Jordan Berry [00:00:00]:
The biggest favor I think you could do yourself, anybody I could do myself, is to get over that fear of failure and that embarrassment of failure. Because I’ll tell you what, the main thing that built Laundromat Resource was me sharing about losing a bunch of money when I bought my first Laundromat. Like, that was what grew the whole platform, you know. You bought this, you said, three years ago.

Brian Bassil [00:00:26]:
Yes.

Jordan Berry [00:00:26]:
Yeah. And it’s 2025 now. Right. I will say it’s more important to act quickly now than it was three years ago. Even the market is.

Brian Bassil [00:00:37]:
It is.

Jordan Berry [00:00:37]:
You know, there’s more buyer demand. You know, somebody’s here listening to you casually making everything sound very easy. You know, it’s like, ah, I’m in. I like, I want to do this. What’s your best. What’s your best piece of advice for somebody who’s trying to buy their first one.

Brian Bassil [00:00:54]:
Or build? Yeah, I mean, I don’t suggest building for your first one. Okay. I would probably shy away from that. If you can buy an existing one, definitely do that.

Jordan Berry [00:01:06]:
What’s interesting about that model is, like, you’re saying, like, it really doesn’t take that many, even small stores to replace most incomes of most people. Right. Like, two or three of these stories, smaller stores could replace the majority of people’s income. Okay, listen, we stopped recording. We finished this podcast episode, and then we were talking. Brian threw out this idea that we had to hit record again because I thought it was a genius idea, and he wanted to share with you guys. And anybody who’s ever been in the.

Jordan Berry [00:01:41]:
Restaurant industry knows that one of the.

Jordan Berry [00:01:44]:
Biggest complaints of waiters and waitresses is that people always steal their pins. I mean, we talk about targeted ads and we talk about Google and Facebook, which we did talk about a lot here. But that is genius. And what’s double genius about that idea and why I was like, we have got to re. Hit record and talk about this is.

Jordan Berry [00:02:04]:
Hey, what’s up, guys? It’s Jordan with the Laundromat Resource Podcast, and I am extra, super duper pumped and grateful and thankful to be here with you right now today. This is episode 200 of the laundromat Resource Podcast today. Cannot tell you how just. I mean, I’m. I am super excited, but genuinely, I just want to take a second and thank all of you for all of. All of you who’ve come on the show, who have shared your wisdom and your stories. Just, I. I know I’ve learned a ton.

Jordan Berry [00:02:38]:
I hope a lot of you guys who’ve listened to the podcast over, you know, long periods of time or short periods of time, have learned a lot as well. And a huge shout out and thank you for those of you who help have listened to the podcast. It just, it means a lot to me and this is something that blew up into something I never even imagined. And I just, I’m super grateful to be doing it. But I’m so excited for episode 200. In fact, I’m so much so excited that I am here in my outdoor studio in Hawaii before the sun comes up because I’m so excited about it. And we got Brian Basil on the, on the podcast today. Just gonna be a mind blowing episode.

Jordan Berry [00:03:21]:
I think there’s gonna be a lot in there for you to pull away from it. And, you know, I, I just, I don’t want to take any more time, but I just wanted to reiterate one more time. I’m just grateful for all of you. It’s been such a huge blessing for me being a part of this community of laundromat owners and aficionados of the industry and learning a lot alongside of everybody else and doing what I can to contribute what I have to the industry as well. So thank you guys and enjoy this episode. As always. Don’t forget to be on the lookout for something that you can implement into your life, into your business today, if possible, this week. At the very least, that action is what’s going to lead to your success.

Jordan Berry [00:04:10]:
And let’s get after it. So let’s jump in with Brian and I know you’re going to love it just as much as I did.

Jordan Berry [00:04:18]:
Brian, thanks for coming on the show, man. How you doing?

Brian Bassil [00:04:20]:
I’m great. How are you?

Jordan Berry [00:04:22]:
I am doing excellent. Super excited to talk to you today. I know we, we kind of had some. We had, we had one of those live Q&As a week or two ago and you were kind of chiming in. I was like, man, you got to come on the podcast and tell me about what you got going on because you got some unique stuff going on. So super excited to have you. Let’s start with who are you? Give us a little background on you and maybe work your way into how you got into this business.

Brian Bassil [00:04:50]:
Right. Well, just like anybody else, just started regular jobs and ironically enough, about 10 years ago, I started working for Ameripride, which has now been assumed by Cintas. So it’s.

Jordan Berry [00:05:10]:
You’re destined for long.

Brian Bassil [00:05:11]:
Yeah. Not knowing. So, I mean, I kind of knew the industry a little bit, but I was A route driver. So I mean, I wasn’t really involved in the, in the internal workings of it, but. But I could see it, you know, a lot bigger capacities there. But then I left there and started a pool service and have been doing that for the last 10 years. And then about three years ago is when I got into laundry. Found a store just listed on the MLS and Which I know doesn’t happen very often.

Jordan Berry [00:05:44]:
Yeah. Were you looking for it or you just happened to.

Brian Bassil [00:05:47]:
No, I just. I always like real estate, so I look almost every day, just see what’s out there, what’s for sale, even if I’m not looking for anything. And it was for sale, the building and business listed for sale and price seemed reasonable. It’s in a great spot. I didn’t even know it was there. You know, I couldn’t even told you where any of the laundry apps in town were, but I just called my realtor and went and looked at it and we started negotiations and ended up getting it.

Jordan Berry [00:06:21]:
Out of curiosity, like, what, what kind of condition was it in? Like, was it operating? Was it making money? Was it.

Brian Bassil [00:06:28]:
Yeah, was. I think it was a little over 10 years old. Brick building, nice small 1250 square feet. But there’s like a 250 square foot room for wash and fold. And there was a lady there doing wash and fold. So the laundromat’s small, 10 washers, 10 dryers, all top loaders. Immediately after purchase. Got rid of the top loaders.

Brian Bassil [00:06:56]:
I started looking obviously and figured out real quick that those weren’t going to work. So I put some used machines in there, got all those changed out. Painted the inside, painted the outside, but. Well, let me back up. He was showing no income, which is not unusual. I think he was showing $6,000 a year. Okay, so how to do a water analysis. Just happened to know somebody that could do that.

Brian Bassil [00:07:22]:
You know, it felt comfortable enough with the purchase from that, so I made an offer, you know, got it a little less than he was asking and it was doing right at what we figured on the water analysis. So I was happy with that. But once I got the machines in and got it painted, it really didn’t need much. I mean, just touch up paint outside of the machines. Just. Just cleaned it up. I mean, like I said, the building is nice. Brick building, parking lot, small.

Brian Bassil [00:07:53]:
That’s been an issue. I reworked a little bit, added a few spaces and it. That’s helped, but it. Within the first year, double the revenue. Whoa, okay, hold on, hold on, hold on.

Jordan Berry [00:08:06]:
Yeah, what that that’s crazy. I mean, that’s awesome. What was. What do you attribute that to? The newer machines parking. What’s. What was.

Brian Bassil [00:08:16]:
What was sandbagging it before they had no online presence. So I merely started Facebook and Google advertising. And then I’m gonna tell you, probably painting the building. I had so many people come to me and once they knew I owned it and we’re like, I didn’t even know that was there. And then now everybody was seeing it because it’s right on the main road.

Jordan Berry [00:08:39]:
Painted hot pink or what?

Brian Bassil [00:08:41]:
And just white painted the bricks.

Jordan Berry [00:08:44]:
Because that’s controversial. I know that’s controversial.

Brian Bassil [00:08:46]:
I painted the bricks, okay, the brick white. It was just brick color. But I’m telling you, nobody knew it was there. Like there were, you know, the people that were coming. But she very busy on the washing pole drop off, washing fold, you know, has always been. She. She was there since the day it opened and still there. The same, same attendant.

