Jordan Berry [00:00:00]:
Hey, what’s up guys? It’s Jordan with the Loaner Man Resource Podcast. This is show 244, I think.

Jordan Berry [00:00:07]:
Let me look. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:00:09]:
Wow.

Jordan Berry [00:00:09]:
244. And I am pumped you’re here today because today, number one, we’re holing up because all these storms here in Hawaii. So, you know, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. I mean, it will be sunshine and rainbows as soon as the rain’s done, but not always. And I appreciate— just want to shout out to everybody who reached out, just making sure. Roque out in Hawaii during these crazy storms. So I appreciate you guys.

Jordan Berry [00:00:36]:
We’re doing good.

Jordan Berry [00:00:38]:
Property’s good.

Jordan Berry [00:00:38]:
People are good. A lot of rebuilding to do around here, but I think for the most part, people are good.

Jordan Berry [00:00:45]:
So I appreciate you guys. And that’s not the only reason I’m pumped you’re here today. Also pumped you’re here today because Joe should know is joining me on the show today to talk about folding. Folding is, as you know, probably the most time-consuming part of your wash and fold or pickup and delivery business or just your personal laundry habits. And we’re going to talk about Foldtex folding machines. I think it’s an underutilized tool, especially for those of you guys with large or growing drop-off and/or pickup and delivery businesses. This is an episode for you. So we’re niching down even niche than laundromats today, but super good episode.

Jordan Berry [00:01:30]:
Joe is a super good guy. And I just want to point out right now before we jump into it with him, Joe and I are actually going to be jumping on a live Q&A to talk about the Fulltex folding machine and to answer your questions maybe about your particular situation or just general questions I didn’t get to on the episode. That’s going to be April 3rd at 10:00 Pacific time. Which is 1 o’clock Eastern time, which is 7 AM Hawaii time. So I’m going to roll out of bed, do a live Q&A, talk about Fulltex. But join us, number one, because you’re going to want to meet Joe. Number two is because, listen, Fulltex folding machines, massive, massive deal, especially if you’re doing any kind of volume of drop-off pickup delivery. So without further ado, I’ve already labor to April 3rd, 2026.

Jordan Berry [00:02:21]:
That’s going to be, you know, be on the newsletter.

Jordan Berry [00:02:23]:
We’ll make sure that link goes out, but it’ll be on YouTube, also on LinkedIn, and also on our Facebook group or page over there.

Jordan Berry [00:02:30]:
So go check those out. April 3rd, 10:00 AM Pacific, 1:00 PM Eastern time.

Jordan Berry [00:02:36]:
Yeah. All right.

Jordan Berry [00:02:37]:
Let’s jump into it with Joe though.

Jordan Berry [00:02:38]:
He’s a great guy. Can’t wait for you to meet him. Joe, thank you for coming on the show, man. How are you doing today?

Joe Chenot [00:02:45]:
I’m doing good, Jordan. Thank you for having me on. I appreciate it.

Jordan Berry [00:02:47]:
I am super duper excited because we’re going to be talking about one of the coolest pieces of equipment in our industry that I, I’ll just say is I think it’s underutilized, especially if you’ve got a pickup and delivery business out there or a drop-off service. You might want to pay close attention to this one. But before we jump into why that is going to be an awesome piece of equipment for people, why don’t we tell everybody who are you and what company are you working for?

Joe Chenot [00:03:21]:
So Jordan, as you said, I am Joe Chenault. I am the interim vice president of Fultex. I am over the customer development department, which is a fancy way of saying sales because at Fultex we don’t feel that it’s really a sales department. It’s more of a, hey, let’s develop that relationship. Hence the name. So if you see that on my email or if anyone emails me, that’s what you’re going to see. Vice President of Customer Development. Fultex is a company that’s been around since 2013.

Joe Chenot [00:03:48]:
We make the best drywork folders in the industry. We are known for our simplicity and our reliability, as well as just our customer service and our genuine care that we have for our customers.

Jordan Berry [00:04:00]:
Yeah. And, you know, I should just say here, like, the reason that you’re here on the show is Because Randy Roberts was raving about you guys and raving about your equipment, but even more so, and to your point on your title there, even more so, he was raving about your customer service. And I mean, he just genuinely thinks that he considers you guys friends, which is just glowing praise. So I love highlighting good people in this industry who are doing good things for owners, helping them build their businesses. So I was pumped that you wanted to come on the show and chat. So thank you for taking the time to do that.

Joe Chenot [00:04:43]:
Oh, absolutely. Randy is, he’s absolutely more of a friend than he is a customer. I mean, that whole group between Randy and Joe Dan and Kent and Iyad and Rick Roman, all those guys, anyone forgetting, they’re just great people to be around. Yeah. Even if they weren’t part of the Fulltex ecosystem, they would still be friends.

Jordan Berry [00:05:03]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:05:03]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Super good crew there. In fact, I mean, you mentioned Kent Wales. That was the first time I got to see your machine was at his, before he moved to his new plant at his old location. I got, he gave me a little tour there.

Jordan Berry [00:05:19]:
It was pretty cool to see that thing in action. So cool. Okay. So, well, tell us, tell us about Fulltex. Who’s Fulltex? Like what, Where, where’s, I mean, can you give us like a little background? Like how did this whole thing start? And then I’m assuming, and maybe this is a bad assumption, I’m assuming you didn’t start in the laundromat space. Maybe you started in like OPL, on-premise laundry or something like that. Or is that accurate?

Joe Chenot [00:05:45]:
Uh, so are you talking about where I started personally or where Fulltex?

