Student Quits Restaurant Job, Starts Moving Business

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

Long ago, in the very last job I ever had, which was more than 20 years ago now at this point, I moved boxes around a warehouse in Memphis, Tennessee. Now, I wasn't particularly good at this job, nor was I especially smart since I was an hourly wage employee. This was also why it was the last job. Didn't go well and I had to find my own way. But if only I had followed this student's example.

I guess I actually found my own way on a different path, but still, for the purpose of this story, this setup, working on someone else's priorities was rough on the college student featured in today's story. He wanted to be able to make his own schedule, so he started a service that ends up as far more than a college side gig. Actually goes on to employ a bunch of people, make a lot of money, et cetera. And there are several lessons here in this story. One of them is about undercutting the competition in a service business, at least undercutting their price, as well as motivating low-wage employees using a positive reward system.

So I enjoyed working on it. I hope you enjoy it too. It's called College Student Quits Restaurant Job Starts Moving Business. That story is coming right up. [Music]

Peter Coffin was like a lot of college students, short on cash.

So he got a job working at a restaurant. He did the trick for a while, but at some point, Peter heard the adage, "If you don't work on your dreams, you'll work on the dreams of others." And a fire was lit. He didn't want to be an order taker or a tool for someone else's success. He wanted to build his own. Peter started toying with a few ways he could start his own thing, and it didn't take long for him to pick house cleaning.

He figured a lot of people hate chores and cleaning, especially his upperclassmen friends at college. So he bought a book titled "How to Start a Cleaning Business," it's a major worldwide bestseller, and some supplies. And in December of 2015, he started Odd Jobs Incorporated. His childhood home was good practice for these new cleaning skills, but he really wanted to challenge himself. He talked to a few seniors in his fraternity whose house was in a state of squalidness, and he offered to clean it for free if they'd allow him to take before and after pictures.

They agreed, and Peter labored for several hours. It was hard work, but worth it. The upperclassmen were so impressed they ended up paying Peter anyway, and quickly referred him to their sister sorority. After a while, he began to get consistent house cleaning gigs at $20 an hour, mostly from word of mouth, but also from a platform called Thumbtack Pro, which enabled him to bid on local jobs. After spending some time on the platform, however, he realized something.

There were way more moving jobs than cleaning jobs, and those moving jobs paid a lot better. So he switched his focus and began to think about moving. He still remembers the first gig. He hired two helpers, did the job in an hour, and walked away with a hundred bucks. It was good money, even at his low price.

In December 2016, he switched the business name to Greek Movers. He knew he wanted to go big or go Homer. That's right, and just wait, it gets better. Now a junior in college, Peter started being more intentional about marketing. He set up a professional Yelp page.

He emailed people who were asking for help with moving on Craigslist. He dropped business cards off at local businesses. He even started experimenting with Google AdWords, although that turned out to be the riskiest option. Running ads was a completely different skill, a fairly technical one, and Peter found that if he got cocky and tried to run too many ads too fast, he'd just end up wasting money. There are only so many people looking to move at any given time.

His initial strategy was simple. Start off with a very low wage to quickly gain testimonials and experience, and make the customer cover the cost of the U-Haul truck, with these unreasonably low prices, Greek movers was able to smite the competition and quickly earn a good reputation. When Peter graduated, he didn't change course. Greek movers was working, and he was going to keep growing it full time. He opened up an Excel spreadsheet for the very first time to examine the state of his business, something that we usually suggest doing a bit sooner, and he discovered something that made his heart skip a beat.

He was on track for a $7,000 month. Greek movers was thriving, and Peter was too. He learned that if he booked trucks the day before the move, he wouldn't have to wait in line for two hours on Saturday morning. He learned that by befriending the U-Haul employees, he would become their preferred recommendation to prospects. And then he learned if he gave those U-Haul employees gift cards to restaurants as thank you gifts, they would refer even more clients.

He was turning out to be a real Alexander the Great, at least of the Redlands, California moving industry. But as he gained more and more jobs and raised his prices to competitive rates, he had to hire more and more guys to help. And that turned out to be his Achilles heel. Oh snap. Despite offering a respectable wage, the guys on his crew kept showing up late, being careless with furniture, and even dropping refrigerators off the truck.

Peter's patience was tested every day. Finally, after months of struggling to patch together systems, communicate effectively, and not be constantly stressed, he took drastic action. He reached out to his six most reliable movers and six new ones, and told them all to write down which days they'd be available to work. Then, rather than letting them claim the jobs they wanted, he began to assign them. Peter established a new objective rule set.

Being late is a strike. Three strikes and your pay is reduced. However, this is key, if you arrive early to five jobs, you get an award ticket, the opposite of a strike. You could use two of these tickets to take away a strike, and you could use 10 for a fancy dinner and a hotel stay. To Peter's amazement, the tickets worked wonders.

And his number of five-star ratings rocketed. The transformation was stunning, and Peter's stress levels were instantly reduced. He was then able to focus more on growing the business and carefully vetting new employees. The effect showed up on that Google spreadsheet as well. In 2019, Peter took home an average of $6,000 a month, most of the time without him even having to be on site.

But rather than channeling Dionysus, and chilling on the beach with wine and theater, Peter is itching to try new things. He's thinking about a new side hustle. He's going to Austria for a month to practice German. And he's considering turning Greek movers into a franchise that's scalable. No matter how he grows the business this year, Peter's not building anyone else's dream.

He's building his own Parthenon of Freedom in the form of Greek movers. [Music]

So if you're out there as a college student or otherwise, and you wanted to do a business like this, Peter says, you know what, it's not that complicated. Start on Craigslist or Thumbtack, bid low and do a good job, then follow up to make sure you get a good review. Ask for referrals, make some cheap business cards and drop them off at local companies. Everyone needs to move sometime.

So if you can help them out and be reliable, there's enough work to go around. All right, you heard it from him, and I hope you enjoyed this story. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. To find the show notes for today's episode, including links to Greek movers, a list of Greek gods, anything else I may have mentioned, just go to sidehustleschool.com/1120, 1120. Thank you so much for listening.

Be sure to come back tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau, this is "Side Hustle School." [Music]

From the Onward Project.