Proper Route Notes and Instructions!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hello, it's me again. I sincerely hope this day finds everyone who reads this living each day as if it were their last. I want to take a moment to discuss the detailed notes that every route should leave a relief driver for their route. Regardless if my company is providing the service or not. I really get perturbed at route owners that leave us with little to no notes and instructions before they leave, and come back unhappy with the condition of their routes. If you leave PROPER notes, your livelihood will be properly taken care of. I learned that most route owners have no idea how to leave proper notes, so I've attached an example of exemplary route instructions. If you don't leave similar notes, TRR will not be responsible for any errors made while running your route(s).

I know this will take a few minutes, but isn't your livelihood worth it? It's not fair to say TRR did not do a good job running your route when you left grossly inadequate instructions. Thanks in advance for everyone's compliance. One love, Mike

Fees and payment tweeks......Yee Haw!!!!

Hi, it's me again. I sincerely hope that any and everyone who reads this has chosen to live life and enjoy each remaining day to the fullest. Remember we should all try to live by the adage  'Work to live instead of living to work'.

Well, it's that time of year again. The kids are putting the finishing touches on yet ANOTHER school year. They are gonna be in WHAT grade next school year??!! Where has the time gone?! The joys we receive from taking  family vacations produce the kinds of memories that we will cherish the rest of our days. Memories that are invaluable. Kids may wear on our nerves through the years and some of us may even look forward those days when they've all grown up and moved out so mom and dad can finally have peaceful alone time with one another. Thing is, the older we get, the more we understand what's really important, and that's family. SO Pay it forward and give your kids more of your time and they will give it back to you when you'll really need and cherish it.

I truly enjoy the friendships I've forged within the DSD Industry over the last ten years and it always makes me feel good to provide TRR services to a family that hasn't been able to take a family vacation simply because they couldn't find someone who could step in and properly manage the family business for a week. That said, I'm very excited to announce CHANGES TO OUR FEES!!! Changes that I feel will make it a little bit easier for more route owners to take advantage of TRR's services and schedule some vacation time.

1) 10% ACROSS THE BOARD* when you request route-management staffing for 8 or more days in a calendar year**    

2) 4 WEEKS SAME AS CASH*** when you pay from your new or existing Dwolla account


* 10% of each sales ticket at store cost

** Appropriate deposit(s) MUST be paid through new or existing DWOLLA account

*** 4 Weeks from the FIRST scheduled service day



Dwolla is obviously something that I strongly encourage people to utilize when paying for TRR services. It saves everyone involved a lot of time. Which is important because MY time is priceless, but if I'm forced to place a monetary value on it, most people will find they can't afford to purchase much of it. I totally understand the security risks out there nowadays, but Dwolla is on the cutting edge of security advancements. I believe in the company so much so that TRR also GUARANTEES the safety and security of Dwolla usage by completely reimbursing ANY monetary amounts that are found to be fraudulently transferred. Mind you, it has NEVER happened.


There ya go! Using the cost of our services as an excuse for why you haven't scheduled a vacation just became a little more harder to swallow. Better yet, book a long weekend getaway to The Inn at Evins Mill with your significant other as well as a family vacation to almost anywhere!  

Vacation time!

Hello everyone. I sincerely hope that all of you are well. It's been a while since my last post. I have a few things I'd like to talk about. First, I wanna thank all of my RR customers for the opportunity to provide you with our services. We are well on our way to surpass the goal we set for number of route relief days booked for 2014. The weather is about to break and there's still prime days/weeks still available. Don't wait too long, because we typically get a large number of requests once spring arrives. Remember, you don't have to book 'full' workweeks. Most of you don't deliver on Wednesday or Sunday, so sandwich your vacation days around those days for time off. Don't forget, we offer pull-up services as well. I'd also like to announce NEW PRICES FOR PULL-UP SERVICES. I've been looking for a way to calculate the amount to charge for individual pull-up routes, this is what I've come with.

There will be a charge of .27/mile for the round-trip of the pull-up route, starting and finishing at our office in South Inglewood, Nashville. We'll use Google maps to find the shortest distance between stops, while maintaining the correct order of service.

Bimbo/Thomas/Arnolds/entenmann's

$10/store + .27/mile

Pepperidge Farm

$5/store + .27/mile

Little Debbie

$7/store + .27/mile

Mission

$5/store + .27/mile

Flowers Foods

$10/store + .27/mile (extra charges for high private label volume)

Snyder-Lance

$7/store + .27/mile

The $100 credit is still on the table for anyone who signs up and uses their new Dwolla account to pay for TRR services. They're a PayPal alternative that only charges .25 a transaction. They're a really good company. Go ahead and Google them. There's tons of information about them.

Finally, if any of you know someone interested in part-time work in the DSD industry, send them to me. I'd prefer for them to have experience, or you all could train them first.

We all have a finite number of days left on earth, go enjoy the fruits of your labor!

