Building a Trucking Empire Journey

What's up it's Way Up with Angela Yeah on a Wealth Wednesday I'm with my partner Stacey Tisdale. Happy Wealth Wednesday everybody we are taking you Way Up with Sam Forty Taylor. Yes how's it going? What's up Sam? We want to call you Forty. I like Sam these days. What was Forty about? Forty I got that in high school so growing up I have an older brother named Wayne and everyone called me Wayne little brother so okay um the name 40 came from there's a dance in chicago called the 40s like back in the day like juke and music it's called the 40 so this kid from chicago taught me how to do the 40 and i went back to dc and i started doing it around my neighborhood and i was like what's that dance called i'm like it's called the 40 so then i went from wayne lord brother to you can call you 40 so i tell people sometimes 40 means other things depending on we're talking to you today about your business so we'll call you you Do you want to call you Sam or Mr. Taylor? I like Sam. Do you want to call you Mr. Taylor? I like Sam. I like Sam. Okay. Well, Sam Taylor is here with us today. Box Truck Bros. You can follow that on Instagram. You have like 715,000 followers. Yeah, it's crazy. It's been a journey. It's been over the course of three years. Organically, too. You've got all those followers in three years? Yeah. That's amazing. Three years consistently. Organically, too. You know, people follow us sometimes. Never went that route, but just straight from posting content, being dedicated, consistent with it. So, yeah. The trucking business is such a huge industry. It's something that's never going anywhere. It's not. People talk about the self-driving trucks taking over and stuff like that. I don't think that's going to surpass actual people driving the trucks. Especially for shipping. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The robots can't do all the... Maybe more like the y'all work, like putting... pilots or like the The crates on its foot to a truck but not actual like driving a truck across I can see it being like how pilots kind of like it's autopilot But someone's there because I feel like you always will have to have someone there because anything could happen So we want to break we're gonna break down how it all got started and the business and everything But we were talking about this following that you've built over three years in the content and you I know You just decided to record your journey of building a business and it caught on. Yes, yes. So when I first started out, I didn't know what I was getting myself into. You know, I was kind of diving into starting a business and I just wanted to document my process and also educate people on what I was doing and also, you know, kind of learn from my mistakes. So when I first started, grabbed a camera and just started documenting raw content, you know, the ins and outs of. what goes on on a day-to-day basis in the trucking industry. And before you even got into your first truck, you actually drove DoorDash. Yeah. For how many years? I did that for four years. And then how much money did you have to save up to be able to start your own business? So I wasn't saving to a goal. I didn't have like a number in mind, but I had about like $20,000, $25,000 saved before I got into trucking and doing DoorDash. Okay. How did you decide trucking? So before getting into... trucking. I was doing research on what business to start. And me and my brother actually, and we drew like a little web of different businesses we could start with about $20,000, $25,000. And we kind of did, we thought about carpet cleaning, thought about landscaping, thought about like junk removal, stuff like that. And we realized we didn't want a client-based business where you deal with clients, stuff like that. You know, sometimes people be, they be, you know, it's time to get something done. They kind of be... I just did 1-800-GOT-JUNK for the first time while I was cleaning my basement. I was thinking to myself when they came, I was like, this is a great business. Yeah, it is. It is. But we didn't want a client-based business, so we started looking on YouTube and came across the box truck business. And we've seen that you can get started in the trucking industry with no CDL. What, CDL? No CDL, so you don't need a commercial driver's license. You just have a regular license. So kind of doing door desk. I could go drive a truck later today. I mean, you could. You could. I would tell everybody to get off the road. So, you know, kind of doing DoorDash, driving all day throughout the city. It was almost like doing the same thing, but on a bigger scale. So it's kind of like a no-brainer. But you still have clients. Yeah, so we work with businesses, brokers, companies, people who got the money. You know, they're ready to pay. So you know you're getting your money. You know you're getting paid. You know, so that was kind of like the... The main goal was just not really deal with clients. And so when you said, what can you start for $20,000 to $25,000, what are the costs involved with starting this business? So first you got to do your paperwork, depending on where you live. Of course, you got to have your LLC. In Virginia, LLC is $100. After that, you got to get your MC and DOT number, which is the authority that gives you legal authorization to carry freight across the country. So that is $300 standard for everyone. After that, you need the insurance for your truck because the truck has to have liability, cargo. So depending on your driving record, what kind of truck you have, insurance is going to vary. So you leased your own truck? I bought my own truck, yes. Okay, and then you were making payments on it because I saw how happy you were when you paid off your truck. Ecstatic, yeah. So, yeah, I bought my truck. I had to put down $12,000, which is about 30% of the truck. This is at a time where trucks were a lot cheaper. Okay. I was like, that doesn't sound expensive. Yeah, no, it's not. You know, and some people, they go out and buy cars or they go about other things. And when I see now I can go buy a truck for the same amount, I just kind of, I'm going to do that. They're not that expensive. No. They're not as expensive as cars. They're not. And, um. Not only can you finance, you can also rent a truck from Budget, Penske, Enterprise. And these are going to be a less startup cost because you're not putting down 20% to 30% of the truck. Right. You're only renting either from a week-to-week basis or a month-to-month basis, which can range from $1,000 to $3,000, depending on what terms you get on. Okay. How long did that process take when you said you had to get your license? The DOT. So once you do your paperwork as far as your LLC, your DOT, MC number. That takes 30 days to go active. So let's just say today you said, I want to start a trucking business and you got your LLC and you did the authority for your trucking business, then you have a minimum of 30 days in order to get your truck ready and your insurance and everything and then you'll be able to go and start delivering freight. Wow, and I know you're kind of coaching people to do this too. Yes, yes, yes. Throughout my own ails and mistakes I've made throughout the business, trucking industry really is about strategy, you know, so you It's an industry full of opportunity, but if you go get a truck, you kind of don't really know where to start, right? It's kind of like you go