PROFESSIONAL TRAINING COURSE  #1

TRAINING SESSION #1

 1-a)   WHY DO THIS TRAINING COURSE?    

ONE GOOD REASON IS TO BE PAID WELL FOR DOING IT.

A good reason to do this training course is because you will be paid $10 for doing each 15 minute training session working on this course.  On two hour minimum jobs, when you want to add more work and more pay to your day, you can do so by adding a training session.   You can pick which two-hour-minimum jobs you want to add a training session to, allowing you to choose when you want to do this, when you feel like it, when you have free time, when you don't feel rushed, and when you're still fresh.   

  This is commonly only going to be after "Two-Hour-Minimum" jobs, and you're wishing you had some more paid work.  Here's that more paid work when you want it.  When you have something else you need to rush off to do, that's ok too, skip the extra work.   A training session could even be done on a lunch break or before the start of a job, if you and the crew get there early enough. 

Each "training session" is set at a length of fifteen minutes to qualify for the$10 of extra pay.    There is only one paid training session allowed to be added to each two-hour-minimum job.  To qualify, the crew must call AGMC and join in a group conference call for AGMC to direct the lesson for that Training Session.   If AGMC doesn't answer or call back within five minutes, the Lead can direct the training session, although still needing to cover material from the website training course.

1-B)  Here's how that works out for a Two Hour Minimum job.  If you as a helper get paid a rate of $27 per hour for two hours, that's $54 owed to you for two hours of pay, but on Two-Hour-Minimum jobs the pay is rounded up to $60.  If a Helper adds a fifteen minute training session to a two-hour-minimum job, that pays an extra $10, equaling a total of $70.  If the Lead was making $90 he'd then make $100 for adding the training session.  When the two hour minimum job lasts much less than two hours, like maybe only an hour, by adding the training session, a helper would make $70 in that hour & fifteen minutes which works out to a near $60/hr pay rate.  At these kind of pay rates, these training sessions should earn your undivided attention.   

 Just don't ever complain about not getting enough work or wishing you had longer jobs if you are voluntarily declining these additional pay training sessions that would give you more work and longer jobs, at a higher pay rate than you normally get.  Only if you accept the work and paid training sessions being offered to you might you have a leg to stand on as far as wanting more work or longer days.

1-C)  These short training meetings will add up over time, allowing coverage of the whole course.  As you cover each subject, AGMC checks you off on AGMC's master list, so there's a record of what you have and haven't covered. 

Do you think there's less that a mover should know about moving than a hair stylist should know about cutting hair, before plying their trade?

1-D)  Getting the extra $10 pay for a training session is a privilege not a right.  It's an offer made by AGMC that can be withdrawn by AGMC if AGMC judges that a mover is not making good use of the training sessions. 

 1-E)  Each training session is supposed to address any one or more of three areas of study.  Area number one is a "game-play review" where we talk about what went most wrong on a job and how to best help those problems.  Area number two is a covering of course material.  And area number three is practicing, working on, and verifying that you can do certain physical techniques.  

  Some of the video will be by a video-call to Phil so Phil can watch in real-time.  Other video might be recorded for later review.  AGMC will always check with the customer first to make sure they don't mind before doing so.   And with an independent cameraman (paid by AGMC), the customer and crew can't object that it's taking any time away from the movers doing their job.  

You will need to use your phone to access the material on the website on most all group training sessions, so a quick and easy way to get to the website on your phone is a critical requirement for doing this course.   If you don't already have this Phone link icon on your home screen, you should get it RIGHT NOW by following the following directions.

Then look for the three little dots lined up in a vertical row in the upper right corner of your phone screen, tap it, and choose the "Add to home screen" option.   Then position your AGMC icon where you want it on your phone home screen. 

If you have a Galaxy phone with Verizon, which is what AGMC has, it's already an automatic feature you can choose.  If not, you need to communicate with AGMC and explore app options that will work.  Then test it out to make sure it works.

1-j)  One way to look at these paid training sessions is to compare it to what a professional sports football team does.

 Is there any professional sports team in the world that could be a good professional sports team if their players and coaches never did any training, never learned any "plays", and never reviewed their game re-play videos to try to perfect their performance and work on weak spots?.   Group training sessions are not for the amateur YMCA weekend players, they are for the pros, ALL of the PROS.  There's a reason for that.  The only way a team can raise the performance level to a top competitive level is to seek out the teams weak spots in team  game-play reviews, and then to work on those weak spots.  Everyone knows this, and so this is why IT IS THE JOB of these professionals to actually SEEK OUT and openly analyze any weak spots in these team game-review meetings. This is what they signed on for.   And you should only be signing on with AGMC if this is what you are signing on for.

