[00:00:00.000] – Mickey Serebnitski
All right. Ladies and gentlemen, I want to introduce you to Colby Kiss. First podcast show, Beyond Page One, episode one, season one. My name is Mickey. I’m the host of Beyond Page One. The purpose of Page One as a podcast is to interview business leaders in the community and go beyond page one, go beyond the cover of the book, so to speak, to understand their successes, and failures in business so that we can give back to the community and they can hopefully listen and learn from us. Colby is not only a good friend of mine but is somebody that I look up to. He and I talk weekly about business, fun, about pleasure. His story is truly inspiring. He went from firefighting to training to conduct to being an entrepreneur running a successful business. Happy to have you here, Colby.
[00:00:45.960] – Colby Kiss
Thanks for having me. What an intro.
[00:00:47.130] – Mickey Serebnitski
Awesome. Yeah, thanks, man. Tell us a little bit about what sparked your passion for the moving industry to begin with.
[00:00:52.040] – Colby Kiss
I had jumped around a few different jobs, and I was firefighting and then also doing some training there. It wasn’t my thing. Weren’t the industries I wanted to be in. Didn’t like how management worked in those job scenarios there. It led me to being laid off with CN and willing to hunt. I would say a bit of an older age where some of my friends were figuring out their careers. I met my co-owner. We dove in. He owned a storage facility and got the idea to start a moving company with it. I was lucky to have him. I guess that’s it. Just seeing an industry that was very dated, could use some help, and the clients could use some help as well with bringing in some newer and fresher blood and newer ideas as well. I think those are all things Total Moving was done, and now to add even more of that to the industry as well.
[00:01:42.120] – Mickey Serebnitski
That’s awesome. I’m excited to hear about the acquisitions, and we’ll get to them. When thinking about the Winnipeg moving landscape, I’ve used it before and I’ve had that experience, and I’ve also used you guys, and I’ve had great experience. When it comes to the Winnipeg moving landscape, it seems bustling in terms of data and then new people coming on the seen. What void did you identify when you guys created that company? What void did you see that led to the creation of Total Moving?
[00:02:08.660] – Colby Kiss
I had helped manage another company before, and a thing they had was every person top to bottom in that business, called Calculated Moving, they’re still a great moving company. I’d recommend people get quotes from them just as much as I’d recommend them to get quotes from us.
[00:02:24.480] – Mickey Serebnitski
Quick shout-out. I like it.
[00:02:26.200] – Colby Kiss
It’s all love. I love the people who continue to work with us and figure out the stuff of their competition. From working with them, I noticed that one thing they had going for them was they had great people top to bottom. Lots of moving companies do. That’s not something that just no other moving company has. But top to bottom, their lowest or newest mover on the totem pole to their owners and management, they were very good people and honest people and cared about their clients. Very approachable, too. I carried forward that within total moving. Then a thing I found lacking with all moving companies, especially within Manitoba, was their use of tech for their CRMs for clients, the software they’re using to get quotes out faster, or whatever it may be. I think those two things coincided so well together to start Total Moving that it’s helped us grow immensely and quickly. Then besides that, I’d say we found some niche opportunities for business-to-business clients that people weren’t necessarily reaching out to. We did lots of work with Property management when we started even some restoration companies where maybe moving companies don’t think of these clients to reach out to.
[00:03:37.510] – Colby Kiss
We found very great work with them, and whether it be their tenants or their clients, it worked well.
[00:03:42.090] – Mickey Serebnitski
I remember when I got a quote from you guys and I filled everything out through your site, through the system that you use. It was really cool and super easy to use. You select how many beds you have, the size of them, the mattress, dressers, and it just instantly spits out a quote. And then the follow-up was really good, too. It might be automated. Maybe I don’t know if it was automated or not, but it made me feel exactly what you’re talking about, exactly how much time it’s going to take, whether it’s a kilometer to drive from your office to my place and back to my new place. It was seamless. It was cool. Good on you for introducing that.
[00:04:13.900] – Colby Kiss
Yeah, for completely incorrect information from the customer. But in most cases, those customers understand that they were in a rush to get it set up. We figure it out on the go. That’s what we have to do in this industry. But no, our follow-ups aren’t automated as well. We want to keep a personal touch on it. We could automate We choose not to, though. We do have a follow-up section of our CRM that prompts our salespeople to follow up with their clients. Whether that’s via call, text, or email, it adds a bit more of a personal touch when they’re reaching out and we can tell the messages aren’t all the same. That’s awesome.
