Jodie Lethgo 0:00

it's just putting on more of that sales-driven hat when you're having that discussion. Hey, come sit in the driver's seat of this Escalade with me, and let's do the interview there so you know where you're gonna be working every day. Hey, why don't you do a, a walkthrough in the dispatch office?" Sell them on the money they can make. You know, talking with one of o- our operators earlier this week, she was telling me that their drivers, she's like, The majority of my drivers are so willing to work, they're all making six figures." talk about those things in the interview rather than saying, "Can I have your driver's license so I can scan it in? Will you sign this authorization so I can get your background check? And here's a cup. Go pee."

Ken Lucci 1:01

Well, good afternoon, Ground Transportation podcast audience. My name is Ken Lucci from Driving Transactions. I'm usually here with the lovely and talented James Blain from PAX Training. But I heard on, saw on Facebook that he's out training in s- he's at some other show or something. So he's, he's training a bunch of, of, uh, chauffeurs or NEMT drivers or, or motor coach drivers. God knows. He might even be into, you know, training test pilots for all I know. So, but I am, I am so, uh, honored to have Jodi from Career Driver, careerdriver.com with me today. Um, so a little backtrack a little bit. We sent a survey out to the audience and to the Chauffeur Driven, uh, mailing list about, you know, what stress points and pain points they, they were having. And they got back to us and said, Listen, we're, you know, we're having tough times hiring chauffeurs, CDL drivers, dispatchers, et cetera." And I, knowing that you have been in hiring for a long, long time, I wanted to get you on the podcast. And first of all, tell us about your origin story. How did you-- how did a beautiful model like you get into, get into hiring drivers? How did you

Jodie Lethgo 2:17

First off, cut it out with all that. But thanks for having me on today, Ken. Um, yeah, I appreciate you bringing me on as a authority in this space. I'll do my best to share my knowledge here with everyone today. But the way I got into this space, so just want everybody out there that's listening to understand that recruiting is actually marketing. So, which takes me back to the beginning of my origin story, Ken. I went to school for marketing and communications. Go Hoosiers. Um, but I-- after I graduated with a marketing degree and a communications degree, I went to work doing marketing for Caesars Entertainment. So did that for a bit, got my feet wet inside marketing, and when they were in the middle of doing some cuts, they offered to move me into a different role. But I said, "You know what? I've done seven years here. I've learned a lot. I'm gonna go spread my wings and see what else is out there for me."

Ken Lucci 3:17

is Caesars, like Caesars Palace?

Jodie Lethgo 3:19

Yeah, like Caesars Entertainment. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Like the casinos. So I worked in the casinos Yeah. So I was responsible for just the email blasts, the out of home. I did stuff inside stadiums. We were doing digital at the time, social ads, all sorts. But yeah, started there. That was my first gig out of college. So I'd made some relationships while I was there, and formed a relationship with a couple that owned a trucking company. So they're like, "Wanna come work for our trucking company?" Well, turns out they had a little side hustle. Their little side hustle was a chauffeur business that you're familiar with, Ken. Um, and many people listening may be familiar with them. They're Louisville, Kentucky area-based provider. We had 50 vehicles at the time that I joined. Uh, today there are probably about 75, 80 vehicles in their fleet. But worked with them for about eight years. In the time I was there, ended up working a lot with doing their recruiting marketing, working in the recruiting department, working on the recruiting department, working on training. We purchased a CDL school at one point, but worked just across anything and everything to do with hiring drivers.

Ken Lucci 4:29

L-let's back up. 70 vehicles and they constantly, they were constantly r-recruiting and hiring?

Jodie Lethgo 4:35

Constantly. Yes. Yes. And this is what I encourage everyone to do, to have a continuous flow of recruiting. Recruiting, just like marketing, because recruiting's marketing, it should be looked at very holistically, and you should always be promoting your company culture out there. But yeah, we were ongoing hiring. But what I realized working in truck driver recruiting and running chauffeur recruiting also on along the side of that was we had a lot of systems and processes that were already put in place for trucking that I saw that people weren't doing in the chauffeur space. And this came about because I kept pushing my digital marketing company to get me more driver leads. And finally they're like, "How are you converting all of these candidates that we're sending to you?" And I'm like, "Well, we've got recruiters. Doesn't everybody have recruiters?" And that's when everything kind of fell together for me, that this isn't something that people treat as a revenue protector in their business the way we were treating it. It's something that's a, "We're gonna do it when we need to fill the seats." And Ken, so often I have companies come to me, they're like, "I just need two drivers right now," and then that's it. "I'm not gonna think about recruiting for a while." But I'm trying to tell them like- We did. We always had ads going. We, even if, if they were the non-paid ads, you know, we always were working to keep a full pipeline to building relationships with people that we wanted to bring in and to be drivers. And Ken, I'm a firm believer that your best candidates, they're not the ones looking for jobs. So continuously pushing your company culture out there, continuously promoting what you're doing on your social and as you're out there in the public eye will go a long way.

Ken Lucci 6:20

mean, would you literally keep a list of people even though you didn't have jobs open? You'd keep a list of people that I might hire down the road?

