[0:01] Chrissy Bruno: look in the park and I'm like, "How many cars are parked?
[0:02] Chrissy Bruno: Why are these cars parked?" You know, like, "Why are they not moving?
[0:05] Chrissy Bruno: Why are they not making money?
[0:07] Nirav Chheda: [music] Welcome back to NEMT Experts.
[0:22] Nirav Chheda: I've got a fun guest with me, Chrissy Bruno, who I've partied with at the NEMAC conferences.
[0:28] Nirav Chheda: Chrissy, how you doing?" I'm very good.
[0:30] Chrissy Bruno: Very good. Those parties are the best.
[0:32] Nirav Chheda: [laughter] They indeed are those Bambi parties.
[0:36] Nirav Chheda: Um, so Chrissy is the owner of an NEMT business, uh, 22 Vehicles in Hudson Valley, New York.
[0:44] Nirav Chheda: And Chrissy, before you owned your NEMT business, you were doing bookkeeping for a transportation business.
[0:52] Nirav Chheda: and you've got this expertise on taxes and taxis and 1099s, W TWS, how to structure your NEMT business.
[1:03] Nirav Chheda: That's going to be the theme for today.
[1:05] Nirav Chheda: Um, but before we get into all that, can you give a little background about how you got into NEMT?
[1:12] Chrissy Bruno: Oh, yeah. I mean, I usually save this story for, you know, over a drink because it's pretty long, but I'll keep I'll give you the short version.
[1:19] Chrissy Bruno: Um I uh again I have a background in accounting and bookkeeping and that was kind of my my uh my jive there for a while and I think back in 2012ish um I landed a client to do book
[1:33] Chrissy Bruno: to do his bookkeeping and he owned a taxi company.
[1:36] Chrissy Bruno: He he did a little NEMT um but he did mostly taxi.
[1:39] Chrissy Bruno: He was a pretty he actually was like the predominant taxi company in my county.
[1:44] Chrissy Bruno: And um I started doing his bookkeeping.
[1:47] Chrissy Bruno: And as I sat at his little bookkeeping desk in the corner, you know, every day, you know, counting his cash and reconciling his numbers and paying his bills.
[1:55] Chrissy Bruno: And I saw I heard the dispatchers on the phone and I heard the drivers coming in and I heard all the problems and the issues and the things.
[2:02] Chrissy Bruno: And I remember just sitting there like, I think I would do things a little differently if this was me, but this isn't my company, you know?
[2:09] Chrissy Bruno: And I just continued doing my bookkeeping and whatnot.
[2:12] Chrissy Bruno: Um, and then at one point the owner um was looking for a manager and he approached me about managing his company and uh I tried but we had such very different views on things and I don't know if
[2:25] Chrissy Bruno: it was like the manw woman thing or or if it was just we're two different kind of we come from two different avenues but um anyway to wrap the story up uh long story short he eventually he was
[2:36] Chrissy Bruno: planning on retiring he wanted to get out of the business it's as most of you know it's very stressful and you know, you have to have a lot of grit to stay in this in this industry.
[2:46] Chrissy Bruno: And he was just running out of grit and he knew he eventually wanted to retire.
[2:51] Chrissy Bruno: Uh so him and I started talking and I um I opened up a company I opened up a well there was a small taxi company for sale in the area and they were like rivals.
[3:05] Chrissy Bruno: So he wouldn't sell to to my mentor uh to my client.
[3:10] Chrissy Bruno: Um, so my client was like, "You should buy him out." And I'm like, "Why the heck would I buy a taxi company?
[3:17] Chrissy Bruno: I'm a bookkeeper. I don't No.
[3:19] Chrissy Bruno: But he convinced me to buy this taxi company and assured me he would help me finance it and all these things." And I'm like, "But then I'm going to be your competition." And he's like, "I'm not worried about
[3:27] Chrissy Bruno: that." Well, three years later, he started getting worried because my business started surpassing his business and kind of knocked him out of the water, so to speak.
[3:38] Chrissy Bruno: and he eventually uh approached me and was like, "You just want to buy me out?" And I was like, "Okay, let's do that." And so then I uh ended in ended up in this family.
[3:48] Chrissy Bruno: Um and I still do bookkeeping.
[3:50] Chrissy Bruno: Um I like it's just my heart and I just love numbers and I love working with numbers, but um the uh taxi and MT business really takes up most of my The long story and the short story.
[4:04] Nirav Chheda: I guess [laughter] that's a story.
[4:06] Nirav Chheda: you sort of fell backwards into this and then you're like the underdog rising up story.
[4:12] Chrissy Bruno: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It was pretty it was it's a pretty unique story.
[4:16] Nirav Chheda: Yeah. So, um let's get into structuring your NEMT business.
