ADVICE FOR MOVING COMPANIES

ADVICE #1:

HAVE THE RIGHT JOB FREQUENCY EXPECTATION

Remember, while you have the right to decide how you conduct your jobs, AGMC has the right to use the AGMC merit based point scoring system to decide the AGMC listing order of moving companies (the order in which AGMC presents moving companies to shopping customers), which is the main determiner of each company's general trend of customer referral frequency thru AGMC. When you look on Priceline for potential flights listed in order of cheaper to more expensive, some company's services has to be listed first, a different company second, then third, etc. all the way down to some company being listed 59th. The higher listed company's services have a much better chance of you choosing their services than the lower listed companies. This phenomena causes the listing order to have a huge impact on the frequency of sales of those services. So AGMC's referral frequency to you can range from getting a full schedule all the way down to maybe getting no jobs at all from AGMC, making the listing order make a night and day difference in the results you might get.

The things explained on this ADVICE page are the things that AGMC uses to score Merit Points. The more of these Merit Points you choose to do for your company, the higher in the listing order you can climb, and the more job offers you'll tend to get thru AGMC. So if you want the point scoring system to place your company higher on the list to get you more jobs, you can at any time choose to try to score more Merit points, because that's the only way you climb higher. Or you can forget the Merit Points and not try to effect your listing order. Your choice, but that makes it your responsibility for the results of your Merit Points, listing order and job frequency. Don't try to blame anyone else.

Have a realistic expectation that only the top few listed companies on AGMC's list usually get any kind of regular customer referrals from AGMC. Even the fourth company down the list usually gets only the rare occasional few customer referrals that slip past the higher three listed companies when the higher listed companies are not available at the customer's desired time. Companies listed even lower than than fourth down very seldom get any customer referrals at all from AGMC. So if your company can't score high enough to make it at least near the top of this list, you shouldn't expect any kind of regular customer referrals from being on AGMC's Eugene Moving Company List. Due to the inherent unreliability of this moving job source, it's also advised that you not rely on an income from only this customer source, unless you've reached near the top of the listing.

As an alternative option, if you don't want to take on all the risks and responsibilities of running your own independent moving company, you could instead sign up for AGMC's moving helper listing service, which helps independent-contractor moving-helpers find free-lance jobs working for independent moving companies. If that's more your cup of tea then look on this website's page titled "HELPER LISTING".

ADVICE #2:

MERIT POINTS:

Here's the top dozen things that can earn or lose you Merit Points.

#1: Answer AGMC and customer calls & texts reliably, or call back quick. Let AGMC know if you're going to be out of contact for a while. Keep your phone charged and on you.

#2: Text your Invoice & Transaction log pics right at end off job, & fill these out correctly.

#3: Pay your crew & AGMC promptly, no later than right after the customer's payment form clears, unless you've achieved ACE status with AGMC.

#4: Aim 5 minutes early to job appointments, seldom be late, but if you are late call AGMC before being late. Clock-in (text AGMC a "c") when you arrive at appointment start job sites. After the walk-thru, provide the customer and AGMC a job length estimate, and adjust plan if needed.

#5: Have the right equipment needed to do the job right, & show AGMC you have it (as shown on the EQUIPMENT page of this website). If you rent or borrow a truck with equipment & supplies, photo document it (& gas) and text the pictures to the equipment owner when picking it up and again when dropping it back off, & bring it back in the same condition that you picked it up.

#6: Let AGMC know your Availability Schedule, & update it whenever that changes. Be reliable.

#7: Take your load-wall pictures and text to AGMC right after each picture is taken, including flat loads, and loads into storage units, garages, and unloads of other company's loads. Also photo extra perks & good work you are doing for the customer such as a furniture scratch repair, cleaning the truck floor & pathway, an extra good pad-wrap job, then present a slide show of these and the load-wall pics to the customer half-way thru the job so you get credit for what they don't normally see.

#8: Do the documentation necessary to avoid high liability exposure; pre-existing damage pictures of customer's items and house, water-damage liability disclaimer, independent contractor contracts, liability exposure limits, and make sure you've filled out your moving company listing contract & application paperwork (on LEAD LISTING page).

#9: If you're not getting the work volume you want ask AGMC for feedback. If AGMC gives you feedback or advice, talk only about how you can act on it, don't deflect by talking about other people or other subjects. If you deflect, the feedback will end.

#10: Show AGMC you have top notch moving skills so AGMC can know you have those skills, & so highly recommend your company to customers. You can submit to AGMC photos, videos and video calls showing your skills to do this quickly, and/or you can become AGMC Certified, or participate in AGMC's training course to do this at a slower pace.

#11: Offer and always honor a Satisfaction Guarantee to make sure the customer is happy, besides abiding by the other conditions in your Moving Company Listing Contract.

#12: Don't do (or hire crews that do) the "DONT'S": steal, smell of alcohol on a job, speak disrespectfully or unprofessionally, threaten violence, not return borrowed equipment, not let AGMC know about damages & problems on the job, be inappropriate with customers, etc.

