Jordan Berry [00:00:00]:
Hey, what’s up, guys? It’s Jordan with the Laundromat resource podcast. This is show 207, and I’m pumped you’re here today because today we have a whole slew of people from the 2U laundry team and the Laundry Lab team over there talking about free laundry day and how that went. They put one on. If you remember, I was making fun of that way back in April on tax day, which is for some reason international or maybe just National Laundry Day. And I think that April 15th tax day is bad enough. Why throw in the worst chore in the world that most people hate on the same day? I don’t know. But we have the opportunity to turn it around and make it a positive day, and that’s what we’re going to talk about today. A lot of really practical stuff.

Jordan Berry [00:00:53]:
We’ve got a whole group of people coming in here and just kind of give you a little bit of heads up. There’s a. We. We had to work some. Some audio magic here to make this thing sound decent. So if there’s any, like, warbles or garbles or whatever, apologies. But we had just too many people bringing too much good stuff today. That’s what’s going on with that.

Jordan Berry [00:01:13]:
Listen, you’re gonna love it.

Kaisha [00:01:15]:
You.

Jordan Berry [00:01:15]:
You’ll recognize at least. At least one person that’s on here today, if not more than one, but our. Our very own Madison, formerly Anderson, now Baker, is on this show and along with the team over there at laundry lab and 2U laundry and super good episode. A lot of really practical takeaways here and just punctuates the do good by doing good here in our businesses. So check this episode out. Get out your notepad and take some notes on this, on how you can also make a difference with your laundromat while making some money along the way. That’s what it’s all about, right? That’s right. All right, here it is with the free laundry day on national laundry day with 2U laundry and laundry Lab.

Jordan Berry [00:02:06]:
All right, what is going on? We’ve got a party going on today. How you guys doing? I. I’m super psyched. I. I’m really excited to see how this goes and to see if you guys could coordinate to where we can actually hear what you guys are saying. It’s gonna be great. And my goal, just so you know, is going to be to try to throw you guys off. So we’ll have a game of cat mouse before the game begins.

Jordan Berry [00:02:36]:
Let’s start with. Who are you Guys, and why don’t you guys take a second, introduce yourselves one at a time, or all at the same time if you want. I don’t know, maybe the game is already afoot. And tell us who you are and what your role is at Laundry Lab and two year laundry over there. So let’s start with the best beard. Rob, what’s going on, man? It was close.

Rob [00:03:07]:
I’m the senior operations manager at TU Laundry Lab, so I help with our logistics and managing our markets on the 2U side. And I also run both of our corporately owned laundromats here in Charlotte.

Kaisha [00:03:23]:
Hi, I’m Kaisha. I am marketing team lead for the Laundry Lab brand. I help from a marketing perspective on franchising and the corporate side all things marketing, execution and brand strategy.

Madison Baker [00:03:37]:
What’s up, Madison Baker?

Madison Baker [00:03:40]:
Now I’m married, y’.

Madison Baker [00:03:41]:
All. Last time y’ all saw me, I was just so.

Jordan Berry [00:03:43]:
What? Congrats, by the way.

Madison Baker [00:03:48]:
Thank you. Yes. Y’ all have seen me here on Lingerie Resource Podcast several times and in fresh mobile form in Laundry Lab content creation for our Laundry Lab Laundromat Resource podcast. Now we are here at Launch Lab and my gimmick title that I came up with on my own was a up. I am currently the operations and engagement coordinator for our Betty Sport location at Laundry Lab.

Jordan Berry [00:04:19]:
I think, first of all, I think you’re the only former. Besides me, you’re the only former guest and host of the podcast, so that’s awesome. Second of all, I think I’m. Since you’re making up a title anyways, I feel like we should throw a chief on the front of it. So let’s. Let’s call you chief there and just put your part of the C suite. If we’re going to make stuff up anyways, we might as well make the best stuff up. You know what I’m saying?

Madison Baker [00:04:47]:
Right. I should. Let me.

Ashley Martin [00:04:55]:
Hi, I’m Ashley Martin. I am the franchise marketing manager here at Laundry Lab. And in the spirit of making up titles, I refer to myself as the Hype woman of the franchise partners. So I help the franchise partners use the visibility of their business and connect with their communities because community engagement is extremely important.

Jordan Berry [00:05:19]:
Absolutely. I mean, that’s. That’s kind of what we’re here to talk about today. Right? Anyway, so this is perfect. We got the Hype person and the whole team locked and loaded. You guys already have the energy, so I’m psyched about it. Let’s jump into. I mean, we want to talk about Laundromats.

Jordan Berry [00:05:37]:
And community today, and specifically National Laundry Day. My first and most important question about that is who chose April 15 for national laundry Day and why?

Madison Baker [00:05:51]:
The question.

Kaisha [00:05:52]:
So I’ll start and I’ll let you jump, Ashley. So no one here at this.

Madison Baker [00:05:57]:
This table. Okay.

Jordan Berry [00:05:58]:
Was it you?

Kaisha [00:06:02]:
Social media holidays like national hot dog Day or national, like give your girlfriend $25 a day? I’m not sure if you guys are picked to those holidays, but they are real and you should have me your calendars. Out of a social media event or social media holiday that Ashley Martin here kind of brought us into the revelation of. I don’t think that anyone here knew that this was a social media holiday. We chatted with a couple of our nonprofit partners and asked them if they knew about it or if they celebrated. And it turned out that there wasn’t really anyone in the laundromat space that really jumped on the opportunity to do something big on this day. Ashley kind of brought this to all of our ears. And from there we just were like, we’re definitely going to dominate this holiday. It’s a national holiday for our world.

Kaisha [00:06:57]:
Right. It’s an actual holiday that none of us knew existed.

Ashley Martin [00:07:02]:
However, knowledge is the first year I.

Jordan Berry [00:07:04]:
Ever heard of it. I never heard of it before.

Ashley Martin [00:07:06]:
Yeah, it was probably eight weeks prior to April 15th. I was planning a grand opening for a franchise partner on the west Coast. I was working closely with a public relations agency, Shout Out, Brain Bond pr and our great openings, our free laundry days. However, we had a community partner and wanted to give that community partner a kickback of some kind. However, with a free laundry day, there would have been nothing to provide them with. So we got to thinking, how can we extend the Runway of this partnership? And it just so happened that National Laundry Day was a mere two weeks after this franchise partner’s grand opening. And we found out it was National Laundry Day. And I was like, bingo bango.

Ashley Martin [00:07:59]:
Let’s make this a system wide event so we can not only impact this one particular organization, but we can impact organizations across our system and ultimately the entire country. So one day I showed up to the office and I was like, does anybody know that April 15th is National Lottery day and the rest is history?

Jordan Berry [00:08:22]:
Wow. I mean, the rest of the country, yes, but how about the rest of the world? The rest of the galaxy, universe? Like, we’re just, you know, taking over. I love it. So, you know, just for clarity’s sake, I will ask the dumb question. National Laundry Day is the spirit behind that. Do all your laundry is the Spirit behind that. What’s the spirit behind National Laundry Day?

Madison Baker [00:08:51]:
Yeah, so I actually did do a.

Kaisha [00:08:53]:
Little bit of research on how people typically celebrate National Laundry Day ahead of this event, because, like you and like all of us, I had never heard of it before Ashley brought it to our attention either. So in my Google research, Google told me, no, it was not TikTok research. I think I get. I get kind of scared about what I’m going to find on TikTok. So I defer Google first, Mary chat GPT next. And if I cannot find my answers there, then I’ll go on TikTok.

Jordan Berry [00:09:22]:
For work.

Madison Baker [00:09:23]:
For work.

Jordan Berry [00:09:25]:
Yeah.

Madison Baker [00:09:29]:
You know.

Kaisha [00:09:32]:
But Google and you know, Google is kind of like playing game, right? Like, Google is not going to do anything with players. So they’re like the wikiHow pages. How to celebrate National Laundry Day.

Jordan Berry [00:09:43]:
Yeah, Yeah.

Kaisha [00:09:44]:
A laundry party with your friends. Friends. Invite them over and make some drinks and make a day of it. These were suggestions from Google, not necessarily, you know, a Reddit form that I was reading. So Google suggested doing laundry with friends. They suggested going to a Laundromat with friends and making a whole day of it. There were no suggestions. A laundry perspective.

Kaisha [00:10:06]:
Right. It was all from a typical person perspective. How do I celebrate National Laundry Day? And it was all about how to wash their laundry or how to improve how they approach washing their laundry. So read up on a bunch of different. It gave recommendations for articles to read on exactly how they’re supposed to be washing, how you’re supposed to be washing your delicates, et cetera. Just overall improvement of laundry experience. That’s what Google said. As far as how we’re supposed to be celebrating the day, but obviously we kind of took our own angle.

Jordan Berry [00:10:39]:
I. I like it. I like it. And you know, as you’re talking, I’m like, okay, as ridiculous as the National Laundry Day is, and as ridiculous as April 15 is for national Laundry Day, in my opinion, I actually kind of feel like you guys kind of laid a foundation and we’ll talk about what you guys did and what that looked like here in a second, but I kind of feel like maybe you laid a foundation for doing something cool on future National Laundry days and making sort of a wider. You know, I don’t want to say awareness, because that sounds dumb or I feel like we should be aware of more important things than just laundry, but like, almost like a make it more of an event. Right? Like for. For us as Laundromat owners to be able to facilitate these events for people. Uh, it should be pretty cool.

Jordan Berry [00:11:33]:
I think it would.

Madison Baker [00:11:34]:
That was, that was a large part.

Kaisha [00:11:37]:
Of the goal to create this. As a franchisor and as a franchisor who spans across multiple states, like we have the exposure right to be able to accept proper responsibility and things like that. And one of the key goals was we have this day where people should already be talking about laundry. We have a huge footprint to where we can talk about laundry more and more. We can bring out some of our core pillars, one of which being community. We can bring out some of our core pillars to celebrate this, this holiday. And from a, again, from a corporate responsibility perspective, the goal was we have an opportunity that not many other wandermat owners have at the scale that we’re at, to be able to bring awareness to a day like this and also to be able to create a launching pad for future events.

Jordan Berry [00:12:23]:
Yeah, yeah. And I want to get into that also just the opportunity that you guys have that maybe an independent owner operator might not have that ability. But first, let’s talk about National Laundry Day. This was, you know, a month or six weeks ago or something from when we’re doing this interview. Tell me what the day looked like. What plans did you concoct after Ashley was like, hey, I found this awesome made up holiday that we could do something cool with. What did that look like for you guys?

Ashley Martin [00:13:00]:
Step one was just because we here together, internally as a team, thought this.

Kaisha [00:13:08]:
Was a great idea.

Ashley Martin [00:13:10]:
We had to get the buy in of our franchise. Do you think this is a good idea? And if you do think this is a good idea, do we realistically have a Runway where you would feel comfortable? To emblema this event and to our pleasant surprise, we had almost 100% buy in. And those who were unable to join had out of town plans. So that felt encouraging for a lot of reasons. People wanting to jump on the train of investing in their community and all of us working together. I’m all warm and tingly inside because.

Madison Baker [00:13:57]:
It really does like bring me a lot of joy.

Ashley Martin [00:13:59]:
So. But step one, Vine.

Jordan Berry [00:14:03]:
Well, step two, hold on, hold on. Before we go, because I’m, I mean, I’m curious, like, that’s awesome that you brought it to the franchisees. They’re like, yes, let’s, let’s go for it, by and large. I mean, did you like hear from them, like why, why were they so excited? Well, okay, okay, let’s. Let me, let me come back to that question because let’s talk about step two and, and what it actually kind of was. And then I Want to come back to why were they so excited about doing it? But keep going. Sorry, I changed my mind. You were right.

Jordan Berry [00:14:39]:
Let’s go to step two.

Madison Baker [00:14:41]:
Women mostly color that too much.

Jordan Berry [00:14:48]:
Step two. Step two. Let’s hear it.

Ashley Martin [00:14:51]:
So step two. Once we had everyone willing and ready, then it was hustle, hustle, hustle. Peer internally to get the franchise partners all the resources that they need so we could springboard them to success. So that included everything from creative assets that could be then printed on flyers, posted on social media, turned into a web banner. Then that was like, our very talented performance marketing manager was in charge of the digital ad aspect. So, so that contacting a creative. We had very talented creatives here local to Charlotte, who helped us implement video. We had a very dear friend of mine working the events in digital space.

Ashley Martin [00:15:46]:
It was just all of these moving parts working together to really provide the franchise partners what they need. I’ll wonder. We had a very, very, very, very short amount of time. So to that point here, internally, it was like, heads down, we have no time, We’ve got to go. And then all of it came together seamlessly. But that’s just a testament to my very, very talented colleagues. And then after that, we were like franchise partners. Here is everything you need.

Ashley Martin [00:16:20]:
And if there’s not, you should write us feedback because we want to hear.

Jordan Berry [00:16:25]:
Yeah, yeah. Because this is the first time, first time around and, and last minute. So that’s a lot, it’s a lot to coordinate and get together. So kudos to you guys for doing that. Okay, so you, you’ve got, you got people on board, you’ve thrown together. I, I don’t want to say thrown together. That sounds like haphazard. You’ve managed skillfully, skillfully and strategically crafted a plan and content and resources to go around that.

Jordan Berry [00:17:01]:
I mean, I want, I just, I want to know, like, do you guys have a sense of, like, why people were like, yes, we want to participate in National Laundry Day? I mean, obviously, like, there’s some benefits for the business and stuff, but there’s a lot of work and sacrifices and money that goes into doing an event like this. So, I mean, did you guys get a sense from franchisees, like, what was appealing to them? And the reason I’m asking, real sorry, real quick. The reason I’m asking is because I think there’s a lot of people, a lot of us didn’t do anything for National Laundry Day or didn’t even know about it right this year. So I, I, I, you know, as people are kind of thinking about this, I want to try to take a peek into the people who did do it and hear like kind of what their motivation was behind it and, and then kind of how it went, you know. Which we’ll get into here in a second too.

Rob [00:17:57]:
Yeah, I mean kind of as the, the store owner of the group. Like you know it’s. We’ve referenced it a couple times, one of our pillars but like it’s not, I, I swear it’s not bullshit. Like we actually like believe in it and like for me wanting to do it at our stores as like the corporate franchisee, like I, we genuinely care about the community and. Right. I spend 40 hours a week there talking to these people and like the impact of it in their lives. Like it, it actually does make a big difference and it’s fun too. Like just.

Rob [00:18:37]:
It’s a lot of work, it’s a lot of hustle but being there, talking to them, seeing why they came in, like it, it’s worth it just hearing that. But then you. There is, yeah, we do lose revenue that day. Yes, there’s cost associated with it, but there is some kickback to it as well. Getting those consistent customers, getting the Google reviews for a small business. You know, I, you guys talk about it a ton. I think at both of our stores we did it at jot it like 155 star reviews just from this one day. So like there is some growing the business impact for it but more so it’s just about helping the community and those other things kind of are pluses that go along with it.

Kaisha [00:19:23]:
And if I can just add on to what Rob said, he said it so perfectly. The community aspect of who we are is really embedded into our culture from the moment that we have conversations with potential franchisees to, you know, when they actually become franchisees and open their store. Their, their grand opening, as Ashley mentioned, is a free laundry day. The, the culture of consistently giving back is embedded into who we are at Laundry Lab. And so the franchise partners that we have that we’re super eager to jump on board. It’s because this is an uncommon to anything that we do on a regular basis. And it’s also because they understand the culture and the value of it. I’ll tell you one of our stories.

