Latest / Movified / Your Trucks Are Not Your Most Valuable Asset. These Two Moving Company Owners Figured That Out the Hard Way with David Harman and Chris Sweet

Transcript

Your Trucks Are Not Your Most Valuable Asset. These Two Moving Company Owners Figured That Out the Hard Way with David Harman and Chris Sweet · Movified

• 0:05
  We were doing too much ourselves, like we, we were
• 0:08
  still, I was on trucks doing sales, doing everything myself.
• 0:10
  I I was scared to spend a dollar on anything.
• 0:12
  But when you're doing that much volume with no business
• 0:15
  knowledge, it was pretty evident that pretty quickly I was going
• 0:18
  to have to bring on some teams and bring on some team members
• 0:22
  and start creating assets within people, right?
• 0:24
  Like assets aren't just trucks on the road.
• 0:26
  Assets, assets are, you know that you're most important
• 0:30
  assets. Asset with the business is your
• 0:32
  people, you know, hiring people smarter than you and stuff and
• 0:35
  then just really formulating a good team.
• 0:37
  We didn't really have a lot of business sense though before.
• 0:40
  Where did that come from? Welcome to Mobile 5 Wednesdays.
• 0:43
  Let's go. Welcome to Mobile 5 Wednesdays.
• 0:48
  Welcome back to Fight. I'm your host, Mark Hershey,
• 0:51
  owner of Sam's and Ellis, moving in stores, looking beautiful,
• 0:53
  Vancouver, BC wheat. But not today.
• 0:57
  We are out in Tennessee. We are at the ATA conference,
• 1:01
  the MSC that puts on a fantastic event.
• 1:05
  Who? It's been chilly here, it's been
• 1:08
  sunny, it's been all of it here and I, I just don't get enough.
• 1:13
  Snowed. Yesterday it snowed.
• 1:14
  Yesterday. The day before.
• 1:16
  That's how we roll in Tennessee. We don't play games around here
• 1:18
  with weather. We.
• 1:19
  Just no grip and RIP it. I feel like you like dictate the
• 1:22
  weather. You, just you.
• 1:23
  You wake up in the morning. You know, I'm a veteran in it,
• 1:26
  so I have the back back so I know when to layer up.
• 1:29
  The day goes and. You just don't want to make sure
• 1:32
  you don't leave your jacket in places like Wooster, OH.
• 1:35
  Well, I'm not gonna see you the gun, but if you don't go to my
• 1:37
  intro, you gonna give me my entry?
• 1:39
  I'll give your intro. I can't do modified Wednesdays
• 1:42
  alone without my best friend Michael Steven Reed out of
• 1:45
  Memphis, TN with big league movers, on deck deliveries, and
• 1:49
  of course ready rolls. Thank you.
• 1:52
  Where you can get your EA ready to go on board edge?
• 1:55
  Done launches the recording. It's all boarded to our special.
• 2:00
  Skills. That's right.
• 2:01
  That's right. We got a great episode today.
• 2:03
  Don't. We yeah, 2 great guests.
• 2:05
  Do we? Are they great guys?
• 2:06
  That's gonna be a hell of a lot of It's gonna be hella lot of
• 2:08
  special June episode inside the inside.
• 2:14
  Oh man, we got David Harman with Firefighters Mover.
• 2:17
  Where are you guys based out of Lexington, KY.
• 2:20
  Lexington, KY. And we got the one and only
• 2:22
  Chris Sweet with Swamp Rabbit. Greenville, SC.
• 2:25
  Thank. You.
• 2:26
  In Columbia, SC now. That's right, with its first job
• 2:30
  that's happening this month in June.
• 2:34
  But examine it. I saw your post.
• 2:37
  You're like, I'm so excited. It feels a little bit different
• 2:39
  today, profit margins of $4.00, but that's.
• 2:43
  OK, let's go roller. Keep it.
• 2:44
  Rolling. That's right.
• 2:45
  That's right, David won't kick. Similar population markets,
• 2:50
  right? Yeah, it's pretty close.
• 2:53
  Pretty close. No, no, no license.
• 2:56
  We're about about 400,000 and in Lexington.
• 3:00
  Moving companies out there. There's quite a few, there's
• 3:03
  quite a few lot of lot of pop-ups too that'll come and go.
• 3:06
  Sure. What's that Chuck in a truck?
• 3:08
  Chuck in a truck, Yeah. Yeah.
• 3:10
  Yeah, there's a, there's a handful of of of movers around
• 3:13
  there that I consider them competitors.
• 3:16
  Sure. Which once again, I never
• 3:18
  expected to be a competitor, but things have been good.
• 3:21
  Well, David, give us. Give us.
• 3:23
  Give us. Yeah.
• 3:24
  I mean, give us the back story here.
• 3:25
  I mean, you know, you call yourselves firefighters.
• 3:28
  You tired to pretend that you're a firefighter?
• 3:31
  Give us a little bit of back story.
• 3:34
  Yeah. So I used to have a landscape
• 3:36
  company branded myself, had a couple guys help on some, some
• 3:40
  bigger job stuff like that. And it ended up being off duty
• 3:44
  firefighter, lawn care. That's my dad had it all grown
• 3:47
  up. And then I ended up taking it
• 3:48
  over very, very small. But I just got sick of working
• 3:52
  every pretty day. And I was at a Kim Kim warfare
• 3:56
  training with the Air Force, talking to my buddy right before
• 3:59
  Moen season started. He's like, man, if you want to
• 4:02
  quit mowing, why don't you start a moving company?
