The Office Moving Alliance with Doug - 048 LinkedIn Live 2024 with Joe Apfelbaum

Today I have a special guest. I have been speaking at the Office Moving Alliance, also known as OMA, and the president, Doug, of the Office Moving Alliance has graciously agreed to join me on LinkedIn Live. So if you're watching this right now on LinkedIn, give this a like and leave a comment. Let me know what city you're dialing in from. I don't know if you know what OMA is, but the Office Moving Alliance is an impressive collective partnerships of many commercial moving and relocation companies all around the globe. And Doug here started the company. Me and Doug had a particularly interesting conversation the other day when we were in an RV traveling from one location to another location, a luxury RV, I should say. And he told me that he actually built a company from $0 to $45 million in revenue and then sold it and then started OMA because he wanted to really help the industry and help many of the commercial moving and relocation companies be able to be more successful by partnering with each other and being able to do really big jobs. So I have Doug here today. I'm going to interview him, ask him some questions. So if you do have questions, put them in the comments below. Doug, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you, Joe, for having me. Appreciate it.

I am particularly excited that you're here because I want the world to know your story. You started your business how long ago? Your moving company? You're a commercial moving company?

Well, I was brought into an existing business 40 years ago that was just a small office mover in Columbus, Ohio. I was 24 years old, needed a job, had gotten out of college and needed to pay the rent and have fun at the same time. And I took a job with a moving company, an office moving only company in Columbus, Ohio, thinking that was just where I was going to be for 3 to 6 months to pay the rent and then go on to the next thing that I could find. Uh, and then 40 years later, I'm still in this business.

Wow. Wow. And what was like the key to your success? If you take a company from like nothing, you know, where it began to getting to $45 million in revenue, I, I know people that are in business for 30 years and don't even crack the million-dollar mark. I don't know if you know this, but 96% of companies in the US do less than $1 million in annual sales. So what does it take to build a company to do tens of millions of dollars in revenue?

Well, first, number one, it takes great people besides yourself. It takes a lot of hard work. It takes a lot of dedication. But in the service industry, which is relatively what we are in, it's all about the people. So you've got to put great people around you. You've got to lead them, but also train them and teach them and let them grow. Be willing to make some mistakes along the way. But we are a people industry, and without great people, we don't succeed.

I was asking one of the, one of the top salespeople at one of the member companies, JK Moving, one of the big gorillas that you guys have as a member of OMA, very successful company. And I was asking, I said, what's the key to getting really big business? And he literally said what you said, Doug. He said relationships is the key. So if you guys are into relationships, put relationships in the chat. I'm curious to know how many of you are actually into building relationships. So in terms of, like you said, the people, relationships— it's a people business, a relationship business— what are the key people that you needed to put in place in your commercial moving and relocation company that really helped in terms of growing it?

Yeah, well, first of all, I had to learn a lot myself. the first several years. But our success really started to catch on and our momentum really started to change when we started to hire very passionate people that believed in the same core values that we were trying to build as an organization, the culture we were trying to build. And, you know, it's not one thing. You have to have great business development people. Great relationship people with businesses, but then you also need very dedicated operational staff, accounting, HR, etc. So finding those people that are as passionate about your business as you are and believe in it, that was our true key to success. And involving them, communicating with them on every step of what we were doing in business. Our key people Even when we were smaller to the, to the, you know, to the largest days, our key managers and key supervisors, etc., we communicated with them about everything, including open book financing. So they really felt part of the company, and that's the culture we had built.

It's so interesting, so many CEOs, especially in the moving and the relocation industry, are afraid of open book financing. What's the benefit of that for a growing company?

Well, I think it comes back to people again, that when you're open and honest with people about what you're trying to do as a business model and sharing with them on not just the successes but the failures of that model as well too, they trust you a lot more, they respect you a lot more, and you can build a really good culture that people are willing to work together for a common goal.

