I just saw an ad in my local paper and did a followup call. Basically, you deliver a neighborhood’s worth of phone books and collect your money…AFTER the company verifies (by phone call) that the books have indeed been delivered.
Any experience with this? Is it worthwhile? How do I know it won’t take them a month to follow up and do the verification? (The company, if it makes any difference, is Yellowbook.)
Elderpoet and I are looking for quick cash because–I may have to start another thread on this because it is SO exciting–we just put a very fine used, tenor bass, Holton trigger trombone on layaway, and it’s gonna cost $300 more to get it out. I don’t even play trombone, but I am here to tell you it is One Fine Horn.
Thus, the interest in a temp job like this.
Best,
karol
There has to be a catch… here are a few reasons why I would not do it…
-
Most people deliver the books by throwing them in front of the house… some get picked up and thrown out right away…
-
Call ID… I have caller ID now, and we never pick up a call that says “unavailable” which I am sure the call would say to verify a phone book was received…
-
How do you know they are going to call veeryone that you sent a book to?
-
You probably get a few cents per book…
-
not worth the time…
Here is an idea…
call local painters… or any home renovation places in your area… call the smaller ones…
Tell them you have been helping out a few companies market by delivering flyers. (or think of something else)
and ask if they would like you to hand out flyers for them to local towns…
If you are looking for something for a few hours a week… this may work for you… I did it once… for 3 weeks… I made about 7 dollars an hour in college…
Reminds me of a cartoon called That’s Jake that I had posted over my work area many years ago.
It was entitled
Jobs that are worse than yours #27 in a series
The picture showed a guy sweating bullets, lugging a large anvil up a steep sidewalk.
The caption was “Door to door anvil salesman in a hilly neighborhood.”
Think about it, phonebooks are freakin heavy.
We had a couple that stopped by our business and asked if we wanted phone books. I said, “No, I have enough for the recycle bin.” As they were leaving, I asked them if they got paid by the book delivered and they said they did. I changed my tune and took 2 for every person in the office. I did have to sign for the number accepted and provide my company name, however…which I was happy to do.
I know I have gotten calls asking if I received a telephone book. In all the cases I have and I told them so.
Well, at least we don’t have to ask (or beg, heh) anyone in order to give them out. They automatically go to every address in a given neighborhood. The followup calls, based on the few such calls that I’ve received, are just random checks rather than a address-to-address verification of every home.
If I manage to keep an appt with the Guy in Charge, I’ll be able to find out more. Sizewise, these aren’t too bad–I’ve seen them on the doorsteps as I do papers, and they are maybe as heavy as a Sunday paper. I do 300 of those every Sunday (and have to be done in under 5 hours), so the actual work involved won’t be that bad.
Wouldn’t, I mean. Hypothetically. I sure won’t do it for cents on the book.
I did this many years ago - or rather, I sort-of-subcontracted from someone who did it on aregular basis. Here (Georgia), the phone co. doesn’t call everyone, but they do do spot check calls of people who asked for special delivery instructions (payphone guide, more copies than phone connections, specific drop spots, etc.) If anyone wasn’t satisfied on the spot check, or your route got a valid customer service complaint, you were supposed fix it. Since the pay was per drop, rather than hourly, this was a serious hit in the aggravation department. Theoretically, they could also blacklist you from doing delivery for them again, but I got the impression that in practice that never happened short of deliberate malfeasance.
It really wasn’t worth the money, btw, especially as I was only subcontracting. However, I dunno what the rates are these days.
Heh-heh. You are asking the right person about this. I have 12+ years in the directory distribution industry, and I currently own my own distribution services company, Distribution Solutions Inc. where we provide routing and verification services to the industry. My prior company delivered many of the Yellow Books (they did all their directories in AL, TN, GA, NC, MS, and LA), but did not deliver any in Bloomington, IN. That distribution, I believe (the YB contract was just this last summer so my info should be pretty good), is run by YB itself, and your manager probably reports to the old McLeod offices in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Ask him. 
Anyway, to your questions:
“Any experience with this?” Yup. Tons. More than I can type - trust me.
