Driver Referral Program Episode 20

Jesse Butler, Driver Recruiter Spotlight

DRIVER RECRUITER SPOTLIGHT

Driver Recruiter, Jesse Butler, joins host Darin Ladlie over the phone to talk about the Driver Referral Bonus Program and the Minimum Pay Program.  Jesse and Darin explain how referring other Professional Drivers to join the Decker Team can be a very lucrative way to make extra money.  The more Drivers you refer, the better the incentives get!  They also talk about the new Driver Minimum Pay Program and why they’re so excited about this opportunity for Drivers.  Jesse and Darin go over the requirements needed to get the minimum pay; and how Drivers can enjoy quality home time and still maintain a steady paycheck.

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TRANSCRIPTION

00:05 DARIN: Inside the triangle, the Decker Truck Line podcast. Tell everyone, and welcome to inside the triangle. I am your host, Darin Ladle, and today I have a guest. It is the lovely Jesse Butler. Now, Jesse is kind of, I guess, would you be the face of Facebook for Decker truck line and maybe some Instagram stuff?

00:31 JESSE: I wanna say social media, recruiter, social

00:39 DARIN: Well, I know every Monday afternoon at 4 o’clock Central time, she does a live stream on Facebook and talks to the drivers and talks about different things going on at the company. I know we just finished the calendar event, I believe, wasn’t…

00:54 JESSE: We did, yeah, just a few moments ago. Okay.

00:57 DARIN: On our YouTube, and we had 12 great pictures show up, I assume

01:01 JESSE: We had… Well, I had a slew of pictures coming up ’cause we had some beautiful entries that weren’t quite the size they needed to be in order to be approved by the printer, actually, we had a lot of notes, we had to share all the pictures, not just the 12 but we definitely announced the 12 winter it… Be a preliminary winner.

01:18 DARIN: Good, good. Now, Jesse is been with us. Or when did you start with this? Jesse.

01:23 JESSE: July, at actually the end of June of 2010

02:08 DARIN: So how did you get into the trucking industry, recruiting in general.

02:13 JESSE: Through a friend who was working for another company, and I was making my transition to Missoula, which everybody… And I think everybody in Montana wants to live because it’s so beautiful, and so I was moving back to him, my extended family was, and I needed a job, and she had heard about my work that I had been doing for another company, it was totally outside of the trucking industry, but more marketing and communication-wise, and she felt that I’d be a good fit for that position that they had available, and I got to dive into it, a whole new world to me that… So my eyes were wide open. I had the very naive coming in, I should say, I didn’t know a lot about it, that was in 2006 when I started.

02:58 DARIN: So what do you think the biggest thing you’ve realized or learned, not coming from the trucking industry, what did you learn the most since you’ve been in-courting

03:08 JESSE: Expectations of what these drivers that you see on the road all the time are what they’re expected to do through dot standards and just in general, what the general public thinks they do versus what they really are responsible for, and I don’t care who you are, you need truck drivers for some, whether it’s getting equipment to you, getting a you supplies or getting your supplies out. I don’t care who you are, you need to be thankful for a truck driver. I agree. Agree whole-heartedly.

03:42 DARIN: So what kind of living out Montana, Are you an outdoors person, do you like… Are you hunting fishing? I know you like to work out. We’ve actually gone to the gym here a couple of… Well, at least launch, I’ve tried to convince you every time you come here, but you always seem to have any… But

03:57 JESSE: I do work out in the morning to when I come there.

04:02 DARIN: Yes, you do, but we’ve had that one, but are you an outdoors in person… Do you have your family? Outdoors a lot.

04:08 JESSE: I love to be outdoors. I do so much of my work is computer work that I always… I’m indoors quite a bit, but I love being outdoors unless is cold, and I’m a fair weather person, I don’t ski, which I know that’s a sin for a lot of those people in Montana. I do like to fish, but we don’t do much of that. I love to hunt, I love just love being out, going for the hike, looking for whatever I can find that on still my freezer. But works, I would say in baseball, probably my favorite thing to do.

04:44 DARIN: So today, we wanted to talk about a few different things. One of the main things we wanted to talk about was a reframe, so drivers are always looking for ways to make more money, we have the scorecard bonus, we have their regular pay, we have different bonus structures out there, so one of the biggest ones in the quickest way to make some extra money and some really good money is the referral program, so… Jesse, go ahead. Talk about the real program.

