Intro – 00:00:01:
Welcome to Freight Nation: A Trucking Podcast where we explore the fascinating world of trucking and freight management. We dive deep into the freight industry and uncover why the trucking industry is more crucial to our country now than ever before. Stay tuned to uncover the driving forces behind successful trucking businesses and hear from the hardworking truckers and leaders who keep the world moving. Let’s hit the road.
Brent – 00:00:26:
All right, well, welcome back, Freight Nation. Here’s another great episode of Freight Nation brought to you by Truckstop. I hope you will appreciate this episode of Freight Nation as much as I do. So for those of you that might be new to Freight Nation, you probably don’t know my history in this industry. I started in this industry in 1998, working for a media company that owned Overdrive Magazine. And so I got all of my history and all of my passion and all of my love for this industry starting working with owner-operators. And so that’s why I love them so much. That’s why I love working at Truckstop, because we fundamentally help owner-operators run their business. But I cut my teeth on everything in this industry in the media world, which is a lot of fun. Because when you’re with the media, man, you get to hear and see and taste every part of transportation. From the manufacturing end to the readers end, which specifically with Overdrive, with owner-operators, with CCJs, with fleets, and those sort of things. But I spent 15 years doing that. So I got to know the media side of this world really well and loved it. Absolutely loved it. And then I got to transition to Truckstop, in 2013 to be on the logistics side, on the freight side. And so I’ve gotten to grow even more in this marketplace. But the media side was always just so fascinating to me because you really got to hear all the great stories about transportation. And you get to know all the other media operations that are in the marketplace. And one of the ones that I really admired because of their grit, because of their honesty and their straightforwardness, and their really hyper-focus on the owner-operator was 10-4 Magazine. And so, like I said, I started in 1998. 10-4 started about 1993. And so having them on the Freight Nation podcast is really exciting for me because I want to hear, and I hope you do too, want to hear more about how 10-4 came into existence. What exactly keeps them moving forward? And then we’ll talk a lot about their readers in the market and everything. And even talk a little bit about how they give back to our industry, which is really super common among transportation. But joining me today is Daniel Lentz and Tim Sieben with 10-4 Magazine. Gentlemen, man, thank you so much for doing me the honor, for being on Freight Nation today.
Tim – 00:02:27:
Thank you.
Daniel – 00:02:28:
Thank you. We’re happy to be here.
Brent – 00:02:30:
Yeah, man. Well, that’s super cool. So it’s amazing what all goes under transportation and how this entire trillion dollar industry works in the United States. Certainly the media side is so important about keeping the truck drivers and logistics managers and the shipping companies, keeping them informed. But before we get into all that, what I love for my Freight Nation listeners to listen to is the story. Because I know, Freight Nation, you’re as interested as I am in how in the heck did these two guys get to work in the transportation industry? And then what brought them to the point of thinking about working on the media side and creating something unique like 10-4 Magazine? So, Dan and Tim, I’d love for you guys to start with briefly tell your story. When you were a little boy, did you dream of being inside of transportation or did you just, oh, no, this happened. And this is how I ended up getting here. So let’s get started with that. Dan, I’d love for you to kick it off.
Daniel – 00:03:22:
No, I was going to be an architect and I actually would decal.
Brent – 00:03:25:
Yeah, I got my oldest daughter as an architect.
Daniel – 00:03:28:
So after I got out of college, I went on a couple interviews and got very disenfranchised very quickly because I was going to be the next great Frank Lloyd Wright. And they weren’t giving me the time of day. And so I decided, okay, I’m not going to do that. My big goal now is I want to design log homes. So my goal now and my degree will one day I will design and build my own log home when it comes time. So that’s how I’ll utilize that. But learning about all that stuff, I think, has really helped me do what I do creating the magazine because I learned about symmetry and balance. And that really came in handy when you’re laying out pages, which I do as well. So I think that 10-4 has a pretty interesting beginning. And I’ve told the story here and there in the magazine from time to time when we have an anniversary or something. But. It started in 1993, and I found myself working at this company in Southern California. It wasn’t a very large company, but they invested in small fledgling companies, either people who had ideas and didn’t have the manpower or the money to move them forward, or they had products and wanted to expand. So this company would come in and invest money and resources and partner with them. So this company, that’s kind of where 10-4 started. So it was just by a local dirt truck driver in Southern California. He had this idea.
Brent – 00:04:48:
Dirt truck driver?
Daniel – 00:04:49:
Like a dump truck driver. Yeah, he was probably a transfer driver, but those are a California thing too. He had this idea to create this penny saver, classified advertiser kind of thing. Not anything what it is today. It started out as, came out more than once a month. It was twice a month. So he got involved with this company that I worked with. And somehow I got hoodwinked, into bulk mailing the very first edition. So our first edition came out in September 93. And I got tasked with literally printing the entire California PUC list, which we bought on a dot matrix printer with the-
Brent – 00:05:28:
Oh yeah.
