Latest / Exit Algorithms / From MARSOC Veteran to Logistics Founder: The Trucking Playbook Nobody Teaches | (#59)

Transcript

From MARSOC Veteran to Logistics Founder: The Trucking Playbook Nobody Teaches | (#59) · Exit Algorithms

• speaker-0: Welcome to Exit Algorithms, the podcast where we decode what it really takes to unlock growth, streamline operations, and prepare your business for a high value exit. I'm your host, Pete Vera, and today we have Alfredo Limon in the building. He's a MarSog veteran the 1st Marine Raider Battalion, one of the most elite special operations units in the US military, with 25 years in the trucking and transportation industry. He grew up in the family trucking business and founded AAAM Hauling and Logistics to build the freight brokerage side himself. So Alfredo, super excited to have you on the show today. speaker-1: Thank you, thank you. Yeah, I'm very excited to be on. Honestly, it's my first podcast that I've done and stuff, so I'd definitely like to know that. Thank you for reaching out to me and having me on as a guest. speaker-0: Absolutely. Yeah. Happy to break you into it easy here. yeah, can you do mine? Starting off sharing a bit about your background, maybe like a story from your time in the Marines. And then I'd love to hear how you transitioned from military to business. speaker-1: Okay. Yeah. mean, you know, first I'll start off with the trucking side, you know, me growing up in that, ⁓ when, know, everybody in my family has been in trucking for the most part, you know, my brothers, uncles, dad, you know, cousins stuff and eating some of my, ⁓ you know, answering and, and, even my mom, you know, back office stuff where they were out on the road or not. So I grew up around trucking, but so I kind of knew you at some point that I was going to be in this type of, ⁓ this business. But I wanted to I was really attracted to the military at a young age and you know getting out of high school Getting close to graduating stuff. I was trying to figure out what I was gonna do And I definitely wanted to to join the military That was something I really wanted to to go after but nobody my family was had ever joined the military or been in it So, you know both mom and dad were kind of against it at first ⁓ they were like, know What if you tried college out first, you know try that out first and if that doesn't work out You know then go ahead and join the military So I ended up going to college for about a year and a half and that was definitely not for me. I was done with school. I didn't want to do that. So that's when I ended up speaking with ⁓ a Marine recruiter. I was originally talking to an Army recruiter and they kind of just kind of pushed me off to the side and stuff. You know, I just was trying to some information ⁓ wasn't, they were kind of really being really pushy about, know, just signing, going to take the ASPAP and everything. And I didn't really like that, like them being pushy about it, just trying to get some information. ⁓ Finally, when I came back a second time, spoke with the the Marine guy and he ended up, you know, kind of clicked and stuff and I was able to get some good information from him. And that's kind of where the ball got rolling and stuff. And I ended up joining the Marines. Did that for, you know, my first four when I first went in, it was like a logistics Marine and did that for four years. ⁓ And my first deployment to Afghanistan, I ended up, you know, talking to a couple of Marine Raiders. They came in with all their gear and with all their different uniforms and everything and I was definitely that's what I wanted to do. I spoke with their gunner sergeant he was actually from ⁓ air wing before. So I spoke with him, told him how did I do to go that training and stuff and he kind of walked me through the process. He just kind of told me as soon as I got back from that deployment man I went straight to the ⁓ Marshal and that's what I ended up doing. speaker-0: Yeah, damn, yeah, that's badass. cool, because it's also harder to get into Marsog if you're not infantry, right? I mean, speaker-1: I it's it's I guess it's the training because you're not used to the type of stuff that they do sometimes. But for the most part, anybody could sign up for it as far as just, you I'm not sure if things have changed or not. But when I was going through the way that I took it was, you know, as long as you're ⁓ corporal or above, you know, E3 or above or whatever, you could sign up and you could get the chance to try out regardless of your MOS ⁓ long as you pass the test and everything, the requirements. then if you pass the election, then, you know, you go through the next step. speaker-0: Nice. And did you do list logistics functions in Marsauk ⁓ did you not really ⁓ your ⁓ NLS? ⁓ speaker-1: I mean, when I was in the teams, since I had that, you know, logistics background, I was the logistics guy within the team, making sure, you know, just the kind of ability of the equipment, you know, all that kind of stuff. So that was a small part of it. than that, you have a bunch of other roles that you have as a team member. ⁓ you're, know, first of all, you know, I was a J tech, so that was my main focus as a J tech. And then, being within the element and the team and stuff, but I was also in charge of the logistics side of making sure that all our equipment, our gear, our weapons and everything were accounted for and stuff every time we were going off for training or deploying or something. speaker-0: Yeah, gotcha. Yeah, that makes sense. and like ⁓ lot of those logistics skills you can use in