Jordan Berry [00:00:00]:
Hey. Hey, what’s up, guys? It’s Jordan with the Laundromat resource podcast. This is show 222 and I am pumped you’re here today because today we have back on the show the laundry genius himself. Chock full of wisdom, chock full of data, chock full of technology in the laundromat space. Huge hit last time he was on the show. A couple years ago we geeked out for days and we do it again. This time, lots of really practical advice. Brian Riesland back on the show.

Jordan Berry [00:00:30]:
I know you’re going to love it and I know it’s going to help you take your business to the next level because Brian, he’s kind of on the next level when it comes to thinking about laundromats and he’s here to drag the rest of us up with him. So cannot wait for you to jump in with Brian in one second. Real quick. Before we do that, I just want to remind you just over a month away is the Laundromat accelerator. Hawaii. What better way to get to Hawaii than a tax write off business trip to come geek out with me and a handful of other Laundromat owners and industry professionals. Professionals talking not just about laundromats, but getting down and dirty, talking about your specific laundromat and how to elevate your specific laundromat. You’re going to leave this thing with a game plan and we’re actually going to get some work accomplished and finished here in Hawaii.

Jordan Berry [00:01:22]:
And not only that, but we’re doing it. Let’s, let’s just face it. We’re doing it on the iconic Waikiki beach overlooking all the action going on. So listen, we’re have to focus on little bits of time here on our businesses, but then we’re also going to play. We’re going to play hard. We’re going to work hard, we’re going to play hard. We’ve got lots of cool Hawaii specific events planned for you in addition to elevating your business to the next level. So listen, check out laundromatresource.com Hawaii get more information, sign up right there on the website.

Jordan Berry [00:01:56]:
Or if you’ve got questions, shoot me an email. Jordan Jo R D a n like Michael [email protected] I’d love to answer any of those questions because I would love nothing more than to hang out on the beaches of Hawaii with a bunch of people who just love laundromats. All right, because that’s me and you’re my people, all right? So come hang out with me. It’s going to be a blast. I can guarantee you you’re going to get way more out of it than you put into it. And let’s do it. Laundromatresource.com Hawaii all right, without further ado, let’s roll into it with the one, the only laundry genius, Ryan Reisland. What is up, Brian Reisland? How you doing, man?

Brian Riseland [00:02:39]:
I’m great, sir. How are you?

Jordan Berry [00:02:42]:
Honestly, man, I’m a little bit starstruck. I have seen you all over the Internet touting your Laundromat. You’ve been on, like, all these massive channels, and I’m just humbled that you’re here for a second time hanging out with me, which is awesome. So I appreciate you, man. Thanks for coming on.

Brian Riseland [00:03:00]:
I think this is where I started. Those eyes from upflip found me, you know, I’m just, you know, I’m just trying to catch Cody. That’s all I do.

Jordan Berry [00:03:08]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’re. You’re on it. You’re on it. You’re going to get there. You’re going to get there. Hey, man. Well, listen, for those of you guys who don’t know Brian Risen, he’s been a guest on the podcast, one of our more popular episodes, actually, which is pretty cool. And then you’ve done, obviously some.

Jordan Berry [00:03:26]:
Some bigger, bigger fish out there that you’ve been hanging and swimming with, but you’re back to slum it with me, so I appreciate that. Can we just give, like, a quick overview of you now? Listen, if you haven’t listened to it, you got to go back and listen to the first episode. I’ll put the link to it in the description if you’re on YouTube or in the show notes if you are listening on the podcast. But can you give us just a very brief overview of you and sort of where you’re at in this industry?

Brian Riseland [00:03:55]:
Yeah, me, I have been in the industry four years now, just past her fourth year of being in business. I came to the industry after almost 25 years in technology. Just like right before natural, during COVID.

Jordan Berry [00:04:10]:
Natural crossover there tech to Laundromat.

Brian Riseland [00:04:13]:
It’s one of those things and people are experiencing it right now is, you know, I was in corporate America. They decided that there wasn’t a place for me any longer at this company. And I did a lot of soul searching and realized if, you know, with. For the amount of work I was going to put in, I would rather bet on myself than bet on another company where this could happen again. So that’s what took me down the entrepreneurial route and, you know, looked at a lot of options, and Laundromats had kind of found me, and I opened one up, and it’s been a great experience and great to be part of this industry and all that stuff. So I’m good.

Jordan Berry [00:04:57]:
Yeah. Awesome.

Brian Riseland [00:04:58]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:04:59]:
And again, like, go back and listen to that episode. Also, fun fact that was surprising to me when I first met you is just how tall you are, because you do not seem like. What are you, like, six, seven, six, eight. How tall are you?

Brian Riseland [00:05:14]:
I. I am six seven. I might have been six, eight when we met. I’m getting old and shrinking, but the doc says I’m six, seven now.

Jordan Berry [00:05:20]:
Same here. Yeah, same here. That happens. Yeah. But I did not. When we did our first interview, I never met you in person. Right. I met you after the fact, and I was like, whoa, okay.

Jordan Berry [00:05:31]:
I see where we’re coming from now. I see.

Brian Riseland [00:05:34]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:05:34]:
Very cool. Well, listen, what’s interesting is, before we hit record, we’ve been talking about a whole bunch of stuff, actually. But one of the themes that was coming out just in our natural. Just conversation, because we just like to chat about this industry and. And Lauder Mats and all that and business. But one of the. One of the interesting things that. The themes that was coming out with your.

Jordan Berry [00:05:56]:
You know, what you were telling me was that your role has kind of been shifting and is shifted pretty majorly from when you. From when you first started. So there’s a few things that I want to hit, and then I’m sure some stuff will come out out of that. So number one. One thing that you said to me was that you’ve got quite a few employees or a few employees that have just celebrated their third. Third year of employment with you, and you’ve only been open for four. Listen, I know just right off the bat here is. I know how difficult it can be to hire and then also retain employees, especially in our industry.

Jordan Berry [00:06:35]:
So I’m curious to you how. I mean, if you can remember that far back, how. How did you find these employees, and how have you been able to keep them on board? And I know that they’re, like, running the show for you.

Brian Riseland [00:06:49]:
Yes.

Jordan Berry [00:06:50]:
So how did you find these good people who can run this for you, and how are you keeping them around?

Brian Riseland [00:06:58]:
It starts with customers, Right. If I go back to the seed of the person that kind of was the root of the other ones, they were a customer in the store. And about three months in, we opened up a spot and ultimately they became my manager. Right. And so either the people in the store either no hurt, I can trace them back, we’re friends of hers, or we’re in the store. So I’m like half and half, but at the end of the day, and good people find other good people, especially if they hear the story that you’re treating them well. But the other thing is, for the people that haven’t lasted that work, we have a higher chance with people who are customers because they’ve watched our team work. They know what the standards are, and they see that my people are moving around the store all the time to keep that standard.

