Chad’s Routing Tips Amid Halftime Rentals’ Rapid Growth

Transcript

Intro

Host: What’s up, guys? In this episode of Toilet Talk, our guest host is Chad. He’s the co-owner of Halftime Rentals, and these folks are in growth mode. They went from one driver to five drivers in two months due to Hurricane Haleen. And we’re here to talk about routing. Chad will share some of his wisdom on how he organizes his routes and handles those last-minute changes, especially as they’ve gone through this explosive growth. So, make sure you stick around to the end. Let’s jump right in.

[Music]

Why Routing Is So Hard

Host: All right, Chad. So, why do you think routing is often described as one of the most difficult parts of running a portable toilet rental business?

Chad: Yeah, I would just say that routing is a crucial part of how your business operates. I always tell people that I basically run a logistics company. We have 470 something active job sites right now or active rentals, and it never goes as planned. So, I’m constantly changing the routes for the next day, for the next hour, for the next six hours, whatever it may be. New deliveries, new pickups. You always have to be changing and optimizing your route if you want to provide the best customer service.

Avoid This Mistake

Host: Routing keeps you on your toes. What are some of the headaches that new folks getting into the industry face when it comes to routing? What do you think the biggest mistakes they make are?

Chad: Documenting what are the days or times or special requests that certain of your sites have. When you get into routing, then you completely forget about the sites that need servicing on a specific day or time. You optimize the route and you don’t have documentation on why you have certain sites on certain days. Then you start moving them around and realize, oh, I got myself into a bit of a pickle here because I really upset some of my biggest customers. They requested a certain day or time, and I didn’t document that and then just went about my routing as I normally would. So, my one advice is to have a great system for documenting why certain stops are on a certain day or for a certain driver or ability to get into a certain site.

Host: Document, document, document. Great advice. You guys grew very quickly in a short amount of time and you had to take on more drivers. How do you get your drivers comfortable with their route when they start and the tools that you use?

Chad: I always say that I have a very high level of expectation but a very high level of forgiveness. It’s more so on myself than it is on my drivers getting comfortable. I have to be comfortable with them making mistakes early on. I know that they are going to make mistakes, mess things up, not be comfortable the first week or two weeks, and I just have to be comfortable with that. I think the best way to learn is correcting the mistake as it happens. I can try to train them as much as possible upfront to be comfortable with their route, but inevitably something’s going to happen where they’re going to have to learn the hard way or think that they aren’t going to be able to hit a stop when I then have to come back and say, “Here’s how you should have done that.” I can only prepare so much and I just have to be comfortable learning the hard way with the drivers. I use a bit of the human element going to those customers and saying, “Hey, you know, we had a new driver. They weren’t comfortable with your stop. They didn’t understand the nuances. We will make it right. We’re going to come back next week. They know now how to do this correctly.” I take it more on myself than on the drivers feeling comfortable. I do send them on routes with other drivers for training, but ultimately just know they will make mistakes and we’ll correct them at the beginning right as they happen and have a super high level of expectation but a very high level of forgiveness too.

Driver Ownership

Host: I like that. How do you see them taking ownership of their routes as time goes on and as they become more comfortable with you?

Chad: They are more willing to give suggestions on, “Hey, here is how we should service this stop” or “Here’s a stop that we should do” or “Here’s what I would recommend on my route.” In this business specifically, I think a lot of our drivers have come from a background of you go do your job and you better not make mistakes. I’m going to come down on you if you make a mistake. It takes a while to train that out of them. I came in with a lens of I want you to be here as part of the team and give your feedback on how we can improve our processes internally. Trust is built over time. They ultimately will become comfortable and know that they can give me feedback, like, “Hey, dude, I can’t work 4:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. this route was insane.” Sometimes I just don’t see that level of detail until they tell me and give me that feedback. I realize, hey, you can give that feedback and bad things aren’t going to happen to you. That trust is built over time and that communication is built over time. I obviously encourage open lines of communication but I encourage them to give me feedback on their routes.

Host: Nice. I’m sure over time it builds better customer service too, because when they have ownership over that route and really care about it, your customers are going to feel it.

Positive Feedback

Chad: Yeah, absolutely. I also try my hardest to balance positive encouragement versus criticism. Everything I do, I end my posts or whatever on social media with “encourage more than you criticize.” I try to give that feedback back to them. I talk a lot about correcting errors as they happen, but I also am very diligent. If I get a call from a client that said, “Hey, your driver did a fantastic job. He came and talked to me. We moved some things around so we could get to that,” I make sure that I relay that positive feedback back to them.

