One of the most constant growth sectors in our economy after the 2008 economic crisis has been ground transportation to move goods and services. Maybe that’s why Warren Buffett bought a rail company or why FED EX is doing better with its ground freight division than its air freight division today. Although things change with time, the trucking industry has been steadily hiring new drivers each month, almost the only sector expanding throughout the economic recovery. So maybe a good business could be one that is involved in that sector? Let’s talk about the truck wash business.
Yes, the truck washing industry is a decent business model if done right. I have been involved in on-site mobile fleet washing and fixed site truck washes in my career. The trick is to be efficient with labor and process because, last time I checked the trucks, they still don’t wash and drive themselves, and until Google figures out that one has autonomous trucks that drive themselves and fully automated truck wash systems to speak of. with each other over the Internet, well, we still have a good business strategy here.
If you want your laundry crews, employees, and managers to run your business efficiently, you should consider performance pay, bonuses, and incentive money. Yes, I know, Friedrich Winslow Taylor already made it very clear over 100 years ago. Now, how much should he pay for his hired help? Well, first there are minimum wage laws, right? So that should be a good starting point for a base payment to the washers, then pay them a bonus from revenue on the minimum number of trucks that need to be washed based on the average price charged to break even.
To do this, show them your actual costs to break even. Bonus percentages are based on each hour worked and divided by each worker’s total hours; therefore, different people get different bonus checks based on the hours they worked. Then tell the workers that the only way in hell they’re going to increase volume is by improving quality, speed (get divers out fast), repeats, and referrals. In this way they are overly nice to EVERY DRIVER asking them to make sure they tell everyone to come wash their truck.
As you weed out lazy “standing” workers, your team will only have the best hard workers and this will permeate what is expected of any new people hired to replace the dogs.
What about management bonuses at truck washes?
Okay, so why not tell the manager that he’s getting a base salary, a salary plus a volume increase bonus on volume for the same month last year, plus an efficiency number based on labor costs. per unit? Let him know that the only way to achieve this is to get the best employees to work longer hours, and the suckers to take a walk and go out and get new business, sell accounts, make calls to others have companies bring in their trucks, you will be more aggressive .
You need to think about the implications of all this and what formulas you might use to determine the percentages. Remember that your goals are more efficient operations, cost savings, higher profits, and more sales and volume, right? Okay, that’s the mission and that’s the goal, so use employee incentives for higher profits and greater efficiency. Please consider all this and think about it.