Brian Riseland [00:07:56]:
So they’re not just. It’s not just sitting behind a counter and occasionally helping someone. Like, that’s not what we do. And so they know and, you know, they want to just keep that standard up. So, yeah, I mean, that’s. It all comes back to good people finding good people. And we’re super clear on our standards and they meet them. And so we treat them.

Brian Riseland [00:08:16]:
We treat them well because they deserve it.

Jordan Berry [00:08:19]:
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I’m literally. It’s. The employees are the backbone of your business, right. Whether you just have somebody coming in and cleaning or you’ve got somebody there all day serving customers. And I mean, like you said something so casually that I know for a fact is not easy to accomplish. And you said, hey, they know our employee work standards. They’re moving around, helping customers clean all that stuff.

Jordan Berry [00:08:45]:
Like, like not sitting behind a counter. Like, how. How do you. I mean, easier said than done, right? To get employees to. To keep doing that, to keep serving the customer, to keep moving around all day and not sitting behind the counter. Because I know that if I take my eye off the ball with my employees, I’ve. I know the ones who are just. I’ve got some who they’re going to be good.

Jordan Berry [00:09:11]:
I don’t have to micromanage them, but I’ve got some who, if I take my eye off the ball, they’re going to sit behind the counter. And maybe that’s on me. Maybe I should just not keep them around. They’re probably not the right ones right for the job, but how do you keep them moving?

Brian Riseland [00:09:26]:
That is like a multifaceted answer because I think a lot of things play into it probably at its core. So when we are very clear on systems, processes, expectations, right? You’re trained how to do it when you start. And actually the team does a good job of whittling out people who aren’t because they don’t want to work with them. Like, I do overstaff. You know, we often have two people there, and if one person is there and not up to snuff, chances are, over time, we’ll. We’ll hear about it.

Jordan Berry [00:10:01]:
Yeah.

Brian Riseland [00:10:02]:
So that. That’s one. We. We are outcome oriented. And I think that is probably the biggest difference, because it’s even hard to communicate to the people. And it’s still funny. Like, I’ll have an employee who’s like, hey, if. If you were looking on the camera and I was just sitting there, that was because I’m like, okay, so one.

Brian Riseland [00:10:26]:
I don’t look in on the cameras.

Jordan Berry [00:10:27]:
Yeah.

Brian Riseland [00:10:28]:
Not doing that. Yeah. Right. And the ones I look at really are the ones in the parking lot, because that will tell me how many people are. Are in the store. Those. The ones I care about. I go, but it’s like, you’ve earned my trust.

Brian Riseland [00:10:39]:
So if you’re sitting around, sitting around, you could be taking a break. Totally cool. Or I’m trusting that everything else in the store looks right. Because if I show up and if the store is at standards, then you’ve delivered the outcome that is a core part of it. So we just stay outcome focused. They know what matters, what our company values are and things like that. Then the other part is I empower them. You get a lot of latitude on helping customers if you’re in the store.

Brian Riseland [00:11:19]:
If you think a machine needs to be restarted, if you think a customer needs a refund, if you think, within reason, they have thresholds that they can operate in, but they get to make that decision. And if they make a decision that they thought was a little outside of the bounds of the moment because they write, they thought it was right, they tell their manager, they tell me, and they literally just shoot us a message in teams. And if it’s the wrong decision, we correct it next time. Yep. But, like, they. And like, that puts them, like. And the customers see them as problem solvers and not manager. Like, not something that has to escalate.

Brian Riseland [00:11:54]:
And the customer gets their challenge solved in the moment. Right. It’s almost like this flywheel that just keeps on spinning and turning stuff around. But, you know, we. We find good people who meet the standards, and we treat them. We treat them well. And, like, it’s not just about compensation. It’s about the environment they come into and the empowerment they have to.

Brian Riseland [00:12:14]:
To do their work.

Jordan Berry [00:12:16]:
Yeah. Well, I love. I mean, I wrote down a few things here while you were talking But I love the outcome oriented mindset is massive. Right. And it’s a huge shift for a lot of people. And I’d say, especially for a lot of people who are working the jobs that we’re asking them, like, at the level we’re asking them to work at. Right. A lot of that mindset can be very time and effort oriented.

Jordan Berry [00:12:46]:
Hey, I put in my hours. I worked really hard, you know, and that’s sort of like that retail mindset. You come. I mean, you work your hours, here’s what you need to do and all that, and that’s fine. Like, there is obviously, like a time and effort component to it. But if you, as the owner, as the manager, as the overseer of these employees are less concerned with the time and effort, like, if somebody can deliver the results I need them to deliver and they can do it pretty effortlessly or they find an easier way to do it, I’m psyched about that. Right. I’m not mad because they took less time or it was too easy for them.

Jordan Berry [00:13:26]:
Right. We just want the results. Right. And that’s a mindset shift, I think, for a lot of people, employees, but also owners, where we’re like, hey, we need you to be here these hours. Whoa. Yeah. But more important than those hours is what are the results you’re trying to accomplish? Are those clear to you as the owner and to the employee? Are those. Are those results that you’re looking for, those outcomes clear? And.

Jordan Berry [00:13:56]:
And two, like, are they accomplishing those outcomes during that time slots?

Brian Riseland [00:14:00]:
That’s.

Jordan Berry [00:14:01]:
That’s huge. I thought that was. That was worth every penny that somebody’s invested in this episode already. We’re done. We could, we could wrap it up right here. The other thing I want to mention before we do that is the other thing that you said is that you empower your employees. And it can be so tempting to micromanage employees. You know, you own something, you’ve invested a lot of money into it.

Jordan Berry [00:14:26]:
You’re. You know, it could be very tempting. And what I’ve. I’m curious of what you think. What I’ve found is that when I have found myself tempted to micromanage employees and not empower them, I. I was gonna say it’s almost. It might always be because I’ve got the wrong person in the wrong slot. Like, they’re just not the right person in the right seat and.

Jordan Berry [00:14:53]:
Or I haven’t trained them properly. Those are. I guess those are the two things that I’ve seen.

Brian Riseland [00:15:00]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:15:00]:
In. In my experience, I either haven’t trained them properly, which is my fault. Or I’ve got the wrong person in the wrong in. In the wrong seat, which, again, is my fault. Right. And so, you know, getting mad at employees and blaming employees is counterproductive because we need to. You know, I think of the book Extreme Ownership. Right.

Jordan Berry [00:15:21]:
I really like that book. It was like a mindset shift for me. Take ownership for everything. What’s my role here and how can I change it? And when you have the right people in the right seats and you’ve trained them properly on what outcomes you want them to have and what the culture of that, with the values of those outcomes, how you want to achieve those outcomes, that’s. I mean, that’s the recipe for being able to empower employees and let them run that business 100% right.

Brian Riseland [00:15:53]:
Clear expectations, give them the North Star. If you have good people and they know what direction you’re on point, you. They’re pointed in, more often than not, it will work out. And like you said, and then when you start when it doesn’t work out, typically trace the roads back and usually it starts right here.