1-K)  DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE BIGGEST PROBLEMS OF YOUR FELLOW MOVERS

A huge additional reason to do the training meetings is that a system that requires YOU to work on your weak spots also requires YOUR FELLOW MOVERS to work on their weak spots.  When your fellow movers "piss you off" and do stupid, annoying and unskilled things, THIS system of "team-game-review" and working on our weak spots has the more important side effect of quickly identifying and working on your fellow crewmen's biggest weak spots.

A better crew alongside you makes YOUR life much easier, happier, more enjoyable and more profitable.    So even if you don't think you need any training or improving of your weak areas, you can hardly say it wouldn't be better for YOU if your fellow crewmen worked on and improved their weak areas.

1L)  Clearly, the fastest way to identify and work on the currently most important problems that need fixing, is to identify what went most wrong on the job, talk about it right after the job when it's most fresh on everyone's minds, and work on improving those specific things, more urgently than learning the bulk of other mover techniques that aren't causing an immediate problem.    If you have a flat tire, work on fixing that first.

But most movers equate what they did wrong  (what could have been done better), as something they think could harm them or make their job less stable if it becomes known and talked about.

What would happen if we do a "game-play review" training meeting and you speak up about what you think could have gone better on the job, and you said...

"Hey, Jack was drinking a beer on the job and the customer got pissed";  "Rick stepped on and broke the customer's big mirror because it was laying on the floor under a blanket, and we didn't know there was anything under the blanket";   "Bob was using a hand-truck wrong", "Sam was on his phone all day and the customer was noticing".  "Hey, I felt belittled by the way I was being talked to," , "I think Sam didn't secure that piano right". ??? 

Yes, Sam might say, "Hey, you XXX XXXX snitch! I was hoping nobody would notice the piano fell off the tuck"

1-M)   HOWEVER

Just suppose you were a professional football player, doing team game-play video reviews to look for how the team could have done better.

In your opinion, should an assistant coach reveal to the coach and the rest of the team in a team game-video review meeting that a particular player, in a particular situation, keeps stepping to the left when he should be stepping to the right?   Is that snitching or doing the job the whole team signed on for?

 Is that assistant coach doing his job to point that out and try to constructively help improve the player & his team, or is he "snitching"?

1-N)   That question needs to be answered, because many movers do think that talking about problems is "snitching".   

In YOUR OPINION, should movers tell Phil and their other fellow crewmen in a team game-review meeting about problems that happened on the job, so that we can improve and become a better team, or is that "snitching" that justifies retribution and/or not working with that "Snitch" anymore? 

So let's answer that question.

1-O)  If you view yourself as a top professional like a professional sports team member who's agreed job it is to participate in team "game play review" meetings to identify and work on our biggest weak spots, then the answer is YES, we should honorably and professionally do our agreed professional job to talk about and work on our weak spots,  just like all professional sports teams do. 

1-P)  It's only "Snitching" if the understanding you have with your fellow movers is to NOT reveal and talk about the problems that happen on jobs.  

 1-U)   The only difference between snitching and helping is whether you are ASKING for help to talk about and work on you weak spots, or whether you are ASKING (maybe unstated) to keep your weak spots a secret.   

In the common moving industry it's normally assumed that movers want SECRECY.  They DON'T want the "head guy" to know what they might have missed. That's the assumption of "lesser movers" because movers are fearful that they will lose job frequency if their weak-spots were known by those making the hiring decisions.

And they'd be right... if the level of professionalism of the Lead and hiring moving company is of a "lower caliber" where training and perfecting one's craft is not the priority.

SO LET'S CLARIFY OUR PRIORITIES AND FIX THAT PROBLEM RIGHT HERE AND NOW.  

OK, YEA, I'D LOVE TO TALK ABOUT THE PROBLEMS OTHER MOVERS ARE HAVING & HELP TO FIX THEM BUT IF I SPEAK UP THE LEAD WILL CONSIDER THAT SNITCHING AND WON'T WANT TO GIVE ME JOBS ANYMORE, SO NO THANKS.

  Good point.  But that can be changed.

