Posted by u/growing_shop
First time hiring a manager. What do I look for?
Answered by Ask a Shop Owner ·
Doing $900k, need someone to run the day-to-day so I can sell and network. Never hired a manager before.
u/askashopowner Owner-operator advisor
Top answer
Hire slow, decide fast. Interview 8 to 10 people minimum for this seat. Not because they are hard to find, because you need calibration. First 3 will all look great.
Look for someone who has run something smaller than yours, not bigger. Manager from a $10M shop will not tolerate your systems. Assistant manager from a $500k shop is hungry, coachable, and has done every job on the truck.
First 90 days, they shadow you. Do not hand them the keys on day one. You are teaching them your customer, your standard, your voice. After 90 days, you give up one whole area (scheduling, or dispatch, or hiring) and stay out of it.
Ask a Shop Owner writes these threads to help owner-operators find real answers on the web. Nothing here is scraped from Reddit. Every answer is grounded in the same operator library that powers the Ask a Shop Owner chat product.