Moving Season Targets

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Hey, my friends, it's Louis Massaro. And welcome to another episode of the Moving Mastery Podcast.

This podcast is all about helping you reach that next level in your moving company. And we do that by sharing with you how processes and strategies and ideas that get you thinking bigger on what's possible. You know, I grew my business from working out of a truck rental yard all the way to $20 million a year. And I want to help share those strategies with you so that you could reach that next level in your business, whatever that is for you. And, you know, it's not all about just making more money. It's about profiting in your business and thriving in your life. And we do that by, you know, being able to set up those systems, set up those processes so we could step away and work on our business and not be every single day stuck in the grind so that we have some time to enjoy with our families and just enjoy life and the fruits of our labor. And today, I am just so excited to talk to you about something that's gonna help you reach that next level in your business. And it's called Smart Moving Software. This is a company that I co founded with an amazing partner and group of programmers that have just built an amazing platform. You know, this is a software that runs your entire moving business. Not only runs it, but truly optimizes it. You know, one of the things that I the most is that you have just ultimate clarity into your numbers. I mean, as soon as you log in, you've got a dashboard right there that just tells you everything that's going on. You know, one of the things that I've realized over the years that helps moving companies really get to that next level of success is being able to know their numbers. And, you know, without a system that pulls everything together, it could be really, really challenging. And Smart Moving just has all the reports and all the information dialed in the way that you need it to be. And I'm just so excited to tell you about it today. So go check it out, get a demo, go to smartmoving.com, sign up for a free demo, check it out, and listen, if you don't have a CRM in this modern day of moving, you need a CRM. If you've already got a CRM and you're just looking for an upgrade, something that's more streamlined, something that gives you all the tools that actually matter, go to smartmoving.com, check it out. It's gonna help you do everything from the minute you get leads to Your sales process, to customer service, to dispatch, to following up with your crews, to handling your numbers and your books and your reports. Everything you need is there in a streamlined, systematic, automated process. And I'm just so excited to be a part of it. I'm so excited to finally have a solution to offer to moving company owners that for years were asking me, louis, what platforms did you use? What softwares did you use? And the truth is, I used a lot of different stuff that I had to tie together because there wasn't something like Smart Moving that allowed me to just do everything in one place. And now that we have that, I mean, we've got customers at all different levels using this software. You know, companies that, you know, maybe they're just starting out, companies that have been in business for 10 years, they've got 10, 15 trucks. We've got nationwide franchises that are running their entire operation off of smart Moving. So I want you to go check it out today because I'm so excited about it. It's called Smart Moving Software. Get your free demo@smartmoving.com and without further ado, let's jump into this episode of the Moving Mastery Podcast. This is really where, you know, I kind of say, all right, look, what's going on now? And how can you maximize your business and really take advantage of the current season or the current circumstances, Whatever's going on in the economy, whatever new technology's out there, and right now, starting today, it's moving season. All right, so what we're going to talk about is we're going to talk about doing 120 day sprint. All right, so you've got May 15th, which is today. Okay. And then we're going to take that through.

September 15th.

Okay, so that's going to be your 120 day.

Sprint.