Daniel – 00:05:30:
And you have to tear the ends off, dating me a little bit. And I had to like label all the, because we just mass mailed it to like everybody on that list.
Brent – 00:05:36:
Right, sure.
Daniel – 00:05:37:
It took like two and a half weeks to do that. I’m glad we never did it again.
Brent – 00:05:41:
Your first distribution was a manual process.
Daniel – 00:05:43:
Yes, literally. I went through the list.
Brent – 00:05:46:
California. Crazy.
Daniel – 00:05:47:
I deleted the limo companies and the people that weren’t. They had a Cal T number, but they weren’t a trucking company. And so I had to boil the list down, print the labels, stick the labels, bundle them together. I’m glad that’s not my regular job. But that was in September. So I was there for that, which is cool because I could say I was there for edition number one.
Brent – 00:06:07:
Right.
Daniel – 00:06:07:
And then a few months later in January 1994, they hired Eric Sieben, Tim’s nephew, Big E as most people knew him, to be a salesman. Eric was six foot seven and had the personality to go with it. Big guy, big personality. He was an amazing salesman. And that same month, the girl that was putting the magazine together, who was pregnant with twins, got put on bed rest by her doctor. So they needed someone to put the magazine together. And you said, as you’re a kid, did you dream about this? Everyone has a little short list of what they want to do. And oddly enough, in my little short list of five things to do, owning a truck was on them and working at a magazine was on them. I didn’t realize it until later, but I actually found a way to put those together. She trained me in a matter of a very few short days on a very old program called Aldus PageMaker, probably version 2.0, a long time ago. It doesn’t even exist anymore. And February 1994, I assumed production and editorial. And at that time, Eric and I were both working together. And it was mostly just the two of us. We had a few ancillary characters helping us, but it was mostly just the two of us. And it was just a little 24-page, black and white, no stories, still doing twice a month. Anyway, for the next four months up to June 1994, he and I were working together. Granted, neither of us had trucking experience or background. We built it up to 64 pages. We added some spot colors inside, added some stories. Things were really starting to click in a very short amount of time. And the parent company, or the financiers, so to speak, ran into some financial troubles. And that’s a whole other story.
Brent – 00:07:44:
Not surprising in the media world, financial trouble.
Daniel – 00:07:48:
Well, this was the only thing they had in the media world. Everything else were products. So they basically, in an effort to save themselves, were walking away from all these companies that they got involved with. And some of these owners were going to just assume back their ownership, continue on. Others were closing and we weren’t quite sure what to do. And so Eric had some savings and he said, let’s just take it and run with it. So we went to the guy that started it. His name was Ron, or at least the guy that had the original idea. And we said, Ron, what are you going to do? We want to continue this thing. And he said, yeah, I’m just going to go back to whatever job he had, another job he had, not trucking. But we said, okay. So we decided to change the name just in case there were any legality issues.
Brent – 00:08:27:
What was it when it started?
Daniel – 00:08:28:
It was 10-4 Magazine. So when we printed our first edition in July 1994, we changed it to 10-4 Express Magazine. At the time, American Express was really big and it was don’t get in your truck. Don’t leave home without it. We went to 10-4 Express Magazine. It was don’t get in your truck without it. And so that was in July 1994. We switched the name back in July 2000 because the heat was kind of off. We had seen some of the old players that we had worked with before.
Brent – 00:08:55:
I remember we dropped it back because I started in 98, and I said, well, this is a new magazine. And it’s like, no, it’s an old new magazine. And so, yeah.
Daniel – 00:09:03:
Yeah. There were a few years there where we were 10-4 Express and it probably confuses people. I wish we didn’t have that little caveat in our history, but we do. So from there, Eric and his wife, Jean, they were the owners. And me and my wife, Shannon, the four of us basically did everything together for the next 25 years. And Eric got cancer in 2018 and passed away in August of 2019. And at that point, he made me one of the principal owners, passed his part of the business to me. Well, not all of it, most of it. And he passed some to his favorite nephew, Tim here, who had helped us in a few shows over the years. And he had popped in and out over the years and just wanted his family to be part of the business still. Jean is still involved. She’s about 98% retired and she just turned 83.
Brent – 00:09:51:
Yeah, that’s all my mom is. 83. There you go.
Daniel – 00:09:53:
There you go. She’s still our matriarch. We still go to her. Jean, is this okay? Should we do this?
Brent – 00:09:57:
All right.
Daniel – 00:09:58:
But she won’t 100% retire. She’s about 98% retired. She still helps us with a few things.
Brent – 00:10:02:
Yeah, yeah.
Daniel – 00:10:03:
Almost 400 editions later, here we are.
Brent – 00:10:06:
Yeah. This is what you love about transportation. It all comes back to relationships. Now, obviously, you and Eric, it’s much more than a business relationship. You guys had a vision and a purpose in this. And then as, unfortunately, life had some difficult changes for him, but he wanted to continue on. So that’s one of the typical stories you find in transportation, which is, hey, we’re doing this for the right reason. That’s super cool.
