Jordan Berry [00:00:00]:
Hey, what’s up, guys? It’s Jordan with the Laundromat Resource podcast. This is show 213 and I’m pumped you’re here today because today we have on the show Aaron Hopson. And here’s what’s awesome about this show is that I get asked all the time, hey, you’re in la. You deal with people in big cities a lot. What about small towns? Can laundromats do well in small towns? Well, guess what, Aaron is here to answer that question for you today. And not only that, but he shares a a lot of very practical tips and strategies that apply, yes, to small town America, but also to the big cities. So no matter where you’re at, if you’re trying to do laundry business, here’s your guy. This is your episode.

Jordan Berry [00:00:45]:
Tons of great takeaways from here, as always. Listen, you’re this, this podcast, these interviews, pretty much any podcast or interview or video ever are only as good as the action you take. So be listening for one thing that you can take away from this and put into action today, this week. And before we jump into it with Aaron, I just want to shout out one more time that coming up in November, I am hosting, along with Ryan Borneman, founder of Fresh Leads Marketing in our industry, a laundromat marketer in our industry are hosting a live and in person small event for no more than 20 people to come out here to Hawaii. If you’re serious about growing your laundromat empire, this is the event for you. Because there’s a lot of places where you can learn about the industry, like the clean show where I just was. And there’s a lot of places where you can learn about laundromats and about operating and running laundromats, like for example, Wally Cope’s Laundry CEO conference, which I suggest you check out. But there’s not very many where we can dive deep into your laundromat and how we can help you specifically help your specific laundromat.

Jordan Berry [00:02:05]:
That’s what I do all day, every do, all day, every day. That’s what I do. And you may have heard me say I’m, I’m almost at 1500 consulting calls that I’ve done now. So this is what I do. I help people get in this business. I help people optimize their laundromats and I help people scale, scale their laundromats. We want to do that in person, in paradise. Yes, it’s going to be very practical and tangible.

Jordan Berry [00:02:31]:
Yes, it’s going to be In a room full of other high performing Laundromat owners and professionals. Yes, you’re going to leave with a 90 day action plan for your specific Laundromat on how you can improve that business. And yes, we’re going to do some awesome Hawaii things if you’re interested in that. Go check it out laundromatresource.com Hawaii and come hang out with me. And I just going to mention this, check with your cpa, but this is a tax write offable event. So is there a better way to get a trip to Hawaii than to come out, talk to on romance, write it off on your taxes and listen, as a little bonus just for you, we planned this the weekend before Thanksgiving. So if you want to take a little family vacation out here to Hawaii, write part of it off as a business expansion, legitimately improve your business and do some fun Hawaii things together as a family and with some other Laundromat owners. Check it out laundromatresource.com Hawaii and without further ado, let’s jump into this episode because it’s just as exciting as the Laundromat accelerator Hawaii event will be as well with Aaron Hopson.

Jordan Berry [00:03:46]:
Here we go. Aaron, how’s it going man?

Aaron Hopson [00:03:50]:
Man, it’s doing, doing really well, man. Just living the dream like I always say, doing good. How about yourself?

Aaron Hopson [00:03:56]:
Well, I have a feeling that little phrase is coming back around here for a second for us. I am doing excellent because we just talked for I don’t know, maybe five minutes or something. And after that five minutes I am so psyched up about life that we just had to hit record and get rolling with this thing. So let’s roll into this thing. Who, who are you? Tell us a little bit about you.

Aaron Hopson [00:04:19]:
Wow, man. My name is Aaron Hopson. I’m from northwest Ohio, little small town called Defiance. It’s up right in the middle of Toledo and then Fort Wayne, Indiana. I mean smack dab right in the middle. Man, I’m an entrepreneur, man. I’m a pastor and former full time firefighter, paramedic for this amazing community that I live in, man. We did that for about 15 years, but man, I’m just an entrepreneur, man.

Aaron Hopson [00:04:45]:
I’m a husband, I’m a father and I’m just a spiritual father to others but. And I’m just a guy who just likes to live life to the absolute fullest, man, and just take advantage of every opportunity that I can.

Aaron Hopson [00:04:59]:
Well listen man, we got a lot in common here. Yeah, I was pastor for 15 years not a firefighter. So, although I was at dinner with a couple buddies yesterday, and my buddy’s getting out of the army here pretty quick, and he was. He’s trying to figure out what to do next, and he’s like, honolulu firefight. Honolulu. Honolulu Fire Department is going to be hiring here in the next couple of years. And I was like, you know what? Maybe I’ll try out to be a firefighter with you. So who knows? Maybe we’ll have that connection, too.

Aaron Hopson [00:05:29]:
But good, man. It’s a good, solid career, man. I. I really enjoyed it. Got a lot of. A lot of good life experiences from that. Met a lot of awesome people. It’s opened a lot of doors for me, but it’s also changed my perspective on life because not only being a firefighter, what a lot of people don’t know is your firefighters are.

Aaron Hopson [00:05:47]:
Most of the time, they’re also your EMS providers. They’re your paramedics, too. So they’re doing dual roles. So we got to do a lot of cool stuff. But again, just changed my perspective on life. I just realized how short and how precious life really is. And that just opened my eyes to, like, man, if I’m going to live this thing, like, I mean, I just want to go all in. I just want to do the most I can, do the best I can do, and if God opens a door for me, I’m just going to go through it.

Aaron Hopson [00:06:15]:
I just got trust that his ways are better. And, man, this life is just. It’s too short, man. Like, why not just take some risks, take some chances and see what we.

Aaron Hopson [00:06:24]:
Can do, man, I love it. And that, you know, I think that mentality is going to become very clear as we start to hear more about what you got going on. But, yeah, a lot. Lots of awesome stuff that you got going on. Again, lots of connections here. We got that pastor connection, that entrepreneur connection. We’ve got the. The father, the.

Aaron Hopson [00:06:45]:
The. The husband connection. I mean, not connection, but we’re both husbands, you know, and. And. And listen, man, love and life. Want to get the most out of life is. Yeah, dude, it’s. It’s something that.

Aaron Hopson [00:06:58]:
I mean, honestly, like, it’s a big driver of why I do what I do. Because I want to. I. I just. I have seen that Laundromat’s not the only vehicle by far, you know, at all. But Laundromats can be a great vehicle to help people get some freedom in their lives so that they can make the most out of their lives. And so that’s A big driver of why I do the podcast and. And everything that I.

Aaron Hopson [00:07:17]:
We do over here. So pretty cool. Super excited about that also. I mean, listen, we’re going to talk laundry today. We’re going to talk laundromats and that stuff, and I want to hear about that. But you got a lot of cool stuff going on. You just, you told me right before I hit record, you just retired as. As pastor, just, like, recently, right?