out there and you can deal with brokers. We operate loads off load boards. So a load board is essentially where, let's just say a broker has a shipment that needs to be moved. They'll post that load on a load board, and you call the broker, negotiate a rate, and you go pick it up, drop it off. But it's kind of all about how effectively you do it, you know, with the strategy. The strategy that we run is kind of what I teach people. Okay. Yeah. You are quite a story. You really, really, really turned your life around. I mean, it's just so nice to talk to you, and you're so nice and obviously so successful. But you were incarcerated. You didn't finish school. Yes. How did you turn that around? I would say it really started with my childhood. Growing up, my mom was a single mom, about a drug addiction. So we had a very unstable childhood. Out of my 12 years of schooling, I've been to 12 different schools, moving house to house, stuff like that. So living in that kind of environment, it's almost like you battle adversity a lot. So just having to see the positive in a lot of negative situations is kind of what instills just like... you know, certain work habits, how to be disciplined, and that's really kind of where it started at, you know. And fast forward to 18, I caught a felony. I got a robbery charge, so I didn't graduate high school, and that was just another battle to where I just kind of had to figure things out, you know, and just kind of roll with the punches. How long were you in jail? A year. And so when you came home and you have to put that you have a felony, how... difficult was that and what types of things were people telling you when you were trying to work or man i was getting turned down from jobs like target like so you know you hear people about like it's gonna be hard to get a job with a felony right i'm thinking like a higher scale maybe business it something like that i didn't know i'm getting denied by target best by the age of 19 you could be president of the united states that would have been right yeah absolutely wrong field wrong field yeah i didn't know sam for president and that has and if you would have just not put that on there you would have gotten a job i think so Yeah, but if they would have found out. Yeah, I think they'd do a background check. So I've applied to jobs like that, and I was still getting denied by, like, I'd say Target, Best Buy. And I'm like, I'm not qualified to work here. You know, so I kind of understood early that finding a job was going to be hard. Of course, I was only 19 years old, so I didn't have no kind of degree, no kind of working experience to kind of back that up. So that was kind of tough for me. You tried to go back to school, right? Yeah, so in high school, I played basketball. I didn't, of course I didn't go to college and things like that. So after I got out of jail, then I enrolled in community college and I tried to pursue basketball. Now I say student athlete, student first, athlete second, I was like an athlete student. So school was never my thing. I tried to let basketball be the motivation to go get the grades, get the credits, and try to get a degree. But I did one semester in community college, and then I failed out. So then I was just kind of back to doing regular hustles. I always kind of been like a hustler, just kind of make money. on the side, stuff like that. So that's kind of what I got into. And so it was you and your brother that started this business? Yes, yes, me and my brother. And what trajectory was he on while all this was happening with you? What was he doing in life? So me and my brother, growing up, we weren't as close. I'd say my brother, he was in group homes. I was in group homes. So we weren't as close kind of growing up. You know, we're kind of separate. So once we started the business and doing trucking, we kind of got a lot closer. But he was working at U-Haul, working at like a payday loan place, you know, just working a regular 9-to-5 job trying to make ends meet. That's a dope story. It is. And what you were saying was you realized that school wasn't for you. And then you went the entrepreneurial route. And I think a lot of people are starting to rethink college. And they're thinking about getting skills and entrepreneur training instead. What would you have to say about that? It's definitely a different ballgame. You know, um... Yeah, working a regular 9-to-5 or a job, you kind of know what you're going to make every two weeks or every day, every week. This fluctuates. Yes, yes, you know, so going into entrepreneurship is really the unknown. You know, you kind of bet on yourself and not knowing what's going to come. So it's kind of really just prepare yourself and also know what kind of person you are. So many people want to start a business and dive into entrepreneurship, but they don't really kind of have what goes into. Running a business, you know, you may work 70 hours a week and you may not make no money. You know, you may have a family, especially with trucking. A lot of people want to get started in trucking and they have family. They got kids. They're going to be home every night. But it may require you to kind of be on the road. So I always suggest to, you know, assess your situation and see if whatever you're trying to get into is going to fit your schedule and if you have time to. And so you've also expanded from that, right? And so you had your truck. Yes. And then how did tell us what happened next, like how you've grown the business? So I had one truck. And one thing about the trucking industry is it's all revolved around a dispatch. Right. Like dispatch kind of is in control of booking the loads, route planning, making sure the truck is making money. So that's where I kind of stepped off the truck. I had a driver get off the truck and I learned the dispatch side. And after running one truck, then I kind of scaled up and got another truck. But at this time I went the rental route. So. Being new in business, I didn't understand how to scale. I just thought like, okay, more trucks equals more money, equals more profits, you know, but I'm doing kind of all the work. Because me and my brother, even though we're box truck bros, we kind of branched off and we both have our separate business. So he has his own business, I have my own business, but we're in conjunction. So I got more trucks and more drivers, more problems. More bills. More bills. And I'm like, and I'm making all this, I'm making the money, but I'm saying like, I'm doing all this work and making money, but it's like, I'm not even seeing it, you know? So that's when I kind of like, all right, well, I have way too much on my plate. I got to get rid of some trucks. And then I kind of scaled back down to a level that I was comfortable operating at. Yeah. So it can be tricky doing business with family. