Going the Distance - Building a Business Based on Trust and Relatability

Our Conversation with Chris and Kelly Owen

Tiffany Vine - Account Manager, CRI

Hello, good afternoon, and welcome to the show. My name is Tiffany Vine and I'm an account manager for Corporate Relocation International.

Carlos Huereca - CHRO/COO, CRI

Hello everyone. I'm Carlos Huereca, Corporate Relocation international’s CHRO. We are thrilled to be here today with Chris and Kelly Owen from Showtime Relocations. We have established a really strong partnership with them. Welcome, and thank you for joining us.

Chris Owen - Co-Owner, Showtime Relocations

Thank you for having us.

Kelly Owen - Co-Owner, Showtime Relocations

Thank you.

Carlos Huereca

Well, this show is about you. Why don't we start with a quick outlook on who you are, what are you doing, and how your relationship with CRI came to fruition.

Kelly Owen

I had about 20 years in the moving industry with the large van lines and then Chris and I decided to leave “van line life” and launch our own company. We started that in 2018, working with an independent mover, and moved on ourselves to launch Showtime (Relocations) completely out on our own. So, on the daily, I do the office end of things these days. For two years, I was on the road with Chris after our kids grew up. I was on the road day and night with him, working with the customers, and then in the evening I did the office end of things.

Tiffany Vine

Tell us about your relationship…were you guys coworkers at first or married first?

Kelly Owen

I was his boss. (Laughs)

Chris Owen

She was! (Laughs)

Tiffany Vine

You married up, Chris. You married up. (Laughs)

Chris Owen

Years ago, Kelly was my dispatcher at a company that we both worked at. Back then, I was a single dad. I had three girls and she needed me to run a load one time and I couldn't because my kids were on spring break and I didn't have anybody to watch them. She said, “Bring them to my house. I need you to do this load. It's a big VIP.” So, it worked out and she said, “I'll watch them this summer also. Let's try this again.” We had a lot of fun and we just kind of moved in and never moved out.

Carlos Huereca

Listen, relationships at work are very common, so that's quite an interesting story.

Tiffany Vine

Whenever we hear that you guys are partners together - both out on the road as well as partners in business, everyone asks, “Gosh, don't they get sick of each other? How can they work together?” We see it’s not there.

Kelly Owen

We’re trial by fire because I stayed home for years with our five kids and he was out on the road and then he would be home, you know, back and forth. So, our relationship was really trial by fire because it was always, “absence makes the heart grow fonder” and then we flipped that switch overnight to living in 150 square foot together with a dog - day and night, work together, live together. In 150 square feet, it's kind of hard to find your own space when we get on each other's nerves…and we take turns doing that. (Laughs)

Carlos Huereca

I have so many questions that I want to ask…I hope you don't mind. Let me take you back, though, to the beginning. If you can maybe share more about the thought process about moving from being in the traditional van line industry to starting your own business. What was that like and what made you make that decision?

Chris Owen

It was kind of something that had been in my head for a couple of years. I was really happy with the van line agent that I was with – the money was good and life was good. But I always had in my head that I know there's something else out there. I kind of pitched it to Kelly a couple of times and she said “No, that sounds a little crazy. Let's talk about it after the kids get out of school in a few years,” and I said, “OK.” It kind of started being in my head more and more often and I would just find things and not be happy with my situation to make me think about going out on my own more and more often and finally one day I just kind of called her and I was talking to her about some conversations I had had with some people and how we could get a trailer and where we could get loads from. And she pretty much knew at that point that that's where my head was going. And when I get an idea in my head, there’s not a lot of turning back, you know?

So, I had a buddy that's no longer operating with Corporate Relocation (CRI) at the time and we were good friends and I started asking him if he could introduce me and he did. And it's been great. I love being on our own and being able to do things our way and service our customers our way. It's hard to explain because I have friends that ask me all the time the difference between what we do now and what we used to do. And it's just really hard to explain, and unless you're in it, it's just a different kind of feeling to be able to be our own boss and have our own company and do things our way and not have to worry about other people getting in our way of taking care of our customers.

