Moving Company Cash Flow and Employee Problems
Podcast episode (Moving Mastery) with Louis Massaro and Chris discussing a moving-company owner’s operational and cash-flow problems. They examine a case of a ~$1.4M/year company that was about $26,000 in the red for January and whose ops-manager/dispatcher is paid about $75,000 but is underperforming. Louis recommends the owner either replace the manager or personally step back into dispatch to redesign processes, role descriptions, sales scripting/closing, pricing/labor mix, and tighten financial controls; he also stresses taking immediate action, cutting unprofitable divisions/staff, and building repeatable systems for future seasons.
Foreign.
It's Luis Massaro. And welcome to another episode of the Moving Mastery Podcast.
Hey, my friend. It's Luis Massaro, and welcome to the Moving Mastery Podcast. I've got my main man Chris here today. What's up, Chris? Hello. And listen. The purpose of this podcast is to help you take your moving company to that next level, whatever that is for you. This is for moving company owners. This is for anyone working for a moving company that wants to help take that business to the next level and provide value. And I promise you will get practical takeaways that you could apply in your business so that you could start making more money, live a better quality of life, reduce your stress, and go make it happen. So we've been doing these new episodes where Chris is finding questions either in my social media feed or questions that come in through support and surprising me with them on these episodes. He's like, look, I think that the best way that, you know, you could be serving and helping people is let me just, you know, drop some of these questions on you without you having any time to think them through, and let's just see what you comes out of it.
We got to keep you on your toes.
Yeah.
You know.
Yeah.
So.
So what? Do you got a question today or.
I do. This one I think you'll like. So recently we had a. A very long email come into our support desk. Okay. And I, and I, I read it and, And.
Oh, it's a customer or a client.
Or I, I think, yes. He's. He's just a. A guy who had a question. Who, who.
Okay.
You know, I thought I should maybe give him a call. So I did. Okay. Okay. And he explained his situation. I wanted to see how we could help him, you know, so he explained his situation to me. I took some notes here. So basically he's got a, you know, good sized moving company, is doing about 1.4 million.
Okay.
Okay. He's having an issue with his sales manager. I mean, I'm sorry, ops manager slash dispatcher. The guy's kind of playing dual roles there.
Okay.
Okay. The issue he's having is, is he. He doesn't feel that the ops manager is pulling his weight. And he says this because he knows, he feels like he's paying him too much. Right. He's paying him about 75,000 a year. Okay. And he feels like the ops manager just isn't pulling his weight. They're having some issues. They've been, you know, missing some moves there. There's some issues with not having enough movers. To cover the jobs. And. And the ops manager has been kind of dropping the ball. Right. And aside from that, there's been some cash flow issues. He's already, you know, in the red for his January PNLs. He said he was about 26,000 in.
The red for the month of January.
For the month of January.
Okay.
Yeah. So I kind of wanted to just throw this situation at you and ask you, you know, what you think, like, how. How would you help this guy?
So was the only issue that he expressed was his problem with the ops manager and then cash flow. Is that.
Yeah, pretty much. I think he's having some issues with, you know, the slower months during the winter and just the general cash flow for the business. Yeah, but.
But the ops manager is not doing what he's supposed to do.
That's a big part of it.
Yeah.
You know.
Okay, so what do you think? Well, I mean, obviously I don't know enough about it. Right. There's a lot that leads to being 26,000 in the red. Right. In January. Not just the ops manager. So who else does he have in the office? Did you get into that? I'm sure you asked him.
He's got a small sales team, like three salespeople.
Okay. You know, so it's him, three salespeople, and this op slash dispatcher. That's it doing a million 4.1.4. Okay.
So, you know, there's not enough information to really dive into why he's 26k in the red. Right. But right off the bat, I could tell you that if you've got an ops manager, dispatcher is not doing what they're supposed to do, and they're making 75k and you're losing 26,000amonth. It's time to make some massive changes.
Yeah.
Right. So, you know, the first thing I would do is I would, you know, if. Listen, it's not about you don't have the money cut people, but it is about if the guy's not the right fit and you're bleeding out money, get rid of them.
Yeah, right.
You know, it's like, it's a much harder decision when.
Somebody'S really good and you're having cash flow issues and you're kind of concerned what you should do. But if he's clearly not the right fit, get that money back. Right. Meaning, like, cut that salary and go do it yourself at a million four. Like go back into the business. There's a reason that the ops manager is not doing what the ops manager is supposed to do.
Right.
And it sounds to me like he's probably just a dispatcher. Like, a lot of people will call a dispatcher an ops manager, but it sounds to me like that's probably what he is. I don't know, 75,000. Those. It's. It's more ops manager pay.
Yeah, well, a lot of those issues were coming from, you know, scheduling issues, movers, not not having enough movers, jobs getting missed, things like that.
Yeah. So there's.
There's.
There's a bigger issues here at hand. So.
Yeah.
Let's just say you've got some stuff out of control. Right. Right. Now, what I would do. Here's the questions that I would want to, like, guide him through to get more information. I would want to understand, you know, what it is that the ops manager is not doing, what it is he's asked him to do, that he's, you know, just blatantly not getting done right. And the best thing you could do in that situation, it's like, look, if you're low on cash flow and you've got a $75,000 employee that's not doing what they're supposed to do, that's an easy target.