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And this is, you know, honest truth, you know, because there's a lot of people out there who want to get into this space is they say don't do business with family. And that was our story with me and my brother. You know, I was kind of the one who started the business, funded everything. And, you know, I was kind of like, yo, let's get on the same page. Let's start this business. And sometimes people don't appreciate the work that it takes to get to a certain level because they don't know what goes into it, you know. So we had two different ideas of how we wanted to run the business. My whole thing was we're going to get started. We're saving every dollar. We're not spending nothing. And he has a family. He has kids. So he was like. Different situation. I can't do that. I got to, you know. This is why I'm doing this. Yeah. Yeah. It's always been my understanding when you are an entrepreneur and you have a business, right? You really get paid last. Like everything kind of gets invested back into the business. Yes. There's people who want to. You know, if they need that money, they want to get a salary, but that is definitely like employees always get salaries. They get paid first. As a business owner, you get paid last. I'm glad you said that because we hear such advice, pay yourself first, pay yourself first. You can't really. No, you can't. As an entrepreneur. No, you can't. And that's just something people have to know. Yeah. Everything, remember when we had... We had the budget nista on and she said everything goes in the pot. Yeah. Everything goes in the pot. So that was our story. And, you know, we weren't seeing eye to eye. And we just kind of figured that it wasn't working. You know, and I was like, yo, look, I think it's best that you start your own LLC. You want to do what you want to run it. And we'll still be, you know, in line. But I can't afford to pay you what you want to be paid to take care of it. Because he left his job. You know, so you leave your job. You're used to making a certain money. you got rent stuff like that so um okay that's good sometimes you also have to be like i love you as my brother and let's do that yeah yeah we want to leave this as brothers still yeah you know we still want to get along yeah so we we didn't want to mess up our brotherhood and our relationship and what about with your mom um as far as like you're really you know i know that you guys had a tough upbringing yes my mom we're we're close you know um Not as close as I would like us to be. You know, when you're kind of growing up, you see just like traditional families who spend a lot of time together. We spend a lot of time away, you know, from my mom. So now she's doing a lot better. She's married now. She's moved down to the country. So she's settled. She's now living that fast-paced life. So, and I think with the drug addiction, of course, comes some sort of mental health problems, you know. So she's in her space. She's doing well, but We're not as close as I would like us to be, but we're still good. You know, we talk every day. I'm there for her. She's supportive. She has to feel good to see her son become so successful. I know she's proud of you. I was just going to say that. I know she's very proud of you. Yeah, very. And I always let her know, you know, because sometimes as parents, you feel like you don't give your child the best opportunities. You'll put them, set them up to be successful, you know. And I always tell my mom, like, I don't know how it would have went any other way if you weren't where you were, you know. So even though you didn't meet the... criteria or the standards you like to live up to, a lot of what we went through, you know, has built me to be the man I am today, you know, and that's just overcoming a lot of adversity and working very well under pressure. That's where I feel like I work the best. You're in an amazing mental space with that because I remember we were talking and you said how critical it is for people not to let people project limitations. Yes, yes, yes. Early years back even when I started doing DoorDash, I had a... I was working at a preschool and I was making $10 an hour, you know, and I was a hustler. So I went from making money outside of a nine to five, but it's pretty decent. But I had to give that up to, you know, work a nine to five, getting paid 10 bucks an hour. So that just wasn't cutting it for me. You know, I'm 26 and I'm like, $10 an hour is not working. So I said, I'm going to quit this job and I'm going to do door desk and deliver food. And I'm going to do this for about four years to start a business. When I quit my job, even at the preschool, my brother, my family, they legit told me verbatim, you know, you're dumb for quitting a stable job to go out there and deliver food. Like, why do you want to deliver food? And that doubt that they tried to plant in my head that I couldn't make it, you know, go on this avenue or what they thought would be the best route for me, that would have stopped me, you know. That's what stopped you? No, it would have stopped me. If I listened to them, it would have stopped me. You've got to listen to your own instincts. And really it's important, I think, to have people around that can also support your dreams and ideas. Yes, yes. Because you'll start, and my mother used to always say, if you hear something enough times, you'll start believing it. So you have to, even sometimes it's family, you have to distance. And if I believe something I can do, I'm going to do it. No matter what you tell me, I may fail, but I'm going to do it. So that's what I did with the... DoorDash, I did that for about three or four years, saved up money. How lucrative was that? Was that paying more than... Oh, man, yeah. Okay. So I did DoorDash like crazy, you know. I can do DoorDash on my new truck that I'm driving around. Yeah, yeah. I think they make you leave a tip after because I'm better at leaving it. Sometimes you like... Forget. Yeah, yeah. I like to do it and I'm always like, got to remember to leave that tip because you forget. Yeah, you can. Yeah. So I did DoorDash like I always think of ways to make more money, right? So when I was out there doing DoorDash, I was like, I had one phone and I'm just doing DoorDash and I was like I need more platforms because not every restaurant uses DoorDash. Some use Postmates, some use Grubhubs. So now I downloaded every food service on one phone. Then I'm like if I had two phones I could maximize more money. So I had my brother sign up, my mom signed up, so now I got two phones. doing DoorDash, Grubhub, and I'm just pinging all day. So I'm like, oh, so. That's why I be waiting an hour sometimes. Yeah, yeah, because I'm trying to pick up multiple loads. Now we know. Yeah, you know, so I was doing that, you know, literally from sunup to sundown. I was doing breakfast run, lunch run, weekends. That's the hustle because you were saving for something, and when you have a goal in mind. It can help you work really hard so you achieve that goal. Yes, so I knew what I had to do with DoorDash, I did that. And then when I got into trucking, people told me the same thing. Because we do, this is a, trucking or transportation is a semi-dominant industry. A lot of people are doing tractor trailers, semis. You don't really see a lot of box trucks going cross country. So when I bought the box truck and trying to do the same thing as semis, people told me then, get a CDL. You can't make money with a box truck. You can't do this. And I'm like, okay, you know, y'all gonna see. And that's where. And you can do, like when people think I'm getting a truck, they're like, oh, I'll be driving across the country. No, you can do little runs. Yes, yes. You could do local. You could do cross country. You could do regional where you just kind of run in between like Jersey to PA, Jersey to Virginia. The trucking industry is full of opportunities. Contracts, brokers, load boards, Uber free. It's full of opportunities. But getting getting into it. It's up to you