Driver Recruiting Happy Hour Podcast

Darin:
Cheers, everybody welcome to the recruit and retain happy hour podcast. My name is Darin Williams. I'm the president of CDLjobs.com with me today is my co-host the president of Ten4 Recruiting and the former UFC light heavyweight champion of the world, Matt Beach. Beach, tell us about your last fight.

Beach:
Um, it, it didn't go well, it was, uh, Chihuahua.

Darin:
That's why you're the former heavyweight.

Beach:
Lemme tell you so chihuahuas, there was a que there's a, there's a game that we're playing and it was, um, stuff you should know. I mean, that's the game stuff like there's simple questions.

Darin:
The name of the game

Beach:
Stuff or no, it's either still, no, I should have known that. That's what it's called. I should have known.

Darin:
That's a totally different game. <laugh>

Beach:
Yeah, yeah, I should. Yeah, exactly. I should have known that. And you had, and the question was what is the world's smallest breed of dog? And the answer was Chihuahua.

Darin:
Is it?

Beach:
It is again, I didn't know that I would've said like a teacup Yorkie cuz of all the mixed breeding and science stuff they're doing, like I've got

Darin:
Designer, designer breeding.

Beach:
I know. Do you have dogs or

Darin:
Cats? We've got matter of fact, we've got two yorkshire terriers and they are 13 and 14 years old. They can't hear, uh, they don't see so well. Um, so they're more like, uh, moving furniture at this point. It's a game of trying not to kick the dog at home now

Beach:
<laugh>

Darin:
It's a bad

Beach:
I've had. So my wife and I, we had our first, like, I guess that's what couples do. Like, Hey, we gotta get a dog.

Darin:
Yeah.

Beach:
So we got a dog and she wanted a teacup Yorkie. That was the thing she wanted. So we found this breeder up on Sand Mountain. Now Rob knows Sand Mountain. I mean, people around here know Sand Mountain. And if you hear the word Sand Mountain, you just go abso there's you don't go to Sand Mountain. If you're not from Sand Mountain,

Darin:
Especially to get a designer dog.

Beach:
Hey exactly. So we go up there as soon as we pull in, I'm looking at her, I'm like, this is one of those things they call, um, what is it? Puppy mill. I'm like, yes, it's a puppy mill. Like there's rabbits in a cage that look pitiful. They're I'm like, those are, she's like, look at those rabbits. I mean, what if people have, I'm like, they're not buying rabbit, they're eating a rabbits.

Darin:
<laugh>

Beach:
That's what they're she's like, no, I'm like, yes, they're

Darin:
Not for sale. They're for lunch.

Beach:
They're for lunch. So we get, we get we, so there's the dog. There's the, and we named him Sampson cuz they're like, oh yeah, he's gonna be, you know, biggest way he should be is maybe four or five pounds. Like mm-hmm <affirmative> okay. Whatever this what you want. Yes. I can see myself putting him on a bag, you know, and all this kinda like you're talking about walking around with a daggum dog and a purse. So we get, we get this dog, he ends up being 14 pounds.

Darin:
Oh.

Beach:
And I named him Samson just to be able to like, because he was only going, he was supposed to be four or five. Just play off that 14 pounds, nothing but pure muscle.

Darin:
Good Lord. That's bigger than both my dogs put together. That's bigger than both my dogs put together.

Beach:
Yeah. I like, he ended up being eight. He, he, he was eight years old by when he was eight. We got, I got rid of, I mean, this, he was a monster

Darin:
Couldn't afford to feed him

Beach:
He bit my kid. And so I like, okay, you got two options <laugh> we were

Darin:
So what is, is this because of the Sand Mountain breeding or what what's going on?

Beach:
I dunno. We took this dog with us to Yellowstone and he hiked long the way. And at one point, you know, you can tell like, there's, there's a bear in the area. And my brother-in-law was like, well, what if the bear comes after us? I'm like, I'm throwing Sampson. <laugh> we're running. But if I'm the bear I'm scared to death of Sampson, Sampson just had this. He was 14 pounds, pure muscle. And just to, I lost him cuz those dogs they're hunting dogs. It's a hunting breed.

Darin:
Yeah. All terriers. Yeah.