Jodie Lethgo 6:27

Always. Well, because I don't know about all the other operators out there, but we always had special events where we would need an influx of drivers, and in particular, Kentucky Derby for us was a big one. So we would always bring in event drivers just for events, bringing in drivers just for the Indy 500. But yeah, we would stay in touch with those drivers, and if the opportunity ever presented itself where we did need some additional drivers, we had relationships with drivers. And but we were still always recruiting, and every year I know they still recruit new drivers for the Derby.

Ken Lucci 7:01

Well, think about that. If you know that you've got a busy season, like, you know, when I was an operator in Florida in our case, we, we would start recu- recruiting in the summer for the fall busy season, and then, you know, the holidays get a little slower. But then we were slammed January, uh, through April. But you're saying even if you have events, you know you've got events coming up, keep a roster of maybe, you know, maybe the occasional driver. was it more difficult to recruit on the trucking side or on the chauffeur side and, and, and CDL with passenger endorsement? And tell me why you think that is.

Jodie Lethgo 7:40

By far the CDL with a passenger endorsement. So y- class A drivers, although that's a special requirement, it's checking boxes. It's do you meet the criteria? Do you meet this criteria? Do you meet my insurance company's criteria? But then when you're talking about chauffeurs, when you're talking about the class B with a passenger endorsement, that's a different hiring profile. That candidate has to have some hospitality skills. And talking to as many operators as I have about their hiring requirements, quite often they're like, "I want someone who can be personable. I want someone who has good emotional intelligence. I want someone who can handle pressure." Whereas in the trucking side it's Do you have a CDL? Do you have the experience? Can you breathe?

Ken Lucci 8:28

talking to freight. You're, you're talking to packages instead

Jodie Lethgo 8:32

don't need to talk to them. That's the thing. They don't talk back. They don't have requirements. It's just, but the passengers do. So yeah, it's a very different profile, Ken.

Ken Lucci 8:42

tell me about Career Driver, and then I'd like you to talk about some best practices for operators. I agree with you that, you know, a couple things. I think people... Tell me if you agree with this statement. I think people are recruiting the way they did Before the pandemic, and the workforce has completely changed. So I think the hiring process and even the interviews, you have to sell the j- you have to sell the job.

Jodie Lethgo 9:08

Yeah, you don't treat it like an interrogation. You, you actually have to try to sell to them. And often what I see, Ken, is if they're putting out jobs, job ads that read like a legal disclaimer, the interview's probably gonna be like an interrogation too. So to your point about trying to attract a different type of candidate, honestly, retention starts at the time of the interview. I mean, retention starts at your first interaction with them on the phone. Are you gonna be respectful to them? Are you gonna be communicative and open with them? But to go back to your, um, original question there, Ken, you were asking about how has it changed since the pandemic. And, you know, there's a lot of factors that have played into the changing demographic of the drivers. You know, first off, when I was still working inside an operation, the majority of our drivers were retired business professionals. Well, since COVID, you know, we're six years past that now, folks are leaving the industry. They're truly retiring. We had a lot of semi-retired drivers in our pool of drivers. So we're losing those candidates now that were w- what built the chauffeur industry. You know, it was those early bird guys that, you know, worked diligently, they had the communication skills, they had all the professionalism and the commitment that built the chauffeur industry. But today, it is a very different demographic of folks that are coming into this industry. They value more so flexibility. They value open communications. They value being respected. It used to be, you know, we would just tell people what it was, and because you were the authority, that was, that was it. But now they wanna have some say. They wanna have more say in what their schedule's gonna be.

Ken Lucci 11:05

tell me about the Career Driver Program as if I'm an operator and a-as if I'm a prospect. Tell me about Career Driver.

Jodie Lethgo 11:12

I always start with doing a bit of a discovery session. I always like to prod a little bit just to find out what the operator is doing internally and what they're doing externally to get folks in the door, and then how do they treat that pipeline. And it's, uh, what I really-- The best operators, they treat it like it's a system. Like they, it, there's processes and everything moves very efficiently. And what I do is I try to determine what their system looks like, what their workflow looks like, and then where Career Driver can plug in. For some of our operators, we are their recruiting department. We are generating the candidate leads for them. I've got a team of recruiters. Those folks are the ones to pick up the phone and give them the call, chase them, screen them, tell them about the company and the culture, and sell them on the role. And then they schedule them for the interview with our client, and then from there they help them get those folks through the rest of the pipeline to the point that they're hired. Now, for some of our clients that I talk to, actually, I just spoke with a company yesterday. She has a team of four recruiters. She's in the coach space. She doesn't need my recruiters, but she's having a hard time at the top of her pipeline, the top of that funnel there, getting the candidates into the system for her recruiters to work through those drivers. So what we're gonna do for them is just utilizing our marketing expertise and generating candidate leads for her. And I really love... What, what I love about our lead generation process is we're doing more of a proactive approach. Most people, when I ask them, "Where are you getting your candidate leads?" They're saying, "I'm putting ads on Indeed. I'm

Ken Lucci 12:57

Indeed,

Jodie Lethgo 12:59

Now we do a little bit of that. I think there's a place for it. But the thing about Indeed is those folks are probably applying to multiple jobs. In fact, it's not a probably.

