Barn Talk - I Help Farmers & Truckers Move Millions in Freight—Here’s How

Episode Date: February 2, 2025

Welcome to Barn Talk! In today’s episode we welcome a special guest, Jared Flynn, who takes us on an incredible journey from his rural beginnings to becoming a trailblazer in the logistics world. Jared shares captivating tales from his childhood on a small farm, witnessing the sights and sounds of sawmill life, and how those early experiences shaped his work ethic and ambitions. He recounts his path through college, discovering opportunities in agriculture, and eventually stepping into the corporate world of logistics at Bartlett Grain Company. With an unwavering drive to solve problems and empower small trucking businesses, Jared co-founded BulkLoads, a marketplace for connecting trucking and shipping companies. As we dive into this episode, expect to hear inspiring stories of grit, innovation, and the quest to uplift small-town America through entrepreneurship. It's a conversation filled with laughter, wisdom, and the occasional unexpected twist that you won't want to miss. Join us as we explore Jared’s remarkable journey and the impact he’s making in the transport and agriculture industries. Use code BARNTALK for 10% OFF your next order https://farmergrade.com SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST ➱ https://bit.ly/3a7r3nR   SUBSCRIBE TO THIS’LL DO FARM ➱ https://bit.ly/2X8g45c  LISTEN ON: SPOTIFY ➱ https://open.spotify.com/show/3icVr4KWq4eUDl7Oy60YMY  APPLE ➱ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/barn-talk/id1574395049 Follow Behind The Scenes👇🏻 ● This’ll Do Farm Instagram ➱ https://bit.ly/30KPBNk   ● Barn Talk TikTok ➱ https://bit.ly/3qciekS   ● Sawyer’s Instagram  ➱ https://bit.ly/3BtX0n4   ● Tork’s Instagram ➱ https://bit.ly/3LGZJxS    00:00 "Support Barn Talk's Growth" 05:15 Parenting Challenges with Kids Tasks 11:08 "Working Summers at the Mill" 18:21 Mentor's Advice Sparks College Path 22:07 Journey to Sheep Farm Job 29:24 From Novice to Sales Insider 36:05 Optimizing Commodity Management Efficiency 37:14 "Exciting Project with Supportive Team" 44:19 Moving for Family and New Beginnings 51:53 Defying Marriage Preferences 57:23 Trucking Compliance Services Overview 58:28 Transitioning to Management 01:06:22 Small Town Decline in Agriculture 01:11:14 Impact of Market Forces on Rates 01:15:48 Successful Entrepreneur's Busy Lifestyle Reflections 01:22:07 Coaching for Business Growth Success 01:26:17 Unexpectedly Accurate Evaluation Tale 01:34:20 Streamlining Freight and Cash Flow Automation 01:39:47 Grandfather's Influence on My Faith 01:42:41 Unexpected Life Lesson on Rafting Trip ------------------------------- ⚠NO FINANCIAL ADVICE / DISCLAIMER⚠  The Information discussed and shared on Barn Talk is provided for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only, without any express or implied warranty of any kind, including warranties of accuracy, completeness, or success for any particular purpose. The Information contained in or provided from or through this podcast is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, investment advice, trading advice, or any other advice. The Information on this podcast and provided from or through our content is general in nature and is not specific to you, the user or anyone else. You should not make any decision, financial, investment, trading or otherwise... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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What happens at the barn? Stay's in the barn, but not today. We're going to let it all out for you guys. Today is going to be a guest episode. Got a real good guest coming to Southeast Iowa just lay it on us here in the barn. Before we get into it, you guys know the drill. Share the show with the people that you know. The more that you guys do that, the more that this show,

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all from American Family Farms that are transparent and showing what they do. You can always use code Barn Talk to save 10% off your next order. And that's all I got. Don't use Torque Talk because it'll charge you 10% extra. Yeah. You give you the family, treat you like family. That's right. You'll get,

you'll get 10 more dollars added to your total. That's kind of what I've done to help stop Dad from coming and using that code so much. He was abusing it. So we had to tone it down a little bit. But yeah, we don't have a Patreon on this show. We got what's called a Metri-on. Farmer grade, treat that like a Metri-on.

So we're not going to send you some gimmick t-shirt or some bumper sticker that's going to fall off after two months, buy yourself a box of meat, and that's going to directly help out this show. I mean, we're already upgrading. Dad, got some wood here behind us. We're upgrading the studio. We're upgrading the equipment.

We got our first, well, not first, but we got, we hired somebody this year part-time to help us out with keeping us organized, reaching out to guests, you know, those sort of things, so we can really try to grow this show. Because I feel like we're really on to something. We just got to break through the glass ceiling and really get an amazing guest on like we're going to have on today. We're building systems.

We're building systems. We realize our own problems, our own weaknesses, organization being one of them. We both kind of fly by the seat of our pants, which works fine until it doesn't. So we're trying to improve upon that. And speaking of systems and getting things figured out, our guest today, I think you're going to find. really, really interesting. I would not know anything about this guy if it wasn't for the fact that he reached out to us and actually asked me to come on his podcast. And I was blown away because it was kind of a world that I didn't know much about. And so if you're a trucker, you'll probably know

you'll know him as soon as we start. He's built a, he's built a really awesome website, and then he got into the podcast world, kind of like we did. And he shows a lot of people involved in his industry in the trucking world, and it's a neat platform. and I think it's going to be good for everybody because just the way he's built it and his experiences in business, I think you're going to really enjoy. So without any further ado, let's get into it.

Jared Flynn, welcome to Barn Talk. Thank you. We appreciate you coming on, man, making the trip. I know Dad had a good time on your show, but before we get into it, you know, why don't you just let people know where they can find you? So bulkloads.com is our parent company. We started that going on 15 years ago. And most of your, well, I don't say most, I think a lot of your audience knows who we are, farmers and truckers that listen to this podcast.

But we're an online marketplace, and we help, we serve trucking companies, shipping companies, basically anything in bulk freight shipping is our core company. And probably as we move along, I can share some of the other companies that we do. But yeah, bulkloads.com, you can find us there super active on LinkedIn,

probably more than any other social media channel, but you can find us on all the social channels. Who's home feeding the pigs? I saw the LinkedIn post. Yeah. I'm like, look at that. Now I know why I like that guy. See, I, there was a six cents there. Yep, that's right. I knew that guy had to have pigs. Yeah. So I have three children, my oldest 15-year-old daughter, 12-year-old boy, 10-year-old boy, or then another 10-year-old boy. My wife's like, you got to make them all do this. But the 12-year-old, he's, He's kind of the go-getter, and he, you know, he's the one. His name's Thatcher.

But if I tell him, hey, and I did, when I left yesterday morning, I was like, hey, buddy, here's the feed. You got to make sure, you know, this time feed them, check the waters. We have the pigs, a couple hundred yards behind the house. So we have a water going up to there. I didn't get a dothar in the there. So I told me, you got to make sure chop ice in the morning. Make sure they're good.

So, but yeah, the middle guy should be taken care of them as we speak. So there you go. How many got? So it's more of a, it's been more of a hobby. And here's the thing. Like when I was a kid, we raised hogs and like never wanted to touch those things. Never wanted it. Like the smell.

I could still like that the smell just interacting with them, the squealing. And when we moved out to this property, which we just, we were blessed years ago to move to, there was just like, and I can't explain about this. Like I want that for my children. Yep. Like I didn't want, like, I wanted to run so far from it. But like, I want my kids. the experience the same thing that I did, just those ethics and having to do that. Yeah. And again,

and blessed, like, we don't have to raise pigs. Right. But we're fortunate too. We usually buy two or three feeders every six months and we'll raise them up. We keep one and then we sell the other two. We have a local butcher that we take them to. So yeah, it's just a, it's a fun hobby. So yeah, we got those. We have a couple cows, I think 40 something chickens, two dogs and a cat. There you go. Yeah, homestead. Yeah, I love it. Yeah. My dad, now he just needs a bunker. Yep, there's got to get a book. He might have one, but he's not going to tell you that on the podcast.

Right. You know. He did have an Atlas bumper sticker on the truck when it came in. Oh, there you go. It's probably there. My dad is two favorite phrases growing up when he would get good and frustrated with pigs. He'd just look at me, and I was the youngest, you know, so I had a lot of cover to start, so he would chew one of my brothers before he got to me, and then he would just look at me, and he would say, he'd say, torque.

A man is a damn fool to raise pigs. and then he just turned and walk off. But then one time I heard him say, he's like, you can always trust a man who raises pigs because they know what true chaos really is. Yeah. I was like, that's pretty good. It's pretty good.

So that served me well. So your stock just went way up. Our operation is pretty small. The, that picture that I took that you saw, it was inside this livestock trailer. And again, it was actually one that our neighbor had up the road. It was in the weeds. One day I went by and I was just like,

you know, would you be willing to sell that? What? She was like, I plan on keep it out one day. I was like, really? But he ended up selling. But I figured out so we don't have loading shoots. So the trick I figured out is you back that livestock trailer up to the pin. You start feeding the pigs inside the trailer.

And then when it comes butcher time, which is next week, you got the, you put the feed out. They run up in there. You shut the door. They run right out. You're good to go. So tell us a little bit about your childhood. You said you mentioned, you know, your family raised pigs. So did you grow up on a farm?

Yep. How did that go? Yeah. So I grew up about 50 miles kind of west and a little bit north of St. Louis rural area. Went to Troy High School, but lived on a 240-acre farm, small town of Truxton. 70 people in our town. Our family made up, I think, a tenth of the population of Truxton. So super small farm, farming community, 240-acre farm.

By the time I was born in 1980, and I can remember by the time I can really remember my grandpa, they were selling a lot of the assets. So my grandpa, World War II vet, he came back from the war and his mother actually purchased this farm for him, which was the same farm I grew up on, my dad grew up on, born in the same, or grew up in the same house. But by the time I could remember, the farming operation was starting to dissipate. They had actually sold some of the farms that they had acquired. A lot of the machinery that I remember was like already parked in the weeds. The earliest member I had, I can remember actually seeing this livestock semi-truck loading cows up down by the barn. And just like, you're still like, it's such an early man. You don't know what's going on. But we were getting

rid of the herd at that time. So really at that time, um, my dad had left the farm. He actually was working in concrete, uh, for a little while. But for me growing up, we, my dad and uncle eventually started a sawmill. Okay. Yeah. So I think it was my uncle's idea. Um, and they got together and they about this 19, I think it was a 1930s or 40 sawmill. So old belts, no guards. I mean, you're exposed all the way. But they, uh, they put that on the farm. And at the earliest memory I had, I can remember we would go out there.

And dad actually built stools for us to work the machinery. So again, we're, I don't know how tall we would have been there. But I can remember dad building these stools. So we were high enough to be close to this five foot diameter blade going, X miles per hour. Yep. But then even we, so we built, so the core business was we made

railroad ties out of the core of the log and then all the excess, we made boards that we built pallets out of. So I can remember we had stools built. We had these big nail guns that we had these slots that we would nail these pallets together. And at that time, there's, you know, manufacturing keeps dissipating.