[4:23] Nirav Chheda: Um one of the big questions people have is how do I pay my drivers?
[4:29] Nirav Chheda: 1099s, W2s. It's a question that keeps coming up and up up again.
[4:34] Nirav Chheda: You're pretty active in the online communities of NEMT where you see people asking about this stuff.
[4:40] Nirav Chheda: I'll let you go at it and answer that.
[4:42] Chrissy Bruno: Oh yeah, I'm so passionate about this because every time I see these comments on the um on the NEMT uh websites, I jump right in.
[4:51] Chrissy Bruno: I get so passionate about it.
[4:53] Chrissy Bruno: Um and uh because I wanted to clarify that, you know, it's not our choice to make.
[4:59] Chrissy Bruno: We don't get to just hire a driver and be like, you know what, I don't want to deal with workers comp.
[5:04] Chrissy Bruno: I don't want to deal with payroll taxes, so I'm just going to 1099 you.
[5:07] Chrissy Bruno: Like, a lot of people think that's the way it works, and it absolutely is not.
[5:10] Chrissy Bruno: You are just like setting yourself up for trouble.
[5:13] Chrissy Bruno: Um, the IRS actually has uh publications like crazy.
[5:17] Chrissy Bruno: You can just go to the IRS website and Google uh worker classification and it will give you like step by step like guide to is this person a W2 or is this person an independent contractor.
[5:29] Chrissy Bruno: Um in my case, my employees are W2s because based on the way that we are structured, that's legally how I'm supposed to pay them is as a W2.
[5:38] Chrissy Bruno: Um some of the things to consider is um who owns the vehicle, right?
[5:44] Chrissy Bruno: And who's paying the insurance on it.
[5:46] Chrissy Bruno: So in my case, the vehicles are owned by me.
[5:48] Chrissy Bruno: I pay the insurance on them.
[5:50] Chrissy Bruno: Um so that's one deciding factor.
[5:53] Chrissy Bruno: The other um major deciding factor is, you know, if you think about independent contractor, a lot of people think about contractors like construction workers.
[6:01] Chrissy Bruno: Keep your head there for a second.
[6:03] Chrissy Bruno: A construction worker is considered an independent contractor if they are free to work for many different customers, right?
[6:10] Chrissy Bruno: Like they have the freedom to go out and get their own customer.
[6:12] Chrissy Bruno: They have the freedom to go out and bid on a job.
[6:15] Chrissy Bruno: you know, for Joe Smith to replace a roof or Bob to put on a deck, whatever.
[6:21] Chrissy Bruno: He's an independent contractor. If he's working under somebody and his boss is telling him like, "You have to work on this job on this day and this job on this day," then he's a W2.
[6:32] Chrissy Bruno: So, like in my case, my workers, we dispatch them calls.
[6:36] Chrissy Bruno: They are not free to take my car and go pick up clients any anywhere and anytime they want on their free time.
[6:42] Chrissy Bruno: It doesn't work like that. We control them.
[6:45] Chrissy Bruno: We control the calls being dispatched to them.
[6:48] Chrissy Bruno: They have no control over their calls.
[6:50] Chrissy Bruno: So, they're 100% W2 employees. I feel like the only way it drivers like there's been some publications and some um TSB memos on the IRS website about drivers specifically because it does get a little shady that okay, what
[7:04] Chrissy Bruno: if they are using their own car?
[7:06] Chrissy Bruno: You know, um what if it's more like an Uber situation?
[7:09] Chrissy Bruno: you know, Ubers do get Uber drivers do get um because they are operating their own car.
[7:14] Chrissy Bruno: They clock in when they want to clock in.
[7:16] Chrissy Bruno: They clock out when they want to clock out.
[7:17] Chrissy Bruno: They form their own hours. So, they were able to kind of get in that 1099 status where me, my drivers come, they have shifts that you're working a 6 a.m.
[7:26] Chrissy Bruno: to 2 p.m. shift today. You know, I'm controlling their schedule.
[7:30] Chrissy Bruno: So, it you know, you kind of have to evaluate that.
[7:33] Chrissy Bruno: But definitely check out the IRS website and make sure you're doing it properly so you do not get in trouble later on.
[7:38] Chrissy Bruno: it will catch up to you.
[7:39] Chrissy Bruno: You'll get fined. You'll get penalties.
[7:40] Chrissy Bruno: You'll have to go back and pay all the taxes.
[7:43] Chrissy Bruno: You'll be in violation of workers comp laws, at least here in New York.
[7:46] Chrissy Bruno: Um, stuff like that. So, you really want to make sure you're identifying your employees properly and paying them the correct way, even if it cost you a little bit more to do it.
