[00:00:00] Adam Wingfield: I just remember how people just avoid the classroom. They were gonna sleep in the owner operated classrooms. They would challenge the teachers, and all the teachers would try to teach them.
Like, man, this is probably one of the biggest reasons why we see a eighty five percent failure rate in the industry.
[00:00:14] Todd Waldron: Hello. Welcome to Behind the Freight podcast. On today’s episode, we’re coming to you on location from the Mid America Truck Show, the largest annual gathering in the trucking industry.
Carriers, brokers, industry leaders connect, learn, and find real solutions. We’re joined today by Adam Wingfield, founder and managing director of Innovative Logistics Group. Adam has spent over twenty years helping small carriers build smarter, more profitable businesses through compliance, education, and operational strategy.
Today, we’re gonna talk about compliance, especially with international road check week coming up, what carriers need to know about ELDs, and how emerging tools like AI are starting to shape the future of the small trucking business. Welcome, Adam.
[00:00:59] Adam Wingfield: Well, thank you for having me, man. I love the introduction. I appreciate that.
[00:01:01] Todd Waldron: Absolutely. Coming up. What number of mats is this that you’ve attended, and how’s it been this week?
[00:01:08] Adam Wingfield: So this is gonna be my fifteenth. Over the last ten years, it’s really changed a lot. I think pre COVID, it was definitely different.
Post COVID, it was different. But this one’s really different because of the things that’s going along in the industry. And then also the direction of the mass is becoming more of an educational black woman.
I really enjoyed it.
[00:01:24] Todd Waldron: Yeah. Absolutely. So I heard a little story. I heard you came up with your company name while napping at a petrol truck stop in Joplin, Missouri.
[00:01:33] Adam Wingfield: Yeah. Absolutely. Joplin, I’ll never forget it, man.
I just woke up in the middle of the night, man. It’s almost like you woke up and I had, like, a it wasn’t a nightmare, but it was like an epiphany. And I just woke up and it said, innovate.
And I’m like, you know what? As soon as I wake up, I went inside, you know, and the truck stops and got my logo printed out. All it was is with, like, a little I, just a letter I.
That was it. And it’s evolved over time. I don’t have my shoulder on the day, but, yeah, it came in a drink.
And that’s why I always believe in I’m a give you a weird thing that I do. On my nightstand, I have a a pad. And the reason why I have a pad on my nightstand is that when I wake up because, you know, a lot of times you wake up, you got thoughts.
Yep. And sometimes you forget those thoughts.
[00:02:06] Todd Waldron: Yep.
[00:02:07] Adam Wingfield: So I got a pen and pad that’s always by my even in my hotel room right now. So if I wake up in the middle of night and something comes to my mind, I write it down and go back to sleep.
[00:02:14] Todd Waldron: That’s awesome. And you had the logo and business cards made
[00:02:17] Adam Wingfield: Yeah. Right then and then. Right then and then.
Didn’t even know where it was gonna go. That was back in 2003, 2004. Didn’t know where it was gonna go on, but, you know, here we go.
Still still
[00:02:26] Todd Waldron: That’s amazing. That’s such an awesome story. For listeners that don’t know who you are, there’s so many people that do.
You’ve been mentioned by name on this podcast and by others. But tell us about what you do for the industry and in the industry, and tell us a little bit more about your business.
[00:02:39] Adam Wingfield: Yeah. So one of the primary things that I focus on is I focus on helping small carriers operate better businesses. Because the thing about this is is this the trucking industry is alone.
It’s easy to go out there
[00:02:49] Todd Waldron: and buy a truck. Anybody can go out and buy
[00:02:51] Adam Wingfield: a truck. Anybody can drive a truck. That’s not that the gold is contained anymore.
The thing that really gets people is the business part of it. So my passion is teaching people how to be better business owners, how to run their business better, how to start better businesses, and how to execute. So we’ve been doing that for quite some time.
I’ve been doing this, you know, twenty six years in total. And the thing that really, really kinda gets to me is that seeing small gear is that getting into the business. I really don’t understand that it’s a contact sport, and they don’t really understand the things in the dynamics of it.
So our whole power is to help small peers understand those someday.