Daniel – 00:10:30:
Yep. Yep. I agree 100%. Exactly. It’s about relationships. And that’s what any business is about. If they’re smart, that’s our focus is creating relationships and making memories.
Brent – 00:10:40:
Right. Without a doubt. Well, man, that’s a great kickoff. All right, Tim. So when Eric said, all right, I’m passing this on to you, where were you in this whole process of how did I get to this? Give us just a little bit about what was your pathway into it?
Tim – 00:10:54:
Well, around 95, I would visit Eric and then he was, oh, we’ve got a truck show we’re doing here. Come here. My sister lived in Northern California at the time and then she would come down and we would visit. We would go to the truck shows and see Dan and Shannon and then Uncle Eric and Aunt Jean and spend the time with them. One of the big truck shows was here in Reno at the Antique Historical Truck Society show.
Brent – 00:11:17:
Yeah, I know those guys, yeah.
Tim – 00:11:19:
No, it was a good show. And I believe that was Eric’s last show. After that, he mentioned me being part of this and helping keep his dream alive and continue on. Dan was on board with that. And it was very pleasing. It was very comforting to know that I was wanting to do this.
Brent – 00:11:33:
Right.
Daniel – 00:11:34:
In talking about Tim, so about the time that he came on board, we got the opportunity to acquire, I hate to say buy, but because we bought a show that is a nonprofit, we’re dumb. But what are you going to do? So one of the reasons that we wanted to do that is because this Truckin’ for Kids show had a 40-year history, and we had been very involved with it. Eric and Jean were on the committee for a while. They’d go and have meetings and help them make decisions. And we were always vendors. We were sponsors. We covered the event. We’d go to the event since 95. So way back. And they wanted to retire. And we thought, what would Eric do? So we pooled our resources together and acquired that event to keep it alive and keep it in the family, more or less. And at that point, when Tim came on board, we said, well, this is a good opportunity. It’s a good thing to plug Tim into. So he became the Truckin’ for Kids truck show manager. And we’ve had three amazing events since then. We’re getting ready to have our fourth here in a couple months.
Brent – 00:12:37:
Yeah, well, let’s hold on talking about the Truckin’ for Kids to the very end, because I want you to talk all about why they don’t leave the Freight Nation watchers and listeners with some great inspiration on this, because this is really what makes trucking such a unique industry on how generous it is in giving back to others. So, you guys got all the way forward into you two guys working together. I am sure, and this is one of the things that I love to express to people all the time when they go, when they think about the media and they think about running a magazine and running things, for some reason, people think it’s easy to do. I, Freight Nation, you see both of them laugh, it’s really hard. So I love the fact that you were able to take your creative brain disposition that you thought it was going to be architecture, but you realize it needs to be something else. But you’re still on the creative end. You’re still building and designing and constructing and putting together. It’s just in a different form. So it’s always amazing how sort of part of who we are, our appearance on what our desire is on can take action in a lot of different areas. So you were 10-4 Express. And then in 2000, you said 2001. Was that when you went back to just 10-4? Was that right?
Daniel – 00:13:45:
2000. 2000.
Brent – 00:13:46:
All right. So talk a little bit about how you guys, the 2000s, 24 years ago. Right. That’s not yesterday. All right.
Daniel – 00:13:56:
Feels like it, though.
Brent – 00:13:57:
Yeah, I know. Doesn’t it? It really does. So let’s talk about what because this is something I think that most people never get a chance to see the inside of something. Talk about what it’s like. Month to month, producing a brand. So you get the brand of 10-4. Then you’ve got to execute on content. You’ve got to work with supporters and advertisers. And people talk about what’s the special sauce that made all that work for 10-4? Because I’ve been fascinated by it because that’s why I was in it. And then I think the Freight Nation watchers and listeners would love to hear, how does 10-4 work in and out every single month?
Daniel – 00:14:32:
Well, I think the most common thing we hear back to what you said is, oh, you guys have the best job. You just go to truck shows.
Brent – 00:14:39:
Oh, I know. Yeah.
Daniel – 00:14:40:
You hang out and have a good time. And I think, yeah, we do that. And it is a good time. But that is a very small portion of what we do. There’s a whole bunch of grunt work behind the scenes that happens day to day. And for most of those years, when we were building the business and creating what we created, Eric was the face. He was the personality. He was the sales guy. He was the guy that would get up on the mic and talk. I was the quiet shadow. My biggest thing was just producing the magazine. And obviously that role changed in 2020. And so now I have to deal with a lot more, which has made production a little more difficult.
Brent – 00:15:18:
Sure.
Daniel – 00:15:18:
But I don’t know. The special sauce is just getting up every day and putting in 16 or 17 hours. You do what you got to do. And now planning events. Is a monumental difficulty, but planning for, we’re planning for mats now. That’s big on our plate, getting all that stuff. And honestly, I’m in deadline now. I have a magazine due next week. So as soon as we get off, I’m getting back to it. So I don’t know. I don’t think there is a special sauce. I think it’s just working hard and doing what you do. And. Your head down. Give me a special sauce sample. What would you think would be special sauce?