Carlos Huereca

For the people who are not in the industry, what would you say it is that you do? What's your job like?

Chris Owen

I always tell my friends we wear so many hats – those of us that are in the (client’s) house every day. We're a therapist, sometimes. We're a home decorator. Sometimes, we're an organizer. We have to let the customer know it's going to be OK and keep them calm through the process because moving is very stressful. I want to be the best at what we do and part of that is being able to manage the customers thoughts and feelings and expectations and trying to meet all of them and make sure that they have a stress-free move. It's a lot more than just moving furniture.

Carlos Huereca

Totally agree. Yeah, you are what we call craft people and one of the reasons why we decided to establish a partnership with you guys is because of what you just mentioned - the quality of work that you deliver to our clients and the employees of our clients. It's essential for us and we love that we have this shared value of a great customer service experience and again, just really taking care of the clients and their employees every time you connect with them.

Tiffany Vine

And a huge part of that selection of our select fleet drivers has to do with that pride in your craft and your work that all our select fleet drivers have, and that they all consider it more than just moving household goods from one place to another. They really see what the transferee is going through. They are empathetic towards how difficult moves can be, and they take that in their work every day.

Kelly Owen

His (Chris’s) face is the representation for the whole move. The only person, you know…they've talked to people over the phone in orchestrating their move…but that's that person that shows up at their front door and is in their home. And at the end of the move, a lot of times you end up with hugs or whatever, you know, when it's all said and done, that's the representation that a customer sees face-to-face throughout the move process. When there are a lot of behind the scenes people orchestrating that part of the process, but then, you know, our faces are the ones that the customer sees and the relatability factor. So that's just one of the key components of the job - to always be relatable with the customer.

Tiffany Vine

Well, yeah, they have to have a huge amount of trust in you. You're dealing with every one of their earthly belongings. They're letting you into the most private parts of their life - their home. And so, it's amazing that you're able to establish that kind of trust in such a short amount of time.

Chris Owen

The other thing is letting a customer know they don't have to be there the whole time. A lot of the time, coordinators will let the customer believe that they need to be there the whole time we're there. Once we get going, most of the time I've noticed customers do not want to be in the home, they don't want to watch us going through their stuff. They would rather go have lunch with friends, and if I have a good idea of what they want, I usually invite them to go ahead and just go about their day. I let them know what time we're going to be done at the end of the day. Usually within an hour or two, I can tell that they're pretty relaxed and comfortable and once I can tell that they're just kind of pacing the house, wishing they had something to do, I'll just go let them know, “Hey, you don't have to be here. It's OK. You can go do things. You can go run errands, go see your friends, go take the cable boxes back. Whatever you need to do, there's no sense in sitting around here all day.” And usually they're like, “Ohh, really? I can leave?” And they're gone, especially if they have the kids in the house. If the kids aren't in school and they're trying to manage the kids and a dog around six people packed in the house. They're usually super relieved to know that, OK, we can take the kids and go somewhere.

Kelly Owen

When your things are all being packed up, usually when you're at home, you're accomplishing tasks of some sort. And we now have put all of your things into boxes and we have taken the legs off your sofa and have it all wrapped up, so there are less things for you to be doing inside your home where the customers feeling in their mind, “I have so many things to accomplish” because remember, most of the customers we’re moving are moving out of state or states away. So, for them, they've got to be finishing up those details here before they head to the next place. So, a lot of times it's a relief to them that…”Look, I trust these people. They care about my things. I'm about to give them my worldly possessions. When they close the trailer doors and drive away with it, so I might as well trust them now.”

Carlos Huereca

Yeah. I know…I think the collective effort is obviously…with Showtime Relocations and CRI…is your business has 20 plus years of experience…and CRI has over three decades of experience. We have a very well-established relationship with our clients and obviously the employees of our clients. So, they know about the background and they know about the history of both organizations and that definitely adds a ton of value and we're able to remove a lot of the stress and build that trust that is needed when we're moving someone. And creating an opportunity to just have a lunch while we're doing all of that, I think it matters.

