The Reward for Work Well Done is the Opportunity to do More Work
I’m working pretty hard for the company, but I’d rather be working on the company. At least I still have a clear grasp of what I need to do: I need to continually replace myself. What I mean is that I have to hire people to do the work I’m doing now so that I can move on to the next phase of building the company. I don’t want the day to day grind to make me lose sight of the big picture. And I’ve definitely been bogged down into the day to day grind.
Right now I’m doing the work of 2 full time employees, one driver and one store manager. These roles are different than the laundry workers I’ve been hiring in that the driver is the face of the company. It’s the person that interacts with the customers. I need someone that has a good personality. To me that means they should be generous, humble, and approachable. That’s on top of having a strong work ethic.
I’ve been brainstorming on how I can find this person. I don’t want to cast a wide net, meaning I don’t want to advertise on Craigslist and look at applications like I’ve done. I currently have 5 employees, and I’ve had 2 others that I hired and 1 was fired and 1 quit. So 7 total employees. 4 of them from Craigslist, 2 referrals, and 1 poached. My best employee by far is the one I poached from a laundromat.
That seems like the best way to hire. Find someone that is awesome at their job and offer them better treatment and better pay. Finding that person is not an easy thing to do. Trying to lure them away from their job compounds the difficulty. Let’s say I don’t have enough time for all of that. What are my other options?
I’ve ruled out the idea of outsourcing the task of finding someone. It’s just too expensive. Referrals are good but I don’t think the type of person I’m looking for is in my tiny network in this new city.
This person needs to be able to lift heavy bags of laundry on and off the van. And drive the van. And be pretty good with technology because all the logistics are online. And as I mentioned above, have a good work ethic and personality. I would say a young college aged athlete.
That makes me think that I should advertise at the local schools. I’m going to take a look around some of the universities here in Dallas and see what sort of job placement programs they have.
The other big piece of this puzzle though, is the van. I have to get the van for many reasons. Obviously having a company vehicle is like having a moving billboard. I think it would pay for itself with the business it would bring. Plus I like the idea of not forcing my employees to drive their own cars.
But these next two major steps, buying a van and hiring a driver, they have to happen soon. The business can barely handle it from a cash flow standpoint, but it has outgrown my ability to handle all of the customer orders and deliveries.
I have 5 employees doing laundry and yet, I’m still the only one doing deliveries. Last month I made over 600 pick ups and deliveries. This month I’m already on pace to do more. I’m over extended, by a lot. And I don’t want to be that person who fails because they do everything themselves instead of hire for the position. A driver will alleviate a lot of time for me to focus on managing the store and building sales.
I need to get this store to run itself as soon as possible so that I can focus on opening a 2nd location. Ha. I’m getting ahead of myself. First step right now is to buy a van.
This story is part of a series documenting the journey of a Dallas startup called Feather Laundry. For your reference here is the Table of Contents for the series.
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