Category Archives: Leadership

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Start Working ON Your Moving Company – Not IN It

Step Away From The Day To Day Of Running Your Business

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We all start businesses for different reasons. For some, it’s just to become their own boss. But is that really what you want? Do you really want to start a business to create a job for yourself? Wouldn’t you rather have other people handle the day to day tasks of your business while you focus on growing your company, improving your company or enjoying your life? In this episode, I share a plan to start working ON your moving company and not IN it.

Plan to start working ON your moving company and not IN it.

  1. Work IN your business to create processes – Before you can step away and start enjoying the true benefits of owning a business you have to spend some time working in your business. You’ll need to see what works and what doesn’t and create processes around it. Before you can step back you will need these processes to train your employees how you want things done.
  2. Train and groom your replacement – Once you have established your processes, you’ll want to start stepping away from each position in your company that you currently fulfill. For example, if you are dispatching all of your trucks, you’ll hire a dispatcher and train them and groom them to do things how you do them. Then you’ll move on to other areas of the business like sales, accounting and so on.
  3. Fine tune your systems and S.O.P’s – Now that you’ve stepped away from a position and are able to watch someone else handle it, you’re going to want to fine tune your standard operating procedures (SOP). The process may need to be adjusted based on the way you used to do it yourself vs. how you want your employee to do it.
  4. Develop your K.P.I’s – Now that your systems are running smoothly and your employees are the ones running them, you need some reports. Key performance indicators (KPI) are a set of metrics that measure how well each area of your business is doing. Having these numbers is a crucial step in being able to step away from your moving company.
  5. Manage your business from reports and meetings – This is the ultimate goal. If you have other people running the day to day of your business and you’re able to see how they are doing based on the reports, you gain clarity. Now you can review your reports and have meetings with your staff to provide leadership and direction.
  6. Focus on business development – So now that everything is running smoothly and you have the right people in place and the right systems, what do you do with your time? You focus on making your company better, you focus on expansion and growth. At this point, you can see things more clearly and it becomes much easier to put new initiatives in place.

You owe it to yourself to set up a business that works for you and not the other way around. Then you will have a smooth running company, and be able to take the time to enjoy your life.

Watch the video above for the full episode.

Like this episode? Please share it! My blog and videos are ad-free ONLY because you share my work!

How can I help? What challenges are you facing in your business? What areas could you use some tips in?

Leave me a comment below and I will be more than happy to get back to you or post a video on the topic.

Follow Louis on Instagram for daily tips and motivation to grow your moving company.

 

Full Transcript
[The following is the full transcript of this episode.]

Hey, my friend. It’s Louis Massaro, CEO of Moving Mastery and founder of Moving Sales Academy. I don’t know about you, but for me, the ultimate goal is to work on my business, not in my business. And what I mean by that is when you start a moving company, you don’t really wanna create a job for yourself, do you? You don’t wanna have to go there every single day and work every single day. That’s what you need to do to get it going, but don’t you wanna create a system and a process and have good people in place to where you can step back and not have to be there on the day-to-day basis to make sure that the trucks get out, make sure that the moves get booked? Well, that’s what I wanna walk you through. I wanna walk you through the steps to work on your business and not in your business. There’s a big difference. When you work in your business, you’re essentially one of your own employees. You’re filling a key role for the company whether you’re dispatching on a day-to-day basis, whether you’re answering the phone and booking moves, whether you’re doing your own accounting… That’s you working in the business.

When you’re working on your business, your business is running without you, and you’re able to basically work on growing your business, improving your business, implementing new processes and business development that’s gonna help grow your company. That’s working on your business, and if you want to grow, the only way to grow is to first be able to take a step back and work on your business. So I want to walk you through the steps on how to do that. First thing you need to do… Sounds counterintuitive, but the first thing you need to do is work in your business to create the processes. These are the stages that you’re gonna go through. So even if you’re just starting out right now, this is for you, also. You might say, “I’m never gonna be able to to just work on my business. I’m the only one here.” Or, “It’s only a couple of us.” It all starts that way. It started with me that way. Basically, when I first started my company, I was the only one doing it for months. Six months, I was the only one. I answered the phones. I dispatched the trucks. I was the warehouseman. I did the claims. I did the storage billing. I did everything. But then I was able to train people, bring people in, get a team behind me to where I wasn’t working in my business and I was able to grow and expand.

When you have several locations, there’s no way you can work in those additional locations. You can’t be everywhere at once, so you have to have a formula for working on your business. But it all starts with first working in your business to create the processes that you’re gonna then be able to teach others to run your company. So the second step is to start training and grooming your replacement. And this could be in each and every single department. Whether your first hire might be a dispatcher, you wanna spend the time with them, once you’ve already established what your processes are, training them and grooming them to take over that position. And then maybe you move into just doing sales, and now you have someone to handle dispatch. And then you get somebody to come in and handle sales, and you train them and groom them, and you move away. So with each and every department, you’re gonna need to train and groom a replacement for yourself so you can start to step away department by department.

The next step is you’re gonna fine-tune your systems and your SOPs. So you’ve already created a process. You’ve started to train and groom one person or several people to take over those processes. And now that you see what it’s like for somebody else to be running them on a day-to-day basis, you’re gonna wanna fine-tune those processes and your SOPs, which are standard operating procedures. Basically, how to do dispatch step-by-step, how to take an inbound call step-by-step. Those are your standard operating procedures. You’re gonna wanna fine-tune those. And the next step is you’re gonna wanna develop your KPIs. Your KPIs are your key performance indicators. These are the numbers and the metrics in your reporting that are gonna allow you to manage your business based on the numbers. But first you have to establish what those are. Are you gonna be looking at your booking percentage to see how your sales are doing? Are you gonna be looking at your average move to see how your operations are doing? Are you gonna be looking at the amount of packing sold per move? Are you gonna be looking at… I don’t know… Attendance rates for sales reps? Whatever it is that you’re gonna develop your KPIs, you’re gonna wanna make sure that you have these setup so that you can go on to the next step, which is manage your business from reports and meetings.

This is possible. This is how I ran my business for years. Once I set everything up and I had the right people in place and the systems in place and the standard operating procedures, I basically was able to see what was going on by the numbers. And you don’t have to be a numbers person to do this. You don’t have to be a mathematician to do this. You just have to set up the proper KPIs. The proper numbers to where you know, “Hey, if it goes over this point, that’s good. If it goes under this point it’s a problem, and I need to do something about it.” Once you have those set up, you have daily reports. You have weekly reports. You have monthly reports, quarterly reports, yearly reports that allow you to run your business, and then when there’s issues and there’s problems, you have meetings with your team to address them and start correcting whatever issues there are.

Then, final step after that is you focus on business development. This means different things for different people. If you wanna have one solid company, you focus on different ways to improve. You take a step back, essentially. That’s what you’re doing. You’re working on your business. I’m not saying leave and never come back, I’m not saying set some people up and disappear and just wait for your pay checks and get ’em in the mail and you never have to look at your business. No. You’re managing your business based on reports, based on having meetings with your team, and now you’re focusing on ways to improve the business. You’re focusing on ways to bring in more business, become more profitable or to expand. Once you’re at this point, now you can expand. You wanna open additional locations? Now you have the ability to do that, but if you’re working in your business… If you’re required to come in every day and dispatch your own trucks and you try to open up an additional location, it’s gonna be very difficult to operate that. It’s gonna be very difficult to have your current business running smoothly and your new location running smoothly. You need to get yourself to be able to step back to where you could watch everything from afar and make tweaks and adjustments, and that’s what’s gonna help you get to that next level.

So anybody can do this. Remember if you don’t know my story, I started off renting two trucks, working out of a truck rental yard with no money. I developed my system, I brought people on, I started grooming them, I took a step back, I started to perfect my SOPs. I started to run my company off of reports and meetings. I started working on business development. I grew and I expanded and eventually we were doing $20 Million year. I’m just a regular guy, I didn’t go to college, I didn’t know what I was doing when I got into business. You can do this as well. So unless you just wanna create a job for yourself, unless you just wanna be your own boss and have a place to go to work every day, focus on being able to work on your business and not in your business and allow yourself the gift to be able to grow and get to that next level. Push yourself to get there, alright. If you have any questions on how to do this, leave them in the comments below, I’ll be more than happy to answer ’em for you. I hope this was helpful. Until I see next week, go out and profit in business, thrive in life. I’ll see you later.

 

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Movers Guide to Buying Moving Trucks

4 Great Options for Buying and Leasing Trucks

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Buying trucks for your moving company can be very exciting but can also be overwhelming. There are so many options, it’s definitely not a one size fits all solution for all movers. In this episode, I share with you four options for buying moving trucks for your moving company. I’ll give you my recommendations and contacts for where to buy them.

When I started out, I rented two trucks from Penske and would dispatch them out of their yard every morning. Within a few months, I was able to order my first truck. It was a brand new 2001 International 4300 with a 26’ foot AM Hair moving body on it. It was beautiful!

As I continued to grow, I kept ordering new trucks. I would buy them new and finance or lease them depending on my tax strategy for that year. So even as I started buying my interstate fleet I bought new. In this episode, I share with you four great options for buying moving trucks.

4 options for buying moving trucks:

Option 1 – Brand New Truck

  • Freightliner M-2
  • Automatic Transmission
  • 26’ Kentucky Moving Body
  • 26,000 GVW (Non-CDL)
  • Price: $91,000 – $95,000
  • Payment: Approximately $1,500 per month
  • Where to buy: Tom Nehl Freightliner – Contact Jamie Smith

These are the trucks that we bought in recent years. These are the top of the line and are beautiful trucks! If you’re in the business for the long run and have the resources and credit to buy one of these trucks, I highly recommend them. Once I switched from buying International trucks to Freightliners, I started buying all my trucks from Jamie Smith. She’s amazing and knows everything there is to know about what movers need in a truck and has spec trucks or she can order you something custom from Kentucky Trailer. She can help you with your local trucks and also tractors for interstate moving.

Option 2 – New/Used Combo Truck

  • Used Chassis 150,000 – 200,000 miles (Kenworth, Hino)
  • Automatic Transmission
  • New 26’ Moving Body by All Van
  • 26,000 GVW (Non-CDL)
  • Price: $60,000 – $65,000
  • Payment: Approximately $1,200 per month
  • Where to buy: MHC Truck Source Atlanta – Contact “Diesel” Dan Parsons

These are great alternatives to buying moving trucks that are brand new. If you want that new moving truck look and don’t mind a chassis with some miles on it, this can be a great option. They basically take trucks that are off-lease with about 150,000 to 200,000 miles on them and put a brand new moving body from All Van. I’ve worked with clients of mine and referred them to “Diesel Dan” and they were happy with the product.

