How to Operate an Exceptional Moving Company
8 Dec 2025 · 15 min
Louis Massaro explains how moving-company owners can build profitable businesses by treating their company as an operating system separate from themselves. He covers customer acquisition, move execution, and management processes, plus Carol Dweck's growth-mindset framework to reduce overwhelm and distribute responsibility across the team.
Questions this episode answers
Louis Massaro
August 2, 2023
Mindset by Carol Dweck
Chapters
Foreign.
Hey, my friend. It's Luis Massaro. And welcome to another episode of the Moving Mastery Podcast.
The moving business has changed and evolved. Who feels that? Who knows that the moving business has changed and evolved? I need you guys to participate with me this morning. Does it? Who feels like it's changed and evolved? All right, let's see it. So what do we go over? Yesterday we went over the fact that we need to be producing consistent results. Right? What are the two consistent results we need to focus on?
And high profits. 12. So we talked about, how do we do that? Number one was the operating system. When you start to realize that your whole business is an operating system and then it's separate from you.
It takes away a lot of that pressure, a lot of that stress, a lot of the. Every little thing that goes wrong, it just. You know the feeling I'm talking about? It's like you feel it in the pit of your stomach when you could separate yourself from the business. And the business is an operating system.
And you've got a management system to operate your customer acquisition and your move execution system. And you've got a team that's got a set of processes that knows how to do it consistently. Everything changes.
And I know, because I've been doing this a long time now, and I remember for myself that it's easy to be like, yeah, I don't really see how it's going to make that much of a difference, right? Because when you feel like you're working your ass off, it's hard to accept the fact that.
You might have just been.
Really just climbing the wrong ladder the whole time, right? You're putting in the work, you're working hard. Nobody's taking that away from you. But sometimes if we're playing the wrong game and we don't. We don't know the rules of the game, it's hard. You can't win the game. It's impossible.
So this work we're going to do, it's going to be hard work, right? But hard work, that's the right work. I love that. Right? Don't misunderstand. Profit and thrive for, like, lazy and chilling and doing nothing, right? But you're working towards something. The work you do is meaningful work, right? It's not the drudgery, it's not the another day, this shit, right? Like busy nights laying there. Is everybody gonna show up tomorrow? Who's ever felt that like, just. Yeah, yeah, one of those days. I told you when we were running 60 jobs a day, I remember showing up. It Was like the third day of that, and it's the time everybody's supposed to be there. Probably supposed to have, I don't know, the number 80 to 100 guys there, and there's like six.
And it was just like, oh, fuck, what are you gonna do? Right? Because who wants to have to face the customer, that many customers, and tell them that?
So they come, or you get on the phone, you start calling them, and you scramble and you get them in. But once the system's in place, you know, you let. What you do is you take some of your worries and you divide them up between your team, and then it becomes manageable. Right. If you didn't feel like everything was on your shoulders, I could say you guys aren't weak, you're strong. But when you feel like you've got everything and everybody around you doesn't have anything, it's frustrating.
So the operating system, it solves that. Okay, we're going to talk about the critical systems today, the ones that you must have that are required if you're going to succeed over the next 12 months, and I'm going to break them down for you. We also talked about mindset yesterday, how important that is. You know, you heard that from me is one of the top five things. We heard that from Mike. We heard that from Grant. And the focus and the beliefs, where we put our focus determines our direction.
How many of us realize that we could do a little better job of directing our focus?
Yeah. And that'll get us the results that we want. Let me see the hands. Okay.
And the beliefs we have. Right.
How many of you believe that you could do bigger things now after yesterday?
All right. All you got to do is raise your hand. You guys are good. You're in a nice, comfy seat. All right. I'm up here with the lights in my face. I really want to have, like, sunglasses on.
The mindset's everything. It's everything. You know it, Right? We don't. It's not some buzzword, some keyword. When you're feeling good, when you're feeling dialed in, don't you feel invincible? But then there's days where you just fucking want to crawl in a hole, Right? You don't want to get out of bed.
We can control that. It's capabilities. It's just learning how to do it, you know, just starting, right? How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time, right?
So it's just putting one foot in front of the other with all this stuff, all the capabilities, it's like one foot in front of the other. Great book. If you guys haven't read it. It's called Mindset by Carol Dweck.
The basis of the book is a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset.
A fixed mindset.
Says.
Whether it's conscious or not. Like, that thing's hard. I don't want to try it because what if I fail?
And that stops a lot of people from taking a step forward on the things that are going to be the exact thing that will break them free. Because they're scared of failure.
Right? They're fixed. Why try?
Why bother?
It's not going to make a difference anyways.
Why put in the work?
You know, many people self sabotage themselves because they're afraid that if they show people that they made an effort and God forbid they fail.
That'S devastating to the ego.
For all of us. But once we recognize it and go, yeah, but I could live with that. I could live with that. Who's ever done something that you just embarrassed the out of yourself and you know, in front of all the people you know and love and. Yeah. Did you? Did you? Did you, Are you okay? You're here. You made it right. We've got this internal fight or flight built in us from, you know, running from wild animals back in the caveman days. And now we're not in any immediate danger, but we're. Our minds are like, oh, but what if, what if somebody doesn't approve? What if my friends don't like me because I'm going for something bigger and they're all fucking playing video games and smoking weed and whatever else, right?
