My definition of a moving company sales script is a step by step guide designed in advance, to assist a moving consultant in providing all relevant information about your service to a prospective customer, while leading that prospect to do business with your company.

The whole idea is that you have a strong standard message that you are delivering to all potential customers that will answer their questions while also leading them to do business with your company.

Here are 5 reasons why you must have a moving company sales script:

1. Ensures compliance – Whether you are booking local or long distance moves, there are state and/or federal regulations that must be followed. By having a sales script you are able to know that what everyone on your staff is saying to customers is in compliance with those regulations.
2. Keeps your sales team on track – Having a sales script does not mean that you are robotic and just reading off a sheet of paper. You are still engaging in a real conversation with your potential customer. In that conversation, you may get thrown off track. For example, you may be in the middle of your pitch and the customer asks a question that is off topic. You need to be abe to stop, answer their question and then direct the conversation back to where you were in your pitch.
3. “Always Say” and “Never Say” – I’m sure that you have things that you want to be said to all of your customers. You probably have things that must also never be said to any customer. When you have a sales script you can incorporate these “always say” words and phrases and leave out the “never say” words and phrases.
4. Consistent training and managing – If everyone on your team is saying the same thing to your customers, it becomes much easier to monitor and manage. Also, when you hire new moving consultants you are able to train them on exactly what you want to be said to your customers.
5. Increases sales – Remember, a sales script is something that is thought out in advance that is designed to lead potential customers to do business with your company. If you currently don’t have a sales script, then chances are there is very little consistency. By implementing a sales script you make sure that you put your best foot forward on every estimate.

How to build a moving company sales script:

It all starts with taking what is currently being said to your customers and getting it on paper. Take whoever is booking the most moves in your company, put what they say in a word document and start tweaking it. Once you have something that you feel is the best representation of your company and it’s designed to lead the customer to book their move with you, have your whole staff follow it.

Then you’ll see what works and what doesn’t and tweak it. Add some stuff, remove some stuff and rearrange some stuff. Remember, you don’t want to just list bullet points for your customer. You want to “paint the picture” on how the move is going to go. Get them to visualize the move and get emotionally engaged.

If you want to learn how to build a Moving Sales Machine, and how having a moving company sales script fits into the big picture of booking more moves check out this free training video.

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

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All moving companies have access to the same marketing. Whether it’s SEO, PPC, Direct Mail, Moving Leads, Yelp, Angie’s List, Thumbtack, Referral Networks (for a full list download 10 Rules of a Profitable Moving Company for free).

It’s not the marketing that is going to separate you from your competition and allow you to dominate your market. It’s your sales process. It’s not about what lead source to use, it’s about what happens after you receive that lead or phone call. What’s your sales process like?

Here’s the best sales and marketing advice for moving companies:

1. Track and report on your marketing – The best marketing source is going to be whichever one is the most profitable for your company. I don’t mean which one brings in the most business, I mean which one is the most profitable after you pay for the marketing. In order to know how your marketing is performing, you must be tracking and reporting on all of your marketing. This will allow you to try out different sources to see what works and what doesn’t.
2. Tweak and make adjustments – Once you know your numbers you have the ability to tweak your marketing and make adjustments. You can adjust or cut-off sources that aren’t working and then add that money to sources that are working. This is the beauty of modern marketing, you’re not locked into yearly contracts with most marketing.
3. Start focusing on sales – So if we all have access to the same marketing, and you’re tracking your marketing and making adjustments, what do you think is going to propel you to that next level? That’s right, your sales process. You should be focused on building a Moving Sales Machine. Creating processes for lead management, estimate follow-up and more. Strong sales processes are what separates the companies that are getting by from the companies that are making millions!

Having great marketing and letting it flow into a not-so-great sale process, is like putting high octane fuel in a beat-up car and expecting it to run like a Ferrari. It’s won’t happen, it’s still going to run like a beat-up car.

So if you really want to take your moving company to the next level, follow these 3 steps above. That’s the best sales and marketing advice for moving companies I can give you.

If you want to learn the 6 Stages of Building a Moving Sales Machine, check out this Free Training I put together for you. This will lay out what you need to do to build that Ferrari!

Watch the video above for the full episode.

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

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In this episode, I’ll share 5 reasons why your sales team is not following up.

1. Too Many Leads – Everyone thinks the more leads the better. But if you have so many leads that there is no time for your sales team to follow up then you are missing out on sales and spending more than necessary on leads and marketing.
2. Not Organized – If your moving consultants don’t have a system for keeping track of their opportunities and following up, then they won’t follow up. They’ll be reactive and jump on new leads and phone calls while neglecting their follow ups.
3. Management – Your sales team needs to be held accountable for their follow up. If there is no one checking to make sure they are following up, then most likely they won’t. They need to know what is expected of them and then you need to make sure they are doing it.
4. Peer Influence – When your sales reps look around and see everyone else just sitting around waiting for the new leads or phone calls, what do you think they are going to do? They’re going to do what everyone else is doing.
5. Lack of Motivation – If your sales team is not motivated to book more moves then they are not going to follow up. Make sure they have a commission and bonus structure that keeps them fired up!

If you haven’t been on top of your company’s follow up, that’s ok. Now is the time to start!

Watch the video above for the full episode.

