For many freight professionals, there comes a point when they realize they’re already thinking and working like business owners. The only thing missing is the opportunity to actually build a business of their own, on their own terms. That’s exactly where Tallgrass agent Kyle found himself after years in the corporate world.
Today, he’s running a thriving agency, leading a team of his own and creating a career that supports both his professional goals and the life he wants outside of work. Take a look at Kyle’s journey of growth and how TGF has supported him every step of the way — and see how your future at Tallgrass can start today.
Where He Was: Life Before Tallgrass
For more than a decade, Kyle worked on the corporate side of freight. Year after year, he watched his commission shrink — from 19% to 10% to 5% — while the expectations placed on him only continued to grow.
“After a while, I realized that this was just an endless hamster wheel that they’re going to keep wanting you to run and spin on,” Kyle shares.
He knew there had to be a better way, but he wasn’t exactly sure where to begin. “I honestly didn’t even know the agent model existed,” he reflects. So he did what most of us would do: he opened Google. A few quick searches led him to Tallgrass and a conversation with one of our recruiters.
During that first call, the recruiter explained Tallgrass’s agent compensation model, where agents keep the majority of what they earn. Coming from a world of shrinking commissions, Kyle assumed the split worked the other way around.
“I was coming from a shrinking commission structure, so my immediate thought was, yeah, that’s a sweet deal,” he laughed. “Then to find out I’d actually be the one taking home the bulk of the pay? That really felt like a breath of fresh air.”
Where He Is Today: Growing with Tallgrass
Now that Kyle is a year and a half in, he has nothing but good things to say. Sure, the higher split certainly doesn’t hurt, and Kyle has seen this make a big impact on his lifestyle! But what Kyle says has made the biggest difference has been the ownership opportunity that’s come with the role.
Kyle already took an ownership perspective in his career, he says. “I really had that mindset of this is my business, these are my customers, this is my responsibility, the buck stops with me,” he says. “But I just wasn’t getting paid for it!”
Bringing that mindset into Tallgrass set him up for success form day one. “If you bring that mindset in when you discover an agency program like Tallgrass, nothing really changes — except for your paycheck.” And for Kyle, that change was, of course, a welcome one.
He grew his book fast. Maybe even a little too fast, according to Kyle, hitting $100K a month in net revenue in just a few months. So he made a deliberate choice to scale back ever so slightly. “I love scuba diving and being out on a boat; that’s my meditation. That’s my happy place.” Missing out on that time, he says, would mean missing the mark on living life.
“I love that Tallgrass never blinked when I decided to pull back on the throttle a little bit. They were like, okay, if that’s what’s best for you and your book and your family, then go for it.”
Kyle now leads a team of three team members of his own. He likes to think about it in terms he picked up from his own sales philosophy: hunting and farming. Two team members are out hunting, chasing down new business, while the third is tending the crops, keeping existing accounts happy and growing. Kyle likes to think of himself as a bit of both, as some days he’s out hunting, and other days he’s back home farming, depending on what the book needs.
Support That Goes Beyond Freight
Kyle points to Tallgrass’s back office as one of its biggest strengths, especially compared to what he’s heard from friends at other agencies who traded support for a bigger split. “If they don’t have an immediate answer for you, they’ll get an answer. I think that’s super underappreciated.”
From credit checks and carrier vetting to fielding invoice-related questions directly with customers, the back office handles so many administrative tasks that Kyle never has to think twice about. He’s found the same to be true of our market updates, which help him stay ahead of industry shifts rather than scrambling to react when it’s too late. For instance, when the news broke about the C.H. Robinson verdict, Kyle says Tallgrass was already a step ahead with compliance and best practices to thrive.
Roundtables have been a big part of that too. At a Kansas City Roundtable, Kyle sat in on a session with an accountant who walked through tax strategy, covering things like write-offs, mileage and home office deductions. Those key learnings were so transformational that he set up an S-corp and a SEP retirement account as soon as he was back home. Then the Mini Roundtable closer to his home base in Tampa, where he got to swap notes with another agency team that has eight employees, allowed him to pick their brains on everything from pay scales to benefits to hiring.
Kyle’s also found something he didn’t expect from all this: a genuine support system. He meets weekly with a small group of fellow agents to talk through wins, losses and life in general. “There’s this level of honesty and transparency that I really admire. Nobody’s trying to be perfect or hide anything. And all that openness really starts at the top with people like Sean and Bob. It means something when you see how leadership acts like real people and how invested they are in all of us.”
Ready When You Are
Kyle’s story is a reminder that at Tallgrass, you get to decide what success looks like for you. Whether that means scaling up to a team of your own or keeping things simple enough to make it out on the boat by 3:00 on a Friday, Tallgrass is built to support agents wherever they want to land. To learn more about joining our team and building both the career and lifestyle you deserve, reach out to us today.