ADVICE #3:

DON'T COMPLAIN, EARN MERIT POINTS

Jobs go out according to this listing-order Merit point system. If you think you should be getting more jobs than you're currently getting, YOU ARE OBJECTING to AGMC's Merit point based system of determining the listing order, which you agreed in your LISTING CONTRACT would be how jobs are determined, which means you lied about you agreeing that job assignments should be determined in this way. You lying in your base contract agreement causes broken expectations all around on everyone's part and frustrates everyone. If a job is assigned, it's assigned according to this merit based point system. Complaining about job frequency just announces that you haven't paid attention to how this works and aren't even looking in the right direction to improve your job situation. So either go back and actually agree on this point (and be supportive of however jobs go out according to this point system), or stop trying to get jobs through this merit based point scoring system that you disapprove of, & instead go get your customers thru a different source. Earning Merit Points works, complaining doesn't.

#4: GET SOME EXPERIENCE AS A MOVING HELPER FIRST.

It's recommended that before you try doing moving work thru AGMC as your own moving company, you instead start by doing some moving work as a moving-helper working for some AGMC referred moving companies, BEFORE you try to take on jobs as your own independent moving company getting jobs thru AGMC's service. This would gain you a good chance for feedback from AGMC and AGMC referred companies, to give you a much better idea of where you stand as a mover, to see if you have a good shot at this or not.

Starting as an AGMC referred mover also gives you a head-start on working on the AGMC mover training course, which could greatly increase your odds of success. This period of time spent as a moving-helper could also be used to work on getting your equipment set together, along with setting up the other aspects this page advises you will need to become your own Lead Company.

ADVICE #5:

VIDEO ABOUT EIN

GET IRS EIN #

ADVICE #6:

GET A BUSINESS BANK ACCOUNT

DEDICATED TO ONLY YOUR MOVING BUSINESS

Use your bank debit card for all business expenses, so all your expense record-keeping is already done for you in your bank statements.

ADVICE #7:

SET UP CHECK (BANK), VENMO, CASH-AP, AND CREDIT CARD

METHODS OF ACCEPTING CUSTOMER PAYMENT.

ADVICE #8:

DO YOUR INVOICES & TRANSACTION LOGS WELL

JOB INVOICE

TRANSACTION LOG

Get customized blank forms of these by just asking AGMC for them. Ask!

PRESENTING THE INVOICE

It's better if you fill the invoice out in private before you present it to the customer. This gives you non-scrutinized comfort-time to think about things and remember things. Also, if you aren't absolutely positive about the crew's hours, it's a good idea to go to each of them and confirm their hours with them before presenting the bill to the customer.

When you do go over the bill with the customer, it gains you "kudos/credit) if when you explain the "hours" calculation section, you mention that you rounded the start & end times in the customer's favor.

When you're filling out the invoice be sure to make note on the invoice of the free things you are NOT charging for, such as rounded labor time in the customer's favor, free felt pads, free minor supplies, free furniture repair job, or FREE SOMETHING. The moment of you showing them this free stuff calculation is going to be moments before their TIP calculation, so be showing them how you are trying to give them a good deal.

It is also at this moment of calculating and giving them the moving service bill, BEFORE THEY PAY YOU, that you need to find out if there was anything they were significantly unsatisfied about. That's the main reason why the invoice OUTRIGHT ASKS THIS QUESTION right after it states the bill total. If the customer rates your service any less than 5 stars YOU need to jump into action, find out why, and ask the customer what they feel we should take as a discount off the labor hours or other corrective action to make them feel happily satisfied. Apologize, and give them what they want to be satisfied. And that may include a recalculation of the bill. This is giving you a chance to have them change their mind about a low rating, which is CRITICAL TO DO.

Right after the "SATISFACTION CHECK" has been resolved to the best of your ability, the next question on the table for the customer is what forms of payment can they use. It's better if you sense this timing and answer this question for them verbally before they even ask the question. When you say we can take forms X, Y, and Z, it's very helpful for you to add "and we really appreciate cash when possible, it really helps us out. But if you pay cash you can pay any time over the next week. You just call me when it's a good time for you and I can stop by to pick it up. Is there any way that would work for you?".

If they are happy enough with you, and if you remember to ask for cash as explained above, about 75% of the time they'll get cash for you. For about 25% of customers they are just going to go with some other payment form means, and that's OK.

TEXT A PIC OF THE INVOICE TO AGMC

The very first thing you should do after finalizing the invoice with the customer is to take a clearly focused picture of the invoice, before handing it to the customer. Immediately after handing the invoice to the customer, TEXT that picture of the invoice to AGMC. RIGHT AWAY, not later. When you do this immediately, AGMC can then look the invoice over for mistakes, and call you right away while you are still with the customer to let you know of a mistake, while there's still time to correct it with the customer. This is also a time-stamp of the end of the job.

