How To Make Your Moving Company Process Driven

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

This podcast is all about helping you reach that next level in your moving company. And we do that by sharing with you processes and strategies and ideas that get you thinking bigger on what's possible. You know, I grew my business from working out of a truck rental yard all the way to $20 million a year. And I want to help share those strategies with you so that you could reach that next level in your business, whatever that is for you. And, you know, it's not all about just making more money. It's about profiting in your business and thriving in your life. And we do that by, you know, being able to set up those systems, set up those processes so we could step away and work on our business and not be every single day stuck in the grind so that we have some time to enjoy with our families and just enjoy life and the fruits of our labor. And today, I am just so excited to talk to you about something that is gonna help you reach that next level in your business. And it's called Smart Moving Software. This is a company that I co founded with an amazing partner and group of programmers that have just built an amazing platform. You know, this is a software that runs your entire moving business. Not only runs it, but truly optimizes it. You know, one of the things that I the most is that you have just ultimate clarity into your numbers. I mean, as soon as you log in, you've got a dashboard right there that just tells you everything that's going on. You know, one of the things that I've realized over the years that helps moving companies really get to that next level of success is being able to know their numbers. And, you know, without a system that pulls everything together, it could be really, really challenging. And Smart Moving just has all the reports and all the information dialed in the way that you need it to be. And I'm just so excited to tell you about it today. Go check it out, get a demo, go to smartmoving.com, sign up for a free demo, check it out, and listen. If you don't have a CRM in this modern day of moving, you need a CRM. If you've already got a CRM and you're just looking for an upgrade, something that's more streamlined, something that gives you all the tools that actually matter, go to smartmoving.com, check it out. It's gonna help you do everything from the minute you get leads to your sales process, to customer service. To dispatch, to following up with your crews, to handling your numbers and your books and reports. Everything you need is there in a streamlined, systematic, automated process. And I'm just so excited to be a part of it. I'm so excited to finally have a solution to offer to moving company owners that for years were asking me, louis, what platforms did you use? What softwares did you use? And the truth is, I used a lot of different stuff that I had to tie together because there wasn't something like smart moving that allowed me to just do everything in one place. And now that we have that, I mean, we've got customers at all different levels using this software. You know, companies that, you know, maybe they're just starting out, companies that have been in business for 10 years, they've got 10, 15 trucks. We've got nationwide franchises that are running their entire operation off of smart moving. So I want you to go check it out today because I'm so excited about it. It's called Smart Moving Software. Get your free demo@smartmoving.com and without further ado, let's jump into this episode of the Moving Mastery Pod podcast.

We have gone through the series of stabilization, systemization, systematizing, stabilizing, systematizing. Now we're talking about scaling. We've been laying out what you've got to do to really scale, right? Take what's working, bring it to that next level, Grow your business, expand your business, franchise your business. Bring it to a place where you could sell it, right? Bring it to a place where it runs consistently and predictably, generating revenue for you without the headaches, so that you could kind of run it passively if that's what you choose to do. Scaling is different for everybody. Everybody's got a different vision of what they want with their business. And I'm here to tell you that if you're in the moving business, you are in the right business to make that happen. If you're like, louis, I'm in this business, but I hate this business, my answer to you is, good. Get it in order. Build a model business. Spend a couple of years getting it on point, getting the profits where they need to be, sell it, and go do what you want to do. You know, that's just the reality of it. Like, you've got something, you know, you've got a money maker in your hand. Don't let that go. And those of you that really think that there's a cap on what could be achieved in the moving business, I'm here to tell you there's companies in the US doing, you know, well over $100 million a year. So, you know, don't think that it's. You're. You're capped. And a million dollars is the top mark or 10 million, or, you know, I did 20 million. I don't think that's the top either. So if you've got really big dreams, really big aspirations, really big goals of what you want to hit for whatever reason, right? Maybe just you're driven to succeed, you're driven to get to the next level. Cool. Maybe you really, really want a jet. Maybe you really want to fly private. Exp. Especially after all this Covid stuff, you're like, you know what? Like, I'm done going and standing in TSA around all those germs. I'm ready to fly private. Like, I'm. I'm not saying that this is, you know, what everybody wants. I just want you to know that whatever's right for you. I'm not a believer in this, like, you know, this world of we've got to keep up with other people. And if this person's driving that or if this person's dream is to have a jet or. That's got to be my dream. Right. I really believe it's so important that we get in touch with what our heart wants and not just what our mind wants, and then realize that it's there for a reason. You've got a desire for something like, don't extinguish that. Don't put that out. That fire is there, and it's really here, and it's not in your mind. It's not ego. I should have this because I need to feel a certain type of way. But you're like, hey, I like nice stuff. I like to go on nice trips. I like to drive nice cars. There's nothing wrong with that, right? There's. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. And if you go to work every day and you do your part to contribute to your community, which is what you are doing, I want you guys to realize that, like, you know, you might not put the pieces together every day, that you're serving your community.