I'm a big believer in business in having sprints. Usually it's a 90 day sprint, right? In typical circumstances where you kind of go hard on one thing and then take a little break, relax, recuperate, figure out what the next move is. Usually those are quarterly sprints. However, with moving season, we're going to do a 120 day sprint to where you maximize moving season. All right, I know you know it's going to get busy. However, what a lot of people will do during moving season is assume that it's going to get busy and kind of rest on their laurels a little bit. Right? So what I want to do today is I want to talk about some ways where you can maximize this season to bring in More money. And we do that by setting targets. Right? You know, it's, it's, it's easy to say, hey, I'm just going to go out seasons here, we're going to make a bunch of money. But if we don't have a clear target on where we're headed and what we want and where we're going, then it's easy to just drift. It's easy to get caught up in the day to day of what's going on and not hit those numbers. Right? And just because we're hitting certain numbers and just because we're busier than we are the rest of the year doesn't mean that we're going to be profitable. Right? So I want to give you some targets that I want you to set, alright? And I want you to set them from today, May 15th through September 15th. All right? That's going to. And by the way, I don't know if it's exactly 120 days, it's four months. All right? So somebody I know, somebody's going to be in the chat, like Louis, it's 123 days or it's 118 days. Whatever it is, it's a four month sprint. Okay? So here's what we're going to do. We're going to go over five different areas of revenue targets that you need to set and then try to achieve this moving season and realize that setting a high target is a good thing. Right. You know, if your targets are constantly being hit or your goals are constantly being hit, you're not setting them high enough. Never be afraid to not hit your target. Okay? The targets aren't there to get hit, they're there to keep you moving towards them. So don't feel like you need to set this low realistic target so that you can win the game. Hitting the target is not winning the game. All right? Getting beyond where you are now, that's what starts to advance you towards winning the game. So let's talk about these areas. First area is gross revenue target. Okay? So gross revenue for your business, everything combined. Right. Whatever you do, local long distance storage, everything combined, gross revenue for May through September 15th. Okay. So the best way to do this would be to take a look, you know, run the dates in your CRM for May 15th through September 15th of last year. Okay. And see where you're at. Right. See how each month breaks down so that you could kind of identify certain milestones of where you are along the way to see if you're on track. But take a Look at last year and then see where you are now, right? Do you have more momentum? Have you increased over last year? Right. As the first quarter of the year. So if you run those numbers on January, February and March, and you know, include April in there too, what percentage are you up over last year? Right? Do you have more leads coming in? Do you have more salespeople? Do you have more trucks and movers and opportunity to, to bring in more money, right? And you're going to want to set your target based on gross revenue, okay? This is the easiest number to attain in the way of, like, it's the easiest thing to just shoot for a high number. But it's not everything because it doesn't really matter at the end of the day what the gross revenue is if it's not translating into net profit, right? I mean, you know, it's not really about what your company does. You're not winning awards for doing 2 million, 3 million, 20 million, whatever it is, you're not winning awards for that, right? Your awards are the net profit that you're able to take home at the end of the day. All right? So gross revenue target, they need that. That's first. Then your RPM target, your revenue per move. So this is going to help you increase this, right? Revenue per move. Another way of saying your average move is so important right now because most people will run into capacity issues over the next few months, meaning, you know, I'm talking to people already, and they're already booked out for the end of this month, right? And so when you start to hit capacity issues, meaning you don't have enough trucks or movers to service all the demand, what do you got to do to raise the revenue, right? You got to make more money per move. So how do we make more money per move? Well, number one, raise your prices, right? This is the best time of the year to raise your prices. If you've been hesitant to do so, or even if you've already raised your prices, this is a great time to raise them again, right? You know, a higher price. People are worried that people won't move with them, right? But if you're selling service and not price, and you've got the objections, most of you are in moving sales academy. You've got the online course, you've got all the rebuttals, and you have, you know what to say to overcome that. You could sell at the higher price, but even if it reduces your volume, that's okay because you can't handle as much volume in the summer, right? If you're finding yourself turning away business, you need to raise the prices, right? Another thing is, you know, your revenue per move can consist of packing, right? How much packing are you selling on each individual move? Now, packing can be sold at the time of sale, meaning when they're booking the move, it could be sold. We do a seven day packing checkup call where seven days prior to the move, we call the customer to see how the packing, you know, how everything's going, your moves coming up, it's a week out. Just wanted to check in on your packing. See, you know, if you've been able to get everything packed, it shows here that you're going to be doing the packing yourself. You know, and the customer's like, well, tell you the truth, it's a mess. I haven't had time to do anything. Oh, well, you know, we offer packing services as well. Then you go into selling packing. A week out is perfect to do that because you know, the people that are behind, right? And at that point, if they haven't started packing a week out, they're going to be a little stressed out about it. And if you could come in and help them alleviate that, plus, you know, raise your revenue per move, perfect, right? You could also do this again on the confirmation call two days before the move. And all of your movers should always have packing material on the truck, right? You go out there and you know, there's paintings on the wall that need to be packed, right? They can sell additional packing, right? You know, mattress covers, mattress bags, shrink wrap, right. All this additional stuff that, you know, Even general boxes, 1.5, 3.0s, whatever it is, where, you know, you go out there and there's stuff not packed that they said they just didn't have time to do. It's an opportunity to sell additional packing. Now of course, always make sure that the customer knows that there is an additional charge. Don't just pack up a bunch of stuff and then, you know, hit them with a bill. They need to understand what it is they're paying for.