You know, send them on his way. I mean, it is what it is. It's part of business. Send them on his way and go back and sit in that dispatch seat yourself as the owner of the company. And then this time, you do it right. This time you go in, and while you're sitting in that seat, you know, you look, we talk about you want to work on your business and not in your business. Right?
Yeah.
Say that all the time.
Yeah.
But sometimes you've got to go back and work in your business in order to be in a position to successfully work on your business. Right. I remember, man, what year was it? I had five locations already. I had the call center going. Right. I had stepped into this moving CEO role that we talk about, where I was kind of running the business off of meetings and numbers and block time on my calendar. And we had a dispatcher in that same location in that. That South Florida office that was just same kind of situation. Like, wasn't pulling his weight, wasn't doing. He was supposed to do, really had systems, had process, but just was this. I don't know, had personal issues. I don't know what was causing him not to do what he was supposed to do.
Yeah.
But it came to the point I was like, you know what? Enough's enough. Like, he's got to go. And luckily, I was in A position at that point where I wasn't tied with, to any specific like function of the business. Right. I kind of stepped into a role that, the moving CEO role. Right.
So you weren't involved in the day.
To day, like the day to day could run without me. Everything I was working on was, was projects and building the business and improving things. And I was like, you know what? And I love the dispatch like that.
Really?
Yeah. Like to go sit, like when, when I first started, it was like, man, to sit and have like 50, 50 jobs on the, on the calendar for the day, like and try to get them all service.
It was, that's kind of fun.
So fun.
That's where all the action and it's.
It'S so satisfying to be able to have this schedule that feels like, man, how are we going to get this done and then pull it all together? So like I enjoy it. I hadn't done it in a long time. So I said, you know what, I'm going to fire him and I'm going to personally go do it. Right. And this time I'm going to go in and I'm going to totally make sure that, you know, I'm going to like refine, tune it. Right. The processes, maybe they were outdated a little bit. Right. Maybe they needed to be tightened up. Maybe they needed me to come in and look at it and go, there's gotta be a better way. There's gotta be a better way. So I did it in the middle of the summer and it was two or three full months that I dispatched while running the call center, while running four other locations. Right. I went back in and I tightened that up so much that the next guy that came in, I set him up for success.
Yeah.
You know, not, not too long ago, we, we. I, I was telling this to a private client and he went and did the same thing.
Yeah.
He went in and said, you know what? I'm sick of this guy's, you know, I'm sick of his shit. I'm going to go in and I'm just going to clean house and do it myself. He'd been so far removed. You probably know what I'm talking, you know, you know, I'm talking about he's got the franchise.
I'm pretty sure I know what you're talking about.
Yeah. So he went in and cleaned house, you know, sent me a picture of the guys of the desk and was like before and after. And it was like a total disgusting, you know, just gross looking desk.
Yeah.
Right. Unorganized as could be. And then like a nice, clean, you know, methodical desk. And he's like, look, I did it. It's on point. I'm training somebody new now, and it's night and day. Right. So the point I'm making is for this guy.
And we won't say. Don't say his name, you know, whoever he is.
No, no, we'll respect his privacy.
Yeah, yeah. And so you got to go back in. You got to get in that driver's seat. Yeah, right. There's a reason you're losing $26,000 a month, and it's not because your operations manager is not listening to you.
Do you feel like, is that a step backwards? I mean, does. Should an owner feel bad about doing that?
No, absolutely not. I think that, you know, a lot of times we see, you know, company owners that need to make these kind of moves. Right. Like, this is probably way overdue. Right. The 26,000, you know, in. In the red, in. On his P. L. In January. Is that right?
That's what it was. 26K. Yeah.
You know, that didn't happen overnight. Right. There's. There's a longer. A longer issue here. Right. Of just probably. If I had to guess, things are just not being run tight. Yeah. Right. So you've got somebody making too much money. Okay. You've got a department that's not performing the way it's supposed to. You're a smaller company. You know, 1.1.1.4 is not a. You know, it's. It's a good sized company, but it's not a huge company where you're so far removed from the day to day. I. I would. I would fire the guy and go, go in there and set it up right. This time. Go in there and say, what can be done better? How can this be done better? And start laying out processes. Never go. If you're ever going to take. It's not a step back at all. It's like, let me go do what's going to make the biggest impact in my business. And what's going to make the biggest impact in the business is not just hiring a replacement and bringing that replacement in to work with a disorganized department. That's what it sounds like. Let's just call it what it is. Right. We could put the blame on the ops manager, but, you know, part of that might be the ops manager, and part of it might be lack of direction as well.
Yep.
So let's not bring somebody else in to then deal with that mess. Let's Go in and take the time to build that department out the right way. And while we're there, build the processes. I keep saying that because never go and work in your business after you've already removed yourself just to cover somebody or just until I get somebody new or until we hire somebody else, like, make use of that time.
It's an opportunity.
It's an opportunity because the only way you could really create a process is by doing it.
That's true.
