Pacific Coast Business Times: Meathead’s Next Move – Targeting OC Market

Article by Mark Storer

Speed is not the only valuable commodity in the moving business. It counts for something, but a combination of diligence, honesty, and trustworthiness are just as important, according to brothers Aaron and Evan Steed, founders and owners of Meathead Movers.

Even if moving isn’t just about speed, Meathead Movers’ revenue growth has been on the fast track. The company experienced 86.5 percent revenue growth from 2010 to 2012, ranking at 21 on the 50 Fastest-Growing Companies list for 2013.

From 2012 until earlier this year, however, the company’s revenue has grown 44 percent. Last year’s revenue was $5.8 million and the company projects this year’s revenue to be at $8.8 million.

“We did 694 moving jobs in July,” Aaron said. Meathead Movers sends out as many as 40 moving crews a day during its busy summer season. “It’s challenging to keep on top of all that, but we don’t hire people from other moving companies. We promote from within and we hire athletes.”

With offices in San Luis Obispo and Camarillo, Meathead Movers was slated to move into both Orange and San Diego counties to open offices in 2010. The economic slump slowed those plans, but it didn’t stop them.

Meathead Movers is currently sending crews to Los Angeles and Orange counties and occasionally to San Diego, but they haven’t opened offices south of Camarillo yet.

“We’re in the process of opening an office in Orange County now,” Aaron said. “We’ll be able to service San Diego from that location after it gets going while we grow into it.”

Meathead Movers got its name from the Steed brothers’ inability to find jobs during their school years that would adapt to their athletic schedules. So they offer jobs to athletes and create schedules that work for them, while also providing training and promotions for them.

“We hire people and train them, we cover and guarantee them and that’s different than the rest of the industry,” Evan said.

“When things get damaged or broken, we resolve 90 percent of those issues before the job is even completed,” Aaron said. “That’s obtainable because we have the right team of people in place who know what to do because they’ve been trained.”

Meathead Movers works in the real time world of consumer review sites and customer phone calls. Instant communication allows the Steed brothers to be hand-on and involved from the first morning dispatch of the 40 trucks they own until the last driver pulls in for the evening. Local moves are the company’s stock in trade, primarily within the Tri-Counties, but the Steeds are working to expand beyond that.

“If we move someone from Camarillo to San Francisco, the same crew that loads in Camarillo will be the same crew that unloads in San Francisco and the truck only has one move on it. So, our cost is a bit higher, but we can also guarantee the move, the time we’ll arrive and all of it,” Aaron Steed. “We don’t move cross-country, but one of the services we do offer is to load up pods and moving vans on our end. But we don’t control the whole shipment on a long-distance.”

Aaron said that Meathead Movers is not willing to put its name on the line unless it can control the entire shipment.

Evan said he believes a lot of the company’s success is based on its training program, hiring employees and not contractors, and constant communication.

“The training provides a level of skill, a level of professionalism and a level of accountability that you won’t find in most moving companies. Every time we make mistake, and we do make them, we learn from it and we talk about it and put it in our training program so that we know what to do for the next time,” he said.

SOURCE: Pacific Coast Business Times: Volume 14, Number 25