Beach:
Yeah. And um, I lost him <laugh> it was on a, a big farm and he was on the farm next over and I saw these two legs kicking out of the pond and he had went after a muskrat. And.

Darin:
A Yorkie?

Beach:
Yes. And I pulled him out. Like it literally sucks and pulled him out. His nose is be all eaten up, but he's just mad. He's just like, I let him go. And he hits the hole again. Like you're not going to get the last laugh. I mean, that's how he was this, this dog. They say that dogs don't go to the bathroom where they sleep. He, he broke that. He Broke that

Darin:
Didn't bother Sam.

Beach:
No, he was one of those that was like, okay, leave me here in this thing. And when ya came back, he was just like, this is what you hit

Darin:
Covered it. Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. Oh yeah.

Beach:
Just like

Darin:
This. He left me alone. Now deal with this.

Beach:
He pushed, he pushed one day pushed the cage so hard. It popped the door off. He had went and it was like Halloween time ate a whole bowl of um, candy corn. Now of course he threw up all the way back. It's like he gobbled it up and then he went back to his cage laying there, like yeah, I did something bad. <laugh>

Darin:
Yeah.

Beach:
It is that trail that you see that goes that way. He was horrible. I mean this dog

Darin:
Understand Yeah. I, I understand why you lost the fight. That is that's that's that's crazy. Yeah. I mean, we got the most mild mannered dogs. They're just,

Beach:
He ate a whole, my mom wa we left and my mom and dad watched him and <laugh> he had you, the one thing you don't do is eat my dad's cornbread. That man loves cornbread.

Darin:
I'll make a note of that.

Beach:
You can make a, you can make a, a birthday cake and that man would eat and put covered in chocolate icing and he'd eat it. I mean, he just loves

Darin:
<laugh>.

Beach:
Well, my mom had cooked a whole thing of cornbread. Put it on, let, put it on a napkin kinda kind of, you know, dry out. She leaves, she comes back. Cornbread is gone. She's like, okay, I guess Marty took the cornbread and no, no. Sam Samson ate the cornbread and napkin and all

Darin:
Good Lord where I gotta go to Sand Hill

Beach:
Sometime.

Darin:
I gotta see what's going on over there.

Beach:
No, no, no, no, no, no.

Darin:
Well, I'm not gonna buy a dog. I just wanna like drive by. No, I wonder what they bread it with. I mean, that's like part Yorkshire, part goat or something. That's not like a, that's a weird designer breed.

Beach:
He ate a whole foot long, my whole foot long BLT sandwich. Like I go to subway and you have your sandwich, right? Extra bacon, tomato, little black olives, vinegar and oil, salt and pepper foot long on a white bread. I mean, and I set it down. I went through, went back to the kitchen to get a drink, came back and he's just like walking. This dog would do stuff, knowing that he was going to get punished big time, but he didn't care. It was like, it was worth it.

Darin:
He was willing to take the beating.

Beach:
He ate foot long, a whole foot long sandwich from my time of me taking, going to the kitchen turnaround coming back. And he was just like, I did it. Do do your worst because it was worth every bit of it. <laugh> then I,

Darin:
So did you, did you pawn this dog off on some other poor unsuspecting human being?

Beach:
I did I did

Darin:
A friend of yours.

Beach:
No. I took him to, he, he bit my daughter and my wife was like, no, no, no, we don't. I don't wanna get rid of him and was like, well, somethin is gonna happen to him. And so I took him to the, to the groomer to get him cleaned up and I was there. I was like, look, if anybody wants this dog, y'all let me know. Well, within a matter of minutes I had a phone call saying, Hey yeah. You know, heard that you want to get rid of your dog. You know, I've got someone that right now that would take her, take him and would, you know, it would be a great fit. I'm like, okay. So the woman, this other woman calls me and says, Hey, you know, I take in dogs and I find them homes and I've got, um, a, a perfect couple right now that travels around in a RV and they have three older Yorkies right now one's 14, um, 12 and eight, whatever it was.