Ken Lucci 13:08

they're going down the

Jodie Lethgo 13:09

I, Ken, there must be like a check-all box because so many candidates come through that don't even match area. But what we do is we try to present the ad to people that are gonna fit that demographic. So using our digital marketing expertise, we're trying to present ads to folks that are gonna be the ideal driver for that company. And then we run them through a filtering process from there. So we're asking them, "If we're filling a motor coach driving job, do you have a Class B or an A?" That's acceptable, so long as you have a passenger endorsement. And most of the providers that we work with, they're saying, uh, "My insurance requires they need one year of experience, two years of experience." So then we ask them, "Do you have X number of years of verifiable bus driving experience?" And that's what we consider a lead for our clients. So even at our base service, just the driver leads, it's al- they're already pre-vetted. And that's just a time save for this team of recruiters that we're about to be sending these leads to, because their HR manager was telling me that they spend a lot of time weeding through truck drivers and, and people who don't even have a CDL. So at a very minimum, we can eliminate the time waste there.

Ken Lucci 14:30

Right. You can, you can create a more qualified lead, but you said it's not just through Indeed. So you're-- but you're-- where are you advertising, so to speak? I, I'm not asking about the secret sauce, but I assume social media, social media is important else?

Jodie Lethgo 14:45

So we'll do a little bit of Google display, and then every market acts a bit differently, Ken. I've had a couple markets where Craigslist got us some leads. And like, it's-- So we go out there and we just experiment a little bit with what's gonna work where. We'll try ZipRecruiter, we'll try the different avenues of social media, but we just look to see where we're getting the best leads from and move the ad budget around behind the scenes accordingly. So our clients can think of us really as their recruitment marketing department, because that's what we're doing behind the scenes.

Ken Lucci 15:20

we are logistics people at heart, but you hit the, you hit the nail on the head that we have to be very hospitality based, you know? So it's like one side of our brain as operators, we need to get them from point A to point B, and when I'm hiring, I need to make sure they have a clean driving record. I need to make sure that they'll pass a drug test, et cetera. So it, it may feel like an interrogation, but you're telling me it's, it's-- what would you give for advice to an operator to help him sell his company

Jodie Lethgo 15:53

That same operator would probably walk in and try to sell their services to someone who walks in the door for a wedding limo or to a corporate client that comes in the door. They're gonna sell. They're not gonna ask them about what's your certificate of insurance, what's your, you know, what time are you gonna be done? That's not how you lead w- a sales discussion, and it's just putting on more of that sales-driven hat when you're having that discussion. "Hey, come sit in the driver's seat of this Escalade with me, and let's do the interview there so you know where you're gonna be working every day. Hey, why don't you do a, a walkthrough in the dispatch office?" And as you're doing it, then talk a little bit about what those requirements are, which should have already been established before you even bring the person in the door. Like, you should know when they walk in the door, they've got the Class B or they've got a cl- uh, the drive... They're saying they have a clean driver's record at least. You've already asked those questions before they even walk in for an interview. But definitely still hit those things on the head because you should be very safety focused. Absolutely. Talk about those things, but also sell them on it. Sell them on the money they can make. You know, talking with one of o- our operators earlier this week, she was telling me that their drivers, she's like, "I have a-- The majority of my drivers are so willing to work, they're all making six figures." I'm like, "That's such a sellable thing." Like, talk about those kind of things. Yeah. It's like, talk about those things in the interview rather than saying, "Can I have your driver's license so I can scan it in? Will you sign this authorization so I can get your background check? And here's a cup. Go pee." Like, you know, lead it differently and then get to those bits

Ken Lucci 17:38

Well, I like the idea of having the interview in the Escalade, or you have the, y- you have the interview in the motor coach that they're gonna be driving. You walk them around the facility. How, how important, and I know we- we're gonna spend a little time on this, but how important is the culture of the operation?

Jodie Lethgo 17:56

It's very important, Ken, and you can start portraying that in your job posts. In fact, I cringe when I see a job post that's like, "Do you have a CDL? Do you have this? Okay, apply." Like, that's so cringey. Like, talk about the good things. Like, talk about, you know, you're gonna drive a nice Escalade. Talk about the fact that you have flexible hours, or you can help create your own schedule, that you're gonna have... Maybe you can get your weekdays back if that's something. You know, I don't know. Maybe there's different people that'll appeal to.

Ken Lucci 18:30

there's no question. I mean, we had a driver who used to love ear- early mornings, and we did, we did an ad that basically says, "Get your work out of the way from 6:00 to noon." We paid a little bit of a premium, right, if they got it. And, and, and the retirees in Florida ate it up. They just

Jodie Lethgo 18:49

that. They love it. And then you love it because all the early morning airport runs. Like, it-- that's a fabulous fit. In fact, Ken, one of the, uh, things that I addressed, you had me respond to your article that you referenced earlier, the data that you had collated. You had me respond to that, and one of my things that I brought up was trying to appeal to the different drivers that are out there, because it's not a one-size-fits-all anymore. It's not a one-size-fits-all. In fact, what I said was try multiple job posts, try to change and reframe what you're saying in those job posts. So to your point, it would be fabulous for you guys, for people to try and say, "Hey, we've got these early morning runs," or, "Hey, we've got weekend-only part-time jobs that we're looking for people who are willing to be flexible

Ken Lucci 19:43

I threaten my business partner, Cole, all the time, and I'm like, "I am getting sick and tired of doing this. I'm just gonna go back out and be a chauffeur." I made a killing as a chauffeur. I absolutely loved working the early morning shift, and I would get up, uh, uh, I'd get up early on Sunday, and I would do four or five hotel runs, and I'd, and I'd make $150 in cash by the end of the day with tips that people just... I enjoyed it. but but you, you're, you're, you're addressing, what you're saying is don't fit it as one, don't make it one size fits all. We did really well attracting, um, off-duty firefighters, off-duty school teachers, Right?