They need a mover. If this was like, back in the day, horse and buggy types of things, like, there would be a mover or two with the horse and the buggy in. In the community, and they served the people and they took care of the people. Right now, it's a more competitive landscape, but it doesn't change the fact that you're providing a service to the people in your community, right? And you want to provide a great service. You know that. But if you know that you have the ability to orchestrate the moving parts of the business to deliver a great service to customers, then isn't it your job to get more of those customers? Right.

I don't believe anyone should ever be capped by the amount of money that they can make if they are serving. And the more you serve, the more you make. If you do, you know, a thousand moves a year, you are serving at that level and will make that kind of money. If you're doing 12,000 moves a year, you're serving at that level, you'll make that kind of money and so on. But it's not that simple because it's not as easy as just serve and the money will be there. We've also got to take into account the laws of business and what it takes to make that happen, right? Because, you know, we could have all the intentions in our heart, and that's what we want. That's what we, you know, we want to let that guide us as to where to go and what we want. But we do need to use our heads and we do need to use our minds to be able to strategically make that happen, right? So this series specifically is about scaling. So let's talk about your processes and your people and how we need to relate to that in order to scale, right? Because.

Without the stuff that we're putting in place, without the stabilization that we did, right? The systematizing and now talking about certain aspects of scaling.

It'S gonna. It won't be scaling. It'll be suffering, right? And I know the feeling, and I know what it's like to be super excited. And, you know, whether it's just you and, you know, your own dream or your spouse or your partner, you're like, let's do this. Let's crush it. Let's expand, let's open another office. We're doing this here, let's do it there. We're making X amount here. Well, if we open five more offices, we can make five times the money, right? Listen, I've been there. I know the whole, you know, the whole thought process behind it all and after going through.

Is.

Clear to me from my experience and the experience I've witnessed and help other people go through that in order to succeed at a high level, okay? And at a high level, that is without the stress and without the overwhelm or the level that you're at, without the stress and without the overwhelm you've got to focus on making your company process driven. Okay? Process driven meaning, you know, there's. You could either have a people driven business or a process driven business.

People driven business or process driven business. And the difference is a big deal, right? The difference. When you've got a people driven business, you've got no consistency, right? One person does something one way, another person does something totally different. Training is a hassle because you're basically training a person.

On how to do something, but you don't have the process behind it. If you've ever been in a position where you feel like, you know, you're afraid to fire somebody because they're the only person that knows how to do what it is they do, I know you've been there, right? And if you haven't been there before and you don't have the process driven organization, you will be there. You'll be in a position where you've gotten somebody, they're so good, they do their, they do what they need to do. They're, they're the one that knows how to do it. But there's a lot of reasons why somebody might not be a good fit for your company moving forward. And it's the worst feeling to know that they're not a good culture fit, right? They're bringing the rest of the company down or, you know, they're just not doing their job in other aspects, but they're the only person that knows how to do something. When you have a people driven business like that, you can't fire anybody, right, because they know how to do it. So if we switch to a process driven, right, this right here allows you to have your processes running the business, right? If you've ever said, hey, I really wish I could just have, you know, robots run everything, right, I could program all the robots and have them run everything. If you've got a process driven business, the programming is the processes that are put in place, okay? And then what we do is we get the people to run the processes.