Brent – 00:15:53:
Well, I think about like what most people don’t understand about magazines is that there’s a timeline. There’s a timeline for construction. There’s a timeline for cutoff. There’s a timeline for submission because you’ve got to get to a printer. That printer has to get things done on a certain sequential basis because they’ve got other things that they print as well. There’s this giant printing. We did it with Truckstop. Randall-Reilly did all their printing in Chicago. And then those have got to get processed and sent out to people because they expect them in a certain timeframe. So there’s a lot of work and nuts and bolts work that goes into that creative process.
Daniel – 00:16:22:
People have their perceptions of, even you probably did, of who we are and what we do. But the truth of the matter is we’re a very small company, very small group of people that do what we do. And that’s the way we’ve made it work. We’ve brought in a lot of people to help over the last five years. But they’re contributors and they’re occasional workers or what you might call. And day to day, there’s not a lot of us. And I worked out of my home for 28 or 9 years.
Brent – 00:16:48:
You were the OG of working from home?
Daniel – 00:16:50:
I was the Mr. Mom original, yes. Before it was cool. Now it’s pretty commonplace. But honestly, back in the late 90s when I built my home office and started working out of home, it wasn’t very popular. And it had a lot of complications and it was difficult. But it also creates a lot of other opportunities. Working at home is amazing and awesome, but it’s challenging. It’s not for everybody.
Brent – 00:17:11:
Sure.
Daniel – 00:17:11:
But thankfully we have a lot of people helping us these days when it comes to helping us at the shows or helping us produce the magazine. I’ve got a few people that help me with production now. And we obviously have a big stable of contributors all across the country. 25 or 30 of them.
Brent – 00:17:26:
And I ask how many contributors? Yeah, that’s amazing. Yeah.
Daniel – 00:17:29:
If they don’t contribute every month, all of them are rolling. But whenever they want to, I’m here for them. So, but it’s a cool deal.
Brent – 00:17:36:
Yeah, for sure. So I want to just pivot into one other aspect of the media world, which is you have a brand, 10-4. First off, what an iconic name. That’s a pretty iconic name. So your 10-4 Magazine. So talk a little bit about how you guys got to the name of the brand and then how you guys go about when you think about whatever you’re creating, how does it fit into the 10-4 brand? Because this is important because, look, every trucker, they have the brand of their operation. And so that’s important when you think about managing a brand. The brand is the reflection of who you are. So talk a little bit about how you guys had to come up with 10-4. Maybe that’s obvious, but the story is always fun.
Daniel – 00:18:15:
Honestly, the guy that had the original idea, he came up with that name.
Brent – 00:18:19:
All right.
Daniel – 00:18:19:
And obviously we thought it was a good one and we kept it. Even if we tweaked on it a little bit for a while, we knew the value of it being simple and the history of going back to what it was. I think it’s the perfect handle for, it’s all about communication, right? It’s even personal about communication. So, but yeah, I can’t take credit for that and neither could Eric, but certainly thank you, Ron, for coming up with that great name. I’m assuming you came up with it.
Brent – 00:18:43:
Someone’s got to maintain it. So I went coming up with that. The hard part is always in the execution. We all know that. All right, so I got to ask you another question. And I always wondered this. Since I got the creative genius here talking on the podcast, you guys, y’all have a specific look for the front of the cover of your magazine. It’s a very iconic type look. How did you come up with that look? Because I thought you were a new magazine in 2000, right? So I found that out after talking just to someone at 10-4. It may have been Eric. It may have been Eric that I talked to, because I think I do remember a very big personality that I talked to there. And how did you guys get to being an artistic director? How did you get to that iconic look?
