Summary
You can’t run your moving company forever, right? So what is your exit strategy? You basically have 3 options for the future of your business and they all start with creating a “model business”.
The 3 Exit Strategies for Moving Company Owners
- Duplicate and expand – Your long-term goal may be to expand your business and open up additional locations. Whether you want to franchise your moving company or maintain ownership of your additional locations you’ll need to create a model business as a prototype to be duplicated.
- Pass down to family – Many people want to build a business that they can pass down to their family. Think about the day to day issues and stress that you deal with in your business, do you really want to pass that on to loved ones? Instead, focus on developing your systems and processes so that everything runs smoothly with minimal problems and consistent cash flow. Then you can pass it down.
- Build and sell – If your ultimate goal is to sell your moving company, then why not get top dollar for it? Create a turn-key moving company that produces a consistent profit that can run without you. Your ideal buyer wants to know that the business can run without you and most importantly without them.
Regardless of what your exit strategy is for your moving company (and it may change over time), what you need to do now is build a model moving company. Focus on establishing processes in writing and fine-tune this processes to make your business run smoother.
Not only will this open up your options in the future, it will allow your business to run smoother and more profitability today.
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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. What’s the exit strategy for your moving company? You open up a company, what’s the ultimate goal? 10, 15, 20, 30 years from now, what’s the plan? If you’re gonna own a moving company, I’m challenging you not to just look at it and say, “Hey, I just wanna make some money.” Now, maybe when you first get started, that’s the goal. You’re like, “Hey, I just, I wanna make some money. I wanna make a living.” But you have to kinda think further out. Where are you taking it? Where do you wanna go? A lot of people say, “Hey, I wanna grow and I wanna get to that next level,” but where is that next level? What is that for you? It’s different for everybody else and it’s something that you really should think through, because if you plan this out, you could start taking the steps to get there. I wanna share with you the three options that you have when it comes to your exit strategy for your business, like long term, what are you gonna do with it? Because if you’re gonna succeed, you need an exit strategy. You need to know where you’re headed, otherwise, your whole goal and your whole focus is to just make a living.
And if that’s where you’ve been up till now, that’s okay, but I’m challenging you to think a little bit further. I’m challenging you to think a little bit bigger as to where you wanna go, alright? It’s different for everybody. There is no right or wrong answer. I’m gonna give you three options, and they’re all great options. It’s just what’s in line for you? What feels right for you? What feels right for your family? How much work do you really wanna put in? A lot of times we’ll say, “I just wanna grow. I just wanna make a ton of money.” What is a ton of money? How much do you really wanna make every single year? Do you know that? You might have a number in your head, but have you ever sat and thought about what it would take to live the lifestyle that you wanna live? Like really put pen to paper to see, “Hey, I wanna own this type of house and this type of car. I wanna send my kids to this type of school. I wanna have this much in retirement, be able to retire by this age. What is that gonna cost me to do?”
When you put the pen to paper, sometimes you’ll be surprised that it’s not as much as you think it might be. So as you’re building your company, it’s important to think about the end game, the end objective, and I wanna give you the three options of where you could go with that, alright? Option number one, duplicate and expand. This basically means you’re gonna take your current office, you’re gonna duplicate it, and you’re gonna open more offices. And that could be company-owned stores, that could be franchises. Either one falls into option one. And when it comes to franchising versus owning them yourself, that’s gonna be a whole another episode that I’ll do. But the idea is that, what do you wanna do? Do you wanna open multiple… Do you envision yourself with multiple offices throughout the country? Then that would be option one.
Option two, you wanna build it and pass it down to your family. Do you have children or even brothers or sisters, or nieces or nephews, somebody that you wanna eventually pass this down to and keep it in the family? Maybe this business was passed down to you by somebody in the family. That’s a very viable option. That’s something that a lot of people look to do. That’s their goal. I have a friend that he wants to pass the company down to his son to take over and run one day. So that’s your second option when it comes to your exit strategy of getting out of the business. Number three, build and sell. Maybe you have your office now. Maybe you have multiple offices now. You don’t necessarily need to open more of them, but you can build that current location with a plan to sell it, and your plan might be to sell in five years, 10, 20, whatever that might be for you. But if you’re gonna build your business to sell it, you need to make sure that things are set up in a way where somebody’s gonna want to buy it.
