Transcription
Um, I tell people I don't give handouts; I give opportunities. I gotta, you know, dispatch service. For example, we have thousands of students, so it's never a shortage of trucks that I have to dispatch for. My cousins or family members that were asking me for money, I said, "Yo, bro, here go my course. I'm gonna give you a free login. Take three months, learn it. I got a job waiting for you; you come dispatch these trucks." Some of them took the opportunity, but then there are others that didn't take the opportunity. But guess what happens now? Now you can't ask me for money no more. My success would not hit the same if somebody gave it to me. I wouldn't have nothing to talk about on this stage in front of these thousands of people; it would have been handed to me. What am I gonna talk about?
[Applause] [Music]
Yo, what's good? What's popping? What it is, what it ain't, what it could be, what it should be, what it would be? Cam Newton, the son, Mr. Boogie to all, and I'm here with another episode of Funky Friday. I promise, I really do promise to give you real good content for the masses, but most of all, I promise to keep it funky for your asses. Now, in my midst today, we have two Black entrepreneurs, men that are doing it in their own way, same ministry, just in a way that they're making their own impact. We have a business mogul, a CEO, a life coach—hey, did I say CEO? I did say that—and a person who has created a genre for influencers to use their voice in a positive way. Alongside him, we have another person, a visionary, a person who's using his influence in a positive way by being a business owner and impacting the transportation industry. To my left, we have Alex, good energy, and to my far left, we have Jeremy Hill. Fellas, what the [ __ ] is good, man?
It's an honor to be here, brother.
Yes, so man, look, let's get right on to it. You know what I'm saying? Obviously, like I said, this episode is very strategic for me because as I kind of get into the transportation industry for my own, I think you are a person that every time I talk to somebody where they're trying to get certificates, where they're trying to apply for different, you know, insurances or MC numbers, D.O.T. numbers, don't matter what it is, your name keeps coming up, bro. Have you reached out to Alex?
Bro, dude, bro, in Atlanta, you know what I'm saying? How did you even come about, you know, and to the viewer who may not know you, what is it that you do?
Right, uh, which camera am I looking at? Man, it's your camera right here. That's our camera right? Hi, cool.
Man, honestly, Cam, it was so organic, bro. Like, I literally just started my own trucking company in 2012, and I had just had—literally had just started my Instagram page, man. At the time, you know, I just started sharing my journey. I was like, "What am I going to post about?" and the only thing that I was consumed with at that time was my trucking company. Like, I was 100% focused on it. So, with a little bit of followers I had at the time, I had about 800 followers, I was just showing the journey of me getting my first truck, right? I was super transparent, showing them like when I lost my first truck, when I went out of business in the first 11 months, and then I grinded back to get it back up and running. I was literally just showing and being super transparent with what I had going on, right? And then when I finally started seeing some daylight was 2015, is when I finally like really started having some sort of success in the game.
So, what does daylight look like? You know, daylight is actually being green, actually making a profit. You know, I had been running for the first three or four years; I was running a non-profit organization, as my accountant called it. You think what I'm saying? So, I'm running, but I'm not really doing the business correctly. So, I ended up just really just growing pains, man, right? But I finally saw my first profit in green in 2015 once I worked out all my kinks, and the following year is when I did my first seven figures in trucking.
And it was at that moment—now, before you sit up here and just subtly say figures, you said how many figures? Seven. Real numbers. Yeah, as the young folks say, or the Gen Z say, no cap. None at all.
Yeah, right. And you know, what's your technique in doing it? Did you drive trucks?
Nah, I never drove a truck a day in my life, man. Yeah, I never—to this day, I don't got a CDL. You know, and it's so funny because when I first got into the industry and I was telling people that, I was actually ashamed of it at first. It was actually something that was looked at as a handicap. Like, how you in the trucking industry, how you own trucks, and you don't drive trucks? You dig? And it's so funny because I ended up meeting my mentor, you know, in my E.T., the Hip Hop.
Yeah, yeah.
And when I first met him, man, the first thing he said was, "Man, I've been hearing about you, and you didn't did all this, and you never drove a truck?" Like, it takes a certain level of execution to pull this off, right, without driving the truck. So, what started off as a handicap for me ended up being my superpower and being a part of my story, right?
So, even then, to that point, you know, you got Jeremy Hill, a person similar to you. Have you ever driven a truck?
Never drove a truck, bro.
Right, and what's like your claim to fame of how you find, you know, the means to take care of your family?
Um, almost similar to him, you know, in 2014, I got into the industry under another company, was successful inside that company, but realized that they weren't respecting me as such. You know, it was an industry where the minority was slim to none. You know, I was in the office full of, you know, Caucasians. You could say the numbers were probably ten to one, 15 to one, really.
Um, and then I just took a leap of faith, you know, and said, "You know, the only thing they was giving me was a computer and a phone," right? Right, and some insurance. So, I took the initiative and said, "What makes you guys better than me?" Right? Independently.
Right, so I think when I look at YouTube, right, and I think this is more so for the viewer because some would say, who's not abreast to our culture, if they see you, "Oh, here, athlete. Oh, that's a rapper. Oh, that's, you know, he in some type of illegal activity," right? You think what I'm saying? But every single time I see you, Alex, like you got it on, you know, shout out to my boy. But at the end of the day, that's just a part of us, you know what I mean? How important—and the same question goes for both of you guys—it's like how important is image and not changing, you know what I'm saying, in an industry that may not look like you, but you being you is, like you said, your superpower?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think Migos got a song, "We Set the Trends," you know what I'm saying? Like, I didn't want to be like nobody else. I definitely want to be my authentic self. And it's so funny because when I got in the truck, it wasn't sexy. You know, trucking wasn't a sexy industry. It's still not.
Yeah.
But I'm just here to represent and show people that, you know, you don't gotta get a record deal; you don't gotta have a bus contract to live the same life that they live. You know what I'm saying? We grew up thinking that we had to play ball and we had to sing and rap in order to drive how we drive and live in the business to make it out.
