EP10: How to Hire Great Route Service Representatives with Nancy Roberts

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Eric: Welcome to Laundry Talks, a podcast for the textile rental industry. I'm your host, Eric Smith. We're back. And today we're diving into a topic that keeps most laundry owners up at night. And it's the number one challenge that I hear from owners and general managers in the industry. What is it? Hiring and keeping great route service reps in your business.

You know, route service reps are so much more than just drivers. They're the face of your business. They're the ones that are connected to your customers. They solve problems on the fly, and they upsell products that add revenue to your business. In some ways, the route service rep is like a mini business owner himself or herself running their routes day in and day out.

And the best ones, they just get it. But if you ask any laundry operator how they find these unicorns, no one knows. They just know that they have 1 or 2 of them, not how they found them. You know, I've seen the same thing when helping laundries implement technology on their routes, such as implementing mobile apps to help them run their routes.

And let me tell you, predicting which route reps are going to adapt quickly and succeed versus which ones will struggle is not as easy as it seems. Sometimes the results are a total 180 from what the laundry expected. I've seen younger, tech savvy guys, the ones that everyone thought with pick it up instantly, drag their feet while the seasoned old school driver with maybe 20 years experience in the business, turns out to be the biggest champion of change and implementing new things.

It's really a perfect example of why hiring and retaining great service reps is just part art, part science, and sometimes part surprising. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not an expert in hiring, but I know a problem when I see it, and I hear about this problem constantly from laundry operators. I then remembered I saw a great speaker last year at a TSA event.

She was talking about this exact issue, why some employees thrive, why some don't, and how companies can make better hiring decisions from the beginning. So I knew at that point I wanted to get her on laundry talks. My guest today is Nancy Roberts. Also known as the Disc Wizard. Now, if you're not familiar with the term disc, it's a behavioral assessment tool that helps companies understand personality traits and work styles.

Things like whether someone's naturally assertive, whether they're detail oriented, people focused, or process driven. Nancy helps businesses take a smarter and more proactive approach to hiring, making sure the right people end up in the right roles. Sometimes that's the biggest thing is just being placed in the right role. She's the author of several books on hiring. Her work has been promoted in different business publications, and her work has helped companies reduce turnover by up to 50%.

And when she's not busy helping companies build better teams, she's reading, writing, cooking and traveling. And oh, she has 22 nieces and nephews. So I think it's safe to say she knows just a little bit about managing personalities. Nancy, welcome to Laundry Talks. This is the podcast for the textile rental operator community to learn new things, share ideas, and drive conversations.

Welcome to Laundry Talks with your host, Eric Smith. This episode is brought to you by Alliance Systems.

Nancy: Thank you Eric. And actually that number is now 25.

Eric: Oh, goodness. That's crazy. I've got ten, ten nieces alone myself. And I come from all, all sister, four sisters and two daughters. So. Wow. A lot more on the niece side than the nephew side. 

Nancy: Yeah, we're about neck and neck at this point in the family, but, the generations keep producing, so I keep adding to that number.

Eric: Well, that's good news. You know, we've wanted to get together for some time and have this conversation. And one of the things that held this up initially, was your schedule. It wasn't your fault, but you had it. You had planned a, bucket list vacation. Around the holidays. And do you want to share a little bit about, about that where you went, what you saw?

Nancy: Yeah. So I went to South Africa for two weeks, and, yeah, it had been on my list for a really long time. So, I don't even know what to say. It exceeded all my expectations. I will say that if it happens to be on your list, just make it happen. Just make. Just make it happen. Don't wait.

I'm happy to share any details anybody wants, but yeah, I went on a safari for a week, and then I was in Cape Town for a week, and that was incredible.

Eric: That's great. I'm glad you made it back. Glad you had a great time. And, excited today to talk about some of the things that you're an expert in. I'm very interested in your background, but also very interested that you have industry specific, background. So let's talk a little bit about that. So, tell the audience a little bit about how you became known as the disc Wizard. And what does that mean?

Nancy: Sure. So like you said, Disc is a behavioral assessment that measures four different factors: dominance, influence, steadiness and compliance. And a lot of people are familiar with Disc or something similar to it. Some people call it a personality test. When I first started in my business, I was helping clients hire people using the Disc assessment, and I had one client say to me, and by the way, the name of my company at that point was insights because I thought, well, that's what I give people.

