James Blain 0:27

Hello everybody and welcome to a very special edition of the Ground Transportation Podcast. Um, we are actually shooting this from the Phoenix Hotel in Washington, dc. It's been a really eventful couple days. We just had the National Limousine Association event. We went, uh, personally I went directly from that event day on the hill, coming right back, turning around, doing the legislative fly in for the Transportation Alliance. And one of the cool things about this episode is I'm joined here by Dan Reed, who is the president of the Transportation Alliance. We're gonna talk to you guys a little bit about Day On the Hill, kind of give you our feedback, how it went, how those kind of ideas that we presented to those legislators have gone. Um, but first, Dan, this is your first time on the podcast.

Dan Reid 1:10

Yes, it is. Thank you. Thanks, James. I'm good to be here.

James Blain 1:13

It's, it's great to have you. I'm pretty excited to have you on. You know this, this podcast is focused a lot kind of on the chauffeur space and the motor coach space, so I think it's really exciting to get to kind of focus on a different part of the pastor ground jazz station industry. So I think I'd love to start with your story, right? Where do you sit? How do you end up at the top of this association, right? I know you do a lot of things and I'm not really teeing you up here. So tell us a little bit about how you got started, your company, your background, and what you do.

Dan Reid 1:41

So I, I did not get into, uh, non-emergency medical transportation in the traditional sense. I was, uh, spent 30 years in, in accounting, mergers and acquisition work. And, uh, if you recall, 2008 was not a great year for the financial markets.

James Blain 1:56

a great year for much energy.

Dan Reid 1:57

No. And, uh, I found myself all of a sudden, uh, without a job. And, uh, so I drove around the country for a year and, and saw the country and came back and. Basically realized I had not, uh, was not ready to retire. Um, so I thought I'd get into a business that I could figure out and understand. At the time, non-emergency, uh, medical transportation, uh, I was looking for three things in, in an industry. I wanted an industry that was fragmented. I wanted an industry that was not employing technology to its max. And I wanted an industry that would cater to the, uh, the, uh, aging, uh, baby boomer population. Yep. Well, little did I know, uh, that described NEMT to a T back in 2010. So I, I, I got into it. I looked at around in a couple opportunities. We were living in California. My kids, uh, went to school down south at Alabama. And, uh, Ole miss roll, Todd Hot Todd. And, uh. I decided, well, you know, I'll start a company in Mississippi and, uh, my wife's from New Orleans originally, so it, it was good to get back to the south. And, uh, we, we started from there and then and, uh, grew the business up and in 2023 we took over a couple companies in Louisiana. Okay. The first thing I did though, when I got into the business was realized I gotta find people who know what they're doing. I gotta find people who have done this. And at the time, the Transportation Alliance was then, it was called the TLPA, taxi Ity Care Transit Association, uh, was the only thing even remotely close. And so I joined up and that's why I started meeting people and I realized the value of networking and the value of an association and the ability to pick up the phone and call somebody and say, Hey, I've got this issue. Have you ever dealt with it? And how did you deal with it? And, and then I've just been an active member ever since. And then this last year I moved up into the presidency.

James Blain 3:43

And it's really interesting that you've, you've kind of told the story in that way because if you start going back to our podcast episodes, if you start listening to Brett, behold, if you start listening to any of our other guests, one of the themes that comes up over and over and over is mentorship. You have, you have the ability to go through and kind of fight your way through and figure out all the answers. All of the people that we have on that have really found success, that really been able to build and grow a business, have found mentorship. Yep. And it's interesting because we hear this over and over again and one of Ken, my co-hosts favorite things to say is that the most backwards companies are islands. Mm-hmm. They don't wanna join the association. They think they can figure it all out on their own. So I think it's really interesting and really neat to hear that for you, you've come from somewhere completely different, join the association, and now you've kind of found your way to the presidency and leading it.

Dan Reid 4:38

A Absolutely. I mean, there's so much that we do at at the Transportation Alliance, but I. I, I always say, and we talk about, you know, my theme this year is drive value to our, to our members. Um, and it is a dad joke, right? Get it drive value to our members. But, um, it, it, you know, of all the things we're doing, I tell members and new members and prospective members, the number one thing is the ability to network. Yeah. The ability, you, you, um, uh, host or you co-chair our safety and loss control, uh, committee and, and we have a monthly committee and people can get on there and, and there's always a presentation, but it's that networking afterwards. It's that questioning, it's that answer and it's that, hey, you know, how do you do this? And having people who can tell you how they do it is, is just so invaluable that if you are not, if you're not, you get out, you get more back than you put into it. And so anytime you can have an investment where you get more back than you put in, you might as well take advantage of it. And, and that's what I love about the association.

James Blain 5:37

Well, and I think it's also worth mentioning that this association that has changed and evolved. Yes. You know, when I first got into the industry, it was the TLP, right? Mm-hmm. And back then the, the way I kind of, obviously when I came into transportation, I came in through the the black car industry. So I kind of had blinders on and it was Oh, those and the taxi gas. Yep. And it's interesting because you brought up, you are actually, you went into the NEMT, which for those that don't know, the non-emergency medical transportation space. So tell us a little bit, you know, that evolution from TLPA and being thought of as predominantly taxi, what is the Transportation Alliance today? What does it represent? What are the different verticals that you guys work with?

Dan Reid 6:15

Um, well actually I'm gonna sound very prepared, but I just happened to go through our member survey and present it in our board meeting, so I know the numbers, but, uh, you, you're right at, at one time it was considered the taxi association and it, and it was, and it was very heavily taxi associated and they, they championed a lot of great causes for the taxi association. About six or seven years ago, the organization realized. People are doing everything. Yep. People are not just doing taxi, they're mixed fleets. And that's when we switched to the transportation alliance that, that we, we represent a, across the board. Up until last year, our steering committees were taxi, limousine, paratransit, you know, so taxi and on demands. Yep. Limousine, luxury, paratransit and, and NEMT. What I realized last year being on those committee calls was I was hearing the same things from the same people on three different calls. Yep. Because everyone was working in cross industries, so that's why we switch it up this year. And that's, that really is the whole evolution right now. We did a survey of our members and, and if you look at each member, how they responded and you gave each member an equal weight. So by that I mean a, a company like Sea Trips. Right. Who, who, uh Yeah. Does how many thousands of trips a day. They had the same weight as somebody with three vehicles. But in terms of the allocation, the respondents to our survey said that about, I think it's 55, 60% of their trips are what they consider an EMT. Okay. So it's a lot of companies that used to have the name Taxi and 'em still do, but they now do mostly an EMT trips on demand. Taxi is still the, by far, the second, uh, highest piece. And then of course we have, um, uh, student transportation, uh, black car, uh, micro transit shuttles, uh, and, and, and the whole, uh, wide range of population. But we have morphed, we nobody, very few people are doing just one thing. Yeah. Anymore. And that's, that's what's really interesting about the limes.

James Blain 8:11

And I think what's what's really interesting there, right, is if you start looking at the past of ground transportation Space as a whole, and this is something that came up, you know, Ken and I were, we're sitting down, we're trying to figure out what we're gonna do with the podcast, and we started looking at kind of our businesses and what's happened. And we started seeing this trend probably for me, um, I can't speak for Ken, but for me it popped up in about 2017. Mm-hmm. I started to notice, you know, even the black car guys were starting to buy buses or they were starting to look at other places. They're looking to see what else they could do. And as a result of that, you start seeing this mixed fleet become a thing. You start seeing mixed fleet more and more and more. And I think we're seeing now a period of consolidation, right. We're seeing a lot of companies come together, and I think the future of the transportation industry is transportation companies.

