Should You Scale Your Moving Company?

Scaling your moving company is one of the best ways for you to build wealth and create freedom so that you can enjoy your life and not be stuck working in the business all the time. But what does it mean to scale your moving company? Scaling a business basically means taking a model that works and that has all the systems and the processes and everything is just in order, ready to go, right? It's a model business. And then scaling it, growing it, duplicating it, expanding it, that's scaling a business. And even though it's one of the best ways for you to create more abundance and more financial freedom for yourself, it's also one of the ways that if it's not done correctly or it's done prematurely, can cause you the most stress, the most overwhelm, cost you a ton of money and put a ton of strain on your current business. And, you know, if you're joining me for the first time, my name is Louis Massaro, founder and CEO of Moving Mastery, where we help moving company owners set up proven systems and processes in their business to increase profits, reduce stress, and live a better quality of life. When I started my first moving company, I was 19 years old. I had no idea what I was doing. You know, I worked out of a truck rental yard, I rented two trucks. And over, you know, a period of a couple years, I was able to build a really strong local moving business that I thought was a solid model that, that I would then be able to scale. So I started opening additional locations. You know, my first year that I decided to scale and open additional locations, I opened an additional three locations, right? So now here I am. I went from one office, one moving company. Now I had four moving companies. And what I realized really quick was that the way that I ran one was totally different than the way I needed to be running multiple locations. The way that the consistency and the predictability of that one did not translate to these other offices. So now I found myself having to kind of rein them all back in, fly from city to city, and, you know, something that I wouldn't have been able to do had I not been, you know, a young 22, 23 year old guy that, you know, was just getting started. I didn't have a family and obligations and things holding me back. But it was one of the most stressful times to, you know, build something that created like a monster that I had to reign in, right? So that's when I say, you know, scaling prematurely or scaling when you're not ready or scaling when you don't have the model business set up could really cause a lot of stress, really cause a lot of aggravation and put strain on your existing business, which is what it did. Because now when I had to go be at these other locations, I wasn't at my original office, right? So after a ton of flights back and forth and time going here and there, I was able to develop processes and systems that allow me to get it all under control, that allow me to have consistency and predictability across all those locations, and then grow nationwide. We went to $20 million a year. And so I'm sharing this story because, you know, people say, yeah, but Louis, I want to grow, I want to make more money, I want to scale, I want to get to that next level. You know, I've got, you know, my friend or my dispatcher or my brother, they're ready to open up another location, or they say, you know, I'm in, I'm doing local moves and I'm turning down so much long distance. I need to get into long distance. And what I would tell you, what I tell my clients, is that, look, before you scale, you've got to get your model business on point. You've got to have something that, that is set up in a way to where if you're going to duplicate it or you're going to do more of it, that it's not just creating more problems and more issues, but that it's a nice, smooth operation that you're growing and you're scaling. I'm all about growth, I'm all about scaling. But you've got to do it the right way. So I want to give you three tips that you could take and really start, you know, laying the foundation for what you need to do to go and scale your business. Because like I said, it is the best way for you to really create that financial freedom, that personal freedom, and that long term wealth. And so I want to give you three things. And the first one is you want to fine tune your fundamentals. Okay, fine tune your fundamentals. And what that means is in the moving business, there are five fundamentals. And everything that you do in your moving business is in one of these five categories. Okay? The first one is lead generation or marketing. The second one is booking moves or sales. The third one is servicing moves or operations. The fourth one is creating raving fans or customer service. And the fifth one is accounting and knowing your numbers, these five areas, time and time again, companies that I work with, if we dive in to these five areas and look for areas that can Be five fine tuned, right? And you know, right now there's, there's things that you're thinking about as we mentioned, these five areas where you're like, yeah, I need to tighten that up. I need to tighten that up. And what we found time and time again is there's so much profit sitting in those fundamentals. And so before we go and expand and create more complexity in our day to day, in our life, in our business, let's fine tune what we have, right? Let's make more with what we have. Let's make the day to day more efficient. Let's find those profits. Because most times it feels like there's just money laying all over the floor of the companies that we work with and it's just a matter of tightening a few things up, right? So you want to start there. Second thing you want to do to prepare yourself, to really scale is become a process driven company. You know, you're either a process driven company or you're a people driven company. Most companies are people driven and what that means is they bring, you know, they look for the best person they could find