I remember when my business was really small and somebody asked me, Joe, how much revenue do you do a year? I got like, oh, don't ask me how much revenue I did. I was just afraid of that whole concept. I don't know if you ever met anybody, but a lot of small business owners, they're afraid to share what revenue is because maybe they feel insecure about it or they feel like that's a private thing that you don't share, or they don't want the evil eye or whatever it is. But you feel like sharing open book financing is really the key to building trust, and building trust is really the key to having a really solid culture. And you mentioned that you having to learn a lot. You know, I heard Jim Rohn say that you can only grow your business as much as you grow yourself. And I see here as part of the Office Moving Alliance, you put a very big emphasis on growing, on personal growth, on teaching, on bringing in really solid trainers. And I see the coaches that you bring in to coach the moving companies to be able to grow. Do you think that somebody that's averse to personal growth, that they can actually grow their company to tens of millions in revenue?

I think that's very difficult. You may get lucky and do that, but if you're not willing to grow personally, learn continuously, learn— 40 years later in this industry, I'm still learning every day and love it. And so I think you have to be willing to learn and to grow. The industries change, people change, services change, and so there's constantly something new you could be learning to help you grow.

What would you say are the biggest failures that you had early on? Because you mentioned failures earlier, and I think that a lot of, a lot of CEOs that are going to be watching this in the moving and relocation industry and related industries, they're going to want to know where did you go wrong so that they can learn from your failures and they don't actually have to go through that. What were some of the big failures that you kind of went through and you're like, oh man, if I would have went back, I would have done something differently?

So I, I, I Tell people all the time and talking to them that in our industry or related industries, I've made every mistake there is at least twice. And some of the biggest things I had to learn in that first 5 to 8 years of growing and running a business was trust, was that you have to trust the people that are working with you. You have to communicate with them and you've got to learn from your mistakes. It's okay to make a mistake, just fix it fast. faster than you made it.

So the lack of trust, the lack of not admitting to your mistakes, the lack of, the lack of like, you know, the concept of integrity, right? Having integrity with your word, keeping your word, owning up to your mistakes, creating new systems and processes when you have mistakes like that. That's something that a lot of people, you know, when you don't have integrity, things don't work.

Correct.

It may not be a bad thing, but it just doesn't work. And if it doesn't work, you're not gonna get to your goals.

Absolutely. I think people, A lot of people, particularly CEOs in business, they're afraid to admit that they failed. And we all fail every day one way or the other. And so learning from those failures, I think, was the greatest lesson I had early on in my career that you're going to make mistakes, you're going to fail. But I like to say anymore now that we don't lose. We may not win, but we will learn. And so—

There is no losing. There's either winning Winning or learning. I love that. I love that. I love that so much. Okay, so big into personal growth, big into learning from your failures. Was there a particular moment that you were in your business and you were like, gosh darn, I wish I had a community. I wish I had an organization that I could be part of. Do you ever feel like you wanted to maybe even quit? Like, were you up to your head?

Oh, of course.

What was the moment? Bring us back to that moment.

So I think the that one of the most life-changing things for me, not just in business but in my personal life, in relationships, was when I was late 30s, early, maybe not even 40 years old, and I was introduced to the YPO group, the Young Presidents Group.

YPO.

Wow. I was honestly very hesitant about joining that organization. I like to think of myself as this blue-collar guy from this side of the tracks and worked my way to where I am. But that organization changed my life, and, and, and it's all because of the learning and the growth and the willingness to expose myself, um, and, and face some of those fears and, uh, failures that, uh, it truly changed how I think, not only as a business person but as a husband, as a father. As a son, etc.

Wow. So thinking about the community aspect of YPO, thinking about the forum concept, I know that when I joined Entrepreneurs Organization, which is similar to YPO, different size businesses, it was a life— I mean, the first time I was actually ever able to be vulnerable with a bunch of people around the room was forum. Like forum training was like, oh my gosh. Like before that, I wasn't really real with people. And now I'm able to just be real with a group of people that could be board of advisors for my business. So that was like a real moment where like suddenly like, wow, that's like you have the opportunity to be vulnerable and really share what's really going on in your life, both personally, like you said, and professionally, which they all impact each other. There's a lot of crossover there. So YPO was really, really big. What did you— what were the big takeaways from YPO? Like watching other businesses and what they're doing? You mentioned core values, right? I learned that in EO and in Vistage. Tell me, tell me some of the things that you learned along the way that was like, you know, seriously impacting for you.

