A Moving Story

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Offering a helping hand paid off for young entrepreneur

 

By Celene Adams

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When Troy Willingham stopped by his elderly neighbor's apartment to take out her trash, he had no idea it would launch a new career.

Willingham, now president of ARM&D Inc., dba All Ready & All American Moving, was, at that time, struggling to pay his bills. And so he empathized with his neighbor, who told him how much moving companies were quoting her to move down the street.

"I said, 'Well that's crazy. I'll do it for half of that,'" he recalls.

After he completed the three-hour job, Willingham took his $600 check and, for the first time in a while, paid his bills on time.

"I got a taste of not only helping an individual, but being able to provide. At that point, I pursued a business license," he says.

But the would-be entrepreneur had mountains to move before he could make it work.

With no money and no financial backing, the then 26-year-old had only his feet to do the talking. So, Willingham walked -- from property to property in Rio Rancho's and Albuquerque's retirement communities -- the market he'd defined as his target.

"And I registered my small, small services on a net-thirty basis initially," he says. Net thirty means that he collects the monies for all jobs he does at the end of the month, rather than on a job-by-job basis.

Senior living establishment community property managers often offer their clients free move-ins to encourage them to sign long-term leases, Willingham explains. "I do the work up front and the [property managers'] corporate office mails me a check for services rendered. A lot of [moving] companies like to avoid the net-thirty basis, but I believe they're afraid of it because they're not confident in their service."

His strategy was to offer discounts to the seniors -- a market of 200,000 in Albuquerque alone, Willingham says.

It worked. By his third year, he'd made more than $400,000 and large organizations, such as the Bernalillo District Court were contacting him with moving requests.

But then Willingham had a setback. He discovered that to offer his discounts legally, he needed a statewide license from the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission. His basic business license was not sufficient.

"It's very hard to get approved. When I found this out, my company was in jeopardy because I realized I didn't have what I needed," Willingham says.

The New Mexico Warehouseman's Association requires all moving companies to have $1 million in liability insurance, $2 million aggregate, and $10,000 worth of cargo coverage, he adds.

Despite having served between 4,000 and 5,000 clients, 3,800 of whom were seniors, Willingham still could not afford the license.

So, he had to shut down. He was out of business for six months.

But then, fortune smiled upon him -- twice.

First, a seniors' community, hearing of his plight, approached the National Republican Congressional Committee. "I don't know who it was, but they nominated me for the national leadership award in 2003," Willingham says.

Up until that point, he hadn't thought of himself as a leader, he says. But, "As a result of that, I hold one of six chairs in Washington, D.C. on the Business Advisory Council. I'm an honorary chairman."

Next, a private investor offered to buy him an existing state-wide license valued at $110,000. While the investor offered Willingham a marginal interest rate, there was a catch: Willingham had to raise $25,000 of the money.

To do so, the ingenious Willingham turned to his carpentry skills, making Southwestern-style furniture and selling it roadside. Seven months later, he'd earned the funds and obtained the license for a company called All American Moving.

He was back in business.

"From that day on, I paid myself $450 a week and made between $25,000 and $50,000 a month," Willingham says.

If the salary he allotted himself seems low, Willingham explains that, despite expected revenues of $750,000 this year, he's been operating at a loss for the last four years.

That's because he pours all his revenues back into the business -- a practice he intends to continue doing for the next five years.

"It costs to breathe," Willingham, who says his only profits are in assets, sighs.

For instance, he's purchased five, 24-foot closed box trucks, a flat-bed truck, three cranes and a roll-o lift for moving anything over 10,000 pounds, such as safes or hospital equipment.

Training is also a revenue drain.

"With my Master Mover [safety courses] and the time on the clock, with all the policies and all the actual handbooks, I'd say, just to be able to do it properly, we're looking at $5,000 and that's just what I had to buy to be able to train my movers ... I had 85 employees [in 2004] and I trained every one of them and I have 14 who are still here.

Turnover in the moving business is high, Willingham says, but, at least in his case, it's not because of low pay. "I pay my workers ... almost double minimum wage -- starting [pay]." He also has comprehensive medical benefits and plans, next year, to offer a 401K plan. However, "I'd say only one out of every 30 applicants are qualified or have enough endurance [to be movers]," he says.

Consequently, training is often "a complete loss. But ... to be a respectable and reputable business, it is my duty to provide trained professionals. That's the law," he says.

