Announcing Livery Excellence Groups Online

Livery Excellence Groups are peer groups of 10 limousine business owners that meet online six times per year. Modeled after the 20 Group concept well known to the automotive industry, the Livery Excellence Group Online is a carefully selected group of 10 non-competing limousine companies that will help each other to improve business practices, planning and performance with the assistance of a professional consultant.

All Livery Excellence Group members receive monthly financial composites for comparison of primary cost centers and other expenses. The Livery Excellence Group meets online every other month for discussion about the composite and to exchange marketing strategies, effective management practices and tried, tested & proven ideas in general.

The single most productive activity I undertook as a limousine businessperson was a membership in the industry’s first peer group of this kind. At the time the group was formed I had annual revenue under a million. Sitting at a conference table with owners of companies doing over five million was a little intimidating, to say the least. By the time I departed from that first meeting I had received ideas from these gurus that never would have crossed my mind. More impressively, I had given ideas to the “big guys” that they took home and implemented in their business right away.

Groups Are Forming NOW!

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Recover The Customer BEFORE They’re Lost

In the limousine business, you are only as good as your last ride. Anyone who has been in the business for a week or more has heard that one. While I tend to agree with the concept, I don’t necessarily believe it’s completely true. If there was a service issue on the last ride that you didn’t know about, almost certainly you have lost a customer. Even in some cases where the client has informed you of their dissatisfaction; sometimes you will loose a customer. IF, however, you know in advance of pick up time that your chauffeur is missing the mark, you stand a very good chance of recovering the lost customer before they even thought of changing limousine services. The key action on your part is to advise the client, truthfully and in advance of the pick up time, that there has been an unforeseen problem and what you can do to meet their need.

Travel in general creates anxiety. For limousine clients, anxiety usually starts to build between five and ten minutes before pick-up time. As the last five minutes tick past, the client starts to get really nervous. God forbid they wait another five or ten minutes before they call you. By ten-after pick up time, they are livid and probably out of control with rage. Most customers of any business who experience this level of stress will never call that business again. They never forget being that angry and never forget who made them so.

It’s a Choice!

There I was in the coffee shop when I said it; when it happened. I was counseling a client to respond more positively in an adverse situation instead of being reactionary and thinking he was being attacked all the time, before he had all the details. The words popped out before I knew it. Moments before, I had abruptly ended a company board meeting because of how he was responding to a situation. I didn’t really think about what I was saying before I said it. I had sent the other partners back to work and told him to go get the car. I was angry. As we drove to the coffee shop we argued a bit, but managed to calm down by the time we got to the table. “You have to make a personal decision to respond in a more positive tone” I said as my client inhaled to rebuff my words. The expression just flew over my tongue and out at my client before I knew what was happening. “IT”S A CHOICE” I said. And then it happened.

The feeling started in my abdomen, came rushing up through my chest into my throat where by the grace of god I was able to choke it back before it came flowing out of my tear ducts as I sank helplessly into a puddle on the floor. I had I just spoken my father’s words; words that I had heard countless times over the years. Never before had those words seemed so profound. A realization dawned on me as I choked back my emotions. On only the second day after dad’s memorial celebration I had realized there would be times when his influence would come rushing out of me. I made a mental note not to be surprised by it next time and a promise to myself to let it flow when it did. Dad’s outlook on life is just too powerful not to share; it would be selfish of me to keep it as my-own.

Higher Education for the Limousine Businessperson

HKU = Hard Knock University

The most expensive source of higher education in the world is Hard Knock University. Believe me I know, for I graduated first in my class! When I first started in this business I thought, as many of us did; how hard could it be? It’s a piece of cake, right? You just take the person to the airport for $60, top off the gas for seven bucks and that’s that. You just made $53 for a couple hours of your time, right? I quickly learned there was a little more to it. There was definitely a whole lot more.

My Father and I started the business together in 1991. He was a 35 year veteran of the restaurant business. Having started in the late fifties as a waiter, he worked his way up to high levels in the Marriott Corporation. He was convinced there was no harder way to earn a living than fast-food. I, on the other hand, had done everything from restaurants to cutting lawns to construction to stripping cars at the local junkyard. Most everyplace I worked I found myself in a management position though and became at home running an ice distribution company moving about a million bags of ice every year. Transportation and logistics is all the same, right? After all, how hard could it be? We both figured we know well enough how business worked and how to manage people and we both learned some serious lessons. What was lesson number one? It was learning that we had a lot more to learn about the limousine business.