Brian Bassil [00:09:07]:
But I’m gonna say from the Google advertising is where I get probably most of my customers that I see coming in, you know, they’re saying something or leaving reviews or whatever, but Facebook maybe not so much, but I still do it on there and. And then just cleaning up, paying the building. I mean, I think that because I didn’t do anything else. I mean that’s. It was one of those things. Parking is an issue, but I mean, that wasn’t keeping people from coming. It was just it when it gets busy, like on Sundays or whatever, I mean, it’s. It gets kind of wild.

Brian Bassil [00:09:41]:
But. But it’s a small place. It’s very limited to what it can do, you know, where it’s at. And the bin prices were very low. I raised those. That helped after, you know, as I was doing all this, allowed me to do that. And nobody even questioned that. And then I had to change the change machine out.

Brian Bassil [00:09:58]:
Somebody just before I took over, somebody had tore the change machine out of the wall, took it behind the building, beat it with a sledgehammer, couldn’t get it open and just left it there. So they put it back in the wall and we’re still using it.

Jordan Berry [00:10:13]:
Are you for real all beat up?

Brian Bassil [00:10:14]:
For real? Yep, it was beat all up. But they, they put a steel post in and bolted it down in there after that. It’s the same machine though, so it wasn’t going anywhere after that. But it was rough. So I put a new double validator machine in there because it is all coin. And I mean, that’s about it. I mean it’s, it’s, it’s, it went probably a better than most. It went, you know, double revenue or actually it’s a little more than that now, but smoother than it probably should have been.

Jordan Berry [00:10:47]:
Hey man. Sometimes you swing on that first one and you just, you hit the home run and you’re off to the races, which is awesome. On the, on the Google Ads, are you running those for the drop off service or self serve or both or.

Brian Bassil [00:11:05]:
Really just for presence? They’re not. I mean it mentions all of it. Yes, in the ads, but it’s just targeted ads for that. And the same with the Facebook. I do target ads on Facebook. I mainly do the wash and fold on that. I’m not real well versed in Google. I just run the ads and they seem to push me up to the, you know, people.

Brian Bassil [00:11:25]:
Everybody comes in town. We get a lot of people that come through, workers and stuff. So either they do it theirself or use the drop off and mean they just search for it and mine pops up. It’s got good reviews and I mean I’ve had people pass other ones up to come to mind. Not out of, from out of town. So it’s because of Google. I mean it’s not any other reason.

Jordan Berry [00:11:46]:
Do you do anything specifically to get good reviews or just naturally happen because you came in and took care of the place?

Brian Bassil [00:11:55]:
Naturally happened. And we asked for them and I put out some little plaques, you know that where they can just tap and make it easy.

Jordan Berry [00:12:03]:
Codes or something or.

Brian Bassil [00:12:05]:
Yeah, yeah, it’s got a little tap thing or a QR code. I don’t remember the company but it’s just little plaques that you can buy. It’s already linked to your account and you just stick them up and that makes it real simple.

Jordan Berry [00:12:14]:
Yeah, that’s awesome. You know, I was going to ask you something. It’ll come back to me. I think I’m getting at that age now where sometimes it doesn’t come back to me.

Brian Bassil [00:12:26]:
I don’t know.

Jordan Berry [00:12:27]:
It used to always come back.

Brian Bassil [00:12:29]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:12:31]:
Okay, so you. Okay. So you bought this thing now I’m assuming this is a standalone building, just a single unit?

Brian Bassil [00:12:38]:
Yes. Okay.

Jordan Berry [00:12:40]:
How did you, you know. Because I get, I get a lot of people, especially sort of in the Midwest, you know, off the coast usually, but also on the coast, but more so inland who, you know, either they want to buy the real estate with the Laundromat or that’s just kind of how it goes. I mean, I think you were kind of telling me that before we hit record. Like, it’s just kind of how it goes where you’re at. Like, you just buy the real estate in a Laundromat. Right, right. Which is, it’s common. But how did you, how did you value all this stuff? Like, how did you determine how much everything was worth?

Brian Bassil [00:13:14]:
Well, I mean, I went through a bank, so it’s just normal finance and 20 down. And I did run to a little issue there because the building’s so small, it didn’t appraise for what they were asking. So I just had to put up collateral from some other commercial property that I owned to make up the difference. I mean, it was pretty simple as far as that was concerned. Now, if you didn’t have that, you would just have to put up that money difference. So, I mean, that could be an issue. And it was just because the build was so small, because they gave me no value for the business or for the equipment, really, any, any of that. It was just the building itself.

Brian Bassil [00:13:49]:
And I really think I got chipped on that appraisal. The guy had never appraised a Laundromat, and it just came in really low, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

Jordan Berry [00:14:00]:
The downside of those appraisals. But, you know, I, I, I do think there’s a lot of benefits if you can get in that sort of situation where you’re basically just buying the real estate and they’re like, leaving the machines. You’re not buying the business, you’re just buying the real estate. I mean, I do think a lot of, like, financing options open up. You could do the 20 down. You could do SBA if you needed to. You can do, you, you got more banks and, and just lenders in general are more, it’s just more familiar for them and feels safer for them to lend on real estate than a business a lot of times. So you get better terms.

Brian Bassil [00:14:41]:
It did help on property taxes because it only shows the building. It doesn’t show anything else. So forever I’ll pay less property tax because of that. So that’s the plus side to it, I guess.

Jordan Berry [00:14:51]:
Yeah, yeah, definitely some, definitely some benefits there. And, you know, I’m sure. And not only did you double the business, I’m sure you’ve actually increased the value of that property as well by.

Brian Bassil [00:15:02]:
You know, I’ve had to reappraise since. And just by unluck the same. Yeah, I appraised it because it’s, it’s unanimous, you know, or anonymous. I mean, you can’t see who. They won’t let you see who it is. And of course I didn’t want him again because, I mean, he told me he didn’t. He had never appraised one, so he was a little out of his depth. And the value went up some, but not as much as it should.

Brian Bassil [00:15:28]:
And I did it just trying to pull some of the collateral off of it because I was trying to do something with that other. Other property, which it did to help some, but it didn’t go up as much as I hoped it would have.

Jordan Berry [00:15:40]:
Yeah, yeah. You know, as. As you’re talking, it’s just bringing up something that I don’t think. I mean, we don’t talk about super often, but. But I think it’s important. I mean, you’re demonstrating the power of it right now is like, you know, a lot of times I see people kind of sitting around waiting and, you know, and we’ll talk more about this in a little bit. But like, you know, either analysis paralysis or that fear, that’s a real fear of, you know, pulling the trigger on committing to buying a business or real estate or whatever keeps them from doing it. Right.

Jordan Berry [00:16:17]:
But. But there’s power in taking that action and acquiring an asset because not only are you benefiting from that asset, but that asset can actually help you acquire more assets, not just by giving you cash flow, but like you said, you had this other property that you could collateralize to help actually get this one. And so there’s a lot of, like, creative things that you can do right with. With your assets. And then if you can, you know, improve your business, which increases the value of your business, which also increases the value of your real estate, which now you can get reappraised to either, you know, decolateralize, you know, your other property or pull money out of it and take that and do something with it. Right. You got a lot of different options that you can play with. So, you know, I just.

Jordan Berry [00:17:02]:
I wanted to kind of emphasize just from this early part of your story here, the importance of stacking assets because you. You have a lot of different options that you can play around with when you. When you do that.

Brian Bassil [00:17:14]:
Things with that is. I’ve already done that. Like, I set up a line of credit on one property just to help, you know, just you got access to. To cash anytime you need it for, you know, if you need to make a quick deal or whatever. But to pack up on the sale. I saw it the day I got listed. I mean, the moment I got listed, it just happened to see it had been listed for five minutes and called the realtor. When looked at the next day, within two days, did the water analysis, felt comfortable enough.

Brian Bassil [00:17:46]:
So within the first week, I made the offer and went back and forth like twice and, you know, end up getting a little less. But since then, I’ve talked to at least half a dozen people that would have bought that. And if, if I hadn’t been as quick as I was, it would have been gone. They, they all like, had way more money than I did. It would have been gone. So.

