side. But I think you've really seen overall this broader picture of, of organizational behavior, how to run solid teams. And I want you to speak of that because again, a lot of. We have a lot of owners, a lot of business owners running this. They're dispatching drivers, employees and all that. Jared Flinn: And I think sometimes you think that you lead just by, you know, example, and it comes natural, but there's a lot of this stuff that you have to learn about and discipline, because it's not about just the paycheck, it's about working for the mission, the purpose and all that. But. And I know we can probably camp out on this for an hour, but I just want to talk for the next 15 minutes before we close out of there because I think that's super valuable for our listeners, especially as we're starting off the new year here. You know, if there's ways that you can improve in the organization to motivate people, get people excited, you know, keep people on, reduce trucker, you know, employee churn, people leaving. But you've done research on this, so I'm going stop there. Talk about that a little bit. Tyler Allison: Yeah. Rhett Roberson: When I was at prime, I got really interested in these kind of culture leaning discussions. What. And this was a personal thing, you know, I was kind of going down a rabbit hole of maybe I was having like a quarter life crisis at the time, but going down a rabbit hole of what motivates people to be at work, what motivates people to do work at all. Why do we come to the office? Why would we come to the office and work 40 hours a week at something? What sparked that makes us miserable? That may be too deep for this discussion, but I'll just throw it out there and you can edit it out if you want to. My middle brother passed away in 2013, and I think I was just kind of on a little bit of a. I'd also been traveling, playing country music for several years, and that was still kind of all in that same space. But as I decided to come back to my professional career and I had gone through this loss, I guess I was just in a place of like, I need to kind of figure out why of all of it. Why am I doing any of it? And so, like, what brings part of this 52 cups of coffee? You know, the second question I ask people, what, what brings you joy? And I thought at that point, what, what brings me joy? How can I find joy in this and this and this? Not every job is going to be. Rhett Roberson: Not all of us are going to get to go to work every day and be like, this is what I'm most passionate about, you know, and so my why is about people. My why is about that the people I interact with come away better for it. And I. I slowly went down this path of like, where do you find that happiness? Where do you find that joy? That led me to industrial organizational psychology. I went and got a master's because I wanted to get the real nuts and bolts behind it. What does the research say about what makes people happy to come to work? Or if not happy, at least engaged and not miserable. Jared Flinn: Real quick, did you have a goal in mind of besides learning? What were you going to do with this? Rhett Roberson: Well, I was working at prime at the time and I thought maybe prime would like to have a IO psych guy on staff. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought about my why, my personal why, which is to help people. I thought, well, I could have a wider effect on the general market if I could do some consulting. So I don't know that where I ended up was where I thought I was going from the beginning, which is probably a through line for all of our stories. But yeah, I did end up getting to do some kind of leadership training, some discussion about culture and that's what's really important to me. I mean, it's not lost on me that I wasn't a service guy before I came to Rush and that's what we do. But I did know trucking and I knew that I could come in and lead a team and create an environment that people wanted to be a part of. And I think that's it for me. Rhett Roberson: It was a challenge, a leadership challenge for me. I was. Jared Flinn: Talk about that though because I mean, what is something surprising that you found out doing that research again? You for a while even had your own company teaching this to organizations that could bring you in to reduce again, all the above to create better teams. But like what was surprisingly found out about companies or what maybe companies aren't doing that they probably should be doing? Rhett Roberson: Yeah, you know, I think a lot of it is about transparency. A lot of it is about self work too. I've got to concentrate on me being a better leader before anyone else is going to jump on board, you know. But you got to have conversations with people and I don't think we have enough conversations with people with our employees. I don't think we spend enough time asking people how we can help them. We spend a lot of time directing and we don't spend enough time asking because honestly, if we're doing a good job of hiring, if you and I are picking the right people for the positions, we shouldn't have to be doing a lot of too much directing. You gotta teach, right? But like if I'm confident I've hired the right person, well, I should be able to just