But we would sell a lot of the pallets to the manufacturers down in St. Louis. So that was really my farm work. I mean, there was a little bit of, a little bit of livestock, but mostly even when I was around, the hogs that we did, it wasn't a huge operation. Yeah. Even some of the bottle calves that we raised and chickens, it wasn't the full-fledged money-making.

It was the sawmill that was the core business. Is the sawmill still going or did it stop? No, so, you know, that's a story in itself. So I have three brothers and a sister, but my three brothers, we worked out at that mill with my dad and my uncle all the way through. Again, you know, you learn at that time because we, I can, still remember summers, you know, we'd be off in the summer and dad would fire that he had, it was a big Detroit motor that he would fire up at 7 o'clock in the morning and you had five minutes

by time you heard that thing start to get out there and be ready to go. But I could just remember hearing, you could hear, but I can remember we'd get up and go out there and just dreading every time you're just like, why, you know, why was I put in this position to go out here? But we all had our stations, my brothers that we would do. And he'd get that thing going. and usually he'd be running the big saw, which is cutting the logs in the mornings. And then afternoon, you're cutting the big cants down into boards and then nailing the pallets together. But yeah, we did that all the way through high school.

None of my brothers wanted to stay doing that. I went on to college. Several other one went into the military. The other two went into the construction trades. So my dad, he had hired, actually, he had hired people over the years, some Amish workforce for a long time. but he had such a hard time finding labor and again this is sawmill hardcore labor that it was I think it was after my youngest brother he was gone that he just said hey I'm going to sell this and go do something else so that was that was the end of the salmell era you definitely had a good

work ethic instilled upon you and like many people that story when he fired it up you know you had to be there like yeah I know I was the only one out of my brothers I tell the story not to just, I mean, it kind of probably led me to go to college more than my brother's continuing in construction. But when I was 16, it was two weeks before school. I was running this radar arm saw

and been running this all 10 years before. So just knew this machine in and out. And we were running this, I think it was cottonwood or sycamore, really wet wood. So when you're cutting it, like it's just soaking wet. You can see almost the sap dripping. So it's real slick. But I was running this and just like any other day, but went to go push the can't back. My hand slipped off the can't

and I punched the saw blade. It knocked this finger and this finger all the way off to it was hanging by the skin and all the way down to my thumb here. So I can remember pulling back and looking and these fingers are just dangling off the back. And this is, it was right before, it was August, so it was so hot. And a lot of times we take our shirt off working in the middle because we're sweating. But I can remember grabbing my t-shirt and just. And throwing it on my hand and just screaming. And then my brother comes up and he's like, get in the freaking truck. And, you know, so we're running out. But I can remember run into the truck and that towel or that my shirt soaking with blood in that and just sitting there

and taking us to community hospital. And then from there, it's, uh, and this is flashing back, but then getting life, getting flighted down to St. Louis where they had to do a lot of reconstructive surgery. Yeah, you're lucky that you got. Yeah. Yeah, you got them. So you can see there a little bit They're a little shorter. They're a little stubby. A little stubby. This one, I can't bend it all. They froze at this knuckle.

But yeah, I mean, praise God. I can still use the hand well. After that, I always told them the only thing I can't do is make a fist. So in a fight, I'd always have to be the left hooks. I can't really do the right hand. Wow. That's awesome. That's great.

I mean, that's a crazy story. But I say this, it's like it's, you know, it's led me to where I am. So it's just part of my story. I don't say it to brag or to make a big scene, but it's just, it's part of my story that I mean that's the thing is those life experiences the stuff and what's funny about it is when you're in it like you and your brothers like you don't think anything you don't you didn't think anything of it because that was all you knew and then when you get out like I'm sure when you were in college you start talking to people and you tell them you know those stories that are just looking at

you like your parents crazy you know what's wrong with you and it's like you know we talk about growing up on a farm and so many farm kids are are this way it's like Like, when we would go to school, I'd tell the story, the teacher would be like, well, what'd you do this summer? You know, where'd you go on vacation? And I'd look around and these kids would be like, we went here, we went there. It's like, we didn't go anywhere. It's like, we just worked. That's what you did in the summer. Yeah, we took one vacation I can remember as a family to Colorado. And it was later on in life. And it was, yeah, that was the only time vacation I remember. You're talking about school, I can remember. like so when you're when you're messing with a lot of hard woods uh especially that wood if you're

touching a lot your hands get stained so like when you're done like within hours your hands are like black that that sap and stuff it just creates this as much as you wash with soap and water it like stays in there the only time you can get it out is if you like bleach it or some kind of really hard why i'd always go to school and my hands would be just be black like the inside of my hands. And I can remember almost getting made fun of for that. And one time I was telling my dad, I was like, man, like, I go to school and these people. And actually, I think there was even a teacher made mention. And my dad said this. I can still remember. I don't think I've ever told this story before. But my dad goes, you tell that teacher. When he asked what that is, he just tell that teacher,

it's hard work. Yep. Yep. And that's what happened. So I remember I was up there. I was turning in an assignment. It was a science teacher. And he's like, what's wrong with your hands? I was like, it's hard work is what that is. Yeah. That's your bad job. That's pretty good. Yeah. I never told that story. I don't think so. So like how much would would you cut in a day? Like would it be a full eight hour day, 10 hour day, 12 hour day like every day or how how is it structured? Yeah. So we started at 7 a.m. is when the mill got fired up. And over the summers, we would probably end around three third or four. And I say that. The only reason why is because we play baseball. So They'd want to give us plenty of time to rest a little bit before we'd go to baseball practice,

or a lot of times we'd have a game that evening. But the volume, so a lot of these logs that were coming in, they were, you know, some of them, two plus feet diameter, anywhere from 10 to 16 foot in length. And we could go through, I'd be speculating now, but I would say a lot of times two or three of those semi-loads a day. Oh, my mother, apparently. So, yeah, you would be going through. It was a, we were burning through the lumber.

So when you're in college, did you have a job while you were in college? Yeah, so went to the University of Missouri in 1998. And the story behind that, I never actually, you know, this happened and was still trying to figure out what I want to do. And I really thought, actually, even before this happened, I wanted to join the military. And I can remember talking to Marine recruiter. And, you know, I'd tell him this happened. and he's like, you're not going to get to the Marines. And I can remember even visit with an Army recruit and they're like,

we'll bring you in, but you know, you're probably going to be at a desk job. You're not going to be jumping out of a plane like Jared Holmes. Yeah. And some of these others. So I was like, well, I don't want to like, if I joined the military, I want to be a soldier. So that kind of, they kind of erase that from happening.

But I had an FFA teacher, Alan Harrell's his name. And one of my, when I look back, one of the best mentors, teachers I ever had. I can remember my junior year, him saying, have you thought about what you want to do after you graduate? And I was like, oh, Mr. I'll probably go and work construction like everybody else.

And nothing against that whatsoever. And he said, have you ever thought about college? And I was like, yeah, but I haven't really been, you know, we work at the sawmill every night in summers.

And I, you know, I haven't really be taking the classes. And here's what he said. He said, hey, I want you to go up to the guidance office. He goes, get the application for the University of Missouri.

And he goes, look, every scholarship application you can. And he said, if you don't want, I'll help you fill them out. But he goes, I bet he goes, you'll get enough tuition or scholarships to pay for one semester of tuition. And he goes, go do that. He goes, just do this for me. If you don't like it after one semester, you're not out of any money.

You can come home and do whatever you want. And I was like, that's actually, that doesn't sound like a bad deal. So I remember going up to the guidance office getting the application, all these scholarships. I go home and I give them to my mom to fill out. So I was working to the sawmill. Like sick as you get in the evening. Because even during school year, we would,

a lot of times we'd go to the sawmill. We'd be working there till 8 o'clock at night with the lights on and stuff like that. But my mom, bless her heart, she filled out the application for me and all the scholarships. And here was a crazy thing

when we did the scholarship award ceremony. And I graduated from a big high school. Actually, small town, but it was a high school with a lot of small town. So I think our graduating class was 300. but I was awarded more scholarships than any other kid in my class or student in my class.

And I didn't have a high GPA and I don't know where I was ranked. But it was kind of crazy. It was odd. I can remember going up and I kept getting these awards. I don't remember why. I mean, I was like, I kept looking at your mom going. Yeah, I give her the wig.

Maybe you rode to, you know, sign in there. So yeah, I went to the University of Missouri and studied agriculture there because I didn't know what else to study besides agriculture. There was agriculture education. And that was where, you know, I was talking about coming from a farming community. And again, growing up, farm, sawmill, all that, I'm like, I don't want to be doing this. And quite frankly, like, the people I knew doing this were not making very much money. The farmers that I knew, they were hobby farming.

They still had other jobs. But I went to, when I went to Columbia and I joined this fraternity, this ag fraternity, Alpha Gamma Sigma, I started talking to some of my fraternity brothers. and I was like, well, what do you guys do? Or, you know, like, well, we're from so-and-so, northwest Missouri. I was like, you know, we farm. And I was like, okay, what else you guys do? Yeah.

We farm. And I was like, really? How do you guys pay the bills? We farm, you know? I was like, really? So that kind of sparked, I was like, well, maybe some of these people do make money farming. And again, come from a small town in eastern Missouri. I didn't know these other farms in, you know, northern Missouri and Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska,

you know, some of these bigger ones. But that really kind of started open to my mind. that maybe there are opportunities in agriculture. Yeah. So do you end up staying for four years then after your first semester? So I did. Yeah. So first semester, actually I wasn't in the fraternity until the second semester.

And that probably kept me there more than anything. But yeah, I started meeting people. And I was like, yeah, I think I can do this. You asked about a job in college. That's what, so my very first semester, I had, you know, different, you had to take your mandatory classes. But one of the first ag classes I took was animal science. It was called Animal Science 65.

But that's where you actually toured all the university farms. And so I can remember we went and visited the horse farm, the turkey farm. But we stopped at the sheep farm. And you know, you get a tour of the farm and the managers talk. And at the end of that tour, she said, hey, if anyone's looking for a part-time job, we have some openings here at the sheep research farm. So I never raised sheep in my life. I mean, but I knew ad culture, but I was like,

oh, this kind of sounds cool. So I applied and got a job at the sheep research farm at the University of Missouri. And actually end up liking it because I'll say this. For me, it was about 20 minutes south of the university. And it was kind of my outlet to leave and go be on the farm still during college. It was a lot easier than working in a sawmill. It was like, this isn't too bad. No, it was a lot easy.

I can remember because the, I remember there was like two or three hundred sheep. And at that time, the farm, they had a real bad case of foot rot. So we spent the majority of time we'd heard these sheep in and we'd be trimming hooves and foot rod. We'd put them in these salt bass. But that was the core of the business with that. You have some experience with some sheep. You guys could have some shared stories there. Yeah.

Grandpa loves sheep. Well, why did he love sheep? He loves sheep because he didn't like to mow around. stuff so we would just run a hot wire and he's like oh yeah we'll put the sheep out there didn't he say though that every piece of ground serves a purpose that's right and yep it's good and so all the places that you couldn't row crop and the corners we would run sheep and when we moved all the pigs inside this barn we had the barn we had the hay mow and so we always had some sheep we always have about 50 use and child labor to do all the things that needed to be done. And it was another excuse to bail hay.