Kaisha [00:20:01]:
In the system that does the most in overall revenue throughout the year has the most community give days. They do community give days at least once a month and they see the most success out of in storing the entire system and they attribute a lot of their success to how invested they are. And just being able to give back. On those days where they’re not able to make as much money as other days, they see the, they see the feedback of it. Right from a sentiment perspective, from the perspective of actually being able to sew into people and then from their business perspective of actually seeing increased revenue because these are their natural customers on days where they’re not doing these community effect days. So there wasn’t a ton of convincing, to be perfectly honest, because of the culture and because we have some pretty great franchisees and myself, they are but some phenomenal people who actually enjoy, like even outside of the context of their own business, their personal lives, they actually enjoy being able to give back.

Ashley Martin [00:20:57]:
National Laundry Day was just another opportunity to create a magical moment for people in our community.

Kaisha [00:21:05]:
And I said it.

Rob [00:21:07]:
Yes, clip that right there.

Kaisha [00:21:10]:
I love that what National Laundry Day was for us. So I’m just going to say it. So for April 15, National Laundry Day, from 1 to 6pm across the majority of the Laundry Lab locations in the United States, we have free laundry for every single person in the community. We didn’t have typical blocks that you might see. Like when we do a grand opening event and we do free laundry, we ask people to sign for our app just so it’s a simple execution. We didn’t do any of those. We just set all of our machines to free and we had a ton of, a ton of volunteers, our locations to help manage what the flow of that looked like. But for six hours at most of our locations, some of our locations did long.

Kaisha [00:21:51]:
We had everybody in the community just come up to any one of our locations and get all of your laundry for free. And then on top of that, we also, at a number of our locations in Charlotte, we gave everybody free pizza as well. And then at most of our locations, we also gave away free books, which we’ll talk about a little bit later. Some of the community partners, we had free books for the kids and free laundry detergent and free dry sheets. So we, we gave a ton of stuff away for free for about six hours on National Laundry Day. That’s just a means to be able to give back to the communities that we are planted in.

Ashley Martin [00:22:23]:
On April 15th, we washed as a system, 27 tons of laundry. And in partnership with Laundry Cares. Thank you, Laundry Cares. We passed out over 700 children’s books.

Kaisha [00:22:36]:
It’s incredible.

Jordan Berry [00:22:37]:
That’s awesome. Yeah, that’s. That’s a lot of laundry.

Madison Baker [00:22:43]:
It is a lot of laundry.

Jordan Berry [00:22:46]:
It’s a lot of laundry. Well, I wanted to Go back. I mean, that’s. Yeah. Thank you for explaining what you guys did. And one. One thing that I think that you’re. It’s this undercurrent of what you guys are saying that I think is so important.

Jordan Berry [00:23:03]:
And nearly nobody does it. I know, I know some owners do this, but nearly no owners do this. And you’ve mentioned it a couple times. And that is, I think you call it your pillars or your values, right? In determining, like, what’s important to you guys as a company, as a franchise, you know, what. What’s important there. Right.

Kaisha [00:23:23]:
And.

Jordan Berry [00:23:23]:
And I am a huge believer that any business owner should understand, like, what’s important and articulate it both for yourself and your employees, but also for your customer base. Right. And if you can articulate, hey, one of our core values is serving the community, then you can behave. You can, you can. You can run your business through that value. Right? And that’s what you guys are doing here. And, and you’ve kind of talked about some of the byproducts of that, right? Like, yes, there’s some perks for the business, but also it brings you a lot of joy, right? Because you’re doing things that are important to you because you’ve defined, here’s what’s important to me. I’m going to use my business to accomplish, you know, those things, and it does a whole lot of good for the community and on and on and on.

Jordan Berry [00:24:15]:
Right. But I think it’s so important to articulate, write down and revisit consistently, you know, those pillars or those values for, you know, even if you just own one little laundromat, it’s a big deal and it will actually resonate with your customer base and it will attract your. Your ideal customer base as well when you’re kind of operating like that in your letting those values be known. So I just wanted to highlight, like, good job to you guys for having, you know, these values and operating through those values and making it happen, even though it was kind of last minute, even though it was a ton of work, even though, you know, there was some, you know, financial investment in it and all that. So kudos to you guys for doing that. And for the rest of us, man, let’s, you know, let’s make sure that we’ve got those values written down and, and maybe put some sort of regular cadence where we’re making sure we’ve got eyeballs on those things and are running our businesses through. So I want to say that. I don’t know.

Jordan Berry [00:25:17]:
Anybody want any comment on that. Okay, my. I’ll step off the soapbox and I’ll, I’ll turn it back over to you guys. One question I have, okay. I mean, you mentioned like as the event, you know, so, so I’m, I’m sort. My brain’s going right now too. I want to hear like how the events went and all that stuff. And like 20, like 27 tons of laundry is crazy, 700 books is awesome.

Jordan Berry [00:25:43]:
But also my mind is going to next year, right? I’m like, okay, well, I want to hear what you guys are doing and I want to think about next year and you know, how we can blow up National Laundry Day even more and serve more people and that 27 tons, you know, quadrupling or whatever, right? So, you know, with that one question I had, I mean, you mentioned you had a bunch of volunteers and stuff. What? Who are these volunteers? How’d you get volunteers?

Kaisha [00:26:16]:
So we had the wonderful privilege of partnering with some non profit organizations and on the laundry space, which I’m sure you guys are familiar with, Laundry Cares Organization was one of our main nonprofit partners. Laundry Cares supported us from the moment we were like, we think we want to do this all the way through execution. Not only did they support us from a books perspective, they provided the scholastic books. They also, we partner with them on every store basis. Every time we open a store. They really help us bring our replay learn centers together. So we have a replay learn center at every single one of our locations. And we partner with Laundry Cares to be able to stock those books and continuously replenish them.

Kaisha [00:26:59]:
But from the jump, they kind of gave us an overview of how they typically execute pre laundry day events. So Laundry Cares, as you guys know, they go around to many different communities all throughout the year, right? They don’t stop the give back of movement in the laundry space. They have a playbook of how they execute free laundry day events and what it should look like and how we should be. And what I really love about their playbook is it’s all about. It’s a resource for the laundromat owner, but it really is all about how to serve these people best. Right? Like, we are in a very unique position where we get to serve a very underserved community that most people are not thinking about how to make sure they have phenomenal experience. So their playbook was all about how to make sure these people feel served and they’re well taken care of right from start to finish, from. From start to execution.

Kaisha [00:27:43]:
So they helped us from a playbook perspective. We had like regular weekly calls for them leading up to the event. But they were giving us advice, they were making sure we were good to go with books, they were making sure we were good to go with supplies. They set people out to some of our locations to assist us on day of. They put banners up, they brought, I mean they brought everything from like cable cloth, you know, little flyers and things to be able to pass out. They, they really have this whole playbook wrapped with a bow and with a bow on it. But they helped from a strategic perspective. They also did flyers and they also did community outreach, right? So like they have a network that’s across the country and in many different communities.

Kaisha [00:28:19]:
So they were able to take the flyers that they produce and some of the press release insights or information that they produce and send it out to all of their community partners to make sure their community partners had the ability to get this information in front of the people in the community and let them know that this event was happening. So again, from start to finish laundry cares, huge shout out to laundry cares organization. Dan Duma and his team, they are phenomenal partners. So we create the volunteers from that aspect. We also did at a few other locations of the one of our locations partner people launch project as well, which you guys may have heard of. Angel laundry project does the same thing. They come out, they help from an execution perspective. They give, you know, as much as they can resource wise and then they help execute.