• 4:05
  When I was like, alright, that's so much better.
• 4:07
  And it was about a 15 minute conversation that turned into
• 4:09
  this, but flew out to Denver, bought a truck, flew out there,
• 4:13
  drove it back and just started doing moves.
• 4:16
  And still active firefighter with Lexington, KY now and.
• 4:21
  What was that drive like? Like you know, it's a dare few
• 4:24
  hours drive where you excited the whole way or were you like
• 4:26
  shit, what did I just? Do I mean, it was terrible?
• 4:28
  I mean, I didn't. Know what I was?
• 4:30
  Damn, try. This close my eyes.
• 4:32
  You know you put on auto pilot in the 05 GMC.
• 4:38
  Anyway, I'm going to make it. What year was this?
• 4:41
  That was 2020. OK, wow.
• 4:43
  Yep. So we're still running that
• 4:44
  truck today too. And it's it's been a mark horse,
• 4:47
  so. Truck one, right?
• 4:49
  Truck One. Truck one starting in 2020.
• 4:51
  Didn't know what you're getting yourself into.
• 4:52
  COVID starting. I was still doing.
• 4:55
  You navigating that? Whole first year my wife kept
• 4:58
  me, kept me kind of grounded because it was wild, because I
• 5:01
  was doing the, the fire department, the I'm still in the
• 5:04
  Air Force National Guard doing the landscape still the first
• 5:08
  year, the moving and then private EMS. So I don't really
• 5:12
  know how honestly. My intro to shame we hear.
• 5:15
  That I know, yeah. I gave you a roster there and.
• 5:18
  Yeah, it was, it was, it was pretty, pretty awful in the
• 5:22
  grand scheme, but once again, COVID, so everything was shut
• 5:24
  down. So why not just work?
• 5:26
  Can do anything anyway, so. Some of your first approaches
• 5:30
  were you leaning towards you know, I got to attend some
• 5:33
  conferences. I gotta trying to get myself
• 5:36
  knowing some other movers now like.
• 5:38
  Honestly, it was, it was just supposed to be small, just kind
• 5:42
  of picking and choosing moves here and there just to for some
• 5:44
  supplemental income and then started growing and then
• 5:48
  obviously start reaching out, going to seeing some other
• 5:51
  people in the business trying to figure out how to be legitimate.
• 5:54
  Honestly, the IT started and then the podcast, the the group,
• 6:00
  the Facebook group joined that. Yep, that's.
• 6:03
  Right. And then ended up meeting with
• 6:08
  Brian Slater. In the myth, the legend.
• 6:10
  The shout out to Brian. Goat.
• 6:12
  Jason partner and we went up there to see him at his kind of
• 6:17
  hang out with him. He kind of helped helped us get
• 6:19
  get the ball rolling on some things that I needed to to take
• 6:21
  the next steps more. Mentally was what was something
• 6:24
  that you we're fast going, oh man, we are not doing this XY
• 6:28
  and Z, you know. So she sitting with someone like
• 6:31
  Brian and what were some of the biggest takeaways that you
• 6:33
  wanted to implement right off the bat?
• 6:35
  We were doing too much ourselves, like we, we were
• 6:37
  still, I was on trucks doing sales, doing everything myself.
• 6:40
  I, I was scared to spend a dollar on anything.
• 6:42
  So me and him seeing that, seeing what teamwork can do,
• 6:45
  kind of how it can build. The old Firehouse model is you
• 6:49
  use, you make enough, you do this help raise your family
• 6:52
  probably saw that from your dad. And so scaling was something
• 6:56
  that you didn't really imagine, right from what you've known
• 6:59
  from business? Yeah, it was never supposed to
• 7:01
  supposed to be like that. But once again, it's for me and
• 7:04
  we'll have our our little team meetings with the admin.
• 7:07
  It's it's treat everybody like family.
• 7:10
  I don't care. I don't care who the person is
• 7:12
  treating everybody like family, building the team up.
• 7:14
  And it's I mean, it's got us to where we are today.
• 7:18
  Treat people like humans way. As long as I feel like I'm doing
• 7:21
  what's right morally, I hope I passed on to my crew and in team
• 7:26
  and that's that's kind of I feel the way we've grown, just doing
• 7:29
  the right thing. Standard 10 trucks now.
• 7:31
  Have 10 trucks, he'll have a couple more.
• 7:33
  Hopefully we'll see by May that's the goal and then get
• 7:37
  ready for because we once again, we were very busy last year,
• 7:40
  ended up renting too much. I spent a lot of money on
• 7:43
  rentals last year. So get a couple more.
• 7:45
  We we bought two more last fall, get two more again this this
• 7:48
  year. And then you never know, never
• 7:51
  know. Keeps keeps growing, keeps
• 7:52
  growing. We might be the next swamp
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  scaled beautifully. So can you kind of share how you
• 10:00
  got started? I know the story, but through
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  our listening. Yeah.