Dan Reid 10:04

I, I completely agree with you. In fact, if you remember, I, I met you at, at a limousine. Absolutely. It, it was the, the regional limousine conferences, Florida. And, uh, they reached out and said, Hey, we have members who want to fi figure out how can we do NEMT to supplement, uh, our transportation. And so I would gave her a series of presentations on, on how you can use your limousine fleet to do NEMT. Just two weeks ago we had a great presentation, uh, from an individual who was talking to us about how we could start getting into the affiliate program. And, and, you know, I thought about it, I was like, well, I do any EMT. I don't, I'm not affiliate. And he, he said, well, wait a minute. Some of your passengers who are in wheelchair who utilize wheelchairs who you take to the airport, you don't think they're gonna need a wheelchair transportation at the other end? Yeah, I'd never thought about it. So we're gonna have a topic at this year's mobilized conference on how we can better start to use, and I can't remember what the software is that everyone uses in the limousine industry, but how we can start to utilize that software in, in the traditional TAXI and NEMT industry because the affiliate program. I, I'm so jealous of it in, in, in the luxury limited industry. But, you know, it, it can start to apply in our industry, and that's, as you say, it's passenger transportation. Now it ground track passenger transportation. There's aren't taxi companies, there's not any mt companies there. Everybody's doing whatever. Uh, Joe Rubino, who's been a long time consulted to our, uh, um, our association once made a comment to me, and it, it always rings true. He said, if you're sitting in your office and you look out the window and you see somebody riding in the backseat of a vehicle, your first thought should be, why aren't I transporting that person? Yeah. And that, that's, that's what I think the industry's going to.

James Blain 11:47

And I think it rings true, especially for someone kind who lives where I do, especially on the training side. You see these transportation companies, but there's still kind of the needs in each of those niche areas. And so I think it really comes down to understanding what each of those niches that you're serving need and have and how to make them work. And then understanding that, you know, you start, and, and this is true of black car's, true of, of everyone. You start as a logistics business, you start of point A to point B. But then you start layering on top what that unique area needs in black car. That's the high level, the high touch of customer service. Right? For NEMT, it's going to be a different approach, but again, if you're just looking at it as I'm getting 'em from point A to point B, you're missing the point. When we had our safety and loss call, we had a huge discussion of curb to curb versus door to door. Yes. Assisting the passenger, whether or not it's part of the contract. Um, and again, that's completely different than what they might think about black car, but those are kind of the things that layer on and those are the things that if you're gonna be a mixed fleet operator, you have to understand what's unique to each area.

Dan Reid 12:52

And that's the thing that I think is so important for anybody in this industry. To be part of NLA or part of the TTA. It's understanding that, yeah, there's huge opportunities and all across the board, and you can get into any type of transportation, but you better understand that transportation. Yes. You better understand what is particular to that transportation. If I decide I want to start taking executives, you know, from Hattiesburg to the airport, I, I, I need to have bottled water in the vehicle. I need to make sure that vehicle is, is. Park lane clean that my driver has, you know, a uniform that's gonna impress them. Um, you know, but if you're gonna go from the other side into NEMT, you better understand what loading and unloading insurance is. You better understand what door to door means. Yeah. And, and so there's huge opportunity, but there's huge responsibility and associations like ours, like the NLA can really assist. And it's, again, it goes back to that networking. It goes back to, James, can you put me in touch with somebody who loves black car so they can tell me what it is? I don't know. And, and the fact that, you know, it's two calls for me to make, one for me to ask you the, and the other one for me to call that person. It, it, you, you can't buy that kind of, uh, knowledge.

James Blain 14:05

No, and I, I think it's worth mentioning, you know, it's funny 'cause I saw things happen both ways. So today here at the legislative fly-in, we were on the hill, you know, representing the Transportation Alliance, and I had a an EMT operator say, Hey, you know, I've thought about black car. I keep seeing suburbans, I keep seeing, you know, I want to understand that industry. And it was, okay, let's talk about what's different and what's the same, and then let's figure out who we put you in touch with over in that area. Ironically enough, yesterday at the national event, when we did their day on the hill, same thing. I had two operators that I ran into in the basement of the Russell building and they, you know, we talking and passing and transportation. Right. Non-school bus, student transportation. Mm-hmm. And EMT came up and it was, Hey, let me put you in touch with the right people with Transportation Alliance. They have a committee on this, they have an, and so kind of being able to direct and do that is huge right now. It also brings up, and we talked a little bit about mentorship, kind of diving now into the fact that this is the legislative fly in for you guys, stay on the hill for NLA. I think another huge thing is that people don't realize the high level support that you get from the association. Yes. Especially these island companies. Oh, we'll be fine. So I, I would, I guess my thing is I know you're very involved in that. I know. We'll, we'll get you to tell your story. At one point, I believe you were single handedly employing your own lobbyist. But why? If someone's considering this, if someone's looking at it, they're going, well, you know, it doesn't matter. It doesn't affect me. It's not to, why is it also just as important to be involved in these legislative items and to have things like Day on the Hill or the legislative flying on top of mind and being involved.

Dan Reid 15:42

Well, first off, it, it is gonna affect you. I mean, you, you can say it's not gonna affect me, but it's going to affect you. And this year, more than ever, and I, I think all the associations are seeing it. the the possibility for, uh, for actions being taken here in Washington to affect you are exponentially higher than they have been in the past. So, um, even as a small company, you have the opportunity to come here. I think we had 20 states represented here, so that's, you know, 40 senators, if I'm doing my math correctly, you know. Yep. At least 20, um, state representatives that we got to put in touch with. Who, you know, represents you back home. Yeah. They now know, they now know your name. They now know the industry. They now understand that it's impacting their constituents back home. NEMT may have been a, an acronym they heard the other day. Now it's a constituents business. Right. And that's huge. And so when you're part of an association, you, you, you get the leverage of that. We have a lobbyist, a full-time lobbyist here in, in Washington, DC and he spends, you know, all year making these connections so that we can have it. Last night we had a packed dinner. We had eight people, um, eight, eight, uh, different representatives come through and, and it was just fantastic for them to come. And some of 'em may not, you know, some of 'em may have been briefed on an EMT on the way over. That's fine. They now know it. They now understand it. They now understand micro transit is an issue to us. They now understand independent contractors are an issue to us. All those things are so important that, uh, that, you know, somebody can put a name to a face to a, to a, to a constituency, and, and when you're part of these associations, you get that doing it on your own. Um, may work locally in the state, but it doesn't work at the federal level.

James Blain 17:28

Well, and I think, I think the big thinking is another huge thing that, you know, it's very old phrase, right? Work on the business, not in the business. It is so easy to put your head down and work in the business. Yes. And even when you pull back a lot of. Of times you are not pulling back far enough, right? Mm-hmm. You pull back to see your business, but you don't see what's going on around, you're worried about your business, you're still worried about your revenue, your numbers, everything there. Um, it's really interesting because I'm lucky enough that I get to cross all these different industries. And so I was on a, a call with the bus industry Safety Council and, um, under a VA and brand. Brook Cannan brought up this really great point that changed kinda the way I thought about it. They were doing a call for deregulation items because Republicans have, you know, the majority right now. We're gonna see a lot of that type of stuff. And I said, well, you know, my thought is this really is limited to things that are gonna impact us now that could be removed, that could be pulled out. And Brandon said, well, but think long term. Think about what you're wanting to do, even if it's not something that directly fits that. Exactly. If you are bringing it up, if you're putting it on the table, if you're getting it in front of them, these are topics that you're getting on their mind to the point you just made. Even if I go in there and I, you know, there's a lot of action in dc, a lot of the visits that we had, we weren't able to actually sit down with legislators. So we've got their staffers, we've got, you know, the different people involved in the office. But if I'm able to reach through to one of those people and that person is involved in legislation or they go back to their legislator and they say, Hey, we, you know, I talked to this guy and they brought this up, and the next time the bill or something come through that touches it, mm-hmm. You've got a huge impact. And further than that, if you are able to take some of these topics. Bring 'em top of mind. For example, you know, one of the things that we were looking for when we were here is we were talking about Medicaid and Medicare, right? One of the interesting things that came up is we actually found that even though our goal was to pitch someone when we were in there with a staffer, it became, well, you know, this isn't necessarily what I'm looking for. Okay, well, can you help us understand if this isn't something that the specific person that you are working for is interested in? Who are we looking at? What do we want? And he said, well, this is gonna be on the house side, and here's what you need to know. They're focused on the numbers, they're focused on the cutting. So when you talk to them, here's how you need to pitch it. Here's how you need to do it. And so it was really interesting that we went in trying to, you know, pitch and sell and it really became, hey. I'm not the right person, but I'm gonna equip you and teach you and give you what you need. Ironically enough, what happened? We ended up crossing the capitol on, now we're on the house side. Now we know how to present it. Now we're even more effective. And the big thing there, like you said, these are all things that are impact us.