Kaisha [00:29:02]:
They helped execute at one of our locations as well. And then we also partnered with our sister company 2U laundry. So 2U laundry and laundromat, our sister brands, laundry labs, obviously the laundromat for two, um, hiccup and delivery services. So our 2U sister company partner from start to finish as well, they partnered from a monetary perspective where they were able to do a kind of free campaign prior to national laundry day. It was called load for load where they asked all their customers, hey, let’s send in your extra laundry this week because as many loads as you we see come in on the two new laundry side, we are going to donate that many loads to national laundry day on the laundry lab side so that we can make sure as many people as possible get their, their clothes washed. And we had a lot of those washed. How about to you plus so to you off a marketing perspective, from a monetary perspective and then also their staff, right? We’re sister companies, we’re all in the same office. But Almost the entire 2U laundry stack came out.

Kaisha [00:30:01]:
All the laundry lab stack came out so between our community partners, our nonprofit partners and 2U laundry and honestly, I mean Rob’s girlfriend cannot. We had family friends show up to help us on the event day and then our franchise partners, they usually wrangle in their family and friends as well. So the volunteers really just came from our partners and Charlie and family and friends who do enjoy being able to participate with us as we do events like that.

Ashley Martin [00:30:30]:
Yeah, Jordan, you brought up volunteers. I think this is a perfect time to shed the light on. We don’t always have volunteers to cover these events and that’s when we have extremely hardworking front of mind laundromat operators like Madison who help rain these life. Excuse me, these events to life. And I think it’s a really great opportunity for Madison to share a little bit of her boots on a ground perspective. Because without the people who work in the mads, these really big ideas at the top could never come to fruition.

Madison Baker [00:31:11]:
Yeah, it’s a lot though. My beautiful title is so beautiful and well preserved in reality, your brother is a regular Mark D little girl in a laundromat. Attended two days out the week, eight hours as well. So it came across this national long bay like a week into working with Wander Lab. I’m like we, we in the ground running already which was really fun in general. So all the creative and the resources that were provided from corporate, from guys, I brought them to life, I posted them on social media. Me and my daughter were out on our on the block that our laundry that the laundry I work at is we. Me and my daughter are out passing out flyers to the neighbors letting them know like you know our your friendly neighborhood laundromat is coming disturb you here soon.

Madison Baker [00:32:08]:
So be sure you pull up, get that laundry done. And then also just being in the laundromat, I was inside the laundromat during free free laundry day and that was really rewarding, which I mean honestly I love. Y’ all know I’ve been on here so many times. I know I have a mud for laundromats. It’s a weird spirit thing for a little 20 year old to be in love with laundry gr but I am. I felt, I felt like a girl bouncing from person to person like oh my washer this and that. Oh, can I get a free this, can I get a free that? It was really fun and I will say one on the volunteer tip, we were able to partner with our neighboring library which is quite literally across the street from us and we had a one of our friendly neighborhood librarians come and reach us to the kids that were there as well as, you know, Laundry care is providing the free book. It’s like you get.

Madison Baker [00:32:59]:
You get a story, you get a song. You didn’t take a book home too, and come back and get some more. Because we also do that at all laundry lab locations where kids can take clothes home from the replay line center. So, child, I don’t know that you answered just anybody’s question, but just know that it was an exciting moment from a marketing aspect and also boost on the ground operating within free launching day as well.

Jordan Berry [00:33:25]:
Yeah, no, that’s awesome. Yeah. Dude, I love what. What I love hearing is that you’ve. You guys have, like, pulled a lot of levers, right? Like, you’ve got community partners, both in the industry, out of the industry, kind of all coming together to do that. You’re pulling different sides of your business, right? You’re helping promote National Laundry Day with the pickup and delivery stuff, which, you know, honestly, like, a regular owner could do too. Like, an independent owner could do that as well if they have a pickup and delivery and stuff and. And do something similar there.

Jordan Berry [00:33:58]:
You know, you’re tapping community resources like the library. You know, I was thinking too, like, one of my lawnmowers has a high school right across the street, right? Like, high schoolers a lot of times need to do service hours for. For school, right? And, you know, reaching out to local schools and saying, hey, you know, we’re doing this National Laundry Day. We need some bodies, you know, you got any high schoolers who are psyched about laundry or you know what? Like, there’s a lot of different resources that you could pull from to help pull off an event like this. I love, like, hearing just the creative ways that you guys got people involved. And what I like about that is obviously, like, people who are getting free stuff, like, who doesn’t love free stuff? Free laundry, detergent, books, like, all that stuff. They’re having a great time. This is the best time they probably ever had doing laundry on National Laundry Day here.

Jordan Berry [00:34:49]:
And. But like you guys mentioned earlier, like, it’s super fulfilling and brings a lot of joy. And, you know, Madison was talking about it too, like, right. To. To serve people. And, you know, I know, like, I heard. I’ve heard. I’ve felt this too, and I’ve heard other people say this.

Jordan Berry [00:35:06]:
Like, it could be difficult to ask people to help you with an event like this or to volunteer, but if you can kind of reframe it into, you’re giving people an Opportunity to do something good for other people, and it’s going to bring them a lot of joy. Right. You’re not asking them to just work, you know, for free and not do anything. Right. You’re giving them an opportunity to actually give back. And that brings a lot of joy to people. So I love that you guys are pulling those community resources there. So good.

Jordan Berry [00:35:41]:
Okay, so. So day of. I mean, it’s, you know, 27 tons of laundry is no joke. And maybe Madison, you’re the one to answer this, but anybody chime in, like, was it pure chaos or like, how. How was like the actual day in the store? I mean, organized chaos for sure. Yeah.

Rob [00:36:06]:
With all the calls was we. We brought in some extra attendants too, that know the store and just can kind of be floaters. But, like, the way we divided it up to kind of make it somewhat organized is like sets of volunteers just owning certain areas that. Those. That was their baby, those machines, those customers. Uh, you know, we had our director of finance out in the parking lot bringing. Helping people unload their cars. Like, everybody just, you know, kudos to the volunteers across the board.

Rob [00:36:41]:
Those really own their areas. And setting those guidelines up front and being planned and organized really helped. You know, there were definitely times where it was like, oh, shit, are we going to be able to do this?

Kaisha [00:36:55]:
Didn’t one of our locations, like, open the first five minute?

Rob [00:36:59]:
Every machine. Every machine at our biggest story here in Charlotte within 15 minutes was full and running. So, like, it. It happened. That was that oh, crap moment. I don’t know if we’re going to be able to do this for six hours. But then it. It died down a little bit after the initial kind of burst.

Rob [00:37:18]:
But that, like, all the marketing, like, we had people waiting there an hour or eight just for the prelude. So once we got through that initial push, it was a. Was a little easier to digest. And then it more came after that. It became more about just the experience. You know, we had a raffle, I think it was about every 30 minutes, did a raffle with, you know, little bindo balls that you spin. So that was really fun. And, you know, we were giving away detergent.

Rob [00:37:48]:
Yeah, Nothing monumental. Right? Detergent. Some toys that we, you know, went out and got, you know, some toy cars, mugs. You know, we weren’t giving away TVs or anything, but it was more about the fun of it making it a good experience. We went around a couple times, engaged, free, shady to the kids that were playing. You know, the library was reading books. So after that Initial push and that chaos, it was more about making it a good experience. Yeah.

Rob [00:38:15]:
Just the call of tears. Having the bodies there is used.

Jordan Berry [00:38:21]:
Yeah.

