Greg Berry is the CEO and founder of Municibid, the go-to online marketplace for government auctions. As a councilman for the Borough of Pottstown, Greg noticed a huge problem: his borough and almost every one of the United States’ 86,000 local government agencies were selling surplus for dirt cheap because so few people knew the items were for sale. The sealed-bid process for which agencies would accept bids was also not a truly competitive process.
Greg launched Municibid in 2006 to solve these issues. Municibid is now a leading platform for state and local governments, schools, authorities, and other government agencies all over the US and Canada to sell their surplus vehicles, equipment and all kinds of items directly to the public, 24 hours a day. As a business leader, Greg educates entrepreneurs on why government auctions benefit enterprises, tips for launching a successful online company, and more.
What is Municibid all about?
Municibid is an online auction marketplace where over 4,000 state and local governments and schools auction items that are no longer needed, forfeitures (seized items), and lost-and-found items to the public.
Founded in 2006, we’ve helped municipalities take advantage of the online marketplace to get 50-200% more for their items than they would with traditional sealed bids or newspaper ads. We don’t charge a penny for municipalities to use Municibid, so 100% of the proceeds they receive go back into the community.
Municibid is the easiest way for municipalities to sell their surplus. They pick the items they want to sell, take a few photos, fill in an item description, and that’s it. We do all of the heavy lifting with marketing their items, running the bidding system, and providing sales reports. Likewise, it’s a convenient and streamlined process for buyers to place bids and pick up items they win.
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you started your company?
I was in a council meeting and we sold a Chevy truck for $500. It was easily worth at least $5,000. Then, about 30 minutes later, we bickered about spending $1,000 on a community project. It was 2005 and I was 25 years old. There was an open town council seat in the Borough of Pottstown, Pennsylvania. I was born and raised in Pottstown, an industrial town in the ’70s and ’80s that went stagnant. I wanted to help revitalize the town that had shaped who I was, starting with building a new annex at the community college and economic development. I ran and won the seat.
I sat in hundreds of town council meetings and it happened again and again. We sold vehicles, equipment, and other items for pennies on the dollar through a sealed bid process. A sealed bid is when people put their bid in an envelope and drop it off or mail it in. Then on a specific date, the government opens all the bids and awards the item to the highest bid.
Oftentimes, a Ford Crown Victoria worth $3,000 would be sold in a sealed bid for $300. There was no competition, as no one saw what anyone else was bidding. Plus, there was very little advertising for these items so hardly anyone knew these items were for sale. The Borough of Pottstown was losing tens of thousands of dollars with this archaic process that they could have been reinvesting back into the community.
How many other townships across the state — across the country — were doing the same? Why weren’t we selling our items online? Why weren’t we using eBay? In 2006, Pennsylvania local governments were just then legally allowed to sell online, but very few were. A few municipalities were using Craigslist and others were trying out eBay. Neither Craigslist nor eBay were set up to meet the requirements governments have for selling their surplus. Plus, neither had any customer service or guidance for this uncharted territory for governments.
The day after graduating high school, I founded an IT company that I grew for 12 years and eventually sold in 2010. With my background in technology, I built the first version of Municibid for about $2,000. It was nothing fancy, but it was good enough to run a basic online auction. I convinced a few local municipalities to give Municibid a try. The first item listed on Municibid was a riding mower by the Borough of Pennsburg, Pennsylvania. They were hoping to sell it for $100. It sold for $500.
Then another township listed a Ford Crown Victoria with a blown engine. They just wanted to get rid of it and maybe get a few hundred dollars for it. It sold for $2,800. They truly didn’t believe it. They thought something was wrong — and to be honest, so did I — until the guy showed up with a $2,800 check and a flatbed. Needless to say, they were ecstatic.
Meanwhile, I spent every hour I could getting the word out about Municibid and the items that were up for auction. I made those flyers with tear-off tabs you see hanging on community bulletin boards and posted them at The Home Depot, Lowes, grocery stores, anywhere. I ran small ads in the classified section of the newspaper and in those penny pincher magazines at convenience stores.
I took these results and the testimonials from the governments on the road and, as they say, the rest is history.
What would you say are the top 3 skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur, and why?