Chris Owen

Absolutely.

Kelly Owen

We always work with the caveat that depending on which poll you listen to, moving is one of the either 10 or five most stressful things that adults encounter in their life. Knowing that and reassuring customers that, “Yes, I understand that you're stressed. It's normal to be stressed. You have a lot going on.” So, the beginning of a move process is receiving a call from Corporate Relocation offering us a job, telling us about the upcoming transferee, where they're moving from, where they're moving to, and about the estimated time to do the job and the estimated weight of a shipment.

Chris Owen

And at that point, once we accept the job from dispatch, then the CSR (customer service rep) will reach out to us and give us all the details that we need. I'll usually reach out to the coordinator and say, “Hey, how do they sound on the phone? Do you feel like there are any concerns that I need to know about before I make my pre-call?” Because at this point, the CSR usually has had contact with the customer several times to get all the information that they're getting ready to feed to me. But then I'm going to call and basically do their job again to build my relationship with the customer before we ever show up.

So, I usually try and start about two weeks out, giving a customer a pre-call and just introducing myself. I'll leave them a voicemail or shoot them a text and let them know that, “Hey, this is Chris Owen with Showtime Relocations. I will be the driver handling your move. Just want to introduce myself, give me a call back or a text when you get an opportunity and we'll go over any details. I want to know if you guys have any questions or concerns for us before we show up to your home.” And most of the time, they don't. The coordinators at Corporate Relocation are very good about giving the customers all the details. So, there's very rarely any time where I have to give them any other information. They might just ask us how many guys we're going to have on the job because they want to get them lunch, or they want to tip and might ask us how many are going to be (part of) our crew every day. Will it be the same guys every day? Those kind of questions. So, once we actually show up to the job at 8:00 AM – that’s one thing that I let them know - we will be there at 8:00 AM. We're not going to be there 8:05. And in fact, I'm usually in front of the house about 7:30. I like to get there early, beat traffic, and be sitting in front of the house, to get my bearings and make sure I have everything in order while I'm waiting on the guys to show up. And most of my guys know I'm serious about 8:00 AM. I've sent guys home before for being 20 minutes late.

Once we start to move and we have made contact with the customer, I let them know right away, “Hey, we're going to cover your floors. Once the house is prepped, we're going to come find you. You can go finish getting the kids ready for school or making your breakfast or whatever you're doing.” And we'll get the house protected and once we do that, then we meet with the customer for a walkthrough and usually during the walkthrough, I'm carrying post it notes or a roll of blue painter’s tape and a marker. I stick on the doors…what is in each room, what they want each room to be called, whether it's Benny's room, Eric's room, family room, living room, media room, study…whatever that is, we're going to call it that. I can't even think of them now but last year I swear I came across some houses with some strangely named rooms.

Kelly Owen

Well, and part of that is preparing for delivery. When the customer knows we're going from this 8,000 square foot house to a 3,000 square foot house, so we no longer have all of these rooms, and all of these rooms are now going to become this one room or go to the garage until we figure things out. So, it helps them be a part of preparing for the delivery side of things.

Chris Owen

We like to label things to the room they're going to, not necessarily the room they're in. That's very helpful for the destination guys because they weren't at origin most of the time. So, if we have everything from origin properly marked for destination, then the guys that are just coming in on the last day of the move, can come in seamlessly like they've been there the whole time. And that's pretty hard because honestly, it doesn't really matter how good you do all through the beginning of the move…all they remember is the last day. And it's really hard because you only have the crew there for usually one day on that last delivery day and they haven't been a part of the entire process, but everything really is on their shoulders because the way you leave the customer is all they remember. They don't remember how great you were seven days ago when we were packing up. All they remember is how they felt when you left the house and you were done with the job. So, making sure that my origin guys label everything properly so that the destination guys don't have to ask a million questions and they just can start working like they've been there the whole time. That's a big part of it.