Jordan Berry [00:05:48]:
Fulltex as a company.

Joe Chenot [00:05:50]:
So Fulltex as a company, we actually started because we saw a gap in the industry. And the gap was between vendors and consumers. And it was, it was that gap, that lack of genuine care that we really thought we could fill that void, for lack of a better term. You know, a lot of times you’ll hear, well, I got this piece of equipment, I couldn’t get parts for it, or I can’t get service for it. And anyone can make laundry equipment. There’s some companies out there that make really good stuff. But what separates Fulltex from that is the simplicity and reliability. You don’t need a master’s in engineering to work on one of these machines.

Joe Chenot [00:06:28]:
But at the same time, we know that a machine without people is just a machine. So for us, it was making sure that we’re meeting those kind of those intangibles that other people weren’t hitting, where it’s, you know, when you call and you do have a tech question, which doesn’t happen often, but when they do, you’re getting one of the technicians who are in the field installing it. You’re getting someone who’s troubleshot the equipment before. They’re all based here in the US. There’s a lot of things that just weren’t being done. So for us to come into the industry 13 years ago, we also wanted to fly under the radar. And a big part of that was we wanted to make sure that we were doing things the right way. I hear all the time when people call in, it’s very difficult for us to find information marketing from Fulltex.

Joe Chenot [00:07:16]:
And that’s by design. Keeps us honest. You know, we sell a machine to Happy Laundry or Columbus Express or Splash ‘Em Out or, or anyone in the industry. We’re not going to put or we’re not going to pound our chest, I guess, to say like, look what we did. Here’s everything that we’re doing. We want the organic growth. We want people to say, hey, if you’re looking for a small piece folder, if you’re looking for any kind of dry work or even large piece, because we do offer some of those, You want to go to Fulltex, they’re going to take care of you. And over those 13 years, that’s how we’ve grown.

Joe Chenot [00:07:48]:
I’m sorry, it’s not 13 years. Now we started in ’13, so it’s 14, 15 years now if I’m doing the math right. Which, let’s be honest, I sell machines to fold pillowcases. Math was never my strong suit, so don’t hold me on the timeline on that. But that’s really what motivates us and what got us started was that gap between the manufacturer and the end user, and how do we bridge that gap and give someone an extremely pleasant overall experience, which is not always the case.

Jordan Berry [00:08:20]:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It’s not always the case. And well, I mean, listen, if that’s the, if that’s the mission, I would say, you know, I’ve heard nothing but rave reviews about, about you guys as a company. And like I said, Randy came on and was raving about you guys and I mean, all the names that you’ve dropped have just raved about you guys. So super excited. Let me ask you this question. I think this is a big question. Who in the laundromat industry, who should be using a full-text machine? Who is it good for? Who’s it designed for? I’m assuming, right? Like self-serve laundromat owners or self-serve only.

Jordan Berry [00:09:03]:
You know, skip to the next episode or whatever, right? But if, you know, who should be using this machine?

Joe Chenot [00:09:10]:
You know, that’s— you brought up a good point, Jordan. The self-serve laundromats really aren’t going to get the utilization out of this because it does take some training to use the machine. You need to know how to program— or not, I’m sorry, excuse me, not program the machine, but run the machine. During the startup, we’ll do the programming for you and teach you how to do that. But you do want to have someone who’s competent, who knows how to switch programs, who knows how to feed it. How to clear it. So the coin-op that’s going to be a self-serve, they probably aren’t ready for the machine. The folks who are going from the coin-op and they’re moving into the pickup and delivery, that is where they’re really going to start seeing the benefit of a Fultex coming into their facility.

Joe Chenot [00:09:49]:
We have the ability to run your personal clothing, your towel mixes, your bedding. It’s really kind of a Swiss Army knife, and I hate using that term because You know, I’ve always grown up thinking a jack of all trades is a master of none. But in this case, it really does everything exceptionally well. So that would kind of be the first, I guess, level of the laundromat or wash, dry, fold that would— that a full techs would really start being appealing. After that, we’ve seen the progression go from the pickup and delivery to, well, okay, well, let’s see if we can get some commercial. And typically those commercials are going to be, shoot, your country clubs, your pools, your fitness centers. You start seeing some hotels come in and that’s where you’re really going to start seeing full text adding tremendous value. It’s going to add a ton of value early on.

Joe Chenot [00:10:44]:
But when you can look at it and say a massage therapy clinic, if you get one part of a hospital, they’re going to send you a ton of hand towels back. and now you’re able to produce up to 1,400 an hour is what we verified. Realistically though, most operators can’t keep those numbers up. So we’re looking closer to 1,100 to 1,200 an hour, and it just revolutionizes what these guys can do internally. And to be able to go from running a product that way to say, okay, well now we have to run our king flat and fit it, and you’re doing it on the same machine, you’re really gaining another employee that’s not going to have a sick day, that’s not going to call off. But with the support and backing of Fulltex behind it, where if it does get sick or, you know, there’s a jam that you can’t figure out how to clear, that’s what we’re there for. You know, we can be there 7 days a week. So that’s where you’re going to really start seeing Fulltex start pulling away with your business.

Jordan Berry [00:11:39]:
Yeah. And that’s— I mean, that’s huge. You throw out numbers like 1,100, 1,200 wash, what would you say? Hand towels.

Joe Chenot [00:11:50]:
Hand towels per hour.

Jordan Berry [00:11:51]:
Hand towels. Yes. Per hour. I mean, that’s crazy. I mean, that’s a lot. But to me, it begs the question of, and you may not really know the answer to this, so this might be a judgment call by the owner, but I’m going to throw it out there just in case you have something to say about it, is how would an owner know Hey, I’m starting to have enough volume for this machine to make sense to me. You have any input on that?