Option 3 – Used Truck

  • 26,000 GVW (max) Non-CDL
  • Automatic Transmission
  • Make sure it has good maintenance records
  • 24’-26’ moving body
  • Non-refrigerated
  • E-tracks in body for straps
  • Price: Varies
  • Where to buy: UsedMovingVans.com

If you are skilled at maintaining trucks yourself, or have a really good mechanic and would rather save money and buy a used truck that’s ok too. Above are some things you want to look for when buying a used truck. UsedMovingVans.com by Movers Supply House is the go-to site for buying and selling used moving trucks.

Option 4 – Full-Service Lease

  • Freightliner, Hino, Kenworth, International
  • 26,000 GVR (max) Non-CDL
  • Automatic Transmission
  • 24’-26’ moving body
  • Price: Lease payment vary based on terms
  • Where to buy: Penske Leasing & Ryder Leasing

This is another great option. You can get a brand new truck that these companies will buy and then lease it to you. The lease covers so much on the truck like maintenance and even trucks washes. Check with Penske and Ryder to see what type of deals they have. In most cases, if the truck breaks down they’ll give you a rental truck to use while the fix your truck. By leasing the trucks it’s also a tax write off.

Those are my recommendations for buying moving trucks. Don’t be afraid to rent trucks either. If you’re just starting out and aren’t ready to buy a truck or if you’re established and feel the need for more trucks, you can always rent.

After you buy your moving truck make sure you letter it up with your logo and keep it clean! That truck will act as a rolling billboard and bring you in a ton of business from people seeing your truck on the road.

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Watch the video above for the full episode.

Like this episode? Please share it! My blog and videos are ad-free ONLY because you share my work!

How can I help? What challenges are you facing in your business? What areas could you use some tips in?

Leave me a comment below and I will be more than happy to get back to you or post a video on the topic.

Get FREE Video Training on “The 6 Stages of Building a Moving Sales Machine”

Follow Louis on Instagram for tons of great quotes.

Full Transcript
[The following is the full transcript of this episode.]
Hey, my friend. It’s Louis Massaro, CEO of Moving Mastery and founder of Moving Sales Academy. I wanna welcome you to this week’s episode. I’ve been getting a lot of e-mails and comments lately about buying new trucks, and my opinion on what type of trucks people should buy. And I just wanted to address it because it’s not a one-size-fits-all answer. Depending on where you are with your company, depending on the size of your company, depending on your accounting situation, and whether you’re gonna buy, whether you’re gonna finance, whether you wanna lease a truck, there’s many options. So, I want to give you a few of those options, and go over what my suggestions and recommendations are.

When I was opening up new locations, I always started with two trucks in each location, and then grew it from there. And each time I bought brand new trucks, I financed them, I didn’t pay cash for very expensive trucks, but I financed them and put two trucks to start in each location. And I prefer to buy brand new trucks when I need a truck, when I’m opening new locations, so I’ve never bought used trucks. But I’ve worked with many people who have, and I just wanna go over the different options.

First thing, first option is a brand new truck, this would be my recommendation today. If you have the ability to buy a brand new truck, I would go with a Freightliner M2 with a 26-foot Kentucky moving body on there, 26,000 GVW, which is a non-CDL truck, so 26,000 GVW’s gross vehicle weight. That basically allows you to have a standard driver in that truck that does not need a CDL. This is such a beautiful, beautiful truck. This is essentially what I bought for my company. Early on, we were buying Internationals, we were putting AM air boxes on them, this is what I would get today. This is a Freightliner M2, Kentucky, 26-foot, brand new moving body.

If you ever bought a brand new moving box and it arrives, because you have to order them in advance, they’re not just sitting around, so if you do wanna get a new moving body, if you do wanna get a new truck, start preparing in September, October and November to make sure that you have it for the next moving season. But, if when you get that truck, and you open up the back and you see those wood floors, and you smell that oak and the polyurethane, it’s just a beautiful thing, a brand new moving truck. And it’ll last you 10 years. So, a truck like this is gonna run you about $95,000. If you finance it, you’re probably looking at about $1,500 a month; that does not include insurance. You can get extended warranties on them. So, look into buying a brand new moving truck. I’m gonna put some resources in the show notes below, so that you can reach out and use who I buy my trucks from, and definitely, look into it.

Now, if $95,000’s too steep of a price tag, I understand. The next option is a new/used combo, a new/used combo. So, what this is, is this is a used chassis, so the truck itself is used, about 150,000 to 200,000 miles, and then, there’s a brand new moving body on it. I’m gonna give you some resources to find this as well. There’s not many people that do this, but I’m gonna share with you my resource and my connection for finding this truck. And essentially, what they do is they’ll take a Kenworth truck or a Hino truck that’s off lease, again about 150,000 to 200,000 miles, and then they’ll put a brand new, all van moving body on there. Again, brand new with the attic, 26-foot, 26,000 GVW, non-CDL truck. This truck’s gonna run you about $65,000. So, if you finance this, you’re probably looking somewhere in the range of about $1,200 a month. So, if you don’t wanna go brand new, you can do a new/used combo which still gives you that new look of having a brand new moving body, which is really important when you’re starting to build a brand and your image, and that billboard’s running around town, it looks really nice to have a new moving body.

Third option is straight up used trucks. A new truck’s too much money, the combo’s too much money, and you wanna go for a used truck. What you wanna do is you wanna look for a non-CDL, 26,000 GVW, so max 26,000 gross vehicle weight that will allow you to be a non-CDL truck. You want an automatic transmission. If you can find an automatic transmission, it’s gonna be much better. For any of you that have a manual transmission or have dealt with manual transmissions at your company, that’s what I bought in my first few years in business, and we burned through a bunch of clutches. Drivers will come in and they’ll just burn. They don’t know how to drive the truck properly, and they’re just gonna burn through your clutch, and you’re just gonna be spending money, after money, after money. So, it’s better to spend the money to get an automatic truck, upfront, and this way, there’s not as much skill needed to drive that truck. Make sure that when you’re buying a used truck, there’s maintenance records to show that they’ve being keeping that truck maintenanced over the course of time that they’ve had it, that they’ve had regular PMs, preventative maintenance on the truck, and they should have the records showing that.

And you also want a 24 to 26-foot truck. If you’re gonna buy a truck, don’t spend the money to get a 20-footer or a 15-footer. It’s about the same amount of fuel to run a 24 or 26-foot truck and it just gives you more ability to do larger moves. And make sure you get a non-refrigerated truck. If you’re looking for used trucks, and you’re not quite sure what to look for, these are the things that you wanna make sure that it has. A non-refrigerated truck, or a reefer truck, as they call it, has essentially a cooling system in it, you don’t want that, you don’t need that, you don’t wanna pay for it. So that’s going with the used truck. I’m also gonna put some links below where you could find some used trucks, usedmovingvans.com is a great, great source for finding used trucks, used trucks that were specifically from a moving company, so they have the moving box on them. And then, there’s also off-lease trucks that you can get from Ryder, Penske, Budget, but I would stick with going to usedmovingvans.com and start there, if you’re gonna be buying a used truck.

Fourth option, if you don’t wanna buy a brand new truck, if you don’t wanna buy a combo, new/used, so you have a used chassis in a brand new body, and your third options is to buy a used truck, is to do a full maintenance lease. Ryder and Penske offer these amongst other companies to where you can get a brand new truck. They’ll lease it to you, and it’s full maintenance, meaning they’ll take care of everything. Again, it has to do with the plan that you set up with them during the lease, so check with them as to what the details are and what’s offered. But if the truck breaks down, they’ll give you another truck to use. This is a great option, especially, talk to your accountant if you need the full write-off on a lease. When you buy a truck, you don’t write off the whole payment, so that could be a very steep payment to not get the write off, although, it goes on your balance sheet, a lease is a complete write off.

So, these are the four options. And listen, if you’re in it for the long haul, if you’re in this business and you’re building a brand and you’re building a company, don’t be afraid to spend money on your trucks. Just make sure that you service ’em, make sure you take care of ’em, make sure they’re clean, because you could have a brand new moving truck that you never clean, you never wash, and it looks like crap and that’s what people see when it’s rolling around town. So, make sure you’re doing preventive maintenance on the trucks every 6,000 miles, make sure you’re sending ’em in for a regular PM, make sure you’re washing them on a regular basis, and make sure you letter it up. Put your logo on the side, make sure people see it coming. If you get a brand new truck, if you get a brand new box, or even a good-looking used truck, you wanna make sure that it’s representing your company.

So listen, guys, I hope this was helpful. I’m getting this information and I’m doing these episodes based off the comments I’m receiving, based off the emails that you’re sending me, so if you have any questions, if there’s anything I could help you with, please, send me an email, leave a comment, I’ll be more than happy to get back to you. I know it’s moving season, I hope you’re busy, I hope you’re out there crushing it, I hope you’re thinking about buying some new trucks ’cause you’re that busy. I could tell you, if you’re gonna buy new, if you’re gonna buy a new/used combo, plan in advance. It takes months to build these new moving boxes. I made the mistake many years where March comes around and I’m like, “Oh, man, I need new trucks,” and I don’t get ’em until the end of season. So, it’s something that I want you to start thinking about now for next year. And I’m gonna put some resources, reach out to the truck dealers, talk to them, see what the deal is, see what works for you, see what financing options there are. And you know what, keep building, keep growing. Go out every day, profit in business, thrive in life. I’ll see you next week.

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Should Your Moving Company Become a Van Line Agent?

The Pros and Cons of Your Moving Company Joining a Van Line

To become an agent for a van line or not to become an agent? That’s the question I’ve been getting asked lately. When you want to grow your interstate/long distance portion of your moving company, joining a van line is definitely something to consider. In this week’s episode, I dive into the pros and cons to help you decide if your moving company should become an agent for a van line.

