Should Your Moving Company Become a Van Line Agent?

Hey, my friend. It's Luis Massaro, CEO of Moving Mastery and founder of Moving Sales Academy. Today we're going to be talking about whether your moving company should join a major van line and become an agent to help, you know, run your interstate long distance division of your company. Alright? When I say a major van line, I'm talking about, you know, Atlas, Mayflower, Allied, United, North American National, Arpin. You know, I'll put a list of all of them in the notes below. This way you can check them out for yourself. But let's talk about what the pros and what the cons are to becoming an agent for a van line, right? So let's jump right into it. The first pro of becoming an agent for a van line is nationally recognized brand, right? So immediately, whatever the name of your company it is, whether you know, it's well known, whether you've been around for a while, whether you really have a brand following, you'll instantly get one. By joining a van line, you'll be able to use all their marketing materials, you'll be able to, you know, you'll most likely have to letter your trucks with their logos and their colors and everything, but you'll instantly have a brand that everyone recognizes, right? So when you go on estimates, when you're quoting people over the phone, when you're doing presentations, you'll have a brand that is already recognized. Alright? So that's the first pro of becoming an agent for a van line. The second pro is, you know, additional sales channels with military, national accounts and logistics. All right, you don't have to be a van line agent to get these, but by becoming a van line agent, it makes these much more accessible. And the van line will help you get military moves, national accounts, logistics jobs, all right? These are, you know, things that are already within the van line's network and within their scope of work. Especially if you're in a city, in an area where they could use someone to handle these accounts. And this is another pro of becoming an agent for a van line, all right? Third pro, becoming an agent for a van line is backhaul shipments. All right? If you're independent, if you're not affiliated with a van line, you have to worry about getting backhauls. Meaning if you are in LA and you have a move that goes to New York and you don't have anything to come back from New York and your truck comes back empty, you're not going to be very profitable. So the van line has agents in all kinds of cities, right? Almost full national Footprint and they'll be able to get you backhaul shipments to fill your truck. So that's another pro of being an agent for a van line, right? Wherever your truck goes, chances are you'll be able to find the shipment for a backhaul. Alright? It's really important. Now you could find this as an independent, but the van line makes it much easier for you. Pro number four is you have an network of haulers. Okay? So this is the reverse. So let's say you book a move and you're not able to service it. You don't have the trucks, you don't have the capacity, all your trucks are busy. Or let's say you book a move that's out of area for you. The van line has a network of haulers, so other moving companies that can then haul that shipment for you and you receive a percentage just for booking it. All right, so you're not brokering out a job, but you're giving it to another carrier or I should say another agent within in the van line agency. Okay, so that's another big pro. And the fifth pro is storage in transit. Okay, so what storage and transit is sit. Basically, if another van line agent, right, that is in the same van line as you has a shipment coming to your city that needs storage and then possibly a local redelivery as well, there's a good chance you'll get that shipment, you'll be able to collect on the storage, you'll be able to do the local move. Alright? So that's another benefit and another pro of becoming an agent for a van line. Alright? So those are five, you know, positive good reasons why you would become an agent for a major van line, right? Let's talk about what the cons are. I'm going to give you five cons as well, all right? A percentage of all your interstate business will go to the van lines, meaning a percentage of the revenue of all your interstate moves will go to the van line. So even if you do all the marketing, you book the move, you put it on your truck, you haul it, you're still going to give a percentage of that to the van line. All right, so there's support and there's things that go along with that. There's a reason they charge it. But I would say that that's a con, that you're giving up part of your money to the van line on a shipment that you handle 100% by yourself. And there's other fees and other things that they charge you for as well. All Right. The second con of becoming an agent for a van line is you must follow the van line's guidelines. Right? So as an interstate carrier, you, you know, USDOT and FMCSA laws and regulations to follow. Well, you'll also have the van lines guidelines to follow, alright? And each van line has different guidelines. But this would be another con. If you're wanting to do things a certain way, you may or may not be able to do them the way you want to because you have to follow the van lines guidelines. All right. Third conversation is loss of brand recognition. Right? So we talked about gaining a nationally known brand recognition as a pro for becoming an agent for van line. Well, you'll lose your own brand recognition. So if