Tips for how to hire a driver for your laundry pickup and delivery business. Just starting and have a smaller vehicle? How to qualify good candidates in a timely fashion? What qualities should you look for? Find out in 5 minutes.

[Transcript]

Welcome to state of the laundry industry with laundry Matt episode 18, how to hire a laundry driver. One of the biggest challenges with washing fold pick up and delivery is staffing and granted staffing is getting easier lately. So we recently put up an ad and we got 12 applicants for drivers. So that was a big change from just a few months ago, but it still is something that is affecting a lot of different operators. So I wanna share with you a little tip to help you find a driver because the driver is the hardest position to fill. And oftentimes they want the most money. Why cuz they have the most options. For example, FedEx, Amazon, all those different places are looking to hire drivers. So if you’re a driver and you know how to drive a bigger vehicle, you ha you actually you’re quite employable. And so we’re competing against the Amazons and the FedEx and UPSs. Here’s how to get a driver kind of going against the grain. So again, this only works. If you got more of a transit connect or, you know, one of the smaller vans, it is a handy way to find somebody. So when you’re looking for a wash and fold attendant put in your ad, driving is a plus. So if you don’t mind picking up and delivering laundry as part of the job, that’s a big plus. And so then as you’re looking to hire attendance, you could also find somebody who’s capable and knows how to of , and they may not see themselves as a driver. They may not be looking for driving jobs that tend to pay more. So you may be able to find somebody a good quality. Again, you may not wanna do this. If you’ve got a sprinter van that’s longer wider. And you know, they have to have experience knowing how to take all the turns and things like that. And then no matter how you go about hiring a driver, rural number one is do a test drive with them before investing any time with them . We used to do things in the reverse order. We’d do all this training and then we found out they couldn’t really drive. Even though they said they could, you got a test drive first, make sure they could handle the vehicle. One thing we found is with bad drivers is usually if they’re bad, the damage is almost always done right at the beginning because they don’t know how to drive a bigger vehicle. So that goes back to rule. Number one, make sure you drive with them , do the test drive, make sure they’re comfortable with it. And they know how to drive. If you are buying a new vehicle, make sure to get gap insurance. So it turns out when you have insurance, it doesn’t really cover replacing it with a new vehicle. It covers it almost for like, for like vehicle that’s used. And if you need to go out and buy a new vehicle, you’re gonna be short 10, $20,000. So it’s very important to get gap insurance, to cover the difference between what insurance covers and the cost of a new vehicle. And finally, it’s really important to have a vehicle maintenance guide, you know, a schedule. So you know when to get an oil change when to do this, because people are not gonna take care of the vehicle, like it’s your own. And sometimes it’s hard to let go, but it is very important to have a maintenance schedule cuz otherwise they’ll just keep driving and then say, what does that smell? And that’s because they forgot to change the oil. You want to be proactive. Many laundry owners do their own pickup and deliveries when they first get started. But if you want to keep growing and in order to scale, you do have to outsource driving. Plus your quality of life will be way, way better to you. And if something happens, you do have insurance. It’s just the cost of doing business. Going back to what I said in the very beginning where almost all the damage is done by drivers who just start with you. It reinforces idea of how important keeping and retaining your, your good drivers is because your good drivers, you want to keep them because they’ve got a good track record and they’re generally a whole lot safer than hiring somebody brand new off the street in a sense. So it does take time to build up that trust. It does take time to make sure that they’re qualified. There’s no replacement for actually being in the vehicle with them and making sure that they’ve got a good, that you trust them with your vehicle. So if you’re just starting off with pickup and delivery, there’s a lot of laundry owners who are a doing the pickup and delivery themselves. They’re they also are able to have their attendance, do the pickup and deliveries , uh , while they’re growing. And then as you grow, then you could have a fulltime driver dedicated to just doing the driving regarding the driver. Don’t forget they represent your company. And they’re the only ones. In many cases, who’s going to have a , an interaction with your customers. So many times your customer only knows your pickup and delivery driver. So does that driver represent you? So if you’re gonna have uniforms or some type of thing to show that they are part of your company, that is something that separates you, especially as we’re having more and more competition from these gig economy, people who are doing it for 99 cents a pound and they’re picking it up and they’re beat up vehicle. Well, you want to shine the light and show them the difference. And the way to do that is who you hire for pickup and delivery. So make sure they represent your brand, your company, that they’re professional, that they’re dressed professionally because they’re doing a lot more than just picking up and delivering the clothes. They’re doing a lot more than driving. They’re representing your company. And when that customer has a problem with anything where the clothes are picked up with skipping a week with anything they’re gonna be talking to your driver and that driver needs to be able to problem solve and connect with your customers. So don’t forget, they can’t just be good at driving. They also need to have a good personality, so best of success to everybody and keep those pick up and deliveries coming. Thanks for tuning in. Don’t forget to tap like or subscribe. And if you like to get more information about the curbside laundries , pick up and deliveries , salute , check out curbsidelaundries.com.