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Taking the Hire Road is a podcast dedicated to providing tips to help manage the driver recruiting process while addressing the ongoing challenges related to the driver shortage and driver retention. Hosted by Jeremy Reymer, Founder and CEO of DriverReach, this bimonthly podcast shines a light on the challenges that carriers are facing and aims to help companies hire quality drivers with greater efficiency.
Jeremy Reymer (00:08):
Welcome to Taking the Higher Road, a special show dedicated to the trucking industry, primarily around the confluence of recruiting, retention, and compliance. In the fifth year, as the host of the show, I bring over two decades of industry experience, both on the carrier side as well as the vendor side. Throughout the year, I interview industry experts and thought leaders who bring their insight to the driver lifecycle As we discuss the industry's greatest challenges, I always appreciate your feedback. Good or bad, don't forget to leave a rating and a review. I'd also like to thank and highlight the show's valuable sponsors. Their dedication and commitment to the industry and to the show is greatly appreciated. If you're interested in being a sponsor or joining me for an interview, please email Jeremy at taking the higher road.com. Now, this week I'm excited to be joined by a great industry friend, safety and compliance guru, Sam Watts, founder of Watman Diesel House. Thank you so much for joining me, Sam,
Sam Watts (00:58):
Thank you so much for having me. It's a blast just being on here.
Jeremy Reymer (01:02):
I'm anxious to get into your story, why you chose trucking as your profession, and I also want to dive into what led you to your latest venture. Something I think is unique. It's novel in the world of safety and compliance for trucking, and it's the Watman safety subscription that I'm excited to unpack. And then we'll also answer this episode's industry health question, which is sponsored by Project 61. So if that works for you, we can go ahead and get started.
Sam Watts (01:26):
Let's do it.
Jeremy Reymer (01:27):
Alright, well to break the ice, I often start off with a book recommendation. If you could share maybe a specific book that's been impactful to you.
Sam Watts (01:37):
Yeah, so I am a huge reader too. I know we were talking beforehand about reading and the book that I have read a couple times, and I'm actually going through a little bit right now is a book. I just so happen to have it here called Eat That Frog. It's by Brian Tracy. He's written multiple books and I've only read a handful, but I've liked every one of them. But this one helps with procrastination because sometimes when you're working on your own thing and you don't really have that management looking over you, sometimes you can get to a little procrastination, you don't have any accountability. So this one has been really good with that. And actually, if I may, can I just read one sentence out of here that I thought, please, fantastic. Because I even got it highlighted in here, says this, the biggest enemies we have to overcome on the road to success are not a lack of ability and a lack of opportunity, but fears of failure and rejection and the doubts that they trigger. A lot of times we're afraid of what other people will think, and once you can overcome that, the sky's the limit.
Jeremy Reymer (02:37):
Yeah, we are our own worst enemy. I mean, I think that's just human nature. It's unfortunate, but that's why everybody's not wildly successful is because of these obstacles that we have to be able to overcome. You're actually the second person over the last five years that has referenced Eat the Frog or Eat That Frog. I'm really glad that you said that. Do you have any idea where that term, actually that phrase Eat the Frog?
Sam Watts (03:03):
I want to say it's like Mark Twain. I think it's Mark Twain that or somebody, some famous figure, and I didn't know you were going to ask me that question or I could have looked it up, but they talk about Eat the Frog. If you do that first off in your day, if you do the worst thing you possibly can, then everything else is going to be easy. And it's so true. If there's something you're dreading my golly, just do it and then you can move on. Then it's not hanging over you for the rest of the day.
Jeremy Reymer (03:29):
And honestly, that's discipline. Just get that stuff out of the way, get it done. If you don't, again, you procrastinate, you put it off and the next thing you know, ah, it's getting late. That's just how it works.
(03:42):
And I know you know this, but in January of this year I formed a trucking industry book club and we're approaching about a hundred participants or so far for those listening. If you're intrigued and interested in joining that club, just shoot me a note on LinkedIn or send an email to Jeremy at taking the high road.com. I'd love to have you join us. We do read books like this and other books. It's all sort of a democratic process where people get to pick and choose. It's through an app. It's really fun, it's really easy. Now diving into your background, how does your path lead you to trucking? I'm guessing you've been in it your whole life. I mean, were you born into it? Was it something you fell into? How'd that come about?