How would you, like, sit from afar and go, okay, I'm gonna. You should do this, this, this, and this. You could start that way. But then it has to be tested, Right. To see if it works correctly. So I would. That would be the first thing I do.
Okay.
Second thing I would do is I would look at this. These three salespeople.
Okay.
How they're performing. Right.
You know, I would look at the three salespeople. I would pick, you know, a few calls from each of them to listen to. Right. Hopefully he's got a script. Hopefully there. There's some structure there.
But he's got to listen to their calls and see what it is they're saying. Right. Look for their closing techniques. I don't. I mean, if. He might not know what to look for. Right. But I mean, I think there's enough free videos on my website, LewisMissaro.com. yeah. And on this podcast that, you know, nobody even has to, you know, buy anything to get some little basic tips. Sure, right. On things to look for.
But you've got to make sure your booking percentage is up.
Right.
Because you're 26,000 in the hole. It's because, you know, your labor cost is too high, meaning you're not charging enough for your moves. Right. If you're, let's say your average moves, you know, $1,000, and you're paying out, you know, $400, you're paying out 40% of every move in labor. It's either you're paying your movers too much or you're not charging enough for your moves.
Yeah.
And most times it's that you're not charging, too. Enough for your moves. Right. So it's like, you've got to, man, sales solves so much. Right. You get that. You get the sales process dialed in. It solves so much. You got these three people. If these three people are burning through leads, not following up with leads. Right. Closing at a higher percentage. If he doesn't know his marketing ROI to understand, like, which lead sources are actually profitable. Right. Like the. The 26,000 is going somewhere. The money's coming in the top. Did you get a gross number for January or. No, you just know. 1.4 for the year.
Yeah. So, I mean.
Yeah, so he's probably.
I don't know. I'd say he's probably maybe 80,000 or something for January.
Yeah.
Maybe even less. I don't know. But.
I mean, to be.
But just bleeding.
Just bleeding.
Yeah.
You know, there's a bigger issue, and something led up to that, and we don't know if his books are accurate either. Right. Like, that 26,000 could be, you know, stuff from. From the previous month that was recorded on this month. He could have, like, double rent payments on. On his books if it's not done right. Based on just how. How it's being recorded. But regardless, all that, like, let's just. We don't have enough information to fully give this guy, like, a prescription on what to do.
Yeah.
But we'll talk in. In general.
Okay.
Right.
He's got to get rid of the sales manager. He's got to go in and tighten up the sales process, listen to the calls of each rep, see where there's opportunities that they're missing. Right. You want to make sure that they're going for the sale. You want to make sure that if the customer, you know, has any type of, hey, you know, I need to check around or whatever, they don't just say, okay, great, I'll call you back. Right. You need to make sure they're capturing lead data. Right. Somebody calls in for a quote, they're putting that information into your system.
Mm.
Those are your leads that you're paying for. Right. So I could almost guarantee you that his. His sales department is needing a revamp. Right.
And you think he should raise the rates.
No, I'm not saying he. I don't know what he should do. I don't have enough information to really. I don't. I don't want, like, him to listen. Oh, that's me. Yeah. And go. This is what I should do. I'm saying you're. If anyone's struggling with cash flow. Yeah. Right. There's a bigger issue at hand. You're either paying too high of. Of labor.
Yeah.
Okay. Which, again, I'm repeating this because I just want. You're paying too high in labor percentage. Not that your movers are getting too much. You just might not be charging enough. There's. There's two ways to lower your labor percentage, and it's either you lower what you're paying your movers, or you Increase your price.
So it's more of like a per job basis than overall.
Yeah, overall. Well, revenue, you know, I do it on a weekly basis. So how much? You know, if you did, if you brought in a hundred thousand in a week, you paid out 25,000 in payroll, it's 25%.
Yeah.
Right. So you know, usually lowering your movers pay isn't going to result in anything good. Right.
They won't be happy about that.
You might have a little mutiny on your hands. So you need to raise the prices. But in order to raise the prices, you've got to be able to have a strong sales process. Right, right. There's, there's, there's a lot to that. I mean you could go look for all the sales material on my site or, or this podcast and start listening to that.
Or you've got office staff that's getting paid too much. You know, this, this for 75,000 in a $1.4 million company. You should have been kind of running the day to day of this business.
Yeah, he does do a lot of day to day stuff now. Now as someone who day to day.
Is in like not just operations, not just dis. If he doesn't have a dispatcher, this operations manager is probably spending most of his time dispatching trucks, dealing with movers in the morning, dealing with the customers during the day, dealing with the movers when they come back. He's not, you know, running the whole business, I would imagine.
Yeah, right.
If there's not another dispatcher there.
So for someone who, who decides, okay, I'm going to go back into the business and I'm going to wear this hat.
I mean, how long does it take to kind of revamp that position and get everything where you want it to be?
It all depends. You know, you might open up a real, you know, Pandora.
You might discover some secrets.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think, you know, these types of things happen and to me, I always.
I see it happen to people and even with me in situations where like, you know, you should have handled this a long time ago. You know, you should have dealt with it a long time ago. And you just kind of let it linger to the point where you're 26, 000 in the hole in a month. Right to the point that the dispatcher's not ops manager is not listening to you and doing the things that you need. Like you should have handled that a long time ago. The minute you realize he wasn't the right fit, you should have gotten rid of him.
