Larry Kruger from Customized Moving has spotted a piece of music that he thinks sums up the way many of the older people in the moving industry feel about the rise in technology.
It’s Old Hippie, from The Bellamy Brothers. You can watch the live video here, but you might be best to read what Larry has to say on the topic first.
In my opinion our industry is teetering on a precipice, on the sales side in particular. Should we hold on to the old and continue doing the things we do, or should we grab on to the new? Technology is changing the way everyone does everything; we think customers want tech, and many of them do. The sellers of technology, video surveys for example, tell us that some 43% of the public want technology, they do not mention that 57% don’t. So, as old movers what do we do?
We all must evolve but does that evolution distance us further from the clients and consequently turn us into a bottom-line, reverse-auction industry. There is a saying, ‘Get an old lawyer and a young doctor’. Law rarely changes, but medicine changes daily. In my opinion you need the old mover to hold on to the old, and cherry-pick the new.
I am an old mover with forty-plus years behind me, I am, as they say, playing the back nine, so I am wrestling with this dilemma daily. I am far from being a luddite and technology has a place, if it does not distance us from the customer. When we just count chairs and put in a price, we lose all contact with the customer and with that the ability to distinguish ourselves from the competition, other than with price.
In my opinion bid boards should be burned ...
Photo: Larry Kruger, Customized Moving.