18 | Aycliffe Today Business
Bringing Aycliffe Business Park Together | 19
Lisa Fleming is hoping
to build on her success
after growing Driver Hire
Darlington from scratch to
a £1m-a-year business.
DRIVE &
AMBITION
Young entrepreneur Lisa Fleming tells Martin Walker how her fledgling firm
has grown from scratch to a £1m-a-year business...
As entrepreneurs go, Lisa Fleming
must be up there with some of the most
successful small business owners on Aycliffe
Business Park.
The 37-year-old has grown her Driver Hire
recruitment franchise from scratch, with no
client-base and zero turnover, into a £1m-ayear business within five years.
And the ambitious Crook-born mum-of-two
has her sights set on further growth after
expanding her office space for a second
time.
Lisa – who juggles a busy family life with
her studies for a part-time law degree and
training for this year’s Great North Run – now
runs a five-man office at The HUB Workspace
on the business park after moving from
Carlton House into larger offices on the first
floor of Synkro House.
It’s an impressive success story made
from humble beginnings.
Managing Director Lisa Fleming bought
Driver Hire’s DL franchise in 2011, started out
as a sole business in a small Aycliffe office
and a modest army of drivers. She grew
annual turnover to £220,000 in her first year
which rose to £240,000 in 2012 and then
more than £300,000 at the end of 2013.
It has since grown to £550,000 – but the
current financial turnover is expected to hit
the £1m mark.
“There’s no secret formula,” insists the
unassuming Lisa, who lives in Low Willington
with her husband Wayne and their two
children, six-year-old Millie and Laiton, three.
“It’s really down to activity, network
building, fostering relationships and being
conscientious, which brings the word of
mouth.
“I think it helps that I’m a qualified
transport manager, because when our clients
are stuck or they’re unsure they speak to me
for advice.
“The systems we have in place and
the declarations of the operators’ licence,
transport companies are governed by
regulations and driver hours, and we track
very thoroughly the working time regulations,
so if any of our drivers are pulled over we
have all the information available at the touch
of a button.
“Unfortunately, some recruitment agencies
don’t realise they’re liable for producing that
working time for VOSA (Vehicle and Operator
Services Agency).
“Our system which has been built in-house
allows us to continually supply fully-compliant
drivers to our clients.
“A lot of our business comes from
recommendation, because we go above and
beyond what we do as a recruitment agency.
“Recruitment agencies have been
tarnished, especially in the logistics sector,
by supplying non-compliant drivers causing
vehicle accidents and by not turning in.
I’m not saying we’re 100% perfect, but if
problems do arise we go on site and sit with
our clients’ transport managers until we
resolve it.
“We educate our drivers on legislation and
laws, which makes our drivers want to stay
with us. They have peace of mind that they
can call us any time and speak to a member
of the team or me personally, to keep them
legal.”
Lisa has a list of impressive testimonials
from her loyal clients who go back to Driver
Hire time and time again.
“The best testimonial is from one of our
national accounts,” says Lisa. “We arranged
for one of our drivers to turn in, but his wife
was rushed into hospital so he wasn’t able to
do his shift. They had perished goods on the
lorry, so I arranged at our expense to arrange
for those perished goods to be distributed.
It cost us in the short-term, but it was for
long-term gain.
“The client was absolutely delighted with
the service, and it’s things like that we do
which brings the referrals.
The Driver Hire team (left
to right): Accounts clerk Lyn
Elkin, business development
coordinator Danni Clark,
managing director Lisa Fleming,
administrator Shannon Murray
and business development
manager Ian Woodall.
“Some of our clients end up taking our
drivers on their books full-time, which is great
for them. It maybe isn’t so for us because
we lose the drivers and the revenue, but it
tells us we’re doing our job properly, and
we never remain static. We keep the drivers
coming through and we keep recruiting.
“We’re out there networking and bringing
in new business.”
Lisa’s business background was, she’d
happily admit herself, not conventional – if
there is such a thing – although there was
always an instinctive entrepreneurial spirit
just waiting to be unleashed.
She left school in Wolsingham, County
Durham, to work in a factory before holding a
customer service role with Orange (now EE)
in Darlington and spent some time working
in Plymouth for the mobile phone giant.
She returned to the North-East with
Northumbrian Spring while she undertook a
diploma in business and management before
she was offered three new job opportunities
at the same time in 2004.
“I applied to a well-known estate agents,
to become a trainee estate agent, to another
company as a customer service manager and
to the then Dixon’s as operations manager of
its Newton Aycliffe distribution centre,” she
says.
“I was offered all three. I took the Dixon’s
job and that’s what got me into distribution
and transport. I did my CPC training and
ended up setting up a new franchise for
them in 2007.
“But because the business was a sevendays-a-week operation, I realised how bad it
was, when we had to get agency workers in
and a lot of them were non-compliant.
“I started challenging the agencies and
they didn’t have a clue what I was going on
about, which is what gave me the idea to
Lisa has twice between awarded
Driver Hire’s national Bronze award
for outstanding sales.
launch my own driver recruitment agency. It
was when I looking into it that I discovered
the national Driver Hire brand and that there
were regional franchises available to buy.
“I felt like I could make a real difference to
transport and logistics firms through my own
direct experience of the industry.”
That’s when Lisa took the leap and
invested a lump of money – made up of 50%
cash and 50% loaned money – to buy the DL
franchise of Driver Hire.
“It was a Greenfield site, with no drivers
or turnover,” she recalls. “But I had the Driver
Hire brand and I thought that recognised
name would stand me in good stead, as
opposed to trying to launch my own business
nobody will have heard of.”
Driver Hire Darlington now has more
than 120 drivers on its books and 55 clients
nationally, including UK Mail, Saint-Gobain
and Cemex, and local customers like GCS
Johnson and John Warren ABP.
Now the business is booming – her gross
sales are made up mainly of Driver Hire
(90%) and the DH Recruitment sub-brand
she launched last year – Lisa is looking to
build on her rapid success.
Drive Hire has adopted a new DVLA
licence-checking system, which enables
clients to run quick checks and get instant
updates on drivers’ records.
Only four companies in the UK use the
same system, which links directly to DVLA
instead of through third parties.
“A lot of our business
comes from
recommendation,
because we go above
and beyond what we
do as a recruitment
agency.”
Lisa explains: “It gives us instant reporting
on driving licences within 24 hours and any
alerts happen with the drivers an email is
sent straight to the client.
“It’s a much quicker and efficient way of
checking drivers’ records and also gives our
clients peace of mind that they’re fulfilling
their legal requirements on an instant basis,
and not just relying on the honesty of drivers.
“We’ve already rolled the software out to a
number of our clients, with many other firms
looking at it, so it’s another feather to our
bow and a great service for customers.”
Any firms or individuals wanting to
know more can call Driver Hire on 01325
314887, or email darlington@driverhire.
co.uk