It's just been festering there for.
It's just been festering.
Yeah.
Right. And.
Yeah, yeah. So I think that it could take. Listen, it could take a few weeks or it could take a few months. Right. The key is not to put yourself. You go in on a mission. Don't take this. Oh, honey, you want to believe it. I got to dispatch trucks again. Right. Be excited about it. Be like, I'm going to turn this shit around. Like, I'm going to fix this now.
Right. It's time.
It's time.
Yeah.
You know, and don't be afraid of. Of, you know, a lot of times people will be afraid of. Oh, man, my movers are going to like, you know, like, you feel like you've got to be perfect because you're the owner.
Yeah. Everybody's looking.
Everybody's looking.
Yeah.
Right. And the reality is you can call on the people around you for help. You know, you could, you could talk to your movers. Hey, help me out. How was he doing this before? And you know, that type of stuff and, you know, you don't have to know everything. Right. You just have to be able to get the access to know everything.
What if.
Let's. Let's just say like in this particular situation, maybe instead he was paying the guy a reasonable salary.
Yeah.
And. But there were still some issues, and he. He decides as the owner. You know what? I don't want to get rid of this guy, but I do want to revamp the position. How do you do that without taking over the position yourself?
You look, first of all, you want to always look at, you know, is it. The problems come in one of two ways. Right. It's the people or it's the process. So every problem you're having in your business is either the people or the process or the person and the particular process. So I always would look at the process first instead of blaming the person. Yeah, it's easy to blame the person. You know, the reality is, did you take the time to lay out exactly what they're supposed to do, or did you think that they're going to read your mind and just do a good job?
Yeah.
Right. Work hard, do a good job. Hire movers. And they're supposed to figure out how to do it so you could go work along? So let's say, you know, he was, like you said, he's okay. It's not that he's not listening and he wants to keep him around. He just wants to revamp the department. Yeah. Go into that department for two weeks if you have any. If you're listening, you have any department sales, Your warehouse storage. Right. Movers on the job. Doesn't matter. You go into that department for two weeks, and that's all you do is spend time in there saying, there's got to be a better way. There's got to be a way to fix all this that's going on and develop processes that will make it run smooth. Like, oh, wow, we're dropping the ball here. We. We're dropping the ball there. How could we fix that? That's just a communication issue, right?
Yeah.
The salesperson's not putting in the proper notes into the CRM. Well, the dispatcher is not able to see exactly what needs to happen on that job, so how is he supposed to tell the movers what to bring?
Right.
And you follow up. You see what I'm saying? Like, you just. You just start to identify what the root cause of the issue is. You don't go in there and just start putting band aids on a bunch of stuff.
Yeah, Right.
You look for the root cause and know that this will be one of the most transformative things you could do for your business. I mean, I've. I've. I've advised many people to go do this in different departments. Oh, you're having an issue. Good. Go spend the next two weeks in that department and don't do anything else.
How long did you run dispatch?
It was two or three months. I forget it was at least two months, but it was the middle of summer.
Okay.
Yeah. And it was just, you know, I was. I was kind of having fun.
And you found somebody to fill the position. You had all the processes laid out for them, so they walked in and were able to be successful right off of the bat. And then what differences did you. Did that make in the company? Like, did you see.
Oh, it's huge. I mean.
There'S my story, and then there's the stories of our clients. Right. And so I think of so many scenarios where myself or someone else went in to a department and, like, I'm gonna fix this department. And maybe they fixed that and that was the end of it. Or they fixed that and then they realized that, oh, this. This other area needs some help.
You discovered somewhere else that.
Yeah, it's like you. You know, if you go in and remodel a house, you're like, oh, we're get this house, and, you know, we'll just remodel the kitchen and the bathrooms. And then all of a sudden, they look so fantastic. You're like, man, we got to redo the whole house that happened for. So, you know, the thing is, it starts you on this path where it seems scary, where you don't want to, you don't want to jump in right away. Everybody resists it. I resisted it. The people that I give this advice to resist it. They don't want to do it.
Yeah.
They don't want to go back to, you know, getting on a truck. They don't want to go back to, you know, sitting in the dispatch seat and getting to the office at 6:30 in the morning. They don't want to go back to calling leads and having to do all that stuff. But you've got to look at what's beyond that. Right. It's either you're going to always struggle to figure out the same thing over and over and over, or you just take the time right now to go in and not go in with band aids, but go in and perform surgery, fix that area. And you know, what if that, you know, new, well, performing area starts to highlight another area that, you know, seemed okay before, but now that this one's so good, this one doesn't seem as good anymore.
Yeah.
Great. Go spend a couple weeks there.
Yeah.
And work on that. Like, focus your attention on what's going to make the biggest impact in your business. But make sure that as you're doing it, you're leaving processes behind you, you're leaving role descriptions behind you. Right. What? Like if he's sitting in this, in the chair of dispatch and doing that for a few weeks, he needs to be also working on the role description. What is it that I want a dispatcher to do? Right, exactly. Laying it out like not, not, not their processes. Because processes and role description are different. Right. Role descriptions, like, you know, I want them to dispatch the trucks every morning by 6:30am Right. I want them to clock out the cruise. You know, they're writing out a description of what they would do and then, you know, morning dispatch in and of itself would have its own process.