[00:04:44.930] – Mickey Serebnitski
That’s the way to do it. I think even in my business as well, we lean on automation a lot, but from a sales perspective, coming in and just being authentic, whether it’s just a quick text or a quick call, Hey, did you get that proposal? I just want to make sure that you got it in your email take it one step further in the journey and build rapport with the client. That’s awesome that you’re doing that.
[00:05:06.340] – Colby Kiss
I would say, too, you mentioned the quote there, just to touch on that as well. It’s nice because someone like you gets the tech and everything, that email comes to you, and you can toss in your inventory. It is simple, but as we deal with some of the older demographics and probably our primary client base right now, lots of them still don’t know how to use those tools. We’re still very open to taking the phone call and typing in each piece of inventory individually, or if they can send pictures, we can do that. If they prefer to write up a list, send us a picture, whatever works. Customer doesn’t work for everyone. The customer is always first.
[00:05:36.510] – Mickey Serebnitski
Yeah, the customer is always first. I like that. With growth comes complexity. I’ve experienced it. I’m sure you’re experiencing it. Can you share some of the scaling strategies for expanding your moving business and your storage business and what the biggest scaling challenges that you’ve had?
[00:05:55.050] – Colby Kiss
I think there are a couple of strategies that I’ve used personally. I know my co-owner, Sean Hebert, has helped me a lot with the time. He’s got a few different businesses in and outside of the moving and storage sectors. But number one would have been having good mentors, not only Sean, but I’ve had him, my mentor out of Toronto, who’s strictly my moving mentor, Peter McCala. Then more recently, we have Terry Kerlecki who’s sticking around with us from the acquisition we just made of the Globe Moving. Any problem that comes through the front door or that I had no idea how to deal with when these businesses were started, I had Peter to turn to run it by him, and I can answer those issues or problems as if I had been in the industry for 40 years because I had someone directing me through it. I think clients grew to appreciate that. I appreciated it, too. It was needed. Another part of that is, that I think We’ll jump into the acquisition a little bit, but the purchase of the globe led us to the globe moving in storage led us to new problems and new situations that may arise.
[00:06:54.010] – Colby Kiss
Bigger business, bigger problems. But I think diving headfirst into it is the best way to deal with it as well. Those problems are going to come up. Still have the mentors to help me out with any situations that come in. If you want to scale quickly, go buy a business that’s bigger than yours. That’s how you scale. It’s been hockey stick growth for Total Moving, and now these acquisitions have led us to make a name for ourselves in the moving industry here, which is great.
[00:07:21.650] – Mickey Serebnitski
With this most recent acquisition of Globe, when you guys came in, were they a little bit more dated? Are you bringing them up to speed on the current tech and everything that Total Moving is doing? Are you integrating the two? Or are you keeping them a little bit more separate?
[00:07:35.990] – Colby Kiss
They’re separate for right now. Total Moving gets deemed a heading mover that’s helping us out with our SEO. No one is better than First Rank. But yeah, they’re a little more dated. They’ve been around for 40 years. Total Moving has been around for three, right? So we do things very differently, and there have been learning curves to go along with that. But me being the Director of Business Development, it’s been nice to have that. There hasn’t been a ton of pushback. That’s thanks to Tarek or Luki for sticking on after hopping out of the ownership role and selling to us. It was a pretty pen-and-paper business, but there’s a reason they’ve been around for so long and doing the dollar figures they are, is because they’ve held on to good clients that have used them in the past. A good mix of learning the older style of moving and the older style of handling the situations they deal with, along with adding our tech, marketing, and our different initiatives should lead us on a good path into the future is what we’re hoping for sure.
[00:08:30.440] – Mickey Serebnitski
I like that answer. It’s awesome. Quality control seems to come up often in my line of work. For you, how do you ensure that quality? How do you ensure quality control while maintaining this growth in business and this acquisition and the hiring? It seems like a lot is going on, and a lot can go wrong. There’s a lot of moving pieces.