1Q)   CLARIFICATION OF PRIORITES 

The Lead or a crewman is guaranteed to not have anything to fear from his problems being revealed and talked about with Phil for two primary reasons.  Number one is that when a problem is discussed in a game-review session, AGMC's (Phil's) only interest in talking about problems is in seeing how he can help.  That's it.   Short of stealing, with any other weak spot revealed in these group training sessions, Phil GUARANTEES there will be no negative repercussions or job assignment alterations from AGMC due to any problems discussed, as long as it is openly talked about and worked on and improved.   For all other issues besides stealing, it's only if the mover never makes any progress on working on those problems, and isn't willing to talk about those problems, that Phil will drop that mover's ranking and negatively effect job assignments, not because of the issue itself.

   Everyone's got things they need to work on, and so the real value of a mover lies in his ability to face his weak spots, work on them and improve.   The problems themselves are just a temporary normal side issue that are there for all of us, if we just work on fixing them.  So revealing to Phil the things mover's could work on improving is not a betrayal of harming the job frequency that Phil would assign.   

Also, moving helpers that try to help the team identify and work on problems also get a RANKING BOOST, which will give them even more overall work than they would otherwise get.   

1R)    Keep in mind that Phil's only interest is in trying to help during these team training meetings is to SEE IF HE CAN BE OF HELP.   That's it.  If a crewman says "Scott is always on his phone, and it makes us look bad".   Phil would say  

"Hey, a neat trick I used to use is to go to the customer early in the job and tell them that I'm keeping track of my phone use time and that the customer will not be charged for that time. If done early in the job, before the customer spends a lot of time being disgruntled about it, it actually makes us look even better, more honest and more professional.  It actually earns us points, as long as the phone use time is actually deducted off the customer's bill at the end of the job.  See if that helps.  And maybe try to shorten your personal calls, or tell your people not to call during jobs unless it's an emergency.  What do you think?".  

1S)    Also keep in mind that Phil already knows there are always problems happening on jobs, or things that could be improved.  

When people are willing to talk about and work on problems, that actually increases a crews' ranking and adds work over the long term, because Phil knows that team can grow in a good direction.  With silence about problems, Phil knows the team can't grow past the problems, and so the problems will likely hold back the team, causing a reduction of work.   Talking causes more work, secrecy causes less work.  So thank the movers who try to talk about problems.

  That is one possible agreement you could have and expect from one another.  But you are an adult, and you do have the right to ASK your fellow crewman for help, to ask them to help you identify and discuss your weakest areas with Phil at these group training meetings, to best allow you to work on perfecting you skills as a mover.   if you are actually asking for people to do this, then it wouldn't be "snitching" for people to grant your request to talk about and try to help improve the worst things they see going on. 

 What kind of team do you want to sign on for, a PROFESSIONAL SPORTS TEAM GOING ALL OUT FOR THE SUPER BOWL where the team openly talks about and works on weak spots, or a YMCA girls' ball club where not even constructive-criticism is allowed?

Excuse me, I stand corrected.  Even the Eugene YMCA's little girls ball club (shown above) has a coach and has team-talks about their weakest areas to try to improve.

The only weak spots that will not be allowed to be talked about are Phil's weak spots, because Phil obviously has no weak areas that could be improved. 

 Each mover, at the end of this Team Training Session, is going to be instructed to declare and announce openly the agreement they would like to have about secrecy or talking openly about problems.  

We're going to start new, here and now, and clarify what kind of team you want to be a part of.

1-W)  Now's the time for each person to make their decision and open declaration of what they want.  And if you actually want people to feel free to talk openly about your weak spots, you need to not only ask for people to open up about your weak spots, you need to add something like "and no holding back, please", to remove any doubt about what you actually want.  To allow people to really open up, you (and everyone) needs to add  something like "I promise nothing revealed about my work will be held against anyone in any way.  I want the help, I give you my word" and mean it.  

1-Y)  When you've finished reading the next paragraph/point (1-Z) , please put your phone down and wait for the rest of the crew to put their phones down too, and this will let everyone know that the whole crew is ready to make their choice and make their STATEMENTS to each other about what they actually want as far as choosing secrecy or open discussion of weak areas. 

1-Z)  The next step would be for the Lead to let Phil know it's time for Phil to be the first to announce his desires on the "secrecy or openness" issue. After Phil makes his statement, the Lead should then direct each helper in turn to announce their wishes to the group.  When it's your turn to announce your wishes to the group, please say either:

"I want what I do wrong on jobs to not be revealed."

or

"I am asking for everyone's help to identify, reveal, and talk about what is seen as my weak spots for the purpose of helping me perfect my skills. I promise nothing revealed about what I do on jobs will be held against anyone in any way.  I want the help.  I give you my word.  No holding back, please."

When the whole crew has clarified their wishes, that will be the end of this first training session.