Jordan Berry [00:16:14]:
Yep. Yeah. So true. So true. Okay. Well, I mean, I appreciate you sharing that stuff. I’ve actually had really great success finding employees from my customer base as well. That’s where I’ve had the most success.

Jordan Berry [00:16:29]:
And I do recommend starting. There’s, you know, there’s a. Another opinion there where people don’t like to do that, but I found a lot of success, and I found that people in the community care about the business more than people who are not part of that community or at least connected to it through friend of a friend. And one other thing that you said. I’m talking a lot right now, but I got psyched up about what you said in that little great podcast. Yeah, because you’re not doing anything. I’m doing all the work. The other thing that you said that I thought was really good and is so true for hiring employees, but also I think, like, raising kids and even just myself is like, good people hang out with good people.

Jordan Berry [00:17:11]:
Right. So if you have a good employee and you’re looking for another employee, your best bet is to go to that good employee and say, hey, do you know anybody else who would be interested in working here? But also, like, I’m thinking about my kids. I was having a discussion in a small group I was in last night about how. How important it is who we hang out with and who our kids hang out with, because good people hang out with good people. And that tends to rub off on us, so I just thought that was profound as well.

Brian Riseland [00:17:44]:
You’re on fire.

Jordan Berry [00:17:45]:
You’re on fire.

Brian Riseland [00:17:46]:
Yeah, I, I, I just, I just aim to please. All right. I just want to be invited back a third time.

Jordan Berry [00:17:53]:
Hey, you got an open invitation over here. You’re welcome anytime.

Brian Riseland [00:17:56]:
Get like Saturday Night Live. And they have the green jacket for your fifth visit. We’ll work out something.

Jordan Berry [00:18:00]:
Yeah, that’s right. That’ that’s right. I like that. Yeah, we should. We should implement something like that. That’s fun. Okay, so, you know, one thing I want to. I want to hit on, too, is, you know, that we kind of were just chatting about before we hit record is your role and how that’s going to say, evolving, but it’s almost like up leveling.

Jordan Berry [00:18:24]:
Right. So I’m curious, like, how. How are you spending your time running this business right now? You sort of alluded to the staff kind of runs the show in the store. Are you spending a lot of time in the store? You know, if so, what are you doing there? And if not, like, what do you. What do you do? What do you do? You just sit around and do nothing. What do you do Is this passive.

Brian Riseland [00:18:48]:
Hammer on a keyboard all day long. I send messages and teams to my team. No, I mean it. So this was the destination. Like, a lot of choices I made along the way, or really, I mean, they were designed for scale that I don’t have yet. Right. I envisioned that I would have many more locations by now, and if I was going to have many more locations, that meant the stores relying on me to operate wasn’t going to happen. I still have one, and that’s awesome.

Brian Riseland [00:19:20]:
When the right time comes for number two, that will happen. So my team and they know it, and they tell me, like, I will. I make sure to make it up there at least once a week, even if I don’t have anything, any reason to go on to go up there. My manager and I, we connect on messaging, like, a few times a week. Right. Whenever she needs me, I need her. Right. It’s all like.

Brian Riseland [00:19:48]:
So I. It’s funny. It’s like, well, I’m not going to the store. I’m definitely present, but part of me not going to the store is to create the focal point that Vanessa, my manager, is their first contact. They all know they can contact me if they want to. But in order to give Vanessa the authority that she needs to run the store, I need her to be that, and she wants to be that first line of Contact. Right. That is something that she craves.

Brian Riseland [00:20:21]:
And so, hey, we have a marriage there. So, yeah, they run the store. I fill an occasional shift. They laugh at me when they tell you they change something in the sense ui. And I was just like, am I doing this in the right order? It doesn’t look the same as last time. And they’re just like, you’re so out of touch, Brian.

Jordan Berry [00:20:40]:
I know you’ve made it when you can’t even navigate your own software system anymore.

Brian Riseland [00:20:45]:
Yeah. So they get a kick out of that. So that’s what I don’t do, I guess, is a lot of that stuff I’m here often at this desk. I’m looking at growth. Growth is my number one kind of priority. But I’m really selective, so it’s funny. It’s my number one priority. But where I spend the time I do spend on the laundromat is it kind of peaks and valleys kind of when an interesting thing comes up.

Brian Riseland [00:21:12]:
But so I focus a lot on profitability and measurement. Like, I mean, there’s a. One of the reasons I understand what’s going on in my store is I measure a ton of. Of things. I have a card system. I have said stuff gets spit out. Right. I track like, I have a dashboard.

Brian Riseland [00:21:29]:
I look at things. I know what’s going on in the store. I know what it looks like compared to last year. You know, I’m looking at how many new cards, how many people are coming through the store. Like, I’m very much in tune with the performance of this store. So, like, and if all those things, like, if all those things are trending in the right direction, then, okay, cool. So then, you know, as you hit, you know, I’m in starting year four, growth, still growing, but the growth curve gets a lot flatter. So I’m spending a lot of time in the past year on profitability.

Brian Riseland [00:22:01]:
And it’s like, because if you want to make $1,000 more worth of profit, what’s the exponent of revenue that you have to do to get that? If you’re at 10% margins, that means you have to generate $10,000 in new revenue to get $1,000 more in your pocket. Like, that’s not even with a big store, that’s not an easy accomplishment to drive that kind of growth. But if I watch my costs and look at what the impact of those costs are, then I am better off. So one thing, now I’m paying more for my accountant than I did a year ago. But that’s because I See more benefit from that one. I’m paying less for marketing agencies than I was a year ago because as a small scale advertiser and what’s happening, I think with AI and such, I think that the return on that spend was lower. It’s not that they were bad people or doing bad tactics, it’s just when I look at the return on that money, it’s like as a small scale advertiser, let’s try it out and see what happens. I spent a lot of time understanding my utilities costs and the drivers that actually.

Brian Riseland [00:23:26]:
And it was inadvertently one of the biggest impacts on my costs in the past year because I got one of those alert AQ systems I haven’t talked about in the message groups in a while. But they’re pretty cool. They cost a little bit. You hook them up to your water meter. But the beauty of having it there at the meter is you know what’s coming in and out or into your store. Sorry, not out would be in the sewer. That’s ridiculous. So I was worried that I had a leak at night just because of some patterns in usage.

Brian Riseland [00:23:59]:
So I put that on there just so I could know if there was water flowing into the store at night and there wasn’t. So that was cool. So then we started doing some stuff because we got this thing on there, we paid for the subscription. So remember, it’s just sitting in the meter. It’s not in. So I’d have my manager start before the store opens, hey, run a small machine on cold and tell me what time you ran it. Then I can go to the system and I can figure out how many gallons that it’s using because I was just curious, how many gallons does a typical cycle use? And what we found is our cold cycles were using a lot more water than our warm and hot. And it turns out that that was because there was a program that was miss set somewhere along the way that was using higher water.

