SUMMARY
In this video, Louis Massaro shares how to build a $20 million dollar moving company.
- “What I did was not anything extraordinarily special. I just did it and did it with excellence, and had the desire to grow and scale.”
- “One of the things that I see a lot of people have challenges within their moving companies is they try to go too wide.”
- “You don’t have to take over the world business-wise, but no matter what, you’ve got to get yourself to the point where you’ve got some freedom.”
- “To be able to scale you’ve got to be able to market, you’ve got to be able to spend money on advertising and you have to know your numbers.”
- “Don’t get stressed that you’re at the level you’re at now and you want to get to this other level and you’re not there yet today. Just turn in the direction that you know you need to go and start taking one step at a time. That’s it.“
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TRANSCRIPTION
Louis Massaro:
Hey my friends, welcome to the Moving Mastery podcast. My name is Louis Massaro. The purpose of this podcast is strictly to help you take your moving company to the next level, set up system, set up processes, increase profits, reduce stress, live a better quality of life. And today we’re going to do something a little bit different, we’re going to try something new. I got my main man, Chris, with me today. What’s up, Chris?
Chris:
Hey, what’s up?
Louis Massaro:
Today’s Chris’s birthday, he just got back from lunch, I had to call him out real quick. I won’t sing you happy birthday here in front of everybody, but happy birthday man.
Chris:
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Louis Massaro:
So what we’re doing today is I told Chris to go through the emails that we received, the comments on social media, my DMs and find a question that we could just start the episode off. I don’t know what question he picked. I said, listen, pick something that will be impactful for whoever’s listening, right? And then I’m just going to, I don’t know what the question is, but we’re just going to answer it, I guess, and kind of expand upon whatever the idea and the concept is. So what do you got?
Chris:
Yeah, I think it’s a good question for today and it’s something that I think you’ll have a really profound answer to. So I’m curious to see what you say.
Louis Massaro:
Oh boy.
Chris:
So we had one of our followers slide into our DMs with this question and the question is, first of all, they said, “What you did with Neighbors was amazing and do you think it’s possible to do the same thing today?”
Louis Massaro:
As in?
Chris:
Like, you build a $20 million company previously.
Louis Massaro:
In other words, is the good old days of moving gone and can it be done today? Is that how you took it?
Chris:
That’s pretty much how I took it. I think it’s about, was there a hay day and is it still possible to build a $20 million company now?
Louis Massaro:
Yeah, I mean, listen, not only is it possible, I believe it’s actually easier now than it used to be. There’s … So many people want to complain about the competition and new disruptors popping up in the industry and there’s going to be self-driving trucks and people are trying to Uberise the moving industry and all that. And I’ll tell you not only is it possible, but people are doing it every day. I mean, we work with people that are on their way to building really even bigger than 20 million. And so yes, to answer the question straight up, it’s definitely possible to do it today.
Louis Massaro:
What I did was not anything extraordinarily special, I just did it and did it with excellence and had the desire to grow and scale. And at an early age, right? So I started at 19, I won’t go into the story of how I started, but my desire to grow, I wanted to open 50 locations. Right? I wanted to get much bigger than I actually did. And there were reasons that I got derailed and didn’t end up doing that. But to do it today, absolutely. 100%, somebody could do that. You probably want to know-how.
Chris:
I mean, how, maybe not how you did it then, but how would you do it now if you were going to do the same thing again?
Louis Massaro:
Okay. How would I build a $20 million moving company?
Chris:
You’re saying it’s possible.
Louis Massaro:
Yeah.
Chris:
Nothing’s really changed in the industry or in the market, so how would you do it now?
Louis Massaro:
I like these episodes. I don’t know, it is like challenging, pretty good.
Chris:
That’s right, we got to keep you on your toes, right?
Louis Massaro:
So today, what would I do? Well, let’s just say starting from scratch, right? Let’s start there because regardless of where anybody is, as they’re listening, there’s a component of starting from scratch that they might need to add, whether it’s an additional office or another division or whatever it might be. So if I was starting from scratch, I would pick a good market to start in probably where I already live just because it would be convenient. When I was young I didn’t have anything holding me down, so I went out to a market that I thought was good. But I would pick a market and I would start with local moves, right? I would start with local moves and I would keep it really simple.
Louis Massaro:
One of the things that I see a lot of people have challenges with in their moving companies is they try to go too wide, right? And what I like to say is go deep and then go wide. What that means is, people get into local moves and they’ll only get to a certain level in their market and they’re going to say, I need to get into long-distance. I need to get into commercial, I need to start doing junk removal too. And they look for all these fillers to help supplement and make more money but in reality, if they just go deeper into the local moves, deeper into their market, like know that there’s a lot of money to be made in local. Like I know that today, like that’s where I would start hands down today.
Louis Massaro:
I would get one office, local moves and start there and just dig deep. And what I mean by that is, I would probably start, I don’t know, I started with two rental trucks. Now I could get some trucks, it’s not a big deal, but even if I started with two rental trucks again. I rent two trucks, I’d put some direct mail postcards out there, I would start a paper click campaign on Adwords, make sure that that’s optimized, make sure that my landing page is on point, make sure that the conversion is set up correctly. I would buy some leads and I would hire one person to start to, let’s see, either be my dispatcher and handle the operations or handle the sales. I don’t know, it depends on how I’m feeling.
Louis Massaro:
And what I say that if I’m speaking for somebody else, let me not talk about what I would do, what somebody else should do is they should decide, would they rather be selling and booking moves all day and giving estimates and speaking to customers, or would they rather be dealing with the logistics of dispatch operations, the movers, dealing with customers on the day of the move?
Chris:
So either way, they probably should pick one of those two routes.
Louis Massaro:
Yeah, if you’re going to hire one person right away to get started, I would pick one. What happens is if there’s too many chefs in the kitchen trying to do the same thing, there’s a lot of room for error. You want to have designated roles within the company of who does what and at the beginning, if there’s two people that’s going to be, they’re going to have a lot of different hats that they wear. They’re going to be helping out with this, helping out with that. But I would try to have it as separate as possible. Right? One person handling sales, one person handling operations. And that’s true for any size organization. If you got 20 people in your office booking moves, you have a big call center, have multiple locations, you need to keep your sales and your dispatch completely separate, right?
Louis Massaro:
You want your salespeople to be in like happy-go-lucky, positive land, right? Everything’s great and we know the stuff that dispatch and operations has to deal with, you don’t want the possibility of that negativity coming into sales, right? Because as a salesperson, if you start to hear about some of the issues that go on day to day with the moves, whether it’s their late, whether it’s they got there and they realize they need an additional person or they’re not going to be able to be out of the building in time. All the little things that go into the day to day that can make dispatching and the business in general stressful, you don’t want that getting over to sales because if you’re selling a product, you need to believe in your product. And if all day long you’re hearing about just these little operational things that most times they get worked out and everything’s fine at the end of the day, you don’t want that leaking over to sales. So I would want that to be completely separate.
