The Journey Podcast

Mike Riccio, Work the Plan: What Brokerage Owners Miss as They Scale

Episode Summary

Mike Riccio, Founder of More Than Miles Consulting and Co-Founder of Open Road Ventures, joins Will Jenkins to talk about scaling a freight brokerage, building a business plan your team can follow, and preparing for growth or an eventual exit. Mike brings nearly four decades in transportation, including helping build Leonard’s Express and later working directly with brokerage owners through More Than Miles Consulting. He explains why owners sometimes need to slow down before moving faster, define where the business is going, reverse engineer the steps to get there, and stay focused when day-to-day problems start pulling the team off course. They also talk about getting employees connected to the bigger direction of the company, freight brokerage acquisitions through Open Road Ventures, succession planning, business valuation, partial exits, and what owners should think about before selling.

Episode Notes

Mike Riccio, Founder of More Than Miles Consulting and Co-Founder of Open Road Ventures, joins Will Jenkins to talk about scaling a freight brokerage, building a business plan your team can follow, and preparing for growth or an eventual exit.

Mike brings nearly four decades in transportation, including helping build Leonard’s Express and later working directly with brokerage owners through More Than Miles Consulting. He explains why owners sometimes need to slow down before moving faster, define where the business is going, reverse engineer the steps to get there, and stay focused when day-to-day problems start pulling the team off course.

They also talk about getting employees connected to the bigger direction of the company, freight brokerage acquisitions through Open Road Ventures, succession planning, business valuation, partial exits, and what owners should think about before selling.

 

CHAPTERS:

00:00 Meet Mike Riccio

01:05 Nearly 40 years in trucking

04:24 From family business to consulting

06:11 Helping brokerage owners avoid common mistakes

09:30 Why simple processes work

12:50 Setting the vision before scaling

14:42 Control what you can control

16:46 Turning goals into a plan

17:46 Slow down to speed up

19:05 Getting employees connected to the plan

21:39 Open Road Ventures and freight brokerage acquisitions

23:57 How the Open Road Ventures model works

29:48 Finding the right acquisition partner

35:36 Preparing for a partial or full exit

 

FIND MIKE:

LISTEN TO THE JOURNEY PODCAST: