The OuterBelt's Podcast
The OuterBelt's Podcast
Navigating the Roads with Mentor Wisdom
Picture this: you're scrambling to organize a retreat for the entire Hyfield family staff and the chaos is hilariously blamed on Kelly! Join us as we recount the quirks and camaraderie of our 2024 Mentor Retreat, a gathering filled with laughter and unforgettable moments. Relive the unexpected highlight from last night's Día de Muertos celebration, featuring Don's memorable contribution that left us all wishing for a replay. Plus, hear about the challenges of working from home with oversized tech setups as we share stories of transforming every corner of our homes into makeshift workstations.
Step into the world of trucking with us, where a mentor program is reshaping the way contractors transition into the expediting sector. Our mentors are not just leaders; they're guides who help newcomers navigate the unpredictable twists of the industry, from truck breakdowns to canceled loads. Discover how peer mentorship fosters a supportive environment that maximizes revenue and minimizes stress while shining a spotlight on the personal stories that highlight the value of critical thinking and adaptability. Whether it's sharing past driving adventures or humorous tales from the road, we explore the unique experiences that bring our community together.
Explore the dynamics of mentor-mentee relationships and how they're vital to driver retention and satisfaction. Our conversations reveal the emotional impacts on fleet support teams, the importance of effective communication, and the structured support that ensures mentees have every chance to thrive. We emphasize how the program empowers participants to face challenges with confidence and how open communication can resolve mismatches quickly. This episode is packed with insights, laughter, and stories that celebrate the spirit of mentorship and the incredible people who make our community a success.
Email us: theouterbeltpodcast@gmail.com
Website: www.hyfieldtrucking.com
Interested in joining our team? Email us at info.hysg@gmail.com we have open trucks! You must be part of a team. No solo drivers.
Call us at 1-833-493-4353 Option 1
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Hey everybody, welcome to a very special episode of the Outer Vell podcast. As you all noticed, it's not the podcast anymore is it?
Speaker 3:It's not the podcast anymore. I will get that right one of these days.
Speaker 2:One of these days I'll get it right. Well, as you can all see, it's a very special episode of this show. This show. We are here, surrounded by the entire Highfield family staff. Yes, it's been a great time getting them all in here. Yes, has it been a great time. It's been busy, it's been busy, crazy, busy. I personally blame Kelly for that. It's all Kelly's fault.
Speaker 4:It's all.
Speaker 2:Kelly's fault. It's always Kelly's fault. As usual, it's all Kelly's fault. It's always Kelly's fault. It's better if you say that with a microphone in your hands.
Speaker 1:It felt a little like herding cats a few moments ago, but yeah, we all are in here.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely, we are actually all here. We can't move. No, we're kind of stuck. We're kind of stuck. There is no easy access that couch right there. Fun fact, they all had to sit in unison. Yeah, so there's four people on a two-person couch, not?
Speaker 3:before Don, and I didn't get all the way in the corner it only took about 45 minutes for us to get them all to sit in unison. Yes, because it was like okay, are we doing this on three or on three and then we sit, or how are we doing it.
Speaker 2:I know it was like one, two sit, or one, two, three sit, right exactly. And then there's the Crisco that's going to be such a mess. I am not looking forward to cleaning that up?
Speaker 3:Well, it's on you. I don't live here, so I don't have to clean it up Well.
Speaker 2:Dean, are you using no cinnamon rolls? I think Cinnamon rolls for breakfast tomorrow. Well, we are so glad. I know you all saw the intro just now, so you saw everybody who they are. That was a lot of fun putting together, jerry. Thank you so much. That took hours.
Speaker 5:I know.
Speaker 2:But you had nothing else going on, so it was a really nice treat to this. So, Dina, I think it's only fitting that I come to you first and go. Why are we all here?
Speaker 6:We are here for the Highfield Family 2024 Mentor Retreat. That's right. We are here to celebrate our mentors, bring them together with the staff and just show them our appreciation. Get them working together a little bit, getting to know each other and getting to know us.
Speaker 2:So in the timeline of things as far as the viewer or listener is concerned, we are just starting Saturday Last night we had an epic uh celebration of life. Um, yes, that was a lot of fun. It was a. We did a dia de muertos uh event, celebration of life, right, like it's a remembrance, right, yes, and uh, which was really fun, really cool, that thing that Don did. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I think, that surprised us all.
Speaker 2:I was so mad we didn't have a camera on him.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that surprised us all.
Speaker 2:It's one of those things you have to live in infamy yeah.
Speaker 1:Infamy Agreed.
Speaker 2:Now when Jimmy tried to outdo him disrespectful, but you know he's a lot older, but anyways. So today we're starting the meat and potatoes of the retreat right. Yes, what are you excited about?
Speaker 6:I'm excited about the team building event.
Speaker 2:I am too.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I'm really looking forward to that and see how our mentors fare.
Speaker 2:Yes, oh, man. So the timing of this is kind of rough, because I want to talk to you about it, because I'm excited about it, but we can't. No, because if you are a mentor and you're here listening to us now, we can't give it away. Oh, that's so frustrating. No, we can't give it away. Oh that's so frustrating. Well, next week, me, buttermilk Vince, eric, jerry, jerry, no, not really. We will wrap up and tell you how it went, so y'all be on the lookout for that.
Speaker 1:I'm excited Better than the last one.
Speaker 6:Oh, you know. I don't know, it's different, it's completely different. But it only remains to be seen if we can even slightly shadow what what Mel did, what Mel did last year with the Amazing Race.
Speaker 2:I believe that would be Stitches it would be Stitches. It would be Stitches. It would be Stitches.
Speaker 6:Okay, I forgot all the names.
Speaker 2:We need name tags. Hello my name is Exactly, so we all know who we are now.
Speaker 3:I'm a little nervous. Yeah, a little nervous oh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, about which part? Yeah, his role, my role.
Speaker 6:What are you doing, oh?
Speaker 2:are you my roll? What are you doing? Oh, are you oh.
Speaker 3:Did they not know that? I didn't know that. I don't know anything, I just spilled the beans.
Speaker 2:So this is one of those weird situations where I know what we're doing, high level. I know where it's going to take place Well, not really as of well as of In your house.
Speaker 6:Yeah, as of Somewhere.
Speaker 2:As of 10 minutes ago. I got the scoop on that and now I know a little more information on it. I am oh this is exciting.
Speaker 6:It's been a team effort with Jerry. Jerry has done some deep research into how to make this come about this concept and Mel and I have worked together in getting things done. I'm excited.
Speaker 2:I'm excited too.
Speaker 1:Is it Saturday yet?
Speaker 2:It is, it is Saturday, it is Saturday, it's actually.
Speaker 6:Saturday it's not Saturday night.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's actually really, really cool. You talk about Jerry helping out with all this. It's funny because we brought Jerry in as IT and producer for this podcast. That's kind of his whole job role and it's morphed into what he really is is the paid researcher. I feel like he spends 50% of his time researching, 40% of his time researching, 40% of his time implementing and 10% of his time wrangling the five of us for the podcast.
Speaker 3:There's some time missing there. We're missing a lot of time for coffee. Oh well, yes.
Speaker 2:Prime Day came and went, did you end up getting the $7,000 coffee maker?
Speaker 11:No, he won't let me, I won't let him. He literally told me no. Thanks for the confirmation Don you could get.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right, I get it. You could take the same money and travel, you know, first class to France for a week. You could buy a new car, you could. What else could you do with that money, I don't know. Or you could buy a coffee maker which will make coffee for years and years Well, the way he buys coffee makers a couple years, that's true, a couple years, and it's the gift that keeps on giving.
Speaker 11:They would make really really good coffee oh.
Speaker 1:I would love to come over and have that really, really good coffee.
Speaker 3:See there, that's a good reason not to get the coffee maker, I'd rather come pay my $4 or $5 to you.
Speaker 11:He literally went to Starbucks just the other day and I was like, look, if we had this at home, that would have saved you $7. And your time. Yes, and your time? Yeah, because we waited at the drive-thru through forever Forever.
Speaker 2:And that was on company time.
Speaker 11:No, it wasn't, oh, okay Still.
Speaker 2:I do like a cup of joe, but it's funny because you just like a year ago, you told us about the new excited.
Speaker 11:That was the a good drip coffee maker. This is an actual espresso machine. I want an espresso machine.
Speaker 2:Isn't there like a coffee shop going out of business? You could just buy their old coffee maker. What is this like?
Speaker 3:Are we having a side conversation here?
Speaker 2:Gina needs the microphone.
Speaker 6:What's going on here?
Speaker 2:Sidebar there's no sidebars, you are live on television.
Speaker 6:The American sidebar about an espresso machine that he could potentially get one for not quite as much money. That does exactly what have you met Jerry?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Is it a Breville? Is it chrome plated?
Speaker 6:I don't remember. It's not mine. My daughter has one.
Speaker 3:Okay, if it's not a Breville, he doesn't want it, it's not interested.
Speaker 11:It's not $7,000 like Patrick says, but it is expensive. But it would match all my other appliances because I have invested a lot into the Breville brand.
Speaker 6:Oh, okay, yeah, Well, I just think you need to send this podcast to Breville and just see, yes, If you're out there listening, hook me up.
Speaker 1:The only catch is you can do research and some other stuff for them too, the only catch is you have to bring it to the show every day.
Speaker 4:It's actually got to sit right up here.
Speaker 2:It replaces this wonderful picture of me and Eric. And every day, part of the show is one moment for a coffee break and we go and we travel.
Speaker 4:We are looking for new sponsors for the show.
Speaker 11:We are New sponsors.
Speaker 2:New sponsors? Yes, well, the old sponsors, they're getting tired. You know Like they're like and you know I go to the board meetings and I deal with the pushback from the current sponsors and they're mean, they're just mean, they're just mean. So it's yeah, new sponsors would be nice, but don't tell the current sponsors, they would not be happy about it.
Speaker 3:They would not be happy about that. The last time we got paid by the current sponsors, they paid us in pennies. That was a pain to go to the bank with all those pennies.
Speaker 11:And I think after the last one, Pallet is not happy with me.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:That kind of ruined that.
Speaker 1:No free coffee from them, for sure.
Speaker 2:RTA R-Petro.
Speaker 3:Pilot canceled my professional driver's card after that oh no.
Speaker 2:But Love's is taking care of us. Love's is doing a great job.
Speaker 3:I go to the area every day and get a shower.