Chris:
Okay.
Louis Massaro:
Right? And I would start right away with, your sales process has to be on point, that’s number one. No matter where you are, you’ve got to look at your sales process first and foremost. As I got into this space to go on this mission of helping as many moving company owners as I can, relieve the stress, make more money, right? Have a better quality of life, I asked myself like, what’s the thing that would have the biggest impact to teach them right away? And it’s sales, without sales, you’ve got nothing.
Chris:
In the beginning, especially, right? But what does that look like? Especially if you’re a one-man or a two-man show and you’re wearing all the hats, like how do you implement that kind of sales process with just one or two people? Is it possible?
Louis Massaro:
Yeah, absolutely. You get yourself a CRM, I’m not pushing any CRMs. I mean, we know I’m partners with SmartMoving, but get yourself any CRM, moving CRM that’s capable of managing leads. You get yourself tracking phone numbers, okay? You make sure that all your phone numbers are trackable because from day one, day one, you don’t want to wait for this. You’ve got to track all your marketing and test it, test it, track it, tweak it. And you want to make sure that the ROI, the return on investment on all your marketing is lining up, right? That’s how you’re going to be able to start modifying things and start scaling and making sure that you maximize your marketing dollars. So you’ve got everything coming into a CRM, you’ve got the phone calls coming in, you’ve got the leads automatically going into the CRM, and then the phone calls you enter them in. You figure out where they heard about you from.
Louis Massaro:
So if I’ve got, let’s say postcards, I’ve got a unique tracking number on those postcards that are going, when the phone rings, it says postcard. I know it’s coming from a postcard, I don’t have to sit there and ask the customer, well, where’d you hear about us? I know for sure that’s where it came from. If I’ve got a Google Adwords campaign, there’s a tracking number on that, right? So I’ve got all that tracked from day one. I won’t jump in and then figure that stuff out later, I didn’t do this obviously from day one.
Chris:
I was going to ask you.
Louis Massaro:
Yeah, I didn’t know better, right?
Chris:
How long did it take to figure out?
Louis Massaro:
A lot of time. A lot of years.
Chris:
A long time, right?
Louis Massaro:
A lot of years. But now, starting now and this is stuff like even if you’re not just starting, but you just want to like totally optimize your business. It’s about setting up that foundation. So you’ve got the leads coming in, you’ve got the phone numbers being tracked, you’ve got a script for yourself, right? Sit down and write out a script for yourself on what you are going to say or your sales person’s going to say to every single customer. And then in the early stages, like for me in the early stages, I wrote a script immediately, right? In high school I worked at a call center selling vacation packages, the one thing that I walked away from that with was, hey, you’ve got to have a script in front of you and you’ve got to have a book of rebuttals. Things that you say to somebody when they’re like, hey, I’m not ready to set up this move yet. Hey, I need to speak to my husband. Hey, we don’t know our closing date yet, we’re going to have to call you back, right?
Louis Massaro:
So you’ve got your leads coming in, you’ve got your CRM tracking everything. You’ve got your script, and then you also start to establish your rebuttals. So every time you speak to somebody on the phone, they’re going to tell you … Most people listening right now they have moving companies, they are already operating, they’re already doing pretty well. And you’re going to want to make a list, like what are all the things people say of why they’re not ready to move and then what’s your response to those? And this is especially important at the beginning because a lot of times it’s you, the owner, making these calls and feeling out the situation with the customers, but you’re not going to be able to scale until you could duplicate that with more people.
Louis Massaro:
So you’re going to need to have something that you could pass on to that next salesperson and that next one, and that next one, and that next one, because you’re going to need some more salespeople. Remember we’re going to 20 million. Like, I’m telling you where we’re starting, I’ll take, I don’t know how much time we have, but I’ll take this thing to 20 million by the time we’re off this podcast.
Chris:
Now, when you’re first starting out, I mean, what do you do, like you just write down the objections that customers give you and then build the rebuttals from that?
Louis Massaro:
Yes. I mean, I don’t want to make this like a self-serving thing. Like, hey but I teach this stuff, in our programs we have all the rebuttals, we have the scripts, we have all that stuff, and even the frameworks of how to build your own so it’s not the same as everybody else’s. But essentially the point of this podcast is free content. To take it, apply it, see that it’s valuable. You basically, anytime someone says no to you, what’s the reason and what can you say to help make sense of your service? A lot of times people will, I don’t know, price, your price is too high. You need to be able to make the customer understand why your price is higher than other companies. If you can’t do that, then you’re going to be forced to compete on price and you’re not going to build a thriving, profitable business competing on price.
Chris:
So you’re telling people don’t strive to be the most affordable moving company in town.
Louis Massaro:
Definitely not.
Chris:
And the reasoning behind that is what? Because-
Louis Massaro:
Well, you need to make money, right? You need to make money. And I see it and before I used to see companies pop up and I’m like, they’re not … I give them six months, I give them a year. And what happens is they’re not in tune with their numbers. They’re not in tune with their profit and loss, they’re not in tune with their cash flow. They’re not in tune with their forecasting and they don’t realize that they’re slowly putting themselves out of business with these low rates. And so what happens is they get excited, hey, we’re booking moves, we’re booking moves, money’s coming in. But between the money coming in, the money they’re putting on the credit cards, the bills that need to get paid, the payroll that’s coming in, all of a sudden, one day they wake up and are like, oh, there’s no money in the account what do we do now? Right?
Louis Massaro:
So you’ve got to be able to set your prices based on job costing. There’s only a hundred percent of the pie, so you get a move, the moves $1,000, let’s say. Well, that money has to be allocated somewhere. You’ve got, I don’t know, let’s just call it, to be really broad, like 25 to 35% go on the labor right away, just to pay the movers right away. Now you’ve got your trucks, now you’ve got your material, fuel. You’ve got your marketing costs, right? You have your certain cost of goods sold, your certain operational costs right off the bat before you, that comes right off the top with every move before you even have to worry about expenses like office rent and additional employees and things like that. And that’s why I say sales, right? Sales is what overcomes price objections. Your price is too high rebuttal. Somebody like, your price is too … You have to make them understand why your price is more high, it’s higher.
Chris:
What do you say?
