One can never tell where the road in life will take them. While the endpoint offers great triumph, the miles traveled in between ultimately matter most. Nobody knows this more than truckers, who spend hours on the highways navigating life, sometimes away from their families for days or weeks at a time. And few understand the trucking industry more than Greg Thompson.
When Thompson launched his career in journalism, little did he know that he would find his true calling in the trucking industry. Thompson is invested in the long haul, spending more than one-quarter of a century in the transportation industry and becoming the founder and executive producer of PodWheels Network.
For more than a decade Thompson worked in media as a producer, reporter, and feature writer, interviewing the likes of NFL Hall of Famer Joe Namath and triple Grand Slam tennis legend Arthur Ashe. Yet his path took a turn when he joined the transportation industry in 1998 as part of a public relations team for a large truckload carrier. There he created content highlighting and engaging the carrier’s driving community.
Over 14 years and hundreds of interviews with drivers and executives for feature stories, video segments, and audio recordings, Thompson realized that a high-quality audio interview of a driving professional is a highly effective form of communication.
“Observations made by professional drivers during a podcast speak directly to listening drivers,” Thompson explains. “They hear stories about themselves told by themselves.”
This drove the establishment of PodWheels.
Since its launch in 2016, PodWheels has produced more than 1,500 podcast episodes while generating more than 200,000 downloads of those productions. Thompson, our May 2024 Podcaster of the Month, shares with us the long and winding road that led his career from sports celebrity interviews to the shared wisdom and important insights of truckers.
Whether they’re listening to podcasts or creating them, truckers are unique individuals and long hauls offer unique challenges and opportunities. How have you seen the introduction of podcasting benefit truckers? Do you have specific stories or anecdotes?
I began working in the trucking industry in 1998 after 13 years at a local newspaper, and I quickly gained an immense appreciation for the work and the lifestyle associated with being a professional truck driver. One of the biggest challenges of working as a professional driver is filling the time. In addition to up to the legal maximum of 11 hours per day behind the wheels, drivers can have significant amounts of downtime, waiting at shippers and receivers, waiting for maintenance on their trucks or waiting for their next assignment. It can be a lonely existence and, until the arrival of cell phones, drivers had limited ways to connect to the rest of the world, especially when it comes to drivers who are out away from home for weeks at a time.
The advancements in technology, particularly with smartphones, have provided drivers with platforms to be better connected to their families, friends and their interests. Professional truck drivers are no different than other smartphone owners who have discovered the multitude of media platforms available to them. We are all building our own channels of information and entertainment. The growth of podcasting has obviously been part of the new media landscape.
We started PodWheels eight years ago by working with a single trucking company. Since 2016, our PodWheels team has produced 20 to 25 series related to some aspect of the trucking industry. Through those series, we have released over 1,500 episodes. Some of those series have provided the foundation for what you see today on PodWheels.com as we began working with the Blubrry Team in the early part of 2023.
Every time we launch a podcast series, we ask what are the goals for this series and who is the audience. Like any podcast series, our productions can be very niche in their focus. And when it comes to podcasts tailored to an audience of professional drivers, our overarching focus is to provide content that speaks to our audience and helps them improve their lives. We want to make the road a little smoother in a number of directions, and we have worked to engage clients who can share insights that can help inform professional drivers while also highlighting what their company is bringing to the trucking industry.
With our current set of offerings, visitors to PodWheels.com and mainstream service subscribers to the podcast series we host through Blubbry.com can find valuable information and perspectives on health topics, business planning, accounting, tax planning, safety, logistics management and a ground-level look from trucking entrepreneurs who are on the road and making it happen mile-by-mile. We also have offerings on the lighter side of the industry with National Truck Driving Championships (NTDC Podcast), PodWheels Destinations and the scripted Snake Pontchartrain series.
In addition to our current listings, we have a number of series on the drawing board and we have client sales efforts happening as well. At this point in time, we’re not in a position to give you a timetable on when the new additions will be online and available. One thing is for certain, PodWheels.com will be continuing to add podcasts throughout 2024 and for years to come.
You asked about examples of the impact that our podcast series has made on audiences within the trucking industry. When we entered podcast development eight years ago, we helped our trucking company client save money and build stronger relationships with the men and women behind the wheel in their fleet through the content we produced. Our series for the carrier, which ran for over four years, focused primarily on the variable cost areas that are most impacted by the company drivers and the owner-operators in the fleet. We used an internal podcast platform that PodWheels had developed to work on the trucking carrier’s fleet app to give the company the ability to go into deeper topics on a private podcast platform.
