The New Nomad

Mobility Empowered: Let's get you and your goods there with Chris Kline | TNN40

January 24, 2022 Andrew Jernigan and Allen Koski Episode 40
The New Nomad
Mobility Empowered: Let's get you and your goods there with Chris Kline | TNN40
Show Notes Transcript

Moving to a new location can be exhilarating for some people, but it can be overwhelming for others. Even if you are generally a pretty positive person, you may still feel intense stress before and during your next big move, and there are many reasons it can happen. In short, moving is not an adventure that most of us look forward to. Chris Kline, Chief Marketing Officer and CoFounder of Mobility Empowered, is the perfect person who could help you get the nitty-gritty of moving manageable.

Our hosts, Andrew Jernigan and Allen Koski, together with Chris, talked about the realities of moving locations - from the documents needed to relocating your possessions, this episode tackled them all. Many people see moving houses as an adventure but once the grip of reality takes hold on you, you might want to send an SOS to experts such as Mobility Empowered. Digital nomad or not, this episode of The New Nomad definitely is a big help for those who are always on the move.


[1:57] Leaving memories behind when moving

[5:22] Did technology bring us closer or further apart?

[8:35] What to consider when moving houses internationally

[13:32] Leave the moving to the experts

[19:28] Relocating is not always an adventure

[23:52] Information is power



GUEST BIO:

Chris Kline, Chief Marketing Officer and CoFounder of Mobility Empowered, possesses 30 years of relocation and transportation experience. His expertise includes developing, managing, and measuring innovative solutions for human resources, technical and financial services outsourcing. Within the global mobility industry, Chris has pioneered product and service development, cost savings strategies, and performance enhancement for clients requiring relocation support, international assignment management, and global logistics.


Chris Kline Links:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/chrisklinemobilityempowered
Website: mobilityempowered.com
 
Twitter: ChrisKlineRelo

Follow Insured Nomads at:

Instagram: @insurednomads

www.insurednomads.com

Allen  

Welcome to The New Nomad podcast. We have Chris Kline joining us today from Mobility Empowered. Chris has helped many people move overseas, make sure they their goods are transported safely, has some great ideas about the future of mobility, and supporting many of you out there that move from place to place or, at this moment are contemplating moving from place to place. We know many of you out there in our audience aspire to live that location independent lifestyle. But I'll bring in Andrew Jernigan, somebody who's not only aspired to that lifestyle, but has lived that lifestyle. Andrew, my uncle, who was a very wise man once said to me, every three house moves he felt led to was basically basically equal to like, one small house fire by the stuff that got broken or lost or thrown away, or whatever. I'm not sure if that's indeed the case. But I would love your perspective on as you move between location, some of the things that you probably had to give away or are left behind.


Andrew  

Yes, it is one of those things often where I've thought, How many times am I gonna buy this book? I left it in different countries, I've given it away. And here I am buying it again. You know, it's, you think bag is like, don't we have a platter like that? And you think, nope, it stayed behind. Or, you know, with 30 moves, we're more of a slow-mad, you know, previously referred to as an ex-pat and our style of moving around the world. But these days, I like to slow-mad better than ex-pat because it's such a colonial term, but those own international assignments oftentimes need a lot more resources than those who are just saying they're location independent moving wherever they want, when they want.


Allen  

Well, you know, I can just think about my friends, who to this day, I was very fortunate, my parents really never moved until they moved into a senior facility and in what was left behind was my baseball cards, my Matchbox cars, you know, those little cars that used to have his kids, Tonka Trucks. And even things like old Air Jordans, which all now are valuable. And you think about all the things as people have to move around that you probably toss and even old video games have worth today so but that's, that's different when you leave something behind other than you bring something that you love that either got lost or broken, etc. It's a difficult experience, right?


Andrew  

It is. And you think about that self storage unit, which is common all over the world now. It you know, Public Storage, I know you're very well aware of that brand Public Storage and it's it's swept the nation's now with similar similar concepts. And I've got one of those units still, that we filled before an international move and it's 10 hours from where I live now. thinking should I really be storing that stuff? I shouldn't just given it away to start with versus paying 25 bucks a month.


Allen  

No, no keep keep paying the $25 a month Andrew as a as a stockholder in the REIT Public Storage. I appreciate you every day. Well, let's bring Chris into the conversation. Chris, you know, you've had a very illustrious career, 30 years of supporting people wanted to tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and and then we'll get into the conversation on what Mobility Empowered, and some of your ideas and getting people situated in a different country or location. Welcome aboard.