Beach:
And you know, Samson would be a great fit. And would you be willing to depart with the dog? I'm like, yeah, well I need you to take the dog to the vet, get its shots. And I'm like, no, I go, no, this is like a yard sale swap. I don't want that. I go, if you want the dog, you can go take the dog to the vet and get all that checked out. I go, you're gonna make money on this dog. I know what you're gonna do. I'm not doing it. So anyway, she goes, oh, okay. I'll, I'll take care of all that. And she did. And within a week, the, she showed up with the cage, just says, Hey, I'm ready to take Samson Samson didn't care. He was just like, Hey, I live wherever I want. And so, you know, everybody was crying. I'm like, thank God. Get this thing outta here. So we can get an email from the, um, people who picked up Samson. This is

Darin:
If, if Sampson ate the other three Yorkies, stop the story here.

Beach:
Well, I mean, I made it, but this is, this is a PG company

Darin:
Ate one and impregnated one

Beach:
Sampson is such a blessing for us. We enjoy, he loves the ride in the RV. We're in, uh, I think they were heading to a national park somewhere, but we, we did find out that Samson's very dominant to our female 14 year old Yorkie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so that's the only problem we have and I like, I don't ever send me another email. I don't care. He's gone.

Darin:
Wow.

Beach:
And now we've got, and now we've got two golden doodles

Darin:
That gives us a lot to think about. And unfortunately now we don't have time for our guests, but, uh, you know, thanks for stopping by, uh, <laugh>

Rob Hatchett:
Darin, the number one question I get asked is what's it like to work with Matt Beach?

Darin:
I, I was gonna say, what's wrong with Beach? That's gotta be number two

Rob Hatchett:
Number of times. And so, I mean, I just sit here and I'm just so glad y'all are doing this so the world can know the answer to that question and know, well,

Darin:
Let's, let's introduce the world here. Uh, folks today we do have a special guest, maybe the best hair in trucking.

Rob Hatchett:
Thank You.

Darin:
Top three, for sure. Uh, Rob Hatchett now of, uh, Fleet Intel, Conversion Interactive Agency. Conversion, actually Fleet Intel. We'll get into that a little bit later, but a quick background, Rob, you were born, now you're here. What happened in between?

Rob Hatchett:
Yeah, that's a great, that's a great question. So, uh, bring us

Beach:
Up to speed.

Darin:
Right? Bring us up to speed quick.

Rob Hatchett:
<laugh> well, thank you for having,

Darin:
Did you ever buy a dog from Beach?

Rob Hatchett:
Well, Hey, here's, here's the thing with how y'all are talking about pets. And I'm like my wife and I have been married 14 years, no kids. We tell people we're allergic to kids. I'm allergic to cats, she's allergic to dogs. And on our honeymoon, we were in Turks and Caicos so again, newlyweds, I'm like, of course I'm gonna do a horseback ride on the beach with my new wife two days in the marriage. That's when we found out she was allergic to horses as well. And so, uh, so our allergies kept us from having a lot of experiences. So, uh, so no dogs, no cats, no kids. So, uh, <laugh>, that's where most of my stories just revolve around stuff me and Matt do. Right. I don't have anything else to tell stories about.

Darin:
So oddly enough, not to not, not allergic to other people on the golf course.

Rob Hatchett:
That's right. I I'll get on the golf course. I hadn't found any allergies out there yet. Hopefully not. So, but, uh, no, I, uh, grew up in, grew up in Nashville and uh, you know, one of the, one of the stories in my life that is just, it's one of those I look back and just go, man. I learned a lesson. Uh, I was in college and my father got laid off. This was, uh, uh, October of 2001. So obviously September 11th happened 2001. My dad got laid off and the world was going crazy. And so for six months he didn't find a job until he found a job at a trucking company in Nashville. And, um, and he's just a computer guy, so he wasn't in operations, but he was on the it side and I was in college at the time. And so my dad went from working for, uh, an entertainment company, of course, Nashville, big entertainment.

Rob Hatchett:
And now he's at a trucking company. And in college I was a little kind of embarrassed by that. Cause like, I didn't know anything about trucking and I'm like, oh, we were cool with entertainment. And now we're in trucking. And I just remember that feeling because fast forward, uh, graduated college was living in Nashville, got transferred to Chattanooga, uh, uh, about 15 years ago now. So I was working in, uh, real estate. Um, and so we had offices all over the Southeast. So I was just traveling and so needed to be based in Chattanooga and uh, met my wife who was in trucking. Uh, she brought me into trucking and, and um, and so joined Covenant Transport in 2013. Um, and, and it's just neat because I remember back in college, Rob, when dad lost his job, then he got on with the trucking company. And I was like, Ooh, I don't know about trucking and little did I know that later on in life, that that's what I would dedicate my life to was this industry and specifically the, the hiring of drivers or the way I like to describe it is giving people jobs that help better them and better their families.