You know, you also could bring in storage as well, right? Don't think that storage has to be all or nothing. A lot of times a customer will, you know, just need to store one room of furniture, right? So always have storage paperwork with your movers on every job, even if that job's not a storage job, right? Be proactive in having the materials and having the stuff you need to do that. So, you know, you raise your price, you sell some packing and any other additional services that you could do. Maybe you're selling valuation, right? Anything additional that you could sell on those moves, right? Maybe there's some things you're not charging for, but you want to start charging for. You know, maybe you can charge for a truck fee or a trip fee that you don't normally do, right? I was talking to somebody recently, and they're like, I'm going to add $40 trip fee to every job. They did the math. I forget what the number was, but it was a significant amount of additional money. Now, they weren't going to just add it. They were going to tell the customer up front, right? It was like part of the estimate. It was going to be added into the estimate. But see how you can raise your revenue per move. Now's the perfect time to do that, right? Sometimes in the other parts of the year, you're like, I just need moves. I just need moves. I just need moves. I have trucks to fill, right? I have guys to keep busy. Well, now you're like, my trucks are full. My guys are busy. Okay, well, let's, you know, if your average moves, you know, $800, can we get it to 950, right? Do the math. You could easily raise, you know, hundred dollars across the board average move easily with increased rate and selling some additional packing. All right? So figure out where you, what your revenue per move target could be. So, for example, if you're at.

You know, 800 average, maybe your target's going to be 850 average or 900 average or 950 average. So by the end of this sprint, where can you get your average move up to, right? Doesn't mean that's going to happen overnight. But you use the summer as an opportunity to say, hey, volume is not the issue right now. Right? Quantity of moves is not the issue. Let's make more money for the moves we're doing, right? You all know you've got, you know, additional costs involved, right? You've got, you know, movers want more money. Every, every. Everyone out there is having drivers and movers say, I want, you know, numbers that are unheard of, right? For. For labor. Well, you've got to compensate for that somehow, right? You can't keep charging the same old rates and pay a ton of money more for movers, right? So track that. Set yourself a target. Because here's what will happen with this. Now is the time where you almost get, like a free pass to try this out because it's going to be so busy as it is. But what you'll find is you'll build this up, let's say from 800 to, you know, 950 or whatever. And I'm just. That's like a local move average, you know, long distance, maybe you go from 3,000 to 4,000, whatever it might be. So once you get to September 15th, right, once we start to come out of, you know, the heart of moving season, all these principles and all these practices and your confidence and being able to sell at a higher price is still with you, right? And that's how you'll be able to continue through October, November, December, January, February, with those higher rates. Okay, so revenue per move, target rpm.

Hey, my friend, it's Louis. And I'm just hopping in really quick to remind you to go get your free demo of smart moving software. Smart Moving software is a company that I co founded that is quickly becoming the leading moving software in the moving industry. And I'm super excited for you to check it out. So go get your free demo today. Just go to smartmoving.com that's smartmoving moving.com and sign up for your free demo and check it out today.