Unfortunately, nobody knew what I did for a living. They were like, well, that sounds great, but we're not sure what you do. So I had a client say to me, you know, Nancy, when you tell us how a candidate is going to act on the job, we hire them. And I swear within a week or two, they're doing exactly what you told us they were going to do.

He said, it's like you have a crystal ball. And it was at that moment where all of a sudden I was like, disc and a crystal ball is the Disc Wizard. And I rebranded my business about three years into it. And here's what's really cool. I didn't see this coming. So, so much for my crystal ball. But my business tripled that year that I rebranded.

And what I guess I hadn't realized was Disc is year after year one of the top, I think, ten trainings requested by organizations for their employees. And so once everyone was familiar with what I did, it was pretty easy to, you know, grow from that point.

Eric: That's awesome. And so tell me, how you how did you come to, do some work in this industry and when did you know, when did you kind of understand that this specific hiring issue was a problem for laundries as finding someone that was going to be well suited on the route?

Nancy: Yeah. So honestly, by far the first assessment I ever sold in my business was to a gentleman who is a consultant to the industry. He's a technical consultant. And so, he purchased some assessments for me to understand his clients better. And then he referred me to a laundry down in the Gulf Coast, and they became my first laundry client.

And it was while working with them that I realized what a challenge they had hiring, route reps and it's funny because at first it was like they could understand and justify the cost of the assessment for their leaders. So hiring a manager or supervisor or whatever, they could wrap their head around that. But when we first came up with the idea of hiring it, you know, using the assessments for hiring route reps, I think in their minds it was like not the right level.

Let's just put it that way. And when we calculated the turnover they were having and then what that was costing them, they finally said, let's do it. Let's use the assessments and see if we can crack the code, you know, and what the greatest route reps have. And so that was.

Eric: What kind of turnover were they. You mentioned the turnover. Where were they at at that time?

Nancy: Right. It was back in 2005. Eric, I can remember we reduced it by 50%. I'm not sure I can remember the original like starting number. It was significant.

Eric: I think when we first talked to you mentioned that the turnover rate itself was, you know, over 30, 35% or something like that. So that may have been correct.

Nancy: But let's go with that number. Makes perfect. I know, I remember and I don't want to misstated, but it was enough that when we came up with the idea to benchmark the position and then look at their top performers and look at their bottom performers, and then crunch the data and determine, you know, what were the characteristics that made the best the best, right.

Even though the investment, you know, was significant for them, they went ahead with it, let's put it that way, because the investment was about a drop in the bucket compared to what the turnover was costing them. So that was back in 2005. So it's been 20 years since I have, you know, dealt with this challenge, with my laundry clients.

Eric: Well, what was so the first step, obviously in kind of, you know, baking the cake here and that is to understand what ingredients you need. And so your first step was to understand what made a successful RSR. And so that's this benchmarking process you're talking about. Can you talk a little bit about that process and how that goes.

Nancy: Yeah. So job benchmarking is like reverse engineering an individual assessment. So the individual assessment I would give it to you or a candidate and they answer questions about themselves. A job benchmark is where the stakeholders of the possession. So people who know the job really well get together. And the first step is we create the KPIs. You know, what does this job have to accomplish?

What are the specific and measurable goal? And then based on that, everyone goes online and answers a questionnaire about the job. What does the job need? What is the job rewarded for doing? You know, it's not about the person anymore. Now it's just about the role. And from that feedback from those stakeholders, we get a really good objective picture of what the position needs.

Then we tend to look at top performers and bottom performers in the role. We compare them to the benchmark, and typically it's pretty telling. There's always these key characteristics and significant factors that show up in the benchmark that the top performers will have, that the bottom performers will and then from that point, those are the things you pay attention to in your candidates.

Eric: Are you willing to share? For at least I know that original benchmark is a little bit older. But are you willing to share some of the things that were revealed in that benchmarking process? What makes a great route rep?

Nancy: I would love to share it. One of probably one of the biggest takeaways, I think, in the biggest ahas for us at that time was that what the person's personality is like is not necessarily indicative of what's going on underneath. And so on the outside, the route reps were very calm and mild and patient and great with people and good at talking, but good at listening.