Speaker 5:They need that bean to cup though.
Speaker 3:Does Love's have the?
Speaker 2:bean to cup. Yeah, welcome to 2019. I haven't been in a truck in a cup. Does Loves have the bean in a cup? Okay, is it Okay? Yeah, welcome to 2019.
Speaker 5:I haven't been in a truck in a minute.
Speaker 1:How many minutes should we calculate?
Speaker 2:We should Kidding Someone If you can calculate she got off the road in 2019. How many minutes has it been? No, we didn't what.
Speaker 5:February, the end of February, oh you got 2020.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 5:Yeah, we got off the truck and COVID shut the world down 16 days later.
Speaker 2:In all fairness, she preempted her getting off the truck. She bought a car in 2019 and parked it at my house. Facts Like okay, Because that's what you do. Right, yeah, that's what you do.
Speaker 5:They had the one I wanted up here. They didn't have. We looked everywhere, did we not there?
Speaker 3:you go. Yes, yeah, we got it in Delaware. Can I just say Jimmy's hair.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, it looks like it's a cross between John and Punch on chips. Oh, I love it.
Speaker 1:I love it. I heard Tom sell it earlier from Dina. I did say he kind of looks like he's from the 80s, Like I don't know. It's got the feathery thing going. I like it.
Speaker 10:It looks good. Well, in the 80s it actually was the butt cut.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 10:I love the side cut now.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, you got to go side cut at least Down the middle is no good.
Speaker 10:Every couple of years I just grow it out something different. I'm threatening now, when I do cut it, I'm going to leave the back the way it is for a while.
Speaker 1:Oh, rock the mullet, sport a mullet. I've never had a mullet, I've always wanted to.
Speaker 10:I'm a full-grown man. I can do what I want.
Speaker 2:I think that'd be fun. Yeah, you're forgetting. You're a married, full-grown man.
Speaker 1:That preempts You're wearing your hair, though, that's correct.
Speaker 2:No, yes, I like it almost got chopped off today. Dad walked in the house and hi, dad, and he walks up and he looks at you and he goes. I know that hair, jay.
Speaker 4:Leno.
Speaker 10:Thanks, Donnie.
Speaker 1:Thanks, Donnie.
Speaker 4:You're welcome. It's 100% accurate. No, it's not, it's completely accurate.
Speaker 10:For those of you who can't hear, Maybe the color only in color.
Speaker 2:No, it's great, I think it's wonderful. Go ahead and give us five minutes, give us your best, ross Perot. Oh wait, that's not.
Speaker 3:Leno.
Speaker 2:That would be. Oh, that was Dana Carvey. Was it Dana Carvey? It was Dana Carvey right. Yeah.
Speaker 10:Thanks, Vince.
Speaker 2:You're welcome. It could use a haircut.
Speaker 10:No, Thank you, no, I like it.
Speaker 1:Makes him look distinguished.
Speaker 2:Makes him look like straight out of a 1960s sitcom 70s.
Speaker 3:I would give him 70s I wouldn't say 60s, it's definitely not 80s.
Speaker 10:You're too young to know You're too young to know a 60s sitcom.
Speaker 2:I saw. I Dream of Jeannie.
Speaker 1:Again, Tom Selleck's still rocking his hair like that.
Speaker 2:Is Tom Selleck still alive? Yes.
Speaker 2:I would like to hear from Jimmy. I think we should Because, as y'all know, the listening audience and, of course, everybody here y'all are all deep lovers of the show and watch every single week. Jimmy, we've been talking with Eric for the past several weeks. We had a week off, but he's back on. Y'all are regulars. He's been telling us all about what it's like being in the yard and then going up there and working with y'all for a little bit. I'm curious now what do you think? How do you like having him around?
Speaker 1:That's Eric Bender, correct. I don't think Eric Highfield's in the yard that is Eric Bender.
Speaker 10:Yes, the newest addition to the Highfield family. Yes, Eric.
Speaker 10:Bender, yeah, he worked with Vince on the yard for a couple weeks. He came to the Highfield Southeast Division in North Georgia and worked for a week getting him trained on the administrative side of the maintenance department and he's picking it up good. He's learning a lot and we'll get him on the phones as soon as we absolutely can, so me and Don can have a few minutes off every now and then. But yeah, we're excited to have Eric and looking forward to the future having him in maintenance.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. It's so cool because right now he just got a new monitor. So for those that don't know, for the maintenance staff and for operations and maybe accounting I'm not sure about that, but we buy these ridiculously large.
Speaker 3:Not for operations. Fleet support Fleet support I'm so sorry, no, no, no, you got an iPad. It's easier to carry this around than a big monitor, than a 40-inch monitor, yeah it truly is.
Speaker 2:So they get these huge monitors and you can actually get like two full document pages side-by-side and manipulate and do all this cool stuff with it, which is great because you use different programs. So sometimes you have one program one window, one in the other, and then go back and forth. So his just, you just went, you actually it didn't even come in. You had to go fetch it, if I remember correctly, out at the Best Buy in where was it? On Morse Road.
Speaker 3:On.
Speaker 2:Morse Road. Okay, yeah, so we sent you literally the opposite side of Columbus from us. Nothing like going 40 minutes to pick up a monitor. So it's set up in my kitchen right now, our dining room, vermont. Nothing like going 40 minutes to pick up a monitor. So it's set up in my kitchen right now, our dining room rather, and it takes up the entire table it does. I can hide behind it. You literally could be asleep and we would not know.
Speaker 12:Yeah, I might have done it.
Speaker 2:Oh, really I don't think so Every time.
Speaker 1:I looked at you. You looked like you were.
Speaker 12:Oh yeah, I was into what I was doing. You were taking care of business.
Speaker 1:Or Jimmy was by you providing.
Speaker 12:Laser focus. He didn't even say hi to me for the first 20 minutes. I didn't see you because you were hidden behind it, I didn't see you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm surprised.
Speaker 12:It's nice, though, for sure.
Speaker 2:Well, it's great, we are going to check the camera slider.
Speaker 4:You wouldn't get fired already.
Speaker 2:You wouldn't get fired, there would just be a conversation. Yes, no, but it was really cool. You know, at one point today, since we are all up here, at one point today, we had you behind your cubicle that you formed with your monitor and laptop. Don Pacing and Jimmy had one of my speakers. He has his laptop set up on top of one of my floor-standing speakers for my stereo in the living room, his earbuds in the monitor doing that Like it was just chaos. It was just everybody was going anywhere they could go to find a quiet space to do something, I think, if I'm not mistaken, so when y'all come up here, jim and Kelly come up here, they are, they stay at our house and at one point, kayla, you were in their bedroom doing work on a computer. Because you couldn't get away from the insanity and it was she wanted a big monitor.
Speaker 12:She has a big monitor. Oh, is that what it was A big monitor.
Speaker 2:Oh, that makes sense. Okay, oh, now I get it. Okay, well, you know.
Speaker 1:It's hard if you get us all on the phones together with someone, because I came over around noon, 11 noon, and was still answering calls in between helping prepare for mentor retreat her office was the uh, the bar, the bar the kitchen bar the kitchen bar yeah yep, just a little corner that had a plug in so I could keep things going.
Speaker 1:But you know you, you get us all on the phone and you either have to step outside or retreat to a closet, or you know, yes thing there where you could be quiet, you know here hear and not sound like you know you're in a customer service kind of office setting.
Speaker 2:There were quite a few calls that I'm pretty sure. If you called in and talked to Jimmy today, he was outside on the back porch during that call. I have a comment to say on that. Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 7:My office was your patio bar and I'm right in the middle of a conference call and here comes Jimmy with a leaf blower.
Speaker 1:He had to take a break from his computer. I guess.
Speaker 10:And he comes down the stairs, a little fresh air, and he's just in his own little world. Yardwork is therapy for me. Ten minutes of leaf blowing gets my mind right.
Speaker 7:Yes, and he went on, you know, and then, 10 minutes later, more leaves.
Speaker 4:Oh my gosh, the leaves and the wind are insane.
Speaker 2:We just picked up for this event. We have a big van so we can get everybody around easily and it's one of those tall vans it's really tall. So I went to the Enterprise, got that van today and I was driving it on the interstate. It was just me in it heading back to out to the yard, uh, to see events, and the whole time on the interstate. I'm like it better be windy because I am getting blown all.
Speaker 2:I'm like I can't keep it. Yeah, I can't keep it in the center of the lane and I'm like it better be the wind and uh, when we got off, uh, at the exit, there were some flags there and they were just like yeah, straight up straight up, but yeah, and then they were straight up, and then they would collapse, and then straight up again, like it was.
Speaker 3:Like oh my gosh, mel and I were working on a truck in the yard today and we were both, I think I was on the driver's side and she was on the passenger side, and we had the doors open and it was just the right angle where the wind just moved straight through. So we figured at that point we had to at least one of us had to have a door closed so we wouldn't get that wind, so we could actually work in the truck without things blowing everywhere oh, wind was blowing so hard, so the the doors were latched open yes, both doors were completely open all the way and staying open, and there was just a wind tunnel coming straight through the cab of the truck yes, and it was blowing out like our rags that we were using to clean with the paper towels.
Speaker 5:It was just blowing them out of the truck, so we had to close the door yeah I didn't feel anything in that tank of a 350 I was driving oh, I bet you didn't it.
Speaker 4:It's nice and low and heavy, just so you know you might have been blowing in that two-story tall van.
Speaker 2:But the.
Speaker 5:F-350 was rock solid.
Speaker 2:I have an old, if you can imagine, one of those old square Ford F-350s Four-door. A four-door Got a sleeper cab. What do you call those cabs? A crew cab? No, but over the bed is the canopy. Oh the camper, camper, shell, camper, shell over the bed, but it's four-wheel drive, it's on huge tires and, yeah, you're right, you can't feel anything, except for every pebble.
Speaker 5:That it did. It definitely could feel the bumps, you could feel the bumps, no wind.
Speaker 2:Now maybe that was part of what threw me off, because I drove that to the dealership and didn't feel anything. And then I get in this van and I'm like what is?
Speaker 13:happening. Try driving one of our trucks around the corner to Carrier in that wind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, I've done it.
Speaker 3:Try driving one of our trucks down I-80 in that wind.
Speaker 2:Yes, in the winter let's sprinkle a little ice in there.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:No, thank you.
Speaker 4:Thank you.