Well, the great thing about YPO for me was, is was exposed to a forum and then even a greater group of businesses of all sizes. There's a minimum level that's required to be in YPO, but you were exposed to third-generation businesses, startups, super large Fortune 500 companies, etc. Just seeing that those leaders Really faced the same thing. No matter how big the organization was, they really had the same challenges. Listening to people, talking to people, learning, and then being vulnerable. Being vulnerable to sit down with—

Huge challenge.

A forum was very valuable to me. But to sit down with people that you could truly learn a lot from and be very vulnerable with And them be candid and honest with you. You know, and it's not growing personally. If you have a very big ego, it's difficult to do.

Yeah, yeah. If you're trying to protect your identity, it's gonna be really hard for you to grow if you're trying to protect your shell, 'cause the shell limits your ability to grow. Very, very powerful concepts. And in terms of your— so you got to a certain level, you had the right business development people, you had to, you know, optimize yourself, join YPO, core values, this, that, get the customers, grow the business. And then you get to a certain point and you decide that you're gonna sell. You're gonna sell, you're gonna get out, and then you're gonna start a whole new chapter of your life.

Well, I didn't know about starting the new chapter at that time, but one of the things that I did learn from many mentors I had that were leaders both in and out of YPO was if you're not fully committed, if you're not passionate, if you, If you've lost your mojo, you need to kind of step back and think about that. So I got to a point where I had grown the organization that I started with to over 8 different states. I was on the road all the time. I missed my children growing up a little bit. Thank God they're still very big parts of my life, as is my lovely wife of 37 years. But I, I just got burned out, Joe, and, and I realized that it wasn't, it wasn't good for me personally, healthy relationship-wise, and it also wasn't good for our company. And, and so, uh, you know, I, I created a plan where that I would walk away, uh, in 12 months, uh, worked with senior key people at our organization to be able to do that. And I, I didn't have a second career path. I knew I would do something. I knew I couldn't sit and do nothing. But, um, you know, after 6 months away of being, being totally away from our industry and so many of the great people that I've gotten to meet and know and consider lifelong friends in this industry, I missed it again. And I, you know, I didn't miss portions that I wanted to run from, but I missed building something again, and I missed teamwork, and I missed truly working with people that cared about the same mission. And so fortunately, the Office Moving Alliance, I had been a board member of it since its inception, but that business model was starting to change. And the current board members of the organization asked me to come back in and just do kind of a part-time leadership role. And then, you know, next thing you know, we're writing a brand new business plan and beginning to grow it. from a very small network of movers to, you know, today we think one of the most disruptive organizations in the United States for our industry.

So tell me more about that. One of the most disruptive organizations in the commercial moving and relocation industry. So if you think about this, they were a small, like, networking group, small little alliance And Doug joined, new business plan with the board members, and decided to build it into a monster that it is today. So explain what that means to people so people can understand the power of the OMA.

Sure. So Office Moving Alliance, we call it OMA now, uh, it was created, it was born out of a peer network of about 7 or 8 different CEOs of office moving companies across the United States and even a couple in Europe. And it was really a peer network. We weren't formal. We got together once or twice a year visiting each other's locations. And we realized there was a tremendous amount of value in sharing. And we all, fortunately, that small group, we all had the same opinion that our industry is changing. Buyers are changing. We have to change with it. And so in 2007, we formed what we called the Office Moving Alliance. We started with 16 partners. What makes OMA very unique still to this day is its principal engagement. We're not necessarily just a sales networking organization. We're a true business model and our partners have to be engaged at a principal level. And we began to build trust and we began to communicate and, you know, 16 competitive companies really were all doing the same thing. You know, we had to build a lot of trust. And so through the years, we built that up to about 35 partners. I was still one of those partners in my previous life and organization. And when I stepped away and then got an itch to get back, those 35, 36 companies at the time realized that we really had an opportunity to grow something and really provide a different level of consistency, service, quality, predictable pricing, et cetera, et cetera, that we We were hearing our customers say forever, we need this nationally, we need this internationally. We could all do it regionally really well, but we didn't have the assets across the country to do it as a whole for some of our customers. So that group at 35, 36 at the time, that's when they brought me back in and said, okay, let's grow this out even further. We want to be the largest workplace services provider to Fortune 500 companies and corporate real estate in the world. And so we're not there yet, but we're well on our way. And it has really disrupted the traditional stale and antiquated models, I call them, that existed for 30, 40 years in our industry.