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  So I started in 2020, October 2020, right wing COVID in the
• 10:07
  middle of COVID. It was a great time to start
• 10:10
  moving company. Like, we did a lot of things
• 10:12
  right, but we also had a little bit of luck and starting at the
• 10:15
  right time, you know? Bought every truck there.
• 10:17
  Was bought every truck there was, you know, that first year,
• 10:20
  you know, we we did 1.7 million and I didn't really pay myself
• 10:23
  anything that first year. Just put everything back into
• 10:25
  bonnet trucks. Like anytime I had enough money
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  to make payroll and buy a truck, that's what I did.
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  And I kind of had a little little bit of buying power with
• 10:33
  my grandpa. He actually owned like a truck
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  dealership. Like that's what he did is his
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  sole truck. So you know, I was picking up
• 10:41
  the Predef internationals for like 5000 bucks, you know,
• 10:46
  little brown Slater model and they're and they're great
• 10:48
  trucks. No, but just kind of like Dave
• 10:52
  at first, you know, I kind of tried to keep everything to
• 10:56
  myself. You know, I was doing moves, I
• 10:58
  was doing sales, I was doing operations.
• 11:02
  But when you're doing that much volume with no business
• 11:04
  knowledge, I was pretty evident that pretty quickly I was going
• 11:08
  to have to bring on some teams and bring on some team members
• 11:12
  and start creating assets within people, right?
• 11:14
  Like assets aren't just trucks on the road, Assets, assets are.
• 11:19
  Killer. Job assets are you know that
• 11:21
  you're most important assets. Asset with the business is your
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  business to the top of Google. You don't really have a lot of
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  business sense. So before, yeah.
• 13:27
  And especially, you know, running a company, realizing
• 13:32
  that assets and the people that you're hiring, everything.
• 13:35
  Where did that come from? Like where you were like looking
• 13:39
  more at like the culture because I think the swamp rabbit.
• 13:41
  And, you know, we were talking with Rico, your operations guy
• 13:44
  last night and I was kind of grilling him, you know, like,
• 13:47
  how did you join? Why would you join?
• 13:49
  What was part of it? And one of the biggest things
• 13:51
  that he said was it's it's the culture.
• 13:53
  I really, you know, yeah, Chris is paying me extremely well.
• 13:57
  No, I'm joking. I wasn't part of the query.
• 13:59
  But like, you know, you know he was lost.
• 14:01
  That's 100%. But he said, you know, it was
• 14:05
  just the culture was the people. It was like coming to your, you
• 14:07
  know, your office in the headquarters and it's just that
• 14:10
  vibe, right, that he was getting.
• 14:12
  Well, you know, like Dave said. Our culture is not perfect,
• 14:15
  right? Like it's, you know, there's
• 14:17
  mistakes that have been made along the lines, you know,
• 14:19
  probably charming off in the group chat, something I
• 14:22
  shouldn't, or, you know, getting a little frustrated with
• 14:24
  somebody and having to go back and correct those mistakes.
• 14:27
  But it's just like anything else, you learn as you go and
• 14:29
  you refund the process. You know, we used to say we're
• 14:33
  like family and I, I definitely think we have that family
• 14:36
  culture, but we prefer to say we're a high performing team,
• 14:39
  right? Like, like we're in the Super
• 14:40
  Bowl and, you know, just. Carry weight, right?
• 14:44
  You're not going to fire your mom, right?
• 14:46
  But if you have a high. Performance team, it's not
• 14:48
  pouring or away. Then you're going to have
• 14:50
  there's going to be recourse for that action.
• 14:52
  Why they're not going to be on the fur.
• 14:54
  So that's kind of how we free our team.
• 14:56
  That's where I'm from. Old Derrick Rose, right?
• 14:59
  You know Derrick Rose like Grizzlies, yeah, making 16 mil.
• 15:03
  He can't play that much anymore because he's older.
• 15:06
  You don't just keep him around for 16, so you gotta use that
• 15:09
  for somebody else performing on. Yourself.
• 15:11
  That's right. That's right.
• 15:14
  Yes. David, when you look at where
• 15:19
  you're at now, where do you, where do you see was the biggest
• 15:23
  shift in learning on your side in your area that you can, you
• 15:28
  were starting to scale and going wow, I, I can get to 5 trucks, 6
• 15:31
  trucks now I'm at 10/11/12. Who are you putting in place to
• 15:36
  get get to those points? Honestly, it's once he gets the
• 15:40
  team that I'd say the most pivotal time in the, I guess
• 15:46
  that big jump would, would be meeting with Brian honestly.
• 15:49
  And I was, I was so scared, you know, once again, no business
• 15:55
  background at all. I'm, I've run into burning
• 15:58
  buildings for a living and I enjoy doing it.
• 16:02
  Paramedic stuff like that stuff is that's all I knew.
• 16:05
  So, so learning, learning a little bit from Brian, he was
• 16:08
  like, he was like, man, you're not going to learn unless you
• 16:10
  just jump into it. I think that's the biggest thing
• 16:12
  is I, I was, I was scared, but. Sign off of somebody.
• 16:17
  'S done it correct. I mean, honestly, is, is is is
• 16:20
  silly as it sounds that that's what what I needed because
• 16:24
  drive, you know, work ethic. I don't have any issues with
• 16:26
  that. O it's more along lines of
• 16:29
  knowing that there's going to be a lot of mistakes, knowing that
• 16:32
  you're going to learn off of failures.