Louis Massaro:
Listen, what do you say? When comparing movers you’re not comparing apples to apples, right? Let me give you an example. If you were to go to Costco and you were to look at a big screen TV and then you would go to Best Buy and look at that same big screen TV, you could say, oh, this one’s $400 less, it’s the same TV, let me go with that one. With movers, you have to understand that this is a service and in order for me to provide highly trained movers that are going to come out there and move your furniture, not only with care but with the proper skill, not to damage everything, I need to pay them a little bit more. Right? So anyone charging less than this, I’d be really concerned about the quality of movers they’re going to send out there. And so let me ask you like, what are you looking for? Are you looking for the cheapest movers in town, quality, both? And-
Chris:
What are they going to say?
Louis Massaro:
They’re going to typically say, well, I just don’t want to pay more than I need to. And that’s when you keep going, right? That’s when you … And you’re not pushy, so many people have this stigma about sales that you’re being pushy, right? People don’t like to be pushed, they don’t like to be pressured, but they do like to be sold. They do want you to tell them why they should pay more for your service, you can’t back off from that.
Chris:
Okay.
Louis Massaro:
Does that make sense?
Chris:
That’s great. And then once you address that rebuttal, then it’s just right back to the script, right?
Louis Massaro:
Exactly, it’s right back to the script.
Chris:
Right back to the script. So you’re making it sound easy, all of this. How was it for you, I know you struggled for a while, in the beginning, to put all of this stuff in place. Like, I don’t know, did you have mentors? Did you have somebody to learn from that taught you this kind of stuff? Or how did it all come to be?
Louis Massaro:
I had a lot of people that I learned different things from, I wouldn’t say there was like one person that I was able to gather all this. I mean, I went on a search, right? Every day it was like every problem that came up, my mind was always like, there’s got to be a better way. There’s got to be a better way. And I just, I had a little black book, I kept it in my back pocket, before there was like a phone you could write your notes in and I would just write down what I needed to go figure out and then I would go figure it out, whether it was reading a book, whether it was like talking to the mechanic and asking them how they handle certain things, whether it was talking to my CPA and asking him questions. Right?
Louis Massaro:
I went and sought the information, I went and found the information and then I applied it and I was always making adjustments, always trying to make it better. Yeah, I mean that was the early days. Right? So I’m taking this, we’re kind of just at the beginning stages now, we’re going to take this to the whole how to get to 20 million.
Chris:
Yeah. I mean basically this is the foundation. You get the sales process going and you have money coming in now, so what’s the next step once you’re kind of ready to start growing.
Louis Massaro:
Yeah. Well, and the other thing is two movers, right? You got to have a team.
Chris:
Yeah.
Louis Massaro:
And that process, I think a lot of people make it harder than it needs to be. And I totally get that this modern-day, what are we, 2020, that it’s more challenging because there’s other opportunities out there for drivers and for helpers, there’s other things they could be doing.
Chris:
It’s definitely one of the most common complaints that I’ve heard from moving company owners is that it’s just, they say it’s hard to find good help, it’s hard to find good help.
Louis Massaro:
But then we hear from clients who implement the process that we give them, and it’s like, they’re like, hey, we haven’t had to worry about movers in months. And so what it’s … First of all, we kind of skipped over the whole mindset piece of, when you go into it, you’ve got to go into it like I’m going to make this work. I’m committed to mastery, as opposed to being a dabbler and saying, aw man, it’s hard to find movers and leads aren’t that good. Right? And I get that. I totally, totally get where people are coming from, but the reality is you’ve got to know that it’s not only possible, but it’s super achievable if you just commit yourself to it and take the steps. And so you’ve got your movers coming in, so everything’s a process, right? That’s really all it is.
Louis Massaro:
You shouldn’t have to … The difference between struggling and scaling is that the people that are struggling are trying to figure out the same thing over and over and over and over and over. Like they’ve been in business a long time and they’re still trying to figure out how do we get movers, this is a big deal. How do we handle our leads? How do we make sure that people are following up? Like that’s struggling, right?
Chris:
It’s like a perpetual obstacle, always there.
Louis Massaro:
And scaling, which is the opposite because it’s very hard to just kind of stay in the middle because once you know you’re doing it right and once you’re on point, you’re like, oh, I might as well grow this thing. So it’s like struggling and then there’s scaling and it’s-
Chris:
Does that-
Louis Massaro:
It’s identifying, like when I used to say there’s got to be a better way, right? So you’ve got to be able to identify like there’s got to be a better way. There’s got to be a better way to hire movers instead of just saying, hey, this is tough. I’m going to stay with my four trucks or whatever somebody has because it’s too hard to get eight trucks, or whatever the case may be. No, you have to identify that problem and then go after that problem and solve it. Then identify the next problem, go after that problem and solve it. Right? Instead of letting it linger and trying to build the business with that quicksand underneath you, you’ve got to start … The beginning stages, Chris, it’s all about setting the foundation. It’s all about setting the foundation.
Chris:
So you’ve got your sales process, you’ve hired your movers and you’ve got a hiring process.
Louis Massaro:
Yep. So meaning like you lose some movers, you just essentially start the process.
Chris:
Okay.
Louis Massaro:
That’s it, you start it.
Chris:
What’s that look like? I mean, is it an easy thing to …
Louis Massaro:
Well at first you just need to … You have to look at that like leads as well. You kind of run them through like a mover hiring funnel we call it, to where you can, let’s say you get a hundred applications in the top. Like first, you’ve got to generate the applications. Then after you generate the applications, now you’ve got to get people on the phone and do a phone interview with them. Now, from those people, you’ve got to get some of them, because let’s say you get a hundred applications in, you might get 70 of them on the phone. Out of the 70 you get on the phone, you might invite 30 in for an in-person interview after you speak to them. Out of those 30, maybe you hire seven. Out of those seven, after you put them through your training process and your onboarding, you get them into the rotation, meaning you get them on the trucks and get them going. Maybe you’ve got four left, and out of those four, maybe one becomes an 18 player.
Louis Massaro:
And you’re like, that’s a lot of work. Okay, but if you know what it is, and you say, okay, in order for us to get four movers and one as an 18 player, we’ve got to get a hundred applications, okay, well what do I need to do to get more applications? And that’s it. And you start that process from the beginning and you just make it systematic, you don’t make it like reinventing the wheel every time you have to try to hire movers.
Chris:
So we’ve hired movers, we’ve got our sales process, what’s next?
Louis Massaro:
Now you need to fine-tune the machine. You’ve got to basically just look for each and every area that you can improve upon, right? So it’s like, you’ve got to … There’s really five key areas with a moving company. There’s five key areas that have to be handled in order for that business to be successful. And when I say successful, I don’t mean scaling the 20 million. We’ll talk about getting there. What I mean is just being able to be a moving company that makes money, right? First area, you’ve got to have lead generation, you’ve got to be able to generate leads. Second thing is you’ve got to be able to book moves, then you’ve got to be able to service the moves. Then you’ve got to be able to make sure you’ve got raving fans and happy customers that are out there giving you five-star reviews online. And then you’ve got to have your reporting and your accounting on point. If you could just cycle through those five things consistently until you can’t find any more screws to be tightened, then you’re ready for the next step.