And, uh, yep, uh, I will say that, I mean, they were fine, but, uh, it was a, it was a pretty happy day when I finally convinced him that, yeah, we should get rid of these shit. I was born on the tail end of that. I saw a little bit of it. But all I remember is just them sticking their head through the fence and getting stuck. Gosh, and they just, oh, me, sit there. And they just sit there. with their damn head stuck in the fence and you're like gosh everything was getting everything was getting old you know i was working off farm and so you know the fences weren't the best repair and i wasn't going to spend the time doing it and my dad was the king of taking a 16-foot panel from orleans and turn it into uh 12 small pieces that you put here and here and patch them up it finally just got

to the point it was like all right they got to go but yeah uh no sharp edges on a sheep though so You're like, I'm safe here. Yeah. But all right. So you, what was, like, what did you think when you went to college, you reluctantly started with the idea that you were just going to kind of do what people you know do and go into construction, go into trades. You're in college. Like, what did you have an idea of where you were headed, what you wanted to do, what your interests were? Still had no direction on agriculture.

I still didn't think that that was the field that I wanted to be in. But so that was 98. A lot of people remember 9-11, 01. And it was probably even before that, but I started looking at like, you know, firefighting looks like a good career. And some of the firefighters, you know, I'd met, again, crazy noble job, but also these guys only work 10 days a month. Yep.

Like, I can work 10 days a month. And for me, it wasn't about not working, but it was like I could do multiple things. Like, I could work here, plus have another business or other side job. So through college, actually, I got my EMT license. It was my junior year. I started working for the ambulance in Columbia. It was Boone Hospital. And I was working part-time.

So a lot of times I was working like special events. There was rodeos and, you know, they'd have to have an ambulance there or some kind of sports event. I worked a couple shifts like night shifts and saw some things that I can remember. My very first shift ever worked was a suicide. Oh, boy. It had to go on. It was DOA when I got there.

But you had to, they so had to call the ambulance. but that was something that was just crazy. But yeah, so I thought I was going to do the EMS route, graduated from Missouri, and I had applied at all these fire departments, kind of in all these communities in central Missouri. So it applied in right there in Columbia, Sedalia Rala, all these towns. And after 9-11, also there's a little movie called Backdraft came out for Russell,

but like everybody wanted to be a firefighter. And so unless you knew somebody already in the department or knew somebody within the city or whatever, like you had to have some kind of connection. And so I was put on the waiting list. I passed. So I always passed the written and the physical exams. That wasn't a problem. So I'm sitting there waiting. Like, what am I going to do?

I graduated. And it was my summer 2002, I started looking. I was like, I got to find another job. You know, I graduated. Actually, there was a little bit. I was almost depressed for a while because I graduated from Missouri, have an ag degree. I don't have a job. I thought that this was going to be the path that I was going to go on firefighting.

Nobody's hiring me. So one day I'm looking in the local paper of Silliman there in Columbia, and there's a little ad in the paper for a delivery driver. Class A CDL, one, preferred. And I had had my Class A CDL from the farm, and I'd worked some other jobs where I had acquired it. So knew how to drive a truck and machinery from living on the farm. So I went and applied in this company, Roar Materials,

it was a sheetrock delivery company. So they were looking for delivery drivers to haul and stock sheetrock. Well, if you've ever messed with sheetrock, which I never did before then. It's a very manual, grueling, labor-intensive process. And so I remember going implying for the job. And the manager, he looks at my resume and he's like, you just graduated college? I was like, yep. He's like, you want to stock sheetrock?

I was like, yeah, sure. He's like, okay. So yeah, I started there. But I say this. I absolutely loved it. I wasn't, you know, wasn't dating, not buried at the time. And this one, we would start at 6.30 in the morning. And you never knew what time you're going to go off. Because like sometimes you'd get back to the yard at two or three and you'd have to go deliver sheetrock to another house. And again, you're you're delivering to the house, but you're also

stocking it inside the house. So you're stocking it in the upstairs, the downstairs basement. Some of these you never knew what was going to happen. So you might pull it to a job thinking it's going to take an hour. You might be there three hours. So you never knew what time you're going to be off. So there was a lot of times, you know, we were, it was, it was any, it wasn't uncommon for us to work a 12 hour day. So most times we were already on overtime by Wednesday. But for me, I loved it. I was wanting to make money. You know, we were getting paid by the hour. We'd get paid for so much that we stocked. And, I mean, I was already kind of used to it from working on the farm. So the hard work didn't scare me. No complaints. So I started doing that for, uh, two years.

years within I think a year, year and a half, the manager, he kind of knew my background and got to know me. And he's like, man, would you want to come inside and do sales and dispatching inside? And I was like, yeah, it sounds good to me. Well, before then, I never knew much about business, never looked at an income statement, a balance sheet, anything like that. But he brings me inside and starts showing me these, you know, income statements and balance sheets and how to do inventory turns and all that. And actually I started like, it was kind of interesting. I was like, wow, this is kind of cool well he even started let me bid on jobs and some of these bigger jobs and i'll never forget he always he started telling me he's like man he's like you he's like you really have an interest

and it seemed like you're really good at some of that stuff and again for me i didn't know what he was talking about i'm like well you're just asking me to do a job i'm trying to do it but one of the defining moments was it wasn't my manager but there was one of our customers it was a builder in town in Columbia. One day he came in and we were talking and he just said, Jared, he goes, I can't wait to see where you go in life. And I was like, like, for me, I was like, I appreciate that. Thank you.

But I kind of stuck with me like, what was he talking about or why did he see something that was different or whatever? And I say that to be like, it was just, it was something that I was like, well, maybe there's, maybe God's got another path for me or maybe there's something more than this. So fast forward, I meet my wife in 2004. She's living in Kansas City. I'm still in Columbia. It's about two hour difference in drive.

And we started getting serious. And I knew that I wanted to move out of Columbia and I wanted to be closer to her. So one day she was telling me, she's like, well, why don't we, this is 2004. She's like, why don't you update your resume and we'll put it out there on the web. So we update it. And actually, I'll say this, I think she updated it for me again. Yeah, there's a pattern. There's smart women in your life helping dragging you along.

I think I can relate to this. So she helped me fill it out. And back in that day, we posted it on careerbuilder.com. And so we put it out there and I'm like, who's going to see this resume? Like, I don't have anything on there, you know, have a, you know, FFA and bazoo and truck driving experience. It was like 10 days later, I'm working on the job, hauling sheetrock, and phone rings and this recruiter from Kansas City calls.

And he's like, is this Jared Flynn? I was like, yeah. And he's like, well, this is Andy Tribe with Bartlett Grain Company. And I was like, oh, hey, how's it going? And he's like, good. He's like, I like, I like talk to you. And he's like, I see you got some trucking experience and an ag background. And I'd like to know more.

So I kind of explain. He's like, well, we'd like to have you come to Kansas City an interview with And I was like, oh, okay. And he's like, when can you be up here? I was like, I can be up there this Friday. So I can remember and I can remember going up there. There's a little bit to the story too. I remember when I graduated from college, my grandma and grandpa bought me my first suit.

And my grandpa, I can remember him telling me like, you know, if you're going to go in any of you for companies, you're going to have to have a nice suit to wear. I never owned a suit in my life. And so it was crazy. So this was the first time I got to wear that suit. and went to go interview. And so was Bartlett Grain Company. At that time, they were at the Kansas City Board of Trade Building.

They were up on the sixth floor, but I can remember going to the Kansas City Board Trade. And this is, again, I'm small town kid. You know, I'm in my 20s, but like going to the big city. And I can remember going up the stairwell and dressed up. I had a little folder and walking the door and walking the entry. And again, there was, I can remember just it was red carpet and mahogany wood, just super.

I'm like out of my element. But I go an interview and there was like six or seven of these commodity traders that were heads of these departments. They sat back and asked me questions. And I remember that weekend I stayed there in Kansas City with my wife now. But that next week they call up and they're like, we'd like to have you come work for us. I was like, what am I going to do? And they're like, well, we're going to have you work in our transportation department. And I was like, okay.

So I can't remember it was after that. I'd put my two weeks in, moved to Kansas. of city. And at that time, and for people that know the grain business, and I never knew that. I mean, I grew up in ag, but at that time, I got to work there. And the first week on the job, the vice president of the company, we had like this team meeting. I'm in there. They're making introductions, introduce me to all the people and shaking hands. And again, this is at that time. And I think they sold the day, like it was suit and tie. So everybody's shirt, tie, kind of that Wall Street feel. You could see future, you know, prices up on the board and all that.

But I remember we were in this little Fishbowl conference room. And after the meeting, the vice president of the company, Jack Moran, is his name. He comes up to me. And he says, Jack goes, Jared, I just want you to remember one thing. He goes, we are a logistics company that moves grain. Yep. And I said, I thought we were a grain company that moves, you know, and he's like, we're a logistics company that moves grain. I remember that. And so that was another thing that kind of sunk like, what does he mean? Like we got all these, you know, terminals and rain operations and all this but I started figuring out that how much the grain industry relies on transportation. I mean, everything from vessel, barge, rail, truck, but specifically the truck. I mean, how important

and integral the truck piece is to the grain industry. So I just like, I just took, I was on the path of just learning everything I could about trucking and how it relates and all that. Well, they put me behind the wheat desk. I was working for, I was reporting to the head of the commodity of the wheat desk and the weed out of all the commodities required the most trucking because wheat moves more, it can move more miles than most other commodities because of the price and you can go into the details of that. Corn, soybeans, Milo, some of that, it stays more local tributary. It can go into more local markets, but wheat can spread out of lot further. So that's where it required the most trucking. And that's what I started doing. I started

calling truckers discussing rates. And again, trying to figure out what a rate per bushel, equated per mile or per ton, all the equations. And just for me, it was like this big puzzle to put together. What was cool is I saw that at that time, Bartlett, I was doing it for the wheat desk, but nobody was doing it for the other commodities. And most of it, they were always buying it delivered in. So they let somebody else handle the wheels. You know, they'd, you know, whatever co-op they'd buy it from or whoever trader they buy it delivered to their facility and i started looking to this and i was like man if we can own more that picked up we could probably do a better job of moving it maybe even more efficiently maybe you get better pricing um now that sometimes it just depends on the market moves

you can spread it so i can remember going and sitting with each of these other commodity managers i went and sat with the corn guy a corn manager mark was his name and uh started talking about hey if you let me handle this. I think we can buy more and move more. And you know, the nature of the grain business, it's volume. You know, the margins are razor thin, but it's moving more volume. So they started to let me move more of the corn loads. I went to talk to the soybean group. We started moving more of the soybean loads. Milo, we started doing that. I started helping with our feed grains division. They were at that time, a lot of these ethanol plants were coming online. We were moving DDGs. I started working with the country elevator group, moving all the fertilizers. Within six months,

said, hey, we're going to move you into your own category. So now, instead of working in the week group, you're going to be head of truck transportation. I was like, oh, that sounds good. And then they brought another person in, Rachel is their name that helped me manage that. But it was fun. It was so much fun because it was just like, I'm, you can tell I like, I'm a fast pace. I can't sit still. Yeah. I have a hard time concentrating. But it was just like this cool thing, this project. And it was just so cool. It was love the team that I worked with. They were so supportive of me. I can always remember going to, we'd go to like the Christmas party and the owner of the company. So there's Paul Bartlett was the chairman, but then his son, Jim,

Heben Street and his wife, they were kind of the next heirs to take it over. But I can remember going to a Christmas party. And again, I'm still young 20 something. And Jim, the president of the company coming up and being like, man, Jared, I'm hearing awesome things about what you're doing. And I was like, oh, thanks. You know, pretty. He's like, no, I'm, you know, man, people are really talking about what you guys are doing and yeah, with a difference. So again, was just like, wow, there's something to like what we're doing with this. So that's just where I just saw the opportunity. It was just cool to be working at that and having that. But for me, I started, it was within three or four, I guess five years in, this little device called the iPhone

came out in 2008. And that's why I start realizing like, how can we use technology and digitize a lot of these manual processes because before that and even still today a lot of booking trucks and a lot of that process it was all phone i mean it was any given day when i remember working a barlet i would be i would be on the phone and usually have two or three lines parked truckers and i would get off that one take another one our assistant like her job was just to park calls yep so we could field them and and book these loads because you know we were booking five six thousand loads a week yeah and it was all done over the phone it was all done over the us know, know this.