Speaker 1:I'm like how many of us have done it? No, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that brings back some memories. Thanks, vince.
Speaker 4:You're welcome.
Speaker 2:You're welcome Reminds me of being out in South Dakota learning how to skate.
Speaker 3:Learning how to skate in South Dakota Ice skate.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:In a truck.
Speaker 4:Yes, Learning how to skate yes, is that the code? Ice skate, yeah. In a truck, yes. Or on literal ice?
Speaker 3:skate On a truck. Oh, yeah, okay, in a truck. That was me. Yeah, I get it. Oh, that was good times.
Speaker 2:Great memories, good times, your truck's not supposed to be at a 45-degree angle going down the road. No, no, no when you're going over ice and it's out of 45 degree angles, you didn't feel any pebbles did you? You don't feel any pebbles. The ice really does level things out quite nice.
Speaker 4:I just felt the seat in my butt. Cheeks, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:I like that. Carla's been here. We all have a place to stay that when you come in. She's been over at the Luke Shire house. She heard me on a call the other morning and she's like I've never heard somebody else like you know what your job does. And then we had our little meeting you know today that we usually have, and she came downstairs for that too and said it on it, and so it's it's neat that she gets to see what what we're all of us are doing.
Speaker 3:So yeah, I really like that I can't wait to get carla in the yard for a week, and there you go she sees what we're doing in the yard.
Speaker 4:Yeah sad ones have to get done, so I can't that's true, you're right.
Speaker 9:You're right. The one thing I from my end, is I don't see what everybody else does, so it's interesting to me to sit in here and hear what you have to say to your people. What you have to say to your people yeah, it's all. It's just stuff that I don't get to hear because I'm behind the scenes. I'm the one that makes sure that you know that you have money to buy another truck. Yes, that's true, and to make the truck drivers happy on Tuesday morning when they look at their bank account. Yeah, so.
Speaker 13:Vince, there's actually three of us that have not driven a truck, Not two like you say in your intros.
Speaker 3:Well, I do say three, there's actually four, there's actually four. I forget about that. Yeah, over the road, and I do tell people. I say, look the three that haven't. Or if I say two, the two that haven't.
Speaker 3:Mel has been doing this for a long time. She has a CDL, she drives the trucks, she has been around us long enough to understand the stories we talk about. And Delina is your best friend and she's heard a zillion stories and she's been with us long enough where she knows what we go through as well Maybe not personal experience, but has dealt with it. So, but that's, people don't understand that. All of us have this experience and we understand it. We're not people that have come off the street or come out of MBA school and just start running a trucking company. We have lived the life, especially our founders, who started out right when you are, some people that are brand new and started out right where you are. Some people that are brand new and started out doing this and built it from there. So again, understanding what the lifestyle is like as a truck driver.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I mean, it's Eric and I. Our story is showing up at a TA that we were told to go to. Went to the service department they said oh yeah, here's your keys. Yeah, and that was our introduction into trucking, which you think about what we do now, and it's horrifying, completely different Horrifying. Like there's no way we would do that.
Speaker 3:No. But that's how it was back in those days, and that's how it still is for some fleets.
Speaker 2:For a lot of fleets. A lot of fleets don't roll that way, but you know, even Dad like had a CDL, but it was for church, so I was kind of sharing. We were talking in the van today. Do y'all remember or do y'all have the same experience of like, loading up into a 15-passenger van and driving hours away to summer camp? Sure, yeah.
Speaker 2:So we were talking about that kind of situation. And Melissa, how many? Why did we? Melissa will testify to this, melissa Lee, my sister, as we like to call her, stitches. For some reason we never went to summer camp close, except for Mobile. I would be the only one. Yeah, that was the closest Ever Glorietta, new Mexico. From Louisiana it's a bit of a drive Ridgecrest, ridgecrest, north Carolina, the place in Kentucky between the lakes that we did Animal. City Beach. Animal City Beach, kansas City, missouri, st Louis Missouri.
Speaker 13:Because who wants to go to summer camp in Louisiana? It's a little warm.
Speaker 3:Can I venture a guess why your parents sent you to summer camp so far away? No, no. No, because Dad was right along with us.
Speaker 2:Dad was a designated driver back then and so he did drive those 15-passenger vans and we've been again all over the country with him and you had to get your cdl. So, uh, the 15 passenger vans, the old school ones um, they had this issue where if you loaded them improperly or something, uh, and you went around a corner, they would flip over and there was charges left and right that were having kids go to summer camp and they're tolling out their vans.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you remember that or not. So the insurance companies basically said we're not insuring you anymore if you're going to have these vans, because y'all don't know how to operate them. And so the church went to, whereas in that situation where we owned a 15 passenger van, it couldn't use it. So they sold the van and dad was on the bus committee and, if I'm not mistaken, when it goes over 15 passengers, you had to get a cdl with a passenger endorsement, right, correct, yeah? And so, um, y'all were trying to get a 15 passenger bus, but it never. None were good. Right, like every. Every time y'all kept looking at it like a 26 passenger or something like that.
Speaker 2:That we it was a 26 passenger while we wound up with yeah, and uh, so you and a couple of deacons at the church and the youth pastor, obviously, and a couple other people went and y'all got cdls together, right, correct? Yeah? So I mean you've got the cdl. You went through all the all the rigmarole to get one, just like we all did. Passenger stuff is, it reminds me, a lot of hazmat. So there was like when you went to at crossings at crossings you have to stop right.
Speaker 12:Stop open the door, listen.
Speaker 2:Yes, continue on. Yeah, and so you got to experience all that stuff from that angle where we had cargo and hazmat. Only two people don't have CDLs, like Carly you don't have CDL right and Carla, you don't have CDL right. And, yeah, dillian doesn't either.
Speaker 9:But I do have a motorcycle endorsement.
Speaker 2:You do that's true.
Speaker 1:That counts for something, doesn't it.
Speaker 2:It does count for something. It does count for something, yeah.
Speaker 3:I want to see Carla make a U-turn on a Hayabusa.
Speaker 2:Can you make a U-turn in the box?
Speaker 9:I no longer have the Hayabusa.
Speaker 2:For those of you who don't know, Hayabusa is the fastest production bike you can get.
Speaker 3:basically, it's a very large bike and Carla's all of 5'1".
Speaker 9:Yes, yes, it was a very fast bike. Plus, it had an OZ on it.
Speaker 3:I always forget that part. I always forget that part.
Speaker 1:She doesn't.
Speaker 9:No, she doesn't, and that's an important part of it Do you ever use it, not the NOS, because it was fast enough without it. Yeah, thank you. I bet You'd be surprised how many people will pull up on the side of you whether it's a car, a bike, a truck want to race you when you're on that bike First gear, you're out. You're out of the park.
Speaker 3:First gear you've left them. They're in the smoke.
Speaker 4:Did you ever do a wheelie?
Speaker 9:No, I had it too low.
Speaker 12:The wheelbase is a lot longer on a high booster than it is a normal bike. Popping a wheelie is possible because it's got enough power, but it's just not smart. It's a lot harder to do.
Speaker 3:You wouldn't get up very high.
Speaker 12:It's a lot harder to do.
Speaker 9:It was stretched.
Speaker 3:It wasn't popping a wheelie, it was a drag racer.
Speaker 12:Yeah, it wasn't popping a wheelie. It was just going to spin the tires.
Speaker 2:That's always fun to watch too. Smoke the tire until it just explodes.
Speaker 9:And kiss everybody bye oh.
Speaker 3:And that my friends is Mild-Mannered Carla.
Speaker 2:It's the silent ones. Right, it's the silent ones.
Speaker 4:Be, careful.
Speaker 9:How long have we known her? I just found this out this year. It's the silent ones, right, it's the silent ones. It truly is. Wow, be careful, it truly is.
Speaker 1:How long have we known her? And I just found this out this year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 9:Yeah, who knew, the less people knew about you.
Speaker 12:The better off you are. Do we even know your legal name? Oh?
Speaker 2:I do, and for the right price. I might consider there you go, oh no. I kid, I kid, I kid. I would never. I would never do that. Well, kayla, let me ask you a question.
Speaker 8:Okay.
Speaker 2:You are what I would call the sensible one.
Speaker 8:Okay.
Speaker 2:In this group of Insane people I am I am very offended and I disagree with them. The sensible one.
Speaker 3:Okay, in this group of insane people I am, I am very offended and I disagree with them. I'm going to call Time out. Pull up your sleeve. You're calling her the sensible one.
Speaker 5:She looks like she's been beaten nine rounds with Mike Tyson by pigs right now. Okay what? No, that's not sensible. She gets trampled.
Speaker 8:You got beat up by pigs.
Speaker 2:Explain.
Speaker 8:It's my job to put them on the truck, and they decided they did not want to get on the truck, so they ran me over and just went right back over the top of me.
Speaker 3:So wait, I'm confused.
Speaker 1:How many pigs? When did we start a pig division? Hang on, hang on hang on.
Speaker 3:I was just saying Jerry's doing moving, you're moving people in trucks, right? I mean, we went over that a year ago or so and now we have a pig moving company also. Sure, I don't understand. When did we start moving pigs?
Speaker 5:She's the crazy pig lady.
Speaker 8:I went back to my roots. I started with pigs. That's where my career started, and then we went to trucking and stayed there.
Speaker 2:So, basically, you work for Highfield and you are our. For those of you that don't know, kayla, she's our Panther fleet support. And then not really in the evenings, I would say mornings Right, and like super early in the morning you go and work with a local pig farmer.
Speaker 8:Yep. Pig farmer right, yeah, yeah, okay, usually somewhere between 3 and 5 am is when it starts, and then it's about an hour a load and you leave. You have somewhere between two and four loads at a time.
Speaker 4:Wow.
Speaker 8:How many?
Speaker 1:pigs go on a truck 170 usually. And at a time, how many pigs go on a truck 170 usually and how many came back over you Roughly Before you got out of the way.
Speaker 8:I didn't get out of the way. I stayed on the ground and covered my head.
Speaker 5:She'll show you later.
Speaker 8:Probably three.
Speaker 1:Three pigs. How big are these pigs?
Speaker 8:They're like 280.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's tall, small ones, small ones. Yeah, I get it. I get it yeah.
Speaker 12:They're just the babies.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when you got up did you look at them and go bad bacon it's hard not to get mad sometimes.
