Don’t Just Build a Business, Build a Life

SUMMARY

In this episode of The Moving Mastery Podcast, Louis Massaro shares some tips to help you not only build a business, but to build a life.

  • “True success does not come from building your business. True success comes from focusing on building a life and using your business as a vehicle to financial freedom, to allow you to live that life.”
  • “If you put all your focus and energy on just working and grinding and hustling to build your business, without a vision for where you want your life to go, meaning you don’t have a target on what you’re truly after instead of just business goals, you’re going to end up either completely unfulfilled, burnt out, and just not inspired anymore to continue to grow your business.”
  • “When I started my first company and I was 19 years old, I started a moving company and it was hustle and grind and hustle and grind, and just putting in time, putting in hours, literally until I was sick to my stomach. But I got it going. I got it successful. And I’m like, “Oh, this works. I got to work hard. I got to strive. I got to keep grinding.”
  • “I got to a place where I hit an eight figure business, had the homes, multiple homes and cars and all the money I could ever want. And I was just unfulfilled, unhappy, depressed even. And around that time, I got my first coach and she said to me, “Louis, you’ve done an amazing job of building your business, but you haven’t put that same effort into building your life.” and that really was such a transitional moment for me in my life, because I realized that that’s what was missing.”
  • Watch the video to get full training.

HOT NEWS & DEALS!

  1. FREE Training Course: The Perfect Move Method!
    A simple, reliable way to get more 5-star reviews, increase profits and reduce stress! CHECK IT OUT! Click here NOW!
  2. Latest Instagram!
    Check out @LouisMassaro for new announcements, valuable tips, and enlightening videos to take your moving company to the NEXT LEVEL!

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Transcription

Louis Massaro:
True success does not come from building your business. True success comes from focusing on building a life and using your business as a vehicle to financial freedom, to allow you to live that life. If you put all your focus and energy on just working and grinding and hustling to build your business, without a vision for where you want your life to go, meaning you don’t have a target on what you’re truly after instead of just business goals, you’re going to end up either completely unfulfilled, burnt out, and just not inspired anymore to continue to grow your business.

If you’re joining us for the first time, my name is Louis Massaro. I help business owners optimize their business, increase profits, and live an extraordinary quality of life. When I started my first company and I was 19 years old, I started a moving company and it was hustle and grind and hustle and grind, and just putting in time, putting in hours, literally until I was sick to my stomach. But I got it going. I got it successful. And I’m like, “Oh, this works. I got to work hard. I got to strive. I got to keep grinding.”

And I got to a place where I hit an eight figure business, had the homes, multiple homes and cars and all the money I could ever want. And I was just unfulfilled, unhappy, depressed even. And around that time, I got my first coach and she said to me, “Louis, you’ve done an amazing job of building your business, but you haven’t put that same effort into building your life.” and that really was such a transitional moment for me in my life, because I realized that that’s what was missing.

I figured, “Hey, work hard, make the money, work hard, make the money and everything else will fall into place.” And it didn’t. I had to be intentional about it. And once I focused on, “Okay, let me look at all the areas of my life. Let me look to bring them up all together, not just bring my business up and wait for everything else to fall into place,” once I did that, not only did I become a happier, more fulfilled person, my business doubled.

I went to $20 million a year. And I share this with you because a lot of times we start our business in kind of a, “Hey, we’ve got to make this happen.” Like for me, it was like my back’s against the wall. Like if I don’t make this happen, I don’t know what else I’m going to do. So we put in the hustle, we put in the grind, and it’s needed to get the momentum going. But then there’s a point where it’s no longer needed, and we’ve got to take a step back and we’ve got to say, “You know what? If I’m trying to increase the profit, I also want to take my life up with it.”

The thrive. Profit and thrive. You hear me say that all the time. So it’s like, anything you do, you want to bring up the profit and you want to bring up the thrive, at the same time. You know? And you might say, “Louis, but you’ve got to work hard. You’ve got to really put in a lot of effort to build a business. It’s hard work.” No one’s telling you not to work hard. What I’m saying is identify what you want in your life. Make that the priority, and then work hard and smart towards them that, not just making money, making money, making money. And so I want to share with you three things to get you thinking about what it is to not just build a business, but to build a life. And the first one is to brainstorm what you want in your life.

You know, it’s easy to say, “Oh, I want to buy these things.” Or, “I want to have these experiences.” But when you start looking at, in all areas of your life, what do you really want financially, in your business, in your relationships, in your personal growth, and the contribution that you make in your health. You know, when we start to look at all areas of our life and say, “What do I want?” That is when you start to create the life that you are then going to go after. You know, if you’re going to put in this work, if you’re going to put in the time, if you’re going to really give your all to build a business, why not make that effort lead exactly where you want it to go? Why not make sure that the ladder is on the right wall before you start climbing?

The next thing you want to do once you have that list of everything that you want in your life … Right? This is what you should be after. This is your ultimate aim. What you want in your life. The next thing you want to do is step into whatever’s possible now. What I mean by that is, I used to, right … Okay, I want to play golf once a week. Right? And so, okay. Am I capable of doing that now? If so, step into it and start doing it now. Don’t put it off. And I want to have date night once a week with my wife. Okay. Start doing that now. Right? Because you’ll have things on this list of your ultimate life of what you want and what you’re after, that you don’t yet have the time, the freedom, or the money to do yet.

But there’ll also be a lot on that list that you do have the time, freedom, and money to do. Start those now. Step into it. Right? You say you want something, it’s there. You’re able to do it. Step into it. Make it happen. Arrange your schedule. Arrange your life to bring up everything, the profit and the thrive.

And the third thing you want to do is from that point, focus on freedom and money to live the rest of that ultimate life. Meaning, get yourself the freedom in your business. Okay? Set up your system, set up your processes, set up your people, set up your automation so that you’ve got the freedom to work on scaling the business. Right? We don’t want to just get freedom to go lay on the beach. That’s great. We want to do that too. But we need freedom to work on the bigger picture, so that we could build a bigger business to really get to that next level.

If you’re stuck day-to-day working in the business, not going to be able to do that. So you want to focus on getting the freedom so that you could focus on getting the money, because once you have the freedom and the money, you should be able to handle everything else you want to handle on that ultimate life list. So do these three things. Let me know how it works. Start focusing on what you really want in your life. Make sure that every move you make, you look to take the profit up with the thrive at the same time. Go out there every single day. Profit in your business. Thrive in your life. I’ll talk to you soon.

$500K vs $5Million Business Growth Strategy

SUMMARY

In this episode of The Moving Mastery Podcast, Louis Massaro shares why you can’t reach the next level of success using the same strategy that got you to your first level of success.

  • “What got you to your first level of success in your business is not what will get you to your next level of success. If you’re trying to build a $5 million business, you’re not going to be able to get there with your $500,000 strategy.”
  • “Oftentimes what happens is business owners get stuck in a position where they’ve had great growth, great momentum, good success in their business, and then they hit a wall. And the reason a lot of times that they hit that wall is because they’re operating off the same strategy that they used to get their business off the ground to get it up and running.”
  • “If you don’t change up your strategy, you’re going to end up 10 years from now in the same position, not really reaching that level of success that you’re truly capable of, and your business will start to outgrow the processes and the people, and you’ll have breakdowns in service, breakdowns in your products, breakdowns in the way that you’re able to handle your customers.”
  • “It can be a dreadful frustrating existence in order to really get to that next level, and it causes a lot of people to kind of step back and stop pushing after what they really want and going after building that business that they are truly capable of only because they’ve got the wrong strategy.”
  • Watch the video to get full training.

HOT NEWS & DEALS!

  1. FREE Training Course: The Perfect Move Method!
    A simple, reliable way to get more 5-star reviews, increase profits and reduce stress! CHECK IT OUT! Click here NOW!
  2. Latest Instagram!
    Check out @LouisMassaro for new announcements, valuable tips, and enlightening videos to take your moving company to the NEXT LEVEL!

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Transcription

Louis Massaro:

What got you to your first level of success in your business is not what will get you to your next level of success. If you’re trying to build a $5 million business, you’re not going to be able to get there with your $500,000 strategy. Oftentimes what happens is business owners get stuck in a position where they’ve had great growth, great momentum, good success in their business, and then they hit a wall.

And the reason a lot of times that they hit that wall is because they’re operating off the same strategy that they used to get their business off the ground to get it up and running. But there’s a different level and a different strategy and a different approach to running your business that you need to take if you want to break through and get to that next level.

And if you don’t change up your strategy, you’re going to end up 10 years from now in the same position, not really reaching that level of success that you’re truly capable of, and your business will start to outgrow the processes and the people, and you’ll have breakdowns in service, breakdowns in your products, breakdowns in the way that you’re able to handle your customers.

And it’s just going to be a dreadful frustrating existence in order to really get to that next level, and it causes a lot of people to kind of step back and stop pushing after what they really want and going after building that business that they are truly capable of only because they’ve got the wrong strategy. If you’re joining us for the first time, my name’s Louis Massaro. I help small business owners optimize their business, increase profits and live a great quality of life along the way.

Recently I had a private client group here in my office, a small group that comes, and I work with them to kind of look at where they’re trying to go in their business. We develop a game plan and give them a strategy to be able to achieve that. And at the end of the first day, one of my clients, a great guy, he said, “Louis, have you had to sum up the problems with my business in one sentence, what would it be?” And I sat there for a second. I thought about it. I said, “You’re trying to build $5 million business with a 500,000 knowledge strategy.” Right?

He was already at about $2 million, but wanted to go to five. That was his goal. But his daily activities, the objectives that he had set up, what he had his team working on was all a strategy that was still that $500,000 strategy. And yes, he got the $2 million, but he got to $2 million with such hard work, hours, stress, frustration, burnt out team. He did it because he’s a smart guy and he’s working hard and he did the work. However, I said to him, “Look, your next journey from the two to the five won’t have to be as hard.

You won’t have to put in as many hours. All we’ve got to do is adjust your strategy, give you that $5 million strategy, so that you’re on the right path. You’re doing the right stuff. You could lead your team in the right direction.” And you might be thinking, “Louis, just because someone has a $5 million strategy doesn’t mean they could build a $5 million business.” And that’s true, right? You still got to have execution, and you still got to be able to course correct along the way.

Because for him, the journey from $2 million to $5 million, that’s not an overnight thing that’s going to happen, right? The same way he didn’t build a $2 million business overnight. So along the way, as the environment changes, as regulations changes, as the economy changes, and the dynamic within your business and your people changes, you’re going to need to be able to course correct. But it doesn’t matter how well you course correct. It doesn’t matter how well you execute.