[7:58] Nirav Chheda: Now, I want to talk about setting up your business structure from the start.
[8:03] Nirav Chheda: Um, it's a big question people have and if you build your house wrong from the foundation, it's a lot of trouble later.
[8:13] Nirav Chheda: Tell us about how you need to set it up from the start.
[8:18] Chrissy Bruno: Yeah. Um, totally valid. Um, so business structuring, meaning like if you're going to be an LLC, a corporation, or a sole proprietor, there's two components to that.
[8:29] Chrissy Bruno: One of them is more of a tax strategy and one of them is more of a legal strategy.
[8:34] Chrissy Bruno: So, for example, a lot of people are familiar with LLC's.
[8:36] Chrissy Bruno: They're the easiest, quickest thing to set up.
[8:38] Chrissy Bruno: You can go on Legal Zoom for 200 bucks and make yourself an LLC.
[8:42] Chrissy Bruno: Um, an LLC will protect you legally.
[8:45] Chrissy Bruno: However, for tax purposes, LLC's aren't even recognized as a entity.
[8:50] Chrissy Bruno: Believe it or not, there's nowhere in IRS that LLC's are even a thing.
[8:54] Chrissy Bruno: LLC's are a state thing, not an IRS thing.
[8:57] Chrissy Bruno: So, I say that to say, um, you can set up an LLC to protect you legally, but on the tax side, it's not going to do much for you.
[9:05] Chrissy Bruno: You're going to still be taxed as a sole proprietor, and you're going to be subject to self-employment taxes.
[9:10] Chrissy Bruno: And when I say it protects you legally, um, what I mean is that that's something that you need do need to consider if you get sued.
[9:16] Chrissy Bruno: I currently have a lawsuit going on.
[9:19] Chrissy Bruno: Um, there was a driver accident and it happens.
[9:22] Chrissy Bruno: You can have the safest drivers in the world, and accidents happen.
[9:26] Chrissy Bruno: um they can only sue my organization that owns my vehicle, right?
[9:33] Chrissy Bruno: So, in my case, I'm a corporation, so I kind of went I kind of got off the LLC first.
[9:37] Chrissy Bruno: I was an LLC at first because I had the legal protection, but when I started profiting a lot of money, I was getting killed in taxes.
[9:44] Chrissy Bruno: So, then I went the corporation route.
[9:46] Chrissy Bruno: So, now I'm a corporation. I now have a lawsuit.
[9:49] Chrissy Bruno: They can only attach the lawsuit to my corporation.
[9:52] Chrissy Bruno: So, I am protected. My family is protected.
[9:54] Chrissy Bruno: My house is protected, my other businesses are protected, my my personal assets are protected.
[10:00] Chrissy Bruno: All they can sue or go after is the assets that corporation owns, which is that particular corporation owns like 10 minivans, right?
[10:10] Chrissy Bruno: Um, but if I did, if I wasn't a um, and I just was a sole proprietor, they could they're going to sue me personally.
[10:18] Chrissy Bruno: It's a whole big difference, right?
[10:19] Chrissy Bruno: So, you definitely want to protect yourself.
[10:21] Chrissy Bruno: If you go the again, if you go the LLC route, you're protecting yourself legally, but it's not going to help you with taxes.
[10:27] Chrissy Bruno: So, if you can start there um like I did, but once you start making some money and you're profiting a little bit, you might want to consider switching over to a corporation um because that will save you some
[10:38] Chrissy Bruno: tax money because you won't have to pay self-employment tax.
[10:43] Nirav Chheda: Okay. Yeah. Thank you. That was concise and Good, good, good.
[10:49] Chrissy Bruno: Sometimes I talk too much. No, [clears throat] that was great.
[10:54] Nirav Chheda: Let's talk about once you've set up, right, just the general accounting and bookkeeping.
[11:01] Nirav Chheda: Like people often ask like what are the best practices around that?
[11:06] Nirav Chheda: Um can you share about that?
[11:08] Chrissy Bruno: Yeah. Um of course I'm a big QuickBooks fan.
[11:10] Chrissy Bruno: Well, I used to be. I'm coming away from it now, but I do everything in QuickBooks.
[11:14] Chrissy Bruno: I track all of my income, my expenses, everything, my payroll.
[11:17] Chrissy Bruno: I do everything through QuickBooks. It's easy.
[11:19] Chrissy Bruno: It gives you the numbers you need, the reports you need.
[11:22] Chrissy Bruno: Um, I also always recommend to know, it's very important that you know what your like I call it like your all-in number, right?
[11:30] Chrissy Bruno: So, I know on a monthly basis what I need to cover all my expenses, right?
[11:37] Chrissy Bruno: And and that number changes like I have to like review that number every couple months, right?