Almost like what you would think your typical customer service type person was very people oriented, very friendly and warm, but internally they were driven like an entrepreneur. They were driven by something called a high utilitarian motivator. That's all about ROI. That's I'm going to approach everything with the most practical, efficient energy that I can because I don't want to waste time, I don't want to waste money.

And then they had another motivator called individualistic, which is about power and control over your destiny. And those are the top two drivers. This is going to blow you away. These are the top two drivers of laundry owners. So right. These route reps are like little mini laundry owners, you know, running their own show basically.

Eric: So which is great news for the laundry owner in case someone sick, they can go out and do a great job running the rest that day. That's right. Well, you know, the funny thing is I meet a lot of people, you know, in the in the old, old days, the laundries that it really was they owned that route.

They collected the cash on the ride. You don't see that relay anymore. But they were kind of settling and running their own business every day on the route. So that's interesting. So, just to repeat, I want to make sure we understand, can you repeat those two characteristics again?

Nancy: So those internal drivers. Yeah absolutely. So utilitarian and then individualistic. So utilitarians about ROI individualistic is about power and control.

Eric: And some of those are those things might be difficult things to unearth in a, you know, face to face, interview. Right. I mean, that's one of the things that people run into problems with hiring is that they're only seeing the top tip of the iceberg, and they're not understanding the data underneath and underneath the water there is the valuable part.

Nancy: Yeah, because the Disc styles, that's observable behavior, right. So if you learn desk and you're like okay we need a high right high influence route, right. You can see those traits, the friendliness, the engaging, the optimism, all that. But to determine those drivers underneath, you need to spend time with someone to understand their values. And not many interviews go longer than an hour, you know, so it's a little harder.

Which is, of course, why we use assessment tools to uncover the stuff that's underneath.

Eric: Yeah, that's really awesome. So and you've not only, worked in the industry with operators, with multiple operators, but you've also done some work on the supplier side too. Just curious if you found any other, you know, interesting, any interesting facts or things about this industry or is it this same across industries about hiring and assessments?

Nancy: You know, people are people. Let me just put it that way. Of course, there's an advantage to knowing the industry and knowing, a lot of laundry owners, obviously, because you start to understand their values and their perspectives and that shapes their cultures. And so I've been able to warn, you know, clients about hiring somebody who maybe even a recruiter recommended and said, this person is great, that the person wasn't going to be a fit in their culture.

And it's because I know the culture so well. So there is an advantage, I think, to knowing the industry. But the bottom line is the challenges are the same everywhere. I can tell you for sure. I have the same conversations with business owners from all different industries.

Eric: You know, just as almost as valuable as understanding kind of what are the key, you know, qualities or characteristics? We want to just talk a little bit about some of the warning signs or things that maybe are not or you're not interested in having on the rote rep side in the industry.

Nancy: Yeah. One of the lower, factors that you want to make sure you don't hire is anybody who seems very driven on the outside. So that could be high dominance, dominant behavior and high dominance is a no go in this role. One you don't need road rage. You know, when, in your route ruts, you need the sense of urgency, but that can come from the internal need for that ROI, right?

If you have it in their external behavior, that can be someone who's too aggressive, doesn't listen, talks over the customer, has a harder time building report. Yeah, they want to get things done, which is great. But they're going to sacrifice the relationship in the process of getting things done. So it's a little bit tricky because you gotta find sense of urgency, but it's got to come from somewhere besides that dominant type behavior.

Eric: Yeah. See that's very valuable information to have. So one of the things that we talked about was you have a lot of good data. The information I think is incredibly valuable. Some of it was a little bit dated. And so, you know, you had, when we first started talking seven months ago, you had a great idea to bring some of this data current and we worked together and got, I don't know how many new assessments we put together, but with some operators in the industry, we got together with some of those operators.

We asked for volunteers, of route reps that are running around today to, rerun these surveys and assessments and, they will remain anonymous. The companies here, the companies and the route service reps themselves. You want to talk a little bit about this project and, you're kind of how many assessments did you get and what kind of, you know, what kind of the numbers are we talking about?

