Build A Cash Reserve For Your Moving Company

Foreign.

It's Luis Massaro. And welcome to another episode of the Moving Mastery Podcast.

Hey, what's up, guys?

Want to talk to you about when money is tight. I've been hearing it a lot, you know, in the past couple of months on social, you know, people messaging me, DMing me, leaving comments, you know, replying back to emails, letting me know, you know, money's tight, you know, this time of year. And I definitely get it. I definitely understand it. I've definitely experienced it, for sure. So I want to talk to you about that. And also, also, by the way, yesterday I went live. I was at the Hilton, the Point Hilton, Tapatio Cliffs, where we're having the moving sales academy live next week. And I just realized as I came to go live right now, the entire video is sideways. So if you see that, that was me learning how to use a new device and messing up with it, right? And that's kind of what happens in our businesses. We learn things from making mistakes, right? We kind of, you know, start with something new. We go to implement it, and, you know, a lot of times we make a mistake and we. We fail with it. So yesterday's live was that. That was me trying to learn a new piece of equipment to shoot videos for you guys. And, yeah, it's sideways. But anyways, I was there to line everything up for the seminar. So make sure you do go to moving seminar.com. we only have, I think, less than 10. Yeah, like, less than 10 tickets left. So if you're interest, you need to get on it right away. It is next week, next Friday, But I want to talk to you today about, you know, what to do when money gets tight. And I want to talk to you about something that, you know, at this point, if money's been tight for you for the last couple of months, right. In the off season.

You know, it's something to learn from, right? I mean, you got to be able to manage it right now, manage your cash flow the best way you can to get yourself to when things start picking up, which hopefully you start seeing that, you know, very soon. A lot of my clients, people that we work with, people in, you know, my monthly program, my mastermind groups, people that I talk to a lot, Things are starting to pick up already. So that's really good. Right? But here's what is important. It's important that as things pick up and as we get into the busy season, right. As we get into summer, that you start implementing a cash reserve, all right? And if you are feeling any type of you know, let me know. By the way, if anybody's feeling any type of financial pain, I'm there with you. I'm going to tell you about something that happened to me when I first started too. But you know, if you're feeling that financial pain right now, if you're feeling any type of, you know, shortage of cash flow, it's important to remember that, alright? Because it's easy to forget when things start getting busy. It's easy to forget when all of a sudden summer comes around and we're busy and things are rolling and things are, you know, just, just also the money's flowing in. It's easy to forget how slow it was, you know, in the winter and what you could, you know, be doing in the summer to prevent the cash flow issues. So, you know, when I first, when I first started, I started in February, right? I opened up in February in Denver. And you know, it was a natural progression of things getting busy towards the summer season, right? So it was like, you know, February just getting started, March, things got busier. Summertime, things got busier. But then when, you know, season was over and I came out of season, I didn't really feel a slowdown because we had such momentum from building the business up right away and over the summer that I didn't really feel it that first year. So I kind of went through the winter months and was like, okay, no big deal. It wasn't as busy as it was in the summer, but things were good, the cash flow was good, everything was fine. Well then year two, right?