This time stamp of the invoice picture you text to AGMC is also a "clocking out" on the job that registers the job length, and lets AGMC know your crew is now ready for a possible additional job at that time, which could get you more work and make you more money. Also, if you don't text your job invoice picture to AGMC by the deadline of the end of the job, your booking service fee goes up for that job AND that counts as points against your listing ranking.

After giving the customer the invoice, ONLY IF THEY'VE GIVEN US A FIVE STAR RATING ON THE INVOICE, and you feel confident they would give us a five star rating, say to them"

"If I text you a link to our Google page, would you be willing to leave us an online review?".

Ahead of time, have AGMC text you a link to where the customer can leave a review, so you have it ready to forward to customers. It is these customer reviews that are the single biggest factor in determining your AGMC ranking.

ADVICE #9:

DO YOUR TRANSACTION LOGS WELL

THE TRANSACTION LOG

You should be filling out your Transaction Log entry for that job BEFORE YOU PAY YOUR CREW, using your Transaction Log entry to calculate and record how much each crewman is owed, and then to check off the "paid" line right when each crewman is paid. The crew should be folding blankets and putting away equipment while you are working on your Transaction Log. But within ten minutes of leaving the customer's job site, whether the crewman are paid yet or not, it is very important to right away text to AGMC a picture of your completed TRANSACTION LOG entry for that job. Only if you are going to be late for an already scheduled following job should you wait to fill out and text the TRANSACTION LOG entry for that job. The reliability of you texting these LOG entries to AGMC right at the end of jobs is a major part of your AGMC ranking determination.

This deadline on texting your LOG entries to AGMC exists because when you text this Log picture on time, these numbers are fresh on Phil's mind, and so Phil can far better check for mistakes that might otherwise lose AGMC money. If you diminish Phil's opportunity to protect himself by not texting to AGMC your LOG entry right after a job (unless you're late for the next job), the agreement is that you need to compensate for that harm via the increased booking fee from $20/mhr to $22/mhr.

BREAKDOWN OF A TRANSACTION LOG ENTRY

The Transaction Log has three sections. The left, middle, and right side.

The left side is a recap of the invoice, with just the key items of information transferred directly over from the invoice. This is just you copying these numbers straight off the invoice. The "Chrgs:" line is where you enter the Extra Charges.

The middle section is a record of the crew's pay. The Lead's name should be the top line.

The easiest way to calculate the Lead's pay is to wait to calculate it until all other numbers have been filled in. Then enter the customer's total labor cost on your calculator, deduct the "AGMC's labor cut", deduct the crew's pay, and that leaves you with the total amount the Lead is making for his labor hours. Divide that amount by the lead's labor hours and that gives you the hourly rate the Lead is making per hour.

The far right section is to record AGMC's pay.

The "Manhrs" is the total number of labor hours charged to the customer.

The "bookrate" is the Lead company's AGMC booking fee rate, as determined in the booking rate fee schedule for your company, near the beginning of your LEAD COMPANY CONTRACT.

The "Other to AGMC" means what other money from this job is owed to AGMC, such as an $80 truck fee, or repayment for something AGMC spent money on.

"AGMC's labor cut", added to "Other to AGMC", should add up to "Total to AGMC", meaning what's owed to AGMC for that one job.

The "HOLD" line is to record the total of what was owed to AGMC in the HOLD line of the last Transaction Log entry, added to the Total to AGMC of this current log entry. In other words, how much was owed to AGMC before this log entry, added to how much is owed for the current job only, equals the "HOLD" amount, which is the total currently owed to AGMC. The "300" at the top-right of the page is the carry-over figure from the last HOLD amount from the previous Transaction Log page.

That big open line all the way across the bottom of each log entry is the "spill over" line, for additional information that doesn't fit in the section lines, like for additional crewmen, additional expenses, Something Phil asked you to pay for him out of what you owe him, or payments the Lead is actually making to AGMC, i.e. "Paid Phil $500 at Walmart parking lot".

If you stay on top of doing this, within ten minutes right after each job when all these numbers are very fresh in your mind, this Transaction Log task remains easy, no more than adding one number to a second number, equaling a third number. It will not only remain easy, it will make you A LOT MORE MONEY, because if you don't do this, your jobs as Lead will dry up and go away. Don't let yourself slip on this one.

If you have messed up and are behind on your Transaction Log entries, feel free to call Phil for help in getting caught back up with this.

ADVICE #10:

EXPENSE LOG

An Expense Log is no where remotely near as critical as the invoices and transaction logs, but it's a nice extra to have at tax time. Even if you have a business bank account and bank card, there are likely going to be other expenses that "slip through the cracks" by you paying for some things with cash or other forms of payment. All business expenses are potentially that much less money you pay in taxes, and it so can be pretty important to keep an easily usable record of your other expenses, thus, an Expense Log collects this information in one easy to see place, in chronological order.