5 PROS of your moving company becoming an agent for a van line.

  1. Nationally recognized brand – When you join a major van line you will get instant brand recognition in your marketplace. Along with your own company name you will also be able to brand all your marketing with the van line’s name as well. (subta.com) This is a great benefit, especially when dealing with interstate moves, account work and higher end jobs.
  2. Additional sales channels (Military, national accounts & logistics) – Although you don’t have to become an agent for a van line to become military approved or get national accounts, it helps. The van lines have access to these types of additional revenue opportunities and as an agent in their network, they need you to facilitate these moves.
  3. Backhaul shipments – To be profitable in long distance moving, you must have backhaul shipments! When you have a shipment from one part of the country to another, it’s important to fill up your truck on the way back with backhaul shipments. The van line helps facilitate those shipments for you with their network of agents throughout the country. As an independent, you can still make relationships with other independent carriers for your backhauls but the van line makes this easier.
  4. Network of haulers – When you book a shipment and aren’t able to haul it with your own trucks, you can “surrender” the shipment to the van line. They will find another agent to haul the shipment and you will receive a percentage of the job for booking it. Yes, as an independent you can also do this through an interline agreement with another independent carrier but the van line makes it easier. And for the most part you know your customer is in good hands.
  5. Storage in transit (S.I.T) – When another agent in the van line has a move coming to your city and needs storage, you will be able to get that shipment. You’ll be able to charge for storage as well as the local move out of storage. Just another revenue opportunity!

5 CONS of your moving company becoming an agent for a van line.

  1. Percentage of all interstate revenue goes to van line – Even when you do everything on the move…spend money on marketing, pay your sales team’s commission, haul the shipment on your truck, pay the driver…you will still give the van line a percentage of that job. Although there is support that the van line provides and you’re hauling it using their DOT & FMCSA Authority, giving them a piece of the pie can be seen as a con.
  2. Must follow van line’s guidelines – As an interstate carrier there are regulations that need to be followed that are set forth by the USDOT and FMCSA. As an agent for a van line, you have to follow those regulations PLUS the guidelines of the van line. Depending on the van line and the actual guidelines, this can be helpful or restrictive.
  3. Loss of brand recognition – Although you gain nationally known brand recognition when you are an agent for a van line, you also loose your own company’s branding. Most of the major van lines will require you to re-letter your trucks with their logs and colors. So if you are trying to build an independent brand this can be challenging with a most major van lines. There ARE some mid-size van lines that will allow you to keep your branding.
  4. Must have a warehouse facility – If you currently don’t have a warehouse facility and want to become an agent for a van line, you won’t be able to in most cases. Van lines will require you to have a warehouse which is not always a bad thing. By having that warehouse you will get more revenue opportunities.
  5. Van line politics – As an agent for a van line, you are still your own boss and run your company the way you want…for the most part. The van line systems can be very political and to thrive within the network you must understand “how things work” within their system.

Overall, a van line provides you with support and guidance in many areas of your business. I chose to stay independent when I was running my interstate division of my company but considered many times becoming a van line agent. I know many moving company owners that are happy with their decision to become an agent for a van line. I also know independent companies that thrive without the support.

I would say it’s definitely something to explore and see if it feels right to you and fits into your overall business plan and goals.

List of Major Van Lines:

  1. Allied Van Lines
  2. Atlas Van Lines 
  3. Mayflower
  4. North American Van Lines
  5. United Van Lines 
  6. Wheaton / Bekins

List of Mid-Size Van Lines:

  1. Arpin Van Lines 
  2. National Van Lines
  3. Stevens Van Lines

Watch the video above for the full episode.

Like this episode? Please share it! My blog and videos are ad-free ONLY because you share my work!

How can I help? What challenges are you facing in your business? What areas could you use some tips in?

Leave me a comment below and I will be more than happy to get back to you or post a video on the topic.

Follow Louis on Instagram for tons of great quotes.

 

Full Transcript
[The following is the full transcript of this episode.]
Hey my friend, it’s Louis Massaro, CEO of Moving Mastery and founder of Moving Sales Academy. Today we’re gonna be talking about whether your moving company should join a major van line and become an agent, to help run your interstate long distance division of your company. When I say a major van line, I’m talking about Atlas, Mayflower, Allied, United, North American, National, Arpin… I’ll put a list of all of them in the notes below, this way you could check them out for yourself. But, let’s talk about what the pros and what the cons are to becoming an agent for a van line. Let’s jump right into it.

The first pro of becoming an agent for a van line is nationally recognized brand. Immediately, whatever the name of your company it is whether it’s well-known, whether you’ve been around for a while, whether you really have a brand following. You’ll instantly get one by joining a van line. You’ll be able to use all their marketing material, you’ll most likely have to letter your trucks with their logos and their colors and everything but you’ll instantly have a brand that everyone recognizes. When you go on estimates, when you’re quoting people over the phone, when you’re doing presentations, you’ll have a brand that is already recognized. That’s the first pro of becoming an agent for a van line.

The second pro is additional sales channels with military, national accounts, and logistics. You don’t have to be a van line agent to get these, but by becoming a van line agent it makes these much more accessible and the van line will help you get military moves, national accounts, logistics jobs. These are things that are already within the van line’s network and within their scope of work. Especially if you’re in a city, in an area where they could use someone to handle these accounts, this is another pro of becoming an agent for a van line.

Third pro of becoming an agent for a van line is backhaul shipments. If you’re independent, if you’re not affiliated with a van line, you have to worry about getting backhauls. Meaning if you are in LA and you have a move that goes to New York, and you don’t have anything to come back from New York, and your truck comes back empty, you’re not gonna be very profitable. The van line has agents in all kinds of cities, almost a full national footprint, and they’ll be able to get you backhaul shipments to fill your truck. That’s another pro of being an agent for a van line. Wherever your truck goes, chances are you’ll be able to find the shipment for a backhaul. It’s really important. Now you could find this as an independent, but the van line makes it much easier for you.

Pro number four is you have a network of haulers. This is the reverse. Let’s say you book a move and you’re not able to service it. You don’t have the trucks, you don’t have the capacity, all your trucks are busy or let’s say you book a move that’s out-of-area for you, the van line has a network of haulers, other moving companies that could then haul that shipment for you, and you receive a percentage just for booking it. You’re not brokering out a job, but you’re giving it to another carrier, or I should say another agent within the van line agency. That’s another big pro.

And the fifth pro is storage and transit. What storage in transit is, SIT, basically if another van line agent that is in the same van line as you has a shipment come into your city that needs storage, and then possibly a local redelivery as well, there’s a good chance you’ll get that shipment, you’ll be able to collect on the storage, you’ll be able to do the local move. That’s another benefit and another pro of becoming an agent for a van line. Those are five positive good reasons why you would become an agent for a major van line. Let’s talk about what the cons are. I’m gonna give you five cons as well.

A percentage of all your interstate business will go to the van lines. Meaning a percentage of the revenue of all your interstate moves will go to the van line. Even if you do all the marketing, you book the move, you put it on your truck, you haul it, you’re still gonna give a percentage of that to the van line. There’s support and there’s things that go along with that; there’s a reason they charge it. But I would say that that’s a con that you’re giving up part of your money to the van line on a shipment that you handle 100% by yourself, and there’s other fees and other things that they charge you for as well.

The second con of becoming an agent for a van line is you must follow the van line’s guidelines. As an interstate carrier, you have USDOT and FMCSA laws and regulations to follow, well you’ll also have the van line’s guidelines to follow. And each van line has different guidelines, but this would be another con. If you’re wanting to do things a certain way, you may or may not be able to do them the way you want to because you have to follow the van line’s guidelines.

A third con is loss of brand recognition. We talked about gaining a nationally known brand recognition as a pro for becoming an agent for a van line. Well, you’ll lose your own brand recognition. If you’re trying to build a brand and you wanna be recognizable with your trucks and not be known as the van line agent, but be known as your own company, you would lose that. That’s not always a bad thing, it all depends on what your strategy is for growth. But it’s just something to keep in mind. The fourth con is you must have a warehouse facility. If you’re a moving company and you’re working out of a truck yard or you just have an office where you park trucks and you don’t have a warehouse, most van lines are gonna require you to be an agent, they’re gonna require you to have a warehouse facility for things like the storage in transit and things like that, that are revenue opportunities for you, so it’s not all bad. But if you don’t have a warehouse, you will need a warehouse to become a van line agent.

And then the fifth con to becoming a van line agent is just van line politics. You now are not the sole decision maker of what happens with your company. The things that you do in regards to your interstate business, your marketing and things like… There’s a lot that you now are part of a network that you have to follow their guidelines and be a part of what’s going on. And there’s also, who gets the military shipments in the city? Maybe that van line has another agent, there’s multiple agents in one city, so it’s who gets the account work, things like that. There’s those things to consider as well.

That’s five pros and five cons to becoming a van line agent. If you’re a local mover and you’re not doing any interstate business, but you’re receiving a lot of interstate requests, or you have your interstate license and you’re doing a few shipments here and there on your own trucks, and you feel like you could use some more support… That’s another big benefit too is that if you’re really just getting started and you don’t have a full understanding of interstate, it’s challenging. It was challenging for me. If you know my story, you know I sold my long distance fleet and became a broker, which turned out to be a terrible decision, but it’s challenging. If you’re just starting out and you could really use the support, it’d definitely be worth checking out becoming an agent for a van line. I know a lot of people that are agents for different van lines and, for the most part, they’re all happy with the fact that… They might have some grievances, but they’re all happy being an agent for a van line. It just provides you that national support. There are also some cons to it. We talked about all of them, but I just wanted to lay it out for you. If you have any more questions about this, these are only five pros and five cons, there’s more to it. Definitely leave me a comment, ask me questions, send me an email, I’ll be more than happy to help you.

I’m also gonna put a list of all the van lines, so that you can go ahead. If you’re ready to do it, apply to all of them. You don’t know which van lines need an agent in your city. You might be in a city right now where they’re in desperate need of a good agent. And if you provide good service and you’re already doing a lot of marketing for your local side of your business and you’re able to get interstate work, you might be a great fit for them. Don’t be afraid to try it out and if you know what? If you wanna stay independent, that’s cool too. I just wanted to lay it out for you, I’m not trying to tell you to go one way or tell you to go the other way. All I could say is, I know many successful, independent moving companies that have a lot of interstate business that handle their own backhauls and are able to work with other moving companies to set that up, and they’re happy doing it the way they do it. And I know a lot of van line agents that are part of a network, they’re part of a bigger family, if you will, and they’re happy that way. It really all depends on you and the future and where you see yourself taking your company and how this all fits in. I hope this was helpful. Go out there every single day, profit in business, thrive in life. I’ll see you later.

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Prepare Yourself for Moving Season

Make Money and Avoid Burn Out

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As a moving company owner, we wait all year long for moving season to come around. Regardless of what you do to keep your business busy in the winter months, there’s always a natural increase of business in spring and summer. To maximize your summers it’s important to prepare yourself for moving season.

