Embedded Files
ADVICE #1:
DON'T COUNT ON CUSTOMER REFERRALS FROM AGMC
On AGMC's website page EUGENE MOVING COMPANIES, AGMC informs customers that the different companies on this list are listed in order of what AGMC considers to be "best" to "worst", and so the lower a company is listed on this list, the less the customers even look at that company's listing advertisement, and the fewer the customer referrals that company is likely to get from AGMC. When customers call in to AGMC, it's only the highest listed company that's available on the customer's requested moving date that is first offered to the shopping customers.
This makes it so that it is only the top few most highly listed (ranked) companies on this list that usually get any kind of regular customer referrals from AGMC. Even the fourth or fifth company down the list usually gets only the occasional few customer referrals that slip past the higher listed companies when the higher listed companies are not available at the customer's desired time. Companies listed even lower than than fifth or sixth down seldom get any customer referrals at all from AGMC. So if your company can't make it to 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.
AGMC bases the Eugene Moving Company listing order on AGMC's opinion about that company's moving services, taking into consideration such factors as that company's customer review record, their equipment set, skill, ease of phone contact, on-time record, reliability, professionalism, services provided, problems on the job, ability to pay damage claims, and other moving company related aspects. It's AGMC's assessment of these factors that AGMC uses to determine the AGMC listing order, so if you don't want to show AGMC any evidence that your company's moving service is "among the best" in Eugene in AGMC's opinion, or if you aren't planning on providing a top quality moving service, then it's unlikely your company is going to get "near top listing", and so you'd likely get only occasional, inconsistent, few, or possibly no customer referrals at all from this AGMC listing source.
Just signing up for this listing service does not guarantee any customer referrals at all, let alone any kind of regular customer referrals, and the odds of AGMC judging your service to be "among the best in Eugene" is rather low, so it's advised that you not sign up for this listing service if you need to count on an income from this customer source.
Sometimes only a single "mess up" by a company (like being drunk on a job, or a claim of theft) can tip the scales enough to alter AGMC's opinion about a moving company enough to alter the AGMC's listing/ranking order of that company, and cause that moving company's referral frequency from AGMC to plummet. AGMC does have the right to list the companies on AGMC's list in the order AGMC judges to be "best to worst". So, only sign up for AGMC's listing service if you fully acknowledge AGMC's right to use AGMC's opinion alone to determine AGMC's listing/ranking order. Also only sign up for AGMC's listing service if you are really OK with the very real risk of job frequency unreliability (suddenly getting no jobs) this system entails. For this reason, most moving companies should use being on AGMC's list as only an additional source of customers, not as the sole source being relied upon.
However, it's free to list your company on AGMC's site, you only owe a booking fee after you get paid from your customer, and so it's only a loss of your time spent trying this customer source if it doesn't develop well for you. But, if your company can make it to being "among the best" in the Eugene area in AGMC's opinion, this source of getting customer referrals could work out very well for you. If AGMC judges your company to be truly spectacular enough, AGMC could spend the additional advertising money needed to draw enough additional shopping customers to fill the schedule of such a great company. The potential is there.
As an alternative option, if you think you can just work hard, but don't think you're quite up to taking on all the risks and responsibilities of running your own independent moving company, it is an option for you to sign up for AGMC's moving helper listing service, which helps independent-contractor moving-helpers find 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:
TRY TO BE THE BEST, NOT JUST ADEQUATE, BY DOING THE FOLLOWING:
#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: Turn in your Invoices & Transaction logs right at end off jobs, & 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.
#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.
#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 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:
DO YOUR INVOICES & TRANSACTION LOGS WELL
JOB INVOICE
TRANSACTION LOG
You can get customized blank forms of these by just asking AGMC for them. Ask!
