Troy Wiley on Navigating Atlanta’s Logistics Boom

In this episode, host Mark Mann sits down with Troy Wiley, Atlanta General Manager of Advantage Trailer Rentals, a Warehouse on Wheels brand, to talk about the Atlanta trailer market, why companies there are filling their buildings to the brink before taking on more space, and how storage trailers cut demurrage and free up room inside a building. Troy describes a retail wholesaler that had spent $300,000 in demurrage by midsummer before adopting his dock-clearing method, a distiller that cooked bourbon in a 48-foot trailer, and a tier 2 automotive supplier using 60 trailers to move between warehouses.

Key Takeaways

1. Atlanta companies are filling their buildings to the brink first. A friend of Troy’s with 30 years in commercial real estate told him companies are taking their inventory and manufacturing right to the brink before stepping into a bigger building, to keep their costs under control. That is where WOW fits in, with enough trailers to relieve a building that is maxed out. Meanwhile, spec buildings of 700,000 to 1.2 million square feet are going up along I-85, and a few finished within 5 miles of Troy’s yard are still empty.
2. A tariff-driven container surge put 35 trailers on Troy’s lot. At the end of last year, in what Troy calls a race against the tariffs, one customer was stripping its incoming containers straight into WOW trailers. WOW provided lot storage for 35 of those trailers, the customer had another 10, and a competitor held another 14.
3. An empty trailer between two containers clears a dock fast. A retail wholesaler with only 35 dock doors couldn’t unload its containers fast enough. By midsummer it had spent $300,000 in demurrage, with 12 containers always sitting on the lot and product in the aisles. Troy walked in on a cold call and showed the plant manager a method he learned running warehouses in California 20 years ago: an empty trailer with a container on each side. The customer adopted it and was soon turning containers back to the steamship lines.
4. A trailer costs less than paying demurrage to the steamship lines. Troy puts demurrage at $75 to $150 a day, and says what a customer spends in two days pays for a trailer for the month. Customers keep trailers for as long as they need them: “If you need them for a week, we’ll give them to you a week. You need them for six months, we’ll give them six months.” If the volume ebbs and flows within that time, WOW adds or takes away trailers to match.
5. Slow-moving C product is the first stock to put in a trailer. Troy suggests moving aging stock with no orders against it into trailers, and assigning each trailer number as a location in the warehouse management system so the product never loses visibility. If more than 20% of a warehouse is C product, he says, moving it opens up much more space and reduces cost. To size the need, count the pallets in the aisles: a standard 53-foot trailer holds 26 skids, single stack.

Episode Chapters

Click any timestamp to jump to that section on YouTube.

• 00:00 — Headed to Atlanta, the logistics hub of the South
• 00:33 — Infrastructure projects + the 2026 FIFA World Cup impact
• 00:58 — Meet Troy Wiley (Atlanta GM)
• 01:59 — Troy’s path into logistics and trailers
• 02:34 — What a “normal day” looks like in Atlanta
• 03:44 — What FIFA could mean for short-term demand
• 05:03 — Territory coverage (Chattanooga to South GA, SC/AL lines)
• 05:51 — Why customers still feel out of space
• 08:30 — “Race against tariffs” container surge + lot storage
• 09:33 — Coaching leaders to see trailers as strategy
• 10:58 — EV suppliers: storing crates, casings, raw materials
• 12:04 — The demurrage problem and the “dock clearing” approach
• 14:15 — Imports, Savannah, and the inland port plan (Gainesville)
• 15:21 — What changes in the first 48 hours
• 17:34 — The demurrage math: trailer vs. container costs
• 19:37 — The “C product” method + WMS trailer locations
• 22:03 — Quick trailer count: pallets per 53’ dry van
• 23:32 — Unusual use case: cooking bourbon
• 25:00 — Best cost-saving story: transition with 60 trailers
• 28:45 — Mentor advice: accountability with kindness
• 29:26 — Myth to retire: trailers can increase efficiency overall
• 30:19 — What to do this week (reach out)

Transcript

[00:00] Headed to Atlanta, the logistics hub of the South

Mark Mann: Welcome back to The Wow Factor. I’m your host, Dr. Mark Mann. On this episode of The Wow Factor, we head to the logistics hub of the South, Atlanta, Georgia. The ATL remains one of the most critical distribution markets in the country and is currently undergoing a mid-cycle recalibration, with industrial vacancy rates stabilizing around 9.6% earlier this year.