In recent years and since we began working with Blubrry, we’ve gotten great feedback from listeners and our clients that our productions have helped people save money through tax services and business planning, for example. We’ve also heard from listeners and clients who told us that we helped improve the quality of their lives on the road. We are seeing a growth in the interest in our Highway To Health series, for example, and our St. Christopher Trucker’s Relief Fund series has had a number of episodes on insurance topics that have been very helpful to professional drivers.
Coming from a journalism background, where you interviewed greats such as Joe Namath, what led up to the switch to a focus on trucking?
I’ve been quite fortunate to have enjoyed a career in broadcasting, journalism, public relations, marketing and media relations that now has spanned over 40 years. I see the arc of my career now becoming a long circle that began in the early 1980s and it has finally brought me back to doing something I truly love – producing long-form audio programming.
The initial step in my career arc came when I joined KVSC-FM, the college radio station for St. Cloud State University in Minnesota. At SCSU, I was introduced to multitrack analog recording and I eventually landed a work-study gig as a producer/audio engineer in the university’s library studio. While I was at SCSU and through KVSC, I developed some opportunities to interview some big-name musical acts, including Charlie Daniels as well as Gregg Allman, Chuck Leavell and Dickey Betts from the Allman Brothers.
For me, one of the beauties of podcasting is that, if you’re lucky, you can take something really old that is interesting and make it new again by placing great audio content within a podcast episode. Two years ago, I made a podcast episode out of a 1983 interview I conducted with Ronnie Hammond, who was the lead singer for the Atlanta Rhythm Section. We framed it well with a nice set-up and closing, and the episode was well received when it was released through PodWheels.
We are currently in the process of working on an episode of our PodWheels Destinations series that will feature significant portions of a July 1983 interview I did while I was a junior at SCSU. We made the short road trip to the Twin Cities to talk with Leavell and Betts. Of course, on April 19, we got the news that Betts had passed away that day at the age of 80 following a battle with cancer. I immediately thought of the time I got to spend with him with another friend of mine, Al Neff, who has been part of our PodWheels Team since 2016. Al is someone I’ve known and I’ve worked with periodically since 1982. When we interviewed Dickey Betts in 1983, Dickey was just 38 years old and he was one of the nicest music stars I’ve ever met. Dickey was quite down to earth and very generous with his time when we met him. While Dickey’s passing is very sad for his family, friends and fans, it’s amazing that we will be able to celebrate his contributions to music and pop culture through an upcoming podcast episode of PodWheels Destinations with a moment in time that happened in 1983.
Getting back to my career arc and your question of how did a sports writer become a podcaster involved with trucking, I tried to pursue work in audio production houses doing long-form, weekend-type special programming for radio following my graduation from St. Cloud State University. While I sent demo tapes out to a number of smaller production companies around the country, I had also sent the same demo tapes (basically on a you’ve-got-nothing-to-lose lark) to Dick Clark Productions, Westwood One and the BBC. Amazingly, I heard back from all three companies. No job offers came out of those outreaches, but I did receive some great feedback from Dick Clark, who actually sent me a personally signed letter that was a critique of my demo. I still cannot believe that Dick Clark actually listened to my demo tape and that he liked the portions of the demo that I had been most proud of producing. I still have his letter somewhere among my keepsakes.
The reality was that jobs were pretty hard to find anywhere in the mid-1980s, especially in the type of production work I was looking to do. My godparents, who are also my aunt and uncle, lived in my hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and they encouraged me to leave the Twin Cities and come back to Chattanooga in late 1985. My uncle, Jack Payne, had a number of local connections, and he introduced me to Roy Exum, who was the Executive Sports Editor of the Chattanooga Free Press at the time. My uncle got me a job interview with Roy, who hired me part-time to take game reports over the phone. I had done a good bit of news reporting for the KVSC and I had some news-producing experience with the university’s television stations. I also had written a couple of stories for the campus newspaper at SCSU, and I had always been a sports fan. So, while it wasn’t my passion and focus in college, I had an opportunity to learn more about reporting and developing the skills needed to become a feature writer – two disciplines that I have found serve me well as a podcast producer.
Along with taking game reports over the phone, I was given some opportunities to cover some high school basketball and then spring sports. Eventually, the Free Press offered me a full-time job as a sports and feature writer. My primary converge focus was high school sports in Chattanooga and the surrounding area (encompassing some 60 high schools). Over a decade of covering hundreds of games and writing weekly feature pieces and human interest stories, I became recognized as one of the best high school sports writers in the state of Tennessee, winning multiple awards from the Tennessee Sports Writers Association.