Then your cash reserve target. Okay? So it's so important that you've got a cash reserve for the off season, and now's the time where you start to fund that cash reserve, right? And, you know, cash reserve is essentially an account that you set up with money in it that you don't touch from the end of moving season to, you know, springtime, right? You don't even start to think about touching it until, let's say, March, and you feel things start to pick up. And the only time that you use it throughout the off season is to, you know, balance out cash flow, right? If you've ever, you know, been through a tough winter and, you know, you're juggling expenses and juggling bills and, you know, you kind of can't pay everything. That cash reserve account is there to help fund that, right? And so the idea is that you fund it in the summer, right? So fund it now between May 15 and September 15, fund that account. Then you don't touch it. You leave it in there unless you need it for, you know, running your business for cash flow purposes. A lot of people, what they'll do is they'll, you know, in wintertime, all of a sudden, they'll say, you know, things are tight. I need to cut off certain marketing sources, which is like, you know, killing your business. You can't cut off marketing when you need it the most, right? So you don't Want to be in a position where you have no ammunition, right? You can't win the war. And sometimes, you know, that's how it could feel in the winter when you're struggling to, you know, make ends meet and things are tough and they're tighter than usual. You can't win that war without ammunition. And the cash reserve is ammunition. All right? So my recommendation is.

You take 5% of your gross revenue, okay? And you put this in a cash reserve account. So let's say you do 200,000amonth and you do 200,000amonth for the next four months. What's that? 800,000, right? So 5%. 800,000 is going to be 40,000 bucks, right? How nice would it be to go into the winner with just an extra, you know, and this is if you're like a $2 million company, right? It all adjusts. You might say, louis, that's so much, or louis, that's not enough. Figure out what your 5% is, right? But you go into that winner with 40,000 there. That's a feeling of security, that's a feeling of confidence, right? Listen, juggling expenses, I went through a, you know, through the recession. I don't want to do that again, right? I don't want to be in a position where it's like, what could we pay? What could we not pay? What could we pay? What could we not pay? I've been there. And it's one of the most stressful things and it interferes with your business and your ability to lead, alright? When you could pay all your bills, maybe you're not raking it in in the winter, but you could pay all your bills and you know, if you hit a rough spot, no problem. There's a cash reserve account that your main account could pull from, right? You can rest assured it all. Your bills could be on auto pay, everything could. You know what I mean? You don't have to juggle and have those big cash flow meetings and things like that. Fund this account. And what I want you to do is have a target for this. So I'm suggesting 5%. Maybe you're like, hey, I'm going to do three. Hey, I'm going to do 10, whatever it might be for you, whatever that number is. So let's say again, let's say this is $200,000 a month is your gross revenue. And we're talking about four months, 800,000. Five percent of that's going to be 40,000. So for this, right, you would have a cash reserve target of 40 grand, right? So maybe in the first month, maybe in May, maybe right now you're still catching up on some expenses from off season, right? And you're not able to fund the 5% this month. Okay, well, you got some catching up to do to hit the 40,000. Don't make the target 5% a month. Make the target a set number, right? So what, you know, if that's, you know, 40k.

That'S 40k, right? 40k by September 15th. Right? Again, whatever that number is for you, you've got a target. You've got a cash reserve account. You're filling it right to where you get to September 15th. And you've got, you're like, I'm good. I got the fund. Let me tell you something. You want to talk about stress relief, you want to talk about going into the winter with a sense of security, You've got that five, you got that money stacked up in there. You're going to feel really good about that. All right, then.

Net profit percentage target, right? So, you know, you might have this big gross revenue target, right? And you know, let's say your gross revenue target, for example, just to put it in context here, would be. I'm just going to use the same example here. Let's just say it's 800,000.

Okay? Is your gross revenue target for the four months, right? Meaning you're going to do 200,000amonth, all right? And you've got your, you know, revenue per move, and maybe you're going to go from, you know, 800 to, you know, 950, all right? Average.