05:08 JESSE: Really, our referral program, in my opinion, is super or can be super lucrative, you get the actual money, the monetary amount that you can earn, peripheral, you have all of the additional incentives, and then of course, you’ve got the grand prize and the quarterly prizes as well. So money-wise, just the initial referral, you’ve got $1500 for the first three people you refer, so it does pay out in my increments, so you have $250 for the first dispatch on that referred driver, so that’s going to the referral, so there you go. And then you have the $250 after they’ve been here for 30 days, and then $500 at both 60 and 90 days. So it pays out within 90 days, so it’s not like you’re waiting for them to be here a full year, it’s still a good chunk and… And then you don’t have to see those big diets into it, come back time or when you’re in, your tag is taken out, but yeah, $500 for the first three drivers, $2000 for the fourth and fifth driver, you refer… So of course, the increments are gonna be a little bit different at the end, you’re looking at $750 and I think 50 and $1000, I think is how it pays out on the end, and then $2500 and on six or more drivers and so those…

06:29 JESSE: Those are really lucrative.

06:31 DARIN: Yeah, last year we had one guy, I think he had six recruits last year.

06:37 JESSE: Jesus had five… Yeah, he tours on our 2019 grand prize, and he had… By the thing that blows my mind is that all of his were in the last quarter, so if someone is trying to make a little bit of extra money for Christmas, seriously, this is the way to go. Of course, our qualifications are gonna be more strict than a lot of companies, ’cause we hold our drivers and employees to hire standards, I think, than others, but… Yeah. All in the last quarter. So he made over $11,000 just in the last formats, a Christmas bonus. Yeah, just on the referral, and so I’m not doing the normal driving… Awesome. And all those…

07:21 DARIN: And I know every once in a while, we’ll throw another little deal in there, I think… Didn’t we have a drawing? You’re also whoever, each month or quarter, I think we were drawing a name and they would get a prize or something like that.

07:34 JESSE: Yeah, so we’ve got the quarterly drying, so we have… I’m trying to think of the date. I think it was April 1, July 1, September, and then the 31st of December will be our final one for this year, and they get either their choice as a tablet or a laptop or the $750 cash, which is the equivalent to that, but that’s more… The quarterly price beyond that, we also have the normal intentional, I don’t know, but the basic incentives, which is the referral teaser, you can’t buy that one in the store, you have… They are on that. So you get to play that one with pride series radio, if you refer to or more drivers within the year, you get that for 12 months. Now, all of our amenities in our truck, you know this, but all of our amenities in our truck are provided to you by Decker, that’s the only one that it is provided by Decker, but then you have the subscription is your responsibility. It’s been part of our incentive for referral bonus for a while, and so I think that’s probably why we keep it that way, but in addition to that…

08:35 DARIN: Go ahead. The axis. Yeah, and it’s not hard to get… It’s easy to hook up to just that truck, so not only for this guys, if you do wanna get it hooked up in your ever wanna know how any event problems, give me a call on that also, but I do think that’s quite the incentive for the referral bonus is getting that XM for a year to…

08:54 JESSE: Yeah, it’s nice, it’s nice. I love the comedy, as well as the country, and Christian is the one that I always listen to, but those are fantastic, and then we’ve got… You go up a level if you were for four or five drivers, not only does your payout, but then you also have this member… Five is elite referral member jacket. That’s pretty fancy. I referrals for that one. And then the business cards, I think I mentioned that you’ve got the three hires for the business cards, but once you get three hires, those little business cards, you can handle out at the truck stop if someone’s just passing by and interested, you hand that sucker to them and our job as recruiters is to help you with that referral and to do the work so that you can continue doing what you do best and getting the job done on the road, you’ve got the miles that you’re putting in and everything, and our job is to take care of all those questions, and of course, they’ve got you to come back to it, they want the driver’s perspective, but a lot of people do what’s nice about the referral program.

09:56 DARIN: It’s so easy because I see him come in all the time… You have it right on your phone. So even if they’re interested in that fast, you can do the referral right there on the phone, instantaneously

10:07 JESSE: Comes directly to the recruiting department, so all of us have access to that, so we know depending on if your referral calls them wondering about the position and maybe wanting to check up on it, they can get a hold of any of their recruiters and they’ll be able to have that information that it was you who referred that driver, and so it doesn’t get lost in the shuffle and you’ll be sure to get paid for that $1500 or more, based off of that referral.