So you have these three options. You have duplicate and expand, pass down to your family, or build and sell. What’s the solution? What do you need to do now to prepare yourself for any and all of those options? It’s create a model business. A model business is essentially a prototype, a perfect business that if you wanted to franchise, this would be your prototype. This would be everything set up just right; the systems, the processes. Everything is exactly the way it needs to be, so that somebody would come in and be willing to pay you to buy one of your franchises. If you’re gonna open up another location that you own, or maybe you open with a partner, you want a model business to model that second business after so that that business is successful.
If you wanna pass it down to your family, do you really wanna pass down a business to your family that’s not smooth running, that doesn’t have the systems and doesn’t have the processes in place? Think about some of the stress that you might have from lack of systems and processes. I’ve been there. I know it’s a very stressful thing. Do you wanna pass that business and the stress that goes along with it down to someone in your family? Or would you rather pass them a turnkey business, something that they can come in and you have all the systems in place. You have all the processes in place in writing, where you’re not required to be there, and they can take it and run it successfully, and you can move on.
Or maybe you wanna build it and sell it. Option three. Well, I can tell you if you wanna sell your business, you’re gonna get top dollar by having a turnkey operation. Meaning someone can come in, turn the key in the door, walk in and everything runs. Your systems are in place, your processes are in place, it runs smoothly, it runs profitably, and it doesn’t require you, right? I’ll talk to companies and say… My goal is to sell. And I’ll say, “Okay, well buyer doesn’t wanna come in and hear that the magic sauce for your company is you. You might be the magic sauce right now. You might be the reason that the company runs as good as it does, but for somebody that’s coming to buy your company, that’s gonna require you to stay there and work that business. So if you wanna get top dollar, if you wanna get the people with big money, the people with big money come in and buy a business, that’s a good return on their investment. They’re not looking to buy a job for themselves, they’re saying, ‘Hey, how much can I earn in the stock market? How much can I earn in real estate? What’s the return on investment in this moving company that I could buy that everything’s setup, systems and processes, it’s already smoothly running. I could just put my money in, there’s people there in place, they could run it,’ that’s when you get the top dollar for your company, right?”
So basically what it comes down to is regardless of what your exit strategy is, you have to create a model business. It doesn’t happen overnight, but it’s something that you need to start shooting for. You need to first start and say, “Hey, what do I really want?” Because to grow is a very vague word. Even getting to the next level, what is that? It’s different for everybody. You don’t have to open multiple locations to be successful. You don’t have to franchise your business to be successful. You don’t have to get into long… You could have a local moving company with a few trucks and make very good money. What does the success mean to you currently, and then where do you wanna take it? Because you need to start thinking about that. Otherwise, you’ve just created a job for yourself.
That’s not what you want. That’s not why you put in the hours. That’s not why you take on the stress and the responsibility and the liability of owning a company, not to create a job for yourself, to build the future. What does that future look like to you? And whatever it is, there is no right or wrong. Everyone is gonna be different, so don’t follow someone else’s idea of success. Look at your idea of success and just know even if you want to pass it down to your family, why not pass it down with systems and processes in writing. A smooth running business that they’re not gonna have to take the burden of that stress. That’s what you really want. You wanna duplicate and expand, duplicate and expand with systems and processes in place. You create a model, that’s what you wanna start with. Create a model with the business that you have. Before you start thinking about the expansion, think about, “How could I make this just right to be able to expand it later?” So whatever you’re gonna do, build a model that’s gonna help you create the success exit strategy that you’re looking to have in your business. Until I see you next time, go out there every single day, profiting your business, thriving your life. I’ll see you later.