Sam Watts (04:20):
Yeah, so my father was a truck driver, so I mean I was literally born into the industry. He was on home time when I was born and my mom said, Hey, you're not going to go back out on the road and leave me here with two kids. I got an older sister as well. And so he then got off the road and started dispatch and worked his way up to VP of operations, general manager of some pretty large companies. And the whole time I got to go along for the ride whether I wanted to or not. And since maybe I was 12, 13, somewhere there is when I started working at trucking companies, doing all the grunt labor work, mowing the lawns, the company he was at had a warehouse. So I would unload trailers and then load trailers up. And then eventually though I said, let me try out this air conditioning that you guys have in your office.
(05:07):
And so then I moved in and went to dispatch and then went up through the ranks too in the operations side. And then eventually I got to a point where out of basically necessity, I had to figure out safety because my father eventually, the company he worked for, sold and a lot of transitioning. And in all of that he said, you know what? I'm going to go and start my own little company, just something little. But the problem with that is that when you come from a large company down to a small company in your large companies, you have departments in the small companies, you're everything. And so both him and I were working in this thing and we're operations guys, and so we knew how to book loads, we knew how to hire. I mean, we knew how to run the company, it's just we didn't know the other pieces of it.
(05:53):
And safety was kind of one of those pieces. And eventually we had an audit, a new entry audit, and we ended up with a conditional rating because we knew enough to not get caught on the road, but we didn't know enough to not get caught. And so we ended up with the conditional rating. And so that's when I said, okay, I got to figure this safety stuff out here if we ever want to get back to satisfactory. And that's what I did. So eventually doing all the paperwork and all that, that got us back to satisfactory. We ran with that for a couple more years and then my father ended up having some health issues and we ended up shutting it down. That's kind of how I got into safety was literally a trial by fire. And then from there I realized that, hey, I kind of like this. I'm kind of good at it. It's a need that a lot of trucking companies have. And so I just, a lot of them, or every one of them,
Jeremy Reymer (06:44):
Every single one of them,
Sam Watts (06:45):
I would say there's probably four or five trucking companies in the world right now that have their safety in tip top form. There's probably more than that, but you're exactly right. There's a val that need help with it. There definitely is.
Jeremy Reymer (06:59):
Yeah, it's such a critical part of every trucking operation and especially in this environment, which we can touch on here in a minute, but you've been now safety sort of became your calling out of necessity, but then you realize, Hey, I really like this. I'm good at this. And so you began to blossom from there. How have you seen that safety and compliance department evolve the past 10 years or so, especially in the environment, that backdrop that we're talking about as well as just the regulatory environment as well as how technology has changed some things? Sure. What have you seen?
Sam Watts (07:35):
You hit the nail on the head right there. One of my biggest complaints maybe 10 years ago was the technology piece. We just don't have the technology to keep up with everything. One of the first jobs I had as a tracker inside a trucking company, I would get in at four o'clock in the morning and track loads and the satellite would ping. I think it was Qualcomm at the time. Don't quote me on that, but it would ping like every five minutes. So the truck's here. Okay, so now I got to wait five minutes to see how far he made it and if he's still in the same spot, well then I know he stopped. So that was always frustrating to me, like I'm a lot faster than this technology is and I want my information now and the customer wants it now. And so the biggest piece in the last 10 years has been that evolution of technology.
(08:22):
I mean, it's gotten ridiculously good now. I mean, almost to the point where some of the advice I give to some carriers is just because the technology is there doesn't mean that you should actually implement it. And what I mean by that is if you're going to have technology with your company, you better make sure that you're going to monitor it. And if you can't monitor it, it'll actually probably come back to bite you if something were to happen. I mean, obviously we need to have e-logs, and I'm even in the camp, I think you have dash cams now, at least outward facing dash cams. I don't think there's any room to not have 'em cheap enough and they'll save you. If you ever get into an accident, that's not your fault. They'll pay for themselves right there. There's audio technology now. There's AI technology that's being developed, driver facing technology. If you can't monitor all that, I wouldn't recommend touching it because like I said, if you're not going to monitor it and something happens, you better believe that some lawyers from the other side are going to expect you to know what's going on and expect
Jeremy Reymer (09:29):
You and use that against you and use it against you. Against you. Right. How many times did you see with that inward facing camera that this driver was distracted or was nodding off or was using on his phone or whatever? You did no coaching. You did, you got an alert all the time. You did nothing with that information. That is not a good
Sam Watts (09:50):
Situation.