Nancy: Yeah. So I think we ended up with about ten and it was across for 4 or 5 companies. US, your clients. I asked my clients and we really asked for the best of the best. Right. And so I'm hoping that sampling is, the people that really kind of rise to the top when you ask people for their top performance.

I always say to people, who do you want to clone? That's your top performer, right? And so I didn't want to use old data, as I told you. That's why I wanted to re, you know, reassess, some reps and I didn't want to presume that it was going to be the same outcome either because it's been 20 years since I did the research project in 2005.

And so I was really open and there was something else that was had changed was I've now since added two more assessments to the, candidate assessment that I use with, you know, companies in different roles.

Eric: So what are those supposed to measure if you don't mind just sharing.

Nancy: Yeah. So one is a competent CSV man. So it measures 25 different soft skills. And you know, no job needs all of them, but you need a good handful, maybe 6 or 7 of them, to be well developed for people to be able to do the job well. So I was curious as to what competencies were going to show up in these top performers.

Of them having them well, you know, well developed. We didn't have data on that in the past. And then the other one is a little different. It's called acumen, and it really is measuring how people perceive things and how they feel about them. So how they feel about the world around them or how they see it, do they see it clearly?

And then how do they feel it? And then their own internal world, how do they view themselves and, how they feel about themselves? So it was nice to be able to collect additional data. You know, and I'm hoping another 20 years doesn't go by before I do this again. But that additional data reinforced the first two assessments, which is really kind of cool.

And then the 2025 data, reinforce the 2005. So really not much has changed. I know people don't want to hear that. Like, you know, the industry's different. Everybody wants to think their industry is, you know, unique and different and has challenges that nobody else does. And of course, there's unique challenges, but people are people. And like I said, they're pretty much the same.

And our data again showed when it came to the behaviors you were looking for, that people oriented person, the high influence, high steadiness and then internal motivators again, were utilitarian, individualistic. So I always say that combination is like, Superman or like Superman on the inside, Clark Kent on the outside. Right? So real mellow and chill. But don't it, they're gonna they're going to win the war.

The other two pieces showed that the competencies that they needed were by far is, like, outranked the others flexibility, which is agility and adapting to change. So think about a route reps day, you know, day to day or even week to week. How much changes, problem solving ability, which includes anticipating and analyzing the problem before jumping in with the solution.

And then so social awareness, which is understanding the feelings and emotions of others. And when you think of that, you're like that's like empathy, right? That's not the thing we would think. But when you think about, like you said earlier, they've got to deal with your customers, you know, they've got to deal with difficult conversations. They've got to deal with, you know, missing orders and breakdowns and all kinds of stuff.

So it really kind of makes sense that those are the skills, you know, that they need. Oh, some had high interpersonal skills, but it wasn't one of the highest. And then there was another one. Oh, self-management and personal accountability rounded up the top six. And so, you know, if I was hiring a route sales rep, I would be spending time in the interview figuring out, does this person have flexibility, solving ability and social awareness.

Eric: Yeah, that's self-management I think is really, kind of rings true to me because these the answers or so people call them CSRs, you know, they're really out on an island. They're by themselves, you know, throughout their workday. Sure. They can call or, you know, get in touch with the office, but, you know, you're really kind of, you know, short of returning to the plant, you kind of having to figure out some you know, creative solutions.

And if you're short product, you've got to communicate that to the customer. So that all sounds spot on to me. Any of the competencies that maybe weren't as important in this role.

Nancy: Yeah. There's some that were super low, like, teamwork.

Teamwork. Not one of them had to work as one of their highest skills.

Eric: Well, they're running their own route. I mean, as far as that might be a team player in the larger company, but right in their day to day business doesn't it doesn't require that.

Nancy: Right. And that's that unique blend because in the Disc style, the I is known as the team player. Like they're people oriented, they're friendly, they're warm, but they're internal motivators are the motivators of a lone wolf, you know? Yeah. And motivators always trump behavior. Just remember that if the what we say is if the why is strong enough, the how doesn't matter.

Eric: That's interesting.

Nancy: Yeah. So teamwork was one that was low obviously presenting persuasion negotiation kind of those selling skills. Those were low. So even though, you know, you do want them to upsell, these particular top performing route reps didn't really have those as well developed. Empathy is low. So get this. This is really interesting.

