Motivate Your Sales Team - Louis Massaro

SUMMARY

In this video, Louis Massaro shares how to motivate your sales team to book more moves.

“Your team’s got to be motivated. Because it’s no longer a reactive game. It’s no longer, hey, the phone rings off the hook, and we pick it up and we book moves.”
“The way that you structure your sales process in your organization has to be on point in this modern day of moving, in order for you to be ultra-profitable.”
“When you’re spending money on leads, you need to have a solid sales team and they need to be motivated to go after these leads, because it’s very proactive, what they need to do.”
“I used to make the same mistake, I believed that our employees were just as motivated and excited for the growth of our company as I was. And it’s not the case.“
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TRANSCRIPTION

Louis Massaro:
All right, my friend, this is Louis Massaro and welcome to The Moving Mastery Podcast. The purpose of this podcast is to help you take your moving company to the next level, reduce stress, increase profits, live a better quality of life. I’ve got my main man, Chris, with me today. What’s up, Chris?

Chris:
What’s up? What’s up?

Louis Massaro:
So, these episodes, what we’ve been doing is, we have been taking questions that come in through social media, whether it’s LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube channel, or through support. And usually, I don’t know what the question is going to be, ahead of time, but I happen to see just now, two seconds before we went on, the question. So, I have a little bit of a head start today, but not much. But I’ll let you go ahead and ask the question because all I saw was what you put as the title for the video.

Chris:
Okay, all right. Well, yeah, I’ll give you a few more details here then. So, this question came in from one of our followers, and he’s having some issues with his sales team. His first question, his first initial question was, “How do I motivate my sales team? They don’t want to follow up on leads.” So, I commented back with him, I wanted to get some more details. And he wrote back and he says, “Listen, I give them a ton of leads, they don’t seem to want to follow up with them. I have four moving consultants, no sales manager.” All right. “Last year, we did just under $2 million, but I’m trying to get to $3 million.” And he just wants to know, how can he kick his sales team into full gear, into high gear?

Louis Massaro:
Okay. All right. So, for sales consultants, here’s the deal, your team’s got to be motivated, right? Because it’s no longer a reactive game. It’s no longer, hey, the phone rings off the hook, and we pick it up and we book moves. You’ve got to be able to deal with leads, whether you’re buying leads from moving lead providers or they’re just leads coming from your website. There’s outbound calls that need to be made, and you might not always get them on the phone. All right? So, the way that you structure your sales process in your organization and in your call center, whatever you want to call it, has to be on point in this modern day of moving, in order for you to be ultra-profitable.

Louis Massaro:
Because, if not, I would just guess to say that his profits aren’t nearly where he wants them to be either. If he’s got four consultants, they’re doing under $2 million, he’s got nobody managing them, he’s trying to go to three, I mean, because at the end of the day, it’s like, what are the profits? We didn’t get that information. Next time, we’ll dig a little deeper. But, you didn’t get that. Did you?

Chris:
No.

Louis Massaro:
Okay.

Chris:
No. Yeah.

Louis Massaro:
So, the thing is, when you’re spending money on leads, and when I say leads, I’m talking about any form of advertising, any form of marketing. So, whether it’s pay-per-click, direct mail, billboards, moving lead providers, Yelp, it doesn’t matter, that’s all lead. You need to have a solid sales team and they need to be motivated to go after these leads, because it’s very proactive, what they need to do. Right?

Chris:
Yeah.

Louis Massaro:
And, a lot of times, what I see companies do is they cast a vision for the business, “Here’s where we’re going, here’s what we’re trying to do. We’re going to go from $2 million or just under $2 million to $3 million. Guys, come on, this is what we’re going to $3 million.” Which is good. That’s part of the equation.

Chris:
Yeah. Fire them up.

Louis Massaro:
Fire them up, but that’s only part of it. So, the next part is, what’s in it for them? We, because I used to make the same mistake, believed that our employees are just as motivated and excited for the growth of our company as we are. And it’s not the case.

Chris:
Not true. Not true.

Louis Massaro:
They might show it. They might act like, “Yeah, let’s go, we’re going to $3 million.” Right?

Chris:
Yeah.

Louis Massaro:
But they’re not that motivated. So, you’ve got, hey, what’s in it for the company? Right?

Chris:
Mm-hmm.

Louis Massaro:
Then you’ve got it, what’s in it for them?

Chris:
Right.

Louis Massaro:
If they book more jobs, if they follow up on those leads, what do they get out of it? And then you also have, what’s in it for the customer? As well. So, if you’re out there, we didn’t find out, that’s everything you’ve got on him, right? I’m not going to…

Chris:
Yeah, I mean, he may have messaged me back before we started filming.

Louis Massaro:
No problem. No problem. So, what’s in it for the company? What’s in it for me, the salesperson? What’s in it for the customer? And what I mean by that is, if the sales reps on the phone, moving consultant, whatever you want to call them, and they’re quoting that customer and trying to book that move, they need to believe in their product. Meaning, they need to believe that they’re going to send crews out, they’re going to do an amazing job for that customer. And if they believe that, it’s your job as the owner or the sales manager, to let those sales reps, those moving consultants know that, “Hey, it is your duty to make sure that we book these jobs because we need to make sure that these customers that come across our path are in good hands.

Louis Massaro:
“We know some of the competition out there, we know some of the horror stories of the things that happen. We do a great job. Not only are you going to make money for you, make money for the company, but you’re also going to save these customers from any potential problems that they might have if they don’t go with us. And I know we’re not the cheapest,” but you need to be able to explain to them why it is that we’re not the cheapest. Right?

Chris:
Yeah.

Louis Massaro:
So, they need to see those three dynamics to get the ultimate, not only motivation, but inspiration.

Chris:
To feel like they have more of a purpose than just selling a move. Like they’re actually helping these people, they’re making their lives better.

Louis Massaro:
Yeah. I mean, even moving company owners, don’t realize that they are really helping people. Right?

Chris:
Yeah.

