The unmitigated answer to that question is “hell yeah!” Moving is a service just like when a person is served food at a restaurant. It amazes me how people can watch two guys move the heaviest furniture up two, three or four flights of steps, sweating profusely, and don’t even offer to tip. I can understand if the person has spent their last dime moving, but a mover would appreciate a $5 tip as opposed to absolutely nothing.

Coming from a guy that has worked in the service industry for quite some time, tipping absolutely nothing is a proverbial slap in the face and is down right disrespectful. So what should you tip? Well, just put yourself in the position of that mover and tip with your heart. According to Forbes Magazine, here’s when to tip, more or less and when not to tip based on the overall service you have just received.

When to tip more:

• When your movers have to handle oversized or particularly fragile items
• When your movers are personable and kind
• When your movers work quickly
• When movers go above and beyond to help you set up and assemble certain items

When to tip less:

• When your movers show up late or bring the wrong sized vehicle
• When your movers seem to work deliberately slow, like overwrapping materials or moving inefficiently
• When you have to do the brunt of the work yourself
• When your movers mistreat or break your items

They also took the time to give some examples of how much the average tip should be.

Anyone reading this should do so being open-minded and always thinking about how you would like to be treated if you were the person doing the heavy lifting. We have a tipping policy clearly stated on the Home page of our website. The bottom line is, we’re working in a service industry and if the service is performed satisfactorily, a tip is the equalizer and common denominator that keeps everyone on the same page.

Recently, I had a conversation with a successful businessman discussing the best marketing strategies for my business and the first thing he asked was whether or not I was signed up to use Facebook? Since I quit Facebook and LinkedIn several years ago, I am amazed that I’ve been able to stay in business when this has been almost everyone’s go-to vehicle that’s used exclusively to promote and market their brand. When I tell everyone that I have actually achieved a decent amount of success without the help of Facebook or LinkedIn, they seem to be shocked and in disbelief.

Given the fact that there are so many other social media platforms out there, I was surprised to find out that even though Facebook is in the process of changing its entire brand over to Meta, people still call it Facebook and look at it as the same innovative social media platform that they most likely joined many many years ago. I was proud of myself that I could do it without Facebook and now view it as an extreme waste of time. I look back at how many hours I spent logged on to it and being caught in a trance. I soon learned that being connected to the Internet all the time is not all it was cracked up to be.

It got creepier when ads were being sent right to my browser because of the what I had searched for or pages I had recently viewed on Facebook. It felt weird to be driving and listening to the radio and constantly getting ads targeted at me because of the pages I had visited on Facebook or LinkedIn. This was the last straw. I value my privacy to the point where I like to make my own decisions when it comes to the things that I want to buy and be able to do it without being tracked or targeted.

From a business standpoint, I view Facebook exactly the same as LinkedIn because people give them too much credit for their own success. I also deleted my LinkedIn account after being on it for over 12 years and without getting one face-to-face interview as a result. That’s right, I’m literally embarrassed to tell people that I was on LinkedIn for that long and didn’t get one interview from it. It was the same thing year in and year out.

LinkedIn would try to sell me the upgrade package that would allow me to get in direct contact with headhunters and recruiters, but it was all to no avail. LinkedIn told me every year I was on it that my profile was in the top 5 percent and even called it a “Superstar” profile, however, that didn’t get me one face-to-face interview after submitting over 500 applications seeking employment in two states. I believe the whole concept behind LinkenIn made the site impossible to benefit from in the long run for anybody working in a corporate environment. There were even times when an employer that wasn’t even advertising on LinkedIn, would require each applicant to have a current LinkedIn profile in order to apply for that job.

After a while, I woke up and said “Really?” Is this platform worth this much of my time and am I getting anything out of it? And this was even before I learned about how they share most of their user’s information with other agencies like the FBI and CIA. Not to mention all of the divorces and relationship that Facebook and LinkedIn created when they literally turned into dating sites.

I finally looked at the reality of being on these types of platforms, how much time it took, how many relationships it ruined because of likes and dislikes, and how many of my so-call real friends came out of the woodwork to be who they really are, not true friends, just people seeking likes an attention online. I learned that my real friends are not on Facebook. I also learned that all of legitimate employment prospects, business relationships and interviews did not come from LinkedIn. Once these platforms started selling advertisements based on their user’s searches, surfing characteristics and other privacy invasions, I learned how extremely important my data and privacy actually is and the true intent of these platforms.

I have always been the type of person that believes in face-to-face interaction as opposed to hiding under a screen name on a social medial platform, so quite naturally, I am enjoying my time away from these privacy snatchers. And since I don’t crave the likes and thumbs up buttons that people view as vindication that they must be doing something good for all of mankind, or the people who follow me because of content I have posted, I feel much better.

I’m at peace knowing that my life is back to normal and I’m in control of my own emotions when it comes down to things that I do and say on a social media platform. Goodbye Facebook, goodbye LinkedIn, my life has been so much better without you.

Having only been in the moving business for slightly more than one year, I’ve learned that it is extremely competitive and challenging for a brand new moving company to compete locally. I recently had an experience that I’d like to share. I was at a random outdoor event and I ended up parking right next to the owner of a large local moving company.

Of course I didn’t know he was the owner of this large company until we started talking, but I have learned early on that a young company like mine has to always stay in networking mode in order keep our doors open and reach the proverbial 5-year milestone. So as soon as parked beside this gentleman’s vehicle, I could smell success. He was sitting parked in a brand new 2023 GMC truck that still had the paper license plate on it. I have seen the price of these trucks so I knew he paid upwards of $80K to $100K for it.

I immediately walked over to the driver’s side of the vehicle as he got out and walked toward me. We shook hands and we introduced ourselves before getting into a conversation about what we did for living. I guess the stars must have been aligned because he was the type of person that I have been wanting to meet ever since I opened this company back in 2021. He was a obviously a nice guy that was easy to approach and we hit it off right away.

After we both acknowledged being a part of the same exact industry, we began to get into a great conversation. I won’t name his company on this blog because he already has enough good publicity, but let me say that he owns one of the largest moving companies in the state of Oklahoma and he also has branch offices in several other states. He started out talking about some of the pitfalls that the owner of a moving company faces. This led to him offering some very good advice that I have already began practicing and this very same advice was taken to heart and should allow me to weather the storm and keep my business afloat in some very uncertain times that we are now in.

However, what was extremely ironic about the situation was the fact that here I was speaking to the owner of a multi-million dollar company and thinking that he would not see me as competition or a threat to his local sales, when this was the exact opposite of what happened. I was thinking that he would be honored to give “little old me” pointers on how to grow and expand my business, but this was not what transpired in our brief conversation.

He pointed out that even the smallest mover in this area was in fact his competition, and he had to learn the hard way about doing the right things to stay in business in order to keep his doors open. We talked about the difference of being legitimate, licensed and insured, as opposed to a fly by night service organization that changes its name every two or three years to escape some of the financial pitfalls that doom start-up companies like mine on a regular basis. All in all, it was perfect timing and in just 15 minutes, he probably gave me enough important advice to last for several years by side-stepping small-talk innuendo and things that could inevitably put us out of business before we reach coveted year five plateau.

The moral of the story is: Anyone and everyone still working every day, is in competition with every other company out there still working, especially if you’re in the same industry because it’s everyone’s mission to reach that coveted prize at the end. This means making the right decisions early that lead to being successfully retired and healthy enough to enjoy the fruits of our labor with enough income to live the rest of our lives out in peace and harmony.