In this episode of Freight Nation: A Trucking Podcast, host Brent Hutto is joined by Alex Mai, Owner and voice of Mutha Trucker News.

Alex is the voice of Mutha Trucker News, and has been since he started the YouTube channel in 2012. The channel now has over 900,000 subscribers and followers who tune in to discover the latest industry news, advice, and stories. Alex also co-owns Big Rig Tees, a trucking apparel company.

[08:11] Mutha Trucker initially began with Alex and his girlfriend vlogging their life on the road under the alias The Asian Mai Show. The show didn’t have much direction for six years, with the content essentially being a form of journaling for them. However, Alex rebranded the channel to Mutha Trucker News a few years ago. There was little interest when the content was just about Alex, but when he instead interviewed drivers, people loved it. As it picked up, he started to attend trucking shows to better understand the industry and work towards his goal of giving truck drivers, owner-operators, and fleet owners a better experience.

[18:59] Alex’s focus now is to help truck drivers with their pain points. Often, these stem from not understanding the business side of things, so Alex partially helps to educate on how to be a business owner. He further advises drivers to build relationships, using load boards to support this. It’s not enough just to use one because it might go down one day, and then they would hypothetically be left with no business. Instead, he recommends having as many tools in your toolbox as possible to maximize your efficiency and profits. Ultimately, trucking is an interpersonal industry, so communication, trust-building, and forming direct relationships are crucial to success.

[26:25] If social media is part of your business model, then you’re doing it right. It’s such a dynamic space that there is no one right way to go about it, and according to Alex, there are not many mistakes to be made. The biggest mistake he sees is businesses segmenting their content and only posting it on specific platforms. Instead, you should post everywhere and extend your reach to every possible part of your target audience. If you don’t, your competitor will. If you’ve already built up a following on one platform, then direct that audience to your new one — it’s an effective way to build an audience quickly. 

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