Yeah, right, for sure. You know what I'm saying? And I think entrepreneurship, man, it's—I don't want to say it's a new wave because it's been here, but we really show people that entrepreneurship can get you exactly what you want to get. But it's not that it's a new wave. I think the thing that—and not to say that you're wrong or right, I'm saying that we're not used to seeing people that look like us, right, and have our same type of likes for things to really make real money. You feel what I'm saying? And it's like when you're saying bringing in seven figures, that's a wowing kind of like, "Hold up, wait, what you say?" Who you know, like making a couple thousand, that's still good money, you feel me? And for anybody who sees it, it's like don't let this man's success discredit your journey. Everybody's journey is different, you know what I'm saying? How I got to where I'm at, where he got to where he is, where you got to where you are is completely different. The vision is the same; now the route to that vision may go absolutely in your own way.
And I want to say also, Cam, I think a lot of times we try to follow what other people do, yeah, and it's so, so important that everybody run their own race. Correct? You understand? Because, yes, like I used to throw parties. Like, I was a big promoter. I used to work with Alex, all that, and it was cool, but I realized, like, I can't do that until I'm 60 years old. Yeah, so I had to pivot and get into something that wasn't as attractive, but I knew that there was always going to be a need for trucks, right? So it took me hopping out of the cool zone and jumping into an industry that is literally recession-proof. Like, there's no way that the trucks can stop, and that decision right there is what changed my life.
So, you know, if you're watching this and you're trying to decide, like, you know what you want to do, I always recommend do something that—like, learn from the pandemic. Watch and see what industries were affected when the 2020 shutdown happened and the ones that weren't. When a lateral company shut down, I went on my patio, and it was so quiet outside. I remember it was just so quiet when everybody was in the crib, right? Yes, but guess what I kept hearing? All I kept hearing was planes, trains, and them trucks driving by. So, you know, run your own race, man.
Yeah, so where you are right now, Jeremy, what is a broker? You know what I mean? Like, to the untold ear, what would you say or how would you identify a broker?
To be a broker, we could keep it transparent; it's almost like a real estate agent. Okay, so the real estate agent, they don't own the house, right? They don't own the money, right? But they make the money off the deal, and you need a real estate agent to buy a house nine times out of ten, right? You need them to complete the transaction. So for me, I'm like the real estate agent in the logistics world. I don't own the truck; I don't own the product, right? But nine times out of ten, all the owner-operators, all the trucking fleet companies, they don't have time to prospect or get these accounts or establish these contracts to keep their trucks moving, you know? So they rely on the broker to kind of facilitate their trucks away accordingly.
So what college did you go to?
Yes, I went to college.
So did you graduate from college?
No, didn't graduate from college. College, I went for three months.
So I'm assuming you can't graduate in three months?
Yeah, I went for three months, and I dropped out. I figured it wasn't for me.
Right, but when you look at when both of you guys look at your bank accounts, all right, they said it couldn't be done, right? It's crazy. I'm going through the situation right now where, you know, you're talking to a very hands-on father, right? And there is a time where you see the two things happen when you left or when you graduated high school. Number one, either went to college or number two, you entered the Army, right? But one of them, you was getting out that damn house, right? You know what I'm saying? Where we are now as a society, you don't necessarily have to go to college or even go to the Army to be successful. What would you say, you know, to the 17-year-old kid who may not be making the best grades, parents may not be financially stable to send them to college? How would you kind of encourage them?
Man, I just want to say I got so much respect for the people that do go to college. I want to say I got so much respect for the commitment and the consistency that it took for you to graduate. You know what I'm saying? Like, that's not easy, so I super salute y'all. But if you're watching this as a 17-year-old, I just want to salute you because you are in a generation right now; you got the cheat code. You didn't have—we didn't have YouTube like that. Like, when I was 17, it wasn't YouTube University available. It wasn't courses; it wasn't influencers willing to give all this game and give all this information at that time. So you literally are in a space right now where you can skip over college. You're in a situation right now where you can literally put your name on your own LLC, come up with a plan, execute on it, and make money—then make more money than the people who own the colleges. And it's just an amazing time. I meet the young dudes, and I talk to them like, "Look, I'm 39 years old. I ain't get started till I was like 30. I ain't really start getting serious with my life until 30." And I meet some of these 21-year-olds, and I'm like, "Look, bro, you got a nine-year head start on me, bro." You know what I'm saying? Like, when I was 21, I was trying to go to the mall; I was trying to go to the skating rink. I wasn't going to conferences looking for personal development. You dig what I'm saying? So I just—I just, I'm so optimistic with the next generation. Like, we leading the way, and we show them by example. But that next generation, with the information that they got access to, oh, it's gonna be a hell—it could be dangerous. It could be dangerous for two different things: dangerous because you have access and you don't do [ __ ] with it, or dangerous that you do have the access and you do something with it. You see what I'm saying?
Jeremy sent me a clip—was it yesterday?—about Mark Cuban and how he got into, you know, he came into his wealth by selling a streaming company, selling a streaming company while the internet had just come out. He did what I'm saying? This was like '92 or '93 or some [ __ ] like that. And for him to be an owner of a professional franchise, that's unheard of. And now basically what Mark Cuban has done, he was like the minority; now the majority has that same type of access. And what you're going to do with it?
Before I kind of go into your public speaking kind of background, I want to talk to Jeremy about, like, your transition and how you kind of got here too because, you know, without you graduating, you know, what was life like? You know what I'm saying? You know, you came from a—what I do know of, and I don't want to speak for you—but, you know, playing football, right? You know what I'm saying? Doing this and doing that, and now coming back home, like, right, it was almost derailing at one point, to be honest, because I put so much energy into football, right? And it's purposely not even trying to learn anything else. All I want to do is play football. And the one good thing that I did do while I was in college is I had a business administration degree that I was trying to, you know, attain. And when I got out of school, I had a job at UPS, and it was working. I was, you know, going up the rankings on that, and I got an offer from the job that kind of put me on with the brokerage. And it was either a six-figure job, you know, or was it to take a leap and try to be something better than what everybody else thought I could be, you know?
So with that, you know, I seen it as a different transition because I used to tell my homeboys at first, like, "Bro, I found something, right? And the numbers is—I used to kind of mention to them that I was seeing." They would just automatically think I was lying.
But what numbers are we talking about, bro?
We talking—when I was working for the company, the office itself was making $200,000 a week.
Oh, a week?
$200K a week, right? But then you got an office full of what, 60, 70 people? Only 15 or 20 of them people are really connected to the industry, right? Got contracts moving a lot of freight.
So you're saying 20 people being able to make $200,000 a week?
