Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Dallas Reeves. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Dallas, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

For most of my 20’s, I worked to better the lives of animals through shelters, sanctuaries, small zoos and rehabilitation centers. While this work was incredibly rewarding, it was hard. Compassion fatigue is real. I obtained my masters’ degree in Conservation Biology and decided to follow my passion for sustainability. I started reselling products and clothing based on my love for nature and wildlife, using my platform and education to teach others how they can incorporate eco friendly practices into their daily lives and show how incredible shopping secondhand can truly be. I found that I was able to put my values into this business practice in a way that allowed me to flourish. An estate sale shopper myself during this journey, I thought about how the companies that put on estate sales truly had one of the MOST sustainable business models out there. The products they sold were entirely secondhand, they supported not only the homeowner, but their local community and economy and allowed people to purchase unused secondhand products that you really can’t find anywhere else. Things that people just usually have in their home, like cleaning supplies or bath and body products. These items often went unused and got thrown away at some point down the line. Not to mention all the incredibly unique and one-of-a-kind finds that you uncover tucked away in someone’s home. They don’t make those items at Homegoods. An estate sale was a wonderful way to repurpose so many things at once and the outcome benefited everyone. This inspired me to want to start conducting professional estate sales. My husband and I have always wanted to put our hard work into our own business and we thought that Blue Moon was the perfect opportunity. It combined my love for the planet with our desire to build our own company together.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Blue Moon Estate Sales of Salt Lake City is a professional estate sale company. When people are going through a difficult transition, such as moving to a new house, into assisted living or a family member has passed, they often need help downsizing the contents of a home. We offer a solution to all of the “stuff” by conducting a professional estate sale. This supports the homeowner in making some extra money, clears the home so that they can sell and move onto the next chapter and supports our community by offering a unique way to shop both secondhand and locally. I was drawn to this industry through my own passion for shopping secondhand and in finding a business model that is incredibly sustainable.

When most people think about estate sales, they think about yard sales. Words like digging, junky, dirty and cheap come to mind. Blue Moon is none of these things. We turn our homes into retail pop up shops as we believe that presentation and professionalism are extremely important when it comes to our clients and our customers. We want to offer the highest level of service to our community and we believe in putting in the work to present an elevated event, that anyone would want to shop. Our clients don’t have to do a thing. They hand us the keys and we get to work. From photography and marketing the sale event, to research, pricing and staging, we handle it all from start to finish, leaving the home empty if desired. We are truly a retail circus, popping up at different homes and creating an upscale shopping experience. This allows us to get the most money for our clients while also offering an exceptional and comfortable environment for our customers to shop. Our sales are often complimented for how friendly our staff is, how well branded our sales are and how professional our entire event is.

I am most proud of our sustainability mission. The products we sell are already all secondhand, but even our supplies are secondhand too. We purchase tape, pens, garbage bags, Ziploc bags and many other items from the homes we work in to support our business while also supporting the environment. Not a single plastic bag has been purchased since this company has been in business. Our checkout bags are compostable and we hand out reusable bags, boxes and paper that we’ve uncovered while prepping the home. We are constantly reusing, repurposing and recycling the contents of our houses. We also work closely with a local non-profit, The Other Side Academy, to do full donation pickups after our sales so waste and trash is kept as minimal as possible. I truly have the most eco friendly business out there and I’m incredibly proud of that!

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I think that social media is a relationship. You have to nurture and communicate for it to work. Communication works both ways so taking the time to engage and connect with your followers, learn who your audience is and what you can share that connects others to your business and to you, is the ultimate way to grow your social media. I love to share photos of the behind the scenes, the crew and more personal photos that show there is a person behind the business, that we genuinely care and want to build relationships with our community. My advice would be to be yourself. Figure out what your aesthetic is or how you want to share yourself online. If you are just posting generic pictures with minimal captions that don’t feel authentic, people are not going to be attracted to you. You have to put yourself out there a bit and let your community find you. I also think that engagement is really important. If you want people to engage with you, you need to engage with them. Comment on other people’s posts, share stories and tag businesses in the community, encourage other business owners and provide support. Sometimes it is hard to put yourself out there, but we all want something real, give it to them..

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

We love to connect and work with realtors in our community. We are able to offer a service that coincidentally can be very valuable to both them and their clients. Oftentimes realtors are on a deadline and they need to get everything out of a house, fast. We are able to offer a solution that can pay for itself, pay the client and leave them with an empty home. We offer free consultations, so it’s very easy for realtors to bring us in so we can help determine what the best solution moving forward may be that best fits the client’s needs.

We also work closely with senior professionals. We work to assist seniors when they are moving into assisted living and can’t take the majority of their contents with them. They often need a service that will help them empty the home and provide some extra monetary support. We love to connect with other professionals that work with seniors in our community such as home healthcare workers, senior placement services and assisted living facilities to be a reliable resource for their clients when the time comes.    

Contact Info:

• Website: bluemoonestatesales.com/salt-lake-city/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bluemoonestatesalesslc/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bluemoonestatesalesslc
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dallas-reeves-7b23b622a/