Rob Hatchett:
And that's really where my, my passion is. And so it's just funny how sometimes we look at situations one way and then fast forward, we always, Ooh, I wasn't really looking at that the right way. And so, um, so, but yeah, spent spent years at Covenant and overseeing, uh, recruiting, uh, and, uh, that's obviously where Matt and I teamed up and worked together. Um, in January of 2019 started SeatMyTruck, uh, and agency, um, obviously working with carriers, uh, placing ads, generating leads, helping walk through, uh, working on Tenstreet and, and, uh, the whole hiring process. Um, and then obviously Matt and I got to team back up again when he joined us and then he started Ten4 Recruiting. And so, uh, we're all based here in Chattanooga. And then as you mentioned, Conversion, uh, bought SeatMyTrucks and Ten4 November of last year.

Rob Hatchett:
And, um, and so we're about five months into that. It's going great and, uh, uh, still get to still get to, uh, uh, he work with carriers like I do. And then I've taken on this Fleet Intel role, which is our product about driver pay and realtime driver pay. And, uh, but you know, I, I'm a strategy guy. And, um, and so I just love when people ask me what I do now. It's like, Hey, listen, I just like to sit down and have conversations about what's your strategy on hiring drivers. Um, and, uh, and so I'm thankful for, uh, again, the Conversion team that lets me do that. And, and, uh, and so you see my chessboard in the background, that's one of my big passions playing chess. It's a strategy game. And so, especially in this environment, uh, where it's been tougher to hire drivers in the past two years, your strategy is the most important thing before you talk about advertising and driver pay and ATS is just talking about what's your overall strategy. So, uh, that's what I spend most of my day doing, doing now. And, and again, got a lot of different pieces of that puzzle. Um, and, uh, while I'm not talking about drivers, uh, Matt and I are having fun in Chattanooga, our wives are good friends. We do double dates. So, uh, uh, again, thankful for him and thankful for, uh, for y'all having me on today. Sorry. That was a long rambling.

Beach:
Yes. Very long. My,

Darin:
No, no, nowhere near as long as Beach's killer dog. That's fine. Um,

Beach:
Now have you noticed, tell Rob is like the best animated of hand talking, have you noticed that?

Darin:
I didn't. I, I, I didn't, I guess I was, I was listening intently and I was looking at the chessboard and I was wondering how the hell do you play that chessboard like that? You don't? I think it would surprise no one to learn that I can't play chess. It's

Rob Hatchett:
It's magnetic. So

Darin:
You really can play chess on the

Rob Hatchett:
Oh,

Beach:
Absolutely. Yeah. But you gotta, you gotta hear this thing. You gotta hear the, uh, you gotta tell about, you gotta talk about E four. You got to, since you brought chess up, you gotta mentioned E four it's well,

Rob Hatchett:
So, so yeah, so my, my passion is, is chess. So I grew up playing chess, uh, played in a couple national championships when I was in high school, started playing in what's professional tournaments around 16 or 17. Yeah.

Darin:
Really? So are you, are you nationally ranked or worldly ranked like

Beach:
The 10th in the nation are 10th in the nation are

Rob Hatchett:
No, no, no, no. In chess you have a rating. And so, um, you know, your goal is to get to be a, a, a, a grand master. That's the top, and there's different master levels, and I'm not any of those. And so this Saturday, actually, I'm playing in an open tournament. Now, when I say professional, keep my, the, money's not that good in chess. So I think the pot, this Saturday's 1700 bucks. I mean, you know, so, but for, for me, it's, it's about the only thing I'm competitive to being that and golf. And so, so that's this Saturday in Crossville, Tennessee, I'm going

Beach:
1700 bucks is a good chunk of change.

Rob Hatchett:
I that's what, but I ain't gonna, I'm not gonna win it. So I'm just saying that's what so

Darin:
Well, not with that attitude.