Right, right. So when I seen those numbers, you know, I automatically had the entrepreneurial mindset to basically say, "Yo, I got to figure out how to do this on my own." Because, you know, it was so different, you know what I mean? That nobody else could really respect it—my parents, my mom, you know, they come to my house, they see a little two-screen computer in the corner of my house, they hear me calling on the phone, talking on the phone, like, "What are you doing?" Talking to Mr. Amir, talking, you know, all these different foreigners, having conversations, going out to California, meeting people, eating stuff that I never ate before, just really going out here building relationships with the industry, understanding, like, learning how to basically profit off of the gift of God. Like, just like a rapper, you know? It's the same scenario.
And when I look at how I kind of came to you and what I kind of like really prayed about is that everybody in entertainment, they profit off of the gift of God, what they present, what they do, how they do it, how you say it. You know, even like, you know, you, Alex, how you present it, how professional you are, you know, with how you carry your business. Anybody's gonna want to attach to that, especially when they're trying to start, right?
So if you can get, you know, the mass majority to basically see this side of the industry, there's no—we don't have any decision-makers in this industry still to this day, like real decision-makers, right? I'm listening to you talk, and it's one word that comes to my mind as I'm hearing him tell that story, and that word is exposure. See, my mentor Jamal King, he said, "Your level of exposure determines your level of success."
Wow.
So the exposure that he got was him seeing the invoices and seeing, like, "Damn, I'm working in this company, and I've seen the numbers. Yo, there's $200,000 a week." All he had to do was see that; he got exposed to that, and that's what lit that fire up under him to go ahead and start executing. You dig what I'm saying?
I ain't gonna cap, I ain't gonna cap, man. We talked briefly about, you know, how me and Jeremy met, and to your point about exposure, man, he showed me what he made that week, right? I seen $36,000, and I'm like, "Man, what the [ __ ]?" And he—and the first thing he said, like, "I know a bit, bro, this ain't enough money. This ain't a lot of money to you." I'm like, "Bro, $36,000? Bro, it's $36,000." Period. You feel me? $36,000 come up missing in my account, I don't care how many M's, commas, or numbers in that account, that's still $36,000. And I'm like, "Bro, hold on, explain this to me." You know what I'm saying? Because I'm used to, you know, broke ribs, broke ankles, bum shoulder, concussion, you know what I'm saying? Sacrificing time away from my family and doing all these different things just to have a chance, right, to attain that. So you're doing this without sacrificing all that, and you're going home to your family each and every night.
Yeah, you got a personal life.
And to even more to the climb from that, bro, what made me see that I needed to, you know, start my own business is that all the contracts that I set up with the company was from personal relationships that I had in college where these guys were becoming like logistics coordinators at a steel company or logistics coordinator at a, you know, clothing line or whatever the case is, right? So I was able to set this up under this customer. You know, in one week, I made with them, I made $15,000, right? They paid me $2,000. So everybody in the company was like, "Ah, you know, you did it." But in my head, I'm like, "Bro, something's adding up where this, you know?"
So it is more so me understanding where the gaps are, right? And that's in this industry, and then being able to, one, empower myself and then empower others and be able to—once they realize what they have done, it's not a sour taste in their mouth like, "Dang, this dude been getting over me the whole time," because that's exactly how I feel, right? You know, once I understand it, and then once they took what they took from me, you know, it was like, "This is not right."
So for us as minorities, you know, with us being so, you know, once again, so good with our lingo, bro, you know, and us being able to close contracts in the sports entertainment or, you know, in the logistics, we're everywhere, bro. Like, we come together in a trillion-dollar industry and make decision-making. So now the next Cam Newton, you know, we come to him and say, "Bro, we can facilitate all of your product across the nation off of your name, image, and likeness." So now when you want to manufacture another shoe that's not Nike or whatever the case is, the first thing you're going to do is, "How are we going to push it out?"
Yeah.
I think, to your point, Alex, you know, you started in one thing, and opportunity gave you another door to open. Another opportunity from that opportunity came from, yeah. And I was looking on Instagram the other day, bro, and I'm like, "Bro, y'all [ __ ] just like rock stars." What do y'all call it? The CEOs?
Yeah, shout out to the Circle of CEOs, my brothers.
Yeah, bro, like I'm looking at y'all, dude, I'm like, "Bro, this is Lil Baby, this is Future, this is Diddy, this is, you know, Jay-Z." Like, these [ __ ] got the same cars, same clothes, same jewelry, same, you know, things that these thousands of people still, yeah, bro, impacting the same way. It's still a level of art that goes into it. And when you say you go into these different conferences, when you go into these things, how did you kind of come about—like you said, your background was you was a party promoter and a whole sexy building a microphone, hosting a party, not a DJ.
Yeah.
The host, the dude that was on a bike.
Yeah.
Put your hands up and all that good stuff.
Um, if you execute during a season, it could become your life forever.
Okay.
That's a quote that I started saying about three years ago that I came up with because I was trying to understand, like, because my success happened kind of fast. Like, I'm talking about like three years, I went from one to ten, yeah, real fast. And what I realized is that when the window of opportunity opened, man, I just started throwing like lighter fluid on the fire. So when I say if you execute during your season, it can become your life forever, the reason the door is kept opening is because I just kept banging on it. You dig what I'm saying?
So, um, started off with just owning a fleet, then I started teaching it, then I dropped the course, and then people started booking me to speak. Now I got 16 acres on the contract about to do a truck parking lot, you know what I'm saying? Now I got invited to come talk to you, you know what I'm saying?
Yeah, yeah.
Like, I just decided that I was going to be synonymous with my industry. I decided that, like, okay, if I'm gonna do this, I'm not gonna play with it. I ain't gonna be average. If I'm gonna teach trucking, I got to be that face. Like, if you think about trucking, if you say the word on your iPhone, I'm popping up. You're gonna see my ads on your phone, right?
So, man, just—I decided I was going to become synonymous with the game.
I got two things here that—when did it make sense, you know what I'm saying? Like, the S sense, and then when it started making the C sense, you know? Did you—like, both of y'all—did you guys have like a moment that was like, "Oh [ __ ] like this is my out?"
