Hire Truckers Podcast

00:00 - 00:46
Aaron Craddock: You can become a top 1% user of AI in transportation and recruiting by just taking five minutes a day and doing that for about thirty days. And so today, I'm gonna talk you through how to become that top 1%. And so a little context. So so I'm gonna walk you through the road framework today, which is what I use and and what what we're deploying with our team, and I want you guys to walk alongside. So we're in the process of becoming an AI native organization.

00:46 - 01:08
Aaron Craddock: The new people we're bringing on, we want them to have at least a year of Claude experience just because that's our preferred use case. I use Grok, ChadGPT, Claude, just kind of a mix of tools. And so it really doesn't matter which tool you use. This road framework is gonna work for you. And so what is the road framework?

01:08 - 01:29
Aaron Craddock: So reality. So that's your situation, goals, history, resources, operator, role, expertise, perspective, standards, experience. So it's like, hey, I'm the director of recruiting. Hey, I'm the safety manager. Just giving it who you want the AI model to be as they answer the questions.

01:30 - 01:48
Aaron Craddock: And then ask. So that's interview, clarify, challenge, uncover, and understand, and then lastly, deliver. Format, priorities, actions, metrics, outcome. So I'm gonna go into more detail just to help you understand and just to remember road. So reality, operator, ask, and deliver.

01:48 - 02:07
Aaron Craddock: And so why does this matter? So most people ask a simple question to ChatGPT and just take the first answer. So, like, hey, help me write a LinkedIn post. Help me write an email on this topic. And then they might make a couple tweaks and say, this is what I wanna go with.

02:08 - 02:48
Aaron Craddock: Not a lot of back and forth. And so this is just a really powerful framework to think, to have AI ask you questions, have you actually slow down and think, and then you'll end up with a lot better output. I actually did that planning this show today. So, example, I said reality. I'm recording a podcast today, solo episode, And I'm really excited about a lot of the new AI developments and just all the momentum we have with our team implementing AI, both in product we're building and just in daily usage across teams, across operations, digital marketing, client success, sales, biz dev.

02:49 - 03:11
Aaron Craddock: We're just using it across the board. And so this is the framework I'm challenging my team to do, and I'm kind of challenging the industry to do. And the crazy thing is if you do this for thirty days, you're gonna be in that top one percent of users, of AI users in the world. Just with consistency, I had AI sanity check this. But yeah, just five minutes a day, follow this framework, and it's gonna get you there.

03:11 - 03:44
Aaron Craddock: And so that's the problem. So don't accept AI's first response. So the core promise we have today is if you do this for five minutes a day, for thirty minutes, you're just gonna completely level up what you can get done. So it's easy to just use AI to build something, and then you don't deploy it. It can get overly complex with launching agents and just building complex processes.

03:44 - 04:15
Aaron Craddock: Where really, what I'm thinking is like, how can everyone in the organization use AI on a daily basis and have optimal output? And so, one of the problems that AI has created, too, is that we're not thinking as much. We're just asking what we should do and then following that. And so this framework helps get you over that hurdle. So first, I'll give the example of what I did with the podcast today.

04:15 - 04:31
Aaron Craddock: So I said reality, like I'm recording an episode today. Like, here here's the goal. Here's the audience. Like, we typically service 500 plus executives that 500 plus truck fleets. Typically, audience, when we look at the metrics, is fleet executives.

04:31 - 04:54
Aaron Craddock: So anybody from CEO, VP, director level. And those are across recruiting, safety, recruiters, processors, really anything. It's kind of the whole gamut. Also other industry partners and just different people in our network. So that's the general audience of the show that continues to grow really, really fast.

04:55 - 05:24
Aaron Craddock: And that's who we're speaking today. And then operator. So I said, assume you're the CEO of a rapidly growing driver recruiting company, Hire Truckers, and you want to add as much value as possible to the market. And then I said, what I want you to do, and this is the important part. So this is if you write down anything from the whole show, which I would encourage you to take notes, is write down ask.

05:25 - 06:01
Aaron Craddock: So we did reality, R, O operator, now ask. So this is where the magic comes in of the whole process, is I say, ask me five questions, and ask me only one at a time, and just to get a better output. And then I say, what I want you to deliver, is the D, is a concise outline. And like in my case, where I was like, hey, I don't want more than five words and two bullet points in each section, because I don't want to just be reading off a script. And so that's the end goal.