Louis Massaro:
If you go and you do a good service, you don’t realize it because you don’t get the thank you’s. It’s hard to get the good reviews. Nobody’s sending you a box of chocolate and flowers and saying, “Thanks so much for the great move.” If something goes wrong-

Chris:
You’ll hear from them.

Louis Massaro:
There’re scratches, you’re going to hear from them.

Chris:
You’re going to hear from them.

Louis Massaro:
But if it goes great, you don’t hear from them. But, when you do this so much and you see the difference and you know the stress that people go through when they move, and you’re able to perform a good move for them, you don’t realize what that can do for their stress levels. And then, from that, what that does for their family, what that does for their job, what that does for their health.

Chris:
There’s lasting effects.

Louis Massaro:
There’s lasting effects of it. So, just because you’re not getting the, “Thank you,” and you’re not getting the, “Hey, you’re changing people’s lives,” don’t think that you’re not changing people’s lives.

Chris:
Right. That’s really cool. You don’t think about that very much, but you’re right. I mean, I can’t remember the last time I didn’t use a moving company to move, but, I mean, I would never not. Moving yourself is rough. It’s hard. And when you have a good company, like you have somebody come in and they do a good job, they’re professional about it, I mean, yeah, that alleviates a lot of stress when you’re moving.

Louis Massaro:
But, you know what? If you had a couple of bad experiences, you’d probably be looking for a U-haul and some friends to do it yourself. Because you’d say, “You know what? I’ve tried that professional mover route, and that’s not good.” So, when you think about it like that, too, it’s like, “Hey, this customer has come across our path, we’ve got to make sure that they get a good move. It’s good for our business, it’s good for the industry as a whole. Because, if they go out there and they get a bad move, they get duped into one of these low prices, and they have a bad experience, well, what happens next time they want to move? And they just want to rent a truck.

Louis Massaro:
I mean, that’s what hurts the industry more than anything. So, again, back to where we saw motivating his salespeople.

Chris:
Right, he wants them to be fired up, not only to be excited about being on the phones or whatever, but he’s got a goal in mind. He wants to reach $3 million.

Louis Massaro:
Okay. Well, each one of those individuals, we’re talking about for individuals, they all have a goal, too. And if they don’t have a goal, it’s his job to give them a goal. A lot of times, first of all, they need to be on commission. Hands down, there’s no doubt about that, they need to be on commission. But they also need goals to reach. At a minimum, they need monthly goals that they’re trying to hit, revenue numbers. I like to do revenue and not amount of jobs booked. Because, I want them focused on what I’m focused on. And what I’m focused on is like, if I’ve got an opportunity to call this little one-bedroom apartment, or I’ve got this opportunity to close this big $5,000 job. As a company, if we’re one collective mind, I want them focused on the $5,000 job.

Louis Massaro:
So, I want their goals to be based off of revenue. And a lot of times, you’ll hear people say like, well, they get a commission, they should be incentivized, they should be focused. That should motivate them enough just to get the commission. But what happens with the commission is, if you’ve ever gotten like, and I know you have recently, if you’ve ever gotten more money or a raise, anybody listening, you had a certain goal in life to make a certain amount of money. Originally, when I first got in the business, I’m like… Before I got in the business, I was like, “I want to be able to make $100,000 a year.” It was like, in my mind, it was actually, I said, “$10,000 a month,” which is $120.

Louis Massaro:
Once I got in the business, I was like, “Okay, I want to make $400,000 a year.” And so, now, I look at $100,000 a year and I’m like, I can’t-

Chris:
You’re not motivated, you’re not pumped up about that.

Louis Massaro:
Yeah. And so, the point is that, it’s the same thing when you get a pay raise. It’s like you’re all excited you got this raise. Or, as an owner, you’re making more profit, but then you get accustomed to that amount, and then you’re no longer motivated. Now it just becomes the norm. That’s your baseline.

Chris:
Right. The excitement wears off.

Louis Massaro:
Yeah, it wears off. So, by having goals that they could hit every single month, and then tying those goals to bonuses that you pay them, it changes it up every month. The number that they need to hit is different. The number that they get is different. They need to know what’s in it for them.

Chris:
When it comes to those kind of bonuses, I mean, what did you pay your salespeople as far as bonuses go?

Louis Massaro:
It would be something that was basically, I would sit them down and look at what they did the month before. I would look at where we are currently. Like, okay, we’re coming out of slow season, we’re going in the busy season, things are going to naturally pick up anyways. So, let’s say you did 60,000 last month, and I’m looking at it and I’m like, “Okay, the lead volume’s up, you’re closing your leads at this percentage, you should be able to book $72,000 this next month.”

Chris:
Okay. So, you give them a goal.

Louis Massaro:
What I would do is I would sit down with them, and then, later on, I taught this to my sales managers and they would do it. But, I would sit down with them and say, “Look, here’s what you did last month,” talk about it a little bit. There’s a whole process for this that we teach in Moving Sales Academy. For the one on one goal setting meeting, there’s a whole framework for it. But essentially, we sit down and go over where they are, and say like, “What do you think you could hit this month?” So, instead of me giving it to them, I’ll be like, “Chris, what do you think you could hit this month? You hit $60,000 last month, what do you think you could do?”

Louis Massaro:
And depending on what you say, if I think what you say is out of reach, or I think it’s too low, I’m going to challenge you one way or the other.

Chris:
I see.

Louis Massaro:
You see what I’m saying?

Chris:
Yeah.

Louis Massaro:
So, if you’re like, “Hey, I think I can go to $62.” I’m going to be like, “$62? You did $60 last month. Every month, you’ve been getting better since you got here. And we’ve got season coming up. The lead, you can see the leads are coming in. There’s more leads coming in. I think you’ll do $72. And I’ll tell you what, if you hit $72, I’ll give you $350 extra this month.” And you’re like, “I don’t know.” “Okay, I’ll tell you what, how about $70, I’ll give you $200 extra.”

Chris:
I see.

Louis Massaro:
Don’t get caught up on the percentage and the amount, it’s just, it’s something that’s significant enough to make them move. You’re talking about $350, that’s a car payment. That’s a significant amount of extra money for a sales rep to make that month, that they wouldn’t normally make. And so, once you have that agreed-upon amount, and the goal is that, the key to the goal is that it needs to be attainable. Don’t dangle some carrot out in front of their face that they’re never going to get, because then it loses its effect.

