Undergrads: Marketing, Innovation, And Building Trust as a Small Business

As the world begins to open back up, I welcome two young entrepreneurs on This Week in Marketing. Chris Dyer and Tom Mumford – Co-Founders of Undergrads moving company – join me from South Carolina to talk about their innovative take on the moving business.

Undergrads isn’t like the moving services many of us are used to. This company provides clients with the manpower to move their stuff – the client is responsible for supplying the truck. As a result, clients can save a huge chunk of change – as much as 30 percent!

Segment one of the show starts off with a nice overview of the moving industry. Chris and Tom discuss the current situation with COVID-19, how it’s impacted their business, and what innovations we’re seeing.

Segment two is an interesting one. As you probably know if you’ve ever worked with movers, moving is a very, very personal industry. Employees are tasked with going into people’s homes and literally handling ALL of their possessions. Chris and Tom give us some excellent tidbits on how these types of companies can build trust with clients. To give you a little spoiler: half the battle is just showing up on time!

Chris and Tom go into detail about how they vet their candidates – who mainly consist of college students – and how they train them to build trust with customers.

Segment three gets into the nitty gritty details of marketing. We start by covering reviews and how absolutely vital they are in the industry. I learned that in addition to Google Reviews and Facebook, Nextdoor is a phenomenal platform for hyperlocal reviews. We then chat about the process of going from a tiny operation in one city, to a statewide company, all the way to planning out a marketing strategy for going nationwide.

The last segment comes full circle in discussing some of the major growing pains small, hyperlocal businesses face. We touch on the how new technology – like autonomous cars and automation – have impacted the moving industry. As the show comes to a close, we get a fantastic piece of business advice from Tom and Chris:

“Get really good at the things technology cannot replace.”

Do you run a business that is built on client facetime?

If so, definitely give this one a listen!