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…

“T.!” I said.

“Sweetie!” she  replied.

It was the same woman who got us into our last apartment building. She’s some kind of rep for the parent company. Very cool chick, very nice. It was good seeing her again, even if she chided me for not networking with her. Hey, I’ve been swamped for nine months…

On the second job of the day, I ended up moving the couple into an apartment I’d moved someone else into. Kind of a sad situation, though — the previous tenants broke up and I was supposed to move him to a new place. We couldn’t get our schedules to sync up, though, so he kind of drifted away.

This is beginning to happen a lot now. Not only can I tell you what the loading docks are like for 99 percent of the city’s buildings, I know who lives in half of them. Is this success? Maybe. The U.S. Census Bureau ought to talk to me.

The problem is b.s., initially. I put the word out that I’m looking for some labor help, and I get 50-60 responses over about a week. Seventy-five percent of those will be from pre-literate guys, and while I’m not looking for Shakespeares here, it’d be nice to have guys at least attempt a coherent request for work from a new employer. Of those guys, about half of them will promise–swear, actually–that they’re the hardest-working men I’ve ever seen. One guy, usually a younger guy, inevitably sends his resume. Oy.

The remaining 25 percent will sound interesting, and I’ll respond to them. Of those, maybe ten or so guys will get back to me. Maybe three of the final guys will make the cut, and two of them will disappear after their first day on the job.

But, every now and then, I get lucky and find someone who’s eager to work, has good instincts, and cares for my customers’ belongings. That’s when the real training begins.

Unfortunately, I can’t just tell them how to do the bare-bones, boots-on-the-ground work. I’m writing the manual for the business right now, and that’s one of the hardest things I’ve done so far. The real training begins when they pick up their first dresser out on the job. Actually, the real training begins when we show up and I tell them to put their “jazz hands” on.

At least half of the job is grace and charm in the customer’s presence. At least half. If a guy is strong and careful, he has nothing to worry about. But a bad or even just aloof attitude can mean the difference between a big tip and a good review, or no tip and no review. Look at reviews for movers at Yelp.com sometime. It’s shocking how often people are put off by movers’ complaining. I’ve had a few of my guys cost me some money because they bitched about stairs.

Anyway, my June deadline for a fully automated business with multiple streams of income and several independently operating crews is looming, and I need to find some dudes. It’s tough work but someone (oh way–it’s me!) has to do it. Oy.

I spent a good chunk of the day flow-charting on this gigantic white board someone gave me during an office move. It’s bigger than most walls in my house, but I thought (rightly) that it would be a good tool to flesh out my random thoughts.

In the last two years I’ve re-worked the moving biz plan several times, usually going in a circular motion. There are several significant regulatory hurdles to overcome or comply with (at a not insignificant cost), but as I’m now grossing a decent amount every month, and, the relatively arbitrary Rubicon of the New Year has been crossed, it’s go-time. The hurdles are about to get jumped.

And I’m scared shitless. Pardon the French, but as I told my wife today, my body is going through what feels like a seared conscience. To the best of my knowledge, I haven’t done anything that would merit a seared conscience, but the phsyiological feelings (sorry, it’s late) are about the same. I’m so nervous that my hands are shaking, my thoughts are jumping all the fences, and I’m waiting for something to go horribly, horribly wrong. I think of this as a “light” blog — no particularly deep thoughts involved — but I have to confess this not-so-particularly-light sentiment: I feel like I’m about to die.

Crazy, isn’t it? I hope so. But that’s what it feels like. Remember that Seinfeld episode where George says he doesn’t think God would ever let him be successful? Jerry says “I thought you didn’t believe in God.” George replies that he does, but only for the bad stuff.

I’m about to push this business into a very serious, very potentially profitable place, and if all goes according to plan, it will probably get a lot more attention. Working as it has been “behind the scenes,” that scares the hell out of me.

Call it stage fright. Call it opening night jitters. Call it buck fever. Call it whatever you want, but I got it.

This is where I would normally throw in the towel and say I made a good effort. But I have a family, and if not for them, that’s exactly what I would do. However, since I’m responsible for the well-being of two, and soon to be three people, I have no choice but to take this little business to wherever it’s going to go.

I ran the numbers today. (About time, right?) By replicating what I do with four or so moving crews and taking a small percentage of their income as a referral fee, I’ll make…well, that wouldn’t be very polite of me, would it? Suffice it to say it’ll be comfortable. In the beginning, it’ll be hell, of course. I’ll be dealing with logistical complications that have made all my prior work seem like stacking my son’s blocks, but the potential payoff is well worth the effort.

I have until June. That’s when I need to be available for my wife and the kids. It’s not as though I’m totally unavailable right now, but unless things are well along by June, there’s no way I can maintain my current work schedule AND help out around here. I just can’t do it.