Chris:
Yeah, they lose their motivation.

Louis Massaro:
Yeah, you go a few months and you keep setting these goals that are way too high…

Chris:
They won’t care anymore.

Louis Massaro:
They won’t care anymore. So, don’t be cheap. You’ve got to be able to say like, “I’m willing to spend some money, to get them to move, to get them to do the things that I need them to do.” But now, you do that every month, they get used to that, too. So, it becomes, okay, they’ve gotten accustomed to the commission, that’s just part of their pay. They’re just, they’re used to it. Because, typically, people will kind of level out at a certain amount. You’ll have somebody there, this guy, he’s a $40,000 a month type of guy. Then you’ve got somebody else, she’s $120,000 a month type of girl. You know what I’m trying to say?

Louis Massaro:
They could get better and they could grow, but they’re usually like, will hit, become who they’re going to be within that first six months. If you’re coaching them and you’re working with them and you’re guiding them through the process, they’ll get to that point.

Chris:
That’s helpful. I mean, they can become predictable, so, you know what you can rely on.

Louis Massaro:
Yeah, I mean, because, ideally, you don’t want to just hire somebody, train them and then send them off to swim or sink. You want to have what we call a Moving Sales Academy Enhancement Training. You want to have the process of taking them through and making the existing reps you have better, but there are certain key points that you focus on to make them better. But, after six months of doing that, it’s like, okay, we know where they’re at. However, if there’s somebody that, let’s say, they’re in that $60, they’re kind of like $60,000 a month type person.

Chris:
Consistent.

Louis Massaro:
It doesn’t mean you can’t push them to go to $70. You take four reps and you push each one of them to do an extra $10,000, that’s $40,000. That’s what? $400 and… what is that? $480,000 a year.

Chris:
Half a million, almost.

Louis Massaro:
Almost half a million dollars by getting those reps to book an extra $10,000. When you talk about an extra $10,000, I mean, what are we really talking about? So, let’s say you’ve got…

Chris:
Maybe like an extra seven moves each or something.

Louis Massaro:
Yeah, I mean, let’s say if $1,000 average move to an extra 10 moves a month, a month. So, you’re talking about like an extra two and a half moves a week. So, you’re telling me that if you had them motivated, you gave them the coaching, you gave them what they needed and the incentive to hit it, they couldn’t book an extra two and a half moves a week?

Chris:
Yeah, that’s attainable.

Louis Massaro:
I mean, if you asked all of your sales reps. If you’re listening, just to go ask all your sales reps, “Hey, you think you could book an extra two jobs or three jobs a week? If you just focused a little bit more, if you try to…” Without even giving them tools, and without even giving them motivation, they could do it. You give them the tools, you give them the motivation, you give them the coaching, and manage the sales process, I mean, that easily could double.

Chris:
Do you feel like, in this guy’s situation, that jumped from just under $2 million to $3 million in revenue? Is that something that you think could be done with those same four salespeople, and just by incentivizing and motivating that team? I mean, is that something that’s possible?

Louis Massaro:
I mean, look, you might need another one or two salespeople. I don’t know how these particular salespeople are performing. I don’t know what his lead volume looks like. But, yeah, it’s totally attainable. I mean, to go up from two to $3 million, it’s just in the tightening up of the sales… I mean, you’ve seen it. I mean, all that, we get the success stories, we hear them, “I doubled. I went up from $3 million to $6 million. I went from $2 million to $4 million. It’s…

Chris:
Yeah, it’s doable.

Louis Massaro:
It’s doable, for sure.

Chris:
Yeah, that’s good. What else would you do to motivate them? Just day-to-day, I know you had talked about having meetings every day, right? Like sales meetings?

Louis Massaro:
Yeah.

Chris:
What does that look like?

Louis Massaro:
Well, we call it the morning huddle. And basically, you start off by, essentially, it’s just a meeting in the morning to get them going, to get them fired up, to get their head in the right place. If you’re listening, you think about your team, your sales team in the morning in the office. And without anybody guiding them, they’re at the coffee machine making their third cup of coffee. They’re a little slow to sit down, they’re putting on their headset or whatever the situation is.

Chris:
Yeah, they’re hungover.

Louis Massaro:
Well, yeah, whatever. Most people don’t do the work to get their mind in the right place every morning, every day. You know how important, I mean, for me, that’s my whole morning setup on getting my mind right. Most people don’t do that. You can’t expect your team to do that. You’ve got to come in and help them get their mind right on the mission for the day. And the mission for the day is to book the move of every call that you speak to, every person you speak to. So, it’s basically a little pump up session, to get them committed to what the day is going to look like. What their goal is for the day. And also acknowledge some of the successes from the day before and encourage them. Basically, fire them up, and get them on the phones.

Louis Massaro:
You’ve got to think about it. And I didn’t want to do this back in the day. Like, you see me, I’m on camera or on stage and doing what I do because I have a mission right now. When I had my business, I didn’t want to come give a big pep rally. I wanted to come in and go to my office and not say hi to anybody and close the door, and do my own thing. It’s what I wanted to do, but I knew what was necessary. I knew there was a whole day ahead of the team, and somebody had to set them off in the right trajectory. Somebody had to get their mind going towards booking moves.

Chris:
I know you had talked about before, setting the mood in the office, not just with the morning huddle, but also, I remember you used to talk about you played music. What are some more things like that that can help fire them up?

Louis Massaro:
The tone of the office is so important. For me, one of the rules of setting up your sales department is have it as far away from dispatch as possible. Right?

Chris:
Uh-huh.

Louis Massaro:
If you think about what goes on in dispatch, they’re dealing with the day-to-day of the business. This guy didn’t show up, somebody’s calling your truck, cut them off in traffic. This customer is calling, they’ve got an issue with some damage, whatever. The piano fell off the 10th floor, whatever it might be. Sales doesn’t need to hear that. Sales needs to be in positivity, like, “Everything’s all good. I believe in my product. I’m selling my product.” If they’re constantly hearing about all these little things that happen, it’s part of the logistical thing. I don’t care how good your company is, there are things that happen in dispatch that makes that a stressful position. Don’t put that stress on the people that you want to be out there fishing for customers. Right?