06:01 - 06:31
Aaron Craddock: And so then AI proceeded to and this only took five minutes to ask me questions like, hey, if you want to talk about autonomous trucking So I didn't even know I was going to talk about this framework today. Said, Hey, if you wanna talk about autonomous trucking, do you wanna talk about industry dynamics and changes in freight and the AI build out? Do you wanna talk about AI? What excites you to talk about? And I was like, Okay, AI.

06:32 - 07:01
Aaron Craddock: Then the second question it went through and asked me, it was like, Hey, do you want to talk about AI in recruiting? Do you want to talk about this, this, this? And what I did with each response, so I gave it the letter, because it asked me multiple choice questions. I was using ChatGPT today for this exercise. Again, doesn't matter what model you use, even an open source Chinese model, or using the newest Claude model, or Grok, or ChadGPT.

07:01 - 07:23
Aaron Craddock: Like, I'm subscribed to Grok, because there's so many new models coming out. Grok, ChadGPT, and Claude. And our team is mainly using Claude. And then it proceeded to ask me three more questions, and then I asked some questions back. And then it gave me just an incredible outline.

07:23 - 07:43
Aaron Craddock: Because I kind of knew what I wanted to cover today, but I didn't have the road example. I didn't even have the road framework until this episode today. And then again, this is something I'm going to roll out with my team just as an exercise. And I encourage any recruiter to do. And so again, I'm going go over the framework.

07:43 - 08:14
Aaron Craddock: So R is reality. As I'm doing this, I'm going to give another example. So the reality is I'm not following up like, I'm not following up with the right drivers, and some of these drivers are dropping off, taking other offers. They're not showing up for orientation, and I really don't know what to do. So operator, you're a recruiter at a 1,500 truck enterprise fleet with 20 other recruiters.

08:14 - 08:46
Aaron Craddock: You have twenty years experience with being one of the top recruiters. Your perspective is you're very tech savvy and wanna be on the cutting edge. Your standards are, hey, we only hire x driver that fits this persona. And then and then then you go into ask. And you can even paste road reality operator ask deliver.

08:46 - 09:03
Aaron Craddock: Like, I'll post this on socials for you guys to to follow. And then you go into the ask section. So you're like, hey, here's the challenge. Or I want you to you heard my challenge from today. I want you to ask me five questions one at a time.

09:03 - 09:24
Aaron Craddock: And it can be three questions. It can be five questions. It doesn't really matter. But let's say for this exercise, five minutes, five questions. So ask me five questions, and then my output is like, what is one thing I should do differently today to improve how many hires I'm bringing on, let's just say for recruiter example.

09:24 - 09:42
Aaron Craddock: And so that's gonna be the deliverable. So then you go through the questions. One, two, three, four, five. And you'll be surprised by the time you get to the end of that question asking process. Like, you'll have an idea that you hadn't even thought of.

09:42 - 10:05
Aaron Craddock: Like, again, I literally use this framework today for this podcast and have the road method. So reality operator, ask, deliver. So next, I'm gonna go to another example. Because I know a lot of CEOs, fleet executives listen to this. And I would encourage you if your executive doesn't listen to our show, isn't subscribed yet, shoot this over to them.

10:06 - 10:45
Aaron Craddock: Everybody's always looking to improve their business, hire more experienced drivers, improve operational efficiency, improve safety scores, things like that. There are a million use cases, but your executives will have their own frames. So example, for the executive, Hey, I had costs spike in my business, and margins are down this month. That's the reality. Our goals are to be 20% more profitable than we were last month.

10:46 - 11:28
Aaron Craddock: Our history is we've been in business for seventy five years, and just insurance costs are going up, and safety and compliance costs are going up, personnel costs are going up, and resources. We have an in house CFO that can take action. We have multiple accounting members that can take action. And then operator. You are operating an enterprise fleet with 2,500 trucks, and you are the CEO visionary leader of this organization, ultimately responsible.

