The Role Of A Moving Company’s Operations Manager

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In this video, Louis Massaro shares exactly what the role of an Operations Manager should look like in your moving company.

  • “Manage Process Over People” The Operations Manager’s role is to understand the processes that are laid out throughout the company and make sure that people are in line with those processes.
  • “Who Reports To Manager” The Ops Manager is overseeing dispatch, the movers, the warehouse, and customer service.
  • “Who Does Manager Report To” Clearly define for the ops manager and the person they report to what the relationship is, what the hierarchy is, and who reports to who.
  • “Reports & KPI’s” Make sure that whatever the Operations Manager is responsible for, there’s a number associated with it.
  • “Quarterly Objectives” You don’t want them just maintaining, you want your Ops Manager helping you grow the business. Always have three big quarterly objectives for them.
  • Watch the video to get full training.


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Hey, my friend. It’s Louis Massaro, CEO of Moving Mastery where we help moving company owners set up proven systems and processes to increase profits, reduce stress, and live a better quality of life. Clients will often come to me when it’s time for them to make their next big hire, who they’re going to bring into their company to help run the business. They either know that they need an operations manager or they have an operations manager but don’t really have their role clearly-defined.

What happens is it creates this frustration of having somebody else in charge of things and they’re not getting done the way that the owner of the business would normally do them. Which is super frustrating because you’re trying to grow, you’re trying to scale. You want to step away from the day-to-day and have your operations manager handle all that stuff. But what happens is if the role isn’t clearly-defined to where they know exactly what they’re supposed to be doing, it just kind of creates chaos and confusion. What happens is you typically end up with an operations manager now who’s stressed and overwhelmed.

What I tell people is this. In order to scale your business, in order to step away from the day-to-day, you’ve got to have an operations manager. But you need them to have a clearly-defined role as to what they do. Because I know a lot of people use the term operations manager differently. Some people, it’s more of a dispatcher where with larger companies, they oversee the whole operation. With private clients that come to my office and we work together, one of the things that we’ll do as I listen to the scenarios as we’re going over maybe any trouble they’re having with current operations managers, I’ll listen, ask some questions so I have a full understanding of the relationship and the tools that the operations manager actually has to do the job that the owner wants them to do.

Typically, once in a while, we’ll find that they have the wrong person in the seat. But most of the time, we find out that the role is just not clearly-defined. In order to clearly define the role, you need to first decide what it is that you really want this person to be doing, this operations manager. I want to give you five areas where you can start to establish a clear defined role for your operations manager that you either have or that you’re thinking about bringing in. Because here’s the deal. If you’re going to scale, you have to step away from the day-to-day. You have to have a point person that’s in charge so that you could step back. But I want you to set this person up with all the tools they need to be successful.

Here’s some things that you need to consider when dealing with your current operations manager or hiring a new operations manager. First thing is they need to manage processes over people. Let me say that again. They need to manage processes over people. What do I mean by that? What I mean is a lot of these scenarios that I was telling you that I was going through with my private clients and I was like, “All right, tell me about that. How did they handle that situation? What did they do there? What did they say?” We find out that they’re trying to manage people as opposed to managing the processes.

What I want you to do is I want you to think about your operations manager, not in a traditional sense of what people think of a manager to be, which is managing people. Their role is to understand the processes that are laid out throughout the company and make sure that the people are in line with those processes. That’s it. If you’re trying to manage people and you’re trying to manage personalities and you don’t have that guiding light of a process to bring them back to, you’re going to have chaos. You’re going to have problems. You’re going to have people quitting, people getting fired. It’s going to be chaotic. Right? You want to manage processes. Your operations manager, that’s their role. Manage processes.

They need to have a full understanding of how this works, how this works, how this works. Anything that they are in charge of within the business, they need to know from you how it should be going down step by step. You don’t just want somebody to be there just to oversee things and make sure that the building doesn’t blow up. To just be someone that employees have to turn to for questions. You want to make sure that they are managing processes.

I know I’m drilling down on this, but so many people miss this. They either end up firing an operations manager as they’re like, “You know what? I tried to hire somebody to run the business and it doesn’t work. They don’t listen. They don’t do what I need them to do. The people don’t listen to them.” That’s all because that person is trying to manage people. The people become very easy to manage when all you need to do is guide them back to the process. That’s the first thing.

Second thing, who reports to the manager? I see a lot of companies. They’ll have an operations manager, or a sales manager, or both. The employees don’t know exactly who it is they report to. If your operations manager is going to oversee the operations aspect… Maybe they’re not involved in sales, maybe they’re not involved in finance, but they’re overseeing, let’s say, dispatch, the movers, the warehouse, customer service. Let’s just say that that’s what your operations manager oversees. Then everyone that is in those departments needs to know that they report to that manager. It just needs to be very clear. What’s the hierarchy? A lot of companies, there’s a lot of people that are managers and the employees don’t know who to listen to.