Brian Riseland [00:24:51]:
So we’ve since made that adjustment and seen a dramatic reduction in our costs with no impact to the customers on the quality that they perceive. So that one is one that was a great savings. But it’s also was, I tell you, I’m not in the store every day and I don’t repair my own machines and I can do a little bit, but not much. But it was a mistake, I think early on, not a mistake because it makes it sound bad. The concept of trust but verify and like I trusted without verifying part of it because I didn’t know, I didn’t Know which way was up. Like, I’d never run a laundromat before. I figured, I can figure it out. We’ll write our procedures, we’ll make mistakes, and we’ll do great, right? We’ll just do great.

Brian Riseland [00:25:49]:
Because I, you know, you know, as we talked about before, I thought I was going to do a franchise, and I decided not to. I’m like, okay, I have that much money and mistakes to make on my own. But, like, just, you know, I wish I would have spent more time to start knowing more about my machines than looking at the programs. Because, like, that seems like a thing to understand. Because we don’t control much in our stores, honestly. Like, we control the price, we control when we’re open. Customers choose whether or not to come to us. The machines, you know, we can tweak the machines, but not spending the time to look at those programs or understand that there were programs that use different amounts of water and what the pros and cons of those were, that’s a mistake on my part.

Brian Riseland [00:26:46]:
And corrected it. And it’s all good. Gave me one more data point to measure. So now I know how much water is going in and all this stuff, and it will help me in projections for when the next store opportunity comes away. So, like, I have, you know, like, it’s all really, really good. But, yeah, so I guess I focused a lot on profitability. You know, we tweak labor ratios a little bit. And that’s one of the benefits of having a more experienced team right now is, you know, like, we are.

Brian Riseland [00:27:16]:
We have fewer labor hours per hour open than we did last year. But I’m also paying more for my labor because those are just more experienced people working more efficiently. So I will gladly pay them for that because they’re a great team.

Jordan Berry [00:27:37]:
That was a fire hose of awesomeness that just happened right there. So much good stuff. And here’s to zoom out for a second. Here’s what I’m hearing you say is, and. And this. I think I wrote down this quote, actually. This is going to set all this up. Really nice.

Jordan Berry [00:28:00]:
Oh, business choices that I’ve made were designed for scale that I don’t have yet. I wrote that down. I was like, oh, that is like, perfect. And that’s how everybody should be approaching any business that you get into, especially laundromats, right? Of like, hey, you know, if you’re gonna build a business, you might as well build it in a way that is scalable, even if you don’t intend to scale it right now. Because either you might change your mind and decide, hey, you know what, I do want to scale, or you might want to sell it to somebody and if you can say, hey, look how scalable this is, it’s going to be more valuable, right? So either way, you should be thinking that way. So I thought that was genius, no pun intended, for the laundry genius over there. And just in case you missed his first episode, he is data guy to the max over here, which I think is great. Super needed in our industry to have more of that, which is why I liked the, the talk on the alert IQ and even just getting the data on, hey, how many gallons of water am I using in this, you know, this machine or the store? And is that, does that sound right? Is that reasonable? But kind of to zoom back out, right? Like big picture.

Jordan Berry [00:29:13]:
Like, what I see you doing is again, sort of building to scale that you don’t have yet is your role keeps getting elevated, right? You’re not in the store. You’ve got people cleaning and customer service. You’re not managing the employees. You’ve got a manager doing that now, right? So now you’re looking at that. Not just how much revenue are we driving, but how do we optimize our profitability? Right? And I was telling you, I just came out with a video on YouTube. It’ll probably be a couple weeks ago when this comes out, talking about how, like, there’s a lot of, you know, a lot of people are super interested in laundromats because there’s a lot of bucket fulls of quarters being shown and stacks of cash being pulled out of change machines and stuff. And that’s great, and we should try to maximize our revenue, but really what matters is how much of that are we keeping. Right? And that’s what you’re getting at.

Jordan Berry [00:30:07]:
That bottom line, dollar there that we, that we get to put in our pocket. And that is a next level up, right? That’s where you’re starting to say, okay, our, our system is working. We’re, we’re doing good. We’ve got good, the right people in the right seats. We, you know, we’re profitable, we’re making money. But are there things that we can do to make this more efficient? Can we cut some hours? Can we, you know, can we. Is there anything to do in the utilities? Right. Utilities are one of our big three costs.

Jordan Berry [00:30:37]:
Labor, utilities and rent. Usually our three big costs. Right. So are there things we can do to optimize our utilities? Well, it turns out there was something pretty significant that you could do once you’ve got the data and the information to be able to do that, right? So I think probably next level for you is somebody else’s sort of managed. Maybe your manager takes on that role or you bring somebody else on to manage that down the line. When you’re ready to scale even further and your role becomes, hey, I’m. I’m looking for more deals. I’m looking for the next thing.

Jordan Berry [00:31:13]:
I’m looking how to leverage what I have to make it bigger. If that’s even a direction you want to go, right? And that’s not a inevitable direction, but that’s an option for you or somebody you sell to down the line.

Brian Riseland [00:31:25]:
Like, that’s the dream, right? I mean, I hate it. Everybody wants mailbox money, you know, and these videos sell. It’s just like, look, if you want passive income, buy an etf, right? I’m serious. I just laugh when people talk about passive income and mailbox money. Like, hey, guess I’m going to open a thing that has employees and machines and all this stuff, and I’m not going to have to go there. They’re just, a check is going to roll in and it’s just like, interesting, right? Like, look, I’m all for working efficiently and putting the least amount of effort to get the maximum amount of return. But, like, you know, there’s a cost to everything, right? They’re like, I pay a manager, right, to give me some of the freedom. So if you want to say that me sitting at this desk typing away on my computer, is mailbox running? Okay, fine.

Brian Riseland [00:32:29]:
That’s definitely not passive. But there’s a cost to that. Just like, even if I own an investment, like, whatever, Schwab, Fidelity, whatever, they got their cut for their management fee or holding fee or stuff like that. But if you want, literally, if you want passive income, then find your right investment because at least you don’t have to worry about turning the lights on or the water breaking or all that sort of stuff or a customer coming in, taking a crap in your front door. I mean, I don’t. I don’t get it.

Jordan Berry [00:32:58]:
Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, it’s been. That’s been like the lore of the industry for so many years, right? Passive income. And to be honest, I mean, and to be fair, I think a lot of people ran it pretty passively for a long time. They ran their businesses, which is why we have so many zombie mats, which is why there’s so many problems, which is why our reputation as an industry has been horrific. I. I think it’s starting to change now. But we got a long way to go still as an industry to rehab that reputation of our, our industry.

Jordan Berry [00:33:34]:
Because I think a lot of people did kind of run it that way where they just kind of came and collected quarters. They didn’t fix machines really. They didn’t keep the place super nice. They didn’t reinvest in the business. And it didn’t lead anywhere good. I’ll tell you that right now. If you’re getting in the business, trying to be as hands off as possible, especially from day one, it’s not going to take you anywhere good.