Beach:
No, exactly. That's not a win.

Darin:
Sounds like you need a life coach.

Beach:
Well, why are you going up there for

Darin:
What time should Beach and I be there? The chess people will love us

Beach:
Here. We could dress up like cheerleaders, like they did in Saturday Night Live <laugh>

Rob Hatchett:
That's right. They were at a chess tournament, the Saturday Night Live people. You remember that?

Beach:
But,

Rob Hatchett:
So here's, here's the thing. So I played that all growing up. My last open tournament was in 20, uh, 2003. So I was like 22 at the time. So that's, and then I took a break for 17 years. Well, my wife and I moved back to Chattanooga. We moved to Florida for years, moved back to Chattanooga in January of 2019. And a friend of mine had started a charter school here in Chattanooga, a boys charter school, and they had a chess team. And when I saw that it just a light bulb went off and I said, Hey, we don't have kids, but I wanna invest in kids in other ways. And so I've been a volunteer chess coach for the past two and a half years. We actually had six guys last weekend playing the high school national tournament, uh, in, in Memphis. But so I started coaching those guys two and a half years ago.

Rob Hatchett:
And I said, Hey, if I'm gonna coach them, I need to start playing again too. So about two and a half years ago, I got my USCF, this United States chess Federation got my rating back and started playing an open tournament. I said, Hey, if I'm gonna help the kids, I'm gonna do it myself. And so I've been having fun, uh, with that for, for two and a half years. So, so, but we started a company called E four. E four is the first chess move in. A lot of chess matches paw E two to E four. And, uh, our goal is to teach E four, teach that first move of chess to as many kids as possible. But our goal is to be the Nike of chess, right? I mean, so many sports have brands like with golf, you have titles, right? And so there is no like dominant brand of chess. And so that's our goal E four. And so, uh, we've got E four chess brand.com. And so, so that's, our goal is to grow a chess brand. Now here's the thing, there's two things. There's two, there's two possibilities. Why is there not already a Nike of chess? Right? That's the question? Why, why is it? And there's two options. Number one,

Darin:
What's your vision for E four? I mean, obviously we're not talking apparel, are we? I mean,

Rob Hatchett:
oh yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Darin:
Yeah. Seriously. So you want everybody wearing an E four polo that's

Rob Hatchett:
It's cool. Cause you're think about golf. You've got golf clubs, people wearing shirts and hats and all that kind of stuff. Yeah,

Darin:
Absolutely.

Rob Hatchett:
We have, we have chessboard and chess bags, but also swag, flat bill hats. We wanna make chess cool. Right? I mean, that's the whole thing. It's not a nerdy sport. You get smart. We wanna make it cool. But there's, there's two things. Why is there not already a Nike of chess? Cuz there's millions of chess players in the world, two re two possibilities. Number one is cuz nobody's thought it, that's what I'm hoping or number two it's because there's no money to be made in it and so. I'm hoping its because nobody's thought of it.

Darin:
Rob, they might be related.

Rob Hatchett:
So right. But I have a supportive wife who said, well, okay, you can have this amount of money when you hit that lost it is gone. We're done

Darin:
When that's gone. We're done. That's it. That's interesting. I am, uh, I'm one of the, uh, millions of people who do not play chess. Not that I don't want to, um, I don't have the patience to learn.

Beach:
You don't play checkers.

Darin:
I play checkers. Yeah. But, and it took me four years to get the rules to that. So the chess thing is, yeah. You know, I gotta keep reading the directions on the box for checkers, for Christs sake. That's right. But that's why the chess could be a challenge.

Rob Hatchett:
One thing we're working on is we don't want, we don't wanna promote the game. So people start playing in tournaments and I said, we just want it from a social cuz the strategy, right. The math, the thinking ahead, but we've talked about how do we get somebody who's never played to go, Hey, we wanna teach you not to a tournament player, but just to become a social chess player. Right.

Darin:
So how do you do it? Can I go online onto your website and learn how to play chess?