ADVICE #11:

DON'T WORK WITH A MOVING HELPER WITHOUT AN INDEPENDENT CONTRACTOR PAPER & W9 FILLED OUT TO AVOID LIABILITY, MEDICAL, & TAX ISSUES

ADVICE #12:

GET A GOOD EQUIPMENT SET

Get at least a "Standard Equipment Set" as defined on the EQUIPMENT page of this website. Or to score many more Merit Points, get an ACE Equipment Set, as defined on the EQUIPMENT page of this website.

Also, get a vehicle, trailer or truck to bring it to your job sites. This is necessary to be able to do moving work properly. A car can't do that. And a pick up truck can only hold a barely OK set, a bit stuffed and hard to get to. If you add a trailer, you could fit a pretty good set. Or if you have a good sized van that would give you enough room, but you'd still be needing to move a bunch of stuff to a truck for most jobs.

That's why a "real" professional moving company would have their own moving truck, which would have enough room to hold all the good equipment and supplies already in place. That saves a lot of time of having to haul stuff back and forth from a vehicle parked out on the street.

How your equipment is organized and situated is a big part of how efficient and "good" your crew can be. For example, using hand-truck clips allows you to stow and retrieve a hand truck in literally one second flat, compared to the minutes required when ratchet strapping them in place.

And keeping your blankets up off the floor on a dolly, allows the floor to be leaf-blown or sprayed off to clean the floor while everything is still in place. Being on a floor dolly also allows easy movement to somewhere else if needed.

By getting the "right" TV boxes, you can fit one regular TV box inside another XL TV box, giving you two, also filled with many other boxes, all kept up off the floor on a little ledge. A huge space savings.

And all the plastic wraps can be right there ready to grab at the end of the truck, not even needing to bend over.

If you want to send your professionalism into the stratosphere, you need not only to provide a moving truck for your customers, you need extra storage space on the truck for your equipment and supplies.

These storage boxes come in single or double wide, and with door that open in different directions.

The doors that open downwards are common, but the door gets a bit in the way of getting right up to the box.

That's why I prefer the doors that open sideways.

60 SECOND VIDEO CALL TO AGMC SHOWING YOUR EQUIPMENT, DONE WEEKLEY

After you get the equipment, you need to organize it well, and then prove and show to your job source (AGMC) that you are actually providing this equipment set. Your moving contract likely has a provision requiring that you do a once weekly video call to show what equipment you are providing.

If you "go dark" and don't regularly update and remind your job source of what state of equipment preparedness you are in, you become an unknown, and that results in allowing a competitor to surpass you in perceived value by THEM following their contract and being a KNOWN better equipped service than yours. Don't get beat when a 60 second video call once a week could fix that.

SEE THE EQUIPMENT PAGE ON THIS WEBSITE FOR MORE DETAILS ABOUT EQUIPMENT

#13: AGMC CERTIFICATION

Prove you know what you are doing via you passing the AGMC Certification program. Until then, at least be making progress on the course. Believe me, AGMC notices whether you are making any progress on the course or not, and that can make a difference on your jobs.

#14: ENCOURAGE YOUR CREW TO GET CERTIFIED

Encourage and incentivize your crew to be working on the AGMC training course.

You need an established and taught "dance routine" for your crew, and the routine taught in the AGMC training course is already taught for you, ready to just point your crew to, ready made, saving you massive amounts of crew training time, and massive amounts of time preparing crew training lessons. Also, your success relies on you avoiding major problems on your jobs, and you only avoid problems by having your crew do things in a certain way, as described in the AGMC training course. If you don't train them the right way, you will have far more and bigger problems than you otherwise would. This course takes a huge hunk of that task off your shoulders.

#15: AS LEAD, BE NORMALLY 10 MINUTES EARLY TO YOUR JOBS

Be normally ten minutes early, so when you're late you are actually a few minutes early. As Lead, if you're not ten minutes early, you're late. Yes, this is the same rule for moving-helpers, but when you are the Lead Company, YOU should be the one getting there before anyone else, and definitely NOT be late. You need to be setting the example. And maybe that means aiming at fifteen minutes early if you aren't normally at least five minutes early.

#16: ADVERTISE TO YOUR JOB SOURCE

8) Advertise to your job source how you are doing on jobs. That means comply with your contracts by sending your clock-in texts, load wall pics, equipment pics, job invoices, Transaction Log pics, and a lot of communication about your jobs. Have a short conference-call meeting with Phil at the end of larger jobs, to talk about how the day's job could be improved. Communication about what's going on is mainly what sells your services to AGMC and so increases your ranking. If you don't "advertise" how well you are doing, or how you're working on improving, you don't get the sales benefits of doing such a good job.

You could even ask for an AGMC "Audit", which is where you invite AGMC to send an evaluation rep to come to one of your more major job sites to watch you and your crew work, and score you on all aspects of your moving job, and score you on how many of the things taught in this course you are following or violating. That's also a way to get certified on all the certification course aspects the evaluation rep sees that you are doing correctly, giving you a huge leap forward on getting AGMC certified. This way, if you really are doing a great job, you get actual credit for it in the form of more and better jobs by showing what you do.