If you’ve got the wrong strategy, if you’ve got the ladder on the wrong wall and you start climbing, you’re going to end up in the wrong spot. So if you want to build a $5 million business or a $10 million business or a $50 million business, make sure that your strategy aligns with where you want to go. Because what we need to be able to do is we need to be able to not only manage the business that we’re in, we’ve got to be able to manage where we’re going and where we’re headed, or we get stuck.

I want to give you three tips to kind of help you realign to a new strategy that will get you to where you want to go. The first thing you’ve got to do is you’ve got to set up your one, your three, and your 10 year targets. Okay? Your one year, three year, 10 year targets. Where is your business going to be one year from now, three years from now, and 10 years from now? The 10 years will give you that kind of long-term view of saying, “Hey, we’ve got plenty of time to get there.” One year is more like urgent.

These are the objectives that we need to back into are based on hitting at one year. And three years is like, okay, that’s in the foreseeable future. That’s something we could hit. We need to make sure that we’re in line with where we want to go for that. All right?

The second thing you want to do is you want to make a list of your business fundamentals, the stuff that it takes to run your core business day-to-day. All right? Everything that it takes.

If you wanted your business to be what I call a model business, to make it a machine that it just runs with or without you, you’ve got to make a list of those fundamental activities, roles, tasks that need to happen on a daily, weekly, monthly basis for that to run. Then you need another list of business development activities. This is the stuff that you’re taking your fundamentals and you’re trying to improve upon it. You’re trying to grow. You’re trying to enhance a division. You’re trying to open up another location, whatever it might be.

You’ve got to be able to separate these two in your mind. I know it sounds really simple. But when you separate the fundamentals versus the business development, you could get really clear on the activities that you’re working on and almost treat it like you’ve got two jobs. You’ve got to run the business that you have, because if it’s working and it’s successful and maybe it just needs some optimization, great. Make sure that that’s handled first and foremost. And then on top of that, you do the business develop, right?

But you got to take care of the core. If you don’t take care of the core, it’s not sustainable. But if you’re not looking at what you’re becoming, that’s how you get stuck and you don’t break through to that next level. All right? So once you’ve got that, now you’ve got your one year, three year, 10 year targets, you’ve got your list of business fundamentals, your list of business development, what you want to do is you want to take a look at your objectives, your quarterly objectives, and break those down and make sure they are in alignment with your three year target.

Too often, companies are just trying to align with their one year target without even really thinking about the three year target. Three years is very… It comes quick. If you’ve been in business for a while or just anything that’s gone on in your life, you look back, three years comes quick. Let the 10 year be kind of that guiding light of where you’re headed. But with so many circumstances changing, it’s really hard to dial an exact plan to get to 10 years.

You’ve got your one year target, but make sure that your quarterly objectives are in line with your three year target. Put that in place. Let me know how that works. And until I see you next time, go out there every single day, profit in your business, thrive in your life. I’ll talk to you soon.

Moving CEO Skill Development


SUMMARY

In this episode of The Moving Mastery Podcast, Louis Massaro shares how to develop skills as a Moving CEO.

  • “I believe that anyone in the moving business can get to any level of success that they want if they focus on skill development.”
  • “When I first started, I didn’t know anything about the business. I literally did not know how to fold a pad, I didn’t know how to book a move, anything. So it became a checklist of skill development, I need to learn how to do this, I need to learn how to do that.”
  • “If you learn the right skills that you need at every stage of the game in the moving business, you can reach any level that you want, but if you don’t learn the skills that you need, if you don’t start to develop this mindset of skill development, it’s going to be very, very hard, and it’s going to be a struggle.”
  • “You’ve got to be able to adopt this mindset of, “Skill development is part of my life,” and constantly be looking at different areas that will help you to improve in your business and in your life, that’s what it’s all about.”
  • Watch the video to get full training.

HOT NEWS & DEALS!

  1. Join the Moving CEO Challenge: Official Louis Massaro Community Facebook Group! A place for moving company owners to connect, share ideas, and inspire one another. Click here to join!
  2. Latest Instagram!
    Check out @LouisMassaro for new announcements, valuable tips, and enlightening videos to take your moving company to the NEXT LEVEL!

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Transcription

Louis Massaro:

I believe that anyone in the moving business can get to any level of success that they want if they focus on skill development. What do I mean by that? When I first started, I didn’t know anything about the business, right? I literally did not know how to fold a pad, I didn’t know how to book a move, anything. So it became a checklist of skill development, you need to learn how to do this, you need to learn how to do that, and if you learn the right skills that you need at every stage of the game in the moving business, you can reach any level that you want, but if you don’t learn the skills that you need, if you don’t start to develop this mindset of skill development, it’s going to be very, very hard, and it’s going to be a struggle, because you’re going to try to break through, you’re going to try to will your way through and just work harder and get the trial and error, and just go through all of this struggle and not break through that level that you really want to break through to.

If you’re joining me for the first time, my name’s Louis Massaro, I am founder and CEO of Moving Mastery, where we help moving company owners set up proven systems and processes in their business to increase profits, reduce stress, and live a better quality of life. And I was telling you about when I first started, and I had this little black book that I would keep in my pocket, and every problem that I would run across, I would make a note of, “I need to find a solution for this,” but those solutions, oftentimes, turned into skills that I needed to develop. I started to identify, “Okay, I don’t know how to do this thing. I need to learn how to do it, or I’m going to keep struggling with it.”

And when I first realized this, it was mind-blowing to me, because what seemed like impossible before, now I had hope. I looked it, and I said, “You know what? If I could just learn the skill of accounting and knowing my numbers, if I could just learn the skill of selling and booking moves, if I could just learn the skill of managing and leading my movers, if I could just learn the skill of hiring and training, I’ll get to where I want to go.”

And I watch this now with our clients, where we first start working with them, and some of them already have this mindset, they’re already there. They’re like, “Hey, I know I need to learn skills, that’s why we came to you, Louis. We need to learn how to do this, this, this, and this,” but when I see others that don’t recognize that as one of the most important things they need to do as a leader, one of the most important things they need to do as a moving CEO, and then they finally realize it, and they’re like, “Wow. If I just start going through my day and identifying issues that I’m having and saying, ‘If I had this skill, or I had that skill, would I be able to deal with this? Would I be able to address this?'”

And you might be thinking, “Louis, but like, it’s so hard, you don’t understand, it’s… I have the skills, I know everything I need to know, but I still struggle with it.” And my challenge to you would be, what’s causing you to continue to struggle with it, right? Because sometimes, skills aren’t necessarily skills of the trade, sometimes skills are, “How do I work out my thoughts? How do I get in a better state and out of stress, and focus my attention on the possibilities instead of the obstacles?” That’s a skill.

So, you’ve got to be able to adopt this mindset of, “Skill development is part of my life,” and constantly be looking at different areas that will help you to improve in your business and in your life, that’s what it’s all about. We don’t stop learning when we graduate from school, right? We’ve got to continue to teach ourselves, we’ve got to be able to identify, “What do I need to get what I want? To get where I want to go, what do I have to learn, what book do I have to read, what course do I need to take, what seminar do I need to go to? What person do I need to talk to and get their input on how they did something that I’m trying to do?” Skill development will get you to that next level, make it part of your regular routine. Keep a list of skills you’re actively working on.

So today, I want to give you three skills that I believe every moving company owner needs as a foundation to get to that next level, and you’ve got to be able to start developing these. The first one is self-management. If you can’t manage yourself, you can’t manage your business, you can’t manage your team. If you’re struggling to manage your team, you’re struggling to manage your business, let’s bring it back to self-management. Lot of people call this time management, but you can’t manage time. You can manage yourself within the time that you have. You can make choices on what you choose to do with your time.

First thing in the morning, what are you doing, what’s your morning routine like? What’s your workday startup routine like, what do you do first when you get to work, besides answer emails and react to everybody else’s false emergencies? How are you scheduling your priorities on your calendar to make sure that you’re moving the needle and getting the big impact items done? How are you managing your state of mind to keep you from focusing on, “It’s so hard, it’s a challenge, there’s no good people, customers are cheap,” to focusing on the possibilities of where you could go and what you could do with your business?

Self-management is a skill, something that you can learn. If you’re recognizing that right now as something that’s for you, jot that down on your list. Make a list, skill development list, put in your phone, put it wherever is convenient for you. And if self-management’s one of them, add it to the list.


The second one every moving company owner, every moving CEO needs to develop, is process creation, the skill of process creation, how to develop processes within your business. So many people know that they need to create processes and systems and SOPs, standard operating procedures, but they don’t do it because they don’t have the skill, right? So if you think about things that you don’t do, if you think about the things that you know you need to do, but you don’t do, and you really trace your thoughts back to the source, part of why you don’t do the things you do is because you don’t have the competence to do it, the skill, therefore you don’t have the confidence to go and do it.

In psychology, there’s something called the competence-confidence loop, which basically means the more competence you have, the more skills you develop, the more confidence you have, which will then have you go get more competence. Once you start to recognize like, “Wow, I’m developing skills,” you’ll get confidence to want to go get more skills, and that’ll just loop, confidence, competence, confidence, competence, and you’ll build strength, you’ll become better, you’ll be able to achieve more.

You can’t get to the next level in the business just by working hard, you got to develop those skills, so when we think about creating processes, or anything else that you might tend to kind of, “I know I need to do that, but I’m not going to get to it,” we’ve got to develop those skills. So whether you read books or whether you enroll in our Moving CEO Business Program, where we teach all of this stuff, whatever you need to do, these are skills that I believe every moving company owner needs to know, and they should go on your skill development list.

The third one I’m going to give you today is leadership, right? We’ve got to be able to lead people to bring your business to a level of success where you’ve got systems running the business, and now you’ve got people running those systems, you still have to lead those people, right? You still need to direct them to do what they need to do, you still need to inspire them to do the job. You still need to set the example of how you want your culture to be and how you want people to interact within your business.

And here’s the thing, if you’re looking at it like, “Louis…” Don’t feel bad if any of these skills, you don’t have, and you’re like, “Yeah, I’m not good at that, or I’m not good at that,” so what? I wasn’t good at anything when I started, right? And the reality is, you get good by determining what you need to get good at, and then intentionally going and developing that skill.