Speaker 8:No, I just said, well, better just go back and get these, Because if you get mad it just makes it so much worse.
Speaker 12:The other end running forward like yeah, okay, because I mean it's far. Yeah, you just see her kind of get up. You know I'm like, okay, she's okay, she's getting up. Yeah, oh, you want to switch. You know you want to come back here. And she's like, no, I'm good.
Speaker 5:My point is you called her the sensible one.
Speaker 2:Yes, well, okay, I don't know what the question was now. It was an hour ago.
Speaker 8:I'm okay being the sensible one, okay.
Speaker 2:We've had. Some people have sent us some information not information questions and they've inquired about the mentor program and what all we're doing. I thought you know what. We're here to celebrate mentors and to work with them and to reinvest some time and resources, and I thought it would be fun. Why don't we go through a couple of these mentor questions? I'm going to pitch them out there and then I'm going to let someone volunteer to take it and it will go from there and, of course, I expect to hear from all of you. The mentor program that we have. What do you think the primary and maybe secondary goal of that program is?
Speaker 1:You know, being contractor, sourcing or recruiting, however you want to call it, that program is, you know, being contractor, sourcing or recruiting, however you want to call it, when people ask me, you know what is the reason for the mentor program?
Speaker 1:It's to come out here and hit the road running from day one and to maximize your revenue, but not to just go into an industry, even though it's trucking and you may be from trucking but it's expediting completely different animal of trucking. But it's to come out here and the mentors are sharing peer-to-peer knowledge. These are teams that want to pay it forward and from day one, from as soon as Vince or Mel gives you keys and they leave the truck and walk away, call those mentors. They're going to know everything about everything. Those mentors, they're going to know everything about everything and if they don't, they'll point you in the right direction, either on the Highfield staff phone tree or calling Panther and who you should talk to, or FedEx and who you should talk to. But it's really to just lessen the anxiety of something new and if you lean into that, the transition into this new job or career that you're taking on will just be minimalized, and that's what I feel. You know. It just really. These people want to share their knowledge. Why not take advantage of that?
Speaker 6:I actually, when my husband and I came on in 2019, Kelly and Jimmy were not our mentors, but they were here in Columbus when we picked up our truck. We had had our CDLs for one month. We went to school in Southern California. We got our CDLs. We had our hard copies. Jerry was actually our mentor. So we started driving for FedEx Custom Critical. Started driving for FedEx Custom Critical but I didn't know anything about trucking or other than you know what I had to pass to get take my test.
Speaker 6:What I had done behind the wheel and just things at that time that you saw on YouTube, you know. But I had never done it before, did not know even. I mean, we will joke sometimes about how some people don't know how to fuel a truck. Well, hello, I, I didn't know. There were two fuel tanks on the truck. I didn't know that if you turn off the driver's side, one before you passengers, one is done.
Speaker 2:You got to start all over again, start all over again.
Speaker 6:You know, I mean all of those things that like vince was saying. You know, most of us here have driven a truck.
Speaker 6:Don't let that intimidate you, because some of us here started from ground zero and yeah sure and learned from our mentors, from jerry, from don, from jim and Kelly I mean the people that had been doing this before us and I don't know how we would have made it, but we did with their help and it's invaluable. And I think that's what makes Highfield so special is that Patrick and Eric were there. Highfield so special is that Patrick and Eric were there. No-transcript in the business to be successful right out of the gate, because there's not a learning curve if you use your mentors.
Speaker 6:Yes, it's flat there's no curve, because they are going to tell you what you need to know to be successful. And yes, there's ups and downs, but there's ups and downs in any new career. This is your business business, this is your new life. You're not an employee. This is you, on your own, making decisions, and if you don't take their advice, you're just doing yourself a disservice. Sure To the success of your business.
Speaker 3:I think what a lot of experienced drivers forget is where they came from and there was a time in their career where they didn't know how to feel either.
Speaker 3:You know and when mel and I are doing our orientations in the yard and showing you the truck, I try our my my hardest to remember that that there are people that the people I'm talking to sometimes have zero experience and don't know what an apu is. They have no idea how to feel a truck and don't know what an APU is. They have no idea how to fuel a truck. They don't know anything about it except, like you said, what they learned in truck driving school, which is a far cry from what you need to know to operate a truck, let alone operate a truck in your business.
Speaker 3:You know, we had mentees that had no idea how to fuel a truck and they were embarrassed to ask the question. But don't be embarrassed because, again, we were all there at some point and if you start with a carrier, your trainer, hopefully, will show you that, but coming on board with us as a contractor, you may not know that stuff. So you ask your mentors those questions and your mentors help you. And a lot of times we had experiences where we had a mentor team. Call us one time and they debated for half an hour 45 minutes on something and whether they should call us or not. And they called and we had experienced the exact same problem and were able to answer their question in 15 seconds because we had been there and done that. So it's a great way to learn those things. Both of those examples are sitting in this room right now.
Speaker 2:Well, I love what you said. I'm going to try and get us a little bit more back on track.
Speaker 4:But you did say.
Speaker 2:the question was the primary goal and secondary goals. And, dina, you said it, you said exactly it. The purpose of the mentor program when we started it was that you come out and you're successful from day one. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That is, that was, that is, that was and still is the goal. Because in this industry that's not normal. You typically come out and they tell you you've three months to figure it out. So for the first 90 days where everybody's expecting you to make a little money, learn the freight lanes, learn how to negotiate, learn all that stuff on your own, and you're going to have horrible pit settlements for those first several weeks, the several months, and eventually you'll get it. And we were like that's crap, there's got to be a better way. And that's kind of how we decided to go this route and why it was successful from my point of view, I only see the settlement sides of it yes but, um, starting with this and looking at it and having drivers and seeing what they're doing on there and then starting these mentor programs, it got to.
Speaker 9:I get a settlement and these teams have only been here two or three weeks and I called Kelly and I said Kelly, is there something wrong with this settlement? Because they make way more than most people who start, who don't have the mentor program. So there's definitely a difference in their settlements that I see on my end when they're listening to their mentor.
Speaker 2:And that's huge. You're dead on right with that, like it is a huge income difference. But again, it's not forced. We don't make people do it, no, but it is. The proof is right there.
Speaker 5:Everybody said great stuff. The only thing I would piggyback on is that don't discount how much the mentors want to help. So everything everybody just said but there's another layer on it is that these people really do care about helping, or they wouldn't be doing what they're doing. A lot of them in the beginning, it's a lot of calls or whatever. It is their main goal and quite frankly, I think it almost. They get emotionally involved in it sometimes and I think when they have mentors or mentees who may be afraid to call them like Vince was referring to they, you know they don't understand. They're like we're just here to help, so don't discount that. They're invested as well, the people who are helping. So that's just another layer on top of everything that they're there to do. We talked about what what the drivers will get from it, but the mentors get reward from that too, and I think they really enjoy it.
Speaker 2:How are mentors and mentees matched?
Speaker 6:Well, we send out. When you get your welcome letter from Highfield, once you've been approved by the carrier and it's time for you to kind of start your onboarding process with Highfield as the fleet owner, you get your letter from them, from one of the girls Melissa or Delina sends that out introducing all of us to you and what our roles are. And then you have paperwork that you have to do, online things you have to fill out, and we have a questionnaire and that questionnaire we have revised it many times. We revise it as often as needed to try to get the information from new teams about you, about your experience, about what your experience, about what your needs are, about what your desires are. Do you smoke, do you have a pet on the truck? All these different things that will help your mentors ascertain what kind of information they need to give you and how they need to guide you.
Speaker 6:The pairing of that has several layers. One is we look at what maybe your side interests are. I look at what your side interests are If you ride motorcycles, and I know that we have a mentor team that loves to ride motorcycles. There's common ground there. So you, you're kind of starting out with some common interests, some things. Maybe you're veterans, maybe you're grandparents, maybe you're 20s You're in your 20s and we've had some young mentors who have been very successful, and so it just depends on how much information we can get from you in that questionnaire. It helps me to decide how to pair you potentially with the best possible mentor team. All of our mentors are good at what they do and that's why they are doing what they're doing, but it's another layer of a personal connection building a family, building a relationship beyond just trying to give you information on how to make money.
Speaker 8:We are high field family and so try to put that together speaking of the questionnaire, um, it's kind of hand tailored from all of our mentors. We asked our mentors, like, what information do you guys want to know about your team before you talk to them for the very first time? And so we gave all the mentors an opportunity to put questions in and we put them together and that formed the questionnaire and and help and help stina, pair them together.
Speaker 2:So if, if you ever wonder where the questionnaire comes from, that would be it and it's really cool too, because that's one thing we do revise, that we go through through, we look at it, we talk to the mentors and they say here's the questionnaire we want, and it's 148 questions.
Speaker 2:And so we do, we pare that down and we break it down into what it is now and then in a year or two we re-look at that questionnaire and go does this still make sense? And a lot of times over the course of that much time, what we see and the things that we realize, hey, we could phrase this different, we could ask this different. And also the mentors go, you know, we asked you to ask this question but really doesn't help us as much as maybe if we ask this. So we do revise that as well. Right, like I've seen that over many times absolutely, um, of how, how we ask and things we do. So you may come in and your questionnaire looks different than someone who's been with us for three, four years. Um, but it's still to get the same thing and it's it's to help us pair you with the best person.
Speaker 2:Uh, find common ground, regional stuff, stuff has happened. I know we have had some teams that live in Texas and they're like hey, let's pair you with a mentor team from Texas because they're going to be able to tell you how to get home easier, things like that. So sometimes that plays into account. And then also, we do protect our mentors. So we do try our hardest to keep a certain number of teams with our mentors and not exceed. That doesn't always happen, but we do that as well.
Speaker 2:So, um, you know, we're looking after both the the team and the mentors and, uh, sometimes that is a large part of the driving factor as well. Now, if it's like, oh man, this guy's got, or this, this team rather has our limit, but this person, this team, would be a perfect candidate to work with them, then sometimes we'll talk to the team and kind of massage that out a little bit Right and look at it, because sometimes it's like, yeah, I've got a team that's been with me for a while that really is about to graduate on. So taking on a new team is not a big deal. But that does lead me into our next question how long does a mentorship period last? Typically last.
Speaker 7:So the mentorship program is a six month commitment from a team. You will build a rapport and lasting relationships with these mentors. You will continue that on well beyond that. Six months, I'm sure, but the actual program itself is six months cool.