#17: AVOID EXPOSURE TO HIGH LIABILITY

Avoid exposure to high liability, via having your crew LOOK for pre-damage, take pre-damage pictures, and use liability disclaimers, use the right equipment, use only safe non-risky moving practices, and DECLINE TO MOVE ANYTHING YOU'RE NOT SURE YOU CAN MOVE SAFELY. If you ignore these things, you become a huge liability just waiting to cause a huge loss at any time, and so you become not worth working with. See point #17 to see how to easily use text messages to get a liability disclaimer to your customer. Make sure to not be taking bad risks on your jobs.

#18: MAKE YOURSELF GET GOOD CUSTOMER REVIEWS

10) Make yourself get a high percent of good customer reviews online, and avoid bad reviews. This is no accident that you need to wait to see what happens. This is something you specifically make happen. You show up on time in uniform. You show the customer a slide show of your load walls. You do a free furniture repair for the customer. You give them free felt pads, or something free. You round off time in the customer's favor in the Bill calculation AND LET THEM KNOW YOU ARE rounding time in their favor. Then, right after you give them their invoice/bill, or during the billing, you ask them what they'd rate your service. If they give you less than five stars then FIX THAT by honoring our Happiness Guarantee and ask them what they want off the bill (or to be done) to compensate the customer. That helps avoid bad reviews. If they give you five stars then right away text them a link to the AGMC website and ask them to leave you a review (see point #17). If you skip the part of texting them a link YOU WILL REDUCE THE % OF TIMES THEY ACTUALLY LEAVE A REVIEW. Don't skip that step.

#19: HONOR YOUR HAPPINESS GUARANTEE

Honor your Happiness Guarantee by not only ASKING THE CUSTOMER at the end of the job what they'd rate your service, but if they rate any less than five stars then YOU OFFER COMPENSATION, either off the bill or by fixing what ever they weren't happy about. Unless you are already sure the customer is happy about everything on your job, if you don't even ask the customer if they were satisfied, and you instead just bill the customer ignoring our Happiness Guarantee, you would be IN BREACH OF CONTRACT, and when AGMC likely finds out about it it will be entered on your AGMC listing advertisement, and so lower your referral frequency.

#20: PAY WHAT YOU OWE ON TIME

Pay what you owe on time, make it easy, and don't mess with other people's job pay. If you're behind, then be making regular payments. AGMC gets paid primarily based on the labor hours of jobs, and for multiple reasons it becomes much much harder (and takes far more work) for AGMC to track all the payment details involved IF YOU DON'T TEXT YOUR INVOICE AND TRANS-LOG PICTURES to AGMC on the day of the move. So when you don't text your invoice and trans-log picture for a job to AGMC on the day of that job YOU ARE MESSING WITH AGMC'S income. That's why your AGMC booking fee goes up when you don't DO YOUR JOB OF THE INVOICE AND TRANS PICTURE ON THE DAY OF THE MOVE. Not only does your booking fee go up, if you keep failing at this most critical task AGMC will BOOT YOU OFF AGMC'S LIST AS A LEAD. This is not one you want to get wrong.

#21: BE EASY TO WORK WITH, AND ALWAYS TALK PROFESSIONALLY

Be easy to work with and talk to. Always talk professionally, never even once descend into upsetness, aggression, anger, threats, disrespect or unreliability. If you let any of that slip into your voice, with customers, fellow crewmen, or with AGMC, that shifts you into a whole different category of unprofessionalism that will have a definite impact on how much people want to work with you, and so will drag down your income or make your income less reliable. I, personally, am not going to do repeat business with someone who talks to me like that, even if it's just once in a while. You might be used that kind of talk in your personal life, but you should at least be aware that some people won't put up with it, and this could sink you in the business world.

Don't let the issue of who's right or wrong be confused with the independent issue that to achieve high stability, you need to ALWAYS WITHOUT EXCEPTION speak respectfully, calmly, professionally, and not threateningly to everyone. The moment you go "But here's why I spoke otherwise ....." you identify yourself as having a lower level of professionalism, and you will have a lesser degree of success. You will make the choice between these alternatives, consciously or unconsciously. I suggest that you make the choice by purposeful choice keeping in mind the ramifications.

#22: USE THE CLIP BOARD FUNCTION ON YOUR PHONE TO GET CUSTOMER REVIEWS AND LIABILITY DISCLAIMERS

You can either type these out yourself.

Or you can ask AGMC to text you a completed version.

But if you want to save these messages on your phone, in an easy way to put back into a new text, then follow the following procedure. Start by holding you finger down on the message until the option "Select all" pops up. Select "Select all".

That will cause a "Copy" option to pop up. When you tap the "Copy" icon, it will say "Copied to clipboard". That only temporarily saves this text message.

To save it permanently, and be able to pull it back into a new text message at any time in the future, go to where you'd normally write a text message, and look for this "clipboard" icon.

On a text message screen the "clipboard" icon will look something like this. Tap the clipboard icon.