FREE Training: The 6 Stages of Building Your Moving Sales Machine

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

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Full Transcript 

[The following is the full transcript of this episode.]
Hey my friend, it’s Louis Massaro, CEO of Moving Mastery and founder of Moving Sales Academy. Why aren’t your sales reps following up to close the deal? For those of you Moving Sales Academy alumni, you know how important this is, right? You know it’s all about lead what? Follow-up. You know it’s all about estimate what? Follow-up. We know that, we went over that in depth but for everybody out there it’s a real problem for your sales if your sales team is not following up. Not following up on the leads when you get leads from lead providers or from your own website, and then not following up after you give the estimate. Once they spend the time and they put in the time to talk to the customer, give the customer an estimate, go through their inventory, go out and do an on-site, do a video estimate, whatever it is. You invested time, they need to be following up. Whether you’re doing your own sales, whether you have a whole team of sales people, I wanna give you five reasons why your sales team’s not following up.

Alright? Because it’s so important that you pinpoint it so that you could get this issue resolved and start booking more jobs immediately, alright? Follow-up is key. The first reason why they’re not following up is they have too many leads. Everybody thinks more leads the better, more leads, more leads, more leads. Not if you’re not following up with those leads. Not if you call them one time and don’t call them again. Not if you’re giving somebody an estimate and then not following up because your sales team is so busy trying to call the new leads that they don’t have time to nurture the leads that they already have, they don’t have time to follow-up with the people that they’ve already given an estimate to. Too many leads can definitely be a problem.

The second reason why your sales team’s not following up is they’re not organized. They don’t have a system for when they should be calling the new leads, when they should be calling their estimates back, they don’t have a follow-up sequence within their CRM to help them go through the process of following up. They’re just not organized. They’re reacting, they’re dealing with whatever’s coming in. Phone rings that’s what they’re dealing with, lead comes in that’s what they’re dealing with, if a customer calls back with questions about their estimate that’s what they’re dealing with, but they don’t have a system and a structure for going through and making sure that they’re following up on all these leads. And I’m saying this and I’m telling you this information cause it’s so important. And if you’re on top of it great, good for you, I’m glad to hear it. I know everybody from Moving Sales Academy, I know you’re on top of it now and I just wanna make sure everybody understands the importance of follow-up because all I hear is how much everyone’s spending in marketing.

How much we need new leads and we need new ways to make the phone ring, but what happens after it rings? What happens once you get the lead? You have to maximize it, you have to get everything out of it, you have to squeeze that fruit and get all the juice out of it. Let’s talk about the… What’s the third reason why they’re not following up? Management. There’s no accountability, there’s no one telling them you need to be calling new leads as soon as they come in and this many times. You need to call back your estimates after you give them an estimate, here’s your sequence of when you need to be following up and what you need to say. And if they’re not following up, no one’s saying anything, no one’s doing anything. Listen, if this is you, if this is your company, it’s okay. A lot of people are in this position and that’s why I’m doing this video.

I’m not coming down on you for not doing it, I’m just telling you that you need to start managing your people and you need to make sure that they don’t just have access to leads and phone calls with no system and no structure for follow-up. They need to be following up because otherwise they’re just burning through your leads. If they’re just allowed to come in everyday or work from home or wherever it is and kinda call some leads, take some calls, and no one’s checking on when they’re following up, that’s a problem. That’s causing you to lose business. And next reason is peer influence. If there’s other people in the office, if you’re also booking work and there’s no one else that’s booking and following up on moves, no one else is calling back customers and saying, “Hey we spoke yesterday about your estimate… ” And going through the follow-up sequence. Then they’re not gonna do it, they’re gonna do what people around them are doing.

If you work in your company and you’re also booking moves, make sure you set the example for your team. If you’re a sales manager, set the example for your team. If you’re an owner, set the example for your team. If you’re a moving consultant, set the example for your team. Because once everyone starts doing it, it’s pure influence. The reason they’re not following up is because no one’s doing it. They look around and are like, “Why am I gonna follow-up? I’ll just wait for the new lead. Why do I wanna call that lead? They didn’t book with me on the first time. Why am I gonna call them back?” Or “I couldn’t get them on the phone, why would I try again? I’ll just wait for the new lead.” It’s pure influence. And then the last of the five reasons that they’re not following up, is a complete lack of motivation. A, they don’t know that they should be following up and then that’s gonna increase their booking percentage and they’re gonna be able to book more moves. And their pay plan might not be structured in a way to where they feel that they’re gonna be compensated for the extra moves they book. They do what’s easy because there’s no benefit in making the extra dials, making the extra calls, staying organized, following up with the customers.

They need to be motivated. They need to have a commission plan, and a pay structure, and bonuses, and SPIFs that keep them fired up and keep them excited or they’re not gonna do the follow-up. Listen, it’s so important, it’s so, so important that you’re following up, and there’s two parts to follow-up. There’s lead follow-up, which is when a new lead comes in from a lead provider or your website, getting them on the phone. And then there’s estimate follow-up. After you already give them an estimate, following up to book the job. There’s too many companies out there that are not doing that. If you start doing follow-ups after you give an estimate, you’re gonna be ahead of the majority of people and you’re gonna book a lot more moves. But listen, my MSA alumni you know this already, right?