Rob Hatchett:
Well, that's a, we do not have like a, um, a curriculum yet or a, or a guide or a video. And so, but that is, that is a very thing that we're working on, um, is, is just a simple, cool, modern way to, to teach the game. Um, but uh, but anyway, so that's when people say, Hey, what are your passions? What are your hobbies? You know, you throw chess out there. Now my wife and I met on a blind date. And so on that blind date in Chattanooga, it was my first week here. A lady that worked for me, went to church with my wife, set us up. Obviously we went to PF Changs for our first date, the normal first date place. And um, on that date I told her over some, you know, spicy lettuce wraps. Um, I told her, I said, I need you to know something. I said, I, uh, I was not the captain of the football team. I was the captain of the chess team. So it's one of those things. I just, on that blind date, I just laid it out there in the very beginning and somehow it, it stuck, you know? So

Darin:
She didn't run out of the restaurant screaming. So you thought this might be the one

Rob Hatchett:
That's right. But she did take me directly back to the hotel. So we went to PF Changs. Oh. And she picked me up. That probably doesn't sound good for blind date, but I was new in town, you know? And so, uh,

Beach:
a little bit more detail on that one. That's right.

Darin:
And to see, so you're a new guy in town and you say, pick me up at the Motel 6 down on, uh, on Sand Sand Mountain,

Beach:
Take me to go east spicy lettuce wrap, please.

Rob Hatchett:
Hold on, hold on. Look at me. Our corporate account was at the Sleep Inn hotel. So it was, it's one of those things. It was literally, she picked me up at the Sleep Inn, but my wife is in now, my wife's in trucking. Right. And so I tell people it's just the most beautiful truck in the world. So I like saying that a trucker picked me up at the Sleep Inn hotel when we got married. <laugh>

Darin:
You like saying that?

Rob Hatchett:
Yeah. That is 100 percent the truth. I don't know if my wife likes me saying that,

Darin:
Well, it seems to have worked out.

Rob Hatchett:
Oh man.

Darin:
Give us a little, so I don't give us short little, a short, a short story about the last double date you're on with, with Beach involved.

Beach:
That's been a while.

Darin:
I mean like pre COVID or no,

Rob Hatchett:
We went to, we went to Hello Monty about a month ago. Yeah.

Darin:
Now what is, Hello Monty for us non Chattanooga folks.

Rob Hatchett:
It that's a newer place in town. And so, uh, well we have been on, we, we, my wife and I we eat out every night of the week. So here's a good little story. So when we go, we're getting married 14 years ago.

Darin:
How are you so slender?

Rob Hatchett:
Oh, I I, the pound, notice the video camera. Keep it up here. Keep it up here. But uh, yeah, we're, we're, we're, we're taking that off. We're taking that off that, that off, over the next couple weeks. But my 20 year anniversary or my 20 year reunion, uh, is in two weeks. So I'm like, okay, I gotta, I gotta get this off. But uh <laugh> so my wife, we negotiate. She said, Rob, she said, listen, I don't like to cook. And when we get married, I just, I wanna eat out every night of the week. And I was like, okay. I was like, well, I said, I can't fix anything around the house. And I said, when we get married, I don't want you to expect me to, I just wanna call. And we 14 years ago, when you go and here we are today, like I'm fine eating out all the time.

Rob Hatchett:
And she's fine with me calling people. We had one problem with all this. A lot of times when something doesn't work around the house, right. I find out about it and I call Matt, Matt, what do I need to do about this? And he has helped me many, many times, but one time something happened around the house and my wife called Matt and said, Hey, what do we do about this? And that's where I laid down there. I said, you do not call Matt. I said, that's my that's a man's job. I'm the one that called,

Darin:
That crosses a line.

Rob Hatchett:
That's what you tell me. And I make the call. And so that only happened once. And since then, I mean, she lets me call Matt and he helps. He helps me figure out what I gotta do to get something fixed around the house.

Darin:
<laugh> yeah. I'm uh, I'm that same guy. I don't, I'm not, uh, handy is never a word used to describe me ever.