Brian Riseland [00:33:58]:
This is like, this is a callback to what you were talking about a few minutes ago. Like I’m talking to your kids about essentially where the good people hang out with good people or the average of the five people we hang out the most. Whatever you want to do. And it’s funny like, how in a way I feel super myopic. Right. It was good that you brought back like the history because I’ve only been this four years. I don’t have a lot of history and stuff. But I forget about that style of operation because the people I hang out with and talk to are all growth oriented.

Brian Riseland [00:34:32]:
They’re running a variety of stores with a variety of business models. Full serve attended, like unattended, 24 hour, just a few hours. But all those people that I tap into are focused on providing a great customer experience whatever way they do. So I guess I don’t, I forget that, you know, there’s a different kind of mailbox, I guess, than the one that I think about.

Jordan Berry [00:35:00]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it’s, it’s, it’s true. Right? And like that’s right. That’s what I think is scary right now. I mean, it’s exciting because there’s people like you and the people you’re hanging out with, people I try to hang out with. Like, we’re growth oriented, we’re abundance mindset. We’re business. I’ll say at least you’re business savvy.

Jordan Berry [00:35:21]:
I try to be business savvy. People I hang out with are usually business savvy. Right. But if you’re not getting in those circles, if you’re not trying to be around people who are pushing in that direction, it’s going to be really hard for you to compete with Brian. I mean, it’s gonna be hard anyways to compete with Brian even if you are. But like the, the owners that are coming into this industry now are, they’re calculating how much water am I using in my machines? Right. They’re, they’re buying meters that can help them figure that data out and make better business decisions. And it work for you, right? Like it increase your profitability.

Jordan Berry [00:36:07]:
Significant amount or at least a tangible amount, Right?

Brian Riseland [00:36:10]:
Yes.

Jordan Berry [00:36:11]:
And. Right. And so, you know, if you’re not around people like a Brian Riesland who’s like, hey, I’m, I’m spending the majority of my time now making sure my manager’s good and has everything she needs to manage the store and looking for ways to make what I currently have more profitable and trying to find the next thing. Right. And if you’re not hanging out with guys like that, gals like that, it’s just going to be so hard for you to keep up in this industry and, and make money. And if you’re looking for mailbox money, you’re going to get trounced by the Brian Rieslands of the world.

Brian Riseland [00:36:48]:
And guess what? In every city in the United States of substance, we could like literally probably spend five minutes and we could name a person or one or two people. Right? So it’s not like, like it’s not out there. It’s not like, because I’m in Everett, Washington that, you know, it’s like they’re all there. Like, that’s why, I mean, gathering is important. Whether you do it online, like, you have your mastermind coming up in Hawaii here in a month. Like, just getting around smart people makes you smarter. And you know, even though like I spent last year with a lot of people who make their money on commercial and folcer and I didn’t pursue the opportunity because I saw what it took and what where I was, but like, it was totally outside my comfort zone. But.

Brian Riseland [00:37:37]:
And like these people, like a rising tide, this all boats. You talk about an abundance mindset and stuff. It’s like they’re willing to share because, you know, I benefit. Remember I said 2019, 2020, that’s when I’m coming in the industry. I know what number of podcasts you were on then and what you were talking about because you’d been there before. And the type of information that you were exposing people to then was locked and held like tight. Like just tight. And now we get people get together and they share it, they post it online and it’s just like, so if you, if you’re holding on to knowledge as your differentiator, guess what? Someone else is going to come out there and share it.

Brian Riseland [00:38:30]:
And if you’re curious at all, you can find it Yep.

Jordan Berry [00:38:35]:
Yeah. I mean, this is the world we live in, right? Knowledge is free. Implementation is costly. Right? And that’s why I don’t have any qualms about sharing whatever about this industry. And that’s why from day one, I was like, okay, how many turns per day are you doing? What’s. What’s a tip that you could give to another owner to help them improve their business? Right? Because information is cheap. It’s free. Right.

Jordan Berry [00:39:03]:
It’s. Very few people go out and implement, and that is a huge blessing in disguise for those of us who are like, okay, I’m gonna go out and I’m gonna do this. I’m gonna. I’m gonna go out and implement it. I’m gonna go out and make it happen. That’s why I end every single podcast episode, 200, whatever we’re at right now episodes, every single one. I end it with, hey, you’re wasting your time. If you just listen to this episode and you don’t pick something out of it and go put it into action, it’s a waste of time.

Jordan Berry [00:39:36]:
Like, go do something with this information. Because it’s implementation that matters here. And that. I mean, that’s where you’re nailing it, man. You’re nailing it because you have a good team that’s implementing, and then it frees you up to implement on those higher levels activities to really push the business forward.

Brian Riseland [00:39:56]:
Yeah, I proudly. I proudly wear the badge of operator. Like, yeah, I want to be a strategic. I don’t want to be a strategician. I don’t want to be. It’s like, I operate right? Strategies are great, but if you can’t put them in action, and even if you take imperfect action, like, that’s been a big learning over the past year, just in, you know, the business, like, imperfect action is better than no action at all. Because more often than not, the cost of the mistake is not something that you can’t overcome. And it’s better off than not doing.

Jordan Berry [00:40:27]:
Anything, even when the cost is high. And I can speak from experience, right? Like, my first Laundromat, I lost six figures easy. And, like, it would have been so easy for me to be. To fade into laundromat obscurity as the world’s worst laundromat owner early on, right? But. But what I decided to do instead was, hey, I’m going to share the lessons. I learned to try to help other people so I don’t have to learn the way I did because it was miserable, right? And if I hadn’t done that, like, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now. I’d have no idea how tall you were in real life. You know what I mean? And, like, who wants to live their life that way, right? And so everybody wants to know.

Jordan Berry [00:41:10]:
Yeah, there’s no. There’s no mistake. Like, I’m. I’m convinced, like, there’s no mistake so big that you can’t overcome it. And it’s worth making a big mistake and. And then learning from it and persevering. Now, I also would try to avoid all those mistakes. And there’s a whole lot of things I would do differently if I had to do it over.

Jordan Berry [00:41:34]:
And I don’t think people should just jump into this business on their own day one if they have no clue what they’re doing. But. But don’t be afraid of making mistakes, because you’re going to, like, there’s no avoiding it. You’re gonna make mistakes. But that’s what leads to new things. That’s what leads. Like, Laundromat resource wouldn’t exist if I wasn’t so bad at owning and operating a lot and buying a laundromat the first time around.

Brian Riseland [00:41:57]:
Right? You know. You know what. You know what fail stands for, right? First attempt in learning. Yeah. First attempt and learning, man. It’s just like. And that was a costly education, but, you know, it was education, and you. You double down and, you know, now it’s not just about laundromats.

Brian Riseland [00:42:13]:
Like, you have multiple ways that you can deliver what you need deliver to live the life that you want to live and the way you want to live it with your kids in Hawaii. And this is, like, it all. Trace it back to there. And if you would have stopped, right, all that. That hundred, whatever, six figures of money would have been, like, not gone anywhere, but it was just like a college education.