Chris  

Yeah, thanks for having me on the on the podcast and looking forward to the conversation. So a little bit of background, been in Mobility now for a little over 35 years, believe it or not. I mean, it's it's it's been a long time. I thought I had seen everything that I see saw a lot of changes within the world. I'm shocked every day how much mobility and talent and everything is changing in front of our eyes almost with every every media broadcast, something new is coming out there. Worked with a little over 600,000 people on a global basis and in getting them relocated and on assignment. And personally, I've moved 13 times myself.


Allen  

Wow. How, you know, one of the things that comes to mind is what are the major changes that you've seen in those 35 years, and probably even the major changes that maybe you've seen in the last five? I mean, I just think about the just the movement of the old days where maybe it was a little harder to track and now we have codes and you know, every time I get a package from UPS, I get a little email or the Hey, we'll be there tomorrow, etc. But I'd love your perspective to our audience on what used to happen, what is happening and what you think should happen in this area.


Chris  

I think technology has driven a lot of these conversations on me. I can remember when I first got into the business customers would send me a fax, and then that fax would be an order of how to actually work with somebody moving somewhere around the world. And, you know, you would, you would send a purchase order, and it would come by mail, not by fax, right? So a lot has changed with the technology. And we're closer than ever, but we're probably further apart than ever, right? When you look at the technology and how things have changed. I mean, when I think about my first relocations, we communicated through the telephone, or we communicated through a letter or a Christmas card, whatever it may be. Now we can you know, we can FaceTime we can get on a conference call, we can talk to anybody, anytime we can go on Facebook and see the you know, the photos of the grandkids and all those kinds of things. But at the same time, it's I think it's gotten more difficult with the expectations because of technology. So I think often overlooked within, you know, a global assignment or relocation is that the same dynamics are still there, you're leaving family behind, you're leaving friends behind. The partner is normally going with a job, they're excited, but that job is full time and they're expected to hit the ground running. And then it's the it's the family and the partner that's left behind to kind of put those pieces together. So I think with technology, a lot of companies has have looked at that and said, well, relocations become easy, and it's become more fun, because you can, you know, again, you can still communicate, but I think that the expectations on the individual that's going in the support that's out there probably hasn't met the the overall challenge.


Allen  

So to the layperson out there, what would you consider to be the component parts of a good relocation?


Chris  

I think it could be, it could be very basic. It can be as as simple as let's get them new community information, because they're going to a new part of the world. And they might be, you know, using Dr. Google as the best one to go ahead and get their information about the new area. But it's not better information. It's not always accurate information. So I think first is educating them on what they're gonna find in their new location. And then you build on that you build on, you know, should somebody have a counselling programme to prepare them for the different cultures of the things, they'll see an assignment. And then from there, where is safe, acceptable housing? How does the company or the you know, if you're a contractor, you're working for somebody how do you mitigate risk? I mean, it's amazing to me how many people will travel around the world, and they don't realise that they're not insured when they're when they're making that trip around the world. So things like that are absolutely very basic, in my opinion. But then from there, it's actually allowing them, helping them, giving them the the support become, you know, productive employees when they get to the new location.


Andrew  

I hear some of these things and flashbacks of having, you know, just calling a moving company and in Brazil to move me to Boston, back when I was a newlywed, I got married in Brazil, and that United Airlines, you know, mega trailer, pull up to my tiny apartment in Boston and have these men unload everything and unpack every box. And that was wonderful. But later, years later, moving to Ghana, I was loading a container myself, five families and a car inside that container. And trying to get it through customs myself with no one else to assist, and how many trips to the cat, to the port, I think eight trips over a period of four months to get that container cleared. And, you know, I don't think that international moves are successful as in a do it yourself manner. You tend to agree there, I would assume because it's theirs. What are some of the things that you think that people admit or, or just assume, will be a simple aspect of it?


Chris  

I think the biggest thing is just how do you handle an international house a good move a lot of people don't understand is there are items that are normal household items here that are contraband in other countries, and can create major issues for that individual, if it's in their goods, when they arrive could even deny the assignment. Because of some missteps. The other thing is, is I've always thought it's very challenging dealing with the moving industry as an individual consumer. Because you're an individual consumer moving out of that town there, there's not going to be a long term business relationship with that moving company, in your origin city, you're leaving, and you're not coming back, probably. So the idea that you have to go out there and do this all on your own versus working with organisations like ours, where we work with many different movers, but they're all under contract. They've been vetted their service level agreements or things to protect the individual that's going. That used to be the old story. The new story today, if anybody has followed this, is that there's not enough shipping containers in the world any longer there. There's port congestion. So there were stories this summer where containers were sitting in front of residences for a month, because there wasn't any capacity at the port. So imagine who got first preference to the corporate programmes got first preference, and then the individual on their own would fall somewhere way behind that. So not only is it a matter of safety and security, but even getting it processed, even getting that move done today is going to be problematic for the individual shipper, the individual person doing it on their own.