Rob Hatchett:
Yeah. I ch I literally changed light bulbs last weekend and I thought I was, I was probably, you know, ready to start a handyman service. Right. Cause I just felt so accomplished

Darin:
The last time that I did anything handy around the house was a couple years ago, a fire alarm was going off. Like the battery was dead. So I thought, well, hell I can do that. So I walk in and I get the ladder and I change the battery out of this thing. And we have where our boys' bedrooms were. They're both outta the house now, but they were both on either side of a hallway, uh, with a bathroom in between and a little short hallway. So I go up and I change the one in the hallway, put the battery in. I go back, sit back down. Beep beep beep come back, figure, well, take the whole thing out, take it over to my buddy at the hardware store said, Hey, Andy, what's going on? Here he goes, you know what? It's an old model. You might just need a new, uh, new smoke alarm.

Darin:
All right. That makes sense. So I'll get a new smoke alarm. I go back. It's not fitted the exact same way as the old one was. So I had to redo everything with that. And this is a project that would take anyone handy about 20 minutes. I'm about on hour four with this thing, trying to figure it out, getting it all done. I get it done. Put the battery in. I'm finally done. I go sit back down. Beep beep beep walk back out into that hallway and I'm ready to sell the house. I, I I'm just done. I that's all I've done all I know how to do. I'm ready to sell the house. Um, I then realized that I was fixing the wrong smoke alarm.

Beach:
<laugh> That's so funny, but its It's

Darin:
I I'm look. I'm just, I'm staring, I'm having a stare down with the new smoke alarm. Like it's a, it's like one of us has gotta go. I'm either selling the house or you're gonna start working. And I hear the beep and I realize it's in one of the boys' bedrooms that is change the battery in that. Problem solved.

Beach:
I don't know. I know why that's funny because there's so many times when the battery goes dead. It just, and you're, you're looking straight at the, the, the one fire alarm. You're like, I know it. You

Darin:
Never beeps when you're looking at

Beach:
It's no, it never that you walk away. Yeah.

Rob Hatchett:
<laugh> Darin, I gotta answer your question though. About our double date.

Beach:
Yeah.

Rob Hatchett:
Yes. So here's the thing. Matt always gets upgrades at hotels. Right? And he always tells me about it. Right? And my wife knows about it. And I don't remember when this exactly was. I said, we've been friends for what, Matt? 10, 12 years. Something like that now. So I mean, we got, we got plenty, plenty of times, but there was one time I don't remember exactly. But Matt gets an upgrade and of course my wife looks at me and is like, well, am I gonna get an upgrade? And I, I, Matt and I are very, I mean, we're very, we, we mesh well, cause we're different. Like I, I, I get awkward in situations like trying and Matt does not get awkward in situations. Right. And so, so anyway, there's been times where I've needed Matt's help getting me upgrades on hotel rooms and that kind of stuff because it's known and it's just like, I just, I can't like, I can't, I can't do it, but it's, it's some of those stories on, on the upgrade, Matt, you gotta, you got a best upgrade story.

Beach:
Oh the best upgrade story was Chris Pinder at the CVTA event. And we're at the, the uh, oh gosh, what's the anyway really nice hotel downtown, um, St. Louis right there at the arch. Yeah. And Chris is going up to the front and, or he's in front of me in line to register. And I said, Chris, ask for free upgrade. He's like, no, I'm not gonna, I said, ask for free upgrade, just ask. So he goes up there and goes, yeah. You know, um, can I get a free upgrade, any chance y'all got any, you know, suites and a woman put him in the presidential suite

Rob Hatchett:
Just for asking?

Beach:
Just for asking.

Darin:
That's it seriously?

Beach:
That's all I didn't have. You

Darin:
Never done that? I've

Beach:
Oh my gosh. You have to, you always ask for free upgrade. Always ask

Darin:
I've never, ever done it.

Rob Hatchett:
I'm wired to where I paid for this room. Therefore

Darin:
That's the way, that's the way I

Beach:
Y'all have any free upgrades up to suite or anything that we might be able to jump on. Cause you know, you're not busy.

Darin:
Well now I just, now you just gotta be Beach to the hotel at all these functions, right?

Rob Hatchett:
Yeah.

Darin:
What was the,

Rob Hatchett:
There's not gonna be a free upgrade.

Darin:
Yeah. Beach. What did you do? Didn't some, wasn't there a hotel recently where they called and they said, is there any, anything special? You know, when you fill out the online form and they say any special request, what did you do?

Beach:
I've <laugh> that?