• 16:34
  And because I think with anything in life, human nature,
• 16:37
  you're just scared of failure. You know, that's just that's
• 16:39
  part of it. But once you realize that
• 16:41
  failure can lead to much bigger and better things and being able
• 16:45
  to build the team with that in mind, I think that that was by
• 16:49
  far the most pivotal moment in firefighters move you is is
• 16:52
  Brian and met Chris through Brian went down, saw Chris once
• 16:57
  again. It was kind of the same thing.
• 16:58
  So we Jason and I went down there to to see Chris for a few
• 17:02
  days and kind of just see the operation.
• 17:05
  But once again, it's kind of building the network, right.
• 17:07
  So there's a ton of successful movers, movers mover owner or
• 17:12
  move the company owners out there.
• 17:13
  But it's like, I think trying to find people who are like minded
• 17:18
  gives me the drive to kind of build a team.
• 17:21
  We're working on sales processes now and that's going to be the
• 17:24
  next big kick for. Us nice.
• 17:26
  So I'm not sure if I danced around your initial question or
• 17:29
  not, but. When you visited Chris, what all
• 17:31
  did you have takeaways from there?
• 17:32
  Would that give you another pieces of the puzzle to to
• 17:35
  solve? 100 percent, 100% and once again
• 17:38
  it's it's the realizing that in a in a a book that I read.
• 17:44
  I don't know if I don't know if I'm allowed to but who not how.
• 17:46
  Yeah, please do not how is one of the best books I've ever
• 17:50
  listen to show say I don't I don't sitting down and reading
• 17:53
  I'm not the best with it my mind if I read a page no clue what I
• 17:57
  read by the time it's over, but listening to listen to books
• 18:00
  but. I'm a big dummy and I have to
• 18:04
  listen to it and read it. Yeah, yeah.
• 18:06
  So I've got both ways to be a little bit like that.
• 18:10
  So it's crazy because Chris told me that some of his favorite
• 18:14
  books that he really helped with business was all the Doctor
• 18:17
  Seuss books, and look how successful he's made it.
• 18:19
  So I. Mean green eggs and ham.
• 18:21
  Exactly how do you think I got all this muscle?
• 18:24
  Right. I mean, that's a perfect
• 18:26
  training. That's like you got the Arnold
• 18:27
  book and then you got green eggs and ham, correct?
• 18:33
  What's the big business that's? Right, but we we're looking
• 18:37
  we're getting ready to build our first warehouse and stores is
• 18:40
  something that we had no idea about.
• 18:42
  So that's not the main reason we ended up going down there.
• 18:44
  And plus was I didn't expect Monte Cristo's friendship to
• 18:48
  girl like it is because I consider him one of my best
• 18:50
  buddies now. So it's all.
• 18:54
  Those that were good time learning.
• 18:56
  Yeah, loving learning. Sometimes getting abused, but
• 18:59
  it's no big deal. But you know it when you think
• 19:03
  of storage and warehouse, it's to me, it's always like it's the
• 19:07
  one key element that you want within your moving business.
• 19:11
  But this does not get spoken about or taught enough of how to
• 19:16
  do it. Everybody goes gotta get a
• 19:18
  warehouse going to warehouse, right?
• 19:20
  Go, go, go get these vaults. And it's like, what now what?
• 19:23
  Right. Like how do I organize this?
• 19:24
  How are we loading these vaults? These vaults are not a moving
• 19:27
  truck. And and remember.
• 19:28
  When we first started doing storage, we didn't even do
• 19:30
  inventory. Well.
• 19:31
  I probably shouldn't say that on here it.
• 19:33
  Was so, so many didn't. I don't think I don't.
• 19:35
  I don't. I don't think we did either
• 19:37
  until things start going missing your level for you.
• 19:40
  That's right. He walked a few things.
• 19:43
  Right. But it's a it's true until you
• 19:46
  start talking to one. Oh, you're not doing an
• 19:48
  inventory on the end, Are you not doing writers like for
• 19:50
  checking things off? You know what's a bingo sheet?
• 19:53
  I thought that's where old people go and play bingo, right?
• 19:55
  Just implemented Bingo. Shows maybe four months ago and.
• 19:58
  It's really crazy. Yeah, yeah, it's it's wild when
• 20:01
  you think of that and it's not something that gets taught, but
• 20:05
  it's, but it's true. And unless you're, unless you
• 20:07
  are really having the opportunity to go and visit
• 20:09
  other locations, it's so important because that needs to
• 20:13
  be taught and trained because that can also ruin your business
• 20:16
  pretty fast too. Well, I think it's, you know,
• 20:20
  another key factor of Bahama we just talked about is like not
• 20:23
  always waiting to be perfect to do pull the trigger, right.
• 20:26
  Like, like I said before, I didn't we weren't even doing
• 20:28
  inventory when we first storage, but we pulled the trigger.
• 20:32
  We pulled the trigger and we learned to do it as we went.
• 20:34
  And you know, the the delay in the decisions by wanting to be
• 20:38
  perfect is probably your biggest hindrance in Skelly.