That will bring you to this screen showing only the most "Recent" texts that you have COPPIED. Recently copied texts are only temporarily saved. To turn one of these into a permanently saved text, press and hold your finger on a Recent selection, and a check mark will appear on it.

While the check mark is still marked, look for the pin symbol (as shown above) and click it. That moves your selected copied text message into the "Pinned" section below, which saves it permanently (or until you delete it).

Now, anytime you want that "pinned" text message automatically entered into a new text message you want written, just tap the "clipboard" icon, and it will bring you back to your selection of saved (Pinned) messages.

Then scroll down to see all the "Pinned" messages saved.

When you tap your finger on the Pinned message you want, it automatically copy that pinned message onto your blank text message screen.

It's ready to send, without having to type anything out, or ask for another copy from AGMC. Give it a try.

#23: BE A TEAM PLAYER

If you want your moving company to be one of the best, you need to be a team player. Look out for the interests and long-term survival of your fellow movers, booking service (AGMC) and fellow moving companies. If you don't have their backs, or if you take unnecessary risks to hurt their income and reviews, they will loose interest in having your back, and your value as a mover will drop relative to what it would otherwise be.

This statement wouldn't really make sense if your moving business didn't rely heavily on the help regularly given to you via the network of other movers referred by AGMC. The network is a critical part of what you, as a very small moving business, need to succeed to a much greater degree. For example, if you are one of the better moving companies, when there are other "lesser" companies available to take the smaller jobs, that frees you up to be able to take larger jobs when they become available, instead of you being stuck with having to do the small job. Also, if you or your crewman needs a sub, you have the network to draw from, as though you were a "big" company. If you are a smaller lower ranked company, you need the more ACE companies to make AGMC enough money to stay in business, which gives you the jobs you are getting. By respecting all the movers in the AGMC network, you gain the stability of a large company while being only a small company. If you make decisions that puts those other AGMC network companies out of business or out of the network of resource companies, that reduces the size and stability of your income.

For example, when some other senior "ACE" mover has no job for himself on a particular day, and he is really needing work, if YOU could give him a job on your crew, that could help keep him around long term, strengthening the network. Helping the better movers helps you. If you decline to give a better mover (higher ranked mover) a job in favor of hiring a cheap novice (just to save you a few bucks of pay on that day), you not only hurt the strength of the network, you also needlessly lower the quality of work being done and so needlessly risk greater problems, greater liability to AGMC, and a worse review that could hurt the entire network. Taking that needless extra risk makes you a DANGER to the network, and that lowers the value of your company to the network. This is why it is important that the AGMC rankings of movers be a major factor in your decision making process to choose crewman for your jobs. There are other factors that are legitimate decision-tippers, but if you just ignore the AGMC rankings, and purposefully choose worse movers for your jobs just to save a couple immediate bucks, you become worth much less to AGMC.

If you cause a lowering of the chances that the better other movers will stay around in our network of movers, you are risking leaving us without the critical help you and we all needed when we do really need them. This means that for best results you should usually hiring according to AGMC rankings because that increases the stability of YOUR long term income. If you too often breaking away from hiring by ranking it hurts all of our long term income stability. There is also the aspect of altering crew choices to HELP other companies handle emergencies. If you let another company sink or take bad risks by not helping them with their scheduling emergency needs when they really need it, that hurts YOU and all of us in the long run. We need each other.

Hiring by the AGMC ranking also causes accountability, by rewarding better work and causing repercussions for screwing up. That incentivizes everyone to show up on time, do a good job, and not screw up. Without that incentive, crews can drift into becoming a mess.

What about trying out new moving helpers? The default pay numbers reflect about $27/hr for a new (to us) mover who shows GREAT skill and ability and shows himself to be a fantastic highly-skilled mover. If a Lead is short a crewman and needs another man to be able to do a committed scheduled job, but is not willing to pay a new (to him) crewman the Default pay numbers FOR JUST THE FIRST DAY (is only willing to pay $23/hr), then this eliminates being able to hire 90% of the category of VERY EXPERIENCED MOVERS who will not work for less than this. If a new mover (to us) is a newbie, the default numbers allow for $23/hr. But not being willing to bend a few dollars to offer the default numbers, even to handle covering an emergency, adds needless risk to being able to find an adequate crew to do the job AT ALL, risking a huge problem with a customer (needlessly), risking harming the 5 star review average of AGMC, all over not budging on a very minor wage difference. i.e. "Yea, I'll let the job crash and fail rather than pay an experienced mover a couple more dollars to solve this problem in this emergency". If a Lead is going to put so much at risk to everyone else needlessly, and put AGMC to so much more trouble needlessly, all over a couple dollars on a single emergency job, that informs AGMC that this Lead a dangerous Lead to work with, dangerous for everybody.

Even if it's not an emergency sub situation, when we have an opportunity to add a potentially GREAT very experienced mover to our network, if the default pay numbers are not respected, we will likely lose that opportunity, again all over a couple dollars on a single job. A Lead's interest in strengthening our network equates to that Lead being a more valuable Lead.

