How Road Dog is Elevating Life on the Road

In this episode, Bob Book, Director of Marketing for Road Dog Care Company and VP of Marketing for Revolution Trucking, shares his path from general marketing into the world of trucking and wellness. He reflects on the surprising warmth of the trucking community and how genuine connections fuel long-term success.

Bob and Jeremy discuss how Road Dog Care evolved from a coffee brand into a complete wellness company, offering hygiene and health products designed by and for truckers. They also explore how thoughtful marketing and small gestures can improve retention and driver satisfaction.

This episode offers valuable insights into brand evolution, wellness on the road, and the power of marketing with heart. If you're interested in how care and creativity can shape a stronger trucking industry, this conversation is for you.

What is Taking The Hire Road?

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.

[00:00:07] Jeremy Reymer: 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 50 years of the host of this show, I bring over two decades of industry experience, both on the carrier side as well as the vendor side.

[00:00:22] Jeremy Reymer: 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.

[00:00:36] Jeremy Reymer: 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. This week I'm excited to be joined by Bob Book, director of Marketing for Road Dog Care Company, and VP of Marketing for Revolution Trucking, who also happens to be another fellow podcaster.

[00:00:57] Jeremy Reymer: Thank you for joining me, Bob.

[00:00:59] Bob Book: thanks so much for having me. Uh, there's gotta be something about being a podcast host that just immediately makes you go bald.

[00:01:04] Jeremy Reymer: It is.

[00:01:05] Bob Book: it's a Mirror image here, man.

[00:01:06] Jeremy Reymer: And handsome, middle-aged, handsome, bald white guys. I mean pod podcasting and trucking.

[00:01:14] Bob Book: Population for sure.

[00:01:16] Jeremy Reymer: certainly love to hear about your background, you know, what attracted you to the trucking industry? and learn how Road Dog Care company is helping drivers just with a, a variety of products, especially for their time on the road.

[00:01:25] Jeremy Reymer: Uh, you're also the VP of marketing, as I said, for uh, revolution Trucking. So perhaps we can get into that a little bit. And then I want to hear, about your entertaining show, the Film and Whiskey podcast. And then lastly, we'll answer this, uh, episode's industry health question, which is sponsored by Project 61.

[00:01:41] Jeremy Reymer: Does that work for you?

[00:01:42] Bob Book: Absolutely, man. Let's get into it.

[00:01:44] Jeremy Reymer: All right. Well, before we do,I have a favorite icebreaker question, can you share a specific book that's been impactful to you?

[00:01:51] Bob Book: Absolutely. Yeah. Honestly, you, you mentioned my podcast. I have a podcast called Film and Whiskey, so we review classic movies. We drink whiskeys each week. And through that podcast I've gotten to know some great film critics and a friend of ours. Noah Gittell Last year he put out a book called Baseball the movie, and it was all about baseball movies, but he really looked at it through more of a cultural lens.

[00:02:12] Bob Book: He talked about how baseball and movies used to be kind of the pinnacle. Of American culture, like it was a communal thing to go to

[00:02:20] Bob Book: a

[00:02:20] Bob Book: baseball game to go to a movie. Over the years, both of them have kind of tapered off a bit, and so he structures the book, not by movie, but kind of by era and what the baseball movie said about kind of what America thought of itself at the time. Super interesting book.

[00:02:37] Jeremy Reymer: Yeah, no, that sounds fascinating. Uh, I've not heard of it. I'm adding it to my good reads as soon as we're done here, because that's the type of thing. I mean, honestly, for me right now with my kids, I am, uh, I. Embracing baseball. me growing up in LA I've been a Dodger fan my whole life and it's fun to see my children enjoy baseball.

[00:02:54] Jeremy Reymer: We go to different, uh, cities and watch a different game. Doesn't have to be the Dodgers. It, and it doesn't matter. It just gives us a reason to go do a thing together. And so I'm embracing that, but I absolutely recognize that, that's not happening on a regular basis. If you, if you have season tickets to a baseball game, you may go like.

[00:03:11] Jeremy Reymer: A few games maybe,

[00:03:12] Bob Book: I'm not here to speculate about pricing or anything like that, but there is something every time I go to a baseball game and it's like in the middle of a downtown area and there's just this kind of quiet, reverent green space that we're all sitting in, I, you know, it's just like, why don't I do this more

[00:03:28] Bob Book: I feel like a lot of people are that way with movies too now.