What are those models called now? Like, what are those models, companies? What other models exist right now that OMA is completely disrupting? And how is OMA disrupting those models?

So the traditional model was a very, Usually a large moving company that was a household moving or an office moving or together, but large organizations, fairly sophisticated, had some technology, had capital, and they could build a business development staff that would go out and sell commercial relocations or workplace services at a national level to Fortune 500 companies or even smaller companies that had regional footprints all across the country. country. All they were doing though, was they were hiring movers like my old company to do the work. And that's really where that first 16 of us got together was, we don't want to be a commodity anymore. We're just gonna end up working for these 3 or 4.

You were just subcontractors to like the biggest moving companies. Like, you know, they had a brand name like FedEx and UPS. Yep. And they would just kind of like outsource it to you guys. And they would give you nothing.

Correctly. We became a commodity. We were, we were, uh, and you couldn't deliver value as a commodity.

You're the lowest cost provider. You're trying to just get it done. You're breaking things or whatever it is just to kind of keep the pricing where it needs to be. And then the Fortune 500 company doesn't get the service that they need.

So, so we had envisioned this, this new model that, um, where it's the principals of every one of our partners are a partner in OMA and all the bricks and mortar men in diesel, as we like to call it, across not just North America but Western Europe as well. We built a— it wasn't earth-shattering, but we built some technology that was able to measure, you know, internal SLAs and KPIs and what our customers wanted. And we began to trust each other a lot more. And then, you know, Today, 5 years ago, nobody knew what Oma was. It's grandmother in German, by the way, if you don't know that.

Oma means grandmother in German.

Wow.

What do you call your grandmother? Do you call her Bubby? Do you call her Grandma? Do you call her GMA? Let me know in the chat what you call your grandmother. Okay, fine. Granny. Granny, like a Granny Smith apple.

Okay, so, you know, that model is still very unique today. Nobody else is doing it the way we do it. Those traditional models, there's nothing really wrong with them. They, they, you know, they provide a service to the, to the corporate real estate world and to Fortune 500 companies, but it's a, it's a layer. It's just a layer of cost. It's a layer of complexity, uh, where our model is, is seamless, uh, one-stop shop, single technology. Uh, we remove the layer of cost, the markup of a subcontractor. And we also provide what we believe is a higher quality level of service because all of our partners are principally engaged and are bought into this company, much like I talked about building the company earlier.

So like if a company like Apple wants to be able to do things nationally, they wanna do relocation nationally, instead of them going to one of the big 4 providers that are maybe like, you know, billion-dollar companies and they really, you know, they're just gonna be hiring a bunch of little movers to do the work and it's gonna be fragmented. They're not gonna provide the support. They're not gonna provide the seamless pricing across the board, the SLAs, the quality control. And frankly, the principals are not involved. Someone's just outsourcing it to some just moving company and you have a bunch of, you know, sometimes it could be 2 guys in a truck showing up to your office to do the work and you're like, what's going on? There's no accountability.

Right.

But with you guys, every one of the jobs involves the principal because they have accountability to the network.

Yep.

It's almost like Bitcoin. They have accountability to the network. Everyone is connected. They're all networked together. And so the level of quality is very high where the price doesn't need to be very high because you now cut out the middleman. Basically, you're going direct to the subcontractor and you're cutting out the middleman. So if somebody at Apple is listening to this or somebody at Nike or some— at one of these large companies, and you want to use a true provider and work with the principals themselves, while at the same time being able to have all the right technologies and all the right systems and processes and all the right quality controls in place, then OMA is the only solution that exists globally right now. It's a true global network.

It is.

It's a partnership. It's not even like a network or an alliance. It's a true partnership because they're in the business. So you have like all these really, really smart, savvy movers that are commercial relocation experts that really understand the industry. They get together a few times a year to improve themselves and learn how the industry works and how to do things better. And then they're able to provide this high level of service to a Fortune 500 so that they know they're getting a really great service at a really great price.

You're one heck of a commercial for us, Joe.

Thank you. Um, but that's what I understand.

It is, it is. And, and I think some of the other nuances of our model that are completely different from those traditional models is that with corporate real estate, Apple, any large Fortune 500 company, corporate real estate company, there's a lot of little things that have to happen day to day. And if you're just hiring a subcontractor to do that work for you in an area, that may not be the most important thing to them or their business that day, that time of the year. And with OMA, because those principals are bought in and engaged, every project is important, whether it's very large.