Dan Reid 20:14

Right. Yeah, no, it, it, you know, you brought up Medicaid and it, it was, uh, very interesting because our, our, what we're bringing to Medicaid and one of our big things that we, you know, our, our position on this is. We want to have it done right. We have a lot of ideas, a lot of, um, uh, things we've been trying to push for years to bring technology into Medicaid, to bring technology into the providers, to be able to identify and, and eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse. But technology lacked in this industry, right? And, and we, you know, we. we. encourage it. Uh, because if you have the technology, you can start to identify all these things. So, you know, we're, we weren't there saying, well, look, don't, don't do anything. But we were saying do it strategically. Right? That was our big piece. Do it strategically. Let's find where there is waste and abuse and let's eliminate that. Um, let's not go in with the chainsaw. Let's go in with the scalpel. But there's a lot that can be cut out. There's a lot, um, you know, a lot, a lot of fat on the bone that we can cut out, but let's do it correctly. And, and I think that really resonated with people was that one, we want, the technology's there, uh, we have the desire to do it, and it's going to save money, right? And, and it's not gonna cut benefits to do it. You don't have to cut benefits to people to do it. You just have to make things more efficient. So it, it, it was, um, it was very, I I think that resonated very well with a lot of, uh, people. That was one of our big issues this year that, you know, um, is on the top of mind of a lot of people.

James Blain 21:45

And I, and I think it's worth probably backing up a, a step. I know, uh, obviously we've, we've probably got some people that do non-emergency medical transportation or that business, but help, you know, for those that aren't familiar with this business, can you kind of lay out how it works in terms of why is Medicaid Medicare involved? Where does the work come from? How does, how does it kind of, that hierarchy work from? Where do trips come from? How do they get paid for? What does that fulfillment look like?

Dan Reid 22:09

So Medicaid, it, you know, is a, um, primarily a financial disa, uh, disability need, uh, to become eligible. Yeah. Um, Medicare, uh, which I know a lot about now. I turned 65 2 years ago, so I get a lot of email on it. It, you get, you become eligible for it at a certain age. Right. Um, so Medicare is, uh, there is not any MT right now in Medicare. Uh, adults on Medicare either have Medicare Advantage plans that get them that, or for basic Medicare, you don't get, uh, transportation as a coverage. But for Medicaid it is, uh. 2019, we got it codified as a, as a, um, be a Medicaid benefit that was put in into the code so that it can't be cut as a benefit. Uh, doesn't mean you can't have cuts to the amounts, but you can't cut it. And that's state versus federal too, right? Well, that, that's at, at the federal level that it, uh, me, NEMT was codified into the Medicaid. But you, where it comes from is that the people who are eligible for Medicaid, um, and every state does it differently, you know? Right. Well, they, there's a lot of different ways to do it. Um, and, and that's one of the big frustrations we have is it's the same trip you're doing, but it's done differently. You know, I have companies in Mississippi and companies in Louisiana, a company in Mississippi, company in Louisiana. And I can't use my drivers in Louisiana and Mississippi or my drivers in Mississippi and Louisiana. Uh, not because they're not qualified, but because they have different credentialing requirements in each state. They're doing the same trips, they're picking people up, they're driving them, but people require different information for the report. But Medicaid, uh, if you're Medicaid eligible and you need the transportation now, that's the important thing to remember with NEMT. It's a small percentage of the individuals who are on Medicaid who use NEMT. However, it is that percentage of individuals who desperately need the transportation. These are people who otherwise cannot get to medical appointments. I threw out a number this morning at our meeting and a lot of people, uh, heard it for the first time, but for every 30,000 people who use Medicaid to get to dialysis, it saves Medicaid $40 million a month, $480 million a year for every 30,000 people going to dialysis on Medicaid. And, and you know it, because if they're not going to Medicaid on dialysis and they're not getting, you know, I, I'd love to say we're making thousands on trips. We're not making, we we're, you know, we'd love a triple digit number on, on a trip when we get paid, but you know, us to take someone to and from dialysis, depending on how far the trip is. But you compare that to the cost of not going to dialysis and now you're taking an ambulance to the emergency room. Yep. So anyone who, you know, misses dialysis appointments quite often ends up in the emergency room. So the NEMT is an essential part of Medicaid. One of the things we tell our drivers is you are part of the healthcare system. You are the first part of the healthcare system and the last part of the healthcare system. You know, the doctor obviously is very important, but if someone doesn't get to the doctor, the doctor doesn't, you know, get to do what they can do best. So it's, you know, our trips come down, they come down. In some states they're brokers. In some states, uh, you can build directly to Medicaid. Um, but there's very, it, there's very precise ways in which you have to capture the information. A lot of it's still captured in some areas on paper. Um, and that's where, you know, the, the problems come in if you have to digitize everything, it's a lot easier to audit things when it's on digital. Yeah. Um, so, you know, that's, that's where we see a lot of opportunity to make efficiencies in, in any MT transportation with Medicaid.

James Blain 25:48

And I, I think, you know, kind of beyond that specific part of the conversation, I think one of the things that we see, and we see it across all of transportation, is there's a lack of applying or being on the latest technology. You know, I'm not, it, it would be, would be unfair to say that, that, you know, the industry's still on paper. They're not, um, most of the people across the different verticals. On different software platforms, but one of the things we hear, we hear it on the Motor Coach side, we hear it on the NMT side, we hear it on student transportation, we hear it on school everywhere. You hear there's a lack of communication between the systems. There's a lack of adoption in systems. Mm-hmm. Um, I can tell you, you know, one of the things I hear all the time, you hear too, and we, we, I think you're one of the people that supports it with me is, you know, there's a lack of telematics and cameras and people using that technology and they view that as a cost or a change. And I think a real drive in mindset, at least that I always try to make, you know, it's the same thing with training. People tell me training costs money. Well, no, no, not at all. You got it wrong. Training's an investment to save you money, the better you can train. The better you can get people doing what they're supposed to do, the better you can monitor that, the better you can report on that. The better you can track that, the better you're gonna run as a company. And I think this kind of comes through here as well. And that a lot of this call for, you know, change and cutting costs and things like that. One of the things I brought up today when I was having a conversation is, you know, it's kind of the idea of I'm gonna cut my nose off despite my face. Mm-hmm. If I'm gonna go in and I'm gonna cut funding and we're, Hey guys, look, and, and we see this all the time in training. We just saved a bunch of money. You know, we haven't had an accident in so long. We cut back the training program, we're not gonna train anymore. And then things typically go fine for about six months. It's just like if a pro athlete decided they were gonna stop practicing, it's kind of that slow decline until there's that big wake up call. And I think a lot of these legislative issues that come up, you know, sometimes you have times where there are, there's an opportunity for us to come out and share what's gonna happen and represent the industry and bring that up. And it amazes me because regardless of your industry, you would think that everyone would try to go to these events. I mean, I, I think you and I would both agree, this is not a high cost event. No. This is not the event that's gonna cost you. Right. I mean, we're looking at a hotel room and coming out, you know, I guess my thing would be, you know, if you had the opportunity to talk to an operator that is maybe not as involved with the association, um, whether that be the Transportation Alliance or even in a different industry and they're not doing an event like this, you know how. How do you kind of relay the benefit that pulling back of, you know, hey, getting out and doing this is going to help you in the long run, even though right now you might be focused on what's right on the table in front of you.