[00:03:23] Todd Waldron: That’s awesome.
[00:03:24] John Howland: Now I assume it’s in a dream or something, but I’m gonna ask it. Was there a special or specific moment that you can remember where you’re like, hey. These owner operators need to know more about compliance and operations.
Like, where did that come from?
[00:03:36] Adam Wingfield: Man, I took a load from Laurinburg, North Carolina to Louisville, Kentucky, actually. It was really funny. It was, like, my first load way back in 2000, and I’ll never forget parking at the TA here and getting out.
And just walking inside, it just felt like and I hate to say it, but it felt like a thunder balloon. Like, I was just looking around. Everybody was so depressed.
Everybody was so upset. And the conversations that are happening right now Yeah. Where, hey.
The brokers that default to move. They’re the same conversation that we were having 22 crazy. And so I realized that a lot of people get started in business, man.
And I remember going through owner operator training when I was with Prime. I just remember how people just avoid the classroom. We go to sleep in the owner operator classes.
They would challenge the teachers. I’m like, the teachers would try to teach them. Like, man, this is probably one of the biggest reasons why we see a eight by 10 failure rate in the industry.
[00:04:20] John Howland: Yep. What would you say one misconception that maybe small owner operators have about compliance that could hurt them in the long run?
[00:04:28] Adam Wingfield: Less is more when it comes down to it. But you gotta think about that. The CFR manual is about that thing.
So you think about it. You’re responsible for everything. And what did they say is the ignorance is not a substitute of understanding the law.
So, I mean, you can get you know, regardless, we get pulled over something. Even if you say, oh, well, I didn’t know about it, it’s not gonna get away from you. I think one of the biggest misconception is sometimes is thinking that, you know, just because you don’t know, like, you’re not gonna be held accountable for those things that you don’t know about.
[00:04:51] John Howland: Yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome.
[00:04:52] Todd Waldron: So if we talk about compliance a little bit, especially with international road check, we have one of the well known, probably most celebrated holidays in the transportation industry. Dude. Let’s start with for carriers that might not be as familiar, what is international road check week?
[00:05:07] Adam Wingfield: Open book test. So every single year, the the CVSA announces international road check week, and they tell you exactly what the focus is gonna be on. And, see, here’s the thing is is that as the years that went by, we shifted more towards you need those inspections from back then.
Hey. I gotta park my truck because we’re having CBSA road week. The CBSA is just a height and awareness week where inspectors are gonna be looking for a specific thing that particular week.
Sometimes it’s breaks. Sometimes it’s hours of service. They’re gonna tell you what they’re looking for.
And the problem between the CBSA road check week is is that it is. It’s an open book that it’s an open book test. It’s one of those things that everybody knows what the outcome’s gonna be.
But then again, we’ll still go into weigh stations, and people get put out of service for the things that they were already told that sort of
[00:05:48] Todd Waldron: happened to test. So What tends to keep our our catch carriers or drivers off guard in that week?
[00:05:52] Adam Wingfield: Well, I think the biggest thing is if you don’t think it’s gonna happen to you, you don’t think you’re gonna get pulled in. You know? And there’s a lot of things, you know, especially, like, on brake check week, man.
There are people who don’t know how to just slack adjust us. Some people don’t know how to do something, and I just think that it’s not gonna happen to them. They’re not moving.
Everything’s gonna be fine, and those are things that you get dinged on. And then the second thing is sometimes you get pulled in a weigh station thinking that your brakes are all good, but all of a sudden you got a depth that you on the trail tires. So it’s like, hey.
Just because they’re focused on it doesn’t mean they’re gonna avoid that.
[00:06:16] Todd Waldron: Yeah. What are you seeing from an ELD perspective? Are there are a lot of ELD violations? What’s the most common one that you’re kinda seeing, and how are you seeing drivers kind of attack that issue or prepare for that?
[00:06:26] Adam Wingfield: The most common one is boss law of the duty status. So it’s basically either you’re going in PC. A lot of times, PC is being overused.
Personal companions is one of the biggest things that gets overused within that. Sometimes you have things that are just, you know, from a duty status and not even logged into the ELD. Sometimes you got disconnect issues.
