In this episode of Freight Nation: A Trucking Podcast, host Brent Hutto is joined by Adam Wingfield, Founder and Managing Director of Innovative Logistics Group.

Adam Wingfield is a passionate Managing Director within Innovative Logistics Group, a North Carolina-based company providing resources and success guidance to small carriers. He is also the Co-Founder of InnoPortal, a trucking dispatch TMS system that has amassed over 50,000 dispatched loads. He truly is a trailblazer in the world of logistics.

[12:51] According to Adam, owner-operators often lack insight into where operational expenses lie and how to run a business financially. They don’t truly understand their variable expense costs and thus cannot improve them. At Innovative Logistics Group, they focus on educating owner-operators on what variables they can control. Taking time to focus on these elements and improve them will give you more time to put back into your business. They further see owner-operators struggling with decision-making, specifically with weighing cool equipment against its financial implications, so they aim to help them with their financial acumen. The third trend is the coaching mentality. To succeed in the business, you must be obsessed with efficiency and your business acumen, so they further help owner-operators build on this.

[17:32] Adam’s biggest mistake when starting out? Not scaling his team soon enough. When he started, he felt that taking on extra responsibilities, rather than outsourcing them, was saving him money. Realistically, he was just stretching his abilities too thin. In fact, his biggest growth period was when he hired more people, seeing his ROI triple. He realizes now that his focus wasn’t on where he wanted the company to go but simply there and then. He advises others starting out to reflect on their mentality and set some goals. If you want 100 trucks in ten years, you’ve got to start now. Position yourself several quarters ahead so you can recalibrate when things go wrong. 

[26:14] According to Adam, less than 5% of owner-operators he talks to know their cost per mile. That is crucial to know, as some freight may look good while being very financially damaging. When he works with such owner-operators, the first step is to help them fix their variable expenses. These are much easier to solve than fixed expenses, and there tend to be a lot more of them. They ultimately focus on four things: variable expenses, fixed expenses, average price at pump, and miles per gallon. Just by being aware of these four metrics, owner-operators can take steps to lower their overall expenses. 

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