Best Of: Creating a Checklist for Your Movers

Hey my friends, it's Louis Massaro. And welcome to another best of edition of the Moving Mastery Podcast.

In this best of episode, you'll get a behind the scenes look at some of the live training that I do for moving companies. These might be clips from my three day live seminars or live online training that I do. Or they might be some of my Moving Mastery coaching trainings and highlights from those that I do every single month for our members. I know you're really gonna like these because it's more of a deep dive tactical training and a look at some of the work that I do as a trainer and success coach. I focus so much on helping you take your moving business to that next level by implementing new processes and strategies all to help things run smoother while increasing profits. That's exactly what these special episodes are all about. These, these are my best of trainings right here and exclusively on the Moving Mastery Podcast. In these live trainings, a lot of times I'll have a presentation on the screen or a flip chart where I'll be drawing some stuff out. You won't be able to see that, but you'll still get an idea of.

What I'm talking about.

So make sure you break out your notebook and pen for these episodes and take some really good notes because there's some valuable training on what you need to implement to grow your moving company.

And if you want to take a.

More of a, you know, deep dive training like this and be able to interact with me in this type of coaching, make sure you join our Moving Mastery Coaching program. This is the program where I go live with our members every single month and train on a new strategy or I coach you on what to implement in your business to reach that next level. This is our monthly subscription program where I do a live Q and A and actual live training with our members every single month. It's called Moving Mastery coaching and you could Access it at LewisMassaro.com coaching that's LewisMassaro.com coaching. L O U I S M-A S S A R O.com coaching to get more deep dive training similar to this.

And I can tell you if you.

Like this, you're going to love that coaching program. But I'll let you see for yourself. So let's go ahead and jump into a Moving Mastery podcast Best of training.

Let's talk about the perfect move. The perfect move.

So what you guys are going to do is I'm going to give you an example of what I think the perfect move is. But you're gonna have ideas of what you believe the perfect move is. And that's what we want to strive for, right? We want to send our movers out there with more than just, hey, go move these people's shit. Like, that's not, you know, what you want. You want them to go out there and provide a service, right? You want to be able to sell like you're the best in the world, but then deliver that, right?

If you're not delivering that, you're gonna feel funny about, you know, selling like you're the best because you're like, I don't really know how it's gonna go. But you can't expect your movers to go out and provide.

The service that you want. Will they move furniture? Sure. But there's more to it, right? There's customer service aspect. There's a lot that goes involved and it doesn't have to be difficult if you lay it out for them. All right, so let's lay out what that looks like, right? I'm sure you guys probably have much better ideas than I do on this, but let's just, you know, start the conversation at pickup, greet the customer.

Introduce the entire crew upon arrival. So for me, driver walks up with the paperwork, the helpers are right behind with a pad on their shoulders, shrink wrap, tape with, ready to go. Walk up like, hey, we're your professional moving company. That, that salesperson told you about that. My website looks like we're here to be professionals. So greet the customer, introduce the crew, right? This is like your checklist for your movers. Then do a quick walkthrough with the customer, compare the job to the estimate.

Right?

Again, maybe you don't need that piece if you're just like, hey, it's hourly rate, it's this, it's that. But typically the customer has some kind.

Of an idea of what they think.

Move is going to take. And it's good to, you know, get on that same page early on so you could set the expectations. Driver gets the paperwork signed.

Bill of lading, order for service, any addendums that you might have.

Helpers start protecting the house and the furniture, alright? So they'll wrap the furniture, protect the door jambs, the stairways, the floors. First impression is everything. You did a great job booking the move. They were impressed with you, your marketing material, your sales pitch, or maybe it was just your low price, whatever it was, but they were impressed enough to move with you. Well, now you need to make them feel like they made the right choice, right? And even it's about timing, right? So when you show up, good impression, everyone's in uniform, hey, introduce everybody, right? You know, even if so and so doesn't speak English, it's okay. This is a universal language, okay? Let the driver introduce them and it's fine. And then start protecting their stuff. Put the door jam protectors there, the stairways, Start padding the stairways, the floor, start padding furniture. The customer will relax and feel like, you know what, I'm in good hands. Then take a picture.

