NEW VIDEO! Things to know before starting your Sprinter or Cargo Van career

Sprinter vans in the expedite industry are all the rage. But do you have all the right info you need to get started?
Follow along ?? with Rob Podeszwa of Jung Express, and host Brandon Baxter, as they discuss the ins and outs of Sprinter van ownership within the world of Expedite. It's ExpediteNOW!

Transcript:

Brandon Baxter: Welcome to the Expedite Now podcast presented by Expediters Online and Jung Express. I'm your host, Brandon Baxter.
My guest is Rob Podezwa. Rob is a recruiter with Jung Express, and he's been a crucial part of the expedite industry for quite some time now.
Rob, thank you so much for joining me today. How are you?

Rob Podeszwa: Oh, you're welcome, Brandon. Thank you very much for having me.
I'm doing well.

BB: Let's start by introducing yourself with, with your background within the expedite industry.
Let's talk a little bit about that to, to really kick things off here.

RP: Sure. So, Jung Express, we're an expedited freight company out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We've been around since 1991.
I've known our owner for over 30 years. He's one of my best friends, but I've only been with Jung for 11 years.
The first 3 years I was a driver. I drove a sprinter for 3 years, put 400,000 miles on it, hit 42 out of the 48 states, so very familiar with it.
And then the past 8 years now I've been the recruiter here.

BB: Let's talk about why we are creating this series of videos, you know, these, these mini podcasts as I like to refer to them, you know, what's, what's the purpose in our discussions today?

RP: Sure, so I know the first thing people are gonna say is, oh, he's just trying to recruit, and, yeah, that might be part of it or so, you know, hey, I wouldn't mind if somebody calls us up and wants to sign on, but that's not the focus here.
The focus here, I've been doing this for a long time and as I've seen, there's a lot of very? There's good information out on the internet, but there's also a lot of very bad information, a lot of misleading information about what this industry is about.
I love this industry. I loved being an expediter.
I like sharing that with people. But I want people to get into this for the right reasons, and to understand what it's about.
So, we wanna give them information to help them make the right choice to get into this industry or not.
It's not for everybody. And I've seen a lot of people get into this for the wrong reasons. They have the wrong plan, they have the wrong expectations, and they fail.
Expedited freight is all time-sensitive freight.
You must pick up by a certain time. You must deliver by a certain time, and it is driving straight through.
It's not, hey, pick it up and deliver it whenever I feel like it or whenever I happen to get there.
It is, it is time critical. Pick up by a certain time, deliver by a certain time.
And it's also what we call care critical. Customers are expecting that they're getting a dedicated van. That freight goes into that van, and it doesn't come out of that van until it gets to where it needs to go, so it's not being cross-docked to different places.
That's one of the very important things of expedited freight, is the fact that there's less damage because you're not cross-docking it, and this is what companies want, but and you're also driving straight through.
When we're dealing with the sprinter vans and cargo vans because of the fact that they are under 10,000-pound gross vehicle weight rating, and that's key. That's the GVWR.
That means that they are not considered a commercial vehicle by the Department of transportation. They have no DOT regulations. So that's why they don't have to log, they don't have to scale, they're not limited the number of hours they can drive.
So, you don't, you don't have to have a med card. You don't have to have a CDL. So, it's, it's fairly simple for people to get into it. You just need the van, you need the insurance, and boom, you're an expediter. But that's where you get a lot of people that get into the industry coming from other things, so they don't quite understand it. And the, and the reason why the vans are so popular is because of that they don't have this limitation of how long they can drive.
But you go over 10,000 pound GVWR and now you fall under DOT regulations.
You go, you can only drive for 11 hours. You got to shut down. The vans, you don't.

BB: I've seen where, I, I want to say back in 2015, 2016, you know, the floodgates opened to the industry for sprinter vans and cargo vans to really kind of flood the market in a certain respect that.
But I think at that time, you know, it, it was helpful for a moment until the, the freight was basically watered down, but then 2020 and COVID hit, and a lot of individuals went out there, they got their own authority and they started running under their own authority, whether it was in a sprinter van, cargo van, box trucks, straight trucks, something like that.
What have you seen when it comes to individuals who maybe they've had their own authority, but now that now that that you know that dire need as we had during COVID, that is gone.
What have you seen in terms of individuals, you know, looking to continue working in the industry, but now they can't run under their own authority anymore.