I’m not just talking about preparing your equipment and manpower, I’m talking about preparing yourself mentally. Getting yourself in the right frame of mind as you come into moving season is crucial to avoid overwhelm and burn out. You want to make sure that you and your team are prepared for the extra work that is ahead.

It’s exciting when it first starts getting busy. But what happens in the middle of the summer? What happens when you and everyone in our company have been putting in those extra hours, dealing with that extra stress?

As a leader, it’s your job to remind your team that moving season is everyone’s time to make money.

I used to have movers that in the off-season they would come to me and my dispatchers begging for more hours. Then in the summer time, those same movers were asking for days off. It’s up to you as the owner or manager of your business to encourage them to work the extra hours in the summer, to put in the over time and to stash some of that money away for the off-season.

Say to your team… “For the next few months in moving season, this is when we are all going to be able to make our money. For the business, this is when we are going to be able to make all of our money, for the movers this is when you are going to be able to get all of the hours. Remember a few months ago when you were begging me for hours? Well, now is the time!”

Give yourself and your team mental breaks.

In moving season, you and your employee’s normal schedule gets thrown out the window. The weekends are slammed, the end of the month is slammed! You might need to readjust some schedules and give days off based on when it slows down. You might have to give someone a Tuesday and Wednesday off at the beginning of the month to make up for all the hours they have been putting in.

Make sure you do the same for yourself. Although the money is flowing in, moving season can feel long and tiresome if you’re not giving yourself some days off and mental breaks.

Strike while the iron is hot!

Make sure you take on as much work as you can. Hire some more movers, rent trucks if you need to and capitalize on how busy it will be! A good summer can set you up financially for the rest of the year!

It’s time, go get it!

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Watch the video above for the full episode.

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How can I help? What challenges are you facing in your business? What areas could you use some tips in?

Leave me a comment below and I will be more than happy to get back to you or post a video on the topic.

 

Full Transcript

[The following is the full transcript of this episode.]

Hey, my friend. It’s Louis Massaro, CEO of Moving Mastery and founder of Moving Sales Academy. Listen, I really hope that you’ve experienced a summer that you’re just slammed. Moves just back to back, more business than you can handle. If you’ve been there, you know that you wait for it all year. All off season you can’t wait for season. It’s slow, things are a little bit tight, maybe the money’s not coming in like it is in season and once it comes it’s great. Business starts picking up, but what happens in the middle of summer when you just start to feel like this is too much? I’m working too many hours, I’m here too late, I’m working every weekend, your staff is starting to complain ’cause they’re working so much over time. You have to mentally prepare yourself for moving season. The same way you mentally prepare yourself for coming out of moving season, you have to mentally prepare yourself for going into moving season.

There’s things that you need to do for your business as well, you need to definitely start staffing up before moving season starts. You need to start hiring and finding some good movers because if you try to wait until season, chances are, they’re already gonna be hired by somebody else. There’s things like that that you need to do for your business. Making sure that you have access to additional rental trucks if you need them, making sure you have all the equipment you need. But I wanna talk about mentally preparing for it, for you and your staff. I’m sure you have movers that work for you and in the off season it might be a little slow, and it’s tough, and they come to you, and they’re like, “Listen, I need more hours. I need to make more money.” That was always something that really bothered me when it slowed down a little bit and we didn’t have enough work for everybody coming out of moving season. You try to rotate, you try to make sure everybody gets the hours, but it’s tough because you don’t have the amount of work that you once had a few months prior in season.

Well, then what happens is season comes and those same movers who said that they needed additional hours are now telling you that it’s too much work, they’re working too many hours. And I can understand that. I get it. It’s hard work. Going out there everyday moving furniture, that’s one of the toughest jobs out there, period. But you have to, as the leader of your company, stay strong in these times and you have to remind everybody that now is our time. These next few months in moving season is our time to make our money. For me as the company, it’s our time to make our money. For you as movers, this is when you’re gonna be able to get all the hours. Remember in December when you were talking to me or in January you’re talking to me about how you needed more hours? This is just how it works. It’s gonna be slow sometimes and it’s gonna be busy other times. Work as much as you can now. Put that money away so that when it slows down a little bit, you’ll be able to make up for the hours that you’re not getting. This is what you’re saying to your movers.

Not only do you have to mentally prepare yourself, you need to mentally prepare your team, get them ready. Your sales team, maybe in the off season, maybe you don’t have your sales department open on Sundays for example, but maybe in the summer you might wanna open your sales up in the summer on a Sunday to pick up that extra work. So everybody’s gonna be working extra hard, your dispatcher, if you have one or multiple, they’re gonna be working extra hard. That’s gonna be a tough, tough position. You have to be able to let everyone know, this is our time. The off season’s the off season, but now it’s go time. This is when we need to make it happen.

So, listen, as you go through, you might require people to work weekends. You might require people to work overtime. Pay attention to the schedules that you’re having people work and be open to giving them off a Tuesday at the beginning of the month, or a Wednesday or start giving days off that you normally wouldn’t give off so that people could get rest, people could catch up on sleep, on personal errands, on time. If they’re working a ton of hours, I know normally maybe their schedule’s Monday through Saturday and they normally have Sunday off or Monday through Friday and they have Saturday and Sunday off, you’re gonna need to change that up a little bit in season, and you might have to do it based on your calender. If you’re slow, give somebody the day off. And that includes yourself. You have to take some mental breaks and step away.

Moving season… Listen, I always try to capitalize as much as I could on moving season. I hired as many guys as I could right before season started. We rented trucks, we bought extra equipment, and we took on as much work as we could possibly take on. It’s exhausting. There were times when I first started my business, in my first few years in business in the summer, at the end of the month, I slept there for three, four, five nights in a row. Didn’t leave. I had a shower installed and everything. I wanted all the work. I wanna make sure that we did everything we could to take advantage of that time so that in the off season it wasn’t such a big deal that it wasn’t so busy.

So just remember, now’s your time, you gotta strike while the iron’s hot. Season is when the iron’s hot. You just have to make sure that you and your team and your troops are ready to go and that you’re giving yourself the mental breaks along the way and you’re constantly being the point of encouragement for your staff. I hope this was helpful. I’ll see you next week. Make sure you go out, profit in business, thrive in life, be ready for moving season, make sure you make the biggest impact you can, make the most money you can this season. I’ll see you next week.

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Ready to Expand Your Moving Company?

5 Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Expand

When you have a successful moving company it’s a natural thought to think about opening up additional locations. Right? But how do you know if it’s the right time and the right move for you? In this week’s episode, I’m sharing 5 questions to ask yourself that will tell you if it’s time to expand your moving company!

Two years after opening my first moving company, I decided that I was ready to open additional locations. I opened three additional locations in that first year of my expansion phase. One office was within driving distance from my existing location and the other two I had to get on a plane to visit.

Although I had a solid system for running my first location, I quickly realized that I would need to adjust my approach to run multiple locations. In less than a year, I went from having one moving company to four moving companies. The following year I continued to expand. It became challenging to run all of these locations with such rapid growth. That’s when I started to implement standard operating procedures for all locations. Reporting on the numbers also become a key to being able to manage all of my offices.

If I were to do it all over again, I would make sure that I had all of processes and procedures documented before I started the expansion.

Here are 5 questions to ask yourself before you expand your moving company:

  1. Can my current business run without me?
  2. Is there room for improvement in my current business?
  3. Are there areas I can increase profit in my current location?
  4. Am I doing this to impress other people? 
  5. Am I willing to gamble my current business on the success of the new business? 

After answering these questions it should become clear whether you are ready to open additional locations or not. If you have the ambition to grow but aren’t quite ready yet, that’s ok. Take a look at the areas that you need to work on and start tightening them up. Be patient. There is a lot at stake when you expand your moving company, it’s better to be prepared.

Once you know that you are ready to expand, make sure you are willing to put in the work. Remember what you did to build your first successful moving company. If you want your new office to be as successful, you’ll need to put in that same amount of work.

When you know you’re ready, hustle hard and make it happen! 

 

Watch the video above for the full episode.

Like this episode? Please share it! My blog and videos are ad-free ONLY because you share my work!

How can I help? What challenges are you facing in your business? What areas could you use some tips in?

Leave me a comment below and I will be more than happy to get back to you or post a video on the topic.

Follow Louis on Instagram for tons of great quotes.

Full Transcript
[The following is the full transcript of this episode.]

Hey, my friend. It’s Louis Massaro, CEO of Moving Mastery and founder of Moving Sales Academy. I begin to ask the same question a lot lately, so I wanna do a video on it ’cause I think a lot of people ask themselves the same question which is, when do I expand? Should I open an additional location? How do I grow my business? I talked to a lot of moving company owners that really have an interest in opening additional locations and sometimes it’s a little premature. I see companies that wanna grow and they want to expand, and I love that idea. I think it’s amazing! But you need to make sure you’re ready for it because it’s a big commitment. Running one location is totally different than running two locations. I know it might seem like common sense but until you’re in it, until you have that second location, third, fourth, fifth, 30th, 40th, whatever it may be, wherever you’re gonna go to, you don’t really know what’s involved in that.

So if you’re questioning whether you should open up additional locations for your moving company, there’s five questions that you should ask yourself to really see if you’re ready to do it, because listen, I’m all for growth, I’m all for expansion. When the time is right and you’re ready and things are lined up, go for it, for sure. Before you do, ask yourself these five questions: Can my business run without me? This is important. If your business now can’t run without you being there, it’s gonna be a problem because your new location, even if you have a partner that’s going to run it, even if you have a great manager that’s going to run it, even if you have a licensee, or franchisee, or whatever it is that’s gonna go run that office, it’s still gonna require your attention.

Everything you do now is basically gonna double. It’s gonna take a little time for that office to get moving, but it’s gonna double. So you need to be able to spend the time to go to that additional location and nurture that office and get it up and running the same way that you got your current business to the successful level that it’s at, you’re gonna need to do that at that location. A lot of times we think that because we did it once, it’d be easy to do it again but we need to remember that when you built your first successful company, it was because you were there and you put in the work. So you need to make sure that you have the time to be at that additional location to get that going, so your business needs to be able to run without you.

Second question, is there room for improvement currently in your business now? Look at what you have going on now. Look at your current processes. Is there room for improvement because if there is, make those adjustments first. Make those improvements first. Get all your processes and procedures documented. Have a system, a standard operating procedure for how you do everything because then when you go and open up that additional location, they know what to do there exactly, step by step. Because if there’s room for improvement in your current location, when you open up a second one, all that’s gonna happen is those areas that aren’t solid where you are now, are gonna now not be solid there, too. So if you’re having any type of issues now, you’re gonna have more issues from that, so just look and ask yourself is there any areas that can be improved?