Yeah.
Clocking out the cruise would have its own process. But what is it I want from this individual? And then when you go to hire that person, you know exactly what you're looking for. Right, right. Instead of just hiring somebody like, oh, they seem like a good person, you're like, no, this is exactly what I need. I mean, it becomes essentially also your, your job description and what you're able to talk to somebody about with what you're looking for in the position where, you know, I know from my early Days. And I know from, you know, working with people, a lot of times you'll sit down to hire somebody. Like, yeah, you know, we're looking for somebody. We've got. This is kind of what you do, and this is kind of what you do. And here's what's going on.
Watch this guy for a while.
Watch him, and you'll kind of see. And. And that's it. Right. If you could be specific.
This stuff changed. This stuff changes your business.
Yeah.
Right. So the point I want to make is don't be afraid to go back into your business. Don't feel like you're taking a step back to be able to do it. Like, for me, early on, like, I opened multiple locations, and then I had issues. You know, the guy who was running my main location.
Just wasn't doing a great job. Right. And so you're somewhere over here. Well, I'm somewhere over here.
Yeah.
So I had to then go over there and do the same thing. So I. Now I think about it, I actually had to go back into dispatch several times. Right. While I was growing all the. All the locations, I'd have to go and sit at that office for, you know, few weeks to a month. Right. Figured out. And this. This is early on, before I had the. The set processes that were uniform across the locations. So it was. It was a struggle to, like, refigure it out, bring somebody in, retrain them all. Right. During this whole process of flying back and forth to locations, dealing with this, this is when I'm like, no, no, it's got to be.
Oh, you're plate spinning. Yeah.
It's got to be uniform across the board. Everybody's got to do it the same way, or I can't tell if they're doing it right.
Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. For somebody who. Who, you know, has. Let's say they've gone into the business, they've reestablished the. The roles.
The.
The processes for that position, they've. They've cleaned it up. They've cleaned up the mess. Right. They. They feel confident, they hire somebody else, bring them in, and they step away to go back to working on the business. Right.
Is.
You'll be. You'll be a different person.
Yeah.
Did that process will make you a different person. All the fear, uncertainty, and insecurity that you feel in your business is because of your lack of control of what's going on. When you go back in and you get that control again. You got your hands on it, right?
Yeah.
You put your. You've got Your hands on the steering wheel like you've got it.
Yeah.
And then you, like, design it in a way with your. Your current level of knowledge, experience and ability to implement. Right. And with this information, and then you step away. You're stepping away knowing that person has a role description, they've got processes to do what they need to do. I have ways to. For checks and balances, to know what's going on. I've got time set up to meet with them to make sure that we're, you know, our agenda is where it needs to be and we're moving things along. I know my numbers and metrics and all that. You're a different person. You know what I mean? You come out of it stronger.
Yeah. The confidence is there.
The confidence is there.
Yeah.
So. And hopefully, you know, you learn like, okay, I can't just move so quickly in trying to grow that I sacrifice setting things up the right way in the foundation so that I have something to actually grow on and stack on instead of doing it on quicksand.
Yeah.
You know, and I. And I think you gotta. If you're in this position and you're thinking about, okay, I've got to go back into the business, or you're having cash flow issues, you've got to look around too and say, like, everybody that I've got on salary, are they, like, holding their weight? Are they worth that? You know, we'll see. A lot of times people will have, you know, like, way too much office staff for what they have going on. And the reason somebody ends up with all that office staff is because of inefficiencies within their processes. Right, right. So if you're able to go in there and streamline all that and go, well, this takes 10 steps, how could we just do it in two steps? Right. Like, why do I. Why does all this work have to be done by the bookkeeper when the CRM could just integrate directly with QuickBooks and that eliminates the need for that. Right. So you start to find all these areas where you could make it more efficient. And now you don't need all these people.
Yeah, right.
Which is another cause of why somebody would be, you know, 26,000 in the red is that their fixed payroll is way too high.
That's what I was going to ask you is if, you know, let's say things are going well and you're not having issues, but, you know, there are probably some inefficiencies. There are probably some, you know, unnecessary steps and tasks going on within the company, like Would you recommend an owner step away from the business to go work on that when things are going well, or should they just wait until there's an issue?
So I would say that if you're looking to optimize your business and you know that you could be doing better in certain areas. Right. Analyze what those are, and if you're unsure. What I used to love to do is I used to like to go sit in a department for a few days or a week. Right.
Like, regularly.
Yeah. When I felt that there was something there that I, you know, could be improved. Yeah. And I would just sit there and take notes and not say anything to anybody. Tell them this. I'm just gonna hang out in here. But it was like customer service or sales or. Or dispatch and just kind of see how things went. I would never, ever, ever interfere at the moment. If I saw the dispatcher doing something that was just wrong.
Yeah.
I wouldn't say anything at the moment.
You wait.