Chris:
So that’s how you know, that’s how you know you’re ready to-
Louis Massaro:
Well, and you need to be turning a profit. Right? I mean, I wouldn’t start trying to scale until you have a business that’s netting 20%, right? I mean, I wouldn’t be trying to duplicate something that’s not ready to be duplicated. Essentially what you’re doing is on a small scale, you’re creating a model, right? No matter what you do or decide to do in the future for your business, you’ve got to create a model business. So whether you want to sell your company, right? The only way you’re going to sell your company for top dollars, if it’s a model, somebody could walk in and go, wow, this thing runs. It runs without the owner. It’s truly turnkey, you know? I’d rather put money into this business and I see the returns that I would get, which is more than I will get in the stock market, more than I’ll get in investing in real estate. That’s when you get top dollar for your business. Nobody wants to come in and buy a mess, they don’t want to buy something that requires you to be there.
Louis Massaro:
So you have to build a model business if you want to sell, you’ve got to build a model business if you want a franchise, because in order to franchise, you are basically selling somebody the model, you’re saying, hey, you could go out there and start a moving company on your own. However, I’ve got this proven model, pay me and use my model and I’ll give you the support. If you don’t have the model why would somebody pay you? If you want to open multiple locations, you’ve got to have a model. You’ve got to have this thing set up to where it’s like this works like a machine, predictable moneymaking machine. And even if you want to pass it down to your kids. Some people are like, I don’t have big dreams, which is … Listen, first of all, there’s no such thing as not having big dreams. Whatever your heart desires is your big dream, don’t compare your dreams to somebody else’s dreams.
Louis Massaro:
Let’s circle back to that because I think it’s important that people don’t rush out try to build a $20 million business if that’s not really what they want to do or need to do. But if you want to, coming back to this, if you want to pass it down to your kids, you also want a model business. If you think about the stress and uncertainty that goes on in your business today, do you really want to pass that down to your kids and let them deal with that? Perfect it now and then give them a model to run with.
Chris:
So if somebody, and let’s just say somebody is just starting out and they’re going through this journey and they’ve built up their sales process, they’re hiring people, they’ve got a profit coming in. I mean, is it ever … Should they start thinking about selling the company when they’re just in the middle of building it?
Louis Massaro:
It should be in the back of their mind, they should have an exit strategy loosely forming in the back of their mind.
Chris:
Sure.
Louis Massaro:
And you don’t want, when I say loosely forming, it’s because I think in order to see clearly what that next level looks like, you’ve got to get to that next level, right? Like, so you’ve got to reach one mountaintop to be able to kind of look out and see what’s actually beyond that mountain top. So sometimes people will say, yeah I don’t want to be doing this, I just want to build it up and then I want to sell it. But then they get it to a place where it’s like, wow, this is like a predictable moneymaking machine. I don’t have to work that hard and I’m making good money, why would I sell this? What would I do? Well, when you’re just starting, you’re like, oh, this sucks. I don’t want to do this anymore. When things run smooth and you make money, it sucks a lot less. Right? So, yeah.
Chris:
Does it always have to suck to start a company?
Louis Massaro:
No, it doesn’t.
Chris:
I know, right?
Louis Massaro:
What’d you say? To sell your company or-
Chris:
To start a company or to grow a company.
Louis Massaro:
To start a company, no, it’s tough and there’s uncertainty, right? So uncertainty breeds fear. Fear is essentially stress. And when you have that uncertainty and you don’t know that it’s going to work, it’s hard, that’s where the sleepless nights come from. That’s where the stress comes from, that’s where feeling like the answer is to work harder comes from.
Chris:
Oh, okay. So I remember you telling me about this before, like early on in your company that was your MO, you were a hustler. You were somebody who just was putting in the hours and doing whatever it took to make the company run. I mean, how do you deal with that? If somebody is in the middle of that, they’re going through this stressful time and they’re really overworking themselves, like what do they do? What should they do?
Louis Massaro:
I mean, it’s really part of what we call stepping into that moving CEO role is there’s that beginning phase where you’ve got to hustle. You’ve got to put in the work to get the momentum to get it off the ground. It’s the same thing, like if a car was broke down and you are in the car steering it, and I’m behind pushing, until we get it going, I’ve got to really push to get that thing going. But once it gets going, I don’t have to keep pushing. I have to reevaluate my strategy. At that point, I’d probably, it’s like, hey, why don’t you stop, I’ll come get in the front seat and we can just cruise with the AC on. Like, I don’t need to stay back here pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing. In business, what happens is that worked for us, right? It got us to our first level of success and our second and maybe our third level of success, just pushing.
Louis Massaro:
And so, it’s kind of like that fight or flight instinct, right? You’re like, for me, I had no choice. I had no other options, I had to make it work. So it was that hustle and it was that grind. And for me, the wake-up call was being on the floor curled over waiting on trucks, dispatching crews and it was excruciating pain in my stomach with stomach ulcers and more stress and just deteriorating health over the amount of grind that I was putting in. And that’s when the whole shift came and that’s when I really, what I call now stepping into that moving CEO role and just taking a different approach to it. So going back to building a $20 million business, right? Because you’ve got your foundation, you’ve got your model business. You should be able to, if you’re a brand new company, you should be able to have a model business within a couple of years. If you’re an existing company and you want to turn your company into a model business, you should be able to do that in six months to a year.
Louis Massaro:
And I’m saying that, like I totally understand what I’m saying when I’m saying that, but I’m challenging people because people think it’s going to take so long to do and it’s not. It’s a matter of deciding like, okay, I want to go this way. I don’t want to go that way. In every moment just making decisions that lead you in that direction instead of that direction and doing the stuff that’s hard, and I think where a lot of people get stuck is, existing companies, they’ve done things the same way for so long that they feel stuck.
Louis Massaro:
They’re like, if I start making changes, my people aren’t going to embrace it and it’s going to be challenging. And I know I’ve got this person and they’re overpaid and they’re not really delivering the value that they need to deliver and I need to get rid of them, but what’s going to happen? They’re the only person that knows how to do this and they’re the only person who knows how to do that. And so they feel trapped. So I want to keep it on like this journey to 20 million. I could go on about the existing business, we’ll do another episode on that one. Lets …
Chris:
So now that you’re past the hustling hump, let’s call it, right?