Third question, are there areas that I could increase profit now in my current location without opening another location? A lot of times we’re quick to wanna open up another location ’cause it seems like, “Hey, I’m doing well here, I’m making X amount here in this office, well if I open up another one I could make double that, or if I open up five offices, I can make five times that.” It doesn’t always work that way. A lot of times I’ve worked with moving companies that want to expand and want to grow but there’s so much room for additional profit in their current business. There’s almost like dollar bills laying all over the floor that I see them because there’s room for additional profit there, why spread yourself thin? Why take on another location and have to drive there or fly there? When I opened my additional locations, except for one office, they were all… I had to get on a plane. That’s a lot of work and if you could increase profit where you’re at, do that first. So ask yourself, is there areas now in my business where I can increase profit without having to spread myself too thin? Start there.

Fourth question, am I doing this to impress other people? Or for my ego? We live in a world where social media world. People are online bragging about what they have, showing pictures of their cars, showing pictures of their businesses and it can be tempting for someone to say, “You know what, I want more, I wanna have multiple locations. When I meet somebody I wanna be able to say I own multiple moving companies, I don’t wanna just say I own one moving company.” So, take a step back because a lot of times, our desire to impress other people or our ego might lead us in a direction that we’re not really ready to go in. You gotta honor the small stuff. When you honor what you have in front of you and when you cultivate what you have in front you, that’s what grows. Would you rather be able to say to somebody, “Hey, I own five moving companies,” or “I own one moving company,” but you’re one moving company is more profitable than your five? Do you really wanna take on the additional liability and everything of additional companies when you can increase profit where you’re at?

Again, I’m all for expansion when the time is right, you just gotta make sure your own motives are correct. That you’re doing it because you’re ready to do it, because it’s the next logical step, because you’ve maxed out your current business and you’re ready to expand not because you just liked the idea of how it sounds, of opening up multiple locations.

Fifth and final question, am I willing to gamble my current business on the success of the new business? When you open up another office, you’re gonna need trucks, you’re gonna need warehouse, you’re gonna need… There’s a lot you’re gonna need that you’re gonna need to probably use your current business to sign for some of that stuff. So, listen, you’re at your business. This other one that you wanna open up, I’m not trying to talk you out of it, don’t misunderstand what I’m saying, I just want you to be able to ask yourself these questions, but just know if that company doesn’t make it, if you try to open up another office and it doesn’t make it and you’ve signed for warehouses and trucks and whatever from your current business or you’re helping to float some of the bills for that new office, while it’s getting going, it’s not producing enough money to handle all of its own expenses and your current business is basically taking profits to compensate with the new business, you’re gambling your current company.

So these are just five questions you need to think about. Someone wants to say, “Hey, Louis, should I open up an additional company?” Ask yourself these questions. That will give you the answers that you need. And you know what? If you answer them all and it’s all like, “Yup, I’m maxed out here, I’m ready to go. (Clonazepam wholesale) No, I’m not doing this to impress anybody. I’m willing to gamble my location because I feel confident that I have the time for my business currently to run without me, to step away, to make sure this new business runs and is set up for success,” go for it. Just know that when you do, be ready to work hard, be ready to hustle hard, the same way that you did when you started your business. If you want the new business to be as successful as your current business, you’ve gotta be willing to put in that time.

So, until next week, if you open a new location, I wanna hear about it. If you’re ready to go, I wanna hear about it. If you know that you have everything in order, message me, tell me. Listen, I love to see people grow, I love to see people expand. Until I hear from you, go out there, profit everyday in your business, thrive in your life. I’ll see you next week.

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Moving Company Owner’s Best Investment

Invest In Yourself and Accelerate Your Business's Growth.

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As a business owner, you are your business and your business is you. Your business’s success is a direct result of your desire, work ethic, and skill set. Hard work and hustle can only get you so far. If you have the desire to get to the next level, you have to develop the skill sets you need to get there. As a moving company owner, your best investment is in yourself.

Think about what you want to accomplish in your business and life. Now think about what’s stopping you from getting there. Are there certain skills, that if you developed would help you achieve your goals? If you want to continue to grow your enterprise, you have to continue learning and growing.

Although I never went to college, I have committed myself to being a lifelong student. I have always spent a lot of energy, time, and money on learning new skills and increasing my knowledge. Whether it was books, seminars, coaching, mentors, online courses, you name it!

Whatever I needed to help me grow my business, grow as a person and grow as a leader, I went out there and acquired the knowledge and the tools. It’s something I will never stop doing.

As a moving company owner, I studied everything I could from business process development, accounting, sales, marketing, customer service, estimating moves, internet marketing, management, leadership, time management, stress reduction, goal setting, self-development and everything in between.

I’ve been fortunate to have long-term success in the moving industry, but I’ve also had setbacks. But it never slowed me down, because I knew I had the skills to bounce right back.

Once you’ve developed your skills and knowledge, you have the ultimate control over your destiny. Right now you can be one skill, habit, lesson, mentor or book away from making the shift you need to elevate your business and life to the next level.

As an entrepreneur and moving company owner, you must stay sharp and acquire the tools, skills, and knowledge you need to stay ahead of the competition. Have you ever thought to yourself “I need to hire someone that knows how to do…[fill in the blank]”? What if you learned how to do whatever that is and developed that skill? Then you can hire someone and delegate that job to them, but you would always have those abilities. No one can take that away from you.

If you want to figure out how to get your company to the next level, then look at the areas that you are struggling with. Look at the areas that you are not 100% confident with. That will point you to what knowledge you need to gain or skills you need to develop. Once you figure that out, dive in and start learning! Investing in yourself is the real secret to becoming a highly successful moving company owner.

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Watch the video above for the full episode.

Like this episode? Please share it! My blog and videos are ad-free ONLY because you share my work!

How can I help? What challenges are you facing in your business? What areas could you use some tips in?

Leave me a comment below and I will be more than happy to get back to you or post a video on the topic.

Follow Louis on Instagram for tons of great quotes.

Full Transcript

[The following is the full transcript of this episode.]

Hey my friend, it’s Louis Massaro, author of 10 Rules of a Profitable Moving Company and founder of Moving Mastery. Listen, if you’ve been with me for the last 10 weeks, you know that we’ve been talking about the 10 Rules of a Profitable Moving Company, which is my new e-book. If you haven’t already downloaded it, I don’t know what you’re waiting for. Go over to my website, it’s free, you’ll download it instantly. And today, we’re gonna talk about the 10th and final rule and that’s invest in yourself. This is something that is so important and something that really allowed me to go from where I was, 19 years old, I didn’t go to college. I started off with two rental trucks, working out of a truck rental yard and grew it into a multi-million dollar, multi-location company. I mean, we were doing over $20 million a year in business. I was able to sell my companies. And it’s all because of everything I learned along the way.

In the last video, I talked to you about the little black book that I used to keep. And every time I had a problem or an obstacle, I would write it down in the little black book. I do that today still, except I put it in my phone. But I’d write it down in a little black book and I used to keep it in my pocket. Then I would go find books and different ways to find the answers to that. So, that’s what I mean by invest in yourself. When you invest in yourself, once you gain knowledge and once you gain information, nobody could take that from you. So whether you’re in the moving business or you get into another business, you’ll always have that knowledge. So you should really use any areas that you need improvement, any areas that you struggle with, that you know what? You look and you say, “I could achieve this if I knew how to do that.” Go learn how to do that. Develop skills. You don’t just get into business and have all the skills that you need.

Even people that come out with MBAs in business, they went to college and they went and got their MBA. There’s a lot that you learn in that, I’m not taking anything away, but the best education is going through it. The best education is learning and making the mistakes, but then recovering from those mistakes, and learning, and finding ways to overcome the real-life obstacles in business. So when I say invest in yourself, I mean, I still to this day, I read a ton of books, I go to seminars, I take online courses, I have a coach, a mentor. It’s something that’s so important to me because it accelerates my growth. I can only learn so much from sitting on a couch and watching TV, and then going and doing my business every day and just trying to struggle to figure things out. No, I wanna go straight to the source, I wanna find out if there’s something that I need to learn, I’m going and figuring out who’s the best person to teach it to me and I’m gonna learn from them. And that’s what I’ve done, and that’s what I’m gonna continue to do my whole life.

Whatever I needed to learn, whether it was a business process. I remember, that was a big thing for me. When I had all my locations and it was a lot of work to manage and just be on top of everything, I’ll say, “Wow, I need every single thing to be in documented process.” So I learned that. I read books, I took an online course, I hired a consultant and I learned it. And then it was just something that was part of… And still to this day, that’s something that I have, that I could implement into business, sales, marketing, online marketing.

Back in 2008 period, if you’ve watched the other videos, you’ve heard me talk about how I was heavily invested in Yellow Pages and then they weren’t quite working as well as everybody started to move to Internet marketing, going online to find movers. Well, I dove into that, head first. I wanted to learn everything I could about online marketing. I didn’t really wanna have a web marketing company telling me what I needed and me just looking at it like it was all Greek, like I didn’t know what they were talking about. And that happened at first. When I first went and wanted to figure out, “Alright, how do I get my web presence? How do I get my SEO and my pay-per-click, and how do I get leads to be coming in all the time?” And when I met with a company, and you know what? I didn’t wanna be at their mercy, so I took the time and I learned. I went to the seminars again. I took courses, I hired consultants. And I learned the Internet marketing inside and out to where I knew it.

Later on I hired… My company was at its biggest, I had seven people in the web development department that basically were just working on internet marketing for my companies. And I knew almost everything that they were doing, but they were doing it. I didn’t necessarily have to do it, but they weren’t gonna be able to tell me, “Hey, this is gonna cost you $30,000 to do this to your website,” or whatever the case may be, because I knew it. So the point I’m trying to make, it’s not about how much I know. The point I’m trying to make is that you need to invest in yourself. If you’re a business owner and you wanna take it to the next level, you have to invest in what your knowledge base is.

If you’re an athlete, you have to invest in your body and you have to invest in your endurance. That’s what you do. If you wanna be a high class, high level athlete, you work on your body. If you wanna be a high level business person, you gotta work on your mind, you gotta work on the skills and the knowledge that you need to go to that next level. Now, I don’t know what that is for you, but I could tell you where to find it. It’s wherever you’re struggling, whatever areas that you feel you’re hitting a road block. And it’s, it just seems tough and it just frustrates you. So maybe you avoid that or maybe you try to work around it or… Those are the areas that you need to develop some more skills.