Fleet Utilization

Limousine operators call me regularly for help in becoming profitable or more profitable. After all, as a limousine industry consultant this is primarily what I do. When I address the issues of a certain company there are a number of factors I take into consideration. Are they in the city, suburbs or the boondocks? Are they an airport company? Do they focus on the retail side or the corporate side? These three primary factors will help me determine what recommendations to make to help them improve their position. It is necessary to evaluate a company’s individual situation before making any recommendations because every company is unique to the owner. This is true across the board from the one car operators to the huge nationwide networks. Every single one is different from the next, even when compared to a company that may seem similar.There is however a common thread I see; a mistake that every company makes. This mistake is one that I made myself. This is a mistake that just about every big name in the business has made at one time or another. This mistake, I believe, comes from a well known folk saying, “build it and they will come.” It seems that most operators get this backwards building the fleet first and then expecting the customers. I say this because the most common problem I see is that the company has too many vehicles for their sales volume. To use the correct term, they have poor Fleet Utilization. The more prudent approach is to build the customer base first and add vehicles as you have the revenue to make them profitable at the time you take delivery.

Business Travel Clients Lead to Corporate Accounts

Tom Mazza is a very smart man. When reviewing the seminar speaker list for this year’s Limousine Digest Show in Atlantic City he teamed me up with Maurice Brewster of Rollz Royce Limousine of Silicon Valley. He knew, before either of us did that we would make the perfect team. The first time I communicated with Maurice about our speaking engagement we both realized what a perfect team we would make. Maurice is a high end corporate sales guy while I, on the other hand, frequently urge my clients to gain more business traveler clients and worry about corporate contracts later. Our first conversation ended with Maurice quoting a well known line from the movie Top-Gun. “You put ‘em in the pan Goose – and I’ll fry ‘em”!

Below is an article co-authored by myself and Maurice Brewster with help from his lovely wife and partner Rhonda. It is but the tip of the iceberg that is the message we plan to send home with our seminar attendees. By the time this issue is released at the Limousine Digest show – it will be too late to attend so I hope you all have your tickets in hand as I type this. If you don’t – you will have missed one powerful presentation among many. I start off the article and leave the grand finale to Maurice and Rhonda. Here goes:

Breaking Ground On Building Network Income

Building a network income as a small operator is not as overwhelming a task as it may seem and its real money. Let’s look at the average limo company doing $850,000 per year is sales with the emphasis on airports. This company should be able to develop 20% of their current revenue with out of town network trips. That’s $170,000 a year in additional sales and just drove this company past the one million annual mark. And that’s not even the good part. The good part is when you look at the pricing formula and realize you have a 30% margin on that entire new business segment and never even rolled a car.

 Just as a limousine company is built one customer at a time, a national affiliate network is built one affiliate at a time. There are so many operators now following the network model these days that it is easier than ever to find affiliates wherever you need them, by referral. The key is to find and begin developing a relationship with the first five or so companies. This will create multiple referral resources to find qualified affiliates quickly when you need them.

Training the Chauffeur Trainer

Let the training begin! We’ve taken the time to screen the calls, effectively interviewed the applicant, sent the new hire for a drug screen, and performed our reference and background checks. Now it’s time to throw him in the car with a senior chauffeur for a few days and let nature run it’s course, right? Whoa there cowboy – not so fast. The first and most important thing to point out is that you must have a designated chauffeur trainer in your organization. Additionally, training a professional chauffeur is a company wide process. It is important for any new hire to fully understand the functions of your business. The new chauffeur must understand how your company operates from the reservation process to the final drop off. This is not to say you must train them for every position you have but let them spend time with a reservationist, the dispatcher, the detailer and the sales representative, even if they are all the same person.

How a Limousine Operator Can Make a Difference

by Matt Harrison and Brian Luckenbill

Everyone has a different measurement of success. For some it is the size of their fleet. Others see it as profitability or stature in the community. True success comes with a balance of each of these things. When they gather to eulogize your life someday, I hope they are not talking about how much money you had, or how big your organization was. I hope they are talking about what a good guy you were and about all the good things you did during your lifetime. When all is said and done how many people have you had a positive impact on? If this is your measure of success; read on with haste!

Chauffeurs: Recruiting, Screening, Interviewing and Hiring

Once upon a time, good limo drivers just kind of happened. They could be friends from church, old schoolmates or former teachers. Some were the semi retired fellow from down the street and some were former clients looking to keep busy under their golden parachute. The interview process was a friendly chat over a cup of coffee at the kitchen table and the only screening requirement was the family dog. If they patted the family dog during the “interview” then they must be a good person, right? Background checks and pre-hire drug screening were unheard of. Once upon a time, a good limo driver received about two hours of training and was usually rushed right out to the airport. A good limo driver would make many mistakes, the same mistakes as the one before him made and the same mistakes the one after him made. Each of these good limo drivers was equally chastised for those mistakes and, understandably in hindsight, there was a high turn-over rate. You see, “once upon a time” is for fairy tales; it simply doesn’t work that way in real life. Over the course of the last decade our clients have raised their expectations. They no longer accept a “good limo driver” who makes mistakes. The clients expect, indeed demand, a Professional Chauffeur.