So, you know, obviously, there’s a way for an officer to go by and understand if that the ELD’s been disconnected. We’ll say, hey. You know what?
The last time you was connected, it was about a hundred and seventy five miles ago. What happened over these last 175 miles? But it’s electronic technology that they have available to us now.
It’s much more intuitive to where you can understand that. And then now it’s coupled with artificial intelligence. It’s hard to hide behind it.
[00:07:00] Todd Waldron: Yeah. Absolutely. One of the things I talk about a lot, you mentioned the personal conveyance.
And one of the components in transportation that’s so tricky is that there’s multiple pressure points putting pressure
[00:07:11] Adam Wingfield: on the
[00:07:12] Todd Waldron: different portings, and that all then weighs down on the driver.
[00:07:16] Adam Wingfield: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:07:16] Todd Waldron: And so you have a shipper’s requirements and expectations. You have the broker’s requirements and expectations. Yeah.
And then you have the law. Yeah. And then you have the tracking.
And you previously had maybe multiple logbooks depending on your situation.
[00:07:29] Adam Wingfield: Yeah.
[00:07:29] Todd Waldron: How does a driver balance
[00:07:31] John Howland: all
[00:07:32] Todd Waldron: of those expectations yet remain compliant?
[00:07:34] Adam Wingfield: It’s so much on a driver, and that’s one of my biggest problem is so many regulations that are geared towards the driver that compresses your driver behaviorally. It’s always a race against the clock. You know, when rates are compressed, you still gotta get the job done in the same amount of time, so it’s more and more pressure on a driver.
That’s one of the unfortunate things when it comes down to it because when you’re paid by the mile, but you’re monitored by the hours of service regulations, it’s unfortunate. That’s one of the nuances about the industry that I’m not a fan of. I mean, you gotta look at it like you know, back then, we had logbooks.
When I started, I was on logbooks. We had logbooks. And even back then, we were running two logbooks just because you’re doing as much as you can to get by.
And it’s just it’s just unfortunate, man. It’s a couple of weeks ago. I was on an airplane going to Chicago, and the pilot comes on.
And he’s like, yeah. I need everybody to listen to this announcement. It’s an urgent announcement.
We need everybody to get seated as fast as possible.
[00:08:22] John Howland: Jesus.
[00:08:23] Adam Wingfield: Listen. They wanted us to get seated as fast as possible because if we didn’t pull off the gate, the pilot was gonna run out of house, and we would have been stuck, and it would have to cancel a flight. So I get it, but the problem is is that these hours of service is so rigid.
I’m almost 50 years old. I only need four or five hours of sleep that I function. I don’t need ten hours of sleep.
I don’t need ten hours of rest. I can take me four or five. When I was driving, we used to do five on five when I was doing a team driving, and I don’t need that much sleep.
And with the amount of technology we have, the amount of information we have about human body, we have to have a better, more flexible regulations when it comes to hours of service. That’s my opinion. Yeah.
[00:08:58] Todd Waldron: You know,
[00:08:58] Adam Wingfield: that’s my opinion. I mean, obviously, everybody’s gonna have their own, but I just think it’s too rigid. And I and I think that, you know, you give me a ten hour break, I’m a waste five hours of goofing off because I don’t need all the time.
[00:09:07] Todd Waldron: Yep. Yep. Absolutely.
[00:09:08] John Howland: Yeah. Now I will say, I’ll admit, I went to your little show yesterday with Todd and AI. Todd, you by the way, you killed it.
Uh, that was great. That was great. So I wanna talk about AI a little bit if that’s cool.
[00:09:19] Adam Wingfield: Sure.
[00:09:20] John Howland: Now first off, yeah, what do you think about AI in trucking? And then what do you think for a smaller carrier owner operator the most practical use of AI is going to be?
[00:09:28] Adam Wingfield: So I think AI is here to say it’s not going. AI is only gonna become more and more involved into the truck. One of the things I’m super excited about AI is getting more involved with the actual mechanical components in the maintenance spot and truck to help the decision making process with text.
Because, obviously, truck goes down now. It takes too long to get it repaired. Because from the decision making process, the decision trees, it’s a long process.