(09:51):
No, no, you're exactly right. Yeah, if you're going to monitor, and I know the drivers their biggest concern with that inward stuff, and I get it, I really do get it, especially for over the road guys. The guys that live in their trucks, they're concerned about privacy and I get that, but I always have to remind them, Jimmy, I have no interest in watching you when you're back in the sleeper. So this is purely for protection purposes. And once you kind of explain it to drivers that, Hey, we're implementing this technology to protect you and show them some real world examples of that, they usually start coming around and go, okay, I get why you're doing it now. And they're usually pretty open to it.
Jeremy Reymer (10:32):
As long as I've known you, you've been an active voice when it comes to safety and compliance, certainly always engaging on LinkedIn. I'd love to dig into this latest venture watman safety subscription to me. As I said earlier, that's a novel thing. Can you share what it is and as well as what led you to start that new venture?
Sam Watts (10:53):
Sure. So it's a safety subscription, so you subscribe to it and then you get access to basically my knowledge is what you get. That's the easiest way to describe it in the form of I have video courses on there. I've got a library of safety documents on there. Again, there's a lot of times when these little companies don't know what they don't know. Does that make sense? They didn't realize that they had to have an accident registry or they didn't realize that they had to have consent forms filled out for the clearinghouse and stuff like that. So I got all those documents there that you can customize to your liking or whatever, put your titles on 'em, whatever. And then there's also a subscriber's only monthly webinar where we talk about maybe new regulations that are coming out or the DOT blitz week that's going to be coming up here.
(11:43):
And it seems like they used to have 'em once a year now, like I think there's like three or something this year I've seen. So they're coming out and then there's a text line, a subscriber only text where you can text me if I haven't answered your questions in the content, you can text me directly and ask questions on safety related stuff. Those four pieces are what I've included in this subscription bundle. And quite frankly, the reason is I give my knowledge to everybody that could use it. And I know there's probably some smart Alex out there like, wow, that's pretty pompous of you to think, Hey, give me your knowledge. But in all honesty, I've been doing this stuff for, like I said, my entire life. I've been working in trucking companies since the late nineties. So I come from a lot of real world examples and say, this is why this matters, because I'm a very old millennial, and our biggest thing with our generation is why do we need to do this?
(12:39):
Why do we need to do that? And that's what I try to explain in all the courses right now. I've got two courses available as of today of this recording. I'll have four more here in the next couple of weeks, complete it. But all of them are going over stuff that hours of service. How do you do hours of service? What do you do after an accident? How do you start an effective driving coaching program, driver coaching program, all these pieces that a lot of companies that I've seen in my past number of years, this is all things that they need help with. And so I'm trying to take all of this knowledge and literally all this data that I've collected too in various forms and put it all into one bundle so that you can have access to it whenever you need it.
Jeremy Reymer (13:25):
Well, that's super valuable. I'm unfamiliar with anyone else doing something like this. I think it's unique. I think it's something certainly that's extremely valuable, especially for smaller fleets that they don't have the expertise, nor do they have the budget for the expertise to hire somebody internally that's just not realistic to hire someone like you. They just can't afford to do that, but to have access to you, and I think it's novel. I think it's genius, honestly. How can we help them learn more?
Sam Watts (13:54):
So you can go to my website, watman.com, and there's a subscription button at the top there that you can click on and sign up from there. But you're exactly right. The reason why I started this was for the smaller fleets, the number of trucks from one to 10 is in the 90%. Most of the industry is small fleets. And the other thing that I've seen too in helping smaller companies out is they say, Hey, I need help with this. I need help with that, or whatever. Okay, great. If you want me to come out, let me know. Well, we don't have an office. Everything is so online now and that we don't even have a physical building that you could even come to look at our driver qualification files. So there's even that issue that's starting to pop up now. So I'm saying, okay, maybe you don't want me to come out and that's fine, but you still need help with this.
