Uberman: how a Uber driver earns $ 252 thousand a year

The person sitting next to me gives the most practical business advice I have heard lately. True, the conversation does not quite correspond to the place in which we are located. This is not a cafe or office. We are in the Uber car, and he is my driver ( Uber is a service for searching, calling and paying for taxis or private drivers).

This is Gavin Eskolar, a charismatic Filipino, whose laughter has an even more flashy shade than his shirt with orange and red stripes. We are going, and I gradually notice that diamond earrings are dangling on the panel, emerald bracelets are glittering on his wrists. And glossy catalogs with a lot of jewelry and the inscription sticking out of the seat pockets: “Gavin Escolar. Collection 2014 »
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And suddenly it dawned on me: I am not just in the car - I am in a mobile shopping pavilion! And he is not just a driver. And not just a businessman. He is Uberman! Gavin uses the Uber service to promote his business. I wanted to know the whole story of Gavin, and he gladly shared it.

His homeland is the Philippines. When Gavin immigrated to San Francisco, he set a goal - to create his own jewelry business. However, for a start, he decided to go work as a driver in Uber in order to somehow make ends meet. “My passengers surprised me,” says Gavin. “I thought that they would go in silence or run into their phones, but for some reason most of the passengers wanted to talk. When the conversation went about my jewelry, they asked me for business cards. And then I thought that it was possible not to dwell on business cards, but to place jewelry and catalogs right in the car! ”
So Gavin turned his car into a shopping pavilion.

“When passengers noticed a product, I talked about it. But he never imposed himself. And if they didn’t pay attention, it means that this is not my target audience. ”
“Making an impression within 10 minutes is the dream of every seller. Because usually the time is much less. Take at least the same trade peddle or online advertising. And the best part is that I was paid a stable salary in Uber, and I could live in peace when the sale of jewels was going badly. ”

For drivers of Uber there is a rating system. Gavin had 4.85 / 5.00 on Uber Black, 4.87 / 5.00 on UberX and 4.95 / 5.00 on Lyft. Over the past 18 months, Gavin has served about 3,829 passengers. Among them were very wealthy business people, for example, Vogue editors, top managers of Silicon Valley, including the famous investor Shervin Pishvara .
"We saw a lot of amazing drivers, but Gavin is one of the best," said Shervin. “I saw his jewels in the car and thought it was wonderful and deserved good encouragement from my side”

While Gavin and I were driving, I watched him communicate with the passengers. If the passenger was silent all the way, then Gavin did not distract him. If the passengers began to communicate, then Gevin tried to speak a little, asked them questions and tried to understand whether they needed anything.

So, last year, Gavin earned an average of $ 18,000 a month to make jewelry. If you add earnings to Uber here, then for the year you get $ 252,000. Gavin used his profit to expand his business: he bought 3 more cars and hired 6 drivers.

“The best generals are always with their soldiers,” he says. Therefore, Gavin himself also carries passengers at least 8 hours a week. This allows him to constantly update information on how the situation has changed on the roads, on which routes to travel the fastest and in which areas there are more customers.
Developing his business, Gavin thinks not only about himself, but also about poor immigrants from the Philippines, who, at one time, was himself. When hiring drivers, he prefers Filipinos. Many of them are not familiar with modern technologies, so he also teaches them to use the Internet, smartphones, and Uber services.

Gavin's experience will be useful to many other entrepreneurs. Working at Uber, he got what many people want: a stable salary, the ability to create his own business, business contacts with businessmen, as well as communication and feedback from his target audience.

Of course, not everything is as smooth as it may seem. After all, not all drivers are as tactful as Gavin. Without feeling the mood of the passenger and not seeing his interest, they will offer their goods almost by force! But in this case, the rating system comes to the rescue. Disgruntled passengers can give them low marks, protecting themselves from annoying and overly talkative drivers.

Maybe Gavin is not the only one? Maybe someone else followed his example? To find out, we interviewed 89 drivers for Uber and Lyft. It turned out that 28 of them (31.5%) also have their own business. But only two of them place their promotional materials in their cars. So, these people allow themselves to simply sit behind the wheel, day after day losing a great opportunity to grow their business.

The history of Gavin once again shows that the way in which a person goes to his dream may have the most unexpected twists and turns. The main thing is to always be ready to take a step forward and not to look at the changes as new problems, but to see unlimited possibilities before you.