Go through the summer, crushing it, right? Everything's good. Wintertime comes around. I've already, I think at that point I might have like bought a house, you know, spent the money and not thinking anything of it. And then all of a sudden things slow down, right? And I start to really feel the effects of the off season and you know, the negative effects it was having on my cash flow, right? Because now all of a sudden the bills are there, right? You've got to keep the marketing going, by the way, if you're cutting back on expenses and you're not paying something, you know, for your business, never cut back on the marketing. You've got to keep the leads coming in, right? If you're trying to get somewhere, if you're trying to, you know, you're having trouble with your car and you're trying to make it somewhere, maybe the car is not running as efficiently as you want it to, you're not going to stop putting fuel in it if you're trying to get to your destination. Don't cut back on marketing. There's other places where you could cut, but don't cut back on market. So anyways, you know, I really felt the effects that it was very difficult to, you know, manage and juggle bills that second year, you know, when things slowed down a little bit and I had to do a lot of juggling, you know, a lot of late payments, things like that, in order to make it through the slow season. But then I learned, I said, you know what? This can't happen again, right? I need to make sure that I'm prepared for this next year. And so I started to keep a cash reserve, right? So in the summertime, I'm hoping that everybody watching this, that you are able to crush it in the summer and that you have large, you know, essentially profit that you're able to take home above and beyond all your expenses. I want you to commit right now, the beginning of March, I want you to completely commit to say, you know what? I'm going to keep a cash reserve. Okay? If you're watching this right now, say, Louis, I want you to write in the comments, louis, I'm committed to keeping a cash reserve so that I have the money to go through the winter months without having to worry about juggling expenses or what I can pay or what I can't pay or feeling that just overwhelming that stress, right? When things get tight, nobody wants that. It doesn't make, you know, a good leader. It doesn't allow you to run your business efficiently. It doesn't allow you to make good decisions. You know, we talk a lot about, you know, building that. That sales process so that you don't have that dramatic slowdown in the winter so that you consistently, you know, book moves all year long. But sometimes it happens and it slows down a little bit, and it's just the nature of the business. But you have to be prepared financially. So I want you to commit right now to me and to yourself that you will keep a cash reserve starting this summer. All right? So look, if you're just now coming out of the weeds of, you know, maybe the winter months, right? That's. That's what happens. A lot. A lot of times by March, it's like you're still kind of playing catch up on some of the bills from, you know, January, February, maybe even December, and that's okay. However, don't forget this time. If you felt any pain during this time, if you felt any stress during this time, if you felt like, oh, my God, this is so, so hard. I can't do this. You know, this is a tough business in the winter. I need to figure out something to do. If you felt any of that, remember that pain, all right? And I want you to use that as your fuel to say, you know what? I'm going to take money off the top this summer, and I'm going to build a cash reserve that I'm going to keep in a separate account that I'm going to hold on to, all right? To get me through the winter, just in case. All right? So here's what I want you to do. Here's. Here's a tip, all right? As soon as you can, as soon as you are, everything's caught up. You've paid all your bills. You're. You're totally on top of things again, all right? And you may be there now, and you listen, you may make it through the winter, and you may not have any issues. I think it's smart, no matter where you're at in your business, to keep a cash reserve. It doesn't matter if you're just starting or if you've been in the business, if you have multiple locations, because, look, cash flow problems happen with everyone at every level. The bigger you are, the bigger your expenses, right? So, you know, everybody gets affected by this no matter what level you're at in the business. I want you to start taking 5% of your gross revenue, and I want you to put it in. In a cash reserve account, all right? So at a bare minimum, I want you to do this in June, July, and August, all right? June, July, and August. Take 5% off the top, put it in a separate account. If you could do it in May, great. If you could do it in April, great. Okay? But take that 5%. So in other words, if you. Let's say your gross revenue is 200,000. Let's just say it's 100,000, right? You're going to take 5%. So you're going to take $5,000 off the top, put it in an account, all right? And that's your cash reserve account, and that's going to help float you through next winter, okay? Which you need to be prepared for. Remember, you don't ever want to feel like you don't have the money to make the moves that you need to make and feel like you're in a straightjacket and you can't do certain things. It causes your, you know, faulty thinking. It causes you to make bad decisions. It causes you to do things and take you off your course. How nice would it be if you had an extra account to help get you through the winter if things slow down to where you need that money, right? So the idea is, hopefully you don't need that money. Hopefully, you've got your business running, you've got your systems in place, you've got your processes, you got a sales machine that you've built to where you're getting consistent moves all year round. But if you need it, it's there. And if not, what you do is you hold on to that money and you wait till the following