to figure out what works best for you. Everyone don't want to drive cross-country. Everyone doesn't want to stay local. Some people want to make more money. The more you drive, the more you make. So it's really kind of an industry where you kind of get in, figure out what works best for you, and just learn from your mistakes. Okay, so to date, what has been your best week and what was your worst week? She's about numbers. Numbers. My best week, so on average, because I specialize in this part. So I say that's why a lot of people. And honestly, I got the dispatch from doing DoorDash. If anyone who does DoorDash, Uber, everyone has a strategy that they run. If you're doing Uber, you're probably at the airport at 5 in the morning. If you're doing DoorDash, you're probably at the restaurants during lunchtime, during dinnertime. You know, you're not running too far. So I specialize in dispatch, and my best week, I probably did about 8,000. But that's like my best week. My worst week, I've probably been like 2,000. Okay, that's good. That's good. But there's so many factors that go into why you make that amount of money. You have a breakdown. Do you have days off? Are you taking off? So if the truck is running consistent, my driver's out there running, we average about between $1,000 to $1,200 a day. So about $5,000 to $6,000 a week is what we try to bring in. That's pretty good. We're not mad at that. We're not mad at that at all. It's decent. So now you said you love to work as much as you possibly can. It feels like that has been your motto. But when do you take time? to take a break, relax, go on vacation, enjoy some of the money. I've been trying to do that more now that I'm in a better financial position. And I think, let's say my childhood, money doesn't come around my neighborhood often. You know, so I'm still kind of like in that mindset where like, I got a business, you know. So if anything happens today or tomorrow, I don't have a guaranteed income, you know. So trying to build that foundation of making sure that... I have enough money to scale to invest in different avenues or ventures. It's kind of what I'm on, you know, so I try to treat myself and take a vacation every now and then. I went to Tulum last year. You know, so I did, I did Tulum. This right here is a trip to New York. Did you go on the cenotes? I did, I went to the cenotes. That was cool. You gotta do all that. I was scared, I was scared about that. Under the cave and that was, that was a lot of fun. I did that, you know, I can't swim. See, I can swim, but... I had the noodle, so I was like... You had your noodle? That must have been so cute. And they have the bats inside of this and that thing, so you see, like, all the fruit bats and stuff. Yeah, that was a little too adventurous for me. Too much, right? But it was a good experience. That's great. So I'm trying to enjoy life a little bit more now, but my main goal is to continue to scale, continue to get to where I want to be, and then enjoy. the fruits of my labor. And you also coach other people. Yes, yes. So we do offer coaching. I have courses that teach people how to, of course, get started with cheaper down payments, strategies that we run to make the kind of money that we make, and kind of also offering dispatch classes and mentorship and things like that. So for people who need the step-by-step, you know, hold my hand through this process, we do offer that. And if you go to on Instagram to at Box Truck Bros, B-R-O-S. B-O-X. Oh, yeah, yeah. At Box Truck Bros. Bros, yeah. And your profile, I see there's your link tree so people can see how, I mean, he has lots of services that he provides people. Yes, we do consultations. I say we do courses, e-books for people who just kind of want to buy it on a whim. And I say we also do offer mentorship and dispatch training. Yeah, yeah, very transparent on your page about. every aspect of the business, good or bad. I'll tell you, 700,000 followers. Yeah, yeah, because, you know, getting to, especially with, like, social media and whatever you're offering, because the whole goal of starting trucking was not to sell it to no one. You know, like, a lot of people who come from this. same environment and background as I do and I wanted to be fully transparent of what you're getting yourself into you know what goes on in the day to day from sleeping in the truck picking up loads talking to brokers negotiating rates I just everything that you could possibly show I wanted to show you know that's really cool for branding there's so many people now use social media to build their brand and their business and you say authenticity authenticity yes yes A lot of things in social media are selly-selly. And if you're someone like me who's just kind of like real, I don't like selly-selly. You know, I like the authenticity of things. And I do my research, you know. I look at your profile, you know, what you got going on, how much information are you putting out, are you trying to sell me on something? And that's kind of what we do, you know. And the Box Truck Bros, the platform has been... become a platform that people who's getting into trucking can kind of come into and you know we help people from let's say if you have a business you need a dispatcher you know so we help people find dispatchers we help people find drivers um you know so it's just been a very a very transparent uh process the last thing there's some people out there listening who are been incarcerated and they think it's over it's game over what do you have to say to them um For one, of course, don't let people project their limitations on you. And at the same time, you know, run your race. You know, be present with where you are. A lot of people compare themselves to others, especially, you know, their peers, social media. They look online or, you know, see how much time they may have wasted or how much time they may have lost out on. And it's never too late. You know, I did the same thing when I was 26 is I felt behind. My friends going to college, they graduating from college, they coming home. And I'm like. Yo, I'm doing DoorDash and y'all got big boy jobs and, you know, you're not going to get anywhere without having a plan, without having a goal, you know, so surround yourself around the right people, the right environment, educate yourself on what you want to do and... Don't compare your journey to anybody else's either. Yeah, at all, you know, because that would definitely... Mess up your head. Have you feel like you're behind, you know, and... And some people be lying too, so to be clear, you don't know how good somebody's for real doing. And you never know your timing, you know, like I did not never think for once when I first started the growth would be this this far, you know, so even though I started behind, I've surpassed, you know, a lot of people who I once thought were above me, you know, just because of what they had going on and where I was at in life and the amount of time and work I put into what I'm doing, I have, you know, seen the, I've seen the growth in it. All right. Well, that's great. I love that. Make sure you guys follow Box Truck Bros. Sam Taylor, a.k.a. 40. Thank you for joining us. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Happy Wealth Wednesday, everybody. Sam will be in our Wealth Wednesdays for Entrepreneurs group on Facebook. Please be sure to join. It's awesome. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you.