This is not to say that you shouldn't be choosing your crew mostly based on who you think is actually the better movers (YOU SHOULD), but that choice should also be taking into account and influenced by the AGMC ranking that the mover has earned, and influenced by an interest in helping out other Leads when they really need the help. What you should definitely not do is hire a knowingly inferior mover when a better mover (in your opinion) is available, when there's no other good reason than you're just trying to save a few bucks. That attitude of taking needless risks and not caring about your fellow movers or AGMC's stability would lower your company's AGMC ranking and effect the jobs you'd get. You make your own "bed", either fertile or barren, in this way.

#24: FOLLOW-THROUGH

Have good follow-through. If there's a customer (or other) issue that needs to be taken care, make that a priority and get it done.

#25: KEEP EVERYONE HAPPY

16) Keep everyone happy. Beyond just following all the technical rules, bend out of your way to keep everyone happy. This means err on the side of their favor. Doing so solidifies your whole operation and makes for long term stability. This does not however mean LOAN MONEY. Other than "lunch money" it's a bad plan to be loaning money. Remember, long experience has warned "don't loan any money that you wouldn't just give to the person". And even if you would give it to them, when they don't pay it back, or it's a huge hassle to try to get it back, it poisons the relationship. So really, if you are going to lend it to them under this condition, then just give it to them.

AS LEAD YOU ARE THE RESPONSIBLE PARTY

If you are the Lead of your own company, this is YOUR ship to keep afloat, let sink or let flounder along. You are responsible for the results of your business and crew. That means this is the time to set aside all the normal negative personal type of interactions that cause people to argue and get angry, and it's time for you to step up and be a leader, be an example, and be the peacemaker. Be the calm person that influences others to be professional. If someone else raises their voice, don't be baited, be the one in control of yourself. You're not going to be a truly successful business man without this self control.

#26: KNOW THE CUSTOMER'S RIGHTS AND YOUR RIGHTS

It is the customer's right to choose who they are hiring, how many crewmen they want to hire on a job, and for what they want they want done in their moving job, as long as it's a normal and safe moving practice. If the customer does not want to hire another mover on your job, you may either decline to do the job, or you need to do the job with the number of movers the customer wants to hire. You can't just bring on an additional mover or movers without the customer's approval to pay for the extra movers. That may all sound so simple it's insulting, but this is a big contention point that has repeatedly come up in the past in the form of disagreements and problems. As an independent business, it is your right to turn down a job that you feel is dangerous or falls outside of normal moving practices (filthy, dangerous, unsanitary, disrespectful, too late at night, not allowed food breaks, etc.), but if what the customer wants done is within normal moving practices it's the customer's right to direct what they want done.

The customer may never tell a mover how something is to be carried. But, it is a normal moving practice to load something in an unsafe way for transport, if the customer has been advised otherwise, and has warned about the degree to which what the customer is directing is unsafe for the item, and the customer accepts full and sole liability for any resulting damages, in written form if you want, or just verbal if that is acceptable to you. It's the customer's right to take risks with their own possessions and have it done the way they want it done. For example, a customer can instruct the crew to throw their $5,000 grandfather clock into a dumpster, or leave those glass shelves inside just like they are. It's the customer's property to destroy if they choose. It is not the customer's right to take bad risks with the safety, health or respect of the crew.

To get a better feel for the damages and liability situation, please read, study, and memorize the GUARANTEE page of this website.

It's also the customer's right to choose how many movers they want to hire on a crew, PERIOD. If the customer want's to hire only two movers, you can't have three movers show up to the job. If you are concerned that your current crew size will not get the job done by the default quitting time of 7pm (or earlier if you have specified in your availability schedule an earlier quitting time for that date) the YOU ARE REQUIRED to warn the customer near the beginning of the job of this concern of running past 7pm and so run past your crew's quitting time. You should then tell the customer what crew size you recommend in order to get done in a timely manner, and if the customer still chooses to not follow your recommendation then you have the right to just leave the job unfinished at 7pm. That's because you warned the customer of that risk, and that risk was the customer's right to choose. They chose to take that chance, and so the outcome is then their fault. But you can't tell anyone that they have to purchase something they don't want to buy.

#27: FIND & WORK ON YOUR WEAK SPOTS

VIA FEEDBACK & TRAINING MEETINGS

It only takes a three minute phone call once a month to ask AGMC for some feedback about your work. That would tell you in three minutes the most valuable information you could possibly get for the success of your business, and that's a summary of complaints. Complaints are like the warning light on your car, telling you in quick fashion right where your most vulnerable areas are, that are most likely to cause you problems if you don't fix them.

You can also take a look your company's listing summary on this website's page EUGENE MOVING COMPANIES to see your company's listing order and AGMC's evaluation of your company.