Jordan Berry [00:42:37]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. For nothing. Yeah. Well, and it’s interesting. I mean, you brought this up, and you kind of actually mentioned this too, on. On your side, but, you know, you said, you know, essentially, like, you’re. You’ve. You’re building this business by design, and you’re doing it in a way that’s building your life by design, too.

Jordan Berry [00:43:00]:
Like, you. You mentioned, like, hey, I’m super picky. Well, guess what? I bet the reason you’re super picky is because you don’t want to pick up a laundromat. That’s gonna be a huge headache for you and, you know, alter the way that you have started designing your life right.

Brian Riseland [00:43:17]:
Right now. I worry about ROE as much as I worry about roi. Return on effort is something, I care deeply about it because. Or return on energy. If you want to put it this way, right where I direct my energy is I want it to be the things where I enjoy and add value at this stage of my life. And there’s like, there’s a cost and there’s trade offs you make. So if I think the. My return on effort is probably higher than a lot of people and I’m sure I’m missing out on opportunities because of that, but guess what? I’m fine with that.

Jordan Berry [00:43:56]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I love that return on energy. And you know, really, my, my goal, I’m definitely not there yet, but my goal is, is to essentially have an infinite return on energy, right? Like I want to do. I want to spend my energy on things that give me energy, right. As much as possible. Now there’s always going to be things that we do that don’t, that don’t energize us that we just have to get done, right? Like, I hate doing the books for my, for my accountant. I’ve got to give my accountant in tax professional certain information.

Jordan Berry [00:44:37]:
I hate even doing that, but I gotta do it, right? Like there’s certain things that we just gotta do. But as much as possible, I’m looking to do things that just give me more energy and I would just love to spend that energy up. That’s a big part of why I do the podcast as well, is because it gives me. I like, I get psyched up talking to Brian Reisland on a random. Whatever. It’s awesome Wednesday, right?

Brian Riseland [00:45:02]:
I mean, because the other part is just if you like, you can dismiss what we say about connecting and types of business and other people, but the life of the entrepreneur is pretty damn lonely, right? So just like finding people to connect to that are both entrepreneurs, but then also finding people that you can connect to to talk about your topic. Like, dude, Waleed, you know, we got on the phone for a quick chat. There was gonna be a 15 minute chat about something. We ended up talking for an hour and a half, just about a wide variety of stuff. But it’s like, I don’t have anything. I don’t have anyone out here in Washington to talk to about. So all of a sudden we just. This thing led to that thing, which led to another thing and then it’s just like, oh boy, where’d the day go? But, you know, I learned something from him and hopefully he learned something from me in that, that call but, yeah, it’s just like, we just gotta connect and be curious why.

Jordan Berry [00:45:59]:
Yeah. You wanna know something funny? Is. Literally right before we jumped on this, I was on a call with Waleed talking about stuff. So. That guy gets around, man. He is. He is networking pro there. Good dude.

Jordan Berry [00:46:13]:
By the way, if. I’m pretty sure this will come out before that, but if you’re not going to the. The Laundry CEO forum in Texas in October, you should be. So go check it out. Laundry CEO on stage again for the.

Brian Riseland [00:46:25]:
Second year in a row, unless we keep coming back.

Jordan Berry [00:46:29]:
They’re gonna put you on stage. You’re gonna be even taller, man.

Brian Riseland [00:46:33]:
Yes, they’re gonna. They’re gonna put a little box behind the podium that they had for you, and they’ll just move it aside when I get out there.

Jordan Berry [00:46:40]:
Yeah, they’re gonna turn it upside down, so you have to step into it. Shrink down a little. Yeah, yeah. Come hang out with us in Texas. That’ll be great, dude. So one thing that I. Yes, yes. I brought my son last year to his conference, and we got bar the.

Jordan Berry [00:47:01]:
Literally, his eyes, like, rolled in the back of his head. He’s like, oh, my gosh, I think I’m in heaven. Thirteen at the time. Like, Texas, living his life, you know? That’s right. Yeah, that’s right. One more thing I wanted to mention, and if there’s anything else you want to talk about, we can talk about that, too. But you said something before we hit record. You.

Jordan Berry [00:47:22]:
You gave me an equation, and I’m not sure you’ve even realized that you were giving me an equation, but you did give me an equation I just. Just. I would love to hear your thoughts on, because I thought it was a really good and really interesting equation. See, essentially, what you said is that profit equals your team plus your systems. And I’m curious. Like, I. I thought that was really profound, but, I mean, do you have any thoughts on that? Or can you expound on that just a little bit?

Brian Riseland [00:47:52]:
Talking about a tweet that was in Laundromat Resource a couple weeks ago, and it essentially is like, what. What are the things? Like, can everybody make a lot of money in a Laundromat? Right. And I think the answer is. Is yes. Right. You know, we have to choose the right locations and stuff, but if you look at what it takes, this gets back to scale. Right. You know, so if you want to.

Brian Riseland [00:48:18]:
It’s like. I forget how we talked about it. It’s just like, I have unlocked profitability by hiring great people and give Them clear direction so they can operate something that is pretty massive in relative terms with limited interaction. So I think in the end the profitability part of that equation really is without them, I don’t scale. Right. And so you may argue with me and you say, okay Brian, like for your one store, the math doesn’t work. And I’m like, okay, fine. But I know that when the opportunity comes for the next store, right then yeah, that profitability is enabled by those five people in Everett, Washington that have literally laid the groundwork, fine tuned every process that we have and continue to do so.

Brian Riseland [00:49:19]:
So when the comes we just lock and load and go.

Jordan Berry [00:49:24]:
Yeah, yeah, that’s huge. And it goes back to your, your quote that the business decisions you’ve made to build that business were designed for scale that you don’t have yet, but you’re, you’re locked and loaded, you’re ready to go on that scale when the right opportunities hit. And I, what I loved about the, the profit equals team suit plus systems is, you know, one, one thing that I get asked all the time. I’m sure you get asked this too, but like, hey, can I own a laundromat like out of, out of my market, out of state or whatever? And everybody wants to own remotely. And again, kind of going back to that mailbox money. And the answer to that is probably not, but it’s possible and people do and you can do it successfully. But in order to even have a shot at making that work, you gotta have the right people in place and you gotta have the right systems and technology in place as well. The systems and technology.

Jordan Berry [00:50:25]:
Especially the technology. That’s the easy part. Technology. The tech stack is the easy part. I can just tell you what tech you need, right? Brian could just tell you what tech you need. It’s really the systems and the people that make it very difficult to do that remotely. But if we just take it back home and it’s one of the huge differentiators between the laundromats that are crushing it and the laundromats that struggle or even just the average laundromats is the people in the systems that they’re utilizing. And I see this like I’ve talked Now with over 200 laundromat owners just on the podcast, not counting like you probably just conversations that I have.

Jordan Berry [00:51:06]:
People. Yeah, easy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I mean it’s one of the reasons I went right is just talk to people and hang out with people and hear what they’re doing in their business and stuff, right? And, and, and, and I have, I, I just had a call with a guy this week who lives in Molokai, which is an island in Hawaii here that essentially nobody lives on. There’s like 7, 000 people on the island. He lives there and he’s got a thriving laundry business in Texas. And I was like, how are you doing this? But he’s got the right people in place, he’s got the right systems in place. Right.