2017, I—you know, we're talking about brokers, right? He broke down what a broker is. I just want to take 60 seconds and just break down in the relationship. Okay, so as a trucking company owner, as the fleet owner, I got the trucks. You got four major players in the game: you got the shipper, the dude who—the person who actually has the freight, right? They actually, yeah. Then you got the broker, who is the middleman between that shipper and me, the trucking company. But then you got this wild card, this fourth person that just came in and got real popular over the last few years—a dispatcher. You didn't say?
So now that dispatcher plays the middleman between him and me. He—the dispatcher saves me time. Alex got eight businesses right now; I ain't got time to be booking loads no more, right? Right? So now I got this dispatcher in place that communicates with him and negotiates on my behalf, right? You dig what I'm saying?
So for the people that's in the industry right now, I need you to understand if you're brand new to the game, the brokers is a game changer because on day one, you can now get access to freight and be able to book loads and get them on your trailer through this guy on day one. You don't got the relationships in place yet; you don't got no dedicated lanes; you don't got no contracts yet; you're still new, correct?
So the load board, which is a database that has all the freight coming in and out of every city in real time, right? That's what he's posting his loads at, and that's where me, the trucking company, I'm going on and finding those loads, and me and him are negotiating to make the transaction happen, correct?
So again, I just wanted to be clear. There's a love-hate relationship between the carriers and the brokers because the carriers always feel like the brokers are trying to take all the profits, you know what I'm saying? But I tell the carriers this: don't feel that way. If you feel like you're getting robbed, that means you don't know how to negotiate. That means you don't know the market, and that's where the education comes in—that education before compensation when it comes to trucking.
And even so, there's a gap too where there's misknowledge when it comes to the broker and the carrier, and I'm gonna tell you this why. Because me, when everybody knows the DAT board, right? You know, that's where you get your loads. But me, as a broker, an experienced broker, I no longer use that board.
Absolutely.
And not even say like the DAT board. Like, I got another system that I attached myself to is that when you have built yourself, built relationships in this industry, you have been able to, you know, carve your way as far as knowing who's who, right? So when it comes to—that's why it's so big about relationships, especially for the minorities. Because for me, I'm getting the same loads that JB Hunt, getting Swift, getting Knight, getting that they're probably tendering you, giving you the freight for a thousand dollars cheaper than what it is. And since you know there's not a direct correlation of relationship to the high-power brokers, the minority brokers who are out here really, you know, pushing freight in the industry, then that's another gap where, you know, there could be closed as far as having a better name and the lightning when it comes to the broker because these are the real decision-makers.
When you're talking to these Fortune 50, Fortune 500 companies, they don't have time to set up a thousand carriers. Why set up a thousand carriers when you can talk to one broker that’s got a thousand relationships?
So that goes to my point to answer your question. To answer your question, when I started seeing daylight—that was your question, right? So after running on the load boards, dealing with the brokers for years, come 2017, I messed around and got my first dedicated lane from a broker, though. Checked it out. It happened real simple. Everybody's like, "How do you get contracts? How do you get dedicated lanes?" I did one thing. I'm gonna give it to y'all just because we on the Cam show, right? Funky Fridays, right?
I booked this load from Atlanta to Chattanooga, Tennessee, right? The load at the time paid $750 going from Atlanta to Chattanooga, which is only like two hours away, right? But then the broker was like, "Look, man, if you get back in time, I got another one here. The shipper is 24 hours, and the receiver is 24 hours as well. So you can literally run this load twice in a day legally, and it's $1,500," right?
So we did it the first day; we ran the load twice. Everything was smooth. My driver's like, "Damn, I like that little lane right there, man." You know what I'm saying? My driver walked away with a couple dollars, you know what I'm saying? One too much fuel, right? So I asked the broker one key question. I said, "Yo, bro, how often do y'all run this lane?" He was like, "Man, it's funny you asked, man. We actually run this lane 23 times a week." He was like, "I actually need another carrier tomorrow." He said, "How many trucks you got?" At the time, I had seven trucks. I said, "[ __ ] I got seven trucks. What's up?" He was like, "Hey, you think you could run it for the rest of the week for me?" I said, "No problem."
Cool. We ran the loads, all seven trucks. I called my drivers. I said, "Look, man, if y'all miss, if y'all late, you fine." Straight up. I was like, "Look, we can't play with this, right?"
Yeah.
I said, "Be in a half an hour early is late." Right? So I got all the vote; I got their mind right. They went out there; they murdered the lane that whole week, communicating with the broker, letting them know when they picked up, when they dropped off, everything was smooth. Following Monday, I had the broker. I said, "Look, man." He was like, "Hey, man, I just want to let you know you guys did a great job. Normally, I got to call and harass the carriers to find out where the truck is at." He said, "Y'all communicated; y'all was on time." I said, "Uh, I said—" He said, "How long can you guys do something like this?" I said, "How long you ever need it?"
We ended up running that lane for three and a half years. That was the year I seen my first seven figures. That was the year I was like, "Okay, I'm wanting something now."
Yeah.
But it was the—it was me doing good business. See, you got to overdo good business in trucking—your communication, your name, that's everything.
No, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Stop. This is not just a trucking thing because my issue is a—it's—that's a life thing. Absolutely. You know, my girl always says, "How you do one thing is how you do everything."
Hell yeah.
You feel me? So for me, you're not going to meet another person that loves to support Black businesses like me, who likes to invest in small businesses, who likes to give the working dollar to the working class, a small business owner or whatever. But my thing is this: if I'm going to take my $15 and take it to Chick-fil-A, I'm not just paying for that chicken sandwich; I'm not just paying for that lemonade, even though both of them is right. I don't eat chicken; I'm vegan. But if I were to pay for some fries, right, that my pleasure is what I'm paying for, right?
So if you want me to take that $15 and invest it back into a Black small business, right, I expect that same kind of residual attitude when it comes to serving, whether it's food, whether it's clothes, or whatever. You think I'm saying? Because that's the whole customer-consumer experience, and I don't think a lot of people understand that to that degree because it is a deal breaker for me. And I'll be so disheartened sometimes because I'm like, "Bro, I want to do right. I want to invest in—or I want to take my dollar and buy Black." But when I buy Black, you know, I've been sitting here, but you're about to blow it up. You're about to blow this place up. Boom.
When I do buy Black, it's—I walk into the restaurant, and I'm waiting for 10 minutes; nobody even said anything to me. I'm like, "Okay, that's strike one." Then the service—this is before football, after football—no, this is before, during, and after. It's like current event. Like, I'm just saying, I'm just giving you examples of like when you're talking about service and service levels being met. It's not just with trucking; it's with everything. You feel me?