Chris:
Right.

Louis Massaro:
So, that’s number one. Next thing is, keep it upbeat. Play some music lightly. Like, we had speakers installed in the ceiling. You don’t have to get fancy with it, you can get a couple wireless speakers, and you put them in the office. And played music to where it was loud enough that they could hear it, but low enough that the customer couldn’t hear it on the phone. And it just helped with the energy in the office. And so, different days, we’d play different types of music. It could be, one day, it’d be dance music, and other days it would be old school, Motown R&B. Another day, it’d be hip hop, whatever it might be.

Chris:
Mix it up.

Louis Massaro:
And then, if it’s the afternoon time and everybody’s dragging, you might have to turn it up a little bit, it gets more BPMs going in there and really turn it up to get them fired up for the day. Another thing that we did was, every day, we did a two o’clock stretch. And so, at two o’clock, I played a song, and when that song went on, everybody in my office had to get up. If you were on the phone with the customer, it didn’t matter. You had to stand up from your desk, and I came out of my office too, you had to stand up. And if you didn’t want to stretch, you didn’t have to stretch, but you had to move around, move your body. Because when you sit all day, by two o’clock, you’re just like…

Chris:
Oh, yeah, that afternoon lull kicks in.

Louis Massaro:
Yeah. So, we would do that. And then, spiffs.

Chris:
Spiffs.

Louis Massaro:
Spiffs. A spiff is an incentive that you just arbitrarily come up with, whatever it’s going to be. I’ll give an example. A spiff would be, “Hey, guys, whoever books 10 jobs today, you’re going to get $20 bucks. Hey, guys, if we book 100 jobs together as a team for the week, I’m going to buy everybody lunch on Friday from your favorite restaurant. While I’d walk in, take $100 bill out of my pocket, tape it on the wall, and be like, “Hey, listen up, whoever books the first five jobs, go grab that $100, that’s yours.

Chris:
Nice.

Louis Massaro:
So, the thing would spiffs though, is that, you can’t use them every day. That’s your secret weapon. They expect the commission. They expect the monthly goals. If they expect the spiffs, they lose their effectiveness.

Chris:
I see. Okay.

Louis Massaro:
So, the spiffs are like, “Okay, I see, the energy’s low, everybody’s been like they’re not seeming motivated. I need to come in and give them that shock factor, and get them motivated again.” Whether that’s like, first thing Monday morning, you just want to get the momentum going, or whether it’s like by Thursday, everybody’s just kind of dying off and you need to get them excited again. It’s got to motivate them, it can’t be expected, and you’ve got to be able to change it up. Make it fun. We used to put a wheel of fortune in the office, whoever books the next whatever, you get to go spin the wheel. And I’d have all kinds of prizes on there, whether it was 20 bucks, 100 bucks.

Louis Massaro:
I had tickets to the Dolphins, season tickets, where I had club level seats. I’ll be like, you get two club-level seats to the next game. You’ve got to keep the excitement up. And it doesn’t always flow over to the other departments, but your sales is different. You’ve got to keep them fired up and you’ve got to keep them wanting to go out there and chase down these leads and get these jobs booked.

Chris:
What’s an ideal schedule for a salesperson that’s going to get them to perform at their most? Because I can see how they could get burnt out.

Louis Massaro:
Yeah.

Chris:
Do you want to only work them certain time of the day, certain hours, anything like that?

Louis Massaro:
No, I mean, it all depends on where you’re located, how many offices you have. Like, for me, we had, our call center was on the East Coast, but we had offices on the West Coast and all in between. So, I had to have two shifts going on, so that we could be open from 8:00 to 8:00, or 9:00 to 9:00 at one point. So, I don’t think that necessarily matters, but it is important that they have certain criteria. You’ve got to have certain… we’re getting into managing them now, which is a little bit different than keeping them motivated. But, the idea is, with their goals, you want to make sure, with those goals, they know where they’re at.

Louis Massaro:
So, whether you send out a weekly progress report email to everybody, that says, “Here’s where you’re at in relation to your goal.” Or, if somebody’s using SmartMoving, I’m co-founder in SmartMoving, if you’re using that as your CRM, then you could have that all on your dashboard right there. Or, you have a whiteboard in your office and you could show the progress of everybody where they’re at and turn it into more of a competition. There’s a lot of other things you could do with challenges and face-offs. You’ve got to keep it exciting. We had all kinds of what I call carnival games going on in the office too. We would do the wheel of fortune, we would do a little basketball hoop, I’d had a putting green in the office, and I’m like, “Look, first person to book,” whatever it might be, whatever it is, if it’s 10 jobs, “You get the putt for $100.”

Chris:
Nice.

Louis Massaro:
And so, they would go, and I’d say, “Listen, I’ll give you $10 bucks right now. Or, you could putt and get $100 if you make it in, or zero if you don’t make it.” But the whole office would gather around, nobody was going to take the $10. And it just created excitement for everybody. So, even if the person that was doing it, didn’t make it or the other people weren’t involved, they were still involved. There was still excitement. It’s not a boring like… job. So, that’s the natural state of what will happen with your moving consultants. What he’s expecting is the natural state of what will happen if you sit somebody down at a computer with a phone, say, “Here are some leads, call them, talk to them about their move, listen to everything they have in their house, and then guide them through the process of booking with our company. Oh, and when they say that your price is too high, then you’ve got to come back and you’ve got to say this to them.”

Louis Massaro:
If you just leave them alone, and let them just do that, their natural state is going to be… I mean, they’re not going to want to do it, you’ve got to cultivate that environment.

Chris:
Are there signs that can let you know ahead of time when the morale is getting low? Or, I mean, besides the numbers, obviously, but, I mean, is there something you could look at a salesperson and just see in them that they need some incentive, some motivation?