Yeah, yep. But you saw it. Yeah, yeah. And there was other technologies out there, but it was just like, hey, how do we keep simplifying this process? And for me, the other thing I'll say this, I had a, for me, I had our strong passion for the small truckers. And that's why I think I realized, I didn't know this until going to Bartlett.

If you look at the trucking industry as a whole, most people that don't know, they think trucking, they think of Warner, Snyder, Snyder, Swift, J.B. Hunt. And you can name all these megas. You see the ones you see on the highway. If you total all those trucks up, those big mega trucking companies, they only represent seven, seven percent of the total freight that's out on the U.S. highways. Isn't that other, yeah, that other 93 percent are five or less trucks.

Wow. That make up the industry. And it's the small mom and pops, these owner operators. And that's where I'm working at Bartlett, I started realizing like, those were the guys that I was dealing with. Those were the guys that I was booking these loads with. And quite frankly, I also realized, like, the industry as a whole had a bad perception of them at that time.

Yeah. They a lot of these, like, you know, it was common for someone. Hey, find me a truck. And this, I was like, well, I can go hire someone. But it was just like, it was used, it was terms of like thinking them as a commodity. Yeah. And I was like, well, no, I can, you know, talk to so and so. And we can book this and have these, you know, better relationships.

And, uh, ironically, though. Ironically, 78% of the bad press goes to Swift. They're the number one target for every trucking meme on the internet is Swift. I don't know much about it. But there was a perception that, you know, my assistant, like a lot of people just like, and it furied me because they thought of truck drivers as dirt balls. Like there wasn't a good perception of them. I was like, no, a lot of these guys, they're you and me.

They're the farmers up the road. They're the people that we know really well that, I mean, that are vital part of the supply chain. So how do we figure out how to really lift them up? And that was a, that was a strong passion I had. And again, I think it stemmed from, again, growing up in that small community, like, those people were my family members. They were my neighbors. And like, they weren't just, you know, something, you know.

So that's where I just had a strong empathy and passion to try to help these smaller guys. How can we provide more tools? more technologies and just a better way for them to do business together. So that's, is that where bulk load stems from? That idea starts to kind of develop in your brain and you're like, man, there's something here. And then when did you, when did you take the jump? Yeah.

So I can remember I was on, my wife and I, we had had our daughter in 2009 and we were on a little, I don't know if you called it, a baby moon or a little break. we were going to go to Mexico and we're getting ready to lift out of Kansas City and we're flying up. I remember this so vividly, but I told her, I said, man, I have this idea in my heart and I, you know, I don't know how to do this. I've never started a business before, but like, I think that this could be an opportunity out there and what do you think? And she's like, I trust you, you know, if you want to do this, like, you got to follow your dreams. So, yeah, it was, so I think it was 2009 or 10.

bulk loads. We officially launched it in 2011. Story is I'm not, I'm a co-founder. So it was actually the bulk loads, there was another, my partner, Matt, actually, he'd kind of built the prototype of it. And then when we came together, that's kind of what really launched bulk loads in 2011. But the thing is, starting new company, again, I'd built up. And again, I think this was just part of my journey. What was cool is I built up such a good relationship and network of a lot of these carriers

and other people in the industry. So when we started, a lot of people knew who I was. It wasn't just some guy from, didn't know Adam from Eve, didn't know anything about trucking, didn't know anything about shipping. But not saying it was easy. I can go through the hardships. That was the whole story in itself. But that's really kind of what started bulkloads in 2011.

Makes you do, it makes you really think, though, that God did have a plan for you, you know, like all that, all that time in that one industry and moving up and learning all the new stuff and developing a better system and learning all and learning all those new connections meeting all those people you know it just leads you down the path and I don't know if you can relate with this tour or so we're but like for me it was like I had this idea stirring in my heart and like like I couldn't not think about anything else and like there was just like if I didn't do this if I didn't move forward whether it succeeded or failed like I was going to have regrets it's the It's the itch. It's like, I can't, like, the itch can't ever go away. And like, for me,

I didn't want to be five years down the road and just have those regrets. But there's a willingness of like, are you willingness to sacrifice like everything else? Because I had Bartlett, I was, I mean, I had climbed the corporate ladder. I mean, I was up there with the, I mean, the guys, I mean, making a great living. I was going to just ask you that. Was it hard to walk away? Yeah, this is like, I'm walking away from, I mean, a great life. I mean, I could. And security. Security, yeah. But I can remember my wife, we were living in Kansas City, and I wanted to move either closer to my family towards St. Louis or closer to her family down in Springfield, which where we are today, and we chose that. But we pack up, we moved down there, and that was

in April. And so we start working on bulk loads. But again, we're not making any revenue. My wife and I, and we, you know, we had some savings and kind of calculated it out that, hey, how long can we, you know, live. And had my daughter, too. So, you know, that's the other thing, too. You got a kid on the way. And, you know, we had our daughter. And then actually we got pregnant with, we were having our son. But I can remember we had a basement, we had a basement room that we had our office in. And I remember going down there. And there was a moment where I think it was three or four months in. My wife, I was walking through the kitchen. And she's like, Jared, how's,

The business going. Are you guys making money yet? And for us, we were trying to still build up the infrastructure and get the development and all that ready. And so we didn't have a paywall yet because we were subscription service, the SaaS service. People pay us a monthly or any of subscription. Still,

none of that happening yet. But I can remember, I'm walking in the kitchen and she's just like, honey, I love you, but we're about out of money. And there was like, it was like a dagger to the heart,

but it was just like a sense of pride. And like, I went down and stairs and I started crying. And I was like, God, why did you bring me this far? Why did you bring me this far to fail? Why? Like, if this wasn't what you called me to do, what am I supposed to do?

You know, so that was in July. August comes around. We flipped the switch on. And it wasn't like just magic, but like here come. Our first day, we made 500 bucks. The next day, whatever. And the memberships kind of just started coming in and coming in, coming in. But it was like the defining moment where you're just like,

It's always, it's that meme. It's that when you're mining, you're mining, you're mining. There's a guy mining above and there's a guy mining below. And the guy that's mining below, he gets real close to gold. And then he turns away and he walks away. He said, I'm not, I'm not going to find it. And then the other guy, he keeps going. And right when you're about to quit, right when it's the artist, it happens.

It was because it was just, I was rock bottom. I was just like, I don't like, did I risk it all? Did I make a foolish move? Did I, my pride get in my way? am I doing this for selfish reasons? Did I think that I was somebody that I wasn't? Yeah, all those questions. Seriously, like, because I'm nobody, you know.

But that's, yeah, so that's kind of where it kind of started churning. And 2011, by the end of it, we kind of started taking off. There's so many people that are like that that say that exact thing. Right when you're, right when you're at that point, something happens. Well, I think it's really interesting. So a point that you just kind of casually went. Like, talk about a good woman. Yeah, no shit.

So you have a baby, you have a little girl, and I don't know how far after that, you take a little break, and you're on a plane, you're on a plane flying, and you go, oh, yeah, by the way, honey, I want to quit my job. I want to start this deal. So how, that's a good woman right there that didn't just, um, just out. ask the stewardess for a pillow and just how much life insurance do you have jared all right that'll be enough yeah i so man i married uh uh a god-fearing woman and i i thank god every day for her because she is uh as stronger than i am and just so determined and you know after we got married you know it was one of her goals to you know she said i'm going to support you whenever you do I'm always going to be there.

And I think that's something that, man, you're so thankful to have that in life, to have a person that you know that's got your back when you're in times of need. Yeah. And I think it's why God created man and woman and put us together. Like it's the woman to support that man and him to, you know, and there's different roles that people serve in the household. But it was by his design. Yeah.

I'll just say that, you know, I, I think it's one of the worst raps that there is that. So when my wife and I got married, I've said this before, she only had, this is a testimony to my salesmanship because she only had like three prerequisites. She didn't want to marry somebody shorter than her,

somebody with blonde hair, and she sure as hell wasn't going to marry a farmer. And I hit all three of those boxes and got her, I hooked that deal. But, you know, from the very beginning, she wanted a family. And she worked our entire marriage, but she always was the one that was supporting. And when I started in the construction world, she had a way harder job than I had. To manage a family, I mean, I worked with a bunch of, I worked with a bunch of dead beats.

and I love those guys and I've said it before when I was working construction I would have worked there for free just for the stories because it was like going to recess and you didn't have to think about anything you know you're building stuff

you could you could it was great and she was home raising my kids figuring out how we were going to buy groceries she was the one that was calling me when the car died somewhere and I couldn't get there

and she had to figure it out. And people give women who raise a family a bad rap. That's a hell of a lot harder job than what I was doing. What I was doing, yeah, I mean, it made money, but it was a way simpler task. And I tell both my boys, you know, it's like I missed out on a lot of the good stuff with them because I was on the road doing what I was doing. But, you know, never think that your mom had it easy because that job is, that's the, and it's the most important job.

I mean, people are like, oh, you've raised such good boys. Well, I kind of did. I wrote a lot of checks to help, but she's the one that raised them. I mean, till the end, until I came, got to where I was, had more time. So anyway, I digress a little bit, but I just thought, well, that's definitely the culture. I mean, it's, I mean, you're seeing it come back a little bit with the trad wife and all that. Like, that's the trend of being a traditional wife and coming back, raising a family. And it's kind of going back the other way. But for, in the culture we have today, it's looked down upon, unfortunately.

And it's. And you can accomplish so much more under that floor. And I feel like you can instill a lot more. You yourself as a family unit can instill more into your kids than the system. Yeah. Because when you're both gone and. you're not there and you're just schools telling them what they want, government's telling them what they want.