• 20:41
  Both you guys I admire a lot because I was talking to both
• 20:44
  you guys through different stages and y'all do not, are not
• 20:48
  fearful of just picking up the phone and call and like, hey,
• 20:50
  can you can, can you answer a few questions for me about your
• 20:53
  experience, etcetera. And it's it's not enough people
• 20:55
  do that. Microsoft too, like I did the
• 20:59
  same thing. I went and visited her bra and
• 21:00
  when I first started and I did you just going out there to like
• 21:04
  see what's possible. Like, well, you go to his
• 21:06
  office, he's got office over here.
• 21:08
  He's got a fucking warehouse. Here.
• 21:10
  He's got a bajillion trucks here, but Gillian trucks it was.
• 21:13
  Just cool. Like there's three different
• 21:15
  cars, somebody else driving. There's like a hole in the side
• 21:20
  of his warehouse, looks like a war zone, but it's just cool to
• 21:24
  go see like what's possible. And watch his team follow him
• 21:27
  and give direction. And yes, it's really cool.
• 21:30
  It's a great way, it's a great way to manifest and have goals
• 21:34
  when you have that opportunity. Also, I also love going to see
• 21:37
  locations that are smaller right where you've already seen that
• 21:41
  growth. And then being able to go and
• 21:43
  visit a location that is not hasn't skilled, that is still
• 21:47
  trying to figure it out and having the opportunity to sit
• 21:50
  down with them and go, here's a let's let's sit down.
• 21:53
  Yeah, exactly. And here's the kind of game
• 21:55
  plan. And here's what I'm seeing.
• 21:56
  Because a lot of us as business owners, we have sometimes
• 21:59
  blinders on and we're just like, no, no, no, like we're, we're
• 22:02
  doing it right. We're doing everything great.
• 22:03
  And then you get this outside perspective that goes, no,
• 22:06
  you're actually going this way and you need to be going this
• 22:08
  way. You know, shameless plug, Steve,
• 22:11
  right? So one of the things I started
• 22:14
  to do is, is when I was younger, I think it's 2012, I went to a
• 22:19
  big company called Leaders Moving.
• 22:21
  They owned a software I used called Move One at the time, and
• 22:24
  they opened their doors. I think I was annoying them so
• 22:26
  much with my questions that they were like, just just come here,
• 22:29
  spend a couple days with us and they had a 50,000 square foot
• 22:33
  warehouse they built and I got to learn so much about like, and
• 22:37
  they were saying things that they would do differently if
• 22:39
  they did it again. And that changed.
• 22:42
  Like I at that point just kind of like you are talking about, I
• 22:44
  figured it out. I was like, OK, I want to go.
• 22:46
  I know where I want to go. I know where I can go.
• 22:49
  And it's so helpful. So shameless plug Tom.
• 22:52
  That's one of the values that I put in ready rolls is we're
• 22:54
  having about 10 living company owners every two months spend
• 22:58
  the whole day with us, but they have to show up at 6:30 AM.
• 23:02
  If they don't show up at 6:30 AM, they're not here to learn.
• 23:05
  Because that was one of the coolest things about seeing
• 23:07
  Ryan's every time is I think we've all been to bronze
• 23:10
  operation while he's not there at dispatch and watch that
• 23:13
  machine run that he built there. And it's it's just so helpful to
• 23:17
  learn. I've kind of pass that on as we
• 23:20
  go through. Our clients have enjoyed it at
• 23:22
  readyrolls.com. He recently hired ready rolls to
• 23:25
  help us work hiring some offshore help some bias and
• 23:28
  they've done an amazing job and they found the perfect candidate
• 23:31
  for our company. Not only that, they help
• 23:32
  answering the questions that we had about the process.
• 23:34
  You know, initially, you know, hiring a can be intimidating
• 23:37
  because answered all the questions been amazing
• 23:39
  experience has been a huge part of our success thus far.
• 23:42
  Reaching the process of hiring people right now definitely see
• 23:45
  them being part of our growth and reaching our goals and
• 23:50
  another game changer for our company.
• 23:51
  Confident WK Empty. Visit readyrolls.com.
• 23:55
  There is now a better way to scale.
• 24:01
  Everybody gets to see me where I'm at now.
• 24:05
  And I think of me when I was like 2010, 2011, you know, after
• 24:10
  the first. Were you balled back then too
• 24:12
  or? No, no, actually I had some.
• 24:14
  Hair, I want to see what you look.
• 24:15
  Like I'll show you a picture. Can we put a picture?
• 24:18
  Can we ask the picture of me? Montezuma spiky blonde hair and.
• 24:26
  Yeah, what do you think? His hair.
• 24:28
  But but my my prize is that I didn't, I like all of us.
• 24:33
  I wasn't coming from a movers generation or anything else.
• 24:36
  But as I was growing, there was this crazy sense of intimidation
• 24:42
  from a lot of the bigger moving companies.
• 24:44
  And those there were to me. I knew who the cockroaches were,
• 24:49
  the industry that I didn't want to be.
• 24:52
  But the big ones was I was never as someone that's like, man, I
• 24:56
  don't think I could pick up the phone and call these guys
• 24:58
  because they just would not give me the time of day.
• 25:00
  And that was always my mentality of like, I just have to figure
• 25:03
  it out on my own because there was no resources.
• 25:06
  There was no MCU or anything else.
• 25:08
  And I wish I had the mentality and the thought process I do now
• 25:14
  back then to know, you know what, fuck it.
• 25:16
  I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna go to that place.