So we've got to be able to make that part of it, right? We talked yesterday loose what's the best business book? Go to the personal development section, read that stuff. Because once we know how to operate this and then you've got an operating system for your business, the rest is easy, really.
Hope you guys see by now. I'm not painting a picture of any type of get rich quick, you know, scheme here. This is, this is hard work, this business. No matter how you slice it, it's going to be hard work.
But it could be easy. It could at least be not as hard as it is now.
So we talked about your direction.
You know, if you're just like running every day, running, running, running, putting in the work, put in the time, hustle, grind, hustle, grind, without a real direction other than success, success, success. If I keep working so hard, I'm bound to make it. Make it where? Make it where Determine what that is. It's easy, right? Fixed mindset won't let you do that.
Right. Fixed mindset says, well, who am I to determine my direction? I have this, my family. This is how I grew up. This is how I am. Lewis, you don't understand. No, no, no. This is my personality. This is where I come from. Right.
I don't spend a lot of time talking where I came from because that's in the past. But let me tell you, it wasn't how I am today. That's for sure.
I didn't have the positive influences in my life the way that I do now. The way I surround myself with the right people intentionally. The way I stay away from other people intentionally. That stuff matters.
We get to decide our direction. Isn't that awesome? How awesome is that? Like, you get to decide if you decided today. You know what? Fuck this business. I don't like it. I don't want to be in it. It's not for me. This sounds like too much work. Cool. Decide your direction. Where are you going next? But if you're going to be in this business, okay, how.
In what way are you in local? You're going to stay in local. You're going to, you know, really dig that deep hole because you know that the gold is under you. It's such a shame that people dig the hole. They dig the hole. They dig the hole. And right when they're about to just strike gold or oil, they're like, man, this isn't working. Let me go dig another hole over here. Right? But you get to choose that direction. Once you choose the direction, what's the strategy? Right? How do you lead your team and make sure you're executing and that's it.
A lot of the overwhelm and a lot of the stress, we keep going back to that. Because that is the stuff that's basically like ankle weights. Ankle weights are, you know, resistance. That's the stuff that's like cement boots on your feet, you know, that's the stuff that really holds us back.
So we just have to start peeling back layers of that and make our jobs easier, make our business easier, make our life easier so that we could accomplish the things that we want. If you feel self doubt right now, it's only because you're just. You've got so much on your shoulders.
And when you've got so much on your shoulders and somebody's like, hey, add this other thing to it, it's like, there's no way. There's no way. So my hope Is like, we could, we could show you how to take some of it off and put the right stuff on. It's like, yeah, this is nice. This, it fits good, it feels good. It's snug. It's like a custom jacket, right? It's not this big burdensome load that you have to carry all the time.
We talked about active leadership.
Who realizes that they could step up in one area or another in their life as a leader right now we all can. We all can, right? And it doesn't just happen, but this is the work. This is the daily reminders. These are the things we need to, you know, have in our checklist of our personal operating system. Who do I want to be today? Right? There's who, what do I want? But it's also, who do I want to be? Who do I want to become?
You know? And the fixed mindset says, well, I am who I am. I'm not trying to become anybody else.
And you stay stuck.
You are who you are. You're a human being. You're a soul. You were put here on this earth from war.
You get to decide whether you stay fixed or you're in that growth mindset. The growth mindset says, you know what, if there's something I don't know, I'm gonna go figure it out.
That's it. That's it. If you don't want to read the book, that's the whole summary of the book. Right? But it also, what I love about it is it talks about how to raise your kids with this as well and reading. And I'm like, oh, my God, I see, like how I got so messed up, right? Our parents, well intentioned, doing the best, you know, everybody does the best they can with the current level of consciousness and maturity that they have, right? And the skills that they have.
But you know, like with my kids, especially my daughter, because she's old enough to know, I don't praise, oh, you're so pretty. Oh, that's so amazing. No, it's like, oh, I love your creativity to put that outfit together. I love the work that you did to paint that picture. Right? I'm praising the effort.
Because if we just praised, oh, you're so great, you're so great. You're so great. And they get in the world and nobody's telling them they're so great. They're like, what's wrong with me? Why is nobody liking my post?
Right?
And so we get to reprogram our minds, right? We get to resist the business.
You guys have A blank canvas or a piece of clay that you can mold into whatever you want.
And it's scary, right? What if I try? What if I fail? Because what will happen is you're going to have to probably leave some people behind.
Right? Maybe, maybe not. Some of you may have a very loving, supportive, you know, think bigger surrounding community.
But many people don't because the majority of people don't think that way.
I don't know about you, but I don't. I don't. It's not a better than thing, but I don't want to do what the masses are doing. Because if you sit back and you look at what the masses are doing, it's insane.
Right? You guys are the exception.
To this industry.
Whether you believe that right now or not, you are. Just by raising your hand to come to this event.
Puts you in a whole different league right there alone.
Alright, 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 you hashtag the MovingMastery 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 seminars. 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, go.
Out there every single day. Profit in your business and thrive in your life. I'll talk to you soon, my friend.