Speaker 2:And if uh, a team uh gets to that six months and they're like, oh, we really want to stay a little bit longer. Like, can we just get a little extension? Uh, how is that handled?
Speaker 1:it rolls over to month to month.
Speaker 6:Yeah, and we do. We have had that scenario where they just feel like they need a little bit more, like, oh my gosh, we're really getting out of the mentor program. Okay, I need one more month to really get my act together and make sure that I understand it Not that anybody's going anywhere, because we are all still here. Your mentors will never not take your call. It's just more of a formality, so to speak, but it really is putting you in literally the driver's seat and venturing out on your own. But we also have a reboot program. I've called it a reboot program, reboot program. You know, I've called it a reboot program. I've called it continuing education, where some of our drivers, when they've been out on their own, so to speak, for six months or a year, will go like I don't feel like I know anything anymore, like I feel like I'm not catching on freight, like I don't know how the freight's moving, and they come back into the mentor program for a month.
Speaker 6:It's just to kind of reboot them. They're doing things all the time, they're constantly on top of the freight, they know what's going on and it's not hard to kind of go by the wayside of that. Sometimes. I think, when you've been out for a year, if you don't have that constant, if you don't stay in constant contact and you are kind of doing your own thing and your business is successful, but maybe not as much as you want it to be, we reboot you, we put you back in the program, give you a little kickstart and refresh, because freight changes with the seasons, it changes every year, so just getting a refresher course.
Speaker 2:So we're always here to help and that's that six month commitment, like y'all talked about. That really is a lot of. It is because our freight is seasonal and so if you go in the mentor program two months in, you're like I'm good, I got it, which a lot of teams do. Um, when that freight because it is seasonal changes. So you know there's always freight. It's just where is the freight, when is certain states, when are they popping, when are they dead?
Speaker 2:So, being able to like see the signs and reposition yourself to work a different segment of business or different freight lanes or different negotiation situations because it's a little different right now and then knowing when to pivot back or to a third thing, and so the six months gives you a chance to go through, build some confidence. Then let the natural seasonality happen to where the team goes whoa, this isn't working like it used to work. What's going on? And you have that mentor there to go like, yep, you're right, it's not working like it used to work. It's going to be like this for a little while and then, when we can get back to that, we will go back to that, or sometimes it's this is better, like, we love this.
Speaker 2:You know it's a roller coaster, right, we love that cresting the hill and that sudden excitement of going down the hill, but you know, climbing back up the hill is kind of boring, you know, and so freight kind of does that. Sometimes it's very busy and fun and sometimes it's it's not busy. So you have to hunt for the freight and getting those those skills to hunt for it and know where to go. Um, I think that's that that is the main purpose of the six month, and Kelly kind of was talking about this a little bit. But they do want to know what kind of qualifications or experience does a team need to become a mentor? Like, what would be the things that we're looking for out of a mentor?
Speaker 11:I would. I would say from my perspective, um, to become a mentor, you need to show that you have that leadership skill, because there are some leadership skills involved with that, um. You have to be able to show that you have the success behind you as well. Absolutely, um. I mean, it's kind of hard to teach someone else whenever you're not grasping it yourself and whenever you have proven those along the way, then I'm sure Dino would reach out to you at that point and have a conversation with you. But I would say the most important thing is just having that the ability to teach someone. Not everybody's a teacher, I guess is what I'm getting at. There's multiple ways of teaching someone how to do something, and everyone has a different way of teaching. But you have to have the compassion, you have to have the drive, you have to have the ability to get your point across to someone, because not everyone's going to learn the same way, sure.
Speaker 11:So, you have to be able to change your way of thinking and put yourself in their shoes and be that person to Okay, they're not getting it this way. Let's switch gears and do this and hopefully get the point across.
Speaker 1:There's so many different walks of life Coming into trucking. It's just not your small community from home. You know, in my opinion, I love.
Speaker 2:I had the opportunity at the beginning of this year and if those of you listen to podcasts, y'all know um, but I had the ability to go down and do disney's leadership institute, right, and they talked about managers and leadership and how in america we kind of twist those two together. If you, you're a leader, you're a manager, you're a manager, you're a leader, right, and they talked about how a leader is not someone who is appointed to be in a position to lead. A leader is someone who has whatever it takes where people want to follow right.
Speaker 2:And so you can be a great leader and not be a manager. You can be a manager and be a terrible leader. So I think that's one thing our mentors do really well is they are true leaders in the sense that the people that they work with want to get their advice. They want to know what they're talking about. To be a good leader, you have to be able to reach people on all those levels like you talked about.
Speaker 2:to be able to reach people on all those levels like you talked about, right, um, and then uh people person is what I always describe as you have to be able to talk to anybody, whether or not you have a similar background or not, because sometimes you're not going to have a similar background.
Speaker 2:And so how do you build on me and this person don't see eye to eye and we like not not in a bad way, but we just we come from two different walks of life, we live in different parts of the country, we have different values and belief systems. So then how do we get together and work together and that's one thing I love that our mentors do and it's funny because if you talk to any of our mentee teams, they will typically tell you I have the best mentor in the company, and it doesn't matter who it is. They all feel that way because those people are so good at being those natural leaders. And we do have a nice situation where we can cherry pick our mentors and it is an invite only type situation and, um, the people we have doing it are just fantastic. Every single one of them are Um. And they do ask one more thing, which is um, do the mentors go through additional training?
Speaker 2:And it's like well, kinda, I think it's fitting, because that's what we're here this week for right sure um, so today, if you're a mentor and you're listening to this before you get at the hotel, before you come see us all, part of a large chunk of what we're doing today is to talk about being a mentor and to go through and have some uh group sessions where we're going to learn and get a chance to kind of wrap our head around some concepts and some things that are out there. We're also going to have a what's the phrase I'm looking for that is politically correct. We are going to have a grumbling and complaining session where A breakout session.
Speaker 2:A breakout session where you know we're going to be there and we're going to take back your comments and your feedback. Right, because it's not one way. It's both ways, so um we are going to sit there and uh and get berated. We also do uh monthly conference calls yeah, um calls with each carrier, the mentors for each carrier, yep, and so that's a chance for them to give us information back, but also for us to give them and reinvest. And then there's a lot of like.
Speaker 6:I know Kayla and Kelly can really speak to this, but the mentors are probably some of your most frequently talked to people on the phone, if I would imagine. I just want to piggyback on what Jerry was saying and the other part. The answer of that question is how do we choose our mentors? It's not just their financial success, their truck revenues, it is how are you communicating with fleet support? How are you communicating with Kelly? How are you communicating with Kayla? How do you communicate with our maintenance department?
Speaker 6:When you call in to Don, jerry and now Eric, how do you interact with them? Are you taking care of your truck? Are you? Are you calling maintenance? When you I know with the FedEx side, when you call in and you have something do on your truck, it says you have paperwork do. Are you listening to that message and going okay, what do I have to do is do I have to get a DOT inspection? Do I need my medical card updated? Do I have to get something serviced on the truck?
Speaker 6:So it's, it's that it really our mentors. It's not just it's not just that peer-to-peer in how to run the freight and how to make money running freight. They are the first person you call if something happens with the truck, they're the first person you call. If you're I don't know you're being held up at the shipper or something goes awry, it's like they are your first point of contact. Then they will say, okay, you need to call the carrier, you need to call Jimmy, you need to call maintenance, you need to call Kelly, you need to call Kayla, and so they're kind of that buffer to direct you in the right direction until you learn that yourself, until that becomes natural to you. But it's how. Our mentors are all good communicators with our staff and we all have that open discussion with them. And so that's the other half of not just the revenue side, but it's how are you communicating and how, how do you interact with the staff?
Speaker 5:also to piggyback on her. What she said it's not just I mean again, everything that you guys said is true. One of the major factors to finding the good mentors when they check all of those boxes is their willingness. Their willingness to wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning if a team calls them, their willingness to stay on the phone for 30 minutes to go through and explain something repeatedly to multiple teams.
Speaker 5:Again, when I said when I touched on it earlier and said that they're invested in it, I mean that in every way possible because they are available and their willingness to be available 24 seven when we ask them to be mentors, because we tell them that's just the first thing. So one of those two drivers that's a team that's mentoring you is willing to do that. So when we say they expect you to call them and they want you to call them, they mean it.
Speaker 5:Yeah do that. So when we say they expect you to call them and they want you to call them, they mean it. Yeah, they're willing to be woke up anytime, day or night or wherever's going on. Somebody's gonna answer that phone as best they can because they want to make you successful. So, in a nutshell of one liner like what is the most important thing? That the mentors want to make you successful absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And and the flip side of that is what's the number one uh complaint we get from the mentors about their mentees that they're not calling. That they're not calling that they're not calling.
Speaker 6:And they don't understand why.
Speaker 4:Yep and it hurts our feelings it hurts, yeah, it does, we're available.
Speaker 6:We want you to be. You know our mentors want you to be successful. I mean, they, that's what they are. That's why they have almost volunteered all of this time to help you be successful. And we get the call. They never call me. I don't know what you know like. Why don't they ever call?
Speaker 5:me. What do I do? Do they not like?
Speaker 6:me, yes, are they still driving for us? It really is. They're vested, yes.
Speaker 5:And fear. The only thing fear does in this career from being scared to ask questions is hurt you, and I know it sounds that way and it's easy to say because we've all been there. Again, we've all been there with a couple of exceptions, but either way, they still know about it. So the bottom line is if you're going to make the commitment to come out here and you're going to walk away from your family and your home and everything and leave it to go over the road and be out here and do all of this, take advantage of everything that's given to you because it's a huge commitment, and if you let fear keep you from calling or asking a question, no one can help you after the fact.
Speaker 5:Sure, so you've got to pick that phone up and say something now, because again, that's the sole purpose of why everybody is sitting here. Yep something now, because, again, that's the sole purpose of why everybody is sitting here. Yep to, because we want to be successful. We create, or that everyone's created, everything to try to make everyone successful. So again, it's just a domino effect.
Speaker 2:You're successful, we're successful, everybody's successful yep, and I love what you said too about the available, or the willingness rather of the mentee, our mentor, to uh do it. There are people, teams that are driving with Highfield for Panther and FedEx, that are great money-making teams, they are natural leaders, they have great personal skills and they have said no.