In addition to the high school sports coverage as a primary assignment, I also got the opportunity to do interviews and feature stories with some major sports figures, including Joe Namath in 1989 as he became the original spokesperson for Flexall Sports Cream. The photo with Joe and myself holding a microcassette recorder is the one we included on the PodWheels.com website.
I also interviewed fellow Hall of Fame quarterback Terry Bradshaw in the back of a limousine as he changed out of his suite following a speaking engagement in Chattanooga. What you have seen on TV over the years with Terry is pretty true to how he is in everyday life.
My other high-profile interviews included Hall of Fame Defensive Lineman and Chattanooga native Reggie White and Hall of Fame hockey player Bobby Orr. I had the privilege of speaking with and writing about Arthur Ashe during the last year of his life. I had the opportunity to contribute to the Chattanooga Free Press’s coverage of the 1991 World Series between the Atlanta Braves and Minnesota Twins, and I wrote a feature story on World Series MVP Jack Morris, who pitched a 10-inning shutout to clinch the title for the Twins,
Along with sports coverage, I provided feature stories to other sections of the paper. One of those highlights was the feature story I wrote from the Presidential Inauguration in 1993,
After a decade of working as a sports and feature writer, I began to look at other opportunities in communication that would keep me closer to home and free up Friday nights and weekends – when most sporting events take place for high schools. In 1998, I found an opportunity with U.S. Xpress, one of the largest trucking companies in the country at the time. I became the company’s Public Relations Manager, overseeing all of the internal and external communications as well as media relations and public appearances.
I served in my position at U.S. Xpress for 14 years and I essentially studied the trucking industry and the people in the industry like it was one of my sports beats. One of the true pleasures of my time at USX was getting to spend time with the company drivers and owner-operators in the USX fleet – a hard-working, down-to-earth diverse group of more than 8,000 men and women. During my tenure, we produced between 50 to 100 videos that either involved drivers or focused on drivers and owner-operators as our target audience. In addition, I was involved in the production of some long-form audio programming that was highlighted by the Driving To Xcellence cassette tape and our Driver InfoLine series.
The Driver InfoLine Series would be a precursor to the podcast series that we are developing today through PodWheels. USX needed a platform that could reach drivers in the cab of their trucks with tailored messaging from the company. Starting in 2002, we began by producing what was essentially a form of a podcast before podcasting became a platform. Using the company’s PBX phone system, we started by using an option that allowed us to record what basically was an extended voicemail greeting. We could record up to 7:59 because the system cut us off at 8:00. Once we had the recording uploaded, we would send a satellite message to the trucks inviting them to call a toll-free, 800-number to hear our latest message on the Driver InfoLine.
The real spark for the Driver InfoLine came when USX had a major operational change that needed to be communicated quickly to the fleet. So, we put the company’s Co-Founder and CEO in a studio setting and we recorded 30 minutes of material that we released over a series of days in six- to eight-minute segments. We then sent a message out to the trucks that notified the drivers and contractors that the CEO had recorded a message for them and they needed to call the 800 number.
No one could believe the response following the initial interview series on the operational change. Now, I was pretty sure it would be effective, but I was blown away by the volume of calls in that first week and subsequently the first month. I was also stunned by the call completion rate. By the end of the first month, we had generated over 24,000 calls through a very crude system that we had quickly set up. Also, the call completion rate stood at 98 percent following the first month.
From years of talking with drivers and getting to know their lives on the road, I understood the desire to fill their time on the road and waiting with substantial content. We could give them meaningful conversations that can help make the road a little smoother. With the Driver InfoLine at U.S. Xpress, we had truly captured lightning in a bottle. The company’s management got fully behind the program. We updated the PBX system to accommodate recordings of any length. (Our longest episode was a 22-minute interview with the CEO). The PBX enhancement also included expanding to a 16-port system that could accommodate 16 callers at one time. We began to post weekly releases of the Driver InfoLine. From 2002 until the time I left U.S. Xpress in 2012, we produced approximately 500 episodes of the Driver InfoLine. The series averaged just over 60,000 calls per year and our call completion rate for the 10-year run of the series was 96%.