Joe Chenot [00:12:20]:
Yeah, I do. I’m not an expert by any means on financials of a, of a laundry in that capacity, but it really is a case-by-case basis. We will see laundries where maybe the volume’s not where it would be with some of the bigger guys, but they have a lot of turnover. And it’s much easier to teach someone how to lay a towel down on an infeed than it is to say, okay, this person wants a French fold with a 3350 fold on it. We stack them in tens and we want to put it in a bag where we can say, hey, this needs to say towel mix 1 and just lay the towel on the infeed. So for those guys, it still serves a benefit even though they don’t have the same volume as the bigger guys. The bigger guys, when they start seeing, you know, hey, what— how do we get to the next level? Because I don’t have staffing. I can’t get this commercial account that I want because I don’t know if I have enough people to continue the business that supported me and helped grow me to now take me to the next level.

Joe Chenot [00:13:20]:
And again, that’s where Fultex comes in and is really going to be the differentiating factor for those folks. So it’s really not a number per se, as it is more of looking at what, what your laundry is doing. And honestly, that’s where my department comes in. When they call in and they say, hey, I’m just starting this business out, I don’t have any customers yet, but I want to grow and I want to get a full techs. And they have all these plans. We might say, hey, we really appreciate you thinking about us. Let’s see where the business goes because we don’t want to put anyone behind the 8-ball and we want to make sure that they actually utilize the machine that they bought. So there’s a lot of— I don’t want to say hand-holding and I don’t want to say guidance.

Joe Chenot [00:13:58]:
I’m not sure what the right word would be, but it’s definitely— it’s a, it’s a give and take relationship.

Jordan Berry [00:14:04]:
You know how to compare it to when I went to Kenya, it turns out that in Kenya and a lot of other places, totally kosher for men to hold hands as they walk. And this giant Maasai Mara warrior dressed in all his garb and I were walking hand in hand across the field. That’s what I, you know, it is hand holding, but in like a, you know, like a warrior kind of way. You know what I mean? That’s how I like to see it.

Joe Chenot [00:14:36]:
That has been the first time I’ve been compared to that, but I’ll take it.

Jordan Berry [00:14:39]:
Yeah, yeah, that’s right. So yeah, which I love. And I’m going to just take a second real quick because people might be hearing that and be like, well, I’m not sure where I’m at. So real quick, can you just drop like where, if somebody’s like listening to this right now and is like, I might be in a place where I’m ready for something like this. How do they get a hold of you?

Joe Chenot [00:14:58]:
A couple ways. You can reach me by email, and it’s not very complicated. It’s [email protected]. Or if they wanted to, 1-855, the number 4, FOLTEX, F-O-L-T-E-X, and I’m extension 103.

Jordan Berry [00:15:22]:
Perfect. Yeah.

Joe Chenot [00:15:22]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:15:23]:
So, you know, I just, I, I just wanted to drop that right there because there might be people like, hey, I might be interested. Call, call Joe or email Joe.

Joe Chenot [00:15:30]:
Uh, he absolutely, and if for some reason, got it for you, it’s got to get the warrior guy.

Jordan Berry [00:15:35]:
That’s right.

Joe Chenot [00:15:36]:
Yeah. And even if for some reason one of those, you know, they misplace the number, you can go on our website and fill out a form as well. Uh, it’ll ask you for some basic information, name, contact, you know, email. Laundry name, city, state, and then what you’re looking for. And that is all emailed to me.

Jordan Berry [00:15:55]:
Yeah.

Joe Chenot [00:15:55]:
So any form that’s filled out on the website will go directly to me as well.

Jordan Berry [00:15:58]:
Oh, don’t give me that kind of license. I might go fill out that form a few times for you.

Joe Chenot [00:16:04]:
That’s— I’ll call you back.

Jordan Berry [00:16:05]:
It’s—

Joe Chenot [00:16:06]:
that’s up to you if you want to get a bunch of phone calls.

Jordan Berry [00:16:08]:
Awesome, awesome, awesome. Okay, so Joe, your Maasai Warrior Guide is there. For you. We’ll also have the email and the phone number in the show notes, or if you’re on YouTube, it’ll be down below there too. So you, you’ll have it there too. Okay. So these machines, I mean, you kind of alluded to this already, but I just want to be clear to just make sure everybody kind of understands what they’re doing and what kinds of things they can fold. So I mean, can you give us an idea of like, What kinds of things can a Fold-Tex machine fold?

Joe Chenot [00:16:48]:
So you’re going to have your home goods, you’re going to have your fitted sheets, your flat sheets, pillowcases, a towel mix, which will sort automatically for you. So you can have your washcloths, your hand towels, your bath towels, and your bathmats. Assuming that everything’s a little bit different in size, we can sort automatically for you. If you do have, say, 2 customers that have the same bath mat but a different style, we have a couple manual sorting options you can pick where we have sensor sort or a button sort. If you were up at Happy Laundry in Spokane, I’m sure you would’ve seen the buttons on the right side of the infeed. That’s a way that we can override the measuring portion of the machine and say, no, no, no, Jordan’s shirt goes here, Joe’s shirt goes here. We’re also gonna be able to do gowns when they start moving into maybe mastotherapy or mammography, you know, women’s clinics, things like that. We can do almost anything in medical that you can think of.