• 25:18
  I'm going to show up with their, their location and go, hey, do
• 25:20
  you have like 1/2 an hour to sit down with me and can we go
• 25:23
  through and kind of visit your work?
• 25:24
  Because I feel like I would have.
• 25:26
  I would have turned around and scaled a lot faster, understood
• 25:29
  what I was doing wrong then. Going so important, I think to
• 25:33
  kind of putting together things. Oh, for sure.
• 25:35
  I was just like Dave, right? Like I was not.
• 25:38
  I was everything was in my head. I didn't want to spend any
• 25:40
  money. I was like, man, I don't want to
• 25:42
  go higher, go hire a salesperson when I should just being myself.
• 25:46
  And how am I going to afford this position in that position?
• 25:49
  And it probably held me back in growth 100% like 5-6 years so.
• 25:55
  Yeah, I think that's the. I mean, that's the problem with
• 25:58
  a lot of things is people won't humble themselves enough to ask
• 26:03
  questions. So they'll sit there And that
• 26:05
  once again, that was that was my biggest issue is I was like,
• 26:08
  man, I don't wanna, you know, bother this person.
• 26:10
  And then once again, I was like, OK, I'm gonna call.
• 26:13
  I'm gonna. I don't remember if I call.
• 26:14
  I think I shot Brian's message. Whatever you say, but once again
• 26:17
  is the nicest way. Like I don't wanna bother you, I
• 26:20
  just have a few. Questions.
• 26:22
  In like the way. You did, but that's the that's
• 26:24
  the thing and that's what I for for anybody that works, works
• 26:27
  for me. It's it's my door is always
• 26:29
  open. My everyone has my cell phone
• 26:30
  number. I get texts all the time calls
• 26:33
  quite often they'll if I'm at the office.
• 26:35
  I love when they stop in and even just say what's up or this
• 26:40
  bum here and there. If if I'm not because I don't
• 26:42
  get out there enough anymore. I wish I did.
• 26:44
  But you all know it's the the plate stays full.
• 26:47
  You always have stuff to do you. There's not enough hours in the
• 26:49
  day. What's your what's, what's your
• 26:52
  days? What are what are your days look
• 26:54
  like now? Give me like a a day in your
• 26:56
  life, Chris, of where you are now when you show up to the
• 27:01
  office. Like how does that day look
• 27:02
  like? When I, when I'm at the office,
• 27:04
  I'm really, really not doing any work.
• 27:06
  It's kind of doing what like Dave says, like hanging out,
• 27:08
  being a cheerleader let because I don't want to enter.
• 27:12
  I don't want to jump into projects and give half the
• 27:14
  resources and expect my team to clean it up.
• 27:16
  So I just let them take it from start to finish set to fit, set
• 27:20
  the vision. But I'm not really, I'm not
• 27:23
  doing any day-to-day work, to be honest.
• 27:26
  I'm, I'm doing a little bit of work in this new branch, but as
• 27:30
  we do more branches, I'll, I'll probably remove myself from that
• 27:33
  as well too. I'm just a cheerleader and a
• 27:35
  vision centre. Doesn't feel a little weird
• 27:37
  though. Yeah, like when I go to the
• 27:39
  office, like I go a couple days a week and I'm there just for
• 27:43
  culture, right? I'm there to answer questions
• 27:45
  and be there and build people up and I just feel like less
• 27:48
  accomplish. I know it's more accomplished.
• 27:50
  I got more done through other people, but I absolutely feeling
• 27:52
  when I go home I'm like, yeah, you know what about?
• 27:55
  Yeah, no, it's it's strange. I joke all the time and tell
• 27:58
  people I feel like I'm semi retired.
• 28:00
  You. Know you go from 110 on to like,
• 28:04
  slow down, you're going to mess things up if you go 110, yeah.
• 28:08
  Which is, which is all, which is all a crazy thought process.
• 28:10
  I love that you have that same feeling.
• 28:12
  There's so many times I come home and I'm like, what?
• 28:14
  Like, you know what happened? But a lot of times it's just the
• 28:17
  presence being there, sitting around asking questions.
• 28:20
  But then that's also the great sense of a good leader that has
• 28:23
  a great team. Behind that lets them know that
• 28:26
  you trust in life. You're always diving in and
• 28:28
  needing to be in the know in situations, you know, there's
• 28:31
  there's going to be a lack of trust there and there's lack of
• 28:34
  trust, you know, they can't really get you their best
• 28:36
  effort. So I'm a firm believer.
• 28:38
  I learned a lot through making mistakes.
• 28:40
  So I'll let them make mistakes. And then, you know, nothing's
• 28:42
  detrimental as it seems like may you remember that first time got
• 28:47
  a one star review and you're probably kept you out for days,
• 28:51
  you know, and you thought that was in the world that you
• 28:54
  thought nobody was ever going to call you again.
• 28:56
  You know, Yeah, of course it wasn't that why nothing is ever
• 28:59
  as detrimental as the same. So let them fail, let them make
• 29:02
  mistakes. That's how they learn.
• 29:03
  And then and then if they do make a mistake and it needs to
• 29:07
  happen collectively, we can talk about it right at the end.
• 29:09
  And you know, maybe a different route that you had to purchase.
• 29:12
  I want to say something real cool about Chris Stein.
