“Prison Break! How the Owners of One Oilfield Trucking Company discovered the Secret to Growing their Business without being Chained to their Desks 24-7”

Many business owners are virtual prisoners to their businesses. The Siegrists were one such couple, chained to their business, and struggling to survive the avalanche of information that they needed to deal with, just to keep up every day. Until they discovered the secret that broke their chains and set them free. Jean Siegrist and her husband James own and operate Conservative Trucking, an oilfield hauler based out of Crosby, North Dakota. They started their company in 2010 with one truck and grew rapidly. At the time of this interview, they operate more than 40 trucks – a combination of company-owned and owner operators – providing services to the oil patch.

Jean spoke to us about their Axon Software experience.

What led you to start looking for trucking software to help manage your company?
“There was so much going on and everything was moving so fast that we knew we had to develop some kind of a structure. We were just keeping track of everything on whiteboards. We knew we had to move to an electronic system that was more mobile and where everybody had access to what was going on.

“We had a couple of problems. We needed a system, and we also figured that we were going to have to hire somebody because we were way overwhelmed and scattered. We were planning to hire a consultant to come in to review everything and help us decide on what kind of software but my husband wanted to do some of his own legwork and research first.

“Fortunately, we stumbled on Axon’s site and contacted them.

“Our Axon rep, Johnny, took us through an online demonstration. He showed us that it was definitely geared towards what we were doing and that it was going to be able to do more than we ever thought we needed in a trucking software system.

“It took over jobs that we thought we might have to hire people for – because we didn’t have a clue. We knew that we needed help, but we had no idea how much a program could do – where it would actually replace jobs.
“When we talked to our rep, he said, ‘Just give me the chance to show you what this can do and, if you still feel that you need a consultant to come in, then you can do it at that time.’
“And in all honesty, having the Axon Software representative do that saved us thousands of dollars because I didn’t even need a consultant to come into my office at all.”

Time for vacations!

“Axon took tons of time off my husband’s and my shoulders. It saved us tons of time so we were able to continue to focus on the things we needed to do to keep growing and were not just scrambling to survive. So yes, it’s done more than I can ever say for our company.

“We actually took a few vacations. Before Axon, my husband was running the company, and he didn’t go anywhere. He skipped vacations. I went on vacation with our kids, but he skipped everything.

“So this year I actually got him out of the office because Axon has made us mobile as well.

“As owners I can actually get away and I can sit down in my camper, pull out my laptop, access my account, and pay my people and have full view of what’s going on in the office. Without it, there’s no way I would be getting him to go anywhere for more than a weekend.

“It’s a really big deal. And it just keeps getting better.

“I don’t even know if you comprehend what Axon has done for our company’s productivity. I probably could never have hired a secretary to help me because I don’t know if I could have trusted anybody with everything that they would have needed to know in order to do that job.

“Now there's an almost foolproof system. I can go in and check – everything is live so I can see everything that’s going on. I can double-check things that they’re doing without them having to hand things over. I don’t have to be here all the time.

“As the owners, we don’t need to be here holding hands and watching everything and checking everything over because we can actually be away and check things.

“There’s less management that’s needed. We have a staff that can manage a lot on their own now. There's more communication and a little less chaos because everybody’s on the same page – and that’s the Axon page.

“I just feel like, where maybe before I would have had to hire a manager to help us, Axon actually is kind of the manager because it’s telling us everything that we need.

“It’s telling our employees how to fill everything out, and that’s basically taken over a manager’s spot. So even with management it’s made a difference.”

Out of all the features that the system offers, is there something that stands out for you?
“I like all of it. Without one piece you wouldn’t have another, I guess. Before this, James was only passing on so much of the workload each month. A lot of the stuff that he was doing was this crazy mess he could only trust with himself because it wasn’t linked together. So when we got the system I was finally able to help him.

“With Axon, because everything is linked together and because it’s made it so easy to do the job, it frees up my husband’s time.

“Axon has been able to help us enter tickets way faster than we had ever done before. The efficiency is huge. We’re looking at having not only a time savings but an error rate of way less than we had before. When we’re entering things into different systems and transferring information, there’s a huge margin of error and now we have been able to eliminate that.

“What we were doing before took us three times as long to do and it was only half as accurate. The way that information flows through the system, from the job orders all the way to paying an employee to billing the customer, having everything just completely tied together in one system, is the biggest feature in itself.

“Axon has allowed us to invoice as often as we would like. As soon as we enter the information, as soon as we get the truck out, we’re starting that invoice, so once we wrap that up, we’re able to invoice immediately. There aren’t all these steps in between.

“Being connected from the time that you book somebody out, to the time their ticket gets here, until we invoice it – it flows right through and saves so much time because everything’s tied together. It’s just so efficient.”

Do you have an idea of the return on investment you are getting with Axon?
“What Axon has been able to provide is so big that it’s going to give for years and years and years.

“When we’re talking about saving money, we’re talking about possibly saving our company as a whole. Because you can have only so many errors before the client says, ‘This isn’t working, and we need to move on to somebody that has their stuff together.’ So that is millions of dollars that you’re looking at that that client just walked away with and gave to somebody else. So that’s the biggest key.

“Then we have employee turnover and training costs because it’s just too chaotic to sustain a good structure for them. With employees, you can only have so many errors, you know. If there are payroll problems or things like that, you can only expect someone to hang on for so long.

“So internally and externally, I’m looking at a lot of money [that Axon is saving us].”

What would you tell another manager who is considering a new system about Axon?

“Oh, I would tell them there’s no question or doubt at all. From the time we started the process of looking at Axon, it’s blown me out of the water. And it continues to. I like the way that Axon does business, the structure that supports the software. Our staff love it. James absolutely loves it. So do I. I absolutely love it, and I support it 100%.
The software can almost sell itself because it’s wonderful, and it’s very fitting. And with Axon’s team behind it, and with all the new innovations they make, it makes it even more recommendable. So I wouldn’t have any question or doubt in telling them to get it.

“I would strongly recommend it. I can’t imagine running a business without it. I really can’t.”

 

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