There’s tons of books out there on leadership. We teach it in the Moving CEO Business Program, but it’s like, you’ve got to be aware of it, and never look at this stuff as shortcomings. Never let the self-talk go into, “I’m no good, I don’t know how to do this, I’m no good, I don’t know how to do that,” and that’s how the mind tends to want to think. That’s how the fixed mindset tends to think. We’ve got to have a growth mindset, we’ve got to have a mindset that says, “You know what? I can grow personally. Physically, mentally, I could grow, gain skills, gain strength, to be able to do what it is that I want to do.”

That’s it. We can’t just think that we’re going to, by default, show up and be fantastic, right? Skill development. So make your list, right? Right now, even if these three things, you’re like, “Louis, I’m good. Those three, I got those covered.” What else? What other skills do you need to learn? Maybe you need to learn financials. Maybe you’re like, “Louis, I’m way beyond that, my company’s eight figures, I know financials.” Okay, maybe you need to learn mergers and acquisitions, maybe [inaudible 00:09:35] need to learn franchising, right? Maybe you need to learn different areas of ways to sell your business.

There’s always a new skill to learn, actively be working on something every single month. Actively have a list that you add to, and not look at it as self-defeat, like “I don’t know these things.” Look at it as an empowering act of saying, “I’m going to go learn these things, I’m going to prioritize them based upon what I need now to solve problems that I’m having in my business, to solve problems that I’m having in my life,” and with that, you will live an extraordinary life and build an extraordinary business. So until I see you next time, go out there every single day, profit in your business, thrive in your life, leave me a comment, let me know what you thought of this episode, I’ll talk to you soon.

Take Back Control of Your Moving Company


SUMMARY

In this episode of The Moving Mastery Podcast, Louis Massaro shares three things to help you take control of your business after you step away from the day-to-day and you start to feel like you’re losing touch with things.

  • “You’ve got to be able to jump back into any area and get it to be the way that you want it to be.”
  • “I’ve advised so many of my private clients to do the same thing. Companies that maybe they’ve got one or two employees and companies that have multiple locations and franchises all across the board have done the same thing and went back into dispatch in particular because that’s usually where the problems lie and taken back control of their business.”
  • “You know that if you let it continue to run the way that it’s been running, your company will not get to the level that you want it to get to and the problems will keep happening.”
  • “If you’re thinking, “Yeah, Louis, but I don’t have the time to go back in to my business.” Well, let me ask you this, how much money is it costing you to not go in and address the problems, to not go in and fix the problems?.”
  • Watch the video to get full training.

HOT NEWS & DEALS!

  1. Join the Moving CEO Challenge: Official Louis Massaro Community Facebook Group! A place for moving company owners to connect, share ideas, and inspire one another. Click here to join!
  2. Latest Instagram!
    Check out @LouisMassaro for new announcements, valuable tips, and enlightening videos to take your moving company to the NEXT LEVEL!

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Transcription

Louis Massaro:
If you’re not feeling in 100% control of one area of your business, let’s say it’s operations, or let’s say it’s sales, dispatch, whatever it might be. It’s time to roll up your sleeves. It’s time to take back control of your moving company. As we grow, as we start to hire people and bring people on, we delegate and we move out of the day-to-day. If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that I talk about you need to work on your business and not in your business.


The thing is, sometimes when you remove yourself and you’re not in the business and you’re letting other people do it, you start to lose control because you haven’t set things the way you want them, or you’ve set them the way you want them and they’re not following it that way. In order to get it back the way you want it, in order to optimize your business, you’ve got to actually go back in to your business and work in your business.


If there’s an area, let’s say dispatch, for example, that doesn’t feel like things are being done the right way, you’ve got to jump back in. You’ve got to spend some time in there, getting it to be the way that you want it to be and training your team to do it that way. If you don’t do this, you’re going to just struggle with the same issues over and over and over. And a lot of people are afraid to jump back in because they feel like, you know what, my days of being in dispatcher are over, or my days of being on the truck are over.


And the reality is, sometimes at any level, you’ve got to be able to jump back into that area and get it to be the way that you want it to be. If you’re joining me for the first time, my name is Louis Massaro. I’m founder and CEO of Moving Mastery, where we help moving company owners set up proven systems and processes in their business to increase profits, reduce stress, and live a better quality of life.


I remember a time when I had five locations at the time, and the location where my main call center was, it was the middle of the summer and things weren’t running the way that I wanted them to run. What did I do? I jumped back into dispatch. I let go of the dispatcher that was there and I did it myself. It’s not that I didn’t have anything to do. I had several companies all over the country to run, but it was so important that I get it back to be the way that I wanted it to be, that I spent several months in the middle of the summer working it.


And since then, I’ve advised so many of my private clients to do the same thing. Companies that maybe they’ve got one or two employees and companies that have multiple locations and franchises all across the board have done the same thing and went back into dispatch in particular because that’s usually where the problems lie and taken back control of their business, right? Set things up to be the way that they want it. I’ve got one client, they’re almost at eight-figures.


Just this summer went in, jumped back in, and got dispatch on point the way that he needed it to be. Because he knows that if you let it continue to run the way that it was running, that his company would not get to the level that he wanted it to get to and the problems would keep happening. So if you’re thinking, “Yeah, Louis, but I don’t have the time to go back in to my business.” Well, let me ask you this, how much money is it costing you to not go in and address the problems, to not go in and fix the problems?


See, the thing is our mind plays tricks on us and wants to make us think that we’re taking a step back. Taking a step back is okay if it’s to take multiple steps forward. If there’s ever an area of your business that is not operating the way that you want it to operate, that you’ve stepped out of and have somebody else in, you’ve got to go back in. It doesn’t mean you’ve got to fire the person there. Maybe you’ve got to work alongside of them to get it back the way you want it.


So let me give you three tips that are going to help you go take control back of your business, whether it’s sales, whether it’s operations. First one is go spend three weeks in that department. Whatever that department is, sales, customer service dispatch. Maybe it’s going on the trucks with the movers to show them how you want things. Go spend three weeks. It will be the most valuable three weeks that you spend in your business probably the entire year. Spend three weeks and get it how you want it.


The second thing you want to do is optimize the process. Optimize the process. And if you don’t have a process, create the process, right? In order to move yourself out of positions in the company, and this is where a lot of people go wrong, as they move themselves out of a position, they hire somebody, but they don’t leave them with a documented process of this is how we do it.


So if you don’t have it, create the process. If you do have it, optimize the process for how you want it done now. And then the third thing is train your team on the new process of how you want things done now, right? This sounds so simple, but it’s so powerful. Think about the control you’ll feel by knowing that you can go in and you could solve the issue. This is how you take back control of your moving company. I hope you enjoyed this video as much as I enjoyed making it for you.


Until I see you next time, go out there every single day, profit in your business, thrive in your life. I’ll see you soon.

2021 State of the Moving Industry


SUMMARY

In this episode of The Moving Mastery Podcast, Louis Massaro shares three things to help you pivot to the new way of operating in the moving business and help you thrive in 2021.

  • “2020 has changed the game in the moving industry. And in 2021, things are going to continue to change. Things are going to continue to change to this new way of moving where the old way of doing things is not going to work. We’ve got this major opportunity in front of us. This summer, I don’t know that there’s going to be enough moving companies to service all of the moves that are going to be happening. And if you’re prepared for that, if you’re in a position where you think about it like this big tidal wave that’s coming in and you learn to ride that wave, you’re going to ride that wave all the way to the bank. But if you don’t learn to ride that wave, that wave is going to come crashing down on your head.”
  • “And there’s really so much that needs to be adjusted and needs to be changed, but I want to give you three things today that I think will really help you to not only thrive this year, but set yourself up for this new world of moving that we’re in. The first one is you’ve got to make sure that your virtual sales game is on point. What do I mean by that? Not only do you need to be able to give estimates virtually, whether that’s over the phone or whether that’s a video estimate, you’ve also got to be able to look at this great opportunity that we have in front of us to hire remote salespeople. A lot of my private clients this year, I had them hiring teams of remote people in different parts of the country that a lot of times they could get for a lot cheaper than they can in their own city.”
  • “If you want to succeed and you don’t want that wave crashing down on your head, it’s time to step up that mover hiring process and be diligent about it. There’s no simple way about it, keep those ads running. Keep those interviews going, get your hiring process, get your training process dialed in. Or you’re just not going to be able to ride that wave of opportunity all the way to the bank, you’ve got to be able to sell the moves and you’ve got to make sure you’re selling them at a price that is profitable for you. And then you’ve got to make sure you got good quality going out there and doing the job. I know you’re going to say, “Louis, this is nothing new. This is nothing special.” But it is, it’s a matter of how much attention you’re putting to these things, how much focus you’re putting on them. The stuff that we used to take for granted can no longer be taken for granted.”
  • “The way you build a business is you build your processes. You build your SOPs, that’s building a business, that gives you something that you’re… You’re building something, a set of systems, a set of processes that run your business consistently, predictably without you. If you don’t have that, you’re not building a business, you’re just spinning on the hamster wheel. So as you are building your new virtual sales process, as you’re building your mover hiring and training process, document those processes, build for the future, have your playbook for your business, so that you know this is how we do things. Because if you don’t have that, your people aren’t going to know what to do. You’re not going to be able to pivot and change quickly.”
  • Watch the video to get full training.

HOT NEWS & DEALS!

  1. Join the Moving CEO Challenge: Official Louis Massaro Community Facebook Group! A place for moving company owners to connect, share ideas, and inspire one another. Click here to join!
  2. Latest Instagram!
    Check out @LouisMassaro for new announcements, valuable tips, and enlightening videos to take your moving company to the NEXT LEVEL!

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TRANSCRIPTION

Louis Massaro:
2020 has changed the game in the moving industry. And in 2021, things are going to continue to change. Things are going to continue to change to this new way of moving where the old way of doing things is not going to work. We’ve got this major opportunity in front of us. This summer, I don’t know that there’s going to be enough moving companies to service all of the moves that are going to be happening. And if you’re prepared for that, if you’re in a position where you think about it like this big tidal wave that’s coming in and you learn to ride that wave, you’re going to ride that wave all the way to the bank. But if you don’t learn to ride that wave, that wave is going to come crashing down on your head. And I could tell you this from over the past year with the hundreds of moving company owners that we work with and not to mention my private clients that I work with real closely, I’m looking at their financials, I’m reviewing their processes, I’m helping them scale.