What's up it's Way Up with Angela Yeah on a Wealth Wednesday I'm with my partner Stacey Tisdale. Happy Wealth Wednesday everybody we are taking you Way Up with Sam Forty Taylor. Yes how's it going?

What's up Sam? We want to call you Forty. I like Sam these days.

What was Forty about? Forty I got that in high school so growing up I have an older brother named Wayne and everyone called me Wayne little brother so okay um the name 40 came from there's a dance in chicago called the 40s like back in the day like juke and music it's called the 40 so this kid from chicago taught me how to do the 40 and i went back to dc and i started doing it around my neighborhood and i was like what's that dance called i'm like it's called the 40 so then i went from wayne lord brother to you can call you 40 so i tell people sometimes 40 means other things depending on we're talking to you today about your business so we'll call you you Do you want to call you Sam or Mr. Taylor? I like Sam. Do you want to call you Mr. Taylor?

I like Sam. I like Sam. Okay.

Well, Sam Taylor is here with us today. Box Truck Bros. You can follow that on Instagram.

You have like 715,000 followers. Yeah, it's crazy. It's been a journey.

It's been over the course of three years. Organically, too. You've got all those followers in three years? Yeah. That's amazing.

Three years consistently. Organically, too. You know, people follow us sometimes. Never went that route, but just straight from posting content, being dedicated, consistent with it.

So, yeah. The trucking business is such a huge industry. It's something that's never going anywhere. It's not.

People talk about the self-driving trucks taking over and stuff like that. I don't think that's going to surpass actual people driving the trucks. Especially for shipping. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The robots can't do all the...

Maybe more like the y'all work, like putting... pilots or like the The crates on its foot to a truck but not actual like driving a truck across I can see it being like how pilots kind of like it's autopilot But someone's there because I feel like you always will have to have someone there because anything could happen So we want to break we're gonna break down how it all got started and the business and everything But we were talking about this following that you've built over three years in the content and you I know You just decided to record your journey of building a business and it caught on. Yes, yes.

So when I first started out, I didn't know what I was getting myself into. You know, I was kind of diving into starting a business and I just wanted to document my process and also educate people on what I was doing and also, you know, kind of learn from my mistakes. So when I first started, grabbed a camera and just started documenting raw content, you know, the ins and outs of.

what goes on on a day-to-day basis in the trucking industry. And before you even got into your first truck, you actually drove DoorDash. Yeah. For how many years? I did that for four years.

And then how much money did you have to save up to be able to start your own business? So I wasn't saving to a goal. I didn't have like a number in mind, but I had about like $20,000, $25,000 saved before I got into trucking and doing DoorDash.

Okay. How did you decide trucking? So before getting into... trucking. I was doing research on what business to start.

And me and my brother actually, and we drew like a little web of different businesses we could start with about $20,000, $25,000. And we kind of did, we thought about carpet cleaning, thought about landscaping, thought about like junk removal, stuff like that. And we realized we didn't want a client-based business where you deal with clients, stuff like that. You know, sometimes people be, they be, you know, it's time to get something done.

They kind of be... I just did 1-800-GOT-JUNK for the first time while I was cleaning my basement. I was thinking to myself when they came, I was like, this is a great business.

Yeah, it is. It is. But we didn't want a client-based business, so we started looking on YouTube and came across the box truck business.

And we've seen that you can get started in the trucking industry with no CDL. What, CDL? No CDL, so you don't need a commercial driver's license. You just have a regular license.

So kind of doing door desk. I could go drive a truck later today. I mean, you could.

You could. I would tell everybody to get off the road. So, you know, kind of doing DoorDash, driving all day throughout the city.

It was almost like doing the same thing, but on a bigger scale. So it's kind of like a no-brainer. But you still have clients. Yeah, so we work with businesses, brokers, companies, people who got the money.

You know, they're ready to pay. So you know you're getting your money. You know you're getting paid.

You know, so that was kind of like the... The main goal was just not really deal with clients. And so when you said, what can you start for $20,000 to $25,000, what are the costs involved with starting this business? So first you got to do your paperwork, depending on where you live.

Of course, you got to have your LLC. In Virginia, LLC is $100. After that, you got to get your MC and DOT number, which is the authority that gives you legal authorization to carry freight across the country. So that is $300 standard for everyone.

After that, you need the insurance for your truck because the truck has to have liability, cargo. So depending on your driving record, what kind of truck you have, insurance is going to vary. So you leased your own truck? I bought my own truck, yes. Okay, and then you were making payments on it because I saw how happy you were when you paid off your truck.

Ecstatic, yeah. So, yeah, I bought my truck. I had to put down $12,000, which is about 30% of the truck.

This is at a time where trucks were a lot cheaper. Okay. I was like, that doesn't sound expensive. Yeah, no, it's not. You know, and some people, they go out and buy cars or they go about other things.

And when I see now I can go buy a truck for the same amount, I just kind of, I'm going to do that. They're not that expensive. No. They're not as expensive as cars. They're not.

And, um. Not only can you finance, you can also rent a truck from Budget, Penske, Enterprise. And these are going to be a less startup cost because you're not putting down 20% to 30% of the truck.

Right. You're only renting either from a week-to-week basis or a month-to-month basis, which can range from $1,000 to $3,000, depending on what terms you get on. Okay. How long did that process take when you said you had to get your license? The DOT.

So once you do your paperwork as far as your LLC, your DOT, MC number. That takes 30 days to go active. So let's just say today you said, I want to start a trucking business and you got your LLC and you did the authority for your trucking business, then you have a minimum of 30 days in order to get your truck ready and your insurance and everything and then you'll be able to go and start delivering freight. Wow, and I know you're kind of coaching people to do this too. Yes, yes, yes.

Throughout my own ails and mistakes I've made throughout the business, trucking industry really is about strategy, you know, so you It's an industry full of opportunity, but if you go get a truck, you kind of don't really know where to start, right? It's kind of like you go out there and you can deal with brokers. We operate loads off load boards. So a load board is essentially where, let's just say a broker has a shipment that needs to be moved. They'll post that load on a load board, and you call the broker, negotiate a rate, and you go pick it up, drop it off.