Kelly Owen

And remember, they're seeing this furniture for the very first time and it's all wrapped in moving blankets. So, it's semi un-identifiable…it might be a buffet, it might be a dresser. They've never seen this piece of furniture that is completely wrapped and we are fortunate that almost 99% of the crews that we have across the country are just so spectacular at what they do that Chris or I hanging near the front door or wherever their entry point is, can help guide them and it relieves that stress from the customer.

Chris Owen

Once they see how fast things are going and the way things are labeled and the way the rooms get cleaned up after they're done being packed and we've moved on, that process helps the customer to calm down a lot and it's usually by, like I said, about two or three hours into a packing day when they're OK with just leaving us to do our job.

Back to the Podcast...

Tiffany Vine

I hear you have quite an impressive rig. Tell us a little bit about this rig you have going. I hear it's got all the bells and whistles, home comforts, etc.

Chris Owen

It does! In fact, you guys almost got to do this interview in there, had we not been able to do it today. I was going to have Kelly come meet me on the road somewhere for whatever date we rescheduled for because after today, I'm not going to be home for a while. It's a lot. We built that truck to live in it full time and life has changed now with the warehouse, and Kelly is not in the truck as much anymore so, it's a lot for me. I've considered getting rid of it, but it's definitely one-of-a-kind. It sounds like a lot, but it's really not. I mean, for me, it's a lot, but when it was me and Kelly and the dogs, it definitely seemed very small sometimes, but…

Kelly Owen

I don't pack light. (Laughs)

Carlos Huereca

Tell us more about your warehouse, you mentioned that you have a warehouse.

Chris Owen

Yeah. So, the warehouse came across by accident. We had a very small building for a while that we would only put smaller customers in or medium sized customers that CRI just absolutely did not want to send to a van line agent because of the exposure. A couple clients said at the time that they really wanted to protect what we could handle and that was it. It was just a very small building and we never intended on doing anything else.

Kelly Owen

Then he got an idea!

Chris Owen

And yeah, then I got an idea. And I pitched it to John Wildey (CRI’s VP, Operations), and he liked it and we ran with it. And the next thing you know, we had 20,000 square feet of brand new warehouse space. Then we started getting shipments in…they (CRI) were scheduling us before we even closed on the place, so we were getting shipments in the day that we signed paperwork.

Tiffany Vine

So, Kelly, you're heading up the storage facility right now?

Kelly Owen

Yes, I handle the warehouse for now, and I bounce in and out of the truck. One of the downfalls of having the warehouse means that, just like with anything else in the business, you have to be there and love it and care for it and grow it. So, I've had to stay back more often, but it will be worth it in the end and it's fabulous for us because we get to care for a customer all the way through the process - from beginning to end - even if they can't get (these items) directly into their home, their new home at destination, they (the items) are able to stay with us inside (the warehouse) with Showtime and we get to take care of their items.

Carlos Huereca

I think that's an important element for the people that perhaps are not as familiarized with the relocation or the moving industry. What you stated about (the items) being able to stay with you guys from the start, all the way through the end of the cycle, the moving cycle. Tell us why that's important in in that process.

Chris Owen

Well, you know, over the years, and not just since we've been with Corporate Relocation, but over the years, taking a shipment to storage has always been hard for us because for most moving companies out there, storage is just extra revenue. There's not a lot of care given to it, so no matter how good of a job myself or another driver does to make sure the customer is taken care of leaving their current home, there's been so many times over 21 years that I've gotten emails or calls later saying, ‘thank you guys for everything you tried to do. Unfortunately, our move turned out bad. This happened…’ They lost things, things got broken. And it's disheartening to know that you did everything you could to give them a good move and then at the end of the day, they were not happy. That was a big part of us deciding to get a warehouse…to make sure that our customers got great service all the way to the end, even if they couldn't go straight from a home to a home.