Dan Reid 28:43

You know, in many cases it comes back to the comment you just made and a comment you made earlier. Are you managing your business or is your business managing you? Yeah. Are are, are you able to, to be looking at the bigger picture? Um, you, you referred to, you know, training as an expense. I wrote an article, I think it was last year. If you're viewing training as an expense, you're missing the boat. Training's an investment training. Training should be an asset on your balance sheet. and and so it, those same kind of thoughts carry right on through to this. If, if you view this as an expense to go to Washington DC then you're not understanding what you're getting out of this. You're, you're, you're missing the opportunity to be here, first off to network, but also you're missing the opportunity to have your voice heard. To, to be here and to, um, to, uh, be able to, you know, have your voice heard and, and to express your opinions to various representatives, to your senators. It, it goes across board. The open houses we do. If, if you look at the open houses, how much does it cost me to go up to Akron, or how much does it cost me to go to Indianapolis or wherever we're having an open house. I, I've always said that I've never gone to one of our open houses and not come back with more in value than I spent to go to the open house. So it, it, I, I think it just cuts across the board. You know, if I was talking to someone who said, well, I don't see the value of the fly in, um, they probably get tired of it. 'cause I take 'em all the way back to, well, how are you doing your training? What are you looking, you know? Yeah. Are, are you running your business? Are you running your business or is your business running? You, do you have Ken Lucci talks about that all the time. Can you get away from your business or, or do you have to be driving the vehicle? I, I have resisted, um, for several years to, to get into the vehicle. Not because I can't and not because, you know, there hasn't been a need, but because if I do, then that becomes a default. Right, and that becomes, that becomes something that, you know, I start to say, well, I can always jump in the vehicle if I need to and do the trips, or, you know, then all of a sudden someone's saying, well, if we need it, Dan can jump in the vehicle. And then I'm, then I'm not doing what I need to be doing and I'm not, I'm not, you know, managing the company the way it should be run.

James Blain 30:50

No, and and I think that brings up a really good point because it's a really slippery slope. You know, I worked with a company that had a trainer and safety manager. Her, um, that was available. Right. You know, if they weren't training or if they weren't immediately doing something, dispatch had figured out, Hey, I can run in there. And I say, Hey, you gotta cover this trip. And what happens? That person starts getting pulled and that person starts getting pulled and they, by the second, third time, now it's happened. Now it's happening. And so I see so many owners that kind of get caught in that trap of when I'm gonna step away from an area, I'm going to stay away from the area. Mm-hmm. I'm still gonna manage it. I'm still gonna be involved in it, but I'm not gonna be the one to do it. We see the same thing with micromanaging employees. Yeah. If you are at a point in your business where you're having people that are in charge of areas, it's, it, I think one of the best things that, that I've ever been taught, and I learned it from one of my mentors, was you have to be willing to let them to fail. Because if they don't have the ability to fail, you're probably not giving the ability to succeed. Mm-hmm. You are succeeding for them and if at the point where you are succeeding for them, you're just basically doing that job. So you've gotta give them that autonomy.

Dan Reid 32:00

I, I had a manager several years ago. Um, he's no longer with. Our company, but I, he, he would never, he, I was giving him all the rope I could and he would never make the decisions. And I, I, I finally told him, I said, I've never had this discussion with anyone before, but I really would love to have you make a bad mistake. Not a bad mistake, but a mistake. Because even if it's wrong, because then you're making a decision and we can correct those decisions, you know? But, but he, he, he was always so afraid to make a mistake, he wouldn't make a decision. And then I was kinda like, well, you're, you're now just a kind of a high paid individual that's not doing me what I need to have done. Yep. And, and, and that's a tough part about, you know, it, it's tough to let go and then it's tough to, you know, once you let go to make sure that there is somebody doing it. 'cause you, you know, you can lose a few sleepless nights over, you know, making sure that's being done. But it, it, that's the only way you can really grow your business. That's the only way you can look at o other opportunities and see what else is out there.

James Blain 32:57

Well, and I, I think there's a lot to be said about that. Right. You know, I think I, I might have had a little bit of that mentality going into my first meeting here. Right? You're kind of intimidated. You've got an agenda, you've got things to go through, and I kind of had this moment where I took the deep breath and I said, Hey. And, and you know, I think for, for entrepreneurs, for business owners, it's easier for us because innately we tend to be trigger pullers. We tend to be action people. We tend to be the ones that are, you know what, I'm gonna go in, if I'm going a China shop, that's okay. I'll figure out how to put it all back together. We super glue out, but I'm gonna go for it. I'm gonna make it work. And I think, you know, one of the things that I see sometimes is, sometimes that intimidation comes also around our peers. Mm-hmm. So I see people that come to events like this and they're worried about saying something wrong and they're worried about doing something wrong. Um, I think a big part of that is understanding that. Inaction or lack of action is often a decision just as much as making a mistake. And inaction can often be worse than making a decision. And so I think, you know, how that relates to here is if you don't go into this the same way you go into your business of I'm gonna go have conversation with these legislators. I'm gonna go present what's going on, I'm gonna go talk about how it affects their constituents. I'm gonna talk about. All the things there that are affecting me. Now, that said, I will tell you I had a meeting and um, you know, whether or not I said something wrong is, is up for debate. But, you know, we went into a meeting and I said, oh, this is a representative from my home state, it'd be great. And you know, I said, we, we really need your support on this. And I don't know what it was about support, but man, this staffer was triggered, right? And it was, well, you know, we don't support, we look at both sides. We have to look at everything. We have to do this, we have to do that. Right. And it's interesting because I left that meeting thinking I made a mistake. Later on in the next meeting, someone goes, we'd really love to get your support on this. And yes, we'd absolutely love to support your industry. So again, making those decisions, being able to move on from it, being able to go from it. You, to a certain extent, need that in your managers. Yes. Like if we're talking about if, if they're terrified to make a mistake and they have no indecision whatsoever, or they're worried that you're gonna come in and just absolutely brave or beat them down. It's like I say, if you have drivers that are afraid of you, you have managers that are afraid of you, no one's gonna make any growth because everybody's gonna be so afraid to Exactly.

Dan Reid 35:19

And, and you know, again, what you were saying, kind of remind me of another great thing about being part of an association is if you, if this is your first fly in, if you're coming to your first fly, and we had a couple people this year who it was, you don't have to go on your own to see your representatives and you sent us, you can team up with someone else. You, we had a couple people who went to several, uh, meetings, not for anybody that represented their company, but now they have a year under their belt, right? Now they come back next year and they've seen how it's done, so they're gonna be a lot less intimidated. The other thing is, and, and people, I, I think we all are a little guilty of it, and, and I know we don't do this enough. You've met the people here. Now you've met their, you maybe you just met their eight legislative aid, but you've had that contact. You can have, you can get in touch with your state representative when they're back at home. That's, you know, that's a great time. Uh, we, we, uh, met with a representative, uh, Zel. He wasn't able to meet with us today 'cause he was in committee last year. I did get to meet with them, but three weeks ago. I was coming outta my, uh, Friday morning, I'd take my grandsons to breakfast every Friday, uh, every Friday morning. And we were coming outta breakfast, and he was there with a group of people. And since I'd met him before, I was, you know, I walked up, I introduced my grandsons to him. And so now you have that bond. Now you know somebody and they know you. And the next time you come to DC you know, they'll, they'll remember, I've got a connection to this person. This is someone who lives in my hometown. This is someone who lives where I live. And that, and that's invaluable. There's so much value to it. But if it's your first time and you're a little gun shy, you don't want to go in, just tag along with somebody, we'll, we'll put you with somebody or mentorship if we need to. We can, we can get somebody from, um, from our, uh, uh, um, management group to, to have send somebody along with you. So it, it's very easy, you know, you don't, anybody can come, whether you're naturally, Hey, I can go talk to anybody. Or, you're a little shy. It, it's a, having the association gives you that ability.

