September 18, 2024 • 13 mins
Ever wondered what it takes to lead a thriving family-owned moving business with major clients like Google and UPS? Join us as we sit down with David Noff, the General Manager of Ace Relocation Systems Inc., to uncover his journey from working in his father’s company to steering Ace Relocation through remarkable growth. With 10 US locations and over 400 employees, David shares his secrets on how bringing in talent from outside the moving industry, especially in IT and marketing, has been pivotal in injecting fresh ideas and driving success.
But it’s not all about business mechanics; it's also about mindset. In our conversation, we explore the power of positive entrepreneurship and adaptability. David reveals how maintaining a forward-thinking and positive outlook has been crucial in overcoming challenges and envisioning future success. Hear firsthand how focusing on the positives can truly propel your business forward. Plus, get ready for even more valuable insights when David and his family return in future episodes to share their ongoing journey. Don't miss this chance to learn from a true industry leader! For more information call 888-764-2908 or Visit https://www.acerelocation.com/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the First Media Consulting Podcast, the
Business Chronicles, where wedive deep into the stories of
successful business owners.
Here's your host, Didi andNicholas.
Thanks for joining today.
Let's talk.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hey, welcome back again everyone.
I am just so excited and happyto introduce to you David Knopf,
who's with.
He's the general manager of AceRelocation Systems Inc.
Moving and Storage, and he'sactually going to bring a little
bit of insight about hissuccess with the business as
well as kind of give someinspiration to our listeners of
(00:38):
some of the challenges that he'sovercome throughout his career.
David, how you?
Speaker 3 (00:44):
doing buddy, I'm doing great.
Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Oh, you're very, very welcome, man.
I love that smile.
You gotta love it, right, socan we dive right on into it.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Let's just talk a little bit about your background
, if you don't mind, sure sureyou know I always joke around
with people that I was born intothe moving industry.
I literally was.
It's a family business.
My father owned a large NorthAmerican agency up in Chicago,
Illinois, that he had startedwith one truck and all of his
kids worked their way throughthat business, through college
(01:15):
and everything.
So I started out sweepingwarehouses, cutting grass in the
summertime over at the movingcompany and probably since I was
about 13, 14 years old, I'vebeen around it my whole life.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Well, you know and that's an inspiration older and
older and held various positionsin your father's business, you
kind of understood everythingthat had to happen to get to
where you're at today.
Is that a true statement?
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, it's funny, there'sno free rides with my father and
the type of person he was, hewould tell.
He told me he same as he toldmy brothers and sisters you're
my son, you have to work twiceas hard as everybody else well,
that is, uh, that's a very goodphilosophy to instill into your,
(02:16):
into your kids.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
I love it.
So let's, let's, tell us I knowyou kind of talked a little bit
about this, but tell us alittle bit more about your
business.
When I was doing my research onyou, I saw that you guys have
10, I believe it's 10 USlocations and you have a team of
about over 400.
Is that true?
Okay, that's true, all right,so you've got a big team.
(02:41):
Are you continually growing?
Or give us a little bit aboutyour business, okay?
Speaker 3 (02:48):
So we're an agent for Atlas Van Lines and, as you
said, Ace Relocation Systems has10 locations throughout the
United States.
We are Atlas Van Lines' largestinterstate hauling agent.
We have 150, we call them PBOs.
Those are professional vanoperators that run cross-country
(03:09):
for us and handle all of ourinterstate household good work.
We have warehouses at all of ourlocations.
We're a full-service move-inand storage company.
The majority of the businessthat ACE does is national
account household goods, so wehave contracts with companies
(03:29):
you've all heard of like Google,Lockheed Martin, UPS.
We handle their employeesrelocations and I think last
year Ace as a whole did about15,000 relocations.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Wow, congratulations.
And you know I didn't get thereovernight, did it.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
No, no, and you know.
The story is the same with RedFlammers, who started this
company.
When my father started his,they all started with one truck.
They all started with one truck.
And the one thing in the movingindustry you will not find a
moving company that is publiclyowned, publicly held.