[11:41] Chrissy Bruno: Because things change. Gas prices went up.
[11:43] Chrissy Bruno: U maybe I hired a few more employees, maybe I laid some off.
[11:46] Chrissy Bruno: So every couple months I like I really narrow down and I'm like what are my expenses?
[11:51] Chrissy Bruno: How much do I need to make before I make a profit, right?
[11:54] Chrissy Bruno: And you can come up with that number.
[11:55] Chrissy Bruno: You can calculate that number in Excel on a pen and paper.
[11:58] Chrissy Bruno: Use QuickBook. I mean, however you want, but you know, it's very important that you know what your monthly expenses are.
[12:04] Chrissy Bruno: I actually divide them to the day.
[12:06] Chrissy Bruno: So I take my monthly expenses and I divide it out.
[12:09] Chrissy Bruno: So, I know every day what my goal number is that if I don't make that number, then I, you know, I'm short that day or if I exceeded that number, I know what my profit was for that day.
[12:20] Chrissy Bruno: Um, so I know like what I'm trying to achieve.
[12:23] Chrissy Bruno: So, I think it's really important.
[12:24] Chrissy Bruno: Um, your bare bones number is really important to know.
[12:29] Chrissy Bruno: And again, it could change, it could fluctuate.
[12:32] Chrissy Bruno: Um, monitor it regularly. I monitor it every couple months.
[12:36] Chrissy Bruno: Um, but without knowing that target number, you're just like, what are you aiming for?
[12:42] Chrissy Bruno: You know, obviously we're all aiming to make the most amount of money we can make, but at certain at a certain point, you like hit a tipping point, you know, where you might hire more employees, but you're not
[12:53] Chrissy Bruno: like you're you know, you're it's not it's not jing with your gross sales.
[12:58] Chrissy Bruno: So, you need to kind of figure out where that balance is, and you you're never going to know if you don't know what your magic number is.
[13:03] Nirav Chheda: So, I think that's important. And this target number for revenue, like you track this on a daily basis, like every day I need to hit this number or do you sometimes aggregate it more like, oh, this week I
[13:16] Nirav Chheda: need to hit this number or this month?
[13:18] Chrissy Bruno: I try, you know, I track it every day.
[13:20] Chrissy Bruno: Um, I keep an Excel spreadsheet every day of what my revenue is and what my that daily expense is.
[13:26] Chrissy Bruno: Um, and I don't hit it every day and some days I go over.
[13:30] Chrissy Bruno: So basically by the end of the week is like I hope that I got there you know um during the you know during certain seasons it's it's I'm well exceeded that number you know our busy season's coming up
[13:40] Chrissy Bruno: in the summer I'll be great in the winter is when I really have to like watch that number like every day because I'm like you know I might have to give a driver a day off or something or
[13:49] Chrissy Bruno: cut down payroll a little bit or you know strategize Okay so here's the question.
[13:56] Nirav Chheda: How do you decide what that number even is?
[14:00] Chrissy Bruno: Yeah. So, I take my monthly expenses and I put it into Excel.
[14:04] Chrissy Bruno: Like every single every single dollar that has to go out of my company to pay for my car insurance, my fuel, my payroll, my um workers comp insurance, um auto repairs, my mechanic, um tires, like I kind of
[14:18] Chrissy Bruno: have that like average of what I spend um in a month on all those things.
[14:24] Chrissy Bruno: And then I just, you know, if that's my monthly, I divide it by the 30 31 days or, you know, I multiply by 12, divide by 365, you know, and I come up with my daily number and again,
[14:35] Chrissy Bruno: I have to like change it every once my car insurance just renewed.
[14:37] Chrissy Bruno: I had a 10% increase. So I had to go back into that Excel spreadsheet and adjust my insurance number because now my daily number grew, you know.
[14:46] Nirav Chheda: So is it is it the break even number?
[14:48] Nirav Chheda: Is that what it is? Yeah, my break even number.
[14:52] Chrissy Bruno: Okay, gotcha. Yeah, but it's surprising a lot of business owners don't know what that is.
[14:57] Chrissy Bruno: Like if you ask a business business owner, what's your what's your daily what's your monthly break even number?
[15:01] Chrissy Bruno: Oh, so many people don't know.
[15:03] Chrissy Bruno: And I'm like, well, how do you know if you're making money or not until it's already over, you know?
[15:07] Chrissy Bruno: Don't wait for the month to be over to be like, oh crap, like I lost $5,000 this month.
[15:11] Chrissy Bruno: Like know it ahead of time.
[15:13] Chrissy Bruno: Like, you know, we need to strategize and fix something so we don't get to the end of the month and we can't afford to pay our bill.