I’m helping them grow. I’m helping them franchise. I’m helping them see what works today and kind of sitting there as they make the decisions in their business and helping them guide them. Well, we see what’s working, we see what’s not working. And we see that there’s a pivot that needs to change. And if we don’t do this, I’m concerned that a lot of companies are just going to end up in a really bad position. Last year, I think a lot of companies had moves just falling on their laps. I call it the COVID gift to moving companies. COVID hit, it was like, “Oh, shit, what do we do? We’re going to go out of business.” And then all of a sudden, most companies had the busiest summer they ever had.

And although a lot of them may have put in processes and a lot of them may have done a lot to ramp that up, a lot of it was a gift. A lot of it fell on your lap, I think you could agree on that. And I don’t want you to take that for granted and think that that’s something that’s just going to happen and that that’s even healthy for your business because not all business is good business. We need to make sure it’s profitable business. We need to make sure you’re doing a good job for your customers so that you continue to get raving reviews, you continue to get repeat and referral customers. And you might be thinking, Louis, if it’s going to be so busy, what do I need to change? What do I need to do? And I just want to give you three things that are going to help you in 2021, to really pivot to this new way of thinking, this new way of operating within the moving business.

And there’s really so much that needs to be adjusted and needs to be changed, but I want to give you three things today that I think will really help you to not only thrive this year, but set yourself up for this new world of moving that we’re in. The first one is you’ve got to make sure that your virtual sales game is on point. What do I mean by that? Not only do you need to be able to give estimates virtually, whether that’s over the phone or whether that’s a video estimate, you’ve also got to be able to look at this great opportunity that we have in front of us to hire remote salespeople. A lot of my private clients this year, I had them hiring teams of remote people in different parts of the country that a lot of times they could get for a lot cheaper than they can in their own city.

They could have more coverage at different hours and they could run the entire thing virtually, meet with them, manage them, make sure that everything is used in a central database, in a CRM. I know most of the moving industry now is on SmartMoving, company that I co-founded, but whatever CRM you’re using, you’ve got the tools. We’ve got Zoom, we’ve got the CRM, we’ve got the ability to monitor their phone calls to see what’s going on. And to be able to adjust and pivot, we’ve got to think differently than, “I need salespeople in my office.” We need to think differently than, “I need an estimator to go out and do the estimate in the home.” Those things are still good, but what’s going to really help you adapt is stepping up your virtual sales game. Number two, mover hiring.

And you’re going to say, “Louis, that’s nothing new. That’s something that’s been around forever. We’ve always struggled and needed to hire movers,” but now more than ever, you’ve got to make this a priority. Not just put an ad once in a while when you need some people. Have a continuous process where you’re constantly recruiting, constantly hiring, constantly training and you’ve got somebody managing this process. There’s a shortage of movers. So we’ve got this demand for people moving, we saw it all 2020, the huge demand, everybody’s moving to a new home. They want more space. They want to get out of big cities. There’s a lot happening.

And then we’ve got people that don’t want to work, number one, they’re getting handouts or they’re have an easier job driving for Uber or driving for Amazon Prime, making deliveries. So we’ve got this demand, but in order to fulfill the demand, we need the movers. The companies that I’m working with that are setting up their mover hiring process and running that as if it’s as important as their sales process, are the ones that are winning and that’s what you’re going to need to do to win. You can’t say, “Well, Louis, nobody wants to work. Louis, it’s so hard to find movers. Louis, I can’t find good help in my city. My city is different, you don’t understand.”

I hear you with all those excuses, but if you want to succeed and you don’t want that wave crashing down on your head, it’s time to step up that mover hiring process and be diligent about it. There’s no simple way about it, keep those ads running. Keep those interviews going, get your hiring process, get your training process dialed in. Or you’re just not going to be able to ride that wave of opportunity all the way to the bank, you’ve got to be able to sell the moves and you’ve got to make sure you’re selling them at a price that is profitable for you. And then you’ve got to make sure you got good quality going out there and doing the job. I know you’re going to say, “Louis, this is nothing new. This is nothing special.” But it is, it’s a matter of how much attention you’re putting to these things, how much focus you’re putting on them. The stuff that we used to take for granted can no longer be taken for granted, which brings me to my third point, which is build for the future.

We talk about building our business, “I’m building my business. I’m building my business.” The way you build a business is you build your processes. You build your SOPs, that’s building a business, that gives you something that you’re… You’re building something, a set of systems, a set of processes that run your business consistently, predictably without you. If you don’t have that, you’re not building a business, you’re just spinning on the hamster wheel. So as you are building your new virtual sales process, as you’re building your mover hiring and training process, document those processes, build for the future, have your playbook for your business, so that you know this is how we do things. Because if you don’t have that, your people aren’t going to know what to do. You’re not going to be able to pivot and change quickly. The companies that I work with, they’ve got their processes.

They’ve got them dialed in, or at least they do once we work together for a little while. And when a change needs to happen, like many changes needed to happen last year in order to adjust, in order to pivot, you go to the process, you go to the playbook, you see what’s there. You make the adjustment, you train the team. You let everybody know this is the new way that we do it. And you move forward. You’ve got to be agile. You’ve got to be able to make shifts and pivots quickly. And if you don’t already have everybody on the same page in alignment with how things need to be done, it’s very hard to do that.

When you’ve got the processes in place, that’s building a business for the future. Right now, we’re also facing the possibility of a recession coming, so it’s like, look, we’ve got this major opportunity right now in 2021. And I don’t know when it’s going to happen. I’m not claiming to be an economist, but I can tell you that I lived through the 2008 recession and it was not fun. I had five, six offices at the time and it was not fun. Just to open my long distance division, there was a point there where I thought, man, am I going to go out of business? Why was that? It was because I had built my business to run in a good economy. It wasn’t prepared for the bad economy. Luckily I was able to adapt and adjust and pivot and make the adjustments that I needed right away to not only get things back on track, but then take it to a whole nother level.

I want you to be prepared. I want to make sure that whatever comes… We don’t know. We didn’t know coronavirus was going to come, we had no idea. We don’t know what’s coming next, but you need to be prepared and you need to have your business set up to thrive in a great economy. You need to have your business set up to thrive in a bad economy because the moving business is as close to a recession proof business as you could get. And as we’ve seen it, it was [inaudible 00:09:27] the pandemic pretty well too. But it’s not a matter of surviving, it’s a matter of thriving. It’s not a matter of just making a few bucks over the summer, it’s about consistent profits all year long, while you keep your sanity, while you lower your stress, while you enjoy your life.

This business should be your vehicle to financial freedom and opportunity to provide a great service to your community, to bring up your team, to bring up your crew and help guide everybody to that next level in your business, in your life. Now’s the time, take these three steps. Start there and continuously be thinking about how you need to improve to get to that next level, my friend. Until I see you next time, go out there every single day, profit in your business, thrive in your life. Make sure you’re prepared for the opportunity that’s in front of us in 2021. I’ll talk to you later.

Should You Scale Your Moving Company?


SUMMARY

In this episode of The Moving Mastery Podcast, Louis Massaro shares why you must know if you actually need to scale, and how you’re going to do it before you start to grow your moving company.

  • “Scaling your moving company is one of the best ways for you to build wealth and create freedom so that you can enjoy your life and not be stuck working in the business all the time.”
  • “Scaling prematurely or scaling when you’re not ready, or scaling when you don’t have the model business set up, could really cause a lot of stress, really cause a lot of aggravation, and put a strain on your existing business.”
  • “Let’s make more with what we have. Let’s make the day-to-day more efficient. Let’s find those profits because most times it feels like there’s just money laying all over the floor and it’s just a matter of tightening a few things up, right? So you want to start there.'”
  • “Now you ask yourself the question, do I need the scale? We talk about scale and growth and getting to the next level and that’s all great, but do you need to? And so for me, when I work with clients, the first thing I want to know is, where do you want to get to in your life? How much money do you want to make? What’s it going to take to live the life you want to live? You might not need to open more offices based on what you want.”
  • Watch the video to get full training.

HOT NEWS & DEALS!

  1. Join the Moving CEO Challenge: Official Louis Massaro Community Facebook Group! A place for moving company owners to connect, share ideas, and inspire one another. Click here to join!
  2. Latest Instagram!
    Check out @LouisMassaro for new announcements, valuable tips, and enlightening videos to take your moving company to the NEXT LEVEL!

RELATED POSTS

When to Expand Your Moving Company

How to Build a $10 Million Moving Company from Scratch

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Get Freedom from Your Moving Business

TRANSCRIPTION

Louis Massaro:

Scaling your moving company is one of the best ways for you to build wealth and create freedom so that you can enjoy your life and not be stuck working in the business all the time. But what does it mean to scale your moving company?

Scaling a business basically means taking a model that works and that has all the systems and the processes and everything is just in order, ready to go, right? It’s a model business and then scaling it, growing it, duplicating it, expanding it. That’s scaling a business. And even though it’s one of the best ways for you to create more abundance and more financial freedom for yourself, it’s also one of the ways that if it’s not done correctly or it’s done prematurely, can cause you the most stress, the most overwhelmed. Costs you a ton of money and put a ton of strain on your current business.

If you’re joining me for the first time, my name is Louis Massaro, Founder and CEO of Moving Mastery, where we help moving company owners set up proven systems and processes in their business, to increase profits, reduce stress, and live a better quality of life.
When I started my first moving company, I was 19 years old. I had no idea what I was doing and I worked out of a truck rental yard. I’ve rented two trucks and over a period of a couple of years, I was able to build a really strong local moving business that I thought was a solid model that I would then be able to scale.

So I started opening additional locations. My first year that I decided to scale and open additional locations, I opened an additional three locations, right? So now here I am, I went from one office, one moving company. Now I had four moving companies and what I realized really quick was that the way that I ran one, was totally different than the way I needed to be running multiple locations, right? The way that the consistency and the predictability of that one did not translate to these other offices.

So now I found myself having to kind of reign them all back in, fly from city to city, and something that I wouldn’t have been able to do had I not been a young 22, 23 year old guy that was just getting started. I didn’t have a family and obligations and things holding me back, but it was one of the most stressful times to build something that created, like a monster, that I had to reign.

in. Right? So that’s when I say, scaling prematurely or scaling when you’re not ready, or scaling when you don’t have the model business set up, could really cause a lot of stress, really caused a lot of aggravation, and put strain on your existing business, which is what it did. Because now, when I had to go be at these other locations, I wasn’t at my original office, right? So after a ton of flights back and forth, in time going here and there, I was able to develop processes and systems that allowed me to get it all under control. That allowed me to have consistency and predictability across all those locations and then grow.