Speaker 2:We don't want to wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning and take a phone call and that's fine. If it's not for you, it's not for you. So, that being said, none of our mentors are here against their will. It's not like hey, you're a great team, so now you're going to be a mentor. It is an invite thing. We do spend a lot of time. It is an invite thing, we do spend a lot of time. It's almost like and I've described it this way, described this before when we've come up with personnel or any kind of interesting challenge of let's try to talk the person out of it. If we pitch them what it is and then we try and talk them out of it and they still want to do it, then it's probably a good direction to go.
Speaker 2:And so we do and we say, hey, we'd like you to be a mentor. There is a discussion of here's all the reasons why you don't want to do it, and then, if you're still interested in it, let's make it happen. Yeah.
Speaker 6:Well, and I remember when we first started, like I said, jimmy and Kelly were right here, so they literally taught me how to fuel the truck. But Jerry, I mean how to fuel the truck.
Speaker 12:Um, but jerry, I mean jerry may or may not remember this, I can't tell you how many times I had to call jerry to program.
Speaker 6:Say it with me to program the data logger yeah I can't. I can't tell you how many times, every time we had a refrigerated load, I had to call jerry, or my husband did. How do you program the data logger? Like there's just at the, there's steps to maybe press the green button. You press the yellow button, you know, but we just could not like, and my james asked him one time james.
Speaker 11:Actually it was like probably 3, 30 in the morning and he asked me. He was like, do you just do this by memory? And I'm like, yeah, you woke me up. I'm laying in bed, I'm literally doing it for memory, so yeah,
Speaker 6:I'm not walking through it with you, but but never fail like we could like every time, like seriously, a day and a half later when we'd get another load, you know, but but it was like that until we figured it out ourselves and I you know it could have been, it could have been three, but, but it was like that until we figured it out ourselves and I, you know it could have been, it could have been three days, but it felt like three months that we were doing that you know so and that's what.
Speaker 6:That's what the mentoring is about.
Speaker 3:That's that's the heart of our mentors. Melissa and I would would have our mentees send pictures of their Panther POD, their proof of delivery, before they submitted them to Panther, so we can make sure they were filled out correctly and they get paid on time, cause if they weren't, if they had things missing, they wouldn't get paid. So you walk them through those things, all those steps. You know you might be in trucking for 15 years, but not with Panther and not understand Pantherther's ways, and that's what we were there to help with that's a big advantage too, because if a new person were to do it incorrectly and not know they messed up on it.
Speaker 4:Panther's not going to call them and say you messed up on this. I need you to resubmit it, right when it comes out to settlements settlement gets the complaint when I'm not getting paid where's my pay? Now the. Panther mentor has to go find out what was wrong and get you to redo it.
Speaker 2:Well, here's a question for y'all. Real quick show of hands who was a mentor? So that's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Eight people in this room were mentors.
Speaker 10:I was like a half mentor because Kelly did most of the work.
Speaker 2:I believe it.
Speaker 10:She likes to talk a lot.
Speaker 2:I counted you and Don as one person. No, no.
Speaker 11:This one wasn't even a quarter.
Speaker 2:He was supporting you in the back off. What feedback have you received from former mentees and mentors about the impact of our program?
Speaker 3:I hear from former mentees that are now mentors or not all the time how how the program helped them be successful. Um, I mentioned pictures of pod's and people getting paid and then they didn't send the pictures of PODs and they wouldn't get paid. Well, okay, now I understand why you were doing that, or understanding, when they became mentors, how the questions that they thought were not worthy of calling us, how prevalent those questions were. People just didn't have that experience, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I hear lifelong friendships are made out of a lot of mentor-mentee partnerships. You know they're taking vacations together when they have time off.
Speaker 4:I see that.
Speaker 1:Maybe up at campgrounds, baby showers and a wedding here and inviting us here. But I see something bigger than just something over the phone.
Speaker 2:I also hear mentors like mentees obviously say a lot of stuff. I hear mentors talking about it's reengaged them and made them excited about the industry again. I've heard that from several mentors throughout the years. Has the program shown an effect on driver retention?
Speaker 8:I certainly think so.
Speaker 2:I certainly think so too. I'm surprised it's quiet.
Speaker 8:I think the teams that come in and grab a hold of the mentor program and use it as it was truly designed to be used, last much longer. They're happier.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 8:If you're making the money that you came out to make, it makes more sense that you would be happier. Their transition overall is just easier when they're making those 10 phone calls a day for the first week. You know we feel like we're bugging them, but we also need to learn this information. I think step of of a new job is so much easier and better when they truly use the mentor program and we certainly see the difference in um, in everything that I do.
Speaker 2:Fleet support you as well, so it's it's a it's a noticeable difference yeah, and you said the whole point about, uh, the mentorship certainly the ones that utilize it right. So again, when a team does get into a high-field truck, they have the option mentor, no mentor, it's not required. And even once they accept a mentor. Or if a team does accept a mentor, rather we do see some people who get into it and they just it's not for them, they don't really want to call their mentor, they don't want to talk, they really want to figure it on their own. When that happens that's when Carla explained earlier you usually see a huge difference in their settlements. You do see some frustration build. It's not what they thought it would be, because they don't want to utilize that mentor program, and so it's frustrating.
Speaker 2:Something we deal with. It's something we've talked about before on here. We don't force you to do it. It is completely a la carte. It's your choice. That does happen from time to time. A lot of our teams don't. A lot of our teams do use a mentor program and they're very successful, but it's not always the case.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I'll 100% agree and back what Kayla said. I will say this and it may sound brutally honest, but the bottom line is a team that comes in and uses the mentor program, like Kayla said, you may be calling five, ten times a day. It's not always going to be that way and the mentors expect that they did it. That's why they're successful, that's why they're mentors, that's why the program works. Sure, yeah, it's the circle of life, so to speak, to make successful teams. So again, like and I see it all the time the teams that do not embrace the mentor program and call and use and ask the questions significantly different income.
Speaker 1:They don't last. Or they move along, or they don't last yeah they move along.
Speaker 6:It's mostly that they don't last, because if you aren't making money and you graduate or you get out of the mentor program at the six-month mark but you haven't used your mentors, you're not making money. I mean, our statistics show about a three-month If you are not using the mentor program, as Kayla said as intended, utilizing your mentors all the time.
Speaker 5:Three months, yeah, you don't know what you don't know Sure.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and it's funny.
Speaker 5:You don't know. What you don't know, you've got to ask. That's the best way to learn it. Otherwise, you're spinning your tires and wasting time trying to figure it out on your own when you could have had it.
Speaker 1:Literally, just literally spinning your tires To do it. Yeah, literally.
Speaker 9:Like on my side. When I see people on there I can tell, because you're not in the truck 24-7, all month long. There's some time that you're off the truck, but the mentor will show you how to work it where you're still getting paid on that time that you're off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yep, yep.
Speaker 2:Constant flow of money Absolutely, and that's hugely important to what we do, because, you're right, you go home for a week and if you lose, most of us don't really want to take a $0 settlement, but that can. And if you lose, most of us don't really want to take a zero dollar settlement, but that that can happen if you're not careful. And we do have constant communication with our mentors. I think that's one thing that we can't stress enough is that, like we hear, so when a team does not utilize their mentor, or they don't call or they don't reach out to the team, we know about it pretty early on. And again, we don't force you to anybody to use the program. It's their choice, they're independent, they can do whatever they want, but we do know it and see it, and so when we do see that we do follow the trend and not always, but a lot of times it goes to a bad place.
Speaker 5:I was going to say something funny to you. Now I've been the one that's been saying about how the mentors feel that way too, I'm not going to lie. I can tell you as Fleet Support Kayla and I too. When we see a team struggling and we know they're not talking to their mentor, it's heartbreaking for us too.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's super frustrating Because we just desperately want to pick the phones up and go please, because you could do. You know what I mean and it's just hard. So you know I can't push this program enough. I really can't. Again, it made me successful. It made everybody sitting here successful. They raised their hands and said they were mentors. They also used the mentor program.
Speaker 1:It'd be a fool not to come in and use it.
Speaker 3:What made me more successful made us more successful when we were mentors. We learned a lot from our mentees, because someone said earlier you know we all have different styles, different walks of life, we have different needs. So when your mentees come in and their goals are different than yours, but you can teach to their goals, that's true, and then learn from the way they're running their business to help improve your business where it fits your goals. And I'm going to be real specific here melissa and I we didn't run crazy hard. We enjoyed ourselves, we made good money, but we didn't run crazy hard. When we took on eric and kayla as mentees, they came out, they were super focused, they ran like scalded dogs and they they were very successful, but they are mad pigs, exactly, exactly or mad pigs. They came out and were successful and they listened to what Melissa and I had to share with them and they made it their own and we learned from them.
Speaker 3:And then, when they became mentors, they taught their mentees, they shared with their mentees their way of running their business. They share it with their mentees their way of running their business. And then they learned also from and this is from conversations I've had with Kayla and Eric over the years they learned as well from their mentees different ways of doing things that made them more successful. So, as mentors we're, it's a two-way street.
Speaker 3:Yes, I have the experience that I'm going to share with you, but I'm also going to listen to what you are doing and learn from that, and I might be able to take that information and share with other mentees, or share with other mentors too, because their experience could be different than mine and now I'm learning from them and sharing that information with other mentors and mentees.
Speaker 2:So it certainly is a two-way street. Well, we also joke about you joke about Eric and I being the original mentors, right, because when we started the company we had seven or eight trucks, whatever it was, it was just talking to me, there was nothing else, right. And it was one of my teams that I was working with that challenged me to think critically about what we were doing, because we had ideas on here's some general parameters to be successful, right. We had ideas on here's some general parameters to be successful, right. And then tightening up, kind of giving examples of like, okay, well, you did this, but here's kind of what I would have done. Or my favorite question back in the day was so I see you took this load, what were you thinking? But I would tell them, like anytime I ask what were you thinking. That's not a bad thing. I may be asking what were you thinking, and it's a great load. Like, I just want to know your thought process.
Speaker 2:I had teams that taught me to sharpen my skill set, because there was a lot of what Eric and I were doing. Driving the truck was kind of by the seat of our pants. We were decent and good moneymakers. But if I had to write it down on paper. I don't know that I could explain it. Being challenged to get to that point, and I think most of our mentors are at that point, they will tell you they do have. I'm not going to say formulas, but I will say reasons behind what they do. That is explainable and teachable and so it's super beneficial. It's not just well, I have a gut feeling.