Joe Chenot [00:17:48]:
I’ve seen a couple duvet covers for chairs. We don’t see them as much here in Ohio as you probably do out in Hawaii, but it’ll be the, the chaise lounge covers. We can do those as well. It’s really easier to say things that we have, we can’t fold like socks. Underwear is harder, infant clothing. Those are some things that we actually can’t do just because they’re so small. It’s easier to list those than what we can do, believe it or not.

Jordan Berry [00:18:17]:
Yeah. So, I mean, so does it fold like regular clothing, like adult human clothing?

Joe Chenot [00:18:25]:
It absolutely will. Some of the clothing that we’ll do is we’ll have programs. And by the way, this is all done during the startup. So when you buy a machine from Foldtex, We will come in and make the final connections for utilities. It’s the customer’s responsibility to get into the building and place it. The big part of that is we can’t travel around with a forklift. It’s too, too hard to get in a check-on or carry-on. So once we’re there, we spend 3 or 4 days with the customer.

Joe Chenot [00:18:49]:
We want to make sure we program all this stuff to their specifications. We will make recommendations and say, hey, based off of how many of X, Y, or Z you have, we think this fold will be better. We can maybe get it a little bit taller stack or it’s going to look nicer. It’ll travel better, you won’t get as tipping or opening up. So with that said, you know, clothing, we might have a program that just has shirts on it. And, you know, Jordan, I don’t know about you, but I have a couple of kids at home. My oldest son now is taller than me, but I have a couple that are smaller than me. But our shirts are about the same length.

Joe Chenot [00:19:21]:
You know, if you wear a large, an extra large, or 2X, they just get wider. They don’t necessarily get longer unless you go to a tall. So we have the ability to say, well, button A is going to send it to stacker 1, button B will send it to stacker 2, button C will send it to stacker 3. We can orient that however we want, and now we can fold those so they get a nice consistent fold. We can make the template width bigger by item, uh, so we can really just put a fantastic finish on those. Same with pants. Shorts we can do. Honestly though, if you’re doing shorts, it might be easier just to fold them and lay them over themselves.

Joe Chenot [00:19:53]:
At least that’s how I fold shorts. I’m sure my wife might disagree and say there’s a better way to do it, but I don’t have a Foldtex at home, so I’m going to have to listen to her on that one.

Jordan Berry [00:20:02]:
Not yet. Not yet.

Joe Chenot [00:20:03]:
Maybe one day.

Jordan Berry [00:20:04]:
If enough of you guys buy a Fulltex from him, then maybe he can afford to buy one for his own house.

Joe Chenot [00:20:10]:
We’ll see.

Jordan Berry [00:20:11]:
Yeah.

Joe Chenot [00:20:12]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:20:13]:
Okay, man. I mean, that sounds awesome. It’s, I mean, everybody knows, right? Like whether you do pickup and delivery or drop-off, wash and fold or not, or you’re in the industry or not, everybody knows like the most time-consuming part of laundry is folding. And so having something that you can just kind of creep through and fold a lot of this stuff and have some of these like preset settings that, I mean, you know, and that to me is like, that could feel like super overwhelming. So it’s pretty cool to hear that you guys help kind of do some of these pre-settings and you guys are available to kind of get this thing set up. properly to, to get going because it really just shortens that learning curve on getting going. And sometimes, I know at least for me, sometimes the, the thing that stops me from adopting a new technology or a new tool or resource or whatever is sort of that learning curve. Like, do I even have time to learn this thing? Uh, but man, you can just see how much time it’ll give back to you.

Jordan Berry [00:21:20]:
By utilizing something like this. Pretty cool.

Joe Chenot [00:21:23]:
You’re 100% correct. And, you know, Jordan, if you don’t mind, if I could touch on that startup again, it isn’t just a, okay, we’ve programmed it, now we’re going to leave. It is a program it and then work with production, make sure they understand how to utilize it with their functions, and then give that same training to production management or leadership and say, okay, here’s— we’re going to show you a couple other things. And then the folks that are who are going to be working on the machine, who are going to troubleshoot it or do the preventative maintenance on it, we give them all that plus more training so that they’ll be able to utilize and do their job functions as well. It really is. I always tell people when I’m leaving, you might not be confident by the time I leave, but you will be competent. And I do believe that you will be able to get through anything while I’m on the plane getting back home. And if you need me to call you, let me know.

Joe Chenot [00:22:11]:
Here’s my cell. And I know all of our other technical account managers do the same. In fact, that’s the reason I know that is because that’s where I started with Fulltex before I was promoted.

Jordan Berry [00:22:21]:
Yeah. Yeah. And again, I mean, it just kind of goes back to that, you know, next level service there. And, you know, I mean, it’s one thing, you know, I love, obviously, like I love good customer service. I think we as laundromat owners and laundry service provider, like we, We need to elevate our, you know, level of customer service and maybe take a cue from you guys on how you’re doing that. But even more so than that, like, listen, like so many of us business owners are busy and we get stuck in the day-to-day of the stuff, right? And it’s like the urgent stuff takes over the important stuff, right? It could be very easy to think, I don’t have time to look into this or get this installed or get it all programmed or whatever, because I am too busy. Doing the laundry or managing my people doing the laundry, right? And we can lose sight of the fact that this is actually something that’s going to free up a lot of our time and/or allow us to just have a lot more production and service more larger customers, right? But to me, the thing about the customer service is like, you know, obviously like you’re a great guy, you and Randy are good friends and, you know, the other people I’m sure you service are similar. Which I think is awesome.