Everything's telling them how they should live and what their moral compass is. And you can't. You can't because you don't have the time. You're talking about your wife, you know, not wanting to marry somebody this, this, this. So my wife, she said, like, one of her rules was she was she was never going to marry a farm guy that drove a big four by four pickup. We met I had a big black, usually, or she knew a big black diesel pickup.

actually when I worked at Bartlett, like the first day I drove that, I didn't, it couldn't fit in the parking garage. So they actually had to get me a spot outside. Yeah. Because my truck was too high to fit in the parking garage. But yeah, that was one of her covenants that she was never going to marry a farm kid that drove a big jacked up four by four. That's awesome. Well, so what does bulk loads do today? Like if you had to bring it down to it's, I mean, you kind of were down, explained it a little bit. But if you had to simplify it, what, what's your guys is bread and butter and how do you service people? Yeah. So the core business. bulk loads. We were started as a marketplace to connect trucking companies with shipping companies and brokerages, specifically bulk commodities. So most of, and we're big in ag, but we also do non-aggues. So what happens is a shipping company like Bartlett or ADM or Cargill or co-op, they will pay a subscription and they will post loads that they have available. So whether it's corn loads from A to B, you're going to a feedlot, ethanol plant, or whatever, then we have a community of trucking companies, they pay a subscription to get on there and they can see those loads.

The cool thing is, is we match-make those loads, but our goal is that we hopefully build, help these guys build relationships. Because once you find a connection in there, like, you know, we've talked to guys all the time, they're like, hey, I found this, you know, this guy, and now I'm doing 80% of my work through him. So that's part of it. Some guys, you know, most trucking companies, especially in bulk, they have dedicated routes that they run. But if you know anything about trucking, things drop off, whatever. So they need fill in business. So a lot of guys use it as filling business. Some guy might take a random load out to Flagstaff, you know, Arizona, but he's got to find a load back.

That's where he uses it to fill in the gap. So that's where bulkload started was the marketplace to really connect those companies that wouldn't be able to find each other anywhere else online. Through over the years, though, we've now kind of branched off for kind of five different companies, but we started looking at some of these other issues that a lot of these small truckers were facing. So after we started bulk loads in 2014, we saw another big problem was trucking companies have a hard time getting paid. You know, if you look at, I don't want to pick on ADM.

And sometimes their payments are different, but like ADM on average, I think they pay 40 days, net 40 days. So that tricker hauls this load today. It's going to be 40 days until he gets a check in the mail. We're talking about this earlier. Razor thin margins. Trucking, most of these guys run at like a 95 operating ratio. So that means for every $95, for every dollar they say, spend, they're making, you know, it's five cents. So it costs them 95 cents for every dollar they make.

Yeah. I'm rephrasing that right way. So that guy's got that much money already wrapped up in that load in fuel, insurance, maintenance. I mean, you go through all the costs of a truck. And these guys listen to the show are going to know all of that very, very well. They can't, I mean, if they're waiting that long to get paid, I mean, that's a lot of time and money plus interest costs on all that. 2014, we started a company called smart freight funding. So we essentially, quick pay these guys. So we, instead of those guys waiting 40 days, we basically can pay them next day. We charge a small percentage. Yeah, to do that. So it's usually like two or three percent of the freight bill. We started that. We use bulk loads as our main marketing tool to

do that. So any given day, we're processing, I mean, thousands of freight tickets. So that was in 2014. In 2019, we started a TMS program. And if people don't know what that is, is TMS stands for transportation management system. So what we realized as bulk loads was growing, you know, we're helping these guys find loads. We're helping these guys get paid. So now these guys with one or two trucks,

they were growing to 10, 15, 20 trucks. Well, as you get more trucks, you've got to have a system or technology to manage all that. So you're managing the ticket flow, the tracking, the dispatch. That's what TMS is. So it's another software that we sell so these guys can kind of really manage

their whole business, their whole ecosystem in one platform. I'll bet you that has probably grown. That grow faster than you thought it would? It's been both ways. So it has, but the thing is trucking companies sometimes are reluctant to rely. Well, to use technology. And sometimes it's hard to switch. If somebody's been doing, you know, the same thing over and over.

hey, if I've had Betty in the back office, always doing all my tickets forever, you know, she handles this or whatever. I don't want to change this to that. So a lot of it's just a shift to say, hey, you know, you can be much more efficient. Now, I say this, some of the companies that we've had Switch,

they're like, oh my gosh, used to take me 30-something hours a week to do all my bill pay and pay truckers. Now it only takes me three hours through this system. So that was another, that was another big tool that we launched. In 2021, One, we launched our own insurance agency, so now we can write truck insurance.

And we can do all the different lines, but cargo, or excuse me, cargo and liability are the two ones that we do. So all these truckers are running. Just like you and I have to have insurance on our vehicles. Every trucker has to have commercial insurance. So that's the one that we released three years ago when that one's grown. And then last month at least, we have another company called bulk permitting. So any companies out there that want to get started in trucking, we can help them get their

DOT, their authority, if does all the back and compliance stuff. What happens is, and a good example, you might have a farmer that he's got a hopper trailer, but, you know, he has to get commercially licensed to be in business. And he can go online and do it, but he can call us and we can get him set up. You know, we know everything to do. So it's a one-stop shop. So we can do that. Or you have company drivers. Some guy might be driving for, you know, whatever fleet for years, but he wants to go out and do the American Dream and get his own operating authority. We can do all that through bulk permitting. So that's kind of our, our ecosystem of companies that make up bull clothes. Sounds like you just looked around and found everybody's pain and like, this is a pain.

We need to solve this. Yep. This is a pain. That's a, I mean, that's what it comes down to. Like what you were talking about with that, with your, the second company that you talked about. Smart freight. It's like, I think one of the big, whatever business you're in, the hardest transition or the hardest step is kind of that first one when you go from, in the example you are, like you're the guy and you got the truck

and you put another truck on the road and it's your brother-in-law, we'll say it's your brother-in-law or it's whoever. And, you know, you can count on that person and so you run it. But when you make that step that you start hiring those employees, you are no longer just the guy that's responsible for yourself. And now you're a manager.

And there's a lot of people that have this dream of building a company. But it's not, it's not very romantic when you become the manager. That's right. And that level of pain, when you're in that office instead of in that truck and you're dealing with stuff that you hate, that business that you wanted to have, there's, you're like, what the hell? Why am I here? And I was at FarmCon in Kansas City and Van Trump,

his, Kevin Van Trump, I think that's his name, that puts that on. Probably the best thing I got out of that whole deal, there was a lot of, I mean, there was a lot of good stuff, I think, but he put up a quote and he said, don't let the opportunity that don't, oh gosh, I had it really, written down in my,

don't let the thing that you prayed for become the thing that you complain about. Oh, yeah. And I was like, that's really good. Because that is so true because so many businesses, you're like, if we can just get to here, if we can just get to here,

and then you get there, but now then you're having to do the thing that you least want to do. And that's where, like what you're talking about, you find that pain and if you can if you can delegate that pain man it that's what helps you get to that next level well most not all but most the people we deal with these owner operators most of them got into the business because they enjoy driving the truck yeah they in in but they want to have their name on the side they want to run the truck I'm not I wouldn't say all but most

of them they never ran a business there's some of the back end and again I've learned all this by hand, but most of them, they don't want to deal with all that back-in stuff. I've told you about, like, my mom, my wife helped me out. Like, I don't like dealing with that back and stuff. So we figure out, like, hey, a lot of these people are like you and I, let's find ways that we can automate and, you know, let somebody else handle that and let these guys focus on what they love doing, you know, so it's a win-win, the way we look at it. Yeah, it sounds absolutely.

I mean, the best businesses are businesses that solve problems for people. So, I mean, you're right on there. Okay. So the way you and I met was you reached out to me on LinkedIn, and I didn't know anything about your core business, but you started a podcast. Yep. So what was the, like, what was the inspiration for that in?

Because you talk about a niche, you're in a niche business, and then you took that and you really got a niche podcast for sure. Yeah. What was the inspiration for that? So we started the podcast in 2018, and before that, I started looking and, you know, podcasts were really kind of starting to take off. I mean, today and no offense anyone, like, man, everybody's got a podcast. But back then, there was still unique if somebody had a podcast. Well, one thing we realized, one thing our clients have more time to do than anything, these drivers, is listen.

Listen going down the road. So we thought, why not be a voice out there? especially a voice that can help these people, give them inspiration, encouragement, let them know what we can offer and really just kind of be a, there's a saying that we have like, be a lighthouse out there. You know, you got all these people, you think of a lighthouse. They got all these ships trying to find the light, like, let's be a lighthouse out there that can really help these companies succeed. So that was really the inspiration behind starting the podcast. We started that 2018. We released an episode every week. We haven't, we've made it happen every time. So I mean,

I forget how many episodes in. Two years ago, we started doing video. So we started on our YouTube channel, and we talked about this before the show. That's where we really seen it take off. But yeah, for us, we just really think that, again, as society changes and the way people consume media, like we can do a much better job through doing a podcast and content marketing than paying for a Facebook ad or Google ad, you know, for someone to hopefully click and then come to our website. So that's really been in. And we said this earlier, like, you know,

we grew up on the farm, our handshakes just as good as our word. And how do we do that in a way where people can see who we really are as a company? And again, we're not perfect by any means, but I grew up in the country. I've driven a truck. I know those pain points. And how do we show people that we know what those pain points are and we can help solve those problems? Yeah, it means a lot more. I mean, that's the thing. When you look at a Facebook ad, it doesn't do shit for you most of the time when you see it. But when you listen to a podcast and you connect with the content, that's where it's not just about how many people you get to see the video,

it's how many people you make a real connection with that are going to go to bulk loads and say, oh man, I really like what this guy's about. And, you know, that's what it's about. The thing is people want to do business people with people who they trust and they can relate with.

It was just crazy. Last week I was on a customer trip and we were talking insurance. And this customer was like, you know, this one agent come out to my house and this guy pulled up in a range rover. He pulled up in a range rover and then he had his hair slick back and all that. And again, I didn't think about like he. So like he already knew that there was a trust factor by the way this person and I have nothing against range rovers and slick back hair.

But like he didn't, you know, he didn't look and feel like the people that they deal with. And in our good old boy industry, people want to know that they're dealing with people they can trust. 100% uh that just an off wall I thought of it because I didn't want to forget this so our are our our country today is pretty fractured pretty split in your in your community in the in the

in the trucking world is there is there that same level of fracture as far as point of view or do you feel like truckers are a lot closer in their way they view things. I'm just curious. I'm not going to get you, try not to get in trouble. Yeah, no, no, I'm not trying to think of ways to say it's better. I'm just trying to think, you know, in our community, again,

we're very close to agriculture, so a lot of these guys are deep-rooted. So a lot of them, conservatives, small businesses. So a lot of these people, that's what they want to see. They want to see, you know, ways to bring really, favoritism back to small town America. Yeah. And I think, again, we deal with people from all over the country, which is awesome. So we're not dealing with just with Midwest guys. I mean, we have customers in the Northeast, the Southeast, West Coast. We even have a big, you know, memberships and customers up in

Canada. But I think that there's just this drawn to like people want kind of the, I mean, there's a little bit people want the 1950s back. Yeah, sure. Yeah. I think we're all that way. I mean, I think we all have a tendency to look back and think that things were simpler, even if they really weren't. But it's funny you say that about small town because, I mean, that's a really popular theme in people within agriculture. You know, the consolidation that we've seen, it does really hurt these small communities because what, you know, the guy, when you had 40 people, that were all buying tires they might buy tires from three different people but when you have five people that are buying tires uh they might all buy them from one one spot or they're not even buying them local you know they're buying them wherever and it's just a it's it's death by a thousand

cuts in a lot of these communities and and no a dollar general is not economic development on a small town none of that money stays in your small town i i always just just just laugh at little communities that are happy that they're getting a dollar general because you're just speeding up the process of extracting that much more money from from your little community. You see it in corporate farming, but in trucking to some of these rules and regulations that are unfavorable to the small owner operator, you know, hours of service. Now, I do believe that you're, you know, you have to be safe on the road and there's a certain amount of hours. But again, why is it up to the government to judge how many hours somebody can drive?