pretty much any job or business, I'm sure you're finding as well. Yeah, what were some of the things ⁓ learned ⁓ your time in the Marine Corps that you've been able to transfer to your business life? speaker-1: Definitely. ⁓ honestly, man, there's, there's so many things. think anything that you learn in the military, you do four years or 20 years, you could definitely use it in the, the, you know, business, ⁓ it's your own business or, know, if you work for a large company or anything, my thing, especially with like being in the teams and Mars, like you're working with a lot of, you know, eight players, you're working with a lot of, you know, people that we take things very serious ⁓ and know, it's all about the mission, know, completing the mission. So that right there really helped me to be able to get out of the military, focus on one thing and stick to it for the long run. A lot of people, start wanting to do something with a business and when things get hard, because they will get hard, they end up saying, ⁓ this isn't for me or I'm not going to make it. But that allows you to kind of keep pushing through the hard times to make sure you're successful. speaker-0: 100%. Yeah, absolutely agree. I've heard that from other sources as well, but I find it true in my own experience in business. know, Alex Hermosy says, I cannot lose if I do not quit. speaker-1: Exactly. You can't be somebody that doesn't quit. speaker-0: Exactly. Yeah, because and then it's that that dip too, because if you invest time, and like in learning the skill, you don't realize you might be on the on the verge of finally, you know, starting to make money or having that breakthrough. speaker-1: Yeah, that usually happens closer to when you're about to either give up or something. You just keep pushing a little bit more and something happens. speaker-0: Yeah, exactly. Man, so okay, so you kind of grew up in the trucking business, it like, and then when did transition from just trucking to also providing a freight brokerage with with triple AM? speaker-1: ⁓ So when I first got out my plan was you know joining the family business my dad's been in trucking like I said since I was little you know he would take us out whenever we were out of school or something you know during the summer and do trips and stuff so I still remember doing you know being out on the road with him me and my brother sometimes will take the family and stuff so I knew that's what I wanted to try to do and and see if we could grow it. When I first got out my goal was just you know a minimum six months up to a year of driving just drive learn Everything that's got to do with how we're running things within the business and see how we could improve it and figure out You know just educating myself So when I first got out I started driving I remember like the I probably got ⁓ to Texas It was probably like a Friday afternoon or something once I got out and that Monday, you know My dad already had a load for me to go back to California So first year or so I was driving to Texas, California ⁓ every week for the most part. That was my route and I was just using that time to listen to podcasts, YouTube videos, reading books. I have 22 hours driving over there every single week and stuff there and back. So I have plenty of time to educate myself with stuff like that. And right away, within the first three months, I myself, doing invoices for myself. And within the first three to six months, I was already doing everything. I was already doing ⁓ all back office, the compliance, ⁓ if-thus, factoring. All this stuff and we were you know, my dad I was looking through invoices We had about 20 to 20 thousand dollars that were past due that we weren't getting paid from Brokers or stuff like that that we're just waiting to get paid and these were you know 90 days 120 days and stuff like that. So I was yeah, so that was my job took me about three months to just go back through everything fix any, know paperwork and stuff like that and fix it and get paid and bring in all that money and and I did that, like I said, within the first three to six months, I knew a lot of stuff that we were either doing wrong or could have definitely improved on so we could be able to scale. So that was like ⁓ big thing that I wanted to push for that. But it pretty hard to bring up to the family and stuff because ⁓ they've been it for so long. I've been gone for nine years. ⁓ And then come in and right away I want to change things and they weren't having it. ⁓ I of slowed a little bit ⁓ and told them, know what, let's keep on trying to make this work so we could continue to grow, but we have to put systems in place in order to able to scale, to bring in drivers, to have people in the back office and stuff like that. something that, ⁓ even to this day, I still tried to see if we could make it happen, but it wasn't really working out with the family. ⁓ There's families could work together very well, and there's some that just can't. My family, for most part, is kind of hard for us to all. align on one goal and kind of push for that because everybody has, you know, different ideas and they want to, you know, they're stuck to their ideas and stuff of how to do things. that was the biggest, ⁓ guess the hardest challenge with the family business. I still help out with the family business when I can, especially like on the back office stuff, if they need help with anything. But for the most part, my dad and my brother kind of took that over and I ended up getting my own authority last year. So I my own authority, my own trucking company. And that's more because If I want to scale and grow, I want to be able to fully control what's going on and make those decisions without having to back to that and having to figure out if could do it. speaker-0: Nice. Yeah. ⁓ and I appreciate you getting into that. Because there's a lot of people can relate to that story of, you know, bringing off on your own and sometimes family and business work. Sometimes it's better to, you know, to keep them separate. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, it is. And like I said, I made that transition. But before I even open up my authority, just running the truck and stuff and driving with the family business underneath the family business, I decided to open up my brokerage because I noticed that some of our customers would be asking, we need 10, 20 trucks to deliver. We only have three. How can we be able to take care of all those loads and be able to, you guys work with us, but we have to. you know, move all the loads that you guys need. So that was on the broker side. And that's when I decided to pull the trigger to open up my own authority on the broker side. And for the first maybe six months or so, I really didn't do too much to it. I probably moved in a handful of loads from people that gave me the opportunity, but they didn't have a lot of work. Going into 2023 is when I ended up deciding that I was going to find a driver for my truck. and get them on there and we really focus on the broker side to get customers in and start moving freight on a consistent basis. So that's what I ended up doing early first quarter of 2023. I got a driver, put them on there and then I started just knocking on doors and going to the people that we've already worked with in the past and stuff and be able to ⁓ customers that way. speaker-0: Yeah. ⁓ that's great. Yeah. I love your story. It's awesome. It's funny. I'm a biography on Alan Lund right now, from Alan Lund Company. But he started his spray brokerage with that really intricate industry knowledge of the perspective of the ⁓ driver. Yeah. And he's like, that is what enabled him to have so much success. ⁓ speaker-1: The turkey side, nice. speaker-0: you know, becoming a billion dollar company eventually was his relationship with the drivers and like, and treating them right and understanding their problems. speaker-1: It is yeah, it is because that's very important man like I spoke with a lot of know a lot of shippers and stuff we're moving loads for them and They don't understand the truck side and a lot of the brokers that they work with don't understand the trucking side You know, so as a driver myself, I consider myself as a driver before a broker or anything. I know the frustrations that they have and they're like, well, why can't he do this? Well, it's because of this, this and this. And there's been times where I have drivers try to of pull a fast one on me and start asking, oh, well, I want to get paid this much more because of this load. And I tell them, no, that's not how works, brother. I was like, I know how this works because I've done that load myself. And then I explain it to them and they just kind of stay quiet. And they're like, yeah, he knows what he's talking about. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, very important. Yeah, and then using your time wisely too, you know, those big, long drives, you can just crush some audio books and things like that, right? speaker-1: Yeah, honestly, I'm not a big fan of local stuff, you know, but I could definitely get on the truck on Monday morning, just hit the road and be out all day just driving. I love it just because like you said, I could listen to my audio books. I could listen to podcasts and stuff and just catch up on that kind of stuff that really helps me more knowledge and kind of seeing what's my next step really think about, you know, what's my next move and what's what I'm going to do next. speaker-0: Definitely. Yeah, it's time for strategizing and work on your business in that time. That's very valuable. I've heard it called the automobile university. speaker-1: It works, it definitely works. speaker-0: Yeah, I was curious too, you mentioned factoring and some rough ⁓ terms in terms of ⁓ receivable. How have you dealt with that and has it affected your strategy as build out your freight brokerage business? speaker-1: now, not really, honestly. At the very beginning, it did more because we were really new and a lot of the carriers didn't want to work with us. They wanted go straight to the factoring companies and the factoring companies didn't want to accept us or they had a very ⁓ limited amount we could use towards them. So, we have a dollar limit, but the load paid two thousand. Now we couldn't run the load or we have to pay that carrier in advance, which would hurt us as well. Those a thousand dollars that you couldn't get factored. So the first year, year and a half, it did kind of put us in a bind. There was times where we like, if we don't get paid from this customer by next, you know, by tomorrow, we're not going to be able to run next week and we're not be able to move these loads next week. thank God everything worked out and we were able to make it happen. ⁓ now on the broker side and on the trucking side, we don't we don't pay a factoring company for that. You know, I'm pretty good at just managing the cash flow and making sure that we have enough reserves to be able to take care of operations and stuff. But now we factor with just about every major factory company out there that would be on the broker side and on the trucking side. And then we work directly with