[15:18] Nirav Chheda: You know, you talk with a lot of other business owners, I imagine.
[15:24] Nirav Chheda: Do you do you consult them on these kinds of like sort of accounting and bookkeeping practices and everything?
[15:30] Chrissy Bruno: Yes, I do. I do. I'm really trying um you know, I was just talking to my manager about trying to get into um helping the NEMT industry specifically because right now like I do bookkeeping for all kinds of
[15:40] Chrissy Bruno: industries, restaurants, you know, um retail, uh all kinds of stuff.
[15:45] Chrissy Bruno: But um I now that I'm like really into the well I say now I've been into the NEMT world for 12 years now and I'm still learning every day.
[15:52] Chrissy Bruno: But you know now I feel like I've got my at least I got my financial part like to uh you know it's organized if anything else you know if nothing else it's organized like I know I know what
[16:04] Chrissy Bruno: I'm doing. So I feel like confident that I can share that information with other people if need be.
[16:09] Chrissy Bruno: So, I will be um offering some like NEMT uh bookkeeping consultation kind of things or startups, that kind of stuff uh in the near future.
[16:18] Nirav Chheda: Cool. And anyone who wants to get in touch with Chrissy, I'm putting her contact info in the description of this Thank you.
[16:24] Chrissy Bruno: Thank you. Yeah. And you always have to, you know, like I said, like knowing that magic number, too, because you always kind of have to know like how many cars do I need?
[16:31] Chrissy Bruno: I think that's like a big a big thing, too.
[16:33] Chrissy Bruno: Like I still struggle with that.
[16:34] Chrissy Bruno: like, do I have too many cars on the road right now or not enough?
[16:39] Chrissy Bruno: Um, do I have too many drivers, not enough drivers to support?
[16:42] Chrissy Bruno: You know, if you're just in the NEMt world, it's a little easier to strategize because you know your roster ahead of time, right?
[16:49] Chrissy Bruno: Like I know today what tomorrow is going to look like for the most part.
[16:52] Chrissy Bruno: There's going to be add-ons and things like that, but I can schedule and and strategize in a way to accommodate tomorrow's trips and not have too much extra.
[17:01] Chrissy Bruno: But I also do the taxi.
[17:02] Chrissy Bruno: So we have a lot of like on demand right now.
[17:06] Chrissy Bruno: You know, I need a taxi.
[17:07] Chrissy Bruno: I need to get to work.
[17:08] Chrissy Bruno: I need to get to the supermarket.
[17:09] Chrissy Bruno: I need to get to the airport.
[17:10] Chrissy Bruno: You know, things like that. So it's hard to like strategize.
[17:12] Chrissy Bruno: So I'm always like, should I take a couple cars off the road?
[17:15] Chrissy Bruno: Because insurance is really expensive, right?
[17:17] Chrissy Bruno: So keeping a car on the road if it's just going to sit in my parking lot isn't going to work.
[17:21] Chrissy Bruno: So I'm always like, you know, when I get to the office every day, I look in the park and I'm like, how many cars are parked?
[17:25] Chrissy Bruno: Why are these cars parked? You know, like why are they not moving?
[17:28] Chrissy Bruno: Why are they not making money today?
[17:29] Chrissy Bruno: And it's usually maybe they're down for maintenance for the day, they're getting an oil change or something like that, or a driver called out sick, something like that.
[17:35] Chrissy Bruno: But, um, you know, I'm always looking for that magic, you know, balance of having the right amount of cars, the right amount of staff to make that magic number happen.
[17:44] Chrissy Bruno: Um, and I wish there was a magic formula for it.
[17:47] Chrissy Bruno: I'm going to keep trying to find it, and if I do, I can probably make millions off selling that, but uh, I'm still looking for it.
[17:56] Nirav Chheda: I was going to ask you, yeah, like how do you make sure you have the right number of cars and like your utilization of your cars is the most it can be.
[18:04] Chrissy Bruno: I can't figure it out. But I in my mind, I look at the at my dispatching software, I'm like, if all cars are filled and they're all moving and they're all actively full fill and we don't have a
[18:16] Chrissy Bruno: long wait time, then we're we're in like the sweet spot.
[18:20] Chrissy Bruno: But then sometimes I look at the dispatching and it might be like we might be slow for that time and there I have three cars just sitting out there not moving.
[18:26] Chrissy Bruno: The drivers are just waiting for a call and I'm like crap.
[18:30] Chrissy Bruno: You know like you don't want those cars sitting but you also don't want a three-hour wait time.
[18:34] Chrissy Bruno: So we like and that's the hard part with the taxi industry.
[18:36] Chrissy Bruno: The NEMT, like I said, it's easy to strategize.