I'd wait. Because otherwise, now he's on eggshells, and it just creates, you know, And I want him to do his normal thing. I don't want him to be on his best behavior because I'm there.
Yeah.
So I wait and I just make notes and I look for areas that.
Can be, you know, optimized. Okay. Right. And the only way. So we talk about gaining freedom. Right. And be able to work on. That's working on your business. That's not working in your business. Working in your business would be to be the dispatcher.
Yes.
But to go sit in a department and observe it for ways that you can make it better so your customers get better service and you make more money. That's working on your business. And so when you identify, like, I'm sure if you're listening right now, you know, get out a pen, get out a piece of paper. Just write down off the top of your head. I bet you you've got five to 10 areas where, you know, you could improve right now.
Right?
Right. Five to ten areas where, you know you can improve. Take those. Put them in order of priority. Which one will make the biggest impact in my business now? And just put them on the calendar and start chipping away one at a time. Yeah, yeah.
Is there, you know, is there a way for an owner to.
When they're. When they're in that position, is there a way for them to not let the other responsibilities they have or to. For them to continue working on growing the business and scaling at the same time, or should they just put that on hold and just focus on, on doing the dispatch for the next two weeks. And that's.
Depends, right? I mean, it kind of depends on what, you know, a lot of people are trying to scale before they have the foundation under control, which is such a bad idea. I mean, I did it and it's like I'm. The only reason I was able to recover from it is because I was a young kid that didn't have any responsibilities as far as like family or kids or you know, anything like that. And I could work all these hours and fly all these places to keep it all under control. But if you start to, you know, scale and grow, you know, meaning like open another location or open another division or something like that, when your foundation isn't on point, you're always going to end up back in that dispatch seat. You're always going to end up back on that sales floor. You're always going to end up back, you know, dealing with your long distance trucks, right? And it's, you've got to be able to look back and go, okay, let me look at the history of my business. You know, let's say you've been in business 10 years. You know, how many times did I have to like, go back to the drawing board? Go back to the drawing board, like, oh, and now I got a good ops manager, I got a good sales manager. Oh, it's cool. Right now for a few months, something happens and then you're back there. So if you take the time and I, you know, like, for me, if young me was listening to this, I'd feel like, you know, it was some like old dude giving me like advice, like, slow down. And it's not that, it's that you can't build if you don't have a foundation. So you've got to take, you know, the key areas, right? You gotta make sure you're generating leads, booking moves, servicing moves, making sure your customers are happy and giving you five star reviews and, and then your accounting, your reports and all that, you've got to make sure that that stuff is on point. And once it's on point, you could build on that. Yeah, right, you could build on that. And you've got to make sure that your team is pulling their weight. And sometimes we overreach, sometimes we overstep, sometimes we hire right at a big position, or we open another location, or we get into another division, we start doing long distance, or we start doing commercial, or we get, we get distracted. If you find yourself in a place where you've Kind of overreached. And that one little overreach is causing issues everywhere else. Yeah. Like don't be afraid to pull back on that. Don't be afraid to let people go. Don't be afraid if, you know, you opened an office three years ago and it's doing nothing but losing money and it's taking your time and energy away from your, your breadwinner, your main office. Right. It's either you've got to take enough massive action to go and get that other office under control and profitable now without just assuming that it'll get profitable or shut it down.
Yeah.
And focus on where you make money. Right. We've only got so much individual bandwidth and energy. And if you're being diverted in all these like non productive ventures or with these non productive employees. Right. You could streamline, make it easier on yourself and make more money.
You're not failing.
You're not failing.
Yeah.
You're not failing.
There's no shame in getting your focus.
Yeah. Actually, yeah. You know, it's, there's no shame in that. And I, and it's a shame, it's a shame that people will be so afraid to quote, unquote, fail that they'll keep like pursuing the wrong thing.
What do you mean?
Like, let's just say they've, they've got, you know, they're, they're, they're. I don't know, I've seen it with people where, where they get in, they're so excited to get into military. Yeah, right. Or they're so excited to get into commercial. Or they're so excited to get in the long distance and they do it and it's beyond their, their, their current bandwidth of what they can really handle. Like they underestimated what it was going to take to really take that on and own that. They figured, hey, I own a moving company, no problem, I could do that too. Or I could do that too. Or open another office and realize that, no, no, no, this thing's like a whole like monster in and of itself. And I see it right where it'll, it'll, they'll let, they'll let it drag the good part of their company down and drag their energy down. So you've got to be able to look and say, you know what? This is a division that's not working. I miscalculated this. Now I'm not saying just give up because it's hard at first. I'm not saying that.
Okay.
What I'm saying is you've done everything right. You've taken the action you needed to take. You looked at and said, how do we fix this? And you went and took that action. Still not. Still doesn't work. And meanwhile, other areas are slipping. Your main business where your money's is slipping, your home life slipping, your health slipping. Right. But somebody won't cut off that division and say, you know what, let's just go back and let's just do, you know, local moves, for example, let's just stick with, let's just stick with that for now and regroup. Because they're afraid of being a failure to all these imaginary people they think are watching and caring.
Yeah.
