Two years ago [Dealers On The Move, OF&D Vol. 2, Issue 2], the head of the International Office Moving Institute (IOMI) promised big profits to dealers who diversified into office moving. Three who took Ed Katz’ advice report significant sales increases.
The Results
“Instead of following others by making cuts, reducing overhead, and playing it safe until the economy turned, Today’s Office asked clients what they needed,” said Rhonda Bradley, president. As a result, 2006 total sales are up 44.5 percent at the Little Rock, AR, Steelcase dealer.
In Cincinnati, revenue from office moves for 2006 will likely help push Loth sales past 2005, their best year ever. According to Tim Fritz, who handles relocation services sales for Loth, it’s also opening doors. “We’re turning moving customers into furniture customers.”
“They’re become uniquely known for solving their customers’ worst nightmares,” summarizes Ed Katz, founder and former owner of Peachtree Movers in Atlanta, GA. What makes office moving attractive? It’s a natural fit. Dealerships already have the vehicles, the operations staff, the customers, and go in and out of the same buildings. Controlling the entire process also helps to ease the pinch of getting the client into their new space by the deadline.
“The profit margin for moving services is higher than selling furniture because people are willing to pay for good service. We can charge for actual move time and actual material. It’s easier to protect profit margins because it’s billed differently,” remarked Bradley.
Steps to Success
1. Identify Needs
Today’s Office only had to listen to identify a service need it could easily fill. Round table discussions with leading design firms and long-standing clients pointed to new opportunities.
“Many of our clients had faced the difficulties of right sizing, relocating employees, and surplusing furniture, phones, and computers. It was easy to recognize needs. Our clients all wanted to sole source as many products and services as possible,” said Bradley, whose company serves central Arkansas.
Loth saw the writing on the wall a decade ago and started offering move management to build up its facility services and increase profitability.
“Few then offered it. Most still don’t,” said Fritz.
For more than 100 years, Loth has served the southwest Ohio area becoming its largest office furniture dealership and greater Cincinnati’s exclusive Steelcase distributor.
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2. Learn All You Can
Today’s Office spent a year evaluating move management opportunities and looking at training options. They discovered that only IOMI offered the kind of specialized training they needed.
“We found many movers but no true competitors, no one offering the training and professionalism that this program offered. Once we made the commitment, we never looked back.”
According to Bradley, IOMI’s training helped Today’s Office create an infrastructure with management controls to ensure consistent service. The metro-Atlanta based company also covers marketing, sales, and operations in its office moving training program. The opportunity to learn its proprietary formula, which produces uniform job estimates, has attracted the attention of moving companies worldwide.
Kevin Sturges, vice president of operations for Arbee Associates, confirms the need for formal project management training prompted their call to IOMI. “We were already doing office moving on a large scale but we wanted to raise our service level and achieve more consistency for our relocation management team.”
Headquartered in Gaithersburg, MD, Arbee Associates is an authorized Steelcase dealer for New York/New Jersey metro areas and the greater Washington, DC and Baltimore regions.
3. Purchase Equipment
IOMI training provides the specs for necessary equipment. Today’s Office purchased four-wheel dollies, panel carts, furniture blankets, plastic crates, antistatic bubble wrap, and additional vehicles.
“The pride of our 12-vehicle fleet are our two new International trucks with customized 24-foot boxes,” Bradley said. Custom lettering advertises move management as a Today’s Office service.
Arbee also added equipment. “We bought more electronic carts and plastic crates, which are a new trend in the last three years. For high-value tech moves, we have antistatic packing materials,” said Sturges.
4. Market Aggressively
After Arbee Associates put their relocation service in place they asked existing customers for the opportunity to compete.
“There are certain economies of scale, plus we’re already in the building and we have the trucks,” said Sturges. He also found that the IOMI-supplied Certified Project Manager logo and certificates earned by project managers effectively communicates the company’s expert status to clients. “We use Certified Project Manager certificates in presentations and feature certified |
logos in all of our proposals and on business cards and get a good response.” IOMI’s “why hire a certified mover” is part of Loth’s website marketing effort.
Today’s Office reports not only handling moves for long-standing furniture clients but having doors opened to competitive accounts.
“We’re now moving people first and selling furniture second. Some clients are moving but not buying furniture. They’re downsizing and have surplus furniture and we’re able to sell asset management services,” Bradley said.
5. Start Small
IOMI advocates starting small and going slow. Arbee started offering its move services to existing, friendly customers that supported the venture. Early on, Loth knew they could get the work but became disillusioned by the service failures of subcontracted movers, whose core household business left them ill-prepared for office moves particularly during the busy summer months.
“We didn’t have control and May-to-October service was even worse,” Fritz said.
Rather than ask employees to learn the moving business and risk the possible ill-effects on its furniture trade, Today’s Office went outside to hire move personnel.
Today’s Office stays busy with 15 to 20 person moves. “These keep our labor busy so we don’t lose them,” said Bradley. “We can work Monday through Friday evenings. We’ve become more efficient because of the estimating accuracy. It’s good for labor and good for the customer because they don’t give up their weekend and we don’t have to share building resources. We started small at Ed’s insistence but we are continuously expanding. Ed encouraged us to slow down and pay attention to every detail, a concept that really paid off.”
6. Commit to Ongoing Training
Arbee Associates handles ongoing training through routine operations meetings and plans to invest in more IOMI instruction when the number of new project managers warrants.
According to Bradley, recruiting and ongoing training are key to seeing leaders emerge from the ranks and for boosting morale. “Ed has been here on an average of every six months to support our training initiatives.”
When revenue was down at Loth, office moving training helped retain sales people. “They had the opportunity to learn the estimating formula to sell other services,” said Fritz, who with two decades of dealership experience in both operations and sales, recommends diversifying into office moves.
“It’s one of those few times in life when it’s not what it looks to be. It’s a tremendous opportunity for dealerships.” |