But it's kind of all about how effectively you do it, you know, with the strategy. The strategy that we run is kind of what I teach people. Okay. Yeah. You are quite a story.

You really, really, really turned your life around. I mean, it's just so nice to talk to you, and you're so nice and obviously so successful. But you were incarcerated. You didn't finish school.

Yes. How did you turn that around? I would say it really started with my childhood.

Growing up, my mom was a single mom, about a drug addiction. So we had a very unstable childhood. Out of my 12 years of schooling, I've been to 12 different schools, moving house to house, stuff like that.

So living in that kind of environment, it's almost like you battle adversity a lot. So just having to see the positive in a lot of negative situations is kind of what instills just like... you know, certain work habits, how to be disciplined, and that's really kind of where it started at, you know. And fast forward to 18, I caught a felony.

I got a robbery charge, so I didn't graduate high school, and that was just another battle to where I just kind of had to figure things out, you know, and just kind of roll with the punches. How long were you in jail? A year. And so when you came home and you have to put that you have a felony, how...

difficult was that and what types of things were people telling you when you were trying to work or man i was getting turned down from jobs like target like so you know you hear people about like it's gonna be hard to get a job with a felony right i'm thinking like a higher scale maybe business it something like that i didn't know i'm getting denied by target best by the age of 19 you could be president of the united states that would have been right yeah absolutely wrong field wrong field yeah i didn't know sam for president and that has and if you would have just not put that on there you would have gotten a job i think so Yeah, but if they would have found out. Yeah, I think they'd do a background check. So I've applied to jobs like that, and I was still getting denied by, like, I'd say Target, Best Buy. And I'm like, I'm not qualified to work here.

You know, so I kind of understood early that finding a job was going to be hard. Of course, I was only 19 years old, so I didn't have no kind of degree, no kind of working experience to kind of back that up. So that was kind of tough for me. You tried to go back to school, right? Yeah, so in high school, I played basketball.

I didn't, of course I didn't go to college and things like that. So after I got out of jail, then I enrolled in community college and I tried to pursue basketball. Now I say student athlete, student first, athlete second, I was like an athlete student.

So school was never my thing. I tried to let basketball be the motivation to go get the grades, get the credits, and try to get a degree. But I did one semester in community college, and then I failed out.

So then I was just kind of back to doing regular hustles. I always kind of been like a hustler, just kind of make money. on the side, stuff like that.

So that's kind of what I got into. And so it was you and your brother that started this business? Yes, yes, me and my brother. And what trajectory was he on while all this was happening with you? What was he doing in life?

So me and my brother, growing up, we weren't as close. I'd say my brother, he was in group homes. I was in group homes. So we weren't as close kind of growing up. You know, we're kind of separate.

So once we started the business and doing trucking, we kind of got a lot closer. But he was working at U-Haul, working at like a payday loan place, you know, just working a regular 9-to-5 job trying to make ends meet. That's a dope story.

It is. And what you were saying was you realized that school wasn't for you. And then you went the entrepreneurial route.

And I think a lot of people are starting to rethink college. And they're thinking about getting skills and entrepreneur training instead. What would you have to say about that? It's definitely a different ballgame. You know, um...

Yeah, working a regular 9-to-5 or a job, you kind of know what you're going to make every two weeks or every day, every week. This fluctuates. Yes, yes, you know, so going into entrepreneurship is really the unknown. You know, you kind of bet on yourself and not knowing what's going to come. So it's kind of really just prepare yourself and also know what kind of person you are.

So many people want to start a business and dive into entrepreneurship, but they don't really kind of have what goes into. Running a business, you know, you may work 70 hours a week and you may not make no money. You know, you may have a family, especially with trucking.

A lot of people want to get started in trucking and they have family. They got kids. They're going to be home every night. But it may require you to kind of be on the road. So I always suggest to, you know, assess your situation and see if whatever you're trying to get into is going to fit your schedule and if you have time to.

And so you've also expanded from that, right? And so you had your truck. Yes. And then how did tell us what happened next, like how you've grown the business?

So I had one truck. And one thing about the trucking industry is it's all revolved around a dispatch. Right. Like dispatch kind of is in control of booking the loads, route planning, making sure the truck is making money. So that's where I kind of stepped off the truck.

I had a driver get off the truck and I learned the dispatch side. And after running one truck, then I kind of scaled up and got another truck. But at this time I went the rental route. So. Being new in business, I didn't understand how to scale.

I just thought like, okay, more trucks equals more money, equals more profits, you know, but I'm doing kind of all the work. Because me and my brother, even though we're box truck bros, we kind of branched off and we both have our separate business. So he has his own business, I have my own business, but we're in conjunction. So I got more trucks and more drivers, more problems.

More bills. More bills. And I'm like, and I'm making all this, I'm making the money, but I'm saying like, I'm doing all this work and making money, but it's like, I'm not even seeing it, you know? So that's when I kind of like, all right, well, I have way too much on my plate. I got to get rid of some trucks.

And then I kind of scaled back down to a level that I was comfortable operating at. Yeah. So it can be tricky doing business with family. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

And this is, you know, honest truth, you know, because there's a lot of people out there who want to get into this space is they say don't do business with family. And that was our story with me and my brother. You know, I was kind of the one who started the business, funded everything.

And, you know, I was kind of like, yo, let's get on the same page. Let's start this business. And sometimes people don't appreciate the work that it takes to get to a certain level because they don't know what goes into it, you know. So we had two different ideas of how we wanted to run the business.

My whole thing was we're going to get started. We're saving every dollar. We're not spending nothing.

And he has a family. He has kids. So he was like.

Different situation. I can't do that. I got to, you know. This is why I'm doing this.

Yeah. Yeah. It's always been my understanding when you are an entrepreneur and you have a business, right?

