The following is an interview we did recently with Chuck Bolotin, the Founder and CEO of Best Mexico Movers. Even though they have only been in business a little over five years, in that time Best Mexico Movers has grown from zero clients to being one of the leading companies moving its clients’ used household goods internationally to and from Mexico. Chuck was with us to talk about the release of their updated guide “What You Need to Know About Moving Your Household Goods to Mexico”.
Mexico Daily Post: Thank you for joining us today.
Chuck Bolotin: Thank you for having me. We are very excited about the release of our updated guide, and we are very excited for the opportunity to present it to your readers.
MDP: Let’s start with the release of your guide. Why did you write it in the first place?
CB: After living in Mexico for a while, we looked back on our experiences of preparing to move to Mexico and then actually moving to Mexico. When we did so, it became clear to us that if we had known of a good guide that would have prepared us beforehand, it would have helped us a lot. However, we couldn’t find a guide that did that.
After going through the moving to Mexico process, we had learned a lot and so we had a lot of information to share with others who were just starting their journey and were like us a few years earlier. In order to help these people, we wrote the original guide. We were thrilled to provide information that could help people like we were and to make their lives easier and happier.
MDP: Please tell us about the reason for the update.
CB: We released our original guide in 2020. We know it’s been useful to lots of people, because since then, it has been downloaded directly from our site more than ten thousand times and we can assume that it has shared many thousands of times after that. It’s been three and a half years since our original release, so we felt it was time to update the guide with what’s changed so everyone could have the most up-to-date information.
MDP: How much does it cost for our readers to download it?
CB: It’s completely free for anyone to download it and without any obligation whatsoever. We don’t ask for a credit card, we don’t ask for an email address, and we don’t ask for you to fill out a form. We don’t ask for anything. Anyone can just download it. We want the guide to have the widest distribution possible so it could help the most amount of people.
I should mention that the guide was designed to be helpful to anybody moving to Mexico, whether they use Best Mexico Movers to move them, they use a different moving company to move them, or they don’t use a moving company at all. Everyone can benefit from it. We want the guide to be available and beneficial to everybody.
MDP: Is the guide just about moving household goods, or is there more to it?
CB: There’s a lot more to it, because there’s a lot more to moving to Mexico than just moving your household goods. While moving household goods is technically our only business, there’s a lot of other information and useful tips we can offer to people who are moving to Mexico, so we are very happy to put those topics in the book.
MDP: Please give us an example.
CB: OK. A good way to summarize our guide is by quoting what it says on the cover: “What to do before you move; All about the Menaje de Casa; and Helpful hints to lower anxiety and increase joy.”
MDP: I especially like the last one; “lower anxiety and increase joy.” How do you go about doing that?
CB: We give lots of helpful advice on what to do before you move that has nothing specifically to do with transporting and importing your household goods; everything from eliminating paper, backing up your data, how to deal with credit cards and ATMs, making bank transfers and lots of other topics that people many times don’t even think about, but they should. Having a list to refer to well before you move and getting these things done ahead of time does actually lower anxiety and leaves much more room for increasing joy. There are also sections on what to do as soon as you get to Mexico, and of course, we go into detail about the moving, importation and immigration process in as simple and easy-to-understand language as possible.
MDP: Where can our readers download a free copy for themselves?
CB: Just go to https://bestmexicomovers.com/what-you-need-to-know-to-move-your-household-good-to-mexico-guide/ and click the link.
MDP: OK. Let’s talk a little about Best Mexico Movers, because it is quite an interesting success story of an American starting a business in Mexico with no prior experience in the business they started and then growing that business to be one of the most well-known and successful in its field. How did you do it?
CB: Getting started certainly wasn’t quick, and it wasn’t easy. When we moved here, we had no intention of starting a moving business and we didn’t know the first thing about it, let along how to operate a business in Mexico. We just wanted to move our own used household goods from Arizona to Jalisco; that was it.
Well, we weren’t happy with the alternatives presented by the moving companies. They tended to be very high priced, unresponsive, and confusing on lots of topics, except for one, which they made perfectly clear: if something went wrong at the border, it would be my fault, and I would have to pay a huge fine and have lots of other bad things happen to me.
We also uncovered the process these companies were using, which, among other procedures, included what is known in the industry as “transloading” and “consolidating”. This horrified my wife, Jet, because she didn’t want her precious household goods handled that way. That’s when I decided to look into it, myself.
MDP: How long did it take you to figure it out?
CB: It took me almost a full year to understand and to set up the business. There’s a lot to know; from working with customs brokers, to the Menaje de Casa and the in’s and out’s of importing to Mexico, to how to be in compliance in several countries, and lots and lots more.
The process we decided to use was quite a bit different than the process used by the standard international movers. Our first move was our own, and because it was so different, we didn’t’ even know if it would work. We made a video of our move, which you can see here. Happily, it did work, and went very well. After that, people started calling us to ask if we could do their move as well.
MDP: What’s happened since then?
CB: Pretty quickly, we expanded to offer service throughout all of Mexico, the US and Canada. As of the end of 2023, we’ve moved over 550 families and we’re growing rapidly.
MDP: What are you most motivated by?
CB: There are two things.
The first is to be in a position to help people at a very sensitive time in their lives, where the success of the job we do will have a big impact on their happiness in Mexico. We take that very seriously and it is an honor and a responsibility for us to be in this position. We want our clients to be happy in Mexico.
The second thing that motivates me is to work with such a wonderful group of young Mexican people who provide services to our clients. We currently have five young Mexicans between the ages of 23 and 27 helping our clients. Each of them is bi-lingual, hard-working, kind, talented, smart, and really motivated to do the best job they can for our clients. You can see their bios here: https://bestmexicomovers.com/meet-your-moving-assistants/ We are twice blessed with these opportunities.
MDP: Thank you, Chuck Bolotin, for sharing with us.