So instead of having people running the day to day with their own thoughts of what should be done here and what should be done there, you've got processes of the best practices of how things should be handled and then you have people running those processes. And of course there's going to be things that come up that will require the people that are involved with these to make those decisions. And that's why you also need process owners. For every process that you have, you want to assign an owner of that process.

So let's say, let me give you an example. You're like, what do you mean by process? A process would be morning dispatch, right? From, you know, getting. Getting the crews out, right? Maybe it's. Maybe it's from the minute the dispatcher comes into the office to the minute the crews get sent out. What is the step by step of how that needs to be handled every day? Right. What about payroll? Processing payroll, that process, Right. What about the process of a new claim comes in for damage? What's that process? Step by step. Each one of those processes needs to have an individual person.

By their role, assigned as the owner of that to make sure that that happens. Like, hey, look, this is your responsibility. Here it is in writing. It's very black and white. If you've ever had the frustration of feeling like you've told somebody on your team something over and over and over and they still don't do it, right? It's because they don't have the clarity.

The reality of human communication is that sometimes the words that come out of our mouth and the way we hear them as they're coming out is totally different than the way somebody hears them coming in. Right. For various reasons, we won't get into that. But when you've got it written down black and white and then you explain it to somebody, you go over with them. Like, once the processes are done, the owner of that process and everybody else in that process needs to read through that process, whether it's in writing, whether there's screenshots, whether it's video, and needs to acknowledge everything there and make sure that you didn't miss any steps, right? Assign a process owner for each individual process. Okay? Next thing, you need a process manager. You know, when people talk about, I'm going to hire a gm, I'm going to hire a operations manager.

You know, I'm going to hire a coo. You know, these, these different types of positions. I want you to start thinking about those roles as a process manager, right? Because it's really the same thing where we don't want people running our business. We want the processes running our business, and then we want the people to run those processes. You know, McDonald's is the perfect example of that. They're not the successful. I don't even know how much money they do a year in business and how many stores they have because of the people that work there. No disrespect to the people, right? It's the processes that are in place. And they could kind of stick anybody in there to run Those processes. And if those people aren't working out, no problem. Remove the people, bring in new people. The processes still keep going. There's no inconsistencies in the food and inconsistencies in the service based on who happens to be working there at that time. And what we're talking about is, we're talking about scaling, we're talking about opening additional locations. You know, you might have a nice situation in your current business, right? You might have good people. Like, you've got a nice little flow that just kind of naturally came together, and that's awesome.

But as you open that second location, as you, you know, take on a different line of business, as you want to start franchising, you know, it's.