New Year, new promotions!

Hi everyone, it's a new year, and I have a new promotional offer for the first two people who take advantage and book at least 3 consecutive work days on the website (Therouterunner.com). I have two $25 gift cards for: chilli's, macaroni grill, maggiano's, or on the border. I'm still offering a $100 credit to those who sign up for a Dwolla account and use it to pay their deposit, as well as a $50 referral credit for any new customer who also opens and uses a Dwolla account to pay for any Route Runner services. That's a very easy way to save money on our services. I look forward to meeting all our new customers this year. Enjoy life and take time for those that you love and hold dear. As always, one love.Mike

http://refer.dwolla.com/a/clk/1kxWbK

Alternate way to pay for services

Ok, everyone. I know what it's like to live hand to mouth, paycheck to check. Starting this business has me a comfortable step BELOW that right now, but I have a clear vision of what 'The Route Runner' can become. That is, a viable business that offers an entire industry a premium, sought after, service at a competitive rate. To help with the fact that a lot of my customers aren't used to having to budget for vacation time, I've joined up with Dwolla . Dwolla provides a free web based software platform which allows users to send, receive, and request funds from any other user. Dwolla’s maximum transaction cost is 25 cents per transaction. Opening a Dwolla account will allow my customers to initiate automatic weekly or monthly payments into their accounts from a checking or savings account. This way my customers can EASILY contribute smaller amounts of money over time instead of all at once. No one has access to your account but you. You can take from or add to your account whenever you'd like. Stopping any drafts takes 1 or 2 clicks for immediate action. Your Dwolla account can be used strictly for TRR services or a host of other Dwolla storefronts . Support local Dwolla merchants and save. The paypal's of the world are relying on exorbitant fee's for their profits, while Dwolla is providing the same service for exponentially less and letting customer growth be their means to profit. Signup is easy, just click here

Oh, I nearly forgot the best part. $100 credit towards any TRR services(s) for everyone who opens (and uses) their new Dwolla account to pay for TRR services. $25 a week for 28 weeks is $700 towards that May vacation, start saving now!

Personal vacation account

Hello everyone. I've been brainstorming ways to help more distributors have access to my company's services. I understand that not everyone is financially positioned to lay down the necessary money to pay for 'The Route Runner' services at one time. Would automatically depositing say $25/week into your own personal vacation-time account interest any of you. Your funds would not be accessible to anyone but you. When you'd want to take time off, you could easily transfer the required amount to my business account. You would have access to it should you need it for something else. Just an idea. For those who sign up for the account, I could maybe even offer a substantial onetime discount on a particular service.

Bureau of Labor and Statistics(BLS)

 Here is a link to the BLS page for the wage(s) information of DSD route drivers/sales in the Greater Nashville area for 2012. Those numbers reflect pay rates of route drivers delivering for ONE company. They have to familiarize themselves with ONE company's handheld computer and provide it's necessary TCOM (communication) method as well as ONE company's line of products. In order to provide my services to ALL the self-employed routemen in the greater Nashville area, I have to train enough drivers, on ALL the different handhelds and all the different products, to handle the potential workload. How do they train? I personally pay them a training salary to ride with a volunteering distributor from EACH different company for 5 days. The multi-company knowledge is absolutely necessary. Otherwise, there'd be only one relief driver per company. Problem with that is; everyone would want that ONE relief driver for the same 20 or so weeks from April to October. Only being able to fill in for ONE company and it's distributors would not provide enough work. Not to mention,having drivers with muti-company training also means a FAR GREATER likelihood of every distributor securing the date(s) they'd like to take off. All of that said, if adequate knowledge of ONE company's way of doing things is worth $14/hour, how much is the knowledge of how 5,6, or seven companies ways of doing things worth? Oh, and don't you think that I should get a fee for paying for all that training, as well as setting the whole thing up? Enough 'overcharging' talk. If you personally can't afford my services, I'm sorry. Maybe when you pay your route off, you should take the extra money and save it up for a vacation instead of upgrading that pickup truck or buying the latest smartphone or bigscreen. I have several REPEAT customers that have lived modest lifestyles and saved money and are knocking me down for my service. I'm talking about multiple distributors booking 4 weeks at a time. Their pickup truck might not be as nice as yours but hey, for 4 weeks next year, they'll be sipping margarita's on a beach somewhere, or maybe in Colorado or Montana tagging that trophy elk, or finally taking their children on a nice family vacation. My fees are NOT changing. Unless someone else comes along and offers the same service at a rate you CAN afford, I'm the best option for you. However, I am very confident that NO ONE would take on the same services that I'm offering for much less. Be careful though, when it comes to your livelihood. You often get what you pay for in this life. One last thing, if anyone is interested in training my drivers for their particular company, let me know. Thing is, they need to be able to run your route after 5 days if they needed to, so please, properly train them and don't use them as free labor.