You could verify what I’m saying. This is how you book a lot of moves. Follow-up, follow-up, follow-up. With that being said, I’m gonna get off this video, I want you to get on the phone, start following up. Get your team fired up, get them motivated. If someone’s being a bad influence on everybody else, you need to take them aside, you need to talk to them. If someone needs to be fired, they need to be fired. Listen, you need to be following up. You’re spending money on marketing, you’re spending money on leads, you’re spending money to get the phone to ring. Don’t just put a lighter to those leads and burn them, and let them go to waste. Follow-up, alright? Go out there, follow-up on your leads, book more moves, profit in business, thrive in life, I’ll see you next week, alright?

One of the best decisions I made was to raise our prices to the high end of our local markets. I was a little nervous at first. I was concerned that we would lose a ton of business, and we did lose some. But I didn’t care! Do you know why?

We were making more money with fewer moves! What matters is the profit, the bottom line, not the quantity but the quality. Not only quality for the customer but quality for your company. What’s a quality move for your company? A highly profitable move!

Here are 5 steps to charge more money for your moving services:

1. Don’t compete with low-cost movers
2. Raise your prices
3. Make more money with fewer moves
4. SELL your service
5. Provide 5-star service

Don’t forget that you have to SELL your service. You cannot expect prospective customers to know how great you are, you have to tell them. They need to understand why you are not the cheapest and the benefits of moving with your company. Your customer will need to understand why you charge more money for your moving services.

The best way to be able to sell your customers on why you’re worth more money than the competition is to get clear on the value you provide and then build it into your sales script. Having a strong sales script that has been well crafted and is followed by you and all of your staff is a key step in building what I call the Moving Sales Machine.

Rule #8 of a Profitable Moving Company is Sell Value and Service, Not Price. So Sell value… Sell service… Provide a 5-star moving experience… And watch your profits and customer satisfaction go up! Start with a 5% increase in your price. Once you’re comfortable you can go higher.

Watch the video above for the full episode.

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

Follow Louis on Instagram for tons of great quotes.

Full Transcript

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

Hey my friend, it’s Louis Massaro, author of 10 Rules of a Profitable Moving Company and founder of Moving Mastery. Today, we’re gonna talk about rule number eight of the 10 Rules of a Profitable Moving Company which is: Sell value and service, not price. So this is something that as an industry, we all need to really look at. It’s enough is enough of these companies that are just charging way too… There’s no way they’re making any money charging as low as they’re charging for the moves and yet, we all think that we need to compete with them and that we need to lower our prices to compete with these companies.

Well, we have to understand that it’s very easy for people to get in the business and it’s a competitive business. And if you’ve been in the business long enough, you know that companies open up, the companies shut down, they don’t make it. The problem is they’re not… It’s not the only problem, but part of the problem is they’re not charging enough for their moves, they’re trying to get the low-hanging fruit with low prices and I’m challenging you to not compete with them. So we’re gonna go over a few things that are gonna help you sell value and service and not price.

And the first one is; don’t compete with low cost movers. It’s just something that you have to realize that yes, they’re gonna get some of the moves that are just looking for the low, low price and you may not book as many moves, your volume may not be as high if you’re not competing with the low price movers, but you wanna be profitable. We’re talking about the 10 Rules of a Profitable Moving Company, we’re not talking about the 10 rules of getting the most jobs. Getting the most jobs doesn’t equate into being the most profitable, you want to be the most profitable business you can be for you. So you have to stop worrying about these low price movers and you have to stop competing with them.

And the second thing you’re gonna need to do is raise your price. I challenge you, raise it by 5%. You’ll be surprised that you’ll still be able to book a good amount of business. One of the best decisions I ever made was to raise our prices in all of our local markets to the high end of the market. We were always kind of in the middle, there was always the low price movers that were lower than us, there was always the companies that were charging a ton of money, hourly rates for local moves, and we were always kind of in the middle. And finally, I did the calculations and you should do them too, sit and take a pen and paper, an Excel spreadsheet, however you figure out your numbers and look at it and say, “You know what? If we lost 20% or 30% of our business by raising our price to this, what would that do?” And what I found was I actually made more money with fewer moves.

So listen, it’s a scary thought to think about less moves. But if you really look at it and you say, “You know what? What do I need to be profitable? What do I need to be able to have every move be worth it?” Not just get the move, it’s not a matter of just getting the move and competing to get the move, it’s a matter of for it to be worth it. And you might do less moves, but you know what? Less moves is less trucks. Less equipment, more of your A team movers going on the job. So look at that, look what it would be if you raised your prices. And for me, it became more profitable. It wasn’t a drastic cut in business, but there was definitely less volume, but we were making more money, there was more profit.

What’s it all about? Why do more work and make less when you could do less work and make more? And I know everybody thinks about it and I know this is a big struggle. That’s why it’s one of the rules because it’s tough. It’s like, “What do I do?” You lose a job, you’re on the phone and you call somebody back and follow up on a quote and they’re like, “No, we went with this company ’cause they had this price of whatever,” some ridiculous low price. And you feel tempted that your price is too high, you’re gonna lose business. But you know what? By having a higher price, you actually gain business, you actually get higher quality moves that don’t wanna go with the low price companies. You’ll get better moves because you’re a higher price. There’s a reason people pay more for a Mercedes than they do for a Ford. No offense if you drive a Ford, I’m just saying. There’s a reason people pay more for first class than they do for coach. You have to make that… You have to basically… That leads us into the next one, you have to sell your service.