It's one of those things where you've got to really understand that you can't manage all the people. You need to manage the processes. And the way that you manage the processes, right, is by basically looking at the people to see if they're running the processes. And now see the reason so many managers and GMs have a hard time. Like, if you're an owner of a business and you've had a hard time with, with a GM or with a manager and you feel like they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing, it's because they're trying to manage people. They're trying to manage all these individual people, right? And all the stuff us as people have going on, right? We're all different. We've all got different stuff going on. As opposed to saying, what's the process that needs to be getting executed in this department, that. That department, this time of day, that time of day, and are the people doing that? And if they're not, you bring them back to the process. You basically gently guide them back to the process. You have a, like a definitive place to lead them back to. You know, it's not a matter. It's very black and white at that point. It's not a matter of like, hey, what's going on? I've asked you to do this thing several times. It's like, here's the process. Whether they are the process owner or just a participant in that process, they need to just be guided back, right? When you shift your perspective of management from managing people, right, which sometimes could be a total, like, nightmare. If all you're doing is if there's a lot of people and you're managing the people, it could feel overwhelming. I mean, if you're a manager, you know, it could feel very overwhelming. But if you just have a place to guide them back to, so much easier. Okay, so start thinking about who you would actually assign to be your process manager. Is that you or is that somebody else? Because as you grow and as you scale, think about opening another location and you're like, okay, I'm gonna go check out the other. I'm gonna go fly down to that office or drive down to that office, I'm gonna check that out. Or I'm gonna send my manager down there to check on things. What are you gonna have them check on? Like, they're just gonna go and sit around. And this used to be me, by the way, so I'm not mocking you. Like, this was like when I first started going to check out my other offices or sent somebody there. I'm like, we need like more of a method of how we do this, right? Of when we go, what we look at, what we check, what we see if it's working or not working. If there's processes that are being run by the people or if the people are running the show and kicking the processes to the curb, you've got to be able to go in there and clearly see are they running the processes.

Hey, my friend, it's Louis and I'm just hopping in really quick to remind you to go get your free demo of smart moving software. Smart move. Smart Moving software is a company that I co founded that is quickly becoming the leading moving software in the moving industry. And I'm super excited for you to check it out. So go get your free demo today. Just go to smartmoving.com that's smartmoving.com and sign up for your free demo and.

Check it out today.

It makes it so much easier to train, manage to scale. And the reality is.

Having a process driven organization, this is your only competitive advantage in the moving business. Let me say it again, this is your only competitive advantage. And I know some of you might have some really great innovative ideas, different things that you're doing, but the reality is to the consumer, a mover is a mover is a mover is a mover. And you could go out and provide great service and you could have five star reviews and you could, you know, the customer could be happy. But internally there is a lack of success due to the lack of process.

The people who get this, the people that apply this, the people who, you know, document and live their, you know, their, their company's mantra by like, we're a process driven organization and we've got great people to help us Run those processes. Those are the ones who win. Those are the ones who make a lot of money. Those are the ones who sell their business. Those are the ones who are able to scale, franchise and really do whatever they want to do. Right? So we talked about processes in order to scale, right? We're talking about what needs to be done to scale, right? And the reality is what needs to get done to scale.

Is what needs to get done just to create order and peace and get rid of the chaos and the fires, right? So even if you're like, louis, I don't want to scale, okay? Get this stuff in place just to bring some harmony into your life and some, you know, some stability and some consistency in the business and clarity. And once you have that, your, your, your outlook on whether you want to scale or not, scale may change completely, right? Because if something just feels really hard to do every day, you don't want to go do more of it. You know, I realize that, I realize, like I'm talking and people are like, I'm talking, grow your business. And some people, like, even if they're not thinking it, their mind's going, I should grow my business. I know that's what I should do. But subconsciously they're like equating that to just more pain, more suffering, more stress, more problems, right? And that's not a good place to be. That will destructively start to take you in the direction away from what you want. Everything we do is taking us either in a direction towards what we want or it's taken us away from, you know, what we don't want. So if what you don't want is over here and what you want is over here, we've got to be very strategic to make sure that our moves and our actions and our thoughts are all in alignment, heading towards what we want. And when we've got that subconscious going, yeah, I don't know if I want to grow. This is just going to be more stress. This is just going to be more problems. You're going like this, you're going over to the side of the area that you don't want to be, right. Without even realizing it. And so again, I know we're talking about scaling, but if you're in a place where scaling sounds like, you know, that's the tell sign right there. Like if you're like scaling sounds stressful, it's only because you don't have some things in place. One of them being a process driven business, right? When things are in order, I'm really just Trying to paint a picture of what's possible because I know so many of you are there already and I know so many of you are not. And it's just such a big difference. You know, if I sat down at a table with all of you and we had a conversation, it's like, hey, you're in the moving business. You're in a moving business. Let me hear about like what your day is like, what your life is like, what your stress levels. Like, you know, maybe we pull up, you know, somebody had been to the event, we pull up somebody that's, you know, private client, somebody that's in my program, somebody that's really implemented this stuff and really done the work. It's going to be a totally different story than someone that's still struggling day to day to just get past some of this stuff. And the reality is it's not that it's a different story because the person who's climb out of, climbed out of that was once the other person. I was once the other person. I was once the person that was scrambling and stressing and doing the same thing, thing over and over where they say, you know, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and thinking that you're going to get a different result, right? Everybody that's successful in this business was once that person. The difference is though that a lot of people, you know, unfortunately will stay.