[18:39] Chrissy Bruno: Once I got into the taxi industry, I'm like this is a little more challenging, right?
[18:42] Chrissy Bruno: Because there it it's that's not consistent.
[18:45] Chrissy Bruno: There are times of the day where we have a an hour wait for a taxi, you know, and then there are times of the day where I have drivers sitting waiting for your phone call and we can accommodate
[18:54] Chrissy Bruno: you within a minute. And it's like it's really tough.
[18:58] Chrissy Bruno: It's really tough. When you say an hour wait for a taxi, all my cars are moving and I and like they already are like booked up.
[19:07] Chrissy Bruno: Like my driver might have three calls ahead of you that are waiting for taxis before I can get to you, you know?
[19:13] Chrissy Bruno: So, we do we do use um IVR um and um app bookings and things like that.
[19:18] Chrissy Bruno: We encourage our clients to kind of book ahead of time so that we can know to reserve that spot for you.
[19:23] Chrissy Bruno: You know, it's easy if a client knows, you know, at 2 o'clock I need a taxi.
[19:27] Chrissy Bruno: Well, let me know that now and I can make sure you have a taxi at 2:00.
[19:30] Chrissy Bruno: But if you call me at 2:00 and say I need a taxi now, we might be my drivers might already be busy.
[19:36] Chrissy Bruno: you know, um they there are times that every single one of my cars is moving and they're actively moving and then it's like after you're done with that call, I already have a follow- on call for you.
[19:48] Chrissy Bruno: Like, and then it just trickles and then I'm like, "Sorry, we have like an hour wait for a taxi." I mean, we're reducing that, you know, like my one of my goals is to keep I keep monitoring that
[19:57] Chrissy Bruno: and I'm trying to keep the weight time low, but again, it's that balance because, you know, if I add another okay, now I have to add another car, right?
[20:06] Chrissy Bruno: All this cost me money. Am I going to it's and maybe it's only for that maybe it's like just that one hour that we fell behind and now in two hours that driver is going to be sitting there
[20:16] Chrissy Bruno: doing nothing. So it's like, so one thing I do do, which my manager had this idea, which I think is great, is have a dispatcher driver, somebody that can multitask.
[20:27] Chrissy Bruno: So there are times that I will hop on the desk and take over dispatching and I'll have my dispatcher go out and drive to catch us up if we get in like a jam.
[20:36] Chrissy Bruno: Um, and it's or I'll go out and drive.
[20:38] Chrissy Bruno: Like if I'm here at the office and I hear them tell people there's like an hour wait, I'm like, "No, no, no, no.
[20:42] Chrissy Bruno: I will go hop in a car if nobody else can and I will go drive and help these clients get where they have to go." So, I think it's important to be able to multitask your employees.
[20:51] Chrissy Bruno: They might not like it, but you know, I do let my dispatchers know that you I'm going to list you as a driver on my insurance policy, and you may have to hop in a car sometimes and and
[21:00] Chrissy Bruno: go help us out. And they're pretty cool with that.
[21:03] Chrissy Bruno: Sometimes they like a break from the desk anyway.
[21:06] Nirav Chheda: I can imagine. So, you're running both taxi and NEMT, like ambulatory rides.
[21:12] Nirav Chheda: like which side of the business do you feel like is more difficult to manage with keeping you know your ve vehicle utilization up and making sure you're optimizing?
[21:23] Chrissy Bruno: Yeah, the taxi side for sure.
[21:25] Chrissy Bruno: I mean, if I was doing just NEMT, I would look at my roster each, you know, I already look at my roster every night for the following day and we kind of strategize already.
[21:35] Chrissy Bruno: But it's so much easier to strategize.
[21:37] Chrissy Bruno: Like if I know I could route like tomorrow if we were just NEMT, I could probably just have six drivers and route them appropriately and it's like this is your day, go have fun.
[21:47] Chrissy Bruno: This is your day, go have fun.
[21:50] Chrissy Bruno: If you need anything, the dispatchers here.
[21:51] Chrissy Bruno: I'd probably only need one dispatcher just to troubleshoot issues.
[21:55] Chrissy Bruno: Uh get those return calls um in.
[21:58] Chrissy Bruno: But there's so much automated um stuff now that that can even do that for you that I could reduce staff so much if I just did NEMT.
[22:05] Chrissy Bruno: Um, it's the taxi that it's like my drivers are just, you know, you see them at the airports, the taxis just lined up waiting to get the people coming off the plane.
[22:13] Chrissy Bruno: I mean, we're pretty far from the local airports, but it's the same idea.
[22:16] Chrissy Bruno: Like sometimes my drivers will just sit outside the supermarket and um, you know, wait for a customer to come out or wait for the next call, you know, that the dispatcher dispatches them.