Allen  

So you help folks with the paperwork also the go through that. Can you talk to folks a little bit about it? The paper I mean, I hear Andrews story, running down there eight times, I'm sure was the dot some i's and cross some T's. And, once again, I don't see how somebody would want to do this by themselves, I would, if I was going overseas, I'd want to dial up Mobility Empowered, and get some support. Talk a little bit about the paperwork and the red tape, because that's what we hear about an awful lot.


Chris  

Right. When When, when you just look at shipping in general, right, we've all heard about, you know, since September 11 2001, that every part of what we do from a transportation perspective has changed, right? It used to be, you could ship houses and air shipment on a commercial with passengers, you can't do that anymore. You can't take personal house of goods and ship and I'm playing, because there's nobody that can truly verify within those within those you're not a manufacturer that shipping any longer. So that cut back significantly the amount of space you have available now to ship things internationally. Also, if it's going to go into a warehouse or out of a warehouse, then if that warehouse is certified, then there has to be certain provisions around it. So if you pack it yourself, that warehouse, it most likely is not going to accept it. Even Andrew, I'm not sure that the years that you went down to the port, but I'm not even sure you can get into the port anymore. Unless you're licenced, then you have the certification necessary, right? So when you look at the paperwork, it things like what is allowable, what what is prohibited in those areas around the world. And then when you ship those items, every country has different standards, but you're probably going to have to pay duties or taxes on it, which means that you have to have very accurate information of the value of the items that are going in there, which then lead you also to the insurance component. If you know if you have 100,000 euros of goods on that shipment, and it's going into Europe, and you only have 20,000 euros, you're not covered for 100,000 euros, you're maybe covered for 20,000 euros. So risk, customs, contraband, you know I, again, I worked with a very large client, who was moving in designer that they an engineer that they spent three years recruiting into Japan. He was moving into Japan, he had his trunk they opened the trunk and let's say there were adult materials that were in that trunk. Not only that trunk back into the country, he was not allowed to go on assignment there any longer. So it was it oh, wow assignment. So that'll give you an idea of what you know what can happen when you you don't ship the right items.


Andrew  

Yeah, for some reason, I didn't have a clearing agent for clearing Mike my 42 foot container, something like that 40 foot, close foot, but it was even, I don't know, it was it was some custom MSC container. But I allowed a friend to put a car in and they declared on that end, that car was worth three times its value. And they were going to be tax on it at that value. They we had diapers because I moved over with a three month old and knew that diapers were hard to come by. So I you know, so many people gave us diapers, and we bought diapers, and they wanted to tax all that. And so it was it was an adventure. So yeah, if someone is, is thinking of relocating, what is? You know, from a corporate perspective, those listening from major corporations saying okay, yeah, we're expanding globally. What is What are a couple of those things that you would say, Okay, you definitely need an integrated service provider, somebody who's well rounded and not just saying, Sure, well, we'll stick the packet, we'll stick those things in boxes.


Chris  

I think the most important thing is a company is going to when they expand globally, they're going to look at a part of the world. And they're they're going to look at the assignments, and putting people there first from a tax perspective. So I'm assuming they're going to talk with their tax expert or whatever, they're going to figure out what is the structure going to be in a new country? And what is the structure of the individual that's going to be going there, which will lead me into why we're seeing such changes and talent being deployed. But once they get taxed past the tax perspective, they're then going to work with immigration, you know, how can I get that person there? How can I get them a work permit? How can I get them a residency permit? How can they actually live there and do work there? Once they've crossed that, then they almost think that they're at the finish line. And now we just have to get that person there. And they often overlook the part of the relocation that says, Well, where are they going to? Okay, they've got they've got a residency permit, where are they going to live? And when you think about how difficulty is finding a rental property in the US and all the phishing, scams and things that are online, multiply that quite a bit when you go to other places around the world where there's a lot of inventory that's posted, it just doesn't exist. There's stories out there, you put down a deposit you show up in somebody's living in the building already or the apartments not there, the flats not there or whatever. So when it comes to that whole idea of getting them settled into the new location, how do you help protect them for those types of things? And we are seeing trends now where you had talked about the quote the assignee, which is normally somebody would go three to five years and they would be under an assignment contract. What we're seeing more and more of is clients are moving people to location and they're localising them right away which means We're putting them on local payroll. They're not under an assignment contract, they're actually working there. So, you know, they're going to be there for the foreseeable future, probably not their entire career, but they're going to be there for a while. So it's really important those people get settled correctly when they get to that new location, because it's not as if they're leaving in six months or a year.