So if I'm sitting up here wanting to do right by my people and keep that dollar in the community, it's like, "Bro, we got to do better with our expectations and our accountability from a business standpoint." And something as simple as you would say, like, "Listen, man, y'all return phone calls; y'all, you know, tap in and check in and say, 'Hey, man, it's traffic. Hey, it's a snow blizzard,' you know what I'm saying? I'm just letting you know I know I'm supposed to be there at 1:30. It's approaching, you know, 12:45. I don't think I'm gonna get there. The GPS says this; the CPS says that. We're going to be 15 minutes late."
It's six points of communication. I came on here to give game, bro. I like to teach, right? It's six points of communication. If you own a truck and you got a driver, the six points is when you get to the facility, you got to communicate with the broker, shipper. Hey, look, I just arrived on the facility. The second point is once you're loaded and rolling. The third point is when you get to the delivery, right? Then when you get unloaded, you got to let them know as well.
And then when you—damn, we had to edit it out.
No, that's cool.
It's three points. You share it when you pick up, when you're in and out, when you're driving. That's your point too. Just making sure that you're communicating through the whole time.
I mean, listen, look, let's change this aesthetic. Yeah, let's talk about a relationship.
Okay.
It's still communication; that's key, period. You see what I'm saying? And that's so pivotal in business that, bro, like, don't nobody want to be wondering, like, "Bro, where are my packages?"
Exactly.
No matter if it's one package or a metric ton of packages, we need to know exactly where that is. And if that's my package, like, bro, you owe it to me to tell me, "Hey, we're on time. Hey, we're this. Hey, we're that." You know what I'm saying? Sorry, because he got a responsibility. Like, he gave the shipper his word that he was gonna get their package moved.
Yes, sir.
So he's relying on me as a trucking company to make sure he gets delivered. So sometimes, you know, I had a truck company say all the time, "Man, the broker could be calling too much." The broker could be calling too much. He's being held accountable because if you drop the ball, it's the domino effect. So now he—it's a service failure for him as well. He could potentially lose his plug.
Yeah.
So everybody got to do their part, right?
Absolutely.
And that's why you need it, really. And honestly, you should be—the broker and the carrier should be more connected than what the broker and the customer is because once you are able to control the streets, once that can happen, once the understanding and understand that, "Hey, we are stronger together than we are apart," you know? Because if a customer can make five other brokers or, you know, you got five brokers and you got one carrier, that one broker that's connected to the carriers, he gonna win every time because he's gonna have that phone call like, "Listen, buddy, hey, this rate might not be where you want to be, but listen, we move in volume here. It's going—you know what's too? You'll make your money; you're gonna make your money, and we're gonna weed out everybody else."
So when it's really time to get to work in, it's gonna come back for you. You know, so this is the industry that you said, Jeremy, that is solely built off relationships, and you have one time to make a first impression.
Yeah.
You dig what I'm saying? To that, my thing is always evolving, not changing, but evolving, equipping, you know, different tactics and different methods that you can sit up here and say, "All right, cool. I may not be good at communication, but I need to enhance my vernacular." Or I'll give you one too: if you're not good at communicating, we got so much technology accessible to us now in trucking, right? Like, my ELD service provider is Samsara, right? I love them. High technology ELD—that's the system y'all put in the truck to track the hours of service.
I would give my brokers access to my ELDs. I would just create a separate login for the brokers. So, look, they ain't got to call me or my driver; they can literally log in and just see where the truck is at at all times, right? You know what I'm saying? But that shows a level of professionalism to the brokers. It shows that, "Hey, look, you got your operations in order." So anytime we book a load, we just give the broker, "Hey, look, you need to track the truck? Here's this login right here; you can see where the truck is at 24 hours."
And now that gives that broker a peace of mind, but what it also does, Cam, is when it comes down to that broker, when it's time for him for us to negotiate, right, I'm gonna get a higher rate than a regular carrier because they feel confident knowing that, "Hey, look, once Alex and them trucks got that freight, yeah, I go to sleep good tonight."
Correct.
You dig what I'm saying? Alex ain't got no old beat-up trucks; his trucks ain't breaking down every day, all week, right? And I was able to really get off the load board, to be 100 with you, because what y'all need to understand is that as much as the trucking companies don't like to be on the load board, the brokers don't like posting on the load board either, right?
It's as easy as picking up.
What I do know is it's better to text, state, or call a person, "Hey, can you pick this up?" "Nah, bro, I can't do it." Then you're forcing me to put it on the DAT board.
Absolutely.
Right? And then that be posted, and you run the risk of, you know, giving it to whoever—God knows who, right? You know, and 90% of the people who you do business with in this industry, you don't know. You won't see. You see what I'm saying? And at that time, at that point, it's just like, "Bro, your communication has to be good."
And as you're saying, the technology is equipped these days where if you know—even if you don't feel comfortable with speaking, you can email.
Yeah.
You can reply back to them emails fast as all get out. And what that does is, like, "Well, I don't like doing emails; I like texting." Well, at the end of the day, email is the more professional lens that gives you a track record that knows, "Okay, I emailed you at 3 o'clock; you didn't reply until 4:15. That load was supposed to be delivered at 3:30."
So, you know, even if I'm calling you, you're not picking up, you can reply back to them via email and go about it like that. My thing to Jeremy is this: when you came back to Atlanta, right, and obviously where you are right now, what are the things that you had to equip yourself with as far as whether it was vernacular, whether it was just education in this industry, whether it's just knowing, like, "Okay, I see what $200,000 looks like, where that $200,000 came from, and how do I make more?" You know what I'm saying?
It was more so—it's very similar. You know, now you're starting to, you know, gain more knowledge. It's very similar to football. You know, it's basically, you know, you might not—you come in, you might be second string, third string, whatever the case may be, but every day with that customer, you got to build that rapport. You know, you got to build that trust and say, "Hey, you can give me follows today."
You know, so a lot of times, it's like starting to get on a new team. You know, you might get one pass in the game. Once you catch that pass and do something with it, next game, you may have two. All right, you see? So it's more—it's exactly the same way. Now, what I had to correct is just my punctuation, you know, in my emailing, learning how to not always be on the phone, but learning how to explain in detail what I want, you know, through emails.