[00:33] Infrastructure projects + the 2026 FIFA World Cup impact

Mark Mann: Today’s guest operates in a market that serves as the gateway to the Southeast, with major infrastructure projects such as the Rapid A-Line and the expansion of the I-75 and I-85 corridors. His team provides the essential flex space for a city that is always preparing for global events like the upcoming 2026 FIFA World Cup.

[00:58] Meet Troy Wiley (Atlanta GM)

Mark Mann: Troy Wiley, General Manager for Advantage Trailer Rentals in Atlanta, welcome to the Factor.

Troy Wiley: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Mark Mann: Troy, we’re going to dive into how your customers are navigating this massive infrastructure boom. But first, I want everyone to get to know you and your location. So, the first question is a softball, no pun intended. Are you or are you not a Braves fan?

Troy Wiley: Sort of. Born in Michigan, always followed the Tigers, but yes, I do root for the Braves.

Mark Mann: Yeah. So, I asked that because I interviewed Brian Bladen last week and asked him about the Detroit Lions, and he said, “I don’t know. I’m an Indianapolis Colts fan.” So, nobody’s from here.

Troy Wiley: Yeah, that’s true.

Mark Mann: So, you lead one of the most high-velocity markets in the WOW network. How did you first find your way into this world of yards and trailers and southeastern logistics?

[01:59] Troy’s path into logistics and trailers

Troy Wiley: I’ve always had my career in logistics, of one shape, form, mode or whatever. But then I was given the opportunity, about, oh, going on two years, to get into this business, which is one I’d never been in, and it looked interesting, challenging, and I didn’t have to do as much traveling as I used to do. So it hit home for me.

Mark Mann: Excellent. So, between the busy docks in South Atlanta and manufacturing surges on I-75 North, what does a normal day look like for you in the market?

[02:34] What a “normal day” looks like in Atlanta

Troy Wiley: The market here is, as I said, it’s stabilizing. There’s opportunities out there. We’re not as well known as the other players in the Atlanta market. We’re growing. The hard part is just getting in there and getting our name known and getting involved with some of those opportunities. But what’s nice about the South and the Southeast, there’s so much automotive industry moving here. The tier 2, tier 3, lots of manufacturing, and some of it’s off the beaten path.

So, the market, like the Atlanta market, it used to be, when I first moved here, it was nine metro counties. Now, it’s 13. So it’s a very large market, and that only take— it doesn’t even take you down to Macon. So, it’s a very large market.

Mark Mann: You know, it’s funny, when I talked to Brian Bladen from Detroit last week, you think of Detroit, you think of automotive, like the Big Three, but most of his customers are retail, right? So with Atlanta preparing for massive international attention in 2026, how has the city’s growth changed the way the local businesses think about their footprint?

[03:44] What FIFA could mean for short-term demand

Troy Wiley: Well, like FIFA, we— I mean, I was here when the Olympics were here, and that changed a lot for the city of Atlanta. They did a lot of things for the city of Atlanta. FIFA coming in, it’s only here, I think it’s here like mid-June to mid-July. And there’s like eight or 10 games. So, it’s a very short window, but watching the news this morning, they’re anticipating a half a million people to come in for a month. So, it’ll be very busy. The buildup to it, very large.

How much is it going to affect my business? That is yet to be determined, because it’s such a short window. It’s going to be short needs, if we can figure out who needs it. I mean, you look at it, it’s going to be food industry is going to be very big. Beverage industry is going to be very big. You know, T-shirts and all that product that’s going to come in, but that’s typically smaller-type shipments than that. So, you know, we’ll do our due diligence and try and find some business out there, but it’s going to come in quick. But the rest of the business around Atlanta, I’m seeing it’s cooled off a little bit, but we’re starting to grow on some construction site opportunities in that.

Mark Mann: Excellent. So, let’s give listeners an idea of your territory. You’re in Atlanta, but tell me about the territory, because I’m guessing that you serve customers as far north as Chattanooga, as far south as the Georgia line. Is that right?