Jordan Berry [00:23:41]:
But sometimes when you’re in the thick of it and you’re growing your business, the thing that matters is, can you help me get it going quickly and easily to where I can understand it? And that is just like a tremendous value. If somebody can hand you a tool and say, here’s exactly how to use it, I’ll help you set it up right now. I’ll help you train your staff on how to actually utilize it. I mean, that’s like a gold mine right there and rare. Like, I don’t see that. There’s maybe a handful of distributors that sell, you know, washers and dryers that I’ve seen do something like that. But that is rare in our industry for sure. I appreciate it.

Joe Chenot [00:24:23]:
You know, to go back to what we had mentioned early on is that, that was the gap that we wanted to bridge. And that’s what is the most important thing to Fulltex is internally, you know, our 10-year goal is to be known as the most customer-centric manufacturer of laundry equipment out there. We don’t wanna be number 2 or 3, the most. And it’s, and that’s what it comes down to is those relationships that exactly what you touched on.

Jordan Berry [00:24:48]:
Yeah. Let me ask you this question ’cause I know this is definitely a consideration to make if you’re considering, you know, bringing a tool like this on board. And you don’t necessarily, if you don’t know off the top of your head, you don’t necessarily have to give me specifics, but maybe like a general idea of like, you know, obviously like this is going to take some space to have and to be able to operate this machine. Do you have any idea of like how much space somebody needs to plan for? And this is something that you can find out more detail on, on a call with Joe, but I just want to give kind of like a general overview at least.

Joe Chenot [00:25:21]:
Absolutely. So our AT230, with a bidirectional conveyor because the conveyor does make a difference. On the bidirectional conveyor, it gives us the opportunity to say, you know, Jordan, if you and I are a team, we’re working together in a laundry, but you go on break. I came in late for whatever reason, so I’m going to work through my break. I have the option to select a program to do what we would describe as an RTF, return to feeder. So it would discharge out of the side of the machine and come back to me. Then I could put it in a bin or get it in a bag, whatever I need to do to process it. If when you come back from break and we’re working together, I would just have it go a normal discharge, which is out of the rear of the machine.

Joe Chenot [00:25:58]:
Little discharge on the side and then go to the rear. Uh, sorry for the longer explanation, but that bi-directional conveyor is the longest model we have, and it goes from the end of one side of the conveyor to the other side. That’ll be 219 inches. Um, so when you’re looking at that, it’s 76 inches wide, 77 inches wide from one side to the other side of the discharge conveyor. You’re looking at roughly having an 8 by 20 foot rectangle. That 8 by 20 foot rectangle, the machine does not take up anywhere near the full size of that. But what it does do is allow you to work around the machine, move bins, move people. If you needed to change a belt for whatever reason, you can actually work on the machine.

Joe Chenot [00:26:39]:
But most people elect to either go bidirectional or they go one direction. If you go bidirectional, again, that 219, If you’re looking at a single direction like a right rear discharge is around 179 inches, but again, the same width. So you can see that rectangle is honestly what I tell people, you know, hey, have an 8 by 20 foot rectangle. You can put it in a smaller space. Absolutely. This just gives you a comfortability with the machine to know that I can move people and bins and product without worrying about running into the machine or getting caught or hung up on anything.

Jordan Berry [00:27:13]:
Yeah. Yeah. And you know, we talk a lot about throughput and stuff too, and just having that space to be able to, you know, not even just not running the machine, but just not running into each other. Right. And just keep things flowing and keep things efficient. Help process that stuff. Uh, man, I mean, that was super helpful actually. I didn’t, I didn’t expect you to have like the best tips right there, but here you are, man.

Jordan Berry [00:27:34]:
That’s what I’m talking about. Um, I, I want to, I want to ask you. Because I mean, you, similar to me in some ways, like we’ve got sort of this kind of broader view a little bit because you work with a lot of different owners in a lot of different markets and stuff. I’m wondering, are you seeing any types of owners who are not utilizing full techs that maybe should be considering, and I’m just giving you a softball layup here, but I genuinely am curious because I do think that a tool like this is something that can help take somebody to the next level. And so I want to know from kind of just your overall view, is there like a type of owner or a category of owner that isn’t using it yet, but that maybe should be considering it?

Joe Chenot [00:28:31]:
Yes, there’s one specific that we will hear sometimes, and it is the person who has been successful for years, 20, 30 years in doing what they’re doing. They’re some of the first ones who got into the pickup and delivery. They have been very, very good, but they’ve, they’ve hit a wall. Not that their, their business is hurting. They’re still successful. They’re still profitable, but they’re just struggling to get to that next level. And what we hear a lot is, but I’ve always done it this way and it’s worked for me so far. And you’re like, you can’t argue with that.

Joe Chenot [00:29:06]:
They’re successful. They have great customer service. Bless you. They have, you know, great quality going out the door, but they’re just— they’re stuck at that one level and they want to break through to the next. But they’re like, you know, I don’t have the people, I don’t have the manpower, but we’ve always done it this way. And it’s trying to convey to them that this isn’t one, we’re not replacing anybody because if we don’t have someone in the laundry, the machine’s not going to fold itself. It’s not going to feed the linen itself. It’s not going to process it.

Joe Chenot [00:29:37]:
It’s not going to change programs. We still need operators. And part of that, when we’re training them, is letting them know this is— you’re becoming integral to this process because without you, Fulltex wouldn’t be here. So I need the operators. And that’s Honestly, I spend a lot of my time with when I go to laundries because I want to hear what they’re doing. It’s getting over that little hurdle saying this isn’t replacing anybody. This is just— it’s adding to your capacity. It’s adding another employee who’s not going to get tired, whose arms aren’t going to hurt, whose back might not go out.