Nationwide, we went to $20 million year and so I’m sharing this story because people will say, but Louis, I want to grow. I want to make more money. I want to scale. I want to get to that next level. I’ve got my friend or my dispatcher or my brother, they’re ready to open up another location. Or they say, I’m doing local moves and I’m turning down so much long distance, I need to get into long distance.

What I would tell you, and what I tell my clients is that look, before you scale, you’ve got to get your model business on point. You’ve got to have something that is set up in a way to where if you’re going to duplicate it or you’re going to do more of it, that it’s not just creating more problems and more issues, but that it’s a nice, smooth operation that you’re growing and you’re scaling. ,I’m all about growth. I’m all about scaling, but you’ve got to do it the right way.

So I want to give you three tips that you can take and really start laying the foundation for what you need to do to go and scale your business. Because like I said, it is the best way for you to really create that financial freedom, that personal freedom and that longterm wealth. And so I want to give you three things.

The first one is you want to fine tune your fundamentals. Okay? Fine tune your fundamentals and what that means is in the moving business, there are five fundamentals. In everything that you do in your moving business, is in one of these five categories. Okay?

The first one is lead generation or marketing. The second one is booking moves or sales. The third one is servicing moves or operations. The fourth one is creating raving fans or customer service. And the fifth one is accounting and knowing your numbers.

These five areas, time and time again, companies that I work with, if we dive in to these five areas and look for areas that can be fine tuned and you know right now there’s things that you’re thinking about, as we mentioned these five areas, where you’re like, yeah, I need to tighten that up. I need to tighten that up. What we found time and time again, is there so much profit sitting in those fundamentals and so before we go and expand and create more complexity in our day-to-day, in our life, in our business, let’s fine tune what we have. Right? Let’s make more with what we have. Let’s make the day-to-day more efficient. Let’s find those profits because most times it feels like there’s just money laying all over the floor of the companies that we work with and it’s just a matter of tightening a few things up, right? So you want to start there.

Second thing you want to do to prepare yourself to really scale, is become a process driven company. You know, you’re either a process-driven company, or you’re a people driven company. Most companies are people driven and what that means is they bring, they look for the best person they could find for the position. They hire somebody. They bring them in and let’s say it’s a salesperson. They’ll train a sales person and they’ll do it one way. They’ll train another sales person. They’ll do it a little bit differently. Or their movers, one crew will go out. They’ll address the customer when they come to the door in one way, and another crew will address the customer, not even address the customer in a totally different way, right? There’s no consistency because it’s people driven.
When you have people driven companies, there’s no way that you could scale that because you can’t duplicate people. You can’t clone people. So even if you’ve got great people, in order to scale, you’ve got to make sure you’ve got a process driven company.

What that means is everything that gets done in your business is done the exact same way, right? The way your movers handle pick up. The way they handle delivery. The way your sales team gives estimates. The way close out jobs and handle customer service and do your books. Everything is done, the exact same way, regardless of the person. Because what you want is, you want the processes to run the business and then you want the people to run those processes and until your company’s process driven, you’re going to have a really, really, really, really hard time scaling with a people driven company.

So listen, if this all makes sense to you and you want to go deeper, I suggest you take a look at my Moving CEO Business Program. There’s a link down below. I’m about to get to the third point here too. I want to make sure I give you the tools and set you up in a way where you’ve got everything you need. So go check that out. It’s called the Moving CEO Business Program. There’s a link down below for you.

The third step of what you need to do to prepare yourself for scale, now you’ve got your fundamentals, fine tuned. Right? You’ve kind of gone through and this an ever, you know, you want to be doing this all the time. You always want to be fine tuning the fundamentals, always be looking at the five areas and say, how can we improve this? How can we make it more efficient? How can we make it more profitable? Once you’ve got that going and like a nice rhythm and rotation of that happening consistently, then you’ve built your processes and become a process driven company, now you’re in a position where you can sit back and you’re going to look at your business in a whole different way; whole different way that you’re going to see it.

Now you ask yourself the question, do I need the scale? Right? No, we talk about scale and growth and getting to the next level and that’s all great, but the need to? And so for me, when I work with clients, the first thing I want to know is like, where do you want to get to in your life? How much money do you want to make? What’s it going to take to live the life you want to live because you know what? You might not need to open more offices based on what you want.

Maybe you want to make a certain amount of money, be able to live a nice lifestyle, right? Get things in order, so you’re not stressing out about is this happening? Is that happening? And you know everything’s running smooth. Maybe that’s where you want to be. You know, you don’t always have to scale and grow and open more, to live the life that you want to live. There’s a lot of money and profits right under your feet, where you are at. But, you may look at it and say, “Louis, I’ve got everything dialed in. You know, we’re operating at maximum efficiency and profitability and in order for me to live the life that I want to live for me and my family and do the things that we want to do, I need to be here and we can’t do that with this one location.” Then, you know, you need to scale, right? But you want to scale based on what you want to do in the way of how you want to live your life, right?

Don’t scale just for the sake of scaling. Because as much as it’s an entrepreneurial, like fire in you, to grow, it’s also something that you build that you also then have to maintain, that you also have to manage and if you’re not truly committed to it for a higher purpose and a higher reason, it can become very overwhelming.

So the last thing you want to do is just ask, do I need the scale? Where do I need to be, to be able to reach my personal financial goals? Because the number one thing you want to remember with all of this, whether you love the moving business, whether you hate the moving business. If you’re in the moving business, this business is your way to financial freedom and building wealth for yourself, but you’ve got to do it strategically and you don’t want to scale before you’re ready to scale.

Once you’ve got this setup, your fundamentals are fine-tuned, your processes are there, then you’re ready to go. Go crush it. Make it happen. I’ll see you guys next time.

Buy or Lease Moving Trucks?


SUMMARY

In this episode, Louis Massaro shares his thoughts on whether you should buy or lease moving trucks.

  • “You could do everything by the book of what’s the right financial decision, but then there’s also convenience when acquiring trucks.”
  • “What’s nice about some of these leasing programs that some of the Penske’s, and the Ryders, and these companies provide is that you get that new truck. You can wear and tear. If it breaks down, they give you a new one and the whole truck payment is the deductible.”
  • “When you own the truck, you also have to take care of that truck. So, you have to think about, ‘Do I have a mechanic that I can rely on? Do I have a mechanic that I can trust? Do I know anything about trucks.'”
  • “With moving trucks, it’s hard to find them slightly used. They’re usually pretty worn out. So, we would buy them new and finance them, make the payments on them for five years and then run them for another three years after with no payments and then sell them after that.”
  • Watch the video to get full training.

HOT NEWS & DEALS!

  1. Join the Moving CEO Challenge: Official Louis Massaro Community Facebook Group! A place for moving company owners to connect, share ideas, and inspire one another. Click here to join!
  2. Latest Instagram!
    Check out @LouisMassaro for new announcements, valuable tips, and enlightening videos to take your moving company to the NEXT LEVEL!

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How to Build a $10 Million Moving Company from Scratch

TRANSCRIPTION

Louis Massaro:

Janysh, “Financing versus leasing trucks? What do you prefer and why?” Great question. So, there’s no right or wrong answer. Let’s just start with that. It’s totally a preference thing. Now, you could do everything by the book of what’s the right financial decision, but then there’s also convenience, right? On a personal level, I like to lease my vehicles, because I want a brand new vehicle, and I want to give it back, and get another brand new vehicle in a few years, and I don’t want to take care of it. If anything’s wrong, I bring it in and they deal with it. Is that the smart financial play? No. The smart financial play on a personal level would be to buy a car that’s a few years old with a few thousand miles on it, buy it after it’s already taken the depreciation and drive it until it breaks down, right?

That’s the smart financial decision. So, from a trucks standpoint, I always bought trucks. Okay? And I bought them brand new, right? Which technically, when you buy, if you buy it used you, it depreciates right away, as soon as it comes off the lot. But the problem is with moving trucks, it’s hard to find them slightly used, right? They’re usually pretty worn out. So, we would buy them new and finance them, make the payments on them for five years and then run them for another three years after with no payments and then sell them after that. And that financially will be, over the longterm, your better move from strictly financial. But you can’t … You guys don’t just take the best financial decision into account, right?

Because when you own the truck, you also have to take care of that truck. So, you have to think about, do I have a mechanic that I can rely on? Do I have a mechanic that I can trust? Do I know anything about trucks, right? I mean, I had to learn the hard way when the diesel on one of my trucks froze up or jelled up, I should say, and I had to go prime the truck, and let the little air valve out, and it sprayed all in my face. I had to learn that stuff the hard way. And I didn’t want to deal with that, but I happened to have good mechanics everywhere that I went. Could I trust them? Eh. Were they padding the bill? Probably. Right? Were they charging me for stuff that I really couldn’t argue, because I didn’t know enough about the trucks? I’d say so.

Now with leasing, what’s nice about some of these leasing programs that some of the Penske’s, and the Ryders, and these companies provide is that you get that new truck. You can wear and tear. If it breaks down, they give you a new one and the whole truck payment is the deductible, right? So, when you buy a truck, every payment that you make, right? Only the interest and the taxes on that payment come off your P&L, right? And the rest is paying down your balance sheet. So, at the end of the year, when you buy trucks, it can make your P&L look like you’ve got all a lot of profit, but you don’t have the money. In other words, you’re like, “Oh, it looks like we’re profitable.” But yet, the bank account doesn’t show that.

Whereas with a lease, you’ve got every payment that you pay comes off your profit, right? So, it reduces your tax exposure. Now, I know I’m getting technical here, but I’m answering the question, right? This is the stuff you got to think about. With the truck that you buy, you do get to depreciate that which helps reduce your tax exposure. That’s all based on how you and your CPA choose to do it. So, I would say that, today, if I was starting over, I would explore both options. I would talk to my CPA. I would … At the time of when it comes to buy a new truck, look at where you’re at and see what you need from a tax standpoint, what your mechanic situation is, and then make the decision from there.

So, I like both ways. I’m not against either one. And that’s kind of my scoop, right? My reason why. You said, “What do you prefer and why?” That’s the reason why, but we did buy trucks, brand new, and there are trucks that you can get a brand new body with a used chassis. Go to my website, louismassaro.com. Search … Put trucks. It’s like movers guide to trucks, something like that. Just put trucks in the search bar. There’s a blog post there with my connections for buying a new truck, buying a new box with a used chassis and some leasing information as well. I hope that helps you guys.

Commit to Mastery in Your Moving Company


SUMMARY

In this episode, Louis Massaro shares why you need to commit to mastery to take your moving company to the next level.