Aaron Hopson [00:07:37]:
Yes. Yeah, like. Like a week ago. I’m actually, I’m in Florida right now on vacation. We love Anna Maria Island. My wife and I, we’ve been coming here for several years for little vacations, and we just. She was in ministry as well with me for the last few years. And so we felt God just kind of calling us out of that and to partner with churches and to help churches disciple their people.

Aaron Hopson [00:08:00]:
That’s what real. We felt very clearly, both of us, that the Lord was kind of showing us that, like, man, there’s this huge move happening in this country of people who are just raising their hand each and every week saying yes to Jesus, right? You know, getting salvation and by the thousands. And you look at the. These things that are happening, like Ohio State University and Bowling Green State University and all over the country where these, I mean, students, you know, on these camp college campuses are getting saved and baptized by the hundreds. And so the missing piece that we felt was like, man, pastors are so busy and churches are growing at this huge rate right now, and all these people are getting saved. But it’s the discipleship. It’s the next step. And how do I.

Aaron Hopson [00:08:40]:
How do I live this life, right? Like, how do I. Like, I just said yes to Jesus, and now what do I do? And so we just really felt the Lord calling us to, like, help, you know, partner with churches and just go along on that journey with their people and help them live the life that. That the Bible tells them to live or, you know, walk that out for them and just get practical. And so through coaching, helping churches go on missions trips, international missions trips, because we know that when people do that, man, their faith gets activated. They go and they think they’re going to be a blessing to somebody else, but what happens is their lives become blessed and they come back and they’re like, man, I got to do more. Like, what can I do to help sow into your. To that local church or the. Just the community itself.

Aaron Hopson [00:09:22]:
They want to just volunteer more and give more to. To the place that they live. And then. And then we bought 40 acres out in. In the country in northwest Ohio. Beautiful setting. There’s like 30 acres of woods and this awesome creek that runs through. And we’re building a.

Aaron Hopson [00:09:37]:
A ministry retreat center. And as we partner with churches and. And help them in this discipleship, this peace that, man, we want pastors to come from all over the country and just come hang out with us for like, a week and we’ll talk to you about, like, Sabbath and healthy rhythms and stuff like that. But the whole point is for you to unwind, to just get some rest, to just meet God out in nature and just kind of just reset yourself before you go back to your church. Because, man, we know that as pastors, it’s hard. It’s hard being a pastor. And most of us don’t make it to retirement. They quit because it’s so hard.

Aaron Hopson [00:10:11]:
And there’s always a soul to save. So they never say no, and so want to say, hey, man, you got to come rest, too. You’re telling your people to rest in the Sabbath, but you’re not doing it. So come. Come rest and we’ll hang out with you and build some relationships and do that. So we fell in. This company called Wellspring Legacy Group is what we’ve created. And, man, we’ve got a podcast that we’ve launched again, we were talking about before.

Aaron Hopson [00:10:33]:
It’s on pause right now just as we get ready to launch this company. But, man, we just get with people that have a past, and, man, they’ve just turned their life around because of Jesus. He was the key piece, which he was in my. And we just help them go on that discipleship journey and the podcast, we’re just talking and sharing their story with other people, much like, you know, you’re doing here with this podcast. But, man, we just want to help people. We just thought. We just felt the Lord saying do this. So on top of all the entrepreneurial stuff that we do, we have.

Aaron Hopson [00:11:04]:
We closing on some rental properties here that push us over the 200 door mark here pretty soon, and two laundromats, a dry cleaning business. We’re expanding all of those things, but. And there’s a ministry piece here that we are just really excited about and really hoping that, you know, God just opens doors and. And that we can just spend the rest of our lives, you know, helping people. And so that’s just what we want to do.

Aaron Hopson [00:11:29]:
Okay, like, where do you find the time, dude? Like, where. Where are you getting it? Where are you hiding it over there? You got a lot of cool stuff going on over there? Yeah, busy, busy.

Aaron Hopson [00:11:38]:
Yeah, yeah, I just like. So time is what you make it. I mean there’s 24 hours in a day. I think we spent a lot of time wasting it. I get up early, I get up at 5am every day, spend an hour just diving in, scripture, journaling, praying, doing those things. I hit the gym. I’m a big workout guy. I’m a Jiu Jitsu guy.

Aaron Hopson [00:11:58]:
So I’ve been training jiu jitsu for 10 years. So I have a private gym in our small little town that I go to. I’ll host some small groups, have some guys come with me, we’ll work out together and then we have some Jiu Jitsu mats there. There’s a local club that comes and trains all the time too. So then I hit my day, man, I go after the day and I usually, usually don’t stop until, you know, nine or ten at night. And then we just do it all over again. So. But I just think, I just feel like, man, the time is what you make it.

Aaron Hopson [00:12:25]:
I mean, there’s always time. It’s just, you’re just, you know, what, what am I doing with it? And so I know a lot of people, man, they want to sit in front of a TV or do a bunch of stuff that’s kind of wasteful. I think Steve Covey talks about our, our time being in four quadrants, man. It’s either like it’s urgent and important, or it’s urgent, not important, or it’s important but not urgent, or it’s neither. And so you know where you, where are you putting it? But I also believe that maybe we can’t do any of this stuff alone. We have to have people around us and I have an incredible team and it’s what’s even great. The greatest thing about all of this that I’m doing is man, I get to do it with my family. I have two amazing sons.

Aaron Hopson [00:13:04]:
One’s 19 and the other one’s 22. My 22 year old actually started in the real estate business with me when he was, was 17 and he literally manages, we have, we’ll be pushing close to 15 million in real estate holdings and he manages all of it at 22 years old. He finds deals, he closes deals. I mean he is incredible for a 22 year old. And my 19 year old actually manages the laundry side of the businesses for us. So he’s the dry cleaner guy, the multiple laundromats, so he manages all of that. So again, I can’t do this alone. I Have an incredible wife who’s a support system to me, who kind of fills in the gaps and keeps me moving in the right direction with everything we have going on.

Aaron Hopson [00:13:43]:
She’s the one that really keeps me on track and keeps me focused and also keeps me grounded. So. But yeah, time’s what you make it, man. Time is what you make it. We all have a lot of it. We have more of it than we think. I think we just waste too much.

Aaron Hopson [00:13:56]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Doom scrolling and all that. I mean it, it’s so easy. Like I, I think that, that I. Listen, we’re gonna talk about laundromats here, I promise. But like you’re, you’re bringing up stuff that I think is like, it’s like, it’s just detrimental to, to us and anything we want to accomplish in life, right? And, and getting the most out of life. And you know, I fall into that trap too sometimes. And you know what, how are you, how are you staying focused on stuff, right? You talk about these distractions, talk about, you know, that what, what keeps you focused and, and moving in.