Daily truck inspections are also required by law, Willingham adds. "It takes a lot of time and my mechanic is very expensive ... I have a mechanic on staff 24 hours a day. That's not what's required, but that's what I require."

Other up front expenses include fuel, labor, payroll, insurance, and packing supplies -- "the customer doesn't pay me first so I can go and get the boxes. It just doesn't work that way. I spend maybe $5,000 a month on packing supplies and I don't make a profit on them. I sell them at cost," Willingham says.

Providing packing supplies at cost is just one of the perks Willingham offers to customers.

"We provide all tools. Whatever we disassemble, we put back together. We waive stair fees for [all discounted groups] and shrink film [shrink wrap] the furniture."

Other companies, Willingham says, might use shrink film but "they shrink the piece up with no pad and then they drag it out the door and then if you're lucky, they'll lay a pad over the piece of furniture so they can stack something heavy on top of it ... What we do is, we lay the pad on the furniture [while we're] inside ... All wood surfaces, glass, drawers, doors, they're all tucked in."

There are several reasons, besides getting an edge on his competitors, that Willingham does this. "One is, we shrink film the pad to the furniture to keep the pad where it's supposed to be. Two, we use it so the drawers do not slide in or out. So that saves the customer frustration and money in packing their dressers."

In other words, customers can leave their clothes in the drawers. This makes a big difference, Willingham says, because it means the customer doesn't pay the mover to pack the clothes, or to unpack them upon arrival.

And then there are his discounts. After buying the PRC license, Willingham began offering discounted rates, not only to seniors, but also to school teachers, firefighters, police officers, active military, students, and the disabled. "Eighty-five to ninety percent of my customers are seniors, [the] disabled or veterans," Willingham says.

A standard hourly rate for two men and a truck, for instance, is $84, Willingham says. He offers it for $75.

"I take that $9 loss easily because it keeps my men busy."

But perks and discounts are only part of Willingham's strategy. He also prides himself on being able to move just about anything.

"I bought $80,000 of cargo coverage -- $70,000 in excess of what's required. So I can move grand pianos, hot tubs, pool tables, Intel machinery. We move anything and everything -- [even] airplanes. There is nothing that we have run into yet that we could not [move]."

He also specializes in moving antiques: grandfather clocks, marble-top buffets and 150-year-old Dutch china cabinets, for example.

"I am very, very familiar with antiques because I worked for an antique auction house ... And when these trailers came in with antiques, they never came in one piece because the old furniture manufacturers made [it] so it could be disassembled. So they always came in pieces. They were like jigsaw puzzles. We had to put all the furniture together. So I'm very familiar with French antiques, English antiques, Dutch antiques, marble tops, slate, you name it," he says. "My next target market," Willingham says, "is the deaf community. There are 20,000 deaf individuals just in Albuquerque."

He became aware of the niche by fluke. Fed up with high turnover rates among his employees and with employees who "didn't listen," Willingham decided to hire the deaf mother of one of his existing employees. He thought, "I don't care if I have to write on a pad with a pencil, as long as you're reliable for my clients ... then I don't have a problem with going the extra mile taking time to communicate with you."

When [Albuquerque's Community Outreach Program for the Deaf] heard that he'd hired a deaf person, they sent an interpreter to help. That led to more hiring. Willingham now has three deaf people on staff -- a move that motivated him to pay for training in American Sign Language for his entire staff.

Willingham's dreams are as big as his drive. He's planning to open a new office in Santa Fe by this October and he's eyeing a couple of locations for a new warehouse so that he can begin catering to the storage market.

"I plan on having storage facilities in every state in the nation. I want to be able to provide a short-term storage option for my clients."

Storage scams are one of the most common complaints about moving companies, says Jerry Shipman, president of the New Mexico Better Business Bureau. Shipman says moving companies have been known to lowball the price of services up front but then demand more upon delivery, whereupon they charge to keep goods in storage if they don't receive payment.

Willingham charges a flat rate, so that's not an issue. However, his plan is to ensure that if customers do need storage, they'll only pay for what they use, without getting stuck with a contract.

He also wants to target the office industry -- to move offices and then to clean them. (He already offers home and office cleaning to complement his moving services.) And, he wants to get into the crating industry.

"My ultimate goal is to be a worldwide moving and relocation services [company] through my freight ... and the crating contacts I have with air freight. I want to be able to send your Ferrari to Japan." However, special licenses are required to do international moving, Willingham says, licenses he doesn't have -- not yet anyway.