Between 2012 and early 2016, I had done a series of freelance jobs for some of my trucking contacts who, like me, had moved on from U.S. Xpress. Russ Moore was a former USX colleague who had become the VP of Driver Recruiting and Communications at Dart Transit. In early 2016, we began exploring the Driver InfoLine concept for Dart, and I began looking into podcasting serving as a low-cost alternative to the overhaul of the company’s PBX system.
I pitched Russ and his team at Dart on a long-form audio program using podcasting as the distribution. Our goal was to develop a ride-along companion for the men and women in the Dart fleet. The concept was based on several efforts I had led throughout my career, and the long-form production would essentially be an audio newsletter. Russ green-lighted three long-form productions. The debut episode production landed at a running time of 97 minutes. The first episode of the Dart Network Podcast had multiple features, interviews and news from across the company. It was a mix of information and fun while being an outreach that focused on building stronger relationships between the fleet and the company’s management.
The debut edition of the Dart Network Podcast had a great download response within the fleet of 1,800 drivers and contractors. As part of the second episode release, we followed up the long-form release by dropping breakouts of the individual segments into their own podcast episodes. We then moved to a format of releasing three to four 15- to 20-minute episodes a month from the fourth quarter of 2016 through the second quarter of 2020. Over this four-year period, PodWheels was responsible for producing over 300 episodes of the Dart Network Podcast and we generated over 22,000 downloads during our time working on the series.
One of the more interesting initial aspects of developing the Dart Network Podcast was the opportunity for me to take my career full circle and return to my roots, engaging many of the audio production skills I had first learned in the multitrack studio at St. Cloud State University. However, in 2016, I was now using Adobe Audition to edit my recordings rather than a grease pencil, cutting block and a razor blade. It was basically the same concept – just a whole lot easier than the analog days of the 1980s.
Our work and success with the Dart Network Podcast opened the doors to more opportunities, allowing what we started in 2016 to become the PodWheels.com platform that you see today.
The PodWheels Network is a veteran podcast group aiming to create momentum in the trucking industry. What kind of momentum is the network’s goal? How has that been accomplished?
One of the primary functions of our PodWheels Powered By RadioNemo platform is to serve as an audio-based storyteller within the trucking industry. For those who are not familiar with this industry, trucking is critical to the American economy. About 90% of the goods we see on the store shelves are moved by a truck at some point in the product transit/supply chain process. Trucking is a vital part of e-commerce. Even if it’s only the final miles to your house, trucking is nearly always involved in delivering what we have ordered online to the front doors of our homes.
Yet, despite the essential role that trucking plays in our everyday lives, the people who work in this industry are often overlooked and taken for granted. So, when our team at PodWheels talks about creating momentum in the trucking industry, we are talking about sharing stories and perspectives of the people involved with trucking, providing them with a platform that can create momentum for the appreciation of the important daily work performed by this industry.
Over our first year of utilizing Blubrry.com as our distribution service, PodWheels has created momentum through our expanded storytelling in a number of ways. In terms of specific illustrations of that work, I will share the three examples:
1) Beginning in 2022, PodWheels and RadioNemo began providing onsite coverage on the National Trucking and National Step Van Driving Championships, which is hosted by the American Trucking Associations. The NTDC is a precision driving competition. It’s a skills event with state competitions, and those drivers who qualify for the nationals by winning at the state level are some of the most accomplished professional drivers in the country. The interviews that we can do and special segments we can create over the three days of the NTDC event are more than plentiful. And, as we have shared these stories from the NTDC and the competitors, we have grown a very loyal and highly interested audience who want to hear these stories, https://podwheels.com/national-truck-driving-championships-podcast/.
Over the first two years of covering the NTDC, we have produced 60 episodes of this podcast, and, due to the interest in people wanting to know more about the competitors and the event itself, we recently launched our 2024 coverage in March as the state competitions began. Listenership continues to grow and that, in turn, creates the momentum I mentioned.
2) At PodWheels, we have the ability to spotlight a single person within essentially any of our series. Long Haul Paul Marhoefer is a veteran professional driver who is also a talented singer/songwriter. A few years ago, Long Haul Paul got the opportunity to record some of his music, and he has since released a series of albums. Last April, I had the opportunity to do a sit-down interview with Long Haul Paul aboard his truck. It turned out to be a very cool interview and we are looking forward to doing more of these kinds of segments in the future. I would invite you to check out this segment, https://podwheels.com/part-1-long-haul-paul-discusses-legends-of-the-lost-highway-cd/. I have revisited it a few times just to hear Paul recount the story of working with the drummer who started his career as part of the Jerry Lee Lewis Band back in the 1950s and the earliest days of rock and roll.