You really get paid last. Like everything kind of gets invested back into the business. Yes. There's people who want to. You know, if they need that money, they want to get a salary, but that is definitely like employees always get salaries.

They get paid first. As a business owner, you get paid last. I'm glad you said that because we hear such advice, pay yourself first, pay yourself first.

You can't really. No, you can't. As an entrepreneur.

No, you can't. And that's just something people have to know. Yeah. Everything, remember when we had... We had the budget nista on and she said everything goes in the pot.

Yeah. Everything goes in the pot. So that was our story. And, you know, we weren't seeing eye to eye.

And we just kind of figured that it wasn't working. You know, and I was like, yo, look, I think it's best that you start your own LLC. You want to do what you want to run it. And we'll still be, you know, in line. But I can't afford to pay you what you want to be paid to take care of it.

Because he left his job. You know, so you leave your job. You're used to making a certain money. you got rent stuff like that so um okay that's good sometimes you also have to be like i love you as my brother and let's do that yeah yeah we want to leave this as brothers still yeah you know we still want to get along yeah so we we didn't want to mess up our brotherhood and our relationship and what about with your mom um as far as like you're really you know i know that you guys had a tough upbringing yes my mom we're we're close you know um Not as close as I would like us to be. You know, when you're kind of growing up, you see just like traditional families who spend a lot of time together.

We spend a lot of time away, you know, from my mom. So now she's doing a lot better. She's married now. She's moved down to the country.

So she's settled. She's now living that fast-paced life. So, and I think with the drug addiction, of course, comes some sort of mental health problems, you know.

So she's in her space. She's doing well, but We're not as close as I would like us to be, but we're still good. You know, we talk every day. I'm there for her.

She's supportive. She has to feel good to see her son become so successful. I know she's proud of you. I was just going to say that.

I know she's very proud of you. Yeah, very. And I always let her know, you know, because sometimes as parents, you feel like you don't give your child the best opportunities. You'll put them, set them up to be successful, you know.

And I always tell my mom, like, I don't know how it would have went any other way if you weren't where you were, you know. So even though you didn't meet the... criteria or the standards you like to live up to, a lot of what we went through, you know, has built me to be the man I am today, you know, and that's just overcoming a lot of adversity and working very well under pressure. That's where I feel like I work the best. You're in an amazing mental space with that because I remember we were talking and you said how critical it is for people not to let people project limitations.

Yes, yes, yes. Early years back even when I started doing DoorDash, I had a... I was working at a preschool and I was making $10 an hour, you know, and I was a hustler.

So I went from making money outside of a nine to five, but it's pretty decent. But I had to give that up to, you know, work a nine to five, getting paid 10 bucks an hour. So that just wasn't cutting it for me. You know, I'm 26 and I'm like, $10 an hour is not working.

So I said, I'm going to quit this job and I'm going to do door desk and deliver food. And I'm going to do this for about four years to start a business. When I quit my job, even at the preschool, my brother, my family, they legit told me verbatim, you know, you're dumb for quitting a stable job to go out there and deliver food. Like, why do you want to deliver food?

And that doubt that they tried to plant in my head that I couldn't make it, you know, go on this avenue or what they thought would be the best route for me, that would have stopped me, you know. That's what stopped you? No, it would have stopped me.

If I listened to them, it would have stopped me. You've got to listen to your own instincts. And really it's important, I think, to have people around that can also support your dreams and ideas. Yes, yes.

Because you'll start, and my mother used to always say, if you hear something enough times, you'll start believing it. So you have to, even sometimes it's family, you have to distance. And if I believe something I can do, I'm going to do it. No matter what you tell me, I may fail, but I'm going to do it. So that's what I did with the...

DoorDash, I did that for about three or four years, saved up money. How lucrative was that? Was that paying more than... Oh, man, yeah. Okay.

So I did DoorDash like crazy, you know. I can do DoorDash on my new truck that I'm driving around. Yeah, yeah.

I think they make you leave a tip after because I'm better at leaving it. Sometimes you like... Forget.

Yeah, yeah. I like to do it and I'm always like, got to remember to leave that tip because you forget. Yeah, you can. Yeah. So I did DoorDash like I always think of ways to make more money, right?

So when I was out there doing DoorDash, I was like, I had one phone and I'm just doing DoorDash and I was like I need more platforms because not every restaurant uses DoorDash. Some use Postmates, some use Grubhubs. So now I downloaded every food service on one phone. Then I'm like if I had two phones I could maximize more money. So I had my brother sign up, my mom signed up, so now I got two phones.

doing DoorDash, Grubhub, and I'm just pinging all day. So I'm like, oh, so. That's why I be waiting an hour sometimes. Yeah, yeah, because I'm trying to pick up multiple loads. Now we know.

Yeah, you know, so I was doing that, you know, literally from sunup to sundown. I was doing breakfast run, lunch run, weekends. That's the hustle because you were saving for something, and when you have a goal in mind. It can help you work really hard so you achieve that goal. Yes, so I knew what I had to do with DoorDash, I did that.

And then when I got into trucking, people told me the same thing. Because we do, this is a, trucking or transportation is a semi-dominant industry. A lot of people are doing tractor trailers, semis. You don't really see a lot of box trucks going cross country. So when I bought the box truck and trying to do the same thing as semis, people told me then, get a CDL.

You can't make money with a box truck. You can't do this. And I'm like, okay, you know, y'all gonna see. And that's where.

And you can do, like when people think I'm getting a truck, they're like, oh, I'll be driving across the country. No, you can do little runs. Yes, yes. You could do local. You could do cross country.

You could do regional where you just kind of run in between like Jersey to PA, Jersey to Virginia. The trucking industry is full of opportunities. Contracts, brokers, load boards, Uber free. It's full of opportunities. But getting getting into it.

It's up to you to figure out what works best for you. Everyone don't want to drive cross-country. Everyone doesn't want to stay local.