Jodie Lethgo 20:25

Yeah. Yep, we did too.

Ken Lucci 20:27

right. So, if you are looking for weekend occasional help or part-time help, sell the dream. That is, if you're working full-time and you want some extra money from a part-time job that may also have tips, cash tips, we're a great, we are a great industry to work in. Are you, are you finding operators, capitalizing on the no tax on tip, uh, legislation or no, not yet?

Jodie Lethgo 20:55

I've actually not seen much about it. But, you know, Ken, it's, it's a great hook. Don't get me wrong, it's a great hook. But at the end of the day, it's gonna be getting them through the actual process of getting them hired, getting them in the seat, retaining them is really what's gonna end up mattering at the end of the day. You know, it-- Yes, we get people pay attention to those companies that are like, "I can pay you this much. This is our hourly rate." But you still see companies that are promoting pay and what they're paying with high turnover. So it's no different than promoting high pay as long as you can get people in and retain-- Yeah. I mean, it's-- The thing is What is that saying? It's people don't quit jobs, they quit people. If people feel disrespected, if your chauffeurs feel disrespected, they're gonna leave. You know, everyone has a tolerance level. It might help to get more people in the door. But beyond that, I do believe it's very much still a cultural thing that's gonna retain them and keep them.

Ken Lucci 21:57

Do you see recruits or even before the recruits, the candidates or prospective candidates, do you think they're searching the reputation of the company? Are they going on Glassdoor? Are they looking at their reviews?

Jodie Lethgo 23:18

So like I said earlier, I think the absolute best candidates are the ones that are already in jobs. And I would say those folks-- yeah. Absolutely. I-- We, we saw a little bit of it, people jumping from one chauffeur company to another. But when we are-- when you're running ads out there, especially if you're doing ads on social media, people are gonna click through and go view who's running this ad. You know, if I'm gonna put my information in and give you my information, I'm gonna see who is this company before I do it. Any- at least that's how I am as a consumer. You know, I wanna see who this is. So I'm gonna go to your social media page, and I'm gonna scroll and see what's going on here. And if you're doing those things, celebrating your drivers, if you're celebrating your staff, that's a good sign. That's very positive.

Ken Lucci 24:09

100%. 100%. Carl Gunther, he's on the NLA board, r- owns, uh, Statement Limousine in Ohio. Th- he is always doing social media posts celebrating and doing a bio on his chauffeurs and celebrating chauffeurs. I love that. I love the chauffeur wall. Um,

Jodie Lethgo 24:32

Yes.

Ken Lucci 24:32

yeah, we, we,

Jodie Lethgo 24:34

recognition, yeah.

Ken Lucci 24:35

have a client up in the Pennsylvania area, and I, I go visit him as often as he'll buy me a steak dinner. And I walk in and I see, first of all, it's an impeccable, impeccable operation that he-- people, a candidate would walk through. But he has a chauffeur wall, and he has positive sayings on the wall, you know, about him servicing, um, you know, providing service to the customer. He has a wall where all of the compliments, whether they've come in on a review, by email,

Jodie Lethgo 25:08

That's fabulous.

Ken Lucci 25:09

and it really sets the tone, and it almost makes the person really, "Wow, I really wanna join this kind of a, a positive operation." You know, and let's face it, you know, we're not digging ditches. I mean, at the end of the day, this is, this has moved into the chauffeurs and the, and the motor coach drivers can make a really, really solid living. Um, and I do hope, I do hope there are Uber drivers who are listening to this podcast who, who understand. I mean, we have top-notch equipment. The fleets... Th- and that's to your point, when a, when an owner or a recruiter or an HR manager walks you around the organization and shows you the fleet, it, it gives you a really, really good feeling. And I think more than anything, you're convincing me that this is really a- an extension of a sales job. It's no longer, it's no longer the stale, um, human resources interview. It's, it's you have to sell the concept of what they'll be doing. Um, where do you think we're going with CDLs? Do you think that-- D- are you seeing s- the shortage getting any better, or is it getting worse in your mind?

Jodie Lethgo 26:21

It's been bad since I've been in transportation, Ken. But I don't think-- I foresee that it's going to get worse. I really do. It's, it's just not a sexy job, if that makes sense. People don't look at this. It's-- but same thing with like plumbing and electricians. People aren't looking at this as this is what I wanna go and do. And most people, and I ran a CDL school for a while, and we were putting through truck drivers, bus drivers, Class B dump truck drivers. Our average age of someone coming to get a CDL was l- late 40s, mid to late 40s. So just wrap your head around if it takes people that long, and now we're getting this whole everyone under that age is not really looking to go drive a truck, drive a bus, we are gonna have a harder time. And it's, it's not something that Ken and Jodi can solve on a podcast together. You know, this is a issue that I don't know if we all need to like get together in the industry and do like the Got Milk ads and, you know, just try to push out that this could be a viable and very attractive career for someone. But it's-- I'm not really sure, Ken, what it's gonna take to try to attract people into these jobs.