So if you’re gonna raise your price, don’t just raise it and keep things the same, you have to sell. You have to basically explain to your customers why you’re more money, why your service is better, why it’s not comparing apples to apples by comparing our company to that company. “Here’s what you’re gonna get with us. Here’s what we provide for that extra money.” So if you provide a great service, you deserve to be paid for that service and there are people out there that will pay you, and there are people out there that look for the… Not just more expensive, but if they see the value in something that’s more expensive, they’re gonna pay for it. And I’m not saying, go raise your price to a ridiculous amount. You need to do this at a rate that you feel comfortable. Take your rate now, increase it by 5%. Whatever your rate is, get the calculator out, put your rate times 1.05, that’s your new rate. It’s not that much higher. Try that. Get comfortable there. Then raise it 10%. You have to test it out for yourself.

And when we talk about selling your service, you need to make sure that when you do raise the price, that you’re not coming off timid about it. Your sales people aren’t gonna say, “Oh, we can’t sell now ’cause our price is too much.” No, they need to understand that you’re valuable, your company deserves to be paid more, so you’re raising the price and they could still book the same amount of moves. I’m telling you, I’ve gone through it. I’ve been there. It’s so worth it. If you’re struggling to be profitable or you wanna be more profitable, charge more money. When you charge more money, you could also pay your staff more, you could pay your movers more, your helpers more. You don’t necessarily have to, depending on where you pay them now, but maybe you struggled to get that good quality of help that you really want. But you’re like, “I can only spend this for my helpers and I can only spend this for my movers. I need to keep my labor percentage at this.” Whatever that number is for you.

Well, if you raise your hourly rate, your labor percentage could stay the same, but you could actually be paying more in labor. And again, you don’t have to, but if you’re struggling to get good help and it’s because you can’t afford to pay them, raise your price. Your operation starts to change. Early on, I did a lot of volume. We weren’t the low price movers, but we were right in there and always making sure we were competing with price. And as we started to charge more and change things around, we had bigger moves, better moves. And you know what? The people that are looking for the bargains, it just so happens they turn into the problem moves. Not all the time, but when you start dealing with people that are willing to pay more money, if you do a good job, they don’t really have a problem because they were happy to pay the money.

And that brings us to the last part which is provide five-star service. You have to provide the service that you’re selling. Again, you’re gonna sell hard. You need to have, first of all, if you don’t have a sales script, you need to have a sales script. You need to make sure that you’re touching on all key points that are gonna essentially lead that customer into doing business with your company. And if you have a strong sales script, raising your price by 5% or 10% isn’t gonna affect much. You wanna build a moving sales machine. That’s what I called mine, it was a moving sales machine. It just was set up with systems processes. Everyone was saying this because I knew that what I had them saying was able to sell moves. You wanna be able to sell, you wanna be able to tell them why you’re more money than the next guy. But then you wanna make sure that you go out and provide that five-star service. If want five-star prices, you need to provide five-star service. And five-star service doesn’t mean you literally have to show up in a tuxedo with white gloves on it. It means you have to do some of the things we talked about in the other 10 rules.

If you haven’t watched the other videos on the 10 Rules of a Profitable Moving Company or you haven’t downloaded the free ebook that I’m giving away on the website, do that. There’s things that you can do without spending more money to provide a five-star service. So sell value, sell service, don’t compete on price and make more money. You work hard, I know that. If you’re watching this, if you’re in the moving business, it’s a hard business. I know it’s hard work, you need to make money. And you can’t make money if you’re chasing around low price movers. And you know what? It might look like some of these guys are getting all the business, but they probably don’t know their numbers. They probably are cutting some corners somewhere. They’re doing something that eventually is gonna catch up and it’s not gonna last. If you want a business that’s gonna last, you have to do profitable moves. I mean, it’s pretty simple when you look at it. You just have to avoid the temptation and the pressure to feel like you need to compete with the low price movers. Sell value, sell service, not price. Profit in business, thrive in life. I’ll see you next time.

We all know that networking is a great way to get new business. Often times, it feels like a chore and something that gets overlooked. As a moving company, you want to network with individuals and organizations that you know can refer moves to your company.

When I started my first moving company, I would dispatch my trucks in the morning and then spend the rest of the day “pounding the pavement”. I would drive from one apartment complex to another, networking with the leasing agents.

Before long I had apartment complexes all over town referring us moves. Some I would give a referral fee, others I would cater lunch for their office or send them flowers. Once they saw that we took care of their tenants, they were more than happy to send us the business.

Here are some people you should focus on networking with when you pound the pavement:

• Realtors
• Leasing agents at apartment complexes
• Mortgage brokers
• Home builders
• Self-storage facilities

Realtors, leasing agents at apartment complexes, mortgage brokers, and storage facilities are all dealing with people daily that are moving. Going out and making connections with these folks is a great cost effective way to start booking more moves.

If you are just starting out in business, you can go do it yourself. If you are already established, you can have someone from your company going out making these connections. Either way, someone should be doing it.

The key is consistency and follow-up. You want to make this a weekly practice. Even if it’s just for a couple hours a week. This is a great source of getting moves that anyone can implement right away.

Watch the video above for the full episode.

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

Follow Louis on Instagram for tons of great quotes.

Full Transcript

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

Hey my friend. It’s Louis Massaro, author of 10 Rules of a Profitable Moving Company and founder of Moving Mastery. Today, we’re gonna continue talking about how to become more profitable. If you haven’t already downloaded my e-book, 10 Rules of a Profitable Moving Company, head over to my website. It’s free. Download it, you’ll get it immediately. And today, we’re gonna talk about rule number three which is: Get out of the office and pound the pavement.

