FROM THE DESK OF THE PRESIDENT: RICHARD LICATA – Page 2
New Year allows us to look back at last year’s achievements and look forward to the promise of new beginnings. What a great Awards Banquet we had to celebrate all our successes in 2023. For those that were able to join us – thank you! For those that couldn’t be there…we missed you and hope to see you there next year! I think this was our best Banquet yet!
The business has been anything but normal for the last 4-5 years. We’ve weathered countless challenges; a major pandemic, the great resignation, record high inflation, and this year a household recession. With record-high fixed mortgage rates as high as 7 – 8 %, people just aren’t going to move unless a life-changing event takes place like a new job. People might not like their home, but they love their 3% interest rate! They say people won’t start moving again until the rate goes back down to 5%. That might not be until the second half of 2024 or 2025. So, we have to hunker down and prepare for the long term.
One of the things that has helped us withstand these challenges has been our diversification. During COVID, people couldn’t get out of the city quickly enough and moved to more secluded places with fresh air. I had to Google to find some of these places on a map. Consumer business was off the charts while Corporate and International business suffered. Today, it has flip-flopped. Consumer business is slow for reasons I mentioned above, but Corporate and International have rebounded.
So, diversification is key to being a stable company. That said, I would like to Reintroduce the new Reebie. We added 2 new brands to our consortium. A year or so ago we added SmartBox. This is our Do It Yourself brand for moving and storage. But because of our efforts, next year we will be the sole provider of SmartBox in the Chicagoland area. The next brand is a little bit more controversial. We are merging our Naperville Facility with All Chicagoland Movers. Some people ask, why would we do this? Well, we have 500 empty vaults and they have 500 full vaults; so, when you do the math, it makes sense.
One of the programs that has been successful for us, is accumulating Google Reviews. Google reviews are not just important for our reputation, but they help to improve of rankings on the internet. We motivated our drivers to text a link to each customer asking for a review after they move. If the customer leaves us a review, the driver gets $25. We collected 170 reviews this year alone, but most of them have been done by only these 5 drivers, so we need to get more drivers involved. After all, it’s free money!
