Podcast: Building a Successful Logistics Company with Desmond Clark, President of Bear Down Logistics

For Desmond Clark, teamwork is how he has built his success, both on and off the field. Now as the President of Bear Down Logistics, an asset-based transportation company, Demond is laser-focused on growing his business through motivating and encouraging his team to get them over the goal line with every opportunity. 

In this episode, Demond sits down with Truckstop Chief Relationship Officer, Brent Hutto, to discuss his journey from the NFL to logistics, highlighting his mindset for improvement and ways to find wins every day.

Finding Your First Customer

When Desmond’s football career ended abruptly, he found himself struggling to figure out what to do next. Football had been all he had known, but he was determined to make a professional pivot, and do so with as much hard work and determination as he’d put in on the field. 

“With excellence being the standard, my purpose is to enhance the lives of others through any expertise or resources available to me within reason and with respect for my family, whom are primary; making every effort to transform strangers and associates alike into extended family members.”
Desmond Clark, President, Bear Down Logistics

Still unsure what to do, he began a career in real estate and then moved on to the financial insurance industry. He felt happy and fulfilled helping people to be financially sound in his newfound focus.

His path started to change when he started doing motivational speaking in 2014. This gave him an avenue to live out his purpose even further and to bring out the greatness in others that was brought out in him. From there, he started his journey into logistics on his way to discovering himself as a person and where he could make an impact.

But when Desmond first founded Bear Down Logistics, he struggled. He was managing all of the areas of business himself and felt like progress was slow going. Not having the knowledge to know how the proceedings worked, he had to lean on his associate, Brian, to get the ball rolling. He saw this as a learning opportunity, a time to get to grips with logistics so he could improve his service for the next customer, and all those following to provide a superior customer experience. This lead to more load opportunities and a more comprehensive understanding of how to run an efficient business. 

Everyday Mindset: Win the Day

Every single day, without fail, Desmond asks himself what he can do to win on that day. He also implements this thinking in his business. 

“I wake up and I wanna understand: How do I win the day? Even with my agents, on Mondays, we have a 30 minute meeting, and every other day we have a 15 minute meeting, and the first question that I ask each of them is ‘What was your win for yesterday?’”

The entire Bear Down Logistics company has been built around this concept, around the idea of doing things at the very highest level, even if that is not yet perfection. To Desmond, it is all about executing excellence consistently over time while constantly trying to improve and level up processes.

Advice for Everyone

For the last two years, Bear Down Logistics has ended with over one million dollars in revenue, an incredible feat. Now, Desmond’s focus is to add on a zero to that total, and then to hit 100 million in the next five years. He attributes his success to the advice he received from his high school principal:

“All you have is your word and your name, and if you lose that, you’ve lost it all.”

At the time, Desmond didn’t get it, but now he realizes that his name is his brand. It’s how he builds trust with his customers. He’s defined what his name means to him, and what he wants it to mean to others, and he constantly upholds that in how he lives and works. His advice to everyone is to do the same: figure out your name and your word, then stick to it.

To find out more from Desmond, tune into this episode of Freight Nation: A Trucking Podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform.