Keep Sales and Operations Separated In Your Moving Company

We are live. Hey, what's up my friends? It is Louis massaro and it's the 28th of February, which means tomorrow is March 1st. Although I'm not still in the moving business, I still get super excited when March comes around. It's like, you know, things are gonna start picking up. And actually today I was on the call five of my favorite, favorite people, my one on one coaching clients and you know, things are starting to pick up all around the country right now. So if you're not feeling it yet, get ready. It's coming, alright? Because people have been talking to, saying things are starting to pick up, things are starting to look good. And I want to talk about your sales reps and your operation department and the importance of keeping them separated. And I realize some of you, you're all at different levels, right? You know, some of you are just getting started. Maybe you don't have an office, some of you have multiple offices, right? You're all at different spaces. But I found this picture of myself back in the day in my office. Let's see, when is this? 2000, 2001. So check this out. So this is me, right in my office. This is in Denver. So 2001, I'm on the phone, I'm either, you know, clocking out a crew or, you know, booking a move. Because I was doing both, right? I was wearing both hats. As you could see, a lot of that stuff doesn't exist anymore, right? We see that big ass computer monitor, yellow pages, those are gone. Wendy's, I don't eat that anymore. I used to be on the three meals a day, fast food and the tracksuit too, right? So you know, this is, you can't really see it. There's also a bunch of paper on the walls with probably movers numbers, you know, on there. But this is, you know, this is me doing everything, you know, dispatch and booking moves. And that's how it is when you start, right? But once you get to a certain point, once you get established, you have an office, you've got salespeople, you've got a dispatcher, you've maybe got a sales manager, you've maybe got customer service. It's so important that you separate them out, okay? Meaning, let me give you an example. So when you have actually a client of mine who has a great size business and when I first started working with them, I go through, and I understand part of the initial conversations is to fully grasp where they're at, who's involved and who plays what roles. And so, you know, we're talking about it, and it turns out that, you know, when calls come in with a customer has an issue, let's just say they had the salesperson who. Who booked that move handle that issue. Right? And, you know, by the way, if you're on right now, let me know where you're at. This. I want to make this interactive. If you're, you know, just getting started, it's just, you let me know. If you've got a team of people, let me know. I could help cater this message directly to. And, you know, basically, he had. When customers called in, they would speak to the salesperson, meaning if they were on the move, they had an issue on the move, they would speak to the salesperson. Okay. He also had his sales manager who kind of wore a lot of hats, right? Which, you know, that. That happens dealing with claims and dealing with complaints. And at the same time, he had his dispatcher in between dispatching moves, doing sales. Right. Calling leads, making sales calls. Let me tell you the problems with all of this and how this could really be affecting your business. If you have this going on and if you're, you know, just starting to put your office together, this is, you know, you want to set this up like this in advance, right? I learned this stuff the hard way, but now, what's up, Joe? I see it now. I, you know, kind of understand how it should be set up, because I've seen the different dynamics. But let's just say, you know, first of all, your salespeople need to be in an environment. Katz. What's up, buddy? I see you. Welcome from London. Your salespeople need to be in the zone, right? They need to be focused on booking moves. And if they're dealing with any customer complaints or customer issues, what that does is, number one, it takes them out of the zone. But number two, it starts to plant seeds of doubt in their mind. They start to not believe in the product they're selling. If their job is to essentially convince customers why they should move with your company. And they're taking that phone call here and now on this call, they're talking to a customer who's upset because the movers were late and they broke something and the guy stunk up their bathroom, whatever the case might be, right? They're on this phone taking that call. They're on this phone trying to sell on why your service is the best option for them. Well, what's going to happen is they're going to start to lose confidence in the product. They're going to start to lose confidence in the service. And it's going to, you know, it's not going to be something they'll even realize is happening, but it's going to be much more challenging for them to truly get behind and believe in their