When to Expand Your Moving Company

Not only did I open up additional locations prematurely, I'm seeing people do it constantly left and right. We can all make a plan for what we're going to do and think that it's going to go a certain way. However, when the unexpected happens and you're so stuck working in your current business that you can't go spend time in the new business, it's going to create problems not only for the new company, but not only for the old company, but it's also going to create those problems for you as an individual, right? It's going to totally throw your whole lifestyle, you know, in chaos. Has nothing to do with money, okay? Other than do you have the money to, you know, it's not like Once you hit 1.5, open up another office. Once you have 3 million, open up two offices. That's not what it's about. What it's about is, do you have these things in place? Because if you don't, you will either fail or you will be on a scramble to put these things in place like I did after the fact. And that's not fun. All right, first one here is Stephen. What's up, Steven? When do you think the best time to open a second. When do you think the best time is to open a second location? I'm doing about 1.5 million at my first location. When should I open up? Another great question. Okay. And so in order to, you know, really, I could tell you that not only did I open up additional locations prematurely, I'm seeing people do it constantly left and right, okay? And I'm all about growth, I'm all about expansion. But you need to have a little bit of a plan, right? So look, the first thing that I would ask yourself really, really simple is, you know, can my current business run without me? Okay. Can my current business run without me? Because it's going to require a lot of work for you to go spend time there, deal with the unexpected, right? We can all make a plan for what we're going to do and think that it's going to go a certain way. However, when the unexpected happens and you're so stuck working in your current business that you can't go spend time in the new business, it's going to create problems not only for the new company, not only for the old company, but it's also going to create those problems for you as an individual, right? Because it's going to totally throw your whole lifestyle, you know, in chaos, right? So you need to ask yourself, is that part of my plan? Also Right, So can it run without me? Is it really part of my plan? Is it part of my blueprint? So if we, I don't have the flip chart with me today, so I'm gonna draw some stuff out on paper for you guys. Hopefully you can see it. But basically what we need to do is we need to start with a blueprint. Okay, we need to start with a blueprint. You see that? Alright, can you see that in the monitor? Cool. So the blueprint basically is like, hey, what specifically do I want to do? What is my plan? Right, Meaning if you're asking about opening up a second location, that's cool. But what's your long term plan? 20 years from now? Where do you want to be 10 years from now, 5 years from now and then back that in? Because more is not always better. The last thing you want to be doing is spending time, money and energy climbing a ladder that's leaning on the wrong wall. Right. You're going to get to the top of the place where you weren't even trying to get to. You want to make sure that you have that figured out ahead of time. So if your plan, long term plan, has opening additional locations in it. Okay, great. Right. So what would that mean? So you might say, I want to open 50 offices throughout the U.S. well, opening a second location would be one of the first steps that you would need to do. Or you might say, no, you know what I make, you know, Maybe I make 200, $300,000 a year personally in this one location. And you know what, I've kind of figured out what my lifestyle needs are and I need to make 500, $600,000 a year. One more location will take care of that. And that's what I want. Right. Like I think that especially nowadays with social media and everybody out there just I'm doing this and I'm doing that, you know, can make people feel as if they're not doing enough when the reality is you need to get very clear on your particular blueprint. Right? Because you know, there's a lot of paths to make money in the moving business. Right. And you know, sometimes it doesn't require opening an additional location. You can make, I know people making a lot more money take home money in one location than people that have several locations and vice versa. So to answer your question, Steven, the first thing you need to do is come up with a blueprint to understand why you're actually opening that additional office. Okay. Then ask yourself, you know, are the fundamentals at my current location on Point. Because if they're not, you're just now going to expand the problem, right? Every problem you have at your current location is also going to end up in the new location. All right? So go in and make it your mission to come up with. The second step here after your blueprint is to create systems. Okay. Processes. Because running one location and running multiple locations is a totally different ballgame. Totally different ball game. Anybody that has multiple locations, let me know down in the chat, roll down below if you were in for a rude awakening when you open that second location, it's different, right? When I opened my first location, my first remote location, right. I was like, oh, my current office is rocking. We're doing great. I've got systems, at least what I thought were systems in place, okay. And I'm going to go ahead and duplicate that. Well, those systems worked in the location I was at in my Denver office because I was there, right. The systems needed to be much more fine tuned and much more black and white to be able to run a remote location, right? So once you've got your blueprint and you know, hey, this is where I'm headed because listen, this whole game of business becomes a lot easier when you know where you're headed, right? It's when we get lost and it's like, ooh, I could do this, there's an opportunity, or oh, I got this guy, he says he wants to open up an office, so I guess I could open him up in an office. When you know, like what your path is, it becomes easy. Then you lay out the system so that your current business can run without you. Okay? Which is the next step, Which is freedom. Okay? Some of you that are in my flagship program, you know, this whole process already, but I'm kind of sharing it so people get it. The next step is freedom. Before you can go and spend time doing business development, you need to be able to push away from the day to day work, right? Close down all the day to day stuff, the dispatching, the sales that this, whatever you're doing now currently, right? And you need to be able to have time specifically set aside for business development. Okay? So you get your blueprint in place, you create your systems for your current location that are set up in a way that could be modeled and duplicated at the new location, whether that's 1 additional or 49 additional, right? Then you create that freedom by bringing in people to handle everything that you don't want to handle, right? If we think about, if we think about our businesses, right? You know, at the beginning, you have to do a lot of stuff because you just have to do it. You don't think about it. Right. When I started my moving company, I did everything. A lot of you do everything right. I didn't think about, oh, what do I like to do, what do I not like to do? What brings me, you know, joy and happiness in my day and what's like, I don't want to do this right? Well, when you start to get to a certain level, right? And Tommy, you're at. I'm sorry, Tommy. Steven, you're at 1.5 million. You're at that level. When you're at that level, it's time to say, okay, let me back up here. What am I doing on a day to day basis that's either not a good use of my time or I don't enjoy doing. And let me bring somebody in to take care of those things so that I could have the freedom from. Right. Let me bring in possibly an operations manager that can now, you know, run these systems, right? You could have somebody that, you know, their whole job is to making sure that all your standard operating procedures, all your systems are being adhered to and run. Think about the peace of mind that you would have, knowing that things are getting run exactly the way that you want them to run, right? So you've got to create the freedom for yourself. After that, the next step is scale. Right now it's like you've created the blueprint. You know what it is you're doing, okay? You've created the systems, they're in writing. You have them, they work. You've created freedom for yourself to step away and not be working on your business. Okay, I'm sorry, in your business. And now you have the time to work on business development and overseeing remote locations. This is how you scale, no matter what it is you want to do. No matter, you know, if you're wanting to franchise, right? I have private coaching clients that are franchise. And this is what you need to do if you want to open up 1, 2, 5, 10, whatever it is, locations, or if your idea of scale is to say, you know what, I don't need more, I just need this one to continue to run this way, continue to produce this money for me. But I don't want to do anything, right? I want to take a step back and run it from a high level. These are the steps that you need to take. So again, Steven, that's my answer to when is it time to open up a second location has nothing to do with money. Okay, Other than do you have the money to, you know, it's not like Once you hit 1.5, open up another office. Once you have 3 million, open up two offices. That's not what it's about. What it's about is do you have these things in place? Because if you don't, you will either fail or you will be on a scramble to put these things in place like I did after the fact. That. And that's not fun. That's what you don't. You know, I started to open additional locations without all this in place and then realized it was the only way to save what I had built and had to go in and implement it after the fact. You don't want to do that. 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 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.