Some people want to make more money. The more you drive, the more you make. So it's really kind of an industry where you kind of get in, figure out what works best for you, and just learn from your mistakes. Okay, so to date, what has been your best week and what was your worst week?

She's about numbers. Numbers. My best week, so on average, because I specialize in this part.

So I say that's why a lot of people. And honestly, I got the dispatch from doing DoorDash. If anyone who does DoorDash, Uber, everyone has a strategy that they run. If you're doing Uber, you're probably at the airport at 5 in the morning. If you're doing DoorDash, you're probably at the restaurants during lunchtime, during dinnertime.

You know, you're not running too far. So I specialize in dispatch, and my best week, I probably did about 8,000. But that's like my best week.

My worst week, I've probably been like 2,000. Okay, that's good. That's good.

But there's so many factors that go into why you make that amount of money. You have a breakdown. Do you have days off?

Are you taking off? So if the truck is running consistent, my driver's out there running, we average about between $1,000 to $1,200 a day. So about $5,000 to $6,000 a week is what we try to bring in. That's pretty good. We're not mad at that.

We're not mad at that at all. It's decent. So now you said you love to work as much as you possibly can. It feels like that has been your motto.

But when do you take time? to take a break, relax, go on vacation, enjoy some of the money. I've been trying to do that more now that I'm in a better financial position. And I think, let's say my childhood, money doesn't come around my neighborhood often. You know, so I'm still kind of like in that mindset where like, I got a business, you know.

So if anything happens today or tomorrow, I don't have a guaranteed income, you know. So trying to build that foundation of making sure that... I have enough money to scale to invest in different avenues or ventures. It's kind of what I'm on, you know, so I try to treat myself and take a vacation every now and then. I went to Tulum last year.

You know, so I did, I did Tulum. This right here is a trip to New York. Did you go on the cenotes?

I did, I went to the cenotes. That was cool. You gotta do all that. I was scared, I was scared about that.

Under the cave and that was, that was a lot of fun. I did that, you know, I can't swim. See, I can swim, but...

I had the noodle, so I was like... You had your noodle? That must have been so cute.

And they have the bats inside of this and that thing, so you see, like, all the fruit bats and stuff. Yeah, that was a little too adventurous for me. Too much, right?

But it was a good experience. That's great. So I'm trying to enjoy life a little bit more now, but my main goal is to continue to scale, continue to get to where I want to be, and then enjoy. the fruits of my labor. And you also coach other people.

Yes, yes. So we do offer coaching. I have courses that teach people how to, of course, get started with cheaper down payments, strategies that we run to make the kind of money that we make, and kind of also offering dispatch classes and mentorship and things like that.

So for people who need the step-by-step, you know, hold my hand through this process, we do offer that. And if you go to on Instagram to at Box Truck Bros, B-R-O-S. B-O-X. Oh, yeah, yeah.

At Box Truck Bros. Bros, yeah. And your profile, I see there's your link tree so people can see how, I mean, he has lots of services that he provides people. Yes, we do consultations.

I say we do courses, e-books for people who just kind of want to buy it on a whim. And I say we also do offer mentorship and dispatch training. Yeah, yeah, very transparent on your page about. every aspect of the business, good or bad. I'll tell you, 700,000 followers.

Yeah, yeah, because, you know, getting to, especially with, like, social media and whatever you're offering, because the whole goal of starting trucking was not to sell it to no one. You know, like, a lot of people who come from this. same environment and background as I do and I wanted to be fully transparent of what you're getting yourself into you know what goes on in the day to day from sleeping in the truck picking up loads talking to brokers negotiating rates I just everything that you could possibly show I wanted to show you know that's really cool for branding there's so many people now use social media to build their brand and their business and you say authenticity authenticity yes yes A lot of things in social media are selly-selly. And if you're someone like me who's just kind of like real, I don't like selly-selly. You know, I like the authenticity of things.

And I do my research, you know. I look at your profile, you know, what you got going on, how much information are you putting out, are you trying to sell me on something? And that's kind of what we do, you know.

And the Box Truck Bros, the platform has been... become a platform that people who's getting into trucking can kind of come into and you know we help people from let's say if you have a business you need a dispatcher you know so we help people find dispatchers we help people find drivers um you know so it's just been a very a very transparent uh process the last thing there's some people out there listening who are been incarcerated and they think it's over it's game over what do you have to say to them um For one, of course, don't let people project their limitations on you. And at the same time, you know, run your race.

You know, be present with where you are. A lot of people compare themselves to others, especially, you know, their peers, social media. They look online or, you know, see how much time they may have wasted or how much time they may have lost out on.

And it's never too late. You know, I did the same thing when I was 26 is I felt behind. My friends going to college, they graduating from college, they coming home.

And I'm like. Yo, I'm doing DoorDash and y'all got big boy jobs and, you know, you're not going to get anywhere without having a plan, without having a goal, you know, so surround yourself around the right people, the right environment, educate yourself on what you want to do and... Don't compare your journey to anybody else's either. Yeah, at all, you know, because that would definitely...

Mess up your head. Have you feel like you're behind, you know, and... And some people be lying too, so to be clear, you don't know how good somebody's for real doing. And you never know your timing, you know, like I did not never think for once when I first started the growth would be this this far, you know, so even though I started behind, I've surpassed, you know, a lot of people who I once thought were above me, you know, just because of what they had going on and where I was at in life and the amount of time and work I put into what I'm doing, I have, you know, seen the, I've seen the growth in it.

All right. Well, that's great. I love that.

Make sure you guys follow Box Truck Bros. Sam Taylor, a.k.a. 40. Thank you for joining us. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Happy Wealth Wednesday, everybody.

Sam will be in our Wealth Wednesdays for Entrepreneurs group on Facebook. Please be sure to join. It's awesome. Thank you.

I appreciate it. Thank you.

Transcript for:Building a Trucking Empire Journey

Transcript for:
Building a Trucking Empire Journey