Jordan Berry [00:51:42]:
Again, managing remotely. Let’s bring it home to your laundromat. Wherever you’re at, you know, listening to this or watching this, you know, hyper focusing and getting and like leveling up your role to a point where you can, your main things are not sweeping the floors, wiping down the machines. I started there, so there’s no knock on that. But you don’t want to stay there. Right.

Brian Riseland [00:52:04]:
Understand everything, everything, like, wouldn’t replace that experience for the world, but that was simply foundational. And like I said, the vast majority of the processes we operated under in year one when I was there, a lot, at a minimum, they’ve been modified by my team and they continue to find ways to tweak stuff that, to work that they want the way they want to work. Because again, we are outcome oriented. Right. And we also, we try stuff like, literally it’s like, yeah, try. It doesn’t work, then we’ll go back to the other way. But there’s probably, you know, I, I’ve empowered my team a ton, but I don’t think I’ve empowered them enough that they could do anything that was going to cause permanent damage that we couldn’t recover from.

Jordan Berry [00:52:58]:
Yeah, I, dude, I love, I’ve been writing down quotes left and right more so than I’m a kind of a quota file anyways. But I’ve been writing a lot more down on this one. Yeah, but we tried people that, you.

Brian Riseland [00:53:10]:
Know, can I manage your remote? Can I own a remote laundry? The answer is a hundred percent. Unequivocally, yes, you can. Will you make any money like that or will you make the money that you want to make out of it? That becomes the question. Because that one, like, you know, you want to have, you want to sit at home and okay, then you better have a manager that you compensate well enough that they’ll show up when the door gets broken in or when the alarm goes off or when the repair guy wants to come at 7am before you open, because that’s when it fits in their truck. So, yeah, you can. And then you say, well, if I Do that. I don’t make a lot of money. Okay, well then is it worth your effort and your time to do it? Right? Like, that’s, that’s the choice that you make.

Brian Riseland [00:54:05]:
It’s not. Anybody’s gonna make it for you. But it kind of goes back to the concept of mailbox money. It’s like, there’s no, yes, we can all get checks in our mailbox, but I can trace you all the way back. Everything has a cost. It’s just what it is. And it’s either money or time or energy. Like, and if you’re willing to pay it and, and the return for you is great, then, like, then, yeah, you can run it remotely.

Brian Riseland [00:54:31]:
Sure.

Jordan Berry [00:54:36]:
Yeah. And. And there’s no right or wrong. Right. Like, I have. I have clients that I work with all the time who are like, actually, you know, I don’t even need the laundromat to make money. I. If it breaks even and covers his cost, I’m super happy.

Jordan Berry [00:54:50]:
I’m. I’m buying it just for tax. Tax per. Like, I paid a million dollars in taxes last year, so I need some help with my taxes. So I’m going to get something with depreciable assets that I can write off taxes. Right. And so there’s lots of different motivations, but you got to match that up with, you know, your business model, whatever it is, with your why and what goals you’re trying to accomplish. And a lot of what we do in our consulting, too, is like, we want clarity on why are you doing this? Why.

Jordan Berry [00:55:19]:
Why a laundromat? Why are you doing this? What’s the goal here? What’s the outcome? Because it’s really easy, sidetracked and shiny object and be like, oh, this laundromat here. And like, yeah, but your goal is this. That’s not gonna achieve your goal.

Brian Riseland [00:55:32]:
So religious about topics in this industry. Unattended attendant, full serve. Not full serve, pick up and delivery. Have my. Exactly.

Jordan Berry [00:55:42]:
Coin card things.

Brian Riseland [00:55:43]:
And then they get like, they get mad. Yeah, they’re like, you’re wrong. Because you do that. It’s like, you know, go in your tent. I bet you in your town there’s a baker who makes donuts, there’s a baker who makes bread, and there’s a baker who makes wedding cakes. And there’s probably all sorts of other types of bakers. There could be the Mexican pastry baker and all this stuff. But guess what? Do they get mad at each other because they’re doing it a different way? No, they have just found their niche to do it their way on what they care about providing to their people.

Brian Riseland [00:56:19]:
So like, there are infinite amounts of recipes to operate the way we want to do it, this industry, and none of them are right or wrong. As long as you’re meeting your objectives, not someone else’s, like, the worst thing you can do is like, hold yourself up to what someone else does. Is your targets. Like, nope, this is me. This is the life I want to live and this is the way I’m going to go about it.

Jordan Berry [00:56:45]:
Yeah, I love that. I think that was a, A big, that was like one of my big surprises in the first year doing the podcast was I was like, I just talked to 50 different laundromat owners and they all run them 50 different ways. Like, I didn’t even know this business is so simple. I didn’t even like realize there’s a whole bunch of different ways to run it. And I’d say there’s probably more ways to run it now than five or six years ago when I started the podcast. Because pickup and delivery, barely a thing, you know, back then, if at all. Right. And so now it’s like blowing up.

Jordan Berry [00:57:16]:
And now we got lots of people like Mark Vlaskamp and other people who’ve come on the podcast and other people who haven’t come on the podcast who are starting only pickup and delivery businesses and they don’t even have laundromat location. So there’s like lots of ways to do this business and aligning that with your goal. But your, your debt is, is huge, but you’re dead on that. This industry gets very combative with different models and I think some of it’s done for fun, but some of it’s like different brands or different, you know, like whatever, like o, like, dude, are you accomplishing the goal that you want to accomplish? Because if so, then don’t worry about that.

Brian Riseland [00:57:57]:
Worry about the people that you’re interacting with. Right. To have an impact like those. Anyway, we could go off on a whole, we could probably go on a self help channel on, on this, on the discussion that would, that would result from that. Like, I’m just really big on that and where I’m at in my life right now. And I care a lot about who, where what that gets my energy and what the trade offs are when I apply that.

Jordan Berry [00:58:24]:
Yeah, I love that. And, and being. You know, what’s. Here’s what’s interesting too. I just want to go back to this real quick because it, your. What you just said sparked this thought in me And I think it’s, I think it’s a good one. Like, I think most people, for most of their lives, we’re. This is gonna sound negative.

Jordan Berry [00:58:45]:
I don’t mean this negative, but we’re like money focused, right? Like, we’ve gotta, we’ve gotta make money. Like, we have to make a living, we gotta pay our bills. And a lot of times we, you know, we suffer from like, lifestyle creep. We make more money, we spend more money and all that stuff. I get all that. But if you can get to a point where you make enough money in your job or you build a business or you buy a business or however you kind of get the money, if you can get to the point where money is not the most dire topic anymore, it gives you a little bit of space. And once you get a little bit of space going back to your return on energy, you should be optimizing for return on energy. Just, you just need like a, a little like a foot in the door here, Right.

