Moving Words – Basics
Written by Timothy Brady.
“Common sense as well as common values all lead us. Our future depends upon it and our present is going to be vastly better when we get back to these basics.” – Joan Blades
Every successful business person works from business basics. However, the truly successful will take those basics and expand and tweak them to their business model, the market they serve, and their personality.
The moving business requires knowing the basics on many levels. From the process of how salespeople make contact with potential customers to how an estimator does a household goods survey to how the fleet manager assembles a combination of shipments that make up a profitable full van load. And the preparation the packers do when they arrive at a shipper’s residence, to how a van operator loads heavy on the bottom, squares to the front of the tier, fills to the back and builds each layer with lighter items filling all the holes as he/she loads a shipment. Each and every task that we do as movers has a basic standard from which we do our jobs. The better we are at the basics of our particular task the easier the move goes as everything fits into place.
The basics of the moving business go way beyond the specifics of the moving business. It comes down, again, to basic business skills. When was the last time you did a Basics of Business Review of your operation? Have you started complicating many of your procedures to the point they’re taking more time from you or your staff while reducing revenue, proficiency, and/or profitability?
A Basics of Business Review can become one of the most important projects you undertake on an annual basis for improving your moving company’s bottom line. Relying on mechanical devices to generate needed revenue plus the human element creates an environment for inefficiencies to occur. By taking a look at your expenses and whether that item’s cost is necessary and reasonable to your operation, you remove inefficiency.
Here’s the litmus test for determining each expense’s worth to your operation:
- Is it necessary?
- What would be the result if I did away with it entirely?
- Can I reduce its number or cost?
- Will it increase another cost somewhere else?
- What will be the net savings?
- Can I replace this expense with something less costly – with the same results?
- By reducing or eliminating the item, will I become more or less efficient overall?
- Is the cost of the item reasonable for the operation?
- Does its cost exceed its benefit?
- Is there a way I can use the item more efficiently?
Keep in mind the idea here is to reduce cost; not efficiency, quality, or value to your shippers. Cutting costs without looking at overall results for your entire business can be more devastating than doing nothing at all. But doing a proper Basics of Business Review will add tremendously to your ability to compete in this very aggressive industry. By completing this review and removing the excess costs without compromising your quality or efficiency, you’ve returned your operation to the basics.
Vince Lombardi is considered by most as one of the greatest football coaches of all time. He had many words of wisdom that are applicable to business as well as the football field; i.e., “The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.” And when the game was going badly, the one thing Lombardi always did was have his team return to the basics to get refocused on the task at hand – a good lesson for life, and operating a business.
