Ep.#124: Room2Room Movers

We sit down with Brooks Fuller to hear how a spring 2020 dorm shutdown turned into Room2Room Movers, a college-focused moving company built in Auburn and now expanding beyond it. We dig into what makes college moves uniquely stressful, how Brooks handles the hard parts of the moving industry, and what he’s learned about mentors and building a strong team culture. 
• The moment COVID-19 closures created a dorm pack-out emergency and sparked the business 
• Why college students move so often and what that costs families in time and travel 
• How student storage solves summer gaps and in-between leases 
• Long-distance moves and shipping items to a warehouse for move-in delivery 
• What people miss about the moving industry and why it can be emotionally heavy 
• Learning fast through mentors, protecting personal time, and putting the phone down 
• The team-first culture behind Room2Room Movers and how tech-friendly booking works 
www.r2rmovers.com

Transcript

Welcome To The Good Neighbor Podcast

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together.

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Here's your host, Tuesday Hodges Welcome, and with me is Brooks Fuller. He is with Room to Room Movers. Welcome, Brooks. Thanks for joining me.

SPEAKER_02 0:19

Yes, ma'am. Thanks for having me. It's a great day here in Auburn, Alabama.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Absolutely, it

A COVID Dorm Shutdown Origin Story

SPEAKER_01 0:24

is. Well, tell me about Room to Room Movers. Obviously, it's in your name, but tell me a little bit about your business.

SPEAKER_02 0:31

Yes, ma'am. So we are a college-focused moving company that serves the Auburn community, the Oxford, Mississippi community, and we're looking to expand into the college towns of the world. It was a really neat story back during COVID-19, as we all can recall, March of 2020 was when the business technically started. I'm born and raised here in Auburn. I was playing baseball at Auburn University during my sophomore year, which is when COVID hit. The dorms at Auburn got shut down. And all the kids, all the students were on spring break. So that's really the correlation of why Room to Room exists today was COVID-19 and spring break 2020. The students were not able to come back and pack up their dorm rooms because Auburn feared that COVID would spread across town. So a few weeks later, just through God and a bunch of luck, people were shipping their dorm room keys to my mom and dad's house here in Auburn. My brother and I were going into the dorms with mask and gloves on, packing them up, and then shipping them across the country to Auburn's. It's amazing. Yeah. So it wasn't room to room back then. It was Brooks, Brady, and Miss Lori, my mom. There wasn't services, it wasn't pricing. It just was some Auburn family trying to help Auburn family during a big time in need. A year later, so now I'm back playing baseball, the world's open back up. I come back to my locker one day after practice, and I had a few texts from some parents from the summer before. It was like April, March or April of 21. So right before the dorms move out in May. And they were, you know, asking, Can I hire you again? Can I hire your moving company again? And you know, after a few days, I had like 40 people trying to hire this moving company that didn't even exist. So I saw a need, had somebody's help, and in 21, or excuse me, in June of 21, we opened up room-to-room

College Moving Services And Student Storage

SPEAKER_02 2:32

movers. We saw a big need in the Auburn market for college movers. Um, we hired some college students as the laborers, and um, from that point forward, we've we've added services like storage for students who need storage during the summer, or maybe they have like that two or three-week uh layover between their old apartment and new apartment, need somewhere to store it. So we'll pick it up, store their stuff, and then deliver it back to them in August. We do long distance. I think we're traveling to Florida, New York, we've been to California, Texas. So we we can kind of reach anywhere with moving. Um, and then people can ship stuff to us now. So if you're a college student that needs to ship your bedroom ahead of time, say you're from New Jersey or Chicago and don't want to rent a U-Haul and drive it all the way down to Auburn and Alabama or Old Miss or wherever you're at in college, you can ship stuff to our warehouse um in each college town. We'll store it and then we'll deliver it for move in. So that's the that's the core model. We do move houses and commercial and we do a lot of moving now, but uh the vision, the mission is is that college market and college towns. And um today, like I said, we're we're in Mississippi, we're in Alabama, and we're looking to to serve the college towns of of the world.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

Right. You know, when you're not you when you don't have you know children in college or you're not in college yourself, you kind of don't know about that whole logistics of getting in and out of you know, when you're not in school, you gotta you gotta move, and that's a lot. That's moving often, isn't it? I mean, you'd be moving almost every quarter, are you?

SPEAKER_02 4:04

Yeah, I did. I was in Auburn for four years and I moved four times. Um crazy, yeah. I think the average we found just with data is about two and a half times per college career. And if you think about it, you know, all that it takes just to move from one place to another in Auburn, if if you're out of state specifically, so if you are that parent from Texas, if you are that parent from New Jersey, you have to book a flight to and from Atlanta. You have to get a groom, you have to get a hotel. Well, then you're here with your daughter or some, we're going on a shopping spree, right? So there's there's a lot of you know, not only time that you're saving by booking, you know, room to room, but also you know, the finances of it typically, it's a lot cheaper to spend a couple hundred bucks for us to handle it, yeah. You know, maybe a couple thousand dollars to travel to to Auburn and back.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

Well, that's amazing, and what a great story. It is a you know, a lot of businesses were born during COVID. So uh that's an interesting one that that you've you were able to fill that need during a really stressful time.

SPEAKER_02 5:03

Yes, ma'am. Well, we appreciate it. We're um it's a lot bigger than me now. We have a whole team. My brother and mom aren't technically in the business anymore. Um, but yeah, God is good. He's he's gotten us to this point. We're excited for the future.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

That's awesome.

Why Moving Is Hard For Everyone

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Well, you've been doing this for a while. Have you come across any misconceptions about what you do that you might want to clear up?