That person, stay with that same conversation, stay with those same excuses. And the select few will say no. Like I want to start heading in the direction of what it is I want. If they could do it, I could do it. If Lewis could do it, I could do it, right? So I know where, I know it's, there's, there's additional stress right now with just the way, you know, everything that's going on in the world on top of the day to day. So I'm just saying it because I want you to be able to recognize and self diagnose that if scaling in your mind equates to suffering, it means there's a little bit of work that needs to be done to clear the path for you. Right? And once you clear the path, then you get to decide what it is you want to do. Like I don't push anybody to go open more local. My first question with somebody's like, how, like when I work with a private client, how much money do you want to make? And let's talk about the lifestyle you want to live and then we reverse engineer the business into that.

But no matter what that plan is, whether it's I want to fly private and work two days a week or I don't mind working five days a week and I just want to make, you know, x amount a year. No matter what it is, this is a requirement, process driven, right? And it's one of those things we talked about it, like, if you don't have the competence in creating processes and know how to do it, you will lack the confidence. And if you lack the confidence, you won't go seek the competence. But once you say, you know what, maybe if I just knew how to do that, maybe if I just knew how to write a process, it didn't seem so overwhelming. If somebody could just take it and chunk it down and break down the steps of how to do it for me, I could probably do it. And if I took the time to do it, I'm clearing the path for myself. Right?

No matter what you do in your business, it is to create a life for yourself, my friend. I don't ever want you guys to forget that. And it's so hard to live a life with a people driven organization. So hard. Consistently without getting sucked back in.

Okay, all right, so now let's talk about. That was my public service announcement for the day.

Let's get you guys back here to processes and people to scale. All right, so let's talk about your people now, okay? Because we're talking about scaling, we've got to think about the people that we have differently than we think about them currently, right? Let's take the example of. Because remember, scaling could be just taking what you have and doing more of it, right? Like you don't have to go open more locations, you just ramp it up. It could be opening additional locations or franchising or getting into long distance or getting into another line of business.

Let's take the example of opening another location for this purpose.

What you want to do is, before you do that, I want you to make a list of key position replacements. Key position replacements, what does that mean? It means that whoever you have currently.

In your business, that's a key position, right? Somebody you know that. That a manager or a salesperson or a bookkeeper or you know, a dispatcher or the GM that you're going to send to that new office. I want you to ask yourself what would happen? Write everybody's name now, okay? What would happen as we started to scale, as we open that new location.

If that person just no called, no showed and you never heard from them again?

Right? Like you don't Even know what happened. They could have just went and got another job. They could have, you know, got hit by a bus.

You know, they could have, you know, just went off the deep end. I don't know, right? They just didn't show up. It's happened, right? This kind of stuff happens. Or, you know, the more likely scenario is they stop working out, they're disgruntled. You realize you need to get rid of them. You find them stealing, you need to fire them, they find another job, they move on. They have a life situation happen, maybe, you know, and they. They move on to something different. Write down all these people and I want you to write down a temporary replacement for that person if that happens. Because a lot of times we look at our ability to handle more based on the team that we have. But I want you to recognize the vulnerability. I want you to recognize the points where things could go really wrong, which is like one person leaving.