Madison Baker [00:38:21]:
Yeah. For our store we definitely should play with that playbook of having people in certain sections is honestly just run. Running them up. But thankfully we have not so big of a store like laundry room or what other one you have. Yeah. So luckily we were in a more smaller space. But then also, you know, creates chaos as well. With every Richie Martini and every family member and every mama, cousin, uncle, dad in there slaving, all the machines waiting for machines at the dryer, so on and so forth.

Madison Baker [00:39:00]:
But definitely going to take a page out of your book next year. Yeah, I will say it wasn’t too chaotic. I kind of managed what was going on. Making sure that people’s name like people’s names were on the machines that they were using. We used painters tape to label each machine that every family was using and they just took that tape to the dryer with them. And in the case we had a few customers leave. But no worries, I guess you’ll take your name on your tape. I just put it in a dryer, put in the basket, do whatever we used to.

Madison Baker [00:39:37]:
So keep things rocking and rolling. Yeah, I think things got a little bit more chaotic when school started coming. But yeah, but we were like stop. It was a neat stop. People were just coming in, staying in. I don’t think anybody wept until it was like done. And I don’t know about the spur that you guys were at, but like our machines did not get it raped for that entire time. There was no die downs.

Madison Baker [00:40:03]:
Okay. We even had people come like, well, you know how we do just kind of like the last wash type area, they were still coming. I’m like, oh my oops. I was still coming. Okay. But yeah, it was, it was fun. It was fine. We’ll say when it comes to laundry bag chaos, I thrive day to day chaos.

Madison Baker [00:40:25]:
I’m inside, I’m asleep and I’m under the covers. But wasn’t laundry chaos? Because it’s like we’re just doing two things. We wash it and drying and we leave it. Though it was, it was pretty manageable.

Kaisha [00:40:37]:
Those systems, I think even like, even though you feel like you were running around that you still had system.

Madison Baker [00:40:42]:
True us system.

Kaisha [00:40:43]:
We had systems. I think those systems were critical for the execution of the. The chaos of everything. Especially to your point. We’re giving away so much stuff. Like every new thing we were giving away people that. So like the second Rob would be like, all right, raffle time. Everybody gave.

Kaisha [00:41:00]:
So exciting. And it’s just creating far more chaos than we’re anticipating. And like, the people stayed all day.

Madison Baker [00:41:08]:
They.

Kaisha [00:41:09]:
They didn’t just come and just like, put a load in and, you know, get. They stayed. Oh, they were ready. We had pizza delivering waves which shout out to again, laundry cakes. That was a part of your playbook. Don’t have all the pizza at one time. Have it delivered every hour or so so that it’s hot and fresh. You get new people coming in.

Kaisha [00:41:27]:
Like, assist. Genius. So you have pizzas deliver in waves. And people were waiting for the next ramen pizza. They were waiting for the next raffle that was done. They were not leaving. They might have been done with the machines, but they were camping out. So those systems were pretty critical to the execution of that thing.

Madison Baker [00:41:43]:
I think the one thing we did that kind of. That. That kind of made it not so chaotic is we did the raffle like a weekly. Yes. Instead of in store.

Kaisha [00:41:55]:
It was like everyone who came that day put your up in a raffle of draw there.

Ashley Martin [00:42:01]:
Yeah.

Madison Baker [00:42:03]:
But we only. I think we had. We had five gifts and I was in charge of that as well. So we just used the. The registration. I just was like, okay, let me get these numbers came out. Yeah. And a week later.

Kaisha [00:42:18]:
Sort of.

Ashley Martin [00:42:19]:
You can see from that little share that even though internally we provided our laundromats and our franchise partners with a playbook, there were some deviances from. And again, that’s the beauty of testing and learning. Right. Like cheers. Freedom within the framework. Right. Let’s not go out of these bowling bombers, if you will.

Kaisha [00:42:42]:
But it’s also the franchising, like most of the things that we supply from a franchising perspective, from a resource perspective, it. Here’s our recommendation. Do with it what you will within these guidelines. So, like, here’s the framework so you don’t have to create from scratch, but like, get creative, do your own thing. Like, this is your launch or not. You’re a small business owner. You’re welcome to make it what it is for you and for your very specific community. We have some.

Kaisha [00:43:07]:
Some stores that are in community that have a very happy Hispanic population or, you know, another demographic. Make it specific to who you are, who your demographic is, but you don’t have to do the like of like happy and creativity.

Jordan Berry [00:43:23]:
Yeah. And. Yeah, those. I mean, I love that. And those systems are genius. First thing I thought when you were Madison, when you said we had the painters tape with people’s names on it and they just moved. I was like, that’s genius. Because, you know, clothes start getting mixed up or people start fighting over clothes that could spiral out of control real fast as genius.

Jordan Berry [00:43:41]:
The pizza coming in waves. Genius. And those systems are great. I mean, one thing that’s interesting that, you know, maybe if you’ve done these before, you might have anticipated, but I, I would bet most people didn’t anticipate is that people would just stick around all day and you know, kind of going forward like that, that could be an opportunity, right? Like, of okay. If people are going to stick around all day, what else can we do? Right. Who else can we partner with? Are there. You know, I know there’s like health insurance enrollments or, you know, other kinds of things. Like if you’ve got people hanging out there and having a good time, there’s other things that you can.

Jordan Berry [00:44:19]:
Or other organizations you could partner with. Right. To. To serve those people even more. So I’m curious and maybe, maybe each one of you guys can answer this one, but what’s one thing that you feel like we’re definitely going to do again? Because it worked really well, you know, for the next one. Yeah. Ashley.

Ashley Martin [00:44:44]:
I’m big on community partnerships. We are stewards of spitting machines and have this resource that a lot of people need. And there are organizations within every respected community. SAT is investing in people and sowing seeds into their potential or giving them a second chance or a fresh start, whatever that may look like. So 100%, whatever we’re doing next year, it will involve more community partners Debbie worked with this year.

Madison Baker [00:45:24]:
Yeah, that was going to be my.

Jordan Berry [00:45:27]:
Should have raised your hand.

Madison Baker [00:45:31]:
Definitely keep in the library. And first of all, I’m a library kid, my daughter’s library kid. I have a spot spot for libraries all over the world. So anything that has to be with the librarian coming to read into my child. Bring more. Bring more. I would also. Oh, no, we’re not.

Madison Baker [00:45:47]:
We’re not getting to the point of where we’re at. But so that work. Community partners, for sure. Anything that has to do with like shouting. We have a project out for here in Charlotte. I would love to have them on site as well as normally. They’re next door at the library on Wednesdays. Getting out pre showers, was it? Lunchtree was on a Tuesday.

Kaisha [00:46:06]:
Yes.

Madison Baker [00:46:07]:
Well, they could have came up to Barbara. Hairstylists don’t get to really give the community members that are unhoused or in just tough, tougher situations than others, giving them like a complete fresh start from not just their law, but to the shower, to the haircut, the. To whatever, like job prep. Something like something to the source. I think that would be a great addition to the more energy nurse as well.

Kaisha [00:46:36]:
Yeah, mine is in kind of the same thing, more specific to the event.

Madison Baker [00:46:43]:
Basis of what we did.

Kaisha [00:46:45]:
When we first started planning for National Laundry Day, it was more of a, I want to say promotion, but more of like, let’s just give away free laundry, right? This is where it is. It turned into more of an event. And I think that event approach is more so how we go into National Laundry basement, we pour. It should be a full day of that. It should be, to your point, a full day of how much can we give back, obviously, without, you know, like, firm whole bank away. How much can we get back? And one of these we learned this year because we didn’t invest kind of money. And I think that’s one of the beautiful things that translates very well into a single store owner, someone who just has one laundromat. We did not invest a ton of money.

