Industry Outlook: Sprinting into Expedite

Wanna know what's going on within the expedite industry, or with trucking overall? Then tune in to Industry Outlook, presented by Expediters Online and Jung Express. Join our host, Brandon Baxter, as he engages with folks-in-the-know who will bring their knowledge, ideas, and expertise to the forefront of the trucking industry in 2024 and beyond.

In today's installment??, Brandon Baxter and Rob Podeszwa of Jung Express discuss the Sprinter Van aspect of the expedite industry.
Rob has been an owner operator and he wants to share his experience and expertise with our expedite audience!

Transcript

Brandon Baxter
Welcome to Industry Outlook presented by Expediters Online and Jung Express. I'm your host, Brandon Baxter.
My guest today is Rob Podeszwa. He heads up recruiting and carrier relations with Jung Express.
Rob. Thank you so much for joining me. How are you today?

Rob Podeszwa
Oh, I'm great. I'm great. Hey, you're welcome.
It's good to be here with you.

BB
Glad to have you here. It's it's about time, right?
Let's get you guys some some, some good run here with Expediters Online.
Love to have Jung Express. You guys have been with us for quite some time.
With that said, Rob, let's let's invite the audience to get to know you a little bit, you know, tell us a little bit about your background and you know how you ended up with Jung Express and what you do?

RP
Sure. I was in the engineering world for about five years. Did marine construction, built beaches, dredged harbors, built seawalls all over the country.
Left that then I met my wife decided to settle down, went into the family business which was golf retail.
I ran our family store for about 12 years, after that jumped into home inspection, did home inspections for about four years.
Then next stage was, I jumped into selling cars. Did that for about eight years, so little of everything there.
Over that time, John Jung, the owner of our company, I've known him, he's been, he's one of my best friends.
I've known him over 30 years. Our families vacation together. He's my prayer partner. Him and I taught junior high Sunday school for years.
So good close friend, he'd been asking me for years to come work for him. I'm like, no, not working for you, not working for my friend.
But when I was selling cars, I was looking for something else and he talked to me about fleet ownership, getting a fleet of vans together, and, you know, he would get me the freight.
And so my son was in college at the time and I hate to say, but he didn't want to be in college anymore. So I thought, well, I'll buy a van, put my son in it.
He can drive, I'll learn the business. I'll recruit more drivers and build my fleet that way. Bought the van.
My son decided he didn't want to do that. So, well, I got a van.
I always loved road tripping. Best way to recruit is to find the experience. So I jumped in the van. Plan was drive for about six months. And I went over the road and I, I absolutely loved it. It was spectacular.
I ended up doing it for three years, put 400,000 miles on my van hit 41 out of the 48 states. It was, it was awesome. It was like one big long camping trip and everywhere I went, I recruited drivers and had about eight vans under me.
When the recruiting position then opened up here at Jung... my wife works here, she works in our collections department. So then due to family reasons, we decided for me to come off the road and take this position.
So, my drivers all got absorbed into Jung and now I've been the recruiter here for the last seven years,

BB
Seven years. That's a pretty good run for a recruiter.

RP
That's the short version though.

BB
That's the short version.
Let's talk for a moment about, you know, the current need for sprinter vans just, you know, specifically for the expedite industry.

RP
Sure, there's always a need for them.
The thing with this industry, it goes up and down like a roller coaster and because drivers, they're independent contractors, they come and go, There's so many variables with this industry and so that's why we're always, we're always looking for sprinters.
You know, it's, the industry itself is just like a big scale.
You've got, you know, an amount of freight on one side, number of vans on the other.

BB
Yep.

RP
And when freight is really, really, when freight's higher than vans, everybody's making money, everybody's running, everybody's great. It's wonderful. Everybody's happy.
But then all those van drivers go out and make youtube videos and tell everybody how awesome this is how spectacular it is.
So then everybody goes out and buys a van and then the number of vans go way up and when, then when you have more vans than freight, then everybody's not making as much money. They're not getting many miles, not make as much money.
So then they get out of it because so then the scales tip back the other way.
So that's why it's constantly in flux.

BB
Let's say, for example, I'm an owner operator, I've got a sprinter van and I had been running under my own authority or maybe I still have my own authority.
You know, can I, what can I do or what could Jung Express do to help me if that's possible?

RP
Sure. Well, we're, I always say not every van is for every company, not every company is for every van, because we all do things a little bit different, you know, for all the different logistics companies out there, we all do things a little bit different.
With us, we treat our drivers that we sign on, we treat them as true independent contractors, you know, so we don't require them to be exclusive to us so they can still have their own authority, you know, if they want to, if they're gonna be on, you know, any, the load boards, they wanna try getting their own freight, that's fine. They can still be signed on with us too.
It depends on what load boards are on because there's some that we won't allow, you know, but they, you know, so it's, it's, we, we let them be a true independent contractor. So, you know, they don't have to put our signage on. They did not have to be exclusive to us.
And we're, we're gonna get them freight.
As I said, we're always looking for drivers, we're always looking for vans.