year. So let's say you, you know, you've heard me talk about cash reserves in the past and you say, you know what? I been doing that, right? And I've been holding it all winter and I didn't need to spend it, right? And now you're getting to a point where, like, it's March, it's getting busy, and if your profits are increasing and, you know, the next few months, things are going to start to pick up and you've kind of built up more of a cash reserve. Take out the money that you took from last year and go do something nice for yourself, spoil yourself, right? This isn't about conserve, conserve, conserve. It's about being smart and not being stuck in a position where you don't have the money to make the moves that you need to make when you need to make them, if things slow down. But as things get busy again, do whatever you want to do with the money, right? The move is not to take it all at the end of August. Let me say that again because, you know, I've been guilty of this in the past, and I know a lot of people will do it. They'll just kind of clean out the account like, you know, we just crushed it. Things are great. Business is rocking. You know, we're just going to keep growing and growing and growing, and no problem, we'll take out all the money because there's going to be more money next month. And I hope that's true for you, but if it's not, you need to be prepared to just, you know, weather out the winner, period. So, you know, you build that cash reserve, you take that money and you go do something nice for yourself, whatever that might be, right? Maybe your idea is just to, you know, put that money away, right? Maybe you want to invest it, right? Maybe you want to take a vacation, Maybe you want to go buy a house or buy a car, whatever it is for you, all right? The point is, though, that you need to have that little extra cushion through the winter. And if you don't, if you. If you're not able to take 5% off the top in June, July and August, then, well, number one, you need to come to Moving Sales Academy Live, right? Because if you can't get an extra 5% off the top in those three months, something needs to be adjusted within your business. We need to talk about your profitability, we need to talk about your expenses. We need to talk about your marketing ROI report. We need to talk about building you a sales machine. Because, you know, if you don't have that little extra there in the summertime, I know that you're probably in the hole in the wintertime, and that's no place to be, right? You got to be profitable. You got to be making money. That's really what it boils down to, right? And, you know, we're coming out of the slow season. And again, I'm doing this video because I've, you know, I'm kind of doing this for the people that have messaged me and said, louis, well, you know, what should I do when money's tight? And when money's tight, you just got to buckle down and you've got to be able to, you know, pay the things that are going to be essential to you moving forward, right? I mean, you need to make sure you're paying your payroll and you need to make sure you're paying your people. You know, there's certain things that you need to take care of, and there's other things that you're going to have to juggle, but I don't want you to have to juggle. And if you've done it this far and, you know, things are starting to have, you know, coming to pick up now, right? Now that we're coming closer to season, things start picking up around March. You've got to remember the pain. That's it, right? We do things in our lives. We're motivated by either moving towards something we want or moving away from something that we don't want, right? So you have to remember this, this time where it's like, man, this sucked. Like, you know, things were slow. And I know this isn't the case for everybody. I'm speaking to the people who, you know, had a rough winter, cash flow wise, right? And if that was you, you've got to remember that. You've got to remember that. And I want you to make a commitment to yourself to say, you know what? I'm going to build a cash reserve this Summer period, at a bare minimum, June, July and August. I'm taking 5% off the top. Now, I'm gonna put it in a separate account called cash reserve that I am not gonna touch until the following spring comes around and we're in the clear. Right. If you do that, I could tell you you're gonna have a much. You just got such peace of mind, right, going into next, you know, next winter. But I also want to get you to a point where you can have a sales machine where you consistently booking moves all year long. Listen, I know we've got less than 10 tickets for moving sales academy, which is next week. I know it's a short notice, but look, you need to get there. I mean, think about, you know, what'd you do last weekend? What'd you do the weekend before? You know, think about three days and how you spent those three days. What if you came and spent those three days and learn some new strategies and processes and techniques and got some inspiration, some motivation to kind of put those in place in your business and have the blueprint of, you know, exactly what to do and exactly what to have your employees do and how to hire them and how to train them and get everything set up to where you could have that consistency. Right? That's what I want to give you at moving sales academy live. All right, so go to movingseminar.com, make sure you get your tickets. We're going to probably be sold out by the end of this week. And listen, make a commitment. If you're watching this right now, if you're watching this in a replay, make a commitment to yourself. Let me know down below. So you know what? I'm gonna keep a cash reserve for this next upcoming year, and I won't be caught off guard in the off season. I'm gonna make sure that my finances are tight, then I'm on top of it, and I could weather any storm. And I hope you go out there and crush it this season and I'll see you soon. Go out there every day. Profit in your business thrive in. I'll talk to you later.

Sam.