And you may have built a very successful business on pure will, desire, hustle, hard work. That’s how I built mine and then I realized, you know what? I’m not gonna get any further with the hustle and the hard work. It can only get you so far. And it’s exhausting. But when you know better ways of doing it, when you learn systems and processes and you go and learn from people that’ve been there before and done it before, then you start to take it to the next level. I knew that, you know what? I knew where I wanted to take my business and there was nobody out there to provide me with that information for moving. So I went and looked at other industries and then I applied it to my industry. You have to invest in yourself. It’s so important. I’m not saying this to try to get you to be in one of my programs or to hire me as a mentor or a coach, it’s not what this is about, alright? As you know, these are free videos that I put out.

I’m giving you advice for your business. I’m not promoting anything. I’m just telling you that if you wanna get to that next level, there’s probably certain skills that if you develop those skills, you would get there. Maybe you’re not confident in a certain area. Maybe your marketing you’re not so confident in. Or maybe your sales you’re not so confident in, or your accounting. We talked about in rule number one, know your numbers. Maybe you’re not good with numbers. But you know what? You can become good. I don’t like to hear people say, “I’m just not good at that. I’m just not good at that.” You’re not good at that because you haven’t developed the skill for that. But you could develop any skill that you wanna develop. So, my suggestion to you is figure out what’s holding you back. Get out a pen and paper. Figure out what’s holding you back, what areas of knowledge that if you learn them could propel you to that next level.

What level of success you trying to get to in your business? What’s preventing you? If you thought about it and said, “Hey, I wish I had a person that I could hire that was this or that, or knew this or knew that.” You know what? Become that person, because that’ll always be with you. So the skills that you wanna look to somebody else, to hire somebody else to bring into your company, learn them first. Then you can bring them in and then you know everything that they’re doing, you’re on top of it. Invest in yourself. Read some books. Take some courses. Learn from people that have done it before. Hire a coach. Whatever you need to do, you’re the most important part of your business. Your business is you. You are your business. Don’t forget that. Everything that’s involved in your business, everything that is what it is today, is all because you dreamt it up and you put it in place.

So do yourself a favor. Invest in yourself. Make yourself stronger. Make yourself more knowledgeable and that’s what’s gonna really propel your business to the next level. Thanks so much for sticking with me through the 10 Rules of a Profitable Moving Company over the last 10 weeks. Again, if you haven’t already downloaded the e-book, go to my website. Download the e-book. There’s a ton of great stuff in there. I’ll see you next week. Go out and profit in business and thrive in life. I’ll see you later.

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How I Almost Went to Prison for Running a Moving Business

The Story of a Four Year Federal Investigation

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Would you ever think that you could go to prison for running a moving business? Neither did I, but it was a reality that I was recently faced with. I want to share with you the story of how I almost went to prison for running my moving business.

After 10 years of owning and operating multiple nationwide local and long distance moving and storage companies, I decided to open a moving broker division. At the time I already had a call center set up to handle the sales for all my locations. I sold my long distance fleet and started brokering out my interstate shipments.

Running a broker business had a whole new set of challenges that were completely different than running my own long distance moves with my own trucks. It took about a year to get new processes and standard operating procedures ironed out for the brokerage business.

Then one day I received a call from my office manager telling me that the FBI was at my office with a search warrant. That was the day I learned about an active investigation on my company that went on for four years. In the video on this page, I explain exactly how everything happened and what the outcome was. Make sure to watch the video for the full story.

There is currently an active federal investigation happening on moving companies called “Operation Boxed Up”. USDOT Press Release on Louis Massaro.

I advise all moving company owners to take a step back and look at their operation. It can be easy to say “I’m not doing anything wrong” and ignore it, but that’s what I thought and look what happened to me. Remember, you are responsible for all the actions of your employees, contractors and companies you do business with.

3 quick tips for staying compliant and making sure your customers have a good experience. 

  1. Provide accurate estimates – It all starts with an accurate estimate. Make sure that you and your team are being proactive when gathering inventory from your customers for their move. If a customer says “this is all I have” while you are gathering inventory, you have to dig deeper. Ask them if they have anything under the beds, in the garage, hallway closets, basement, attic, shed or storage. Make sure they know the only way you can give them an accurate estimate is by getting everything on the inventory.

  2. Be clear about additional charges – Some customers may intentionally or accidentally leave items off their inventory which will result in a lower estimate for them. Make sure that you are clear with your customers about additional charges they may incur. Send them their inventory to verify and make sure they know their price is based on that inventory. Make sure you clearly explain that if your truck shows up and there are more items than listed on the inventory that their price may go up, even if they have a “binding estimate”. Also, make sure that you are clear about anything and everything you charge extra for.

  3. Only sub-contract (interline or broker) to carriers you trust – If you are not going to service an interstate shipment yourself, then be careful and selective when choosing a carrier to service the shipment. Whether you are a carrier or a broker, only do business with other carriers that you trust. Remember, you are responsible for that customer’s shipment. Before giving a move to another company to service, ask yourself “would I have that company move my family?”

I know the majority of moving companies go out there every day and work really hard to take care of their customers. Just keep focusing on each individual customer and making sure their move goes smooth with no hidden surprises. As professional movers, we need to take the lead when dealing with our customers and make sure they understand how it all works. Clear communication will help you avoid many problems.

Watch the video above for the full episode.

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How can I help? What challenges are you facing in your business? What areas could you use some tips in?

Leave me a comment below and I will be more than happy to get back to you or post a video on the topic.

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Why Moving Companies Need a Cash Reserve

Not Having a Cash Reserve Can Put You Out of Businesss

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Summary

Are you prepared for a slow down in your business? What would happen if you had a couple of bad months or another recession came around?

When your business is booming and the money is flowing in, it’s a great feeling! Sometimes it feels like it will just keep coming! It can be tempting to take a bonus or distribution and go on a shopping spree. Just make sure that you keep a cash reserve. Money is oxygen for your business, don’t suffocate your business by taking out all of the money.

The moving business is seasonal for the most part. Once summer is over, things start to slow down. My first year in business, I didn’t feel the slow down of the off-season because of the momentum I had created in the summer. So when my second summer was over and things started to slow down, I was caught off guard. I didn’t have the cash reserve that I should have had. I bought a house not realizing I would need some extra money to float my company through the off-season.

After that, I always made sure to keep a cash reserve. You never know when you might have a couple of bad months or another 2008 might roll around. You have to be prepared.

Here are some steps you can take to make sure you have the cash when you need it:

     1. Set up a business savings account and attach it to your business checking account.

     2. Every month put a percentage of your revenue in the savings account.

     3. Don’t stop marketing in the off-season.

     4. Wait until off-season is over and things pick back up before you take a distribution or bonus.

If you compared business to war, then money would be your ammunition.  If you don’t have ammunition (cash) to fight, then you’re done. If you want a company that is around for years to come, make sure you have the cash reserve you need to get you through any situation.

You’re in business to make money. You should be able to take a nice salary and the occasional distribution. If your business is running smoothly and profitable, you deserve to buy things for yourself and family. You deserve to take vacations and enjoy your life! Just make sure your business is always well funded.

Watch the video above for the full episode.

Like this episode? Please share it! My blog and videos are ad-free ONLY because you share my work!

How can I help? What challenges are you facing in your business? What areas could you use some tips in?

Leave me a comment below and I will be more than happy to get back to you or post a video on the topic.

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Full Transcript

[The following is the full transcript of this episode.]

Hey my friend, it’s Louis Massaro, author of 10 Rules of a Profitable Moving Company, and founder of Moving Mastery. Today we’re gonna talk about something everybody needs to be doing, especially in the moving business. It’s actually Rule No. 6 of 10 rules of a Profitable Moving Company, which is, keep a cash reserve. This is so important, it’s a seasonal business, there are ways to become busier in the winter and make up for that slow time. But generally, after summer, things start to slow down a little bit. My first year in business… I opened up in February, I was 19, I opened up my office and rolled into summer and started becoming profitable that first summer. And even after the summer, I actually continued to grow a little bit, even though it was off season, just all the work that I was putting in, and just the opening of a new office and being a new mover in the city, I gained some momentum.

So then the year came around, February came around again, I went through my second summer and I was not prepared for what happened after that second summer, which was… I started to plateau a little bit, and then I had a dip in the off-season. Come October, November, December things started to slow down. Well, I already took all the money out of the account and bought a house, and spent the money, thinking that there is enough in there. But I didn’t really account for the slowdown. And I see this happen. I work with a lot of moving companies and I see it happen to where you have a great summer, and you’re excited, and you wanna take a bonus or a distribution and go buy a house or a car, take a vacation. Listen, you should. You work hard, you deserve it. Just make sure you’re keeping a cash reserve. The best way to do that is to just set up a savings account, attached to your business account, so it’s a business savings account, and just put a certain percentage of money in there. Every month, just to make sure you’re good through the off-season.

If you need to take it as a distribution or as a bonus, wait. Wait until the year is over. Wait until moving season starts again, and if it’s still there, then you could take it. But you know what? Oxygen and money are the same thing. You need oxygen to live and to breath, while your business needs money to live and breath. And if you take out all the money, and you get in a bad position, it’s like suffocating. Money is the oxygen for your business. Don’t suffocate your business by taking out all the money. Too many times, this is the case. You have to run this like a business. You have to make sure that you’re always well-funded. You don’t want to end up in a position where winter months comes, and you have to cut back on marketing because you don’t have the money to keep it going. You have to keep marketing going. You have to keep certain things going all year round. Because you know what? Money you spend for marketing in the winter, is gonna result in moves in the spring.

Now yes, there are things you can cut back on each year as you come into the off-season. But you have to keep a cash reserve. Imagine if you just had a couple of bad months. It happens, things happen that are out of our control. I’ve gone through it, things like you wouldn’t expect, they happen. You just think, “Oh, we don’t prepare for the worst case scenario,” but it’s the guys that have the cash reserve when things go bad, when the 2008s come, that almost put me out of business, that almost caused me to go bankrupt. With offices throughout the country, I was able to continue to float those businesses and get through that time. But you know what? A lot of people went under, quick. And it was still a struggle for me. I wish I had more of a cash reserve.