Louis Massaro:
Yeah.
Chris:
Like you’ve put in the effort, you’ve got your foundations in place, the company’s become a model business and it’s time to, as you say, step into that role of the moving CEO. How does an owner go about doing that?
Louis Massaro:
Well, what is the role of moving CEO, as opposed to the way you own the business now? And I’ll look at the two versions of myself in the business. There was, early me, moving business owner, moving company owner that was just grinding and working and trying to figure things out and making money. But just figuring it out along the way, building some processes, just not really taking it that seriously. And for me, it was because I was fortunate to be making money. So it massed a lot of the inefficiencies, which I think a lot of people know that and they know like, hey, I’m doing good but I could be doing a lot better. So there was that me, I didn’t take time to really reflect, it was just action, action, action, action and that action got me up and off the ground and got the momentum, but then I hit the wall. Right?
Louis Massaro:
So then when I made the transition to moving CEO, it was just the realization that I had to take a different approach to the way that I ran my business. I had to take a different approach to the way that I ran my life, the way that I ran my days, the way that I took care of myself. And I started to study and understand like how do people run big companies, right? Because you think you have this big company because you have a few million dollar business, but there’s big companies out there, right? And there’s people that have many, many more employees, much more responsibility, much more regulation to deal with than we do as moving company owners. And I was like, all right, so how do they deal with all this? If I’m stressing and I’m struggling, like how do they do it? So started looking into that and basically just started down the road of approaching my time, my day and my priorities differently.
Louis Massaro:
And said, you know what? How could I run this business so that I’m able to know exactly what’s going on and be on top of everything with reports to be able to see exactly what I needed because I had this feeling at the time of like, man, there’s so much invisible stuff that I feel like I need to see that I can’t see. And this happened to me after I had five locations. Right? Because when you have one office, you could see everything. Walk around and you’re like, okay, I see what’s going on. I see what’s going on. But now I have multiple locations and I couldn’t see, so I felt like there was information that I needed in order to be able to really have the reins and control everything. And I knew that I needed certain reports to be able to do that. Right?
Louis Massaro:
So I identified the reports, I knew that I had to have certain meetings in place on the calendar, on the schedule, on a regular basis so that I can meet with my managers, I can meet with my team, I can meet with my account and I could go through the stuff that I knew was important. And then I’m like, okay, so how do I get this all done? And I came across the concept of putting things on your calendar, right? Instead of just showing up every day and being reactive. And I said, okay, I’m going to take blocks of time and I’m going to start blocking out all my schedule, the things that really matter for the business. And it’s a scary thing because you have to step away from the day to day, you might miss a phone call that might lead to a move being booked.
Louis Massaro:
You might not be there to handle some customer service issue that might require your attention, right? Like you have to slowly start pulling yourself away. And so what I did is I made Friday’s my day for that, to start. That was like my lever, if you will, to just give me some leverage to be able to move away. So I blocked out that time on Fridays to start working on what I call CEO stuff.
Chris:
And what’s that?
Louis Massaro:
The meetings, the reports, the block time, being able to strategize over what the next move is and then delegate, right? Instead of doing everything myself, so kind of jumping into it, it was all right, we need to set up systems and processes. Like there’s no question about it. Why are things in the Denver office being are totally different in Orlando? Why is Seattle totally different than Boston? Like why are these offices not operating the same exact way, they need to be? And so that was, when you talk about stepping into the moving CEO role, it’s like first getting yourself there and then saying, all right, what needs to happen in my business for this to really be able to scale.
Louis Massaro:
You can’t scale without the processes, then you’ve got your people, you’ve got to be able to delegate to your people, but they have to be very clear on what their roles are. Like when somebody first came in and I hired an outside consultant to come in and teach me the corporate stuff that I felt I needed to know. And he told me, where’s your organizational chart? And I was like is this a joke? Like I’m a moving company, what do you mean organizational chart? And after he left, it started to make a lot of sense on why I needed that. And I started to create it and I started to build roles and role descriptions behind each one of those positions.
Louis Massaro:
So I didn’t have all the people in place yet, but I said, okay, what is it going to take for me to run this business the way that I want to run it and get it to the level that I want to get it. What does that game plan look like? I’m going to need this person, I’m going to need that person, I’m going to need this person. And then I’m like, okay, now what are the role descriptions for each one of those? And I drilled down and I wrote out exactly what I would have those people do.
Chris:
At this point how far into the journey were you? Like how big was the company when you started implementing this stuff?
Louis Massaro:
After three and a half years of the first day that I opened, I had five locations and a call center.
Chris:
Wow, okay.
Louis Massaro:
And it was not fun because I would fix something in one location and then something would happen in another location. And I was on the plane going there and going there, and I literally was on planes writing out processes, trying to say like, this has to be done the same way. Like I can’t manage five locations that are doing things five different ways, right? It’s not like I have five different types of businesses, this is the same business, it should be done the same exact way. And so I would say it was probably about five years after that I started to realize that I needed to see certain numbers from certain locations. And then probably a couple of years after that, I was really like, got really, really … I made the processes as a priority, right? Because it was just, it was too much to deal with without that.
Chris:
So you adopt a moving CEO mindset, right?
Louis Massaro:
And skills and habits.
Chris:
Skills and habits, what’s that mean? Like in your personal life?
Louis Massaro:
Well, the habit of blocking your time to do the important stuff, to view your reports, to have your meetings, to not dive in immediately first thing in the morning to your email and get swamped and inundated with stuff that’s not really, doesn’t matter to your bigger mission. Right? You’ve got to be able to kind of be the general in the tent, you’ve got to be able to see things from a higher viewpoint and if you just dive in day-to-day, I’ll handle that. I’ll do that, I’ll do this, I’ll do that, you’re not going to be able to have those skills that you need. When I say skills that you’ve got to learn how to read your financials, then you’ve got to have the habit of doing it every month. Right?
Chris:
So if a moving company was, an owner was at the point where they’re ready to step away and start working on scaling and business development, where do they start with that?
Louis Massaro:
Where they need to start is, first of all, I think everyone needs to think about what they want, number one, right? Because I know for me it was like, I was like, I’m going to scale 100 million, but there was no real reason for that. It just seemed like something to do. And I was young, there was like ego involved. I was like, I want to be the biggest and it’s really unnecessary, right? Figure out like where you want to be, how much money you want to make and what’s it going to take to get there. Because then you can figure out what your game plan is. You could determine what model, we’ve established there’s five successful models to scale a moving business. Which model are you going to choose?