Jordan Berry [00:18:09]:
Yeah, and yeah, I, I mean, I think that’s huge lesson. Right? Just being able to just jump and act and, And I will say, you know, you bought this, you said three years ago.

Brian Bassil [00:18:19]:
Yes.

Jordan Berry [00:18:20]:
Yeah. And it’s 20, 25 now. Right. I will say it’s more important to act quickly now than it was three years ago. Even the market is, it is, you know, there’s more buyer demand. And I, you know, I talked to way too many people who, you know, I, I get like, needing to analyze the deal and making sure it makes sense. And different people have different thresholds of how much they feel like they need to analyze. But if you, you, you gotta, gotta default to action in this market right now and do your analysis on the back end.

Jordan Berry [00:18:58]:
A lot of it. Because these deals get snatched.

Brian Bassil [00:19:02]:
Yeah, yeah, you can get under contract, due diligence, and then you can back out if you need to.

Jordan Berry [00:19:07]:
Yeah, that. Yeah, that’s exactly it. So, I mean, I think that’s a huge lesson, you know, to take away. And I think that’s true just in general, in any market, if being, you know, getting enough information but then being quick to act and not, you know, waiting to get more than you need to be able to act. And it’s a fine balance and you got to have a little bit of experience and, or some people in your corner. Right. Like you had somebody who could help you do the water analysis to get you to that. Okay.

Jordan Berry [00:19:35]:
I’ve hit my, my threshold. I feel good about it. Let’s go and let’s make the offer. But, yeah, it does not, it does not take much hesitation for you to lose out on a deal, whether it’s a laundromat, real estate, whatever, a lot.

Brian Bassil [00:19:49]:
Of times I’ve missed that on plenty of other deals. I mean, maybe not even laundry.

Jordan Berry [00:19:54]:
Yeah, me. Yeah, me too. Me too. Both laundry related and not laundry related. So. Yeah. Okay, so you, you, you found this thing on the mls. You went, you jumped on it, you made an offer, you came in, you Made these improvements, you know, casually doubling your business, you know, is, you know, from there.

Jordan Berry [00:20:20]:
Did you feel like, hey, this is. Maybe I should do this again? Is that. Or like what. What happened after that?

Brian Bassil [00:20:27]:
Yeah, after about a year, probably even before that, I started looking for other properties. It’s very limited of being able to buy a laundromat here. There’s not enough or in areas that I would want. Want them to be. So I just started looking for buildings. I was thinking that’d be the next best option. I was going to build from the ground up. I was just buildings that I could convert and make work.

Brian Bassil [00:20:54]:
And I had my eye on one. And it had been vacant for like 10 years, but it was an ideal location. And it was an old pharmacy, just 1900 square foot brick building. But I mean just the location was just. You couldn’t beat it. And I tried and tried, could not get in contact with the owner of the building and ended up sending a Facebook message to his wife and left.

Jordan Berry [00:21:24]:
It at that little cyber stalking, no big deal.

Brian Bassil [00:21:27]:
That was all. That was the best I could do. And then, so I just left that one alone. And I found another building in a spot that I liked and it had been listed and I went to purchase it and it wasn’t listed anymore. So I called my realtor and she knew the people and called them and they said, oh, they just leased it, but they’re still selling it. I said, okay. So I bought it with the lease in place for two years. So now I’m just kind of stuck for two years while they’re leasing it, you know.

Brian Bassil [00:22:02]:
And I told the guy, I said, look, this is my plan, so if you want to leave early, you can. And about a year into the lease, I got a response from that first building and he wanted to sell, so went back and forth for a few months and I got it and started on it. Just converting it. I mean, just kind of had an idea. I’ve got a good distributor, you know, drew me out some plans and just got going on it. And it opened in October. This, just this past October. And, and, and then immediately after, I wasn’t planning on going right into the other building, but the guy left early and I had some money left on my, my line of credit, so I mainly went into it and it opened about three weeks ago.

Jordan Berry [00:22:55]:
Oh man, you are like moving right now. Yeah, I love it. At this pace, you’re going to have like 40 laundromats in no time, maybe. So that. So both of those spaces were white box build Outs. Right. They weren’t laundromats before.

Brian Bassil [00:23:13]:
Yeah, they’re standalone, not Laundromat. One was a pharmacy, one was a gas station.

Jordan Berry [00:23:17]:
Yeah. Okay, can we talk about. Let’s. The pharmacy, was that the first one you built out?

Brian Bassil [00:23:23]:
Yes.

Jordan Berry [00:23:24]:
Yeah. Can we talk about that? Like, what was that experience like, buying a building and then converting it into a laundromat? Was that. Did that go smoothly? What was it? What’d you learn there?

Brian Bassil [00:23:36]:
I mean, obviously figured a lot out. Had a good contractor that helped me, you know, along the way with that. Of course, he had never built a Laundromat, so he didn’t know. But I had just did in that time of. Of the year, the other one, and get the building and all that. I had plenty of time to research, look and go look at, you know, go in laundromats all over the area and Dallas, wherever. Just if we were on vacation or whatever, I would just go look and just get as much information as possible. And I knew kind of what I wanted, so we just laid it out, and he built it out like I wanted.

Brian Bassil [00:24:12]:
I mean, it took about. I think we started in April and opened in October. It went pretty smooth, to be honest. I can’t.

Jordan Berry [00:24:23]:
Austin Blaine.

Brian Bassil [00:24:24]:
I mean, you know, I say smooth people are different. Stuff doesn’t really bother me. I don’t get real worked up. So I’m sure there were issues along the way. It just doesn’t bother me. I just move on to the next thing.

Jordan Berry [00:24:35]:
Yeah, well. And I mean. I think. I mean, to that point, because I. I’m sure things came up. I just. I haven’t heard a totally smooth build out of anything ever happening. But to your point is, you know, I think one thing that I learned that was kind of interesting, I just sort of observed about myself, is that.

Jordan Berry [00:24:58]:
And I’ve shared something to this effect before, I think, but, you know, when I first bought my first bit, my first laundromat, right. And things were going horribly wrong and everything was overwhelming, I. And I. I generally consider myself pretty even keel, but I was just, like, overwhelmed, frustrated, lost. Right. And what I learned was that by doing these things and by learning, by doing and by going through the hardships that I went through and the struggles and all that stuff, I learned that my threshold to tolerate chaos or tolerate problems has gone dramatically up. Like, things that used to be a really big deal are just not a big deal anymore. And it gives you.

Jordan Berry [00:25:53]:
I don’t know if it’s perspective or. I don’t know what it is. But, you know, as you’ve. You’ve invested in things before, you’ve run businesses before, and, you know, as you’re building this thing out, like, those things that might be a big deal to some people if it’s their first time around just aren’t a big deal anymore.

Brian Bassil [00:26:13]:
That was probably most of it. And I’d never done anything like this. We’ve done a flip house, but I guess I didn’t have a time constraint. I mean, I was just working on it. So, I mean, it wasn’t like, I gotta be done by this time. So, I mean, there was no stress of that. And I probably enjoy finding the buildings, making the deals, building it out all the way up until the point of opening more than after it opens. Oh.

Jordan Berry [00:26:48]:
Like, I do for sure.

Brian Bassil [00:26:49]:
I just. Just enjoy doing that stuff. So I probably. My friend said, you’re making it sound too easy. Like, it’s not. It’s definitely not. It’s just. I don’t know, I just like that most people might not.

Brian Bassil [00:27:06]:
They might hate that part. Just dealing with contractors or, you know, and dealing with issues, dealing with the city. I mean, I ran into a few little problems with the city. The very end. We got pushed back two weeks opening because the fire marshal thought we had to do something, had to check, and we’re back and forth. So we’re just. We’re ready to open, and we’re just sitting there. Can’t open for two weeks.