[00:03:30] Jeremy Reymer: Yeah. Well, and not only that, uh, I think there is, you, you mentioned, you know, Reverend and Green Space, and that reminds me of just the importance of being in nature. And not that I want to take us down a whole nother path of, you know, conversation and, and philosophy especially, but there's a therapeutic, element to, to being in nature, to being in, you know.

[00:03:50] Jeremy Reymer: A nice green space or being surrounded by a big diamond where people are getting paid millions of dollars to club a ball out of the stands.

[00:03:57] Bob Book: speaking of books, let's open up the pages of Bob Book. I know that was, that was weak.

[00:04:03] Bob Book: That was good. That was a good one, man.

[00:04:05] Jeremy Reymer: what's your background and just how did you, uh, get into the trucking industry?

[00:04:09] Bob Book: Yeah, so I mean, I'm relatively new to the trucking industry, relatively speaking. I've been working full-time with a, a regional trucking company called Revolution Trucking. It's headquartered in Akron, Ohio, uh, for about three years now, full-time. And so I got my feet wet learning about, you know, the, the regional trucking business.

[00:04:27] Bob Book: Obviously we do, freight from coast to coast, but like headquartered in Ohio. Lots of stuff coming from the Chicago area. And so. out the lingo of trucking,

[00:04:37] Jeremy Reymer: Hmm.

[00:04:37] Bob Book: out the different asset types. You know, it was kind of like you get thrown into the fire and your job as a marketer is. How do you communicate the story, not just of what this company does well, but to the general public.

[00:04:49] Bob Book: You know, this is right post COVID. So part of my job was how do we communicate to the general public what the trucking industry really does for our economy and for our country? And I feel like that was kind of setting the perfect ground for the work I would go on to do with road dog care as well.

[00:05:04] Jeremy Reymer: Yeah. Uh, I think once you've probably recognized this being that you've, you've lasted, you know, three years so far, once you get into the trucking industry, if you embrace it, right, if you, if you give it your heart, it embraces you right back. And it's one of those things you just like, man, this is fantastic.

[00:05:19] Jeremy Reymer: And I would say, we talked about the middle aged bald white guys. club, you know, very much a big part of trucking, but also, uh, you build relationships that can be pretty deep, genuine. And that last a lifetime. That's something that I've experienced. this is my 22nd year and, I wouldn't wanna do anything else.

[00:05:36] Jeremy Reymer: I love it.

[00:05:37] Bob Book: Yeah. I've worked across a lot of industries in marketing and you know, a lot of times when something is as close knit as the trucking community, people will throw words around like a boys club, and that's not at all what I've experienced with trucking. What I've found is that it's really, uh, grassroots.

[00:05:52] Bob Book: It's people. Respecting each other, recommending each other. And once you start building some of those relationships, it's uh, one of the more generous industries I've been a part of.

[00:06:01] Jeremy Reymer: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent agree. and while we're still talking about you, before we get into Road Dogg and, and Revolution. Uh, I want to dive into the film and whiskey, right. The podcast, which for, for the audience sake, you can check it [e-mail], but, uh, I know it's not necessarily a trucking podcast, but it's, but it's not, not one either, right?

[00:06:20] Jeremy Reymer: It's, it's really for everyone who appreciates movies and whiskey, and that's, that's most of us, right? That's American. how did you let share a little bit about the, uh, podcast and, and how it, uh, got it. Start.

[00:06:29] Bob Book: I mean, you can see I'm, I'm kind of sitting in front of my nerdy collection of, of movies right now, so I've always been a movie nerd. It was just something that growing up, you know, I loved watching Cisco and Ebert. Every Saturday my dad and I would go to the movies and we'd check to see, I. How many stars it got out of four.

[00:06:45] Bob Book: So it's always been a passion of mine. And I was going to grad school in Kentucky and a buddy of mine were kind of falling in love with whiskey at the same time that I started introducing him to some of the classic movies that I really liked. you know, being bald, middle aged white guys, we said, Hey. Other people need to hear us talk about these things. It can't just be between us. And so we launched the podcast back in 2019. We've published weekly for six plus years now. I think we're over 400 episodes in, uh, it's been a roller coaster ride, man, but some great relationships have come out of this thing so far.

[00:07:18] Jeremy Reymer: Yeah, that's, that's a lot of fun. We keep referencing the, the, the middle-aged white guys actually, it, it spells out it's MAWG mog. I think that that's the thing. We, we might have to start calling.

[00:07:29] Bob Book: we've gotta patent that while we still Right.

[00:07:32] Jeremy Reymer: uh, you mentioned, uh, Cisco and Ebert. What a blast from the past for me, I mean, I remember watching them as a kid, you know, I think it was always like in the middle of the day on a Saturday when there's nothing else on and you're like, I'm gonna hear about these new movies that they're reviewing.

