Unpacking Success with the Founders of SHORT KINGZ MOVING!

Unlock the secrets of entrepreneurial success with Ashton and Keegan from Short Kings Moving as they map out their journey from college start-up to West Michigan moving industry leaders. They've mastered the chess game of business growth, sharing how they cash-purchased a moving truck within five months and continue to checkmate the competition with smart SEO and marketing tactics. Their playbook is not just about muscle and boxes; it's about strategic thinking, savvy reinvestment, and a thorough understanding of finance and business that has propelled their company forward.

This episode is a treasure trove of insights for anyone looking to build a credible and well-loved brand from the ground up. Ashton and Keegan aren't just moving furniture; they're moving the needle on customer engagement, creating a strong social media presence, and ensuring an empathetic touch with every transaction. As they unpack the nitty-gritty of hiring, the significance of owner involvement, and the power of community connectivity, you'll be inspired to lift your own business ideas off the ground—no heavy lifting required. Join us for a lively conversation that proves with the right strategies, even the underdogs can move mountains. 

For more information visit: https://www.shortkingzmoving.com/ 
Contact Ashton or Keegan at ShortKingzMoving@gmail.com

THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY: THE PALMER GROUP real estate team.  The Palmer Group is an energetic team within 616 REALTY led by Eldon Palmer with over 20 years of experience helping people navigate the home buying and selling process in West Michigan. To support the channel, contact Eldon@ThePalmer.Group, drop a comment, and like or subscribe to this podcast. You can also learn more at https://thepalmer.group/

HAVE A SUGGESTION?  WANT TO BE A GUEST ON THE PODCAST?  Reach out to Eldon@ThePalmer.Group or send us a DM.

Transcript

Eldon Palmer: 0:00

Hey, welcome back. Today we have Ashton and Keegan with Short Kings Moving. They are building a fast-moving, fast-growing business here in West Michigan. Today they're going to share some of their tips, tricks and secrets on how they've grown their business so quickly and how their clients have been so happy with over a thousand moves under their belt, utilizing extra special care, quick quotes, very quick response and customer service, not only moving people here in West Michigan, but across the country. Welcome, ashton and Keegan with Short Kings Moving. All right, welcome back. Today we have Ashton and Keegan with Short Kings Moving Company. We're going to talk a little bit about their business how they got started, things they're doing, services they're offering and maybe some kicks and trips. So, ashton, you want to start, maybe tell a little bit of your origin story.

Ashton: 0:48

Yeah, so my name is Ashton. We started Short Kings Moving Company in May of 2022. Yeah, we thought about it. We've always wanted to start our own business and kind of just be an entrepreneur. So it was kind of an idea that we had while we were both in college. We thought that would be a good time. We can both still be in school and still take the risk. You know, if it didn't play out, you know it's completely fine. We're still getting our degrees. But it turned into a really great thing.

Eldon Palmer: 1:19

Awesome. So what kind of what were you doing at the time? So going to school students? Were you working also at the same time?

Ashton: 1:26

Yeah, so I was at GRCC and I was also working at Target part-time while I was just in school. Doing that, I mean, all right, wasn't very fun, but you got to do it. You know, yeah, Same with you. You were still working and in school.

Keegan: 1:42

Same with you. You were still working and in high school I was at Grand Valley going to school for finance and I was painting in a trade. So I was ready for a switch up, you know, ready to move on to something else. I've always wanted to own a business, so the idea came and I was ready to run with it.

Eldon Palmer: 1:57

So what was your—had you owned any businesses before, like lawn mowing or paper route or anything kind of— like any side hustles in, maybe high school?

Keegan: 2:11

I never started my own business. I've always wanted to. Yeah, you know, you had your own business. Yeah, over Covid, I got into making shirts and signs and stuff. So I had a little history there, but nothing too big so how did the initial conversation go?

Ashton: 2:23

yeah, so we both worked for a moving company in the past, so we kind of had the moving experience already. We became friends and then we actually started a podcast of our own, nice um. So we were talking about how we both wanted to be business owners on the podcast and then we talked about you know, we both worked for the moving company. We're like I feel like this is a no-brainer.

Ashton: 2:46

We both want to own our own business. We have experience, we love helping people. I mean we're like let's just go for it. We kind of ditched the podcast idea and kind of just went all in on this moving company and it's been great for us.

Eldon Palmer: 3:00

Nice. So you know, oftentimes businesses take startup capital. How did you like? What were your first steps?

Ashton: 3:08

Yeah, so first steps were because we got our LLC that was the first thing that we did Got liability insurance and we basically just put some money together. We got shirts and we got some moving signs that we put yard signs around town, and that's how we got our first couple of moves. So we didn't really like jump fully into it, like we didn't take out any debt or anything like that. I just used our own money and kind of slowly started to grow it.