These are family-ownedcompanies that have been in
(04:11):
somewhere around their third andfourth generations of family
owning and operating thosebusinesses and it's turned into
huge, multimillion-dollarcorporations, but they're all
privately held.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
You know, what I like about this man and I can share
this with the listeners is thefact that you stuck with it time
in and time out, through thechallenges, through the ups and
downs, right, and you got to apoint.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Now you wouldn't be where you're at if your
customers were not happy withyour services and kudos to for
you and your family for doingthat.
So what inspired?
Speaker 2 (04:49):
you to do this?
Uh well, my dad told me to doit.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
No, okay, um.
No, you know what?
Just growing up in the businessand seeing, uh, how my dad
conducted business, this is allI wanted to do.
Uh, I have another brother thatruns another business that we
still own.
It's a self storage business upin Chicago.
My other brother and my othersister got out of the business
(05:11):
at a certain point and did otherthings.
I was just always the one.
This is what I wanted to do,and I stuck with it.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Oh, that makes a lot of sense.
You know we talk about stickingwith something.
Even though it's hard, it willpay its dividends in the long
run.
So what's a belief strategy youheld strongly in the past that
completely changed your mindabout?
Speaker 3 (05:47):
I used to always think in the past when I was
interviewing employees, that youwere better off trying to hire
somebody from within your ownindustry, within the moving
industry.
Some points it does make iteasier to train people because
they already know your business,how you estimate, how you do
things, and that's changed.
I've learned that you get a lotmore from hiring outside the
industry.
It doesn't mean we won't lookwithin our own industry, but
(06:12):
we've had a lot of successhiring people from outside the
moving industry.
There's a big world out therein the business and they bring a
lot of experience to us thatthey may not have gotten within
our own industry and that'shelped us to grow and given us a
big advantage.
Sales marketing and especiallyin IT, ace leads the way in the
(06:34):
IT side of the business.
We're using AI.
We're actually consulting Atlasvan lines on their IT systems
and that's because we broughtpeople in from big, large
companies outside of ourindustry to help us with that.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
I like what you said bringing people outside of your
industry because doing thatprovides a different perspective
.
Absolutely, they're not set intheir ways because they're in
the traditional way of someonebeing in that same industry.
You're kind of like goingoutside of the mold, you're
breaking that mold, so that's.
That is very interesting thatyou said that.
(07:11):
So what are some of theunexpected lessons that you
learned from your business, fromrunning your business?
Speaker 3 (07:20):
One of the biggest lessons I learned was about
eight years ago when I movedfrom Illinois to Florida.
I'm a lifelong Chicago person,have lived up there and I got
the opportunity to move down toOrlando to take over our Orlando
branch and get to warmerweather.
So my wife and I took advantageof that.
(07:41):
Being in this business myentire life, I've never moved
out of state like we do for allof our customers and I really
realized that it is stressfulthat we knew Moving is number
two right, it's in the top threewith death and divorce.
But I didn't realize how much,outside of what we do for the
(08:03):
customer, the stress thatthey're under Lining up home
sales, possibly working in twolocations at once, which I did
for quite a while I ran bothcompanies Getting kids enrolled
in new schools.
My wife actually moved downabout three months ahead of me
to get our daughters in school.
(08:24):
We had one in high school andone in college.
There is so much more going onand that really opens your eyes
to.
You have to be sympathetic toyour customers when you're
dealing with them, becausethere's a lot more going on
other than just the physicalmove of what we're handling with
them.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Wow, that's a lot of great information.
You're actually seeing it fromthe eyes of your customer and
that's powerful.
So what is the secret tosuccess?
Speaker 3 (08:58):
as we kind of wrap up here, it's really simple do
what you say you're going to do.
Don't give your customer a lotof promises and commitments that
you're not sure if you can doit.
Um, if you tell your customeryou're going to do something,
you do it.
That's an obligation and youmake it happen.
And I think that has reallybeen the philosophy behind Ace
(09:24):
and I think that's what's madeAce so successful.