Carlos Huereca

I agree, and for our audience listening in, that again for us is just essential in how Showtime Relocations aligns with our values. Corporate Relocation International also has a warehouse, so when we heard that you guys were opening a warehouse, we were also very excited…not just for you guys, but obviously because it aligns with our business model and our value proposition. So, thank you for sharing that.

Tiffany Vine

For us, on a global concept, that being able to know exactly who has the belongings at every point is why we have our Select Fleet. To know who we're sending into homes, to know who's handling people's belongings…it's all a part of what makes us special, and our organization special.

Chris Owen

Absolutely.

Carlos Huereca

So, Kelly and Chris…CRI has always been extremely selective in selecting drivers that could potentially join our Select Fleet for all the reasons that we have discussed at this point. We're always excited to read the commentary and the feedback that we get from our clients, and the employees of our clients, who we call ‘transferees’ - that's a term that's very well known in the industry. It’s very positive feedback…“Kelly and Chris were great, the move was seamless. They were able to remove a lot of stress from an already stressful situation.” We know how our transferees and our clients feel about you guys. How do you guys feel about CRI?

Kelly Owen

CRI is a great partner to have in the industry. They really care about their customers and making sure that the customers have the “stand apart” service from beginning to end. They make sure that we have the knowledge, the information…the CRI team shares with us and having that information before you go knock on a customer's door is imperative. And that's one of the great keys to working with CRI…it’s that they do everything that they can to help us be successful when we knock on the customer's door…and throughout the move process.

Chris Owen

All around, I love working with CRI because, like Kelly said, they do care about the customers, and if I call with a concern that has been overlooked, they're quick to let me know, “OK, just take care of it…whatever it is, just take care of it.” And that's not the case everywhere I've ever worked. So, it's very nice to know that they're willing to give me the authorization to take care of the customer no matter what they need. And that’s really important to me. Working with Tara and John, who we mostly work with as far as dispatch and the inner workings of Corporate Relocation…they're awesome. They're great to work with.

Carlos Huereca

Tell us more about maybe any advice that you would give to anyone who may be thinking about taking that leap of faith and opening their own business. What would be the piece of advice that you would give?

Kelly Owen

For the moving business, I would say…so, between Chris and I, we both had well over 20 years in the industry in our respective fields. I had kind of touched base on a lot of departments prior to doing this and when you go out on your own, you're all the departments, all of them. And there were departments we didn't have a lot of knowledge going into. A lot of it is compliance with the government. How many insurances are involved? Things like that. So, there was a large learning curve to that. We thought we had nailed down the important departments we had covered. We knew what to do and how to do it. But then there was a lot of that we were unaware of. But it has been a learning curve and it's been successful, and we've had some great resources…people in the industry that are always willing to answer our questions and be resources for us.

Chris Owen

And then when we got the warehouse, we were just getting a handle on knowing everything that we had going on and that was a whole different side of the business that we thought couldn't be that hard. We were way wrong. It was a big learning curve. We didn't know anything about sprinkler systems and now we're basically experts. We could probably start our own sprinkler system company now. So, it's hard. I do talk to a lot of drivers out there that would like to do what we're doing. This isn't for everybody. It's a lot of work. It is rewarding, but you have to be willing to put in the work and if you're not, then you're not going to be successful.

To be honest with you, most of the conversations that I've had with guys, and that I really felt like they would make great business owners to do what we're doing, and run for Corporate Relocation at the end of the day, that's where we get our drivers from. They just decide that we have a great thing going on and then they decide don't want to do it themselves and they come join us. So, it's awesome. We gain partners while you guys are getting partners.

Carlos Huereca

Well, Chris and Kelly Owen from Showtime Relocations, you have over 20 years of experience. You have established a great partnership with Corporate Relocation International. You have expanded your business with a warehouse. What's next? What are you doing in the next two to three years?