11:32 - 12:37
Aaron Craddock: And I want you to ask me five questions about this particular problem, And with the aim of the deliverable being, so the deliverable, three actions I can take today leveraging our team to right the ship. So then, as the CEO, as the VP, as a director, can think about this in your own as I'm giving each of these examples, think about this in your own use case. And so, you go through that, and then it's gonna give you, believe it or not, two or three actionable things where you could talk with your team and make a change. And it's gonna be things that you hadn't thought of. And so, the challenge is with all of these LLMs that we're using, and the way most people are using them, not the top 1%, which you're about to be by just taking five minutes a day for thirty days, is that they just take a simple answer.

12:37 - 13:10
Aaron Craddock: And so, it's gonna if you say, Hey, let's say in that exact use case we just did we did two use cases. So the recruiter, Hey, what's something I can improve today with recruiting? And it's going to give you a really generic answer, like get back to leads faster, because we know that that's going to impact your hire rate. You're like, well, I'm using my every single waking minute I have, and I have to answer calls and do this other thing. So again, it's just kinda non helpful information.

13:10 - 13:58
Aaron Craddock: And then in the C level executive or VP level fleet owner, that example, same thing. Without context, it's just gonna say cut costs. Really an overly broad thing that's gonna be right, but it's not gonna be something you haven't thought of before. So if you want something that isn't something you've thought of before and become just an AI power user, like we're doing at Hire Truckers, like we have everyone on the team just becoming AI native, just what that means for us as we continue to enter this new era that's just now beginning. Yeah, I just encourage you to start today and commit to the five minutes a day.

13:59 - 14:24
Aaron Craddock: So we're coming up on the end of our fifteen minutes for this episode. And I wanted to keep this concise for you guys and actionable. So again, we're gonna be top 1% is what we want to become. And we're gonna take five minutes a day, and which you're likely already using ChatGPT for just random things. Take five minutes a day, and we're going to do this for thirty days.

14:24 - 14:47
Aaron Craddock: And yes, I even mean on weekends. Because there's going to be something with how do you Like example, I had with one of our kids getting sick, I'm like, Hey, here's this approach. When should I take him to the hospital? I'm just always using it. And it's very helpful.

14:47 - 15:11
Aaron Craddock: And so start today, repeat it for thirty days. All you gotta do is paste in this road framework that we have in the description. I'll just have R, reality, five words to describe the context, O, operator, A, ask, and D, deliver. So challenge to you guys is just try this road framework five minutes a day for thirty days. It'll change your life.

15:11 - 16:04
Aaron Craddock: I know for our team, as we're implementing things like this, we're doubling, tripling just the level of service we can provide to our clients. We're doubling and tripling the level of product that we can move and provide for our clients. Yeah, mean, amazing where we spent millions of dollars investing into the Hire Truckers platform, just the initial version, and testing, and running through the beta testing process, and all that. And now, we can spin up something like that, that required $6.07 figures in development and investment, and deploy it to help our fleets recruit drivers more efficiently. And yeah, it's just so cool, the era we live in today.

16:04 - 16:55
Aaron Craddock: And I know for me, I need these simple frameworks like ROAD to go through and not be overwhelmed by the 100 AI tools that I could be using, but just, Hey, I'm gonna use the most basic Claude model five minutes a day, and just know that I'm getting better and learning. And it's training this process. The Road Framework will train you just how to think about problems and how to use the tools we have at our disposal. So yeah, these tools are getting cheaper. As you saw, you've probably seen the new GWEN open source Chinese model put out by Moonshots that's arguably as good as Fable on certain things.

16:56 - 17:14
Aaron Craddock: And so as these things continue to accelerate and become more accessible, we need everyone on our teams being competent. And yeah, so be a first mover in the industry. Send this to your team. Send this to other recruiters. Send this to peers in your industry.

17:17 - 17:41
Aaron Craddock: This really will help you guys and change things. And so I've used this framework for a while now, but not every single day. And so I am committing with you guys to use this over the next thirty days, and I'll be posting on social some of the use cases and how I'm deploying it. I encourage you guys to do the same. Comment how this helps you.

17:41 - 17:56
Aaron Craddock: So anyways, guys, that's it. I encourage you guys to join the Road Challenge. That is just five minutes a day for thirty days using this framework. So hope you guys have a great week. I hope you got value from this episode.

17:56 - 17:57
Aaron Craddock: I'll talk to you later.