John Pellitteri boasts over 20 years of extensive experience within the moving industry. Assuming the role of Vice President at Colonial Van Lines in 2013, he has been instrumental in orchestrating significant year- over-year growth in revenue, market share, and fleet operations for the company.
John takes immense pride in the remarkable achievements, yet he consistently underscores the collective prowess of his team as the true driving force behind Colonial’s success. With an average tenure of a decade within the sales team and department leadership, he emphasizes their readiness for the future, expressing, “it’s been a fun ride, but we are just getting warmed up!”
Colonial Van Lines’ corporate headquarters, situated in Pompano Beach, FL, occupies a spacious 50k sq ft facility on 5 acres. This establishment is home to a workforce exceeding 120 dedicated team members specializing in various domains such as Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, Dispatch, Operations, and beyond.
Moreover, nestled within the premises lies the Colonial Van Lines University (CVLU), an independent training center. Here, prospective drivers undergo rigorous training within a meticulously staged residential setting. Only upon successfully completing an internal certification process are they deemed qualified to cater to the esteemed clientele of Colonial Van Lines.
What is your typical day, and how do you make it productive?
A productive day for me starts by investing in what matters most my faith, my fitness, and my most important my family. Once I’ve taken care of those priorities, I’m fully focused on the future growing our company, developing my team, and finding ways to improve every day.
How do you bring ideas to life?
I believe in challenging myself and our team to not only think outside the box but to look for opportunities to do something no one has done before, it is so rewarding to create a new strategy or process and watch each other receive results.
What’s one trend that excites you?
The trend I am seeing and am excited about is the marketplace is getting back to doing their due diligence when engaging a moving company for services. There are more qualified resources and tools easily available to our clients that allow then to qualify services and validate reputation before making a rash decision based on price incentives and promotional tactics.
What is one habit that helps you be productive?
Commitment to a routine that you can measure results and overall being obsessed with finding a better way.
What advice would you give your younger self?
Patience, patience, patience.
I also would have been more confident in certain objectives that I think would have allowed us to grow faster but still at a healthy rate.
Tell us something you believe almost nobody agrees with you.
Tough one …maybe Cowboys will win another Super Bowl while Jerry Jones is running the team ?
What is the one thing you repeatedly do and recommend everyone else do?
Take risks early fail asap so you can build thick skin and improve.
As we progress in life, we have more things that will prevent us to take risks in business.
When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do?
Go back to the basics ..I call it shooting free throws.
What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business or advance in your career?
Being process driven is always number one, we all seek results and validation.
Creating and evolving measurable processes is what keeps us pushing forward.
Above my office is reads “everything measured can be improved.”
What is one failure in your career, how did you overcome it, and what lessons did you take away from it?
We are in a very robust industry that is ever evolving and candidly can be extremely volatile. Hard work and grit allows us to muscle through a lot but you can only grow and overcome some challenges when you learn patience. We had to be patient and trust our processes to grow from a small unknown company who if we did not sell ourselves, we did not sell, to become a known brand on the national stage.
What is one piece of software that helps you be productive? How do you use it?
Like many I am now leveraging the AI platforms to be more efficient and candidly more accessible. Time is truly our greatest commodity.
What is the best $100 you recently spent?
I am going to cheat a little here because the tickets were a little more, but I recently took my daughter to her first concert, by her request she wanted to see Forrest Frank.
Do you have a favorite book or podcast from which you’ve received much value?
Big Ed Mylett and Patrick Bet-David fan, podcasts are great and the books they have published are even better.
What’s a movie or series you recently enjoyed and why?
Big Yellowstone fan ..enough said
Key learnings:
- I have learned that patience, discipline, and consistency are essential when building a company and developing a strong team.
- Measurable processes create sustainable growth because anything that can be measured can also be improved.
- Taking calculated risks early, learning from failure, and continuing to bet on yourself can build confidence and resilience.
- Strong leadership means empowering others, creating opportunities for the entire team, and believing that everyone succeeds together.
- Success is not only measured by business growth. It also comes from prioritizing faith, family, fitness, meaningful relationships, and being of service to others.