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How These Movers Make Referrals Inevitable (and How You Can Too)
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How These Movers Make Referrals Inevitable (and How You Can Too)
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Our 2025 State of Moving and Storage report confirmed what every mover already knows: nothing beats word-of-mouth and referral leads. But what nobody tells you is that doing good work alone won’t get you all the referrals you could be getting. The best movers don’t hope and wait. They have tactics to keep referrals coming, over and over again.
We sat down with three Moving Titans: Chad Coatney (CEO of Master Movers), Tiam Behdarvandan (CEO of Let’s Get Moving), and Wade Swikle (CEO of 2 College Brothers Moving). They walked us through the real tactics they’re using today. We’ve rounded up the best ones for you here.
Trade referrals with local businesses in Facebook groups
Build a team of local business owners who aren’t your direct competitors (like realtors, lawn care business owners, or anyone who isn’t a mover) and agree to refer each other in local Facebook groups.
Whenever you see someone in a Facebook group asking about movers, screenshot that post and send it to your team. They should immediately jump in and recommend you in the comments. When your partner’s service comes up, you’ll do the same for them.
This works because humans are wired to follow the crowd. If your name keeps popping up, leads assume you must be good and become more likely to book with you. Wade Swikle told us this strategy brought in over $400,000 for fellow mover Amber Hallaman last year! Here’s the step-by-step playbook.
1. Find local business owners to team up with
Don’t team up with unreliable business owners. This strategy can only work if your team refers you regularly and quickly. Everyone should treat this as part of the job.
If a post has been up for more than 24 hours without anyone mentioning you in the comments, that lead’s probably gone. Realistically, people get enough recommendations within the first few hours—so if your team’s only dropping your name when they feel like it, don’t expect results.
2. Set up a group chat for your referral team
It doesn’t matter which app you use, as long as you’re not texting each person individually. When you spot a post in a Facebook group, you just need the fastest way to let your team know about it, so they can get in there and flood the comments.
3. Pick your keywords and start monitoring them in groups
You can search Facebook groups for keywords like “movers,” “moving company,” or “need movers” to find people looking for recommendations. This will also train the Facebook algorithm to show posts like these at the top of your feed. You can do this once to set up your process, but after that, it’s more about casually keeping an eye out.
If this sounds time consuming, don't worry. No one expects you to spend all day on Facebook groups. Use a Google Chrome extension like Devi. It’ll send you an email notification whenever a new post comes up with one of your keywords, so you can check it out and decide what to do.
Run drip campaigns to stay on top of mind for referrals
Drip campaigns are a simple way to stay in front of your customers by sharing helpful information, discounts, or offers. That way, when they need to move again or know someone who does, you’ll be the first moving company they think of.
Tiam Behdarvandan, CEO of Let’s Get Moving, is personally using these drip tactics:
- Sending customers a message right after the move is done
- Monthly newsletters to share helpful updates
- Coupons sent to renters 10 months after their move, right around when they’re likely to move again
Tips to make drip campaigns work
1. Make every message feel personal and human.
Mention the customer’s name, the move date, or even their neighborhood. Most CRM tools and moving business command centers like Supermove let you do this. But if personalization doesn’t easily impress your customers, try getting creative and even funny with your messages on purpose. The more human your messages are, the more likely customers are to engage.
2. Time your messages carefully
Your timing matters just as much as what you say. Figure out what timing makes sense for your customers. For example, if a big chunk of your clients are renters, how often do they move in your city? For Tiam, that sweet spot is 10 months after their last move. That’s why he sends a check-in drip message around that time, right when renters start thinking about moving.
3. Segment your drip campaign, even a little.
Renters, families, and businesses all need different things, so don't send everyone the same drip messages.
For example, Zippy Shell has a drip campaign automation in Supermove. They use tags to split up leads into four groups: New Lead, Pending Lead, Booked Lead, and No Lead. Each group gets messages that make the most sense for them.
4. Don’t just sell, sell, sell.
If the only time your customers ever hear from you is when you're offering a coupon or a discount, your messages quickly become annoying. Customers will start tuning out or worse—report your messages as spam. Selling matters, but don’t forget to share helpful information, too.
Make it hard for local realtors not to send you clients
Many movers think getting referrals from realtors is about showing up to their offices, shaking hands, and handing out business cards. But realtors don’t send you clients just because you’re nice to them. They do it because they trust you won’t embarrass them. Every time a realtor refers you, they’re putting their name and relationship with their client on the line. If the move goes sideways, you’ll never get another referral from them again.
Trust alone won’t get you referrals, either. You have to make it a no-brainer for realtors to refer you. That’s what the CEO of Master Movers, Chad Coatney figured out—you need to add so much value to realtors that they almost feel bad not to refer you. Here are some tactics Master Movers use.
Promote realtors and their listings
Master Movers highlight realtors in their email newsletter, which goes out to 15,000 past customers. They also do realtor shoutouts on Facebook and record videos about their listings. Here’s one of those videos.
Host events for realtors
Anyone can show up to a realtor event and shake hands. If that’s all you do, you won’t stand out. That's why Master Movers go above and beyond to rent out a room or a restaurant, invite local real estate brokerages, and create a space for them to have a good time.
Sure, it costs money to put on an event like that, but that’s the point! Doing it sends a clear message: you're serious about your relationships with realtors. And if that gets you hundreds of thousands in referrals down the line, what's $3,000 for an event?
Offer special perks for realtors’ clients
Master Movers give realtors’ clients perks like free moving boxes, $200 off their move, or even a VIP crew. This incentivizes realtors to refer Master Movers.
From the client’s perspective, it makes Master Movers an obvious choice. They can either go with a mover they found on the internet, or go with the one their realtor recommends, who also happens to offer special perks.
Team up with realtors to help your local community
Chad and his team run free disposal pickup and donation events in local neighborhoods. They partner with a realtor to host the event, so the realtor can promote it like they’re the one doing something great for the community.
While Chad’s crew is out there picking up old furniture and junk, they’re also handing out coupons, collecting Google reviews, and making sure every homeowner remembers their name. It’s a win-win. The realtor looks like a community hero, and Master Movers earn goodwill. They had more than 102 homes participating last time they did this.
HONORABLE MENTION: Reward people who have already referred you
Make a list of the people who keep referring you and spreading the word, then do something nice for them. It will only encourage them to keep doing it. For example, Chad Coatney records a quick video to thank people who refer him and let them know how much it means to him. Then he sends them a $10 gift card to Amazon or Starbucks. It’s a small gesture, but it goes a long way.
Start building your referral engine
The movers you see regularly getting referrals aren’t lucky. They’re just playing the game differently. You don’t have to do everything in this article today, but if you pick just one tactic and commit to it, you’ll start seeing the difference.
If you want more behind-the-scenes tactics from Chad, Tiam, and Wade on how they’re growing their moving companies, you can replay the full webinar here.
