Pink Zebra is bringing fun to movers in the southeast of the US as they hope to make a stressful activity much less so.
After 19 years running Two Maids and a Mop, Ron Holt is building a new business: Pink Zebra. A moving company with a twist, Holt said he wants to disrupt the moving company industry in order to create a better environment for customers and movers alike.
It was a serendipitous encounter with bad movers that gave Holt the idea. His mother-in-law had a horrible experience, paying much more than she originally planned. Holt got to Googling to see if there were better options and soon realized many customers had the same experience as his mother-in-law.
“One market after the other, it was a pretty common takeaway that there were a lot of similar experiences for consumers all over the country, and that was shocking to me,” he said. “Here was an industry that was ripe for disruption and it made me so excited that I started thinking back to my old startup days.”
Ron Holt, founder of Pink Zebra, started the business after selling his previous, Two Maids and a Mop.
Wheels in motion, Holt got to work. Drawing on his experience from Two Maids and a Mop, which he stared in 2003 and sold in 2021 to Home Franchise Concepts, Holt brought in the strategies that worked. One of these was a fun environment.
“We wanted to put on a show before, during and after the move,” he said. “We saw the opportunity to make moving fun.”
Part of this is connecting with clients. Moving is a stressful process, and Pink Zebra employees are encouraged to talk to clients. In fact, the goal is to get to know clients well in order to give them a couple of surprise gifts, including a meal the day before the move.
“We want a real relationship with people,” said Holt. “We alleviate a lot of unknown pressures.”
Movers will also “create theater,” including doing push-ups, playing music and dancing, and more. The music is picked out on a corporate level to be happy and “lighten the mood.” The last surprise is a box of goodies, hidden in the new space and ranging from chocolate and candy to personalized finds for the customers, such as team memorabilia.
Employees are encouraged to have fun throughout the day at Pink Zebra.
“A fast-food concept has to serve thousands of people a day, so it’s very difficult to know everything about your customers,” Holt said. “In our world, a handful of customers is kicking tail, so we try to spend time learning about these folks.”
There’s also an employee incentive brought straight from Two Maids and a Mop known as the Pay Enhancement Program. Pink Zebra customers are encouraged to rate the work of the movers on a scale of one to five. Depending on the reviews, employees experience boosts in their pay check.
Granted, not everyone is a nice customer, and employees have bad days. In order to account for this, the bonus isn’t given per review. Instead, it’s averaged out over a period of time. This way, the employee can take a bad review or two a year and not drop have their compensation suffer because of it.
“You’re not going to be totally punished in a way that you make minimum wage,” said Holt.
While Pink Zebra is a new brand, Holt said his experience working with vendors, clients and franchisees means a smoother start-up process all around. “We’re an emerging brand because that’s how we’re defined, but we really aren’t because there are two decades of franchise experience here,” Holt said.
Pink Zebra wants to make an impression, and few things make that impression better than their mascot, Zeke, the actual pink zebra.
Pink Zebra operates in six markets in the South and Southeast, with a range spanning from Oklahoma to the Carolinas. The initial investment range for a range is between $130,706 and $190,597.
Finally, the important and burning question: Why the name Pink Zebra?
“We wanted to be the opposite of what people think of as the moving industry, and that was pink,” said Holt. “After that we wanted a fun animal.”