James Blain 38:18

And I think, I think you've hit on some really great things there. I think one of the other important ones to note is even if you're not the one leading the meeting, if you have people with you, if you're showing up now, let's get real. If you, you've 40 people in one office doesn't work now fit as the hallway meetings, but I can tell you that. I had meetings with my Kansas representatives that were just Casey from our marketing team and myself, and those had their benefit because they were good, they were intimate. It was just us. Mm-hmm. But you get that same benefit. Right. We also went, you know, we went and we met with um, Padilla from California and uh, just like at both days, this is a very busy time. This was not the year to meet with the legislator. Right, right. It was a lot of aids. Um, but really what happens there, we've got a almost a full conference table and we're able to share stories Yes. From the areas. And there were people, you know, hey, they had one or two small things to add. You know what, I have a business. We also have X amount of employees that's impacting us. Mm-hmm. That's impacting jobs. We're right in the heart of the area that you are representing. Right. That helps kind of drive that impact home just as much as having those one-on-ones. I think going back as well to what you said was mentorship. One of the neat things about this is I learned different strategies from watching the ways that different people present. Mm-hmm. The approach that we had here at the Transportation Alliance was different to the approach to the national association. Both of the approaches were highly effective. They both worked really well, but like so many other things in life, there's so many different flavors. Ice cream, delicious. Right. But now you've got a tool set in your pocket. Exactly. You get to try a little bit of each of those and pick where your style fits and learn from. Exactly. So I think that was a huge deal. I think the other big piece for me was, as you are going through, you also will figure out how to look at your business through a different lens. Yes, exactly. And I, I think one of the biggest things, and I, I remember my dad telling me this as a kid, and it's ironic that the training business, he said one of the best things you could do to really understand. A topic is to teach the topic and look at it from a different angle. When you go in and you're talking about your business in terms of a legislator, you are not selling your business, you're not doing it in the same way you would when you're going out. Mm-hmm. You are talking about the impact on the community, the impact on the constituents, how this change is going to affect people back. Right. Exactly. And they want, a lot of times they wanna know, hey, well, alright, well tell me about how you impacted the community. One of the things that came up in our very last meeting was, you know, you've talked about some of the larger cities. What about the people in the rural areas? Right. What about the ones in the small towns? What about, you know, the everyday person out there that's not gonna be in a big community? And so that matters. Now let me ask you though, I, I found a couple takeaways. I think the biggest takeaway for me was that when you come to an event like this, you really have to, I. Give it to them in terms of what's in it for them as a legislator and what's in it for their constituents. Um, obviously this is my first event, so my takeaways are, are gonna be more foundational. What you have, obviously you've been involved with this, you've done this for a long time. Did you have any unique takeaways this time around?

Dan Reid 41:48

Well this, this year in particular there, you know, there has to be a, a cost justification for what you're asking for. Yeah. This is not the year that you would go in and say, we're asking for this because 10 years from now I. Everything's gonna be a lot better. They're not looking that far, that that's not the, this is the year where it's, you know, um, this is what we are asking for and it's either not gonna cost money or it's going to be, uh, uh, positive, um, you know, revenue positive. And so that, that changes a little bit. But every year we have, you know, we have some carryovers from prior years. Kind of goes back a little bit, what you said before, you, you keep bringing those to the table because one of the years it's gonna be the right year for that. You know, this year we had four topics that we're really focused on and, and, you know, they were a little bit different presentation than there were the, the year before. Part of it is 'cause we knew what people wanted want now is different from, from before. You know, right now, um, in the past we've. As an industry we've been wanting to push, as we've talked about before, technology. We've been wanting to have that technology. The problem is when 99% of the people have technology and that 1% doesn't have to, and they don't, you can't enforce anything that requires technology, right, because that one, you're gonna miss that 1%. Um, so you know this, this was the year where we said, look. We as an industry and as an association, we want to help cut fraud, waste, and abuse. Yep. And here's how we can do it. And, and, and here's how technology can play a role. So that was our, our, uh, talk this year. We had the micro transit issue, um, which, you know, I think resonated very well because why? We can do it cheaper than, than cities can generally do it. We can do it cheaper and if we use local people who are already driving around the streets, they can probably do it cheaper than outside companies can do it. So, you know, so those were issues we've had in the past, any MT and micro transit, but the focus on how we presented it this year was a little different and, and, and very effective I think. I think we had some very, very good feedback on those two issues. Independent contractor, you know, in the past it was, we were very focused on here's why we need you to not make the things you want, changes you want to make. Here's why we need to preserve independent contractors this year. The, the conversation is more, here's why we want you to do what you want to do. On the independent contractor side, we, we encourage you to do what you're, uh, what you would like to have happen because, you know, again, it's a different year for the independent contractor. It's a very important issue to our association, but we're less concerned that we're, it's less at jeopardy. That, and then it might've been under prior administrations, but again, when they make the changes, we want to make sure they're making changes that are, you know, beneficial for, for all independent contractors. And then of course we had our fourth issue, which is, uh, the, the GSA, uh, uh, government vehicles that, you know, the government has 300,000 vehicles, they in their fleet and they get rid of a percentage every year. And, and when the government. Vehicle is used up its life, right? It's a hundred thousand miles reached the end of the line, three or four years old. It's at the end of its, you know, people in our industry that's, that's, that's just warming it up. Yeah. That's just warming it up. It's just road testing, you know? And, and so, uh, the opportunity to be able to purchase those vehicles, what's beautiful about that, we're not asking for a discount. We're not, we're, we're, we're asking to be able to buy 'em at the same cost somebody else would, but we're small business owners. We're from your constituency. We need those vehicles. Covid put a big herd on vehicle accessibility in all industries. It's starting to come back. But now, you know, it's, it's vehicle availability is getting tough again. So if we could access those vehicles from the government that they're getting rid of and buy 'em at the price they would be selling 'em for, it doesn't cost anybody anything. So we had four issues this year that I think really resonated well. Um, and, and, uh, we got some very good feedback on it. On, on. Um, and you know, we, we just had our session, uh, you were here. Yeah. We had the feedback and the recap and I think everyone was very happy with it.

James Blain 46:05

No, and I think, I think something that's really important to bring up here, and it kind of came up in the recap, and this is evolving, right. You know, politics is not static. Correct. So I can tell you, you know, obviously when I was a day on the hill yesterday with the NLA, they had a different set of objectives. But you know, they're looking at things like bonus depreciation, they're looking at taxes, they're looking at tariffs. Mm-hmm. They're looking on whether or not, you know, one of the things that that we saw come up when I was on the hill yesterday with National Z Association, what happens with these drivers that are not W2 employees? Are they still gonna be included and not having to pay taxes on tips? I can tell you in a lot of the conversations I had on behalf of the NLA. That's not something they'd thought about. It's, well, we were really thinking more of the traditionally tipped. Okay, well if you think about it, your chauffeur, your doorman, your, these are all people in a chain that are traditionally tipped. Right. They're, they may or may not be W2 in the dr. Exactly, exactly. You know, a lot of these different topics, as we kind of brought 'em up, it's kind of evolved. And one of the things that came up in that recap, and we heard the same thing when we recapped for the National Museum Association, was that this year there was a lot of push on the democratic side of, we hear you, but we're not driving right now. Right. We're not behind the wheel. That's, you know, that's more on the Republican side. And so I think knowing that this is evolving, man, if you would've looked at this when the Democrats. We're able to make decisions and changes and be able to do that, it's totally different. And so having that constant involvement, building those relationships, doing that. I mean, the other thing that really jumps out at me is that a lot of these legislators are not there for one or two years. These are long-term roles. Mm-hmm. They tend to be there for long amounts of time. So for example, when I went yesterday to go see the video, it was interesting because they had actually, and, and I think this came up earlier, they, they almost built a, a one-on-one relationship with these staffers because they're coming back year after year. When we had a recap, bill had an awesome light bulb moment, right? Mm-hmm. You literally see it just blinking over his head as he brought it up and he said, I have these connections back home. I have connections into these offices. These are all people that we know have been in there. We've somehow touched them. If I have the foresight when I know I'm coming to an event like this to reach out. To let them know I'm coming to try and add some weight to try and add some value to that meeting. Right? Something as simple as, you know, Hey, we're gonna let them know we reached out to the office and the office knows this is a high priority meeting. Look, that's going to help tip that scale a little bit more. And the other thing, for anyone that hasn't been to these events, you know, I'd, I'd love to ask you how many, how many other groups did you see doing what we were doing?