[00:07:44] Jeremy Reymer: And that was a part of my childhood growing up. that was a nice little, uh. You know, reminiscent, uh, opportunity there. So thank you for that.

[00:07:52] Bob Book: here for, man. I'm glad I could walk you down Memory lane.

[00:07:55] Jeremy Reymer: Well, for, again, for those who, uh, who are you, definitely gotta check it out. film whiskey.com.

[00:08:00] Jeremy Reymer: Check it out. I accessed it. You can easily just, uh, you can get episodes right there.

[00:08:04] Bob Book: circling back to trucking, let's, let's talk about Road Dog Care Company. So it used to be, uh, road Dog Coffee Company, right? But you're, or at least that's what I knew it as, right?

[00:08:14] Jeremy Reymer: Because that's what I would, I would always see, uh, industry friends on social media, you know, posting picks, commenting on drinking, uh, road dog coffee and stuff like that, promoting the brand. But I know that you're so much more than that. So can you share what all does? Road dog, uh, care company do. And maybe we can break this up in sort of two parts.

[00:08:32] Jeremy Reymer: Maybe you can talk about what you're currently doing and then talk about where you're headed as you are committed to driver wellness.

[00:08:38] Bob Book: Absolutely. Yeah. So you mentioned Road Dog Coffee. Uh, that launched about two years ago. That was kind of our entry point into the market, and that started with a really passionate guy, Spencer Squire, who, uh, after COVID, like I was saying earlier, he owned a trucking company. He wanted to get good coffee in the hands of truckers when they were on the road.

[00:08:56] Bob Book: And, you know, if you know truckers. They love coffee man. Everybody's got their own poison. With some people it's energy drinks with a lot of these guys, it's coffee. And so we made some great inroads there. But then through some relationships that we had, including uh, the owner of Revolution Trucking, we decided that these guys need more than just coffee on the road.

[00:09:14] Bob Book: And so we started going to truckers and asking them, Hey. guys like the coffee? What else would you like to have on the road with you? And so through that we developed some relationship with some great local manufacturers as well, and really built this thing out into not just a coffee line, but a full health and wellness line of products for truckers. I know that a lot of truckers, you know, you'll go to your convenience stores or your truck stops. They have their preferred brands. This is the first brand that's not just designed for truckers, but at every step of the process designed by truckers. So like for example, one of our products that we sell in our hygiene category is a full body bathing wipe. And you might be familiar with the similar shower wipes that are sold at truck stops. Ours are way thicker. Ours are way stronger. And crucially, what we heard from a lot of these guys. Is when I take a pack of these things out on the road with me. If I go to a Costco or a Sam's and I buy the competitor brand, they come in like a hundred pack.

[00:10:08] Bob Book: And if I'm going out for a week at a time in December, it gets frozen in in my truck. I can't use those wipes anymore. So everything from the configuration, the number of wipes in a package, everything at every step of the process has been shaped by truckers.

[00:10:23] Jeremy Reymer: and that's today, right? can you give us a, a glimpse of how, what, what the vision is for? Because I think, I think the market needs this candidly. I think you're onto something. I think you're, you're, you're striking a chord. I I've seen that in the last couple years, like you said, with Road Dog coffee.

[00:10:38] Jeremy Reymer: what's to come? And I wanna make sure that, uh, our listeners know how to find and buy some of, uh, road Doug's products.

[00:10:46] Bob Book: Absolutely. So like I said, we sell across four categories. We call them hygiene, wellness, alertness, and then pets. So we have, uh, products in all four of those categories, you know, almost 50% of over the road truckers now have a pet with them on the road, and their solutions are even more limited. So like when they go to a truck stop.

[00:11:05] Bob Book: They might not be able to get a shower for themselves. They definitely can't get one for their pet. So we're trying to supply those things that truckers really need on the road and in order to couple with that. We're working with carriers as well. So this is, you know, we see this not just as a, a play for carriers to do driver appreciation, but the sort of thing where if you're a carrier working with a small, medium, large size fleet, this is a fantastic retention tool.

[00:11:29] Bob Book: This is the kind of thing that drivers have voiced to

[00:11:31] Jeremy Reymer: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:32] Bob Book: these things on the road. We have to buy them out of pocket right now. Wouldn't it be great if our company showed appreciation for us in those ways? So as we move forward, the two things. We want to continue building out our product line.

