Foundation · Pillar 1 of 4 — Company
Purpose: Pin down what you move, how you deliver it, and who you are — in writing, in one place. Every downstream stage reads “Using my business profile…” from this grid, so fill it in before you touch Market or Customer analysis. In moving, half of your differentiation is not invented — it is your license, your estimate discipline, and the claims you don’t make. The compliance rail below captures that half.
When to run it: at launch; when you add a service (packing, storage, commercial, interstate authority); when onboarding a new crew lead, dispatcher, or AI tool that writes your copy; when your quotes, ads, and reviews start telling three different stories.
Inputs: your CPUC/state license record, current website + Google Business Profile copy, a blank estimate form, your crew roster, past customer reviews, founder notes, and — for the compliance rail — your state’s mover regulations (CA: CPUC Max Rate Tariff 4).
| 1. WHAT We Offer (Services & Proposition) | 2. HOW We Deliver (Mechanism & Operations) | 3. WHO We Are (Identity & Purpose) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| A. CORE ESSENTIALS (The Basics) | A1: Core Services × Move Types: (List each service you actually run: local, intrastate long-distance, interstate (only if authorized), packing, commercial, storage, specialty/white-glove — mark which are core revenue) ________________________________________________________________ | A2: Unique Mechanism: (The operational process, not a claim — your estimate discipline (binding / non-binding / not-to-exceed) + crew model (named W-2 crew vs day labor). This is the answer to “will you hold my stuff hostage?”) ________________________________________________ | A3: Mission & Family Story: (Why you exist past revenue; “family-operated since [year]”; the future you’re building) ________________________________________________ |
| B. DIFFERENTIATION & VALUES (What Makes Us Special) | B1: Primary Value Proposition: (The single transformation — the certainty result: “a move with no number surprises”) ________________________________________________ | B2: Operational Standards: (3–5 checkable standards: COI turnaround (e.g. 24–48h), named crews, written arrival windows, in-home/video survey before quote — each with what it means in practice) ________________________________________________ | B3: Brand Archetype & Named Owner: (Primary archetype + 2–3 traits; the real person who answers when it goes wrong — “ask for [owner name]“) ________________________________________________ |
| C. EXTERNAL EXPRESSION (How We Present Ourselves) | C1: Price Position: (Where you sit on YOUR local spectrum: premium / mid / value; hourly vs flat; typical range “$X/[your rate]” — no invented benchmark) ________________________________________________ | C2: Brand Voice & Tone: (3–5 specific ADJECTIVES that change a sentence — plain-spoken, straight, reassuring — not “professional, reliable”) ________________________________________________ | C3: Brand Story & Feeling: (Core narrative + the feeling you leave behind: “the truck came, the number held, nothing broke”) ________________________________________________ |
Compliance Rail (no ecommerce worksheet has this — for a mover it is not garnish; a wrong license claim is regulatory exposure. Fill every line; nothing downstream may quote a number this rail can’t back.)
| Field | Fill in |
|---|---|
| License type + number (CA intrastate = CPUC Cal-T — NOT USDOT. FL = IM · TX = TxDMV · NY = NYSDOT-T · IL = ICC MC · NJ = NJDCA PM · MA = MDPU · WA = UTC HG · OR = ODOT. Interstate = USDOT + MC-HHG.) | Type: ________ Number: ________ |
| Public lookup URL (CA intrastate → CPUC Household Goods Carrier lookup: cpuc.ca.gov. Interstate → FMCSA SAFER: safer.fmcsa.dot.gov. Put YOUR verifiable link here so copy can cite it.) | ________________________________ |
| Estimate type(s) you offer (binding / non-binding / binding not-to-exceed — the exact FMCSA/state term; every written quote must state which. Verbal-only quotes are a red flag.) | ________________ |
| Deposit / cancellation rules for your state (CA: max 20% deposit, min 3-day cancellation, Max Rate Tariff 4. VERIFY your state’s current caps + refundability.) | Deposit cap: ________ Cancel window: ________ |
Banned-Claims Checklist — initial each box once you’ve scrubbed the phrase from ALL copy (site, GBP, ads, estimates, email):
- ☐ “guaranteed pickup date” → give arrival windows, not guaranteed dates. Initial:
____ - ☐ “lowest price guaranteed” → classic bait-and-switch flag (BBB/FTC). Initial:
____ - ☐ “fully insured” (unspecified) → name the coverage: cargo / general liability / workers comp; “Full Value Protection” is a specific FMCSA term. Initial:
____ - ☐ “USDOT approved” → FMCSA registers, does not approve or endorse. Initial:
____ - ☐ “FREE move” / “FREE” → drop the caps; a modest disclosed offer only (“complimentary 1st hour with 4-hr booking”). Initial:
____
Row Synthesis (after the cells — three to five sentences per row, wiring its cells into one statement)
- Row A — what we are:
________________________________________________ - Row B — why we’re chosen:
________________________________________________ - Row C — how we show up:
________________________________________________
Instructions:
- Fill Row A first — the plain facts: the services × move-types you actually run, the mechanism that delivers them (estimate discipline + crew model), and your family story. A vague A2 starves every trust claim below.
- Complete the Compliance Rail before anything else downstream — license type + number, the public lookup URL, your estimate type(s), and your state’s deposit/cancel rules. If you’re CA intrastate, your authority is Cal-T under CPUC, not USDOT — get this exactly right.
- Scrub the banned claims — walk your site, Google Business Profile, ads, and estimate template; initial each box only when the phrase is gone from all of them.
- Move to Row B — the one certainty result your mechanism produces (B1), the 3–5 checkable operational standards that make it real (B2), the archetype and the named owner behind it (B3).
- Define Row C — where you sit on your local price spectrum (no invented benchmark — use “$X/[your rate]”), the exact voice adjectives, and the story and feeling you leave behind.
- Run the coherence test — read the nine cells, the compliance rail, and the three syntheses as one document. Does A2 explain how B1 is delivered? Can a competitor say your B-row sentences too, or are yours verifiable (license, reviews, years)? Any drift is a gap to resolve.
- Write what is true today. An honest, checkable profile beats a mythologized one — and in moving, an unbacked claim is a liability, not a flourish.
Feeds: → the Market and Customer worksheets, and every AI prompt across the mover stages (Hook, Identify, Engage, Nurture, Educate, Share, Gift, Upsell, Refine) — each opens “Using my business profile…” and reads these fields, the compliance rail first so no generated copy ever states a claim you haven’t verified.
Source: company.md · the typed-field map in mover-foundation.md