Right. You know, and that can be debated all along. But like there's times, you know, when COVID happened, they lifted those rules. There was less accidents on the road. Yeah. So there's something to say, like if you let people do the business, like they know how to do business. Yeah. And so that's why we, yeah, you see more of that stuff.

And, you know, the big mega is out there. They have lobbies in Washington that are pushing big agendas that really favor megas that push out the small owner operator. So that's the other thing too that we look at of like how do we keep empowering the small owner operators, small town America guys to give them

legs to stand on. And you said 7% is the mega trucking of all trucking in America? That's crazy to me. I would have never guessed that. I thought it would have been the complete opposite. Yeah, you can do the stats. If you look at, I mean, because all of it's public data, you can get on the FMCSA website. But yeah, the majority

of companies, if you look at truck and cross the board, it's the small five or less trucks. Hmm. Do you have any, do you know any other facts that people might not know about trucking overall that just they'd be interested to hear? I mean, because like, it's such an industry that doesn't get talked about enough that's the backbone of America.

Like literally. And people, literally, and people, you know, drive by semis every single day, but don't think anything of it. Yeah,

one thing is it pertains specifically to the grain industry. And this is what I learned at Bartlett. So if you look at transportation, in general, transportation loves commodities. So vessels love to haul commodities. Railroads love to haul commodities. Barges love to haul a haul. So what that does, though, it almost puts more of a squeeze on trucking. Because if you think about this, a railroad, they don't want to be hauling, you know, they'll haul cars, but railroads, they would rather haul corn than cars because corn they can load it fast, they can move it down the tracks fast, they can unload it fast versus cars and lumber and all these

other stuff that take time to load and unload. So it keeps those rails, I mean, keeps the rails literally moving all the time. So what that does for trucking, though, it keeps it more localized. So a lot of times, if you look at corn, soybeans, stuff like that moving, there's usually going to be a rail loader within, you know, 100 or 200 miles, unless it's another outlet that it's going to move to. You're not going to see corn move out of here, Washington, Iowa, going to Dowhart, Texas. There's rail lines that can move that more efficiently. So that's one. thing people just sometimes they're like, I don't understand why we can't move hopper stuff from here to here. Now there is hopper freight and bulk stuff that does move coast to coast

when you deal with like specialties like organics, pet foods, some of those bulk commodities. But if you're looking at the raw grains, there's a reason why it all kind of stays local. So what that does, it puts local pressure on the trucking. And because of that, sometimes it can get almost razor thin or too much competition. And that's why sometimes you hear, because, you know, heard it all. People talk about, I mean, hoppers being welfare wagons and da-da-da-da-da. But like, you get to be so much pressure locally. The other thing, too, some of these truckers, if you can be home every night and a lot of people want to be home, I don't blame them, well, then you're going to be more competitive to haul local freight. So you're going to sacrifice, drive those costs that much

lower versus a truck that's going to haul something over the road and make more overall. So that's something that's, it's always a perception. People don't understand like, why are the rates so much lower here. It's like, well, it's not necessarily, you know, it's not the big, bad shipping company or broker that's beating up the carrier. Now, sometimes that does happen. I don't want to say that doesn't happen. A lot of times it's those market forces that drive those rates so low. Here's one thing I'd love to just share, you know, one thing I've really learned over the past couple years, you know, I've talked about kind of our flywheel. We've started doing videos on our podcast, or on our YouTube channel, going out and filming these companies. So we do a day in the

life and it's kind of a vlog style and we go out and highlight these companies and it's been so rewarding number one because they're clients of ours so i get to go meet these guys face to k face but i started looking and studying like how are these guys successful how are these guys because they all started with one truck i mean everybody started with one truck but we're dealing with companies that there was one up in minnesota full trucking they run close to 200 trucks and own 1200 hopper trailers oh by the largest hopper company in the united states or even north america but I start studying like, what separates these guys and made them different than these,

you know, the ones that are struggling? Because again, we hear it all and again, we're very, we want to listen to these small guys that are struggling, not making it, they're going out of business and what,

you know, why the guys going on business versus guys are succeeding? The one thing that I've realized that these companies, the big characteristics is these guys aren't focused in doing just one thing. The guys that I see that are being. real successful in trucking is they look at these other opportunities and they find these other niches. Just for example, some of these hopper companies, they went out and built their own washout facility. All a lot of now, especially when you get, especially today when you got pet food

and human different regulations, most of these hopper trailers, they have to have a certified washout before they can go reload. And these guys are going all over the place. So these guys have got to find washouts. And sometimes washouts, it can be a couple hundred bucks. Why not build a washout bay because you're going to have to use it yourself but then hire other companies out to do. So that's just one example. You know, other companies have realized like they've built landscape and supply yards. So, you know, say that they're hauling product one direction. They'll bring, they'll go ahead and buy some kind of landscape rock.

They got the equipment. They'll buy it and bring it up. And then they sell it in the springtime. So it's another diversified business. So they're actually selling that commodity so it helps kind of offset the trucking business. And I can kind of keep going down the list. but you just find, you know, the renting trailers out. But I think that's where I'm always trying to educate and push people like,

hey, I know not everybody wants to grow. I get that. Not everybody wants to get to so many trucks or trailers, but if you're wanting to survive, just like farmers have had done over the time, and look at all these other little opportunities that you can do to bolt on. So you're kind of hedging, you know, when one, because again, the thing is, just like farmers can't control crop prices,

these truckers really can't control freight rates. Now you're going to get a lot of slack if you put this on a short because people will say. But like again, the freight rates, they go up and down. There's just market forces on there. And again, one thing you can do, though, you can manage your costs and you can diversify, figure out these other opportunities. So that's one thing I want to share. And if you watch our videos, we showcase those a lot.

And it's been so cool to see like, hey, the opportunity's out there for everybody. You just got to figure out these other avenues to go to make those opportunities work. So that's what's really excited. I used to be, sometimes when I first got into the business, I just think like it's just the natural current you're going to get so many people flush out and that does happen. But it's like, man, if we can curve that, if we can just stop that a little bit, if we can help someone and figure out how they can be more successful, whether it's our services or diversifying their businesses, giving them other strategies, techniques, and we've done our job.

I was just sitting here thinking, you know, along your journey, you took the jump from going from corporate America, working the ladder, being really successful at that. to start in your own thing. And what, what are, are you happy with the decision you made, first question. And is it better on this side or was it, what, what are the things you like about this side? What are the things you liked about that side? Because I think a lot of people glamorize entrepreneurship today. Yeah. And they make it seem like it's just freedom and time. And you got so much time and you, you got all this stuff. It's just the, it's, you got to go this route. but they don't always see the other side of it.

So I know that's a loaded question, but... Yeah, I can bounce so many different direction on this. One thing I realize I'll go back to the, you know, interviewing some of these most successful companies. There's a company, especially out in, it was out in Idaho, but we were sitting, one night he invited us to his house and we had dinner with his wife. And, you know, we're talking about, you know,

some of these people that are, whatever, go on, you watch them on social media, and they're doing all this other stuff. They're watching, playing video games, blah, blah, blah, you know. But he's just like, but he goes, Jared, he goes, I don't understand how people have so much free time. He's like, I got like this going on, this going on. And he wasn't saying to be negative, but he was just like, he's like, I don't understand.

Like some of these people, they work, you know, 40 hours a week. He goes, I'm usually at 70 to 80 a week. And he wasn't saying to brag. He was just like, but this is what I enjoy doing. He goes, you know, sometimes I'm not done until 10, 11 o'clock at night. And sometimes I'm working on Saturdays and Sundays. But he's built that, and that's his company. I mean, that's his company.

That's what he wants to do. So I'll say this. I think there's so many times I'll be like, why am I doing this? Or why did I get myself into this? Or why am I making, you know, why am I punishing myself? Because, again, you know, I'll have a new idea. We get something going, but that requires more attention and time. So it's got its ups and downs.

But I think at the end of the day, I don't, I never use, I never talk about myself as an entrepreneur. And I think entrepreneur, it's now overused online and people talking about entrepreneur. What I tell people this is like seriously like, and this is not going to sound sexy, I promise you. Like,

stop calling yourself an entrepreneur and figure out a way to solve someone's problems. If you figure out a way to solve someone's problems, you'll find a way to be financially successful. Too many people are thinking about why, I just want to start a business or I just want to be, you know, I want to have, I want to be a business owner.

And again, I think that's cool goal, but like, let's think of it. other way. Like start just on a mission to be like, what can I do to make somebody's life better? How can I solve the needs? What are their processes in business? If you do that, you will be successful. And for me, that's where I, man, my brain all day long, I just look at opportunities. If I see something wrong, it's like, man, there's got to be a better way to do that. Yet last

night we were talking about an ice cream venue back home. And this ice cream venue, everybody rants and raves. a fan of it because number one you go to get an ice cream it's like eight bucks and it's like i know dang well that ice cream may cost like 50 cents why am i you know so if i take my family a five there it's like 40 something dollars there's another ice cream place i can go that's you know under 10 bucks but i'm like why don't if somebody what somebody needs to have an idea create that same ice cream because it's a custard place put double lines the chick fillet approach on it charge half the price and you'll be doing four times of business. I mean,

I'm just thinking, so that's, I guess I'm constantly thinking of ways how can we be more efficient? How can you have it? What ideas out there that you can make better than the next person? So that's what excites me. So yeah, to answer your question in a nutshell,

it's like I think I have no regrets. And I think for me, there's always that internal itch, you know, what's the next move. I love, I love what we as an organization built. And all these companies I've mentioned before,

It hasn't been me by myself. It's been other partners, other owners that have been. I've kind of had some of the ideas and kind of spark that, but they're the ones that have got it across the line. I love creating that. I don't do well in the day to day. You were mentioned earlier about managing people and all that. Love my employees and all that.

But for me, it's like for me, the heart of me is like, I guess what gets me juiced up is really out there, finger on that next idea, getting people excited like, hey, what's this next thing we can do, this next thing we can build. if you can put me over there more, I think that's where I'll thrive or want to thrive. Yeah, I'm kind of the same way, I think. I think we're both the same way. Yeah, that's the problem. But I mean, I feel like that is, I don't call yourself an entrepreneur, but like that is the spirit of entrepreneur. I mean, you are solving problems, looking for problem solve, investing in people, building people up, getting them excited about where we're heading.

