Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Arilyn Ruffell. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Arilyn, appreciate you joining us today. What were some of the most unexpected problems you’ve faced in your business and how did you resolve those issues?

The most challenging aspect for me when running a CDL school is location. I didn’t realize when starting up, how much people do not like being around big trucks, until they run out of toilet paper. Since opening the school, we have had to move twice. We are currently at our third location and are looking again for another location. On our first location, they wouldn’t renew our lease because other tenants complained about having our trucks around. We couldn’t find any office space on land big enough for trucks to practice backing. So our office/classroom was quite a distance away from what we could find to use as our backing range. When that lease was up, we moved to another office building that was closer to a place we could use as a backing range. It was so much easier to have them relatively close together again. It was great for a while, but then the owners of the place sold it. The new owners have been letting us rent, but have let me know that eventually they will expand and we’ll have to leave. So I have been looking for yet another place. I’d really like to buy so that no one can make me move again. But the prices of land are astronomical. If I can find something affordable, then it isn’t zoned right for trucks to use it or is too far from students. If trucks can use it, I can’t afford it.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I first got into this industry because of my partner. It was his idea and something he’s always wanted to do, but he didn’t have the means to do it. So I financed it and helped him achieve his dreams. It was great at first, but then he started to burn out. He hardly would go in anymore and when he did, he was more disruptive than good. Going into this business, I knew nothing about trucks, but I bought him out. I now know way more about trucks than I thought I ever would. If someone were to tell me back in college that this is what I would be doing, I wouldn’t have believed them. Now I am really trying to turn this company around and make it really efficient and a place where people want to be. But it hasn’t been easy, What has made this school successful so far is the integrity we have. We are very honest and try hard to get everyone to graduate and it shows.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

I was able to fund the business from an inheritance I had received after my brother’s passing, a line of credit on my house and credit cards. It got really close at one point when no more funds were available, but then things started to turn around.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I really haven’t built a presence on social media, it really hasn’t been necessary. We get most of our students by word of mouth. But I have learned a lot about building websites. When I took over the company, I redid our advertising website, making lots of changes to it. I learned so much from doing that, that I created a new website from scratch. This website is not for advertising but is student based. The students can log in and track their progress plus a lot of relevant information is available, job boards, quizzes, and videos.

Contact Info:

• Website: iWantMyCDL.com

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