ask them what, what do I need to get out of your way so you can do Your job. Right. Rhett Roberson: What am I missing? Because I'm not in the day to day and I have issues. Of course I'm gonna have a ton of em at Rush as I've been there for three months, that I really need to see what they're experiencing and ask them what they're experiencing. Because if I come in and tell them how to do it when they've been doing this for, you know, years, in some cases been there before you have. Yeah. But how much are they going to lose faith in me immediately? Right. So I need to ask a lot of questions and I think that's what we don't understand enough is that leadership is more about questions than it is about giving directives. Jared Flinn: Yeah, I'll chime in real quick. We just finished year end reviews and it's always surprising what you hear. And so many times in these reviews I said to myself, I'm like, I wish I would have known this months ago. Rhett Roberson: Right. Jared Flinn: But then I think deeper about it. It's like I should have been asking that months ago. You know, a lot of times I'm like, man, why don't you come back and tell me that this was going on or you wish this would have happened or whatever the case would been. But then like you said, it's like, I wish I probably would have just took the time to ask those questions. And then we want to be four or five months down the road and maybe that issue could have been solved or wouldn't have been compounding or weighing on that person's mind or heart. Rhett Roberson: Yeah, I think it's a twofold thing there. Right. Like you have to set up a framework by which you are regularly engaging, but you also have to set a culture that people are comfortable bringing those things to you. Right. And Dr. Amy Edmondson wrote a book called the fearless organization. And Dr. Edmondson teaches at Harvard. Rhett Roberson: I think she's still at Harvard. She was when she wrote the book. And so I got certified in a tool that she created. It's called the Fearless Organization Scan. It's a seven question tool. That's it. Seven quick questions that you give to the whole group and you use those scores to kind of run people through leadership engagement. And it really creates the opportunity to have discussion around how comfortable we are at work with hard things, how comfortable I am coming to you when I have an issue or am I afraid that you don't want to hear it? And I think that's one of the worst things as a leader, that people don't bring us as leaders. Rhett Roberson: The real issues because they're afraid of how we'll react to them or they're afraid maybe it's a personal thing. They're afraid that will think less of them. I think the most important thing you can do is create a culture in which people are allowed to bring stuff up and not feel dumb for doing it or not feel like they're going to be chastised for doing it. Yeah. Because if you find about it, find out about those things right now rather than six months down the line. But we haven't deviated course as much, you know. Tyler Allison: Yeah. Rhett Roberson: At month one, if we're off by one degree, it's not so bad. But at month six, if we've been off by one degree, we've come significantly off course. So do you still. Jared Flinn: I mean, obviously your role, you're going to be involved in that, but like, you still study or research? Rhett Roberson: Absolutely. I wouldn't call it research. Not academic research, certainly. I just read a lot. I'm just so interested in. It weighs heavy on me to lead a team and be good at it. A lot of responsibility there for a lot of. I always want to be the leader that I wish that I had. Jared Flinn: Yeah. Rhett Roberson: You know, I want to be the person for people that I could have used at one point. Yeah. And I just take that really seriously that I'm constantly trying to grow my skill set or grow my perspective on what it means to lead people. Jared Flinn: So I guess I always look at. I. When I go back, when I'm thinking about leadership and I always look at the managers, coaches, bosses that I had and had phenomenal ones. But I always look at what I wish they would have done or changed different, you know, whether it was honestly asking more questions, being more open, giving more feedback as I grown. But yeah, it's interesting. I think if I could sum all that up, I think everybody knows it's important, but. But people know that it also requires extra steps, extra work, extra calories and a little bit of vulnerability, I think, to. To really go to that level. Jared Flinn: And are they willing to do that to get a better outcome for the organization and the people involved? Rhett Roberson: Yeah, that's. You know, Brene Brown does a good job. Another book plug to talk about vulnerability as a weakness, you know, but really as what vulnerability offers us by way of strength as leaders, by way of getting this information that we need. It's really easy to get in your office as a leader and have all the bad news, miss your office, you know. Jared Flinn: Yeah. Rhett Roberson: Really easy. And that's a really detrimental Thing to an organization. So. Jared Flinn: Yeah, well, I just want to bring that up. I know that's another part of your story and important part of your