And what that'll do with you, right? Like in other words, your name might be the replacement, you personally might be the replacement, or you might have other people that are the replacement. But the reality is if we don't think through that, we might think we're good, we're good. And then one little, you know, you go make this big leap to open that other office, one person.

Doesn'T show up again and it just throws everything off, right? So not saying that you won't be able to open up other offices if somebody leaves, but you need to know what you're going to do. You need to know if this happens temporarily until we find the replacement, you're moving to that position. I'm moving to this position. Like, here's the contingency plan, right? You got to have that in place. Then you want to establish who is your scaling team. Who is your scaling team. You know, if you're. Let's. We're going to use the example of opening an additional location, opening an additional office, okay? And if you've got to realize that.

Not everyone that works for you is as excited about this as you are.

And not everybody's needed, you know, if you've got a dispatcher, you've got a sales team, you've got a bookkeeper, you've got an office manager, you've got a warehouse person.

And you're going to go open another location, first of all, who needs to be involved in.

The opening of that other location, right? Who is going to be on your scaling team? Who's going to actually help with the day to day? Because here's what happens if we don't establish who's kind of, you know, in those meetings, who's not in those meetings. All of a sudden the message in the office becomes very convoluted and the people that are truly aren't really involved, like maybe a dispatcher that's dispatching your local business that really won't have anything to do with the future location. You're pulling them in conversations, you're pulling them in meetings, they're hearing about it.

A lot of times the priorities of that office will get neglected as we're focused on opening up and building the additional office, right? So you just got to establish and it's not. You don't have to go make a big announcement. You don't have to pass out T shirts that are like scaling team, just your mind know, like, okay, whose help do I need to do this?

You know, if you're going to, you know, open another office and keep your office as a central sales hub and do all the sales from there, you know, you'll need your sales team, you'll need your sales manager, right? You might need everybody in your office, but it's, it's really important to make that distinction and to, you know, clearly define who's, who's kind of in and who's out so that you could keep it really clear. And there needs to be a clear chain of command as well. Because here's what's happened. You have this tight knit business now, right? Or you should have this tight knit business before you're scaling and now you're going to start like, you know, dividing and conquering, like, all right, come on, let's go out and conquer other territory. Let's go open other offices. As that starts to happen, the, you know, structure and the kind of the hierarchy unravels a little bit. And so just make sure that you keep it very clear what the chain of command is, who reports to who, who does what. This stuff is so important. I mean, I've got private clients that.

Done an amazing job of putting all this stuff in place and.

Just have been able to scale beautifully, right? Open an office, open another office rebrand, like just really put all this stuff together. And it's because they really remembered the most important part of this whole thing, which is we need to be process driven.

This will save you so many issues, so many problems. So take a little time today, think about.

What processes you need to develop. A lot of people will think that they need to go and create this giant process book of every little thing that happens in their company and you may get to that place, but start with the stuff that's going to make the biggest impact today. Where's the ball getting dropped? Where is there a new opportunity to do something new? But you need everybody to do it the exact same way every single time. Those are the areas that you start to put.

Processes together, right? Go start working on this. Figure out what processes you need, who's going to own those processes, who's going to be the process manager. If you're going to scale, think about, you know, any key players you have who would replace them.

And, you know, decide who your scaling team is.

You can go make this stuff happen, right? Go make this stuff happen.

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 it get the wheels turning?

Did you love it?

If so, do me a favor, share this episode. Somewhere out there on social media where you know there's some people that will get value from it, make sure. Make sure you hashtag the Moving Mastery Podcast so that we'll be able to look you up and find you on Instagram. Sometimes we just randomly pick a few people and send them gifts like free training T shirts, hats, swag, tickets to our three day seminar. So make sure you let us know you're listening and share what you thought about this episode out there on social media.

Thank you so much for joining us.

On the Moving Mastery Podcast and being a part of this amazing community.

And until we talk next time time, go out there every single day. Profit in your business and thrive in your life.

I'll talk to you soon, my friend.