We were lucky to catch up with Blair Harper recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Blair thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

It was after I returned to a retail job I thought I’d never go back to. I laid on the floor, self pity, failed dreams, lack of direction or respect…and I thought “I have a truck, people need stuff moved, what’s the worst that can happen if I put a $5 ad on Craigslist? It worked. I got maybe 3 jobs a week for $50. Someone asked if I did cleanouts. I didn’t. Didn’t know anything. My brother had a trailer (only 9 cu yards) we got it done in 3 days (what now I’d get done in 1.)

On day 2 he said “Blair we could get this done tomorrow if you quit your little $15/hr job you hate.” I did. I survived on a credit card and just started getting everything legal and on Google.

And believe me I wasn’t just following what you’d think you’d do to start a business. I was pacing and thinking daily about partnerships and contracts, advertising, writing lists and peacocking like my business was as qualified as the big leagues. It was a can of worms I opened. I was obsessed.

As soon as we hit Number 3 on the index the beginning of summer I immediately became so busy I couldn’t keep things straight and had to learn organization and strengthen my planning and problem solving on the fly.

There’s a thing you learn when you choose to go forward no matter how bad it gets. These risky scary things do happen. You’ll break down 8 hrs away from home, you’ll compensate a damaged item. All those things your nay sayers will tell you will be the end of you.

You survive it. Those kinda people don’t put themselves in danger. They’re not jealous I don’t think, or malicious. I think that’s a legitimate fear for them.

Stuffing that fear in your back pocket until you have time to pace and think it away and take the blunt of some things…that’s liberating. You get a faith in yourself like you’ve already cheated death a dozen times and at the further end of your journey you find yourself more formidable.

Blair, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m just Blair, Owner of Guy with a Truck! We do Moving, Hauling and Junk removal

I got into this business by doing odd jobs with my truck and cutting grass after work, advertising on nextdoor and Craigslist, negotiating with my full time job a couple hours during the middle of the week to make it to the dump on time.

I made connections with box stores, realtors and the local community of Morgantown. I focused on just the industries I’m in now. Formed an LLC and a website. I developed a solid brand that aims to stand out rather than play it safe.

I ended up meeting a crew, piece by piece who began to see the vision, they became part of the journey. They celebrated the wins and felt the losses with me along the way, and theyre passionate about making sure the face of Guy with a Truck is friendly and professional.

I pay my guys well. They want to see us grow and align with the integrity. I make sure they’re taken care of and, in turn, they take care of the business.

We know that you need help when we come, and you don’t need any less than good vibes coming into your house first thing in the morning. You also need a team that commits to keeping your items and home safe and free of damage in the process.

A lot of times our clients don’t know what to do, or how to resolve major, catastrophic situations and I’ll have to go on a long walk and think of a solution, but it pays. Your community will thank you and you’ll be seeing it ten fold with the same faces you saw the year before.

I say…
Just bend over backwards to do right by your employees and your clients and I promise you it pays back. It’s a priceless reward to have a community and a crew that’s on your side— no matter your bottom line.

We’re Number 1, in 2 categories, and Top 3 in another within 6 months of establishing a Google business profile.

I’d like to think if anyone got something out of reading this is that doing good business and looking out for each other works and is not a naive business practice.

I’d say that’s what separates us from the pack

And also what I’m most proud of

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

To share a single story about resilience in my industry wouldn’t do it justice but I’d like to answer as I feel the amalgam of catastrophic failures has a simple but important message at the tail end.

Just this past week the weather made me push my jobs to the morning of a full move I had been planning for a month. All of them with a new contract that would bring us a steady stream of income. The day would entail:

*A large sectional delivery, several pieces up a steep muddy hill
*A second sectional up on the 5th floor
*A screw punctures our tire
*A last minute no call no show with my employee undergoing serious health issues, and having to do the majority of this move on my own.
*Getting home at 11:30 before the next big day

Another time when I was first starting out I did a loaded pickup bed move 6 hours away, and my only truck at the time broke down in the middle of unstopping Philadelphia traffic.

A lot of times you run into things that challenge you. A lot of times you get home looking like you got your ass kicked at the butt crack of dawn. Sometimes it’s back to back beat downs for a week or two.

What happens, and you have to choose this mindset; You take moments like those and you store them for later. You know that every time you don’t give up, chances are some of the competition has. You know yourself and what you can handle, and you know that before you come up with a solution that you have become the person that can solve the problems that the prior you couldn’t have. You became someone you’d ask for help

You look back at the weeks that broke you down and made you want to quit before, and you realize that they’re small potatoes compared to what you’re handling now, and effortlessly at that.

While you’re dealing with a lot more on your plate at this stage in your life, there’s some evidence that you’re more capable than what you think.

Where you stammered and and felt small around a lot of people —you will grow— you will garner respect in your own way

And all of that is going to happen while you’re not even looking. You’ll just wake up one morning, look in the mirror and you’ve become something way stronger and more formidable than you ever imagined.