RP: Yeah, there's, and there's a lot of different aspects to, expedited freight where you can with a sprinter or cargo van if you want to run under your own authority, that's fine.
You're bidding your own freight and so forth and so on, or you can be a carrier's carrier where you're signed on with a logistics company like us or like, you know, the 1000 other logistics companies and then we're, we're contracting you freight. We're giving you the freight, and you're running that way, you know.
Or you can also drive for a fleet owner. These are people who own the vans and now you're just driving for them. You kind of lose that independent contractor part of it though, because now you're not, you don't have the freedom of having your own van because now you're, because if you're driving for a fleet owner, they need that van out there running all the time, so they want you staying out in that van, because one of the big benefits of being an expediter is the fact you are an independent contractor.
You can take off whenever you want. It gives you that freedom, so that's where because I always kind of say being an expediter, it's more of a lifestyle than it is necessarily a job.
You're traveling the country, you're getting paid to see the country, you're living, you're living out of a van.
But you go somewhere, you wanna be a tourist for a day, great, you take yourself out of service that day. It gives you a lot of freedom that way. But there are pros and cons with everything, you know, if you're not in service, you're not getting freight, so you're not making money.

BB: It is a lifestyle, you know, and, and you mentioned some pros and cons.
What are some other pros and cons that, you know, if I'm a Sprinter van owner operator, what else could I expect?

RP: So basically, the majority of, Sprinter van cargo vans, it's 99% no touch freight.
So, you know, everything we do is manufacturing to manufacturing.
It's, it's all the freight is on pallets, it's loaded and offloaded with a forklift for you.
So all you're doing is driving. So it's very simple from that standpoint.
As I said, you, you do get paid to see the country. It's awesome. In my 3 years, I hit 42 out of the 48 states. That's, it's spectacular.
You know, we have a beautiful country and to be able to see it all and you're getting paid to see it all, you do have the flexibility. Like I said, you can take off whenever you want. You're, you're a contractor.
But again, you also have to understand in order to, to make the money, you know, you, you need to be, you need to be available.

BB: What does it look like to be a business owner as an owner operator, you know, what does all of that entail?

RP: Great question, because that to me is one of the most important things for people to understand getting in this industry in order to be successful.
I get so many drivers, they come to me and they say, I, I'm gonna be a great driver.
I'm always gonna pick up on time. I'm always gonna deliver on time.
I'm like, no kidding, right?
That's the bare minimum, you know.

BB: That?s what you?re here for.

RP: I mean that's, that's like going into a job and saying I'm going to be the best employee you have.
I'm always going to show up for work on time.
They're gonna be like, well, yeah, that's the minimum. That doesn't make you good.
And that's the same thing with being an expediter, picking up on time, delivering on time, that, that's a requirement.
That's, that doesn't make you good.
What makes you good and what makes you successful is understanding that you, you're an independent contractor you own a business now. It is your business run it correctly.
You are not only the driver of your business, you are now the president of your business.
You're the finance manager of your business, and most importantly, you're the salesman of your business, OK, because if you're a contractor with Jung Express or contract with any of the other logistics companies, we are now your customer.
Treat us as your customer, and you need to sell us your, your services.
And in order to do that, you need to have a good business plan. You need to have the right expectations.
You need to get to get together a good business plan, on which I know we're gonna be talking about in a future episode.

BB: Yes, we are, we will definitely get, that's what's called a tease in the business.
I, I love that.
Because I think the biggest thing and, and, and again to go along with, I'm gonna piggyback off your tease there, you know, putting together a business plan is a great way to make sure that you're making the right career choice, right?

RP: Correct. Exactly. Exactly. The old adage, you know, failure to plan is planning to fail.
and so yeah, putting together that business plan.
And this is one of the other reasons for making these videos is there's so many, as I talk about bad information, I get people that come to me and they have extremely unrealistic expectations of this industry because they've seen bad information on the internet and I know they're gonna fail because they can't live up to the The industry is not gonna live up to those expectations, and everything because it's just not gonna happen.
You need to look at what are the averages out there.
You don't take the best week that anybody had and then base your business plan off of that.

BB: Let's go ahead and wrap it up there, Rob.
Anything else that you'd like to add before we, before we sign off today?

RP: No, thank you for watching and hopefully we're gonna give you a series of things here.
We're gonna go through, putting your business plan together, what type of van to get, you know, who to sign on with, what life is like out on the road.
We're gonna go through all these things for you, so hopefully we'll give you some good information.

BB: Awesome. Love it, Rob.
Thank you again so much for joining me today.
This has been Expedite Now, presented by Expediters Online and Jung Express.
I've been your host, Brandon Baxter.
Until next time.