[00:08:52.770] – Colby Kiss
Yeah, I can. You’re always going to have problems. For us, the problems are inevitable. You’re going to go in and your movers are going to They’re going to accidentally drop the dresser on a job. The odd mirror is going to be broken. But it’s standardizing policies, which granted, we’re working on. We are not perfect at it, but I don’t think that my favorite thing to do is policy writing or creating SOPs, but it’s necessary, especially at the levels of business we’re now starting to get to. Then besides that, it’s putting the right people in the right places. You put people you trust in the spots and you let them grow, allow them to grow within your business. They’re going to take control, be able to help things out for you, and be your eyes. It’s a big learning curve for me, especially, again, with this acquisition of the globe not being around told moving as much. I realized when it comes to my sales staff, my operations staff, and just the movers themselves, they stepped up. It’s made it a really, I shouldn’t say easy transition, but they’ve made it easier on me than I think I expected it to be and probably realized they don’t need to micromanage and do all the oversight that I might have been doing before.
[00:09:56.670] – Colby Kiss
That I didn’t even realize. Yeah, I think that would be it. Standardizing your procedures and putting the right people in the right roles are all easier said than done.
[00:10:04.020] – Mickey Serebnitski
Finding good people is difficult, but I found that hiring people who are smarter than me or who have different skill sets is very helpful. For example, if you give me an Excel spreadsheet, I don’t know what I’m doing. Me too. A lot of part of our business is managing data, understanding it, and having some correlation analysis done. That’s not what I’m good at. I’m good with people. Hiring the right type of people to come in and help me with my weaknesses, and then it builds on our business. So I can see where you’re coming from with that. It’s a lot of misconceptions that people have about the movers and the moving industry as a whole. What are some common misconceptions that people may have when hiring a moving company?
[00:10:48.610] – Colby Kiss
Probably still lingers that we’re all crooks. We’re all just trying to take your stuff and you’re never going to see it again, and then we’re going to upcharge you. Yeah, I don’t think, or you’re going to come in, they’re going to damage everything. That might happen if you don’t do your due diligence. I always reference saying, you have to be careful if you’re hiring a Kujiji mover or something like that. But there are Kujiji movers out there that I’m sure are good too. Do your due diligence. They’re not all corrupt. 75% of the people there are. What am I trying to say? There are probably more, I don’t know what the term would be, sketchy people in this industry than some other ones. It is like an industry where you can get fly-by-night movers or people We’re going to start a business tomorrow with this. Technically, there’s not a ton of skilled labor to it, but there is if you’re hiring the right company. I would say you want to do your due diligence on who you’re hiring. You want to make sure that the person is friendly from the first phone call to the salespeople. Trust me, that goes top to bottom.
[00:11:48.150] – Colby Kiss
Don’t be afraid to ask them certain questions like, What’s going to happen if something does break on my move? That’s a good one to put the salesman on the spot so that you get a good answer. If you don’t get a good answer, it’s probably a sign you shouldn’t use that movement company. If it’s any client, I’d say, Do their due diligence. We’re not all crooks. People are genuinely trying to show up and not break your stuff and move it most respectfully. Yeah.
[00:12:09.190] – Mickey Serebnitski
It sounds to me like doing the due diligence, looking at the website, whatever it is, the reviews, What are some things that you’ve done for your business to ensure brand awareness, but also how do I put this? Being sure that people know that you do a good job, right?
[00:12:25.410] – Colby Kiss
Yeah. Google reviews is a good one, too. Should I add about it in there? Make sure the company has quality Google reviews. The more of them they have, the more real those numbers are going to be. Some things we do. Sorry, what was the question there?
[00:12:38.160] – Mickey Serebnitski
What is it that you do? Do you ask for feedback from clients? How do you build your online reputation? Yeah, for sure.
[00:12:44.220] – Colby Kiss
Ask for Feedback after every job, we’re sending another review link. Whether it’s good or bad, most customers will come to us if something does go wrong. We’ve got a claims process to help take care of any damages that may come up. Or let’s be real, sometimes the job goes out, work order, guys just move for nine hours in a day, maybe the time’s wrong. That goes both ways. Sometimes we get to get in touch with the customer, have an awkward conversation, and say, Hey, our guy’s unfortunately underbilled. It’s tough to blame them. They’re out there working hard. We’re lucky enough that our staff can go on-site and bill correctly 90% of the time. Those conversations can come up. Then, yeah, we’re not afraid. We’re out there on socials. People know where to reach us, I think, is a big thing, too. We try to build a sense of community within our client base by being on socials, by being all over Google, and by being relevant and out there. People know where they can reach out to us. If they have a problem, they can reach out to us by calling us, emailing us, reach out to us through socials, you’re going to get an answer.