Ken Lucci 27:42

Well, I can tell you that it's an easier job than being a waiter or a waitress. You're on your feet, and y- y- it's, but it's... Right. But you have some of the same skill sets as far as hospitality. Um, I think it's akin to a lot of the hotel, um, jobs that are out there. It's a lot easier than cleaning rooms. I, I think there's plenty of rooms for female drivers. We don't really do a great job of trying to attract female chauffeurs, but I know that, um, a survey was done by the GBTA about, about female executives. They're more comfortable, some of them, with a, with a female, with a female chauffeur. So, um, where do you, where do you see AI helping your business? I know this is a hot button with your business partner, Simon Curtis. I spoke to him yesterday. Um, where do you

Jodie Lethgo 28:32

Yeah.

Ken Lucci 28:32

helping you?

Jodie Lethgo 28:33

AI will never replace the human part of recruiting. So there always needs to be a human involved in the recruiting pipeline. But what recruiters did when I started in recruiting back in the day, it was a l- very admin-heavy. A lot of that can now be eliminated with the implementation of AI. You know, it was a lot of filtering through resumes. It was a lot of filtering through leads and through candidates. AI can now pull out duplicates. AI can help rank candidates. You know, AI is-- has automated our follow-up with candidates. When someone applies, we have an automated process that qualifies them and then says, "Hey, you meet the criteria. Here's the application. Fill it out." Rather than when I started, we actually had to pick up the phone and call them. And, you know, we had a pretty hard rule that if that lead came in, you had to call right then. And if you were off, as soon as you came in, you immediately hit the ground running on any leads that had come in. It was very human-driven. But now it's-- we can immediately send you a warm text that says, "Hey, Ken, you meet our, our entry-level hiring criteria. I'd love to learn a bit more about you. Here's the link to our application." And then when Jodi logs in the next morning that she's online, then she can call and follow up with you. "Hey, Ken, saw your information come through. Did you fill out that application for me?" Or, "Can you fill out that application for me so we can continue through the recruiting process?" But it will def- it has absolutely eliminated a lot of the admin work, which I love because it's gonna free recruiters up, managers and hiring managers up to really focus on selling that job and working on building the culture of bringing those folks in the door.

Ken Lucci 30:14

Nice. And, and would you say-- So it, it basically takes the cler- some of the clerical work away, but it, but it also keeps the communication seemingly, it's instant and, and it, it helps you rank and qualify, do some pre-qualifications.

Jodie Lethgo 30:32

Yes. There's so many ways that you can utilize AI. Now, I do wanna, you know, preface this. I'm not a lawyer, and I can't give any legal advice here, but owners should be managing the protocols around how people inside their organization are plugging in information about people into AI. So just making sure that you've got the business accounts, making sure that you have rules around how they're utilizing their AI tools and screening the applicant's information. Um You should probably talk to a lawyer about including any kind of AI use and automations inside your privacy policies that, you know, they under-- that somewhere in there it's saying that your information may be used inside some kind of AI process to vet and to screen. But it's also just ensuring that there is still a human looking over everything so that... Well, AI can hallucinate. You know, AI can fabricate things. I think if anyone is listening to this and has even had a little dabble with ChatGPT, you're gonna know that AI does tend to over-exaggerate things. So use it as a tool to help you, but never let it make any decisions for you.

Ken Lucci 31:45

Yeah, it's, it's more of an organizational tool, right? And it's more if you can, it-- if you can have it tighten up your process and answer some basic questions, et cetera. There's no-- Yeah, trust me, I fight with ChatGPT. I, I'm, I'm, doing I'm doing some serious, uh, serious research reports, and I'm like, "Well, where did you get that data?" And they're telling me, I'm like, "That's not true." It's not, it's not true. It's not true information. But to your point, so much of recruiting, unfortunately, so much of recruiting is checking boxes and, and administrative things. It would seem to me that AI would be a big help. Talk about traditional. Do you believe in job fairs for, for these kind of positions or no?

Jodie Lethgo 32:34

It depends on the market. I really think it depends on the market. Now, Class B with a passenger endorsement, I think probably about any market, that's gonna be a unicorn for those folks to walk in. Now, if you're looking for chauffeurs that are gonna be put inside sedans and SUVs, it could be a good source for you, absolutely. Because you are looking for someone who's gonna be service-oriented to do that job that you're looking for. So, you know, looking for someone there who has experience in hospitality. I mean, even to your point earlier, Ken, people who waited tables, those folks that are used to working for tips, they know how to take care of clients. So-- And they probably know how to work under pressure as well. You know, they've probably worked many nights when their section was overloaded, overcrowded, the kitchen was behind, and they've had to manage sits- situations. So we have found that people from hospitality backgrounds, whether that's hotels, whether that's valet, whether that's service, food service industry, people who worked for tips typically can convert over pretty well, and they're used to working the hours. Yeah.

Ken Lucci 34:52

they-- I was just gonna say that. If you've spent any time in the restaurant industry or the hel- hotel industry, you're not, you, you're not used to 8:00 to 5:00, Monday through Friday. Most, a lot of the work, it, it, a lot of the work, it's literally every shift is seven days a week, 365. There's always something going on. Talk to me about if I'm an operator, should, should I be doing anything to manage my Glassdoor, my Glassdoor account? Should I be-- What should I be doing there?