Eldon Palmer: 3:38

Nice, it was awesome. So at that time were you like renting new halls or riders or trailers?

Ashton: 3:43

Yeah, we started with renting new halls and we or trailers. Yeah, we started with, uh, renting new halls and we pretty much didn't give any money to us because we knew we wanted our own truck. So for the first couple of months we pretty much were just trying to build up our business account that way we could get a truck and nice.

Eldon Palmer: 3:58

So what was the amount of time, roughly, that it took you to get your own truck?

Keegan: 4:03

I think about like five months five months yeah, that's pretty fast yeah, it was now was that.

Eldon Palmer: 4:08

Did you end up financing that?

Keegan: 4:10

no, we bought it all in cash, so awesome.

Eldon Palmer: 4:13

Yeah, what other equipment do you need when you first get started?

Ashton: 4:16

yeah, so we got just two like normal moving box dollies, um, we got a bunch of moving pads, wrap, um, and then bungees or ratchets. So there's not a ton of equipment that goes into it, it's mostly just manpower and labor, you know, sure, but we definitely make sure that all the furniture is going to be protected and it's going to be packed in the truck a certain way so part of that journey, you said earlier before that you were both in kind of finance and business.

Eldon Palmer: 4:46

How did that translate into what you're doing? I mean, make it a little easier, probably for planning.

Ashton: 4:54

Yeah, definitely. So I'm a business major and I'm getting my minor in marketing, so I've learned a good amount in school. To kind of help me. The biggest thing I think that I've learned in school was I went up to my marketing professor right when we were starting it and I was like, what do you think I should do to get it up and running? And he said try to get your SEO higher so people can find you on the internet. Then he also mentioned door knocking.

Ashton: 5:24

Sure, so that was signs and door knocking were pretty much our biggest two ways of getting clients at the beginning. So I've tried door knocking and I still do it to this day. Actually, I like going door knocking. People are normally pretty friendly with me. As you know, we're a small business and we're eager to help them. So that was probably the biggest thing that I took away from school was not even what I learned in class, but just going out of my way and talking to my professor to get the idea, because I never thought about that yeah, so you took advantage of somebody that was more experienced, obviously, and the door knocking, that's not always for everybody, you know.

Eldon Palmer: 6:06

Even in the real estate industry it's like it's one of the first things that people recommend is just getting out and talking to people. Same with politics, same with a lot of different businesses. Just that door to door, you know, shaking hands and saying hi, I think you know, obviously with a new, young, local business, like people want to help. Generally speaking, I think people want to give you the benefit of the doubt, which I think is great. Did you run through any troubles and you have any like crazy people or, um, any weird situations early?

Keegan: 6:38

uh, yeah, we've ran into a couple situations. Um, people try to take advantage of us sometimes just because we're younger, we've learned. We got to set our foot down and we at first we didn't have a contract and we booked. We booked to move to Georgia and came time and he backed out and we learned real quick. I have a written contract signed ready to go, so that was probably the first eye-opener to us. It was a Georgia move.

Ashton: 7:06

Because before then I mean we were young, just getting out we had a contract and everything made. But once we arrived there we would go over it with them and then get the signature and start moving. Now we send it over to their email a vacuum sign, which I'm sure you're familiar with. So we do that, that get the contract signed, and then we know we got the move, it's all scheduled. I mean, that was like that was a great pain one for us. That would have been our first one out of state and we had the dates and everything set up. But we backed out and since we didn't have a contract signed, we just take the loss on this.

Eldon Palmer: 7:44

That was yeah so you've probably you've rented equipment lined up. Maybe more help things like that everything going yeah, and now nothing. Yeah, yeah, those are. You know, I think every business owner has to go through at least one of those, maybe more um on their way. So they are probably more yeah for sure or growing pains, you know as you go.

Ashton: 8:07

Totally. And that was we were like we were trying to get our truck pretty quick because renting a U-Haul there and flying back or driving it there and back was very expensive and would have cut into our profit a lot. We're like we got this move, we got to get this truck. So we kind of dumped the gun on getting the truck, maybe a little earlier, just because we didn't want to get the u-haul for georgia and we buy this truck. And then that happened.

Eldon Palmer: 8:35

So, uh gotcha, that's where it really yeah live and you learn I had a similar situation with real estate early on. I had one of my first sales it was 20 years ago $400,000 house and I bought a vehicle two weeks before close to go to California with the family and we get back and you know the whole deal fell apart three days before closing. So, it's very similar. It's like cash out of pocket that hurt yeah I never have cashed a check before it's in the bank.