Chris Owen

She's asked me to slow down for a minute until we get our hands grasped around everything we have going on now and I'm trying to, but I would like to have a few more drivers. I would like to start doing some local work. Right now, we don't do a lot of work locally of our own business and we have opportunities to, but we try and keep ourselves available for Corporate Relocation (CRI) and make sure that we are taking care of CRI first, before we look for other business for ourselves and it has put a little bit of a hold on where I would like to see us in a few years, but at the same time, it's been really good too, because it's given us a chance to learn all the things and know where we need to go and what we need to do. As things have progressed, CRI has actually given us some contacts for local work, so we might be able to end up servicing a CRI customer and that our own customer and the CRI customer are one in the same. It might be very, very rewarding going down that road.

Carlos Huereca

Yeah, this is the whole concept that we've talked about - 1 + 1 = 3 where we obviously see the mutual benefit of us working with great partners such as Showtime Relocations.

Tiffany Vine

We always love to see our partners grow within their companies as well. We love seeing you guys start your storage facility and seeing you grow drivers underneath you as well.

Chris Owen

We love CRI. We love working with CRI. All of our drivers love working with CRI. I can't even say “our drivers.” We treat all our drivers like partners, just like Corporate Relocation does with us. They all build their own relationship with CRI. There's never a time where we get involved in one of our drivers’ business with CRI. Each one of them have to build their own relationship with the CSR's and the dispatch…

Kelly Owen

We work very much as a team.

Chris Owen

They believe in us and we believe in them. It's a great partnership.

Tiffany Vine

That's great to hear.

Carlos Huereca

Let me ask another question. We were talking about how we are very service-oriented. We actually have a theme internally - a service-obsessed culture. Why don't you tell us about your quality controls that you have at Showtime Relocations? That's a big part of the value proposition that we offer to our clients. We're interested in hearing more about your quality controls. How do you differentiate from others in terms of the actual delivery of your service.

Kelly Owen

One is the number of years of experience that all of our drivers have in the industry. They come in top of their field when they join Showtime. They're really kind of rock stars already.

Carlos Huereca

Why is tenure important? Why are years of experience so important in this field?

Kelly Owen

In the moving industry, a lot of knowledge comes in time. We all have to learn from our own experiences much of the time. We're watching our kids do that right now - it doesn't matter what your parents told you to do, you’ve got to go find out for yourself - and I think it's that way in moving. There's a lot of things that you have to learn with time - somebody can tell you what to do, but you're really going to figure it out and “dial in” over time and experience how to do your job and do it well. I've even watched Chris over the years kind of change the way that he runs a job and the way that things happen on a job because over the years he's just dialed that in.

Chris Owen

Sometimes it changes job-to-job, depending on the customer’s needs and expectations, the part of the country we’re in, the crew I'm using…

Kelly Owen

The crews that we use all over the country, they're phenomenal.

Chris Owen

We never use guys we don't know. If we don't know guys that are in an area that we have a job, we bring guys in. If we have to spend a little bit of our extra money putting guys in hotels and feeding them some meals and some gas money, it is what it is. I will not gamble with a crew I don't know. And that’s part of it and all of our guys know what we expect, they do a great job, and depending on where we're at in the country, I know how I need to run the job because sometimes it's better that I take a step back and I just talk to the customer and do driver things because my guys have it taken care of. Sometimes I know that I need to be more hands on and I need to be more involved with the guys and less with the customer because maybe this customer doesn't need to talk to me all day. He's got his own stuff going on. But the guys need my help. So, every job kind of gets approached a little bit differently depending on the customer, the guys (crew), and where we are in the country, and obviously what kind of a time schedule we're on, too.

Carlos Huereca

I think that explains why we see such a low claim rate in any of the moves that we have at CRI. So, thanks for sharing that.

Tiffany Vine

That ability to work with people from all walks of life and all different fields and all parts of the country is huge. That's part of what we value so much within our organization - because you're dealing with anyone from the CEO to a college graduate; from chemical manufacturing to a hospital; to a restaurant…you never know who you might be working with or their experience. So, being able to really be a chameleon in that way and work with different people is so important.

Carlos Huereca

You guys talked about expectations. Can you tell us more about that? What are some of the expectations that you have?