Kaisha [00:47:26]:
We partnered with a lot of people, right? From nonprofit organizations to community organizations that collaboration together allowed us to get the pizza, to get the, you know, donations for free detergent, the books and all that good stuff. So as much as we can add as many more of those things on, I love the idea of, like, free haircuts. That’s phenomenal. As as much as we can expand it to a full event where we are actively just giving away and serving a community that is typically overlooked for one day. I’ll be right. Like, it’s not. We’re not talking about doing every single day. We’re talking about one day out of the year where we’re giving away something or something.

Kaisha [00:48:00]:
Some things that are of extreme value to the communities that we service is making sure it’s an entire event and not just a screen machine spree. I really appreciate the direction that this took, and definitely that will continue pre Reggie. A full day where this is a free day. You know, like, people can get food and they can get free laundry and maybe some free haircuts and maybe some new shoot. I don’t know. We’re.

Rob [00:48:24]:
Doing it all day.

Jordan Berry [00:48:25]:
We need a siesta. That’s right.

Madison Baker [00:48:30]:
Free house.

Rob [00:48:35]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:48:37]:
I threw the short stick here. Going last. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and I love that. Like, I love the. The event approach and I love, you know, Madison. I mean, you’re saying, like, the kind of almost theming it out, like fresh start day, right? Like, you got, you know, the haircut. Maybe you do a coat drive or I mean, maybe you don’t need coats in April anymore, but you know, shoe drive or, you know, whatever.

Jordan Berry [00:49:14]:
Maybe even a job fair. Like there could be a job fair there. You know, I mean, there’s like a lot of things that you could do with it. And I think it’s, I think it’s interesting to hear about how you guys hold so much off on such a short time span and, and on a made up holiday also. And, and we’re able to just kind of put this thing together and, and just knock it out of the park. And you got so much in there and yet you’ve got these awesome ideas to just take it to the next level next year. And I think it’s going to continue to do that. But I’m curious too, you know, if those are the things that you’re definitely doing next year you’re going to do more of what’s something you learned? Like, hey, this didn’t work quite as well as we’d hope or didn’t jive with what we were trying to do.

Jordan Berry [00:50:04]:
Or is there anything that you would change or remove?

Ashley Martin [00:50:11]:
Perhaps not change, but I will say we were treading water because of the timeline that we had. So providing ourselves a few extra weeks to really, really focus even more time and attention. Like I said, it was a Chinese fire drill internally trying to get all of our ducks in a row, which a lot of us thrive in. And thankfully, again, we all have this really great synergy between us all. So it just worked and everything fell into place. However, a few more weeks, Jacksonopi would have been helpful. My heart rate would have been a little lower.

Madison Baker [00:51:00]:
Yeah. Apple West, Scuba.

Jordan Berry [00:51:05]:
Well, and especially if you’re trying. Oh, sorry, I was just gonna say especially because you’re trying to. Or you’re, you’re. It sounds like you’re moving more towards that event format. Right? If it’s just going to be turning the laundry on free, you know, maybe some time to promote, promote it and lead up to it. But if you’re talking about coordinating community partners and you know, bring in more food and making it a full day and, you know, turning it into an event, like. Yeah, more lead time for sure. Yeah, that’s great.

Jordan Berry [00:51:37]:
Sorry, Madison, go ahead.

Madison Baker [00:51:39]:
You’re good, you’re good. Yeah. You want to talk about more time? I had 15 days, 15 day notice. Like, oh, we are like dropped this guy. I just. But one thing that I would change would definitely be more at our school, we only have four hours.

Kaisha [00:51:57]:
So I.

Madison Baker [00:51:58]:
Definitely would have made it maybe like double that. Eight hours, maybe even longer. But putting it into blocks, like having specific neighbor line up for certain blocks that work with their work schedule. Because I remember there was a few people that like we had a doctor come in and he had just gotten called into work and thankfully we had a rain check. Yeah. So he. He came back like a week or so later to. To redeem that free laundry day since he had.

Madison Baker [00:52:23]:
Since he just missed it out of nowhere. Have me going to work. But I definitely think making it. But simply get full day from our storehouse and shrimp in 10 and then having our neighbors sign up for certain time blocks that work. So now I think that would work really well. Yeah.

Kaisha [00:52:43]:
Also love calling them our neighbors.

Madison Baker [00:52:44]:
Yeah, I love that. Homework, remodeling.

Kaisha [00:52:49]:
I love the idea of signing up for time swaps too, because that was one of the challenges in doing it during a week. It’s like people are at work during these hours. But yeah, yeah, we did create these rain checks which were really nice for us to be able to give away to customers who either couldn’t come, couldn’t stay, or like came right when you were done. And sorry, low battery. I think what my answer is probably falls in line with what Ash is. I think all of our. Our thought to the answer of this question. More time.

Kaisha [00:53:25]:
With more time, he could have done a lot more. I do realize how much we were able to do and I’m super grateful for it. I think we could have done a lot more. But more specifically from a this is just Chroma franchise or sign. I think we could have served our franchisees better with more time and I am really excited about the opportunity to get to do that next year. We have franchisees in our system that span from like the ones that do these events every month. Eight brand new franchisees who had just opened a Laundromat at the end of last year. So I think that one of the values of being a part of a franchise brand is being able to have the infrastructure and the resources that we have.

Kaisha [00:54:02]:
We could have served our franchise partners who are very into this. It just needed a little bit more, you know, educational on how to execute some unique ideas that are done for their store. We could have served them a little bit more intimately had we had more time, which we will absolutely be able to do next year. And I feel like that’s a key area for an event like this, of this size. It really has the potential to do so much for your community, but it really is it rides on what you put into it. Right? So we could do as much as possible from a corporate perspective and a brand perspective, but it matters what you put into it at a local level. And then there are some people who are well versed on, like, who to talk to in our community, like Madison Jake here in Charlotte. And then there are some people, again, who just opened, and they’re like, well, I don’t really know anyone yet.

Kaisha [00:54:46]:
So us being able to just walk a little bit more intimately with those franchise partners leading up to the event I think of will be significant for us next year.

Rob [00:54:56]:
We asked that. First thing I looked at is the calendar for what day it is next year. Because, yeah, we had free laundry day, but it was Tuesday this year, which is our busiest pickup and delivery day, too. So not only were we doing, I think the store, our main store, did £9,000. Not only did we do £9,000 of free laundry, we had 15 teammates in the back roofing for those machines to start doing the pickup and delivery, too. So it’s a Wednesday next year, which is a little better. So not as stressed.

Madison Baker [00:55:31]:
Does I have to open up very show?

Jordan Berry [00:55:34]:
Yeah, no, I mean, that’s real, too. Like, right? Those are the logistics that, you know, maybe you don’t think about until you’re like, oh, shoot, like, we’ve got a lot of other laundry to do too, right? Or like, oh, shoot. Like, if people get their laundry mixed up, it’s gonna be crazy. I mean, you already thought of that ahead of time, which I don’t think I would have, but kudos to you guys. But no, I. I mean, I appreciate you guys sharing those things that you would change, you know? And I do think, like, you know, as. As an owner and you’re talking about this laundry day and this event, and I get, like, more and more excited. I’m like, yes, this is awesome.

Jordan Berry [00:56:13]:
Like, this could be so cool. My mind just goes, like. My mind goes, like, 0 to 100. I’m like, oh, dude. Like, I don’t know, we could have. We could launch a spaceship, too. And, like, all this other stuff, like, I’m, like, going crazy, right?

Kaisha [00:56:28]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:56:28]:
Yeah, dude. Yeah. Live podcast. Like, I mean, all kinds of stuff, right? But also, there’s another side of me that I think a lot of people might be feeling, too, is like, I don’t know if I could pull off an event like that, right? And I don’t know if, you know, this seems, like, really tough. And first of all, let me just say, like, it doesn’t have to be like this big event, like you want to participate next year, it can just be turn on free washers. Right. Especially, you know, you’re getting started, you’re going to learn stuff, just like you’re saying. I appreciate you guys sharing the things you learn, but I also want to highlight, like, listen, one of the benefits of being in a franchise is that you’ve got some teams behind you, some, you know, corporate, for lack of a better word, teams behind you, helping you kind of put this stuff together.