Allen  

Chris, you mentioned about the shortage of shipping containers? What's your advice to somebody that would want to be heading overseas? How much lead time do you really need? And let's say I was not attached to a company, could I reach out to mobility E and say, I really need your help?


Chris  

On that, you can, there's a lot. Yep, there's a lot of different options that are out there. When we talk about a 40 foot container or a 20 foot container in a corporate move, you know, that's going to be that's going to be categorized as a pretty significant move, I mean, it's going to cost a big investment. And you're basically if you're moving a 40 foot container, in Andrews case, you're moving five families. But if that was an individual, that's that's an average, probably a three bedroom house would fit into a 440 foot container. So you're moving all your houses? Well, if I if I lived in someplace like I don't know, really obscure, like Delaware, and I was going to Thailand for my assignment. I don't need to ship all my furniture from Delaware to Thailand, it's not going to go really well with with everything. But also you don't need it because that apartment is going to come for it. So what we do is we work with those individuals and again, help them design because there's also something called the consolidator, which will take, you know, maybe a couple 1000 pounds and load it into a specific live van, and they'll combine it with other shipments going over there. So there's a lot of different options. And again, we would work with the with the client company, get them quotes or the individual to get them quotes as well.


Allen  

You know, you brought up something there. Yeah, that's right. Most of the housing does comfort, I didn't even think about that. And many people listen, this podcast actually travelled very lightly, because a lot of them actually go for two or three months somewhere, and then move on to a different location. And keep moving along. Tell me how you help people understand where the safe housing is. That that's really that sounds extremely important to me to have that type of guidance, before you end up in some sort of very bad situation in a city that you don't know much about.


Chris  

Yeah, I think the first part of it is this trying to offer some level of support to that individual when they're not in the new country, right. So a lot of people are going to take a position and there again, Thailand, for example, I'm going to move to Thailand and I need a place to live, they're going to start using their own resources, try to find that they might be lucky enough to fall in any agent in that in that given market who could possibly help them. Again, this is an unknown individual that you're finding over the internet. So we do is we work with professionals all over the globe, which are referred to as destination consultants, they live in the city, they live in the country, and they can help previews apartments or, or whatever it may be, they can work within budgets, and then they can present that back to the individual. And then what else is really important is because of the language barrier, so as an example, if I'm moving somebody into Germany, you better speak German, because the leases aren't going to come in anything but German. So if you don't have somebody to help you translate those and understand the law, then you're already at a disadvantage. So again, there's all different types of programs that are out there. But there's some that are just as simple as nominating three to five properties within a budget, helping with the vetting, helping with the lease review and you're on your way too, to full programmes where they can take you around and show you the you know everything about the community so they can all be structured around the individual's needs.


Andrew  

So Chris, tell us this, there's you've been around the world, I think you're even in the Navy. Yes, at some point, what is the most overlooked person, place experience, even even book, so I'm going to leave it pretty wide open for you there. We asked all of our guests. What's most overlooked X that you'd like to share with our guests today?


Chris  

The complexity of relocating.


Andrew  

That's, that's so true. It is very true. I can it resonates with me. I would never ship another container. I've done it twice. I wouldn't do it again. I would buy local in every case and but even relocating across town is a lot more complex than people realise.


Chris  

It's it's again there, you know, there's always that there's a saying out there that moving is an adventure, right. That was the back I think there's on the back of all the trailers with U haul. I've moved 13 times. It's never been an adventure. There were components of it that are were adventure, but there were, there were adventures like, you know, not having my belonging show up when they were supposed to having the apartment not being there when it was supposed to. That's another form of an adventure, not the kind of positive adventure you would want. But I think what's really important for both your customers, whoever the audience is, is to realise that there is support out there unless you're a very unique person, you should probably look for that support. And whether you're a contractor or an employee, a temporary assignment type of thing, there's nothing wrong with asking for that support from whoever is going to be paying you because it is, again, a standard part of a package. When companies are moving people, there is going to be some level of support.