It keeps our drivers out there away from the road far too long. It occupies equipment much too far, so I’m excited about that component of it. There’s other components of AI with the dash cameras and things like that to help lower some of those insurance rates, and so I’m looking forward to that.
But from a practical standpoint, we talked about this yesterday. One of the most practical things that you can do as a driver, as an owner operator, is to take and collect as much data that you have on what you’re doing with your operation. Take your rate counts for the last two, three, four weeks.
Take your fuel receipts from the last two, three, four weeks. Say, hey, mister AI. This was my last three, four weeks.
What can I do to have a better three or four weeks coming up? Using that AI to help you make better decisions and not necessarily from a replacement process, and using it to help you make better decisions is why I would really love to see us do.
[00:10:36] John Howland: What a softball for me. By the way, off script here
[00:10:40] Adam Wingfield: Okay. In the very, very, very near term,
[00:10:43] John Howland: obviously, truck’s out. We’re looking and do as much in AI as we possibly can.
[00:10:47] Adam Wingfield: Yeah.
[00:10:48] John Howland: We are very soon going to have something along the lines of exactly what you described to where a truck driver is going to be able to say, hey. Based off of everything you know about me, I’m gonna be in Louisville, Kentucky. In four days, find me the best paying load that does this, this, and this from this type of blah blah blah blah, and it will automatically dispatch.
Meaning, it’ll automatically have our AI bot reach out, secure that load for that broker, hands free, hands off, and you’re only gonna have to talk to your phone. It’s it’s coming.
[00:11:16] Adam Wingfield: That’s good. But it’s coming. One of the things that I do wanna say about about AI is you do not want AI to make the decision.
You need to be in the final decision maker. AI can be a support and can give you all of the information, but don’t allow AI to make the decision. Cool.
[00:11:29] John Howland: K. Now from a broker’s lens just for a second, how can brokers and other shippers and partners support carriers who wanna try to start to adopt and modernize with the AI?
[00:11:40] Adam Wingfield: I think the big thing with that, people might hear it all the time, and I get it. But you gotta have better relationships, first of all, because if I’m gonna trust you to advise me on, hey, mister carrier. We wanna help you become a little bit more technologically advanced when it comes down to artificial intelligence.
First of all, I gotta trust you. I gotta trust that you’re not trying to screw me over. I think that’s one of the biggest things that comes down to it is the trust gap between brokers, shippers, and carriers still hasn’t gotten gotten much better.
The more technology that you put in between us, the further we’re gonna be. One of the things that we did really, really good during COVID you know, we did really good during COVID. We distanced ourselves.
We got really, really good at saying, hey. Hey, John. Too close, six feet.
And then mentally, from a mental perspective, we did that from a vision perspective too. So instead of you got these some brokers out. Email on you got email on this.
You got something. Hey. Instinct quote.
Send a ring. That’s not the same handshake latencies. Yeah.
So in order for me to really wanna do business review and fresh on them and help me make better decisions, then I got frustrated.
[00:12:41] Todd Waldron: Yeah. Absolutely. Hey. Talk about data.
[00:12:44] Adam Wingfield: You know?
[00:12:44] Todd Waldron: Data essentially powers AI, and then it’s my brain thinking about, one, there’s so many components of data. Like, we’re literally recording new aspects of data that AI can analyze Yeah. And then help you learn Yeah.
from the wisdom of Adam Wingfield from that data. Right? So then it begs the question, who owns the data?
For me personally, we had our mobile devices continue to capture our location. Long. So a lot of people would turn off their privacy settings or their location.
But for me, because Google Maps could tell me what the traffic is, how long till I get there, and everything else, I was like, I
[00:13:17] Adam Wingfield: don’t care.
[00:13:17] Todd Waldron: Take my data all day long. This value is greater than the risk or my fear of being watched. What’s that balance?
How can drivers balance that between value, but then security or safety and data ownership?
[00:13:30] Adam Wingfield: Man, that’s tough. Because if you think about it so for example, my iPhone that I’ve had for, I don’t know, how many years I’ve had an iPhone now, but it’s been learning my habits over the entire time I’ve had this iPhone. So now Siri Siri is so smart in terms of what time Adam wakes up, what time does he take phone calls, how much does he text, how long does his text message.
