Louis Massaro explains how small-business owners in the moving industry often play both operator and CEO roles and why they should transition toward being the designer/visionary of a self-sustaining business machine. He lists common operator tasks that trap owners (taking calls, dispatching, customer service, bookkeeping), stresses the need for clarity and control (goals, quarterly objectives, reports), and outlines how to introduce new ideas by mapping a process, documenting systems, inserting them for staff to run, and then improving them. He emphasizes that if the business fails when the owner steps away, the owner has a job, not a business, and closes with a call-to-action to watch related videos.
Chapters
CEO versus operator. When you're in a small business, you have to wear both hats until a certain point. Right now, you might be in here somewhere, right? You might be taking phone calls, and if you're not there, phone calls get missed, leads get missed. You might be doing moves or dispatching moves or confirming moves, and if you're not there, it doesn't happen. You might be getting reviews or dealing with customer service issues, and if you're not there, it doesn't happen. You know, you might be handling the books or not handling the books, but if you're not there, it's not happening, right? So the point is that we want to have this as something separate than yourself. I want to show you the transition out. The business is working, right? So, you know, leads come in, then sales happen, then moves happen, Right? Then they're getting the reviews. And dealing with customer service, then accounting, right? All this is happening. This is a machine. You. Are the designer of that machine. Your job is to make this machine run, okay? And right now you might also need to be the operator of this machine. So is it, you know, CEO versus operator, okay? So the. When you're in a small business, you have to wear both hats until a certain point, right? But I'm trying to. I want to show you the transition out, right? Right now, you might be in here somewhere, right? You might be taking phone calls, and if you're not there, phone calls get missed, leads get missed. You might be doing moves or dispatching moves or confirming moves, and if you're not there, it doesn't happen. You might be getting reviews or dealing with customer service issues, and if you're not there, it doesn't happen. You know, you might be handling the books or not handling the books, but if, you know, if you're not there, it's not happening, right? So the point is that we want to have this as something separate than yourself and as the operator, you're the one making this run, okay? You're making it run as the operator of the business until such a point that you could hire somebody to take the operator role off your hands to run the day to day of the business. And now you're truly the designer and tweaker and making the business better. Your job is to just make it better. And whenever you want, you want to go play in the business, go play, go play. Go jump in, try some stuff out. Go meet with your team, get them inspired, get them motivated, help lift them up personally as individuals like you've heard my private clients talk about, right? So it's not about, like, you know, get out of the business right now for some. And I'm saying this because I know for some of you, the idea of stepping out and removing yourself from the day to day could feel scary because it's like, if I leave, the whole thing's gonna fall apart, okay? And if that's the case, the reality is that you don't have a business. You have a job. Listen, we gotta. We gotta. We gotta be aware of where we're at, and that's okay. We all start somewhere. We all started there, right? So it's not a shot at you or any. I was there, right? I was there in my new businesses until I got myself back to an operator and then designer or visionary or creator or CEO, however you want to think about it, right? But now what you do from this place is you look at your numbers and you look at your meetings, you look at your reports, and you're able to really design and make modifications, report that information to the operator. Who then goes and makes that happen, and that might be you. Okay? So from here, once this is built up, right, you've got the freedom. But remember, in order to run this. Oh, much better. You need clarity and control to make this happen. Clarity on your plan and your progress, right where you're going, what you're doing. Like, you've got goals, and now how are you making progress on. On those goals? We talked about having quarterly objectives last night and then control. This whole thing right here, this is all made up. This is. All this is, is a. An interconnected web of systems designed to deliver value to your customers and profit to the company. That's it. That's all this is. You don't have to be in here to make it happen, right? You could be outside of it and have more clarity and control than you've ever had and ever experienced in your business before. And that's when the business starts becoming fun. That's when you start to build that confidence, right? Because now you're truly, like, building something. I know the feeling. And I'm not even gonna ask for a show of hands where, like, you think of a great idea that you want to implement in your business, but you're like, man, that's gonna be a lot of work. And you back off from it immediately because that great idea, you just like it. It puts it on yourself. Same reason you don't really want your dispatcher doing sales, because they're not pushing to book more jobs, because they're like, that's Going to be more work on me, right? It's the same kind of thought process. But when you're like, no, no, no, I just look for a way to. This new idea that I have. To strategically insert this into the business, right? And how you do that is you take the new idea and you just develop a system around it. You figure out, okay, where do we, what's the, what's the map look like? Right? Like, okay, this is a new idea. We're gonna do this, then this, then this. If they say yes, we'll go here. If they say no, we'll go here. Right? You create the map, then you create. The process behind it, right? Then you insert that into the business for your people. To run the process, Right? And then you improve. The last, the sixth step of building processes was improved, right? Because you insert it, you know, you got to put it to the test. You never know if it's going to work perfectly. You could design it how you want, right? But in order to be the designer, in order to add modifications, if you're going to have somebody come and, and you know, add on to your home or build out, you know, second story or whatever, the architect's going to need to see. You need to start with an existing blueprint of what you have. You can't just start adding stuff on. And that's, that's what we, I did it, right, and that's what we all do. We're like, oh, I'm going to add this thing and I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that. All we're doing is we're basically, you know, creating one of those homes that just has all these like weird add ons that know like, who, like, who added this? Is this in code? Right? How'd this get here? And so we just need to be clear on where we are and where we want to be. This is the business needs to be a machine. And you could decide to be involved as much as you want to be involved. You could still, you know, you might love being in the action, but it's like it's a different ball game when you don't have to be in the action and you could decide where to insert yourself. Hey my friend, before you go, you've got to hurry and watch these next few videos over here. They will absolutely help you take your moving company to the next level. Go watch them now and I'll see you over there.