product. Right? You want your sales team to believe in their product, and you don't want them dealing with issues. Okay? So if they cause the issue, a lot of people will do this too. A lot of people say, you know what, that you caused the issue. You know, maybe you gave a bad estimate or whatever the case is, you speak to the customer, you straighten it out. And I believe that, you know, once a job is out of sales, it needs to be handled by operations. So whether that's a dispatcher or a customer service or an owner or whoever it needs to be. And, and sales needs to be left alone to do what they need to do, which is to continue to sell to keep that sales machine going. Right. By the way, if you want to build a sales machine, it's not too late to get your tickets for moving sales academy live. Just go to movingseminar.com March 15th through 17th. It's going to be three days with me getting strategic and specific with a step by step plan, okay. Of exactly what to do. If this all seems like a lot that I'm throwing at you, this is a step by step plan. You'll leave there with a game plan with the blueprint. Go to moving seminar.com, come join me out here in Phoenix. It's gonna be a great time. But back to the point is that your salespeople need to be focused on selling, right? But now let's think about dispatch, right? Because there's two ends of this stick here. You have, you know, you want to make sure your salespeople are focused on selling, not dealing with any customer issues. Okay, Let me know who's here. Let me know if you guys are dealing. You know, if you have your salespeople doing kind of customer service and sales, if you have your dispatcher also doing sales, I'll be able to help kind of cater this message here for you. And you know, when you have your dispatcher doing sales, here's what you got to watch out for. You know, typically if you've, you know, if you have this dynamic where you've got a dispatcher and they're responsible for getting the moves covered, right? You book moves, they go on the schedule, they go on the board. Now your dispatch is responsible for making sure they all get covered. Right? And typically, you know, Some dispatchers work really well under pressure. They're like, give it to me, you know, Give me all you got, right? They, you know, that's how I used to be. Like, when I show you this picture here, like, this is me they're dispatching or on the phone, because I was doing both. This is, you know, I was 20, 21 years old right there. And it's. I used to love it. Like, give me more, right? Number one, I enjoyed it, right? Number two, it was my money also, right? I wasn't a dispatcher working for myself. But when you're loading up a dispatcher with additional jobs, what happens is, you know, if they're not highly motivated to do more, they start to just feel like, this is more work for me, right? Like, you know, you start loading them up with extra jobs. They're like, oh, this is more. I got to deal with more. I got to get movers here. I got to make sure we got trucks. I'm going to end up having to stay late to clock these crews out. So what happens is when you have your dispatcher also doing, by the way, if you hear somebody slobbering over there, I got my dog in here licking himself. So when you have your dispatcher also doing sales, right, they aren't as incentivized to get that job booked, right? Because even if they might be getting a commission, what could happen is that they're looking at it and they're thinking, wow, I'm creating more work for myself. This customer wants to move on that day. I'm already busy that day. It's gonna be extra work if I need to kind of, you know, have to handle that, right? So those are the two things you need to look out for when you're cross. You know, you kind of have everybody doing everything and nobody's really responsible. You kind of. Everybody chipping in. Everybody's doing sales. Everybody's handling customer service, Everybody's handling issues. So back to my client that I was telling you where, you know, this is how his company was at first. And I was like, we need to get this separated. Unfortunately, he had a big enough office where I was like, no, like, you need operations and dispatch on one end and you need sales on another end, right? Separate them as much as possible. Like, you want your salespeople in this. Like. Like, everything's great, everything's positive, right? You know, motivation and their fired up. They got some good music playing, like, they're geared up, ready to go. They want to book more moves when problems come in. They don't hear them, right. You don't want them hearing them. That doesn't mean that you don't address them with the reps later. If they're involved, right, in sales meetings, and you pull them aside and talk to them about whatever issues they might have, doesn't mean you don't address the issues. But when they're selling, let them sell. Leave them alone. Don't start bringing problems and negativity and issues and dropping it on their lap and taking it out of their, you know, taking them out of their vibe. Right now, dispatch is a tough