[00:13:43.580] – Colby Kiss
Those are all the different methods of feedback.
[00:13:48.000] – Mickey Serebnitski
If I were to hire a moving company, what are three non-negotiable things that I should be looking at when hiring a moving company?
[00:13:54.880] – Colby Kiss
I think the first one I went over already. When I started ghost-calling, let’s say, that’s what we did. We ghost-called other moving companies just to see how they would handle a phone call or whatever. They were just rude to me right off at the start of the phone call, I was like, This isn’t how you should be starting the conversation with your client’s face. There’s quite a bit of that out there. I think, again, that runs from top to bottom. If you’re going to get someone rude on the phone, there’s a good chance they’re going to show up and their movers are going to show up and they might be rude to you in person, too. You want to be careful of that. Another thing I check is the social proofing aspect. Is on socials. Are they hiding or are they a pretty out-there company? We’re more out there than I would say most other moving companies in Manitoba when it comes to socials and whatnot. That doesn’t mean we’re the best or anything. I like to think we are. But find somebody who’s not afraid to post here and there even.
[00:14:47.600] – Colby Kiss
They’re not hiding completely from socials or means of contact. That’s where things can get a little iffy. Check Google reviews. I think I went over all these already. But yeah, definitely Don’t be afraid to ask tough questions of this initial phone call. Ask about how they’re going to handle damages. Ask about if this quote runs long, what happens? Am I going to get charged? You’re quoting me at seven hours. If it runs 10 because I forgot to add some stuff, am I going to be charged over time? Yeah, get all the answers you need right off the hop. I think people are hesitant and scared to ask because of the clichés that follow the moving industry, but you want to know the answers to the questions right away, and there’s no confusion there.
[00:15:26.110] – Mickey Serebnitski
Yeah, 100%. I think the social proof is a huge part of it.
[00:15:30.900] – Colby Kiss
Absolutely.
[00:15:31.760] – Mickey Serebnitski
Yeah. Even myself, after I work with a client for a certain amount of time and I know they’re happy, it’s just, Hey, just leave me a review, give me a referral, whatever it is, to continue to build that relationship. Because if you do good work for somebody, oftentimes, they’re happy to share it. But they just ask. Simple as asking the question, right?
[00:15:48.040] – Colby Kiss
I think it’s a little bit off-topic, but another side of this, too, is a few business groups I’ve been to with speakers and marketing and whatnot as well. It’s not so much even just the social proofing side of social media. Social Media is now, it’s transactional. Everybody goes and they buy their clothes off an ad they see from Facebook or something like that. For us, we need to be on top of this because though the moving industry is dated, it’s probably not as transactional as, again, buying a T-shirt or something offline. Right now for the moving industry, it’s going to be. We want to be ahead of the game there. There’s a company that people know when they go to book that move and they’re finding our Instagram as opposed to looking us up on Google or looking up Best Movers, To me, that’s the future. If we can do it organically right now, as opposed to, this is a little off-topic, but as opposed to waiting and trying to figure it all out when people are strictly buying off of TikTok, Instagram, or whatever it may be, then that’s why we’re on there, along with providing that community for our client base.
[00:16:47.670] – Mickey Serebnitski
Yeah, it’s really interesting. I’m from the world of direct response marketing, where it’s all about Google. Oh, it’s still taken. I don’t take into consideration a lot of the social platforms where you can buy and sell something on Facebook, Instagram, or whatever through ads. Do you guys get a decent amount of leads or have close business from social media? Does anyone ever come in through your Instagram and, Hey, saw your guys at, or saw your story or whatever? Would be interested in getting a quote from you. Here’s my number.
[00:17:17.700] – Colby Kiss
Does that happen? It’s not as relevant right now. Again, for us, it’s not as relevant for the moving industry as it is for someone buying a T-shirt. But it is starting to go that way and you see it more, especially me being a younger business owner. It’s lots of people reaching out to my personal Instagram. I find it even more so than our business, Instagram or Facebook. It’s my personal where I get the message because people associate the brand with myself as of right now. But yeah, I think it might not even be Instagram or TikTok by the time this comes to flourish for the moving company. It might be some new app because it might be 10 to 20 years away. Yeah, some AI thing where you’re talking to it. I have no idea. But yeah, I think it’s I think it’s important. Don’t worry, Mickey, Google is still king, and I think it’s been a long time. Good, man.