Louis Massaro:
And then you’ve got to look at getting the foundation set up, right? So you’ve got a first look at it and go, okay, we’ve got a lead generation, we’ve got booking moves, we’ve got servicing moves, we’ve got making sure that our customers are raving fans, and then we’ve got our accounting and our reporting. That’s the foundation of the moving business. Everybody’s dealing with those things, you just keep doing those well over and over and over, you’re going to do good, right? So you’ve got to say, okay, before I, let’s just use the example of opening another office.
Chris:
Yeah.
Louis Massaro:
Okay? Because that would be my path to hit 20 million, which we’re going to, we’ll get there by the end of this episode. So you’ve got to set all that stuff up and make sure that it’s running without you. Right? The fundamental’s day to day business needs to be running without you. How do you make that happen? Well, first you need to make sure that you’ve got your processes in place. And what I mean by that is something as simple as how do we call to confirm moves? What exactly do you need to say? What exactly do you need to put into the CRM? Right? What do we need our movers to do the minute they get to the house, right? What do they need to do before they leave to clock out, right? All these little things need to be defined and put in writing so that people know what to do, you can’t delegate loose commands to people, you’ve got to give them something that they could actually look at and do it exactly this way.
Louis Massaro:
So you work on getting your processes in place and the best place to start with that is really on the stuff that you’re having issues with now, or that you’re going to need to train someone to do so that you could step away, right? Then you’ve got to define the roles and responsibilities of people that you’re going to need in your company and not by the person. Like I don’t look at you and go, Chris, I’m going to define your roles and responsibilities. No, let’s say we had a moving company, I’d say, well, okay, I need to define what the dispatcher’s roles and responsibilities are, right? What the customer service manager, what their roles and responsibilities are.
Louis Massaro:
The final of those, and there’s probably 15 different roles within the company when you start thinking about it, you’ve got movers, you’ve got sales consultants, you’ve got warehouseman, you’ve got customer service reps, customer service managers, onsite estimator, you’ve got marketing, you’ve got onsite sales, you’ve got accounting, you’ve got payroll, you’ve got all these different things. And it all might get done by two people right now, but you’ve got to define what those roles are for each one of those people and then assign them to them. Hey Chris, you’re responsible for these three things and be clear on what those three things are. Then start delegating and then, start your plan to scale.
Chris:
Okay. So you’ve got your roles worked out, there’s a specific position that needs to be filled. Do you … If you don’t have the team in place, you haven’t hired the people how do you know when it’s time to hire somebody to fill this position or that position?
Louis Massaro:
So for me, what I do is I know when it’s time to hire, when I look at it and say, okay, there’s too much to get done for the amount of people we have. If I were to take this, this, this, and this off my plate and give it to somebody else, what can I go do to make sure that I increased the value and the profit of the business to be able to pay that person’s salary.
Chris:
Makes it worth it.
Louis Massaro:
At a minimum. And a lot of people get stuck because they feel like, I can’t afford somebody, I can’t afford somebody. And they think they need to be at some certain ratio to be able to actually hire. And I look at it and say, look, if you can bring somebody on to free you up to do more important stuff, trust in yourself, believe in yourself, have a plan for what you’re going to do with your time instead, hire that person and get yourself out of this jam that you’re in. Because a lot of people will be stuck where they’re at, at different levels. They’re like, they feel stuck because they don’t want to hire, they don’t want to release control. What I tell everybody is, you know what? Take your yearly salary, or your ideal yearly compensation, your entire compensation and divide that up by the amount of weeks and the amount of hours you work and see what your hourly rate is. And if you’re not already at the level that you want to be at, use your ideal income.
Louis Massaro:
If you’re like, hey, I want to personally make $800,000 a year, whatever it is, right? Divide that by 52 weeks, divide that by the hours you work and see what your effective hourly rate is and then look at all the stuff you’re doing and go, would I pay somebody that much an hour to do that? I could get somebody for $12 an hour, $15 an hour, 20, whatever it might be. To do that let me free myself up to work on other stuff. A big reason why people fail to delegate or don’t start delegating is because they’re uncertain of what they’re going to do with their time. They feel like if I delegate all this stuff, then what? I’m not going to have anything to do and that’s the perfect point to step into that CEO role. So there will be that. I talk to clients all the time that we take through this process and they’re like, yeah at first you’re kind of like, oh man, like what do I do?
Chris:
It’s a little scary, yeah.
Louis Massaro:
This is my baby, I built this thing and now I don’t really have a … I don’t feel needed at the office anymore, like they’re doing it without me. So you kind of float around for a quick minute, like what do I do next? So by developing that plan to scale or that plan to go fishing and hang out, like-
Chris:
Yeah, there’s nothing wrong with that, right?
Louis Massaro:
Yeah. You don’t have to take over the world business-wise, but you no matter what, like you’ve got to get yourself to the point where you’ve got some freedom. You’re never going to scale until you have the freedom. Working hard, it seems counterintuitive, but like just working hard is not going to get you to that level that you want to get to. And when I say working hard, I just mean putting your head down and doing the work without strategizing, thinking about it. Giving yourself time to rest, reflect and that’s where you make that leap. Like, you know what I’m saying? Like, that’s that sweet spot right there where you go, okay, like I’m truly ready. The business is running day to day without me now I just work on the stuff that’s going to help improve the business, the stuff that’s going to help grow the business. I work on that next level of the plan, at that point you’re moving CEO.
Chris:
That’s it.
Louis Massaro:
Yeah, that’s it.
Chris:
So how long into your journey would you say you finally were able to say, I’m the moving CEO of Neighbors?
Louis Massaro:
I’d say it took … I thought early … Like you think you have it all under control. I mean, even now I’m still growing, you’re still growing. Hopefully, everybody’s listening, still growing and won’t stop growing. I love to grow and get better constantly, so I probably thought I was there seven years into it, but it probably took me like 10 years into the business where I, I had it in my eyes now to a place where it was like, I didn’t have to do anything, my best years, like I was gone. I had years where, one month we think we did like a million nine in a month, almost hit like two million in the month, I was gone almost a whole month in Europe hanging out. And coming back fresh full of ideas, full of-
Chris:
Like inspired.
Louis Massaro:
Inspired, like ready to continue to go. As opposed to being there every day, draining myself, not having a chance to zoom out and see the bigger picture. I would say it probably took 10 years to get to that point, but I think where I was five years in is still a great, it’s still considered moving CEO level for sure.
Chris:
So you were 10 years into the business and for the next what, six, seven years, you just continued to focus on scaling and growing and just solely worked in a CEO type capacity, right or?
Louis Massaro:
That was it.
Chris:
That was it.
