Life is funny at times, not always funny ‘ha ha’ – but comical in the way that often the biggest potential set-backs, bumps in the road, major heart-pounding bad news can be the biggest boost for you as a person or with your business.
For example, our new warehouse move came from a very clipped note that our landlord of TEN YEARS was not willing to lease to us anymore due to another much larger corporation wanting to take over our building in its entirety. Yes….we got the boot. The problem with this was that they gave me a whopping 45 days to a) find a new warehouse space and b) move an entire recycling, shredding and electronics recycling business that was still running five days a week.
This is the part where I need to start thanking my lucky stars that this news arrived just as my best friend from childhood did to spend a week ‘hiking, biking, river-rafting, shopping and camping’ in Colorado. Oh man. I did say BEST friend (Heather I owe you!). Instead of said best friend freaking out on me because I was panicking and could only think, “We need to move, we need to move, I need to find a new place!” She helped me get organized and create a spreadsheet listing everything we needed to do quickly to get a move on…and that’s what we did!
I didn’t get to take her rafting or biking, but we pulled off a few hikes and drinks with dinner on the Pearl Street Mall complete with hilarious photos and great memories. “That’s what best friends do,” Heather said as she was leaving. “We help each other out when we need it the most. I could tell watching your kids and helping answer your business phones for you was what you needed so you could go interview realtors.” I’m completely blown away by how blessed I have always been with true friends.
I managed with a lot of luck to land an amazing commercial realtor (Tim Conarro) who was beyond connected and began the fastest search of Longmont, Colorado and surrounding areas you’ve ever witnessed. After a few close deals, and with an amazing stroke of luck, we landed at 21 S. Sunset in an old shop building that used to service cement trucks – the perfect location with a wide-open space to run our business – just in the nick of time, too! I think I signed the lease to move in with only one week to spare to vacate our old location.
Moving a warehouse after spreading ten years worth of roots in a building and the surrounding parking lot is not easy. Moving stinks – there, I said it. In one week my guys helped me pull off the unbelievable task of getting hundreds of containers, poly carts, maggies, dumpsters, our shop equipment, 10 trucks, 2 forklifts, 2 shredding machines, gates, fencing, compressors and really heavy tools and oil drums to our new location. I managed to sell off six vehicles (mostly for scrap) and an old 24’ box we used for storage. I had to time all this moving crap around regular recycling routes and customers still dropping off electronics and paper to destroy. Life was crazy for about two weeks straight – well, it still is to be honest…but isn’t it always, really?
I love that being a mom has taught me how to handle juggling many things at one time. I learned that everything that is really hard to accomplish, is also extremely rewarding at some point later and teaches you how to grow so that you can be a better person down the road. I couldn’t have moved without the help of so many talented people. I want to thank Skeeter Gosney who moved our bailer with his brother and team (holy crap that was amazing to watch – thank God he was doing it, those bailers are HEAVY, man). Ceeran who owns Reliable Towing moved all my dead trucks we still use for storage, parking them expertly between a building and low trees at the new location. My recycling team: Julian, Israel, Brandon, Troy, Jesus, and my husband Matt pulled together to clean the new warehouse, pack the old warehouse and move on a weekend and the following week. Amazing. My guys are all amazing.
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