[00:18:05.030] – Mickey Serebnitski
I can still pay my bills then. Yeah.
[00:18:06.920] – Colby Kiss
Will you say that socials don’t impact what we’ve learned from you guys? Social media don’t necessarily impact our Google SEO, right?
[00:18:14.270] – Mickey Serebnitski
Yeah. There isn’t an indirect correlation to having social media. There’s an indirect benefit. For example, if you post something on your story, they hop onto your page, and then from your Instagram page, they’ll go to your website. Once they’re on your website, if they start interacting with the content, they fill out a form, that’s a good signal for Google. But Google doesn’t know that they came necessarily from the social to your website. There’s no bridge there, which is often a misconception. People think, Oh, I need to build up my social media presence. It’s going to help me rank. Not necessarily.
[00:18:46.660] – Colby Kiss
Yeah. Sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead. Yeah, I know. The way I would see it happening is I would say, let’s say 70% of our client base comes through Google Ads, all these different streams of advertising through Google or just organic through the help of you guys at First Rank. But for us, I think that’s the part of it where it’s okay, we’re 95% sure we’re going to hire this company based on the first phone call and finding them on Google. Then it may turn into, do they have a social media account? If I was the customer, I would look at that, especially for something as big as moving my item. That’s where I think there are those indirect lines where maybe you’ll never find a way to confirm that because they’ll tell you they found you on Google as opposed to socials. And they did. But maybe it’s the social media that takes some more-That led them to go to Google in the first place. That’s where we put the time in, exactly. Or vice versa, they found it after Google. That’s why we put time into all of those different methods of lead building, and lead generation.
[00:19:46.410] – Mickey Serebnitski
This isn’t a marketing podcast, but there are a lot of things that we, yeah, here we go. We could talk about what we do that’s cool. A lot of stuff that I’ve seen where it’s people interact with your ad, and then they go to a completely different website. They’ll be scrolling on Kajiji, and There’s a banner or display ad of Total Moving. It’s always keeping it in the forefront. But back to social media for a second. Sure. You guys are quite active on social media. I follow you on social media. Some of the content that you put out is some of it’s educational, and some of it’s hilarious. You have your guys doing push-ups and plank challenges. Who’s driving that content?
[00:20:18.420] – Colby Kiss
It’s me a bit. I’m coming up with ideas. Nowadays, the managing of people, I have a lot less time for it, which sucks because it’s probably one of my favorite things to do within business. As things level out we begin to, again, standardize these businesses. I’ll probably delve back into it more. But I have to give the credit to our Marketing Manager, Colin. He’s amazing. He takes care of it for us. He’s coming up with the majority of the ideas. When you put my ugly mug on camera and make them work. Credit to our guys, too. I shouldn’t just give credit to Colin. They’re willing to pop in a picture for us. They’re willing to like, Oh, yeah, I’ll put a GoPro on. Something new we’re trying to hear is, I’ll put a GoPro on and show a whole move and we’ll cut it into a minute. Yeah, that’s fine. Neat stuff like that. You get some employees that don’t want to do that, and that’s fine. You can be a great employee and not want to do social media. But we’ve been lucky at Troll moving with a bit of a younger client or an employee base that they want to be a part of and they like it.
[00:21:18.600] – Colby Kiss
The random little push-up challenges, playing Trivia challenges that we’re doing. It’s nice that it’s enjoyed because they’re not fun if everyone’s in a downer move for them. We have some other stuff coming up. I’ll give you a sneak peek.
[00:21:29.280] – Mickey Serebnitski
I’m excited. I’m excited to see it, man. I always love seeing your content. Honestly, it gives me ideas for content for us, too.
[00:21:35.390] – Colby Kiss
It’s perfect. There you go. Steal it all, man. Steal it all. It’s easy, right? People think you have to come up with all these new ideas. For instance, we just filmed a moving spelling bee, which was hilarious. I was out in the first round. I’ll give you a sneak peek teaser there. I couldn’t spell. I can’t remember what the word was, but it’s embarrassing. Being able to put yourself out there. We got that idea from, I think it was Barstool, I saw it on, where they took 30 of their staff and put them in a spelling bee, It was like, We got to do this on an off day where we’re not as busy for total moving. The guys laid it up. It was awesome when we filmed those three pieces of content. I was walking around with my staff and we had just gone through a crazy, I think it was December month end, somewhere around there. Everyone was a little down, everyone was busy, beat up from all the moving. We had this slow day and we did this filming, and everyone was so like, it’s nice to hear, Oh, this is the best day of work I’ve ever had.