Daniel – 00:19:20:
We didn’t start that way. We started with people submitting pictures and scanning them and throwing them on there with one or two sentences. That was the cover story. And I think just as we morphed into figuring out who we were, what our brand was, like you said, you talked about branding. And I truly believe that our brand is just, we’ve always just wanted to tell a good success story. And there are so many amazing people in trucking. And I just did what I thought I would want. And I love to read a good biography. How did somebody come from nothing to something, whether it’s in music or trucking or business or whatever? And I look at the stories in 10-4 as little mini vignettes of that, because people want to know they’re out there trucking. And they’re like, man, my truck’s okay. I’m surviving. But how do I become Jeff England and have four or 500 trucks and a big fleet? Or how do I get 10 show trucks? And you talk to these people and you lay it out. And I don’t know, you asked specifically about the cover. I think that just came, as we improved our quality. We just started on newsprint. Make your fingers all dirty. It was terrible. And we just kept improving quality. I think our readers demanded it. The pictures were just black and white at first. And we decided, hey, let’s step up. Let’s do some color. The cover naturally came about. I guess that would just be the style that I liked and the way I thought it should look. I still think that’s the way it should look. And I look at some other magazines and I wonder why they do what they do. Cause they think they could tweak it a bit and be better. But that’s just me. That’s what I do. I’m an editor. So I look at things and I want to tweak them. What we’re really proud of though, is that we’ve been going for over 31 years. Not quarterly, not every month. We’ve never missed a month. And no matter who we are, what we’re doing, if we’re big, if we’re small, if the economy is good, if the economy is bad, we just keep showing every month that magazine shows up every show we show up. And I’m very proud of that. I think all of our team is proud of that. And I think that’s what our brand represents. Just honestly, we’re just here to highlight the lifestyle, the entertainment side. We do get into some of the regulations and rules, but we try to gear those stories for giving basic education to these guys. If they’re not paying attention at all, maybe they’re going to read a story about some new carb issue or something. It’s not going to be super in depth. It’s just going to be, they’re going to be like, hey, I need to look into this more. So I think that’s really what our brand represents. We never really went deep dives down into the trucking business side of trucking, unless that’s the story. Run your business or accounting or something. But again, that’s not really our lane. Our lane is really about photography and fun. And that’s the lifestyle that we’ve lived all this time is go out and have some fun, make some memories and do that for other people as well. And I think it’s worked out pretty well.
Brent – 00:22:00:
Yeah, for sure. So I tell people all the time, trucking doesn’t change much and truckers love their trucks. If you differentiate from that too much, you kind of lose your audience. Because it’s not about all the new fancy, because I’m on the tech side. Truckstop is a software as a service technology. And I tell people all the time, we’re not a technology company. We’re a service that is provided via technology. So we provide people access to data on how they can find and move freight, which just happens to be delivered that way. By the way, the backstory on this is Truckstop is named Truckstop because when the guy who founded our company, he knew how truckers used to find truckloads because they go to the Truckstop. And they look up on a TV and they’d find a load off the TV, right? Off of them called Dial-A-Truck. So they go look at the TV. He goes, well. I’m going to be online. I’m going to be on the Internet. On the Internet Truckstop. That’s how we got to our name. And so that’s the legal name of our company.
Daniel – 00:23:02:
We’re still 10-4 Express, Inc.
Brent – 00:23:04:
Oh, yeah, there you go.
Daniel – 00:23:05:
They’re our corporate entities, so they’re still a little bit of that alive.
Brent – 00:23:08:
Yeah, yeah. So Tim, I’m interested in something real quick. When Eric said, I want you to be a part of this thing, what were you thinking? What kind of brought you in on this? I know your heart is around the Truckin’ for Kids thing, but what made you say yes to it?
Tim – 00:23:21:
I had been around it. I’m not necessarily a part of it, but I had been around it for quite a while. I had known Dan and Shannon for forever. You see them at events that we were able to be in the same place. Again, Eric was a very large personality and he loved hosting events and things. So a lot of times when we got together, we would see Dan and Shannon and it just became a family environment. And trucking itself is a family environment. I don’t care if you haven’t seen them in a month or in a year, it’s a family environment, we need to see someone again, so that was always very nice. And then when Eric mentioned being part of this, it was an honor. It was like being given a gift that you wanted to grow. And I was very touched and looked forward to being part of this. You’ve probably seen a little bit. Dan had to take on a much larger role after Eric’s passing and he became the face of the company. And he’s the one in the front of the mic. And I’m the guy in the back who likes to, yeah, I’m the guy in the back who likes to just get all this stuff done. It’s like, what needs to get done? Okay. And you turn around. It’s like, it’s done. Who did that? I’m happy to be the guy back there doing all that. So this has become a nice relationship in that. I think the role that Dan fell into and the role that I’m falling into has really been symbiotic and definitely has worked together with what he does and with what I do. So I don’t know. I think it’s going to keep the magazine going for a long time.
Brent – 00:24:39:
Right. Well, I love it. I love that you guys continue to produce the magazine. I love that we talk about family and being connected because that’s just trucking, man. That’s just the way trucking works. And so I have to educate a lot of people. I’m in the market a long line, look, this is a very, and I don’t mean like somewhat relational. It’s a very relational industry. If you keep that in mind, you’ll always create success in it. So let’s talk a little bit about the content that goes into 10-4. So how has it changed from like beginning? You talked about it being a certain look and feel, and then you have changed it into something. So give me a little timeline on what it was and then what it is today that produces the greatest value for your readers.
Daniel – 00:25:15:
Well, again, we’ve given the readers what they want and what they want is more pictures and more stories.
Brent – 00:25:20:
And don’t they always, yeah.