(14:46):
Here's how you can do it. Here's what one of the classes I'm working on right now is what an audit looks like. What if a DOT auditor were to come to your office? What are they going to look for? It's when I go out and do DOT audits. I'm not with the DOT, but I do the mock audits. I follow all their procedures so that the company I'm with or the company I'm auditing, they know that what I'm doing is what a DOT guy would do. Well, again, sometimes they don't have a place for me to go do that. So here's a class that it will explain everything A DOT auditor will do so that you can do it on your own and make sure that your files are up to speed. And again, I'm really trying to go for the smaller companies. That's why I price it at 4 99 for the year, 499 for the year because I really want this to be used. I want the small companies to not have to worry about subscribing to this thing, maybe skipping over their safety piece again because they can't afford it. I don't want that 4 99 for the year. Any new thing that comes out, you automatically get it as well. New classes, new documents, anything they all get pushed out to you.
Jeremy Reymer (15:55):
Well, first of all, that's a no-brainer from a price point that's really generous. And I'm guessing maybe part of your logic for that price point was just out of consideration for the challenging environment that we've been in. I mean, I dunno, three years and counting, it's been rough. I think that's fantastic. I appreciate that and I hope that you see a lot of takers. I think it's great. I think it makes a lot of sense. I do want to pick your brain on a few things related to just safety, compliance and risk, especially in light of one, the current administration and then also the recently overturned. Was it $90 million Warner lawsuit? What are the biggest changes you expect to see in regards to regulations? As with this current administration?
Sam Watts (16:41):
There's a group of US safety people out there. We chat, we've got our own little private chat line. We go back and forth. One of the things is we are very hopeful with the new administration that they'll actually do something, but we're not willing to take or place bets on it just yet because it's like now they have started to try to enforce the English language enforcement has been obviously the big one that a lot of people have noticed. But again, that's not nothing new that's always been on the books, it's they're choosing to enforce it now, which is good. It's necessary. You need to read English if you're going to be here, you have to read what the signs say. I've seen a list of things that they are proposing. Again, we'll see if they get around to that. I know the big thing right now in the industry is fraud as far as double brokering or whatever it looks like. It looks like they're starting to take that serious, which is great because that is killing the industry to be honest with you. So that would be really nice if they addressed that too. So it looks like they're doing stuff. I'm hopeful that they're going to keep going. Time will tell.
Jeremy Reymer (17:50):
Yeah, it seems like truck parking is a thing that they're aware of and also I'm not sure what they're going to be able to do about it, but certainly it's a topic that's coming up continually. So I mean, that's a good thing. I know that that's a common complaint from drivers. Justifiably
Sam Watts (18:08):
They need more truck parking. I mean, if you've ever been out in the interstate system, there's a lot of trucks that are parked on shoulders, on ramps, off ramps, all that kind of stuff. That's not safe. I mean, it's illegal in most spots. You just have this big rig parked on the side of the road like that. It's a time bomb way to go off. So they do need to address the parking situation, and I know they are looking into that as well.
Jeremy Reymer (18:27):
With the Werner lawsuit that I referenced, how will overturning that sort of impact this, what we've seen steadily rising nuclear verdict and settlement environment like now for close to a decade? Do you think it'll have any impact there? Do you think it'll make people think twice or do you think for them it's just a bump in otherwise well paved playbook? But do you think this will have any bearing on their efforts to go after fleets?
Sam Watts (18:54):
From a guy looking at the industry? I don't think this is going to deter the lawyers from going after trucking companies, but I think this will give trucking companies a little more ammunition and hope if we're involved in something that now we actually do have a fighting shot at getting out of it. And again, with this Warner thing, it was kind of a wrong place at the wrong time type deal. Unfortunately, the worst part about this is that a kid died. It's just terrible. I wish that stuff didn't happen out there, but this is some of the risks that we as safety guys look at and say, how can we make sure that this industry is better? So this word guy truck was just kind of in the wrong place at the wrong time and it got overturned, which I think was probably the right thing.
(19:36):
I think this will give trucking companies a little more fight to say, Hey, this wasn't our fault because I know weer they have a good safety department, but this should be a wake up call to a lot of trucking companies out there. And this is one of my big passions that I go for, and this is why I started this subscription was because you never know when a crash is going to happen. I've yet to have a driver call me in the morning and say, Hey, I'm going to get into a crash today. And then you never know. And this Warner truck was again, wrong place at the wrong time, wasn't even his fault because another guy came over across the lane and even the responding officer, I believe said it wasn't his fault. But I mean, you never know. So that's why you have to make sure that your safety and your compliance is up to check or up to speed all times. Because again, if you've ever driven on the interstate system, you've seen the billboards of all these lawyers that are saying have been hit by a big truck, help us out, record number of cases, one, stuff like that. I'm not going to say anything about those lawyers other than they are extremely smart and they know exactly what to look for and they know how to tug at the heartstrings of any jury out there. And if you don't have your safety and compliance in order, you will not beat them.