10:35 DARIN: ’cause it’s very important ’cause we need to make sure that the recruiters know who’s referred to invoice, ’cause we wanna make sure everybody gets credit for the person that they talk to, ’cause it’s very important for both the recruiter and the bar driver.

10:48 JESSE: Yeah, absolutely, and you know, having the moment to talk to our drivers for a new driver coming into Decker, having that opportunity to talk to him ahead of time really gives them a good understanding of the company that they’re coming into and what to expect, knowing that they’ve got the support behind the scenes, and that they’re not just gonna be the left left to figure it out on their own, we’ve got… I know the other companies as well, they might have safety and night ops and the driver managers, managers out there, but they don’t have our support system, which I think is night and day over a lot out there.

11:25 DARIN: I agree, I agree, totally. The other thing that I love about the driver referral program is we used to… The trailers were all set up… Do we still do that? Do we still offer on the trucks of anything on the side of the truck for details or anything… On the back, we have the drive Decker, and I think on the lower right hand now that don’t have a trainer right in front of me, but I’ll have to eyeball in here.

11:50 JESSE: Yeah, I think in the back corner of the trailers that it says DriveDecker.com, and then the 800 number, so I think it’s all there.

12:07 DARIN: Yes, it is. So the other thing I wanted to get into today was we just started actually this week, we are now offering a $1000 minimum guarantee to all van drivers and flatbed drivers, so pretty much Company-wide, we’re doing… We guarantee that you will gross at least a $1000 a week every week, as long as you maintain certain criteria, can you tell us a little bit about what you know on that program, Jesse?

12:38 JESSE: Yeah, I think it’s pretty awesome just because you can budget, be not on the road, you can actually budget, ’cause I know that was one of the most difficult things coming into the industry and learning that the drivers are paid per mile in the most part and what if they didn’t get the I that week. What if weather got in the way or their truck broke down, or whatever the case could be, how do they pay those bills, well, then you guys are headed together at management and everything figured out that we can offer the minimum pay, and they’re pretty basic requirements. So the $1000 is gross, that’s the gross pay that is available in this guaranteed… Of course, you need to meet the basic called qualifications which are being available for this at no load refusals and no preventable service failures, so the loads need to be 100% on time, again, that’s driver-related service failures, so if it’s something out of your hands are out of your control, and obviously it’s not tellin against you, you need to be available to work at least five days out of the week, and one of the biggest ones that I can distract is that your payor Him…

13:45 JESSE: That is the easiest thing. We’ve got the transfllo on your phone available, we’ve got the got GeoTab unit in the trucks, and some of the trucks will be in all of them as soon as we can get it in there, and we’ve got the on-board standards in the truck, so you’ve got easy access to get the paperwork in, it’s just the push to get it done as soon as you’re done with the load. And those are the basic requirements. The CSA points, no accidents for that week, and it’s a week-by-week basis, so you might have it one week, but not the next, and that’s fine because it’s a week by week, so it… And of course, if you get more miles in your pay per mile, the two of them combined, exceed that $1000, you’re gonna get the better of the two, so either way, Decker is looking out for you to make sure that you’ve got money coming in on a regular basis.

14:35 DARIN: Well, here’s why… And like you said, it’s there to cover… Let’s say we got weather situations coming, ’cause Winter is about to hear, we’ve got shipper situations or receiver situations where you could get hung up on a load unfortunately, or maybe a claim or something that you get held up on and it costs you another load or something. Or break down, something like that, it’s there to cover you for those times, you… Let’s say you only ran… You had an issue at a receiver and it costs you a trip or something, and so you only gross 900 for the week while… Guess what, we’re gonna throw in a $100 to get you that $1000. Now, the next week, you may had all standing week and you gross $1500, well, guess what, you gross $1500, you made $1500. We’re not penalizing you for the good weeks, we’re just helping you out during the bad times, which I’m unfortunately in this industry, they happen, we can’t predict truck breakdowns, we can’t predict shipper issues, stuff like that. Especially in covid, this is a weird, weird doing