ADVICE #4:
REGISTER YOUR BUSINESS NAME WITH THE OREGON SECRETARY OF STATE, AND GET AN EIN #, ONLINE
ADVICE #5:
GET A BUSINESS BANK ACCOUNT
DEDICATED TO ONLY YOUR MOVING BUSINESS
ADVICE #6:
SET UP CHECK (BANK), VENMO, CASH-AP, AND CREDIT CARD
METHODS OF ACCEPTING CUSTOMER PAYMENT.
ADVICE #7:
DO GOOD FOR A WHILE AS A MOVING HELPER FIRST.
Do good as a moving helper first to learn the business, before trying to open your own moving company. You have to learn and prove you know that half of the business before you try to take on the other half of the business. You can also use this time to your advantage by starting to do the certification training course, and starting to collect the equipment set you will ultimately need to become your own Lead Company some day.
HERE'S THE BREAKDOWN OF EACH ONE
A BUSINESS BANK ACCOUNT
Even though it's not technically required, you can make your world of accounting and record keeping much much easier by opening a business bank account, and having a dedicated expense card for that account that's used exclusively for business expenses. Not only does this meet the requirements of having an LLC (if you have one), but the huge simplicity gained from this is that you automatically have almost all of your record keeping and current balance tallying automatically done for you. This is also going to make it much easier to cash checks.
If all the money officially taken in by your business is deposited into that account, and all business expenses are paid for by your business card, you end up with an always current record and tally of all income, all expenses, and your current balance between the two. Your bank record is also like a receipt for all those things. If you set up a bank ap on your phone, you can see all transactions and your current balance in seconds. You can also use that bank account to accept and pay payments electronically in seconds.
THE PRIMARY TWO MOST IMPORTANT PAPERS
The primary two most important records that you have to keep and get right are job invoices, and transaction logs, as shown above.
The easiest way to get these blank forms is to ask AGMC for them. AGMC can customize these for you, with your business info and logo. AGMC can sell these custom papers to you at 20 cents each, or you can ask AGMC to e-mail the templates to you for free, for you to print yourself. You just have to ASK AGMC for what you want. Make sure to get these at least days in advance of when you need them. Bring these blank copies with you on your jobs, preferably in a clip board that has a closable compartment, with pens.
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.
Getting them to rate our service on the invoice also accomplishes the task of identifying the 5 star raters, which would then be the only ones you would then ask to leave us an online review. Right after presenting the invoice is when you'd ask them if they'd be willing to leave a review, and tell them you will soon text them a link that would bring them right to where they could leave a review. See point #17 to show you how to most easily send this link. These reviews help our google page ranking, which gets us more jobs.
TEXT A PIC OF THE INVOICE TO AGMC
The very first thing you should do after handing the customer the invoice, is to TEXT to AGMC a picture of the invoice. RIGHT AWAY, as a time stamp of the invoice meeting with the customer, 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 time stamp of the texted invoice picture is also a "clocking out" on the job that registers the job length, and lets AGMC know your crew is 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 day, your booking service fee goes up considerably (see AGMC's booking fee schedule). Never let a job slip by without doing this most basic of required tasks on time.
THE TRANSACTION LOG
Ideally, you should be filling out your Transaction Log BEFORE YOU PAY YOUR CREW, using your Log entry to calculate and record how much each crewman is owed, and to check off when each crewman is paid. Ideally, you should then take a picture of your entire Transaction Log page, and text that picture to AGMC right after you pay your crew on the job site, or right after the job if the crew isn't getting paid right at the end of the job.
However, your contract requires you to text your updated Transaction Log picture to AGMC no later than before the end of the day of a job (one day extension for jobs ending after 7pm). If you violate this contract requirement deadline your booking fee for that job goes up to 40% of the labor fee. Don't miss this deadline.
This deadline exists because when you text this Log picture on time, these numbers are fresh on Phil's mind, and so is Phil can far better check for mistakes that might otherwise lose AGMC money. If you harm Phil's checking opportunity to protect himself, you will compensate for that harm via the increased booking rate.