Dan Reid 48:58

Oh, geez. It, it, it, it was amazing. I, I kept trying to, you know, I was kind of fun 'cause I was trying to figure out what each, what are the, each of the different groups was representing. So diverse. Yeah. Very diverse, uh, sets of people Today we did, we were sitting in the, um. The lobby. And, and I was, I was waiting on the elevator and I heard that somebody asked the, the woman next to him, now, how do you pronounce that word? And she said, lanap. And I made her looked around and said, you must be from Louisiana. 'cause I, no one uses LANAP anywhere else. And she was, and so we, we had a little connection, but I believe she was here with, um, the the pool association and, and the hot tub swimming pool. Yeah. And, and, and you know, I was thinking, I, I'm sure they have issues. I don't know what they, you know, but it, it just makes you realize every industry has something that they, you know, that that's important to them. And, and, and they have to be here. They all come here because it's important to have that connection. Um, and, and the other thing I really realized on, you know, and, and it hits home every year when I come to this, you, you always think, well, a lot of people think my dad was a lobbyist. So I grew up in the, in the political, in, uh, issue. But people always think well. They know everything, right? They, the, the people, they're, they're the staffers. That's their transportation legislative liaison. They know all about this stuff, that they're experts in it. Well, they might not, you know, you might be explaining to any mt to 'em, you might be explaining micro transit to 'em. You might be explaining, as you said, the implications of independent contractors. Not all independent, you know, not all tipped employees or, or W2 employees would, you know, and I see it as, as president association, I, we write up a policy and we think that's a fantastic policy. And then someone says, well, did you think about this? No. No, I didn't. So we're gonna, we'll make a little amendment to our policy, you know, and it, you, you come into these meetings and you realize that. They, you know, pe they're learn the, the staffers and, and, and the, the legislatures are, they're learning from you too. Right? They're learning from you too. And that's important because now they better understand your industry. Um, and, and it's so important. It's, it's very important. You know, and this is not, you know, this is the flying to dc but it's important that everybody does this back home too. It's critically important that you know, your state representatives and, and your state capitals, and your local mayors and your local NPOs. But 'cause they have to understand your business in order for them to be able to protect your business, when something comes up, you're not always gonna a hundred percent, you're not always gonna know the issue. And sometimes things happen very fast, believe it or not. Sometimes things happen fast in politics, and before you know about it, it's a done deal. And they, you know, everyone tells you that The words you always hate to hear is, oh, if I'd known that, we would've done it differently. Right? But now it's done well. Okay. You know that, that's a bad, that's a hard pill to swallow.

James Blain 51:44

Well, and I don't, I don't wanna be dark, but there's this, there's this thing for a need to call 9 1 1, right? There's an accident happens, something horrible happens. There's this phenomenon that happens where nobody calls 9 1 1 and say, oh, that's horrific. Somebody must have already called, there's no way. Nobody's called this in yet. Yeah. And you have accidents. You have things that don't get called in in a timely manner 'cause everybody's like, oh, there's people involved in it. There's, this is one of those things where that happens. And I think it's worth noting that people here are representing their interest. It's not always business. We were named someone in Jerry Moran's office. They were there because in veteran housing there's a horrible mold problem, right? You have, you know, husbands wives out there defending the country, risking their life and they've got mold problems back home in military housing and their kids are getting sick. But if you are not representing, you gotta think they have important issues they're bringing. These staffers are constantly hearing and putting attention on it. That's extraordinarily important. I 120%, my heart went out to 'em, I support them. But you gotta think if they're bringing all of these different issues, if they're bringing all these things to staffers, if no one shows up. For your cause. For your problem, right? Or your issue or you wait too long. Yes. Right? Yes. One of the things that the National Association was talking about this year is, hey, we'd like an insurance task force. We'd like to figure out if there's some way that we can get either something that would push down to the states or something high level for insurance. Now we are in an insurance crisis. Now you gotta think about that for a moment. If you are only coming with asks when things are at a crisis mode, you're in trouble. Right? If they're used to you coming in, if you've been coming in, if you're representing your industry, if you're saying, these are the issues, these are what we're looking for. Now you've been represented. They're aware of your association. I can tell you one of the meetings we had, oh, you're with National M Association? Great. Same thing we saw on TT A. Oh, the TT A. Tell me a little bit. Well, we do non-emergency. Oh, you know, you see those light bulbs, but it's incredible. A lot of people don't realize it's not, and, and this. You have the Capitol building, that's where they meet. You've got six office buildings. Yes. Full. And these are now little office buildings, which by the way, it's small side. Now whoever numbers the building, right? I'm talking to you, whoever numbers these offices in the Rayburn building, having 2345 on the third floor makes no sense. Please fix that. Um, but in all seriousness, you've got six buildings full of people that are the ones writing laws that are doing that, right? If you look at the size of your industry, if you look, what, what would you say? Total attendees here? Um, maybe 40 50.

Dan Reid 54:33

Yeah. For us this year it was, it was, uh, well north of 30, between 30 and 40. Yeah.

James Blain 54:37

So 30 to 40 people, there's no way we could hit every single legislator, every single time. So it becomes so crucial to have people come to these events to be involved, because what people don't realize is a lot of these guys, if you are not from their state, if you're not from their area, if you're not going with someone from that area, you may not get in there to speak with them. Right? I know for me, with the National Association, you know, there was no one representing the state of Missouri. You know why? Because no one came out. And so being active doing that is so crucial. Now, I, I would ask you, you know, what, what beyond this can someone do, right? If someone's watching this, they go, well, I missed it. Well, it's over. You know, obviously there's ways to get involved. Obviously, there's still ways to contribute. What, what can someone do if they're watching this? They say, Hey, I missed. The day on the hill event, or I missed, you know, the legislative fly in. But in my industry, I wanna get involved with the association. I want to try and figure out how to be there more. What does that look

Dan Reid 55:38

Well, communication is, is to start with, right? Okay. So, uh, you can reach out to us, you can reach out to, uh, Elena at, at the TTA. You can reach out to me, we'll, we can give you the four issues we talked about, and then you can write to your local representative and to your, you know, your, I mean your us uh, congressman and your, your senators. You can write to them, you can, you can bring the issues to 'em that way. Um, and, and it's, you know, obviously having been in their office is more impactful, but it's very impactful to, to send this information in and, and they have it on, on their, uh, desk, and they now have it on their radar screen, and then you can follow up with them. That's something, you know, a lot people always forget this was, the fly in the follow up is equally important. But the other thing you can do is when your association asks you to write a letter, write the letter. I mean, it's, it's just not that difficult. You know, it, it generally, you're given, Hey, here's the issues we'd like you to discuss. I don't like to send out to our association. I don't like to send out a template 'cause I don't want, you know, a hundred of the same letters going

James Blain 56:40

And they're smart, right? Yeah, no. If they see the exact same wording on a hundred letters, it's kinda like, you know, online petitions or, right. I think there's something to be said about actually taking the time to put something together to actually send it in. Lot of 'em have offices back home too.