15:42 JESSE: That it is, and a lot of guys were holding off on taking home time… Well, with covid, that’s a totally different instance, but a lot of guys were holding off on taking home time just because they thought they needed to get those miles in or they weren’t gonna have a paycheck if they didn’t… Well, if you’re available for dispatch, and there is no mileage requirement per se in $1000 guaranteed, but there is being available for dispatch, so it’s our job to make sure that you’re getting those miles and to try and help you exceed… So that $1000 each and every week, but you can take the home time, so it gives you a better balance of home time and pay and just being available, it’s just a better balance for your home life when

16:29 DARIN: They decide to come out with this program… I know I’ve been actually fighting in advocating for this, something along this line for a lot of years, a lot of years. Because like you said, you hit the nail on the head. Drivers want predictability, the wife or a girlfriend or whoever it is at home, they want to be able to try to have some… Some of a steady paycheck. A steady paycheck is the biggest reason the driver stay or go, if the wife or somebody at home can’t pay their bills, they can’t do it with regularity. They’re not gonna be around for very long. They’re not gonna be happy. A non-happy driver is not gonna be around for very long.

17:07 JESSE: Agreed. And why would they… You’re working, all of us, the number of hours in a year in our life that we work, we need to be able to find enjoin it and enjoy what we’re doing and be happy doing it.

17:19 DARIN: When I come off the road, the one… Everybody says I don’t drive as much as I used to, but it is a big change from when I was a driver. And I made very good money as an owner operator here, very good money, I took a heck of a pay cut to come in here, but I got a steady paycheck every week, and that’s what drivers are really looking for. They’re also looking for a company that cares for me. God, do we try and just bend over backwards and trying to take care of our drivers, a lot of drivers don’t see it, they don’t get it, but trust me, everybody here, you know I know Don knows everybody knows. We try to bend over backwards to help. Drivers

17:55 JESSE: Doing the social media, the Facebook and LinkedIn and everything, just with some of the drivers reaching out to me, even just by phone, ’cause I know they can just call and if they need to, then they convince if they wanna think praises, they can give the praises but it’s really reassuring when upper management, when Ken and Brad and Michael and all of those will call me and say, Hey, you know what, if you have concerns, make sure that everybody knows that we have an open door policy. They can come and talk to me about it. They’ve got the support in our drivers have the support, whether they know it or not, the support is here, and we wanna make sure that your concerns are being heard, whether you’re an onus or you want your name out there.

18:42 DARIN: And I wanted to give a shout out to burdened, she actually sent us an email here a little while ago, wanting to think down for doing all he has done for us and her, and I just wanted her to know that we got the email, trust me down is very thankful for that. And we’re more thankful for you guys for just doing what you do, ’cause we gotta have… And the drivers are the utmost support… But every employee here at Decker truck line is important. I don’t care if it’s some mechanics, they’re cleaning up the shops, I don’t care what they’re there, everybody hears a team and they’re important. We all have to work together. If we can’t work together, this whole thing, I’ll just fall apart. Retell. Well, machine, yes. You all together? Yes, sometimes they use three and one oil, sometimes you use 15 foot… Depends how much squeaky we got. Is there anything else you’d like to talk about, anything you like to add? Jesse.

19:39 JESSE: You… I guess if you have somebody that you’re wondering if they qualify, just reach out to the recruiting department and either through the transporter by phone… 888-668-0698. Are there to answer questions? I know the qualifications are usually the number one question that we’re asked that does require a nine months of planet… 9 months of experience period, but it does need to be late specific, and I think that’s one of the main questions I can ask other…

20:08 DARIN: What about overall experience? Which is, it’s nine months period. Isn’t it for any driver?

20:14 JESSE: Yep, requires nine months. Just has to be a specific… For that division.

20:19 DARIN: Well, thank you, Jesse, and keep up the great job on the social media, I try to tune in at 40 o’clock just to hear what you got to say, but keep up a great job and we’ll talk to you later. All

20:30 JESSE: Right, sounds great. Thanks, you guys. 20:32 DARIN: Thanks for SaaS always. Thank you for listening to the inside the train. Don’t forget to subscribe to us on whatever platform you’re listening on, that way, you will know in new episodes drop and remember, submit your questions to podcast@DeckerMail.com, and you could be featured on one of our upcoming episodes. The best way to do this is to create a voice memo on your smartphone, record question and email it to podcast at Decker mail dot com. Once again, thank you for listening. State-driven to be the Best.