Aaron Hopson [00:14:35]:
Like you’re, you’re getting a lot done, you’re accomplishing a lot of stuff, you’re doing a lot of big stuff and you’re, you know, you’re working out and you’re doing your Bible studies and journal, you know. Like, I think when people hear kind of people like you, you sicken the rest of us. No, I’m just kidding. No, but when people hear people like you, it’s like, and obviously you have good energy, like you have a lot going on, right? How, how are you staying focused? How are you not falling into those distractions? I mean, I’m sure everybody falls into distractions sometimes and all that stuff, right? But how are you, you know, staying focused on what it is you’re trying to do, man?

Aaron Hopson [00:15:13]:
I just, I just think it, there’s, there’s a piece to it that everybody, everybody has a what? Everybody has a how. You know, like this is what we’re doing and this is how we’re doing it. But I think the piece for me that really keeps the focus is the why. So there has to be a why into whatever you’re doing. And so the why can’t be just because I want to make more money. Like, that’s great, that’s great, but that’ll wear out. That’ll be, that’s short lived, you know what I mean? Because you’ll make more money and then you’ll go, okay, now what do I do? Let Me go try to make more money. And so if you’re chasing that, I just think it’s short lived.

Aaron Hopson [00:15:50]:
I don’t think you can stay focused on just that. For me, it’s the why of like, man, I’m doing this to build a legacy for my family. I want to set them up to, to have a better start to life than I did. I can go back and, and, and, and tell you that, man, at one time in my life I had a sub 500 credit score. I mean I had, you know, six figures in debt. I didn’t know what I was doing. I, I started out as an entrepreneur doing lawn care and landscaping at like 20 years old. Had an amazing business.

Aaron Hopson [00:16:18]:
I was one of the biggest guys within a couple years in northwest Ohio. As a, as a little 20 year old, I had no idea how to run a business. I had no idea how to lead people. And so all I was doing is chasing dollars. And it all fell apart. And my life was starting to fall apart. And so I always focused on the why. Like, why am I doing this? Why am I building this? Why am I going after multiple laundromats and the dry cleaning business and more rental? Why am I doing all that? And for me, it’s because I’m building a legacy.

Aaron Hopson [00:16:45]:
There’s a why portion to it, like to set my family up, not just my sons, but like my grandkids and their kids. It’s generational wealth and generational income and, and that’s the driving factor. And then I put the people piece in it. Like, man, if I can do this and help people along the way, also do what I’m doing or live a better life, man, there’s no greater reward than that. And so that keeps me going because there’s more people, there’s more people that want to do this, more people that want to find financial freedom or just have more time with their family rather than working 60 hours a week at a dead end job that they hate. And so I just want people to live the dream, you know, that’s why I always say I live the dream, man. I want to live the dream. And so, and there’s people we can help doing it.

Aaron Hopson [00:17:33]:
So that keeps me going, it keeps me focused, that keeps me motivated just to keep going, you know? Just to keep going.

Aaron Hopson [00:17:40]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’re, we’re kind of talking too. I mean, like, that’s a big part of why I do what we do over here too is, you know, just trying to help give people that time, give people that space. You know, like you said. I love what you’re saying. Like, you can’t just chase the money, right? Because the money, like, listen, I’ve been, you know, I’m not sure about you, but, like, I’ve been very poor. I grew up very, very poor. I grew up in half a trailer on a pig farm in Southern California. Like, that’s where I grew up, right? And my mom used to save pennies to buy McDonald’s french fries when I was a little kid because that was my favorite food, right? And we’d have to save for a small McDonald’s french fries.

Aaron Hopson [00:18:18]:
And this was like, in the 80s, when everything was basically free back then compared to now, right? And, like, I just, you know, I just know when money is the most in front of you thing in your life, life is just very hard, right? And it’s hard to think beyond that. It’s hard to chase anything but money when you’re, you know, worried about what you’re going to eat. And I know there’s just a lot of people in that situation, right? And so helping people find, you know, I. I sort of describe it for me, it was like a. It was like being able to breathe, you know, when I got a little bit of space, you know, financial space in my life, it was like. It was like my lungs opening up from, like, coming up from underwater, right? And it was like a breath of fresh air. And once you have, like, a little bit of space, if you, if you utilize that space wisely, if you utilize that. That breath wisely, you can open up that space and eventually you get to a point where money is not the thing that’s right in front of you anymore.

Aaron Hopson [00:19:24]:
It’s not the most urgent, you know, talk about your quadrant, right? It’s not the most, you know, urgent and important thing happening right there. It’s. It’s important, but not urgent, right?

Aaron Hopson [00:19:33]:
And.

Aaron Hopson [00:19:35]:
And getting to that, getting to that place gives you the space to be able to think, okay, let’s get beyond the money and see what you’re talking about, right? That. Why? And. And I think a lot of people sort of miss that right there. I know a lot of people. I know a lot of people who do that really well. Like, you’re one of those guys, right? Like, people who do that really well. But I know there’s a lot of people who, who miss that step. Like, they get to, okay, I’ve got the space.

Aaron Hopson [00:20:03]:
It’s important still, obviously, like, it’s important to have some money to be able to live and be Able to do good things for other people and all that stuff. But they get to that point, but then they. They miss the point of like, okay, you’re beyond that point. Not to say that you can’t go make more money and all that stuff. Like, yes, keep doing. Keep buying the rentals and all that stuff, because that’s going to fund more things. Right. But you got to get beyond that money at some point and say, okay, why am I doing all this? What is driving me? What is important to me? And, you know, the classic, like, start with why.

Aaron Hopson [00:20:36]:
Right? The book. Classic book, Right. Once you have a why, that’s big enough for you.

Aaron Hopson [00:20:42]:
Yeah.

Aaron Hopson [00:20:42]:
The distractions aren’t as tempting anymore. Right. And I found this in my life. When I lose track of my why or if. If my why is no longer front center and. And big enough in my life, it’s so easy to get distracted. I think that’s where a lot of people sit, right? Is like, they don’t have something big enough in front of them to. To focus on something to say.

Aaron Hopson [00:21:09]:
Actually, it’s super easy for me to not go on T today because I’m trying to start a podcast where I am sharing people’s stories about how their lives have been transformed from lows to the low over here to, wow, I found Jesus. And now I’m, you know. Yeah, here’s what my life looks like now. Right? Like, that’s a why. That makes it pretty easy to say no to jumping on TikTok and losing a few hours every day, right?

Aaron Hopson [00:21:36]:
Yeah, for sure.