• 29:14
  His live is I'm watching two members of both their teams here
• 29:20
  that are here with them to learn talk right now and they're
• 29:24
  they're furthering their business without them too
• 29:28
  watching them. They're learning and their
• 29:30
  benchmarking with each other live at this table right here.
• 29:33
  They were listening to us. They got bored with it.
• 29:35
  Like let's, let's wrap it in June 2 guys, for everybody.
• 29:41
  Yeah, little shout outs. Jason Paulson, he, he pretty
• 29:45
  much runs the day-to-day he's. Out with his camera just.
• 29:51
  Shout out to Jason. And I got Rico, he's my
• 29:54
  operations. Man Yeah, Jason, Jason and.
• 29:56
  Rico is man. Shout out to Jason and Rico.
• 29:59
  Jason department together and I deployed in 2022 and so I was
• 30:06
  gone and I was like, well, let's see how Jason runs this thing
• 30:10
  while I'm gone, because I literally just kind of shut it
• 30:12
  off. I mean, I did I did as much work
• 30:13
  as I could, but obviously there was times I couldn't be on a
• 30:18
  computer, whatever, being overseas.
• 30:19
  And he he did phenomenal and he's he's grown unbelievably as
• 30:24
  a as a leader and I can see that, you know, from the outside
• 30:28
  and it's awesome. Like, I don't know, I don't
• 30:29
  know. It's hard for me to see how I
• 30:32
  grow because, you know, so seeing other people step up and,
• 30:36
  and, and take that role and run with it is, is phenomenal.
• 30:39
  It's absolutely phenomenal. Just just to share about Jason
• 30:42
  too, and your leadership style and how he's there.
• 30:45
  There's not a moment where he hadn't been picking my brain.
• 30:48
  He's around me and questions and stuff in a good way.
• 30:50
  Like for your business, What did you mean by business people the
• 30:53
  other day? Where do I need to go to help
• 30:55
  scale on the next stage? And that's pretty cool.
• 30:58
  Both you guys have something great going and we'll continue
• 31:02
  without you. And that's the hardest part of
• 31:03
  scale, probably. Does the Dolly.
• 31:06
  Dash moment. They're nervous.
• 31:09
  Yeah, it's tough. This isn't like a Dolly Parton
• 31:11
  thing. This is the Dolly Dash.
• 31:14
  Alright, OK. I'm ready.
• 31:16
  I'm ready. I'm going to answer 1st 60
• 31:19
  seconds lagging around. He has 30 seconds.
• 31:22
  That's the question. You have 60 seconds to answer
• 31:25
  your voice. OK.
• 31:27
  Is it like 3030 seconds each? I'm going to hit you with a
• 31:31
  couple questions. Yeah, probably.
• 31:36
  You guys are a sound Blake. By the way, Blake is fat.
• 31:40
  Oht Fantasy. His wallet and.
• 31:43
  No, we don't. No one knows.
• 31:45
  We don't know. OK, here we go.
• 31:49
  Chris, what is the best one of the best advices that have that
• 31:54
  you've been given during your career?
• 31:58
  Ah, you know, I I guess we've come along the lines of
• 32:02
  delegating. What's a one thing both of y'all
• 32:08
  look at for leadership when you're interviewing somebody
• 32:11
  else? For leadership, when I'm
• 32:14
  interviewing them, I'll look at if they ask me questions, if
• 32:17
  they're asking me questions about the position, if they're,
• 32:20
  you know, I look for when I give somebody a comp plan, if they're
• 32:22
  trying to come back and ask for more money, I'll view that as a
• 32:25
  good thing. That means they value their.
• 32:26
  Social. I like that.
• 32:29
  I like when they don't talk about themselves, when they
• 32:32
  speak about teamwork that they've had in the.
• 32:35
  Past. Yeah, yeah.
• 32:38
  I've got enough of that myself, so.
• 32:40
  You got a moving company that is trying to hit 1,000,000 right
• 32:44
  there and growth. What's your advice for them,
• 32:48
  especially for this summer to get Yeah, no to to kind of.
• 32:54
  Like. How would they?
• 32:56
  How do they get that next stage? Yeah.
• 32:58
  Well, I mean, I think at that point, if you're trying to get
• 33:00
  their cash flows, probably a little tired, right.
• 33:02
  So like the only way I would say to grow your business at that
• 33:05
  point in time would be getting out their network and meeting
• 33:07
  people and building relationships, being nice or
• 33:11
  whatever kind of networking after you have around it and,
• 33:13
  and, and be willing to refer other people.
• 33:16
  Why? That's how you really start to
• 33:18
  gain that business yesterday, essentially how great swamp
• 33:20
  Rabbit into where it's at now. We just recently started doing
• 33:23
  really good in the digital marketing space, but it was all
• 33:27
  through networking. Random.
• 33:28
  Random racing, that he was the brand of that.
• 33:32
  Networking, I mean, that's, that's it.
• 33:34
  Networking, um, if you can, if you get yourself out there and
• 33:39
  you do, you know, provide a good service, it'll take care of
• 33:42
  itself. That's it.
• 33:44
  Go to Realtors, which I don't do very well with that, but that's
• 33:48
  that's kind of on the horizon. We're we were retroactive, I'd
• 33:52
  say with with our growth, we didn't expect it.