So if social awareness is high what that means is they're very aware of people, but they're not necessarily needing to feel what other people feel.

Eric: Gotcha. Was that a competency or do you have any data you want to share on the acumen side?

Nancy: Yeah. So empathy was a competency. So on the acumen side, in the worldview, when it comes to people tasks and systems, their highest scores were around people. So that's also called understanding others. And again, it doesn't include the empathy of feeling what people feel, but being aware of what people are, you know, are sort of bringing to the table.

They scored high in understanding others. And then in the self view, which breaks down to me, myself, like my sense of self, my role awareness about the roles that I play and then my future direction, their role awareness was highest. So what that means people who have high roll awareness really identify with their role, like they love what they do, and they almost see their role as an extension of themselves.

So once again, it goes back to that, you know, entrepreneurial drive. This is my show. This is my domain. You know, they feel a real sense of responsibility around their route.

Eric: I'm curious. I know you started out talking about this newest, version of the assessment, which it basically has additional assessments. So that's awesome. But you were asking, give me the cream of the crop. Let's see. Let's see where we stand. What is your take on after reviewing the ten different assessments, do you feel like the operators delivered some top notch RSR to you?

Nancy: I do, I mean there's a lot of consistency. And what's interesting this is so fascinating I love this stuff. This is why I geek out on what I do for a living. There were two that when I first saw them, I went, oh, those are anomalies. Those guys both have high dominance. And I don't know if it was a guy, but I'm saying those people have high dominance, which is odd because it's like I said, the thing, you don't want a route rep.

And so when I dug back into the information, I realized that I had been sent to service managers. Oh, yeah. And didn't realize that. And the both those service managers have high dominance. But you could see with that high dominance behavior, high dominant people would tend to be very goal oriented and very driven and results oriented and focused on the future.

So you could see that if they were route reps, they had to want to keep that in check for a bit, but then probably moved into management in part because of that.

Eric: Well, I think that's why you, you, you do see, you know, even with turnover, you see people that have been route reps for forever and ever. And that's because that's the job that they want to do. And they like that. Almost, you know, entrepreneurial aspect of it where they're kind of running their show and once they come back in and work full time and the plans, maybe they don't have that same feeling. So, that makes a lot of sense.

Nancy: Yeah. There's a lot of freedom and independence to running a route, you know, and one of the things that high individualistic people want is autonomy. And so, you know, working in a plant, you know, or an office where somebody breathing off your neck, that's how they feel. And feeling that sense of being watched or managed or whatever.

High individualistic people don't like that. They really do want the freedom and the autonomy. So I think that is why that a huge reward of that job.

Eric: Perfect. So for people that don't have your expertise that are out there and they're in the process of looking for a route service rep right now, short of going through this process. Just let's talk a few minutes about just some of the highlights, things that we learned today, things, a couple things that we want to look for, a couple things we want to avoid as a starting point.

It's just so they kind of get something out of it today.

Nancy: Yeah. So I think I would look for that person who is really this is how you'll know you've got the first piece, okay, of a good route rep. They're very likable. Like you will like them immediately in the interview. Hold onto an interview and don't hire them just yet because that's the downfall. Because they're very likable.

You still have to make sure these other things are there. So one, they're going to be likable because that's just style, right? The other thing is, if they really have these, entrepreneurial motivators, they have likely started businesses in the past. They're the kid that had the lemonade stand or the newspaper route, or was shoveling driveways or somehow found a way to make money at a younger age than just getting a typical job.

Because most people with that entrepreneurial profile, they're like, when you track back, they either came from an entrepreneurial family or they have found different ways to make money. And so I would ask questions like that, like, tell me, you know, have you ever started your own business or, tell me about your hobbies. People who really love sports, and are involved in sports tend to have that higher individualistic motivator because they love competition and they love to win.

So the more you can learn about people in the interview process, I think it's going to give you a clue as to what's going on underneath what they're motivated by.

Eric: That's a great takeaway. And then maybe even just one thing, just a kind of a red flag. One thing we want to avoid right off the bat might help us kind of rule someone out and narrow that, narrow down that list of resumes.