  • “I kept this little black book in my pocket and I would write down whatever I needed to research, whatever I needed to look into. And I would always say to myself, “There’s got to be a better way.” I didn’t realize it at the time, but that one statement was leading me down the road to mastery.”
  • “Mastery is not a destination. It’s not a place that you get to. Mastery is a journey and it’s a mindset. This is the right business to be in if you want to make money. It just takes that commitment to mastery.”
  • “Dabblers are people that look for the quick hack. They want a quick little fix. They try this business, “Ah, it didn’t really work out. Let me try that business. Let me try five different businesses, see which one works out.” But it’s that commitment to saying there’s got to be a better way. That’s how you get better. Once you adopt that mindset and you incorporate it into your day to day, that’s when you reach your goals.”
  • “Mastery’s not perfection. I know a lot of people who are really hard on themselves. They’ve got a great business, but they’re really hard on themselves because they’re striving for perfection, which is no such thing. You can’t get there. The whole mindset of like, if I’m satisfied I’m not going to work hard, is bullshit too. You should have a sense of satisfaction and know I’m on the right path. I’m on this road to mastery.”
  • Watch the video to get full training.

HOT NEWS & DEALS!

  1. Join the Moving CEO Challenge: Official Louis Massaro Community Facebook Group! A place for moving company owners to connect, share ideas, and inspire one another. Click here to join!
  2. Latest Instagram!
    Check out @LouisMassaro for new announcements, valuable tips, and enlightening videos to take your moving company to the NEXT LEVEL!

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TRANSCRIPTION

Louis Massaro:

When I started, I was 19 years old. I rented two trucks. I put a Yellow Page ad in and that’s how I started. I had no idea if it was going to work, but I knew, hey look, there’s people making money in this business, if they could do it, I could do it. And every day things would come up, problems would come up. I kept this little black book in my pocket and I would write down whatever it is, whatever I needed to research, whatever I needed to look into. And I would always say to myself, “There’s got to be a better way. There’s got to be a better way.” I didn’t learn that. It was just something that naturally like this doesn’t seem to be working. There’s got to be a better way to do this. Right? Companies are succeeding at high levels, things are running smooth, if I’m having these troubles, there’s got to be a better way. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that one statement was leading me down the road to mastery.

Mastery is not a destination. It’s not a place that you get to. Mastery is a journey and it’s a mindset. There’s people that are committed to mastery. People that come to stuff like this that say, “There’s got to be a better way. I’ve got a good business, but you know what, maybe there’s one thing. Maybe there’s something better. Maybe I could tweak this or tweak that.” And then, there’s dabblers. Right? People that look for the quick hack. They want a quick little fix. They try this business, “Ah, it didn’t really work out. Let me try that business. Let me try five different businesses, see which one works out.” I can tell you, and you’ll hear from other people this weekend, too, this is the right business to be in if you want to make money. It just takes that commitment to mastery.

You’re going to learn a lot this weekend. I promise you that. I didn’t learn it all in a weekend. I’m going on my 20th year since I started my first moving company and I’m still on the road to mastery. I know probably 90% of you in the room are on the road to mastery. I know a lot of you personally in the room, you’re on the road to mastery. You understand that it’s not a what’s the lead source we need to get? What’s this little quick hack and that’s going to fix everything in my business? It’s that commitment to saying there’s got to be a better way. Right? And that’s how you continue to improve. That’s how you get better. And you never get to this ultimate place of mastery, but once you adopt that mindset and you incorporate it into your day to day, that’s when you reach your goals.

That’s when you have a fulfilling life. Where dabblers, that’s no fulfillment, no achievement, always blaming, always looking for the quick fix. I realize there might be a few dabblers sprinkled in the room today and that’s okay. Nobody’s a born dabbler. It was just a strategy that got picked up along the way. Somehow, some way, you learned it or just seeing people tell you, “Oh, an entrepreneur, you got to try five businesses and then see which one works.” That’s bullshit. You try them until you see yeah, there’s opportunity there down that road. Then go down that road. When you know you’re standing on top of the gold, you get the shovel out and you fucking dig deep. Okay? You don’t scatter yourself all over the place. So, if you know you want to be in this business, and this is for anything, you’ve got to commit to mastery.

I hear the struggles. I hear what people are going through in the moving business, and a commitment to mastery will solve a lot of that. Mastery’s not perfection. Let’s get that straight because I know a lot of people too, who are really hard on themselves. They’ve got a great business, but they’re really hard on themselves because they’re striving for perfection, which is no such thing. You can’t get there. And the whole mindset of like, if I’m satisfied I’m not going to work hard, is bullshit too. You should have a sense of satisfaction and know I’m on the right path. I’m on this road to mastery.

So, I’m not trying to change you. I’m not trying to get all in your head and make you think all kinds of stuff. And I’m not trying to get you to make a commitment to change anything in your life right now. All I ask, can you commit to mastery until Sunday? Let’s try it on. Let’s see how it fits. Let’s see how it feels. Let’s see what it does to the mindset of what we feel we can achieve, how much clearer you see things. When you focus on mastery, all the bullshit comes right out of your view, right out of your sight. All the stuff, the 9 million things that you’ve got going on, I get it, and it’s crystal clear what’s important.

This is the environment to be in to do it, because I know at least 90% of you are already committed to mastery. So, anybody that’s on the fence, there’s no better support network than this room. Who’s been to one of my events before? Okay. You guys know, I don’t believe in competition. You might be sitting next to somebody that’s in your own market. So what? There is enough business to go around and I know that’s hard to hear and I know everybody wants all of it. I get it. I totally get it. But there’s nothing better than having a friend in your market, especially, that you could talk to, that’s doing what you do. So, this weekend you’re going to meet a lot of amazing people and I say that from the people that I already know that are in the room. And I say that just from the first time I did an event and didn’t know anybody and just know chances are there’s a lot of amazing people in the room.

So, it’s not just about what I’m going to give you from the stage. It’s about the people you’re going to meet. I’m going to help create those situations where you’re going to be able to get up and network and share some stuff, share some ideas. And you’re going to gain a lot from that. But, when we focus on competition, we have a scarcity mindset. It’s abundant out there. There’s enough money for all of you to go get it, and to the level that you are willing to go get it. Maybe you say, “Louis, I want to make a hundred grand a year.” Cool. It’s there for you. “Louis, I want to make a million dollars a year personally in my pocket.” Cool. Do the work, it’s there for you. Right? This is not a get rich quick seminar. Everything that we’re going to go over will require work. But, it’s okay because if you’re committed to mastery and you believe in where you can go, it’s just part of the journey. Right?

The thing about mastery is that when you’re on that road, it’s like the HOV lane. All right? Everybody else is sitting there beep, beep, beep, stuck in traffic, stressed out, and you’re like, “Whew.” Right? The people that commit to mastery soar past everybody. The people that stay dabbling, it’s a tough life. The second theme for the weekend is not just building a business, but building a life for yourself. For me, it took me a long time to learn this and I learned it the hard way, and I hope that I could save anybody in the room from going through what I went through. I started the company… there’s got to be a better way, there’s got to be a better way, there’s got to be a better way… but only focused about the business. I wasn’t focused on my life. I was focused on make the money and everything else will fall into place.

I watched the movies and the TV shows about the businessman who his whole life falls apart and his family leaves him, and I’m like, “The people that wrote that, they just don’t have any ambition.” Right? That’s how I felt at 19, 20, 21, 22, 23. I put my focus in there’s got to be a better way, there’s got to be a better way. Built the business, by 23 was a millionaire from scratch, and things didn’t fall into place. Life didn’t just become great. When they say money doesn’t buy you happiness, it’s true. It makes it a lot better, don’t get me wrong. It’s definitely a component. You need the money. Right? But it’s not everything. And it really took me seven, eight years of being in business to realize this doesn’t work. Again, there’s got to be a better way, but now I’m like I’ve been saying this shit all along but I’m not applying it to my life. And that’s when I started to focus on life as a whole.

And from that point, things really came into place. Not only did I become happy, because really what do we all want, right? I mean, you’re chasing the money because we feel it’s going to make you happy or you feel it’s going to buy you things that are going to make you happy, but without everything else it’s empty. Right? It really is empty. And so, I started to learn how to build my life. It’s really, listen, you come up with a business plan, right, I don’t mean big, long in depth ones that banks want for loans and shit like that. That stuff’s useless. I mean your real plan of what you’re going to do. You need the same thing for your life. Right? Because I believe that if you have the right plan and you put in the work, you work the plan, you could really get wherever you want to go. Right? It’s about finding the stuff that’s holding you back and eliminating that or working your way around it.

I can tell you, by not focusing on my whole life, it was holding me back. Once I started to do that, once I started to focus on me, my health… I remember early on when I started, a couple years into the business, end of the month, I forget how many trucks were out, but I’m on the floor in a ball almost crying with ulcers in my stomach. Clocking crews out on the Nextel walkie talkie. Who’s allowed the business to affect their health in here in some kind of way? Whether it’s just not eating right… Okay. That’s everything. If you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything. And I’m not going to teach you workout routines this weekend. Don’t worry. But it’s about understanding that it all connects. Most of you are probably like me, where you’re like, “I want to build this business.” But in order to build the business, you build the whole life. And it’s not like it takes away from your time to build the business, it actually makes you better. It makes you stronger. It makes you more efficient.

When to Expand Your Moving Company

SUMMARY

In this episode, Louis Massaro shares when to expand your moving company.

  • “Not only did I open up additional locations prematurely, I’m seeing people do it constantly left and right. And I’m all about growth, I’m all about expansion, but you need to have a little bit of a plan.”
  • “The first thing that I would ask yourself is, “Can my current business run without me?” Because it’s going to require a lot of work for you to go spend time there and deal with the unexpected.”
  • “We can all make a plan for what we’re going to do and think that it’s going to go a certain way, however, when the unexpected happens and you’re so stuck working in your current business, that you can’t go spend time in the new business, it’s going to create problems.”
  • “Do you have these things in place? Because if you don’t, you will either fail or you will be on a scramble to put these things in place like I did after the fact, and that’s not fun.”
  • Watch the video to get full training.

HOT NEWS & DEALS!

  1. Join the Moving CEO Challenge: Official Louis Massaro Community Facebook Group! A place for moving company owners to connect, share ideas, and inspire one another. Click here to join!
  2. Latest Instagram!
    Check out @LouisMassaro for new announcements, valuable tips, and enlightening videos to take your moving company to the NEXT LEVEL!