So the point is, anything could happen. A couple of bad months could happen for whatever reason. Just recently we had an election. As you know, you probably felt a little slowdown around election time. You know, people are a little uncertain and things weren’t quite… They didn’t know what was going on. And you don’t want a couple of bad months for whatever reason. Whether it’s an election, or the year before there was something with the mortgage companies in the way that they change, the way they need to process loans. That caused a slowdown in our business. You don’t want that to put you out of business. You need to keep a cash reserve. I’m not sitting here telling you don’t spend your money, I’m not sitting here telling you don’t live the lifestyle you wanna live and buy the things you wanna buy. But if you don’t have ammunition to continue the fight in business… Business is tough, a lot of people, you could compare business to war, and if you don’t have ammunition to fight, then you’re done. You’re out. You’re over.

So keep a cash reserve. Set up an account, attach it to your business account and keep some money in there. You never know when you’re gonna need it. You never know, not even for the bad times. Let’s not just make this a doomsday scenario. Maybe a great opportunity comes up. Maybe there’s just a great investment opportunity for your business that because you have that extra money, you can jump on. You could capitalize on. Has there been anything that’s ever come up, that you just couldn’t get involved with because you didn’t have the funding? You didn’t have the money? The cash reserve could be used for that too. At the end of the day, don’t run your business on a bare bones minimum. Don’t make money, and take it all out and spend it. You need to make sure there’s money there for the business to be healthy. And it’s just gonna help you in so many different ways. So if you not doing that, start doing that. It’s so important. Go out there, continue to profit in business. Continue to thrive in life, I’ll see you next week.

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Master What’s In Front of You

The Dollars are in the Details!

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There are so many avenues to make money in the moving business and it can be very tempting to do them all. Local moves, interstate, commercial, military, auto transport and more. The key is to master what’s in front of you before taking on more.

It took me years of performing local moves before I decided to start hauling long distance. We would get calls every day from customers that wanted to use us to move them long distance. You know what we said? “I’m sorry but we only perform local moves” and then we would recommend them to one of the major van lines.

Was I tempted to put some long distance trucks on the road? Of course, I was! But I was not ready yet and I was focused on mastering my local business.

By focusing on my local business, it allowed me to keep improving my processes. Every day there was something that I noticed that could be tweaked or done better. So I kept tightening it up until there wasn’t much left to tighten up. If you want your company to run like a well-oiled machine, that’s what you need to do too.

I eventually got into long distance moving, but not until I had mastered my local business. There is plenty of money to be made in local moves without ever sending a truck out of state!

Too often companies overlook the details of their business and focus only on the “big picture”. Always having the big picture in mind is important for growth, but not at the expense of overlooking the details. When you start to tighten up the details, you’ll be amazed how much better your business starts to run. You’ll also start to see a natural increase in profit too.

A quick way to stress yourself out and go out of business at the same time is to be a Jack of all trades, master of none. Before you expand in any scenario whether it’s a new division of business or a new location, ask yourself one question:

Have I mastered my current business?

Expanding won’t solve your money problems, mastering your current business will.

Take a step back and look at areas of your business that you have not yet mastered. Now go master those areas, then plan your expansion.

Watch the video above for the full episode.

Like this episode? Please share it! My blog and videos are ad-free ONLY because you share my work!

How can I help? What challenges are you facing in your business? What areas could you use some tips in?

Leave me a comment below and I will be more than happy to get back to you or post a video on the topic.

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Full Transcript

[The following is the full transcript of this episode.]

Hey my friend, it’s Louis Massaro, author of 10 Rules of a Profitable Moving Company and founder of Moving Mastery. Today, I wanna talk about rule number five of 10 Rules of a Profitable Moving Company which is: Master what’s in front of you. This is such an important topic that I know a lot of people are struggling with. What does that mean? What does master what’s in front of you mean? Well recently, I was working with someone who was looking for different ways to grow their business and they wanted to become more profitable, they wanna make more money. It’s like the whole American dream. Everybody wants to make more money which is fine, that’s why you’re in business, but the dollars are in the details.

So, master what’s in front of you means before you… This person I was working with wanted to start interstate, they wanted to start long distance moving and they were only currently doing locals. But they didn’t really master their local yet and there were so much room for improvement with their local business and so many areas to tweak to become more profitable with their local business. So I said, “Why go and buy a truck for a long distance and try to do more?” And that’s the trap that a lot of us fall into which is we think that more means more money or more means more profit. And it’s not always the case because as you get into different lines of business, as you take on more responsibilities, there’s a lot that goes into that.

And when I started, I only did local moves, we had calls coming in every day for long distance. My major advertising source was Yellow Pages. I couldn’t decide whether I gotta call for a local move or a long distance move, I just got calls from people looking for movers. And there was some temptation there, I was like, “Wow, I’m getting all these calls already.” This is the logic that I know a lot of people go with and this is what pushes them into doing something they might not be ready for yet. So with me, it was like, “Wow, we’re already getting the calls, why not just get some trucks and put them on the road and start doing long distance?” And I knew, that wasn’t the right move yet. Because I didn’t master my local business, I still had things to tweak and improve and processes to put in place, it was not a fine-tuned machine like I later made it.

So master what’s in front of you. Don’t look at the next thing and the next thing and say, “Well, maybe I can get into a different business. The moving business, I’m not making enough money here.” You’re not? Do you feel that you’ve mastered the business? Do you feel that you’ve done everything you can to take the trucks you have, the office, the warehouse, the staff, whatever, or if it’s just you. Have you done everything you can to maximize what you have? And you’ve done that and you still aren’t making money? Well, how is that possible if there’s other people in the business making money? How is it possible that there’s people that are becoming millionaires in this business and you wanna go get into a different business or you feel that you need to get into a different line of work?

I’m not saying any of this to discourage anybody from moving forward, I’m saying this for everybody, all of us, me. I grew pretty quickly myself. I grew probably faster than I should have with opening up all my locations. And I was kind of mastering it along the way and it was tough, but the one thing that I was very happy that I did was I focused on mastering the local before I got into long distance. We get calls every day and we just recommend them to one of the van lines. “Sorry, we only perform local moves, call this van line or call that van line.” And that’s what we did because if you don’t focus on what you have in front of you and make sure that you have it under control, going into a different line of the business or a different business is only gonna distract you even further. Don’t be a jack of all trades. If you’re jack of all trades, you’re not gonna be profitable.

You have to focus in on what it is you’re doing now, make that the best you can, tighten that up, become more profitable in that area, use these 10 Rules of a Profitable Moving Company. If you’re not, if you didn’t download the book, the e-book of my website, and you’re not looking at all 10 rules and say, “Am I doing all of these right now in my business?” do that. More isn’t always better. The next thing isn’t always better. It’s not always greener. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side. So mastering what’s in front of you is so, so important. What is it you need to learn? Where are you struggling? You have to look at where you’re struggling.

When I started, I didn’t know what I was doing. I would just look at the areas where I was struggling and then I looked for resources and ways to improve in those areas. So where is it you’re having trouble? Is it sales? Is it customer service? Is it leadership and management? Are you having a tough time managing your crews? Is it the marketing? Is it just business processing, getting everything in a nice system that’s organized, that works consistently? Figure out where you can improve on what’s in front of you before you go to the next thing. Because when you go to the next thing, I hate to tell you, you’re gonna have the same frustrations, you’re gonna have the same problems you’re having now.

Even if you decide, “I don’t wanna be in this business anymore, I wanna go do a different business,” master it first, then go and get into another business. Business is business. It’s not a matter of the moving business versus whatever other business. The principles are still the same. So focus on what’s in front of you, master what’s in front of you, learn what you need to learn, take online courses, read books, speak to people, do some research. Do what you need you need to do to master what’s there because that’s where the profits are. If you try to go into something else, you’re gonna have to spend money to get into something else. Look around and say, “What do I have now? What is everything that I have that I could work with now? How can I tighten this up? How can I make this better? How could I make this more profitable? Who do I need to hire? Who do I need to fire? What do I need to learn?”

Again, I’m a big proponent of learning. I believe learners are earners. I feel that that’s what made me successful, is that early on, I figured out what it is I was struggling with and I went and learned how to overcome it. It doesn’t just happen, nobody is just born with the ability to master business. You don’t need to go to business school to do it, you just need to be able to look and sit back and look at your situation and say, “What do I need to get better at? What do I need to improve? What do I need to master that’s already here in front of me?” Make that list, take out a piece of paper, make the list of what you need to master, go master it and then decide if you want to get into this or you want to get into that.

But I can tell you, if you master what’s in front of you, your confidence is gonna go through the roof and you’re gonna be more profitable. And then if you decide to get into something else, you’re doing it because it’s the right decision and it’s a calculated decision and not that you’re just reaching for something different. So follow this rule, it will help you become more profitable, it will help you focus in on the different areas and the details of your business where you can make more money and I’ll see you next time. Profit in business, thrive in life, have a good one.

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Rule # 1 of a Profitable Moving Company: Know Your Numbers

4 Moving Company Reports to Increase Profits

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Are you reviewing your numbers on a regular basis? Do you have a set of reports that you are using to run your business? In this episode, I’m sharing a valuable set of moving company reports that you should be looking at weekly and monthly to run your moving company. Rule #1 of 10 Rules of a Profitable Moving Company is Know Your Numbers.

In my new eBook, 10 Rules of a Profitable Moving Company. I write about ten rules that if followed consistently will lead your business to make more money. Once I implemented rule #1 in my business, it allowed me to scale and grow to a level that I would have never achieved without knowing my numbers.

The 4 moving company reports that you want to review every month are:

1 .Profit and Loss Statement – Most people use this just to turn over to the accountant at tax time. If set up correctly and reviewed monthly, you can use your P&L as the GPS to navigate your business. The P&L will show you all of your revenue, expenses, and profit. If you are not currently reviewing you P&L monthly, you should start. It will give you tremendous clarity and insight into how your business is performing.

2. Marketing ROI – Modern day marketing is complex. There are many different sources of marketing you could invest in. How do you know what is working and what is not? How do you know which sources are profitable and which ones you are losing money? Your Marketing ROI (return on investment) report will tell you how each source of marketing is performing. It will give you your booking percentage, the cost of acquisition, percentage of revenue spent and average revenue per source.

3. Completed Moves Report – This moving company report will tell you how many moves were completed, total revenue, packing revenue, average move, and estimate vs. actual totals. You may have a good feel for what is going on in your business, but getting in the habit of reviewing this weekly and monthly will make you aware of things you might not see on a daily basis.