So Billy kind of just knows who you are. And, obviously, that’s gonna give some security concerns. You know, for some, I think that, you know, big brother’s always watching.
I I get it. Absolutely. You gotta be careful on what you need, Aon.
We talked about this in our class yesterday. Do not put your Social Security number. Don’t put credit card numbers.
Things that you wouldn’t want the public to know about. Like, don’t ask for advice for certain things that may not be one of the things you wanna come back up because it’s constantly learning who you
[00:14:12] John Howland: are. And
[00:14:14] Adam Wingfield: there are certain LLMs. There are certain models that use your information and train that model, and they’ll tell you that we’re using your information to train the model. So you just gotta be careful.
Just gotta be careful.
[00:14:25] Todd Waldron: How far out are we from an Adam robot being able to walk around that’s trained off of all that data?
[00:14:30] Adam Wingfield: Man, it’s it’s so yourself. Yeah. You can you can.
But, you know, what I was saying in this, man, is that at the end of the day, anybody can do what you can do, but there’s nobody that can do what we can do.
[00:14:40] Todd Waldron: Yeah. Absolutely.
[00:14:42] John Howland: Yeah. I’ll I’ll say too. I mean, AI still scares me a little bit.
[00:14:47] Adam Wingfield: Mhmm. It overwhelms
[00:14:48] John Howland: me tremendously. I’m not sure when to use it, when not to use it. Right?
There’s a lot of nerves around the whole thing. So one last question I had, and then we’ll get into some fun stuff, is for those small carriers owner operators, when it comes to just, you know, being overwhelmed in all sorts of things, what do you think something they can do that’s small to maybe start dabbling in it? Because you said it’s not going anywhere.
Right? Yeah.
[00:11:11] Adam Wingfield: Sure. It’s not.
[00:15:11] John Howland: What’s something they can start doing maybe just to test the waters a little bit with AI?
[00:15:15] Adam Wingfield: So whatever you’re not really good at, whether it be, hey. I’m not good at filing my IFTA, or I’m not good at evaluating my logs, or I’m not good at evaluating how well I’m navigating. Whatever you’re not good at, challenge AI by doing three different steps.
So first step is you want to tell the AI exactly what you want it to do. Right? So say I wanna improve my rates.
I’m gonna tell the AI, hey. You are an expert evaluator of loan negotiations. That’s the first step.
Tell it what you want it to do. Sixth step is to give it the information. I am going to provide you my last x amount of rate funds.
Third step is the output. How do you want the information back to you? I need you to evaluate this information, and then find out where my gaps are and tell me what I need to do to improve what I do.
Just do something small like that. I dare you to have it evaluate your rate on. Love it.
Start from that perspective, and I watch this. I promise you, you’ll make more money next month or two.
[00:16:11] John Howland: Awesome. That is awesome.
[00:16:13] Adam Wingfield: Are
[00:16:13] John Howland: we ready for lightning round?
[00:16:14] Todd Waldron: Yeah. I think so.
[00:16:16] John Howland: Alright. Alright. Here we go.
[00:16:17] Adam Wingfield: This is
[00:16:17] John Howland: what I told you. I’m a try and trick you here.
[00:16:19] Adam Wingfield: Alright. Alright. I’m game.
[00:16:20] John Howland: No cheat.
[00:16:21] Adam Wingfield: I ain’t cheating.
[00:16:22] John Howland: If animals were to jump behind trucks and start driving these things around the road Yep. What animal would be the best driver?
[00:16:29] Adam Wingfield: Wait. The animal would be the best driver? In my opinion, a lion.
Uh, and the reason why I say that because, obviously, your truck’s the largest on the highway. Alliance is the king of the jungle. No matter how many little Toyota Corollas are blowing horns and no matter what, all it takes is that lion roar one good time, and everybody else shuts up.
[00:16:46] Todd Waldron: Yeah. It’s the king of the jungle.
[00:16:48] Adam Wingfield: King of the jungle.