Nancy: So, I mean, I go back to that dominance. High dominant people tend to be have very strong ego strength. Right. And they're very ego driven and very tend to be very come across. They can come across arrogant. So I think if the person is talking about all their accomplishments and seeming super confident and maybe even a bit, egotistical, that might be a clue that they've got some of that dominance and they might not be the right person.

The right route rep actually comes across humble. They tend to be confident, but they come across humble because they're really good with connecting with people and reading people and all that kind of stuff. And so I think that likability factor has to be there. I think they have they should probably have the accomplishments or some accomplishments in their past, but they're not necessarily are bragging about them.

Eric: That's great. Perfect. I know you've prepared, for people that want to learn a little bit more. I know you've prepared kind of a what we're going to refer to as a cheat sheet. Kind of a disc model, sheet on, you know, some things, for hiring right reps to look for some things to avoid.

If someone just wants at least to have that as a resource, we're going to have that, if you're listening to all of your talks, you'll need to go to the Alliant Systems website, go to the laundry talks menu, and we're going to have that, link, at the bottom of the episode so you can find that there.

Nancy: And can I just clarify a little bit what they're going to get? So basically it's going to be interview questions. So without having to assess the candidate and compared to a benchmark and all that, it's going to just be some general questions that you can ask about these different areas that we've talked about that can maybe flush out or sort of highlight where the person falls with these different skills and behaviors.

Eric: And I know every single operator out there could probably use one more good RSR if not more than one. And they're interviewing for him all the time, so that'll be a great resource. So, that's fabulous. On a personal note, I do always like to find out. I've watched and read a whole lot, but I'm always interested in, and a good book recommendation, if you have one or if you don't.

And I caught you off guard. Something you've been told that you would recommend.

Nancy: I have so many book recommendations. Can you see the bookshelf behind me right here?

And I know there's five, I love it.

I just give me a topic and I'll give you a book. That's my biggest challenge is to figure out, what to recommend.

Eric: Well, I'm a fiction reader myself. I like action and mysteries. Although, my wife and I laugh about kind of the differences in our book choices. So, I'd say it's something that you liked. Not necessarily something I'm going to like.

Nancy: Okay. So, I read primarily nonfiction, which is what my bookshelf is filled with. Let's see, I just recommended, I got asked to write a book review on the best leadership book I've ever read.

Eric: Oh, perfect.

Nancy: It was tough, but I picked one. So I think one of the best I've ever read is called Leadership and Self-deception, and it's written by the, Irving Institute. Irving. I think it's pronounced Irving Institute. And it's sort of a parable. It's like a story told about this leader. And it's probably I've had I actually had one CEO who I was coaching that I recommended it to say it was probably the most profound book he'd ever read in his, you know, years of leading a company.

And it's just it's honestly, let me put it this way. I have a lot of CEOs and business owners come to me and tell me to fix their team and you can guess the very, very often it's not the team that needs to be fixed. This book shows us how we deceive ourselves into believing what the source of our problems are.

And it's really eye opening. I mean, anybody could learn from this book, but that's what I would recommend.

Eric: Yeah. That's interesting. There's a lot of blind spots out there.

Nancy: It's about our blind spots for sure. Yeah.

Eric: Well that's great I'm going to check that out. And, thank you so much, Nancy Roberts, for joining the, podcast today. And look forward to seeing you soon. Sooner than later.

Nancy: Yeah, it was my pleasure. Thank you, thank you.

Eric: Hey, guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Laundry Talks. And make sure you come back for more. One final thing. My family, my wife and my daughters, we are having a discussion and laughing over a date earlier this week about just kind of the differences in generations and how we, you know, pay for things and what forms of payment we like to use.

And, you know, I still write a few checks, from time to time, although that number's gone down. My daughters, I don't know if they've ever written a check before. They don't use a lot of cash. They use a lot of electronic payments, you know, like Zelle and Venmo. And, you know, that change is not only happening on the consumer side.

It's also happening on the business side. And we're seeing in all industries and especially the textile rental industry, that less and less people are, are using, you know, setting up customers on code terms, less people are processing, manually written checks and obviously a huge uptick in credit card and ACH transactions. So you want to learn more about some of those changes in that and how they're impacting your business.

Click the link below. We've got a great e-book about integrated payments in the text rental industry. I think you'll find it informative and interesting. So thanks again. Have a great day.