Because they wanna have a great reputation within the partnership and they don't wanna come across as the person who broke the wall at Apple.

Correct.

A lot of accountability.

Our technology, again, all of our partners have to live in. In the traditional models, a lot of their technology is fabulous. It's really, really good. But the subs they're using aren't living in that technology. And our partners live in our technology as well too.

So it's all integrated, it's all seamless. How much bigger revenue-wise are the 4 big competitors that you have than what you guys are doing?

In our space being workplace solutions domestically, there are probably at least 3 that are as big, or if not maybe a little bigger than OMA. But there's not many at all. And our growth projections are within the next 2 to 3 years that, you know, we're not creating any new—

Companies.

Companies. We're not creating any new necessary better services, but not creating them. And so the market share that we're getting in that space, it's just coming to us. Because of— we're different. We're a disruptive model. You know, we don't point fingers. We own everything. And, you know, in the commercial moving industry, moving offices, that space has continued to shrink literally, and those businesses have continued to shrink. So we have to find other diverse revenues, whether that's in hospitality, healthcare, education, retail, logistics, warehousing and storage, final mile deliveries, you know, business-to-consumer services, etc. And a big part of what OMA does with our partners is they're all very highly vetted. You just can't call and join. We— I think we had 152 applications in the last 12 months, and we took 3 new partners.

Really?

Globally.

What does it take to qualify for OMA? If there's, you know, there's tens of thousands of movers around the world, or hundreds of thousands around the world that would probably wanna join OMA, and there are other organizations that just take everybody, but because you're a true partnership model, you wanna make sure that who you're bringing in is really responsible. What are those things that you're looking for? Is it like a minimum revenue, a minimum employee size, or is it something else?

It is. There are minimum revenues. from a size standpoint that we have in our vetting process today. Our vetting process is 6 full pages long.

Wow.

It takes about 6 months to go through our vetting process. So we're looking for true players that are involved in our industry, in every— particularly domestically in the United States— every market of more than 30 million square feet of office space, we have at least one member. What makes our organization unique as well is in the larger markets where they're 50, 60, 80, 100 million square feet of space, we might have 4 partners and they compete with each other day in and day out for that local work, but they work together with OMA on all the national account work. And again, what they've recognized is I, I may want to go after all that work myself, but 0 of 100% is still zero. And working collaboratively with all these partners, you know, I might, I might grow my business by 30, 40% and just being involved in that.

So, so in terms of like markets, you mentioned the minimum, let's say 30 million square feet of office space to be able to join OMA. How many markets exist like that in the United States? Is there like 300 markets like that?

Um, there's roughly 150.

There's 150 markets And you're basically covering almost all those markets right now. Where is the growth for OMA? Where do you see the growth? Is it more internationally or is it more domestically?

Well, we have opportunities both. Our domestic growth has been super robust, as you've heard us talk about, and we can expect that to continue for the next several years, but eventually it will level out. So as I mentioned earlier, we, from the very beginning, we've had some Western European partners.

And we're talking about London, we're talking about Germany, France, Switzerland, Switzerland, Netherlands.

So OMA is actually the official office mover of NATO in Western Europe.

Wow.

But we want to grow that capacity out as well too. Our model in Europe up until very recently has been we would have one really good service provider per country. Well, in some of the larger countries, they have a lot of markets. And so we're in— you met some folks this week from the UK who were joining us. And, uh, so we're, we're, we're interested in building that model out and just taking those initial steps to do that. That's also being driven by the large, uh, corporate real estate organizations that are out there that are asking us, hey, you're taking great care of us here, can you do things for us?

Can you help us in Europe?

Right. And so we're now also We're bringing in vetting partners in the APAC, in all kinds of the world.

Dubai.

Dubai. We've got people that we're visiting. And part of that vetting process again is, you know, it's just not, hey, you want to join our group? We thoroughly vet these partners. We vet them not only for their capabilities, they have to have recommendations from either our partners or customers saying these would be a good fit.

They're team players.

Correct. And they have to be from a principal level, they gotta show us their financials. They have to be fiscally sound.