Daniel – 00:25:22:
Right? So that’s the direction that we went. We started with a few monthly columns about business or taxes or whatever, accounting or compliance. And we had a few regular contributors. And as our look improved and got more engaging and our quality came up to speed. Honestly, a lot of it too has to do with, like you mentioned, technology. Back in the early days, we’d go to a photo shoot and we’d take 300 photographs and then have to go get 300 photographs developed. And then we would go back to the office and we had a pool table at the office. And we would put all these pictures out on the pool table to figure out which we’re going to use for the cover. And it was a pain. And then you’d pick out a picture and then you find the negative. And then you take it to another photo lab that makes it an eight and a half by 11, or whatever you’re going to do. And there was this ridiculous process that was so cumbersome. So digital photography helped open that up, helped make that a lot simpler. We literally used to print the boards. I don’t know if even you at 98, it might have still been happening. But when you sent a magazine to the printer, I’d literally take a manila folder with boards, which were prints of each color plate. If it was black and white, it would just be one. If there was red color on it, there’d be a plate for the black and a plate for the red.
Brent – 00:26:41:
Oh, wow. And there or not, we didn’t.
Daniel – 00:26:43:
We would take it to the printer and then they would shoot negatives of those. And then they’d have the crop marks and the bullets and they’d have to line them all up. And registration was always an issue. And once PDFs came into play and we could create a PDF that was an openable document by everybody without too much trouble and send it. And now they’re all computer to plate, which is there’s no photography. They just they take your file. It’s a digital file. They put it right on their plate that’s going in the press. And it’s called CTP computer to plate. But that definitely helped quality as we brought in more full color and got more involved. And so when we first started, Eric was really into photography from before the magazine. So he had a lot of fancy cameras and he had pretty good knowledge that he taught himself on the street. And he and I would go out and I’d tell him what I wanted to do. And then we’d get back. We’d put them all out on the pool table. Fun fact too, Eric owned a pool and dart bar in Orange County at one point. He was a real shark on the pool table. So we would take a break every day from two to three in the afternoon when the office was at his house and I would go there for an English lesson. And that was English on the pool table. But anyway, he was a shark though. He’d let you in all the time, but you knew at any point he could clear the table.
Brent – 00:27:59:
No way. All right.
Daniel – 00:28:00:
We would go through all these pictures and I’d be like, man, you cut the bumper off. You didn’t give me enough here, blah, blah. I started bitching and moaning and complaining about what he was doing. One day he just handed me the camera and he said, well, then you do it. So at that point I started doing it, but so did he. We both, for a lot of years, we would both do it.
Brent – 00:28:17:
What was your circulation in the beginning and how has it grown? What is it today? I’m assuming print and digital because I’m assuming they’re consuming it on both sides.
Daniel – 00:28:26:
These days, yes, 100%. Again, we’re a pretty small publication. Right now, we’re at our biggest when it came to distribution. Because at one point, when you’re building a company like this, it’s all about more pages, more printing, more distribution racks, especially when you have a free publication. That’s the model, which is pretty antiquated now, to be honest. But I think we peaked out at 32,000 or 33,000 magazines a month. We had over 300 locations that we distributed through in about 28 or 29 states. We are now pulling those numbers back because printing and distribution, for that matter, is a mass expense.
Brent – 00:29:07:
Oh, yes. I know all about it.
Daniel – 00:29:08:
And it just keeps growing. As more people go to their phones, to their computers, to their digital side of things, the point is you can start printing and distributing less. We’re also, trying to move more to a subscriber base. We don’t make money on our subscriptions. They pay for the mailing. But that way, it goes directly in a qualified user’s hand. We’ve never really been able to control who picks it up because it’s in a rack and a Truckstop. So you don’t know. You might go through 30,000 magazines, but you’re not 100% sure whose hands it went into. So we really are trying to build up that subscriber base and get it to go into qualified hands, because I think that’s better for our advertising. We’re in the process of paring that down. We still have about 275 locations we distribute. Honestly, I’d like to get to a point when we have 10 and we’re just mailing to people. That would be a much more practical model for us to follow. So we’re finding ways to make it work. There’s a lot of adaptability there and we’re working on it. But-
Tim – 00:30:05:
I remember getting phone calls from Eric all the time. And he would tell me when I lived in Southern California, he’d say, hey, did you see the new magazine? Did you see the magazine this month? As I may or may not have at that point in time, but I would always be able to run down the side of town, the Truckstop of the 15 and pick it up and grab that magazine. So it’s a free publication, of course. So you go down and grab it.
Daniel – 00:30:26:
It’s probably still there.
Brent – 00:30:28:
Yeah, it’s amazing. So Freight Nation just is so much that goes into that thing that you pick up or that thing that you read online that goes into creating these things. And so it’s good to hear the heart and soul behind 10-4 Magazine about why you do what you do and how you get it out there and your heart towards communicating towards the owner operating the small fleet owner for what’s important to them. Yeah, so before we run out of time, I want to make sure we pivot to you guys as an industry leader and industry responsibility. You guys are focused on giving back as well and doing things that are generous towards our marketplace. So Tim, that’s a big part of your focus. And so let’s talk a little bit about what you guys do with Truckin’ for Kids. And you gave a little bit on how it got started. And then what does it do and what’s the impact? And just tell us all about it.