Speaker 4:It's a technique Exactly yeah, I was going to say because not all questions have a yes or no answer flat out or formulated. Sure yeah, negotiation the ability to negotiate changes a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 4:Like yes or no. Should I go to Montana or Wyoming Flat out no. But you can't make it worth it. It is possible to make it worth it.
Speaker 8:There's a lot of networking behind the program too that maybe our teams don't see. The mentors are in their own chat, so if there's ever a time that the mentors don't have a question, they can throw it in that chat and you might be getting advice from 10 different people, but you don't necessarily know, or if they're weighing in on a decision, unless you are a mentor's very first team. There's 10 different styles going into it? Yes, sure.
Speaker 8:Exactly what you said. These mentors learn from each other. They learn from their teams. They've been mentored. Now they're mentoring. They might have changed their style. There's so many people and pieces of puzzles that they have put together to be where they are that it's not just like a one track. This size fits all.
Speaker 5:You've got to understand the thought process behind it, to understand the load. I know when jimmy and I were mentors, you know. Again it's like I'm gonna give you my advice. We're under time crunch here, so here's what I would do. Um, you don't have to do that, but here's what I would do, uh, if we had time. But let me tell you why.
Speaker 5:It's not just here's what to do, that should never, be, the way it is, but you've got to understand, because then the rationale behind it is going to help you make decisions in the future. So you start it's a chess game You've got to be thinking multiple steps ahead, and these guys have done that Again. That's why it's just so valuable and we appreciate them so much.
Speaker 2:We do, we do, and they're great with disruption, they're great with hey, this load just canceled.
Speaker 2:So this perfect plan this house of cards I just built just blew over because this one load canceled. So how do I pivot quickly and economically? Hey, the truck just broke down, Jimmy, what do I? You know, and I had this great load lined up. Well, a mentor can get there and can look at that situation and go like, okay, first off your new team. Here's what you need to know. Trucks break down all the time. All the money that we tell a team coming into this business, this is averages of what we see across the board. All those trucks broke down. You know what I mean. None of this is we're not giving perfect world. No, we're not giving, if everything goes right, numbers.
Speaker 3:We're not inflating things to a. This is theoretically possible, but not literal possible. We're giving real world numbers. We're getting real world numbers.
Speaker 2:We're giving real world numbers. You're getting canceled loads in those numbers. You're getting truck breakdowns in those numbers. You're getting slow seasons of the year, busy seasons of the year. You're getting all that data right. So a mentor can look at that situation and go like I understand this is a panic and this is frustrating, but it's not the end of the world, because that's already been factored into the equation. So here's how we pull ourselves out of that situation and we roll on Right, right, right, and so I do think there's huge benefit in that. And also sometimes it's like I think it was said earlier my truck broke down and I'm on my way to pick up a load and I've got to be there an hour. What do I do? Like? You do get that like especially if you have a new team, you get that like oh dear, I don't know what to do. I'm just confused.
Speaker 2:Your mentor is there to step aside or go along with you and go like, all right, we're going to reach out to maintenance, let them know there's a problem, and then we're going to talk to your carrier, let them know there's a problem. Uh, once you find out as a mentor, sometimes they find out what the problem is and they're like, okay, you can roll with this. This is not a life or death problem. This is not a safety critical issue. We can get that finished or fixed once we get off the road or you know. So there are some things that can kind of pivot and help and and, uh and and guide you through things. Uh, to make it a smoother transition. Um, and sometimes it's. It is just like you need to call jimmy and let it call it maintenance, and let them know you're gonna need a tow truck most likely. So they're gonna tell you somewhere you're gonna be down for two or three days because we know what that issue is and it takes two or three days sometimes to get through it.
Speaker 2:your, your carrier is going to, uh, give that load to someone else, right? And and that's fine, because that's already been built into the equation. We go through the same thing, you're going to go through that same thing and it's going to be fine. There are those, you know, there is some idea behind, like well, they run great trucks, so then there's never going to be breakdowns, and it's like that doesn't work. Every single truck, every single truck that's ever graced this planet, breaks down. It's just what it is. It's how you respond to that and how you react to that. And I think you know one thing we do Jimmy, kind of help me out on this one when we put people up in hotels, we don't put them in Motel 6s, right?
Speaker 10:No, we don't do the CLC dirt cheap, no, we are very generous in where we put people and the type of hotel we put them in, and I think that goes back to when you and Eric first started, and I'm sure you had to stay in a hotel that you were paying for yourself. Yeah, we stayed in hotels, it's part of it.
Speaker 7:You're going to be put in a hotel every now and then, when a breakdown situation requires it.
Speaker 10:We don't look at you know we're going to put you in the cheapest hotel we can find just for the bottom line of the company. We want you to be comfortable. We want you to be safe. We've all been there before. Nobody wants to be in a seedy hotel. We do our best to put you in a comfortable place to make it as easy as possible on you, because when that breakdown happens, happens and it will happen.
Speaker 10:Um, people have a tendency to dwell on that and have anxiety about it and focus on that, just not unlike an accident situation. I tell people the biggest thing when you're in an accident is learn from it but don't dwell on it. You cannot go down the road after the accident situation focusing on what just happened. You're putting yourself in a bad spot. If you're just focusing on the bad part of a breakdown, you're not going to see the big picture of let's work the problem. We'll get the truck back, we'll make it back up down the road and I can't tell you how many times Kelly and I were broke down where you know.
Speaker 10:The breakdown situation almost put us in a better position because it made us work that much harder for the next little bit to make up for the money we just lost from being down for three days. And the mentors have all been there. The mentors have all broken down and I'm going to give props to the mentors right now, because it's not the mentor's job to diagnose or troubleshoot maintenance and repair issues. That's not their job. We don't ask them to do it, we don't require them to do it, but a lot of them do it because they had been there and you have no idea how much time and effort they've saved off of the maintenance department by simply telling drivers you know hey, do this, try this, the APU is not working. Hit the reset button on the breaker and various things that they have gone through before. That they will tell the drivers to get them back up and running in quick fashion and we don't even know about it, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 10:And even though, like I said, we appreciate that because it takes a little load off us and helps the driver stay on the road, which is the bottom line.
Speaker 3:In ops, we tell our teams, our new contractors, your first point of contact is going to be your mentors.
Speaker 3:Yes, our teams our new contractors, your first point of contact is going to be your mentors. Yes, because a lot of times they can help you resolve issues right now, versus talking to the carrier can't help you at all sometimes on these things or talking to maintenance. Reach out to your mentors and if it's an issue that they can't resolve, they'll point you towards maintenance. And until you get to the point where you understand that this is going to be a maintenance call because you've dealt with it before or you understand the severity of it, your mentors will be your first point of contact. So those mentors a lot of times they have dealt with these things. They know where the reset button is on the carrier. Apu can help you with that. They know where your breaker panel is. They can help you get to your breaker panel, even though we show them that. We show them a lot and they forget. So we try and point them towards their mentors first. It doesn't always work, but that's what we try to work with them on and we appreciate that.
Speaker 2:A lot of times. Your mentor can kind of help you figure out what urgency is. Sure Like hey, one of my duals is flat on my truck. There's eight tires back there. One of them is flat on my truck. There's eight tires back there, one of them's flat. I think I could probably make my delivery. Well, no, you can't. It's a safety-critical function of the truck.
Speaker 2:So the mentor will help you. But the good news is we can probably get a roadside out to you. Or, oh, you're in a Love's parking lot. Well, they've got a tire care center.
Speaker 3:Let's get them over there.
Speaker 2:Let's get them over there. Let's get that tire fixed real quick. Your mentor can help talk you through that kind of stuff, or? Um, hey, my apu died. I don't know if I can finish this load well, they can explain.
Speaker 2:Maybe that's not the most critical thing. Let's get the truck, let's get the load delivered and then get you to a a shop. And the cool thing is they know that if you know you're two days out from making your delivery because it's a long cross-country load, we know that maintenance can go ahead and set up a generator shop ready to look at it.
Speaker 10:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So that when you get there you're not kind of starting from scratch, You're already kind of cutting the line.
Speaker 5:Just another reason to use the mentor program Absolutely.
Speaker 2:All right, so real quick, we're going to keep going on. All right, so real quick, we're going to keep going on. How does the company gather feedback on the mentor program to identify areas for improvement, which I think is fitting for today.
Speaker 6:Well, we talk to the mentors, yes, find out what kind of communication they're having with their mentees, find out what kind of communication they're having with their mentees and, as a result of, as we said, we change things all the time questionnaires, processes and things that we're doing. Our fleet support and our recruiters have Delina and Buttermilk and Buttermilk have implemented periodic communications with all of our teams after they come on board yes, kind of a handoff and then a follow-up, and so we get information, they get information from the teams. I will call if there's an issue I talk to. I mean good or bad. There's one, two, three, four, five points of communication outside of the mentors, outside of maintenance, outside of Vince, outside of talking with Patrick or Eric. Five, five other points of communication which, to a new team, could be a little overwhelming.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 6:Just sometimes like who am I talking to and what's your role in the company and that kind of a thing. We try to streamline it, but we've made these processes, times of communication, specifically that I have set up. But then also like a graduation, at that six-month mark I send out a questionnaire like how was the mentor program for you? I just sent out to you today, like you know, you're getting ready to graduate out of the mentor program. You know, how was your communication with your mentors? You know, just ask some basic questions to try to get feedback. Do I generally get that feedback? No, yeah.
Speaker 6:I don't. So it's real hard sometimes to make adjustments and improvements going forward when we don't get the feedback that we ask for. That's the hard part.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. No one likes to fill out surveys. It's one of the hardest things. We have to get that information back. But we have done things like we have implemented monthly. We did the beginning of this year. We implemented monthly phone calls with our entire mentor group, two different calls every month, once with our Because we do carrier specific so that we can actually dive into carrier specific issues. Because the way they enter are different. If a mentor at Panther decided they were going to go to FedEx or a FedEx mentor decided they were going to go to Panther, they would no longer be mentors.
Speaker 6:They would have to be mentored.
Speaker 2:They would have to be mentored because they operate so differently. So we do that. Like you said, everybody has your five points of contact. They do the follow-up calls with the teams as well once they've come on board, and so we do have lots of areas there where people can get that feedback to us. And they do, and we do make changes periodically. They also, you know, I've had this happen a few times where people are like we don't know how to get a hold of Patrick. Everybody, when they come on board, gets an email that has my contact information on it Eric's as well. So I think it always makes me chuckle when people are like, well, Patrick's in his ivory tower and we don't know how to get a hold of him, and it's like, okay, not quite. We literally put that information out there for everybody. I'm on the phone tree just like anybody else is.