That's really important to Fortune 500 companies. I mean, we have, as a marketing agency, we have clients that require us to have certain types of insurance and make sure that we're gonna be around in 5 years. So if you see a company that's just 2 guys in a truck pull up and they could just leave and decide to drop everything and you have a project that's supposed to take 3 years and now the global mobility manager's on the hook for that.

There was a, there was an ex-competitor, they're no longer in business, about 7 or 8 years ago that managed a tremendous amount of business in the United States and they went out of business on a Friday. And one day there were certain moves that needed to take place in the United States from a corporate relocation standpoint that nobody showed up. Wow.

Think about the impact of that. Think about the cost of a very large organization and the type of stress that will cause internally, not just to the people in charge, but also to their employees and what that would do. It's very important to work with companies that are vetted. to work with a partnership where the principals themselves are involved in the organization and where everybody's working cohesively together instead of working for one company that could just go out of business and then you're screwed. Over here, you almost are diversifying your assets and working with OMA. So that's very, very interesting in terms of a competitive advantage.

And what it also does too, not just from the fiscal standpoint, but from— we, we like the word, use the word capacity a lot in our industry, and particularly in the summer months when a lot of the other companies are busy doing household moves, capacity becomes very challenging. And so in all of our major markets, as I said, we have 4, maybe sometimes 5 partners, and we can work together with them to ensure that the capacity's greater than anybody else has to offer out there.

I was speaking with Matthew Steinberg— Schwartzberg from Steinway Movers. I get mixed up with his last name. So Matthew, I was speaking to Matthew Schwartzberg from Steinway Movers, and he was telling me about this capacity issue that a lot of smaller companies have where, okay, maybe they'll do commercial stuff in the winter when nobody's moving, but in the summer they're doing all residential because it's more lucrative. And all of a sudden all the big companies need to be on hold. That's not something that OMA will do. And having partners like Matthew, like Matt Schwartzberg there from Steinway Movers, being able to deliver— partners like JK Moving, partners like Beltman, partners that actually care about making sure that they have resources available all around the year for the OMA partners, and especially having multiple partners within each market that has more than a certain amount of square footage, even though they compete with each other locally, is important in terms of capacity.

And, and, you know, some larger, uh, clients, Fortune 500 and large corporate real estate organizations, they like options. You know, we may have a really, really good partner that's got a 30, 40-year tradition in a certain market, but, but there are some customers that just want options. And so we're able to give them those options as well as they need them.

Very, very powerful. Let's, let's go back to you growing up. Like, what's the story with you? Where did you grow up and how did you become the successful, savvy entrepreneur that you are?

Well, um, I grew up in, uh, a little town east of Columbus, uh, Newark, Ohio. Um, mother and father, uh, married the entire— my father passed away several years ago, but I just grew up in a very blue-collar, um—

They stayed married for a long time.

Grew up in the '60s and, you know, in, uh, the '70s and, and blue-collar neighborhood and learned a work ethic, thank God, from both of my parents.

You saw them work really hard.

Absolutely. And, you know, when, when you're, when you're 12, when you're 7, when you're 17, maybe you don't realize that. But when you really get out in the own world and, uh, you, you realize the sacrifices that they had made. So, uh, grew up, uh, Joe, people ask me, you know, sometimes they say, what did you want to be when you were a little kid or whatever? And my answer to that is I had no idea. I never even thought about it. You know, some kids, I wanted to be a fireman or I want to be a baseball player or whatever.

You're like, I wanted to be a commercial moving and relocation guy.

I never even thought about that. And so I was the first one in my family of 4, had 2 older sisters and a younger brother that went to college.

Wow.

And I still didn't know what I wanted to do.

So you went to college, first one that went to college, and you still had no idea what you wanted to do?

I had no idea.

What did you get a degree in?

I got a degree in criminology.

Wow. Out of all things. Yeah.

And how I wound up in the movie business, who knows? But so, yeah, I grew up, you know.

Did you have student debt?

I did not.

No student debt. Look at him.

Here's why I did not have student debt is I worked every summer and I worked year round.

You didn't just get random loans?

No, I didn't. And, um, and, and then I know we're segueing here, but even when my children went to college, it was, you're not going to get a loan, I'm not going to get a loan, you know, we'll figure this out. But, um, so I, you know, going to college for me was just a growing up experience is what it was.

It's like a social experience.

