Keep Your Moving Company Running Smoothly While On Vacation
Louis Massaro explains how business owners—especially in the moving/service industry—can take vacations without the business falling apart. He argues that having documented processes, trained staff, and a designated single contact person are essential. He recommends making a contingency list of what could go wrong and how to handle each item, setting clear expectations for what to escalate, and scheduling regular breaks (quarterly or weekend getaways) to prevent burnout and enable strategic thinking. The talk includes personal anecdotes (a week in Hawaii; previously running a company with several hundred employees and hitting ~$1.9M in a month while traveling) and ends with a call-to-action for coaching (talktolewis.com).
Chapters
So anyways, had moving Sales Academy live, had that going on. And then I took a trip, right? So I was able to act after that. Take a trip, went and kind of hung out on the beach in Hawaii for a week. And that's what got me thinking about what I want to talk to you about today, which is how to go on vacation while your business still runs smoothly. Right. By the way, before I get started, if you are interested in working with me for the next year to scale your moving business, you're already at a, you know, a successful level, but you want to scale, just go to talktolewis.com that's talktolewis.com but I do want to talk to you about going on vacation while your business runs smoothly. Right. There's a lot of people right now on social media talking about grind, grind, grind. There's no time for vacations. You know, you've got to just work day and night, work day and night. And I tend to disagree with that. But I get the question that comes up a lot is, you know, Louis, but how can I go away? Every time I feel like I step away from the business, things seem to fall apart. People don't do things the way that I would do them if I'm there, right? And so, you know, I'm thinking about it and, you know, I'm in Hawaii, right? Hanging out on the beach, snorkeling, just, you know, doing vacation type stuff, right? Chilling. And, you know, my team now is nowhere near as big as my team and my company was when I had my moving company. I mean, I had several hundred employees and throughout the country, and there was a lot of moving pieces and a lot of moving parts. And so, you know, I used to think, okay, well, maybe because I had all those people, that's what allowed me to step away and, you know, take long vacations. I mean, there was a. You know, I remember a time vividly where, you know, it was the middle of summer, July or August, and one of the best months we ever had. We did like almost $2 million, 1.9 million in one month. And I was away most of the month. I was in Europe for two weeks. You know, I had systems and I had the people in place to be able to do that. So I started thinking about it while I was away this time because my team is, you know, there's a few of us, and I'm like, okay, but now as a smaller company, right? Do I still have that ability? Do I still have that ability to, you know, Step away and know that things are going to get handled correctly. And the truth is, I do. And it's all because of the way that things are set up in advance. So what I want to share with you is how to actually go about doing that. All right? By the way, if you guys are here and you could hear me and you could see me, and the connection's good. I had a rough connection. Just type yes down below. Let me know how you could hear me and see me. And for those of you just joining us, before I forget, if you do want to work with me for the next year to scale your moving company to that next level and you want to work with me directly, just go to talktolewis.com but let's talk about what needs to happen in order to be able to step away, right? Because it's not all about, like, the vacation's nice, right? It's nice to relax, it's nice to unwind. It's nice to step away and get a different perspective on, you know, everything that you have going on when you come back. When you come back from vacation. It's like, you know, it's a whole different ball game if you truly allow yourself to disconnect. And I know this is a struggle for a lot of people, and I wanted to address it because, you know, it's something that everyone should have. If you're going to be in business, if you're going to own a company, what's the point, right? Like, what's the point other than to make a lot of money and have freedom, right? But what happens is we get stuck in this mentality of grind, grind, grind, which if you're just getting started and you've got to get that momentum just to be able to kind of pay the bills and get things moving. I get it, right, that that's what you need to do at the beginning. But I see too many people that don't start to remove themselves right, from the day to day, and then they're stuck. They want to take a trip, they want to spend time with their family, they want to just step away to have a clear head, to be able to strategize on what their next move is, what their next step is in the business. But they feel stuck. They feel worried that if I step away, something bad's gonna happen, right? You know, whoever I leave in charge, they're gonna mess things up. They're not gonna know how to do this. But what if they can't reach me at the hotel where I'M at. And it prevents people from being able to step away. Or what will happen is they will step away, something minor will happen or major. Right. Listen, things happen, right? Not to say that things won't happen when you're away. Things definitely have happened while I was away on vacation. Even this last time, there was things that happened that maybe if I was here, they wouldn't have happened. However, they're not that big a deal in the big scheme of things. We need to get you to. To be able to step away from your business, to get that clarity and that peace of mind and that, you know, you know, how you feel when you come back from vacation. Right. As long as you're not, you know, coming back into the office and just getting swarmed and overwhelmed. Right. We'll talk about that another time. Like what to do when you get back to make sure that you transition smoothly into, you know, your work. But to be able to step away, it's really a matter of, you know, number one, you've got to