How Mr. BigStuff Labor & Moving Went From $100 to $225,000 in Its First Year

Who is Jay Burnham, and why start a moving company with $100?

Jay Burnham started Mr. BigStuff Labor & Moving on January 1, 2024 as an experiment. He has taught people how to start and run moving businesses since 2016 through his YouTube channel, which has nearly 10,000 subscribers, four books and a Facebook group. He wanted to show his audience that a moving business could be started with nothing but $100 and experience, so he documented it. A year later he posted the numbers: close to $225,000 from moving labor and related services.

He first got into moving in 2008, working for a local mover who, he says, never paid him what he was owed. Burnham had a background in public relations and marketing, so he went out on his own. He taught himself SEO, built a WordPress site, linked to it from Craigslist postings and filmed customer testimonials on a flip cam when competitors were still buying Yellow Pages ads. In Lansing, where Two Men and a Truck was founded, he says there were points when he was bringing in more jobs than the local franchise.

He told the story to make a point about now: “We are now in the age of AI,” and the owners who use it are where he was with SEO back then.

What did he do first with $100?

He built the brand, then went where the leads already were.

The name came from the song “Mr. Big Stuff” and from customers who kept saying they just needed help with the big stuff. He made the logo with ChatGPT, laid out a business card and a flyer in Canva, and had cards printed for about $25.

For customers he signed up for MovingHelp.com, HireAHelper and Thumbtack, which brought most of the early work. The first three weeks were trial and error. Then he settled on two rules:

1. Price as low as you can and still profit. Competitive pricing is what gets you picked on a lead site.
2. Be the first to call. He lived on his phone and computer and called each lead within minutes. When customers remarked on how fast he was, he told them, “That’s an indication of how good we do our job.”

After 20 to 30 five-star reviews on Thumbtack, he started raising prices systematically.

Why does answering the phone matter so much?

Because, in his experience, it wins the job. “If you answer the phone, you were like 80% assured that you’re going to get that job,” he said. Social media got him seen, but picking up closed it. Before the recording he warned Clay that if his phone rang, he was going to answer it.

His fix for owners who cannot pick up is cheap: pay a high school kid $10 an hour for a couple of hours, or ask a partner or your kids. Teach them to answer politely, take a message and promise a call back within an hour or two.

How did he replace Thumbtack with organic leads?

By filling out his Google Business Profile completely, then putting everything into reviews. He calls the profile the “100% number one priority activity” for any business: complete every field, choose the right category and use ChatGPT if you are stuck on what to write.

Then comes the review card. The front thanks the customer, offers a discount to a friend who is moving and has space for the crew to write their names. The back has QR codes for Google, Facebook and Yelp. A crew member named in a review gets a bonus, and gets a commission bonus if a referred customer asks for them.

His targets for a new company: 40 to 50 reviews, so a bad one does not sink the rating. A rating of 4.5 and above is considered good, he said, and ideally you stay at 4.8 or higher. More reviews let you raise prices.

He rarely uses Thumbtack now. It has become expensive and has little presence in Lansing. “When I first started, they were my lifeblood,” he said.

What did the first year’s revenue look like?

Slow for two months, then steady growth:

• January: no work until the last week and a half, then about $5,000 gross, with Burnham and one other mover on every job.
• February: about $5,000 to $6,000, with jobs spread through the month.
• March: about $10,000 to $11,000.
• April: close to $15,000.
• May through September: $25,000 to $30,000 a month.

What would he tell a mover who says there are no leads?

That the problem is a scarcity mindset. His prescription is to print 500 to 1,000 flyers and knock on that many doors over 30 days, choosing homes or businesses that can afford the service. He guarantees it will produce $20,000 to $30,000 in gross revenue for any home service in a decent-size city. Greater Lansing has about 300,000 people.

What stops people is fear of rejection and not knowing what to say. His answer is that it becomes a numbers game once your skin toughens.

The same goes for referral partners: real estate agents, mortgage brokers, apartment managers, storage unit managers and human resources managers. He has walked into offices where the agent said their usual mover had stopped returning calls. Once the relationship exists, he says to keep it warm with small gifts: a bag of coffee with your logo on it, cookies, or a dinner for your five favorite agents.

“Fortune favors the bold,” he said.