You’re going to go to a warehouse that has a ton of phone directories in there. You will likely meet a manager and a clerk or 2 in a bare-bones temporary operation, and they will probably send you through an orientation session where they teach you how to deliver phone books.
You then get to select a route (more on this very important step later), whereupon you’ll fill out some paperwork, including a contract between you and the distribution company to deliver phone books for that route (more on this as well). You will then get your phone books, some plastic bags, some paperwork telling you what areas/streets to deliver, and you’re off!
When you deliver, you will likely have to bag all residential deliveries. Some people bag all their books the night before they go out delivering, some people bag their books while they are delivering - do what you think is fastest.
You will either get a list of streets and address ranges, or a list of all the people that you are supposed to deliver. Since you are doing Yellow Book, you’ll probably get the postal route system, where you’ll get a list of streets like “Adams St 1 199 B”, which tells you to deliver all addresses between 1 to 199 on Adams St, "B"oth sides of the road. You’ll also get a list of the advertisers who live/work on that route - you’ll have to get signatures for the whole list (ask them if they pay extra for signatures).
Houses must be delivered to the door. Do not think that you’ll be able to toss a bunch of books onto driveways as you’re slowly driving down the street - not if you want to get paid. You are going to have to get out of your car and walk, young lady (I assume - you did sign “karol”).
“Is it worthwhile?” Only if you’re smart about it and you have the right tools. You will need the following items to make it worthwhile:
-
A vehicle capable of holding a minimum of 125 worth of phone books. You will get paid about .10-.25 per book (dependant upon book size and driving distance of route), meaning that your vehicle must hold between 500-1,250 books. In short, and this is very important, you will lose money delivering in a sedan. Period. You must have a large-bed truck or, better, cargo van to make money.
-
Smart route selection. Go for the businesses and the apartments. Leave the suburbs and the rural areas for the pros (and yes, there are professionals at this). If they haven’t already picked the area clean, you need to select routes that have large business counts (the managers and clerks will know how many residents and businesses exist per route - just ask) or those that cover large apartment complexes. This way, you’ll be able to get rid of over 200 books an hour ($20+).
-
A strong vehicle. Cars are the thing that will destroy any profit that you might make - I cannot tell you how many irate people have yelled at me, demanding that I pay to replace their transmissions/axles/suspensions/etc. :rolleyes: Phone books are heavy, and they’ll f-up a mere car just like that.
-
You will be an independant contractor, meaning that you will be sign a contract to be paid piece work for every single directory you deliver. They will not deduct any taxes/alimony from your paycheck, and you can earn up to $600 before the income gets reported to the IRS in a 1099. Many people, to evade the $600 limit, use familial social security numbers - my father had 4 kids back in 1982 when we got into this, and all of us had about $580 of phone book income that year.
“How do I know it won’t take them a month to follow up and do the verification?” You will sign a contract with YB that stipulates how long the check will take (usually 3-10 days)*. The verification amounts to a sampling of the people that live on your route(s). Yellow Book asks (I know this, btw) four questions:
- Did you recieve your book?
- Was it in a good condition?
- Was it in a plastic bag?
- Was it by your door or mailbox?
They will ask these questions of 5% of the people/businesses that exist on your route, and they will call EVERY advertiser, signed or not.
*This is an industry standard, comparable to times given by Market Distribution Specialists (MDS), Specialty Directory Distribution Specialists (SDDS), and American Directory Services (ADS) who also do Yellow Book work. ADS bankrupts and re-orgs every 3 years or so, so they might be called something else now. If Yellow Book differs, my bad.
Oops. I meant to put the appropriate smilie in this passage:
“You are going to have to get out of your car and walk, young lady 
(I assume - you did sign “karol”).”
Otherwise I just sound like a codger.
You know, given the events in this thread, which detailed the hell I went through in order to leave my parents company, it is appropriate that post # 666 was (in a slight way) about my parents company.
I’ve done this a couple of times, but there was never anything about them having to call and confirm they were delivered, we got paid right away.
I delivered phone books last fall, and my biggest complaint was the incredible pain it caused in my back (from lugging all those heavy books around). Other than that, the money was okay for the amount of work I actually put in, with no one looking over my shoulder. If you have a strong back and want a little quick cash, I would say go for it. Oh yeah, JohnT’s advice is right on the mark.