Allen  

Well, also, if you're, if you're self employed, and you want to go overseas, you need that type of information. Because you actually don't even have a corporate entity to support you. If things really go wrong. I would think that if I was an individual, and I would, I would dumbly want to have some sort of support and somebody to reach back to it, make sure also, I'm in a safe zone, etc. You have a quick tale of somebody who might have tried to do something on their own that went wrong, and you've done around 600,000 moves. Is there a is there a cautionary tale to illustrate this point for some folks?


Chris  

Yeah, I would when you talk about those, those the nomads, and you talk about being a contractor or moving to another country and working in that country. We've had 18 months 20 months of kind of a almost forgivable state, I live in the state of Florida, I think we should rename it to the state of New York, there are so many people from New York that have been down here over the last 20 months because of because of COVID. And there's a lot of people under the assumption that the state of New York has no interest in taxing their income, because they still have a residence in New York, and they live in Florida. This dynamic is not unique to Florida, New York, it's all over the world. So the biggest thing that I would advise and what we're seeing more and more of is that these local tax authorities are going to start having fun with nomadic workers and remote workers. Some of them are doing really good thing. Some countries are saying, Hey, this is a, you know, this is a worker passport, and you can work your tax free, right? Those there's certain countries that are doing that. But there's the countries that are losing tax revenue are going to be fairly aggressive going after remote workers in the future.


Allen  

Yeah, we've had a lot of great experience with the digital nomad visas and the people that are travelling under that as you say, but on the other hand, I can see many of the the cities states, so to speak, that have lost so much. I mean, we're even seeing it in the United States, the city wage taxes, and people said, Hey, I'm working out of my home office. This is, and people don't miss not paying one or 2% to some particular city of things. You've been really enlightening today, could you help our audience find Mobility Empowered, and perhaps you for advice, counsel, etc. And, and I'll say we really appreciate what Mobility Empowered does, because we've, we've directed some people to you, and everybody seems to be very happy with getting the advice and counsel. So any details that you can provide for our audience?


Chris  

I think the best way is MobilityEmpowered.com is our website, there's a there's a place where you can reach out and then again, Chris Kline, I'm on LinkedIn, I'm very active on LinkedIn. So love, again, love getting connection requests. And that's probably the best way to get ahold of me is via LinkedIn.


Allen  

Well, we appreciate you, Chris. And thank you very much. Andrew, once again, we've learned a lot today I will I'll mention one thing that I think is really interesting to me because I hear it all the time, which is you know, it's daunting when you think about heading to a new location. But it's a lot more daunting when people don't have good information. It's not so daunting if they have good information and good support. And you know, people who a lot of them will say, jeez, that was really a lot easier because they had so many like Chris and Mobility Empowered, assisting them, they may have health coverage with folks like insured nomads, us you know, there'll be other support services that you know, people have information, but information is power. And I think what we take away from this is, there's a lot of different specific information pieces. And I'd love to ask you, Andrew, because you've moved all these places, all those different touch points that you can recognise on where information helps you not have a problem.


Andrew  

Oh, I had the problem in my mind, not that not have a problem. Or you could do the problem to a drafter I had the information I was able to successfully move my pet. The third and fourth time, successfully. The first couple of times there were a lot of glitches including the rest of the family go ahead. And I drive to the US FDA office for one more certification so that cat can fly on board with us or go to the airport and the airline said oh yes, it can fly on the first leg but not the other two legs of the flight. Oh, wow. That was a different trip with that same cat. That cats got a couple of lives left. Yeah. You know. Traveling with a dog to where it's okay, we drive from, from one state to another, just because it would cost an extra 2000 bucks to transport that dog to the International Airport. So I know pet transportation, pet relocation is one of the many services that Chris and his team are subject matter experts in. So it's, you know, I didn't have that when I started that process. And I know the marketplace concepts that they present to their clients is really time saving. And that stating it lightly. It's cost saving, it's efficiency. So knowing what they've built I just have to say accolades and well done.


Allen  

Excellent, Andrew. Well, he


Chris  

The other member the family.


Allen  

That's it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, this is this is excellent today. Once again, we want to thank you all for listening. We want to remind everybody that The New Nomad's not just a podcast, but it's a community of people, ideas, and spirit helping you take advantage of that location independent lifestyle. We want you to travel safely. We want you to travel more often. We want you to feel comfortable in that environment. And I think today's podcast covered many of those items. So thank you again, look forward to catching up with you next week. Until then, cheers.