Dwyght Mack was recently named to our list of eight influential people in the moving industry. He made the list for good reason. Mack has been the owner of Mack’s Moving Company based in New York since 2014 and last year, founded Mack’s Moving Training in an effort to share the insight he’s gained running a successful moving business with other owners. He has a YouTube channel, a Facebook Group (Running a Profitable Moving Company) and he recently released an ebook, 8 BIG Small Business Mistakes.
Here is an excerpt from that ebook containing three of the mistakes moving companies should avoid. Download the ebook to see all eight.
Three common mistakes made by moving companies:
1. Underestimating Project/Service Time
This is a big one and it pertains to the service side of your moving company. Service is the bread and butter of most moving businesses. If you don’t estimate your time to perform each and every service in your repertoire, you will get burned and there is little you can do about it but bite the bullet and learn from it. The best way to estimate time is to do it once yourself or watch your best employee do the task and then throw in a little fudge factor on top of it.
2. Not Knowing Your Company Numbers/Incorrectly Setting Prices
Notice I emphasized the word “your.” It’s a common mistake to use competitors in your area as your pricing gauge without actually knowing why they use those numbers. Think about the nightmare you will get yourself into if you take a competitor’s price, cut it by 10% and then start selling. What if the competition has a bad pricing structure and is barely making money, or even losing money? What if your costs are more than theirs? You can use competitors as a starting point, but you can’t base your whole strategy on them.
3. Not Charging for All of Your Time & Costs
This seems like a silly statement to some, but I bet most business owners will admit they have given away too much of the farm at times. There is nothing wrong with giving a little extra here and there to show you care. But either way, that’s not what I’m talking about here. What concerns me are those who put a lot of quality into their work or products or stores and do not cover the cost for it.
As an example, say you're running your moving business and your competitors don’t do a certain standard service that you do. You can’t just undercut their price to steal a job; you need to have that cost covered in your rate and advertise the fact that your price is your price upfront. Some moving owners undermine themselves, for example, when they put more people on the job for customer service or training purposes but don’t charge for it. These things cost you money and when your competitors don’t do them it costs them less money.
To read the rest of Dwyght Mack’s recent ebook, 8 BIG Small Business Mistakes, download it here. For more free resources that will help you grow your business, visit the learning center on the Mack’s Moving Training website.
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LiveSwitch Contact helps movers save time and book more jobs by simplifying virtual estimates. It’s a simple video solution that is widely used by moving companies for remote estimates, sales consultations and communicating with clients. The browser-based video tool allows moving companies to instantly text a meeting link to their shipper or prospect to start a one-on-one video call from any device. All calls can be recorded and shared for record-keeping, training and dispute resolution. Additionally, moving companies have the option to text a link to a prospect so they can record a survey of their space and upload it at their convenience. Learn more at https://www.liveswitch.com/contact.