[05:03] Territory coverage (Chattanooga to South GA, SC/AL lines)

Troy Wiley: Correct. Yeah, if you looked at my current customer base, they’re all within 70 miles of where I am, but I actually have a few trailers with one customer, a national retailer. They actually have trailers down in Tampa that are ours. I have a few that are subleased out for another customer. They’re actually in Baltimore. But where I target my opportunities and contacts is from Chattanooga to down, typically, Macon, Unadilla, which is 80, 90, 100 miles south of here, over to the South Carolina state line and then into the Alabama state line.

Mark Mann: Earlier you mentioned something about the market cooling a little bit, but Atlanta’s industrial vacancy has climbed to its highest point since 2022.

[05:51] Why customers still feel out of space

Mark Mann: In your daily conversations, why are customers still feeling out of space even when the data says the market’s cooling?

Troy Wiley: I think what we’re seeing— because I have a close friend of mine that’s been in the commercial real estate side for 30 years, and I was having a conversation with him last week, and what he’s seeing is they’re not stepping— they’re filling up what they have. So they’re not taking down that extra space. So they are literally taking their inventories, their manufacturing, right to the brink before they step into a bigger building, a new building and that. So they’re kind of controlling their cost on that.

And that’s kind of where we fall into that industry: they don’t want to step into a new building to take on that extra expense. So maybe we can do something, provide them enough pieces of equipment that can subsidize and relieve some of that pain, that they’re maxed out within their building.

Mark Mann: Right. So, we’re seeing a record wave of big-box deliveries kind of colliding with softer demand. What would you say are the three biggest space headaches that your Atlanta customers are facing right now?

Troy Wiley: Some of the customers that I’ve talked to, they’re in that smaller building going into a larger building. That’s one issue we’re seeing. But they’re also building. There’s so many spec buildings that they’re building, whether it’s out 85 to the south, up 85 to the north. There’s a lot of buildings and they’re all being built. They’re all, we’ll say, 700,000 to 1.2 million square feet. And there’s no customers in them yet. They just finished a few that are within 5 miles of us. They’re empty. Parking lots are clean. But obviously they built them, so there’s plans for something to come here in the future.

And then, you know, there’s other industry that they’re still building, like the Hyundai Kia electric plant, which is up near Rome, Georgia and Cartersville. That’s on 400 acres of land. It’s a massive facility, but it’s only 25 to 30% built right now. So, it’s got a ways to go. So, I mean, there’s lots of industry that’s moving in here. You’ve got so many automotive plants that were built here within the last 5 to 8 years.

Mark Mann: Yeah. So, let’s talk about submarkets, because you mentioned Rome and Cartersville, right? You’ve got Kennesaw and Acworth. We’re seeing availability jump in those areas to like 13%. Tell me about a recent week where a customer in one of those high-growth areas realized that, even with new buildings going up, like you’ve said, they need a mobile storage solution today.

[08:30] “Race against tariffs” container surge + lot storage

Troy Wiley: Yeah, I had one. It was end of year last year. They had a high influx of containers coming in, because it was a race against the tariffs, and I was able to provide them— as they were stripping containers, just put them in the trailers, and then we did some lot storage for them, and they also stored other ones on their lot as well. So, you know, that was one situation where we were able to provide them— we gave them 35 trailers to store on our lot. They also had another 10. Then they had a competitor that had another 14 on there. So, you know, they had upwards of close to 100 trailers in at their peak when they were importing.

Mark Mann: A lot of leaders still see storage trailers as a temporary fix for a messy yard, right? It’s that band-aid. Now, you’ve helped customers avoid the trap of signing long-term warehouse leases in a fluctuating market. I’ve heard stories about that. How do you coach an Atlanta operations manager to see mobile storage as a strategic choice rather than just that temporary band-aid?

[09:33] Coaching leaders to see trailers as strategy

Troy Wiley: Yeah, some of the discussions you got to have is, if it’s a production facility, are the machines— are they running two or three operations, are they maxed out on their production? Is their warehouse, or wherever they store their products, are those maxed out? If they’re getting close to that limit, but they don’t want— they can get executives to buy off on the next space, because the executives could see the orders farther out, that this is a short-term need.

That’s where it’s not the easiest sell, but you can give them options and say, “Look, you can go take a temporary building down, or you can go into temporary trailers and lock them in tight on a yard and use as little space as possible until that wave of production or need or capacity or whatever has passed by,” and then they just give them back to us when they’re done with it. So, you know, it’s kind of a math game. And it lends itself well to those that are having high production, low space ability, without the approval to expand. So, the option is the trailer.