[22:24] Chrissy Bruno: But it's very hard to regulate it.
[22:26] Chrissy Bruno: It's very hard to um, strategize with it because you don't know someday, for example, um, it's today's May 2nd.
[22:33] Chrissy Bruno: Tomorrow we're expecting to be really busy.
[22:34] Chrissy Bruno: It's the third of the month in our area.
[22:36] Chrissy Bruno: A lot of people get their checks um their uh their assistance checks on the third of the month and everybody goes grocery shopping.
[22:42] Chrissy Bruno: They go to Walmart. They go do their thing.
[22:44] Chrissy Bruno: So tomorrow we're going to bulk up on our staff.
[22:47] Chrissy Bruno: We're going to be busy. We're going to have a great day.
[22:49] Chrissy Bruno: But um today, no idea. Like I have no idea what kind of day it's going to be.
[22:53] Chrissy Bruno: I know what my medical day, my NEMT side's going to be, right?
[22:56] Chrissy Bruno: Because it's already pre-planned. We already know who's going where, how much I'm getting paid for it.
[23:00] Chrissy Bruno: I can kind of know already like what my day looks like and strategize my payroll accordingly.
[23:07] Chrissy Bruno: But on the taxi side, I can't.
[23:08] Chrissy Bruno: It's like a risk every day.
[23:10] Chrissy Bruno: I could put seven cars out on the street and I hope they all stay busy all day, but they might not.
[23:17] Nirav Chheda: Huh. So, let me ask you this.
[23:19] Nirav Chheda: Like on a per vehicle basis, which side of the business is more profitable, taxi or any For me, right, it it varies.
[23:30] Chrissy Bruno: Um, for me right now, the NEMT side um because we generally get um like more consistent and bigger trips like we uh we do trips for some methadone clinics and they're they're like an hour they're like 90 miles
[23:47] Chrissy Bruno: away, right? And we get paid by the mile.
[23:49] Chrissy Bruno: So, and those are consistent like every single day we get those trips.
[23:52] Chrissy Bruno: Um so, those are great. On the taxi side, it's like we're usually our bait our minimum fair is $8, right?
[24:00] Chrissy Bruno: So sometimes we're just drivers are running around doing $8 calls for hours and how much are you really making?
[24:05] Chrissy Bruno: I have an NEMT driver that can make make $8 in half a second, right?
[24:10] Chrissy Bruno: Like on a big call. So it's like I can have an NEMT driver go do a take two hours of their day to do a $300 trip and a taxi driver might be doing $8 calls for three hours.
[24:22] Chrissy Bruno: they're not nowhere near that that you know that number.
[24:25] Chrissy Bruno: But then on the taxi side sometimes we get you know a $400 trip going to the airport or something like that and you know it's a good day.
[24:32] Chrissy Bruno: So and in the summer in my area we get um a large volume of the Hitta community.
[24:37] Chrissy Bruno: There's a lot of camps here.
[24:39] Chrissy Bruno: Um they come in and they don't have they don't bring their cars with them.
[24:43] Chrissy Bruno: So they rely heavily on us and we're one of the only taxi companies.
[24:46] Chrissy Bruno: We're we're the only legal taxi company in our county in our in our municipality I should say.
[24:51] Chrissy Bruno: we have medallions, etc. Um, so we in the summertime we're really busy with the taxi side of things and then it might supersede the medical side, the NEMT Okay, gotcha.
[25:02] Nirav Chheda: Yeah, because I was wondering like if NEMT is easier to manage and it's more profitable, why not just shift focus?
[25:09] Nirav Chheda: But I guess with the taxi business, you have these like random sort of seasonalities that can boost up.
[25:15] Chrissy Bruno: Yeah, I mean the taxi side is good.
[25:18] Chrissy Bruno: it's just more challenging, you know, and I think I'm still new to the taxi side.
[25:22] Chrissy Bruno: I've only really I bought out um the my mentor in January of 2021.
[25:35] Chrissy Bruno: I bought him out. [snorts] Um and he did pron I did mostly NEMT and just like if my drivers were in between NEMT calls and a taxi call came in, sure, of course, like why not?
[25:44] Chrissy Bruno: We'll go make 20 bucks or whatever.
[25:46] Chrissy Bruno: But we focused primarily on the NEMT and then when I bought him out he was, you know, 85% taxi and only like 15% NEMT.
[25:54] Chrissy Bruno: So it was like a whole game changer for me.
[25:56] Chrissy Bruno: And sometimes I'm like, why did I even do this?
[25:58] Chrissy Bruno: Like I should have just stuck with NEMT because this is a headache.