Determination
I think this goes without saying, but once you have an idea of what you want to solve or provide with your business, you can’t do it without the full determination to see it through. When I was just getting started with Municibid, I had people older and wiser than me, who I had a lot of respect for, tell me my idea for Municibid would never work and that I was wasting my time. While it wasn’t pleasant to hear, it didn’t deter me.
Starting and growing a business is not easy and comes with many challenges and pitfalls. Things won’t work out in a lot of cases and it’s over for many new entrepreneurs at this point. The entrepreneurs who achieve success are fully determined to do so, even if it doesn’t quite look like what they first imagined.
Being an entrepreneur and starting a business is hard. On top of that, like I had, you might have people telling you “that will never work” or “that’s crazy” or “you’re wasting your time.” Use this as motivation to stay committed to your goals. There will be times when things will get tough… this is what sets entrepreneurs apart.
Listening
We were able to grow, and maintain strong year-over-year growth, by listening. Listening to our prospective government customers early on allowed us to understand how they thought about selling surplus. I learned how they described their current processes and which words they used in response to questions I would ask them. This allowed me to understand their mindset and what motivated them. I was then armed with this knowledge and vocabulary that I would go on to use in marketing collateral and discussions with future prospective customers.
Listening to our bidders allows us to understand what’s important to them and how we can modify our user experience accordingly. It’s important to speak the language of your audience, and you can only do that after you have listened to them. Often there can be a mismatch between who you think your audience is and who they really are. Go to the source and talk with your customers directly to learn what their needs are.
Having my team know that I listen to them, encourages them to openly share their points of view and ideas. I find it valuable to surround yourself with team members that each have unique views and thought processes, as it tends to spark new ideas and expose fresh opportunities to pursue.
Listening to our customers, our team, and our vendors goes a long way in developing and maintaining a meaningful relationship. It also gives us insights we couldn’t get any other way for how we can improve.
Patience
As entrepreneurs, we tend to move faster than most people and we would love things done yesterday. I’ve learned that the more patience I have, the faster things seem to happen and with higher quality.
As a go-getter and someone not afraid to fail, and fail often, I like to get results (good or bad) as soon as possible. Unfortunately, this is not the reality for customers, vendors, nor how most team members want to work.
Breathing down someone’s neck to get the status of something is not going to help them finish the task at hand any faster — in fact, it will simply slow them down. In the times when I know I’ve done this, I later realized it wasn’t a problem with the team member, but rather it was a lack of communication or expectation setting on my end. I’ve learned over the years that having patience invokes my team members’ trust and confidence in me as the leader, and allows them the space to perform better.
When it comes to vendors, I’ve found we consistently move to the top of their priority list because we make sure we’re not a thorn in their side, constantly asking them for updates or deliverables.
With governments as customers, patience is a hard requirement for us. Things tend to take significantly longer than they would with a business customer. There are more regulations, approvals, and processes they must go through to make decisions, even for the smallest of ones. Taking the time to understand their processes helps set expectations on our end so we don’t need to constantly check in for an update. They very much appreciate this, and it helps solidify our relationship with them.
What are your plans for the future, how do you plan to grow this company?
We believe in consistent, manageable, year-over-year growth. We’ve been fortunate to have achieved year-over-year growth every year since our founding in 2006. As we continue to grow, it will be harder to maintain the growth rate percentage we’ve been fortunate to enjoy, but it’s certainly not impossible. It will take course correcting, being open to new possibilities and ways of thinking, and coming up with unique ways to stand out, along with continuing to be consistent in our execution.
How have the pandemic and Lockdown affected you or your new business?
When the pandemic hit the US, we, like so many, had no idea what was in store for us over the coming months or longer. With the stay-at-home orders, governments moving to skeleton crews, and the sale of surplus being a low priority, we were expecting several months of little to no revenue. As it turned out, we did have two months of sharply lower revenue, but we did have revenue — this was a pleasant surprise.
In the slow months of April and May, we didn’t just sit around waiting to see what happened. As entrepreneurs and problem solvers, we identified an immediate problem with local governments being inundated with PPE salespeople who seemingly came out of nowhere, knowing that local governments were going to need PPE.