The other best way to find your weak spots and work on them is through short "game reviews", on larger jobs while the whole team is folding blankets. At the end of larger job when a bunch of blankets need to be folded anyway, get the whole team together in the truck to help do this together, and instead of talking about a football game, call Phil and put this on speaker phone. Then Lead would ask each person what they thought was the single biggest thing they think could have been improved for us to have done a better job, & also add something to the effect of "I want you to be completely open and honest. Nothing you say will be held against you. I want to talk about our biggest faults". If the Lead doesn't add something like this "encourage to be honest" comment, the team will eliminate any real complaints for fear of loosing future work. But if the Lead encourages honesty properly, you'll get replies like, "we didn't have enough rugs, & the customer said her carpet got dirty", "Jon was on his phone way too much", "I felt insulted in the way I felt ordered around", "the truck brakes need fixing", "The truck was parked at a too much of a sideways tipping angle that make it dangerous to work in the truck", "we didn't have enough blankets", "Bob being 20 minutes late made us all look bad", etc.

The point would then be to drop all ego, and just talk about how to best improve or fix these problems. For example: "I will schedule a truck breaks fixing appointment", "Yea, I'll buy another half dozen rugs", "As long as the Lead lets the customer know ahead of time, early in the job, that we will be deducting phone use time off the billed hours, that alleviates them feeling cheated, and they appreciate that. But if you don't address this with the customer, it makes them very disgruntled.", "The wording of the Lead giving directions should always be phrased in a request, and/or with a tone of equality of position. i.e. "Let's go with the sofa next" instead of "Get me the sofa". or "Would you grab me the sofa?". "Did we use tire raiser boards to level out the truck?", etc.

There is no professional sports team in the world that does not have these "game recap" training meetings. That's because identifying weak spots and working on addressing them is THE CENTRAL HEART OF BEING A PROFESSIONAL SPORTS TEAM. Not talking about an addressing the weak spots doesn't make them go away, it lets them get worse. Talking about and dealing with "complaints" is what makes a team get better. You need to decide if your priority is be a more stable more successful PROFESSIONAL, or to be an untrained AMATEUR group of buddies limiting your own SUCCESS, not doing any of yourselves a favor.

The third best way to find your weak spots is to study this course and look for areas that you are not doing as recommended in this course. Adding all three of these methods together is the best way.

#28: WORK ON YOUR WEAK SPOTS

After you've found out about your weak spots as described in point #18, actually work on your weak spots. Once someone has found out about a weak spot, the most common reaction is to justify it, not work on changing it. That's because of the "blind spot" phenomena. The guy that's always late says "That's because ...". The guy that has a strong smell of alcohol on his breath says "That's because ....". The guy that's always on his phone says "That's because...". The guy that pisses people off by ordering too bluntly says "That's because....". The guy that's supposed to have the needed equipment and doesn't bring it says "That's because ....". "I miss a lot of calls from AGMC and am hard to reach because... " Note that the moment the mind goes into the mode of explaining a "because" that by definition is the line of thought that creates and perpetuates the problem. The mind "protects" its weaknesses. To optimally succeed in combating your weakest area, the most profitable area to work on, you have to not let your mind follow the path of explaining why you do something, and instead follow the thought path of how do you could cause something different to happen. Simple idea, but monumentally difficult for each of us to actually do. But that is what you need to do, if you are determined enough to reach a higher level of success.

ADVICE #29:

IF YOU'RE BEHIND ON PAYING BOOKING FEES, MAKE A PAYMENT ARRANGEMENT, DON'T IGNORE IT

ADVICE #30:

BE CLEAR ABOUT YOUR AVAILABILITY SCHEDULE

If your company is ever NOT available for a date you said you would be available, after AGMC has booked a job for you on that date, you become considered unreliable, and any future "availability schedules" you submit can not be relied upon, and so you'd have long-term MERIT POINTS deducted from your listing-order score. So, it helps you to update your "Availability Schedule" ASAP if anything changes.

It helps your sales even further for you to text your Availability Schedule, and specify what days you do and don't want to work over the next month out, at least, as that's how far out many customers are looking for bookings. A week's notice of your availability is better than nothing, but not nearly as effective as notifying for a month out. For example, you could say "I will be available Mondays thru Fridays over the next month, but only maybe on weekends (check with me first), and not at all on the 23rd & 24th"

It also helps sell your services and arrange jobs more to your liking for you to specify your restrictions and preferences about start times, the need for being done by a certain time, time delays you want between jobs, notification times prior to jobs, and your preferences for extra moving helpers (in order of preference), so AGMC can know the difference between your limits and options, and try to get as close to what you want as possible. For example, you could say "I will start as early as 8am if needed, but I prefer 9am job starts, and I won't work after 7pm". And/or "I'll do packing jobs and jobs with lots of stairs but I'd rather not, and my helper preference list, in order of preference is Bob, Rick, Jack, and Paul, but I will not hire Don or Sam".

ADVICE #30: TAXES

You can far better handle your taxes later if you already knew from the start what you plan is for deductions and business structure and such. You should decide from the start what business structure you are going to operate under, like an LLC or a sole proprietor. Below are presented some very helpful videos on how to do your taxes.

https://www.agentfortruth.com/

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