(You will probably need some kind of carrier for the books if you don’t have one already - armfuls of phone books isn’t a great idea.)
I can concur that delivering phone books (or newspapers) has destroyed more automobiles than fortunes it has made in the process.
Need a truck. Definitely need a truck.
JohnT. The SD is an amazing place–I just KNEW someone here would chime in with the voice of experience. Thank you.
Now, to address some of your points, so you can talk me out of this if need be:
I drive a Nissan Quest van. It’s not huge, but if I put the seats down I have plenty of room. I use it to deliver papers every day, so whatever systems are going to be killed by the weight are already halfway there. If necessary, I’ll look for smaller routes and see if they’ll let me do another one in a few days.
I’m okay with walking, especially since I intend to make the boys do most of that. (It ain’t MY trombone we’re trying to pay for, after all!) They’re 12 and 16, very responsible, and used to doing this kind of thing as I drag them out every Sunday for paper delivery. Moneywise, I’m more concerned with how much we make than how quickly we make it, as long as it helps out with the horn payment.
We have many, many, MANY apartments here–college town and all that–so I will be careful to select a route carefully, assuming they aren’t already taken.
Hmm. I guess I’d better go get a valid driver’s license, just in case all goes well.
Thanks again! I love having a SD.
You will likely make anywhere between $60-$120 per route*. Having 2 kids that you don’t have to pay is a big plus, as that is what my dad did back in the early '80s. We’d deliver the phone books while he was reading the newspaper in the car: he’d park in the middle of the street and wait for us.
*1 route~=8 hours (including bagging).
You HAVE to have a valid License to deliver phone books, btw. Unless the distribution is totally sucking air, you won’t get contracted without a current drivers license and liability insurance. Sorry. 
JohnT,
Are there many overlaps in delivery companies? I seem to get new copies of the same three DC area phonebooks every other month. I get home from work and there they are, in a huge stack next to my door.
I don’t mind very much because the thick phonebooks make great .357 targets, and great campfire logs. Or I just recycle them.
Nobody has ever called me.
You have two different types of publishers in the phone book industry - Telco’s (TELephone COmpany books) who are required by some outmoded regulation to provide a phone directory, and Independents, who publish telephone books solely for the purposes of selling advertisments to be in said book. www.yellowbook.com]Yellow Book USA is an independent.
The telco’s are forced to divulge their listings due to another Federal Regulation, so technically the listings in the Independent book should be as up to date as the listings in the Telco book (I’d tell you the law, but I can’t remember it right now…).
A lot of independent books have far more features then the Telco books, including restaraunt menus, area-wide street maps, Criss-Cross listings, etc. Here in Knoxville we get the BellSouth book (it has gotten a LOT better over the past years) and the Yellow Book. In Atlanta, GA some places get as many as 7-9 separate books - even the Telco white/yellow pages is 5 books (2 books for Yellow, 2 books for residential white, and 1 book for business white). BellSouth used to pay $1.00/set back in 1988, I can only expect it to be higher now. I made $400 one day by hitting the motherload of apartments, made $300 the next and never worked again.
The delivery companies themselves compete for the contracts to deliver the telephone directories published by the independants and the telcos. The telco business is locked up by two companies, Product Development, and Directory Distributing Associates Inc, while the independants are fought over by the smaller companies, of which my parents company is one. Many times, they have had different books being delivered for different clients in the same city - at the same time!
That’s Yellow Book USA, btw. :rolleyes: . And Product Development Corporation doesn’t have a website that I can find
Actually, the website is deliverphonebooks.com, and it is legit - it’s for one of the larger delivery companies, PDC (www.teampdc.com).
I’m no longer in the business like I was, God, 10 years ago(!), but everything Sandra says is true (other than the “class action felony” part - I don’t even know what a “class action felony” is, but if you toss enough $8 books, yes, you could be charged with a crime.)
She revivied a thread from 2003, her username is similar to the President of the company while claiming to be a delivery person and the whole post reads like a job ad.