Are your flyers in safe hands?

After having a catch up with Richard Brook from the LEP, who helped us achieve funding for website improvements and a new iMac, we discussed something that got me thinking. He said that he finds our operations side of the business fascinating, especially how we recruit and look after our distribution team.  For clients who are yet to visit our offices and meet the team I thought it beneficial to show and explain just how we operate on a people basis to ensure you, our clients, see great results from your marketing campaigns with us.

Let's start with the people

If you don't know the team let's start with the office staff. There's myself, Andrew, the MD, and I oversee the strategy of the business, the marketing, client consultancy, and work in the sales. There's Michael, my right-hand man (and ex-distributor) who looks after all the finance within Mr Flyer, and looks after the complex logistics of the distributions. Next there is Jordan who oversees all Recruitment, Human resources and Health and Safety in the business. And the latest addition, a promotion from a distributor is Jacob, who is our sales consultant - he looks after you guys. We then have 4 team leaders, Remi, Sean, Dean and Matt. They look after our distributors day to day and their roles include taking distributors to and from their locations, they distribute too, they look after the tracking devices and play an essential onboarding role. From here we have our ever-increasing team (currently around 30) of super healthy distributors who walk an average of 10 miles daily, delivering your flyers for you.

So do we just take anyone on?

Certainly not! On average, from Jordan receiving 100 applicants, only 3-4 will be successfully awarded a job with us. We have a funnel going from an online application, to interview, to induction, to trial day, to 3 month probation period before someone is awarded a permanent position with us. We never use recruitment agencies.  Instead, we do it all in house ensuring that we get the right culture fit, and people with incredible motivation, integrity and fitness and who can flourish in Mr Flyer. In fact, our marketing for distributor recruitment is specifically targeting those who love sport and love outdoor activities.

How can distributors have an impact on your business?

Well besides the obvious thing that they are placing your message through the letterbox of thousands of potential customers, they can and do help with targeting. In fact, they often put the needs of you, our client, and the reputation of Mr Flyer ahead of their own income! A key message we instil in the whole team is "will it build the clients business and their brand?" As a result, distributors sometimes bring flyers back at the end of the day. For instance, they are distributing for a driveway company and there's an apartment block in the middle of their map (which they avoid due to being useless for apartment residents) has eaten away at their household count and left them with insufficient houses on their map. Likewise, we see some distributors have gone to the more difficult areas on their map as a priority because they know the client will benefit from these most. If you want to know what unsung heroes look like, look at our remarkable distribution team and team leaders!

Are the staff motivated?

We do our best to help keep them motivated and do our best to see them rewarded for hard work. We give them extra benefits too including, in house massage therapist, free gym vouchers, discounted rates at a local sports shop, and are soon to have an in house protein supplement shop at trade prices for them.  Just as you see tracking for your flyer distribution campaigns with us, of course, so do we. We then keep a track (pardon the pun!) of every detail: speed, distance, time, coverage of map, intelligence and accuracy of the route, potential discrepancies, etc. We then have a series of scoreboards and a bonus board, which we constantly update so that the team can also see their stats. They get bonus points for hitting certain KPI’s such as speed, distances, reliability, etc. They keep a close check on how their performance aligns with other team members, which generates a healthy competitive culture. At the monthly meetings, awards are presented, bonus cheques are given out, and a huge amount of Lidl pastries are devoured!  Keeping a close eye on these numbers also means everything is transparent. Therefore if someone tries to con the system by wandering around but not actually distributing (which does bizarrely happen occasionally, and incidentally did just last week!) then we soon spot it, and they are of course duly dismissed, and we will equally resolve things with the affected client.

Do we give them promotion opportunities?

Of course! As noted above, both Michael and Jacob started out as distributors, and before Jordan started in his role, he had to meet certain KPI's as a distributor before sitting behind his desk. All 4 of the team leaders started out as distributors, and because they showed leadership skills and proved to be incredibly reliable, they were fittingly promoted. We have a superstar distributor, O'Shane, who has been with us over 3 years and we are currently paying for driving lessons so that he can become a team leader. Two other great distributors, Jordan and Mass, are now doing office roles, which they can fit around their distributing role to earn a little extra income.

Aren't the office guys just playing table football all day?

Not quite, but Jordan is quite smug that he is considerably better than me! We know that the success of Mr Flyer, and therefore our job security is down to the success that we bring to you. As such, we work incredibly hard to ensure everything is done as professionally as possible and done with your best interests first. In order to continue serving you better, we always look to up-skill. Jacob has joined a ’marmite’ networking group, aka BNI, to learn his sales role better. Jordan regularly attends recruitment, employment law and H&S seminars (in fact we just co-hosted one with Peninsula). Michael has started his training to become chartered in finance with CIMA, and in September I will be starting my masters to become a Chartered Marketer through the CIM. All this is done so that we can serve you better and help build your business and build your brand.

To get to know us more please do come and visit us; Jordan (AKA the Barista) will be sure to make you a freshly ground coffee. We can show you around, and you can also experience the flyer room - a room covered entirely in flyers! Or, you may find it more convenient to get to know us a little better through social media - we are now actively on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and most recently Instagram and YouTube. You can even listen to my monotone voice on my vlogs! You can also read a little more on our 'About' page by clicking here. We really do want to get to know you guys better, and to help take your business to the next level.