Mark Mann: Absolutely. We often compare Atlanta’s automotive growth to Detroit, and you mentioned the automotive industry earlier. How did the needs of an EV supplier in Georgia differ from the traditional manufacturers you see in other parts of the country?

[10:58] EV suppliers: storing crates, casings, raw materials

Troy Wiley: Working with one of the EV suppliers out east of here. He’s using our trailers. They do the remanufacturing of the batteries for the cars. And what he’s doing is he’s storing all of the crates that they put them in, because he needs his space to store the batteries inside. The wood is not temperamental to temperature, hot, cold, or humidity. So he’s storing his product, the crates that the batteries go in for shipping it back to the dealerships. That’s what he’s using ours for.

I’ve got another battery manufacturer that’s up 85 from us, and he’s using us again to store lumber and casings and whatever they need, just the raw materials that he needs the space for in the warehouse.

Mark Mann: Yeah. That saves them space, and it saves them time in the long run, too. Walk me through a time when a customer was ready to commit to one of those big expensive buildings that we talked about, right? The lease in Fulton County or somewhere else, and you showed them how a drop lot strategy could really save their budget.

[12:04] The demurrage problem and the “dock clearing” approach

Troy Wiley: Yeah, this was a retailer— there was a retailer wholesaler. Their products are sold at Home Depot and Lowe’s and Target and TJ Maxx. But what they were having is they weren’t unloading containers fast enough. They had so many containers coming in that they just couldn’t keep up. They only had 35 dock doors to work with. So I just did a cold call, walked in there, introduced myself to the plant manager. We had a good discussion on what they’re doing.

And I used to run some warehouses out in California, and I gave them some ideas on how they can alleviate the pain of what they were doing on the demurrage, because when I met them it was midsummer and they had already spent $300,000 in demurrage, because they had 12 containers always sitting on the lot. They just couldn’t turn them fast, and they had products sitting in the aisles, all the things that the fire marshals don’t want to see.

So I said, “Look, here’s some options. Let’s look at what we can do.” And I showed them what I used to do in California, how to use an empty trailer and you put a container on each side, and how to clean out a dock very quickly. And they adopted that thing that I learned 20 years ago. And then we quickly got them up to speed on turning containers over and getting them back to the steamship lines. So, you know, that was one that really worked well and worked as planned.

Mark Mann: You know, Atlanta is quickly becoming like Orlando and Las Vegas. They’re always hosting something. With global investments pouring into the city, have you seen those panic calls from businesses that realize that their current site could not handle the temporary surge in inventory?

Troy Wiley: Yeah. And I’ve seen that, and I’ve also seen, because of the tariff issues we had last year, they had a large influx of containers coming in in a very short window. So that created issues for them. And what I saw was facilities that were in older buildings, they’d been there for years and they didn’t have the ability to get to a larger building. Now, there’s been a few that have moved to bigger buildings, and we had them as customers, and since they went to a bigger space, they no longer needed our product, and that’s okay. I mean, we’re there to support them when they fill that one up.

[14:15] Imports, Savannah, and the inland port plan (Gainesville)

Troy Wiley: But the import side is, with the Port of Savannah being as large as it is, and the amount of volume, and, you know, we’re only four hours from Savannah, there’s a lot of influx of import that goes through Atlanta that is either offloaded here or transloaded here, as well as down in the port.

Mark Mann: Yes. You got the port of Atlanta, you got Mobile, you got some of the ports in Florida that all feed up into your area.

Troy Wiley: Yeah. And one thing to add to that, Mark, is one thing that the state of Georgia is doing is they’re building an inland port up north of Gainesville, which, what that means is they will take the containers, put them on train from the Port of Savannah, bring them up to Gainesville, and then strip them from there, and then sort them out. So, I mean, they’re expediting— getting some of the tractors off the road.

Mark Mann: And there’s a lot of strategy in that, and that’s something that we really want, the mindset to change, is let’s create a strategy rather than that hair-on-fire band-aid stuff, right?

[15:21] What changes in the first 48 hours

Mark Mann: So, what do you think changes for a crisis customer in the first 48 hours after your team lands and a fleet of 53-foot dry vans are on their lot?