This is how I started my business. This is essentially from day one how I got out and rounded up business to start my company. I had a Yellow Page ad, and I went out, and I pounded the pavement every single day.

So what does pound the pavement mean? It means go and speak to, physically get in your car and drive and talk to apartment complexes, talk to real estate agents, talk to mortgage brokers. These are all people that can refer moves to you. When I started, I was working out of a truck rental yard. I didn’t have an office, so I would drive there every morning, I would dispatch the trucks, I would get back in my car, I would go get some breakfast ’cause it was still too early, nothing was open. And soon as 9:00 o’clock came, I would go apartment complex, to apartment complex, to apartment complex all day long. And I would walk in and I had some brochures. At the time, it weren’t really that nice looking back at it. Eventually, I got some nicer ones. But I walked in with some brochures and a business card. I didn’t even really get dressed. I had a sweatshirt on that had the name of my company.

And I walked in and I spoke to them and I said, “I just opened a moving company in town and I would love to get your business. I’m gonna take care of your customers. I can do something for you as well.” And if they were interested in receiving a kickback on the move or a referral fee on the move, I worked that out with them. Some complexes weren’t able to do it. At the time, I lived in an apartment complex that it was a pretty big complex. And all the girls in the office there, they weren’t allowed to take anything, but they referred a ton of moves because they saw my face a lot. I went in and I spoke to them and I talked to them. And when they would refer moves, I’d send lunch, I would send flowers to all the girls. And they loved it, they loved it and they continued to send moves. Other places, I would show up, I would bring them donuts, because you can’t just go once. You have to continue the relationship.

Nowadays, yes, you can do networking online, you can network with Facebook and LinkedIn, but to go out and pound the pavement will bring you those extra moves that if you’re not doing this, then you’re not getting now. Depending on what level you’re at, later on, I had someone else that would go and visit apartment complexes. And they had a route and they would go hit a certain amount of complexes each day. They would give them our information and then we’d follow up with them from the office. We built a database. It’s really a great source of business.

So I hear a lot of people talking about the marketing, “This doesn’t work and that doesn’t work.” When you get out and you’re face-to-face with people that are face-to-face with other people that are moving, they can refer you moves. So you don’t have to make it a big deal. Yes, eventually, I started wearing a polo shirt. Eventually, whoever I was sending out was wearing a polo and slacks to do it. But when I started, I literally went in with jeans, my company sweatshirt, and a business card, and some really terrible looking brochures. And it works and you get moves. And yes, they’re apartment moves, they’re smaller moves. But you also speak to realtors and they’re gonna get you bigger moves.

So I know that you may know this already and it seems like common sense. And I know a lot of people are doing it, but who’s doing it on a consistent basis, who’s making this part of their everyday business? Whether that’s you personally stopping at a few places on the way home every day, whether it’s one day a week, you take the afternoon and go target an area and pound the pavement in that area, or you have somebody working for you that does it. You have to be pounding the pavement. I’m telling you, it seems simple and you may have tried it before. If you’re doing it now, awesome. If you’re doing it on a consistent basis, you know what I’m talking about. I’m preaching to the choir right now. I don’t have to tell you. You know that it brings in moves.

So again, if you’re not doing it, just start simple, start small. It doesn’t have to be a big production. Just walk into a place with a business card. Say, “You know what? You have tenants moving in and out, I have this moving company. We provide a great service. I would love to take care of your clients. We could work something out with you as well.” And you strike up a conversation. The worst thing they could tell you is “No.” The worst thing they could tell you is, “We already work with somebody.” Listen, try anyways. You’re going to get more business from this. So, that’s rule number… What are we on? Rule number two. I’m sorry, that’s rule number three. Go out and pound the pavement. Do that. Start doing it right away and I’m telling you, you’re gonna get more moves from it. Profit in business, thrive in life always and I’ll see you next time.

Rule #2 of a Profitable Moving Company is “Don’t depend on any single source of marketing”. It’s very easy to become complacent and comfortable when you have a great marketing source. Whether it’s your website’s search engine ranking or a direct mail campaign, there is always a possibility it could stop producing the way it does now.

Here are some things you can do to diversify your marketing.

1. Get your marketing report on point – Once you have a good understanding of which sources are working and which ones are not, you will feel confident to test out new ones. By working, I mean profitable. You don’t want moves at any cost, you want profitable moves. By reviewing your Marketing ROI Report you will have the clarity you need to make a decision.

2. Test out new marketing sources – Now that you have good reporting you will be able to test out new sources with confidence. There are so many sources out there that you should try. Are there any that you have been thinking about trying? If so, give them a shot. If you need some ideas on new sources to try out, check out the list of sources in Rule #2 of the 10 Rules of a Profitable Moving Company.

3. Increase the budget for profitable sources – Once you have tested out some new sources on a small scale you will know how they are doing. If your report shows that they are profitable, then increase the budget and spend more on that source if you can.

4. Cut off what isn’t profitable – When you spend too much money on marketing to acquire a move, you are losing money. You are better off taking the money you spend on these sources and using it to increase your budget for the profitable sources.

The main thing to remember is that all great marketing sources don’t last forever. Keep all the great sources that you have now. Ride the wave for as long as it lasts! Just be careful that you don’t put all your eggs in one basket. It’s better to keep what is working but not turn your back on new sources of business. Diversify your marketing.

Watch the video above for the full episode.