We created Municibid Connect, a completely free public service to help solve this problem. Governments would let us know of their PPE needs, and we would then identify and vet PPE suppliers to ensure:
- They actually had PPE available immediately, in the US.
- They were a reputable supplier.
- They were not price gouging and didn’t require outrageous minimum order quantities.
We would literally be on the phone day and night vetting these suppliers and connecting them to the governments in need.
And, by June, auction sales came roaring back. There was an increased demand for used vehicles and for vans, buses, and ambulances that could be converted into homes on wheels, as people were looking for ways to get away while international travel was limited.
We were fortunate to have 2020 be another year of record-setting growth.
How do you separate yourself from your competitors?
We separate ourselves via our ease-of-use, marketing, and “Beer-worthy” customer service.
Ease-of-Use
The one thing we hear most from our customers is how easy Municibid is to use. This is by design. We continuously spend a significant amount of time designing and refining the website to provide an excellent customer experience. It’s fast and easy for governments to list items for auction and cleanly organized for bidders to find the items they are looking for, no matter which device or screen size they’re using.
Marketing
Our comprehensive marketing program, offered to governments at no charge, proactively gets the word out about the items they have up for auction. We’re committed to selling governments’ items for the most we can, so we take the extra time to launch tailored ads, emails, and social media promotion for individual items.
We’re ahead of the curve in our industry when it comes to our marketing strategy with our marketing automation, Facebook Shop, and dynamic popups, to name a few. We’re always on the lookout for new channels and tactics to continue growing.
Beer-Worthy Customer Service
At Municibid, we take A TON of pride in going the extra mile to provide our customers with the best customer service experience they’ve ever had. And we’re not just talking about providing better service than our competitors; we mean providing a level of service better than any company they have ever worked with, period. We call it Beer-Worthy Customer Service!
What is Beer-Worthy Customer Service?
Well, we didn’t come up with this description out of nowhere. We have a chuckle over the amount of times customers offer to buy us a beer after we help them out. To us, “Beer-Worthy Customer Service” means being relatable while providing a personalized level of service to the point that our customers want to sit down with us and buy us a beer.
What were the top three mistakes you made starting your business, and what did you learn from them?
Being 15 years into the business, it’s hard to look back to the very beginning and remember all the mistakes I made. Being someone with a forward-looking mindset, I don’t tend to dwell on mistakes for too long. I look at mistakes as opportunities for growth, find the lesson in them, learn from them, and move on.
The top three mistakes I made were:
Not having clarity on the type of business I was creating
One area that helped solidify the type of business Municibid would be was the process of trying to raise money. When I first set out, I met with some venture capital firms, along with some technology accelerators and incubators. They all rejected me and said Municibid was a “lifestyle business.” At the time, this felt kind of insulting, until around 2008 when I realized “you know what, they’re right, this is a lifestyle business after all.” From then on, I was really glad none of them said “yes” to me. The idea of having a VC firm owning a large portion of equity and the requirements of board meetings and reporting would not allow me the freedom I had in mind when I founded Municibid. While I took it as a learning opportunity, if I’d had this clarity sooner, I could have invested my time and energy in other parts of my company at that stage.
Juggling too many projects at once
In the very early years of 2006 and 2007, I could have probably moved a little faster to get the word out about Municibid to agencies in other states. It’s easy though to look back now and say that, especially considering I was still running the IT business, and was serving on borough council, in addition to a real estate project I had going on at the time. But, in hindsight, it may have made more sense to put all of that aside to focus on Municibid.
Not hiring sooner
Hiring a sales director much earlier would have helped move things forward and help maintain existing relationships, as we’re constantly developing new ones. As a go-getter, sometimes I take on more than I should for the health of the company. In the beginning, there’s a lot of bootstrapping to get the ball rolling. However, there comes a point where you can’t do everything yourself. I wish I’d recognized that earlier and hired a sales director sooner, as I believe Municibid would have grown even more if I’d done that.
Tell us a little bit about your marketing process, what has been the most successful form of marketing for you?