Louis Massaro:
Yeah, well, obviously, you have the numbers. You’re tracking how many calls they’re making and how much talk time they have. But, you could tell just by their demeanor. And, if you don’t have… like, this guy doesn’t have a sales manager, someone has to wear the sales manager’s hat. Because, there are certain things that need to happen in order to keep them running and keep them fired up, keep them on point. But, if you’ve got to grab one person and pull them aside, “Hey, what’s going on? What’s up? I see you’re not quite into it.” And just talk to them like a person, to find out what’s going on. Give them some encouragement, and then send them back out on the field. You’ve got to give them some encouragement, talk to them, see what their issue is. And make sure that there’s nothing going on in their head, that makes them not motivated anymore.

Chris:
Well, and that can be contagious. They can infect the rest of your team.

Louis Massaro:
Yeah, absolutely. You can’t let it linger. You’ve got to be able to identify it. You don’t identify it one day, okay. You don’t identify it after three or four days, you let somebody go a week, fine. You let it go longer than that, it affects the people around you. And it affects them if they’re just minding their business, and they’re just like… But if they start talking negatively, they start complaining, now they’re an infection. And infection will take down your whole company, from the inside out. So, you’ve got to be able to talk to them and see what’s going on. And if you can’t reverse the infection, then they’ve got to go.

Chris:
Yeah. I wonder, in this guy’s situation, his initial comment was saying, “They don’t want to follow up on leads.” Is there something that he can do just… Maybe they’re making their initial dials and stuff, but when it comes to the follow-up, maybe it’s… Could it be something in his process with it that’s keeping the salespeople down? I don’t know.

Louis Massaro:
Well, what I’m thinking when you say that is probably there is no process. He’s probably barking orders and saying, “Hey, follow up with them, follow up with them, follow up with them.” But, that doesn’t work. Because I’ve been where he is. I’ve been at four consultants with no sales manager, asking them to follow up. And then I’ve been at 60, 70 consultants with four sales managers, and they’re all doing it. So, if you can’t get four people to do it, but you could get 60, 70 people to do it, what’s the difference there? The difference is, you’ve laid out something that is systematic that they just have to follow. They know what’s next. They get off the phone with one customer, they know what to do next. They know what the priority is, they know which lead they should call, they know when they should call that customer back, when they get off the phone with them.

Louis Massaro:
When you have all that lined up, they’ll do it. And all you need is just somebody to just make sure that they do it. You pull up, you could see it all in your CRM. You pull up SmartMoving or whatever you use, you can see what they’re doing and you can identify it and have a talk with them right away, and coach them right away. But, typically, what I see is that people don’t have a follow-up process. So, they bark the order, and then the reps just don’t know what to do, or when to do it, or how to prioritize what’s in their lead inbox.

Chris:
Yeah. One of the other aspects of this is he was saying, “I give them a ton of leads.” And with the leads, obviously, if they’re not following up, they’re burning through his leads. Right?

Louis Massaro:
Yeah. Costing him a ton of money.

Chris:
Costing him a ton of money. With those leads, do you want to… Obviously, there’s going to be some salespeople who are better than others, right?

Louis Massaro:
Yeah.

Chris:
So, do you reward the people who are doing well with good leads? Or, do you give the good leads to the guys who are struggling to make them maybe have an easier job booking the move?

Louis Massaro:
Which one of those options, I’m going to ask you, which one of those options lead to the company making more money?

Chris:
Yeah, I mean, obviously, you’re just going to give the good leads to the good salespeople and get them booked. Right?

Louis Massaro:
Yeah. I mean, you don’t want to starve out somebody new and not give them a shot, but, we teach at Moving Sales Academy, it’s called skill-based routing. And with phone calls and with leads, it’s about getting the lead to the person that’s got the skill to be able to handle that lead. So, whether it’s a bigger job, or whether it’s a job with packing, or whether it’s local versus long-distance, or a hot lead source versus one of the ones that doesn’t convert high, you want to be able to route those, based on that information.

Chris:
Now, let’s say he decided to get a sales manager, what are the qualities of a good sales manager? And how can a sales manager step into this situation and make a difference?

Louis Massaro:
Like, for me, when I first set up the call center, when I realized like, “Okay, I’ve got four offices, everybody’s booking themselves, each office, they’re handling their own calls. Some were crushing it, some were struggling. I said, “All right, I need to set up a central place to handle all of the calls.” So, I opened it up. I opened another office there, too. So, I made it the fifth office plus the call center. And went out and looked for a call center manager. I hired a recruiter, I looked for a call center manager, brought somebody in, highly qualified, they came in, and it wasn’t impactful.

Chris:
Why not? Right?

Louis Massaro:
He said, he was like, a great guy, by the way, but I didn’t have it set up for him properly. So, he came in, he’s like, “I need an assistant manager.” I said, “Okay.” I didn’t know anything at the time about call centers. This was me learning it. And so, I hired another assistant manager to help him. I was expecting him to develop and put all the processes in place.

Chris:
You would think he would know how to do that. I mean, that’s, he’s a…

Louis Massaro:
Yeah, but it’s not the case. It’s not the case. So, what I say now, what I decided to do after I let him go, was, I developed all the processes myself. I started really studying, I started learning sales psychology. I started going to call center conventions and learning all the different tools and everything like that, and put all the processes together myself, hired, took one of my moving consultants, who was awesome on the phone, made him my sales manager, and then mentored him and guided him on implementing those processes. So, now, I was like, “Here’s what needs to get done. Manager, here’s what needs to get done. Here, go make sure it gets done.”

Chris:
I see.

Louis Massaro:
Right?

Chris:
Yeah.

Louis Massaro:
So, the key is, and that’s what a lot of people do, they get like the Moving Sales Academy online course, for example. And what they’ll do is, they’ll give it to their sales manager and say, “Go implement this.” I mean, you know I can name a few. You know a few people out, their story. “I didn’t want to be bothered, I got it for the sales manager, he took it and ran with it and we had great results.” So, the idea is, when you bring a manager in, that manager’s role is to manage the processes. If the manager is managing processes, and managing people as an afterthought, they’re more effective and their job becomes easier. If you bring somebody in and manage these people, and they’re unruly, and they’re not doing what… It’s not even that they’re not doing what they’re supposed to do, they don’t know exactly what to do. You’ve got to give them instruction.