story is you've become a leader and grown. But now it's probably old news now, but congratulations, your new role. We'll put the links to Rhett's information, contact information, especially down here. And I'm sure wherever you're at in the country, he can still point you to other dealerships if it works better. Yeah. So definitely reach out to them. But, man, buddy, thank you for coming on the show. Jared Flinn: I think we're going to see at the conference here in a couple months. So you'll be there. You'll be able to see red if you come to the conference. So, man, thank. Thank you so much. Appreciate you coming on. Rhett Roberson: Absolutely. Thank you. Tyler Allison: Well, Larry, I didn't know the. The mass parts department that they have. And I mean, it's really cool, especially down here, just because Springfield, Missouri is just this great trucking hub. And I think a lot of people don't even know that. I didn't know that before I moved here. But, you know, you got the two major highways, you know, 4 to 4, 65, and you even got, you know, 13. But it's just a perfect spot. And I didn't know how new rush was to the Springfield area. Tyler Allison: Yeah. So that was shocking to me what Rhett was talking about. But it's cool that what they're doing and you know, they're going to be at it coming at our conference in Branson April 16th to the 18th, the bulk freight conference. And I think it's. It's going to be really cool for them to come and let everybody know what they're doing. Maybe they can do tours at their center as well. But it's going to be cool to include them. I think they're even wanting to sponsor it, so hopefully we can make that happen. Larry Hurt : Awesome. Tyler Allison: But. So you guys talking about the conference? You can go to Bulk Freight Conference.com. you can get your tickets today. They are selling out quick. But make sure to view the agenda, book your hotel rooms. We are just a few months away. Larry Hurt : Yeah. It's crazy to think we're three months out. Tyler Allison: Yeah. Larry Hurt : Now's the time to start booking it and start planning, you know, all this stuff you want to see in Branson while you're there. And yeah, good time. Tyler Allison: Now's the time. Like. Like I didn't really feel a whole lot of stress. And then it's like we come back from Christmas break and it's like, oh my gosh, this thing is really a couple months away. So it's like go. It's fully on. It's go time now. Larry Hurt : Go time. Get your tickets. We've definitely seen an uptick in people buying tickets, it seems like here recently, I think once we kind of got through the holidays and everyone's starting to look and plan for that first quarter. Tyler Allison: Yeah. Larry Hurt : So it's been fun to watch. Tyler Allison: And speaking at the conference, one of the things that, that you're going to be doing there is, I mean, doing an insurance panel, but actually kind of a workshop as well. And that's one of the things that a lot of people said that they liked last year was the insurance panel and just having the underwriters on the stage and hearing, you know, why they, why they write some accounts, why they deny some and what they really look for. So I think that's going to be really beneficial. Larry Hurt : Yeah. If you have any, you know, insurance underwriters tend to be pretty dry. I think last year there was a point where I was asking questions and I was like, man, these guys, like, no wonder they deny so many accounts, man. I mean their, their brains work differently and so it's fun to kind of analyze, you know, what makes a good underwriter. Why does, you know, why does one truck guy over here, why are they paying 10 grand a year and why is this guy paying 5 grand a year? Rhett Roberson: Right. Larry Hurt : What's the difference? Yeah, this year definitely want to have a little bit more emphasis on safety scores and CSA scores, cab reports. And so we're going to bring in some really qualified speakers to talk about what, how they analyze a cab report and then how they translate it into actual premium that's owed. So that's going to be something that's going to be really interesting. Y. I think every carrier can probably benefit from trying to understand their cab report. So we'll get that going and then, yeah, insurance been a whirlwind, man. I can't believe we're coming up on our three year anniversary in June this year. And so we keep growing and we keep adding more and more tools and resources. Larry Hurt : Something that we're really excited about is we've, we've signed contracts with two more direct markets already in 2025 that do a lot of trucking business. And so that'll give us more tools and more options for our motor carriers. And that's the name of the game. So it'll be really fun to see what 2025 does on the insurance group. Tyler Allison: Speaking of insurance we just released a tool on our insurance tab not too long ago. It's a insurance calculator, pretty much. And it seems like a lot of guys are loving using that. We kind of push this out simply because, you know, a lot of people, they don't. They want to know, you know, can you guys actually do something for me before I spend all this time submitting all my paperwork? You know, it's just a. It's just a hassle trying