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

Follow Louis on Instagram for tons of great quotes.

Full Transcript

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

Hey my friend, it’s Louis Massaro, author of 10 Rules of a Profitable Moving Company and founder of Moving Mastery. If you haven’t already downloaded 10 Rules of a Profitable Moving Company, head over to my website, louismassaro.com, I’m giving it away for free. And today we’re going over rule number two of a Profitable Moving Company. So whether you’re already profitable, whether you wanna become more profitable, these rules apply to everybody.

So rule number two is: Don’t depend on any single source of marketing. This is so so important. Again, the 10 rules, these are… Essentially somebody asked me as I was getting out of the business and they were getting in the business, “Hey, what advice can you give me?” And the 10 Rules of a Profitable Moving Company is essentially the email that I sent them. Like, “These are the 10 rules, these are the things that you need to make sure you do, consistently and that you’re always on top of.” There’s a lot more to running a successful moving company, but these things if you’re doing them consistently, will cover a lot of bases and make sure that you stay profitable.

So number two: Don’t depend on any single source of marketing, that’s big. For me, I was very, very, very heavily invested in the Yellow Pages, from the beginning of my career up until 2008, ’09, ’10 period. We were spending a lot of money in Yellow Pages, double full page ads in every city. And you know what? They stopped working as they used to. And it caused me to have to really scramble. You’ve heard my story, you know that I really dug deep and started to learn Internet marketing and all the different ways to market your business outside of the conventional Yellow Pages, direct mail, TV commercials, radio ads. I dove in and started to really figure out all the different ways. Not just buying leads, or doing pay-per-click, but everything. And the reason I’m telling you this and the reason that number two is: Don’t depend on any single source of marketing, is because I was really stuck in a bad spot because I had so much of my… I had all my eggs in one basket, if you will, with advertising with the Yellow Pages.

And today it’s still relevant, because I know people that have all their eggs in their website or all their eggs in their direct mail campaign. It’s great when you have a marketing source that’s on fire, and it’s working, and it’s profitable, and it’s bringing in a lot of business, and it’s profitable business, that’s awesome. But you don’t want to turn your back to everything else and just count on that because things change. And website algorithms change, Google changes their algorithms and you may have a website that’s ranked high in SEO, and then all of a sudden Google makes a change and it drops. You’re counting that for all your business, you’re gonna be in a bad spot. So, diversify your marketing.

In rule number one, we talked about know your numbers, we talked about the marketing ROI report. Once you have a marketing ROI report and you know the profitability of all your lead sources and all your different forms of marketing, it’s very easy to try new sources. That’s what prevents us from going in and trying something else. We hear about this new source of… And nowadays, seems like every other day there’s some new type of marketing that’s coming out. And we wanna stick with what we know. But in this day and age things are changing so rapidly you can’t stick with what you know. I tried to stick with what I knew back in 2008, ’09 period, and you know what, it dried up. Yeah, the phone still rang but it wasn’t paying the cost of the Yellow Pages, that’s for sure. I don’t wanna see that happen to you.

And nowadays it’s actually a really good thing that there are so many forms of marketing. You could really take advantage of that if you know your numbers, and you have your marketing ROI report. And then you start testing out different sources. Something comes along, you might as well try it. Don’t sign some big long, year contract if you could do a month-to-month and buy a certain amount of leads or a certain amount of ad space, or send out a few postcards, or emails or whatever it may be, try it. Then look at your report, see if it’s profitable, see if it’s working, and then you continue with it, and then you try something else.

So this is really important because it’s very, very, very easy to become complacent, or to become comfortable with a great marketing source. The people that are at the most risk, are the people that have something right now that’s working tremendously for them. Just the same way for me, I had 10-year run of the Yellow Pages just being the number one source of all of our business and the phone just rang off the hook and then all of a sudden, “Boom”, people stopped going to the Yellow Pages to look for services. Well, people aren’t gonna stop going online, but things online are so fragile. Your SEO efforts, your pay-per-click efforts, different lead sources. They depend on their SEO efforts and their pay-per-click efforts to get leads. Things change, so diversify your marketing, don’t depend on any single source of marketing.

And in the e-book, 10 Rules of a Profitable Moving Company, I went ahead and listed a bunch of different sources that you could try if you’re not already trying them. Try them, get your marketing report on point, try them, see if they’re working, see if they’re profitable. And don’t be afraid to have sources that might only bring you a couple of moves a month, because if you have 10 different small marketing sources that bring you two jobs apiece, that’s 20 jobs. And if they’re all profitable, why not, it’s worth it. So download 10 Rules of a Profitable Moving Company, take a look at the different sources if you’re not using any of them already, pick one, whichever one stands out to you, and try it, alright? I hope this was helpful, continue to profit in business, thrive in life. I’ll see you next time.

The key is to have a process down for recruiting, screening, hiring, training and motivating.

In this episode, I share with you a 5 step process for hiring rock-star moving sales consultants anytime you need them.

1 . Place an Ad on Indeed & Craigslist – The quickest way to find new hires is to place an ad on Indeed and Craigslist. When you need someone new in sales you cannot always wait for a good referral. By having a great ad that you place online you will generate the “leads” for new salespeople.

2.  Screen Calls with a Dedicated Phone Number – When hiring someone for phone sales, one of the most important things to look for is how they sound on the phone. You want to hire someone that represents your company well and sounds great. By having all of your potential employees call in and leave a message on a dedicated line, you will be able to screen the calls and find people that sound great on the phone.