Jeremy Reymer (20:55):
Get your checkbook out. And so all the more value and reason why I think it's important for people to align with you and consider working with you from a subscription standpoint. Before we go, I do want to be sure we take a minute and answer a question during the show's industry health segment, which is sponsored by Project 61. And the question is, how important is driver health and wellness when it comes to safety and compliance? What do you think?
Sam Watts (21:23):
It's incredibly important, and one of the big things that I have seen in my time in safety is it's getting harder and harder to get med cards. Now, I'm not saying that a driver can't get one. There's always going to be someone that will pass, but I have seen in the last handful of years, it used to automatically be, at least you get a year med card. The good guys would get a two year med card. You'd at least get a one year. I saw fairly recently, a three month med card. That's all the further the guy could get. So it's like you have to take care of yourself. It used to be if you were diabetic, you couldn't drive. Well, now you can. If you had high blood pressure, you couldn't drive. Now you can. So we have all this medication to help you, but so many people are relying on that now.
(22:09):
And trust me, I'm not a beacon of health myself, but at the same time, if you're going to be out on the road, you have to take steps to take care of yourself if you want to stay out on the road, which a lot of drivers do, a lot of drivers like the lifestyle. They like driving, they like seeing the country. They like all that stuff. You have to make health somewhat of a priority for you sitting too long. So you have to do it, if anything, just so you can stay out on the road and pass your med cart. If you only get a three or six month med card, now you got to come back all the time and keep reviewing it and all, oh, it's such a hassle anymore.
Jeremy Reymer (22:44):
Well, it's not only that, I mean the time consuming and the hassle part of it, but if you're only getting a three month med card or even six months, that means you're not in the greatest health. Basically. There's a threshold that you need to be able to pass in order to get a two year recert. And so if you can't, then there are some things that are at issue or concern that won't allow you to get that two years. And so there are things that you should be addressing and be more preventative in the industry as it is. This is why I'm such a big proponent of Project 61 and addressing driver health and wellness is the fact that you're sedentary so much of the day, you're not eating, most drivers aren't eating properly, certainly not on a consistent basis, and then are not sleeping well. And then on top of that, it's a day's long's worth of stress and then wake up and do it all over again. They don't eat the frog in the morning. They're eating a frog all damn day. And so it is a tough, tough job. And I say this all the time, that a healthier driver is a safer driver. At the end of the day. They're just going to be more aware, certainly more productive, less likely to injure themselves or others and that sort of thing. So that's why I'm a big proponent of it. And sadly, I think the statistic is like 45% of drivers don't get a two year physical. It's close to 50. It's a really high statistic. I mean, we can do better than that.
(24:21):
We have to do better than that. So yeah, no, I appreciate your insights today and always appreciate just your friendship, love the work that you're doing, and thank you so much for joining me.
Sam Watts (24:36):
Well, I appreciate, I'm so glad we randomly ran into each other in Louisville on the way to dinner that one night. I was actually on my way back to the hotel and we passed each other on the street, and you said, what are you doing? I said, I'm going back to my hotel. He is like, you want to go grab dinner? I said, yeah, let's do it. And that's
Jeremy Reymer (24:53):
Where we started. Well, because we hadn't met yet. We knew each other. We had knew of each other. We just hadn't met in person. But just for the record, if you live anywhere near, it's not Louisville, it's Louisville. Louisville. You have to say it. If you put a whole bunch of marbles in your mouth and it's one syllable. Louisville.
Sam Watts (25:12):
Yeah, I'm in Northerner though, so it's, I'm just missing Louisville.
Jeremy Reymer (25:16):
Yeah, exactly. It's just fun to say. But hey, I really appreciate it and I look forward to seeing you again soon.
Sam Watts (25:24):
You as well. Thank you very much.
Jeremy Reymer (25:25):
Thank you for taking the higher road with me once again. Special thanks to the sponsors of the show. We really appreciate you. And again, if you're interested in being a sponsor or joining me for an interview, please email Jeremy at taking the higher road.com. Until next time, thank you for taking the higher road.