know what you expect from your team. Right? And they have to know what you expect from them. And there has to be certain, you know, processes in place. Right. I know you hear me talk about processes a lot, Louis. I know. I get it, I get it, I get it. But until you have them in place, until you have them implemented, until you have a standard way of doing things, it's very hard to hold people accountable for their actions. Right? And, you know, that's really the first step, is to kind of have those processes in place. And then you need to have the people in place to be able to handle the things while you're away. Listen, if you're in the moving business, if you're in a business that's, you know, service business in general, you could step away for a week. If the people that you have in place now aren't capable of running things for a week when you're gone, you either need to retrain them, okay? Spend some good time retraining them, or reevaluate the people in those positions. Right. Because essentially it's the same thing every day. Right? It's book some moves, service and moves. Book some moves, service some moves, issues come up, there's an issue with the truck, it breaks down, this happens, that happens. They know what to do. All right? So if you're worried, if you're concerned about stepping away from your business, what I want you to do is this. I want you to make a list of all the stuff that could go wrong. Okay? While you're away, right? Make a list. Take out a sheet of paper. Make a list of all the stuff that could go wrong while you're away. And just write down how you would handle that. Okay? Then just pick who's gonna be in charge while you're gone, right? One of the big mistakes that. Unless your company is big, where you have managers in this department and managers in that department, you need to designate who's in charge while you're gone, even when you have a large team. Even when I had directors of call center operations, directors of operations for sales managers, operations managers, dispatch managers, accounting managers, all these people, I still designated one person that would be my contact person while I was away, right? You don't want to have all these different people calling you if there is an issue. All right? But the first thing I. The main thing that I want to get through to you is that not only can you get away, you have to get away, right? You have to be able to get away. Especially I'm saying this now, it's, you know, April, April 2, you know, moving season is coming, right? And typically that'll be the busier time. You know, if you need to give yourself a rest, if you need to give yourself a break, like, go do it now. Don't go into moving season burnt out, stressed out, not on top of your game, right? So if you're gonna step away, number one, you know, make a list of all the stuff that could go wrong, how you would want somebody to handle that, okay? Also, whoever you're going to put in charge, make sure they know what stuff you don't want to hear from them about and what stuff you do want to hear from them about. Okay? So in other words, you know, for me, like, I had it to a point and it took time to get there, but you have to start trying. You have to say, you know what? Let me go away, and what's the worst that happens, right? Like, what's the worst thing that could happen that I'm going to really save by being here? And once a few of those things happen, you're like, all right, it's no big deal. Is that really worth me staying and never getting some time away for me to, you know, I had trucks flip over on the highway while I was out of town. Like, what was I going to do to fix that situation when I'm there, right? Nothing. So, you know, nothing more than somebody that I left in charge could do and how they could handle it. So the point is, leave the people in charge. Let them know what they should contact you about, what they shouldn't contact you about, and what the method of contact is, right? And, you know, you really need to just step away, right? That's really what it comes down to. If you have not taken a trip, if you have not taken time away from your business, it is one of the most important things you can do for your business. And again, I'm saying this because, you know, I see people on social media are like, nah, grind 24 7. 24 7, I'll sleep when I die and all this and that. And here's what I can tell you. That will burn you out, that will make you feel unfulfilled, that will make you into a miserable sob. And you'll take that out on your employees, you'll take that out on your family. And that's not what you want. You want to profit in your business and thrive in your life. You don't win the game business by just making money, okay? It's easy to make money if you put everything else, you know, you kind of at the expense of everything else. It's easy to make money. But to really win the game, to truly win the game, it's about making the money and enjoying your life and taking that time. And I could tell you there is nothing more powerful for your creativity, which is really what you get paid for as a business owner, to think about new strategic ways to run your business, right? New strategic ways to make money. What's my next move? Right. Right now it's the beginning of the second quarter, right? You should start thinking about, you know, what are my second quarter objectives for these next three months? What is it that I'm going to be getting in place and working on? And when you don't have that time to step away, you're like this. And this is. I'm not saying this, like, focus. I'm saying this like you've got blinders on and you don't really see the whole picture. You've got to allow yourself the time to step away, even if it's for a weekend, okay? And have that phone put away as much as you possibly can, all right? But the point is, you know, to really be able to scale, right? If you're already at a level, like, if you're doing a million bucks a year right, in your business and you can't step away to take multiple trips a year, then that's something that you should be looking at. That's something you should be working on, because that will allow you to start seeing things more clearly, that will allow you to start making moves, you know, no pun intended. Making moves that's gonna allow you to really go from that 1 million to 