Of everything you want them to protect. If you say, hey, you gotta, you know, lay down the floor runners, protect the door jambs, the stairways. I want pads wrapped on the stairways. When you're done with that, take a picture, text it to dispatch, alright? I mean, that's. Your whole business is out there on the trucks, but you're not there with them. So how do you ensure that you do things the way that you want them done every single time? This is a position that you can micromanage. You know, they're not executives that you give free rein to. Go run a department. It's like these are your moves, your customers. You spend a lot of money to get those leads. You spend a lot of money to run the business. Maybe sometimes you lose money in a year because that's part of being in business. You need to make sure things are done the right way. Listen, as soon as you guys are done protecting everything, just take a picture. You know, if you're giving orientation to new movers or you're saying, hey guys, new policy. When you're done, take a picture. They want to complain about their, their minutes and their text and all that. Give them a few dollars to compensate them for, you know, whatever it cost them to send the text. Inventory items for long distance and storage jobs.

Disassemble beds, dressers, et cetera. Place the parts for each item in a Ziploc bag and label them. I know everybody's got their own method, I'm sharing mine. I like to keep it simple. Then place all the parts in a parts box. So we basically had Ziploc bags where like the screws and, you know, all the stuff that goes with the beds, the stuff that gets lost all the time, right? And the customer's like, I'm missing a screw. Labeled them with a marker, what it was for, and then literally had a 1.5 box in the back of the truck, a book box with just, you know, I don't know, turned in like that. So it was just all open it said parts box on it with a marker. Nothing fancy. Problem solved. Throw everything in there. All the parts are there. We don't have to worry about stuff being taped to the back of something and it falls off. We don't know where it is. All the parts are in one place. If you've got a better solution, awesome. But you need a solution for that. It doesn't have to be fancy, right? You could say, yeah, we want to get a nice tackle box. And okay, cool. But otherwise you've got book boxes. When it starts to get too beat up, just exchange it out for a new one. Load the truck, make sure the furniture is padded. Load the attic.

Build a base with tiers, right? So, you know, you guys, you guys know this, but, you know, basically load the attic, if you have one. Then you start to build yourself a base, right? You get dressers and, you know, you don't just stack boxes from the bottom to the top because then they're going to collapse. And you build one section a time. Those are tiers, right?

Stand up TVs, mirrors, and paintings in between mattresses, if that's an option.

So just think, think about this more. As you know, the whole point of this is like, your movers need a checklist when they go there. Whether it's what I'm suggesting or something that you're suggesting that's even better. They need something that's like, here's what you do when you get to the job.

Secure the load with straps.

Take a picture and send it to dispatch. I want to see how the truck's loaded, right? It's a big deal.

There's, you know, it gives you a lot of room and a lot of opportunity for coaching. Otherwise, you wait until, you know, there's all of a sudden all these claims come in and you wonder why it's happening when the first day they went out there and you realize that that driver that told you they could load a truck can't load a truck. You can train them on how to do it. Okay? So that's at the pickup and then leave for the drop off.

Have the customer check the house.

Okay?

You know, who's had a customer call up and say, hey, I'm missing this and I'm missing that. Meanwhile, they end up finding it. Everybody, right? Okay. So just, you know, let them check the house so that they feel confident that everything is gone and that you didn't miss anything. You know, it's very easy when it's not your house to, like, in a closet or somewhere there's something that didn't get, you know, taken. Coordinate with the customer, follow them, or meet them at the drop off, right? Like, what's the plan? I'm going to coordinate. Prepare the truck.

Put away the ramp and close the box doors.

Pick up lunch if discussed with the customer.

To scale your business, you need consistency. You need things that happen the same way every time. That's what we're doing here with really the most important part of your business, the move, right? I mean, the customer doesn't care about your sales department, your leads, your marketing. You know that you're trying to open multiple. Like, they don't care. They want to know when the movers come, how are things going to go? And in order for you to really scale with consistency, you need to make sure it's getting done the same way every time.

So now you're at the drop off, okay? Inspect the house for floor damage, okay? Especially around the refrigerator, dishwasher, right? The areas that the last movers just shimmied stuff out and may have scratched all the floors. You want to make sure you don't get the blame for that. You want to make sure you point out some obvious stuff before you start unloading.

Protect the door jamb, stairways, and floors, same way you did at the pickup. Take another picture, send it to dispatch, right?

This is all called getting out the screwdriver and tightening up, right? You're like, why do they have to take a picture? Even if you don't look at the pictures, they know they're sending them to you, right? So have them send them.

Unload and deliver.

Place the furniture in boxes where the customer wants them.

Them.