Troy Wiley: They will now have the ability to alleviate some of the pain that they have going on, whether it’s product or WIP or whatever they have going on inside their building. It will give them working space, and then from there we can work with them on leaving the trailers on the yard, spotting them somewhere on their yard, bring them back here. So there’s options, what they need, and flexibility, having a large enough yard to either bring their product back, or if they’ve got a large enough yard they could still leave it, and then we can work with them on moving the trailers around when they need them.

Mark Mann: Yeah. So, you’ve been doing this for about 20 years, you said. In your experience, what separates those companies that recover quickly from a space crisis from those who just keep fighting the same problem month after month, year after year?

Troy Wiley: I would have to say those that aren’t afraid to take a little bit of risk. Those that have the ability to take the little bit of risk and go to the next level and step out there. And the beauty of our trailers, it is that stepping stone that gets them from, “We’re landlocked in this small building. Okay, we’ve maxed it out.” We could put stuff in the trailer, but then it can also give them the option to start looking for what’s the next step for them. And if they’ve got that ability and they’ve got the funding to do it, that’s where we can really support what they’re doing the whole step of the way, in the transition from the current location to the new location and all the things that go on in between.

Mark Mann: All right, I’m going to ask you to put on your CFO hat, put on your budget hat for a minute, and let’s get into the math of some of this stuff. So without naming names, tell me about one of your customers who saw a clear financial win on demurrage or detention fees by switching to a mobile storage model.

[17:34] The demurrage math: trailer vs. container costs

Troy Wiley: Oh, absolutely. By going into the trailer— demurrage can range from $75 to $150 a day. Okay. A trailer, what they spend in two days pays for a trailer for the month. So, it’s real easy math to get them to match up and say, “Look, I can save you a lot of money very quickly, and I’ll show you how to do it.” And it’s as fast as they can unload, that they can reload. And then they can start turning those containers, and it is amazing that they never thought of using a trailer instead of a container.

It is where some people— that’s the way they’ve always done it, and they’ve never had anybody approach them and ask them and say, “There’s better ways to do it. There’s ways to save lots and lots of money. You’re just giving money back to the steamship lines, who already made a lot of money off that move. So, why give them more than they need?”

Mark Mann: So, a lot of your job really is just educating them, right?

Troy Wiley: Correct.

Mark Mann: Teaching them about the math.

Troy Wiley: Correct. Yeah. And if you go to compare a facility, if they’re looking for, you know, more square footage, and buildings go now from, you know, $6 to $9 a square foot. And my trailer is about a dollar a square foot or less. And that includes all the transportation, everything in between. So, I mean, that’s where you could sit down with them, if they’re looking for concrete versus a trailer. How much space do you really need? That’s where you got to sit down with them and say, “What are you doing? What do you anticipate?”

And that’s the beauty of a trailer, is you can add trailers if it’s more than they anticipate. And if it’s less, you don’t have to give them as many trailers. And if they really miss on the math and they do need a building, a trailer is a great relief valve until they can figure out what to do next.

Mark Mann: Yeah, you hit on that $6 to $9 a square foot topic, and that’s really where Atlanta’s rents are averaging. If someone asked you to compare what a WOW mobile storage plan would be, how would you walk them through that math?

[19:37] The “C product” method + WMS trailer locations

Troy Wiley: We’d have to look at what they want to do with the trailer, what they’re going to store in the trailer, what the throughput’s going to be. Is it going to just sit in there for a long time? Is it a product that’s going to move? What I always suggest is, let’s look at your warehouse and let’s see how it’s laid out. I mean, typically in a warehouse, you have an A product, B product, a C product. A product moves very fast. B doesn’t move as quickly. And then you have C product that is just aging and getting old.

That C product is a product that typically I suggest put in a trailer, because you don’t have any orders being applied to it, and you can assign a trailer— if you have a good enough, robust system for a warehouse management system, a WMS system, you can assign a trailer number as a location. Then you never lose visibility. You always know where that product is.

So that is what I always suggest: put your slow-moving or no-moving stuff that’s just aging, that’s the primary stuff to get in your trailer. And if you have more than 20% of your warehouse that’s C product, that’s going to open up so much more space for you, and it’s going to reduce your cost.

Mark Mann: Yeah. So $6 to $9 a square foot versus what, what are you looking at, a dollar, $2 a square foot?

Troy Wiley: Yeah. Yeah. That’s all-in cost. That’s delivery, that’s the rent. That’s everything, you know. It’s so insignificant compared to the cost of concrete.