• 33:55
  So getting planes in place after they probably should have been
• 33:58
  in place. That's where that's where
• 33:59
  firefighters movie is at right now, besides the moving.
• 34:02
  Mindset, which is a great book you can find on Amazon.com.
• 34:06
  Yeah, buddy, what is one book you think every mover should
• 34:09
  read? Extreme ownership.
• 34:11
  That's both. Who?
• 34:12
  Not how? Who not?
• 34:14
  How? Yeah, you said that.
• 34:15
  Earlier. Extreme ownership.
• 34:18
  Nice. I'll go with 60 minutes.
• 34:20
  CFO, I'm going to happen there. Yeah, for sure.
• 34:22
  That's a great book to have for sure.
• 34:24
  And then Traction to me is always a fantastic book to read.
• 34:27
  You know, that's a good one too. That's a good 1-2 versions of 60
• 34:30
  minutes. Make sure you get the movers
• 34:32
  edition. I've had some.
• 34:35
  People say you send that and I order this and what the hell
• 34:37
  does this have to do with? Talk about retail.
• 34:41
  Space. I love it.
• 34:45
  Full rap, Full rap action. Items.
• 34:48
  What action items do you got? What action items?
• 34:51
  I think it's about having, you know, a good foundation, but I
• 34:55
  think what in the beginning, you said with your guys, right, just
• 34:58
  because you think your trucks are your assets, the people are
• 35:02
  your assets and making sure that they're treated well, making
• 35:05
  sure that you're coming in there as a good leader, setting out
• 35:09
  the a good foundation of the expectation, right?
• 35:14
  And, and, and getting out and reaching out not just into your
• 35:17
  communities growing, but also do not be afraid to reach out to
• 35:23
  the larger moving companies that are out there or someone that
• 35:25
  you see from a distance, whether it's at a conference or anything
• 35:28
  else. And I say this all the time.
• 35:32
  It's like, if you're going to come to these events, don't
• 35:34
  stand in the corner, go out and network.
• 35:37
  And because anybody that you any I'll tell you right now, anybody
• 35:41
  that has been on the Murfy anybody that's been on the move
• 35:44
  sideshow and you see them in person, they will come and talk
• 35:50
  to you great people, alright. They are great people,
• 35:52
  especially the wind. And if they and if they don't?
• 35:57
  Watch out for those Monday. Gas that's right, but it but
• 36:01
  it's true. Go out and talk to them, go find
• 36:03
  them. And if you still don't, then go
• 36:05
  back and start rewatching a lot of these episodes, because this
• 36:09
  is what movie fights all about is to help you grow.
• 36:12
  For those introvert individuals that are really like I I don't
• 36:16
  know what to do. Then just start rewatching move
• 36:18
  a fight episodes and seeing you know there's got to be an
• 36:21
  episode 4 you of what you what questions are on your mind to
• 36:24
  answer and always feel feeling to reach out to both of us.
• 36:27
  There's quite a few bronze later.
• 36:29
  Episodes, if you're intrigued you don't know the GOAT, check
• 36:32
  out those. Yeah, 100% for sure.
• 36:34
  Snapshot of personality. Which is good.
• 36:36
  That's great. And if you.
• 36:37
  Like these episodes and you like dealing with these guys?
• 36:39
  How do they get in touch with you?
• 36:40
  Fallen e-mail. Shoot me an e-mail, Chris.
• 36:45
  Alright. Shoot me an e-mail Chris at
• 36:47
  Swamp. Rabbitmoving.com.
• 36:48
  Alright, cool. Just e-mail.
• 36:49
  Me.david@fmovies.com or Facebook David Harmon I love talking
• 36:54
  singer on the Facebook. So I mean I might not check it.
• 36:57
  For a few days, but I'll get to it and then I'll shoot you my
• 37:00
  phone number. I mean, I love talking to
• 37:02
  people, whether I'm able to help or not.
• 37:04
  I'll talk all day, all the time. For.
• 37:07
  Sure. Make sure you like subscribe
• 37:10
  comment, hit that little Ding button that's going to come up
• 37:13
  on the screen and if you like the show, hit us with the five
• 37:17
  stars. If whether it's on Apple or
• 37:19
  Spotify, it's always appreciated.
• 37:22
  And YouTube. Yeah, I thought I was YouTube.
• 37:25
  Then. I'll see you there.
• 37:26
  No, no, no. You can't hit a five star on
• 37:29
  YouTube. Not yet, but.
• 37:30
  Maybe we'll work on that. Well, they have some little
• 37:32
  hype. Hype would do that.
• 37:34
  Is there a? Like OK the comment they could
• 37:38
  comment just. Write 5 star.
• 37:39
  You know that's right. Please they listen.
• 37:40
  Appreciate your call if you heard.
• 37:42
  If you listen to this law, please, just to confirm somebody
• 37:45
  comment five stars. Five stars Easter egg in there.
• 37:49
  Well, that's. Right.
• 37:50
  That's right. Markel send you some PayPal.
• 37:52
  For every five star comment $1000 there's no.
• 37:54
  There's no there's. No Venmo in Canada.
• 37:57
  It's gonna be an invoice. I'll send you a PayPal, but
• 38:01
  it's. An invoice.
• 38:01
  That's right, Steam. Will fight everybody, thank you
• 38:04
  for watching.