3.  Do a phone Interview – After you have filtered out your messages of potential employees, you will want to call the ones back that sounded like they would represent your company well. If you are hiring for a phone sales position, you should conduct your first interview over the phone. If you have a great conversation and they are able to sell you on why they would be a great fit, then invite them in for an in-person interview.

4.  Do an In-Person Interview – This is where you will do your more formal interview. You will want to review their resume, discuss pay expectations, job description and check their references. Take interviewing seriously and be thorough in your process. Once you hire them, you will be putting time, money and energy into training them. Do your best at the begging to make the best hire you can.

5.  Hire, Train & Motivate – If the interview goes well and you feel that they would be a great fit in your company, hire them. Make sure that you have a process in place. Once they are hired to get them trained right away. You also need to keep them motivated. Just look at this as all one event “Hire, Train & Motivate”.

Having a team of great moving sales consultants is crucial to getting your company to the next level. It doesn’t have to be a difficult process. You also shouldn’t  sit back and wait for someone good to fall out of the sky. Take this five-step process and try it out the next time you need moving sales consultants. You will see how easy it can be.

Watch the video above for the full episode.

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

Follow Louis on Instagram for tons of great quotes.

Full Transcript

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

Hey, my friend, it’s Louis Massaro, author of 10 Rules of a Profitable Moving Company, and founder of Moving Mastery. Have you ever found a really good sales consultant and feel like you got lucky, or you won the lottery by finding ’em? Or do you struggle to find good people to help answer your calls and do your estimates?

Today we’re gonna talk about five steps to hire rockstar sales consultants. Because, listen, the difference between an okay sales consultant and a rockstar sales consultant can be a few hundred thousand dollars a year in revenue per consultant. If you have somebody that’s booking $40,000 a month in business versus, let’s just say, $60,000 a month in business, which isn’t even necessarily a rockstar, but they’re booking $20,000 a month more in business, that’s almost a quarter million dollars a year. So that’s a big difference, so you wanna be able to hire and bring in really good sales consultants. And we’re gonna talk about five steps that you could take to do that on a consistent basis and when you need somebody new you won’t need to worry about, “Where do I find them, what do I do?” ‘Cause with a little bit of work and little bit of persistence you could definitely find the rockstar that you’re looking for.

Let’s jump right into it. The first thing you’re gonna need to do is place an ad, on either Craigslist or Indeed. I would do both and I would also make sure that the Craigslist ad you’re posting several times a day, because it will move down as the day goes on. So if you’re gonna start the hiring process, let’s say on a Monday, maybe Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday you run it three times throughout the day, just so you stay up top and you stay relevant. If you can find a referral for somebody, that’s always great too, but when you need a sales consultant and you need somebody, whether you’re growing, whether someone else quit, or you had to fire or let somebody go, you don’t wanna be in a position where you have to wait and ask around. You want a quick process that you can go through and find somebody that you need right away. So you place the ad in Craigslist and Indeed, those are the two I find work the best.

And the next step, you’re gonna wanna screen the calls with a dedicated phone number.This is really, really important, and almost like a little secret that I’m letting you in on, because if you put a dedicated number in the ad and have ’em call that number, and that number goes to voicemail, don’t answer the phone, have it go to voicemail. Either use your business line, and have a separate line, a cell phone that goes straight to voicemail, whatever it may be, leave a message on there that says, “Hi, this is ABC Moving Company, we’re currently hiring for a moving sales consultant. Go ahead and please leave your name and phone number and tell us why you’d be a good fit for the position, and if we feel you’re a good fit, we’ll give you a call back.” The reason you wanna do this is because if you’re looking for someone to be a sales consultant, you’re looking for somebody to be on your phones talking to your customers, you wanna hear how they sound on the phone. You don’t want to spend time reading resumes of white paper with black ink on it. What is that gonna tell you? Everyone’s gonna make themselves look good in a resume, but if you’re hiring for phone sales, if you’re hiring for a phone sales position, you wanna hear how they sound on the phone.

So now you go through these recordings and if they sound great, you hit save. And if they don’t sound good, like somebody that you want to represent your company, however that sounds, hit delete. If they sound like somebody you want to represent your company, save, if they don’t sound like somebody you want to represent your company, delete. You go through the list, you don’t have to talk to everybody, and you call back the ones that already have a good start, they already sound good. Because sounding good on the phone is one of the most important qualities that you’re looking for when hiring a moving sales consultant.

So once you do that, then you give ’em a call back and you do a phone interview. Don’t invite them into the office yet, do a phone interview first. It could be some generic questions, but the idea is get in a conversation with them. See how they carry themselves over the phone with you, because they should be able to sell you, not necessarily in a cocky way, on how good they are, but you should get a sense over the phone like, “Yeah, this person’s good. They’re selling me right now on why I should hire them.”

That’s what you want. If you’re looking for somebody that’s a rockstar, that’s what you want. So you’ve kind of weeded out a lot of the calls and you’ve skipped over the process of looking through resumes. If you’re good at looking at resumes and you have a good track record of being able to spot good sales people from their resumes, keep doing it. But for me, I like to hear how they sound on the phone, and then do a phone interview.