Aaron Hopson [00:21:37]:
Yeah.

Aaron Hopson [00:21:37]:
Just keeping that. Keeping that in front of you, like you said, just. And going after that and making that. Making that the main thing or the main reason why you do things, you know, and the why, like you said, it’s got to be big enough. If it’s too. If it’s too small, it’s not going to keep you focused. You know what I mean? I say, like, motivation will get you going, but discipline is what keeps you going. And so, like, you can be motivated by a small why, but a big why.

Aaron Hopson [00:22:00]:
It’s going to take some discipline to continue to just do that even when you don’t want to. You know what I mean? Even you. Like, there’s mornings I wake up and go, I don’t really want to do anything today, but, man, I. I can’t sit still because I have to go do this thing because I’m chasing this why. I’m chasing this big. This big picture. And if I. If I stay still today, I’m Actually falling behind.

Aaron Hopson [00:22:18]:
And so. Yeah, yeah, it’s just. It’s just. It’s just a. It’s a. It’s a mindset for me. Like, it’s. It’s just.

Aaron Hopson [00:22:24]:
I just have to, you know, I get to. And so it’s just continuing to keep that why, the big why in front of me.

Aaron Hopson [00:22:33]:
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I love that. And I just, you know, I know it’s like we haven’t even talked about laundromats at all yet, and we’re not going to yet either, because I have some more questions. But. But, dude, I. And I’ve shared this before, but, like, I think that this is the kind of stuff that people miss out on.

Aaron Hopson [00:22:49]:
Like the. The practical now nowadays because of the Internet and, you know, all the people talking about business and laundromats and all that’s like getting the practical, tangible information about, like, how do I buy a business and how do I run a business? Like. Like getting that information is, like, easier than it’s ever been before, right? And so we have the best chance of success when it comes to the information that we have. But this is the kind of stuff that separates the winners from the losers here. Like, you’ve got to have the. You’ve got to be the right kind of person to be able to do something bigger, right? And you’ve got to, you know, work on yourself. You got to invest on your. In yourself, you know, financially.

Aaron Hopson [00:23:36]:
But also time, like getting up early and journaling and reading and working out, like, all these things matter. And it’s these little. Like, I don’t. I. I just keep wanting to drop, like, cliche book times. But, like, the atomic habit stuff, right? It’s the atomic habit stuff that. That builds up to. To form you to become the kind of person who can own a Laundromat and then you own Laundromat and you’re like, maybe I can own more than one or whatever.

Aaron Hopson [00:24:01]:
And you’re like, okay, maybe I can get some rentals. Okay, maybe, dude, what if I. I’ve built all this now. What if I take it and do something good with it and buy 40 acres and, you know, like, this is how it works, right? This is how it happens. And I. I feel like it’s really easy to bypass that because that stuff is effort and work and you gotta set aside time, you gotta prioritize it, and we just don’t do it.

Aaron Hopson [00:24:25]:
No, you’re right. I. I think something like you just said too, like. Like a cliche book title and things like that this tells me that you’re a reader and you know, you mentioned a couple books and listen, what I think is it’s easy to go online and figure out, well, how do I go buy a laundromat or how do I start a rental property business, how do I, you know, buy a car wash? How do I get. All that information is right at our fingertips. It’s with the Internet and with all these other people out there, these influencers that are, I mean there’s content everywhere to do this and it’s practical and a lot of it’s free or it’s really, really cheap. But, but that’s a, that’s the practical step behind it. It’s not the mindset part behind it.

Aaron Hopson [00:25:01]:
And so for me it’s. It’ your nose in some books, you know, like this, like a Steve Covey 77 Habits of Highly Effective People. Dave Ramsey entre leader. You know, there, there’s, you know, Jocko Willink, Extreme Ownership. You know, there, there’s these books that you can read that are going to start reframing your thought processes and your mindsets that, that will tell you then, like, hey, when it gets hard because I own a laundromat, because it will, there’s going to be difficult things or when I own rental properties, I’m going to deal with some stuff that like, is not very fun. But my, but because I’ve engross books and I’ve let them kind of change a little bit how I think or how I approach things, it’s given me a different mindset. I get to overcome those things way easier. It’s digging into other things like these other books, these other resources rather than the how to.

Aaron Hopson [00:25:52]:
It’s digging into like, hey man, how do I make my mind different? How do I overcome things mentally when I face challenges? And so I always said that. And other people, this is a cliche thing too. They go, leaders are learners, man. If you’re a leader or if you’re a business person, if you’re not reading, if you’re not studying, if you’re not researching the right things or just anything that’s going to help you with your mind, man, you’re. I got, I don’t think you’re going to make it, you know, I mean, this date, I don’t, I think you’re going to fold. I think things are going to get tough and you’re just going to walk away because you don’t have the mental fortitude to just push through. And that’s what comes from Those other, those other types of materials that, that we should be looking into and reading and researching. You know, like you said, just the books, man.

Aaron Hopson [00:26:39]:
Just. Just read. Just read research, man. It’s. It’s everywhere.

Aaron Hopson [00:26:42]:
Yeah, well, yeah, let me tell you something. I just started doing actually that, and I’m doing it super selfishly. To be right up front here is. So I’ve. The last, like, probably the last seven or eight years, I’ve read between 50 and 60 books a year, which actually is probably too much now that I’m. I’m at a point now where I’m like, I need to like, what. Here’s, here’s what I think a good game plan is. If you’re, if you’re like, maybe I should start reading more because, you know, Aaron, just hit it on the head, right? Read a lot of books and then once you kind of get a base, here’s where I’m at, right? Like, I’ve got this base of a lot of books now.

Aaron Hopson [00:27:18]:
I’m like, I actually want to read fewer books and, and not move on to the next book until I’m, like, putting it into action, right? Like, yeah, it’s really easy, but I think getting a lot of it is really good up front and then slowing down and, and doing it. But here’s what I started doing super selfishly. I read all these business personal development books. I’m going back through them all and, and contextualizing them for laundromat owners, right? So I’m like, taking principles out of these books and just saying, you know, how can we apply this in our industry, in our business? And, and really it’s like, mostly selfishly, just so I can do it, and then I’ll just go live every now and then. I’m not like, scheduling it out. I’m not promoting it at all. Like, if somebody just sees it going out and they want to join, awesome. If they have.

Aaron Hopson [00:28:08]:
Want to do a discussion about it while or recording, awesome. If it’s just me on the Internet by myself, awesome. Because it’s mostly just for me. But. But really, like, kind of getting back into, like, trying to contextualize this stuff and then find some ways to actually put it into action in our businesses is huge. Now, I don’t, I don’t say that’s good. Hey, just, you know, watch these videos or somebody else’s video or something and don’t read them. But, you know, getting, getting into these books, getting into these mindsets, learning these principles, absorbing them, making them a part of you is all part of, again, becoming the kind of person that you need to become to be able to do.