Louis Massaro:
You’ve got to tell them, “Here’s what needs to get done, here’s when it needs to get done.” And then a sales manager just needs the ability to make sure all that stuff’s getting done. To show up every day, pull up the CRM, see who is following up with their leads, who’s not. Asking them about it. Blocking time on their calendar for enhancement training, to listen to calls from reps and take them through, we had the moving consultant evaluation guide, take them through that. See where they’re lacking, is it in their intro? Is it in going through the script and painting the picture? Or, is it going for the close and asking for the business? Find out where they need some help, coach them, work with them, make them better. Put them back on the phone, see the improvement.

Chris:
Along the same lines as you were talking about hiring the call center manager, is it better to, I know the answer, but I wanted to just talk about this, sometimes it’s better to hire somebody without experience than it is to hire somebody who’s got 20 years of sales experience, to come in and start selling for you. Right? I mean, I don’t know, talk about that a little bit. I know the answer, but I feel like it’s never too late to… I mean, would you recommend he start over?

Louis Massaro:
I would recommend, if he wants to go to $3 million, that he gets himself a sales manager. Whether it’s, he goes out and gets it, or makes one of his moving consultants the sales manager, or he becomes a sales manager. Okay?

Chris:
Yeah.

Louis Massaro:
Because part of that too, is the hiring, the training. You can’t let your sales machine break down. If you’re trying to get somewhere, your marketing is the fuel that goes into the vehicle, the vehicle is the sales machine, that’s what’s going to get you there. So, you need the fuel. But, if the sales machine breaks down, or slows down, you’re not going to get to where you need to be. So, that needs to be a focus. They need to be managed. You need to be able to hire quickly, you need to be able to fire quickly. You hire, you train, you get them in the seat, you bring them through both phases of training, then you continue to do enhancement training to make sure they’re good. You invested in this person, you took the time. Nobody likes hiring.

Louis Massaro:
Nobody likes having to put an ad and bring people in or ask somebody if they know somebody and it’s someone new, are they going to work out or they’re not going to work out? So, once you do that and you’ve invested in them, let that first phase of training and the second phase be like, they’ve got the training wheels on, and then you finally take the training wheels off. But that doesn’t mean, if they’re a little kid, you don’t say, “Go ride around the neighborhood instead of big major streets and do what you want.” You still guide them and show them how to do things, and you want to do that with your sales team to build them up. But I missed, what was the original question? We went off.

Chris:
Yeah, I was just thinking…

Louis Massaro:
You were saying that do they need experience?

Chris:
Yeah.

Louis Massaro:
Do they need experience coming in? If they got a bunch of sales experience, is that good or not good?

Chris:
Right.

Louis Massaro:
Sales experience can be good. Now, if they’ve sold for another moving company, you want to be, it doesn’t mean they’re bad, but it does not mean they’re good either. A lot of people will be like, “Oh, yeah, look, no, they did it, they have experience with the CRM, they know that, they know how to do an inventory. They must be good.” But the reality is, most people aren’t doing it the right way. And so, you might have to retrain somebody. So, for example, that sales manager that hired and didn’t work out, it wasn’t his fault. I was just expecting him to build my processes and build my business the way that I wanted it to be built. Right?

Chris:
Yeah.

Louis Massaro:
So, had I brought him in after I established, built my moving sales machine, if you will. And said, “Here’s what it is, here’s the processes, here’s what you need to do on a daily, go and run it,” he would have done a fantastic job. So, I just want to make that distinction that to where it’s not that he was experienced, he wasn’t good, it was that he came in, there was nothing for him to manage except people. And those people had no processes to follow. So, they became very hard to manage. When people have a process to follow, all you need to do is guide them back to the process. What is that person supposed to be doing right now? You know, guide them back to that. Does that make sense?

Chris:
Yeah. Is that the route that you recommend for a moving company once they get to a certain size that they should, if you have multiple locations, should you have a call center?

Louis Massaro:
If you have multiple locations, and they’re all owned by you, I would definitely have a call center. Because it gives you more… And when I say a call center, let’s say he has one office, and then, this guy, he’s got four consultants. He’s doing $2 million, approximately. Let’s say he opens another office. Maybe he needs to add another consultant for that. But he’s already got this, sound like he doesn’t have them yet. But, once you get the systems and the processes going, it’s easier to control at one location than it is at multiple locations. So, you don’t need to have people on the phones in another location. You might need an on-site estimator, and that’s okay, that you could book appointments for out of the main location. But what do you need there? You need trucks, you need movers, you need somebody to control and operate the movers and the trucks. But, keep your sales centralized.

Chris:
Yeah. I’m thinking back to, well, I’m not thinking back, but I want you to think back to some of your biggest sales days, coming up. Do you remember any of those days where, I mean, was there excitement in the air, people jumping up and down where you were having big days?

Louis Massaro:
Yeah, there were days, I mean, we definitely had like $100,000 days.

Chris:
Wow. Yeah.

Louis Massaro:
But, you’re talking about multiple locations, you’re talking about local and long-distance. There was a time period there where we were hitting that on a pretty regular… Not every day, but it was definitely a big deal. And it was super fun to sit there, and just hit refresh on the CRM. And just watch that, and watch that number just climb, and climb, and hear the excitement and just go out and rally everybody up. But that was a result of a well-orchestrated sales process. That’s it. It’s not that I have any type of superpower or anything like that, it was, from early on, it was like, all right, things need to be done a certain way. If you’re going to grow and you’re going to scale, you can’t expect every person to figure it out. You’ve got a small shop, it’s you and a couple people and you all sit around and you dispatch and we both do sales and you handle customer service and we’re all just doing a little bit of this, and that’s where we’re at. Okay, you could get away with, I do it my way, you do it your way.