Tim – 00:31:12:
Well, as Dan mentioned, it was a 40-year-old charity that had been getting a little bit smaller. And then the couple owned it, wanted to retire. And then when they were on the tire, we talked to them about possibly taking over. And we were one of the only companies that they said, hey, we really would like to see you guys take this over. So we decided to, and we looked at each other and said, well, we must be crazy to talk about taking on a nonprofit. But we did. So we ended up buying the charity. And then we changed the recipient to Shriners Hospital.
Brent – 00:31:40:
Oh, okay.
Tim – 00:31:41:
Shriners has been an absolute fabulous group to work with. They’ve been a lot of fun and very responsive to our, our shows. We changed how we do the shows a little bit. We took away the judging. And we started to do the truck show awards differently. And it’s been a success. It really has been. And in free shows, we’ve been able to donate $210,000.
Brent – 00:32:02:
Holy… That’s a lot of cash.
Tim – 00:32:04:
Yeah. Oh, yeah. That was our goal.
Brent – 00:32:06:
When were these free shows… When did they happen?
Tim – 00:32:08:
Well, the first one… The first one, we were only given one day to do a show because the racetrack that we were going to, they weren’t… They were a little leery. Wanted to know… If we were going to be able to cut it or not. So they gave us one day, which was September 11th.
Brent – 00:32:22:
Right.
Tim – 00:32:23:
Where about 2022. That show was, again, a huge success.
Brent – 00:32:27:
Where was it? Where was the first show in the… Are you doing it the same place or does it move around?
Tim – 00:32:31:
Well, the first show was at Irwindale Speedway in Irwindale, California. The Truckin’ for Kids has always been a Southern California-based charity. It was a California truck show. So we kept it there, and we wanted to keep the same model, even though we changed the recipients. So it grew from that. But it was always at Irwindale Speedway. And then we’ve had it at Irwindale. And then the big news this year is that the Speedway owned the Speedway, but there was another owner of the land. So they had to close this Speedway because owners of the land have decided to develop it. So we needed to find a different venue for the first time in the four years of its existence. So our fourth show is going to be at Famoso Raceway, just outside of Bakersfield, California. Now, the owner of Irwindale, California, was looking around because he knew this was probably going to happen, where he was going to lose the Irwindale location. And then he actually purchased, or his part owner of the Famoso show. So we’re still working with the same team. We have Famoso, which is a different location, a much bigger location. So we have a little more freedom. We don’t have to worry about it. A lot of times we were worried about if we were going to fill up Irwindale Raceway. It’s like, do we have to think about it? We had to think about it. You stop trucks.
Brent – 00:33:46:
We’re getting impatient in that.
Tim – 00:33:48:
Yeah, a lot of hesitation. We were very worried if we were going to have to stop trucks at the gate and say, sorry, you can’t come in even though you want to be part of the show.
Brent – 00:33:54:
How many trucks show up to this thing?
Tim – 00:33:56:
We’ve had upwards of near, close to 300.
Brent – 00:33:59:
Oh, wow. That’s a lot of wheels.
Tim – 00:34:01:
It’s a lot.
Brent – 00:34:02:
Fantastic, yeah.
Tim – 00:34:03:
Yeah, absolutely. So it is fun.
Daniel – 00:34:06:
For most of its life, Truckin’ for Kids was the last show of the year. It was always in the fall. But there’s become so many truck shows, and that space and that time became so noisy. We decided after that first year to move it to a spring show and make it, besides Matt’s, the first show of the year instead of the last. And also, I think by the end of the season, people are tired. Maybe they’re broke. Maybe they’ve went to enough shows. We want to catch them when they’re fresh and excited at the beginning of the year.
Brent – 00:34:33:
I agree with you, Dan. Next show’s going to be when?
Tim – 00:34:36:
May 2nd, 3rd, and 4th.
Brent – 00:34:37:
May 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. Give the location again just so my people know real clear.
Tim – 00:34:42:
Famoso Raceway in Famoso, California.
Brent – 00:34:47:
And is there a website for them to go to, to check it out, to register or to know more about it?
Tim – 00:34:52:
It’s truckingforkids.org.
Brent – 00:34:54:
Trucking, I-N-G, right?
Tim – 00:34:56:
No, just I-N.
Daniel – 00:34:58:
Trucking. No G.
Tim – 00:34:59:
Truckinforkids.org. .org, yes.
Brent – 00:35:02:
All right. Fantastic. Well, that is a super, I love it. You have $210,000. That’s meaningful, man. I’ve never been out to it. I’d love to come out to it sometime. It’d be super fun just to be a part of it. California, no comment on any of the politics going on in California, but the people of California are incredible. Incredible. So I just love the generosity of this. This is fantastic.
Tim – 00:35:20:
Well, I think one of the things that made that show very unique was the fact that they did a drag racing. So you saw semi-trucks do drag racing.
Brent – 00:35:28:
Yeah.
Tim – 00:35:29:
And so we’ve kept that model. And then at Famoso Raceway, they also have a drag strip there. So one of the things that has been a big draw is the fact that people get to come out and they see these semi-trucks drag racing.