[00:22:25.790] – Colby Kiss
This is so fun buzzing around the office. It’s a little chaotic. Yeah, it’s Those are the days that you live for. Moving is fun, but it’s not always as fun as that stuff.
[00:22:33.930] – Mickey Serebnitski
Yeah, it keeps excitement and it keeps people engaged. It makes it a fun work environment through the culture of it.
[00:22:39.210] – Colby Kiss
That’s right. Cool.
[00:22:40.860] – Mickey Serebnitski
One of the last questions I have here is my favorite client story.
[00:22:53.380] – Colby Kiss
Yeah. I don’t know. It’s okay. All right. Lots of great clients. Some of our B2B business, I like, I want to do work with people I like doing work with. In general, I think that everyone’s goal is to get to a point where they get to a point where they are working with only people they like. When it comes to, I guess I won’t name businesses we work with, but there are a few where it’s just they’re great people. It’s like when I see them out at market business events or if I’m taking them out to a jet game or dinner or something, I enjoy my time with them and the stories they tell me and what’s going on in their lives. That’s nice to have on a residential level. I had one client specific that has always stuck out, and I hadn’t thought about it in a year and a half. This guy’s name was Leon Johnson, and he lived in this mansion house. We had started our company two weeks ago, and somehow he found us on Google or heard our name, and he was in his 70s.
[00:23:50.430] – Colby Kiss
He was like, Hey, can you come provide a quote? I’m like, Oh, we’re trying to do this online thing. I was naive thinking, quote, every job online, and never having to show up to a house. Then I walked in his place for this quote. Yeah, this guy’s got a crazy amount of stuff. But look, he wasn’t a hoarder or anything. He just had crazy amounts of stuff because his house was so big and everything. I’m like, Oh, boy. At this point, we were only running a little 16-foot truck. I’m like, I am in over my head on this one. But this was the nicest man ever. I remember I left and he had one of those fish that you put up on your wall, and he’s like, You got to take this with you after a three-hour chat about his time in the film industry. I was like, This is crazy. He built that confidence for me to go somebody and just be myself as opposed to trying to sell somebody something all the time. Then we completed his move over four or five days at that time. If I’m being honest, a moving company that was in the game for a long time probably would have had it done in two, but this guy wanted to hire us.
[00:24:47.050] – Colby Kiss
He didn’t even want a quote from anybody else after our initial talk. I guess my favorite client, would be one of them, Mr. Leon Johnson. Then I looked them up yesterday, prepping for this, and found out he had passed away. Rest in Mr. Leon there. Yeah, he wishes he would reach out to those clients because they helped me build what you built. Yeah, but I don’t want to talk about it anymore because that made me sad yesterday.
[00:25:08.300] – Mickey Serebnitski
No, that’s fair. Yeah, I’m sorry to hear that. It’s interesting how people come into our lives in such a small manner, especially. Just a client. He just moved his stuff. You had a really good chat with him, but he left such a big impact on you. He just like, right place, right time, met him. That’s right. Did a good job for him, got good feedback from him, and instilled a lot of confidence to be where you are today.
[00:25:29.360] – Colby Kiss
Yeah, for sure.
[00:25:30.220] – Mickey Serebnitski
It’s cool just to look back at it and think, Okay, don’t take for granted the one client that you had or even the asshole client that you have sometimes. They’ll teach you something.
[00:25:38.270] – Colby Kiss
It’s the next one great. But yeah, then I was thankful for the question because I looked back at it yesterday and it made me realize, Okay, what are some of the things that we built this company around? It got me thinking in more of, again, a business sense after letting me feel the emotions of how much that sucked. But yeah, in a business sense, it got me thinking about some of the things we did back then that made us very quickly with total moving, whether that’s just the way we treat the customers or sending photos of our movers before we showed up that we’ve fallen off with a little bit. These procedures can just as easily fall off from the time you start building them. Yeah, sometimes it’s good to reflect and look back a little bit and take a second to breathe and realize things are going pretty well. Awesome. Very cool.
[00:26:21.780] – Mickey Serebnitski
I have a couple more questions here. Some of them which you already have answered just through the conversation that we’ve been having. One thing that I wanted to talk to you about is some marketing channels that you guys have used, whether it’s ads, SEO, Instagram, Facebook, or networking events. What has worked best for you and what do you see continuing to work well for you?