Aaron Hopson [00:28:50]:
Accomplish your why, whatever, you know, fulfill your why. Fulfill your why.

Aaron Hopson [00:28:54]:
So, yeah, that’s good, man.

Aaron Hopson [00:28:57]:
Anyways, for me, but if anybody else gets anything out of it, awesome. And if not, I’m already loving it. So. All right, let’s. Let’s jump back into your story a little bit. And I mean, you kind of mentioned you got into sort of the. The entrepreneur lane there, the. The millionaire fast lane, if you will, by starting a lawn care business.

Aaron Hopson [00:29:20]:
Is that what you said?

Aaron Hopson [00:29:21]:
Yeah, man. I was, man, I originally, I went to, again, grew up northwest Ohio, small town, Defiance. Man, I always wanted to be a dentist when I grew up. That was my thing as a kid. And so I went to Purdue University for a year. Biochemistry was my major. I transferred to Ohio State because Ohio State had an amazing dental program. I’m there for like a year and I go to this seminar or this pre dental, a little conference or whatever it is.

Aaron Hopson [00:29:48]:
They’re going, hey, this is what it takes to get into Ohio State dental program. And they said, you either need to have a 4.0 GPA or you need to have a family member that’s a dentist to get into our program. Well, I had neither. And so I was like, well, that was kind of a waste of my time. So I switched my second thing. I love to golf. I grew up golfing, and I’m not great at it, but I’m decent. And so my second thing was like, man, I want to work on a golf course.

Aaron Hopson [00:30:14]:
I want to be like a golf course superintendent because then I can play golf all the time. That’s actually not true. It’s the opposite. If you work on a golf course, you’ll never play it. But so I went turf grass. And then I came home for a wedding, went home for a wedding, for a friend, high school friend, and ended up dancing with one of the bridesmaids. And here we are, 25 years later. We’ve been there.

Aaron Hopson [00:30:40]:
She got me, man, she got me. And I moved home, moved back home from school, decided, hey, the golf course thing, it wasn’t going to work out because again, I don’t get a play golf if you work on the course. And so with that, with that, that degree with the turf grass management, you know, going down that, down that aisle. I started a lawn care and landscaping company when I was like 20. And, man, I walked into a bank and said, hey, I’m 20 years old, I have zero credit. I’ve never Purchased anything. I don’t even have a credit card, but I need like $30,000 to buy a truck and a trailer and a, you know, riding mower and all these things. And I remember the guy who actually, the guy who said yes to this, he’s amazing.

Aaron Hopson [00:31:26]:
He’s an amazing individual right now. He actually is the largest B Dubs owner in the country. And he lives in Defiance, Ohio. And he was actually a bank loan officer. He took a chance on a young man at 20 years old. And that got a hook into me about being an entrepreneur. So I ran that company for about eight to ten years. Good, good, good lawn care company.

Aaron Hopson [00:31:49]:
We were one of the largest in northwest Ohio. Here I am, 22, 23 years old with this massive lawn care. I mean, we were mowing 80 some yards a week. I had four crews running. But I had no idea how to lead people. I had no idea how to run a business. I didn’t even have the thing in an llc. I mean, I didn’t even know anything about that.

Aaron Hopson [00:32:05]:
And so didn’t really have anybody at that time really business minded, like really kind of really pouring into me other than my father in law who owned a car dealership. He would kind of teach me some things here and there. But an accident happened in 2006 where one of my employees had one of my vehicles and got into a car accident and actually killed a guy. And so of course, here I am, no llc, no business, no all these things. And they kind of were coming after me and I ended up. It ended up deflating me and didn’t have the mindset that I do now. And I ended up just closing it all down. And what happened when I was on the scene of that accident, I saw some guys that I went to school with that were firefighters and they were there working the scene.

Aaron Hopson [00:32:54]:
And one of them was a husband of one of my wife’s best friends. I didn’t even know he worked for the fire department. So afterwards, this thing is there, it’s all over with. I went down, had some conversations with him, and that was the first time in my life really that I felt the Lord kind of like speaking to me and telling me, man, hey, I got more for you. Like there’s more for you than just running this lawn care business. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I have more for you. And so 2007, I went to a hall of fame, city hall of fame induction ceremony for my grandmother who passed away in 1990. They actually, the city inducted her into the City hall of fame for some political work.

Aaron Hopson [00:33:30]:
And it just hit me, and God was just. He just said, public. Public service. And so I went and talked to my buddies at the fire department. I said, hey, man, I think this is. I think this is where I’m supposed to. What I’m supposed to do. And so I took a test.

Aaron Hopson [00:33:43]:
144 guys hired four positions, and I was one of them. I got lucky, you know, I mean, God just opened a door, and there’s no other way I can explain it. There’s no reason I should have been hired over other guys. And so walked in the door, man, and became a firefighter for 15 years. Was promoted to officer, a lieutenant after. Again, I knew nothing about commanding fire scenes. I knew nothing about leading people. But that was the piece that was the part to me where I said, I got to start doing some research.

Aaron Hopson [00:34:11]:
I got to start reading. I got to start learning how to be a leader, because I don’t have the experience that these other guys have, so I need to go get the knowledge and let the experience catch up. And so. And I did that. And then my plan went back to school to got a degree in public administration, because I was going to be the next fire chief. And they were kind of. They were kind of doing some. Some things there that were kind of like mentoring me and kind of pouring into me and kind of raising me up to be like that.

Aaron Hopson [00:34:39]:
In that succession plan, me and a couple other guys, we would obviously have to compete for that. But we’ve been attending this church for a while for, like, 10 years. And the pastor, one day, we become friends. And he kind of just gave me a nudge and said, hey, man, what do you think about coming into ministry? And I said, are you kidding me? I’m a fireman. Like, I don’t know anything about that, you know, And God just opened a door, man, prayed about it, and. And I thought it was the right move because it’s, you know, it’s leadership, it’s leading people, but it’s poor. You know, I’ll never forget what he told me. He said.

Aaron Hopson [00:35:09]:
He said, aaron, he goes, you can stay at the fire department. You can be the next fire chief. And that’s going to be an amazing life for you. Like, you’re going to be a blessing to those men and into the community. There’s. There’s 27 guys that you. That you. That would serve you, that would.