Brian Bassil [00:27:28]:
And they finally figured it out, we were fine, so we opened. But, I mean, that was probably the most frustrating thing for me was those last two weeks when I’m ready to go and just sitting there because they don’t have whatever. Right? Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:27:44]:
Which, I mean, that stuff happens all the time, right? Like, all the time. But it is frustrating. Like, when you’re in the middle of it, you’re like, dude, I just spent all this time and money and effort, and it’s just sitting here. I had a. I had a client who. Junior, actually, and he. He’s in New York and he’s got laundry and lattes. Right.

Jordan Berry [00:28:06]:
And the. The coffee shop side of his business got shut down temporarily while the city was trying to figure stuff out. And eventually it was just like, oh, no, actually, you’re fine. Like, go for it. But it was just. You’re like, dude, this is like my business. Like, you can’t just casually do that. It can be really frustrating.

Jordan Berry [00:28:26]:
But that’s also just part of the game here. And, you know, one. One thing I’ve learned too, is frustration A lot of times is just when expectations don’t match reality. Right. And if you expect things to go smoothly, you expect to be better than the average person. Or Laundromat. When you expect to, you know, whatever, and things don’t go that way, that’s when frustration starts to set in. So if you expect, you know, for the city to be easy to work with and they’re not, yeah, it’s gonna be frustrating.

Brian Bassil [00:29:02]:
Right.

Jordan Berry [00:29:04]:
But you can just expect problems to happen and things that not be easy and it’s less frustrating sometimes. Sometimes. Okay, so you built that out. It was easy, just like your last one.

Brian Bassil [00:29:17]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:29:19]:
How. How was. How. How was business when you opened up? Like, did people show up? Did you.

Brian Bassil [00:29:25]:
I had no sales the first day.

Jordan Berry [00:29:28]:
Okay.

Brian Bassil [00:29:29]:
I was. Which didn’t surprise me.

Jordan Berry [00:29:31]:
Not a strong start.

Brian Bassil [00:29:33]:
Yeah. But I had a daily average. A goal for daily average. Well, I say that to break even. And from day three on, I was. I was at that. To break even. Oh, wow.

Jordan Berry [00:29:46]:
Okay.

Brian Bassil [00:29:47]:
So I couldn’t. I was happy with that. And so anything above that, you know, I didn’t know how long it was going to take. But I’m going to be honest. I think it’s probably about at capacity now, you know, seven months in. I mean, not at that physical capacity, but I mean, maybe what it’s probably going to do, I feel like it is because it peaked and then it dipped a little bit. And now this month is coming back up. So it may be right there kind of out of where it’s going to be.

Brian Bassil [00:30:12]:
And if it is, it’s way more than I thought it was going to be. So I love that.

Jordan Berry [00:30:20]:
I love that. Did you do anything to, like, okay, obviously you didn’t do anything day one because nobody showed up. But did you do anything? Like when you opened, did you do like, any kind of grand reopening? Did you run ads? Did you put up banners or.

Brian Bassil [00:30:34]:
I ran Google Facebook ads. Pretty heavy. And I did put banners and I put a bunch of yard signs around. And this store is laundry works. And I did only no, no coin. I did double your money promotion for the first two weeks. And that. That did pretty good.

Brian Bassil [00:30:56]:
I gave away five or six thousand dollars during that.

Jordan Berry [00:31:00]:
Thanks. Brought in five or six thousand. Right, right, right, right.

Brian Bassil [00:31:05]:
Yeah. Card only laundry works. I did a double your money promotion with that. And I know that helped a lot. And. And I mean, that was a big jump going from coin, you know, only to card only, but, man, I’m thinking about switching my coin only to the laundry works.

Jordan Berry [00:31:24]:
Now, well, that’s. That was going to be. My next question is. Right. What are your thoughts on as somebody who owns both? You know, they’re still. I think, I think a lot of people are now, okay, I got to at least have an option for digital payment. Not everybody. Still a lot of coin stores out there, but that, I think that momentum has picked up.

Jordan Berry [00:31:44]:
But still sometimes people, they don’t.

Brian Bassil [00:31:48]:
Sorry.

Jordan Berry [00:31:49]:
No, go ahead, go ahead.

Brian Bassil [00:31:50]:
I said just recently I talked to people and they’re like, ah, they don’t want, they’re not. They wouldn’t want to do card only there. Like they’re still kind of fighting back on it. But I’m telling you, I wouldn’t do it any other way at all. I love it. Reports and just the tracking of it. It’s so nice. I have zero complaints.

Brian Bassil [00:32:12]:
How.

Jordan Berry [00:32:12]:
How do the customers feel about the card only because, I mean, I think that’s like a big concern. Right people? One of the arguments is like, oh, it’s good for you, but it’s not good for the customer. So I’m curious, like, what’s the response been for the customers?

Brian Bassil [00:32:27]:
I would say vast majority, very positive. You know, figuring the kiosk out just a little bit. It’s very simple. But I mean, you know, I have an attendant there and she just walked them through it. And I’ve got, you know, little instruct there too for when she’s not there. But really not much issue with that. I think in seven months I had two people come in with pockets full of quarters that were mad and left. Okay.

Brian Bassil [00:32:52]:
But other than that, everybody else has loved it.

Jordan Berry [00:32:56]:
Yeah.

Brian Bassil [00:32:56]:
So.

Jordan Berry [00:32:59]:
What, what made you decide to do all card on that store after having one that’s all coin already, right?

Brian Bassil [00:33:07]:
I mean, just seeing the freedom it gives you, you know, not having to go deal with coin jams in the training machine or in the, in the washer or just deal with quarters at all. I mean, I could see it all from the, from the, from the app. You know, when I need to go into the validator, how many cards are in there? I mean, you can see everything on there. So I mean, I don’t have to go as much, you know, if I need to do something because I was always worried I’d go out of town, I’d be rushing back, you know, to change out the quarters and. Or something get. Always I’d first say I leave, the change machine would get jammed and. And this. I’ve had zero issues.

Brian Bassil [00:33:50]:
I mean, I’m sure there’s going to be Some. But make sure you order your cards ahead of time because I almost ran out of cards for laundry works. It takes a little while to get them. I waited a little too long. Just. Just make sure you do that. If you get it because you run out of cards, you can’t do anything. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:34:11]:
This is a good problem to have too much business.

Brian Bassil [00:34:13]:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:34:17]:
Okay. I mean, I think that that’s. I appreciate you sharing that because I mean, I think that that’s something that a lot of people are still wrestling with. Of. Do I add that? You know, because there’s a. There’s an upfront cost to add something like that.

Brian Bassil [00:34:29]:
Yes.

Jordan Berry [00:34:29]:
To your store. Do you. I mean, it’s hard to. Hard to tell because you just kind of opened it with that. But do you think it would have made any difference revenue wise for you having coin versus card or mostly just convenience?

Brian Bassil [00:34:45]:
No, I think, I think the revenues are because of it. There’s no way for me to know, but I pretty strongly think that the revenue is higher because of it. For one thing, you can tell from the float that the float just keeps growing. So that’s money that wouldn’t have been there.

Jordan Berry [00:35:07]:
Yeah. Yeah. Just so everybody knows, you know, or do you want to explain float just so everybody knows.

Brian Bassil [00:35:12]:
Yeah. Floats. Just the difference of money that’s added to the card that doesn’t get spent. Whether they lose the card or just leave a little bit on there or whatever, they’re out of town. They just don’t spend it all either way. That’s just money that you’ve got that never got spent. And it just. I’ve never heard anybody say any different.

Brian Bassil [00:35:30]:
Once it starts, it just. It continuously grows. So it’s just. It’s almost free money. And most people just figure that’s paying for the. For the system itself, which it will for sure.

Jordan Berry [00:35:43]:
Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, at the very worst it’s like a interest free loan. At the very worst. Yeah, they’re going to actually end up spending it all. But. But a lot of times it’s just money that. It’s a revenue stream kind of.