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 should be the top name on this list. The easiest and most sure way to calculate the Lead's pay is to enter the customer's labor total cost on your calculator, deduct the "AGMC's labor cut", deduct the amount owed to the rest of the crew, and that leaves you with the amount owed to the Lead for his labor hours. Divide that amount by the lead's labor hours and that gives you how much the Lead made 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 after each job when all these numbers are fresh in your mind, no later than by the end of the day of the job, 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 on each job, avoiding the increased BOOKING FEE for being late. Don't let yourself slip on this one.
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 expense, thus, an Expense Log collects this information in one easy to see place, in chronological order.
LISTING CONTRACTS
If you are working in conjunction with a Booking Service and numerous independent contractors, it is important for you to have a written agreement with them about what "deal" you are making with them, clarifying questions such as are they an independent contractor or employee, what is the pay amount, payment deadlines, hours calculation policy, etc. etc. You should have a contract with each person you would be working with, and have it signed by them before you work with them. Working with someone without a written agreement is a recipe for trouble.
A sample contract that you should have with each independent contractor moving-helper is provided on this site in the page titled "HELPER LISTING". Whether you use this sample as your actual contract or as a sample to create your own, either way you should have any helper you are going to have working for you sign that contract before they work for you. And besides them reading and signing it, YOU should also read it and memorize it so that you can properly implement your own agreement with them. And if you are ever going to do jobs as a helper for a different Lead, you should sign a copy of the contract for that Lead.
You should also have a contract with your job source, booking service, or what ever other business you use to get job appointments. The contract that AGMC uses for dealings with providing listing and booking services to independent moving companies is provided on the page titled "LEAD LISTING". If you're going to try to get job appointments thru AGMC, then you need to copy and paste the HELPER LISTING contract and the LEAD LISTING contract onto new documents on your computer, print them, fill them out, and mail them to:
P.O. Box 147 Walterville OR. 97489
AGMC can then keep these contracts on file for all the movers and helpers listed with AGMC, and so have these contracts available to you if you ever need them.
FREELANCE INDEPENDENT CONTRACTOR AGREEMENT
You should also have a few copies on hand of the below shown FREELANCE INDEPENDENT CONTRACTOR AGREEMENT, or some equivalent, so that when you get a last minute fill-in helper on a job, you can at least make sure you are legally covered for them being a freelance independent contractor and not an employee, which can save you from an injury or tax problem that could otherwise be a big problem.
W9
If a new mover you have helping you out has not yet filled in all the paperwork from AGMC, and you just have a new guy working for the first time for you, along with FREELANCE INDEPENDENT CONTRACTOR AGREEMENT, you should also have the new guy fill out and sign a W9. You should be keeping some blank copies of these on hand, along with your paper copies of your other contracts. These are not only good for taxes, but they also better establish the worker as a Freelance Independent Contractor, and so are good for many legal reasons. A good place to get copies of the new 2024 W9 is either from AGMC or on the IRS website.
Here's the top 24 categories of what you need to do to succeed.
1) Be quick and reliable at answering your phone for business calls and texts.
2) Do good as a moving helper first to learn the business, before trying to open your own moving company.
3) Register your business name
4) Set up a business bank account.
5) Set up your payment methods.
6) Get your paperwork ready (invoices, transaction logs, contracts, clip board, etc.)
7) Get at least a Standard Equipment Set and a vehicle or trailer to bring it to your job sites. Then prove and show to your advertisers or job sources that you are actually providing this equipment.
8) Be able to prove you know what you are doing via you passing or participating in a mover Certification program.
9) Have an established and taught "dance routine" for your crew (such as taught in a Certification program).
10) Be normally ten minutes early to your jobs, so when you're late you are actually a few minutes early.
11) Advertise to your job source how you are doing on jobs, and 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. You could even ask for an AGMC "Audit".
12) Avoid exposure to high liability, via pre-damage pictures and liability disclaimers.
13) Make yourself get a high percent of good customer reviews online, and avoid bad reviews.