Okay? Now here you're going to say, okay, I'm going to have 40,000 by September 15th. Well, here we're going to talk about net percentage. So just because you did 800,000 doesn't mean you're going to make any money, right? So, you know, anybody could go out and spend all kinds of reckless money on advertising, all kinds of reckless money on, you know, labor that they can't afford, right? Based on their rates, have low prices and, you know, their job costing is so off that every move they sell, they're losing money. Anybody could do that, right? That's not, that's not the name of the game. The name of the game is to get the gross revenue so that you could get the net profit. So what I want you to do is come up with a target wherever you are now, okay? As far as net profit target, look at last year, okay? Look at May 15 through September 15 on your P and L and see what your net profit was for that period. Because a lot of times I'll see companies that they'll have, like, a very busy summer, but they're letting you know the wheels fall off, if you will, right? Things are running so fast that the tightness starts to loosen up and all the profits come dripping out the bottom, right? So maybe in the past, you're at 10% net, right? And you're like, hey, I want to go to 15%, right? Maybe you want to go to 20%, whatever that number is, if it was me. Unless you're at, like, a really low percentage, right? Unless you're like, you know, under 10, which there's companies out there doing millions of dollars that are, you know, doing 3%. And it kills me to see it, but it happens, right? So set yourself a realistic percentage. I would recommend that that's anywhere between, you know, 15 to 20%.

Right? That should be your target. And you want to make sure that in the midst of the busy season, in the midst of things being, you know, a little chaotic, right? It could be a little extra, you know, just constant stuff going on, right? The more moves that happen, the more problems that could happen, the more trucks that are on the road, the more truck issues you could have. I mean, it's just, you know, everything compounds and everything increases. So you've got to make sure that you keep your eye on this, right? You don't want to get to the end of the season to discover that he didn't make any money, right? So if you're doing 20% and you've got 800,000, you know, that's. What is that? That's $160,000.

That's the move in business, right? That's what it needs to be. Right? So, you know, when you talk about, okay, I'm going to fund.

A cash reserve account, okay, well, where's that 40,000 going to come from? It's going to come from there, right? It's going to come from there. So this net profit, okay, in other words, this isn't an expense. This still is part of the net profit. But when you take it out from a cash flow perspective, you know, there's still 120 there, right? So net profit.

Then you need a reason to be doing all this, right? You know, sometimes we, you know, we profit, but we forget to thrive, right? Or you thrive and you forget the profit, right? You're living your life. You're enjoying your life, but you're forgetting to make money. Well, we've got the money part covered. For the business, right? This is smart business right here, doing this. But what you got to do now is, is you got to set a target for your fund fund. You've got to fund the fund fund, right? Say that 10 times over. Fund the fund fund. So you've got to have a target of money that you say, you know what, by September 15th, I'm gonna have a fun, fun set up. You can call it whatever you want, right? That. That's money for me to do whatever I want to do with money for me to blow, right? You've got to reward yourself after every moving season, right? But the first thing that needs to happen is, you know, you've got to be able to get this gross revenue up. You've got to be able to raise your, you know, your rpm, your average move. You need to be able to make sure that you're profiting so there is this money so that you can fund a cash reserve account. You could fund a fun. You could fund a fund fund account and still have operating capital within the business to move into the off season. Because the idea is that, you know, you don't want to really have to touch this if you don't have to, right? So you can make this number whatever you want, I would say to make it, you know, 2 to 3% of the gross. Okay, 2 to 3% of the Gross. Or you can make it on the net profit. If you have this set and you know what the net profit is going to be, you can make it on the net profit and set it. But let's say you made it. Let's just call it 2.5% of gross, right? So 2.5% of.

Gross. So you're talking about.

20K, right? You're doing 200,000amonth at the end of summer. I want 20,000 bucks to blow to do what I want to do with, right? And I don't mean you blow it like go to the club and pop bottles, and if that's what you want to do, do it, right? Maybe you want to get a new car. Maybe you want a down payment on a house. Maybe you're like, hey, my goal for this season is to invest in a new piece of real estate that I can collect rent on. Maybe you need to pay college funds for the kids. Whatever it is, it's money to spend. You've got to have a target you in mind, okay? This is what's going to keep pushing you through the summer. Take a $20,000 vacation, right? That's a nice trip, right? Set Yourself up, go away for a couple weeks, spend 20,000 bucks, stay in a nice places, do what you want to do, whatever it is for you, everybody listening, everybody watching, you all have different things that you want to do. The point is, you know, you've got to have a target.