TRAINING SESSION #2   

BIGGER, MORE FREQUENT, MORE CONSISTENT JOBS 

2-A)  Another big reason to learn from this course is to  make more money  by make you a better mover, which will raise your ranking, and YOUR RANKING is by far the biggest factor that will get you bigger more frequent jobs, which is what makes by far the biggest difference in the money you make.

The simplest and most direct way to make more money via these training courses, is by using them to get feedback about your weak spots, so you can immediately do something about them.   There is no more common cause of a loss of work, or getting less work, than a mover having a "blind spot" problem that other movers shake their heads about, and have as the reason they don't want to work with that "blind spot" mover.  All it would take is for the person with a blind spot to BE TOLD about the blind spot problem, and work on that problem, in order for other movers to change their mind and say "Hey, we want to work that THAT guy now", and greatly increase the work flow to that mover.   But what happens normally is that movers with their own blind spots DON'T GET THE FEEDBACK and so just continue to be mystified as why people get the jobs they do or don't get, or rather just assume it's due to some other unrelated reason.  Use the team training meetings to get feedback, work on your blind spots, and become ten times more WANTED to be worked with.  That's what will crank up the money flow into your pockets.  Otherwise, you won't even know what you've run into.

In a more general sense, consider this.   There is a vast range in the moving business of making anywhere from $0/month, up to potentially around $8,000 per month.  What you bring to the table determines how many hours of work you get and how much you make per hour.   Do you want to be a low-skilled low-reliable, uncertified "back up" helper that is called only in emergencies when no one else can be found for a job, and so make maybe a hundred dollars per month?  Do you want five hours of work per week or do you want your choice of working up to 50 hours of work per week, with people clammoring at your door to request you to work with them?  

Do you want to make $25/hr, $27/hr, or up to $50/hr (at times) running your own moving company & your own crew.   Where you land in this range is caused by things that are within your control IF YOU KNOW CERTAIN THINGS and if you DO CERTAIN THINGS.  Knowing certain things at least gives you the option of you choosing your income.   This course gives you the information that would allow you to choose and control your income.  What you do with that information is then up to you.

2-B)    This training course is for those who wish be successful professional GOOD movers, for any moving company.   It is to show you how to do a better job, not screw up, get all the jobs you want, how to not damage things, how to avoid damage claims, how to make more money, and how to make your job safer and more enjoyable.  

There is a simple formula in this business.  Do certain things and you will succeed, be in high demand, and make a lot of money, or don't do certain things and you will flounder along making so-so money, or need to be a "bad deal" and cheat people to stay afloat, or make it for only a while before you fail and blame other people.   This course will teach you these key things.  

We are helping each other to become better movers because your success makes those around you more successful.

He forgot to put the drain hose in the drain slot, and wasn't trained to know the mover-rule of having to zip-tie the drain hose onto the drain slot.  The customer turned on the washer, left the house to go to dinner, and the house flooded with no one home, resulting in a $9,998 damage claim. 

2E)  And it doesn't take forgetting to put the drain hose in the drain slot to cause $10,000 of water damage.  Sometimes a little something gets stuck in the hose, or a crack develops, or the pump jolts and works the drain hose out of the drain slot over time.  If this mover had taken the training, he may have still forgotten to put the drain in the drain slot, but the warning in the disclaimer for the customer to need to WATCH the first drain cycle would have allowed the customer to shut off their machine at the first sign of water leakage, and prevented any serious problem from happening in the first place.  

2F)  Another mover didn't know the mover-rule that he needed to take pictures of how he had placed things into a storage unit.  Three months later the customer had a different moving company move her stuff to across the country to Texas.  The other movers took pictures of several broken items claiming that they had found them broken in the storage unit.  One of their pictures is shown next. 

2-I)  There's a hundred other examples we could give similar to these four, of all different varying damage situations and costs, but we're not going to go over all the mover-rules right here.  The point of these examples is to convey that if you weren't TOLD or shown these mover-rules, you could work for years and not know about them until it cost you and/or your moving company THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS, a lost finger, dwindling jobs, wasted effort, lost tips and lost customers. 

You are worth much less to yourself and everyone else if you are not trained and certified, and so you will make much less, lose much more, and get far less and smaller jobs than you would otherwise get, and likely it will be just a matter of time before this doesn't work out for you for one reason or another, hopefully not because of a needless catastrophe that happens.

2-K)  Once you learn what these mover-rules are and how much they can help you, only then should you decide the value of these mover-rules and techniques.  Until you learn these things, you are like a painter who thinks his little half inch artist paint brush is doing a great job painting a house, no one could do better, while the professional painter next door finished painting his customer's house in a fraction of the time by using a professional spray paint gun.  