Darin:
I don't remember the story. I, I remember being horr

Beach:
So any, anytime I see a special request, I always fill it out. Always fill it out. <laugh> cause I wanna see if the people actually read it and if they read it and they go through, it's a customer service thing, right? Yeah. You know, it's like, Hey, you need special requests. I would like to have a sweet picture of Bodhi and Johnny Utah from Point Break.

Darin:
That's what it was.

Beach:
<laugh> and that's always been my go to, and so there's one hotel, there's two hotels that did it. We were in, um, Rob and I were traveling in North Carolina and we showed up and the guy just said, are you Matt Beach? I'm like, yeah. He goes, this is for you. And he printed off a picture of, of it.

Darin:
That's Fantastic.

Beach:
And, but here's the thing. Some people are like, you know, you're, those people have better things to do. And you're asking him to do all this stuff and this, this I'm like that made that kid's day. Mm-hmm <affirmative> all he's done is checked in keys. This here's, this here's your water. Thank you. He got the one special request that said, print this off, look on the internet and gimme a special, a sweet picture of Bodhi and Johnny Utah from Point Break. That kid had to go, yes. Now I'm ready to do this.

Darin:
and then volunteered to work that day that you were checking in. Yeah. I gotta be here to meet this dude.

Beach:
There was a event, uh, an event. I think it was Driver IQ had one and they had sent special requests and I typed it in and I get there and it was um, sweet picture of Bohdi and Johnny Utah from Point Break. And it was on my pillow in my room when I showed up, um, I did a, I've got a awesome jacket and it was a, a blazer and it's got the American flag lined inside of it. And this company, I sent them the same. There was like, again, special instructions. Anything else? I was like, yeah, I want a sweet picture of Bodhi and Johnny Utah. <laugh> and it is right here.

Darin:
Oh, very nice. And

Beach:
That was the picture I got from them. And on the back, there's a nice signature from the company that said, Hey, we've never seen that. And what was funny is that we, we have a intern that was, that was here and he caught it. And we, we got to thinking how many of these special instructions have we missed <laugh> and this yeah. Saw. And so it was funny. It was good. So yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Every time you see that type and see what happens. Cause to me that's huge. I mean, I'm tweeting it out. I'm putting it on social media. Look what they did. They went up. But again, some people are like, you're they they've got so much other time. You're wasting their time to do this, to meet your little crazy thing there. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I am. I wanna, I wanna see if that happens. They've done it. I mean, it's no big deal if they don't, but if they do, that's nice.

Darin:
That's fantastic. There's a story for everybody to take with them. They're kind of turning the lights out on us here. It's uh, it's last call. Rob, how do people get in touch with you? Are you on the Twitter? You're on, are you on, are you on the, on the worldwide webs?

Beach:
That's right. <laugh>

Rob Hatchett:
I'd say, I'd say LinkedIn is the easiest way. So, so Rob Hatchett on LinkedIn and uh, now I gotta say one work thing is people ask me all the time about hiring drivers right now, listen. People gotta be realistic right now. And so I gotta call with a carrier tomorrow and that's gonna be my first question. Are you being realistic about what's going on in today's world? The carriers that are being realistic are, you know, they're doing good on recruiting and retention. The ones that still think it's just easy as, as can be. Cuz again, for years there's been plenty of drivers. Right? And, and we don't have to be the best at pay and, and treating them well. And aver, we don't have to be the best. There's just plenty of drivers and now there's not, and you got realistic companies and you got companies still being unrealistic.

Rob Hatchett:
And so, uh, so anyway, that's just where any carriers out there listening. It's just one of those you look inside and go, are we being realistic or not? Because those that are, are still doing okay in this, in this crazy world that we're in right now. But uh, but anyway, that's my number one question. When I first start talking to somebody, I gotta feel 'em out to go. Where, where are they on the spectrum of reality right now? Uh, but, uh, but so if anybody wants to talk about that, yeah. LinkedIn, Rob Hatchett would love to, to do a, a reality check. Uh, if that's something somebody wants to talk about

Darin:
There, you have it folks Rob Hatchett on LinkedIn. Beach, thanks again, man. Rob, thank you for your time.

Beach:
Bye bud.

Darin:
Ladies and gentlemen, they're kicking us out. Remember to be safe and keep on trucking.