I know, it's like, Louis, this is all obvious, but it's not obvious to every mover that's on the job. It's not obvious to the guys that, you know are really good guys. And we were talking about the types of applicants. They're really good guys, but they're not trained to be movers. It's not obvious to them. But if they just have something to follow, it's easy, right, Everybody? I mean, when we all have something to follow, whatever we're doing becomes easier. When you're trying to put something together and you have instructions, much easier.

Fold the pads as the truck's being unloaded. So, you know, instead of, like, unloading all the furniture, and then you have a pile of pads like this, and they clock the customer out like, well, thanks. And then they sit in the truck for 20 minutes folding pads. You're not getting paid for that time.

Pad comes off, the furniture, gets folded, stacked. Maybe you get a little pile going just to keep things moving. But whoever's in the truck unloading needs to fold. While you're on the job, you don't want to try to sit and fold all those pads. And the customer's looking at you like, why am I paying for you folding the pads? However you showed up with folded pads, it's just part of it, right? You do it as you go along.

Reassemble the furniture.

Ask the customer if there's anything else that they need. It's like such a simple thing. Was there anything else that you need? Could make the difference of a five star review, no review, or a one star review.

Have the customer inspect the truck.

Right?

So now all these missing, I'm missing this, I'm missing that. Look, you check the whole house, you check the truck, you don't say it.

To them like that, but it's just.

You know.

Make sure there's nothing left on the truck. Call dispatch for final charges. Dispatch speaks to the customer to see how everything went, asks for a review and video testimonial.

I'm going ahead.

I'm clocking you out right now.

You're going to receive a text message. If you wouldn't mind, just give us a star rating of 1 to 5, let us know how we did. Okay?

Have the customer sign the paperwork, collect payment.

Video record a customer's testimonial.

Have the customer stand in front of the truck and record with a smartphone. Right. Movers could do it. Doesn't have to be fancy.

Now I'm sure as we went through that, you're thinking, well, there's also this, there's also that. So take my version plus whatever maybe you added to it. And would it be really beneficial if every move went that way? Yeah.

Right. So.

Use the perfect move checklist. So.

Make yourself a checklist, Right. If you don't have mine, make yourself the package Perfect move checklist to where it's there for them to do.

Right?

That was just some bullet points. You want to make a checklist. So it's like, yep, did that. Yep, did that. Laminate a copy, put it in the back of the box in the truck. Alright. So it's there all the time. They know what to do. Step one, step two, step three, step four. It's so easy to get people to do what you want when you have a process. And all you need to do is just keep guiding them back to the process, they'll keep going off track. But then you keep guiding them back. Guys, just follow the laminated copy. Keep doing that, right? But otherwise you're just sitting there trying to like, tell them, do a good job. Do. Do a good job. Do a better job. Why can't you guys do this? Why can't. No, look, it's right there. Just follow those steps. Just follow those steps.

Make any adjustments you need for your company. Right? So take. Take what we just went through. Make yourself a checklist. Make any adjustments you want. Take stuff out, add some stuff. Think through what the perfect move would look like. Have a meeting with your movers to discuss the new process.

And be patient with implementation. Okay. You know, for someone that's used to implementing change to improve things, it's no surprise that it takes a while for people to get on board. Just be patient with implementation. All right? You guys gonna set up the perfect move for your company? Yes. Okay, so we know that it's not gonna happen that way every time, right? It's just not gonna happen. But if it's happening 40% of the time now and then it goes to 90%, it's going to help your business. The more happy customers you have, the more repeat and referral business you get, the more reviews you get. All of this drives down your marketing cost.

All right, my friend, what'd you think of that episode? Did you learn something new? Did it spark some ideas that you can implement in your business right away? Did you get the wheels turning? Did you love it? If so, I want to invite you to join us in our moving mastery coaching program. And you could do that by going to louismassaro.com coaching. That's lewismassaro.com coaching. That's the program where I go live every single month and do an in depth tactical training like the one you just heard. But I do it live for our members every single month. And it's where I do live. Q and A and coaching and giveaways. We give all of our members of this program tickets to my three day live stream seminars. We also give them extra training on leadership and productivity.

Go check it out.

It's Louis Massaro.com coaching. Thank you so much for being a part of this community of so many people dedicated to improving the quality of their lives, improving their business. I really appreciate you being here. You could take your business to the next level, my friend. You can take your life to the next level. Sometimes all you need is just a bit more training, just a bit more inspiration, just a bit more consistency. And I hope by listening to this podcast, I'm able to provide that spark you need to make it happen. I look forward to being here with you on the next episode of the Moving Mastery Podcast.

Sam.