Do you want to hire more truck drivers? Then they need to know you.
In many of our articles, we compare the process of hiring drivers to the sales funnel. The basic idea is you don’t “close” every driver that you meet. I think it’s a good representation of the driver hiring process. Further, I really like driver recruiting as a sales model. Not a sales model of selling things, but a model of helping the market, you, find the best solution.
I recently read a book that talked about sales. I was reminded of the old adage “Know, Like and Trust” as a way to get the sale. The idea is that the customer needs to know you before they like you, then like you before they trust you. At trust, there is the possibility of a sale, or in this case a hire.
It occurs to me that too many trucking companies are not doing everything they can to let the prospective truck driver know their company and the people in it. Here’s how you can tell if the applicant driver knows you.
- Do they know what you look like? Or what anyone besides the leadership team looks like?
- Are there videos of the recruiters and dispatchers on your website?
- Are those videos linked in emails to the applicant or part of your website driver application?
The answer to most of these questions will probably be no. But my question to you is, why not? This is a low-cost way for the driver to get to know you. It’s the start of “Know, Like, and Trust”. The videos don’t need to be expertly produced, an iPhone will work just fine. The video content here at truckingpayroll.com is all done on an iPhone + 10 with inexpensive editing software. We try, but we aren’t video pros.
Maybe you don’t want prospective truck drivers to know you because you think they won’t like your people. If that’s the case, by not having the videos available, they won’t close as many driver deals. The drivers that join you won’t stay if they don’t like you anyway, so why not save time and money?
You’ll find that if the driver feels like they know the recruiter, from a photo or a short video, the connection will happen faster. Test it out once and let us know what happened. I am sure you’ll be happy with the improved results.
Do you have questions about what videos to make or how to make them? Contact us and I will be happy to have a chat with you about it.
Written by Mike Ritzema
With over 20 years of experience in entrepreneurship, management, business planning, financial analysis, software engineering, operations, and decision analysis, Mike has the breadth and depth of experience needed to quickly understand entrepreneurs’ businesses and craft the most suitable solutions.
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