Brian Bassil [00:36:02]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:36:03]:
Interesting. Okay, so. So you build that one out and then pretty much right on the heels of that is when you said the gas station one.

Brian Bassil [00:36:13]:
Yes.

Jordan Berry [00:36:15]:
That that property came up. Just curious, like not really Laundromat related, but on the gas station side of things. You know, I, I’ve never bought a property that was a gas station before, but I know that there can be environmental concerns, things like that. Was. How is that process of purchasing that.

Brian Bassil [00:36:36]:
Particular property, the original owners, or it was originally a gas station. It had been many things since, but they paid for all of that. All of the EPA pulled the tanks out, tested it, refill the dirt, whatever. All needed to be done that was cleared and had all the paperwork at the sale for that. So, you know, that’s always a concern with something like that. But they had already did that, so I was good to go there. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:37:04]:
Because I know that can get real costly real fast, especially if there’s leakage anywhere or anything like that, so.

Brian Bassil [00:37:10]:
Right. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:37:13]:
Nice. I’m glad you didn’t have to deal with that and I’m glad you got paperwork saying that is right. Done. Done deal. How big is that space? The pharmacy was like 9. 1900.

Brian Bassil [00:37:24]:
1900. And then the gas station is 2400. And it’s really just concrete floor, metal building, like wide open metal building, the gas station with a lot of frontage glass. And that’s what I liked about it. I mean, it’s good and bad. I mean, good visibility, but I mean, not good on utility cops.

Jordan Berry [00:37:44]:
Yeah, right. A lot of it looks cooler leaking out for sure.

Brian Bassil [00:37:48]:
It looks really good, though. At night when it’s lit up, I mean, you can see all in there and it’s safe, you know, and very bright.

Jordan Berry [00:37:56]:
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So how. How long did that one take you to build out?

Brian Bassil [00:38:01]:
Started almost immediately, probably in November. And I opened three weeks ago. Yeah, three weeks in.

Jordan Berry [00:38:10]:
It’s so basically at the end of April.

Brian Bassil [00:38:14]:
Ish. Yeah. Yeah, April 22nd is when I open.

Jordan Berry [00:38:20]:
Okay. Awesome. Yeah. So did you use the same contractor to. To build that one out?

Brian Bassil [00:38:28]:
The same general contractor. I used a different plumber. We had a little difference of opinion. And same electrical contractor. Which kind of work under me and. Or under him. Under the general contractor. He let me do.

Brian Bassil [00:38:43]:
Not me do, but me handle some of the. The subs on my own, so then I didn’t have to pay him. Like, he didn’t mind.

Jordan Berry [00:38:53]:
That’s good. That’s good. Curious on the. On the. On the plumbing issue. Did you go. Did you go direct drain lines or did you do trough systems or.

Brian Bassil [00:39:05]:
I have troughs in. In both.

Jordan Berry [00:39:08]:
Okay.

Brian Bassil [00:39:08]:
I did like a floor sink in the pharmacy building. It just dumps into that and then the other one actually just dumps straight into the plumbing out outside. But still they both go through a trough.

Jordan Berry [00:39:21]:
Okay.

Brian Bassil [00:39:22]:
Nobody required that necessarily as far as like the lint screen, but I did it for that reason, just in case I ran into any kind of city issue saying we need a lint screen because I just didn’t want to put in a full lint interceptor in, but nobody ever even mentioned it. So I may not even have to do that. But I really do like the trucks. Yeah, yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:39:46]:
You don’t want to give the city any excuse either, you know.

Brian Bassil [00:39:48]:
No, no.

Jordan Berry [00:39:51]:
Give them an inch, take a mile kind of thing.

Brian Bassil [00:39:55]:
I just remembered a problem that I ran into at pharmacy building. The water company would not give me a big enough water line.

Jordan Berry [00:40:04]:
Really would not.

Brian Bassil [00:40:06]:
One inch was there.

Jordan Berry [00:40:09]:
One inch.

Brian Bassil [00:40:10]:
One inch.

Jordan Berry [00:40:13]:
He wouldn’t upgrade it.

Brian Bassil [00:40:15]:
He would not do it. Their engineer for that. It’s a real small water company that runs that area. And it. I tried and dried and he just would not do it. He was worried about how much wastewater I was going to have. And I tried to tell him I’m going to have the same wastewater no matter how much. How big the tap is coming in.

Brian Bassil [00:40:35]:
Because even if I have to get some kind of storage tank, whatever I got to do and make it work, still going to be the same going out. It’s just going to take slower to come in, right? Yeah. But that’s all he was worried about. They didn’t have enough processing for the treatment facility, but it’s worked. I turned up the time on the machines and I ran inch and a half from the tap everywhere else in the building, but the tap itself is one inch. And that’s. It’s probably right on the edge. I’ve had a few little codes that pop up, you know, here and there, but, you know, not.

Brian Bassil [00:41:09]:
Not bad.

Jordan Berry [00:41:11]:
Did you end up having to do a storage tank or anything or you’re just.

Brian Bassil [00:41:13]:
No. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:41:16]:
Okay.

Brian Bassil [00:41:16]:
It’s. I’m just right at the threshold.

Jordan Berry [00:41:21]:
Yeah. So you haven’t yet snuck over to the building next door and tapped into their water line?

Brian Bassil [00:41:26]:
No. Okay.

Jordan Berry [00:41:29]:
The volume goes up, though. You might have to do that. So.

Brian Bassil [00:41:31]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:41:33]:
Keep that in mind. Stealth. Stealth project in the middle of the night.

Brian Bassil [00:41:36]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:41:39]:
Okay. So you. All right. So you built out this gas station 1. Did you build out all 2400 square feet of this one?

Brian Bassil [00:41:46]:
No, I didn’t think. I didn’t think it was needed. And that kind of. We had talked about before about building smaller. I think I only have 15 washers there, 16 dryers. So it’s pretty open. I had to do a bulkhead there. It’s kind of a weird layout.

Brian Bassil [00:42:05]:
So it’s a lot of open space. I’ve got room if I needed to expand. The pharmacy building is kind of shotgun style. Washers on one side, dryer and other. I didn’t do a bulkhead. I built the wall out where I can actually walk behind there. That’s nice. Oh, it’s really nice.

Brian Bassil [00:42:23]:
I wish I could have done it the other one, but the building just wasn’t shaped right for that, so I ended up doing it bulkhead, which cost a lot more too, but it turned out nice. It’s working good and it’s so new. I can’t tell how busy it’s gonna be, but it’s, you know, growing slowly.

Jordan Berry [00:42:41]:
Awesome. Did. How is the. How is business for this one going so far?

Brian Bassil [00:42:48]:
It’s. I’m in the black, so. Okay. That.

Jordan Berry [00:42:54]:
Okay.

Brian Bassil [00:42:54]:
That’s. That’s all that mattered to me at the time.

Jordan Berry [00:42:57]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s fast. I mean, again, just. Same recipe Google as you go. All laundry works. This one too?

Brian Bassil [00:43:05]:
Yeah, I did. Yeah. The only difference. I think I have one more washer and this one. Now do another one. Okay, okay.

Jordan Berry [00:43:13]:
Okay. So you feel like you have, like a. Like a formula that’s working right now. I mean, you’ve. You did pretty well on that first one. You basically repeated the same formula on this on the second build out here, and it seems to be working so far. You feel like you got, like, a good.

Brian Bassil [00:43:31]:
I do, yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:43:33]:
Yeah. Did you?

Brian Bassil [00:43:38]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:43:38]:
Are you getting ready to build another one out?

Brian Bassil [00:43:40]:
Yeah, it’s probably gonna be about a year, though. It’s. It’s got. It’s kind of a little strip type building. It’s gonna have several tenants plus laundry, but it. We own the whole building.