Joe Chenot [00:30:08]:
But we still need those employees to feed the machine. We still need those employees to pack it. And it frees up your time for other projects to help improve the business. And it’s those owners that it’s a little bit harder to get past that initial But we’ve always done it this way. And it’s like, we understand, but there are sometimes better ways to do things to help you get to that next level.

Jordan Berry [00:30:30]:
Yeah. Well, and I might even just broaden that out a little for you because, you know, the thing that was just running through my head when you were talking was the quote, you know, I don’t even quote, saying, whatever, but like, what got you here won’t get you there. Right. So anybody who’s looking to level up their business, like you, you can’t continue to do, and this is a, this is a hard lesson. I’m, this is like me preaching to myself here mostly. And if anybody else benefits from it, awesome. But it’s like, you can’t keep doing the same things that you always do because you get very comfortable in that and you’ve got a lot, like you said, you get a level of success. You’re successful, but if you’re trying to continue to grow, if you’re trying to get to another level, you can’t continue to do the same things.

Jordan Berry [00:31:19]:
There’s a point where more of the same is not going to get you to another level. More of the same is just going to get you tired, right? And so you’ve got to change and adapt or utilize new tools or resources to help you get to that next level. And I mean, I think this You know, the, the Fultex, you know, folding machines are a tool, like you’re saying, that can help anybody who’s trying to get to the next level, whether they’ve been around a while or not. If you’re trying to scale your business, you know, do what you’re doing, but eventually you hit a point where what got you to that one place is not going to get you to the next level, and you’ve got to make the uncomfortable step sometimes to to adapt and to change and to evolve your business and yourself, honestly.

Joe Chenot [00:32:12]:
Yeah. It’s funny because when you say that, a lot of laundromat owners, they don’t have a problem going, well, I’m going to buy a 90-pound washer now. Right. Or I’m going to get the 120-pound dryer. And you go, what about full? Well, no, I don’t. I don’t know if we need that. It’s like, but you’re adding the capacity and now you need to add the capacity on the production side. You’ve done it on the soil side and the clean side.

Joe Chenot [00:32:35]:
We need to keep growing that portion. You’re 100% right.

Jordan Berry [00:32:38]:
Yeah. And, and, you know, going back to— I mean, you know, the, the thing that we miss a lot is, like you said, I mean, I think it is much easier and much more comfortable for us to just add capacity, change out washers, dryers, buy bigger ones, that kind of thing. But, you know, if you’re doing pickup delivery or even, you know, drop-off wash and fold laundry, the bigger constraint typically is not the lack of capacity, it’s the folding, right? Like a typical, you know, just average, you know, from, from all the data I’ve been able to gather, and this is, you know, not an official study or anything, but from what I, what I’m seeing, the average attendant can process about 30 to maybe 40 pounds of laundry an hour on their own. So, you know, you might have a 90-pound wash capacity and it might take you, you know, 20 to 30 minutes to wash it, another 20 to 30 minutes to dry it. So you might be in, you know, 40 minutes to an hour, but that’s going to take it, you know, over 2 hours to fold 90 pounds worth of laundry for your attendant, right? So it is a missing ingredient, I think, in a lot of setups that we have. And that’s part of the reason I wanted to have you on is because I think that there’s a lot of people out there who would really benefit from having a machine like this that either don’t realize it or just haven’t taken that step to do it. And I think this is your cue. This is, if you’re looking for a sign out there, this is the sign.

Jordan Berry [00:34:16]:
Call Joe or email Joe or fill out a form.

Joe Chenot [00:34:19]:
Call or email.

Jordan Berry [00:34:20]:
Yeah.

Joe Chenot [00:34:20]:
I’d be more than happy to talk about it. And even if it’s, Even if it doesn’t lead to a sale, even if it just gets you in that frame of mind of what is the next step. Again, that’s what we’re here for as well. We want to see the industry be successful. Because when the industry’s successful, that means Fulltex has a place to be as well.

Jordan Berry [00:34:37]:
That’s right. Yeah. And that’s, I mean, that’s the kind of mindset that, you know, that really you want to be working with, right? And I was encouraged to hear you say earlier, that, you know, somebody might want to have this thing set up and ready to go, and they’re like, hey, I have these aspirations to build this pickup and delivery business or whatever. And you might say, let’s hold on for a second, maybe, maybe reserve that 8-foot by 20-foot rectangle, uh, but let’s not fill it yet. Let’s get the business rolling, right? And, and telling people to wait, you know, not everybody— I mean, my experience getting into the industry was a broker who sold me something I never should have bought. And so I have a particular soft spot for people who are, you know, not a soft spot. I have a particular beef with people who try to sell people things they don’t need. So hearing you say that is, again, I mean, it’s just confirmation of everything I’ve been hearing about you guys anyway.

Jordan Berry [00:35:36]:
So, and you in particular.

Jordan Berry [00:35:38]:
Okay.

Jordan Berry [00:35:39]:
Well, I mean, what else do we need to know? Do you have multiple different kinds of machines? Is there primarily one machine that laundromats are using? What do we need to know about these machines?

Joe Chenot [00:35:50]:
So we, we do have a lot of different machines, uh, and a lot of them are going to be built on our FlexFold line. Uh, the FlexFold is the AT230, which is what 99% of people are going to be familiar with with Fultex. Um, I— there’s a couple, uh, machines in that line like our GT that just, I don’t see the benefits for a wash-dry folder. At least I haven’t seen one yet. Not saying there’s not a case out there where that wouldn’t be a good machine, but it has an overall on it. Uh, you feed it from the rear of the machine. It’s more complicated, it’s more complex. Still simple and reliable for what it is.