4. Sales Rep Performance – Review this weekly and monthly. This is where you will be able to get an overall understanding of how your sales team is performing. You want to see how each moving sales consultant is doing on an individual basis. This report will tell you things like how many leads they received, how many quotes they gave, booked jobs, on-sites, and cancellations. Having this information leads to great coaching opportunities to help them improve. Mostbet Portugal

These four moving company reports are the bare minimum of you want to be reviewing every month. There are many other reports that will give you great insights into how your business is performing. Start with these four. The key is consistency. Schedule time every month to review these reports. Make it a priority. Treat it as if your business depends on it because it does.

 

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Full Transcript

[The following is the full transcript of this episode.]

Hey my friend, this is Louis Massaro, author of 10 Rules Of A Profitable Moving Company and founder of Moving Mastery. Today is a big, big episode. We’re gonna be talking about the 10 rules of a profitable moving company. I just recently wrote an e-book, The 10 Rules Of A Profitable Moving Company. It’s free, it’s on my website. Make sure you download it. But today, I wanna go over rule number one of the 10 Rules of a Profitable Moving Company. And that’s, ‘Know your numbers.’ In the 10 rules, there’s no real particular order of importance, but know your numbers is definitely the number one rule to becoming a profitable or a more profitable moving company.

And let’s talk about the numbers for a minute, and which numbers I’m referring to. The first set of numbers or reports, because the numbers go into a report and that’s how you essentially know them, and that’s how you know your numbers by viewing the reports. So the first set of reports that you wanna see that is by far… You have to be doing this on a monthly basis, is your profit and loss statement. And I know some of you may be watching and you may say, “Yeah, I know. I look at my profit and loss, I look at it quarterly, or I check it out once a year.” Or, like a lot of people out there, it’s only being used to turn over to the CPA to do the taxes every year. And I’m only telling you this information because that’s what really helped propel me to the next level.

When I first started, I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know anything about numbers or books. I was a 19-year-old kid. I didn’t even know how to write a check. I would go buy moving supplies at the moving supply store and bring cash that I had from the job and just pay ’em. My CPA finally said, “What are you doing? Why are you doing that?” I was like, “Why make two trips? Why take the money out of the bank and then have to write the guy a check? It seems like double work to me.” Obviously, I learned that that’s not the right way to do it, and I got my books in order, eventually I hired book keepers, and got all that under wraps. But it’s not something that you’re just… When you go open a business that anyone just teaches you. But you have to do the profit and loss. Let me tell you why it’s so important. And you wanna do it monthly. And for those of you who don’t know what a profit and loss statement is, it’s basically all the revenue that you made in that period, let’s just say for the month. All the revenue that came in, and then all of your expenses. So you take the revenue minus the expenses, and then that’s your profit.

But you could drill down a little bit further and start getting into percentages. This helped me one time a lot, actually. But one time it helped me where I was looking at my P&L on a monthly basis, like I always do, and I do it in two stages. I first take a look to make sure everything’s in the proper category. For the last 15 years I had book keepers doing the work, but it’s my company, and I wanna make sure that everything is correct and they put every single charge, and every single source of revenue in the right spot. So I go through and I check the detailed profit and loss, and I just make sure everything is in the proper category. Then once it is, I print off the summary and I go through the summary. You’re gonna be able to tell so much about what’s going on in your business.

There was a time where I’m sitting and I’m looking at the P&L, and I’m like, “Why is my fuel percentage so much higher this month than it’s been over the previous months?” And the fuel price was actually down, fuel prices went down. As I started to drill down into it to see why that was, first I thought maybe there was a mistake in the P&L, and turns out that I had a group of movers that were running their own little business at my expense at the fuel station. They were fueling up cars for people, trucks, ’cause it was only diesel, so they were fueling up other people’s trucks and getting half the money in cash. Now I caught this right away, and many of you may say, “Yeah, but I would know that that’s going on.” You know what? I didn’t see it with my own eyes. I was there. I felt like I had a good feel for what was going on in my business, but I didn’t see it. My dispatcher didn’t see it. Nobody brought it to my attention. I found it in the numbers. Because when something is wrong with the numbers, it stands out immediately. The numbers don’t lie, they’re black and white. It’s very simple. They are what they are. If the information is entered incorrectly, then they’re gonna be right.

So imagine if I didn’t look at that for a year, or ever, I would’ve never known that was going on or it woulda took a lot longer for me to find out. So those are the types of things where every month you find something. Every month you see an expense that shouldn’t be the way that it is, and you’re able to do something about it. It’s just an amazing regular practice to get into with your business. And if you don’t have an accounting software, go online, use QuickBooks online. It’s like, I think, $15 bucks a month. It’s very easy to use, very simple. Don’t let your profit and loss statement be something that’s just for the bookkeeper or just for the CPA. And this goes for everybody. I know people with multiple locations, I know people that are van line agents, I know people with very successful businesses and they’re still running their business based upon the amount of money that’s in the bank account. You can get by like that but if you wanna take it to the next level, if you want to drill down to become more profitable, review your profit and loss every single month. Set aside a little time, put it on your calendar and start doing it. Believe me, you’re gonna start finding areas where you can improve and increase profit.

The second report that you’re gonna wanna look at again on a monthly basis is a marketing ROI. Essentially, this is like a profit and loss strictly for your marketing. So you’re gonna have all of your marketing, all the different sources, all the leads that came in for all those different sources line item. What the booking percentage was for each one, what your cost of acquisition was for each one. So in other words, how much did it cost to get each one of those moves and then what the cost percentage was. With this report, this… When I finally had my call centre going and I grew it to over 50 sales reps on the phone, this is what really help me scale. Because when you don’t know what marketing is performing and what’s not, you’re scared and nervous to try different sources because what if it doesn’t work? How do you gauge that? How do you judge whether your marketing source is working or not working?

A lot of times we count on our sales people like, “Oh, this source is… ” “These leads aren’t really that good,” or “Wow, these are great, the phones are ringing off the hook.” But in reality, it’s not about whether the phones ring off the hook or whether you have to call 100 leads in order to get three jobs, it’s a matter of how profitable they are. So you need a marketing ROI report to be able to tell you how profitable your marketing sources are. It’s so important, especially, in this day and age, there’s so many different ways to market. It’s not like 10 years ago where you had a Yellow Page ad, some direct mail and a few other things going on. There’s a lot of different lead sources and you may only be getting a few from this one and a few from that one. You want to be able to know every single month how they’re performing, because then from there you can make adjustments.

The third report that you’re gonna wanna look at every month is your Completed Moves Report. You’re also gonna wanna look at this one weekly. Weekly and monthly, your Completed Moves Report. So basically the Completed Moves Report is essentially the moves that you did, the moves that you completed. But what was the average move? What was the estimated price versus the actual price? How much packing was sold on each move? When you’re looking at these numbers on a monthly basis, you see things that you can then implement into your business. If you start looking and say, wow, how can we increase sales? How can we increase and bring in more revenue? Well, we could sell more packing. Okay, well if every month you look at your Completed Moves Report and you see that you’re selling, I don’t know on average $50 per move in packing.

You say, you know what, let’s… How can we get that to $100 a move in packing? And you come up with a plan and you figure it out and you need to gauge that every month, you need to look at it and see if you’re making progress. Or what happens if your average local move is normally $860? And all of a sudden one month it’s like $620. There might be another problem, there might be something going on that you need to look at or you might be advertising or marketing with a source that’s bringing in very small moves or you may have lost a source of big moves. Having this information, I could try my best to tell you what it’s gonna do for you as a business owner, but only until you have it in front of you will you be able to know how impactful it’s gonna be for your business and what you can do and changes you can make for your business. Very, very, very important.

And the last report that you’re… And again these are bare minimum. These are not all the reports that you wanna see but if you’re not doing these, start with these. There’s many more advanced reports that you can get into. You may be doing more now, but to me these are four of the most important reports that you need to be looking at. And this one, again, is another weekly and monthly which is your Sales Rep Performance. You wanna know how every sales person, rep, whatever you call them, moving consultant, how they’re doing weekly, how they’re doing monthly. You can’t just assume that they’re doing good or not doing good, you have to look at this because they could fall off. They could be going through something personally where it’s affecting their mind and they’re not producing the numbers that they’re normally producing. And if you’re able to see that and you’re able to track that trend quickly, you can do something about it. You can pull ’em to the side, talk to them, train them more, maybe they need more training, maybe they need some motivation, maybe they need a higher bonus. Whatever it may be, you need to track that weekly and monthly.

I had somebody recently ask me, “What do I do? My sales reps aren’t motivated. Last year, these were their numbers.” Well, first thing you need to do is stop looking at their numbers in yearly… You need to look at them weekly, you need to look them monthly, and you need to help them to develop better sales skills to be able to sell more. So these are the four reports you need to be looking at. And I’m stressing this ’cause I know if you start doing this, you’re gonna be able to make your business more profitable. Not because of what I’m… I’m just giving you what to look at. I don’t know exactly what you’re gonna see when you get it, but I know when you get it, if you’re running a business and you’re a business owner, you’re smart enough to know, that by this information, I know what my next step is. I know by what I saw in Completed Moves, that I need to take action and I need to do something to raise our average move. Maybe I need to raise our price to get that up higher.

My profit and loss statement. Maybe your books are a mess right now. Don’t get discouraged. If you haven’t been looking at them ever, or you only look at them once a year or occasionally glance at them or just something you use for the CPA, understand it’s gonna take you a little bit of time to clean them up and get them in order, but it’s gonna be the best investment of time you ever made, trust me. Your marketing ROI, don’t guess anymore what’s working, what’s not working. Don’t be fooled because you have a marketing source that makes the phones ring off the hook and it’s exciting and there’s adrenaline, but in reality, it might not be profitable. You don’t want moves at any cost, you want moves at a certain cost, to where they’re profitable.

And what else is there? Your salesman’s performance. This is huge. If you’re coaching, and you’re doing enhancement training with your sales team, and you’re looking at where they’re struggling, and you’re helping them overcome that so that they could sell more for you and your company, you need to be looking at that weekly, monthly. Once you’ve set up the templates for these, and once you’re able to figure out where you’re gonna pull the data and where you’re gonna get the information from, it’s easy. Then you schedule some time once a month. Yes, you. Don’t have somebody else review these reports, this is your business, and your profits. This is rule number one of 10 Rules of a Profitable Moving Company. It’s about becoming more profitable. And when you’re more profitable, the owner of the business receives the benefit. So take the time, schedule it on your calendar, whether it’s a couple different days where you have two hours a day, or whether you take one full day a month and you just go through all the numbers. Trust me, it’s gonna be one of the best things you ever did. Until then, I hope this was helpful. Go out, profit in business, thrive in life. I’ll see you next time.