Imagine a mechanic who doesn't have the right tools, takes twice as long as it would take with the right tools, and then charges you by the hour.  You would not be a happy customer.    If you don't want to be that bad mechanic, or someone using a hand-crank drill to drill on people's teeth (with no dental training), then find out what tools are available, what tools YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT, and you get certified on how to use them.

But in order to learn the same dance routine, there has to be a single dance routine the team knows they're doing.  This course is that dance routine.

2-N)  It's automatic for people to want to cherry pick which "dance steps" they want and don't want, and that's natural.  However, many of the dance steps presented in this course have their benefits amplified or occur only when doing some of the other dance steps presented in this course.  

2-O)   Your cherry picking also sends a confusing message to the other crewmen you work with, telling them you never know which course teachings they're supposed to pay attention to or not, that there is no one specific dance routine we're supposed to be learning (or at least trying), which makes this dance so much harder to learn that it really messes up the whole thing.  

2-P)  So it's important for you to first learn and do ALL of the dance steps presented in this course, together as a complete dance, and only then, after you've seen what gifts this can deliver, only then decide the value of this course.  Otherwise, you are basing your judgment on only speculation and often misunderstanding instead of the knowledge of experiencing this dance routine correctly.  In other words, give it a try as a whole, first.

For example, if you didn't know that police existed or about $800 phone tickets, you might think other people were overreacting if they told you "you shouldn't be on your phone while driving if there's a police car pulled up next to you".  But if you found out the WHY the hard way, and it cost you a $800 ticket and an increased insurance rate for years to come, then you would drop your phone in that situation regardless of any "mover rule" someone else tells you about.  

TRAINING SESSION #3

3-A)  WOULD YOU MAKE THE FOLLOWING DEAL?

3-B)  When you get certified, at least you make it a GOOD bet with acceptable odds, and so give your moving company motivation to flood you with work.  And if you are at least working on getting certified, the moving company knows the bad bet is temporary and so worth taking for a limited time while you work on get certified.   It's the person who's putting their money on the table risking it to be lost that gets to decide what bet they are willing to take.  In the moving business, it's the moving company that's taking the bulk of that risk, so the moving company gets to decide how something needs to be done that's taking that risk of loss.   If a moving helper can't recognize that it's the moving company's right to decide what loss risks are being taken, (how something is to be done that takes that risk) then that moving helper is gambling someone else's money without their permission, and that's not only not right, it is a form of theft from the moving company, and this makes that mover a "bad and risky deal".  In other words, if you treat your moving company like crap,  you are undermining your own work source and your own income.   So respect that you are being hired to do things a certain way that this course teaches you, not to just do what ever you feel like doing.

If you are going to be truly successful as a mover, you have to feel a certain satisfaction in having the customer gush over you with gratitude, do an impressive job all the way through, and have everything go great.  If this is the case, you should feel that every helpful tip you learn on how to make your job easier and better is something you want to be shown to you.  That means you should feel this training course is an appreciated gift, and you'd be looking forward to doing it.  This whole course is helpful tips.  If you see it as a burden, that tells you you're in the wrong line of work.

However, AGMC (Phil) is only going to do this expediting process for free if Phil judges that you are a "shining star" mover who is already demonstrating a superior mastery of most of the moving techniques taught in this course, in AGMC's opinion.  Otherwise, an "audit" costs $50/hr, paid to AGMC by the mover requesting the audit.   If AGMC judges the mover to be currently ignoring many of the key simple "dance steps", Phil is not going to do the Audit for free.

Suppose the one thing you learn from this course is the thing that saves you from that one-in-ten or one in twenty bad review, even though you're getting mostly good reviews.  Avoiding that rare bad review would also make this course worth it, because shopping customers are zeroing in on reading the few bad reviews, and the lack any bad reviews is what turbo-boosts the sales, not just having good ones.  Suppose the one thing you learn is the thing that saves you from an injury that stops you from working for six months.  Also, there are two other main reasons for this. 

That's not only OK, it's a basic part of training to revisit and practice certain things more than once to better engrain certain ideas and have movers better remember them, or at least remind them of useful things to know.   How many times do you think Pro football teams practice different plays?

If you don't recognize the great helpfulness of complaints, you are flushing gold down the toilet (and you were thrown into the chasm abyss).   REMEMBER THAT COMPLAINTS ARE WHAT YOU NEED TO BEST SUCCEED.

THIS IS THE END OF COURSE #1 (THE COURSE EXPLAINED)