[00:26:42.320] – Colby Kiss
Yeah, I think I love that you brought up networking events there. For some reason, that never pops into my mind. The in-person stuff never comes top front of mind because when you’re in an office, you’re always talking about social media. That’s your Google ads you’re paying for, SEO you’re paying for, right? Because that’s coming out of the budget, right? But yeah, you and you are in a few business groups together there, whether that’s BNIs or PPMAs. I think those are great. You have to be able to put yourself out there. You can grow your business to a certain level without putting yourself out there at all, too, and just doing great quality work. But I think the business is that you can almost be, I’m not saying this in Total Moving’s case, but you can almost be not as good of a business but have people trust and rely on you, rely on you a little more if you are putting yourself out there and you’re building friendships along with clientele. I think that’s important, again, to pump you guys up and pump the tires. SEO is huge. We need to know how to manage it ourselves and the tools you’ve given, more so my Marketing Manager, to stay on top of our website.
[00:27:38.960] – Colby Kiss
I think organically would be the right way to say it.
[00:27:41.620] – Mickey Serebnitski
Yeah.
[00:27:42.820] – Colby Kiss
That’s been huge. Go to the first rank for all your SEO needs. If I can throw in a little ad, if you were going to take one clip away, it’ll be me saying, Use first rank. Talk to Mickey.
[00:27:51.590] – Mickey Serebnitski
I have to give you a discount next month. That’s fine.
[00:27:54.010] – Colby Kiss
Yeah, no bills for the year. There we go. Then, yeah, the classic stuff, our Google Ads, stuff I’ve already spoken on socials. Yeah. Yeah, those will be all the ways we’re marketing.
[00:28:04.020] – Mickey Serebnitski
Any emerging trends that you foresee transforming the moving industry in the next five years? Yes.
[00:28:10.290] – Colby Kiss
Yeah, it’s interesting. It’s funny to say this because everyone, as we move forward here, wants their quotes faster. They want to talk less like we were speaking. But I mentioned how the personal touch is very important. My thing right now is I’m figuring out how to incorporate AI into the moving industry. People are catching up to us in regards to CRMs, all these different social proofing tools, and whatever it might be, client management software that they’re using. I think we were ahead of the game a little bit on that in Manitoba to start catching up. What’s next? I would say it’s got to It’s going to be AI and whatnot. If we’re away from, I think it’s going to take over for VAs, if you’re away from virtual assistance, if you’re away from the office in the evening or weekends, or whatever it may be. We’re implementing some tools right away that, yeah, my goal is one day these things can build us and it’s all on their own. Then if we’re away from the office, we come in with that personal touch at the end and ensure this AI component is building the estimate properly.
[00:29:11.240] – Colby Kiss
There’s always going to be that human element that needs to be had with people’s goods, I think. But I don’t want to give away too much of the secret sauce, but that’s something I’m working on big time. It’s probably not a bad thing to give away the secret sauce, if you will because everyone’s going to do it eventually. We just want to do it first.
[00:29:28.850] – Mickey Serebnitski
I think we’re at a time right now where things can go so much better, so much worse. This AI stuff is really powerful. It’s terrifying. It’s a little scary, man.
[00:29:41.260] – Colby Kiss
It’s a little scary. But I got to use it. I got to use it.
[00:29:43.320] – Mickey Serebnitski
If you can’t beat them, join them.
[00:29:44.860] – Colby Kiss
We’re in the beginning stages of all this, and this is probably if any person that’s in the tech industry at all listens to this podcast, they’re probably going to be like, Oh, this is not new news. But to me, I was mind blown. We’re implementing this thing, and it will speak. Customers will call in. Let’s say we miss their call, it goes to voicemail. We’re going to get their voicemail right away, and this thing may start texting. I don’t even know what to term it. This is how new it is. But this AI will start texting them. We were playing around with it a bit, and it gathered all the move info and sent us a lead. It’s incredible. But then I was texting it after. A friend of mine was texting it over and We’ve had a drink or whatever there. She messaged it and said, Oh, also, I don’t have legs. Can you move me? Then my email sent a brilliant response back about how that’s not something we normally do, but we will see how we can assist or try and find other methods.