So, pressure’s on. It scares the hell out of me, but man, life has never been more exciting.

Man, my life sucks.

Wait–what? This is a good thing? You’re right–this is awesome!

I could still use some time off though.

So, this summer I relied heavily on positive reviews on Yelp.com. At the high point, I had FIFTEEN five-star reviews. Not just “He’s helpful,” but full-on, here’s-a-story-of-why-MTB-is-awesome kind of reviews. In all humility, we rocked the moving industry with our kick-ass customer service.

Pride goeth before the fall, and all that, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when, after I Facebook and Twitter bragged about it, the reviews began  disappearing from my Yelp page. I did a little research and discovered that only the reviews of ACTIVE Yelpers stay up indefinitely. If you just get an account to review someone once and then never Yelp again, after awhile your review will disappear.

For awhile, the Yelp reviews were driving tons of traffic to my site. But then I was down to 11. The next day I was down to nine. A couple of weeks later, I was down to FOUR good reviews. Four. I think I’m back up to five now, but unfortunately, all my eggs were in the Yelp basket, and now my traffic is down to a crawl.

Argh. This, right before the slow season.

Time to dig into that bag of tricks…

Well, no more excuses. It was a busy summer. I could call it “The Summer of a Thousand Good Intentions.” Another equally accurate title might be “The Summer of a Thousand Moves.” I don’t remember if I mentioned it here before, (it’s been so long since I logged in I had to actually think about my login info), but by my rough estimates, I’ve done close to 800-1,000 moves since I started doing this thing.

Think about that. Remember the last time someone asked for your moving help? You didn’t really want to, but out of friendly obligation, or maybe because you owed your friend a favor, you did it anyway. Then, on moving day, you nearly twisted your spine out of place, and your forearms burned after lugging a dresser up the stairs, and you dropped an armoire on your foot. Now multiply that nearly one thousand times.

Lol. Okay, it wasn’t that bad for me. I actually enjoy the work for the most part. Moving myself for free is one of the worst forms of hell, but thankfully that doesn’t happen really often.

So what are these good intentions I was talking about? Let me review my pre-summer, pre-laid-off to-do list. Just a minute while I go wrap my sides nice and tight to avoid splitting them from laughter. Keep in mind that I put this list together around December 1st, 2008, roughly one week before I was laid-off from my job as a grantwriter.

Goal #1: By the end of February, finish “testing the Truck Buddy concept.” In other words, prove that it works. I had no real plan, mind you–just some fuzzy ideas about making money.

Goal #2: Recruit ten new Truck Buddies by the end of April from around the country. The idea was to have one in Chicago, one in San Francisco, one in Seattle, etc.

Goal #3, which actually goes with Goal #2: write the definitive MTB manual. Basically, the blueprint that TBs were to follow.

Goal #4: Retire from doing the actual moves by June.

Goal #5: Since I’m not very good at planning very far into the future, Goal #5 was rather vague. It was something like “Practice Today Show interview questions for my inevitable appearance to talk about the out-of-sight success of MyTruckBuddy.com.

Of course, things got a little nuts when I was laid off, and here we are, almost a year later, with a slightly different state of affairs. I am, however, still working on my Today Show talking points.

The highlights:

• I have a good volunteer workforce in place. I’ve been meaning to write about these guys and our adventures all summer, but, well, it’s rather difficult when you’re using your hands to heft mattresses.
• This is the beginning of the slow season, but I’m still booking moves as far out as November 28th. I don’t have a slot available until mid-October.
• One of the top searches that lead people to my site is “How to make money with my truck,” which shows me that the Truck Buddy network concept is still alive and well. (In fact, I just got an e-mail from a kid in San Francisco wanting to do this.)
• My website, while pretty crappy, design-wise, is becoming quite the sophisticated, automated time-saver and sales tool. Seriously — I discover a new feature every day in the GoodBarry system that I can implement. For example, when someone books a move, I can set up a series of automated e-mails that gives them moving tips, payment information, jokes, whatever.
• I’m about to begin writing the manual for Truck Buddies, as well as what I hope will be a hilarious Moving Tips guide. After doing this for two years, I think I have some good material.

Basically, it’s gotten to the point that I’m “coasting” as my wife put it. It’s a lot of work for “coasting,” but I’ve got something that resembles a stable, money-making system. I even have a Pakistani assistant! (More on that later, I PROMISE).

Sigh. I’ve been writing this post for about two hours between this and that, and now I have to show my wife how to put stuff on the online store. I’m so glad she’s up for that, because it’s one more thing I can take off the list.

My first furniture dolly gave up the ghost...

“You really need a blog,” “they” say. I agree, I suppose, but probably only if you can afford a dedicated staff person who just does that — blogs. I have no dedicated staff person. I’m everything right now, and in the hierarchy of important issues to get to, blogging is not high on the list.