you're trying to build a brand and you want to be recognizable with your trucks and not be known as the vanline agent, but be known as your own company, you would lose that. Alright? So that's not always a bad thing. It all depends on what your strategy is for growth. Alright? But this is something to keep in mind. So the fourth con is you must have a warehouse facility, right? So if you're a moving company and you're working out of a truck yard or you just have an office where you park trucks and you don't have a warehouse, most van lines are going to require you to be an agent. They're going to require you to have a warehouse facility for things like the storage and transit and things like that that are revenue opportunities for you. So it's not all bad. But if you don't have a warehouse, you will need a warehouse to become a van line agent. And then the fif. Fifth con to becoming a van line agent is just van line politics, right? You now are not the sole decision maker of what happens with your company. Right. The things that you do in regards to your interstate business, your marketing and things like, you know, there's a lot that you now are part of a network that you have to follow their guidelines and be a part of what's going on. And there's also, you know, who gets the military shipments in the city. Maybe that van line has another agent. There's multiple agents in one city. So it's, you know, who gets the account work, things like that. So there's those things to consider as well. So that's five pros and five cons of becoming a vanline agent, right? So if you're a local mover and you're not doing any interstate business, but you're receiving a lot of interstate requests or you have your interstate license and you're doing a few shipments here and there on your own trucks and you feel like you could use some more support. You know, that's another big benefit too, is that, you know, if you're really just getting started and you don't, you know, have a full understanding of interstate, it's, it's challenging. I mean, I, you know, it was challenging for me, you know, if you know my story, you know, I sold my long distance fleet and became a broker, which turned out to be a terrible decision. But, you know, it's, it's challenging. So if you're just starting out and you could really use the support, it'd definitely be worth checking out. Becoming an agent for a van line. All right? I know a lot of people that are agents for different van lines, and for the most part, they're all happy with the fact that they might have some grievances, but they're all happy being an agent for a van line. All right? So it just provides you that national support. There are also some cons to it. All right? We talked about all of them. But I just wanted to lay it out for you. If you have any more questions about this. These are only five pros and five cons. There's more to it, you know, definitely. Leave me a comment, ask me questions, send me an email. I'll be more than happy to help you. I'm also going to put a list of all the van lines so that you can, you know, go ahead if you're ready to do it, apply to all of them. Right. You don't know which van lines need an agent in your city. You might be in a city right now where they're in desperate need of a good agent. And if you provide good service and you're already doing a lot of marketing for your local side of your business and you're able to get interstate work, you might be a great fit for them. All right? So don't be afraid to try it out. And if, you know what, if you want to stay independent, that's cool too, right? I just wanted to lay it out for you. I'm not trying to tell you to go one way or tell you to go the other way. All I could say is I know many successful independent moving companies that have a lot of interstate business that handle their own backhauls and are able to work with other moving companies to set that up. And they're happy doing it the way they do it. And I know a lot of vanline agents that are part of a network. They're part of a, you know, bigger family, if you will, and they're happy that way. Right. It really all depends on you and the future and where you see yourself taking your company and how this all fits in. Alright, I hope this was helpful. Go out there every single day. Profit in business, thrive in life. I'll see you later. Hey my friend, it's Louis. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Do me two favors. Number one, subscribe to this channel so that you continue to get updates every time I release new training for you. And number two, if you want to build a rock solid sales process in your moving company and continue to book moves on a regular basis and just increase sales, what I'd love to do is teach you the six stages of building a moving sales machine in your company. All right, These are the same six stages that I use to build my company to a multimillion dollar nationwide level where we were booking 12,000 moves a year or $20 million in business. And I'd love to train you for free on how to do that in your company. Alright? So simply click on the link on this page or head over to louismassaro.com sixstages so that's Louis L O U I S Massaro M A S s a r o.com sixstages and you'll get instant access and meet me back here. And we're going to walk through the six stages of how to a build moving sales machine in your company. Alright? So until I see you on the other side, until I see you back here for the free training, go out there every single day and profit in business and thrive in life. I'll see you later.