Jodie Lethgo 35:22

Yes, and I'll tell you why it matters now more than ever, because the way people are searching for jobs has dramatically changed. It used to be if you wanted to screen or vet a company, you would go find your Glassdoor reviews, you would go look on their Facebook page. But anymore, people just ask AI. They might be asking a GPT, but even if they don't, they're asking Google. And Google AI optimization can-- Just last Friday, Google put out a publication that said they're gonna be pulling more and more about companies from forums, from Reddit, from user input. Yes. so it's more important than ever to manage that holistic view of your company. And this goes back to marketing, the holistic view of your recruiting marketing, and that is everything that is being said online about you. And if someone is saying something about driving for you on Reddit, and I go into ChatGPT, and I ask about Ken Lucci's limo company that I'm applying for, and someone has said some stuff on Reddit, it's gonna pull that over, 'cause it's gonna say, "Here's the good stuff, but here's also some other stuff that we found."

Ken Lucci 36:33

do you ever ask your existing employees to go to these forums and cre- tell, create, you know, tell a good story about, "If you like working for us, tell

Jodie Lethgo 36:43

Hey. Now more than ever, Ken, I think people should be doing that, especially given the landscape of the internet right now, and the fact that-- The thing is, people aren't going and clicking on things anymore. They're being fed information, and they're gonna go with what's at the top there, the AI-optimized bit. And if the AI-optimized bit is only pulling bad stuff because there's nothing good about you, then you've got a real problem.

Ken Lucci 37:08

Yeah, you're right. And I, I, I told a couple... We told this story. John does a great job as our producer. He pulled down a bunch of bad reviews from, from specific limo companies. We didn't embarrass them. We didn't show anybody's name. But one of the things that we saw in one specific company was rude dispatcher, rude reservationist, rude driver. And I'm like, "Oh my God." And this was someone who had approached me to position their company for sale. And I'm like, "You, your brand equity is actually negative, so it's not good." But I, I also think it's important for the owners of the business to, to realize that the days of being able to treat employees like they're chattel or, or like they're expendable are over. You know, we used to have a saying, and I think it was because one of our clients was the New York Yankees. We used to say, "The chauffeurs and CDLs, those are the, those are our players on the field." You and the dispatchers, the dispatch team needed to treat them with respect. I just, I look at those comments that I see, and I absolutely cringe, especially when it's like, you know, "I called in to find out where the, the, the bus was, and the guy was absolutely rude to me." So I, I think o- operators have to be aware of this, but I never even thought about Reddit is... I don't go in Reddit. Tell me about Reddit. I'm hearing about it more and more.

Jodie Lethgo 38:44

It's all user-generated forums. That's all it is. And in the trucking space, it's actually really big, so we come across this quite a bit. truck drivers are a bit more brutal than chauffeurs are online, and there's just a sheer nu- there's just so many more of them, and they have a lot of downtime where they're by themselves. So they consume a lot more internet. They, they engage more online. And we see this all the time on the trucking side of our business, where Reddit is impacting things that are being pulled up by them online. And it, it's not even always bad stuff, it's just someone in the past had maybe referenced one particular client, someone in 2018 had made a post about their benefits, and it was still... Google was citing that as what their benefits were, and the recruiting manager's like, "That's so outdated, and I don't know how to get it to go away." So you just have to play this reputation management game. You gotta stay on top of it, first off, but it's engaging back. It's, it's making your own posts and talking about these things positively. It's always replying to comments, always replying to things in forums like that.

Ken Lucci 39:55

It's building your own content across the board, not just on social media, 'cause y- you know, I, I kind of, I kind of have to tune out Facebook as far as our industry is concerned sometimes. Um, but, you know, when you see a company that's on, for example, um, what's that one? What's the Deadbeat Affiliate? You, you know the Facebook Deadbeat Affiliate. So what you're telling me is, if I have a problem paying my bills as an operator, and I'm on Deadbeat Affiliate, don't be surprised if AI picks that up. Am I, am I right there?

Jodie Lethgo 40:30

Possibly, if it's an open forum, if it's a public forum. So I believe right now those forums where you have to be invited to get in

Ken Lucci 40:39

Those might not.

Jodie Lethgo 40:40

My-- maybe not. It's all still very new, Ken. Like I said, just last Friday, Google pushed this out as this is what we're doing. So it's a still, it's an ever-evolving thing. But you know what, Ken? Today it might not be, but who knows, in a year's time from now, maybe chatbots are brick- putting themselves inside those and asking to be

Ken Lucci 41:02

oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely. I

Jodie Lethgo 41:04

the way A... Exactly. The way AI agents can act these days, it's, it's a matter of time. So, and in that sense, Ken, it's, it's just so important for companies to manage their holistic online reputation for recruiting purposes, for purposes of bringing clientele in, and to your point, if they ever wanna sell.

Ken Lucci 41:24

It's incredibly important across the, across the board. So let's, let's kind of recap. First of all, I, I love-- I have to disclose that when you and Simon were starting Career Driver together, I helped you out with your business plan and your financial modeling. So I'm very, very happy, and I have helped you out with a couple of other things, and I'm

Jodie Lethgo 41:43

You have. You've been such a big part of our business and the way it's evolved throughout the years and getting us through being acquired and all the things. Yeah.