Let’s see, what’s the status of My Truck Buddy right now? Well, the phone is ringing off the hook, I’m two days behind on e-mail, I’ve grossed a record amount of cash this month, and I have no shortage of manpower. I could probably keep three crews running all day long if I was, you know, officially a real moving company with trucks I owned, rather than rented.

This is all good, right? Yeah, I guess, but I’m a zombie right now. My right arm doesn’t seem to be working properly, and my index finger on my right hand is still numb from getting pulverized between the heaviest mattress I’ve ever lifted and a concrete wall. Money is still tight this month, but that’s only because we have some personal moving expenses coming up. (We’re saving). And then my wife’s car broke down…

Honestly, I’m not complaining. Bitching, sure, but not complaining. This was the goal, after all. I knew that it would be time to expand once I reached the point of having more business than I could handle. Well folks, I’m there. I can’t handle the workload, and I can’t afford to outsource. Almost there, but not quite…

All this is my way of saying I’m sorry for the light blogging.

A couple of you have suggested I write an e-book. After thinking it over, I’m going to do it. Only God, in his omniscience, knows how and where I’ll find the time to do such a thing. In fact, I’m going to write TWO e-books. One for potential Truck Buddies, and one for customers. The latter will be a light-hearted take on moving tips. Since I haven’t written more than three paragraphs of it, I’m still in the idealistic stage–I envision it to become the signature e-book on the topic, hopefully cementing My Truck Buddy as the authority on small moving.

And my guidance counselor laughed at me and told me to get the hell out of his office…

All this may be a bit premature, though. It is the busy season, after all. Things will undoubtedly slow down to a crawl in a few months, but we’ll see. At least then I’ll have time to do the things I’m procrastinating about right now.

Speaking of which, I’ve got a new website to build. ‘Late.

C.

Last week or so, I was ready to throw in the towel on MTB. There was just too much regulation, too much overhead, too much pain in the butt. Like all my plans, it started humbly, but quickly morphed into schemes of such grandiose scale that I was already practicing my Letterman appearance in the mirror. (Ever seen “The Commitments?” Like that, but less Irish.) As I’d finally envisioned it, it just couldn’t happen. (Probably — we’ll have to see what happens in Phase III, which, I guess, I should probably start drafting…)

I wasn’t too bummed about the apparent demise of the dream because frankly, I was getting a little exhausted and bored. Mostly bored — I do enjoy the hard work even if bitch about it all the time. Plus, I was free to pursue a marketing/copywriting/small biz consultation business idea I’ve been kicking around.

Anyway, I do ramble. The point is that I had one more idea for MTB and I ran it by the lawyer. He said “Yeah, you can do that.” The best part: it’s extremely low maintenance. (In theory…) Basically it’s Craigslist just for guys with pickup trucks. I don’t charge customers for anything, I don’t take a cut of Truck Buddies’ jobs, and I don’t have to organize a big network of Truck Buddies. They take care of everything themselves. I just charge the Truck Buddies a small fee for keeping their profile on the site.

Simple. Apparently effective.

It’ll undoubtedly morph into something else, or run into new snags, but this thing is ON, baby. Thank God.

So, I spent a lot of this week (er…what day is it…Saturday?) researching the legal requirements I need to meet in order to expand the business. You might think that’s the kind of thing a business owner would do BEFORE they open their doors, but, well, that’s not the way I do business.

Anyway, I just don’t think it’s going to happen, at least not as I visualized. Unless there’s a good loophole, I won’t be starting up a nationwide-network of “Truck Buddies,” i.e. guys with pickup trucks who are ready to help people with their small moves, anytime soon.

Why? The short version — under federal regulations, anyone who transports household goods across state lines and takes money for it must file a bewildering array of paperwork. Not only are there fees associate with that, there’s also legal fees. Then there’s insurance. This has turned out to be the hardest part — cargo insurance for an open-bed pickup truck is hard to come by. You know, because all those college girls I move have a lot of Monets and Van Gohs in their apartments.

Let’s not forget general liability insurance for each Truck Buddy associate, or as I call them, just “Buddies.”

Are guys just looking for a few hundred (or thousand) extra bucks per month going to go through all this? I don’t know. I don’t THINK so, but I’m extremely skeptical.

My wife thinks I might be underestimating the ambition of potential Truck Buddies. However, I hear my dad’s voice when I think about my administrative expectations for potential TBs: “Most people are lazy and just want a paycheck.”

True. I was certainly that way. But even with all the daily, crushing headaches this business gives me, it’s still better than the best day of a J.O.B.

I don’t know. Maybe I can make this work. But right now, I see My Truck Buddy slipping away from me. After two years of building a system — and a pretty profitable little system at that — it’s just sad.

But am I giving up? Frak no. I haven’t reached the end of this thread I’m pulling, and I think I have a lot more to go.