BB
Let's go back to around 2012.
And I think there's something you and I talked about the other day, but I thought again, just from my own, you know, vantage point back then was I thought that I was seeing a lot of vans coming into the industry, but at that time, you had a lot of, you know, your standard cargo vans, not just the sprinters, right?
So, so if you could talk a little bit about that, you know, why, why do you believe that there was such an introduction or influx of these type of vans at that time?

RP
So you basically, if you wanted that really large Sprinter van, you only had the Sprinter, which is, you know, actually brand name, otherwise it was the smaller cargo vans which were like two pallet vans.
The Sprinter could handle three, but it didn't have that high of a payload.
Well, then you had, you know, Nissan started making the NV and then I think in '14 RAM came out with their version of the sprinter-style van. And then 2015 Ford came out with one.
So that under 10,000 pound gross vehicle weight rating is just huge in the world of expedited freight because you have no DOT regulations.
So when we can for expedited freight, when now you have these bigger vehicles that can handle three pallets, sometimes four smaller pallets or whatever and, they have no DOT regs so they can drive all day long.
You know, and it's just that, that's outstanding for the world of expedited freight.
You know, the cargo van and Sprinter vans are the easiest to get into because you don't need the CDL, less of an expense getting into it.
But what I strive what I really strive to tell these guys is you're an independent contractor, you're, you're starting a business, come up with a good business plan.
That's the thing with these guys. The guys that succeed versus the guys who don't succeed are the guys who have a good business plan, they learn the industry and then they tailor their business plan to fit the industry.
Versus the guys that come and go really quickly, they want the industry to change to fit their business plan and you know, that's not gonna happen.

BB
Right.
If I were, you know, Johnny Viewer on the street that, that sees one of these videos and maybe I contact, you know, Jung express and say, hey, I want to get a sprinter van, you know, how would you approach, you know, a conversation like that

RP
Guys will call me up or whatever and hey, I'm looking to do this or whatever. Ok.
What got you interested in it? Well, I watched some videos.
Oh boy, here we go.
I explain to them, you have to have long, you have to look at it long term, not short term; you have to come up with your business plan and a long term plan for your business.
And when they're watching videos, look at who's making the video, ok?
If there's a person who's been doing this for two weeks or three weeks and they're making a video that's a very small sample size, that's not accurate to how the industry is because as I said, this industry goes up and down like a roller coaster.
There are, and I'll tell our drivers you're gonna have weeks where you're gonna go load after load after load, after load and you're gonna be like, oh my gosh, dispatch is trying to kill me here I need a break and then you're gonna loads where or weeks where it's much slower and you're like, oh man, dispatch forgot about me, who did I take off?

BB
And if you're not, prepared...

RP
they're working just as hard.
We want to move as much freight as possible.
But that's the world of expedited freight.
It's a roller coaster.
So if you base your business plan only on best case scenarios, you're gonna fail
because it's, it's not sustainable,

BB
that's just not how the expedite world is built.
I mean, that I've had those conversations too, Rob.
I can tell you just from experience trying to, trying to explain to somebody that when they've already got it made up in their mind that I need to, I need to hit this, that or the other.
And it's not gonna be available for the type of industry that this actually is

RP
When they create their business plan, you have to come up with realistic expectations for your business and you have to look at it long term, not short term, you know, and you have to look at it is a business, you know, and it's a, you gotta get your business up and off the ground and get it running.
And guys, they don't, they look, the guys who look short term, don't ask the guys who look long term, they're in it for a long time.
They, they do very, very well when you're starting your business, work hard.
You know, that sounds crazy.
You're gonna have to struggle, you got to get, you have to get your business up and running with it.
And there are so many variables involved.
That's why when you start off your business run like crazy.
Stay out there to limit your expenses to build up your business account.
Because again, when it's high, when the industry is going, stay out there, make the money because then it covers you when it goes down.
And unfortunately those are the pitfalls that I see with guys is they don't, they're making money, they're spending the money and then it goes down or something bad happens and they don't have the money.
Look at it as a business, get your business off the ground and everything and work hard, put the time in,, you know, and, and again it's learn the industry and tailor your business to fit the industry.

BB
What is it that, that Jung is looking for right now?
You know, I mean, Sprinter vans.

RP
Yeah, again, we work with every cargo van, sprinters, straights and tractors.
because the industry as a whole is kind of down right now, what that does allow me is to be more selective as to who I'll sign. It's not as crazy as when, you know, in 2021 where freight was nuts and we needed every, every able van we could find

BB
All hands on deck.

RP
Yeah.
Now it is, you know, you could be a little bit more selective and I wanna make sure I don't wanna, I want, we want our drivers to be successful. We want them to be very successful and so it's trying to educate them so that they are successful at it.
We have direct customers, we have partner carriers, we do everything we can to move as much freight as possible, keep vans moving.
but it, it's, it's a roller coaster ride.
It always has been and always will be.

BB
Well, Rob before we wrap on today's discussion, is there anything else that you'd like to add?

RP
good question

BB
out of all of them? That's the one that stumped you.

RP
There's a lot of different aspects to this industry, find the right fit and, and that'll then you'll succeed.

BB
Well, Rob, it really has been a pleasure having you on today.
Thank you so much for, for joining me and, this has been Industry Outlook.
It's been presented by Expediters Online and Jung Express.
I've been your host, Brandon Baxter until next time.