RELATED POSTS

How to Build a $10 Million Moving Company from Scratch

Build Trust and Capture Leads in Your Moving Company

Resolving Customer Complaints in Your Moving Company

Preventing Customer Complaints in Your Moving Company

How to Hire Movers for Your Moving Company

TRANSCRIPTION

Louis Massaro:

All right. First one here is Steven. What’s up, Steven? When do you think the best time is to open a second location? I’m doing about 1.5 million at my first location, when should I open up another? Great question. Okay. In order to, really… I could tell you that, not only did I open up additional locations prematurely, I’m seeing people do it constantly left and right, okay. And I’m all about growth, I’m all about expansion, but you need to have a little bit of a plan, right?

Look, the first thing that I would ask yourself really, really simple is, can my current business run without me? Okay. Can my current business run without me? Because it’s going to require a lot of work for you to go spend time there, deal with the unexpected, right? We can all make a plan for what we’re going to do and think that it’s going to go a certain way, however, when the unexpected happens and you’re so stuck working in your current business, that you can’t go spend time in the new business, it’s going to create problems, not only for the new company, not only for the old company, but it’s also going to create those problems for you as an individual, because it’s going to totally throw your whole lifestyle in chaos, right? So you need to ask yourself, is that part of my plan also, right? So can it run without me? Is it really part of my plan? Is it part of my blueprint?

I don’t have a flip chart with me today, so I’m going to draw some stuff out on paper for you guys, hopefully you could see it. But basically what we need to do, is we need to start with a blueprint, okay. When you just start with a blueprint, you see that all right, can you see that in the monitor? Cool.

So the blueprint basically is like, hey, what specifically do I want to do, what is my plan? Meaning, if you’re asking about opening up a second location, that’s cool, but what’s your long-term plan? 20 years from now, where do you want to be? 10 years from now, five years from now and then back that in, because more is not always better. The last thing you want to be doing, is spending time, money, and energy climbing a ladder that’s leaning on the wrong wall, right? You’re going to get to the top of the place where you weren’t even trying to get to, you want to make sure that you have that figured out ahead of time.

So, if your long-term plan has opening additional locations in it, okay. Great. Right. So what would that mean? So you might say, I want to open 50 offices throughout the US, will opening a second location would be one of the first steps that you would need to do. Or you might say, no, you know what? Maybe I make 200, $300,000 a year personally, in this one location. And I’ve kind of figured out what my lifestyle needs are, and I need to make 500, $600,000 a year, one more location will take care of that and that’s what I want, right?

I think that, especially nowadays with social media and everybody out there just, I’m doing this and I’m doing that, it can make people feel as if they’re not doing enough, when the reality is you need to get very clear on your particular blueprint, right? Because there’s a lot of paths to make money in the Moving business. Sometimes it doesn’t require opening an additional location, I know people making a lot more money, take home money in one location than people that have several locations and vice versa.

So to answer your question, Steven, first thing you need to do is come up with a blueprint to understand why you’re actually opening that additional office, okay. Then ask yourself, are the fundamentals at my current location on point? Because if they’re not, you’re just now going to expand the problem, right? Every problem you have at your current location is also going to end up in the new location. All right. So go in and make it your mission to come up with the second step here, after your blueprint is to create systems, okay, processes. Because running one location and running multiple locations is a totally different ball game, totally different ball game. Anybody that has multiple locations, let me know down in the Chatroll down below, if you were in for a rude awakening when you opened that second location, it’s different.

When I opened my first remote location, I was like, “Oh, my current office is rocking, we’re doing great, I’ve got systems,” at least what I thought were systems in place, okay. And I’m going to go ahead and duplicate that. Well, those systems worked in the location I was at in my Denver office because I was there, right? The systems needed to be much more fine tuned and much more black and white to be able to run a remote location.

So once you’ve got your blueprint and you know, hey, this is where I’m headed. Listen, this whole game of business becomes a lot easier when you know where you’re headed, right? It’s when we get lost and it’s like, “Ooh, I could do this, there’s an opportunity.” Or, “Oh, I got this guy, he says he wants to open an office, so I guess I could open them up in an office.” When you know what your path is, it becomes easy. Then you lay out the system so that your current business can run without you, okay, which is the next step, which is freedom, okay. Some of you that are in my flagship program you know this whole process already, but I’m kind of sharing it, so people get it.

The next step is freedom. Before you can go and spend time doing business development, you need to be able to push away from the day-to-day work, right? Close down all the day-to-day stuff, the dispatching, the sales, the this, whatever you’re doing now currently, right? And you need to be able to have time specifically set aside for business development, okay. So you get your blueprint in place, you create your systems for your current location that are set up in a way that could be modeled and duplicated at the new location, whether that’s one additional or 49 additional, right? Then you create that freedom by bringing in people to handle everything that you don’t want to handle.

If we think about our businesses, right? At the beginning, you have to do a lot of stuff because you just have to do it, you don’t think about it. When I started my Moving company, I did everything, a lot of you do everything, right? I didn’t think about, oh, what do I like to do? What do I not like to do? What brings me joy and happiness in my day? And what’s like, ah, I don’t want to do this, right?

Well, when you start to get to a certain level, and Tommy you’re at… I’m sorry, Tommy. Steven you’re at 1.5 million, you’re at that level. When you’re at that level, it’s time to say, okay, let me back up here. What am I doing on a day-to-day basis that’s either not a good use of my time or I don’t enjoy doing, and let me bring somebody in to take care of those things, so that I could have the freedom, right? Let me bring in possibly an operations manager that can now run these systems. You could have somebody, their whole job is to make ensure that all your standard of operating procedures, all your systems, are being adhered to and run. Think about the peace of mind that you would have, knowing that things are getting run exactly the way that you want them to run, so you’ve got to create the freedom for yourself. After that, the next step is scale, right?

Now, it’s you’ve created the blueprint, you know what it is, you’re doing, okay. You’ve created the systems, they’re in writing, you have them, they work. You’ve created freedom for yourself to step away and not working on your business. Okay, I’m sorry, in your business. And now you have the time to work on business development and overseeing remote locations.

This is how you scale. No matter what it is you want to do, no matter if you want the franchise, right? I have a private coach and clients that are franchising, and this is what you need to do. If you want to open up one, two, five, 10, whatever it is, locations, or if your idea of scale is to say, you know what? I don’t need more, I just need this one to continue to run this way, continue to produce this money for me, but I don’t want to do anything, right? I want to take a step back and run it from a high level, these are the steps that you need to take.

Again, Steven, that’s my answer to, when is the time to open up a second location? Has nothing to do with money, other than do you have the money to… It’s not once you hit 1.5, open up another office, once you have 3 million open up two offices, that’s not what it’s about. What it’s about is, do you have these things in place? Because if you don’t, you will either fail or you will be on a scramble to put these things in place like I did after the fact and that’s not fun. I started to open additional locations without all this in place and then realized it was the only way to save what I had built and had to go in and implement it after the fact, you don’t want to do that.

How to Build a $10 Million Moving Company from Scratch

SUMMARY

In this episode, Louis Massaro shares how to build a $10 million dollar moving company from scratch.

  • “One of the first questions I ask people that I work with privately is, how much money you want to make? That’s going to determine how we need to structure your path of where you’re going.”
  • “If I was starting all over today, I would start with a local moving company, two trucks, short term lease. I’d keep it real simple.”
  • “I would hire and train a dispatcher and a moving consultant right away. Now you might say, “Louis, I don’t have the money to do that,” It’s going to be different for everybody. For me, I’d keep it simple. Local moves, couple of trucks, get started, keep the overhead low, hire and train a dispatcher and a moving consultant because I don’t want to do it.”
  • “I’m not hiring a manager to just go figure it out. No. I’ve already figured it out when I fine-tuned the processes. I handed this person those processes, those roles, those metrics like this is how you run the business, and now I watch, just like, okay, that person could do it. Cool. Let’s do three more locations. I’ll open up three more. I’ll spend the next two years bringing all five locations to $10 million total.”
  • Watch the video to get full training.

HOT NEWS & DEALS!

  1. Join the Moving CEO Challenge: Official Louis Massaro Community Facebook Group! A place for moving company owners to connect, share ideas, and inspire one another. Click here to join!
  2. Latest Instagram!
    Check out @LouisMassaro for new announcements, valuable tips, and enlightening videos to take your moving company to the NEXT LEVEL!

RELATED POSTS

Build Trust and Capture Leads in Your Moving Company

Resolving Customer Complaints in Your Moving Company

Preventing Customer Complaints in Your Moving Company

How to Hire Movers for Your Moving Company

Moving Season Targets

TRANSCRIPTION

Louis:

Let me tell you what I would do if I started all over today. If I went from scratch and I started all over, what I would do. Doesn’t mean that’s what you should do. Remember, everybody’s different. It’s all about like, yeah, I’m willing to deal with that. I’m willing to put in that extra work. Nah, I don’t really want to be bothered with that. I’ll do it this way. I’m happy with making that kind of money.

One of the first questions I ask people that I work with privately is, how much money you want to make? That’s going to determine how we need to structure your path of where you’re going, and so if I was starting all over again, first of all, this is my first warehouse. I don’t have a picture of the truck rental yard that I worked in, but this is my first warehouse that I got maybe three or four months after I started off working in the Penske truck rental yard, dispatched my trucks there, rented two trucks.

I finally was able to go and negotiate this deal on this warehouse. That’s not mine by the way. It’s basically from here, and then right over here there’s a door, and that was it. I want to say it was maybe 3,000 square feet, but like 1,200 of it was office. Had way too much office, but I got a good deal on it. All the carpet was ripped up. There was no carpet in the office. It was all like cement with glue from the carpet that was there, and that was where I started.

That’s me in the office. I was probably 20 years old, Yellow Pages, eating fast food. That was like three times a day I was eating fast food back then. No more. I haven’t touched Wendy’s in years, but had a CRM by the way. Early on, there was a DOS program that a guy made for the moving industry. I don’t even remember the name of it, but printed my contracts. Did all that. Had all my movers. That’s all the movers. They’re what I call now the mover database that we turn into electronic, which we’ll talk about later. That’s my mover database sitting there when I needed guys. You’ll see this book right here. The three-ring binder that had my script in it, that had my rebuttals in it, that had all the information that I needed to be able to book jobs. All my contracts. Here’s two file cabinets. Four more. I kept six months worth of contracts right there next to me, and that was it.