3) One of the newest additions to our collection of podcast series on PodWheels is the Road Warrior Entrepreneurs. This podcast is co-hosted by Jeff Morton and Charley Mahon, the co-founders of Contractors Corner Consulting Group, LLC. Jeff and Charley are active owner-operators who are running their respective small businesses while they are also hauling freight on the road. They host a YouTube Live Show every Tuesday, and they reached out to PodWheels when they were looking to develop an audio-only podcast to complement their YouTube Live sessions, highlighting the work that they are doing through Contractors Corner.
Our PodWheels Team walked them through some options and worked with them to land on a format that works on a number of levels. To date, they produced eight episodes with six of them released and two waiting in the wings. Because they are running their businesses while they are out on the road, they are true Road Warrior Entrepreneurs. The content of the shows, including the give-and-take between Jeff and Charley, provides the kind of observations and perspectives that have real depth as well as an ability to resonate with their audience. You can access the entire catalog through this link: https://podwheels.com/category/rwe/
PodWheels is powered by RadioNemo, whose namesake, Dave Nemo, has served professional drivers for 50-plus years. With the partial retirement of Dave Nemo next year, what are the next steps to continue and grow the network?
One of the unique features of the collaboration between PodWheels and RadioNemo is that both entities are separate companies. PodWheels is essentially a division of Missing Word Solutions, LLC, which I founded in 2016. As your question notes, Dave Nemo is one of the founders of the trucking radio that we see in the market today, with a history in professional broadcasting that dates back to 1969. What Dave has accomplished over the course of his career is absolutely astounding. If someone ever decides to create a Mount Rushmore of Trucking Radio, Dave Nemo would be on that mountain.
I had the privilege of spending a good deal of time with Dave over the course of the days our collective group was together for the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville this past March. Dave and the RadioNemo Team have taken great care to plan out this next year and the Last Ride of The Road Gang. And, during his on-air retirement announcement as well as in subsequent interviews, Dave has made a special note to remind his listeners and the trucking industry that he plans to stay involved with the trucking industry and continue to contribute to the radio show that carries his name as it moves forward. When it comes to retirement, Dave has repeatedly said, he is planning “an active retirement.”
While all of us were together in Louisville this March, we began to kick around some ideas related to potential podcast development involving Dave’s Last Ride of The Road Gang, which is currently slated to run through Dave’s official retirement from day-to-day on-air responsibilities on June 1, 2025. We have also discussed some podcast development possibilities that would feature Jimmy Mac and Lindsay Lawler, the dynamic duo who are the co-hosts of Dave Nemo Weekends. Both the Dave Nemo Show (Monday through Friday) and Dave Nemo Weekends (Saturday and Sunday) are broadcast nationally on SiriusXM’s Road Dog Trucking Radio Channel 146. The Dave Nemo Show and Dave Nemo Weekends each air from 7:00 to 11:00 am Eastern Time on Road Dog Radio and they are also available on demand through the SiriusXM app.
As we look to the future with PodWheels Powered By RadioNemo, one of the reasons that we are quite excited about what we can do with the platform is the collaboration that we have with the talented team at RadioNemo. We are well positioned because we can take our time with podcast development. We can really think it out and not have to rush to get a series out the door and up on the website. For example, if Dave would like to do something on the podcast side, we can build a plan – again based on those basic principles of who is our audience and what are our goals. Earlier this year, we talked with the RadioNemo Team about a number of interesting concepts that we could develop into podcast content at some point in the future. There’s never a shortage of programming options, especially when you have the opportunity to field ideas from someone with the list of accomplishments that Dave Nemo has. In addition, it’s a joy to be able to work with Jimmy Mac and Lindsay Lawler on a regular basis. And, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the RadioNemo folks behind the scenes with sales, production and talent coordination. Our PodWheels Team has really enjoyed our collaboration with RadioNemo, and we look forward to great things happening in the years to come. As for what’s next, stay tuned.
Plans For Growth…
Now, when we are talking about the overall growth of the platform, I have to take a moment and highlight the work that has been done by Webtyde Digital Marketing and the company’s extremely talented founder, Morgan Biggs. Before our introduction to Morgan and her company through Jimmy Mac at RadioNemo, Missing Word Solutions had worked with a very good independent IT development resource who built a PodWheels app and an entire backend podcast hosting system that worked in concert with our PodWheels app. While we also had websites associated with our initial efforts and all of our previous work had given PodWheels a presence in the market, none of those websites had a robust backend system or the best infrastructure for SEO.