Jordan Berry [00:43:50]:
Okay, that’s awesome. That’s. That’s where I want to go. I want to go into the, you know, buying some strip centers and owning laundries in the strip centers. That’s the trajectory I’m intrigued by at the moment. I mean, that could change at any point in time for me.

Brian Bassil [00:44:05]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:44:06]:
But at the moment, I’m. I’m very intrigued by that model. So I’ll have to, you know, we’ll have to have you back on here in, you know, a little over a year. Hear how it goes. You kind of referenced something we started talking about before we hit. Before we hit record and, you know, and maybe we could just kind of roll this into. We got, you know, segment of the show called Secret Sauce. And that’s just what’s.

Jordan Berry [00:44:32]:
Something that’s working for you that maybe other owners might benefit from or learn from you about. And you were kind of mentioning store size.

Brian Bassil [00:44:42]:
Right.

Jordan Berry [00:44:43]:
In reference to that. Tell me you Know, I. I think this is very intriguing. I think it’s actually very informative. Benefit a lot of people just to hear your philosophy on current philosophy, like, you know, subject to change, but like current philosophy on store size and what you’re saying with that.

Brian Bassil [00:45:00]:
Yeah, I feel like it’s okay to do a smaller store. Everybody thinks they need to go real big. I think you can go smaller and just kind of target it in a smaller community and maybe have multiple in that area and. And then that kind of alleviates maybe some of the pain of getting started and maybe this holding people back. You can just start a little smaller. You know, it’s a little easier to get going. Maybe not scared about doing that, not having to put up as much. Just feel like it’s.

Brian Bassil [00:45:35]:
I mean, it’s working for me. It’s got to work for some people in the right area. There’s some areas that may not work, but. And in this area, I think it works pretty well. And some people might not want multiple stores, but mine are all close together. I mean, none of my stores are more than about 15 minutes from my house. So it. I don’t mind having several, you know, and I’ll have four here soon, but.

Brian Bassil [00:46:03]:
And that didn’t bother me at all. Obviously you got to have employees for them, so if you don’t want to deal with that. But I just feel like that’s. The smaller size works and just keeps your cost down because you can fit. There’s so much you can get in there. I mean, I know you get busy on the Saturday or Sunday and it may people be waiting and I don’t like that. But you know, if you can. With the laundry works, you can kind of steer them to the other days in the week with promos and stuff and kind of even it out and do more than I thought I could do in a store that size, so.

Brian Bassil [00:46:41]:
So maybe more than other people think they could do in a store that size.

Jordan Berry [00:46:46]:
Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, what’s intriguing about that model, I mean, like you said, like, it kind of helps alleviate some of the fear of getting started. You’re not putting up 1.5 million. Maybe you’re putting up a couple few hundred thousand, you know, for a store. And you know what’s, what’s interesting about that model is like, you’re saying, like, it really doesn’t take that many, even small stores to replace most incomes of most people. Right. Like two or three of these smaller stores could replace majority of people’s income. So it’s not like you have to hit a home run with like a million dollar store. You can obviously.

Jordan Berry [00:47:30]:
Like that’s a feasible model, but you know that what’s. There’s more than one way to skin a cat.

Brian Bassil [00:47:39]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:47:40]:
Awful saying, awful thing. But. But there is that, you know, and I, I think that it’s an intriguing model. You know, I think of like the Williford Brothers. And while they’re not necessarily doing small stores, you know, I’d say they’re. Most of their stores are probably like medium size. They definitely build them out that I.

Brian Bassil [00:47:59]:
Probably got a little bit of the idea from them because they’ve said the ideal size is 25 washers. Yeah. And you start looking at some of these stores, they’re not 25 washers. They’re, you know, 50, 100 washers.

Jordan Berry [00:48:12]:
Yeah.

Brian Bassil [00:48:12]:
And some of them. Yeah. So I mean, if they think 25 is ideal, you know, and they are a little bigger, nicer stores. I mean, I’m not saying that wouldn’t work here too.

Jordan Berry [00:48:20]:
It would.

Brian Bassil [00:48:21]:
But I mean I’m 10 washers, 14 washers, 15 washers. And you know, the, the. Which I think I told you, I think in the Q and A we had if it got mentioned, but in that the one with 14 washers and 16 dryers, I mean it did 18,000 two months ago. I mean I felt pretty happy about that.

Jordan Berry [00:48:47]:
Yeah. Are your, are your stores attended, partially attended, Fully attended?

Brian Bassil [00:48:52]:
They are. I have a different setup than most. Probably I have a lady at each store. Just one. They’re there from like seven to four doing wash and fold and or attendant cleaning seven days a week. They clean five days a week. They do the wash and fold. I don’t pay them.

Brian Bassil [00:49:19]:
They. The washing fold is theirs. I get the money going in the machine. They. They get to keep their money from the washing fold. They helped customers refunds cleaning everything else that needs to be done there for free. And they. And they get a spot to their washing fold.

Brian Bassil [00:49:37]:
And all three are the exact same setup. And it works. It’s worked so far. I mean, I know I’m probably losing out on some money, but it definitely makes it easier on me dealing with things.

Jordan Berry [00:49:52]:
Well, it’s almost like having an operations partner. You know the caveat. I mean, I think this is an awesome business model. I’ve definitely, you know, talked to other people who are doing similar business models. The, the one thing that I will caution people on this because I’ve seen this go wrong a couple of times this way is you’ve got to have the right people in there running their wash and fold business. If you just have kind of anybody in there, you know, it’s the, one of the benefits of it is like, it’s, it’s like having an operations partner in your business without having to compensate them. They’re. They have their own business, right.

Jordan Berry [00:50:28]:
So they’re treating your business like their business because their business depends on your business, which is great for you. However, if their business is not a good business or they don’t show up consistently or they don’t keep the place that clean for you, your business is going to be the one that takes the big hit, you know, from that in terms of reputation, unhappy customers, lost revenue. So you got to make sure you got good people. Just like if you were hiring somebody.

Brian Bassil [00:51:01]:
Right.

Jordan Berry [00:51:02]:
But as long as you’ve got good people, that is awesome. How did you find. I know, I know. You inherited one, right? How’d you find the other two?

Brian Bassil [00:51:10]:
Just look, they’re all family.

Jordan Berry [00:51:14]:
It’s awesome.

Brian Bassil [00:51:15]:
It’s her sister and her daughter in law that run the other two stores, so that’s all. They already knew what to do. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:51:25]:
You’ve got a dilemma though because you’ve got a fourth one coming. Is there another family member? What are you going to do for that one?

Brian Bassil [00:51:32]:
I’m not sure yet. Okay. One, one, one may actually split between two stores or actually move to another one and, and I might get somebody at a different one, but it will figure it out.

Jordan Berry [00:51:46]:
Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, I think that is awesome. And in fact, I mean there may be, you know, obviously, you know, any one of those three may know somebody else. And that’s a great way, by the way, to, you know, to, to get this, this kind of thing to happen or also to find good employees. Like if you have a good employee trying to get like good people hang out with good people usually, right. So if they know other people looking for work, those referrals are, are money. And especially in a situation like this, that’s great. So you know, obviously they may have people they know, you know, who want to do it, but also like you might be able to like help them out a little more and just say, hey, you know, if I find somebody, you know, will you train them, you know, and teach me how to do the business and you can even compensate them or, or whatever. Right.

Jordan Berry [00:52:35]:
Like the, it’s an awesome asset to have. So I love that setup, man. I love that it’s worked out. It’s funny because, you know, you’re kind of like oh, you know, I found this one on the MLS and never see that. Then I bought it, and then I doubled business in a year. And then, you know, I built this other one out. I got no. No sales on the first day.

Jordan Berry [00:52:57]:
And then by day three, I was in the black. And, you know, like, casually, I like, yeah, I just. I got lucky and I got three. But that’s, like, what happens when you take action. Like, right?