14) Honor a Happiness Guarantee, and follow procedures to ensure happy customers.
15) Pay what you owe on time, and make it easy. If you're behind, be making regular payments.
16) Be easy to work with and talk to. Always talk professionally, never even once descend into upsetness, aggression, threats, disrespect or unreliability.
17) Use the "Clip Board" function on your phone to get good reviews and get liability disclaimers.
18) Be a team player. Look out for the interests and long-term survival of your booking service and fellow moving companies. If you don't have their backs, they will loose interest in having yours.
19) 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.
20) Keep everyone happy. Beyond just following all the technical rules, bend out of your way to keep everyone happy. Doing so solidifies your whole operation and makes for long term stability.
21) The customer's rights and your rights.
22) Training meetings (find your weak spots)
23) Work on your weak spots
24) Taxes
25) Reviews
#7 EQUIPMENT SET
Get at least a "Standard Equipment Set" defined as follows:
4 dozen moving blankets, 4 ratchet straps, 6 clean rugs, 4 rolls of tape, a hand-truck, Black Straps, big and small plastic wrap, all sizes mattress bags, a few cardboard boxes, tie down rope, a Basic Tool Set*, drill & bits set, some baggies, zip ties, aluminum tape, pig tie, sm step ladder, door and door-jam cover, a leaf blower or broom, a professional piano dolly (flat bottom rubber wheels), super-sticky post-it notes, a door wedge, booties (for a 3 man crew), a few "tire-raiser" 2"x6" short wood boards, door holder wedge, felt pads, 1 neoprene floor runner, a reusable TV box with foam corners, a battery light, and a clip board with invoices and a Transaction Log.
Or, if you want to be BETTER than most other mover teams, and get bigger jobs, then get an "Ace Equipment Set" defined as follows:
5 dozen blankets (at least one dozen of these being cotton heavy professional quilted), regular wheel & 13" wheel hand truck, an appliance hand truck (that attaches to a 13" wheel hand truck to make an incline 4 wheeler), 12 rugs (most clean), 2 neoprene floor runners, carpet protection film, Booties, a bag of ratchet straps, 6 rolls of tape, Black straps, Orange straps, big & small plastic wrap, all sizes of mattress bags, half dozen moving boxes, a good drill & tool set, full set of star (hex) bits, zip ties, aluminum tape, pig tie, vent crimper, 3 & 4 prong dryer or conversion cords, tie-down rope, Door & door-jamb cover, 2 Towels, hanging truck-supply box (to hold tape & rope etc.), sandwich bags (for hardware), full Mover Bands set, few drinks, Leaf-blower, 3 Battery-lights for night work, Door wedges, 2 TV boxes (one inside the other), Old English scratch fix, furniture repair kit, super sticky post-it notes, pole for carrying hanging clothes, Piano Dolly (near flat bottom rubber wheels), a big red floor dolly (w/snap locks), a box of large pull-string garbage bags, a sm & 6' Step ramp, a 3 or 4 step ladder, felt pads set, a pair of 2x6 "tire raisers" boards to elevate truck wheels, tire pump, stud finder, level, a clip board with blank invoices a Transaction Log, a card reader, and a shirt and hat with the business logo on them.
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.
SEMI TRUCK STORAGE BOXES
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
#8: 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.
#9: 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.
#10: BE NORMALLY 10 MINUTES EARLY TO YOUR JOBS
7) Be normally ten minutes early, so when you're late you are actually a few minutes early. 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.
#11: 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 confrence-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.
#12: 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.
#13: 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.
#14: 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.
#15: PAY WHAT YOU OWE ON TIME
12) 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.
#16: BE EASY TO WORK WITH, AND ALWAYS TALK PROFESSIONALLY
13) 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.
#17: 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.
#18: BE A TEAM PLAYER
14) 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.
#19: 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.
#20: 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.
#21: 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.
#22: FIND 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.
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.
#23: 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.
#24: 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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