[26:01] Chrissy Bruno: But [snorts] I'm I love a good challenge and I'm going to figure it out [laughter] and then I can share my expertise with Interesting.
[26:11] Nirav Chheda: I mean just generally would you recommend people who are in NEMT running a fleet of whatever you know five 10 vehicles like is it a good idea to explore expanding into taxi?
[26:23] Chrissy Bruno: I have two corporations. I have one that is taxi and my vehicles are taxied.
[26:28] Chrissy Bruno: They're medallioned in my municipalities and they are licensed to do taxi.
[26:33] Chrissy Bruno: Um, and then I have another corporation that does my NEMT that has a contract with um, well almost a contract with uh, my broker in my state and only those cars can do my NEMT work.
[26:44] Chrissy Bruno: So they do kind of sit around and wait.
[26:47] Chrissy Bruno: Um, or I can have them flip into a a car because some of my employees are work both companies if that makes sense.
[26:53] Chrissy Bruno: It's a little complicated internally, but we have it pretty organized where this is this company does that and then you can um the employees can hop on payroll over here, clock in and go do some taxi calls and
[27:05] Chrissy Bruno: then go back over to NEMT if they need to.
[27:07] Nirav Chheda: So, it's a little complicated, but Going forward, like I don't know, five years from now, where do you hope to be with your NEMT and taxi business?
[27:22] Chrissy Bruno: Um I hope to provide some um more more consult consultations and consulting work in the background a little bit um as I'm learning so much and I just want to like share with everybody.
[27:34] Chrissy Bruno: Um but um I hope to just you know continue to grow.
[27:39] Chrissy Bruno: um the softwares like Bambi and the other ones out there just are evolving so much and they're able to just really open up like doors for us, you know, like we we were very old school dispatching for the
[27:51] Chrissy Bruno: longest time. Um the guy I purchased from actually literally you up until two years ago when I took over, he his dispatchers used pen and paper to write down every call and they used CB radios.
[28:04] Chrissy Bruno: I'm not joking. They use CB radios to communicate with the drivers.
[28:08] Chrissy Bruno: Hey, you have a pickup at ShopRite.
[28:09] Chrissy Bruno: You have a pickup at Walmart.
[28:10] Chrissy Bruno: And I'm like, is this real life?
[28:13] Chrissy Bruno: Um, so when I took over, I was like all about a little bit of technology, but I started off really on like a base level uh dispatching system.
[28:22] Chrissy Bruno: It didn't have any kind of artificial intelligence or IVR or nothing, but at least it was computerized and not handwritten.
[28:29] Chrissy Bruno: And at least it like sent the drivers the call in an app, so we didn't have to have CB radios.
[28:35] Chrissy Bruno: Um, and we use cell phones now, right?
[28:37] Chrissy Bruno: we don't need CB radios. Um but uh you know now we you know we just signed on with a with a software and um you you know all you software companies are offering such like high-tech stuff.
[28:48] Chrissy Bruno: So I'm kind of like you know strategizing even with that because with IVR and all the technology it's like you I can kind of cut back on my dispatching a little bit.
[28:56] Chrissy Bruno: My dispatchers can go turn into drivers.
[28:59] Chrissy Bruno: you know, I don't I'm not about laying anybody off or anything, but I can repurpose, you know, if you can go drive and the IVR system can take the incoming calls, you know, so I'm really like trying to
[29:10] Chrissy Bruno: I'm a control freak, though. That's why I'm in accounting because I love like numbers.
[29:13] Chrissy Bruno: Like 2 plus two is always going to be four.
[29:15] Chrissy Bruno: You can't tell me any different.
[29:16] Chrissy Bruno: Um, so with dispatching, I like to always be the one that's saying, "Okay, this driver is going to do that.
[29:21] Chrissy Bruno: That driver is going to do that." But now I see with technology, they're much smarter than me.
[29:25] Chrissy Bruno: The computer can just do all that for you.
[29:27] Chrissy Bruno: So, I'm hoping in the next couple years to really just try to trust the dispatching systems and really take advantage of all of the features that they have and figure out how that can increase my revenue and decrease
[29:40] Chrissy Bruno: my expenses and then I can fill in that like my magic number can go down a little bit and my top number can go up and then I'll be happy.
[29:48] Chrissy Bruno: [laughter] That would work. So, I hope you guys, you know, we appreciate all you uh software providers for just always coming, you know, hearing us out and seeing like what our needs are and evolving and continuing to grow
[30:00] Chrissy Bruno: for us because sometimes we don't even know what we need and then you guys are like, I have the solution and I'm like, I didn't even know I had a problem, but now I know and you solved it
[30:08] Chrissy Bruno: for me. Thank you. So, you're welcome.
[30:13] Nirav Chheda: Run, Bambi, run.