Brian Bassil [00:53:08]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:53:08]:
Like, I’m sure you’ve had plenty of struggles with these things, but also before this, kind of leading up to buying that first one and doing it and learning from all that stuff. And when you start stacking knowledge from just gaining experience, you know, and kind of one of the things you were talking about, right, is like, you can learn a lot of stuff by doing research, listening to podcasts, reading blog posts, watching YouTube videos, joining, you know, memberships, and talking to people. Like, you can learn a lot of stuff that way, but really, you start learning when you actually start doing. You can know stuff in your head, but you don’t really know it until you’ve done it. So you got to do stuff and. And struggle and fail at stuff to learn stuff. And, you know, once you do that, you kind of start, quote, unquote, looking into, you know, these kinds of things where it’s not really luck. It’s just, you know, a lot of things that have stacked, I’m sure, over the years for you.

Jordan Berry [00:54:08]:
A lot of knowledge and a lot of wisdom, and here you are crushing it. Are you. Are you doing anything else besides Laundromats now?

Brian Bassil [00:54:22]:
I still have the pool service.

Jordan Berry [00:54:24]:
Okay.

Brian Bassil [00:54:25]:
And so I have a couple guys run routes for that, and I go out and do the repairs on that, and that helped a lot with this because I do wiring and plumbing and, you know, dealing with water, and it. It definitely translated and. Because that’s all I do is work on that, and I can’t find anybody around here to. To work on this stuff, so I do all the repairs, just figure it out. But they’re really fairly simple machines. I mean, it’s the same stuff all over and over again. You know, just let you get some electronics, but outside of that, everything else, you know, it’s. Just keep those parts in stock and you’re good.

Jordan Berry [00:55:07]:
Yeah, yeah. And I was going to ask you, like, was it the. Like, you’ve got a. You got a pretty nice little portfolio here, you know, and how did you just, you know, not necessarily even just Laundromats, but just investing in general. Like, how did you get Started with that. Was that from starting your pool service business and then taking excess capital and buying properties or like how did you, how did you get started just investing in general.

Brian Bassil [00:55:37]:
I knew early on that I just didn’t want a boss. But it took longer than I wanted to. I was. I think I was 30 whenever I left that job at Ameripride and started the pool service and. But the only thing I had done before that, I’d done several small things. I have some storage facilities or one storage facility that I built up along the way and that was the first thing I did. And you know, it’s. I don’t know if you have that or ever dealt with that.

Brian Bassil [00:56:09]:
But I mean they’re pretty hands off. You know, you get them built and just rent them. Pretty simple. So I mean I definitely like that the cost of that’s got so expensive now it’s difficult. The buildings. I just built a new building added on there last year and it, it was triple what I’d paid before. So kind of holding off on that. But yeah, I just always wanted to do something on my own and.

Brian Bassil [00:56:34]:
And whole business was my first jump into that and to where I was. I had no boss and now I still was looking for stuff and like I said, not looking for the laundry, just stumbled across it and you know, and just as you get more stuff, you know, just you kind of meet with people and talk to people and get other ideas and one thing I was going to mention we do have at the laundry, but it didn’t start. There is a dog wash. I don’t know if you’ve seen those. It’s kind of like a little standalone unit. Real, very nice. We put one at the laundry. It’s been doing pretty well.

Brian Bassil [00:57:11]:
It’s at the pharmacy building. Not inside, outside, is it?

Jordan Berry [00:57:16]:
I mean you just, you pay to, you know, I mean I’ve seen them before. Right. So you just pay and people can wash their dog. It’s built there.

Brian Bassil [00:57:24]:
Yeah, almost like a car wash. You know, it’s credit card on that one. You just. It’s got everything inside it. Shampoo, conditioner, flea and tick. It’s got a blow dryer on it. The dog gets in the little tub type area. It’s got a door that opens.

Brian Bassil [00:57:39]:
They hop in, hook the collar up and wash them right there. And people love it.

Jordan Berry [00:57:44]:
I mean how much does that cost?

Brian Bassil [00:57:46]:
It’s.

Jordan Berry [00:57:47]:
You can, I mean just to do a wash.

Brian Bassil [00:57:50]:
Ours is 15 for 12 minutes.

Jordan Berry [00:57:53]:
Okay.

Brian Bassil [00:57:53]:
Then you can do an add on. I think it’s a Dollar a minute after that. Okay. Most people do it twice, but do they? Yeah, seems like it.

Jordan Berry [00:58:04]:
Okay. Okay, that’s. I mean that’s pretty good. That’s pretty good.

Brian Bassil [00:58:10]:
Yeah, it’s, it’s pretty hands off too. I mean, you know, you go clean it, fill the shampoo. But it’s very, very simple and very well built machines. I mean there’s hardly any maintenance on.

Jordan Berry [00:58:21]:
Do you know, do you remember like what the investment was in, in buying that?

Brian Bassil [00:58:25]:
I think those new machine is low 20s.

Jordan Berry [00:58:31]:
Okay.

Brian Bassil [00:58:33]:
And then I just tied it into the building, into the sewer of the building, the hot and cold water of the building, electricity. So I mean it worked out well there. We have another standalone location. It’s just got a little awning. It’s completely by itself. And then we’re going to put one at the gas station too.

Jordan Berry [00:58:52]:
Awesome, awesome. See it man. You’re like building your recipe here. You got the game plan going.

Brian Bassil [00:58:59]:
I love that.

Jordan Berry [00:59:01]:
I love that. Last question I have for you or maybe second to last question I have for you is, you know, somebody’s here listening to you casually, making everything sound very easy. And it’s like, I’m in. I like I want to do this. What’s your best, what’s your best piece of advice for somebody who’s trying to buy their first one or build?

Brian Bassil [00:59:24]:
Yeah, I don’t suggest building for your first one. I would probably shy away from that. If you can buy an existing one, definitely do that. I mean you just have the infrastructure in place. I mean it’s, that’s kind of a no brainer. But the location, you got to make sure. Just because there was one there don’t mean it’s going to work. You know, make sure you’re in the right location.

Brian Bassil [00:59:46]:
I mean, get a demographics report from, you know, find your local distributor, have them run demographics report to find, you know, make sure that’s a good area. If you’re looking at an existing location or if you’re just looking at a building. I really like the build out of just a shell. I mean, I don’t see why you couldn’t do that anywhere. But you just kind of, you got to do it. I mean it’s been mentioned so many times, but you just, if you like the idea, you know, it works, you see people doing it, you know, get it, get in a group like yours or whatever where you can just talk to a few people, feel comfortable about it and just do it. I mean just, you kind of got to jump in and figure it out. If you Think you’re going to be ready.

Brian Bassil [01:00:27]:
You’re never going to be ready. You just, you just have to do it. And I mean, that’s probably the biggest advice. Because I know people, friends, you know, they want to do something and they just want to always want to do something and never do anything. And like, man, how do you do that? And I’m like, I can’t explain that. You just have to do it. You’ll figure it out. Or you won’t, maybe you won’t.

Brian Bassil [01:00:48]:
Sometimes stuff doesn’t work. I’ve tried plenty of things that don’t work. I mean, you can’t be scared of failure.

Jordan Berry [01:00:55]:
Yeah. And I think that’s, I think that is like the big fear, right? Is like being afraid of failing. But here’s, here’s the thing is a lot of my resource would not be here if I was not such an awful Laundromat owner earlier, early on, right? Like, you gotta fail. And, and failure. Like, I, it’s. I, I felt gypped. You know, it wasn’t till like not that long ago, maybe like five or seven years ago, where I finally realized, like, oh, like my whole life I’ve been told either explicitly or implicitly that failure is bad. And it took me like 35 years or something to realize actually failure is good.

Jordan Berry [01:01:40]:
Like if you’re not feeling at stuff, you’re not doing anything worth doing. Like, that’s kind of my how I see it now.