Ken Lucci 41:53

and he-- and you and Simon are my, two of my favorite people. Frankly, I think I prefer talking to you a little bit more, but that's okay. That's okay. he called me

Jodie Lethgo 42:02

You know he's gonna see this,

Ken Lucci 42:03

I know. He tr-trust me, he, he-- Yeah, I ta-talked to him from the UK yesterday. But at the end of the day, you guys really created something special here. Um, I, I think that the takeaways for me are recruiting is a constant thing, not just when you have a job opening. Let's face it, s-two of your... Exactly. Two of your drivers could walk in today and say: "Listen, you know, I'm leaving, I'm moving to Florida, nothing against you." And now you're way behind because you don't have a pool to pull, pull from. So

Jodie Lethgo 42:39

Ken, just to clarify, like you don't constantly have to call them. You don't have to always be calling candidates and talking to them, but it's doing the things like posting the things online like Carl's doing. You know, it's showcasing your drivers because that's recruiting. It's not the act of th- actually going and doing the pipeline of recruiting, but that's recruiting. It's managing the forums and what people are saying about you online.

Ken Lucci 43:02

So at the end of the day, always keep a, always be showcasing your talent. Let's face it, the chauffeurs and CDLs are your talent. Tell people who they are. Say, "This is John. He's got 10 years experience in the bus business. We're so happy he's one of our lead drivers." Always showcase your talent. Always have recruit-- When you're recruiting, always keep a list, but als- try to recruit, and when you're placing ads, maybe focus on, "Hey, we have part-time openings. Hey, we h- we have a need..." Right. "We have a ca- we have a need for occasional people. We have a need... This is a great, this is a great time, a, a great place to earn extra income. We have meetings coming. We have special events coming." Um, celebrate your people visibly at your office, meaning that chauffeur wall of fame to me always tells me I'm walking into a good company. When you're doing the recruiting, let's not interrogate. We have to-- The recruiting process in 2026 for any job is you're competing with remote jobs people could do from their house. You're, if you're a driver, you're competing with a myriad of driver opportunities out there. Everything from Amazon Last Mile all the way to trucking jobs that may pay serious, serious money. But listen, they're over the road and, uh, we, I think we've got a good offering. And as far as the owner is concerned, I think it is important for the owner To set the tone of how he appreciates his drivers. And for the, for the guys out there that may have had s- may have had some bad comments, whether it's on Reddit or anywhere really, you have to manage your reputation. it's not just your it's not just your client or prospective clients that won't come to you because they see bad reviews. Your, your talent pool goes down. I don't know anybody for any amount of money who would wanna go to work and be treated, you know, badly by the staff. Any other final points and best practices you'd like to tell the audience?

Jodie Lethgo 45:09

I'm gonna hit hard on these AI point, Ken, because it's just so super relevant right now. If you don't have a hiring page on your website, you need to, because people are searching very, very differently these days for jobs. You know, instead of just going into Indeed, people are asking ChatGPT, "Hey, I want a job where I can have flexible hours. I want a job where I can be respected. I want a job where I can do this, this, and this." And if you have a l- page on your website that's saying these things, and your website is structured appropriately for AI to be able to go in and scan it, then you could be cited, and you will be cited. But if you don't have those things, then you're not. And although that's not how 100% of the market behaves today, there's some crazy stats out there right now. Something like 60% of Google searches, people aren't even clicking on links. So if that's the way people are behaving right now, it's everybody is searching towards AI. And I challenge everybody to just think about how you search things, and I also challenge everybody to look at what the process would be from their side if they were a candidate, what their experience would be going through that with your company. How did they find you? What was that like for them? How quickly was the hiring process? What was the communication like? And was what was communicated in the initial discussion and in the interview reality for them? Because if it's not, then maybe it's time to go back and do an audit and figure out why there's a misalignment here and how we can make this align. Because your culture and your retention really starts at the first time that you have a conversation with them.

Ken Lucci 46:50

And don't make your process overly bureaucratic. I- if you have-- I- I mean,

Jodie Lethgo 46:55

Yes. Yes. Speed to hire is so, so important.

Ken Lucci 47:01

Right. And answer-- When a candidate fills out an application and you say you have available positions, don't ghost them. Just say, "You know what? We filled, we filled the one position. You're, you're s- you know, we will keep you in mind for future." Don't ghost them. Don't treat it like there are 10,000 people out there waiting to come work for you. this to me is, it's changing the, it's changing kind of a mindset of, of the way recruiting used to be, is people are lining up for each job. No. Now there's multiple jobs, many different types of jobs. These c- people can apply for a job four states away and wor- and work remotely from their house now. So you have to make the jobs feel attractive. I would even say on the, on the website, what do you think about testimonials from your drivers? "I love working here. It's flexible." I would, I, I would, take, I would take a chauffeur job right now again in a heartbeat because I like to read, okay? And I-- people say, "I can't, I, what do I... I'm sitting in the car." I would be sitting reading. I wouldn't be doom scrolling on Facebook. I would be reading or I would be listening to my podcast. By the way, I have become, since doing this foolish podcast, I have become a huge fan of podcasts. I listen to All-In, I listen to Founders. Uh, uh, and it, I think it, these are things where you have ultimate freedom in this job. It's not like you're, you're literally your own rolling office every day. So it's, it's, I

Jodie Lethgo 48:36

Yeah.