Aaron Hopson [00:35:21]:
That would work for you in this little fire department. He goes, or you can come into ministry and you have an opportunity to change and impact, you know, 270 lives or 2700 or 27000, and you get to do it for the Lord. And so that was the thing that kind of sold me, like, okay, man, I can make a bigger impact. I can have a bigger circle of influence. And so we left the fire service one in the ministry. But all along the way, man, I was always, like, I was always entrepreneurial at heart. And so back when I was in the fire service, working the 24 on 48 off schedule, I just. I always thought about getting into rental properties, man, finding some of that passive income.

Aaron Hopson [00:36:01]:
Like, how do I make some passive income? How can I set myself up later down the road to really. To really do well? And back in 2017, I bought a triplex. One of the guys at the fire department was retiring, and he owned it. And he, you know, I’ve been talking about wanting to get into rentals, and he wanted to free up some cash. And so he sold me this triplex for $65,000 in 2017, which is what he paid for it 20 years before.

Aaron Hopson [00:36:28]:
Geez.

Aaron Hopson [00:36:29]:
Okay, man, let’s do it. I got into it, man. It was. It was two units upstairs, downstairs, duplex, and there was a three car detached garage that was unfinished. And so I took out an extra 15,000 to finish that out. I finished it all out. And so I had a triplex was my first unit for. I think I was all in at like 80, like, 80 grand.

Aaron Hopson [00:36:48]:
And it was cash flowing me, like, once I got the rents kind of where I wanted them within a few months, and the right tenants, I was cash flowing like 900 bucks a month, which was awesome.

Aaron Hopson [00:36:57]:
Like, that was like smoking deal right there.

Aaron Hopson [00:37:00]:
Yeah, yeah, it was awesome. It just got me going, you know, I mean, I got. And I got the bug. And so next thing you know, man, we start. We just start rolling with it. And again, God just started opening some doors. I can’t even tell you, like, there was opportunities that came. I don’t even know.

Aaron Hopson [00:37:17]:
I don’t even know. Like, they just literally showed up. Someone called me out of the blue and said, hey, I’m selling these. Do you want them? I’m going to. I mean, okay, let’s take a look. And then there was like, financing things. I’d go to the bank and be like, hey, I want to buy these, but I don’t have any money. Like, what do I do? And the bank said, well, you know, we can, you know, let me work on the numbers.

Aaron Hopson [00:37:33]:
And then we used a Little equity here to do this here. And the next thing you know, man, we’re closing on another deal. And so, you know, we went from zero in 2017. We’ll be at 215 doors here in a couple months. When we close on another, we got a big opportunity that we’re closing on, but it put us at 215 doors, all in a town, 20,000 people. So defiance is 20,000 people. So we’ll have 200, 215 doors in that little community. And.

Aaron Hopson [00:38:01]:
And so that’s where the entrepreneur. I mean, this is like, you know, I can talk all day, but. But that. That’s what. That’s where we started. That’s where things kind of went. And then along the way, man, I was like, passive income. Passive income, man.

Aaron Hopson [00:38:13]:
Laundromats, like, that’s another one. There’s another piece there. And so I have all these rental properties. I have all these tenants, and, you know, a high majority 50, 60, 70% of these. Of these places, we don’t supply washers and dryers. It’s just not a. You know, they’re not equipped for it, or it’s just. It’s just something that we don’t provide, which most landlords don’t.

Aaron Hopson [00:38:34]:
And so I knew that they were going. My tenants, they were going to laundromats. They had to do their laundry. And so I thought, hey, this is another opportunity that, man, we can actually. It’s like double dipping, you know what I mean? We get. We get rent, but we also get money from the laundromat, and there are tenants. But we can also. We can also do something where we partner.

Aaron Hopson [00:38:51]:
We can. We can help them. We can preload a card, or we can give them money off, or we can do something creatively that, hey, you’re renting from us. You’re using laundry from us. How do we put those together and offset some things and just make it easier for them? So that’s where we’re at, man. And then more doors. More doors keep opening, man.

Aaron Hopson [00:39:15]:
The best strategy ever for a laundromat is just buy all the rental units and then incentivize your tenants to.

Aaron Hopson [00:39:22]:
Come on. That’s genius.

Aaron Hopson [00:39:25]:
Just buy the town and then make everybody go and incentivize them to go to your Laundromat. That’s great.

Aaron Hopson [00:39:30]:
Come on, let’s go, man.

Aaron Hopson [00:39:32]:
Dude, I love it. Okay, dude. Okay, like, first of all, you just make it sound so easy. Like, hey, I’m just, oh, bumbling through. And, like, all this stuff’s falling in My lap. I know that’s not the case. Case.

Aaron Hopson [00:39:45]:
Maybe not.

Aaron Hopson [00:39:46]:
Yeah. But, you know, pretty cool. Like, I, I always love hearing these kind of stories, and that’s why I kind of asked. Like, especially in our industry, it’s kind of like nearly. No. Unless you grow up in a family of it. Like, nearly nobody’s growing up saying, I want to own a laundromat. Right.

Aaron Hopson [00:40:00]:
So it’s always interesting to hear how people weave their way, you know, into wherever they’re at in life. You know, whether that’s owning Laundromats or, or whatever. Because life is never. I shouldn’t say never, but it’s rarely just a straight line for people. And so it’s cool to hear that, that path of, like, hey, heading from, you know, long heading from going to be a dentist to a lawn care business to a firefighter to, you know, and like, and kind of all the way, all the way down. Listen, I, I don’t want to gloss over, like, it’s no small feat to go from 0 to 215 doors in eight years. That’s a big deal. You got any advice for somebody who’s maybe listen, who’s like, I.

Aaron Hopson [00:40:50]:
I would love to do that. I don’t even know how to get started. I don’t know how to like, you know, 215 door sounds like, whoa, holy cow. Right?

Aaron Hopson [00:41:01]:
Yes.

Aaron Hopson [00:41:02]:
But you got any advice for somebody who wants to kind of like get started in rentals?

Aaron Hopson [00:41:07]:
Yeah, man, I think so. You hear something too. And we didn’t really talk about this beforehand, but here, here’s something that’s kind of been on my heart too, because again, I want to help people do just like you’re doing. You want to help people own and run and advertise and, you know, in the laundromat business. And you are, you’re doing an amazing job doing that. And your laundromatresource.com that is a resource. If you’re in the laundry business and you’re not checking that out, man, you’re doing yourself a disservice. I mean, again, it’s just researching and using the tools that are at your disposal.

Aaron Hopson [00:41:39]:
And so for me, you know, what’s been on my heart is when I, when I go on Facebook, because I do, I’m on Facebook, I check it out. You know, I’m not just, you know, I’m. There’s some aimless scrolling that happens every once in a while. But when I’m on there and I see guys, man, that are like, these Influencers, right? They always got these packages. Hey, let me show you how to make a. Let’s go to zero to 5,000 units in three days. And, you know, these crazy things, and I mean, that’s great, but if you look at them, it’s like, like, man, you’re in la, right? Like, you’re, you know, you’re. All your stuff’s in la.