Dan Reid 56:59

Right. And we'll get, so we'll give you the talking points, you know, but when we ask you to write in, write in, we, we, we had a. A call for it, uh, about a month ago. And I, I sent off the two to my, um, senator and, and right away I got the response back. Thank you. We now have, we have this on our radar screen. Uh, a couple, uh, a little more than a month ago, Paul asked me to write letters as the, not as myself, uh, uh, an EMT provider, but it's president of the association to seven different senators, and he got meetings with those seven different senators very quickly thereafter. So, you know, just fish and miss fly in. It's not over the, the, you know, the, the, um, everything wasn't resolved. I'd like to think we resolved everything that we did. We've fixed it. Politics have been corrected. We've told 'em they're doing it all wrong. Don't worry for No, it's how politics, yeah, we did fix everything. And, and that's certainly not how politics works. So, you know, stay active, get involved, you know, be, be, be part of it. Um, when, you know, we have a, uh, I think it's every other month we do a, uh, a, um. Governmental update. And, and Paul gets on and talks about where things stand. If something resonates with you, you know, get involved, get active. Um, that's just something, you know, that, that it's, it's very easy to do. Um, doesn't take a lot of time. You know, I, I pointed that out to, to our members, uh, last month. It took me 10 minutes to, to track, take these two letters. Draft 'em into my own words. By the way. Don't use chat GPT 'cause it, it's gonna sound the same. It comes out the same. Well like tech support, right? But, but if, you know, just, just put in your own words and then, and then email it off. No one's even, you know, you're not even sending hard letters anymore. You don't have to go to the mail. You can just put it in the PDF and you send it off. And that's how they prefer to get it these days. So, um, the follow up is, is very crucial. And if you missed it, you can, you know, you can start out, you can start laying the groundwork by getting involved and, and, and getting in contact, submitting these issues. Tell, tell your representatives and your, and your senators, if they want to find out more, they can reach out to you or they can reach out to the association. It's very important that we keep involved and keep things in front of people because. Things are moving very fast now. been a very interesting, uh, you know, term I've had as president here. Um, every week it's been different. Every week it's, there's something new that we're, you know, we're worried about. And some come and go before I even have time to, to, you know, to get involved. But some they don't. But, um, and the follow-up's important. We, you know, we talked about it in our wrap up. I've got several assignments I've gotta get back. Um, these are not things that I can get back in two weeks or three weeks. These are things I gotta turn around this weekend. Um, so, you know, it's, it's important that when someone asks you for follow-up, you give it to 'em. Yeah. Because when they ask you for more information, they want it. It's not, believe me, nobody up here is asking for information they don't want. So if they ask you for information, it's critically important that you follow up with them and get that information because it's, it's what they need to arm themselves to have the next discussions.

James Blain 59:59

No. And I, I think it's worth noting that, you know, one of the things that we found is a lot of this is partly finding alignments. Mm-hmm. And this was one of my takeaways from these meetings. You know, you might, you might go into to a meeting and they might say, Hey, that, that has nothing to do with this. Or you, you might go in a meeting, they might have a little bit interest, or you might have another meeting where they say, Hey, you know, there's just nothing we can do. But every once in a while, you know, you find that person. And, and we, we connected with someone in the office of Jerry Moran. Um, we just, she said, well, you know, I remember drafting something that I thought kind of might relate to this and I'm gonna go look it up. And so tho those are the moments where you can kind of see, they go, okay, there might be a link, there might be. And seizing on that is really huge. Now obviously we're talking the national level. Um. You, I think are a great person to ask, you know, what does this look like as well at your city, at your state, at your local level? You know, is this something where, hey, the fight's only here in Washington dc which I, I think I know the answer to that. Um, but you know, what does that look like as well in terms of being involved at home and how do you kind of keep that through line and try to figure out where you fit into that?

Dan Reid 1:01:16

It is very important to be involved at home. It, um, the, so much of what really happens happens at the state level. Yeah. Decisions that can affect your day to day. Um, not, not just at the state level, you know, in our case, in Jackson or Baton Rouge. Yeah. But, you know, back in your hometown with your, within your MPOs, your metropolitan planning organizations, um, and, and your, you know, your local city, uh, councils so many of those decisions. So for one, go to your MPO meetings, go to your city council meetings. Meet your, the, the one time you don't want to be introducing yourself to someone is when you need their help. That, when you need the time to make a friend is the time to make a friend is before you need them. Exactly. So that when you need them, they know who you are. You're not explaining who you are and what an EMT is or what you know, an independent contractor is, or any of those things. You, you've already explained those issues. Now they know, you know, they can, they can help you. The other thing that, uh, our, our industries have been bad at in the past and, and I think we're getting better, the limousine association is much better. Again, going back to the whole affiliate thing that the limousines have that we haven't had in our industries, but is working to together at the ground level. Yeah. Uh, now part of it is that all the, the contracts you get always say you can't collude. Well, yes. You can't collude, we can't all get together and say, we're gonna charge this price or we're not gonna do trips. That's illegal. But that doesn't mean we can't get together and say, Hey, here are things we need. Right. You know, and we're not saying, here are things we need or we're not gonna do trips with you, but you could get together and have your ideas and, and you know, again, it goes back to exactly what I was saying. I, I've said in the past, if Dan Reid goes up to Jackson, and that's Dan Reid going up to Jackson, right? Yeah. And I, I can impact one person and one senator, but if I get people from 23 different counties going up to Jackson, now you've got a lot of people who are hearing the same thing and you're hearing the same message. So, um, it's, it's really important at the state level to to know your, you know, we used to think was know your competitors, know your peers. Right. Know the people who are doing the business. The one thing I've learned in 15 years of, of doing this now. The pie is very, very big. Yeah. You know, and, and, uh, I'm generally not someone who should be talking about how big a pie, how big a slice I could have, but, but, um, you know, it's a very big pie and we can all get a good slice of it. Yeah. You know, the, the days of thinking, man, if I tell you about something, uh, I'm cut my own business. Those days are gone. It's, there's so much that can be done, but you can't do it on your own. Right. It's so hard to do on your own. So you need to have, you need to have people you can rely on. You need to have people you can reach out to. You need to have people, if for no other reason to help you when you need help, but, but to also have a common goal. That ability to reach out to your legislatures locally, reach out to, you know, it, it, it, it gets kind of exponential, but. Two of the same people from the same industry. Going to a mayor is a big impact, right? Yeah. Five of the same people going to a city council, big impact. 10 of the same people going to, uh, the state legislature. Big impact. It doesn't take huge numbers. It just takes you working together and cooperating.

James Blain 1:04:31

And I think, I think that kind of echoes back and I think it's, it's a great place to kind of start, you know, where we wind out. You can't have a scarcity mindset, right. You know, if you start looking at some of the most successful organizations that, that you just can't operate from a place of, it's me, me, me. It's fear. No one can know what I do. No one can know my secret. You know? Does that mean that you go and you go to every single competitor in town and you make photocopies of your business plan? Well, God no. Yeah. But there's, uh, there's a huge thing to be said about what you are talking about here. If you are going into that person v. They're probably not thinking about your industry on a day-to-day basis unless they have a family member. Unless they have someone that's using. And even then, they may actually, let's say they've got someone who, you know, some of the family, they're on dialysis, they use non emergency mail, transportation all the time. Guess what? They still don't think about your business that way. Right? They don't think about you that way. I can promise you in any kind of legislation, very rarely are you gonna go, you know, nobody's brought it up. It wasn't a topic. I just don't wanna take a moment. Let's think about the transportation guys. Just doesn't happen. Yeah. Right. No. And that, that, that didn't really happen for any industry. They're, they're looking at who is the voices, who are the people that are bringing in concerns? And so you have to be part of that group, and you have to be in a position where you've got peers. Now competition or not? You may, you may be diehard competition, but you both agree hate each, but you got common interests. Well, a rising tide lift all boats. Yeah, exactly. Right. The last thing you wanna do is hate each other so much that you let something go by because you can't be seen trying to work together. And it's funny, you see this on the bus industry Safety Council with a VA, who I mentioned before. You know, they start all their meetings with, Hey, you know, you we're not talking, you can't talk about price. Right? Right. You can't. There are certain things that, like you said, you cannot do. But what you can do is work together to better the industry. Exactly. Which is gonna provide better service for the end user. And again, lifting that tide.

Dan Reid 1:06:38

No, it it, it's so true. And you know, when I first heard, you know, got in touch with n la when I first, I sort of saw some of the things. I thought, how, how do you keep protect your business and with the affiliates and everything you do. Yeah. And someone was very, you know, they said, well, Dan, you don't give somebody all your business right off the bat. Right. You, you, you find out who you can trust and who you can't. And someone who's not trusted, you don't trust them again. You know? Yeah. If somebody burns you, it, it's the same thing in our industry, you know? Uh, if, if, if there's 20 providers in your area, I'm not saying 19 of 'em, all 19 of 'em are gonna be your best friends. Right. Right. There might be three or four that you absolutely wouldn't tell them the time of day. You know, with, without, you know, you, but, but there's, that means there are 16, if I just did my math right, there are 16 that could be aligned with you Yep. On a lot of issues. And, and, and we just have to get past that mindset of everyone's a competitor. Not everyone's, everyone's a peer. Everyone's, you're all competing for the same thing. But, you know, I've always kind of had this mindset that, well, if, if we all have a level playing field then and I can't win the business, well then I'm just not as good as the person who's winning the business. Yeah. So, you know, at, at some point, your inability, your inability to, to share with somebody and, and open up and, and have that, uh, relationship with somebody is really an insecurity on your part that you're not as good as they are. So, you know, I, I say, well, look, if you're not willing to share and you're not willing to be part of that, then that's fine, because you just don't think you're that good. Well, try it, try sharing it and see what happens.

