Moving Business Foundations vs. Business Development

Foreign.

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

Business development. When to grow, when to expand, when to start opening additional locations. I get this question all the time, and it's important that we address something very, very important, which is business fundamentals versus business development, right? Because if you're going to scale your business and you're going to grow to that next level, if you're going to take your moving company and kind of set up a model business and then grow to scale to that next level, it's very important that we distinguish two very important components of your business. One is, is business fundamentals. All the things that must get done now, today for your business to run smoothly and efficiently the way that it is currently without growing, Those are all your business fundamentals. And then you've got business development, right? All the things that you're working on to grow and expand and scale your company. And it's very important that we distinguish the two of those, right? Before you start going on this path of growth and expansion and whatever it is you want, right? Whether you want to, you know, franchise your company, whether you just want to grow in your local market, whether you want to open up multiple locations around the country, or maybe you want to go from doing local moves to going to long distance moves, it's important that the fundamentals are locked down. And let me tell you why this is so important. As entrepreneurs, as business owners, you know, our minds are set to start looking for what's new and what's next, right? The excitement of building a business is totally different than the excitement of running a business. So a lot of times what will happen is, you know, we get the basics of our business going right to like, you know, 70%. Now we're like, I got this, let me start building more. Let me take on something new, let me take on something additional. And what happens is that when you don't have the foundation solid, right, and we try to step out and start working on business fundamentals, sorry, business development, then the fundamentals start to suffer, right? So I'll give you an example. Like if you're, you know, you have to start looking at it like two separate things, right? So draw a line down the middle, literally, get out a piece of paper, draw a line down the middle on one side, put business fundamentals, right, and list all the stuff that has to happen for your business to run effectively today. And then on the right side, you're gonna put business development, all the things that you want to do to grow and expand your company. And here's what you got to do. You have to take care of all the business fundamentals before you start working on business development. I know this might sound like common sense, but until you break this down and until you look at it, you're going to discover that, you know, you're probably working on some business development stuff while there's, you know, that core foundation that's not taken care of. So what you need to do is start looking at the business development as a reward, right? Because, you know, again, with that entrepreneurial mind, you want to grow, you want to expand, you don't necessarily want to manage and you know, keep everything nice and neat and make sure all the, you know, boring day to day stuff in your business is always handled. You want to move on to what's new, you want to move on to what's next. You want to move on to new opportunities where you can make more money. But you've got to treat that as a reward for taking care of, you know, your fundamentals, right? Think about it like a kid. I just spent, you know, last week with a great friend and three kids, one of which is my goddaughter. And you know, they want ice cream all the time, right? Young kids want ice cream all the time. And it's the same way as an entrepreneur, we want new, we want more, we want to make more money, we want to take on new projects all the time. Well, the same way that, you know, the kids can't have their ice cream until they eat their meal, until they eat their dinner or their lunch or whatever the case may be, right? As an entrepreneur, you can't go after the business development until you take care of the fundamentals, right? So you got to look at it like, alright, this is what I'm going to use as my motivation to do the day to day stuff and put those processes in place to streamline things, to look at everything that needs to get done in my day to day business and say, what can I automate, what can I delegate and what could I totally eliminate from needing to be done so that I could get all the fundamentals handled running smooth and efficiently and then I can move on to dessert, then I can move on and go get myself some ice cream. Of being able to treat myself to go, you know, grow and expand and, you know, take care and satisfy that entrepreneurial part of my brain that wants to go and, you know, conquer the world. But you can't do that until you eat your meal, right? You got to eat your Vegetables before you go after the ice cream. And I know it might sound like something very simple, and, you know, I'm using this kind of example here of kids with ice cream and not eating their meal, but it's very much the same, right? Because remember, there's a gift and there's a curse to owning your own business and being an entrepreneur. And that gift and that curse is the same, which is you can do whatever you want to do in your business whenever you want to do it. So if you're not the one setting some foundational principles for how you're going to discipline your day and discipline yourself and what you're going to work on, you know, essentially eat your vegetables before you go eat your ice cream. If you're not going to put that stuff in place for yourself, no one's going to put it in place for you. And it's going to cause grief, stress, and chaos, right? Because when you start to grow and when you start to expand and work on business development before you've got the foundation solid, it's a recipe for disaster, right? So listen, I want, you know, my thing is not to slow anybody down. I want you to grow, I want you to expand. Whatever your big goals, aspirations, dreams are for your moving business, I want to see you get there, right? I get messages all the time from people that are succeeding at high levels. I want that to be you, too. I want to get those messages that say, louis, I crushed it. I went from a million to 3 million, or we went from 3 million to 10 million, or, you know, listen, I just started, and we did 300,000 our first year, whatever it might be. My thing's not to slow you down. My thing is to say, you know what? Over the long term, I want to see you succeed at high sustainable levels. Anybody can do well for a year or two, all right? And that's not what you want. Real success is achieving at high levels over the long term, all right? In order to do that, you've got to have your foundations in place, and you've got to have some disciplines for yourself to say, you know what? Until I take care of my fundamentals, I'm not going to work on business development. All right? So again, if you're thinking about growth, if you're thinking about expansion, get out a piece of paper, draw a line right down the middle. On the left side, right? Business fundamentals, okay? On the right side, write business development. And I want you to write down all the things that you need to take care of that are foundational things for your business, right? They are the foundation. Like if you're building a house, they're the foundation. They have to be solid in order for your business to keep going. And. And you've gotta find a way to make sure you're on top of every single one of those. So, you know, you're either on top of them through your reporting and you're delegating them, you're totally eliminating them, you're able to automate those processes, whatever it might be, you're on top of it. Then write your list on business development side of all the things you wanna do, you wanna grow, you wanna open new cities, you wanna get into long distance, whatever that may be. And remember, that's your reward, right? The business development is your reward of what you get to go and do because you took care of the fundamentals, right? You've got to put that discipline in place for yourself or you're going to end up neglecting the fundamentals in exchange for growth. And when you do that, there's a lack of foundation. And you build this big thing and it will all come crumbling down on you. All right? So make sure you take care of your fundamentals. Go out there every single day. Profit in your business, thrive in your life. I'll see you guys later.

Sam.