Aaron Hopson [00:42:08]:
Or you got, you know, Dave. Dave’s in Cincinnati, Ohio. And, you know, a lot of these guys are from these, you know, Grant grants in Miami. That’s, you know, you. You guys are in these major metropolitan areas that are like just. I mean, there’s thousands.

Aaron Hopson [00:42:22]:
You talk about Grant Cardone? Is that what you’re talking about?

Aaron Hopson [00:42:24]:
Yeah, yeah.

Aaron Hopson [00:42:24]:
Did you just put me in the same category? He’s Grant Cardone. I just want to clarify. Let’s go.

Aaron Hopson [00:42:28]:
Oh, you’re there, you’re there. Let’s go. You know, these guys with. These guys are like, they’re in these major metropolitan areas, man. There’s opportunities all over the place. Man. I’m in. I’m in little old northwest Ohio.

Aaron Hopson [00:42:38]:
That’s, you know, town of 20,000 people. The whole county’s got 40,000 people. The county left of me, or next to us has, you know, 20,000 people. This is. These are small rural areas. Now, I’m an hour from a Toledo, I’m two hours from a Columbus. That’s, you know, million people or whatever that is. But so there’s still opportunity if you wanted to expand.

Aaron Hopson [00:42:57]:
But, man, I think the people in this country, there’s a lot of me, there’s a lot of people who are living in these small towns that are looking at these guys and going, there’s no way I could do that. I don’t have the opportunity. And I’m telling you, you do. It’s in your backyard. It’s there. You just have to know how to look for it. And so what we’ve done that, I think we’ve done really well, I should say. My son has done this really well because he’s been a driving factor in our growth.

Aaron Hopson [00:43:25]:
And my oldest son, man, he’ll. He’ll literally go and pull out the. Pull up the county auditor’s website, okay? And if your county is like our county, like, you can go and you can do real estate searches on there. And so what you’re doing is you’re looking for an LLC or maybe you drive by a property and you see, okay, there’s a 3 Plex or a 4 Plex or a 10 Plex, whatever that is. Because those are in every town across the country. You know, these little duplexes and things like that. And a lot of them are kind of bunched together. And so you just write that address down, go on the auditor’s website, find out who owns it, and then go back to the search, put their name in the search, and you’ll find out everything that they own, because it all comes up everything they own in the county.

Aaron Hopson [00:44:05]:
And so that’s where you’re going to find these people who own multiple properties or own multiple businesses, laundromats and things like that, by doing this little search in the county auditor is what we’ve done. And then we reach out to them, we say, hey man, would you be interested in selling any of these to us? And a lot of times you get no, no, we’re not interested in selling. But. But we’ve had some guys that, man, you’re the, the largest transfer of wealth is happening right now in this country. And it’s going to continue to happen for the next five to seven years or so, right? And so all these people that are in their 70s that have owned these businesses for the last 30 or 40 years, they’re ready to be done. And a lot of times their family, they don’t want it because they see the sacrifices that mom and dad went through because they did it the old fashioned way, right? I’m showing up at 6am to unlock the door. I’m showing up at 8pm to lock the door. Like, nothing’s systemized, Nothing’s.

Aaron Hopson [00:45:01]:
You know, there’s no processes. It’s just I show up and I hold up, dude. Like, business is different. So for me, my, the biggest advice I can give. I just went on a little tangent there, but the biggest advice I could give is just like, start searching your local area, the places that you’re around, whether it’s big city or small town, doesn’t matter. Use that resource, find out, drive around, find these places, then reuse the resources to your county auditor or whatever that is where you can do real estate searches. Find out who own these, these places and just start reaching out to them, send them letters, phone calls, whatever it takes, if you wanted to get in it. That’s, that’s how we started, that’s how we started growing is because we would just reach out to these people and they’d be like, yeah, yeah, we’re ready to sell a couple things.

Aaron Hopson [00:45:44]:
You know, hey, what are you, what are you, what are you interested in? And so there’s Just a lot of opportunity that way. And I’ve also found that by doing that, some of these older people that you talk to listen if they did it the right way, if they like, and if they grew their business because they’re a good person and they had good morals and they didn’t step on other people’s backs to do it. They will share with you anything and everything that you ask because they’re good people and they want you to succeed too. The people that are afraid to share what they’re doing, doing and to share how they did what they’re doing probably didn’t do it the right way. Like they don’t want to be exposed, right, for, for what they’ve done. So a lot of these people out there that have just done it the good old fashioned American way, man, they, they actually will come alongside you and they will help you and they will like get you started because they want you to succeed too. And they’re ready to be done. And they’re just ready to just pass it off to somebody if their family, it’s somebody else who shows interest in it because it’s been a passion for them, you know, for a long time.

Aaron Hopson [00:46:42]:
And so that’s what we’ve done. We’ve just started searching, we just started doing that and just expanding that search. And that’s how we’ve acquired most of the things that we’ve acquired. It’s just good old fashioned, you know, reaching out to the people and saying, hey, here’s who we are. This is what we want to do. And we want to keep it local. We don’t want some big company coming from the outside and, you know, not caring about the community. And so we’re going to purchase this stuff from you because we care and would you be willing to sell it? And so a lot of times it’s a yes, we’ll sell to you guys because we, we want, we wanted to stay local or we, we like you who you are.

Aaron Hopson [00:47:16]:
And so that’s, that’s, that’s would be probably my biggest thing. The people who want to get started or who want to want to grow use the resources that are there.

Aaron Hopson [00:47:25]:
Yeah, well, okay, so speaking of which, first of all, I’ll send you the check over for saying the nice things about Laundrom Resource. And you know, turns out that’s one of your businesses too. Promoting other people’s stuff. No, I’m just kidding. No, I appreciate all that and, and I appreciate you sharing that. Like, that’s, that’s huge. Right? Of like, yeah, just you. A big part of this is like, you just kind of got to get out there and start looking, right? And start talking to people and letting people know what you’re looking for.

Aaron Hopson [00:47:55]:
And that’s a huge part of this whole process, right? And I think it. A lot of people get stopped because they don’t want to be embarrassed because they don’t really know what they’re doing. Which, by the way, nobody knows what they’re doing when they’re first getting started. I mean, you could. No, you could take all of the real estate courses or all the laundromat courses. You could listen to every single laundromat resource podcast. You could try to endure Dave Menz’s podcast if you, you know, if you have the stomach for that. No, I’m just kidding.