James Blain 1:08:12

And I think, you know, for me, you know, I've got a son playing hockey. Now you got a daughter figure skates. I'm playing hockey as an adult. I kind of think of it the same way. You know, we go out there and you practice and you're doing things and you might be out there with your buddy practicing drills, and then guess what? Later on in scrimmage, you gotta play against him. Mm-hmm. Now am I gonna try and beat him? God, yes. Someone put that goal in. Now at the same token. You might be playing against him that hey, he might be sitting next to you the next day. Yeah. So the last thing you want to do is be unfair, cheat, do anything Exactly you're supposed to for the sake of winning. And I think we see that a lot in business. You, you have to, and they, they did a study and what they found is you have to operate from position of trust. Does that mean sometimes you're gonna get taken advantage of? Sometimes you get cheated. Absolutely. But the problem becomes, if you don't operate from a position of trust and you operate completely closed off, you are never going to be able to find those people you can trust. Right. You're never gonna be able to build alliances. You're not gonna be able to have a mentor. How are you going to mentor people later on in your career? Mm-hmm. If you're terrified of giving away your secrets, saying again, we go back to those little islands. So I think it really comes down to understanding that, hey, you know, we might be playing against each other today. We might be on the same bench on a different topic tomorrow. But I have to figure out who are the peers that can be friendly. Competition, right? Respected competition, knowing that we have this giant pie that we're working from, that is not going to go away. It's not gonna get smaller. Right? It's not one of, it's one of those things where we've got enough for everyone and I think that for me is huge. Now, let me ask you, as we, we kind of, you know, end the podcast episode here, what's the one takeaway? What's the one thing that we wanna leave everyone with? You know, if they weren't here, if they've never been to this kind of event, if they're listening to this episode, they're saying, you know, I have no idea what that would've been like for them or what they're dealing with. I think that's maybe even too high level. What do you leave that person with?

Dan Reid 1:10:12

You know, try it. Just try, try. Just get involved please. So much of we, one of the big things push is we're doing at Transportation Alliance this year. We're making a lot of our, uh, knowledge transfer available to the public, not not members. The members get better discounts sometimes, and members get access to things that everyone doesn't get. We want people to see, you know, we, we, we want people to see the value of the tt a Yeah. So just try get on, get on one of the calls. Join one of the, we have a great webinar series going on. Ken, Ken Lu did, he did the, he did the start of it. Tell us, Ken, and, and, um, it's a six part webinar series on, on business essentials, how to manage your business, not your businessman. You join one of those webinars, just reach out and see if it's for you. See if you get anything back. If, if you participate in two or three events and you absolutely get nothing back, you know, you either need to do some very serious self reflection and find out, you know, or you, somebody that nobody likes or, or you're not trying. Right. You know, because it, it being, running a business on your own is, has got to be the loneliest thing in the world. If I didn't have people I could call regularly, I'm, I'm, I'm about to head, you know, as you know, down to Florida with a group of people that I've been talking to, I. You know, monthly, sometimes weekly. It's a group of about nine of us that we just get together. We don't have a topic, we don't have an agenda every, every month when we get on the phone every week, but we never fail to fill the couple hours because somebody will say, Hey, I'm getting my insurance renewal, you know, this is what they're telling me. And then you got nine different people that, that networking, that ability to have someone else to, to contact is so valuable and, and if you do it through an association, you're just going to meet everybody. It also allows you to talk to people. If you are someone who's so afraid of all your colleagues in your area, you can talk to people outta state. Yeah. They have the same problems. They're not gonna compete with you. Yeah. They're not gonna compete. Have no desire to bring to your market just to compete. Exactly. And they, and they have the same problems you do though. And you can really, you know, one, one of the guys who was just here saying goodbye before you left, he, he calls me all the time. He just got his first wheelchair van, you know, he called me and said, what, you know, and, and I'm happy to spend an hour explaining to him the different wheelchair vans I've had, the different things I've done. And now here's what you also need to do. Here's a training you have to have. It's invaluable. I don't see how I could have stayed in this business if I didn't have that. So that, that, that would be my, my closing thing to everybody. Just give us a shot. Give us a try. If you don't like it, we'll, we'll, we'll find something you like.

James Blain 1:12:43

Well, and I, I think that that is something that comes up over and over and, and I, I can't emphasize enough that all of the successful people that have been on this podcast that have built successful companies. Always come back to mentorship. Yes. Um, now are there people out there that are self-made? I did alone. Sure. But they are few and far between, and I promise you they've had a harder, longer road to get there. I think one of the biggest things that I would say is, you know, we see a lot of people that come in, well, my problems are so unique, I'm dealing with this, uh, two things. One, I would say they're not, they're not right. Sorry. You're not a unique and individual snowflake. No, I'm kidding. Um, there are some problems that may be unique to your situation mm-hmm. Or what you're doing. But I think the big thing is there's also a lot of people that come to associations, they don't really outlay where they're at. They don't really kind of fully open up. They don't really, I mean, it's, it's kinda like if you go into a meeting and you sit in the corner, you don't talk to anyone. You, you watch the presentation, you go back, you don't implement it, you go, it didn't work. Look, I mean, it's kind of like diet and exercise. You have to apply them and do them. You can't just say, you know, I really thought hard about this and now I've got that Beachbody I always want.

Dan Reid 1:14:01

I mean, if you go to the therapist and you only tell the therapist what they think they want to hear. Yeah. That makes you sound like a good person. You're not gonna fix anything. Yeah, exactly. Right. And, and, and it's the same thing. You know, it, it, you, you gotta be willing to say, Hey, I don't know. I don't know. But can you tell me how those are such valuable words? I don't know. Can you tell me how it, it, it, your life gets so much easier once you can say those words.

James Blain 1:14:26

Well, and I think one of the big pieces there as well is be forthcoming. Yes. Right. Be forth if and, and sometimes, you know, it's. Actually asking for help. Yeah. Hey, I would really love, I'm struggling with this issue. I don't have a mentor. I don't need anyone. Is there someone that can help? Yeah. I know. You are an incredible resource. People can reach out directly to you. I know. You know, we're lucky enough the Transportation Alliance to have Elena, to have Rebecca. Mm-hmm. There's an absolutely incredible team. Now, if they're looking to learn more about Transportation Alliance, where should they go? What should they do? What, what should they do right now? If that's the right place for them to go?

Dan Reid 1:15:04

The transportation alliance.org. That easy. You go out there, you can join, drop the notes. If you have five or less vehicles, it's $50 for the year. If you can't get $50 worth of value within your first month, do a something wrong. You're doing something wrong. So it's transportation alliance.org, or you can always get ahold of me. Uh, dan@grovetransit.com.

James Blain 1:15:22

All right. Dan, I can't thank you enough for coming to the podcast. Um, I. Been a pleasure, James. No, it's, it's absolutely incredible. I think this is a great event. I love being a part of this association. It was absolutely perfect for us getting to be a part of the National Limousine Associations event, having Brett Baren Holtz talking about what they're doing there, kind of what we saw here. Mm-hmm. I can't thank you guys enough for what you do, and we'll definitely have to have you back on

Dan Reid 1:15:44

Great. Thanks a lot, man. Take care.

1:15:47

Thank you for listening to the ground transportation podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please remember to subscribe to the show on apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. For more information about PAX training and to contact James, go to PAX training.com. And for more information about driving transactions and to contact Ken, Go to driving transactions.com. We'll see you next time on the ground transportation podcast.