You know, and that was really, you know, the biggest thing. But one thing that I did like was that the majority of customers that use women to delegate their freight—
But why though?
Because you got to think, they're more organized. You know, their—dead women are dedicated to what they do as long as it's, you know, beneficial for them, right?
So, and that's not to say—let's stop that right there because that's not to say men aren't able to do it too because it could kind of come off like, "Well, we only give women this role."
But they do provide some type of warmth of communication.
Yeah, the ones who get it do. And even as a man, you know, it's not necessarily that we prefer to hear a woman or prefer to hear a man. It's like, "Who can get the job done?"
Exactly.
That's what it comes down to.
Exactly.
So, um, so then I find myself talking to women on the phone as a man, you know, not if it's not no flirtatious way, but women like to talk to men, and men like to talk to women, right? So once I'm talking to these women on the phone, I build that dialogue and that trust. You know, send them some lunch, send them, you know, some flowers on Valentine's Day, many different tactics in the business, whatever it costs to be, you know, do those little incentives.
Yeah, yeah.
Whatever to just to make them smile. You know, they having a bad day or they working on the weekend, you working on the weekend, let me send some pizza to your house or to whatever you want me to do, or you go pick it up your closest Pizza Hut, you know?
So, right, you know, you do those things to be different just to bring that relationship levels up so that they can give you that freight. Oh, they got a new load? Oh, I got a new—let me call Jeremy. That's gonna be the first thing they're gonna think about.
Absolutely.
I think that right there is providing value to yourself and for yourself that can, in essence, be better for the team. Like, whether it's a dude or whatever, you can—you may have access to tickets, you know what I'm saying? You may want to—you know, somebody may be a fan of the Atlanta Falcons, the Carolina Panthers, the, you know, Detroit Pistons, or the Atlanta Hawks, or whatever team you may do. You got to think outside the box to gain any type of leverage that you possibly can.
Alex, you know, for you, when you do these motivational speaking at many different conferences, you travel the world doing these type of things. My question is, how do you gain—I want to say courage, but how do you gain, you know, the grade of the crowd? You know what I'm saying? Because every crowd is different. A crowd in New Orleans is different than a crowd in Atlanta. A crowd in Atlanta is different than Maine or New York, you see what I'm saying?
Yeah.
And, you know, what's your initiation to tackling this service?
Absolutely. Well, I will say, um, I have a gift, and the definition of a gift to me is what comes easy to you but hard for others. And my gift is communication. It's something—my first, my last job was telemarketing. I used to be on the phones just before they used to hang up on you, and so you can call. So I used to have to sell on the phone in order to make a living, you know, so I could get $7 an hour plus commission, and it's 2001.
So then from there, I went to throwing parties. What I'm throwing parties, I had to be on the mic, keep everybody engaged. Yeah, I would see a crowd, I'm like, "Man, they ain't dancing." So as a promoter, one night, I just grabbed the mic like, "Hey, man, I need everybody to get about your seats, man. We gonna party tonight." All that bougie stuff, you know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
And then I was like, "Damn, I kind of like this." You know what I'm saying? So then it's so funny because from doing that, I didn't realize, like, God was just preparing me.
Oh, Lord, he was setting me up.
Yeah, because when I stopped throwing parties, I was like, "Dad, what's next?" And I kind of missed that high. I did. I enjoyed the camaraderie of people. I enjoy—I love people.
Yeah.
So then, man, once the journey happened in my course blew up, my course—I did an interview on Earn Your Leisure. I don't know if I'm able to say other names, but that's fine.
Yeah, shout out to Earn Your Leisure.
I did this interview in 2019, bruh, and, um, life ain't been the same since. And all of a sudden, the phone just started ringing like, "Look, man, we like how you break it down." See, my secret is I ain't the smartest person in trucking. I don't got the most trucks; I'm not the richest fleet owner. But what I do know how to do is transfer what's in here and let you understand it so your way, like, super digestible. That's what I specialize in.
So I guess from doing the interviews and breaking it down like how I was breaking it down, people was like, "Look, I need you to come teach that."
Yeah.
So it was so organic, bro. So I just went on stage, and one thing about it, the story don't change. So it was just me combining the knowledge that I have also with the journey and the story. You dig what I'm saying? And my story don't change. Like E.T., the hip-hop preacher, he—you know, one of the number one motivational speakers in the world, he just told me, "Like, bro, just tell your truth."
So when I get on that stage, I just literally—I just tell the truth, bruh.
Listen to me. No, no, you need to listen to me. Hear me out. Listen, I love E.T., man. E.T. is a person, man. He didn't know me from a can of paint, obviously. He knew of me but didn't know me personally. My younger brother, Kalyn, he had this connection with him, and I just Murray—I just connected the dots. I was like, "Hey, bro, man, my brother's in town. I want to come see you, you know what I'm saying? Speak, bro." They had built a relationship in the rapport just with the connection to me, and I was like, "Damn, bro, like, hold on, hold on, bro. This—you know Eric? You know Mr. Eric calling me? I'm like, 'Hold up, Eric who?'"
Bro, and I'm like, "Damn, bro, like, that's the power of connectivity. That's the power of just putting people on." A lot of times, bro, you know, when you talk about homeboys, when you talk about family members, and they always got this gimme-gimme-gimme attitude, bro, I'm gonna give you an opportunity. Now, that opportunity may not always come in the form of financial compensation. Sometimes that opportunity may get you around the individuals that may give you that compensation that you're looking for. You see what I'm saying?
And it's up to you to kind of wedge it out in your own specific right. But a lot of guys be feeling a certain type of way, and it'd be really suck a [ __ ] when I'm like, "Bro, like, I bought you here." You know what I'm saying? Now, what you did with these [ __ ]? You fanned out, you know what I'm saying? Because of Jay-Z or LeBron or Kevin Hart or, you know, The Rock or whatever. But, bro, if it's not him, if I reach out to, you know, his assistant, you got his assistant number, you know what I'm saying? And if it's gonna be, it's gonna be, but you do your part to present yourself in a manner.
I always ask this, especially if I'm seeing a random person, you know, that tries to present me with a business opportunity. My first thing is this: "Okay, what's your business card?" I still carry around a business card book, right? And I'm a tangible person. So you give me your number, I don't—I'm a person who doesn't save numbers. I got muscle memory and knowing that, "Okay, if a 678 number calling me, that's so-and-so. If it's a 404 number calling me, that's so-and-so."