[00:16:50] John Howland: Alright. Now we told you at the beginning, you are a very popular man. Half of the people we talked to, when we asked them this question, they said you.
So I’m curious if there’s one person out there, owner operators, logistics experts, anybody, should or could listen to you to get some good advice, who would that person be? Somebody out there doing good things.
[00:17:10] Adam Wingfield: In the industry, there’s so many people doing good things out there. I mean, Neal Fox right here. He’s a huge advocate.
Kevin Rutherford, huge advocate. Uh, each fan of and the thing is is, man, like, I think we’re all doing the same thing. We’re trying to help.
We’re not gonna agree on everything. We’re gonna have different approaches and respects, but there’s some folks out here that really, really know the industry. There’s some people that really, really wanna teach it and do it really, really well.
From my perspective, it’s who he most comfortable listening to. But, yeah, certainly, those two are definitely that I really, really, really have five regardless of.
[00:17:39] John Howland: And I’ll plug you right now too and mister Winfield.
[00:17:42] Adam Wingfield: He
[00:17:42] John Howland: is a, uh, stud when it comes to a wealth of knowledge.
[00:17:46] Adam Wingfield: Absolutely. Alright. A couple more.
[00:17:48] Todd Waldron: The freight industry will be meaningfully better when?
[00:17:52] Adam Wingfield: Oh, that’s not a fair question. What I will say about the freight industry is that many times you have an industry that’s based on economic cycles, that’s always gonna be our royalties.
[00:18:01] John Howland: Absolutely.
[00:18:02] Adam Wingfield: The freight industry is never gonna be in sustainably great. It’s never gonna be sustainably bad. Right.
It’s always gonna be cyclical.
[00:18:08] Todd Waldron: Yeah. I was just talking with someone the other day. It’s like, yeah, you can build the best relationships.
You can have great experiences, but your expectations have to be limited to the fact that we’re still in a market environment.
[00:18:19] Adam Wingfield: You’re in a market environment. And it’s like this. And I’m and I use this analogy a lot.
It’s like, have you ever been to a cookout? I know everybody’s been to a cookout. And say you go to this cookout, and it’s all of us.
We’re all going to this cookout. And there’s food there, but nobody that’s coming to the cookout is bringing food. They’re all doing what?
We’re all eating. And here’s the thing. If nobody else is bringing more food, at some point, what’s gonna happen?
The food is gonna run out, and we’re all gonna be standing hungry. That’s how the market cycles work. We’re supplying the demand during the market cycle.
And here’s the thing I wanna cautious everybody on that’s listening to this. The market’s gonna turn around. Yes.
The one thing I wanna caution you on is not gonna be permanent. Yep. Because the market cycle is only on average eighteen months.
So just like we just came out of a recession now, we turn the market around. It’s gonna be a a downturn probably eighteen months after that. And I’m not being negative.
I’m letting you know that’s reality. I’ve been doing it since 2000, October 2000, and it’s not changed. Yeah.
You just gotta prepare yourself for those times.
[00:19:15] Todd Waldron: Yeah. One tool or system that each small carrier should be using today?
[00:19:20] Adam Wingfield: Truckstop.com.
[00:19:21] Todd Waldron: I love it. The best answer
[00:19:23] John Howland: of the day.
[00:19:24] Todd Waldron: Amen. Man, it’s been such a pleasure having you on.
[00:19:27] John Howland: Thank you.
[00:19:28] Todd Waldron: And I consider your friend, a mentor, someone that I just advocate for, and it’s been great to be able to experience this and work with you as well.
[00:19:35] Adam Wingfield: I appreciate it.
[00:19:36] John Howland: Yeah. Absolutely, man. Have a great day. Thank you. Thank you.
[00:19:38] Todd Waldron: If today’s episode helped you think differently about your operation, share it with someone in your network who needs to hear it. And if you’re looking for tools to help keep your truck rolling from finding quality loads, getting paid quicker, well, truckstop.com is here to help. Go visit truckstop.com to explore the load board, rate insights, and risk management solutions built specifically for carriers and brokers.
Thanks for listening to us at Behind the Freight. Until next time, keep the wheels turning and the bad loads burning.
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