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.