SPEAKER_02 5:23

Uh, I wouldn't say misconceptions, but just in general, the moving business, the moving industry, it's it's hard. You know, you're uh you're typically serving a client who is either stressed out because they're moving, um, a loved one, you know, might be going to assisted living. Maybe someone has passed away and now a family member's dealing with their furniture and their items. So it's never really a fun interaction uh for your client. We try and make it fun, we try and make it lighthearted. It's it's really just it's hard though. Um things happen, you know, we we're really safe, we train, but when you have you know people moving furniture, something's gonna scratch, something's gonna get banged up. So it's a very tough business, but I think it teaches us a lot as you know, team members of room to room. Um, if we can get good at the moving business, whatever our future is and other businesses, hopefully it's not not so hard. Um but yeah, that's that's probably one I wouldn't say misconception, but just um yeah, overall the moving industry is pretty tough.

Mentors, Stress, And Unplugging

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Well, let's talk about you for a minute, Brooks. What do you like to do for fun when you're not helping people move?

SPEAKER_02 6:29

Yeah, uh, I'm 26 years old, and I've been told in your 20s is the time to learn. Um, so I'm learning a lot. I'm reading a lot of books. My morning time is spent um with God to start with, the Bible right after that. And I normally have some type of personal development book I'm reading. Um, so that's what I like to do. I like to hunt and fish and get out in nature. That's where I really a lot of my business ideas and entrepreneurial spirit uh gets really kicking when I'm when I'm outside. Um so yeah, that's that's kind of what I'm in right now. I'm I'm in a personal development mode at 26 years old. I'm hoping to learn as much as I can before my 30s, which is I guess called your your earning years, if you will.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

Yeah, that's right. Well, part of the reason I do this podcast is encourage people to do exactly what you did, which is to follow that entrepreneur spirit when opportunity arises, not being afraid to follow through and take advantage of it. But there's always obstacles, right? When you're starting a business or you're trying to follow a dream, uh, you're gonna have to overcome challenges. So, what were some of the challenges that you had to overcome, whether it was personal or just business challenges that made you stronger or made your business stronger?

SPEAKER_02 7:41

Yeah, I think on the business side, just inexperience. Um, being in my 20s and I was 20 years old when the COVID story happened. So going through things I've never been through, um, I would say a solution I found to some of that inexperience is surrounding myself with mentors. So I'm always calling on my mentors, and you know, I don't have a huge network of mentors. I have two or three uh professionals who have started businesses, scaled businesses, sold businesses, have gone broke, have gotten it all back again. So I tried to get some diversity in this mentorship, and that's really helped. Uh on a personal side, I would say just um, you know, really, really early on the business can consume you and you can get stressed out about a lot, and you have people calling um all the times of the day and they want to talk to you. So just being able to uh put the phone down, take breaks, you know, to especially like when you're with your family and friends, it's really easy to have your phone on you and to check your email when the phone rings to answer it. Um, I did that early on. Now at the you know, stage I'm at, uh, I will totally leave my phone in the car for an hour and go hang out with my grandparents. And I think there's way more value in that one hour of being unplugged than if I had my phone maybe answering, making, you know, making a sale on a move. So that's all I've learned personally, just to be uh very uh very intimate with with my you know my personal time with family and friends.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

Absolutely. People can always leave a message.

SPEAKER_02 9:08

That's right. That's right.

Team Culture And How To Book

SPEAKER_01 9:09

Well, what's one thing you wish people knew about room-to-room movers that they may not realize?

SPEAKER_02 9:14

Man, I wish you could meet the team. Um, you know, like I said, it's a lot bigger than me now. We have some superstars on this team. I think it's the best team I'll ever work with personally. Uh, so I really cherish my time with my team. Um, we have hundreds of people, you know, across a few states now, but like the core team, the core six or seven or eight of us, uh, we got some sharp talent. So I wish you guys could hang out with us and see our meetings. The the majority of our meetings are challenging each other on how we can get better personally. Um, there are some business meetings, but the the majority of our time together is checking in on family and how are you doing? How are you doing? How can I serve you? That's that's really the culture here at Room to Room.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Well, that sounds wonderful. Well, how can people get in touch with room to room movers uh and learn more about you?

SPEAKER_02 9:59

Yeah, well, to follow the the journey, which is really cool right now, we're we're expanding, we're working in new markets. Um, you can follow us on Instagram. So we kind of tell the story of Room to Room on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn. And then if you need moving services, not only in Auburn, but really across the country, um, I would just with Google Room to Room. We uh we're on Google, we have a website. Typically, when you contact a mover, you have to you know schedule a quote for them to come over to your house and coordinate those logistics. They go, they go back to their office, make a quote, build a quote. Uh, you can book everything with us online. Um, within two or three minutes, you can give us your address, your inventory, your dates, your times, you'll get your price, and you can book it. Um, and then you can reschedule, you can update stuff on your client portal. Our movers have an app they they use, so it's pretty tech friendly for those people. We we do still you know communicate on the phone. We're gonna answer the phone. So if you need us, you can call us. But the majority of our services and offerings can be booked on our website.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

Okay, and I would like for you to spell the name of your business because it's not TWO, it's the number two, right?

SPEAKER_02 11:06

Right. So room to room movers, and it's room with the number two, room space movers.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

Okay. Well, thank you so much, Brooks, for being with me. I've enjoyed learning more about you and room to room movers.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

Awesome. Thank you guys. You have a blessed day.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast Auger. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpawder.com. That's gnpawder.com. Or call three three four four two nine seven four zero.