[00:11:44] Bob Book: We want to have a, a full support suite of health and wellness products. Whether that means supplements, whether that means things like compression socks down the road. Uh, you can take a look at our website now, road dog care.com for the products that we currently have. also continuing to build out the ecosystem of the types of groups we're working with.

[00:12:03] Bob Book: Obviously we love working directly with truckers, shipping these things to their homes, getting them on a subscription, but we wanna work with carriers, we wanna work with driving schools, we wanna work with insurance companies. There are so many touch points where we can get products in the hands of the people that need them, and I think that as a trucking community, we can all kind of rally around the need for health and wellness in the trucker space.

[00:12:24] Jeremy Reymer: Yeah. And that's certainly an area that is, uh, that I'm passionate about. You know, with the work that I'm doing with Project 61, there is an interest, there is a demand, and, and we've got a.

[00:12:33] Jeremy Reymer: Do something about it. you're a marketer. let's talk about Revolution for a second. Revolution Trucking.

[00:12:38] Jeremy Reymer: If you can share, uh, a bit about, uh, revolution Trucking and how, especially in your marketing leadership role, how you're using marketing and storytelling, uh, especially in this industry, you know, to thrive.

[00:12:48] Bob Book: Oh, a hundred percent I think. me, what I've realized is, you know, I could bring principles of kind of past marketing things that I've done into this space, but there's so many trucking companies, right? It's, it's one of the, the biggest industries in the country. There's so many people employed by trucking that you really have to try to find exactly what it is that differentiates you. One of the things I love about Revolution is that for being a smaller carrier, uh, it's not a downside, right? It's the kind of thing where. Because you have dedicated staff working with every single client. You've got immediate touch points with people, but they've also heavily invested in their tech stack as well.

[00:13:22] Bob Book: So super high tech, cutting edge, competing with, you know, frankly, companies that are much, much larger in scale than they are. And so we actually just recently rebranded their website and relaunched it, uh, just two weeks ago to try to tell that story a little bit better as they continue to. Expand our reach to both coasts and nationwide. Uh, we, we actually adopted a new slogan and tagline as well. We're already there because I really think that revolution, whether it's geographically, whether it's in having 24 7 support, whether it's in having a real person to talk to at the end of the line, is leading this industry in a lot of these different areas.

[00:13:58] Bob Book: And now the marketing, the storytelling that we're, uh, you know, engaging in is reflecting that as well.

[00:14:04] Jeremy Reymer: Well, and that's something, you know, being that it's, a super traditional industry like trucking, I think leveraging those principles that you're talking about, the storytelling, like, um, this is a challenging market for trucking. I mean, this has been tough. the entire time you've been in it is as bad as it's been in 20 years

[00:14:21] Bob Book: but we're still, I mean. The world still turns, right, the demand is still there. It's just not as much and there's plenty of issues why?

[00:14:27] Jeremy Reymer: And there's over capacity, especially since COVID and stuff like that. And that's hasn't been completely, you know, settled out and fleshed out. But that all said, being able to, I think, uh, find success. And, uh, in, in this market, in this industry, just leveraging some of the marketing, uh, practices I think is great.

[00:14:43] Jeremy Reymer: it is refreshing and, uh, glad to see that you've made some progress there.

[00:14:47] Jeremy Reymer: I wanna make sure that we, uh, we, we take a minute and answer a question during the show's industry health segment, which is sponsored by Project 61, the question is, what do drivers on the road really need from a health and wellness standpoint? Is that somethingthat you might be able to speak to?

[00:15:02] Bob Book: Well, yeah, I am the authoritative voice on this matter, so I, it's a good thing you brought me on here today to answer that question once and for all. honestly, as we started expanding our product line with Road Dog Care and, and not just doing kind of market research, but really deep research into the health and wellness of truckers, we found some really startling figures, right?

[00:15:22] Bob Book: It's something like 300,000. CDL drivers can't pass their physical every year.

[00:15:27] Jeremy Reymer: Mm-hmm.

[00:15:28] Bob Book: And so, you know, obviously we're not, we're not marketing pharmaceuticals here, like we're doing things that are adjacent to that, that promote a healthy and and wellness based lifestyle. But what we've found a lot of times is that because of the hours these guys are working, uh, because sometimes they feel like they can't stop and take a shower, they can't take a moment for themselves. We need to be able to come alongside them and make their lives easier in that

[00:15:51] Bob Book: way time and time again. What we heard from truckers was, you know, in this climate there are two kinds of carriers right now. There are carriers that are cutting costs, and because of that, the drivers feel neglected. And then there are ones that are investing in their drivers.

