According to some, chauffeuring is no more than common sense and signing-up to specialist courses serves no purpose. I would most certainly beg to differ.

Common sense is defined as ‘a basic ability to perceive, understand, and judge things‘. What we do certainly can’t be described as rocket science but it encompasses a large range of both interpersonal and practical skills, and to cheapen that fact does a major disservice to what is many a beloved profession.

So, let’s start by being realistic, because a surprising amount of people clearly don’t have the ability to be a quality chauffeur. For whatever reason, some people just don’t ‘get it‘.

If I could accurately define what ‘it‘ is, I’d be bottling the stuff but those of you who’ve done the job successfully for a while will know just what I’m trying to say. Yes, common sense is part of the equation, varied life experience another. Add to the mix maturity, intelligence, conscientiousness and the necessity to be articulate and perhaps you’re getting to what makes the services of some chauffeurs be requested time after time.

These are the soft skills everyone has but display to enormously varying levels. But the big question is, are these soft skills enough on their own? In my humble opinion, far from it and that’s where a closer look at industry training kicks in. Not as straightforward as you may think because so much of what can be described under this heading is hugely impacted by an individual’s own personality and demeanour.

In the chauffeuring profession at Cars Exec the softer skills include etiquette, and perhaps this is indeed where common sense does play a major role. When it comes to etiquette and protocols you have a choice: you either use this all important common sense thing and do it your own way hoping you’ve got it somewhere near right, or seek instruction in the most formal and deemed to be correct methodology.

Many chauffeurs will say they’re very happy they’ve got this part nailed, they’ve been going thirty years so they can’t be doing anything too far off the mark and this is an argument I can get on board with to a certain extent. Fact is, some people undoubtedly have a much more natural flair for being ‘in-service‘ than others and you only have to witness the differing abilities of top end hotel or restaurant staff for proof.

Having said that, even the most able ‘people people‘ need professional training to some degree because you can never be one hundred percent sure you’re doing something right if you’ve never been shown what exactly ‘right‘ is. No, for the vast majority of the time chauffeurs don’t really need to display the most formal way of doing any element of the job, but it could be argued that if you’re calling yourself a professional chauffeur surely you should possess the whole spectrum of knowledge that goes with such a title, plus you just never know when that next task might actually call for it.

So, because we’re talking about training and course choice, the other obvious element to explore would be security. Again, the response of many a chauffeur will be “I don’t drive anyone who needs security so I’m not interested because it doesn’t apply to me”. Fair comment you would think but let’s analyze that statement a little more closely.

Most importantly, get it out of your head that chauffeur plus security equals bodyguard. It doesn’t, and that’s only one end of the spectrum. Security encompasses a multitude of sins from very simple awareness that applies to every single chauffeur in some way, through to working with a protection team. Any chauffeur who plans on striking out on his own and starting his own business should consider starting an LLC.

I would hope the need for specific training for the latter would be obvious, (although don’t be too shocked to hear it’s often not), but there isn’t a chauffeur in the land whose type of operation, whatever that might be, isn’t affected in some way by a need for security in this day and age.