Mark Mann: Yeah. I was just looking at the country in general, when I was doing the math on storage trailers, without all the transportation and everything else, it was like 87 cents a square foot.

Mark Mann: For a dry van. I don’t know why anybody would not jump on that.

Troy Wiley: Yeah. And the beauty of it is it’s flexible. You can add more or take it— I mean, that’s the nice thing about our model, our business model, is we’re here to help them. And if you need them for a week, we’ll give them to you a week. You need them for six months, we’ll give them six months. And if, within that six months, you ebb and flow, then we’ll ebb and flow with you. I mean, we will strategically work with you on whatever fits your model, what makes your business run.

Mark Mann: All right. So, we’ve got listeners in Georgia right now. So, let’s give them a playbook, kind of. So, if a manager is out of space and out of budget today, what’s the one thing you would tell them to do before they even pick up the phone and call you?

[22:03] Quick trailer count: pallets per 53’ dry van

Troy Wiley: Look at, again, look at that C product and look what’s in your aisles. Do a quick calculation. How many pallets is it? How many containers is it? What is it? You know, and then a standard trailer, 26 skids per 53-foot trailer, single stack. So you can quickly go through and ascertain, quickly count and say, “How much space am I going to gain back?” And then you’ll know how many trailers you’re going to need.

And then the other thing to look at is how many doors do they have? And are they going to store on the dock, or are they going to have to move it off? So, you know, that’s really what I start to look at: what do you have? Do your count, get a rough idea, and then let’s talk about some options.

Mark Mann: Do you have customers that actually store their stuff on your lot?

Troy Wiley: Yes.

Mark Mann: Okay. So, you’ve got a lot of storage there, too.

Troy Wiley: Yeah, I’ve got four and a half acres of land. Right now, I have 40 trailers, roughly, that have customer product on it. And then one customer, they’re fairly close, and we move one or two trailers from here to there, and then they bring them back. So, they use us just like it’s supposed to work.

Mark Mann: A lot of that C product sitting right there on your yard, Troy.

Troy Wiley: Yep.

Mark Mann: A lot of your customers are industrial suppliers and, as we’ve already mentioned, automotive, but as you know, those 450-square-foot boxes can be used for almost anything.

Troy Wiley: Right.

Mark Mann: What is the most unusual use case that you’ve seen for our trailers in your market?

[23:32] Unusual use case: cooking bourbon

Troy Wiley: We have a distiller in Atlanta, and they used one of my pup trailers, or 48-footers, last year to cook the bourbon in the 91 barrels, and it will fit in a 48-foot trailer, and that’s how they did it last year.

Mark Mann: Sounds a lot like smelling trailer.

Troy Wiley: I’ve got— it is the best smelling trailer I have.

Mark Mann: It’s so funny. So they’re using it for vices, because I talked to Jeremy Fairman down in North Carolina, and he said during tobacco season they use those trailers to store tobacco.

Troy Wiley: Yep. Yeah. There’s so many things you could put in a trailer that you forget, you know, like that same bourbon distiller this year. They’re taking a 53-footer, and because they’ve increased their production, they’re actually going to use the 48-footer again for cooking some more bourbon, and then they are also taking the 53 to put all of the bottles and stuff in it, so they have more room to age the barrels inside the warehouse. So—

Mark Mann: Yeah, you forget about all that little ancillary stuff, right? So labels, bottles, all the things that go into the bourbon industry. That’s great. So I’ve heard stories from your colleagues, who have told me that they have saved customers millions of dollars a year by offering a couple hundred dry vans for storage instead of leased warehouse space, like we’ve discussed. What’s the best problem-solving or cost-saving story that you have in your market?

[25:00] Best cost-saving story: transition with 60 trailers

Troy Wiley: I would say the best one I have right now is a current one, where it’s a tier 2 automotive. They have a plant in Lawrenceville. They have an older DC that’s within 5 miles of there. They have a new DC that’s 30 miles up the road. They’re making some transitions on it, and they have 60 trailers that they’re temporarily using to empty out the old warehouse, keep production running, and then as they keep moving into the new warehouse, they just keep feeding those trailers up there. So for them it’s the perfect scenario of keeping the warehouses running, knowing where the product is, keeping production running, and it’s all seamless and quiet, and nobody knows what’s going on unless you’re one of the drivers shuttling the trailers.

Mark Mann: And it’s saving them a ton of money.