I started off. My first office was in Las Vegas for six months. Never got an office. Worked out of my apartment and rented two trucks there, and that office, I couldn’t get a license so I was renting. I was renting. I was doing a labor service with one contract and renting trucks with another contract, and so I was like, “There’s got to be a better way. Right?” Like, I want storage. I want names on my trucks. I want to build a real business. I don’t want to be out here doing this half way of doing it. I want to do it for real.

So I went to Denver, Colorado, right six months later, so my first moving company failed. Just open it up, spent six months there, and then left. Went to Denver, and that’s really where it all started for me. Had storage here. That’s me on the forklift. When I first got the warehouse, really what I first did was when I was working out of the truck rental yard, I already put in the Yellow Pages moving and storage so we were getting storage customers and I was putting them in a self storage unit, and then by the time I got the warehouse, I had a bunch of storage already and we brought it all over and just had it floor loaded with tape. I don’t recommend this by the way. This is just like learning. You know, just figuring out how to do it.

Then I would order 20 of these vaults at a time when I had money. They were about $200 a piece. I got them from Contain in North Carolina. They’d come out. I’d have to build them in the warehouse with these little clamps. You guys probably know if you do storage. And that was it. We ended up taking over the space next door. We ended up moving into a bigger warehouse, and the Denver office alone I think we got up to at 5 or 600 vaults. Other offices the same, but that was me at the very, very beginning.

I literally was there. You saw me in the office on the phone when a storage shipment came in or was going out. Either way. I forwarded the phone. There was a code that you put in the phone to my cell phone, my Nextel walkie talkie. Went out to the warehouse and there was not one. We talked about liability for storage. I was so tight with the security. There was not one crew that was ever allowed in this warehouse without me or in the future with somebody else. Had our inventory sheets that were done for storage, and every single item had to be checked off as it came in. Every single. I was on the phone. If a call came in for me to book a move, the movers had to sit there and wait. I paid them for the time, but they had to sit there and wait. Okay, I’m done. Alright, let’s go. You’ve got to run it tight with storage. You can’t let people in and out of there. You’ve got to make sure it’s on point.

So if I was starting all over today, I would start with a local moving company, two trucks, short term lease. I’d keep it real simple with local. The two trucks based on my budget of how I would start would either be rental trucks, I would purchase them, I would lease them. We’ll talk about the scaling matrix and how to decide what to do with what, but at the end of the day you could start with two rental trucks. I started with two rental trucks.

I would do a short term office lease, and the reason you want to do a short term office lease is because you want to be in a position. When I say short term, a year, two years. As low as you could get them. All the landlords, they’re going to want three years. They’re going to want five years. But the thing is, if you’re going to commit to that kind of time, you need something bigger to grow into, but you don’t want to pay that upfront. Always try to negotiate some upfront free rent, but it’s harder to get upfront free rent on a year lease, right? The more years that you’re willing to give them the more you can actually negotiate longterm.

So for me, I would want something that’s ideally a year just to get situated, just to get going, just to prove out the concept, make some money, and then I would move into more of a longterm facility that I’d be willing to commit to a longer term and negotiate some free upfront. I would also start this based on where I live. If I live somewhere good and it’s a good market and I feel comfortable there. If I live in this little small town and I feel like I need to go somewhere bigger, I would go somewhere bigger. For me, I left where I grew up just because I was 19 and it was just better to … You know, your friends aren’t really doing much. They’re either in college or they’re messing around and not doing anything, and I went somewhere else, right? And I ended up recruiting a bunch of them anyways to work for me, but I would start either where you are or identify a market that you want to move to and go there.

I would hire and train a dispatcher and a moving consultant right away. Now you might say, “Louis, if I don’t have the money to do that,” and by the way, as I’m going through this I want you to think about most of you have companies. A lot of you have multiple companies. This could be for your second location as well, right? This is me. By the way, this is not my advice for you. This is just what I would do. We talked about the five models to scale. It’s going to be different for everybody. For me, I’d keep it simple. Local moves, couple of trucks, get started, keep the overhead low, hire and train a dispatcher and a moving consultant because I don’t want to do it.

I might dispatch one day just for the fun of it, just to show the dispatcher how it’s done, or I might jump on a call just for the fun of it or show them how it’s done the same way that I’ll go to my friend’s pizza place and make pizza for the fun of it, because that’s what I did before I wasn’t moving. But I don’t want to start by being in that position, so I would hire and train a dispatcher and a moving consultant. I would start with direct mail. As for marketing, I would start with direct mail postcards. Pay per click. I would do Google. I would do Bing. I would buy moving leads, probably Equate Media, Quote Runner, maybe Moving.com, and I would start my referral program and all of it would be tracked.

Everything would be tracked. Tracking numbers to make sure that the stuff’s working. So that postcard goes out. It has a unique phone number on it that when that call comes in, it says “postcard” and we’re able to put it right in the CRM so that we’re able to track it and know exactly what’s going on. Because then from there, at the beginning stages, I’ve got to be able to see what’s working. Especially at the beginning. My marketing budget, I’m putting it out there. It’s all I have.

I don’t have any repeat customers. I don’t have any referral customers. I need to make sure that this stuff’s working, so I need to track it from day one and I know a lot of you don’t track it now 10 years later, right? We’re going to talk about how to do that, but I would make sure all that stuff is tracked. I would develop roles and processes for a model business right away from day one.

What that means is, and this is really important for you guys that are already established if you don’t have your roles and processes, which we’ll talk more about, so we’ll get to that but that means, okay, this dispatcher, this moving consultant, I’ve already got my roles and processes established for both of them. So if I’m starting today, I’m ahead of the game. It’s like, “Here. This is what you do. This is what you do.” But if I didn’t have that, I would spend a little time in that position and develop what those roles are. Like, what do I want a dispatcher to do? What do I want a sales person to do? What are the step-by-step processes of how they dispatch the crew, how they take in storage, how they follow up with a customer?

I need all that down, because remember, in order to thrive in any economy, you need to be able to hire quick and you need to be able to fire quick, and part of that is having the roles down and having the processes down. You’re not working out? See you. Bring somebody in, because I’m hiring quickly. Sit them down. Here’s your role. Here’s the processes. Train them. I’m back up and running. So, so important. We’ll talk more about that.
Once I had a profitable model business with all my foundations down, all the foundation is there. We talked about that before. We’ve got lead generation, booking moves, servicing moves, making sure we’ve got happy customers and accounting. I’ve got all that dialed in. I’m not jumping the gun and opening up another location before I have that. Once I do, I’ll open a second location, then develop and fine tune the processes for managing multiple locations.

This is something that caught me totally off guard. I had what I felt like were good processes and good roles in place with my first location, and the way that I managed it, but I managed it being there, seeing what’s going on, being able to see and feel and watch. When I opened more locations, I couldn’t be there. I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t watch, and the technology back then was not like the technology now.

Sure, I had cameras in those offices and I could log in to those cameras and see what was happening. It wasn’t like I was pulling them up on my phone, but I need to now establish, and I have all this now, but if I didn’t I would say, “Okay, the second location is open. Let me really fine tune how I’m going to run that office just as good as I run this office without being there. What reports do I need to see? What meetings do I need to have? What do I need to check in on? What are my metrics in my key performance indicators that I say, ‘Oh, that happened with the number. That number reached above this threshold. I need to take this action.'”

I would start dialing that in. I would then hire a manager/COO to run the day-to-day, the operations. It’s a little too early right now to decide what caliber I would want. Sometimes you can’t have it totally planned out. You’ve kind of get to a place, see where you’re at, see how it’s going, and then decide but I want someone that’s going to run the day-to-day of not only the existing company, but the new offices.

Now, I already have it, but if I didn’t, I would want to establish what that is, but what that would be, that role, would be a role that I would be establishing here in number six. Because I would personally go, “Okay, this is how I’m managing this. This needs to be done everyday. This needs to be checked. I need to look at these reports. I need to go in the CRM and do that. I need to make sure this is happening,” and then I would hire somebody to replace me to do that day-to-day. Because again, if I do this again, I’m not doing this to have a job for myself. I’m doing this to set it up, make some money. I’m not doing it to get in there everyday and run it.

Then I would open three more locations over the next 18 months. I’d open three more locations over the next 18 months, so now I’ve got five locations. Because once you’ve got the model business, now you could open a second location no problem. You just duplicate it. Then you develop and fine tune the processes, so it’s like, okay, this is how I’m managing it. If this happens, I handle it this way. I feel in control. It’s a control thing. Like I feel in control. It’s thousands of miles away, but I feel in control. I don’t have to be there. I’m hiring somebody. I got them in place. They’re running the day-to-day while I’m sitting back and I watch them. I’m watching them. They’re on it. They’re running the day-to-day. They’re not running the business. They’re running the processes.

So they’re not just trying to figure it out. I’m not hiring a manager to just go figure it out. No. I’ve already figured it out when I fine tune the processes. I handed this person those processes, those roles, those metrics like this is how you run the business, and now I watch, just like, okay, that person could do it. Cool. Let’s do three more locations. I’ll open up three more. I’ll spend the next two years bringing all five locations to 10 million total.

Now of course, this is my projection. And I say it with confidence, but who knows? Maybe in two years, maybe this number is 8 million. Maybe it’s 12. But my intention going into it would be like, alright, I’m going to spend the next two years working on fundamentals. Right now I’ve got five. It’s different than one. I’ve got five. It’s different than two. It’s a whole different ball game. When I went from one to open my second one, okay. I had a licensee partner in that one office so it was easier. Then all of a sudden I had five. It became a lot more to manage. It’s a different thing. You’ve got to be that moving CEO. You’ve got to be managing your day-to-day on a whole different level.

Then I would just continue to develop processes, people, and profits. Continuously. If it’s me today, I’d open five locations. I’d do 10 million. I’d want to set a target to profit 2 million a year, and run that profitably for, you know, either run it for five years and then sell it or just keep it going. Or, maybe I get another gust of motivation. Maybe I go back to my workbook here to what do I want my life, and all of a sudden I’m like, “You know what? I got all this already. Hmm. That worked out pretty good.” I wrote it down, figured out what I want, I came up with a plan, I went and got it. Let me open 20 more offices. Right? At that point, who knows?

But I feel like for me at this stage of my life, it’s yeah, I did 20 million. I don’t need to do it again. I would be very content here with it just running smooth, consistent, smooth, consistent, smooth, consistent, easy. Like, not this weight that I’m … You know what I mean? Like it’s not stressful. To be able to bring in 10 million, put 2 million a year in your pocket with not a lot of stress. I mean, that’s good, right? So, that’s what I would do if I started all over.