the shippers. We're not doing a lot of stuff with other brokers like on the trucking side or anything. And our customers are pretty good at paying for the most part. We get paid on time. Sometimes they pay a little early and stuff. So that definitely helps out and stuff. So that's my thing, like working with customers that are able to pay you on time and take that seriously. They're taking too long to pay, which has happened before. you know, we start cutting that down, you know, we can't move this many lows other than, know, until you pay these invoices off and stuff, because that would, you know, bind, you know, especially as a small business. speaker-0: Definitely. Yeah. ⁓ that's great. I think a lot of people view factoring as kind of a necessary evil, unfortunately, right? Like a cost. yeah. curious your thoughts on it and like, yeah, ⁓ shared a bit like, you know, some strategy to make your customers pay on time, but do you have like sort of a drumbeat like, okay, after a certain period of time, if they haven't paid, then you... You you follow up with them or anything like that. speaker-1: Yes, definitely. Yeah, I mean to me, we haven't had that issue too many times. ⁓ did have a customer that was falling behind, know, 30 days and stuff to pay us. But at that point, we would have definitely come cut off all the the loans that we working for them or moving for them at point. to us, usually I tell them with it, with it, they haven't paid within five days of the due date. You know, you reach out to them ⁓ and within days you're already kind of pushing towards, ⁓ you know, can't move any more loans until we start getting these invoices paid ⁓ and. When we start working with a customer, like to start off kind of slow, know, ⁓ know, just get your foot in there, move a couple of loads, see how they pay and then move more and kind of gradually work your way up. At least that's how I took it from the beginning because ⁓ the same time I didn't have that much cash in the bank to be able to run the full operations. You know, if I had to pay the carriers and they didn't pay me all time, then I wasn't going be in the bind. And then, you know, we didn't start off with a bunch of customers right off the back. I mean, I was moving, you know, half full of loads per week. There was days that, know, two, three days that I wasn't moving anything. the first eight months I was in my garage, you know, dispatching my truck and then me still either talking to, following up with customers, potential customers, or seeing if any of the ones that I had had loads to move. ⁓ So was kind of just a gradual, you know, improvement until I ended up hiring my brother-in-law. He came on board, helped me out for like the next year and a half, two years. And then going out there and just, you know, knocking on doors and just selling my business and trying to get more customers in the door. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, that's really good advice, I think, is to start slow ⁓ the customer, especially make sure they're someone you want to keep on doing business with. speaker-1: Yeah, make sure they they could pay or they pay on time and you know If you find a customer that pays you sooner than the 30 days especially, know Cuz I saw we met 30s usually the logistics side trucks and brokers and stuff So they pay you on time definitely work on that and and build that relationship and you know Do good by them and and be able to keep that customer on board speaker-0: Yeah, definitely good tenants to keep in mind. Yeah, I want to switch tracks a bit. major of this show is we always talk about technology, AI, ⁓ how are using it. I'm curious from your freight brokerage side. Well, first off, do you have a dedicated TMS that you use or did you build that in-house? speaker-1: We do have a TMS. We use the Ascent TMS is what we started with. We use that and then we use a couple other ⁓ boards and stuff like that that we have both on the trucking side and on the broker side. But for AI that's the main thing that we're using right now is just the TMS system and just trying to maximize as much as we can through the system right now. speaker-0: Gotcha. Yeah, nice. and for listeners ⁓ may not have a trucking background, ⁓ ⁓ management system. Basically, ⁓ Alfredo, are the main features that you like? How does it help your business? speaker-1: It helps us a lot with the invoicing. It's a lot of the back office that helps. Posting loads, being able to put them out there for the spot market whenever you're looking for carriers. It definitely helps you out with that. So there's a lot of TMSs, which is what we're looking into right now. TMSs are more automated. A lot of the stuff is you have to constantly be on the phone and negotiating rates with prices with the carriers or something, or emailing them following up and seeing if the truck's on time or not. And a lot that stuff could be automated. lot of that stuff could be through the TMS stuff could just do it on itself as long as you put the right systems in place. And that saves you a lot of time and it helps you to either not have to hire as many people to get the same amount of job done or be able to maximize the time for the people that you already have to be able to move more loads and be able to handle more loads than what they usually used to. And then obviously the back office stuff. So a lot of that stuff, invoicing, paying, receipts payable and stuff. All that stuff could be automated where instead of having a full team with, three or four people, one person to take care of all of it. speaker-0: Definitely. Yeah, awesome. I