With money for you and your family. Where it's like, why did I work so hard, right? What is it all about? You didn't work so hard so you can have a, hey, look at my P and l. I've got 160,000 net. Okay, that's cool. Or I've got 40,000 to get me through the emergencies in the winter. Okay, great. You need some money to go enjoy yourself, right? Profit and thrive. And what I would do is I would figure out right now when you're setting these targets, what you're gonna do, right? You come up with that number and say, what could I do with that number, right? Could be anything, could be trips, could be some type of, you know, something that brings you satisfaction in some way, shape or form, right? So these are the targets I'm encouraging you to. If you're not doing it right now, as we're talking and coming up with these numbers, as soon as we get off to just, you know, number one, what's this going to be, right? Number two, what's this going to be? What's this going to be? What's this going to be? And what's this going to be all for? Okay, you might say, yes, this, Louis, this is a great idea. I'm going to do this every single month. And that's cool if you already do it, but if not, I think going from May 15 to September 15 on a sprint, knowing that there's an end in sight, right? Because you might be hustling a little bit more, you might be working a little bit more, you might be dealing with a little more problems and stress. You know, you want to have that end in sight. Set yourself up for this sprint, have these targets, have these goals. It will set you up to thrive in the off season. And you'll do higher numbers, period, than you would have done if you didn't set these targets. And guys, that's it. Make sure you go set these targets. Please don't move on with your day. If you've got the time, just sit down and come up with these. You don't have to make it complicated. You don't have to get a spreadsheet out, get a single sheet of paper, write them down, right? They're targets. Don't feel like you've got to hit them. Don't feel like you've got to set them low. All right? Season is what moving business is all about. You got to get out the rake, rake in the money, go out there and make it. And make sure as you're doing all this, you not only profit in your business, but you thrive in your life as well.

If you really want to take your business to that next level, then I want to invite you to join us in our moving CEO business program. This is the program where I go live every single month training you on new strategies to implement into your moving business. All new strategies that you could apply to your business to start quickly, seeing results. This is the program that we have moving companies from all over the world that join us every single month for live training. Plus they get additional courses, they get tickets to my live events. This is the program that basically keeps our moving CEOs on their toes, keeps them fired up, keeps them working on the things that actually matter, matter in their business so that they have a place to come to every month, maintain and keep that focus on what they're really working on, what they're really after and what matters today so that they're working on the right stuff. You know, this is where I train on all my latest strategies. The things in marketing, sales, operations, finance, you know, how to manage your team and leadership. It's all in the Moving CEO business program. And head over to movingceo.com and check out all the different membership options there. We've got, you know, companies that might just be starting out. We've got companies that have been in business 10 years. We've got, you know, nationwide multi location franchises that are members that come every single month so that they can make sure that they're on top of their A game. Right? We're all, you know, wherever we're at in our business, we need to make sure that we're constantly getting that zap of energy, that zap of new ideas that we can implement. So we're working on the right stuff. We want to work on what matters so that we could profit in our business and thrive in our life. Right? It's all about setting up a better quality of life. And once you've got your systems in place, once you've got your processes in place, once you've got your people in place, you're able to manage them and lead them in the right direction, then you're able to take a step back and start to really enjoy the fruits of your labor and the business that you've created. So this program where I teach all of this, it's called Moving CEO Business Program. And you can check it out today@movingceo.com so head over there, check out your options, and I look forward to seeing you on our next live monthly training where I also answer questions and take feedback and help you reach that next level in your business. It's called Moving CEO Business Program. Check it out at moving movingceo.com thank you so much for joining us on the Moving Mastery Podcast and being a part of this amazing community. And until we talk next time, go out there every single day. Profit in your business and thrive in your life. I'll talk to you soon, my friend.