Troy Wiley: Absolutely. Absolutely. And again, it’s a short-term fix. We’re filling what they need, but for them, it is not bottlenecking anything. So, you know, and it’s moving current production finished goods that go retail up to their place in Pendergrass. So, it’s a great solution for them.

Mark Mann: All right, Troy, it’s time for the signature round. Going to get a little personal here. Let’s step away from the title of General Manager. What was the specific moment in your career when you thought, this is my world, right? Sales, warehouses, trailers, you know, this Atlanta grind.

Troy Wiley: Yep. Yep. When I finished college, I was an industrial engineer, and I worked for a small parcel company. They’re everywhere. It’s color brown. And I did that for a few years, and I found out, I was like, man, that industrial engineering, for me it was very boring. So I got the opportunity to get into operations and sales and worked my way into doing that. And then also got into some— I’ve touched many different transportation industries out there, and I’ve enjoyed every one that I’ve— I mean, I’ve done them all. Parcel, warehousing, truckload, brokerage, import, export. Now I’m doing trailers. I mean, pretty much the only thing I’ve never touched is air freight. The only industry I’ve never touched.

Mark Mann: Wow. Now we know what’s next, right?

Troy Wiley: Yeah. No thanks.

Mark Mann: So, when you get home and shut it down for the evening, what pulls you away from freight and space so you can show up for your team the next morning? What hobbies do you have?

Troy Wiley: I don’t have really any specific hobbies that I do. I mean, my wife and I, we try and walk every night, three to five miles and that kind of stuff. So, we try to keep that going year round. We kind of got out of it in the wintertime because it was too darn cold. We’ve turned into sissies, you know, as you get older. It’s like, yeah, not interested in that anymore.

But as you get longer in your career and you get opportunities, you start saying, okay, what places haven’t I seen? I’ve got seven more states to go to that I’ve not been to. Last summer we went to Maine and Vermont and Rhode Island. We checked those all off. So, I really just have like the Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska. Those are the only states I haven’t been to. So, we’ll get them knocked off here.

Mark Mann: Absolutely. Well, I know a guy in the podcast industry who’s from Idaho who might be able to invite you up there to Boise, if you haven’t been there yet.

Troy Wiley: Not been there. I have not been. That’s one of those states.

Mark Mann: So, I want you to think about the best boss or mentor you ever had. What’s the one thing that they said to you that you now find yourself repeating to your team there in the yard?

[28:45] Mentor advice: accountability with kindness

Troy Wiley: Hold everybody accountable, but be super nice. And he’s older than me, and I’m in my 60s, and he goes, “That’s how I got through all the years of transportation.” He goes, “Hold everybody accountable, but be really nice.” He goes, “It’s done him well.” So great, great boss, easy to work for, you know, he was outstanding. Learned a lot from him.

Mark Mann: Great advice. So I’ve got just two more questions. It’s been a pleasure. This has been a great conversation. Two more questions for you. What is one myth about storage trailers or the mobile storage industry that you hope that we can retire after this episode?

[29:26] Myth to retire: trailers can increase efficiency overall

Troy Wiley: One myth.

Mark Mann: Mhm.

Troy Wiley: I would say flexibility. Where people have a misnomer of putting product in a trailer, where they think they lose efficiency on it, and actually you gain some efficiency. You can lose efficiency on it, but you also gain efficiencies in the rest of the plant. So instead of focusing on that one item or that one shortfall, you are typically changing operational behavior or opening up space. So you’re drawing— for the small efficiency you lose by putting product in a trailer, you gain tenfold by giving flexibility in other space, other product, access to other parts in the building.

Mark Mann: All right, so we’ve got a lot of listeners in Georgia. So, for anyone listening who is feeling the squeeze in the Atlanta market, what’s the one thing they should do this week?

[30:19] What to do this week (reach out)

Troy Wiley: Send me an email or give me a call. We can help them out. Let’s meet up. Let’s look at it. Let’s find a solution.

Mark Mann: Excellent. They can also get you at www.warehouseonwheels.com. Is that right?

Troy Wiley: Correct.

Mark Mann: Absolutely. Troy Wiley, General Manager at Advantage Trailer Rentals, thank you for showing us The Wow Factor in the ATL.

Troy Wiley: My pleasure. Thank you for the time.

Mark Mann: I’m Mark Mann, and we’ll see you on the next episode of The Wow Factor.