My advice —Have a little faith.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

Alright so check it, I’m laying down on the floor, wrestling with my self-loathing, common spiraling thoughts about how I lost so many jobs, that I would often put 17-18 hour days into, that I studied outside of work and took very seriously. The echoing voice that I still haven’t worked hard enough and that’s why I’m where I’m at.

Ive hopped from couch to couch as I changed through jobs, trying to put the pieces together of what’s wrong with me.

How could I end up back at my first entry level job after that much work and growth and now again I’m getting talked down to by middle management .

There was a lot of humor about putting me in charge of certain roles. That and their disbelief that I made it to be even a sales specialist which was just one promotion up on that hierarchy.

…so back in the dark room on the floor, lying around pitying myself and then I just say F it and put up a 5 dollar craigslist ad. I imagined the worst that could come from the unknown was still different than this.

I get my first client.

She has me move a backpack and a kitchen bag of clothes for 50 bucks. I never got a job like that again but you can bet I was adding up the numbers to just get me 400 a week, what my full-time job was paying.

I usually made up 400 from cutting grass often after my full time that started at 5a and then I’d be cutting till 9:30p and then did the hauling jobs I wanted to do, within the small gaps of time I had

It’s about mid fall

I meet this lady who got scammed out of all her money and had to downsize her home. I felt bad. She just said she had a few items. I gave her a ridiculously low price and said just mention me on nextdoor. I did the job, drove her from dialysis to the property to pick out which items she wished to take.

The whole property smelled of rotten meat because she had issues with a cleaning company before me that decided to retaliate on also not getting paid

Anyway, she doesn’t pay the small sum after jobs done, and actually recommends a different service on nextdoor, whatever I wanted to help not just a measley hundred bucks from all that work,

and then the realtor asks if I could cut him a deal on the cleanout.

I didn’t know how to bid those jobs or what a cubic yard even was but I thought “well if I bid low then I’ll learn something. So my brother helped me out with his own trailer. (9 cubic yard trailer and 8 trips is not how you do a property like this) We took 3 days, finished the job at $10/hr On the second day he said “Blair we could get this done tomorrow if you quit your stupid 15/hr job you hate.

What do you need? $200 plus the money from your side gig to make it I can get you that working with me in two days.

So I quit

We started off strong, staying busy with my brother’s business, the winter hits, the work halts to nothing and now I find myself living on a credit card over the winter and focus on writing my nerdy horror books until the spring starts us back up

I accumulate a bunch of debt—but, because I focused on good credit and got a surprise 10k limit that year, when we picked up just a little in the spring I just started saving cash to get the box truck I have now, and put the food money on the card.

The work was still scarce. I was lucky to secure a relationship with a thrift store that loves our services. That still got me about 150/WK give or take and my brother had a job for me here and there

And in the late spring whenever I had several days off I kept making lists, scheming, writing on notebook paper a plan and made sure to execute all of them.

I centered the message of my business around helping out the community when we can because…that’s a legacy thing. Even if I failed I’d like to think I made an impact. I don’t just do that for PR. In this business you run into a lot of people with difficult situations. I legitimately want to help.

I made the website fun and friendly with a goal of standing out and making people feel comfortable with us coming into their homes…I had some other innovative ideas I’m not telling anyone here I think moved us ahead.

With the bones of our business all intact, We hit number 3 on the Google index and immediately I’m hit with so much work.

So much that Im calling my brother for the first two weeks telling him my plans on how to do this crazy amount of work and come work for him simultaneously.

His more established business just happens to land some major contracts at the same time and he probably grew 3 times in size at the same time my business started to kick off.

Of which,
I kept doubting my gig was going to go anywhere and that those few weeks were a fluke—It took way way off. It grew effortlessly and we start accelerating at ludicrous speed.

I buy a box truck for $3500 and put it in the shop. We use a uhaul for three months till it gets fixed. It cost me a fortune, and at this time we’ve evolved to need a box truck every day. Every week the mechanic says it’s almost done the uhaul fees keep adding up, I eventually decide to mitigate how small and ratty we looked, using a uhaul on every job by buying the whole team uniforms..

Truck gets out of the shop business has grown to where I can no longer fit every job in the week and we had to raise our prices if we expected to grow anymore. Every new level we find a new bottle neck.

And then I look at my surroundings and I have a thriving business, just went to a gala where we won Top 3 movers, x93 5-star reviews

A lot of people know who we are. A lot of people are talking about that new -Guy with a Truck- on the block. It was like we came out of nowhere.

I celebrated with my team, we did karaoke at a dive bar and threw a party in the back of my box truck to celebrate our wins this year. I was overwhelmed with how many people were there to support me, who believed in something that we built.

and thought… The guy at the beginning of the story never would have bet that we would have ever made it this far.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Truck-guy.com
• Other: I’ll take care of these. I’m worried if I go find all the links it’ll restart me haha