Host: One of the biggest headaches is things are going to change throughout the day. Inevitably, you’re going to get that request for an emergency or you need to run to a different service, but the driver’s already left the yard and you have to deal with it. How do you make changes in the middle of the day and how have you done it in a way that helps not create chaos but smooths things over?

Chad: It all starts with expectation setting early on. I tell them when I hire them that your days are going to be slightly chaotic and that the way you start your day may not be the way you end your day. I expect you to be open to being a team player and helping out however you can to make sure we get done the way that we need to. It starts with that expectation upfront and then when it inevitably happens and I call them and I’m like, “Hey, I need you to ignore the rest of your route. I’m going to put a stop on your route where I need you to go pump this septic tank and we’ll figure out the rest of your route on someone else’s.” They are not surprised that that is happening because I’ve warned them many, many times. “Hey, this may happen. I need you to just get in the boat and start rowing with us.” But there is some push back still at some point. I can sense it. Then it just goes back to over time that trust is built and they ultimately do get in the vote and help. Their routes are changing throughout the day and it’s all about communication. Hey, if their routes change, I’m going to have me or my office manager call and say, “Heads up, this has changed. You’ll see it on your job board, but didn’t want you to be surprised when you came across it.”

Locked Gates & Blocked Units

Host: Another thing that comes up a lot is locked gates, blocked units, units you can’t service, units you can’t find. How do you handle those and how do you deal with letting the customer know?

Chad: Obviously, the benefit of service core is there is a note section to all of their jobs. We want to make sure that me and my office manager collect all of the information and get all of the documentation upfront to make it easy on our drivers. I don’t want to say that we abuse the notes portion of the app, but we use it a lot to direct drivers to where the toilets are, to any lock gates, any locks on the toilet themselves. We do proactively ask when we get a new order, is there going to be any lock on the toilet or lock on the gate itself? Can you provide that information so we don’t have any issues? We encourage our drivers to not only call the site contact if there’s an issue but also send a text. What we have found is they’ll call and then it’s always a he said, she said of, “Oh, I never got a call.” So, we tell them to send a text as well and then if there’s ever a miscommunication, we can say, “Hey, check your phone. We sent a text. We have it in writing that we did everything we could.”

Host: Do you have your drivers take pictures when you hit a locked gate or a blocked unit?

Chad: Yes, we have them upload photos as well. We can show what the issue is. But ultimately, the text has been like the savior of all of this because people can’t say they never got it.

Gut Instinct vs. Software

Host: When it comes to routing, you use a tool, service core, but there’s also a bit of gut instinct that goes into these too. You know your routes well, you know your area well. How do you balance that between your gut and what the software is saying?

Chad: You learn it over time for sure on what is the best route and is this too much. You just learn your big stops especially. You’re like, “Hey, these are the big ones. These are the ones that have a water tank. These are the ones that have a waste tank. This one has 20 toilets at it.” I know where the money comes from. I know what clients I need to make happy. I prioritize those first and fill in the rest around them. Not saying every customer isn’t important, just some customers are more important than others. I make sure that we have the best routes possible to make sure we do not miss the ones we need to hit, put those first of the day, put those on drivers that I know will hit them, the ones that are most reliable. I know they’re going to show up to work on time. Let’s get those first and then we can fill in the rest, which makes the most sense.

Prioritizing Service

Host: What do you do to make sure that you’re looking at your routes to see if they’re profitable? Do you analyze that on a regular basis?

Chad: I don’t analyze it as much as I should. I think we’re in growth mode. So admittedly, my focus is on service first, profitability second. I think I would sacrifice profit to make sure that customers, especially new customers, are getting their service and not missing them. For example, even if this stop or a job site is way out of the way and we miss it one day, I’m going to make sure that we put it on the schedule for the next day. We may lose money or be not profitable on that stop, but I want to set an expectation and build my brand upfront, sacrificing a bit of profitability, knowing that that’s going to be a customer for life, and I’ll have a little bit more wiggle room on those misses a year from now versus focusing solely on profitability and routing now. I also understand that if we didn’t build a good brand and continue to grow, the way we have routes will become more dense. We’ll get more clients. We’ll have more stops on the route. I can stomach some of this now knowing that there’s an end goal, a better future for us in terms of profitability.

Competitor Sightings

Host: You guys are obviously in growth mode and that was a great segue into my next question because as you think about making those routes more dense by getting new customers, expanding your service area, do you ever have your drivers look at the competitor’s units?