Louis Massaro:
But you start wanting to build a business and grow, it’s got to be uniform. It’s got to be the same. And when the stakes are high, like for me, you’re spending a lot of money on marketing, you’re spending a lot of money to hire and train salespeople, and then pay them to be there. Plus, phones, plus managers, plus directors, plus everybody that’s in there, plus, you’re there to make a profit, the stakes are high. So, for me, it became, every little micro-adjustment meant a significant amount of money. Every little improvement we can see. So, you look at all these processes. And then, a lot of people have been to either Moving Sales Academy seminars or even at the current seminars, Moving Mastery Summit, Moving CEO Live, we teach sales too, in addition to everything else.

Louis Massaro:
But, all those processes were all developed out of the realization that little micro-improvements make a big difference. We show the example sometimes of like, what a 5% booking increase can do to the bottom line. And we show the example, and it’s like, for a small moving company like a $300,000 moving company, I believe this number’s like $156,000 more for the year, if you increase your booking percentage by 5%. For a midsize company that’s doing like a million, I believe the number was like $450,000 more a year, by increasing your booking percentage by 5%.

Chris:
Yeah, now you’re getting bigger.

Louis Massaro:
For a large company, like I think it’s a $2 million company in the example we use, $2.5, which is a good size, local only, 5% booking increase, it’s a million dollars more a year. So, when the question comes like, “Louis, where should I put my focus?” Or, “Louis, how did you build a $20 million company? Sales. Because, it’s not what we, leads, leads, leads. Listen, take the same leads and book them at a 5% higher. If you’re booking at 12%, get it to 17%. Do the math for yourself. Run those numbers for yourself and be like, “Okay, instead of booking it wherever you book at, if we went from 25… 12 to 17 doesn’t matter.

Louis Massaro:
If it’s 20 to 25, or if it’s 30 to 35, wherever you’re at, wherever your booking percentage is, run the math on what it would be if you increased it by 5%.

Chris:
Big difference.

Louis Massaro:
And then just look and go, “Yeah, I can see that there’re some inefficiencies here, and I can see it’s possible.” I use that small example because it’s a small example. People are like, “Well, how did you help that company double their sales? How did they go from three to $6 million?” It’s not that hard once you realize all the little loose screws in the sales. And when you tighten that up, it’s a whole different business. It’s a whole different business.

Chris:
So, for this guy, we know you recommend, for him to get to $3 million, you said, he’s going to need a sales manager for sure.

Louis Massaro:
Whether he hires somebody or whether he steps into that role. He’s at that point where he could do it himself or somebody, somebody has to wear that hat. If you’re a little bit smaller, you can wear the hat part-time. At his level, wanting to go to three, you can’t just wish your way to three. And don’t buy more leads just to get to three. You might need more, I don’t know. But, the key is, tightening up that sales process. So, yeah, I would say, he’s going to probably need another, at least, another rep and somebody to be the sales manager.

Chris:
Yeah. And that’s talking about upping his revenue to the goals that he has. As far as his specific question about incentivizing and motivating his salespeople, what are some specific things he can do?

Louis Massaro:
Specifically, I mean, basically, make sure they’re all on commission, because we don’t know that they are. Make sure that they’re all on commission. Give them a weekly check, either hourly or salary as a draw, then give them a commission on the moves that they book. Keep them incentivized, but also keep them with some weekly pay, so they’re not waiting till the end of the month. That’s number one. Number two is, set monthly goals, and tie those to bonuses every single month, individually, for each rep. They don’t have to be the same. So, like, if I’m setting your goal for $75,000 because you’re currently at $68, but Susie over here is at $42, and I’m setting her for $50, it’s not about fairness.

Louis Massaro:
It’s not about like, “Oh, why does she only have to hit this goal, and I have to hit that goal?” Because, I’m pushing you to be better, and reach more from where you’re at.

Chris:
It’s an individual thing.

Louis Massaro:
It’s an individual thing. So, set those goals every month. And then, when you feel the energy lacking, do the spiffs. Right?

Chris:
Yeah, throw those in there.

Louis Massaro:
Do the spiffs. Walk-in, “Hey, whoever books five jobs today, the first person to book X amount of jobs.” So, it’s like, “Whoever books X amount of jobs today, gets this thing.” Meaning, anybody that does it, gets whatever that thing is.

Chris:
Whatever it is. Yeah.

Louis Massaro:
“The first person to book this many jobs gets this thing.” That sets them off to the races. You want to get somebody going quick in the morning, the first person to get there, that’s what they get.

Chris:
What’s the biggest spiff you ever gave out?

Louis Massaro:
Well, I’ve done a few yearly spiffs. One of the things we did was, we called… and I always tried to have a theme around it too, just to make it exciting. Something new, something they’re talking about, something to break up the stagnant energy. Right?

Chris:
Yeah.

Louis Massaro:
We did the Rolex 500. And the thing was, it was like, “The first person to hit $500,000 in sales,” it was going to take them a few months to do it, “the first person to hit $500,000 in sales, I’m buying you a Rolex.”

Chris:
Damn, that’s awesome.

Louis Massaro:
And so, yeah, that you want to talk about getting them fired up. It depends where you are. Like I was in South Florida, I had a bunch of hungry guys that that motivated them. And so, we probably gave away, I forget, at least, two or three, we did that.

Chris:
That’s cool.

Louis Massaro:
We did, whoever books the most this year, at least, a million dollars for the year, gets a trip to Vegas, all expenses paid, plus $5,000 in spending money.

Chris:
Awesome.

Louis Massaro:
Second prize gets $2,500, no trip. Third prize gets… No way, second prize I think got $5,000 also.

Chris:
Okay, but no trip.

Louis Massaro:
But no trip. And then third prize got $2,500, no trip. If you ever do like a winner gets this, do a second and third place. Because, what will happen is, even at that time, everybody knew who was going to win. Because one guy was just crushing it. So, if you put out this, “Hey, whoever hits, the number one person gets this.” And everybody goes, “We know it’s going to be this person.” Give them something to shoot for a little bit, “Man, well, I might be able to get second place. I might be able to get third place.” It’s not about the destination, it’s not about the amount, and it’s not about them, you want them self-driven going after something. And if they don’t feel like they can get it, they’re not going to go after it. So, that’s what I would do.