Chris Owen

My expectations are high. As soon as we do an introduction and meet the customer before a walkthrough is done, I want the whole house prepped. And I don't want anything else in the house until the house is prepped. That's one pet peeve of mine - making sure that the floor is completely covered before we have a second conversation with the customer, because once they see what the house looks like, the tempo of the whole thing changes.

Kelly Owen

Especially if it's someone who's stressed and worried. They've just had floors refinished for sale, something like that. Then they're like, whoa, these people really know what they're doing.

Carlos Huereca

When you say you're prepping a house, for the audience listening, what does that look like?

Chris Owen

We carry a specialized floor covering called Poly Knight. It's a plastic Poly sheet and they come in 2 foot by 4 foot sections. I carry twenty of those and the first thing we do is any hardwood, marble, tile, floors get covered in that and then rug runners throughout the house, obviously. Carpet shield anywhere there is carpet, and plenty of it. We don't put down one strip. I want plenty of carpet shield down anywhere we're going to be walking. We cover banisters with pads, and any entryways with pad covers. We cover the doors. If there's any glass in a corner or a stairwell, we're covering it with cardboard if we can. Most of my guys are so careful anyway. They're not going to hit the walls. A lot of that's for show to let the customers know that we care about their house. It's not so much that we think we need it down, but it makes them realize that, OK, they care about our stuff, they're gonna take care of us.

Carlos Huereca

Well, we have one last question that we like to ask to all of our guests. I'm going to let Tiffany ask this tough question.

Tiffany Vine

Yeah, it's a tough one. (Laughs)

Chris Owen

I'll probably let Kelly answer it then. (Laughs)

Tiffany Vine

You guys have gotten to drive all over the country, so, we'd like to know if you could move anywhere, where would you go?

Chris Owen

We decided when we got in the truck three years ago and we were going to live in the truck full time, we got rid of all of our things and we got rid of our house and we were not going to get out of the truck until we figured out where in the country we wanted to live and settle down there. And it didn't happen.

Kelly Owen

You changed the plan. (Laughs) You changed the plan with the warehouse.

Chris Owen

We got a warehouse...right where we started out three years ago.

We had decided that we didn't want to live in Ohio anymore. Not that there's anything wrong with Ohio, but the kids were gone. We were going to settle down somewhere else and we had a list of about 10 places that were really interesting to us.

Kelly Owen

They were all warmer than Ohio.

Chris Owen

Yes, they were. And now we're back in Ohio, so…

Kelly Owen

It was his idea. He changed the rules of the game. We just traveled to all the places, visited all the places. I prefer anywhere with sun, sand, and saltwater. And the white stuff that falls from the sky, I'd rather avoid whenever possible. But depending on the season, we have gone to Montana and North Dakota – it’s stunningly beautiful in the summertime, words just cannot describe the beauty. And I love driving through west Texas, as crazy as that sounds, and all of the nothingness that's there. I love it. So, there are absolutely some beautiful places that we've gotten to visit. We were out one time and stopped and did a train ride to the Grand Canyon in Williams, Arizona. We spent the day in Savannah, Georgia, in the historical district. So, we've been stunningly beautiful places, but we ended up back in Ohio.

Tiffany Vine

You know, a lot of people dream of getting an RV and traveling the country when they retire. But even after a life of driving, it seems like that's still what you guys would end up doing.

Chris Owen

I've told her that when we sell our last truck that we'll probably trade it in for a big Class A motor coach, and wherever the kids are located with the grandkids, we'll just go visit them. Whoever has the best weather that time of year is where we'll be. We’ll plan it out. I haven't done any research on it because I don't want to scare her, but I feel like some place in the Caribbean or the Bahamas does not have any kind of premier mover like Showtime Relocations. We might just go somewhere like that. (Laughs)

Tiffany Vine

I love it.

Carlos Huereca

Well, Chris and Kelly Owen from Showtime Relocations, and a great partner of CRI, thanks again for your time and thank you for joining us.

Tiffany Vine

Thank you, guys, very much!