With all of that noted, it was the evaluation of our previous system by Morgan that opened my eyes to what could be possible through the combination of a well-managed WordPress website and utilizing Blubrry.com as our hosting and distribution system. We then commissioned Webtyde to build PodWheels.com and we worked with Mike Dell from the Blubrry Team to make the transition from our legacy system to what we have today on Blubrry.
As we look to the future and our growth plans, you will see us invest in SEO and other recommendations through a strategy that Morgan and her Webtyde team will be developing for PodWheels. We are also planning to work closely with Mike Dell and Blubrry on the options that you have available to us, including upgrading to Thrive and adding transcriptions of our podcast releases into the mix.
While our Missing Word Solutions Group and PodWheels Team have been navigating what has been a winding road for seven years before arriving at what is now PodWheels.com, I am highly optimistic about the future. As you can see through what I have noted here, my optimism stems from the talents RadioNemo brings to the table going forward as well as the work that we are planning to do with Webtyde and Blubrry. I truly believe that PodWheels is well-positioned for growth and we will have the ability to grow at a pace that fits the needs of the business as we pursue available opportunities in the market.
In addition to PodWheels, you are the founder of Missing Word Solutions. Can you summarize its mission and goals?
Missing Word Solutions was launched in 2016 when I made the decision to commit to full-time communications consultant work following my second corporate layoff in four years after turning age 50. I had done plenty of communications-related projects as an independent contractor, and I had a strong network of people who knew what I could bring to the table. At the same, I had watched a number of sole practitioners build a decent business with a handful of clients. Most of them stopped growing when they reached their capacity to work or the number of hours they wanted to work in a week. That type of business operation strategy for a small, creative services company has more than its share of pitfalls.
Business needs change so rapidly these days that, especially if you are a company with the size and capabilities of Missing Word Solutions, you have to be very nimble and look for what could be next while also working on what you have in hand. If you end up depending on that handful of initial clients, you will always be at risk of putting your business at risk in the blink of an eye. So, my concept was to build a business that could be diversified and utilize a network of providers who could collaborate together.
With that as a backdrop, here is the Philosophy and Approach for Missing Word Solutions that I developed in 2016, and it still holds true to this day:
Missing Word Solutions specializes in the areas of public relations, journalism, corporate thought leadership, marketing content development, website development and content management, social media strategies and podcast development. We are not an advertising agency or a marketing group. Missing Word Solutions is a creative services brokerage with the capability to provide a broad range of scalable options designed to meet the marketing and communications needs of most businesses and organizations, especially smaller to mid-sized companies that do not have their own in-house creative resources.
Understanding the Key Questions
At Missing Word Solutions, we have identified what has become a no man’s land for decision-makers with limited budgets. These leaders can sometimes reach a point of agony while searching for the right solutions at an affordable price. This search can lead to the following questions:
- Do we hire in-house professionals or add more full-time employees to an existing marketing department?
- Do we engage an advertising agency or marketing group?
- What kind of long-term financial commitment do we have to make to market our business?
- At the end of the day, how do we find the right people, the people we can trust?
The team Missing Word Solutions has assembled through our network of providers believes all of these questions are valid and must be addressed. Most importantly, we believe the success of any communications effort comes down to relationships and a simple question: Can you build a bond between your organization and your target audience?
In addition to these principles, I also believe that it’s important to understand the talents of your team and what your business does well. We focus on what we can do well, understanding the value of staying in your lane and not trying to be something that you can’t reach. At the same time, whether it’s developing podcasts or writing a Case Study to show the value of a client’s business, I want the work of Missing Word Solutions to stand out. We want to deliver the kind of performance that earns us an encore from our clients. If you are interested, I wrote a column about the value of staying in your lane when we launched the Missing Word Solutions website. Part of the column cites a wild scene in the 1950s when Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry and Little Richard were on tour together. You can access the column by clicking here.
Podcast development is part of the foundation of Missing Word Solutions, and it will continue to be a primary service offering as the company moves forward. While we will also continue to do consulting work as well, we are currently exploring some further diversification for the company with a couple of new media-related horizons that could prove to be very interesting moving into the future.
Can you share the summaries of active podcast titles on PodWheels Powered By Radio?