Yep. You have everybody else trying to help you achieve it. So one thing I've realized in my point in life, one of the biggest things I can do internally but externally, but talk about the mission that we're on. The mission, you know, we have a saying in our organization, we're here to take people from poverty to prosperity. Now, I know people aren't legitimately in poverty, but like how do we take these small businesses and make them prosper? And how do we keep thinking about that? And I think for us, as an organization, if we always have that underlying thought of servanthood, how do we serve people and make them better, you know, we will always have a business. I think,

For me, most businesses you look at, and it's like when you have internal battles and we keep, and again, we're all guilty of this. We internal think, but like, how do you keep that mindset? Like, do we're mission focused? I've read these, you know, last several years, I've read so many of these books on Elon Musk and Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos and all those guys. But he's like, if you really look, the underlying thread, those guys were just crazy mission focused, you know? And they made mistakes. And, you know, there's a lot of that. but like at the heart of it, they knew that their mission was to do X, Y, Z. And that's where I kind of

see like, that's, we have to be mission focused all the time. Where do you feel like you learn the most? I know by doing's probably your number one. But, you know, you mentioned you read books. You read some auto, are those autobiographies or biographies from some of the greatest entrepreneurs? Like, where do you get information to get better and just? I should clarify, I don't read books. I listen to books. I have a little, uh, uh, uh, a little thing called ADHD that I have a hard time focusing reading, but I try to consume books as much as I possible through Audible. But, you know, I think I've, I mean,

ever since I started when I worked at Bartlett, I was always on a search to, hey, how do I better myself? I mean, I went and got my MBA. It was from 2006 to 2008, but wanted to really just, I'm always on a quest to learn more. A couple of things recently, though, we've had a couple strategic coaches that we've hired. So really bulkloads, even the last, over the last five years, we went from, I mean, we've almost quadrupled in size in a small amount of time. But I think of that was looking at these opportunities, but really finding a coach or consultant to say, hey, if you want to get to here, here's a roadmap. So we've hired coaches that have come in and really laid out a business plan. And it's required like multiple hours, deep session thinking of like,

how are we going to put all this to paper, which I highly recommend to people if you're trying to look to grow. Like you have to, it can't just be up here all the time. It's got to be on paper. But those same coaches, I mentioned a lot of them

always have different books and stuff that they say, hey, you need to read this, you need to read that. I love, I really, I geek out on,

especially business books. You know, somebody told me one time, like, you need to try to read thrillers or mysteries and da, I have no desire. But I bounce back of four.

I try to read, you know, a Christian book and then a business book and a Christian book and a business book. And that's kind of my rhythm. Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. BetMDM and Game Sense remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly.

If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600 to speak to an event. Visor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. You mentioned ADHD. Are you diagnosed with ADHD or do you just feel like? Self-diagnosed. Yeah.

I feel like you could be self-diagnosed. I think I could be totally diagnosed. I just choose not to go give anybody diagnosed. I mentioned that because I feel like I hear, I'm hearing this more and more, just in, I don't know, the business community. it's where I have a lot of, I follow a lot of people on social media, but they almost say people with ADHD, it can be a superpower.

It can be a superpower. And like they, they, they have ADHD and it almost works their advantage because they're always, they're always working on the next thing and prove it and thinking about those things. And it just,

I want to hear your thoughts about it because I feel like it's, they want to suppress that. They want to get you on Adderall or Viable or V-V-A-V-Ans really early on in the classroom and just shut you down and not be a disruption. But I don't know. I don't feel like that might be the way. So I would say, yeah, self-diagnosed, but I've been told several times.

Ironically, my wife and I were just talking this morning. And we were talking about our three kids. But my daughter, she was talking about she was helping her with an assignment. But my daughter has a really hard time sitting still and like focusing. and my wife said, like last night we were trying to get this assignment. I'm trying to help her. And my daughter really got up and was like, mom, I can't sit and look at this for this long of a period of time. And so I was like, yeah, I'm sure there's a little genetic from dad that probably.

But yeah, I think that's, yeah, I would just think there was another time I was taking a test. And it was some kind of assessment test and blah, blah, blah. But after I got done, this consultant that was helping us looked at it. he's like, have you ever been diagnosed for ADHD? He goes like, and I was like, no, he's like, well, a lot of these answers, the way this is trending, it looks like you're borderline. So I say all that. I joke with it.

It's a serious, I mean, whatever it is. I don't want to call it a disease. I mean, it's however you deal with it. But I think it's who I am. So for me, I've really tried to embrace it and try to say that I'm not, I mean, I am, I am who I am. And if I can't sit down and actually read a book, I'm going to try to. still consume it, you know, audibly. And if I can't do this, I'm going to just figure out ways to

cope with it. And yeah, I think, yeah, for me, I've just tried to focus on how do I use it as a strength and not a weakness. Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's a lot of perspective on how you look at anything because I'll, way back, way back, probably, I don't know, maybe 2005, maybe. The first time I ever took one of these uh we had a we had a coach come in when i was selling buildings and the guy that i worked for he wasn't he wasn't real sold on any of that because you know um he didn't need any help in any area let's just put it that way and i mean it worked for him but he was a different generation but we had we had a guy a company come in and we all took these these uh evaluations and then you met one-on-one with him

and I thought it was kind of hocus pocus, you know. But that guy said to me, he got very specific, and he said, he's like, if I had to guess, if you were going to bid a hog billing and you say you had to drive two and a half hours, and you got 15 minutes away and you realized that you brought the wrong proposal and the wrong print, you would still go ahead and meet with the person and figure that you could still sell it. And I just looked at him and I said, well, I did that like

two weeks ago. And he was, you know, his point, it was kind of a, it was kind of a like, you need help. And I was looking at it like a badge of honor. I was like, yeah, I'm that damn good, you know, which probably not the way to look at it. But it is, it is just perception. And it's, you have to find a way there's some things about yourself that you can definitely better. And I'm all about, you know, doing better and learning and, you know, becoming a better version of myself. But then there's also things about your personality and things about just what's ingrained in you that in my mind there's no use of trying to swim against the current.

You just need to figure out how to maybe bend that to the purpose that you're trying to trying to that you're trying to do and yeah I think we're both probably that way I mean normal people wouldn't start one thing and then be like oh yeah well we should do this too and then like well that's a good idea we should do that too like most people would just do one thing and stay in their lane and there's nothing wrong with that like I look at that I have friends that have a business and I mean it's they're they're very successful at it and they're great at it and I look at that and I'm like man that'd be that'd be kind of nice to just you know have one thing and just go instead of just you know run around with your acorns going well

where am I going to bury this one so you've been like that your whole life though I mean like growing up even with projects around the house it's well we're going to do the retaining wall and then we're going to go here and do the farm and then we're going to go here and build a deck and it's just like you've always been that way and then Trisha would say that's say, are you going to put the train? Are we ever going to have baseboard in this house? Oh, yeah, I'll get to it. Yeah, I'll get to it. But so. Yeah, I think for it then, if it's the idea is like, I don't know, there's something every day, I think I have to be, there's something I have to produce, something to create. And I don't

if you can relate with that torque, but that's just always that feeling every day. I, I don't feel fulfilled if I don't have that new idea that just came to mind or this new process or something new that I'm working on. But it's crazy. Like my wife, we were, again, talking the morning and my oldest son is kind of similar. He's always, he finds a new idea. And then she was telling me that, you know, now he's building, we have this bearded dragon at home. And he's, my oldest son is really big in the Legos. But he's creating this contraption that it, it puts the cricket on a shoot. It's all automated that feeds the bearded dragon, the cricket. But he's been working all this, but he's like been just focused on it.

like he just, it was something new. And every week he's got like some new project that he's building or creating. So I look at him like, I think it's, I mean, it's not a bad thing. No, no, definitely. But I do have to get home because I get home and then the basement our workshop, he's got stuff everywhere. And I'm like, man, did you have to like get all my tools out? And I got to clean all this stuff up.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Do you have a hard time being present? Do you feel like when you're like that? Because I feel like that's really a hard, that's a struggle for me. because I'm kind of in the same way where always like when I go to an ice cream shop, just like you, like when I walked into five guys for the first time and you're like, God, this burger's expensive.

But then you look around and you're just like, the way that this restaurant is set up and the way that they have things, no wonder they demand a premium. And like that's where my head goes. Yeah, that's awesome. But it's hard to, it's always hard to sometimes just lay your feet down and like really be in the moment and be present. Is that something that you struggle with? Do you have anything that you that helps you with that? 100% agree. Yeah, I don't, I would just say I'm one of those like I don't, I'm not a napper, weekends, you know, and I have some rules and this is going to offend a lot of people, but like,

the TV should not be on during daylight hours. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep. The TV, like, there's no reason to be sitting at home watching a movie in daylight hours. Now, sun's down and you want to watch a movie, yeah, but like for me, it's just a rule in our house. like, I mean, and we'll make exceptions if it's a playoff football game and, you know, home team and all that. But like, if you got a movie on during the day, like, you were wasting the day. Yeah. You know, so that's where I kind of come and play. Like for us on the weekends, like there's no sitting around. And I probably need to do a better job. Well, I do need to do a better job of practice and Sabbath on Sundays. But for me, it's, it's just

really hard for me to, uh, to lay, I mean, to just sit around. I, I, I feel like I have to get something accomplished and something done. And, you know, this working on the farm, you've got probably 10 projects you're thinking right now. Like, and then especially weekend hits, it's like, out of these 10, what realistically can I get done? Yeah. And what's it going to take in how many hours? And if I start this, am I going to be able to get it done? Yeah.

If I leave it out, then I got to get the tools out. I mean, you can compound you go through the whole thing. So have you ever, have you ever sat down and had a meal with your family? and you are there's something rolling as you come to the dinner you know and uh you sit down and all the sudden you realize because i'm if i'm thinking about something and i'm eating i'm a power eater like i don't even think about the food and i'm just eating and i'm just eating and you like trisha will like nudge me and she'll go what are you thinking about and you look down and your plate is practically gone and then you look at her plate and she's eating like a quarter of it and you go

oh uh you know whatever that's one of my worst like i can't because you can't hide it she'll be like can you just be present for like five minutes and i guess just sit here till we you know till i'm done or whatever and you're like oh man because you just the wheel just keeps going it does my wife she'll uh eventually she's like all right i can tell something's on your mind what is it, you know, tell me what it is. And it's like, yeah, I'd like to buy a new skid loader. Yeah. I think I'd like to buy this farm behind our house or I'm thinking about this and, you know,

but yeah, all the time. And I think, yeah, it's crazy how you don't even realize you're in that motion. And then all of a sudden they're kind of like snap out of it. Yeah. Hey. Yeah, we're all here. We're all here. What are you thinking?