I had one hell of a time, um, and but when I got out, I didn't know what I wanted to do still. And so that's another thing that I, that I counsel particularly my children and others on is that, you know, college is, um, it's a lot of fun, have a lot of fun, but, but, you know, you're there preparing yourself for the future. And I really didn't do that in the 4 years that I was there.

So, so what, at what point did you decide, okay, I have a good work ethic, I need to figure out what to do? What type of jobs did you get till you moved to moving and relocation?

So my father had worked for a a large organization, Owens Corning Fiberglass. They make fiberglass. And so I worked in the factories of Owens Corning Fiberglass, literally packaging fiberglass. Now, if you've ever been around fiberglass, you know how itchy and hot and everything else that is. It's not fun. It wasn't fun. And so I did that every summer, and then I worked in warehouses that were related to Owens Corning. My father was head of their shipping department. So I always was working in, in somewhere around transportation, but didn't even know that it would ever— that was where I'd wind up in. Uh, the only other— I had some fast food jobs, uh, in high school and in the summers. And then the only other job I ever had outside of the moving industry was I worked for a landscape company for about 6 months.

Wow, you can cut some grass.

I can cut grass. I can trim a tree.

He can trim a tree. Can you climb it? I—

well, I used to be able But so, uh, but then, you know, 40 years ago when I got into the movie business, as I said earlier, I had zero. Um, never ever would have dreamed that I would still be doing it 40 years. But, uh, you know, grew to love something.

And, um, very, very powerful. Very powerful. When you love what you do, you never work a day in your life. Very powerful. Do you have any mentors that really inspire you? Tony Robbins or Gary Vaynerchuk or Napoleon Hill? Do you have any mentors that you kind of looked up to?

I have a tremendous amount of mentors through, through, you know, my career. Not enough time in a day to probably name them all. But the people that really took me under their wing and mentored me, they weren't the Tony Robbins of the world, etc. They were real people doing doing real things. And particularly in the office moving industry, you know, some of the people that took me under their wing when I was— I wasn't running the company, I was just starting and learning the business. And a couple of those people were— I still consider— they're both passed away, but they were huge influences on my life professionally. Then again, when I got into YPO, ton of mentors, just unbelievable amount Not fair to name one or two, of course, but they really made a difference in my life.

What was a piece of advice that you got early on that stuck with you for a really long time from one of your mentors that passed away?

Don't be afraid to fail.

Don't be afraid to fail.

Fix it fast.

Fix it fast. I like that.

And have fun while you're doing it.

Have fun while you're doing it. You sure know how to have fun. I've seen you having fun over here at OMA. Okay, so fix it fast and have fun doing it. Really powerful concepts. Don't forget to fail. Don't be afraid to fail because, you know, a lot of people are afraid to fail. If you were talking to some movers out there, movers, relocations, and you wanted to give them some inspiration, what inspiration would you give some movers right now?

Well, I get into a lot of conversations with companies that reach out to us that want to become part of our model. And a lot of those organizations haven't been focused on the core services that, that OMA performs. They've been large residential movers, etc. And a lot of what I tell them, or even other small business owners that I talk to, is, you know, have a plan, number one. Be committed to it. Just because you have men and trucks, you say you're in the moving business, that doesn't mean you're a very good commercial mover. So, you know, you have to have the commitment To do it, you have to, you have to put the effort in to do it, and you got to have a plan. If you don't have a plan, you're guessing.

So yeah, you've got to have a plan. What is your plan? If you don't have a strategy, if you don't have a plan, you're not going to succeed. I'm very big into the concept of the right strategy will save you a decade. Having the right systems and processes specifically around marketing and business development, making sure you have the right systems. I saw this firsthand at JK Moving. where David Cox was talking about the wheel chucks of the trucks.

Yes.

I don't know if he ever told you the story, but there was— they painted the wheel chucks orange because every single day the president of this massive conglomerate goes around the largest moving company from a single market perspective. He goes around, he drives around and makes sure to inspect all the wheel chucks and just to kind of see what's going on, that everything is being done with the systems and the processes. and everyone's wearing the right uniforms and everything. And he saw that one of the wheel chucks was like off the wheel a little bit. And so he called up the manager and he's like, what's going on? Why is one of the wheel chucks off the wheels? And he's like, who screwed up? Who's not taking the time to sit there and do things the right way?