The following are the podcasts we are currently featuring through PodWheels.com as well as distribution to the mainstream podcast services through Blubrry…
The Business Of Trucking With John Turner CPA: Launched in 2024, this series features the insights of Certified Public Accountant John Turner, who has many years of experience and trusted expertise working with owner-operators, independent contractors, company drivers, small business owners and aspiring trucking entrepreneurs. With a long track record of success helping professionals behind the wheel, John has become a highly valued resource who specializes in tax preparation, tax planning, accounting, bookkeeping and tax problem resolution.This series is a combination of edited segments from John’s appearances on the Dave Nemo Show and podcast-exclusive segments that John will be recording with PodWheels over the coming months. For the listings in this series, please click here.
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The Highway To Health: Developed in collaboration with RadioNemo of North America, Highway To Health offers listeners the latest information on timely topics by featuring guests who offer valuable perspectives for professional drivers to help you stay healthy while you are out on the road. To access the catalog of listings shared through the Highway To Health, please click here.
Safety Matters: Developed in collaboration with Reliance Partners, the largest independent insurance agency focused on trucking and logistics, Safety Matters is a podcast exploring the dynamic world of commercial trucking and transportation safety. Hosted by Thom Albrecht, the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Revenue Officer of Reliance Partners. Safety Matters is a must-listen for company drivers, owner-operators, independent contractors, operations management, safety professionals, and fleet executives. Safety Matters offers a deeper understanding of the crucial aspects of safety and security within the trucking industry. Each episode of Safety Matters features noted experts from the transportation and logistics industry addressing key issues while sharing valuable insights on industry updates and essential safety practices. To access the listings available through the Safety Matters series, please click here.
The Grawe Pod: Hosted by Doug Grawe, the founder and CEO of the Grawe Group, the Grawe Pod is Transportation’s General Counsel Podcast examining key issues for the trucking and logistics industry. The Grawe Pod serves as a thought leadership outreach by the Grawe Group addressing timely topics of interest to all levels of trucking and logistics management. Since 2010, the Grawe Group has served family-owned and closely-held businesses up and down the supply chain with legal, operational, financial and executive leadership support. The Grawe Group is a law firm and business consultancy that is focused on helping trucking and logistics companies through special projects, interim and fractional leadership, and general counsel services. To access the listings available through The Grawe Pod, please click here.
Road Warrior Entrepreneurs: Referenced in response to an earlier question, this podcast is hosted by Jeff Morton and Charley Mahon, who are also the founders of Contractors Corner, LLC. As seasoned entrepreneurs who have hustled their way through countless challenges, Jeff and Charley understand that the road warrior lifestyle is like no other, especially for professional drivers who have chosen to run their own businesses from the road. As you will hear, they deliver a hearty serving of wisdom, candid conversations, and a dose of tough love as well as interesting guests. To access the listings available through Road Warrior Entrepreneurs, please click here.
The National Truck Driving Championships: Earning the name “the Super Bowl of Safety,” National Truck Driving and National Step Van Driving Championships feature a collection of the best and most accomplished professional drivers in the country from nine different classifications. To qualify to be a part of the championship, each of the competitors had to win their respective state championship within one of those categories. Plus, they had to also stay accident-free for the past 12 months.Hosted by the American Trucking Associations and the organization’s Safety Management Council, the home for NTDC 2024 will be Indianapolis. In addition to the competition, the NTDC always features great personal and inspirational stories. PodWheels Powered By RadioNemo is proud to share those stories throughout the state competitions, and we’re thrilled to be onsite for the Nationals in August. As noted in an earlier response, we have already begun recording and releasing new episodes for 2024. The entire catalog of 65 episodes over the history of the podcast is available by clicking here.
SCF Highway To Hope: Created in association with the St. Christopher Truckers Relief Fund, The SCF Highway to Hope Podcast highlights the programs and the support available through SCF, a truck driver charity helping over-the-road/regional semi-truck drivers and their families when an illness or injury causes them to miss work. SCF is also dedicated to providing programs beneficial to professional drivers and the trucking industry. But at its core, the SCF Highway to Hope tells inspiring stories of recovery within the trucking industry. To access the full listings of the SCF Highway To Hope Series, please click here.
Destinations From PodWheels: This series is one of our newest editions and it allows our PodWheels Production Team to explore and produce podcasts in a variety of directions. As we noted in earlier responses, Destinations can feature a music segment with Long Haul Paul or a revisiting the 1983 interview that I facilitated with Dickey Betts, a founding member of the Allman Brothers Band. In March, we used Destinations to serve as the home of edited-for-podcast segments from RadioNemo that were originally broadcast during RadioNemo’s coverage of the Mid-America Trucking Show. We are thrilled with the content we have shared to date under this title. We are also very excited about the possibilities for the future. To access the full catalog of releases from Destinations, please click here.
