CG Moving Company serves the Bay Area and the entire state of California by offering smart, safe, and professional moving services. They have been in high demand, and receiving additional media attention, during this pandemic time because their team specializes in helping to provide very careful, expert moving services to government agencies, biotech, pharmaceuticals, hospitals, healthcare, commercial, and residential clients. The firm has been a GGBA member since 2013. Here we catch up with Charlie Gonzalez, CG’s founder and CEO.
GGBA: Please describe your business and its mission and values.
Charlie Gonzalez: CG Moving Co. is a commercial and residential moving company in the San Francisco Bay Area. Our mission is to make people love the moving experience. Our values are: In Lak’esh, Make a Mark, and Keep It Real. The first value is inspired by Mayan wisdom and tradition. It translates to, “You are my other me.” It means that we treat our employees and our customers as we would like to be treated. It is a moral code that helps us to navigate our interactions within and outside our company. “Make a Mark” means we try to make a mark in anyone we encounter as we are serving our customers and each other. As an example, when we work with vulnerable populations such as veterans, elderly clients in adult protective services, or children in foster care or similar situations, we are very aware that the move has to be done swiftly, safely, and in a dignified and respectful manner. Moving is a stressful life event, and under those circumstances, you may be dealing with other issues such as trauma. We keep this in mind and try to make a mark in that person who is moving to make the transition in a dignified, respectful, and safe way. Lastly, “Keep It Real” means that we speak with truth and operate with integrity, from the moment a potential customer first makes contact with us, during the actual move, and at the invoicing and payment stage.
GGBA: Why did you decide to create your business?
Charlie Gonzalez: I had been working for close to a decade in large moving companies. I had done the jobs of helper, packer, driver, installer, and supervisor. I felt that I could provide a greater moving experience, a more personalized and elevated interaction, while also bringing competitive pricing. We have a professional team of movers who deeply care for our customers and this shows in their work.
GGBA: Who are some of your role models, and especially those who helped to influence your business?
Charlie Gonzalez: I learned a lot from people in different backgrounds and positions, and I have been blessed to work with great people in my moving career. But at the end of the day, my mother is my main inspiration. She was a young widow with seven children under fifteen when my father passed away. I saw her hustling in so many ways to bring food to our table, to keep our childhood as normal as possible, and to provide shelter and an education. She made the decision to leave me and my siblings behind and set out for the United States in the mid-1980s; we would eventually reunite. My other influence is also a woman, my wife Griselda. We got married almost twenty years ago. We work together at CG Moving and she is the one in charge of finances, hiring and firing decisions, and day to day office related operations. We also have a young family, and the way she can step in at the company and make negotiations on a customer contract and then step into our kids’ lives and move with grace, love, and authority is what keeps me going.
GGBA: Why did you decide to join the GGBA, and how long have you been a member?
Charlie Gonzalez: We joined the GGBA in 2013. We have always been an ally of the LGBT community. I always say that if my customers are from that community and support us by choosing us for their office or home moves, I can step in and support my customers and advocate for their rights. Their well-being matters to me. I wanted to get a more intimate understanding of LGBT issues and how they related to the business world.
GGBA: How has being a member of GGBA helped your business so far?
Charlie Gonzalez: We have received a lot of information on certification programs available not only to LGBT businesses but also to minority-owned businesses. Through the GGBA we learned about a Google and Tuck School of Business program on digital presence for minority small businesses. This then leads to other connections that facilitated our participation in the Super Bowl 50 in 2016 as a contractor/vendor. From there we learned about the Supplier Clearing House and the CPUC MBE program. It’s just too much to detail here! But we also have a network of other businesses that provide services or products. As an example, we met our employee benefits broker Joe Partida at a GGBA event. Our older trucks were wrapped by a GGBA member, A52 Signs company. We have purchased promotional materials from ellaprint. Our accounting is done by Richard Zee. Our workers received diversity training from Gina Grahame back in 2017, and we met our graphic designer Joanna Zobjeck at a GGBA event back in 2015. She updated our logo and has done marketing materials for our company. We met our bookkeeper Alan Pex from Pex Bookkeeping at an event at the GGBA last year as well. And the list can go on and on!
GGBA: Do you go to the GGBA monthly Make Contact networking events? Have they benefited you and your business, and would you recommend them to others?
Charlie Gonzalez: Yes, we go to the events as much as we can. Olga Garcia, who is our Customer Service Manager, is the person you will most likely see at any of the Make Contacts. She always makes sure to meet people and to connect them to our networks. There is always something for us to learn, to be entertained, or connect! It is also a fun and professional group, whether you are a new or experienced networker, it feels very safe, not stuffy, and very diverse. You can get contacts in different industries. In one of these events, we connected with Mark Madrid, who is the CEO of the Latino Business Action Network at Stanford University. Griselda Gonzalez, our CFO, was able to attend and complete the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative Scaling Program last year.
GGBA: What other advice would you give to someone who is thinking of starting their own business?
Charlie Gonzalez: Don’t do it for the money! I know it is very cliché to say this, but it is the truth. For us, our first years were a lot about knocking doors and establishing a presence and reputation. We made sure it was a good reputation. A lot of jobs we took on were not profitable but provided experience, and as we grew our professional résumé, we were able to be more aggressive in our pricing and eventually gained stability. We operate from a point of being the smart, safe, professional movers, and we keep that in mind with our customers and with our workers. If you do a good job, people will tell their contacts.
GGBA: Is there anything else that you would like to share?
Charlie Gonzalez: We were recently featured in a Mercury News article about moving in the time of COVID-19. We are considered essential workers and our experience in moving clinics, hospitals, and biotech labs has been extremely important during this pandemic. I am very proud of the work we do, the company we built, and our workers. I hope you get a chance to read the article or visit our blog on our website to learn more about us.
For more information about CG Moving Company: https://www.cgmovingcompany.com/
Published May 7, 2020
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