If we make a commitment tosomething, we're going to make
it happen.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
You know I hear that from a lot of business owners
because I do talk to a lot andthat's consistently the same
message that I hear across mostbusiness owners and how you know
they say do it right.
You know and and, do and andcreate the trust you know among
your clients.
What is a trend that's kind ofhappening in your business right
(09:53):
now?
Is there a trend?
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Well, the business slowed down this last year,
obviously because of theinterest rates on homes, but
we've seen our traffic patternsshift a little bit as well.
Now.
I live down in Florida and ourbranches in Orlando, and we've
been the lucky recipient of ahuge amount of inbound traffic
into the Florida area for thelast seven or eight years at
(10:18):
least.
That has slowed down this year.
There's still a lot of peoplemoving here, but it's quite a
bit less than what was comingdown here in the year prior.
There are a lot of moves comingoff the West Coast and we're
doing a lot of relocations fromWashington, california, oregon
(10:39):
heading eastbound but notnecessarily coming as much to
Florida as they were in the past.
They're going to other states.
They're going to North Carolina, south Carolina.
Tennessee is seeing a lot ofactivity.
So is Texas.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Interesting.
Yeah, it has kind of boomedover the many years.
Right, it definitely has donethat.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
It has, and Florida has become more expensive to
live in, so that's part of thereason it's slowed down a little
bit.
It's still an attractive placeto live, though you can't beat
it.
I would never leave.
But we're also seeing a trendwith some of the retirees
starting to move to Georgia,south Carolina, just because
(11:27):
Florida is becoming a little bitexpensive for people on the
fixed incomes.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Well, that's a good point.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
It makes a lot of sense.
So, as you know, this show isalso about giving inspiration to
those who want to becomeentrepreneurs or those who are
business owners, maybe stuck ina rut.
As far as business, it'sconstantly changing and you have
to be able to change with thebusiness and adapt new ideas.
The other thing is, is youliterally you have to be able to
look to the future and seeyourself and your business as
(12:12):
being successful?
That's that will make it happen.
That will help drive you everyday to make it happen.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
And I, like that man, look in the future, making sure
that you see yourself as beingsuccessful and staying positive,
no matter how hard things get.
You know you focus on thepositives and no negatives can
come in your life as youcontinue to push that needle
forward.
Well, david, I am so excited tohave you share your success and
(12:40):
your inspiration about yourbusiness.
Congratulations for all thesuccess you and your family are
having and hopefully we can haveyou guys back here in the near
future as well.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
I would love it.
Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
You're very welcome.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Thank you so much.
Welcome to the First Media Consulting Podcast, the
Business Chronicles, where wedive deep into the stories of
successful business owners.
Here's your host, Didi andNicholas.
Thanks for joining today.
Let's talk.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hey, welcome back again everyone.
I am just so excited and happyto introduce to you David Knopf,
who's with.
He's the general manager of AceRelocation Systems Inc.
Moving and Storage, and he'sactually going to bring a little
bit of insight about hissuccess with the business as
well as kind of give someinspiration to our listeners of
(00:38):
some of the challenges that he'sovercome throughout his career.
David, how you?
Speaker 3 (00:44):
doing buddy, I'm doing great.
Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Oh, you're very, very welcome, man.
I love that smile.
You gotta love it, right, socan we dive right on into it.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Let's just talk a little bit about your background
, if you don't mind, sure sureyou know I always joke around
with people that I was born intothe moving industry.
I literally was.
It's a family business.
My father owned a large NorthAmerican agency up in Chicago,
Illinois, that he had startedwith one truck and all of his
kids worked their way throughthat business, through college
(01:15):
and everything.
So I started out sweepingwarehouses, cutting grass in the
summertime over at the movingcompany and probably since I was
about 13, 14 years old, I'vebeen around it my whole life.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Well, you know and that's an inspiration older and
older and held various positionsin your father's business, you
kind of understood everythingthat had to happen to get to
where you're at today.
Is that a true statement?
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, it's funny, there'sno free rides with my father and
the type of person he was, hewould tell.