Snake Pontchartrain: This is a very fun scripted adventure fantasy series, using trucking as its primary vehicle. The series is the creation of Jimmy Mac from RadioNemo and it features the amazing sound designs of Clare Marie. The series description reads as follows: Snake Pontchartrain’s Places You Wouldn’t Want to Go Unless You’re With Snake Pontchartrain follows a super trucker and ghost hunter investigating the haunted legends of the road at the request of fellow drivers. If you are interested in taking a smartly scripted adventure ride filled with a great sound experience, check out all the releases from Snake Pontchartrain by clicking here.
What other areas of focus would you like to have within the network? What criteria do you observe when choosing trucking-based podcasts within the network?
When it comes to these questions, the evaluation actually begins with a series of questions that we ask ourselves or the people responsible for producing the content. Here are the questions that we ask: Will this make interesting podcast content? Does this subject matter speak to our target audience? Will it provide insights that will help our target audience? Is it a fun diversion that can entertain or give our target audience a break on a difficult day? How many episodes can we generate? Is it an ongoing series, a limited series or even a single episode? (We have production plans and options that can be a fit for most concepts). Obviously, one of the most important questions is how much will it cost to produce. Is it workable under our business model? Of course, those questions lead to the dollars and sense points involved in our planning: How much work will it take to post the episodes and maintain the series on PodWheels.com? (The production cost and the time commitment needed are critical elements, especially when we are looking at client-based or paid productions).
In looking at the future and what we are seeking to bring to PodWheels.com to share through Blubrry’s distribution platform, I think it’s important to be mindful of what’s happening in the world around us and within our focus industry of trucking. It’s equally important to be open to listening and accepting feedback and new ideas.
One of the many things our PodWheels Team loves about podcasting is that podcasting is still very much a new frontier. In my view, the only boundaries are the limits of your imagination while working with a piece of audio. Those boundaries are also defined by your ability to effectively execute the idea you have in mind to share with your audience.
Those of us involved in podcasting in 2024 live in a wondrous time when there are an infinite number of possibilities for creating compelling audio content that can truly engage your audience. Audio storytelling has traveled light years since my college radio days of editing reel-to-reel analog tape with a grease pencil and a razor blade. At PodWheels, we just want to continue to learn and seek to excel at what we do. If we can be committed to improving a little each day, we will always serve our audiences, our clients and the trucking industry at a sustained level of excellence. That’s the goal we want to aspire to reach.
What else would you like people to know about PodWheels PodWheels Powered by RadioNemo?
Our entire PodWheels Team is extremely grateful and humbled for being recognized as a Podcaster of the Month by Blubrry. As I noted, we have been working in podcasting for eight years running. It’s been both fun and challenging. To be selected for this type of honor by one of the leading podcast distribution networks in the world tells our team the journey we have taken has been worth every step, It also tells us that we are on target with what we have established on PodWheels.com, using Blubrry and WordPress as the infrastructure. We’re thrilled about the future and we know that we have the platform with Blubbry and WordPress that will allow us to grow with confidence that the systems we have in place are trusted and reliable.
At PodWheels, we are very proud of the processes we have established and the work that we do with clients and others to bring a podcast to life. As most people in podcasting know from the abandonment rates within podcast titles that can’t make it past five episodes, it’s not easy to consistently develop quality content. There are a long list of details that go into a quality production and keeping that podcast on its regular release schedule. This is one of the leading reasons so many podcast series ideas remain ideas and it’s also a huge reason for people walking away from a series after only a couple or just a handful of episodes.
Our team respects that podcast development can be challenging, but we also know it’s fun. We enjoy the challenge of bringing ideas to life. One of the greatest satisfaction points that comes from our work is to help our clients ease the grade of the hill that they have to climb in order to have podcasting become part of a company’s regular outreach. With the processes we have developed over the years, we can actually limit the direct involvement of a client’s time to one hour or less per month while covering everything that is needed to consistently deliver a quality production.
Lastly, on behalf of our entire PodWheels Team, I wanted to express my appreciation for this honor. I also want to thank you for the opportunity to reflect on more than 40 years in my career and how PodWheels has brought me full circle, doing something I really enjoy.
While we have been hammering away at podcasting for the past eight years, it still feels like we are just getting started on this adventure. What’s really cool is that I sincerely believe that the best is yet to come for PodWheels.