Jordan Berry [00:57:13]:
And you guys are sitting here, you know, talking about how much you loved it and all that stuff. But, you know, from an owner’s perspective, having you guys behind the scenes and in front of the scenes, like helping, you know, organize this stuff, put it together in eight weeks or less and get people out there and then show up and volunteer and help like that is a huge asset that Laundry Lab provides that, you know, just an independent owner operator may not have that there. So I just wanted to highlight that because that’s something really cool that you guys are doing. And a really cool benefit of being in a franchise is that you’ve got these teams and you’ve got a hype person behind you over there and you’ve got. Yeah, yeah. You’ve got great beards. Yeah.

Kaisha [00:58:04]:
I consider it across the board from marketing execution to operational infrastructure. Like, one of the things that I value most about the Laundry Lab team in general is that most of the people who work on laundry lab or 2U laundry league, most of us don’t come from, you know, laundry and mishvace.

Madison Baker [00:58:23]:
Right.

Kaisha [00:58:23]:
We come from very dramatically different laundry issues. Rob has a lot of years in the game, so I guess you could say he comes from the laundry industry. But the way that we come together from our vast amount of different industries and all really rally behind laundry here at Laundry Lab, I think creates a phenomenal dynamic for our franchise partners to be able to have the resource, marketing wise, finance wise, operationally to be able to ideate, strategize, execute, and then we partner with franchisees on that execution piece. Right. Like, our goal is to make sure we’re. We’re hand delivering a package to where all you have to do is just go, you know, here are all the.

Madison Baker [00:59:03]:
Steps and all you have to do is go.

Kaisha [00:59:05]:
We can’t physically be in the market, but we can kind of be behind the scenes with you kind of as an extension of your team. So if there is something like we have franchise partners who have these but all ideas of things that they do want to do with their like I just have the idea. I don’t know how to make it happen. To your point, it’s one of big heart franchise brands. You have to get an e, drop off an idea at our table. We’ll sit for a week or two and we’ll think about how this could be done and come back to you with strategic plans for execution. We can reach out to who you could partner with, how much you could send from a digital perspective. Getting the ads live for you, creating the materials that you need to execute key.

Kaisha [00:59:40]:
It really is a value add for the small business owner to be able to have a bigger key happening in the background to help launch strategic things like this.

Madison Baker [00:59:48]:
And I do want to say that I was only able to do like dish out all the marketing stuff in 15 days because they did what they needed to get, they did what fakey is to do and they exceeded expectations and literally laid everything out. We had like there was sops on how to go about the marketing, not only the market, but the operations of free Laundry Day. There were visuals of visual assets that were already made that I just needed to put on Instagram, paid for jot and Facebook groups, et cetera. Kind of put on paper, pass it out. Although I am a marketing groom, I am not without an idea. Don’t come to me with no numbers, don’t actually do no graphics, biceps all day. Everything else, they got it and they did that. So I’m like, you, you and you, you wrong good girls.

Ashley Martin [01:00:49]:
That kind of really beautifully explains why there is in fact the party in this room because we each had a very different lens of National Laundry Day and we wanted to share our perspective because we are in fact some of our experiences. And the beauty of this franchise system and this team specifically is that none of us have the same experience. So listening and staying curious, we each are subject matters experts in our own niche. And that what is incredible, I learned something new from my colleagues who have wild experiences and industries unrelated to laundry. But that’s where real innovation ideation comes from. It’s taking orthogonal industries and then letting that play out in the current industry.

Kaisha [01:01:42]:
That you work in.

Ashley Martin [01:01:44]:
It’s awesome.

Madison Baker [01:01:45]:
So I get really hyped about it.

Ashley Martin [01:01:48]:
So thank you.

Madison Baker [01:01:50]:
Thank you.

Jordan Berry [01:01:52]:
Doesn’t seem like it takes too much for you to get hyped about stuff though. So you know. No, yeah, yeah. Well, no, I mean and I think that that’s true. Like I think that point is huge and I think actually that that is playing out in our industry is like you know, aside from, you know, your team and stuff, but like on, on social media and stuff, all this, you know, hype laundromats are getting and a lot of promotion, people collecting quarters and yada yada yada. This business is easy, but one of the benefits of it is that it’s attracting kind of diverse people with diverse backgrounds and experiences in different industries. And you know, it’s, it’s laundry is becoming more of like a melting pot of multiple industries. And when that happens, like you’re saying, that’s when innovation happens, that’s when growth can take hockey stick leaps.

Jordan Berry [01:02:55]:
And it’s like, this is an exciting time to be a part of this industry for all those reasons. And you guys actually like, you guys have a huge part in, in that happening right now in our industry. You guys are a diverse team. You guys are, you know, hyped about all kinds of things, but laundry being one of them and, and bringing those different experiences and knowledge and insight and ideas and skills and capabilities, you know, all, all together. I mean, like you said, like, I don’t know of anybody else who did like a real big thing for National Laundry Day, mostly because I’m kind of convinced it was made up eight weeks before it. Right. When you found out, probably. But, but that’s like you guys are driving stuff, right? You guys are making stuff happen in the industry.

Jordan Berry [01:03:46]:
So kudos to you guys for doing that. Appreciate it. Because we need more of that in this industry and in this business and we need more people like you willing to share your experiences so that the rest of the industry, we should all be doing stuff like this. Right. And giving back. We have this awesome opportunity, this very unique business that we’re in, to do a lot of really good things for our communities and make a big difference. So appreciate you guys doing that.

Ashley Martin [01:04:15]:
You had mentioned earlier, you had mentioned earlier about leaning into your values. Right. So we’re all intrinsically motivated by our own things. Right. We respected. We don’t all come from laundry, but what can we unite behind? It’s our values. Accountability, excellence, community. And I also say that to say that if someone is overwhelmed by this idea of hosting a free laundry day for National Laundry Day, I would just encourage them to start in a corner.

Ashley Martin [01:04:56]:
Right. Find people who share similar values and then together you can collaborate on a smaller scale. But it all comes back to finding people who share your values and leaning into those values. And they don’t have to be the same as our values, but whatever is meaningful and matters to you.

Jordan Berry [01:05:16]:
Yeah. And like I. Like I said, I mean, I think that’s huge. Like, that is one of the most underrated things I think, in our business right now is operating from those values and even just defining those values clearly, concisely, and making them known. Because I think there’s a lot of power in that. And especially, you know, when it comes to your branding and how people view your business, all of that, like, those values are just central in that. So get on that. If you haven’t done that yet, that’s an easy assignment or a simple assignment, maybe not easy to start thinking about those values.

Jordan Berry [01:05:58]:
Listen, this has been awesome. Any other insights or thoughts on National Laundry Day for this year, for next year? Anything you guys want to close out with.

Kaisha [01:06:09]:
I’ll close out with saying National Laundry Day was phenomenal. Um, from the perspective of someone who works, you know, in corporate office, and I don’t work in the store every single day. I do try to go to stores. When we have events like this, having events like this, it just really feeds the point, right? Uh, everybody has to have a North Star personally, and that North Star should also guide you professionally. Um, being able to do events like this really just feeds. Like, this is what it’s about, right? The. The joy that you see on people’s face as they come up. A lot of people come up and they didn’t even know we were having it.

Kaisha [01:06:44]:
And we were telling them that the lunch, they’re like, it’s free. Like, free, like f heart, like waiting for. Waiting for the catch. What’s the. Where’s the other shoe going to drop? Are you sure? Do I have to give my soul away? So what, you know, being able to, like, be people in their lives that are like, nope, this is. We want to serve you. When they typically don’t experience being served, it feeds your personal soul, right? And then feeds right back to our values. And it’s like, okay, this is.