Right.

This is what a moving company that's involved in commercial, especially in Fortune 500, they have to— the devil's in the details, these little details that they're looking at. And And measuring and KPIs. And it turns out that they used a vendor to clean the trucks, and one of the vendors sprayed the wheel chuck and it twisted a little bit. So it wasn't the person. It was like, wow, this is the detail of how detailed their employees need to be in order to be able to properly do commercial.

That partner, JK, is one of the most process-driven, uh, companies I've ever seen. And, uh, their success and their growth and, and how they treat people, it all shows in that.

Their core values, their crew meetings. Have you ever attended a crew meeting at 6 AM on a Tuesday?

I've had them over there, etc. So one of the things, you know, you asked about advice. What I try to tell partners that are asking me questions all the time is inspect your own expectations. And that's what the president of JK is doing every morning when he drives through that parking lot. Yeah, he's inspecting his expectations.

David Cox drives around, he takes a look, and he Inspect what you expect, right? Wow, very, very possible. And I also met with Chuck. He shows up to those meetings, to those crew meetings. They give awards to all the employees that have been there for a certain amount of time. They review their KPIs. If there's any mistakes ever, they bring it up with everyone and they show, here's the mistakes, here's what we went wrong, here's what we're going to do to fix it. That's very powerful. You don't see that in a lot of moving companies.

No. And again, it comes back to people and involving them in Every step, whether it's success or failure, and learning from it.

So very, very powerful. Okay, any final words, things you want to say to people of the future of OMA and what they should look coming up? What's coming up?

Well, uh, the future of OMA is very bright. I think you see that as well with, with, uh, some of the people you're working with within our organization. Um, we, we, we have a strategic plan I said, you gotta have a plan. We have a strategic plan. We surpassed our strategic plan from 2019. It was a 5-year plan. We surpassed it in 2 and a half years. So we're now on our new strategic plan and we're about to pass it. And our board is already presenting the new strategic, the next strategic plan. So you always have to be thinking, if you're not growing, you're dying.

That's a big one.

And so, uh, I think our future is very bright. Uh, our brand, uh, again, as I mentioned earlier, nobody knew what we were 5 years ago. Well, everybody, uh, from a buying perspective in the corporate real estate world, uh, is well aware of who we are now. And so our challenge will be to continue to maintain the culture that we desire. We talk about that a lot. and continue to grow and look outside of the box. Not, you know, just because we called ourselves Office Moving Alliance so many years ago, that doesn't mean what we have to be limited to today.

You can also do labs, not just offices. You could also do hotels and hospitals. You could also do FF&E and so on. Very, very powerful. Well, thank you very much for joining us. Thank you for watching this. If you're watching the LinkedIn Live, leave us a comment. Let us know what you do for a living. Let us know if you're in the moving industry. Let us know what you think of our good friend Doug and the value that you got. If you got any takeaways, put them in the comments. Make sure that if you're watching this to hit that repost button so more people can see it. Give it a like, give it a comment, and also send a personalized message to Doug letting him know that you got value from this interview. Thank you once again for being here. Thank you very much for being here. Thank you for hiring me and for allowing me to train all these movers on how to use LinkedIn, how to use artificial I'm so happy that I can come here and inspire the people to add millions of dollars in revenue using the latest tactics.

It's all about learning, right? And I, you know, even 3 years ago, I would've said AI, not authentic, you know, this, that. And you know what you've taught us is you have to train it to perform for you.

So AI is an employee. You gotta train it just like you gotta train your employees, just like you gotta train your members, just like you gotta train your partners. Just like you gotta train your customers to know how to speak to you and how to work with you. So if you're watching this and you enjoyed, give it a like, leave a comment. This is Doug, President of the Office Moving Alliance. This was another episode of LinkedIn Live with Joe Apfelbaum. So excited to be here. And if you guys are a moving company and you specialize in commercial relocation and you wanna find out more, you can go to OMA, you can Google the Office Moving Alliance, or what's the website?

omavantage.com.

Omavantage.com. And also make sure that you find them on LinkedIn and like their page. Your daughter Sam is doing a great job updating the LinkedIn page and all the marketing. She's an excellent photographer. So check out the company page on LinkedIn and we'll see you soon.

Thank you. Boom.