Jaymie Shook

In my role as Director of Marketing Communications at Wheaton World Wide Moving | Bekins Van Lines, the largest part of my job is to make sure the moving companies my company partners with across the country have all the marketing tools they need to succeed in attracting the attention of potential customers. Our partners are mostly small businesses, with the smallest consisting of 2-3 people in the office, a handful of drivers, and a few crews of packers; meaning the owners of these companies, like most small business owners, wear a ton of hats. Since marketing is just one of their tasks, they sometimes get lost in doing what they’ve always done instead of trying new marketing strategies.

After about 18 months at my company, I realized we lacked a central place for these moving company owners to find the breadth of marketing tools we’ve created for them. I approached my department’s vice president about creating a physical workbook we could mail to our partners, which he thought was a great idea. After lots of discussion, vendor research and expectations setting, I set about directing production of our first Sales & Marketing Workbook. Pulling in the van line’s three regional sales directors and our training and development professional, I led the brainstorming of topics and assigned pieces to each contributor, as well as taking on several pieces to write myself. After copyediting and working with the designer, I sent the final product off to the printer.

Many of our moving company partners have praised that first workbook, as well as the three following editions I’ve directed over the subsequent years. While the second edition also became paper and ink, the third and fourth editions drew so much from video assets that I shifted the project to a digital product. Our regional sales directors point partners to these pages time and again when those companies come to the van line with questions and challenges they face.

While the workbooks are just part of the puzzle when it comes to educating our partner moving companies on marketing strategies and best practices, they are crucial to the growth of our partners and our network.