Joe Chenot [00:36:25]:
Um, all of our machines are going to be reliable, but there’s a little bit more complexity to it. Uh, so on that one, I’d say there would have to be a really specific need. You know, if a, if a laundromat owner was near, you know, a coal mine or some type of factory where they have a lot of coveralls, a lot of overalls, you know, maybe some kind of ranch where they process cattle and there’s a lot of butcher coats, that would be a great machine. But it’s so few and far between that I really wouldn’t see that. The other one that we have would be our MT, a little bit slower in production, but it has mechanical blades in it. Give very precise folds. It’s hard to believe when I say that, that our AT makes incredibly precise folds, and this one just takes it a step beyond that. But again, that’s going to be for a specific customer.

Joe Chenot [00:37:12]:
There’s 3 machines that really fit this industry very well. That is our AT or Alpha Tango 230. That’s going to be the machine that most everyone sees when they’re out in the field. If you stop by any of the, you know, previous guys we mentioned on the on the podcast today, whether it’s, you know, Kent or Randy or Jodan or IAD or whoever, uh, they’re going to have the AT230. From that, we have our AG, Alpha Golf, 220. Uh, and by the way, if anyone’s curious, the numbers at the end refer to the length of, uh, the max length of item could be going into the primary fold. So the 230s, uh, 230 centimeters, 90 inches. The 220 is, I think, 6 inches shorter than that.

Joe Chenot [00:37:53]:
Not great metric to standard, so don’t, don’t hold me on that one either.

Jordan Berry [00:37:57]:
I feel like we need to change those numbers to freedom units at some point. My only opinion so far. Keep going. The AG-220.

Joe Chenot [00:38:08]:
That will have 2 crossfolds with a reversing crossfold in it. That reversing crossfold is going to allow you to do some specialty things when you’re processing uniforms. You know, if you’re doing a lot of scrubs, that’s a great machine for you. It’s still going to do your dowels, your flat sheets, your fitted sheets, and all that good stuff. Um, and then for those who are going, listen, I have my wash dry fold, it got me to where I am, but I’m really just— I need a much smaller unit, I need high production with great quality, um, and I’m only running towels through this machine and maybe some garments here and there, then we have our AT180 Slim. So again, 180 centimeters, much shorter than the, um, I think that’s 70 inches at that point instead of the 90 that you get on the 230. That’s a great machine, but again, you have a little bit less functionality on it when it comes to some of the options you can pick. And then from there, both all of those machines will have, minus the GT initially on some of them, but we’ll forget about that unit momentarily because it is such a specialized piece of equipment.

Joe Chenot [00:39:09]:
A lot of those machines are going to have the ability to say, you know, I either want a button sort or a sensor sort. On the AT230 as well as the AT180, we do have a lifting stacker. Uh, it’s great for washcloths. So if you go, hey, I got a couple hotels and I need to be able to run and wash everything and dry everything together, all my Terry products, and then I want your machine to sort it, okay, we’ll get you one with 4 stackers, 2 crossfolds. That, that lifting stacker will rise up, so now your washcloths fall a very short distance as opposed to kind of float down and give you poor quality stacks. Um, it’s— there’s so many options we have, I don’t want to take up all the time going over those. But anytime someone calls in, we’re more than happy. I’ll spend a couple hours on the phone with you just to go through everything and make sure they have an understanding.

Jordan Berry [00:39:57]:
Yeah. Well, and again, that’s where it really comes in handy to just have somebody like you who you can kind of talk through and say, hey, here’s what I’m doing. You know, what do I need here? You know, like that would be just, you know, super valuable to just have that conversation and say, Here’s what I’m doing. Here’s what I want to be doing more of. You know, what do I need? Here’s what I anticipate, you know, my business looking like. What do I need? Just going through, because I know you can customize these things, you know, pretty, they’re almost, they’re almost kind of modular in a way, huh? Where you can kind of plug different things into it or unplug different things and customize it how you want it almost.

Joe Chenot [00:40:37]:
So that, yes, to an extent, that is what we do during the sales process. You know, I want to know, where you’ve been, where you’re at, and where you’re going. Is where you’re at where you want to stay? Because there are some people who go, listen, I have a couple of commercial accounts, I have my wash, dry, folds, I just need to optimize now. We go, okay, perfect. We know where you’re at. So then we might go, well, you don’t need this option or this option. Whereas I might talk to somebody else and they would go, we’re doing all of this plus 5 other things. And by the way, we want to go here.

Joe Chenot [00:41:09]:
We go, okay, well, let’s option the machine so that you can grow with it, or it can grow with you, I should say. So it is once they’re in, modifications are very difficult to do. So we really try to make sure in the sales process I do my job so that the rest of the team who really is the heartbeat, which is our customer experience department, they are really the heartbeat of Fultex. That is, those are the ones people see out in the field. Those are the ones they interact with almost on a daily basis. That’s where I started. So I also have a soft spot for that department too. But that’s the heartbeat of full techs.

Joe Chenot [00:41:44]:
And I need to make sure that I do my job so that the customer is happy and that when they come in, they know what the expectations are, where they’re going. And there’s, there’s a lot of information collected early on. I guess, you know, anyone listening should know that these are not 10-minute phone calls. Okay, I got what I need. We’ll see you in, you know, 12 weeks when this thing shows up. That’s not the case. It’s we want to make sure we’re doing everything we can to give them the best possible experience and their customers, because at the end of the day, that’s really what’s most important.