Louis Massaro:
That was it, whenever I was working it was like self-imposed, right? It was not like, hey, the business needs me. I need to go in there to answer phones and I need to go in there to manage people and I need to go in there for this. It was no, I want to do this new initiative, I want to roll this out. So then I would go in and roll that out with the team and whatever else. So it was like when I worked, I was working on growing up or improving or you know, it’s not always about growing. It’s like, how do we tackle this problem, how do we deal with this? And so there were more like priorities based around certain objectives that we’re going to help get where we want to.
Chris:
At that point, would you say it was fun?
Louis Massaro:
Yeah, I mean it’s … Yeah, right? I mean, business is a game. It doesn’t feel like a game when you’re struggling to make ends meet and you’re totally uncertain if it’s going to work. But when you’ve defined the game, when you’ve been able to not only understands the rules of the game, but know how to win the game and you do it consistently, right? And you get better, and that’s why I talk about skillset. There’s something in psychology called the confidence competence loop, right? And what happens is the more competent you get at something, the more confident you get and the more confident you get, the more you’re ready to go out and gain more competence. You know what I mean?
Chris:
It just feeds itself.
Louis Massaro:
Now I’m at a point that I know I will go to the seminars, I will get on the phone with my coach, I will do the things I need to do because I know that I will gain more competence, it’s going to allow me to grow and expand and make my life easier. And once you kind of get in that loop-
Chris:
Sky’s the limit.
Louis Massaro:
Sky’s the limit.
Chris:
So if somebody is at that place now, they’ve embraced the role of the CEO and the company’s successful and they’re doing well, what’s the path to get to 20 million from there?
Louis Massaro:
Well first again, you establish the model that you’re going to use to scale, and that’s different for everybody. There’s five paths really to get to, to scale your business. Somebody could just decide to open multiple locations, franchise their business, have partners in certain offices, just do long distance. There’s people out there just doing long-distance business and making a ton of money. Right? For me, we are talking about like we kind of started off like how I would do it all over again. I would open locations again, I would open local moving locations. I probably wouldn’t even mess with long-distance and I would just get my model, like were talking about at the beginning, get my processes down, build out those roles, start to delegate, get my foundations in order. Make sure everything could run without me, then I would run all of my sales out of one location. I would have all the sales centralized so that I could control it better and I would open remote locations in other cities that I felt would be really good markets to open up.
Louis Massaro:
And I would say to get to 20 million you could open 10 offices that are making two million a piece, right? You pick the right market, it’s not really that hard to get to $2 million if you’re scaling properly. And remember we started off talking about sales. We started off talking about your tracking numbers so that you can understand what your marketing ROI is. Some people would be like, what do you mean Louis? It’s not that easy to get to $2 million, right? And part of that is because they don’t have the sales process and they don’t have the confidence in their numbers for marketing to say, you know what? Ramp that up. Like what took me from 10 to 20 million was when I created the marketing ROI report. When I was like, okay, I’m buying all these different leads from all these different places, I don’t have the confidence to invest more money. It just feels like a crapshoot.
Louis Massaro:
How do I make it more strategic and less of a crapshoot and more of a strategic approach? I need to know these numbers on an individual basis. So in a spreadsheet broke down each individual marketing source to where I knew what the ROI was on it, and now I could adjust and now I could take something that wasn’t working that well, I could take all that money and I could move it to something that is working well. Remember I talked about at the beginning how it’s easier now than it was 20 years … I mean, it’s 20 years ago that I opened my first company because you are stuck in your advertising back then. You run the yellow pages, you were stuck for a year. You couldn’t take that money and reallocate it somewhere else once you saw that things weren’t working the way that they should.
Louis Massaro:
So to be able to scale you’ve got to be able to market, you’ve got to be able to spend money on advertising and you have to know your numbers. And a lot of people have great, great businesses out there and they get… Like almost all their business comes from repeat and referral customers. I’m like, listen, if you start spending some money on marketing and then you also go out there and do a great job like you’re doing now and you get more repeat and referral customers from that, it’s just going to really start to expand. So to get to two million in a reasonable size market is not hard, right? And so … Or let’s just say a million. To get to $1 million in business, you should be able to get to $1 million in gross revenue if you have a … Not if you’re like one truck and that’s respectable. Like you’re going out with your one truck, you do the moves yourself. That’s kind of your thing, you’re happy, you’ve got a nice business there, great.
Louis Massaro:
But if you’re like, look, I want to step into this moving CEO role, I want to have a business that runs without me so I could go enjoy time with my family, so I could step away and like live life and not just be stuck there, you’ve got to be able to build yourself up a million-dollar business, right? So now if you’ve got a bunch of million dollars, you open $20 million businesses, right? That would be the path. Or you become the hometown dominator, as we call it, in let’s just call it five markets. You do four million a piece in five markets, you’re at 20 million. That’s how I would go about doing it. There’s a few paths to get there, but that’s how I would do it today. And people probably say, Louis, like why don’t you do that?
Chris:
Yeah, why don’t you?
Louis Massaro:
And you know the answer to this. I mean, I get so much more satisfaction over helping others do that than doing it myself because I did already. So for me to do it again and feel that, like I’m able to watch that happen, it’s not about the money for me now. When I was young, I was like, I got to make all the money, going to make all the money. That’s why everyone, you need to know your number, you need to know how much money you need to be at, how much money you need to have in the bank, how much money you need to have active in investments so that you could feel comfortable living your life and you don’t need to make your decisions off of money, that’s something to strive for. So jot that down, let me say that again, because I know everybody’s listening to how to get to 20 million. It’s make sure you know your number, not the business numbers. That’s important too, but your number, what’s it going to take for you to retire?
Louis Massaro:
What’s it going to take for you to be able to live the life you want to live without having to actually work anymore? Know that number, because when you don’t have to make every decision based on money, life becomes much less stressful. So for me, like my biggest joy is the fact that I’ve got I would say, I’m involved in so many moving companies, not ownership, but with our private clients and being able to watch and execute the plans and letting them go, like reap the rewards-
Chris:
It’s a lot of fun.
Louis Massaro:
It’s so satisfying to me because you’re taking them from struggle to scale. And I shouldn’t say taking them, you’re just kind of guiding them a little bit because they’re doing the work, it’s just, they’re not going through all the unnecessary challenges, that’s why I don’t do it again.
Chris:
Yeah. And I know you, I know the type of person you are and the fun is in the actual building of the thing. Like once you’ve got it built and it’s running, you want that challenge, you want that strategy, play the game, that’s what it’s about.
Louis Massaro:
Yeah, definitely, so that’s how you get to 20 million today.
Chris:
Yeah. I mean, is there a limit nowadays in the markets out there? Like could everybody have a $20 million company?