appreciate you explaining that. But yeah, basically it can allow one person to do the job of potentially, you know, three or four, right? speaker-1: Yeah, definitely. speaker-0: ⁓ Are they, is that TMS you're using leveraging AI ⁓ specifically or is it just, is it primarily automation? speaker-1: The one that we have right now is not a lot of AI. It does have some automation, but not a lot of AI. I spoke with somebody that has a TMS that has a lot more AI into it. Even the negotiation part, you know, with drivers calling, talking to, you know, AI and negotiating the race. So you just know a lot of that stuff. So I'm barely kind of, you know, stepping toes into that and learning more on it as we grow. But it's not something I'm fully knowledgeable as of now. So I'm still working on getting more information on that side. speaker-0: Nice. I went to the TIA conference ⁓ year, the Transportation Intermediaries Association. And they were talking about ⁓ AI solutions ⁓ AI agents that take calls and dispatch. And that was a whole year ago. unfortunately, I missed it this But it's just getting better and better. It's exciting to see where it goes, but at the same time, it seems like it's important to have that human connection also. speaker-1: Exactly. I'm glad you said that because honestly, like as a driver and I speak to a lot of drivers, you know, I got a lot of buddies and friends and stuff that are there. They're truck drivers. You know, the AI definitely makes the business a lot more, you know, kind of streamlines things sometimes, but it sometimes does have positions where it's like it's better to have an actual person that you could talk to. I know truck stop, for example, right now, a lot of drivers are using it to factor it's A lot of them don't like it. A lot of them are at least telling us that there's too much automation, there's too much AI going there. We want to talk to an actual person. on the broker side, I like it so far where it's like, know, if they call us, they're talking to us, they're negotiating with us. You you have that personal relationship that you talk with them and you get to know them more and stuff, for the drivers that you work with a lot. You get to know them, they get to know you and stuff and you build that relationship more. speaker-0: Yeah, absolutely. think that's still, you know, as good as AI gets, it's at least for the foreseeable future, it's nice to have a human at some level. speaker-1: tool, know, use it where you can but still don't don't Don't put everything just to AI as that's the way I think about it know like to me having that a personal ⁓ relationship the with the drivers or with your customers and stuff is very important speaker-0: Yeah, Yeah, it's a balance there. But man, Alfredo, it's been an incredible conversation. Appreciate your time today. I always ⁓ the floor the end. ⁓ If you one practical tip for listeners, ⁓ maybe veterans listening want to make that transition from service to business, what would that be? speaker-1: I mean honestly any veteran trying to get out and you know start his own business and Being able to work for another company or something in a major role, you know You have the discipline you have the the skills that you need, know Just take that from the military and especially as a business owner man Like you could the the consistency the the hard work ethic the discipline that you learn in there, you know training being able to, a lot of the stuff that we did, especially like in the teams with Marsau, a lot of it's like, plan multiple days for a training mission or an op that you're doing for a couple of hours and stuff. So a lot of planning, being able to use those skills and then just bringing them out here and using them towards your advantage in business. I do use that a lot. Some my employees and stuff, some of my teams here, they're telling ⁓ me, going into military mode right now. They say that. ⁓ And you but you have to take that into consideration. Understand that you could definitely use those those skills, discipline, the consistency, you know, the hard work ethic and being able to ⁓ lead people under, you know, chaos, being able to lead people, ⁓ your own peers ⁓ being able to move in towards, you know, a set goal and be able to move towards the same direction. And a lot of people, especially, you know, young people don't have that or don't have that experience of leading other ⁓ other people, especially if they're the same age group, unless they joined the military or just something like that, you know. ⁓ that's something that they could definitely use towards their advantage. speaker-0: Definitely. Great advice. Well said. Man, I appreciate this conversation. We could probably keep on talking all day. But yeah, we got to end it here. Alfredo, thanks for coming on the show. Where can listeners learn more, find out about you and AAA-M? speaker-1: I mean right now just my Facebook and LinkedIn. LinkedIn is basically those two are the ones like I said I'm not too much on social media or anything but I'm definitely looking to get more into that. I have my on Facebook I have our business page and then my personal one so people could reach out to me to there or LinkedIn. You know it's a little bit more professional there and stuff so I'm trying to get our business page out there through LinkedIn and then obviously my personal page through LinkedIn and stuff people could definitely reach me out to there. speaker-0: Awesome. Yeah, easy day. I'll leave that in the show notes. Thanks for coming on today, Good talking to you. speaker-1: Thanks for having me on.