[00:30:49.990] – Colby Kiss
It sent me an email saying, Hey, this client is, a very high-priority client, we think they’re a 10 out of 10 based on the move info they’re giving us, and so this client does not have legs. It sounds crazy, but yeah, this client does not have legs, so we will need to take extra care with this client. Is what this thing is sitting right beside her in a matter of five minutes. That’s wild. It sounds like this is nuts. It’s intuitive. Yeah. I don’t know where it all leads. Yeah, credit to them, I don’t think you’d mind me sharing his name, Jared Kozak, who’s frontline in this crazy thing we’re looking at doing. Crazy to me anyway, but yeah, it’s exciting. I think that’s the future, and we’re excited for it. It’s cool.
[00:31:30.790] – Mickey Serebnitski
Cool. What advice would you, Colby, give to someone who’s considering starting their own moving company in today’s market?
[00:31:37.080] – Colby Kiss
Some of the stuff I’ve gone over, get a mentor, don’t be afraid to be out there. I would say, come talk to me. I love the competition. I’m never going to own a full moving market in a city, and I don’t think I’d want to because it would be insanely hard to deal with. That’s not the goal, ultimately. We want to get to a spot where we level out these businesses and we’re happy, and everyone’s happy working within them. We can provide to the community, we can provide to ourselves. Anyways, that’s not a goal. But I would say to the person that’s starting a company, come talk to me. I’m happy to help. Again, we’re talking with companies like Shortline, Calculated, and Goalgetters. These are some of our favorite entrepreneurs and business people to be around because we share the same problems. If you want to get insight, if you want to know how to build a business, talk to people that are in it, whether it’s me or the owners of these other companies in the city or other cities. Everyone’s got the same problems. The quickest way to figure them out is by dealing with people who have experienced them.
[00:32:30.810] – Mickey Serebnitski
If any movers are going to be listening to this, reach out to your boy, Colby Kiss. He’ll tell you how to take over.
[00:32:35.160] – Colby Kiss
I’ll consult you for a very cheap dollar fee.
[00:32:37.880] – Mickey Serebnitski
Then you’ll buy them out.
[00:32:39.690] – Colby Kiss
Yeah, sure. The first couple of meetings are on the house, and then we see where it goes from there.
[00:32:44.930] – Mickey Serebnitski
All right, man. Pretty much done. Just going to do some rapid questions for you, and then we’ll call it a day.
[00:32:55.620] – Mickey Serebnitski
Mornings are late nights?
[00:32:57.230] – Colby Kiss
Mornings or late nights. I used to be a late-night guy. Mornings. Now, I like my 6, 7 AMs, getting up with Vanessa, my wonderful girlfriend, and having a coffee, and getting to the gym. That’s the way to do it. Awesome.
[00:33:08.530] – Mickey Serebnitski
If there was a movie made about you, what genre would it be? Horror?
[00:33:11.280] – Colby Kiss
No, that’s messed up. I don’t know. I was always a class pound growing up and everything. I say horror because it’s my favorite genre, but that’s a weird answer to that question. I don’t know, probably some comedy or something. I don’t know. I don’t take things too seriously. I could see that.
[00:33:26.180] – Mickey Serebnitski
I wouldn’t say horror.
[00:33:26.930] – Colby Kiss
It’d be a movie on a few of me and your nights that would It would be a comedy for sure.
[00:33:30.450] – Mickey Serebnitski
It would be a comedy, that’s for sure. Tea or coffee, what are you drinking? A little bit of both.
[00:33:36.180] – Colby Kiss
Not a huge coffee guy, but my favorite thing to do is go hit these coffee shops around the city. There’s no better thing to do than go try a new coffee shop at a business meeting. But yeah, I live over in the Saint Boniface area, so there are tons of good ones down that street.
[00:33:52.820] – Mickey Serebnitski
I hate coffee, but love a good Espresso Martini. Sometimes.
[00:33:55.380] – Colby Kiss
I’m not a big Espresso Martini guy. Come on, Mickey. I know.
[00:33:59.280] – Mickey Serebnitski
Cool, man. I think that’s pretty much it. I want to thank you for your time today. Super excited to have the opportunity to talk to you. For our listeners, we’ll be tagging Colby in Total Moving and all this, so you guys can give him a follow, follow along, and see his journey. If you have any questions, I’ll put his contact info on it as well. As always, thank you for listening. Thank you for coming, Colby. I appreciate your time. I appreciate everything that you’re doing in Winnipeg in the community. Thank you.