And then once I do a phone interview, then I’ll invite ’em in for an in-person interview. This is where you start to look at their resume, this is where you start to look at their references and get a good feel for their reliability and will they be a good fit in your culture. But at this point, you already know they sound good, you’ve listened to ’em on a message, they left a good message, which is very important, because if they’re gonna be a moving sales consultant, they’re gonna be leaving a lot of messages for leads. And how they take that message and how important it is that they leave a good clear message to them without you having to tell them says a lot about the quality of person they’re gonna be when they get on your phones.

Once you’ve done an interview, if you feel like this person’s a good fit, you’ve gone over pay expectations, you make sure you know what they’re looking to make and that they can make that in your company, whether you’re doing salary or commission, you know you’re in the same ballpark. Because if they’re looking for $150,000 a year, they might be a stud, they might be a rockstar, but if they can’t make that in your company, and they may be able to, it depends on the position, it depends on your company, but if they’re totally out of line with where you are, you have to be honest and realistic about what they can make working for you, because it won’t be long before they discover that they’re not gonna be able to make what they’re looking for, and they’ll be gone.

Don’t sell them false promises, but know what’s possible and give them a range. Say, “Listen, our average sales rep’s making this, high end’s making this, this is kinda where we’re at,” and give them an idea of where they’re gonna be and then you could hire them. If you’re on the same page and you’re getting a good vibe, then you could hire them. And take this seriously. If you have somebody in your company that’s doing it for you, maybe you don’t like hiring, maybe the whole process is just tedious for you. I think going through these steps is much easier than maybe how you’ve done it in the past where you had to look at resumes and things like that, do it yourself. Unless you have a really good sales manager that you trust their opinion on who they’re hiring, do it yourself and get a feel for who you’re bringing into your company. Who’s representing your company as the front end, as the first person that your potential customers are gonna talk to?

Now you’ve placed an ad, you’ve done a dedicated phone number to screen the calls, you’ve done a phone interview, you’ve had an in-person interview, and now if you’re gonna hire them, hire them, train them and motivate them all at once. Don’t just hire somebody and say, “You’re gonna start Monday.” And Monday comes and they kinda sit around, and they don’t really know what’s going on, and, “Yeah. Hi, I’m the new guy,” and maybe they shadow somebody. Bring ’em in, get them trained thoroughly, right away. Make sure they know everything they need to know because that gives them the confidence they need to sell. It doesn’t matter how good of a salesman you are, if you don’t know the material, and you don’t know what it is you’re selling, and you’re not familiar with the process, you’re not gonna be able to sell unless you’re lying through your teeth, and that’s not what you want. Give ’em the training and give ’em the motivation, because it could be discouraging at first. As they start to understand how to give estimates, and how to go through inventories, and how to estimate packing, and all the different intricacies of what they’re gonna need to learn, you wanna make sure you’re giving them some sustained motivation along the way.

When you hire ’em, hire ’em, train ’em, motivate ’em. These are five simple steps to bringing in rock stars whenever you need them. If you’re in a position where maybe you have somebody now that’s just not a good fit, but you just don’t feel like going through the hiring process, go through these five simple steps. Find somebody that’s gonna be a good fit for your company, that’s gonna sell, make you money, make them money, and be a good member to your environment, to your culture. You need good sales reps. You need good moving sales consultants in your company to bring in revenue. Otherwise, you might as well start burning up all the leads that you’re getting, because if you’re spending money on marketing and you don’t have somebody good on the phone to take that call, whether they’re taking a call and estimating it right there on the spot, or they’re sending out an estimator to go out and do an on-site, you need that front line to be good. That’s how you’re gonna bring in the money. That’s how you’re gonna bring in the business.

If you need sales reps, if you have more leads than you can handle, don’t try to handle it with not enough reps. Hire somebody, and if they’re good, they’re gonna be worth their weight in gold. I hope this was helpful. If you’re not already signed up for my blog, head over to louismassaro.com. I’m sending out great information every week on the moving business, on sales, customer service, marketing, leadership, mindset, everything. Until then, I’ll see you next week. Go out and profit in business, thrive in life, have a great day.

In this episode, I’m going to share with you 5 simple steps to setting monthly sales goals for your company.

1. Set The Goal – First, you have to determine what the goal should be. You want to set goals that are attainable but will also make the salesperson stretch. Take a look at each salesperson’s last three months. This will give you an idea of the level they are at now. Then set a goal that you know they could reach if they put in some extra effort.

2. Set The Bonus – Now that you have set the goal, you have to decide how much the bonus will be. What is it worth to your company if they reach that goal? You want a bonus amount that you will feel good giving them when they hit their goal. It also needs to be high enough to motivate them.

3. Break It Down – After you have set the goal and determine what the bonus is worth, you will need to meet with the salesperson to discuss. When setting monthly sales goals, you want to break it down for them. You want to show them how that monthly number they need to reach breaks down per day. This breaks it down to small manageable numbers they can reach daily.

4. Weekly Update – To keep sustained motivation amongst your team, it’s important to send out weekly updates. You want to show them what their current sales are and how they are getting closer to achieving their goal. This is a great time for some encouragement to keep them excited.

5. Make It A Big Deal – Celebrate each salespersons’ victory when they reach their goal! Make an announcement in front of the whole office. It will make them feel great, and it will also motivate the others to reach their goal. This all creates excitement and a buzz in your office, which adds to the motivation.

There are many different types of bonus and spiffs programs that can be used to motivate your team. These 5 simple steps to setting monthly sales goals will be a great start to getting your team motivated. When your team is motivated, your sales will go up.