to get a quote. And it's like, if I spend all this time, you can't even, you know, you know, save me any money or anything like that. Then I just wasted my time. Rhett Roberson: Right. Tyler Allison: We came out with this calculator to basically, you know, based on our data that we have now, the accounts that we've written, you know, it'll basically tell you, like, hey, you know, we have a 90% chance of saving you money on your account. And we've seen a lot of people have been using that. Larry Hurt : Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, we've had over 500 people. Tyler Allison: Yeah. Larry Hurt : Check it and see if. If there's an option. I think one thing to think about, too, on that calculator is, you know, it's only as good as the data you put in. Where we see the numbers get a little shaky is if somebody maybe misrepresents the amount of premium they're paying per truck. There's no way for us to adequately calculate a percentage of if we can win their business or not. But if you go to it, you fill it out accurately, we're going to give you. You may get a, you know, a 5% chance that we can get a better quote, and then maybe it doesn't make sense for us to look at it, but what we see a lot of times is we're. We're generally in that 50 to 100% range. Larry Hurt : Yeah. So it totally just depends. There's a lot of factors, but it gives you a really good base insight of. Of am I in the ballpark or am I paying too much? And then, you know, you can choose your options from there. Tyler Allison: Yeah. And if. If you're telling me there's a 50% chance you can save me a couple thousand bucks on my premium, I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm gonna schedule a call with one of the agents and. And submit my information to see what you guys can do. So it's definitely worth it to. To try out. Tyler Allison: And we'll link it down in the description below so you can click on it and fill it out. I know a lot of people, it seems like, and maybe I'm just wrong about this, but it seems like a lot of people at the new year, like renewal dates and effective dates, are there more typically companies that renew their insurance in the first half of the year? Jared Flinn: Yeah. Larry Hurt : I mean, for trucking it's a little different because it all really depends on when you got your authority started. Rhett Roberson: Oh yeah. Larry Hurt : But generally speaking, we see a lot of people renew their insurance between December and February. So probably when they started their trucking company, they were like either, hey, it's towards the end of the new year, I'm going to go out on my own, start the next year, or it's, you know, right at January 1st, I'm going from a lease truck driver. Now I'm going to go get my own authority. So over 20 years that can change, but we do see a big uptick. Tyler Allison: Cool. Well, we'll go ahead and link that in the description. Click down below. Or you can just go to bulkinsurancegroup.com if you do not have a Bulk Loads account. If you do have a Bulk Loads account, simply click on the insurance tab and it'll take you there. You can do that on the app, mobile version or desktop website. Speaking of guys, we do have some pushes that you may have seen on Bulk Loads. Just some color changes and stuff. Tyler Allison: We'll have more to come, but we definitely want to hear you guys feedback. So if you, you have any feedback over the changes that we're pushing, let us know. Supportokloads.com or you can always call our support team and let them know as well. But we got some exciting new features coming out and everything to look forward to. I think 2025 is going to be huge here. But with that being said, I also want to mention that we do have a prayer line here at Bulk Loads. It's all confidential, but if you have a prayer request and you want somebody to pray over you, we'd love to just send it to prayerolkloads.com have a team that receives those requests and we pray over them. So we don't, we don't post them or share with anybody outside of this office. Tyler Allison: But we just want to let you know that we do that and we enjoy doing that. So Larry, if you wouldn't mind, would you pray? Larry Hurt : Yeah, let's do it. Dear Lord, we just come before you, God, and we just, we thank you for another year, Lord. We just thank you that your son Jesus came to this earth and died for our sins, Lord. And that we get to have access to you God. We thank you for these companies and these these listeners God and their companies. Lord we pray that 2025 God would be a year of blessing Lord and a year of struggle and challenge God but of perseverance Lord. And so we just submit all of our business units to you God. We submit all of our motor carriers to you God that our clients that we do business with, God we just everything is yours God. Larry Hurt : And so we just submit it to you Lord and we just, just pray that 2025 would be a great year. So in Jesus name amen. Tyler Allison: Amen as always guys if you can just subscribe to our YouTube channel that way you never miss an update or a video that comes out. We have a lot coming in this new year and also if you can just share this episode with one person we'd be really grateful for you. So thank you and God bless.