Be Professional.

At all times, be professional.  Carry yourself in a professional manner.  The crowd around you may not be acting professional, but you should always be professional.  Your shoes should be shiny.  It’s raining, you pull out your own heavy duty umbrella.  You’re tired, yet you’re standing straight up.  Your pissed off your girl spent $306 on food at Super Stop n Shop, yet you’re smiling.  The girls in the back of the limo are demanding you jump in the back with them, yet you don’t even think about doing something so foolish.  Why?  You are a professional chauffeur.  I know many drivers that wouldn’t think for a split second about jumping in the back of a limo to party worth their clients. If a TGI Fridays bartender poured a drink to a client and the client asked him to leave the bar and go sit at her table for a drink, would he?  Absolutely not.  Because he is a trained professional bartender.  You are a hired servant to drive a luxury limousine for some employer.  You need to be professional at all times.

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Be Courteous.

Clients will often ask for a bathroom break, or to got to several destinations.  Clients will make a mess that needs to be clean.  Clients will ask you for advice, talk your ear off and believe it or not, you will have to listen to some of them cry.  I know.  I have been there.  Waaaaay to many times. When your clients need attention, help, a hand, an ear…  Be courteous.

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Be Smart.

In this business your brain will be tested many times.  Clients will be offering you a drink over and over and over and over.  Girls will be hitting on you.  Female chauffeurs, men will definitely be hitting on you.  Drugs will be passed your way.  Clients will be offering you big tips for FREE overtime charges, you will be tempted to speed, to take the limo off route without management approval and more.  Be smart. Know your role.  Know your legal limits.  Know what will get you immediately fired and possibly even arrested.  More often than not, there will be no supervision around.  Nobody will catch you if you’re doing something wrong. You will simply lose your status of a professional chauffeur and you will become a clown like half the chauffeur idiots that give a disgrace to this field. Be smart.

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Be Patient.

Clients will know exactly how to get you stressed out.  “Take a right! I mean a left!!  Sorry.  Oops. We passed it!!  Are we there yet? How much longer? Are you lost? Can you change the radio?  I’m hot!!!!  Can you turn the A/C up?” Guys, if you’re not a patient person, this field definitely isn’t for you.  LOL  Your clients are going to get even more annoying when they are drunk and you are the only sober one in the limo.  Be patient.  If they throw up, help them.  Offer them water.  Help them clean it up.  Don’t worry, clean up fees will be applied later on.  At the moment though, you need to help out.  That’s somebodies wife, or daughter.  Be patient.  It’s a virtue.

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Be Knowledgeable.

Know everything.  Know exactly what every little thing on your reservation means.  Understand exactly what the financial terms are.  Know your limo.  Know what every control does.  Know where you are going.  Know the general area of where you are going.  Know if there are any special events going on in the area you are going.   Research on activities in a certain area is only a simply click on the internet.  Nobody is ever born with the knowledge of life.  “Seek and ye shall find.” Ask questions.  The office staff and your fellow employees know a lot.  Knowledge is the key to success.  Know everything about your trip.

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Be Submissive.

You’re a chauffeur.  A servant.  I didn’t say a slave.  I didn’t say a sucker.  I said a servant.  Be submissive to your employer.  Take orders.  Execute orders.  Follow directions.  Serve your employer.  You are being hired to chauffeur your employer’s limousine for another person for hire.  When the client gets into the limousine, the client is now hiring you to serve him as his or her personal chauffeur.  His or her personal servant.  When I used to tailgate at Gillette Stadium I would cook for my clients on the grill.  I would bartend for my clients.  When the clients would go into the game I would tell them to leave and that I would take care of the mess.  Then I would tell them when the game was over that I would re-load up the grill.  I used to bring my own tables, tents, fold up chairs and a fire pit.  I went way out of the way to go above and beyond my duties.  My largest tip to do a Patriots Tailgate Party was $900.00 
I always chauffeured with a servant’s attitude.  When my clients would walk to the car with wine or any bottles, I always took them from the bag and opened them for them.  I always offered to pour drinks for my clients, especially champagne.  Always hold an umbrella over your clients head when it’s raining.  Always perform your duty with a servants attitude.      

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Be Authorative.

Although in the previous sentence I just got done explaining how you are to be submissive with the attitude of a servant, there is an exception to the rule.  Your employer is your boss and he is your only boss.  Your client is the person who your boss is paying you to serve.  When the time comes that your client is doing something that is against your boss’s rules, that when you no longer should be submissive to your client.  Instead, be authoritive.  

One time I just got done giving a very pleasant speech about the limo.  I talked about the operation of the controls, I talked about how to operate the audio, video and lighting and then I said, “The only thing that is not allowed is smoking.  However, if you want to smoke, I don’t mind pulling over and finding a safe place for you guys to smoke.”  When I walked up front to my driver’s seat, this one kid, who I knew was going to be trouble, said “I’m smoking in this mother f###”.  When I heard him say that, I walked to the back of the car, opened the door, sat down on the rear seat next to him, looked him in the eyes and said, “The very first time you light up in this car, I’m going to pull over and you're walking.” 

Be submissive.  But be AUTHORITIVE.  Sort of like how Superman acts humble but he knows he can set you on fire with his super-sonic-power-lasers from his eyes. You want to be a servant because that’s what you were hired for.  But when the clients start to become disorderly, you need to switch to Protect My Boss Mode and be authoritive or they will walk all over you.

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Be Discrete.

Be discrete. Often in this business we see the inside scoop of people’s lives.  We see what’s going on behind the closed doors because you are inside the vehicle with your clients.  I could probably write some very interesting stories about what I’ve seen actually.  People are going to fight and argue, talk about confidential things, go places that their wives or girlfriend would not want them to go, and do other things in the limo like trying to be fruitful and multiply.  Was that over your head? 
Whatever you see, whatever you hear, be discrete about it.  Listen but don’t join in on any conversations unless you are spoken to first.  One time my clients called in and told me that their driver was talking so much that they had to put the divider up in the middle of him talking to them.  Guys, shut the hell up.  Your clients did not hire you to listen to you gab.  You should always drive with the divider up.  Whenever I would close my rear passenger door, I would always say to the client before I walked up front, “By the way, your divider button is right here (as I pointed to it) and feel free to put the divider up and down at any time during the evening.”  I always gave my clients their privacy and 8 out of 10 times they would always want the divider down so they could communicate with me and so they could feel like I was a part of the crew.   
Again, speak when spoken to, be humble, act like a servant, be discrete and act like a shadow.  Always there, but never the center of attention.




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