Introduction
For many moving company owners, rapid growth leads to chaos rather than freedom. Without structure, owners end up working harder than their employees while getting paid significantly less. In this episode of Movified Wednesdays, hosts Mark Hirschi and Steven Reed sit down with Steve Pitcairn, a business coach with over 20 years of experience who has coached Steven for the past decade. They discuss the critical difference between urgent and important tasks, how to secure massive corporate contracts through targeted networking, and the exact system for identifying and retaining A-player employees.
Key Takeaways
What You'll Learn:
- Why business owners mistakenly spend less than 5% of their time on crucial tasks like company vision, financial review, and proper onboarding.
- How joining targeted organizations like SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) unlocks massive corporate relocation leads.
- The clear distinctions between A, B, C, and D players, and why keeping chronic complainers will poison your company culture.
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Why taking out high-interest, daily-payback bridge loans is a fatal financial mistake for cash-strapped moving companies.
Table of Contents
- Urgent vs. Important: The Owner’s Dilemma
- Networking for High-ROI Leads
- Building an “A-Player” Team
- Financial Discipline and Coaching
- Why Movified Preserves These Industry Stories
- Conclusion
Urgent vs. Important: The Owner's Dilemma
The biggest roadblock to scaling a business is the inability to distinguish between what is urgent and what is important. Urgent tasks are time-sensitive demands—such as a mover complaining about moving pads for 30 minutes—that often distract the owner from actual progress. Important tasks, such as building a company vision, reviewing financials, and properly onboarding new hires, actually move the dial on long-term business growth.
Steve reveals that the average owner spends less than 5% of their time on these important, non-urgent tasks. To escape this trap, owners must ruthlessly delegate mundane administrative work to an Executive Assistant (EA) or a Virtual Assistant (VA). If an owner’s time is worth $500 an hour in sales, spending $15 an hour on an assistant is a minor expense that unlocks massive profitability and growth potential.
Networking for High-ROI Leads
While many owners hate marketing, building a referral-based business is the ultimate key to sustainable revenue. Steve advises that moving companies generating under $200,000 should join general networking groups like BNI. However, once a company surpasses $1 million in revenue, owners need to target higher-level decision-makers.
Instead of attending standard chamber of commerce events, owners should arrange to present directly at the monthly meetings of top-producing real estate offices. Furthermore, joining SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) provides direct access to corporate HR executives who facilitate lucrative employee relocations. Connecting with the local Association of Plant Managers is another untapped pipeline for securing massive commercial moving jobs.
Building an "A-Player" Team
Company culture is defined by who you hire, fire, and promote. Steve categorizes employees into four distinct groups:
- A-Players: These individuals show initiative, arrive early, restock the trucks without being told, and bring solutions rather than complaints.
- B-Players: Reliable, solid workers who get the job done.
- C-Players: Chronic complainers who constantly demand higher pay despite delivering average performance.
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D-Players: Constantly late and toxic; these individuals must be fired immediately.
To retain top talent, owners must conduct at least an annual performance review. This does not require a complex, ten-page process; a simple 10-minute meeting evaluating work quantity, quality, attendance, policy adherence, and teamwork is enough to create a mutually beneficial development plan that proves to the employee that leadership truly cares.
Financial Discipline and Coaching
To survive seasonal dips and fluctuating real estate markets, an owner must spend at least one hour a week reviewing their financials. A strong leader maintains a strict budget, actively manages a 90-day cash flow plan, and completely avoids predatory bridge loans (which Steve refers to as “blood suckers”) that require devastating daily paybacks.
For owners seeking a business coach to help enforce this discipline, Steve warns that true coaching is not a quick fix. It requires a minimum commitment of three to five months to begin changing the owner’s ingrained behaviors. If an owner refuses to complete their assigned homework or resists accountability, a good coach will simply part ways with them to protect both parties’ time.
Why Movified Preserves These Industry Stories
Movified exists to document the knowledge that standard business textbooks miss.
Hosted by Mark Hirschi, the show dives deep into the tools, technologies, and realities of running a modern moving business. Movified’s value lies in:
- Honest conversations about the struggles of time management, burnout, and the difficulty of letting go of total operational control.
- Proven, highly tactical strategies from industry veterans like Steve Pitcairn, who mapped out the exact corporate networking organizations moving companies should join to maximize revenue.
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Lessons earned through real-world execution, ensuring the next generation of movers understands how to properly evaluate employee performance and maintain strict financial discipline.
Conclusion
A moving company will never scale beyond the limitations of its leader. If you are constantly buried in urgent daily fires, you are actively neglecting the important, visionary tasks required to grow your enterprise. By delegating administrative work, targeting high-level networking groups, systematically evaluating your team to retain A-players, and holding yourself accountable through professional coaching and financial review, you can finally transform your stressful job into a highly profitable, self-sustaining business.