Jordan Berry [00:42:13]:
That’s right. That’s exactly right. Listen, man, this has been incredible. I’m wondering, maybe I’ll try to round up, or maybe if you have some just photos and stuff that we can include just so people can actually see these things. But this has been awesome hearing about Fulltex and I mean, like the company itself is actually my favorite part just because like you guys are, you guys are just great. You guys are great people and you’ve, you’re, everything you’re saying is just embodying the values of that I have of wanting to connect laundromat owners and prospective laundromat owners and even just pickup and delivery operators who may or may not have a laundromat. I want to connect them with good people. So I’m super happy that you came on here.

Jordan Berry [00:43:12]:
And obviously the product itself speaks for itself. I mean, if you’re in the industry and you’re doing wash and fold or pickup delivery, this is a phone call that you should probably make just to chat with Joe and see what options there are for you for your particular business. Joe, anything else that you need to leave us with or that we need to know about these machines, the company, yourself, what your favorite color is, anything like that?

Joe Chenot [00:43:41]:
Well, I mean, full Texas color is orange, so I’ll say my favorite color is orange.

Jordan Berry [00:43:44]:
That’s my favorite color. All right. Look at this synergy galore over here.

Joe Chenot [00:43:49]:
I’m telling you what, no, you know, at Fulltex, even if you call in and for some reason you dial the wrong extension, anyone who you call, even if it’s a mistake within Fulltex, is going to help. And that really and truly is it. If anyone’s ever curious, I encourage them, you know, go on YouTube and look up Fulltex AT230. You’ll see a couple of our videos, but a majority of the videos you’ll see are from our customers who are just proud to own the machine. And I think that really speaks. It’s going to do more of a service than I could ever do. And, you know, Jordan, even I appreciate you bringing me on this podcast, but it really is our customers who, who have that ownership and they have that pride behind it because they know we stand behind the machine, we stand behind them, and it enables them to grow and get to the next level, whether you’re just starting out or whether you’ve been there for 30 years.

Jordan Berry [00:44:40]:
Yeah, well, case in point, you’re on the podcast because a customer Multiple customers of yours have been raving about you and made the intros like, you’ve got to talk to this guy. That was like, yeah, that’s why you’re there. And again, that heart, that attitude is, we need more of that in this industry. So I really appreciate that. Again, last time, why don’t you tell people where they can get ahold of you? And then we’ll leave it there.

Joe Chenot [00:45:12]:
Absolutely. So if you wanted to call me, you could reach me at 1-855-4-FULTEX, that has extension 103. You could also email me at [email protected]. Or if you don’t remember any of those, you just go on the Fultex website. We do have a submission page where you can just request general information. We typically call back within about 15 minutes.

Jordan Berry [00:45:35]:
Nice. And then again, we’ll have that on the show notes and we’ll have it if you’re on YouTube, those, that info will be down below as well. Joe, man, uh, genuinely you are a rockstar and an awesome person. You’re representing an awesome company and an awesome product. So I really appreciate you taking the time. And just so everybody knows, this is our second attempt at this because last time we tried to do this, we had a massive storm roll through and knocked out all our power. Today, I’m in a different space without any equipment because there’s a massive storm going on behind me here and I don’t have any equipment. So we just making it happen, man.

Jordan Berry [00:46:13]:
And you’re rolling with the punches and I appreciate that too. Thank you for taking the time. I know your time is valuable, but I appreciate it. And listen, let’s do a live Q&A or something to let people jump on and ask you their questions about Vultex machine.

Joe Chenot [00:46:28]:
I would love that. I think it’d be fantastic.

Jordan Berry [00:46:30]:
Awesome. Well, we’ll lock that down so that in the intro, I will have already told you exactly when and where to join that live Q&A. Joe, looking forward to that and cannot wait to do a live Q&A with you.

Joe Chenot [00:46:45]:
Sounds good. I’m looking forward to it.

Jordan Berry [00:46:47]:
All right. Appreciate it.

Joe Chenot [00:46:49]:
All right.

Jordan Berry [00:46:50]:
All right.

Jordan Berry [00:46:50]:
Hope you loved it.

Jordan Berry [00:46:51]:
And listen, you’ve got one of two or both 2 things that you can pick today. I’m only giving you 2 options. Maybe you should just do both of them in terms of what action you should take. Number 1, reach out to Joe and ask him your questions about Fulltech, see if it’s right for you. And number 2, you know, and/or number 2, join us at the live Q&A, April 3rd, 10:00 AM Pacific, 1:00 PM Eastern time, 7:00 AM if you’re out here with me in Hawaii. I mean, in fact, if you’re on Oahu and you’re listening to this, Maybe she’s coming to my house and we will do the Q&A. You can just be there in person.

Jordan Berry [00:47:27]:
How about that? All right.

Jordan Berry [00:47:29]:
Listen, take some action. That’s what’s going to help you achieve your goals. So if you’ve got a, you know, a pickup and delivery or wash and fold business that is, you know, larger and you’re looking to take it to the next level, or if you’re trying to grow that part of the business, come join us. See if Fulltex is right for you. And I should just mention here, this is not a sponsored episode or anything. I just think Fultex is a great piece of equipment. And, you know, as Randy Roberts said a couple of episodes ago, you know, they’re just good people too. And Joe is no exception.

Jordan Berry [00:48:05]:
So reach out to Joe and see us at the live Q&A, April 3rd on YouTube and LinkedIn and all that stuff.

Jordan Berry [00:48:14]:
All right, cool.

Jordan Berry [00:48:15]:
Look for a link and join us. Thanks.