Chris:
Do the rockstars that you had in the past, did you promote them? I mean, at some point, do they just keep being awesome salespeople or do you bring them up at some point?

Louis Massaro:
Well, it depends. I mean, if you take somebody from sales to management, typically, they’re going to take a step back in pay.

Chris:
Oh, yeah. If they’re a rockstar, yeah.

Louis Massaro:
Yeah. So, the people that I did, one sales manager that I mentored and brought up. I mean, he went from being a salesperson to being a sales manager, took a little step back, but then, went beyond where he could have went.

Chris:
Oh, cool.

Louis Massaro:
So, he’s a sales manager and moved into director of sales, who’s making over $200,000 a year. Wasn’t going to be able to do that booking moves, but, even the other four sales managers that I had had during that timeframe at the same time, because all those people require quite a bit of sales management, they had to take a step back in order to first step in that position with the hopes of growing with the company. So, if somebody is like an ultimate, ultimate, management, just because you’re great at sales, it doesn’t mean you’re going to be great at management. And just because you’re terrible at sales, it doesn’t mean you’ll be bad at management.

Louis Massaro:
You might have somebody that’s really organized, and they’re really good with people, and they’ve got some management experience, but they’re just not a closer, that might be able to run your processes.

Chris:
I see.

Louis Massaro:
And then if you have someone that’s just a rock star on the phone, and now you take them off the phone, and you’re having them just do a lot of administrative stuff, it could hurt your sales.

Chris:
This is a good question, just being able to recognize those abilities in people like, if he’s going to go to $3 million and he’s going to hire some more salespeople, what should you look for in salespeople?

Louis Massaro:
Well, first thing is, they need to sound good on the phone. So, before you even, during a phone interview, if they sound like they just crawled out of a dumpster, they’re not for you.

Chris:
It’s not the guy.

Louis Massaro:
Because that’s the first perception that your customers hear. So, they need to sound good. They need to be hungry, they need to want to make money. They need to be coachable. They need to be resourceful. They need to be someone, because you’re also helping these customers, the way that we teach to sell, is to provide excellent customer service, but then lead the customer to booking with our company, and enrolling into that reservation asking for the business. So, it’s not salesy, salesy, salesy, salesy, it’s not that at all. Anybody listening that knows our processes and using our products, they know, it’s not, the customer doesn’t feel like they’re being sold, the customer feels like they’re getting excellent customer service, and just, the person on the phone knows, like, “I’m now leading them to book the move with our company.”

Louis Massaro:
So, those are some of the characteristics that they want to look for.

Chris:
That’s cool. That’s good. I think we’re going to really help this guy out.

Louis Massaro:
Yeah, I think if he does that, he’ll be right on track. And, I mean, not to put a plug in there, but I would highly, highly recommend that he enrolls in our Moving Sales Academy online course, or join us at Moving CEO Live coming up.

Chris:
I tell you what, if he just applied a small fraction of some of the stuff in Moving Sales Academy, that 5% increase is done deal.

Louis Massaro:
Yeah.

Chris:
I mean, that’s very, very easy and attainable to do.

Louis Massaro:
Yeah, I mean, we tell people when they look into it, it’s like, “Look, you try it, you don’t see the results in 30 days, I’ll give you your money back.” No big deal. And when I say that, Chris, it’s, I’m thinking, how could I help? I’m not thinking, how could I sell him something?

Chris:
Of course.

Louis Massaro:
I mean, you know that, but I’m just saying, I know, it’s like, there’s only so much that we could talk about in a podcast episode. But to get to step by step processes, there’s a place where I have that.

Chris:
It’s all laid out.

Louis Massaro:
It’s all laid out. And it’s just crucial that people have that sales process.

Chris:
But that’s what’s great about Moving Sales Academy, and in here, I am plugging away, too. But it’s the program that we offer that you just see instant results. I mean, it’s immediate, as soon as you start implementing stuff.

Louis Massaro:
Yeah. It’s cool to hear the comments about it. If anybody wants to learn more, you can just go to louismassaro.com. There’s probably a link on there somewhere.

Chris:
Yeah.

Louis Massaro:
They’ll put a link. But, yeah, I mean, that’s how you take what took me 16 years to develop, on a high level, and apply it to any size company. You’ve got, you’re booking moves yourself, what you need is there for you. You’ve already got a call center, we’ve got a lot of bigger clients as well. Everything you need is there.

Chris:
It’s the same.

Louis Massaro:
Yeah. And you start dialing it in and you start taking a step by step, we call it learn and implement style, just learn it and implement it, you’ll see the results. But, for the sake of the podcast, make sure you’re paying them a commission, set up those goals every month, get some exciting spiffs, and make sure someone steps up into that role of sales manager, even if it’s the owner.

Chris:
It’s a perfect time right now, we’re coming out of winter, getting ready to go into moving season, you could implement a few of these things and have a really great spring.

Louis Massaro:
Well, and not assume, see, this big mistake people make is they assume, “Summer is coming. I’m going to make money. It’s all good.” But, the reality is, can you waste less leads? Can you raise your price, and book more jobs, so that at the end of the summer, there’s more left, there’s more money for you, so that you’ve got that money to get you through whatever you need. So, yeah, you’ve got to go out there, you’ve got to focus on building that sales machine for sure.

Chris:
Awesome. Awesome. Well, yeah, thanks for helping this guy. I’m sure he’s going to be happy.

Louis Massaro:
Yeah. All right, guys, well, thanks for being here. Listen, if you like this episode, do me a favor, go to iTunes, Moving Mastery Podcast, and just leave me a review. Let me know what you thought, let me know what you think. If you have any questions at all, just hit me up on Instagram, it’s Louis Massaro, or @louismassaro, @ L-O-U-I-S M-A-S-S-A-R-O. Shoot me a DM, ask me a question and we’ll try to get it here on the podcast to answer for you. And until I see you next time, till I talk to you next time, go out there every single day, profit in your business, and thrive in your life, my friend.