Right. And I. Listen, I, I could say that because I used to feel that way.
Yeah.
You know what I mean? And, and I've gone through it and I've grown and I've evolved, so I know that nobody's watching, nobody cares. But if there's something that's, if there's an ankle weight that's holding you back, that's just not productive, cut it off and focus on the stuff that works and keep it simple. There's no badge of honor for, you know, going down with that sinking ship.
Yeah. There's no shame in admitting that you, you may have bit off more than you can chew.
Yeah.
And that's, that's probably a sign of, of business maturity in that situation, when you're able to admit that to yourself.
Yeah, absolutely. Like, I think that.
Yeah, you said it perfect to be able to realize that you bit off more than you could chew.
Yeah.
And that's a consequence of being a go getter. Sometimes that happens.
It's gonna happen.
You know what I mean? Like, if you're aggressive and you go after things.
You may end up in a position where you bite off more than you could chew. But there's a difference between, hey, I bit off more than I could chew. So for the next few months, I'm gonna have to make all these adjustments to handle this.
Yeah.
And I bit off more than I could chew. And now I'm just gonna drag myself through the mud and suffer for the next three years.
It's better to just stop the bleeding.
It's. You gotta, you gotta just face facts. Right. And have zero attachment to it as a failure.
Well, part of that, you know, stepping away or closing down a division that wasn't working or whatever, inevitably, you're probably gonna have to fire somebody, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
That's never easy.
No.
You know, is there, is there any kind of. I mean, how do you fire somebody Is there a way to do it?
I mean, listen, the reality is you just have to do it. Yeah, right. You just have to do it. You have to go into it knowing that that's what you're doing. Right? Your decision is made. You know, there's. There's many reasons for firing somebody. Let's do a whole nother. We'll do a whole nother episode, okay? Yeah, yeah. There's. There's. There's many reasons, but.
You know that you. You could just not afford them anymore. Right. They're not the right fit. They blatantly did something that violates company policy. You know, there's different ways of handling, but the reality is it's part of being a business owner. Yeah, you want to be a business owner. This is the stuff that comes with it. You know, it's. It's harder to be a business owner than it is to be an employee.
Right.
And there's a lot of risk and there's a lot of reward, so. And there's a lot of stuff that you have to do and responsibility that you have to take, and you've got to be able to accept that and own it, and that's just part of it. So the reality is, you know, we'll do another episode on it, but if you've got to do it, you just have to do it. And you're not doing anybody any favors. If you knew you needed to let somebody go six months ago and you've kept them all this time, you're not helping them. They need to move on. Like, it's part.
It's.
It's the struggle you have as a business owner and those decisions. And when you stay up late at night, like, oh, man, they got a family. It's going to be hard on them. You know, when I brought them in, I told them that there's. There's unlimited potential here for them, and I just. I've got to let them go. But he's, you know, such a good guy or such a good gal. And, like, you know what? That's the stress you deal with as a business owner. And them saying, oh, I just got fired. I need to now go find something else. How am I going to take care of my family? That's the stress that an employee deals with. It's. It's. It's part of. It's part of the. Just part of business. It's part of how things work. They'll be okay. They'll find something else. You know, it's not. It's not the End of the world.
Yeah.
And you've got to be able to tell yourself to do that. And you've got to really look and say, you know, is. Is this person in this position and what they do hurting me or helping me? And look at it overall, not like, well, they do some things that help. No, no, no. The money you're spending, right? That needs to be an investment in the value that they bring to the company. And if the money you spend, if they don't bring that value and then some.
Then, you know, it either needs. There needs to be an adjustment or. Or they need. They need to go.
Time to go.
Yeah, yeah. So as far as, you know, as far as this guy's concerned.
Did you. When was this, by the way?
I think last week.
Okay.
Yeah.
All right. Yeah. I mean, I'd love to know more and be able to, like, dive in and give him a direct, you know, direct answer, but overall, I mean, that's. That's what it comes down to. You know, you've got. You've got cash flow issues. It didn't just happen, you know, you've got to know that, you know, December, January, February, it could happen in the moving business, there could be a dip, you know, so what you want to do is you want to learn from that. So if you're in a position where you're struggling with cash flow right now, you'll get through it, you'll be okay, right? Maybe you've got to fire some people, maybe you've got to sell some trucks. Maybe you've got to cut off an unproductive, you know, money losing division, right? Don't be afraid to take the massive action to save yourself now. But then when you're out of it, don't forget what happened, right? Don't forget what you went through. When summer comes and money's like flying from the ceiling and you're like, throwing it up in the air like, you know, Scrooge McDuck. Like you. You need to remember that and make sure that you put some money away for the off season, right? It's just. It's the reality of the business. You got to strategically plan for it and know what's coming. And it all comes back to the basics. And I know it sounds like, okay, Louis, that's easy to say, but you've got to know your numbers, you've got to know where you're at every day. You've got to just say, you know, what, where do I need to go? What could I do to get myself there, right? It's so easy to, you know, fall into, like, a dark place. Right. And just feel down and out and depressed. I mean, I. I went through this in the. In. In the recession, you know, like, I was juggling money between six offices, trying to keep everything afloat, right. When. When everything just kind of came crashing. I had way too much money. I was spending in Yellow Pages, and I had to deal with this and felt like the whole business was just collapsing on my head. I mean, it put me into, like, a very deep depression.