Kaisha [01:07:14]:
This is why we care so much about laundry. Laundry is such an intimate part people’s lives. We heard stories of children who don’t go to school, right, because they don’t have clean clothes. Us being able to just take one day out of the year, just say, like, we’re going to make sure everybody, as many people as we can have as clean clothes, the kids have close so that they can go to school. So, you know, they have the same experiences as other kids. It is such a soul feeder. And it’s just a constant reminder of what we’re doing this for. Like, obviously, everybody wants to make more money Right.

Kaisha [01:07:44]:
But there has to be a soul aspect kind to what you’re doing and getting more money. And I feel like this really beats that. So I’m really grateful for the experience of being able to see the joy on everyone’s face and the amount of. The amount that they express of gratitude. Um, so people are just like, what can I do? You know, in return, it’s like you deserve a day where you can just receive and you don’t have to give. And a lot of people don’t have that experience in any other part. Right. So being able to meet in that it’s worked that long day.

Jordan Berry [01:08:15]:
I would just reciprocate that for the owners too. Right. Like when you’re in the day to day or just the employees. Right. Like when you’re in the day, the day of the business, it, you know, it’s easy to lose sight of that. Right. This is what it’s about. You know, we have this opportunity to bring joy to others, which, you know, there’s a.

Jordan Berry [01:08:35]:
I forget the name of it. There’s a book I used to read my kids, I forget the name of it, but it’s something about filling buckets, right? You can’t fill your own bucket only. You only fill your own bucket by filling other people’s buckets in your book. Right? Like that’s what it’s about. Yes, we’re, we’re here to make money. We’re for profit businesses, most of us. Right, like that. Yes, that is all true.

Jordan Berry [01:08:55]:
But like you said, that soul aspect of it, you know, even, you know, even if you’re in there on a day to day or a week to week basis, it’s easy to lose sight of that. So I appreciate you bringing that up. Ashley, sorry to cut you off again. Which is my new hobby, by the.

Madison Baker [01:09:10]:
Way.

Ashley Martin [01:09:14]:
Or self proclaimed titles. I’m resident philanthropist here at Laundro Lot. So doing good is good for business. Right. It even increases your employee engagement knowing that you as a business owner want to invest in your community or you believe in a cause. One of my takeaways from National Laundry Day, and this is for really any event that we host, is I have so much admiration and respect for the day to day operations team, the attendants, the managers, logistics. It’s incredible. And I don’t get to witness it all the time.

Ashley Martin [01:09:59]:
And every time that I do, I do, I’m like, this is not for the faint of heart. And I love to be able to see things from their perspective and so. Shout out to the Madisons. Shout out to the robs. Because being on the front lines day and day out is, again, not for the face part. So, so much respect for you all.

Madison Baker [01:10:22]:
Thank you for what you do on a daily basis.

Jordan Berry [01:10:27]:
This is like a love fest over here. This is kind of sickening, really, how much you guys like each other.

Ashley Martin [01:10:33]:
Now’s the chance, Jordan, for you to drop a joke.

Jordan Berry [01:10:38]:
You got nothing. I gotta do, like, hours of research before I can come up with one. That funny joke.

Madison Baker [01:10:44]:
One joke.

Jordan Berry [01:10:47]:
Yeah. All right, well, listen, I. I want to leave it with this. And you guys, actually, not only did you not ask me this, you kind of told me you didn’t really necessarily want me to do this, but I want to just do this anyways because I think there’s probably people listening who are like, yeah, I want to get in this business, and I like that aspect of, you know, doing. Doing good, you know, in the community with my business.

Rob [01:11:11]:
And.

Jordan Berry [01:11:12]:
And I would love, like, a team behind me. So people are interested in Laundry Lab franchise. What’s the best way for them to hunt you guys down and get more information? You know, get hyped up by Ashley or, you know, just learn more.

Kaisha [01:11:30]:
Just go to laundry lab.com and click on auto franchise that will go directly to our fringe franchise team. We have a very intimate team here, which I appreciate, and our franchisee reaches out to those who are interested directly. So just click on franchise and fill out that information, and it’ll go straight to that team and they’ll reach out.

Jordan Berry [01:11:51]:
Awesome. Awesome. All right, Any parting words? Are we all good? We feel. We feel good about this.

Kaisha [01:11:58]:
Thank you so much, Jordan.

Ashley Martin [01:11:59]:
Thank you so much for facilitating this party.

Jordan Berry [01:12:03]:
Oh, well, hey, no problem. Hey, why don’t we do this, Ashley, on our way out here? Why don’t you just hype everybody up and pump them up about being laundromat owners? And let’s just. Let’s just. Let’s just end it on, like, a high note. So just pop us all up right now. How about that?

Kaisha [01:12:21]:
You can sing a song.

Ashley Martin [01:12:23]:
I’m not going to sing a song, but I just. I’m going to encourage everyone out there. Whether you own one laundromat or own 10, you are a steward of a spinning machine, and you have the opportunity to. To make laundry happy. Lying load added sigh.

Jordan Berry [01:12:47]:
Yes.

Kaisha [01:12:47]:
Also, I am the hype woman of.

Ashley Martin [01:12:51]:
Good people, places, and things.

Madison Baker [01:12:53]:
So if you need a little bit of hype, come by me.

Jordan Berry [01:12:56]:
I love it. I love it.

Madison Baker [01:12:59]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [01:13:01]:
Jordan, thank you again. Yeah, yeah, I fully anticipate that little hype session ended up, you know, those videos on YouTube that are just, you know, compilation of different inspirational quotes from, like, Kobe Bryant and, you know, like, oh, you’re gonna be on this video. That was incredible. Well, thank you, guys. I appreciate you guys, not just for doing National Laundry Day, doing a lot of, you know, 27 tons of laundry, you know, helping facilitate, giving away 700 books, doing it all in a short time span, Doing it all well, reflecting on it, learning, trying to do it better next year. But also for coming on here, sharing about your experiences, how it was for you and the communities, your neighbors. Right. And lessons that you learned along the way so that the rest of us can, you know, bring a little joy into our lives by serving others on a day that, you know, we’re.

Jordan Berry [01:13:58]:
We’re dishing a lot of money out to the government. So let’s. Let’s do something to make us feel a little better by serving other people on that same day. So I appreciate you guys so much and love what you guys are doing. Keep on keeping on and, hey, maybe next year, you know, we can talk National Laundry Day again and hype it up. So appreciate you guys.

Ashley Martin [01:14:21]:
Thank you.

Madison Baker [01:14:22]:
Oh, and if you guys have any. If you guys have any other questions about n, I will be at the Clean Show. All the good stories that came across in our store particularly. And yeah, I’m also giving out reho at the Clean show, too.

Jordan Berry [01:14:39]:
The Madison, formerly Anderson, now Baker. You can meet her live in person, the Clean Show. So make sure you’re there for that. All right, guys, appreciate it, and we’ll talk again soon.

Kaisha [01:14:51]:
Take care.

Jordan Berry [01:14:54]:
Hope you love that episode with these guys. So much good stuff with the whole team over there. Shout out to those guys for coming on, sharing their wisdom and having a great time with me doing it. It was a lot of fun, but also a lot of really good stuff. And I just want to point out, like I do, every single episode, there was a lot of entertainment value in that one, which is great. However, if you want to move the needle in your own life, you got to take some action based off of what we talked about. So make sure that you pick something from that episode, put it into action today, if possible, if not today, this week, get after it. That action is what’s going to make your dreams come to life.

Jordan Berry [01:15:33]:
So let’s do it. See you next week. Peace.