[00:16:05] Bob Book: And that doesn't necessarily mean a huge dollar investment, but what it means is something practical that can be given to them that says, we see you, we care about you. We know it's hard out there on the road, here's something that can make that trip a little bit easier for you. you know, it's a, it's kind of a vague answer, right?

[00:16:22] Bob Book: But when it comes to the health and wellness of truckers, there's a lot of components. It's the physical, it's the hygienic, it's the mental health aspects, and that's what we're hoping to help with a little bit with Road dog care.

[00:16:33] Jeremy Reymer: you make a really good point though, because I think earlier we talked about retention and how that is this, that's exactly the right attitude to think about at the end of the day. It doesn't have to be big dollar things, right? It's just, it's that you care that you're making an effort and you're showing you care and you're backing that up with, with action and you're providing them with things that are valuable, that are useful to them on the road.

[00:16:55] Jeremy Reymer: Uh, things that might not be easily accessible, you know, while they're away. And so, so that said, I think that's really important and, and it also reminded me of, and I. I quote, a really good industry friend, uh, Tracy Rushing with Ari Garrison. Uh, I always wanna give her credit for this because this is, I heard this from her, but I say it all the time.

[00:17:14] Jeremy Reymer: She talks about being two things. She talks about being a carrier that is a destination employer, so that's, that's a little bit of an attitude to have, but what really is special to me. Is the mindset that She says at their company, we have two types of employees, right?

[00:17:29] Jeremy Reymer: Two types of people. Here we have drivers, and then we have people who support the drivers. And it's that simple. When you, when you have that sort of mindset. Yeah, then everyone else's role is supportive of the driver. And when you think that way, then all of the decisions that you're making are geared towards making sure that drivers don't feel the way you just described.

[00:17:49] Jeremy Reymer: Where, they're an afterthought in the or, they're the ones feeling the pain from cost cutting measures and stuff like that. Uh, it's really important to make sure that, that drivers are being supported.

[00:17:59] Bob Book: Well, yeah, and again, coming from a marketing background, what we've found with a lot of these carriers is that they have a marketing budget and they are trying to support their drivers with that marketing budget. But it's not necessarily the things that the drivers are expressing a need in, right? It's another shirt or a stress ball or some level of tchotchkes that are being given to them on a recurring basis.

[00:18:20] Bob Book: And what we're proposing is, hey. is already in your marketing budget to support your drivers, whether they're employee drivers or or owner operators that are being contracted. You know, these guys, especially the over the road drivers, their cab is their home away from

[00:18:33] Jeremy Reymer: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:33] Bob Book: And when you think about your own home, you want like the luxuries in your own home, but you need the comforts.

[00:18:38] Bob Book: You need the things that make you feel human, that make you get up in the morning and feel like you can keep going. That kind of alleviate some of that grind and so. Our MO as Road Dog Care is we want to keep their cabs stocked with everything that they need when they are out on the road, because we think of it as a home away from home.

[00:18:56] Bob Book: Yeah, no, absolutely. It, it is. And you mentioned that they've already got, you know, dollars, uh, assigned, you know, for, uh, for marketing to their, to their drivers. They've got a lot more. Or in their recruiting budget, that if they did some of these things, they wouldn't have to spend so much over there, You know, that's one of the crazy things that, you know, again, coming from an outsider's perspective into this industry a couple years ago, it's getting into the five figures, $10,000 plus to recruit a new driver. When you consider all the

[00:19:26] Bob Book: marketing and travel expenses and everything else that a lot of these carriers are paying to hire a new driver, turnover rates are not going

[00:19:34] Jeremy Reymer: Yeah.

[00:19:34] Bob Book: And what we found is that when corners are getting cut or when budgets are getting cut, retention budgets are the first things to go, Here. On one hand you've got a a $10,000 replacement cost. On the other hand, you've got something as simple as a 30, 40, $50 kit of care products that if you give that to a trucker, it might make them want to stay on a little bit longer because they recognize that you want to keep them in comfort while they're on the road for you.

[00:20:01] Jeremy Reymer: Yep. Absolutely love it. I think, you're preaching to the choir and I love that, that we're both part of that choir. So yeah, I'm excited about that. Uh, Bob, thank you so much for joining me. Uh, appreciate your passion, your expertise, and uh, I look forward to seeing you in person soon.

[00:20:14] Bob Book: Hey, thanks so much for having me. Appreciate it.

[00:20:16] Jeremy Reymer: Thank you for taking the higher road with me once again. Special thanks to the sponsors of the show. We really appreciate you. 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