Brent – 00:35:41:
It’s impressive. Yeah. That’s such a unique thing. If you get a chance to see trucks drag racing, it’s a pretty cool thing. Or racing in general. I even saw them racing on a NASCAR track. Super cool as well. So obviously 10-4, been around since 93, still going strong. You got the Truckin’ for Kids charity. What’s next for you guys in helping this industry continue to move forward for you guys? So what’s next? And then we’ll wrap it up.
Daniel – 00:36:04:
Well, this last year we started another show. We said for years we wouldn’t do shows.
Brent – 00:36:09:
It’s a punishment. I love it.
Daniel – 00:36:11:
Politics and drama. But, you know, we’re trying to help our buddy out who runs these speedways. He came to us and he actually took over this Famoso drag strip. But he also bought Kern Raceway, which is also in Bakersfield, but on the other side of town. And it has a half mile circle track. It’s a beautiful facility. He said, I’m buying this place and I need events. He said, would you like to have a second event? And I said, absolutely not. But eventually he wore me down and I thought it could be an opportunity. Let’s try it. It could be an opportunity. So we came up with this 10-4 Trucker Rodeo. And it features actually working events. Olympic style. You know. So we do backing competitions. We do hay loading with a squeeze. Cow loading. Hay loading with a boom, which is old school. You don’t see that hardly ever anymore. They don’t do that anymore. But it’s a lot of fun to watch. We had transfer dump contests. We had tire changing. We had a steering competition. I mean, we had about 10 different competitions that happened in the center of the Speedway. People sat in the grandstands. Even rented luxury suites, which was unique. And it was a very huge success. So that is in November. 7th, through the 9th. So now every six months we have a show. So that keeps us definitely on our toes. But our latest thing that we’re moving forward with is we call it a webcast. A weekly webcast that we’ve been doing since about 2019. It really took off during COVID because nobody could go anywhere. And it just became like a Friday night hangout party because nobody could go out. And then after COVID ended, we moved it to a different night to Wednesdays. And it became a little bit more content based. And we’ve been doing that for a lot of years. But we’re finally really starting to grow that. We’re going to start adding more shows, more nights with other hosts. Want to actually develop this almost like a network feel where it falls under the Studio 10-4 Live network. But we’re going to bring in some other people for some unique content and some unique personalities. And we also do live remotes from events. Like we’ve got Matt’s coming up. We’ll be out walking the floor, interviewing the floor and outside. Doing interviews, truck walk arounds. So that’s been a thing we’ve been doing since about 2016. And that’s really actually grown too as the digital media space has grown. But I will make the point. We are not looking to ever stop print. And everything we do in our digital footprint, all of our assets are created to support our print magazine. Even our rates for people to get involved. If you don’t have an ad running in the magazine, it’s very expensive. You want to cut your price in half? You got to put an ad in the magazine. Because we’re not cutting our nose off, despite of our face. I think that’s what most people want out of us. So a truck driver, are the most old school guys, you’ll ever meet and newspapers might be out of business. And a lot things that have went digital, but I will tell you, truckers will be the last group of people that go kicking and screaming to digital completely.
Tim – 00:39:04:
A hundred percent. A hundred percent.
Daniel – 00:39:06:
We’re not going to let them down.
Brent – 00:39:07:
Yeah. I agree with you, man. Wow. Well, look, Freight Nation, I hope you learned a lot today. I hope you learned no matter where you start, you got to continue to evolve your brand. You got to continue to involve connecting to your audience. If you’re a truck driver, obviously you’re going to work with shippers. You’re going to work with brokers to get your freight, but you got to always be working on it. I remember the guy that started Randall-Reilly, the one that I worked with was a guy named Pettis Randall. And he’d say, you got to constantly be improving your brand. You just got to constantly be improving it. And it looks like, Dan, that you and Tim are really continuing to hold the torch and keep things moving forward for 10-4 Magazine. That’s super exciting. So thank you so much for being with me today.
Daniel – 00:39:44:
I would say add one thing to that.
Brent – 00:39:46:
Yes, sir. What-
Daniel – 00:39:46:
You got to constantly be improving because if you’re not moving forward, you’re falling back. But don’t lose your heart. You’ve got to keep your heart.
Brent – 00:39:52:
I agree. People got to know you care. So that’s super, super important. So thank you so much. Well, that’s a wrap, Freight Nation, for 10-4 Magazine, one of the foundational parts of what goes on in transportation. Another great representation of what makes trucking great. So, all right, Freight Nation, thanks for joining me today. And I hope this was a benefit for you. And don’t forget to work hard, to be kind, and stay humble. We’ll catch you the next time. On behalf of the Truckstop team, thanks for listening to this episode of Freight Nation. To find out more about the show, head to truckstop.com/podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you hit subscribe so you don’t miss any future episodes. Until then, keep on trucking and exploring the open roads with Freight Nation: A Trucking Podcast.
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