"Hey, this is a 981-971. This is a 305 number. Oh, that's so-and-so." You know? So with that, I don't necessarily like storing numbers in my phone because for even for me, I don't know what it's going to look like. Now, that doesn't stop a woman from reaching out to me and saying, "Hey, Cam, I want to, you know, present you and your girl or you and your kids. I want to send y'all something."
"Hey, you got a business card?" Because if you don't got no business card, then it's going to look hard for another person that doesn't know what you're talking to me about to come and say, "Oh, I've seen Cam talking to another girl. Ain't he dating someone?" So like, no, we ain't—we're not doing that. But if you don't have a business card out, then say, "Okay, bro, let me see your social media." Because social media is, in essence, the wave of society. That's your business. That's your business card.
If I see you on social media and you got a thirst trap picture, you got like your tongue sticking out, it's like, "What are you telling the people who want to invest in you?" Oh, you know, I mean, as a homeboy, like you're smoking weed. Okay, you got the money thing going on, you know what I'm saying? You got this, you got that, you partying, you doing all these things that if you do that, fine, but everything ain't meant for people to see.
Absolutely.
That's personal. Like, nowadays, people are like, "Bro, I'm real, bro. I show everything, bro. I do all this." Like, that's cool, but if you don't want your mama to see it, damn, bro, why would you want the world to see it?
Right.
At me, bro, I'm just keeping it P, bro. Like, all right, I mean, real chill with—that's why mentors are so important, bro. The first advice that I got from CJ, who's E.T.'s partner, yeah, he was like, "Yo, bro, I need you to clean social media." This is 2018, bro. He was like, "Look, when people go to your page, they need to know within five seconds what it is that you do."
I wasn't posting nothing crazy, but it was like a lot of personals. He was like, "Make 90 trucks, 10 personal, and see what happens." That was at 10,000 followers; now we had a quarter million followers. If you go to my page right now, "Good Energy," you'll be able to see within the first three distinct differences. You see what I'm saying?
But that doesn't mean, too, for the viewer, that doesn't mean you don't like to have a good time.
Absolutely.
That doesn't mean you don't like to parlay and do whatever you do on your personal time. That's your personal time.
No, if you're sitting up there trying to tell the world, and you can't get mad for people judging what the [ __ ] you do because you posting this [ __ ]?
But not even that, Cam. Not even that. People want to get followers, right? Having followers count don't matter, right? I got a quarter million followers, but guess what? I got the right followers. Why? Because I'm continually feeding them that game. I'm continually feeding that truck game, right?
So when I look at my insights, I see the forwards. I see a few thousand people that forwarded a video about trucking that I did, right? Right? So guess who they forwarding that video to? To somebody else. Somebody who's interested in your advertisement.
So when I see the followers going up, but how I realized that I was doing it right, Cam, was when I would do a sale. I would just do a sale on, say, Labor Day or Black Friday, right? And it would go viral. Like, I did a million dollars in a day last year, bro.
What?
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Troy. I'll try, man. That's what my audio got. What up, bro? This [ __ ] is wowing.
I'm—yeah, no cap. Like you said, no cap. Like, I did a million dollars in a day, but I realized—I was like, "Damn, I ain't even get to hit the email list yet. I ain't get to hit the text list yet." I literally posted on Instagram, "Yo, they said I'm doing 25% off Labor Day sale."
And the emails just started coming crazy. But then I realized, I'm like, "Damn, I got a quarter million followers, but I got the right followers."
Yeah.
I got the followers that came to spend, and I gave away so much free game that what I've learned is people will buy from who they learn from for free.
Yeah.
I gave away so much game. You want my YouTube? I got so much game, free game. It's just up to you to just log in and say, "Bro, let me learn about trucking."
Yeah.
So it's like if you learn it from me for free, and then you see I just dropped something, so if you learn from the free stuff, imagine what the paid stuff brings you.
Bingo.
So that's when—that's how everything went crazy, bro. And I went from dropping the course in 2018, I was happy for 15 people to sign up.
Yeah.
Now we've been trained over almost 30,000 people, bro, in four years.
Monessen, powering, bro. Because, like, for me, I don't look at that as a threat. Anybody who sees this story, these stories, and feel like, "Oh, man, they just going on here just to stunt, talking about they made a million dollars a day," like, no, [ __ ]!
I'll be trying to downplay the success, Cam.
What? Hell no!
Yo, what my man say, "If it's true, it ain't bragging."
Yeah.
You know, it is—people—it starts off as motivation for some reason with our culture, bro. Like, it starts off with—they motivated by you, and then when you get too successful, it's like the envy comes in. It's weird, bro. Like, I don't know what it is.
He ain't got that stuff that I seen him and his girl in his home, but the other day, and they was over there talking about having an argument at the cashier. Flex, it's giving fraud; it's giving scammers.
But you know what? I get no candy. They'd be like, "Oh, he just got rich off the courses."
Right.
That's the hate that I'll be getting, right? I'ma just keep it 100 on the—we're on your show; we're gonna keep it [ __ ] right.
Yes, sir.
The hate that I get is, "Oh, Alex got rich off courses." You think I'm saying? Or, "He make more money off the courses than his trucks."
Right.
But let me ask you this: My question to them was, "Okay, if my courses are doing so good, is it because maybe it's a good damn course?"
Correct.
Like, come on. Like, what wouldn't the word be out by now four years later that the course was BS if it was?
Give me the Yelp report that says my course isn't given what it's supposed to get.
That's what I'm saying. I got 100 five-star reviews, bro, all over the Internet. You go look at all my reviews. But I'm just like, "Why are you mad at me because you mad at me because the people supported me?"
Like, it's a reason. So, man, we just got to do better. But like me, I ain't never hated on nobody at all. Like, I love seeing people win. Like, even when I was still coming up in the dudes that was like up before me, bro, me and my best friend Jason, shout to him, we never hated. We just sat on the sidelines, and we rooted, and we waited our turn, bro.
And I think that's why we so blessed, bro, because my heart is clean.
Yeah.
I love walking up in the spot like, "Damn, bro, I thought it was deceiving. I ain't know it was this big."
Like, I need to see that, bruh.
