A Conversation with Martin Pollack

Martin Pollack built a moving franchise empire through long, 16-hour days—while expanding Good Livin’ Charters from Wrightsville Beach to Key West.

Martin Pollack does not pretend the moving business is glamorous. The owner of four Two Men and a Truck franchises, Martin called me from the Bahamas, where he was breaking in a 37-foot Freeman offshore boat he purchased to launch a charter operation out of Key West. It may sound like something out of a dream, but his story includes many long, 16-hour days and sleepless nights spent on the office couch.

Along with his moving franchises, which serve Northern Virginia, Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts and a future expansion into Maryland, Martin operates Good Livin’ Charters out of Wrightsville Beach. By partnering with a 32’ custom party boat that can be fully enclosed, a 32’ World Cat dual console and Salt + Charm catering, Good Livin’ Charters serves up a variety of experiences for clients.

Photo by Matt McGraw

We talked about everything from lobster condos and management philosophy to business strategies, philanthropy, and personal growth. He also mentioned he was watching a boat leave the marina with its swim ladder still down, and tried not to yell in my ear while getting their attention.

So, you were doing some lobster fishing the other day, breaking in the new boat? Is that as fun as it sounds? Did you have any luck?

It definitely is (laughs) and yeah, it turned out to be a great day.

I didn’t even know they had them there.

Yeah, the funny thing is, if you go to Costco and get frozen lobster tails, they are actually all from the Bahamas. They just don’t have the big claws.

You just dive down and catch them, or you have traps?

So, we tow people with snorkeling gear behind the boat and look for coral heads, or what are called lobster condos. People build them…it’s basically a piece of sheet metal on top of a couple cinder blocks or whatever, to keep it off the ocean floor, and lobsters congregate underneath them. Then you just dive down and spear them.

Sounds like a fun way to get some dinner.

It definitely is…there’s some sport to it.

Such an eye opener, I had no idea something called a lobster condo existed. So, this is kind of an extension of your charter business out of Wrightsville?

Kind of, we’re actually opening a branch down in Key West and just enjoying it before turning it into commercial use. The Freeman is a 37-foot high-performance offshore fishing boat, so it handles open ocean well, which you need on the run from Key West out to the Dry Tortugas. Most people don’t realize the Keys keep going past Key West. About 35 miles out you hit the Marquesas, then another 35 miles or so past that is Dry Tortugas National Park. It’s an old Civil War fort built on an island, never really used for what it was built for, became a prison for a while, now it’s a national park. The only ways to get there are a ferry, a seaplane at double the cost, or a private boat. The water out there is the closest you’ll find to the Caribbean anywhere in the US. That’s where we’ll be running charters starting at the end of April.

Photo by Leigh Roberts

Sounds amazing. Will you be doing any of that yourself? I imagine your time is too valuable for that, but it’s a bit of a passion project.

No, I have someone down there that’ll be doing that. I’ll continue to do some of the driving for the service in Wilmington. I just love being out there and interacting with people. But obviously we have captains too. I’ve spent a lot of time on the water since I moved to Wilmington in 2002. In college I was actually a mate on a little tourist boat, telling people the history of Wilmington. I can tell you everything you want to know about Wilmington, or I can shut up and just let the party drink and enjoy their time. Whatever they want to do (laughs).

That’s a long way from the moving business. I remember you saying you worked 16 hour days when you were getting it started?

Yeah I’d be in there in the morning doing dispatch, and then I would be at the office until the last truck came back, which sometimes would be one or two in the morning. Slept on my office couch more than a few times that first year and a half. People see where you are now and think there was a shortcut. There wasn’t, and anybody who makes it seem like they snapped their fingers and made money is lying. You have to grind. Some people get lucky, but you’re still putting in the work. What people don’t see when they see the travel and the boats and the employee count is everything that came before it.

Photo by Leigh Roberts

How many franchises are you running now, and do you ever think about expanding?

Six, and we’re opening one in Maryland. The challenge is that it’s a brutally seasonal business. Most companies do 50 percent of their annual revenue in the summer. That puts a strain on the staff because sometimes there’s not enough work for them, so we’ve spent years trying to flatten the curve. We did a partnership with a company called Stay Alfred, where they buy apartment complexes and set them up for executives on three-to-six-month corporate assignments, furnish everything down to the silverware, and we handle the whole buildout. We’ve been going after government bids and we’re working with ServiceMaster now on commercial removal after fire or water damage, which keeps crews working in the off-season. I’m just always looking for where we’re a natural fit.

I saw something in your email signature about commercial business moving.

Yeah, we started in residential but commercial has always made sense for us as a way to stay busy year-round. We started with small office moves, and are going after much larger contracts. We’ve started partnering with interior designers, going after government bids and doing eminent domain work. You find where the synergies are and follow them.

You also mentioned hiring staff overseas, which is not something you’d typically associate with a moving company.

It came from the same problem, how to provide enough work for people when the business is seasonal. The idea was to provide good employment for them at a rate that would be affordable for us. One great example is an accounting support person we hired a year and a half ago in Trinidad. She was a stay at home mom and hadn’t worked in six years. She had no experience but we just loved her personality. Next week, we’re flying her and her husband and her son out to the Bahamas…kind of like a thank you, but also to get to meet her in person.

Photo by Leigh Roberts

How rewarding to meet her in person and get to make that happen for her and her family.

And it’s a really great compliment when people want to refer their friends to you. I want to give people a good place to work. We take a lot of pride in that, and a lot of our growth has been through referrals.

And that’s also cheaper than recruiting, I would imagine. Sounds simple enough, take care of people and they take care of you.

That, and it just feels good.

Well, they’re lucky to have you. And I think people forget that one of the most important drivers of our economy is small business. People on the outside might be jealous when they see your success, but they don’t realize that you’re giving an opportunity and a livelihood for people.

100 percent, and the idea I’m helping people in their career keeps me going. I am really blessed to have a great group that has worked for me for a long time, that have become friends and family.

So now, a big part of your focus is giving back.

Yes, that’s a big part of Good Livin’ Charters, but before we started it, I was searching for ways to help. There are people in Wilmington who have never seen the beach. That still shocks me. And there’s real science behind what being on the water does for stress and mental health. I can have the most stressful day and get out on the water and go from 100 to zero. So, the original idea before starting our company was to pair military veterans and kids from families dealing with health challenges with retired boat owners here who are looking for purpose. Now that we have the platform with Good Livin’ Charters, we intend to host those families ourselves. We’ve been reaching out to Wounded Warrior and other nonprofits. We donated free charters to the Plastic Ocean Project here in Wilmington. The goal is for that to be a core principle of what Good Livin’ is, not something we do on the side.

Photo by Matt McGraw

Part of how you give back is through mentoring and coaching people, which you’re done informally for a long time. What’s some of your best advice?

Prepare for the worst without assuming it’s coming. I’m not a doomsday person, but I want to be mentally ready for negative surprises so I can handle it and move on. And it is definitely inevitable. I still have things happen I have never experienced before in all my years doing this. But being ready means that it doesn’t take control of you. The other thing is to look for base hits. If you keep hitting singles, they add up. Always swinging for the fences means you’re missing a lot. The caveat is that starting your own business is already swinging for the fences. You’re trading a guaranteed paycheck and health insurance to bet on yourself. So maybe the base hit mentality is just what you do once you’ve already made that original bet and survived the couch-sleeping part.

For more information about Good Livin’ Charters, visit goodlivincharters.com.