aDVICE FOR MOVING COMPANIES

ADVICE FOR MOVING COMPANIES

Let's not waste each other's time.  Below is a summary of the minimum criteria required for a moving company to have even a chance at getting high recommendations and regular referrals from AGMC.  At any point you don't meet these minimum criteria, AGMC is not going to highly recommend your company, and so you should expect irregular referrals, all the way down to no further customer referrals from AGMC, depending on how far you are off from these minimum criteria.

MINIMUM CRITERIA

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

#2: Answer AGMC calls & texts reliably, or call back quick. Let AGMC know if you're going to be out of contact for a while.

#3: Turn in your Invoices & Transaction logs right at end off jobs, & fill these out correctly.

#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) when you arrive at appointment start job sites.

#5: Have the 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 AGMC 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 both 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. 

#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, besides abiding by the other conditions in your Moving Company Listing Contract.

#12: Don't 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. 

SUMMARY: GET AS MANY JOBS AS YOU WANT BY DOING ALL 12 OF THE MINIMUM CRITERIA. EXPECT ONLY OCCASIONAL OR NO CUSTOMERS IF YOU DON'T.

You can build up to there being endless jobs filling your schedule if you fix your all your problems with the minimum criteria, because AGMC would then spend the money required on advertising to pull in as many more shopping customers as needed to fill your schedule.   if AGMC judges that you are not doing the Minimum Criteria, or if AGMC doesn't know how good of a service you provide, AGMC isn't going to spend any more money on advertising to generate more customers for you, and you would at best get only the occasional "spill over" jobs that slip past the fully professional companies, down to you possibly getting no referrals at all. 

The point is that there is a night and day difference between the work you'd get if you do all twelve of the Minimum Criteria correctly, compared to the work you'd get if you don't, even though there might be only very minor difference in the actual service you would be providing in those two circumstances.  

Most movers go wrong by getting something wrong on the Minimum Criteria list, and thinking they can ignore it if they do most other things right.  Be clear, the Minimum Criteria list needs to all be done correctly in order to get the high recommendations and major flow of customer referrals thru AGMC.

If you're OK with getting only occasional jobs, or with what ever work flow you seem to be currently getting, you can just keep doing what ever you're doing as far as these criteria.    However, if you want a major and consistent work flow, the only way to achieve that is for you to go back and look at this  Minimum Criteria list very closely, and fix any deficiencies you may have concerning these things.  The sooner you do, the sooner the consistent work would come.  AGMC is waiting for you to get your Minimum Criteria in order before generating more jobs for you, so if you are "waiting" for AGMC to send you more jobs without YOU having first gotten your minimum criteria in order, your wait will for sure end in your disappointment.  

Get going on working on these things.  When you don't have a moving job, use that time to ACT to fix at least something on your minimum criteria list.  That's what gets you jobs.   Every hour you spend NOT working and making money is YOUR FAULT, because that non-profitable hour was preceded by all the many hours before it that you chose to not get your minimum criteria in order and instead just "wait". 

 The only way you get more work is for you to fix your problems with all of the twelve MINIMUM CRITERIA, follow the advice given to you, and make your service a better shopping choice than your competitors.  The real work volume goes to who earns it in this way.

INCOME SPIRAL

If you want more sales or to be able to get the bigger jobs  you have to improve the ranking factors (the Minimum Criteria) about your company's services in order to increase your listing ranking.  If you don't improve these Ranking aspects about your services, your listing ranking will suffer and you will get fewer and smaller jobs, which will make you much less money, which will in-turn make you less motivated to fix these aspects, causing a further downward income spiral.  The upward income spiral is very lucrative.  It's your choice to choose an upward or downward income spiral, by choosing to follow or not follow the advice given on this page.