The third thing you want to do is you want to know who does the manager, the ops manager, who do they report to? It depends. I mean, if it’s you, the owner, that makes it very simple, but maybe you have a partner. Maybe there’s two of you. Well, it makes it very challenging if that manager has to report to two people. If you do have a manager or if you have, let’s say, somebody above your operations manager, a different position, a vice president, something like that, and then there’s you, you have to clearly define for the ops manager and the person they report to what the relationship is, what the hierarchy is, and who reports to who. Very important. Again, we’re clearly defining their role. We’re clearly defining where they fit in within the company.

Fourth thing is you want to make sure that they have a set of reports and KPIs, KPIs are key performance indicators, that they are responsible for. Let’s say your operations manager, to use the same example, only handles the operations and not any of the sales, and not any of the finance, and any of the marketing or anything like that. But they’re on top of dispatch, movers, trucks, warehouse, customer service. What are the numbers that they need to be reporting on that basically, they’ll be meeting with either you or whoever they report to to discuss? You’ll have a set of KPIs for operations. Things like average move, current storage being billed, claims ratio, claims spent, payroll percentage, things like that. It goes on and on.

You want to make sure that they have whatever they’re responsible for, there’s a number associated with that. That you could clearly see those numbers in your CRM or they’re running it in a spreadsheet so that when you meet with them ideally at least once a week… If you’re not having daily interaction with them, you need to meet with them at least once a week. Have that meeting and have it with numbers. Have it with processes. Otherwise, the meeting becomes about people. This person’s not doing what they’re supposed to do. That person’s not doing what they’re supposed to do. It just becomes this ongoing rollercoaster of people’s problems.

Numbers, processes, and then of course you still have to manage people because people are a big part of the business. But you want to make sure that those weekly meetings are revolving around the numbers and revolving around any adjustments that need to be made to the processes.

The fifth thing that you need to do to help clearly define the role of your operations manager and set them up for success is give them quarterly objectives. Their main function, their main function is to run the day-to-day of the business. Here’s everything that needs to happen for our business to run smoothly, the fundamentals. They’re making sure all of that is happening. But then you want to give them a set of objectives quarterly that will help you move your mission forward of growing your business. You don’t want them just maintaining, you want to have them helping you grow the business. I recommend for yourself always having three big quarterly objectives.

We did this with our private clients and they actually turned around and said, “You know what? We’re going to do this with our managers as well. It’s working great for them.” An objective is basically a goal. It’s a mission that you’re on for that 90-day period, for that quarter, of accomplishing something big that will help you move your business forward.

Let’s say the operations manager wants to increase the monthly recurring revenue of storage to 35,000 a month. That would be one big objective. Then he’ll then have milestones and action steps that will help break that down in order to reach that. But it’s something big that he or she is working towards. You want to give them three of those. Maybe you want to get a mover training program in place. You give that to them as a big quarterly objective. This way, in between the stuff that they need to do on a day-to-day regular basis, they’re also working towards the advancement of the business.

If you’ve got an operations manager, if you’re thinking about hiring an operations manager, first thing you want to do, make sure they understand that they need to manage processes over the people. If you don’t have processes in writing, start with the stuff that you’re going to train your operations manager to do. Words can be taken out of context. I could say one thing, you could hear something totally different. I could say something to my operations manager, they could hear something totally different. You put it in writing and show them, “Here’s the steps of what needs to happen. Go make sure that that’s happening.” It’s black and white, there’s no misunderstanding.

Even if you don’t have all your processes in place, no problem. Start with the ones that you’re delegating to the operations managers to get them to oversee. It could literally just be bullet points of the steps of what needs to happen so they have a reference point to go check in. Second, make sure you know who reports to that manager. Third, who does that manager report to? Fourth, make sure that they have a set of reports and KPIs that they are responsible for those numbers to where you could actually track and see if they are doing a good job. Fifth, give them some quarterly objectives so that they’re helping you go out there and crush your goals and bring your moving company to the next level.

You don’t want them there to just help you maintain. You want them there to make sure that the fundamentals of the day-to-day operation are running so you could sit back, see things more clearly. Work on your business and not in your business because you have them to work in your business and now you can start your plans to scale.

I hope that was helpful, my friend. If so, do me a favor. Share this with somebody that might find what we’re talking about today helpful. If you could, hit the like button for me as well. Until I see you next time, go out there every single day, profit in your business, thrive in your life. I’ll see you next time.