Jordan Berry [00:59:30]:
You don’t have to be financially free or anything like that. You don’t have to leave your job necessarily, anything like that. But once you can get a little space where you’re not so worried about money all the time and where’s it coming from, return on energy is. I, I think it’ll change your life.

Brian Riseland [00:59:50]:
Your analogy is from that.

Jordan Berry [00:59:51]:
Yeah, that was like, I mean, it’s changed mine.

Brian Riseland [00:59:53]:
Once you open the door a little and you get a glimpse, right. You just immediately want to shove your foot in there because you just want. Exactly. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [01:00:04]:
Crawl in like you’re. And it’s tough zombie, right?

Brian Riseland [01:00:06]:
We gotta pay our bills, we gotta do the things. We gotta, we gotta do, do the stuff. But, you know, the more, the more, the more you can just live your life that way. Because wealth is, you know, in the bigger picture, wealth is a lot more than money. Wealth is a lot about freedom to spend your time where you want to, with who you want to do it. Because I don’t know if you’ve read Die with Zero. Yeah, I mean, that one I read just recently and it’s just like, yeah. How many extra hours did that person work for the, you know, $2,000 they had in the bank when they died? It’s like, whoa, boy.

Brian Riseland [01:00:44]:
Like, you think about it that way.

Jordan Berry [01:00:45]:
Yeah.

Brian Riseland [01:00:46]:
Get the experience as well. You have the energy to enjoy it.

Jordan Berry [01:00:49]:
It’s. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s a really great book. If you haven’t, if you haven’t read it, Die with Zeros. It’s, It’s a perspective changer for sure. Yeah, I hesitate, I, I hesitate to say this and endless. This is not, I’m not going to say this is like this is the only path. But I will say for myself, if I was in a situation where, you know, I’m just, I’m, I’m getting by, I’m doing well, you know, or whatever, but I don’t have that daylight, I don’t have that foot in the door where I have a little bit of freedom to make choices that give me a good return on my energy.

Jordan Berry [01:01:38]:
I just have to do what I have to do still. I think I would, especially if I was young, especially then it gets harder as you get older, but still I would still do it. Even if it was today. I would make an all out effort. I would not rest. I would, you know, I would, I would get a second job. I would work a side hustle, I would build a business, I would buy a business. I would do whatever I could for a short amount of time to get that daylight.

Jordan Berry [01:02:11]:
Like I would be obviously like, it would be more work, it would be harder work, it’d be longer hours. I’d be making sacrifices. Like you said, there’s a cost to everything, right? But I would be in an all out blitz to try to get a little bit of daylight where I have my head above water, where money wasn’t the only like the primary thing that I was focused on so I could get a little bit of space. Space to say, okay, now where can I spend my time where I’m getting a good return on my energy because it’s a life changer. Like it really is a life changer. And you pair that with that question that you just asked from Daiwa0 of like, what are we stacking stuff for here? You know, we’re, we’re the reason, reason we own businesses is to help us build the lives that we want. Right? So, so if your life doesn’t currently look the way you want it, my philosophy is like do what you have to do to get to that point where you can start to build. Not, not yet, maybe your business in a way that could scale, but your life in a way that you can scale your life.

Jordan Berry [01:03:17]:
So I don’t know, I think that return on energy, I just really struck a chord with me. So I’m really glad you brought it.

Brian Riseland [01:03:22]:
Up to find that one. So anybody that finds them sooner than you got a head start on me. But you’re right, like it’s funny, like framing the way you talked about it Is I invested a lot of life, of my life in tech. Right. And that is a lot of hours in those things. And I think now that it’s easier you don’t see in the moment, but you look back on what freedom that’s enabled now in my life to do stuff this way. Cool.

Jordan Berry [01:03:48]:
Yeah. Yeah. Huge. Huge. Man. Well, listen, this has been. Been incredible as always, you know, and it’s funny, we didn’t really come into this with any kind of plan, and nothing crazy has really changed in your business. But, like, I don’t know, I.

Jordan Berry [01:04:05]:
This has been like one of my favorite episodes. Like, just so many good topics. I appreciate you so much, taking the time, coming on and being willing to share your thoughts. I mean, you continue, you know, not just on our little podunk platform here, but on even larger platforms. If you could imagine larger ones out there. There are a few.

Brian Riseland [01:04:25]:
And.

Jordan Berry [01:04:25]:
And Brian has graced them all. But no, but just coming to share the way that you think about this business like this, I think that the way you’re thinking about things, the way you’re trying to operate your business, the way you’re trying to build it is. Is the way of the future. Like, we all need to be kind of thinking along these lines. And not to say that we all need to do business the way you’re doing it, because like you said, there’s a million different ways to do that, but being growth oriented, being abundant mindset, you know, oriented, using data to make better business decisions, building and keeping good team members, like, all of these things are foundational principles for our industry going forward. And if we’re not proactively addressing them, somebody else is. We’re going to get left behind. Somebody else will do it, and I really appreciate you.

Brian Riseland [01:05:12]:
Yeah, well, like, that’s a fact.

Jordan Berry [01:05:16]:
Yeah, yeah, it’s true.

Brian Riseland [01:05:20]:
It’s true.

Jordan Berry [01:05:20]:
And you’re gonna have a hard time competing with them if they do and when they do. So, dude, again, this has been incredible. Really, really appreciate you. And I meant what I said earlier. You got to open invitation anytime around here. So just let me know and we. We’ll definitely have to do it again. And I’m gonna.

Jordan Berry [01:05:39]:
I’m gonna figure out what number you got to get to in order to get the. The special jacket, whatever, and then we’ll send one over to you. Yeah, yeah. Maybe it’s a. One of those tuxedo T shirts or.

Brian Riseland [01:05:51]:
Just something with your picture on it.

Jordan Berry [01:05:53]:
That’d be Hawaii sty. Yeah, just my face. Well, I want you to wear it, though. So maybe not that awesome. All right, man. Appreciate you, Brian. And we’ll chat soon. All right.

Jordan Berry [01:06:05]:
I hope you loved that episode with Brian. I know that you did because there was so much good stuff in there. He is so smart. He’s so smart. So many good, practical tips in there. And I love, love, love talking tech with Brian Reisland. And, you know, we could probably do that all day long. So.

Jordan Berry [01:06:23]:
So all that to say. I’ve said this before. I’ll say it again. This entire episode will be a waste of your time if you don’t pick something, anything. Put it into action this week, today, if possible. That action is what’s going to help you accomplish your goals. Not just listening to podcasts, mine, anybody else’s. Doesn’t matter.

Jordan Berry [01:06:45]:
It’s not going to get you to wherever you’re trying to go. You got to actually put it into action. You got to take some action there. All right? And maybe, just maybe for some of you out there, some of my favorite people out there, maybe the action you need to take from today’s episode is heading over to laundry resource.com Hawaii and signing up for that Laundromat Accelerator Hawaii event coming up November 21st to 24th on the beach of WY with me and a whole bunch of other laundry geeks. All right. All right. We will see you guys in the next episode. Peace.