position, right? Operations tough, tough position. You know, making sure you get the movers there on time, making sure that you get the customers, you get them to the office on time, then you get onto the job on time. The trucks are working. They're not damaging stuff. You know, you got afternoon jobs, you got to get the job. You got to get the, you know, movers. From the morning job to the afternoon job. Dispatch can be stressful, right? So typically in most situations, right, you know, the dispatcher might not be, you know, all day in a chipper, cheery, you know, upbeat mood, and they're dealing with problems. Well, you don't need those problems infecting sales, okay? It's two separate components, and they've got to be separated in order for the business to run the way it needs to run. Remember, you know, you don't. You don't have a car or truck and, you know, having the brakes do the same thing that the gas pedal does. No, every part in the vehicle has its own specific role of what it does to make that thing run like a machine. So this is the problem with businesses, and here's where. Here's where it happens. And if you're not aware of it, to pull it apart, it becomes a bigger issue. It happens when you go from, you know, here I am working by myself, dispatching one man. I had my friend with me at this point. He's the one who took the picture, okay? There was two of us dispatching and booking moves, right? And that's how it is at first, right? You've got all the hats, right? You're doing everything at the same time. I was, you know, I was out. I got all these pictures. Yeah, I just found. As I figured I'd break one out for you. I'll find one here. Me in the warehouse moving vaults. I'll show it to you, but, yeah, I can't find it. But, you know, I was also going out in the warehouse, right, Moving Vaults bringing in inventory. Right when stuff came in. So I was wearing all the hats. So as you grow, you have to be able to not only, you know, take those hats off, but you have to remember that you did what you had to do when you started the business and you wore all the hats. But it's not an effective way to run the business, and you don't want to do that same thing to your employees. Right. And a lot of times we do that. Say, hey, I wear all the hats. You do all the hats. Hey, chip in with this. Chip in with that. The minute you're able to separate people within your company and define clear roles to what everyone is supposed to be doing, and everybody's who's responsible for what. Game changer. All right. Total. Total game changer. Joe. Joe, you'll be a moving sales academy. Awesome, man. You and your wife can't wait to see you. Guys from Texas. I love it. So, yeah, by the way, whoever's not coming, make sure you get your ticket. Moving sales academy is coming up March 15 through 17. Don't miss this. You may have had a rough couple of months. I get it. You know, I know it's been slow. There's been a lot going on. There's some changes with the real estate market. There's been some things happening with the government shutdown, but things are turning around. You know, people I'm talking to, it's starting to get busy. Set this year up for success. Come spend three days with me. I promise you, it will be the best money and the best time that you ever spent. Go to the page, movingseminar.com, watch the testimonial, see what other people are saying. You know, it's not. I'm not trying to sell you on it. I know how much it's gonna help you succeed, and that's why I'm doing this. Right. So anyways, Joe, I look forward to seeing you there. You want to back to the point is you want to make sure if, to whatever level, you can start to separate out your sales and your operations. Okay? So, you know, customer issues. Don't have a sales manager dealing with that. Let them focus on bringing in the moves. Right. Booking moves. Don't have people in operations booking moves. All right? You might be at a point, again, where it's just you or you only have two people or you only have three people. But if you're at a point where you have enough people to separate everybody out, you got to do it. I mean, you definitely have to do it, because otherwise it's hurting you. And, you know, talking about, you know, my client, that we did this, his entire business shifted and changed and turned around. And the morale of the employees that were allowed to just function and do their job instead of doing a little bit of everything, it totally shifted. It totally changed. I mean, it was not only visible in his numbers. It was not only visible in his profits. It was visible in, you know, his stress levels and the stress levels of his employees. All right, so today's message, Keep sales and operations separated. All right? If it's not an option for you right away, keep that in mind as you start to grow, as you start to build. Get your tickets. Moving Sales Academy Live. We're March 15th through 17th. Guys, I hope to see you there. Joe, I will see you and your wife there. Go out there every single day. Profit in your business. Thrive in your life and separate sales and operations. I'll see you guys later.