FLYING BLIND

  At any time you can ask AGMC what factors are considered by AGMC to be your strengths and weaknesses, the basis for your ranking, so you can at any time work on fixing the things that are effecting your ranking and holding back your sales.   If you don't even ask AGMC about what AGMC perceives as your weak areas, you would be "flying blind" and might not even know where you stand or what's being considered a problem about your services.  If you don't try to improve your ranking, you'd have no right to expect anything other than what you're getting.  If AGMC tries to give feedback and make helpful suggestions and you repeatedly respond with negative or deflective comments, AGMC will stop giving feedback and stop trying to bring problems to your attention so you can fix them. 

DON'T EXPECT OTHERS TO TAKE A BAD BET

Would you gamble $10,000 of your money on a bet that you don't even know what the bet is?  No!  Well, that's what AGMC would be doing if it sent you on a big moving job without knowing what you know about moving skills, what you do on a job, or what equipment you had.   The little 2 hr minimum jobs & 1 bedroom apartment jobs usually are only risking around a thousand dollars of damage, so AGMC might bet that smaller amount on you from minimal evidence and circumstantial assumption of your equipment and skill.  But the big money, big house jobs can risk a $10,000 claim, and that's a bad bet if your skill & equipment are an unknown.  You wouldn't put down $10,000 of your own money on a gamble that you had no idea of the odds of that bet, so don't be thinking AGMC would bet on you doing a big money job without seeing how you do things.   But it's your choice on what you want to show AGMC of you techniques.

UNDERSTAND AGMC'S RELATION TO YOU

AGMC is not your employer or boss.  AGMC is an advertiser and customer referral source.  

For example, if there was an apartment manager who oversaw a 5,000 apartments, who was walking by your job site, do you think it might be good advertising for you show that apartment manager a sample of  how nicely you pad-wrapped a piece of furniture, how your crew was in uniform, your nice clean truck, and how your customer onsite said how nice it was to work with you?  You could choose to let that apartment manager walk by without you showing that person these things, but then it would be your fault if you missed that opportunity to make that apartment manager's opinion of your service rise to the level of them WANTING to refer many future customers to you.  The appartent manager is a referral source, and you showing off to the manager would be a form of you advertising your company's services. 

In this same way, AGMC is not your boss or employer, but rather a job referral source, just like the apartment manager.   You can choose to just do your own thing and have nothing to do with AGMC other than to let AGMC's recommendation of your services be what ever it is, with you providing AGMC minimal information about what you provide or what you are doing on your job sites.  Or you have the option to try to impress AGMC's opinion of your services by you showing AGMC the good aspects about your services so AGMC will highly recommend you to referred customers.  It's no different than it would be with the apartment manager.  It's your right to choose which opportunities you want to take or not to advertise your services.  But it's AGMC's and other people's right to form their own opinions and make their own recommendations and referrals based on their opinions.  

It's suggested that you not begrudge AGMC's right as an independent party to have an opinion and recommendation for customers.  Rather, use this customer referral source to your best advantage by showing off your skills, equipment, and on-time record to AGMC.   Don't waste your words of request and thanks to AGMC, but rather just show AGMC how professionally you do things.  That's what works.

SUMMARY 

Good businessmen know that you have to advertise to be a success at selling their services.  And free advertising is the best.  You showing AGMC your on-time record, load-wall pictures, equipment pictures, and skill videos is exactly this free advertising we're talking about.

Some moving company owners on AGMC's list have expressed feeling that it is "demeaning" to provide AGMC pictures of their equipment and loading work, and feel the same for providing AGMC evidence of being on time to their jobs.  It's OK to feel like this, and choose to not show evidence of these things to AGMC.  As your own independent company that's your own private affair.  This explanation is only trying to tell you that if you want to "show off" how well of a job your company is doing, and advertise to AGMC evidence (pictures) of how great your moving-equipment set is, how great you loading skill is, and how great your record is of being on time is, THEN that can be your choice to show off, and advertise that evidence to AGMC for free, and that will greatly help your AGMC ranking, because then AGMC can confidently tell customers that AGMC has seen evidence of these things.  The moving companies that show-off and advertise to AGMC evidence of their superior work laugh "all the way to the bank" at the other companies that feel it is beneath them and demeaning to advertise.  But this is each company's choice to make.