Chad: Yeah, some of them naturally do this. I tend to not talk about that as often with my drivers because I want them to focus on the task at hand and doing a great job at what they’re currently doing. I understand that my words have a ton of power with our drivers. If I say, “Let’s go look at some of these toilets,” and praise them for that, then who knows how much of their day is going to be spent driving around looking at other toilets versus focusing on the job that they do. I will get some texts from drivers saying, “Hey, look at how terrible my competitor’s toilets are. Here’s a job site.” I’m very grateful for that when it happens, but I don’t proactively stress that that is important for us. I have a tremendous sales manager whose job that is. If I happen to get a lead from one of my drivers, I will send it on to them or to her and she takes care of business that way. But yeah, that’s a long-winded way of saying I don’t necessarily want to talk about that all that much with my drivers just because what I talk about becomes a priority.

Host: Sure. Yeah. And I think that also goes back to the ownership. The more they feel ownership, they might just do it naturally and obviously they’re focused on making their stuff look beautiful, but hey, look at that one over there. Good opportunity.

Chad: Yeah, exactly. They I love that most of my drivers have a ton of passion for being a part of Halftime Rentals. It’s like their craft and they are side salespeople for us. I just got a text the other day saying, “Hey, call this number.” I was on a job site where they had us and another competitor on, and I went over to that superintendent and showed them how much better our toilets look than theirs. And sure enough, that person called me. So, I love the ownership and passion that they have for their craft.

Challenges Ahead

Host: As you look to the future of this industry, what do you think the number one challenge is moving forward?

Chad: I would say a couple of things. One, I would say the barrier to entry seems to be getting higher in terms of a couple of things, but the barrier to entry in terms of how fast a business can scale and the lack of patience that I’ve seen in the industry. I think I’ve gotten very lucky with a few things like the natural disaster and I’ve hired some great people who have really helped me accelerate my business. So, I think someone could look at me as an example and say, “Oh, that’s the standard. I want to get to 2 million in sales in 14 months,” which is what we’ve done. It’s amazing. I didn’t expect to do that. But I think folks can get very disheartened very easily in this industry because of how hard the grind is upfront.

I also think another barrier to entry is finding land. Just industrial land is insane anywhere close to city limits. That has really put a barrier on someone who wants to start and really bootstrap it. Finding good land less than a million dollars close to city limits is very hard to find where you can properly operate a porta-potty business. Then, I would say the lack of folks in a nontraditional blue-collar background that are willing to start this business is few and far between. I love it because I think I come in with new ideas and a fresh lens. I came from a very corporate America background. But I see a lot of my competitors passed down generation to generation, and it is a threat to the way porta-potty businesses can expand or grow or market. I welcome all the competition and new ideas, but I think some of the ideas become a little bit stale and recirculated because of the type of nature the owners are in.

Routing Advice

Host: Last question. If you were to give advice to a fellow operator that is just getting into that growth mode as it pertains to routing, what would your advice be?

Chad: My advice would be twofold. One, always touch your routes every night. There is stuff that happens throughout the day that I could ignore, such as a stop gets missed or a delivery comes on the route. I touch my routes every single night. Whether it’s 30 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour, I make sure they are optimized for the next day. So, that would be my first one. If you want to provide the best customer service, you’ve got to do the legwork upfront to make sure that it gets done the way that it should get done. Then two, I would encourage folks in growth mode to sacrifice profit for service. If something gets missed, don’t be afraid to go back to it the next day or two days later, even if that means it’s way out of your way. You want to provide great service, not be known for someone that misses stops just because you’re focused on the bottom line.

Closing Thoughts

Host: Awesome. Well, Chad, I just want to say thank you so much for joining us on this episode. I think folks are going to take away some good pearls, and we will see you on the next one.

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FAQs

How did Halftime Rentals manage rapid growth in drivers?

Halftime Rentals expanded from one to five drivers in two months due to Hurricane Haleen, requiring constant route adjustments and efficient management.

What is the biggest mistake new operators make in routing?

New operators often fail to document special requests for service days or times, leading to upset customers when routes are optimized without considering these needs.

How does Chad ensure drivers adapt to changing routes?

Chad sets expectations that routes may change daily, fostering a team player mentality and using open communication to manage adjustments smoothly.

What challenges does Chad foresee in the portable toilet industry?

Chad highlights increasing barriers to entry such as high land costs and the need for innovative ideas in an industry often passed down through generations.

What is Chad’s advice for operators in growth mode regarding routing?

Chad advises operators to review routes nightly for optimization and prioritize service over profit, ensuring missed stops are promptly addressed.