We tailor our marketing process for our two audiences, our sellers and our bidders. A core marketing channel that has been successful across both our audiences is email. There’s a lot of hype over chatbots and AI, and while it’s good to take advantage of new channels and strategies, email is still a foundational part of how we work and live. A solid email marketing foundation has helped us grow a lot because we stay connected with prospective municipalities and bidders.
The first part of a solid email marketing foundation is growing your subscribers. We focused on our website for SEO for organic traffic, along with ease of use so visitors stay on our website. SEO is a long-haul game, but worth it. We then added email subscription forms throughout our website, which continues to be a significant source of our subscribers.
Social media, particularly Facebook, has been powerful for us as well. We reach a lot of new people with our content that we wouldn’t reach otherwise. We’re increasing our brand awareness as well as traffic to our website through our social media activities. We’ve broken into the social commerce landscape with our Facebook Shop. We’ve already seen how revolutionary social commerce is with apps like WeChat, and with Facebook’s move into cryptocurrency and with their Facebook Marketplace, they’re heading in the social commerce direction. I’m excited to see how this trend develops.
Working with governments, we can’t be discouraged by an initial “no”. While a municipality may not have items to sell right now, often they’ll hold on to an email or post card from 2-3 years ago and then reach out to us when they have items to sell. Remember to think about the long-standing impact your marketing activities can have.
Although support and marketing are separate departments, support has a big impact on marketing. When customers are heard and have their queries resolved, they won’t go to social media or other public outlets complaining, which means marketing doesn’t have to go into damage control mode. Instead, happy customers share their good experience and that’s the word of mouth that, even today, is gold.
Don’t underestimate the power of the relationships you build. You may not always have an immediate result, but if you make good impressions, people will remember you when they need help.
What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?
One of our biggest challenges was expanding to new states where we had little to no references. When I founded Municibid in Pennsylvania, we had zero selling agencies and zero bidders. Likewise, when we expanded to Massachusetts, we had zero selling agencies and zero bidders there.
As we grew, we had bidders come on board from all over the country. Bidders were willing to travel across states to pick up items, but that wasn’t enough to convince municipalities to give us a shot.
The first question local governments asked wasn’t, “Which agencies are using Municibid in the state?” Instead, they wanted to know, “Which agencies are using Municibid in our county?”
You can imagine how hard it was to sell them on trying us, when we didn’t have another agency in their state, let alone county!
To overcome this, we changed our narrative to get out ahead of that pushback right from the start. First, we presented a clear plan on how we would market their items, at no cost to them. Then, we showcased the benefits they’d see when using Municibid.
This pitch was usually sufficient, but some governments would still ask for local or state references. At this point, we shared success story after success story of agencies selling their surplus for pennies on the dollar and then the thousands to tens of thousands of dollars they received for their items when they switched to Municibid. We started from nothing in every state we expanded to — and achieved success in each new state we expanded to.
What was your first business idea and what did you do with it?
I’ve been an entrepreneur all my life — and like most entrepreneurs, I started out with the traditional lemonade stand, mowing lawns, shoveling driveways, selling candy at school, and selling magazines door to door to win prizes. My first real business idea was when I set out to help small businesses with their computers and networks. I started this business the day after graduating from high school in 1998. During high school, I earned some professional technical certifications, along with having hands-on experience in my roles through my school’s apprenticeship program. I grew this IT company for 12 years and was serving hundreds of businesses when I sold it in 2010.
What are you learning now? Why is that important?
I believe in continual personal growth and I love learning something new every day. On most days, I eat lunch at my desk and do what I call my “lunch and learn” where I’ll watch a 10- to 20-minute YouTube video on something I’m curious about. I also enjoy thinking about the future and what things will look like in 10 years, 25 years, 50 years, and even 100 years from now.
Over the past several years, I’ve been paying attention to blockchain technology and how it can be used for a number of different applications in various verticals, especially in supply chain management, reverse supply chain management, asset management, and potential uses in government. While it will take many years for most local governments to even consider utilizing the benefits of a decentralized ledger the blockchain offers, I believe they will eventually get there. The question is when, and in which ways will they utilize it.
If you started your business again, what things would you do differently?