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, wherever it is you want to go. If you're stuck working in your business, you can't be working on your business. And if you're not working on your business, you're essentially an employee of your business. And if this is where you are, I'm not saying this to make you feel bad or make you feel like you shouldn't be, you know, you need to be doing something else. I'm saying this to show you, like, if you want to scale, if you want to grow, you need to start making this stuff a priority, you know, for me, you know, I knew that I had, you know, the seminar in the middle of March, right? Which is towards the end of the first quarter. I had my three big quarterly objectives for the first quarter, and I knew that I was gonna hit them. I knew that, you know, those of you who were at the seminar, you know, I'm on my feet three days in a row, non stop, you know, morning to night. It's not like there's a bunch of speakers, you know, some people come on for like an hour with two people come on for an hour each. The rest of the time it's just me. It's exhausting, right? And there's a lot leading up to that. So I schedule a vacation for right after that each and every time, right? So think about putting in, you know, where you do, you know, instead of just running this year long marathon for, you know, to take one trip, look at each quarter and say, you know what, let me, let me do this sprint, Let me do this 90 day sprint, right, for this quarter where I'm just gonna go in and I'm gonna crush my goals, I'm gonna crush my objectives, and I'm gonna have this trip waiting for me at the other end, right? Get it on the books, get it scheduled. Use that as your motivation. Because if you don't have something to look forward to, and it's just like every day, just a grind and grind of the moving business, you know, it's gonna, it's gonna dampen your productivity, it's gonna dampen your motivation, and it's just not gonna be a joyful thing like your business should be fun. And the key is you want to be able to come in, kick ass, have a reward, go enjoy yourself, rest and recuperate, right? And for me, it's not about work hard Play hard. For me, it's about work hard, chill hard, right? Like, that's how I like to do it, right? Some people, you know, play hard. Like, not like, for me, I work so hard when I work that when I'm not working, I want to chill, relax, get my mind right, get my body right. And that's what, you know, that's a huge, huge key to what's allowed me to build multiple businesses over the years and scale to the level that I have, right. And see things clearly and not get caught up in the day to day. So, Kats, what's up? Kats, let me see your comment here. Hopefully I could do this on my phone. Ked says, you're so right. I need a holiday. So much going on, so much stress, so much I need to do. Step back and come back cooler and stronger. Kats, Absolutely. Do it, do it. Take a weekend. Go where you can go where the money allows you to go, right? In other words, I don't know where everybody's at. Katz, I don't know where you're at financially, but you could go stay somewhere for a couple of days and clear your head. You can go stay somewhere for a couple of days and clear your mind, right? You know, I'm saying this because it's important. I'm saying this because I just got back from a week, you know, chilling in Hawaii, like, you know, the way that I like to do it, right? I. I know the type of trips that I like, and I know the type of trips that I don't like, you know, and like I said, for me, it's like, work hard, chill hard. And so cats do it, man. Like, you know, it's. It's one of those things that we always have an excuse, right? So if you're at a stage, anybody here watching, where you feel like you can't take a step away, right? You might have to stay connected for a trip. You might have to bring your phone, you might have to bring your laptop. You might have to kind of work from wherever you're at, right? But that's how you start kind of wiggling your way out of that. That trap of feeling like, hey, look, this is. I'm stuck here. I can't really go anywhere else. I have to be there. And you know what? You've got to be able to release the guilt also, right? A lot of times, you know, we'll feel guilty because we have these employees, they're working for us, right? And we're like, you know, I don't really want to you know, be like, I was in Hawaii chilling, or I was doing this or I was doing that. And you got to get over it. Listen, that's. That's the benefit of owning the business. You get to do stuff like that, and you don't have to hide it. You don't have to feel bad. And that's, you know, if they work for you and that's. They're, you know, they're your employee, then that's why you pay them, and that's why they can count on you for a paycheck every single week. Right? Because they don't get that ability. Right? They have to kind of schedule their vacations. It's different. Right? So. And I say this out of personal experience. I say this out of, like, early on, you know, I had people there that were kind of, you know, friends that were, you know, knocking it out with me every day, Working hard, working hard, working hard. And although I gave them the time that they needed, it was like the time that they needed. But as the owner of the business, you get the benefits, you get the perks. You get to do those things and don't feel bad about them whatsoever. Right? You've got to be able to take care of you. You've got to be able to take care of your mind. Because, listen, if you get burnt out, you will be useless to your business, you'll be useless to yourself, and you're going to be useless to your family. All right? You've got to be proactive to prevent the burnout. You do preventative maintenance on your trucks. You do PMs on your trucks. You've got to take care of you and make sure you stay sharp, make sure you stay on top of your game. Guys, thank you so much for being here. Before I go, before I forget, if you do want to work with me for the next year to scan scale your business, if you've already got momentum, you're already a successful company and you're looking to scale, just go to talktolewis. Com. And until I see you guys next time, thanks for being here. Go out there every single day, profit in your business and thrive in your life. I'll see you guys later.