He told me he same as he toldmy brothers and sisters you're
my son, you have to work twiceas hard as everybody else well,
that is, uh, that's a very goodphilosophy to instill into your,
(02:16):
into your kids.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
I love it.
So let's, let's, tell us I knowyou kind of talked a little bit
about this, but tell us alittle bit more about your
business.
When I was doing my research onyou, I saw that you guys have
10, I believe it's 10 USlocations and you have a team of
about over 400.
Is that true?
Okay, that's true, all right,so you've got a big team.
(02:41):
Are you continually growing?
Or give us a little bit aboutyour business, okay?
Speaker 3 (02:48):
So we're an agent for Atlas Van Lines and, as you
said, Ace Relocation Systems has10 locations throughout the
United States.
We are Atlas Van Lines' largestinterstate hauling agent.
We have 150, we call them PBOs.
Those are professional vanoperators that run cross-country
(03:09):
for us and handle all of ourinterstate household good work.
We have warehouses at all of ourlocations.
We're a full-service move-inand storage company.
The majority of the businessthat ACE does is national
account household goods, so wehave contracts with companies
(03:29):
you've all heard of like Google,Lockheed Martin, UPS.
We handle their employeesrelocations and I think last
year Ace as a whole did about15,000 relocations.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Wow, congratulations.
And you know I didn't get thereovernight, did it.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
No, no, and you know.
The story is the same with RedFlammers, who started this
company.
When my father started his,they all started with one truck.
They all started with one truck.
And the one thing in the movingindustry you will not find a
moving company that is publiclyowned, publicly held.
These are family-ownedcompanies that have been in
(04:11):
somewhere around their third andfourth generations of family
owning and operating thosebusinesses and it's turned into
huge, multimillion-dollarcorporations, but they're all
privately held.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
You know, what I like about this man and I can share
this with the listeners is thefact that you stuck with it time
in and time out, through thechallenges, through the ups and
downs, right, and you got to apoint.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Now you wouldn't be where you're at if your
customers were not happy withyour services and kudos to for
you and your family for doingthat.
So what inspired?
Speaker 2 (04:49):
you to do this?
Uh well, my dad told me to doit.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
No, okay, um.
No, you know what?
Just growing up in the businessand seeing, uh, how my dad
conducted business, this is allI wanted to do.
Uh, I have another brother thatruns another business that we
still own.
It's a self storage business upin Chicago.
My other brother and my othersister got out of the business
(05:11):
at a certain point and did otherthings.
I was just always the one.
This is what I wanted to do,and I stuck with it.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Oh, that makes a lot of sense.
You know we talk about stickingwith something.
Even though it's hard, it willpay its dividends in the long
run.
So what's a belief strategy youheld strongly in the past that
completely changed your mindabout?
Speaker 3 (05:47):
I used to always think in the past when I was
interviewing employees, that youwere better off trying to hire
somebody from within your ownindustry, within the moving
industry.
Some points it does make iteasier to train people because
they already know your business,how you estimate, how you do
things, and that's changed.
I've learned that you get a lotmore from hiring outside the
industry.
It doesn't mean we won't lookwithin our own industry, but
(06:12):
we've had a lot of successhiring people from outside the
moving industry.
There's a big world out therein the business and they bring a
lot of experience to us thatthey may not have gotten within
our own industry and that'shelped us to grow and given us a
big advantage.
Sales marketing and especiallyin IT, ace leads the way in the
(06:34):
IT side of the business.
We're using AI.
We're actually consulting Atlasvan lines on their IT systems
and that's because we broughtpeople in from big, large
companies outside of ourindustry to help us with that.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
I like what you said bringing people outside of your
industry because doing thatprovides a different perspective
.
Absolutely, they're not set intheir ways because they're in
the traditional way of someonebeing in that same industry.
You're kind of like goingoutside of the mold, you're
breaking that mold, so that's.
That is very interesting thatyou said that.
(07:11):
So what are some of theunexpected lessons that you
learned from your business, fromrunning your business?
Speaker 3 (07:20):
One of the biggest lessons I learned was about
eight years ago when I movedfrom Illinois to Florida.