for the position. They hire somebody, they bring them in and you know, let's say it's a salesperson. You know, they'll train a salesperson and they'll do it one way, they'll train another salesperson, they'll do it a little bit differently or, or they're movers. You know, one crew will go out, they'll address the customer when they come to the door in one way and another crew will address the customer, not even address the customer in a totally different way. Right? There's no consistency because it's people driven. And when you have people driven companies, there's no way that you could scale that, right? Because you can't duplicate people, you can't clone people. So even if you've got great people, in order to scale, you've got to make sure you've got a process driven company. What that means is everything that gets done in your business is done the exact same way, right? The way your movers handle pickup, the way they handle delivery, the way your sales team gives estimates, the way you close out jobs and handle customer service and do your books, everything is done the exact same way, regardless of the person. Because what you want is you want the processes to run the business and then you want the people to run those processes. And until your company's process driven, you're gonna have a really, really, really hard time scaling with a people driven company. So listen, if this all makes sense to you and you want to go deeper, I suggest you take a look at my Moving CEO business program. There's a link down below. I'm about to get to the third point here too. I want to make sure I give you the tools and set you up in a way where you, you've got everything you need. So go check that out. It's called the Moving CEO business program. There's a link down below for you. The third step of what you need to do to prepare yourself for scale. Now you've got your fundamentals fine tuned, right? You've kind of gone through and this isn't ever, you know, you want to be doing this all the time. You always want to be fine tuning the fundamentals, always be looking at the five areas and say, how can we improve this? How can we make it more efficient? How can we make it more profitable? Once you've got that going, and I like a nice rhythm and rotation of that happening consistently, then you've built your processes and become a process driven company. Now you're in a position where you could sit back and you're going to look at your business in a whole different way. Whole different way. You're going to see it. Now you ask yourself the question, do I need the scale? Right. You know, we talk about scale and growth and getting to the next level and that's all great, but do you need to? And so for me, when I work with clients, the first thing I want to know is like, where do you want to get to in your life? How much money do you want to make? What's it going to take to live the life you want to live? Because you know what? You might not need to open more offices based on what you want. You know, maybe you want to make a certain amount of money, be able to live a nice lifestyle, right? Get things in order so you're not stressing out about, is this happening, is that happening? And you know, everything's running smooth. Maybe that's where you want to be. You know, you don't always have to scale and grow and open more to live the life that you want to live. There's a lot of money and profits right under your feet where you're at. But you may look at it and say, louis, I've got everything dialed in. You know, we're operating at maximum efficiency and profitability. And in order for me to live the life that I want to live for me and my family and do the things that we want to do, I need to be here and we can't do that with this one location. Then you know you need to scale, right? But you want to scale based on what you want to do in the way of how you want to live your life, right? Don't scale just for the sake of scaling. Because as much as it's an entrepreneurial like fire in you to grow, it's also something that you build, that you also then have to maintain, that you also have to manage. And if you're not truly committed to it for a higher purpose and a higher reason, it could become very overwhelming. So the last thing you want to do is just ask, do I need to scale? Where do I need to be to be able to reach my personal financial goals? Because the number one thing you want to remember with all of this, whether you love the moving business, whether you hate the moving business, if you're in the moving business, this business is your way to financial freedom and building wealth for yourself. But you've got to do it strategically and you don't want to scale before you're ready to scale. Once you've got this set up, your fundamentals are fine tuned, your processes are there, then you're ready to go. Go crush it. Make it happen. I'll see you guys next time. Hey my friend, I hope you enjoyed that episode. If so, pound that subscribe button and if you've got any questions, put them in the comments down below. That's where we get the inspiration for these videos and I'd love to hear what you think. Also, if you want to join us for our next live monthly training where I train and coach moving company owners to take their moving companies to the next level. Then join us in our Moving CEO Business Program. This is the program where I go live every single month training moving company owners on new strategies in marketing, operations, finance, sales, everything they need to take their business to the next level. And I'd love to have you join us. It's called Moving CEO Business Program and you could click on the link below or over here to get more information on that. Again, please subscribe to this channel and if you know anyone that would find any inspiration or this would help them in their business, please share this with them. Thank you so much for being a part of our community and until I see you next time, go out there every single day, profit in your business and thrive in your life.