Brian Bassil [01:01:48]:
Failure is more of a positive because you’re guaranteed that way doesn’t work, so you can move on to something else. So, I mean, let you know, because everything else is just, does this work? Does that work? I’m not sure. You fail, you can mark that off the list. You know, that doesn’t work, you know, in that situation. So I definitely don’t mind it. I mean, I probably didn’t mention it enough, but I mean, I’m sure I failed all over the place, but I don’t even think about it. I just check it off and move on.

Jordan Berry [01:02:16]:
Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, yeah, I just somewhere along the way, maybe it’s just our nature or whatever. Like failing became like shameful or embarrassing or whatever. And man, if you can, like, the biggest favor I think you could do yourself, anybody I could do myself is to get over that fear of failure and that embarrassment of failure. Because I’ll tell you what, the main thing that built Laundromat Resource was me sharing about losing a bunch of money when I bought my first laundromat. Like, that was what grew the whole platform, right. And like, it, like, if, if, if you’re not trying stuff and you’re not failing at stuff, like you said, you’re not learning what definitely doesn’t work and narrowing down to what does work, and you can swing and miss a hundred times.

Jordan Berry [01:03:11]:
All it takes is one time and guess what? You don’t have to have that boss anymore that you, you know, told your younger self you didn’t want or, you know, whatever it is. Right? Like, you just have to win one time and it changes your life. Right. So I love that you’re an action taker. I love that you’re just getting out there doing it and you’re doing it with some, like, calm confidence over there and casually crushing it in, in the sound.

Brian Bassil [01:03:42]:
I appreciate it. It’s.

Jordan Berry [01:03:43]:
Yeah, well, I appreciate you, man. I appreciate you coming on and sharing so much wisdom. Hey, if, if anybody wants to connect with you, is there a place that is a good place that they can go to kind of connect with you?

Brian Bassil [01:03:57]:
I can give my email.

Jordan Berry [01:04:00]:
Sure. Yeah.

Brian Bassil [01:04:01]:
It’s Brian B R I N B A S S I l the number one yahoo.com and just email me there. I mean, I, I’ll talk to anybody. I’ve talked to several people that I’ve run across that just had questions, saw me on Facebook out of town, like, hey, you know, what’d you do here? What’d you do there? I don’t mind talking to anybody. I’ll tell them anything, especially somebody uptown.

Jordan Berry [01:04:26]:
Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. As long as you’re out of town. He’s booked just like the rest of us. Right? Yeah. Awesome. Well, no, I appreciate you sharing that. I’ll have that in the show notes too, or down below in the description if you’re on YouTube.

Jordan Berry [01:04:39]:
And Brian, man, this is awesome. And I, I really appreciate you. I love what you’re doing. I love that you have a, a model that’s kind of counter the, the big flashy trends right now of going huge, going, you know, dropping tons of money in there and you’re. You’re kind of over there. I wouldn’t say that your laundromats are small per se, but, you know, they’re definitely not massive, they’re not Texas sized. But you’re over there just doing, doing awesome. I love it.

Brian Bassil [01:05:10]:
I appreciate it. I appreciate it, Jordan. I really enjoyed being on here.

Jordan Berry [01:05:14]:
Yeah, yeah, one. And I. And I. One more thing. I just got to, like, appreciate you just a little bit more because I think. And this is kind of. On behalf of I think a lot of people listening who are in smaller towns, smaller areas, it can be a little frustrating. I’ve talked to some people who are like, man, you talk about these 5,000 square foot laundromats and stuff and like, that’s just not going to work where I’m at.

Jordan Berry [01:05:36]:
And to hear, you know, stories like yours where, you know, you’re, you’re in a smaller area, you’re in a smaller town area, you’ve got some, you know, relatively smaller laundromats, you know, 10, 12, 15 machines and are, you know, doing 18 grand a month out of one of those stores, like. Right. Like that is, I think, going to be encouraging for a lot of people and give a lot of people courage to, to take the leap. And that’s what it’s about, right? Taking that leap and betting on yourself to, to change your life, if that’s what you want to do. So for sure, super appreciate you, man. It was awesome.

Brian Bassil [01:06:14]:
Yes, sir. Thank you.

Jordan Berry [01:06:16]:
And we’ll do it again after this, this next build out you got going on to figure out how you’re handling your wash, dry, fold.

Brian Bassil [01:06:24]:
Absolutely.

Jordan Berry [01:06:26]:
All right, man. Appreciate it.

Brian Bassil [01:06:27]:
Yes, sir.

Jordan Berry [01:06:29]:
Okay, listen, we, we stopped recording. We finished this podcast episode and then we were talking. We. Brian threw out this idea that we had to hit record again because I thought it was a genius idea. And you want to share with you guys and Brian, I mean, what. You’re right. Tell, tell us, tell us what you’re doing over there.

Brian Bassil [01:06:47]:
Well, I just, I thought about, you know, when you go to a restaurant, I mean, you go sign the bill server hand you a pin. So I just had a bunch of pins made just with my logo on them. You could put more information if you wanted your number or website or whatever. And I just go around the restaurants, near the laundromat or wherever, wherever you’re targeting, if you were doing pickup and delivery, you could do that in a specific area. And I mean, I, I handed out like 2000 pins and just, they love them, they always want free pens. And I’ve been in so many restaurants since then and used my own bin, so I know people are seeing it and, and like I said, I don’t have any more information other than my logo on there because I’m just trying to get brand recognition out there, just want people to see it and recognize it. One day they may need something to get delivery or drop off or, or just come in self serve and they’ll recognize it, they’ll come there first and they’ll have to look it up online. Like, I’ve seen that before.

Brian Bassil [01:07:50]:
Recognize that. So I think it would help anybody. I think you could use it in many different situations or many different businesses because you really can specifically target with that. And, you know, people are going to see it because I notice it when I use a pin, I see whose it is, especially if it’s got a logo on it.

Jordan Berry [01:08:08]:
Yeah. I mean, we talk about targeted ads and we talk about Google and Facebook, which we did talk about a lot here. But that is genius. And what’s double genius about that idea and why I was like, we’ve got to re. Hit record and talk about this is. Anybody who’s ever been in, you know, the. The restaurant industry knows that one of the biggest complaints of waiters and waitresses, that people always steal their pins. So not only are they seeing them when they, you know, sign the check, but they’re actually taking that home a lot of times too.

Jordan Berry [01:08:42]:
So. Genius. Genius.

Brian Bassil [01:08:44]:
I need to run a promo on it. Put a code on there with laundry works. They could have a code and you can just key it in. They can have a discount. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [01:08:52]:
Ah, man. Definitely worth a post interview, recording session, because that was a genius idea. We’ll definitely splice that in there somewhere. I’ve got Tristan, my editor, who can make the magic happen for us. So, dude, thank you for sharing that. That’s awesome. I love it. Somebody take it and run with it at your store.

Jordan Berry [01:09:12]:
I want to hear how it goes for you guys too. Thanks, Brian.

Brian Bassil [01:09:15]:
Yes, sir. Thank you.

Jordan Berry [01:09:16]:
That wraps up episode 200 of the laundromat Resource podcast. Huge shout out once again, and thank you to Brian and all the guests over the last 200 episodes. Mind blowing that we’ve made it there. I remember somewhere around like episode 8 or 12 or something like that very early on where we had a little mini party and we. I mean, like me and maybe like a couple other people like my mom and my brothers or something like that who were listening at that point in time. I had a little mini party because most podcasts don’t make it 8 or 12 or whatever it was episodes in. And here we are, 200. And I don’t know what the future holds.

Jordan Berry [01:09:53]:
If we’ll. If we’ll make it to another 200. I would love to do that. But today, and in this moment, I just want to express gratitude for being here 200 episodes in. I know I’ve learned a ton. Hopefully you guys have learned a ton as well. And let’s keep it rolling, man. Let’s keep it rolling, keep learning.

Jordan Berry [01:10:13]:
And again, putting this stuff into action. Tom, it’s big actions, small actions. Those actions that we take consistently add up and compound into the results that we want to get. So get after it today, get after it this week, and we’ll be back in the next episode. We’ll see you there.