There is not much I would do differently. I don’t dwell on mistakes and really don’t have any regrets. Of course, I know a ton of mistakes were made over the years that I don’t remember, but I know I did my best to learn from them and move on. I’m extremely happy where things are and where we are headed, so there’s not much I would look to do differently.
What are the top 3 online tools and resources you’re currently using to grow your company?
- Slack – We utilize Slack for more than just chatting with each other. We have several integrations and automations built in Slack to help us be more efficient and productive, while also keeping us on top of what is happening with our customers. For example, we are automatically notified when a new selling agency comes on board and then again when they list their first items, so we know to reach out to them to thank and congratulate them.
- Intercom – Intercom is our backbone for communication with our customers and our tool for managing and tracking support requests. We have Intercom designed to allow us to provide a highly personalized level of communication with our customers.
- Customer.io – Customer.io allows us to proactively stay in touch with our customers, and helps us better market auction items to bidders by allowing us to personalize our communications at scale and do A/B testing for improving our messaging.
What’s a productivity tip you swear by?
I’m terrible at creating to-do lists, but I’m awesome at completing tasks once they are on a list. So I’ve been trying to train myself to get better at adding things to a to-do list. I’ve been enjoying using Todoist.
From a focus standpoint, I like the pomodoro technique, along with using brain.fm — both in tandem help me stay incredibly focused.
Can you recommend one book, one podcast, and one online course for entrepreneurs?
- A New Earth by Ekhard Tolle – While not necessarily a business book, I highly recommend it to my fellow entrepreneurs. Everything you do and create ultimately comes from within, and this book goes a long way in understanding the ego, staying present, and how to better trust yourself and your instincts.
- I’ve been really enjoying the My First Million podcast, The hosts riff on a wide variety of business ideas and discuss new and emerging trends across many industries.
- I don’t have any recommendations for online courses for entrepreneurs in general. For new entrepreneurs, I typically refer them to Miles Beckler’s YouTube channel. Miles aims to be the most helpful internet marketing person on the planet — and he backs it up with bringing tons of knowledge and value, all for free, on his channel.
- Having solid sales copy is super important, but overlooked far too often. I would recommend the StoryBrand book or course to help better understand how to write great sales copy.
If you only had $1000 dollars to start a new business, knowing everything you know now, how would you spend it?
If you’re just starting out, you will have a major advantage if you simply call your prospective customers and have conversations with them. You will learn a ton and understand how they think (and talk) about the opportunity or problem you are trying to solve, in their own words. This conversation will also go a long way in building rapport with your customer.
I would spend the $1000 to help speak in-person with as many prospective customers as possible. I would figure out how I could split it up to meet with prospective customers, or even vendors, in person (not Zoom), especially as we move on from the pandemic.
What helps you stay driven and motivated to keep going in your business?
It might sound ridiculous, but what drives me and keeps me motivated is basically the same as it was in the very beginning of the business. Helping governments generate income from their surplus to reinvest into their communities is my core drive. It hurts to see governments leave thousands to tens of thousands of dollars on the table when they sell things for far less than the true market value — especially when there is an easy way to get that true market price, with no cost to them.
As we continue to grow, I’m also motivated by ensuring our team is taken care of, happy, and fulfilled both in life and work. It’s something I take personally.
What is your favorite quote?
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right.”
– Henry Ford
What valuable advice would you give new entrepreneurs starting out?
Call and meet with your prospective customers in person. It will go a long way in building rapport, and understanding how they think about the opportunity (and your solution) in their own words — which you can then use when developing your product or service and in your marketing collateral.
Who should we interview next and why?
Ben O’Hanesian – Ben and his brother, Greg, are the direct mail industry’s version of the Property Brothers. They run a successful direct mail business that was started by their father 40 years ago.
What is your definition of success?
For me, it’s being able to enjoy personal freedom of time and location. Being able to make my own schedule and be wherever I want to be is what I value most.
How do you personally overcome fear?
Fear is usually a misunderstanding of something, so if there is something I fear, I try to get closer to it so I can really dig into why I’m feeling fear. Usually the story we make up in our head about something we’re fearful about, is way worse than the reality of the situation.
How can readers get in touch with you?
To get in touch, you can visit my website at municibid.com. You can also find me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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