Speaker 1:You get it day one once you're approved.
Speaker 2:Exactly that's what I'm saying. We give that information out to all the teams from day one.
Speaker 1:Actually, they get it day one with the application. Your email address.
Speaker 2:Because you're CC'd. That information is out there and there are some people who reach out to myself or Eric directly. Most don't, I try not to. Well, yeah, I get that. Vince and I, we only really see each other for this recording.
Speaker 3:That's it. We try not to.
Speaker 2:And anybody that's listening is like we hear you talk about hanging out all the time. It's not true. No, it's not true at all. We do try to get that feedback from you're. Right, the survey thing, Because we've had that too. It's been brought up multiple times, Like why don't you all do a survey midway through?
Speaker 2:Because, every time we send a survey out, nobody will answer it. So it's like it would be great. We would love to have that survey. It's completely useless. And then we're hounding you to fill a survey out and it's like, well, that's not funny for anybody.
Speaker 6:But also really quick. The phone rings both ways in that sense.
Speaker 6:And I don't mean that in a bad way, but there are always so many people for you to reach out to if you, as a mentee, are having an issue and we have had multiple situations are having an issue and we have had multiple situations. I mean I've been doing this job now for three years and as the mentor coordinator and we have just transitioned. I mean it's a constant change in how we as a staff do our jobs, because we are trying to bob and weave and adapt to the needs of our teams that are coming on board as well as the needs of the teams that have been with us for five or eight years.
Speaker 6:You know, so it's a huge variance, but we are. Someone is always here to answer your call. We will have teams, and the pairing of the mentor and mentee isn't always successful.
Speaker 2:Oh great, I'm glad you said that. Yes, Because the very next question is how does the company address any mismatches between mentors and mentees?
Speaker 6:There we go, it's like you're reading my notes.
Speaker 6:Well, it isn't always successful, and one we have to know about it. So, just because your mentor might communicate to us that you're not reaching out to them, if you are not reaching out as a mentee, saying I just don't jive with them. I mean, you are independent contractors, you're not employees, so we are not in your business, so to speak. So we really do put it upon the responsibility of you as a business owner to say I'm not getting what I need from this business relationship with my mentees, and people will do that and we are Johnny on the spot with that. I would say within a 24 hour period we will have you with a different mentor. Yes, can I guarantee that's going to be 100% successful? No, sometimes it hits off and it goes and people are really successful with that, but quite often we have seen where they're. If you're not calling and communicating with one mentee, one mentor you may not do it with the second one?
Speaker 6:yeah, and we've seen that more often than not, but we are always willing to make that change and that effort to try to give you the advantage and the best way to make good revenue for your truck and learn the business.
Speaker 2:Well, it's probably you know a 60 40 split, probably 60 percent of the time. If a team says I'd like to have a new mentor, we just don't jive, or for whatever reason, a lot of times then they don't jive with the next one and they don't jive with the next one. But 40% of the time, which is a big number, it does work. It does. It's just like all of a sudden it's like oh, now we're speaking the same language.
Speaker 2:Kelly, who I adore and is one of my closest friends, but also she's over the entire fleet, but she also specifically works for the FedEx fleet. She was a great mentor and I could think of one of her teams. I would talk to Kelly and she would be almost in tears because she just could not get through to this team. It was super frustrating. It's like all right, well, would you be okay? It was one of our first times we ever did it. Would you be okay if we swapped this to a different mentor? And Kelly was like heartbroken but she said, yes, they did it and immediately the team snapped out of whatever funk they were in and were great, like they really ended up being a great team.
Speaker 2:And it's not that Kelly was a bad mentor. She's a great team and it's not that Kelly was a bad mentor. She's a great mentor. She was one of our really well, I can't say one of our best, because all of our mentors are great, but she was a really solid mentor. She was one of the first ones. She was solid. Look at her track record. The teams that came from her were really, really great. She has a legacy that still lives on within the company. You know what I mean. Like that's huge. It's just they just weren't talking on the same level. You know, not the same the same, it's almost like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, same frequency, Thank you. It's almost like a Windows and a Mac talking to each other. They just weren't seeing eye to eye and didn't, and they both liked each other. I know they still have a friendship today, Like it's crazy, but it just. They just couldn't get through to each other and so that does happen.
Speaker 3:I have that same issue with Kelly too.
Speaker 9:Kelly and.
Speaker 3:I, we butt heads, we just don't get along. So I just call Kayla when I have fleet support questions and I talk to Kayla and we get along just great and issues get resolved and it's no problem. But Kelly and I are great friends.
Speaker 5:I love you too, vince.
Speaker 2:I don't say that to knock Kelly in any means. I think you all know that. It really is just to point out that sometimes if you are in that hot seat of like this isn't working for me, I can't, for some reason I just can't get on the same page as my mentor. Call me yeah, talk to you. If you don't want to talk to Dina, reach out to. Kayla Reach out to Kelly.
Speaker 1:Call Delina, Call Melissa. I'm like start from the beginning.
Speaker 2:Call your recruiter Send us an email at theouterbeltpodcastcom. There's lots of ways to contact us.
Speaker 5:We don't know what. We don't know Exactly.
Speaker 6:We are here for your success. Yes, it's really weird 100 honest about that. I mean, we we've lived it and we're here because of what our mentors did for us and what patrick and eric did the start of this. So it's tough when we have to make those decisions, but really our mentors do not take it personally, because they want you to be successful in your business. They understand the concept. So if, if that happens, if that is you in the future, if it's you right now, call me, because it's okay, we will. We will bob and weave and we will do what we have to do to give you the best opportunity we can.
Speaker 2:And if you are watching this and you're like, are listening to this and you're like, well, geez, I was thinking about going over and getting a mentor and joining Highfield. But like I don't know now, I do want to point out that this is a very low number of people single digit percentage of our teams that have these kind of conflicts and we just handle them when that happens. Again, we've been there, the mentors have been there. Most of our mentors are seasoned enough. They've had a team swap from them or to them from another mentor. It just happens. But the high 90-something percent of teams, that's not the case.
Speaker 2:But we want to put that out there because it was presented to us and also because we want you all to know this is a well-rounded, thought-out program that we have. It's something that we've put a lot of money, a lot of time, a lot of resources into. We are not done developing it. I mean, we've been at it now. You've been on staff for three or four years, three years and before you we were probably four years into it. So we're seven, eight years in this mentor program and we do not have it down. It's good, we're slick.
Speaker 6:Well, it's one of the reasons why we're doing this weekend too, because we are here. Those breakout sessions are, so we can re-evaluate what we're doing, re-evaluate the processes that we have with the mentor program, with the questionnaires, with the duration, with whatever, to make sure that we're still doing the right thing yes for, for you yes, while at the same time giving the mentors some information as well, so that it's not just one-sided.
Speaker 2:We're both working together to come up with a greater good. So I love this program. I'm very excited that we are still running it after all these years. It has truly been an industry-changing game.
Speaker 2:I tell you, go back to Facebook I don't know how you do this, but go back to the Expeditors Online, the forums. A lot of that stuff is seven, eight years old, at the newest. You won't see anybody. Nobody will mention Mentors. It doesn't exist. Not a single company mentions it. If you look at people's advertising today, almost everybody mentions Mentors available or we can get you a mentor or we could help you with a mentor and the reality is nobody's doing what we're doing of investing into their lives and making sure that the teams are prepared, and none of them are doing monthly conference calls with everybody. Carrier-specific it's a hot trendy word because we made it a hot trendy word, but I'm telling you right now nobody's doing what we're doing with that at all and a lot of it goes to the credit of you know, Dina, working with the staff or working with the mentors, but almost all of it goes to the mentors themselves.
Speaker 2:We've got an excellent group of people who bust tail and work their butts off and genuinely get joy out of seeing you be successful, and that's what it's all about. That's that's the joy of it. I mean, the lifelong friends is awesome Yay, we got another person successful, whatever is great but it's that joy of like working with these people and and and seeing um man, seeing people's lives changed we have. I mean, people have we seen that have come out here, um, and they need to build X number of dollars for their retirement fund or they need to help get out of some insane debt or they want to set themselves up for a future. We've got people that are, you know we've talked about before, where we've had the lease owner program within our company, where people are buying trucks and they're and they're now owner operators. We've got people who are starting fleets of their own underneath us and stuff.
Speaker 2:It's like there are so many great things that come out of this program. Awesome to see what's happened. It's awesome to see people's lives changed. It really. I mean it's it's really it's really, it's probably the joys of what we do.
Speaker 11:That's very rewarding yeah, without a doubt if you like what you heard, make sure you hit that subscribe button, hit the thumbs up button. It really does help us a lot. Please, please, please. There's a lot of you that watch but have not subscribed, so it really does help us. With the youtube algorithm, you can listen to this on all of your favorite podcasts. We're out there on all of those spotify, apple, google, google anywhere you like to listen to your podcast, we are available. If you would like to send us any email, if you would like questions or anything else that you would like to hear on the podcast, shoot us an email at the outer belt podcast at gmailcom. I do not read that, but somebody will, and I get that If you would like to.
Speaker 2:It's on my outlook.
Speaker 11:If you would like to follow up with Highfield, to find out more about Highfield and what we do over here, check out highfieldtruckingcom. You can also reach out to recruiting from the website. You can speak to Delina, or you can speak to Melissa, or you can speak to myself. Sometimes I'm on there. You can also reach out to us at 1-833-HIGHFIELD, that's 833-493-4353. And we would love to chat with you and tell you all about the program.
Speaker 2:Well, this has been a really fun episode. I appreciate so much y'all hanging out with us. We hope we made your ride down the road a little bit easier. We hope that we maybe brought some entertainment, at least some education about what we do and why we do it. And thank you for hanging out with us. Highfield staff, everybody around me right now thank you all so much for joining us. This was quite the feat to put together. It's very rare we're all in one room together. Jerry, thank you so much. He had to adjust his lights and cameras and we messed everything up and he had to come in early and take care of all that. So I appreciate that as well. Until next time, stay safe and make good decisions don't leave money on the table and keep those wheels a turning and chicks out goodnight.
Speaker 1:Thank you you.