Really?
Yeah. And so I, you know, I understand what it's like to be there, and it's not like, you know, hey, just, you know, save some money and you'll be okay when you're there. You don't want to hear that. Yeah, right. When you're going through it, that's. That's not helpful. You just have to know that all you could do is the best you could do and make sure that you're doing the best you could do. Make sure that each day you're taking good action. Right? Whatever. I mean, like, whatever you got to do to snap yourself out of it and make it happen. Like, that's the only way I got myself out of the mix, out of the mess, was every day I was taking action, taking action, taking action. At first, it didn't feel like I was making a dent in the whole thing, but I was chipping away. Chipping away, reducing expenses, making more money here, becoming more efficient there. Right. Just consistently making moves and at the same time, putting things in place so that it would never happen again.
Right?
Right. So it's like, if you know you're at rock bottom, there's only one way to go, which is up. Right? You just have to, like, literally go. And every action you take on a daily basis needs to be leading you in that direction. You know, you can't sit around feeling sorry for yourself. You can't talk about how, you know, it's the time of year, it's the economy, it's my market, it's my movers. It's none of that. Where you're at today is because of previous actions. And I don't say that to. To. To make you feel bad about it. I say it because you've got to get real with yourself. You know what I mean? Like, there was. I had to look myself in the mirror and be like, all right, enough of this. Like, you got to, like, step up, put your big boy pants on, and do what you need to do. Like, enough whining about this, you put yourself here, you opened up all these offices, you were over extended in this stuff. Like now get yourself out of it, right? And you could do it. And then once you do it once, you know, I almost feel like, you know, everybody goes through it at some level. Every, everybody has those, those hard times. It's having them over and over and over again is strictly due to the lack of commitment and decision to say, like, this isn't going to happen again. Let me get this in order, right? Let me do it right this time, right? Use, use. You know, if you're, if you're down right now, if you're, you know, just listen, I don't. You don't have to be going through a depression. You don't. Like, you could just be having a bad month financially, right? And you just have to know it's, it's time to really get serious about it, right? Like for me, I didn't have, I didn't get serious about it until that happened. I didn't really start diving in on my numbers, diving into my processes, all that until I had to go through those hard times. Because before that I was making so much money. It was like, ah, whatever. My account, be like, you gotta be. You have to review your P. Ls. Yeah, okay, whatever. Here they are. You review them, right? I got money. I'm good. You know, so listen, just know, listen. If this, if this is helpful, if this information is helping you right now, listen, go back, listen to all. Go back to the beginning of this podcast and listen to every single one of them. If you get tips, great. If you get inspiration, great. If you help shake off some of the fear and the uncertainty, great. You've got to get little bits and pieces as you rebuild your business. You've got it. You've got to realize that you're, you're. You've got fear of uncertainty. What will happen? I get it. What's going to happen with my family? What's going to happen with my business? What's going to happen if I can't pay these bills? What's going to happen if I can't pay my employees? All that stuff. Yeah, right.
Can be scary.
It could be scary, but you got to know that you could get through it. You just can't. You can't sit around and wallow in it. You've got to take action. And literally, if taking action means going back and spending your, like, you know, turn Netflix off. Listen to all, Listen to all of these episodes, right? If there's other stuff out There. Great. I'm not, you know, it's not about that, but I know what I have to be able to help you with.
Yeah.
And it's there. It's free. You know, go to. Go to my. Go to the website, watch all those videos, go to YouTube, watch all those videos and do what you need to do to get yourself in a position where you're. Where you just say, like, never again. Like, this isn't going to happen again. Yeah, that's it.
That's great. I think a lot of people are going to find that helpful.
Yeah. I mean, listen, it happens to everybody. Like, we've got this. The same way that I give these pep talks. Like I'm. I give those to myself.
Yeah, Right.
Like, I have bad days. I have a bad few days. Right. I don't usually let it go past a few days, but, you know, you've. You got to keep yourself on point. That's it. And then you've got to be able to be real and go, yeah, I'm in this position today because I wasn't really that on point before.
Get the ego out of the way.
Get the ego out of the way. Stop making the excuses. Stop blaming it on other people. Nobody's coming to rescue you. You've got to step up and you've got to take the action you need to take.
That's awesome.
So that's awesome.
Good.
Well, listen, if you guys like this episode, if it was helpful, do me a favor, go on Instagram and.
Take a snapshot of.
You watching this, you listening to this, DM it to me. I just want to know that you got some value out of it. Let me know what points in particular were helpful and what you're going to apply and what you're going to commit to. Right. I love seeing that stuff. It's not just about me putting information out there. I want to see the information applied. I want to see it help you, you know, again, profit in your business and also thrive in your life. Right. You've got to have both. You've got to constantly be raising up both. And so until I see you next time, go out there. Profit in your business, thrive in your life. If you got any other questions, send them to Mesaro on Instagram, all my social media Isaro, and we'll try to get it in on an episode for you. We'll see you next time. It.