The next big thing and nervous breakdowns

Sunrise in the Outer Banks

In order to avoid simultaneous nervous breakdowns, we went to the beach last week. For my wife, it was necessary because she’s with two very needy little boys all day long. Both are perfect, or as close to perfect as they can get at their ages in my view, but let’s face it — there’s a lot of poop and they can destroy a house just as fast as Judie can put it together. She needed a break — a break with maid service.

For my part, I reached the end of my will. Well, it felt like it. I’ve been pedal-to-the-medal for about four years now. We’ve had a lot of great successes, but they haven’t come easy. There have been times when I thought “Well, that’s it, we’re finished,” only to see some miracle reset everything. In fact, that happens almost every day, and the other day I tested it. We were dangerously short-handed for a job the following day. I was driving a truck, Truck Buddy Crew Leader Tyler was with me. “Watch this,” I said, “Somehow, we’ll see a miracle in the next few hours that’ll save our bacon.”

Sure enough, Operations Manager Jimmy called and said he had a guy who could fill in. Another guy who I didn’t think would be available suddenly was, and we were then all set.

“See? Miracles.”

Regardless, hoping for miracles, or even expecting them, kills my nerves. We run a moving company — a high-risk, low-margin, ridiculously expensive operation that generates a few bucks in profit every month. Savings? Hah. Among the daily crises: guys don’t show up; guys don’t even show up to interviews; guys break things; guys ding luxury sports cars with our beat up trucks; people graffiti our trucks; guys get hurt and can’t work; people hit our trucks. And then there’s the never-ending grind of scheduling jobs on the calendar, and assigning guys TO those jobs. (“I don’t want to work with that guy”…”That guy is too slow, put me with someone else…” Etc.)

So, I reached the end of what willpower could do, and I booked a room at a hotel in the Outer Banks. Maybe I’ll find time to carve some time out and write about it later, but for now here’s the bottom line for me: It’s time to get back to basics. But also, it’s definitely time to do something big. Really big.

What kind of big? I’d been thinking about some funky/insane marketing schemes, but after getting a frank email from a potential administrative assistance vendor, I think it may be time to go looking for investors. We need so many things, and I’ve resisted loans or any kind of investment “capital” (not even sure why they call it “capital” rather than just “money.” That’s how naive and inexperienced I am. Lol.) The goal of getting investment capital would be to upgrade or create our administrative systems like scheduling, to get a fleet of trucks of our own (we currently lease), and, of course, blitz the area with marketing materials. We have a solid base of a few thousand (mostly) happy customers, and they’re doing a great job of advertising MTB. But it’s barely enough. Three trucks and crews running full-time is barely enough to pay the bills. God help us if we have any major breakdowns or incidents. Four crews running has been giving us a little more of a cushion. Five crews could really do something, but at that point, it’s more than what two guys can manage. Jimmy and I are overworked and definitely underpaid.

So, it might be time for “the next big thing,” and that’s starting to look like an infusion of cash to me. I loathe the idea of going into debt. (Being debt-free is one of our stronger selling points, I think.) But we’re not going anywhere without some major expansion and upgrades.

Time to start pulling on some threads…