I'm a lifelong Chicago person,have lived up there and I got
the opportunity to move down toOrlando to take over our Orlando
branch and get to warmerweather.
So my wife and I took advantageof that.
(07:41):
Being in this business myentire life, I've never moved
out of state like we do for allof our customers and I really
realized that it is stressfulthat we knew Moving is number
two right, it's in the top threewith death and divorce.
But I didn't realize how much,outside of what we do for the
(08:03):
customer, the stress thatthey're under Lining up home
sales, possibly working in twolocations at once, which I did
for quite a while I ran bothcompanies Getting kids enrolled
in new schools.
My wife actually moved downabout three months ahead of me
to get our daughters in school.
(08:24):
We had one in high school andone in college.
There is so much more going onand that really opens your eyes
to.
You have to be sympathetic toyour customers when you're
dealing with them, becausethere's a lot more going on
other than just the physicalmove of what we're handling with
them.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Wow, that's a lot of great information.
You're actually seeing it fromthe eyes of your customer and
that's powerful.
So what is the secret tosuccess?
Speaker 3 (08:58):
as we kind of wrap up here, it's really simple do
what you say you're going to do.
Don't give your customer a lotof promises and commitments that
you're not sure if you can doit.
Um, if you tell your customeryou're going to do something,
you do it.
That's an obligation and youmake it happen.
And I think that has reallybeen the philosophy behind Ace
(09:24):
and I think that's what's madeAce so successful.
If we make a commitment tosomething, we're going to make
it happen.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
You know I hear that from a lot of business owners
because I do talk to a lot andthat's consistently the same
message that I hear across mostbusiness owners and how you know
they say do it right.
You know and and, do and andcreate the trust you know among
your clients.
What is a trend that's kind ofhappening in your business right
(09:53):
now?
Is there a trend?
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Well, the business slowed down this last year,
obviously because of theinterest rates on homes, but
we've seen our traffic patternsshift a little bit as well.
Now.
I live down in Florida and ourbranches in Orlando, and we've
been the lucky recipient of ahuge amount of inbound traffic
into the Florida area for thelast seven or eight years at
(10:18):
least.
That has slowed down this year.
There's still a lot of peoplemoving here, but it's quite a
bit less than what was comingdown here in the year prior.
There are a lot of moves comingoff the West Coast and we're
doing a lot of relocations fromWashington, california, oregon
(10:39):
heading eastbound but notnecessarily coming as much to
Florida as they were in the past.
They're going to other states.
They're going to North Carolina, south Carolina.
Tennessee is seeing a lot ofactivity.
So is Texas.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Interesting.
Yeah, it has kind of boomedover the many years.
Right, it definitely has donethat.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
It has, and Florida has become more expensive to
live in, so that's part of thereason it's slowed down a little
bit.
It's still an attractive placeto live, though you can't beat
it.
I would never leave.
But we're also seeing a trendwith some of the retirees
starting to move to Georgia,south Carolina, just because
(11:27):
Florida is becoming a little bitexpensive for people on the
fixed incomes.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Well, that's a good point.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
It makes a lot of sense.
So, as you know, this show isalso about giving inspiration to
those who want to becomeentrepreneurs or those who are
business owners, maybe stuck ina rut.
As far as business, it'sconstantly changing and you have
to be able to change with thebusiness and adapt new ideas.
The other thing is, is youliterally you have to be able to
look to the future and seeyourself and your business as
(12:12):
being successful?
That's that will make it happen.
That will help drive you everyday to make it happen.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
And I, like that man, look in the future, making sure
that you see yourself as beingsuccessful and staying positive,
no matter how hard things get.
You know you focus on thepositives and no negatives can
come in your life as youcontinue to push that needle
forward.
Well, david, I am so excited tohave you share your success and
(12:40):
your inspiration about yourbusiness.
Congratulations for all thesuccess you and your family are
having and hopefully we can haveyou guys back here in the near
future as well.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
I would love it.
Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
You're very welcome.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Thank you so much.
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