Louis Massaro:
No, the only reason is not everybody will do what they need to do. That’s the reality of it, right? That’s the reality of it. And people will see my videos for hey, come to this seminar, hey, check out my course. Man, that guy might be … This is salesy. And it’s because I know the value and I know what’s on the other end of that for you.
Chris:
Well, at this point it’s been three years of helping people, we’ve seen the results.
Louis Massaro:
Oh yeah. I mean, it’s, hands down. We see it not only in the businesses but in their lives and their income. So will everybody do it? No. Everybody won’t do it. And it’s because, I truly believe that people will say, Louis what are the best … What books should I read? And I’m like, go to the bookstore, go to the personal development section and just start grabbing stuff that talks to you. I think that’s what blocks more people. For me, I love that type of stuff. I love trying to figure out what’s in my mind and how to operate this more efficiently. If you could operate this more efficiently, the business stuff becomes-
Chris:
It’s all interconnected.
Louis Massaro:
It becomes much easier. So I think the people that say, hey, you know what, like they’re really committed to mastery and they’re not … There’s people, and I’ll get messages like, hey, I know, I’m thinking about trying and moving out, like that, you’re going to fail right then and there. You’ve got to go into it like, I’m doing this. Or even people … Listen, I know people that are still in the business that wanted to sell their business because they were just so fed up with it and once they got it operating to a place where it was making money, it was no longer stressful. It was fun and felt such a sense of satisfaction to like sit back and look at what they’ve built, their whole perception on it, it just changes.
Louis Massaro:
So if you’re listening and you are, listen, you’re either getting started or you’ve been in the business for a while and you’re hitting some kind of challenge, you’re no longer into it anymore. Or you feel like growth equals problems, and a lot of people feel that, I totally understand that. But if you feel like growth equals problems, I’m just challenged you to look at it differently and just ask yourself like, if I was to take a different approach to the way that I run my business, is it possible that I could make more money, be less stressed, have more freedom, and have a whole new perception of what I have going on, especially the people that are already successful, especially the people that already have seven, eight-figure businesses that are already making anywhere … whatever they’re making, right? They’re making a good living. I really want to challenge you to say like, could you go to that next level?
Louis Massaro:
And without bringing all the BS with you, right? People think next level requires that you bring all … That like you got to bring all this hard work that you did and all that stuff and then add more to it and carry all of that, the burden lightens as you go up. So I challenge you to be there because it’s a lovely place and that’s my mission, that’s my goal.
Chris:
And there’s never been a better time.
Louis Massaro:
There’s never been a better time.
Chris:
Right?
Louis Massaro:
Never been a better time, economy is booming, it’s a new decade. It’s 2020, and think about things in longterm, right? Everybody, I used to be guilty of this too, I’m like, oh yeah, well what could I accomplish this month? What could I accomplish this year? Look at what can you really accomplish in 10 years if you really put your mind to it, if you really got focused, you really made the decisions you needed to make, you really cut out all the stuff that you know is not helping you in your business and in your personal life.
Louis Massaro:
And just literally, if you were walking down the street and you know you’re just heading in the wrong direction, if you just turn around and go the other way, that’s it, right? You won’t get there right away, but it’s like one step at a time, one step at a time. Like, don’t get stressed that you’re at the level you’re at now and you want to get to this other level and you’re not there yet today. Just turn in the direction that you know you need to go and start taking one step at a time. That’s it.
Chris:
Instead, you’re doing the right things in the right order, right? I mean, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. Well, there you go, there’s the path to 20 million. I wish I would’ve written down who asked that question, but there’s your answer.
Louis Massaro:
We won’t call them out anyways, but yeah, so there’s your answer. That’s how you do it. It is possible, my friends, and one last thought is don’t feel that you have to go to that level. Don’t feel … We live in this world of comparison right now where people are on social media and their bragging and a lot of times about stuff that’s not even real and it’s not even accurate and it makes other people feel like they need to be doing these big, big things. And it’s when you could start to establish what you want in your life in certain key areas of your life, like in your business, right? Your finances, your relationship, personal growth, contribution, health. When you could identify like what you really want, you’ll realize that it’s probably not a $20 million business, right? That’s just, you’re like, oh, it sounds good. It sounds like all my problems will be solved at that point, right? Like, let’s just go to 20 million.
Louis Massaro:
But you’ve got to be able to look back in every stage of where you’re at, like wherever you are now, you probably have a certain level of success that at some point in your life, if you were to look back at yourself 10 years ago and talk to 10 year old, younger you, right? And say, “Hey, look what we got now.” They’d be like, “Oh man, we made it.”
Chris:
Wow, we did this.
Louis Massaro:
Right? So like along the path, strive to get to where you want to go, but be satisfied where you’re at, because you could always, always be looking for that next thing. Looking for that next thing, looking for that next thing and that’s good. However, look at what you’ve got now and be grateful for that. And know there was a time in your life when you didn’t have that and all you wanted was that. Like maybe you’ve got a couple offices now, you’ve got three offices and your goal is to go to 50, I bet you there was a time where all you wanted to do was open one office and make some money. For me all I wanted to do was open one office, right? I was like, hey, I could open one-off … If I can make $100,000 that would be awesome.
Louis Massaro:
And then it was like, I got there and I’m like, okay, if I can make $400, if I could … And just kept growing and growing. And I didn’t learn this lesson early on. So I was striving and striving and striving, but now to be able to strive and be satisfied with where you’re at, don’t think you’re going to lose your hunger. Don’t think you’re going to lose your edge. The only thing you’re going to lose is your stress, your anxiety, your ulcers, your early dying, like all of that. Let that go and just, if you look in the mirror and you know that each day you’re taking the right action to go in the direction you want to go in, then just do what you need to do, have faith, know that it’s all going to happen and always look back at where you used to be to have appreciation for where you are now.
Chris:
And don’t be afraid to ask for help.
Louis Massaro:
Yeah.
Chris:
Right?
Louis Massaro:
Yeah.
Chris:
We’re here, we’re here.
Louis Massaro:
Great question.
Chris:
Yeah, that was awesome.
Louis Massaro:
All right guys, listen, if you liked that episode, we’re trying different things. I want to deliver more value, I want to be able to not only give videos on here’s how to do this, but just give some perspective on my journey, my clients’ journeys, things that are going on that we see in the industry. So if you like this type of episode, go give me a rating for this episode specifically on iTunes, I’d really appreciate it. If you know someone that needs to hear this or that would benefit from this, go on the link, send them a text message, put it on Facebook, email them, whatever it might be. Listen to it with them, spread the message. It’s all about abundance. The best way to grow your business is to not deal in scarcity, but to deal in abundance. There is enough out there for everybody, just the people that are actually going to make the moves, go get it. So we’ll see you next time on the Moving Mastery podcast.
