Last week hundreds of TWO MEN AND A TRUCK® franchisees and managers gathered with the executive teams from the US, Canada, and the UK, in beautiful Colorado Springs, CO, for our Annual Meeting. This is our biggest event of the year where we get together to discuss the year that was, and the future of TWO MEN AND A TRUCK®.
2016 was a big year for expansion for TWO MEN AND A TRUCK® in Canada, establishing locations in Alberta, Manitoba, and Vancouver. We now have locations nationwide from Halifax to Vancouver, and this was the first Annual Meeting for many of our new franchisees. The event is the perfect place for the people who run our locations to get together to talk about their successes and challenges. This sharing of ideas, best practices, and mentoring, is one of the biggest advantages of a large established franchise system like ours and it greatly reduces the learning curve for new locations.
“We continue to rank as the best in the industry and after 87 consecutive months of record growth and success, the TWO MEN AND A TRUCK® vision is accelerating rapidly,” said TWO MEN AND A TRUCK® International CEO, Jeff Wesley.
We’ve always considered ourselves a customer service company that happens to move people, and we kicked things off on Sunday morning with the original two men, brothers Brig and Jon Sorber, and the system’s first franchisee, their sister Melanie Bergeron, talking about their favorite customer service stories. The TWO MEN AND A TRUCK® brand began knowing that it is the little things that make the biggest differences for our customers. Sharing these early stories drove home the fact that though technology and systems have changed our business dramatically over the years, the core service we deliver has not changed at all- delivering a stress-free move during one of the most stressful life events for our customers.
The company executives presented the state of the system. Some of the milestones our franchisees reached in 2016 included:
- Expanding to 384 franchise locations worldwide
- Completing our 6 millionth move
- Moving 543,902 residential customers in 2016
- Moving 38,728 business customers in 2016
- All this while maintaining an average referral rating of 96%
The keynote speaker for Annual Meeting was Scott Stratten, a best-selling author and award winning speaker who just so happens to be a fellow Canadian, which naturally made him 100x better. This highly entertaining and informative talk had everyone laughing and thinking about how the internet and online review sites have given every customer a voice and why it is so important to deliver the high level of personal service we are known for, on every move.
Day two was filled with education sessions and round table discussions, where our franchisees had the opportunity to learn and hone their skills and to meet with our vendors to see and try products and services for potential use at their locations.
Annual Meeting is also an opportunity to celebrate success, and honour those that go the extra mile to make sure our brand stays on top. This year, the awards dinner was extra special, as it gave us an opportunity to honour our founder Mary Ellen Sheets. Mary Ellen is retiring after 30 years of building TWO MEN AND A TRUCK® from a side business for her sons to earn some extra spending money, into the largest franchise moving company in North America. Her kindness and generosity have touched everyone at TWO MEN AND A TRUCK®.
Two of the highlights of the awards dinner were the Move Hero awards. These are awarded to people who have made a major impact with their outstanding work ethic and impact on our customers and their fellow employees. The two winners this year were Stephan Eveland of the Fort Myers, Fla., franchise, and Patrick Worthy of Durham, N.C., franchise. Stephan Eveland does a great job of communicating and providing excellent customer service despite being completely deaf. Patrick Worthy uses his outstanding leadership and motivational skills to make an impact on everyone he works with.
Here are a few photos from this year’s Annual Meeting