Keegan: 9:10

Yeah, but great lesson we are by the hour, so sometimes people are on us for moving fast. But we're pretty energetic and fast and we take pride in our work, so I think we normally don't get too much of that, but every once in a while people are don't like to spend a lot of money on moving. Sure because they have to, not because they want to.

Eldon Palmer: 9:32

So I think everybody underestimates I mean, there's been studies on this but everybody underestimates how long it takes to do any given task. Oftentimes it's by like a third. No, it generally will take two to three times longer for many things, especially if you're not familiar with it as a customer, and there's always more behind the scenes. That goes on to prepping, scheduling your time. You know stuff happens along the way.

Ashton: 10:01

I mean, you'll run into a couch that it can only fit one way and it takes a while to figure it out like doorways and stuff like that, you're gonna have to take the door off. So most of the time people are pretty understanding that you can run into stuff like that and you're insured so, plus, you've done it and you figure you know, you know all the little tips and tricks.

Eldon Palmer: 10:27

Yeah, so from on the business journey.

Ashton: 10:28

where are you kind of heading next? Yeah, so we actually got two part-time employees right now, so we're starting to really grow. Our name's getting out there more and more. We really want to try to get two trucks possible going out this summer or at least getting scheduled pretty much Monday through Friday if possible. We're really close to getting there. We're just trying to take those extra steps to really try to get our name out there. I mean, everyone that we've used or uses us, they're super happy with what we've done for them and they recommend us and leave us good reviews. I mean we're all five-star reviews on Google. I know we're doing a really great job moving and it's just got to get our name out there. That's the, that's the hardest part.

Eldon Palmer: 11:15

Yeah, I've seen your. I've seen your signs, um and all over town. Yeah, and I've. You know my clients have hired you. Um, I what I consider a high end client client that they had a lot of expensive items and they've done several moves and they were super happy with the work you guys did. So it's part of why I invited you on here, because it's always nice to share when you have good vendors.

Keegan: 11:40

Yeah, I appreciate that a lot, thank you. Yeah, we've talked about growing and advertising too. Billboards talked about growing and advertising too. Um, billboards talked about possibly renting trailers just other types of income too, so, and ways of helping people out too some good guerrilla marketing style yeah yeah, right, that's what it used to be called.

Eldon Palmer: 11:58

I don't know yeah um, no, so you have a website. I've seen the website. Do you use, uh, google business? Yep, that one has been a big one. Um, yeah, over the past couple years, it seems. I do post regularly on on google business or you share your reviews there. Where do you do your reviews?

Ashton: 12:16

yeah, so when we tell our clients to leave reviews, we always tell them on google, okay, um so I think we got. We got 75 star reviews right now on our google that's amazing yeah, we're very, very happy with that number. Um, pretty much. Yeah, just that's pretty much all we're doing with the google business right now. Okay, um, anytime we're posting things, it's normally on our facebook or instagram.

Keegan: 12:40

Yeah, um, just like little clips, or we'll post reviews that people leave and I guess try to try to post as much on social media, sure we've found that, uh, we made a little business card up with a qr code to our google review, so every time we uh have a customer, we give it to them after the move's completed and say you have a second, please leave us a review. And that really helped awesome, yeah, our google reviews for sure.

Ashton: 13:07

That's a great tip. I know with social media I don't think it brings in a lot of clients, but when people are looking for a moving company and they find this on google, they'll go to our social media and I think it's good to build up your credibility on social media that way when they're scrolling on our account, they see that we've had good reviews. What we do is we'll give a yard sign to the clients after we're done the picture of them holding up our sign, and so they can see we've done a lot of moves and that we've provided good services, that they're happy. We kind of just try to post on there as like a reassurance. Sure.

Keegan: 13:46

You know kind of build our brand awareness a little bit.

Eldon Palmer: 13:49

Credibility yeah, they can go back. I always look, you know the first place. I go Google business, check out a website just to see how legit you are. Social media same thing. And when you see people posting and moving, you know the faces make a big difference. You know the faces make a big difference, you know, when you see real people so you have two new employees yep, are they hired now?

Keegan: 14:14

yep, and they're employees. Or are they kind of independent contractors? They're independent contractors, so we ask them if they want to move during the day and they say yes or no. Right, so the way we run it is, we always have an owner on the move. Um, one of us always wants to be there overseeing stuff and kind of steering them in the right direction. So we don't want to kind of just throw two random employees out there.

Eldon Palmer: 14:33

So how do you, how does your sales process typically work from beginning, say, somebody you know emails you or calls you on the phone.

Ashton: 14:42

Yep, yeah, so normally they're reaching out, either finding our website and contacting us through our website or just giving me a call. So if they give me a call, I'm the one answering it and I guess ask them where you guys at right now. Where are you moving to figure out if it's a local move or it's going to be a long distance move? Because Local move is, by the hour, a long-distance move is a flat rate. Okay. So figure where they're moving.