Ken Lucci 48:37

it that way.

Jodie Lethgo 48:38

No, I agree, Ken, and you make such a good point there. And to attract this younger generation, tell them that they get that kind of flexibility. It's not just flexible hours on shift, but to your point, it's you're gonna have downtime. Yeah, every now and again, you might have to deal with some difficult clients, deal with an exec being late for a flight, and you gotta get them there. Yeah. You're-- Like, take the good with the bad, and to your point, there's a lot of upside to these jobs, and that's the stuff you should be talking about. Like, that exactly is something you should be selling to that person when they come in the door.

Ken Lucci 49:12

Trust me, when every now and again I have a bad day, I say to my business partner, "You know what? I think I'd be happier back in the front seat." I'm, this, this, the best time I ever had in this industry was the first year I was in it as a chauffeur. I loved, I was, I had an Escalade with a laptop. When I was downtime, I would answer the calls or I would get back to people. I would work my wedding leads as the chauffeur. I had a great time. And, uh, and you know what? What do you think the top, and we'll leave it at this, what are the top five, besides the driving skills, obviously safe driving, so safe driving, what are the top four or five skills that you think are important for someone, the best candidates?

Jodie Lethgo 49:56

space? Mm. I'd say probably most of these are gonna be around people skills, in my opinion. You know, I think to summarize all the people skills, it's emotional intelligence, really. It's, you know, the awareness that you're not gonna play your music when they get in there. It's the awareness that, you know, you're gonna adjust the temperature to them. You're gonna take the cue from them if they wanna talk or not. It's just having that intelligence to be able to read the room. So, you know, I think that's one of the most important ones. And we work with a lot of folks in the black car space. I've been in the back of a lot of these cars myself, and it-- sometimes it's a, it's a, um, eyebrow raiser. Like, you really think I wanna listen to your music and, um, you know, then talk with you the whole time? But hey, it's

Ken Lucci 50:46

it,

Jodie Lethgo 50:47

having that intelligence.

Ken Lucci 50:48

it's-- and if you don't like people, this is not a good job for you.

Jodie Lethgo 50:53

This is not the job for

Ken Lucci 50:54

If you have, if you. just have a warm personality and you can match and mirror, meaning if the person talks to you, talking, but You you respon- you go with their flow. You respond to their question and then stay silent. I do think you have to like... I think you have to have a servant's heart, meaning you have to like, you can't feel it is beneath you to provide customer service. And I always liked it. I mean, I always found that it was almost like being a hotel concierge on wheels, so I really enjoyed it.

Jodie Lethgo 51:29

So beyond that was only one skill, Ken.

Ken Lucci 51:31

Oh, sorry. Keep

Jodie Lethgo 51:32

No, that's all right. No, that's-- I was gonna say, um, being able to stay calm in tough situations, just having the ability to manage those tough situations, 'cause you might have a Fortune 500 exec in the back seat that's running the risk of being late for a flight, and you've gotta get them there in a very cool, calm, professional manner without panicking and freaking out when you're stuck in traffic. It's doing that, and then, you know, just going back to your point about being a servant, a servant heart, having that servant heart. Do you need a phone charger? Do you need a water? How's the temperature for you? And then I'd say from there, it's just be- having open communication with your dispatch and with your management back at home base, is being able to be open with them on communications and receive the criticism back from them when something doesn't quite go the way that everybody scheduled it to go.

Ken Lucci 52:26

Oh, lot of moving parts in this business, so you gotta be able to go with the flow and, and there are gonna be some stressful days. But if you really look at it y- and there's a lot, lot, there's a lot more great days and a lot of happy interactions with clients, much more so than the bad day when the traffic was terrible and everything went wrong. Um, you're gonna have that with e- wi-with every job. So listen, this has been a, an exciting h- uh, hour. I'm glad we had you on. Uh, tell everybody where they can reach you. Um, tell them again the, the domain name and what is your email address.

Jodie Lethgo 53:03

So the domain name is careerdriver.com. Um, you can actually go in there and purchase driver leads yourself. I love to talk to all of our clients, so please feel free to reach out to me directly. It's jodie@careerdriver.com. It's spelled J-O-D-I-E @careerdriver.com. Pop me over an email. Um, hit me on LinkedIn. I'm always pushing out some stuff around either recruiting or AI and your online visibility on my LinkedIn profile. So find me on LinkedIn, send me a message on there, and let's get a time set up so we can go through what your process looks like and where you can improve your recruiting process and your online reputation.

Ken Lucci 53:42

Well, I really appreciate your time. This has been another exciting episode of the Ground Transportation podcast. James Blain from PAX Training, wherever you are out there, we've missed you, but Jody and I tried to do a great job here, so

Jodie Lethgo 53:56

James today.

Ken Lucci 53:57

we did. All right. Thanks, Jody. Appreciate you, um, being on the episode.

54:02

Thank you for listening to the ground transportation podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please remember to subscribe to the show on apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. For more information about PAX training and to contact James, go to PAX training.com. And for more information about driving transactions and to contact Ken, Go to driving transactions.com. We'll see you next time on the ground transportation podcast.