I think it's always another level, right? And I need to see—I need to get exposed to that next level so I can keep going, man.
Absolutely.
I think, man, bro, man, it's—the frequency in here is definitely high. What's the caution tape, Jeremy? You know, for you, when you do come into a surplus of money, you know, I had an individual talk about, "Man, I blew through my first couple checks so fast." And now that I think back, it's like, "Wow, like, what happened?"
You know, but for you, people don't necessarily know you to be this—not a true businessman, right? Your family ain't used to you, you know, walking around in Balenciagas, walking around in Salines, walking around in Dior, walking around these things. And how do you balance this new version of yourself versus the old version that everybody's used to seeing you in?
Um, really just understanding that, you know, this path that I'm walking is going to be different than anybody else that's around me, you know? And it just really gives me confirmation to know that those times where it looked—the scene that they could have been right on what they depict over my life was not even true.
So even to my correlation of how I handle anybody else, I try to be so—I try not to be judgmental due to the fact that everybody's success story is going to be different, right? So, um, with me, the main thing I do is just try to, you know, keep the main thing the main thing, you know? Work hard, and the money that I do—that I'm making now is still not enough because I know what's out there, right?
Right.
So it's more so I'm still hungry. I feel like, you know, I'm behind, actually. I feel like us as a people, you know, I'm putting my people on my back, even though I haven't been able to take a foot out here and expose it the way, you know, I need to or the way it should be in my perspective. You know, I just feel like we behind. I can feel like there's not enough decision-makers in these Fortune 50, Fortune 500 companies that's minorities. I don't feel like it's enough fleet owners that's really understanding what they need to do out here in this industry to take control of and be the next JB Hunt, CH Robinson.
I mean, if we can all come together, you know, you mentioned where we be if ego wasn't involved, right? So even to that, if us three or you two or me and you don't collab but doing it in an all-good face that, bro, like, I ain't trying to—I ain't trying to do your course better than you do your course, bro. Help me, bro. You know what I'm saying?
And when you help me, don't look down at me and like, "Bro, he won't be nothing if it wasn't me, bro."
Man, out with Cam when he recorded the first video, but matter of fact, it was my editor that edited this. You know, like, we got to stop that, bro.
Same question, Alex, you know, here you are in a spot where, man, your 21-year-old self couldn't even fathom at all, you know what I'm saying? And it's like the people who knew you as the party promoter, the person who's seen the first person you saw who knew you who dropped out of college, you know, those three months in, you know what I mean? How do you balance, you know, talking to that person and really motivating them on the terms of—or not say distancing yourself, but creating like a line where it's like, "Bro, I want to help you, but I don't want to handicap you?"
Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's good. I got this thing that I say to my loved ones, friends, family, right? People that I love because obviously, you know, what success comes with it, it comes with a responsibility. It comes with judgment, right? I tell people I don't give handouts; I give opportunities.
And I gotta, I gotta, you know, dispatch service. For example, we got over 100-something trucks that that's in my dispatch service that we dispatch for. Each dispatcher has seven trucks. I dispatch all my—I got thousands of students, so it's never a shortage of trucks that I have to dispatch for. So my cousins or family members that was asking me for money, I said, "Yo, bro, here go my course. I'm gonna give you a free login. Take three months, learn it. I got a job waiting for you; you come dispatch these trucks."
Hmm.
Some of them took the opportunity, and they doing amazing right now. They're making three, four, five thousand a week right now. But then there's others that didn't take the opportunity. But guess what happens now? Now you can't ask me for money no more.
All right? You lost that response—you lost that cry out for help. You can't ask somebody no more, right? And then I've had situations where I've had people—and this is even when I came up and I had the funds to buy somebody a truck, but I'm like, "You know what? I could go get you, give it to you, but I don't want to mess up your legacy."
Like, when you grow—like, when your kid grow up and you got to tell him about his father, I don't want you to have to say, "Alex gave me a handout."
Amen.
I want you to be like, "Y'all grinded. I got my truck. I fixed my credit, went and got me my own line of credit, and got my truck." And that's—and that's why your dad's successful. I'm not going—I'm not gonna change your story.
So I'm like, "Look, bro, I'm gonna give you all the tools. I'm gonna give you my finance person. I got a dude that can fix your credit. Hey, go to the course and get information to do it. Holler at me when you get your truck. I'll even put you under my contract, but you're gonna go ahead and get your truck, though. Go hire your driver, get your insurance, call me when you're ready."
I'm not gonna mess up your legacy like that because my success would not hit the same if somebody gave it to me. I wouldn't be on these stages. I wouldn't have nothing to talk about on the stage in front of these thousands of people if it would have been handed to me. What am I gonna talk about?
Yeah, right.
I needed to talk about how I went out of business that first 11 months and I lost the $38,000 in 2012. And I didn't give up, and I went back to my mama's house, worked on my credit, and gave it another shot with the right trucks. I need to be able to talk about that. You think what I'm saying?
Yes, sir.
So that test always becomes the testimony, man.
Man, listen, bro, man, I appreciate y'all, man. Appreciate your energy. Appreciate—no pun intended. I appreciate, you know, everything that you kind of bestowed upon me as well as, you know what I'm saying, the viewers. You too, Jeremy. You know, one thing about it, bro, that I've understood in my short time in transportation, I've probably been active working alongside with Jeremy for about eight months now. And when a person asks me, he's like, "Bro, like, are you going back to the NFL?" My thing is like, "Bro, the NFL ain't waiting on me, so why the [ __ ] should I wait on the NFL?"
You know what I mean? I got to go out here and hustle my own type of way and really make some [ __ ] shake, you dig? Because, you know, where we are right now, we're behind. We've been—we done been lapped, you dig what I'm saying? So now we gotta gain traction and start pushing the pendulum forward and doing it amongst the hate, amongst the adversity, amongst all these different things that people may say that, "Oh man, they ain't gonna do it," or "He ain't gonna do it, man. Who the [ __ ] you think he is?" [ __ ] XYZ, you know?
But we gotta find a way. So as we end things here, we all gonna start right here, we're gonna go right here, and we're gonna finish in that camera right there. We got one finger, one pinky, cuanto, one love, man. You dig?
Yeah, sorry, Troy, my guy.
Yes, sir, man. Stuff, my brother. I appreciate you.
Appreciate you, bro.
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