Yeah. Yeah. So what's next? what is like your, what are you working towards that is your goal? Yeah, so a couple of ambitions. Within the companies, we're still looking at solving those needs for our clients. And we still see, you know, we call it the load life cycle. So, you know, from the beginning to the end, in every process in between,

some other avenues we're looking at. We know that still truckers, they have problems with financing, you know, getting equipment, trucks finance. So how can we play a role in? that and we haven't put that together but I think that's another one we're already handling the freight bills so how do we kind of match that up and really help them with the cash flow because again if you really look at this like we're now handling so much where really you just kind of keep flipping on these other switches and it's just less that they have to maintain and they don't even

I mean they just they can see it all happening but it's all automated on the backside so that's that's another piece of it that we're looking at um I think uh for me professionally to how can I have a bigger impact on agriculture and trucking in America? So I've contemplated public service a little bit, like Department of Agriculture. There's some things. Now, I haven't, I mean, besides just meeting people, but I think I look at it,

and it never would have thought about that in my younger years, but I look at this country and how much I love it. And I talked to earlier, I didn't get to serve my country in the military, and so I see this as a fulfillment of, you know, it's that little itch that I never got to do. So can I do that? public service and I think that's one way that I can feel rewarded is to do that. Do you think that

you could win so much that you'd be tired, you'd just be exhausted from winning so much in whatever role you go, just win till you can't just can't stop winning, be the greatest department of transportation, you know, chairman of all time. We're in a new age. The golden age has started. The Trump, the Trump era of winning. There's something again, and I'm 45, but, But, you know, traveling the country now, it has a different meeting. Like last night we actually ate up the road at the casino. We went to Roofies and the sun was sitting behind us. And I said to my colleague that we were driving on something, man, look at that sunset and look at the generations of farmers that farm this ground.

And again, again, man, yeah, I got the gray hairs and I'm getting older. But like there's just love that I have for this country more than I ever have. and even the people of this country. And how do we keep telling that story? And again, there's a lot of people out telling the story of agriculture and trucking. But I think we can provide a little bit different spin of it and kind of tell that story that still lives in our hearts. So that's my dream.

I think the businesses keep growing, but how do we keep telling this great, beautiful story of farming and agriculture? Yeah, that's awesome. I really like that analogy you had of being the lighthouse. That's pretty cool. I like that. I never thought about it that way, but that's powerful. Yeah, it was when that the person that told me that actually was an older gentleman at the gym, but I was telling about our companies, but he just said, Jared, you're like a lighthouse.

And he's like, just remember like, you know, these ships, there's that lighthouse. And you can just kind of picture that you got this bright beacon and these ships, all this is choppy water. And these guys are looking for, you know, they're looking for help. They're looking for the light. And I'm not the light, but I can point them to the light. And that's the goal is really showing them the love that we have. Two questions, and then we'll wrap it up.

But who do you think has had the largest impact on your life and just where you've, where you've came to? I know that's a big one. Yeah. You know, I'll kind of go backwards. More recently, impact on my life. I didn't share this at all earlier, and there's a lot more to this story. But my father-in-law, my wife's dad, was a tremendous mentor mine.

And he, so crazy successful businessman, he passed away a couple years ago, but he actually founded Sam's Club. Wow. He worked for Walmart way back in the 70s, and he was senior vice president. He was right underneath Sam Walton. And so he learned from one of the greatest businessmen of all time. And so when I met him, he was retired and out. And I can remember when I started bowl clothes. Well, first he planted the seed to really, to start the company.

But anytime I had questions, he'd answer them. But every day he'd call me. and grew me with questions and just like, hey, how's business? What, you know, how's this going? But even thinking about the business, like, just remember the life value of a customer. That's what Sam Walton always telling them. Don't think about today. What's the long-term value?

Always think about the value of the membership that we instilled with our clients at Sam's Club. So there was just always just repetitive. So, you know, when he passed away, I look back and I was like, my gosh, he gave me so much wisdom. And he was just right there alongside, I mean, coaching me along the way. So I think professionally he was one that I have to give, I mean, all the credit to that he's just, man, when you have that coach, you're talking about our wives, but just from even that business guy to say, man, you got this. You can do this. You know, and then there, you know, there was another part of the story, you know, we as a business, we've been sued. And that's a whole other podcast. But it was something that I thought, like, what did I do wrong? And his business over. And he just, you know, he's just like, don't worry about it. You got this, you know. And there's been times through business. like we've had competitors. We're not the only ones out there to do what we do. And there's been times he's like, you know, Jared, just remember Sam Walton told me that your, your competitors only make you better. Your competitors only make you better. And it's like in the moment,

you're just like, I don't want to hear that, you know, but like I look back as like he did because we got stronger. We developed more. We got grittier. We figured this out, you know, and it made us better company and better for our clients. So business wise, my father-in-law, Rob Voss, just tremendous mentor. Miss him dear. think about them all the time. I think early on life, I think, man, I don't want to just point to several, had great grandparents, you know, I always look back that some of the people that don't really get to see their grandparents. I had grandparents that were one mile up the road and eight miles and got to see them, both my grandpas, but my grandpa on my mom's side,

he's really, if I look back, really led me to my Christian faith. He was an old Marine guy went into the concrete world, but Catholic, but he just had a servant's heart. I remember growing up and going to his house, and there'd be times, like, he'd have a homeless person living in his basement.

And I mean, as a kid, I'm like, why are you doing this? And this doesn't make sense and giving him money. And, you know, he would take flowers to nursing homes on weekends. And you see, this repetitive cycle of just servanthood and loving others.

And so I credit so much of my faith to him really pointing me to there. But I think about my dad, I didn't talk about my dad, you know, through it all, I look at us growing up in the environment that we did, and sometimes you have regrets, you know, and you think about all these things and why God did this and why my parents and all this,

but I look at, man, my dad had to do something right, you know. And he was always a man in a few words, and I don't want to get emotional saying this, but like, man, I think all the times that he was there, you know, and working at that sawmill, there's a lot of us, and you talk about, I love your podcast.

You're talking about farming, you know, looking back, I got to work every day alongside my dad. I got to see him sweating, modeling work, you know,

working with other employees, how he managed employees, how he treated other people. I got to see that every day, you know, and I look back and it's like, it led me to be, you know,

some of the good traits. I got negative ones too, but like some of the good things that I possessed. And I, I thank him so much for instilling that, into us, you know, all my brothers, they've all been successful. My sister's successful too.

So I was like, like, mom and dad, you had to do something right. Yeah, absolutely. So, man, I appreciate that question. Yeah. No, that was, that was great. I just, I had one follow up on the, when you met your father-in-law for the first time, where you just like, when he said what he did, were you just like blown away? Were you just like, holy crap? Like, that is. So, I met my father-law for the first time, he was a wealthy guy. He had this lake house. And I can remember my wife. We go down. We were dating at the time, but we drive down. And at his lake house, we get ready to pull in this whole black top road, big stone pillar gates, metal, or big pillars, big metal gates and a little code. And I'm like, who are we going to see here?

Oh, so that was the first time that you'd met him. Yeah. So we were going to meet him for the first. I was going to meet him for the first. I was going to meet him for the very first time. Did you meet your wife in college? We met four years after. Okay. And out of all things, it was a rafting trip down in southern Missouri. But so we go down and go down this lakehouse, this crazy huge multi. And again, I am not used to ever seeing anything of any of this caliber. But I remember going around back and he had fixed like tri-tips and we had some wine. I was never a wine drinker, but, you know, when you're in company. But I remember. I remember. were sitting the table and one of the first things he told me when he looked at me he's like

Jared do you know the value of a dollar and I was like yes sir I do you know it's like all right and I think that was just something like you know this guy multi-millionaire but like want or know if I still knew if I was humble enough to know the value of a dollar and yeah that was like the first time we met but there was a I was telling a colleague like we were telling a lot of we call him his name was Rob but Rob isms he was he was a very, he was, he was the king of the road. I'll say that on driving. He had, he would honking people and, you know, he had a little bit of road rage.

There was a, there, that could be just multiple stories of riding with him. And my wife always like, you just fueled him on because you wanted to see him do that. And we'd be at a stoplight and like there'd be someone in front of us and the light would just turn green. He'd just be hitting on a, like, get on. You get going, get going, you know. One time, yeah, some lady cut us off. And he's like, oh, my God, we're not, no. So he's like, we're chasing her.

He's like, I'm going to tell her. I'm like, what do we do? He had, like I say this, because he's passed away. In his car, we'd be going down the interstate. He carried a fake badge. And, dude, if somebody passed him, like going 80, 85, we would speed 90 miles an hour to go catch him. And he would put down the window and throw the badge on him.

He would pull the badge on him. He would pull the bag. Like, he would, he hold the badge out there. Just to make him slow down and panic. I'm sitting there on the other side just like covered up. Like, I don't want to, like, but like all of a sudden you see that person, all of a sudden just slow down and get behind. And like, I don't know why he thought it was his job to police the highways,

but it's just like he got some. Yeah. That's hilarious. That's awesome. That is funny. There's going to be a few guys that probably do that after a list of this podcast. That would be funny. He was not a patient person.

He, uh, I remember one time we were at a. house and he was waiting on this guy to turn on his sprinklers. It was in springtime. And we're waiting and waiting. And I knew he was getting hot. So I would say I kind of fueled his fire on this one. But I'm like, Rob, where is this guy? I mean, you told him to be here four. He's not here. And he's like, I'm calling right now. So he gets on the phone. He puts him on speaker phone. And he's looking at me the whole time. Like he stared at me on speaker phone. And he's like, I forget this guy's name. He's like, Johnny, where the F are you? And this guy responds back like, oh, Rob, sorry. I'm on my way. I had to stop at Bass Pro and pick up some shotgun shells or whatever.

And he, like, I could just see him in the eyes. He's just like, right. And he goes, do you think I'm standing here with my thumb up, my blank and bah, you know? And like, I'm like, and he's staring at me the whole time. Like he's wanting my reaction. I'm just like, like, like, oh, oh. And like, there was this dead silence for like 10 seconds. And the guy's like, I'll be there in five minutes. Hey, you got to do what you got to do. I could share so many more. but it's uh it was uh it was sounds like a hell of a guy sounds like a great man awesome father-law yeah to have i bet i bet that's awesome well last question for you and we'll hop off here how do people

learn more about what you're doing want to get involved want to work with you guys potentially see what the content you're you're putting out there yeah absolutely so simple we're on all socials so you can look on any social and type in bulk loads i'm super active on lincoln uh that's that's that's kind of my go-to on there so you can find me at Jared Flynn would love to connect. I would say this out there, if you're wherever you are, if there's something that I said that you might find interest in, man, reach out and talk to us. Maybe you're thinking about getting into trucking. Wanting to see the opportunities out there.

Get a hold of us. We can let you, we can kind of walk you through. We do free demos. Maybe you're a trucking company, you're trying to scale up, and some of these technologies that we have can help you out. Maybe you're short on cash row this year. It's been tough for a lot of truckers. freight rates have been down, so cash has been really tight.

Our factoring services, highly recommend we're super competitive. So I just say this, if there's anything that I've said in this podcast that we can help as a business, let us know. But I'm a people person, you know, Twork, that's why I reached out to you in the beginning. I love connecting with people. I see it as, you know, there's a saying your network is your net worth. And I firmly believe that. I think the people that you know in this industry can be very valuable. And again, if it's a fellow person, especially in agriculture, man, I can sit there and talk and she's

the Bulls. So yeah, please reach out. Sweet. Well, Jerry, we real appreciate you coming on, man. That was a real good episode. I hope you guys got some value. If you did, share the show with the people that you know, leave review on Spotify or Apple. Check out Farmergrade. Use code BarnTalk to save 10% off your next order. And we'll see you back here next week for another episode.