Ashton: 15:10

If it's a local, long-distance, either we just send them kind of over a moving form to their email to fill out. It takes them probably just like three to five minutes to fill out and then from that we've done so many moves that I can give them a good estimate. You know, from that form you sent over, it should take us roughly five to six hours, and I think that's what kind of makes us different is we have such a easy booking process, which we like. It's easy on our end, it's easy on their end, so everyone's happy. So once I give them that moving form, give them the quote and figure out what day they want, and then if April 12th is the day they want, we have it available. Get that going. Just send them one contract, get signed, we're good to go. But we can literally give you a quote be scheduled in probably like 15, 20 minutes.

Eldon Palmer: 16:02

That's amazing. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, I think friction and everything is just so much. I gravitate towards easy. Quite often it's like what's the easiest way to go, and sometimes you might compare rates and things, but if you're going to show up, you're not going to make it too difficult. Those are, like the main things, the main things. Most people don't even talk to more than first or second vendor. As long as they feel comfortable and trust, let's move on to maybe what sets you apart from from other similar companies.

Keegan: 16:34

Yeah, for sure, I think our pricing we have no hidden fees or additional fees or clients like that. It's easy for them, it's easier for us. We always have an owner on the move, so you know who's going to show up and do the move. It's not just going to be someone who started yesterday. We have experience and we just have really good reviews. So we take lots of pride in our work and I think the reviews speak for themselves.

Ashton: 17:00

Yeah, when we go into a house or an apartment, we want to get to know. You kind of know what you're going through and try to just make your move as stress-free as possible. You know, being in the real estate industry, people are either really excited to get into their first house they're buying, they might have to be selling the house for whatever reason it is, so it could possibly be a bad time for them moving out. So just put yourself in their shoes and kind of know what they're going through. I feel like we're very good at interacting with our clients and just we want to give them the best possible service and we know it can be a stressful time and so I guess we're there for them. We get what's going on.

Eldon Palmer: 17:43

Great, that's super important. You know, half of my job, I say in real estate, is psychological management, because people are either really stressed, really busy, they can be very happy, but usually that's in shorter bursts because there's a lot to handle and moving is a big part of that. Yeah, lot to handle and moving is a big part of that. Yeah, so before we wrap, maybe we can go into what what's, maybe one or two things that starting a new business that you might do or might recommend to somebody, um, that you might have done differently or you might recommend they like. Focus on early yeah for sure.

Ashton: 18:20

Um, we didn't dive into marketing that much at first. It was mostly just telling our friends and family that you know, know, we're starting this company. Try to get word of mouth going, because all we did were signs and door knocking pretty much at the beginning. Maybe run some more like Google ads or something like that. Post more on social media. We didn't do that a lot at the beginning. We started doing like the home and garden show right downtown Grand Rapids and that brought in so many clients for us where I wish you know we would have known about those shows earlier. I mean, it's a pretty, it's pretty expensive to get into those. That's why we didn't jump into it right away, because we weren't sure if it was going to be good or not. But once we did that, it was probably one of the best decisions we've ever made, so kind of just trying different things of marketing to figure out what works the best nice.

Eldon Palmer: 19:14

Yeah, you're sort of door knocking, except for people are coming to your door right at a home and garden type show like you have. I think 50 000 people or so or more go through that, yeah, and so that's a great way to meet a lot of people in a short amount of time and they're all sort of already pre-screened, uh, because they're interested in housing, whether it's moving, improving their, their, their place. So they're kind of in that, that same same mode. So you're probably going to get a lot of people there yeah, exactly, especially with shows like that.

Ashton: 19:44

We do offer interior moves, so if people are getting their flooring done or you know painting, so they just need like their furniture moved out of that room. I mean we do that a lot for when people are remodeling, so I mean that at the show and people either building I mean pretty much everyone going into that, going into the show will need some type of service.

Keegan: 20:06

So that was nice it was great for us to do that and you don't feel bad for past stream because they bought the ticket to be there, so they're coming to you, so yeah I had never even heard of.

Eldon Palmer: 20:16

Uh, really thought of. Um, internal moving like that, you know, makes sense, perfect sense, and that would be a great place, great. Anything else you want to cover before we wrap?

Ashton: 20:28

I don't think so you have anything oh?

Eldon Palmer: 20:31

how can, how can people find you where they find you?

Ashton: 20:35

yeah, so you can call me. It's my cell phone number, uh 616-550-3188 um. Or you can check us out on our website. It's just shortkingsmovingcom. Kings is with a Z at the end Facebook.

Eldon Palmer: 20:57

Instagram August Short King Awesome, all right, thanks, guys. Appreciate you having it on and have a great week, take care. Thanks for joining us, thanks.