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Spero Georgedakis, founder and CEO of Good Greek Moving & Storage, is nothing if not courageous — a great quality for an entrepreneur. After graduating from Buffalo State University, he went into law enforcement, becoming a police officer in Miami. He even served on the SWAT team and, after six years on the force, intended to make the leap to fighting crime at the federal level with either the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency or Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Instead, Georgedakis pivoted to entrepreneurship, entering into a partnership with All My Sons Moving & Storage. Midway through the last decade, Georgedakis went out on his own, founding Good Greek Moving & Storage, headquartered in Jupiter but with a large presence in Tampa, where Georgedakis has a home.
'If going into a partnership, the mission needs to be clearly defined and everyone needs to be onboard.' Spero Georgedakis, founder and CEO of Good Greek Moving & Storage
Five years later, with the moving industry a key cog in the real estate boom, the company has embarked on a highly ambitious expansion plan. It's adding complementary services such as a real estate brokerage, self-storage facilities, junk and debris removal, auto transportation and a marketing and advertising firm called Spero Advertising Group. It’s also selling Good Greek franchises.
For a relatively young company on track to end the year with $30 million in gross revenue, such rapid diversification, while admirable, poses the risk of brand dilution. Georgedakis doesn’t see it that way.
“It’s all in my wheelhouse,” he says. “It’s all part of the relocation transaction. It will keep us nimble and give us the ability to shift gears.”
In early September, Good Greek struck a deal to become the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ official moving and storage company for the second consecutive year. For Georgedakis, though, partnering with the Bucs (and yes, he’s met Tom Brady) is about much more than growing the Good Greek brand. The company actually has a long history of working with sports teams, starting with the Miami Dolphins.
“The very first team I approached, it came about because of the real estate crash in 2008,” he says. “I was concerned [our customer base was] too residential; I was concerned about a real estate crash, and sure enough, it happened.”
Georgedakis had a hunch that winning the business of just one major corporate client, such as a sports team, would help him “flip the switch” from residential to commercial moving and storage in the event of another real estate downturn.
“So I reached out to the Miami Dolphins, on a cold call, to introduce myself and see how they felt about their existing service provider,” he says. “Of course, they weren’t as happy as they could be, and they loved my background in law enforcement, the fact that I would background check employees, drug test employees … they loved all that. And now we’ve got the business of over 20 sports teams.”
In addition to the Bucs, Good Greek’s clientele includes the NBA’s Miami Heat, NHL’s Florida Panthers, Major League Soccer’s Inter Miami CF and the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars. It also has contracts with the athletic departments at the University of Florida, University of Miami and Florida International University.
“We’re busy year-round with sports,” Georgedakis says, “hauling their equipment to and from games, but we also handle personnel moves, whenever there’s coaching or executive changes within the organization. It’s not limited to helmets, shoulder pads and baseball bats.”
Going after big commercial accounts and branching out into complementary services has paid off handsomely for Good Greek: the company is on track to exceed $30 million in revenue by the end of the year and has been growing 50% year-over-year, Georgedakis says. Georgedakis, of course, wouldn’t be where he is today without struggles, including the All My Sons partnership that didn’t work out. But that doesn’t mean he’s soured on partnerships — far from it. He’s learned how to do them better.
“Divorces sometimes can get a little messy, of course, but at the end of the day we settled our differences and now we’re friendly competition,” Georgedakis says. “I learned the core vision has to be shared by the partners from the outset. And there has to be transparency. If going into a partnership, the mission needs to be clearly defined and everyone needs to be onboard.”
(This story was updated to reflect conflicting information over how many locations Georgedakis opened in partnership with All My Sons. This story was also updated to reflect conflicting information over the year Georgedakis and All My Sons went into business together and why the partnership ended. In addition, an attorney for All My Sons says All My Sons Moving & Storage was established prior to Georgedakis joining the firm.)
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