Aaron Hopson [00:48:23]:
You know, you could, you could get all that information, but I will tell you right now, you still won’t know what you’re doing until you actually get out there and do it right. You just, you can get all the information out there and you should get some base of information. But if you’re waiting to feel like you know what you’re doing, like, you’re not ever gonna get there just by learning. You just have to get out and start doing stuff, and that’s really how you learn. And I think that that’s huge. I think that’s a massive piece of advice that you just gave there. However, I know for a fact, because I talk to them all the time, that there are a lot of people out there saying, dude, I could never come up with the money to buy 215 units. I mean, can you talk to that a little bit? Because how do you, how do you do? Like, you’re a firefighter.

Aaron Hopson [00:49:11]:
That’s not like a, you know, that’s not known for being a super high paying job or anything. Like, how are you doing this, man? Like, give us your secrets over here.

Aaron Hopson [00:49:21]:
Yeah. Yeah, I love that. I’m glad you asked.

Aaron Hopson [00:49:23]:
You guys growing money trees over there in Defiance? What’s happening?

Aaron Hopson [00:49:27]:
No, I’ll just. Here’s what, here’s what I’ll say. I’ll say this first, because here’s another, because I love using like, little tidbits. I love using these little catchphrases, stuff like that, right? Give up something you love for something you love most. Okay, So I grew up. I’m a country boy. It’s. It’s rural area here, right? I grew up, man.

Aaron Hopson [00:49:47]:
We had some, we had some toys. Daddy did a little dirt bike. Dillow dirt bike and stuff when I was a kid. And so I was always riding bikes. I was always riding motorcycles. And so when I was 18 years old, I bought my first motorcycle. It was a Suzuki GS550. Okay, it’s Cruiser bike, but it was not a.

Aaron Hopson [00:50:05]:
It was like, like a 1986. Bought it off of a local football coach for like 500 bucks. I drove that thing everywhere. Ended up getting another. A different cruiser bike. It was another Suzuki. It was newer when I was in college again, just, you know, drove this thing around all the time. But in my heart, what I always wanted was a Harley Davidson, right? I wanted a Harley Davidson.

Aaron Hopson [00:50:26]:
Well, I had an opportunity when I became a fireman to buy a Harley Davidson motorcycle. So I had a 2009 Harley Davidson street glide. And it was like, I love this thing. I mean, I drove it everywhere. I loved it. And when I started to get in, I get the itch of like doing some rentals, right? Get into rental properties. Well, I needed money for a down payment. You know, I needed like 20% down.

Aaron Hopson [00:50:48]:
Well, I didn’t have it. I didn’t have a ton of money. I didn’t, you know, we struggled financially, and even though I was at the fire department, I’m working overtime, I’m doing all these things, trying to make extra money. I never, ever had a lot of money, like set aside or in a savings account. And so when the opportunity and this time came to go buy this first rental property, I had to make this decision of like, man, I love this Harley Davidson motorcycle, but, man, if I sell this thing, it’ll free me up some cash that I can use as a down payment. And if I do this enough and I do it right, well, man, later down the road, I’ll just go buy a brand new Harley Davidson because I’ll have the money to do so, right? So I ended up selling this Harley Davidson motorcycle. That was a decision I had to make, like to go, hey, I’m going to get rid of this thing so that I can jump into this to get into rental properties so that I could try setting up my family and making this passive income stream that’s going to help us more in the future, right? So I gave up something that I love for something that I love most. And so that helped me out.

Aaron Hopson [00:51:45]:
But I was still short a little bit. And so back before I became a fireman, I’ll go a little bit backwards in our story. Part that I missed or didn’t talk about was that I was broke. My wife and I. We were broke when I had my lawn care company. It was a big lawn care company, but I didn’t know how to manage money. I didn’t know how to run a business. So even though the bigger we got, the more employees we got, the smaller amount of money I was making, which is not how it’s supposed to go.

Aaron Hopson [00:52:07]:
No, but it’s common, though. It’s common.

Aaron Hopson [00:52:11]:
So what happened was we started going in debt and we just got into a hole. And, man, I’m talking like, do I pay the water? Do I pay the electric? My credit score went. I mean, it just tanked. I was like, I think at one point, the last time I had checked it at a certain level, it was like 495. I was hopeless, broken and broke. And my dad, my old man, who my parents were divorced, he lived in South Carolina. I saw him for six weeks out of every summer since I was five years old until I graduated. Not a super close relationship, not a great relationship, but he was still my dad.

Aaron Hopson [00:52:45]:
And I remember one time I called my dad because I needed money because we were broke and I needed bills to pay. Now this is 20 some years ago, and I called him, I said, dad, I need a thousand bucks. I’m behind on bills, you know, I’m married. I got a baby, you know, and I’m struggling. It’s wintertime, and up here in Ohio, like, you plow snow in the winter to make money, but if it doesn’t snow, you don’t make money. So I’m sitting at home and I called Dad, I said, hey, man, I need a thousand bucks. Will you help me? And my dad said, I’m going to send you this thousand dollars, but don’t you ever call and ask me for money again while you’re sitting on the couch like, you get out and work. You’re a grown man.

Aaron Hopson [00:53:24]:
You got a family to provide for. You can’t just sit around with nothing. Go. You’re never flipping burgers is not above you. Like, you’re never too proud to do that. Like, you do whatever it takes to put food on your table. And I remember. So my dad told me that.

Aaron Hopson [00:53:35]:
And so before I became a fireman, we were struggling. What I did is I made the decision to go work. And so I worked like three jobs before I became a fireman. I had the lawn care company. I was a welder. During third shift, I was working at a bowling alley, cooking and flipping burgers and setting pins up and all that kind of stuff. I did whatever it took to like, pay the bills. And so my dad also told me once I did that for about three years, and I was working, like, 20 hours a day, seven days a week.

Aaron Hopson [00:54:00]:
He told me something at one point. He said, son, you can’t keep doing that. You can’t keep working like that because there’s only so many hours in a day, and you need to rest, you need to sleep, because the sacrifice you’re making is good, but it’s for a season. But you got to find a way, instead of working for your money, to find a way for your money to work for you. And so I read that book, Rich Dad, Poor dad, by Robert Kiyosaki, and that kind of, like, was what was the catalyst and flipped. You know, I’ve got to do something different. So I put that away, became a fireman. So here I am getting ready to get into this rental property business after, you know, all these things, sell my motorcycle.

Aaron Hopson [00:54:34]:
I’m still a little bit short. And I pick up the phone and I call my dad. And here I am, getting ready to ask him for some money for the second time in my life. After the first time, when I asked him, he was pretty upset with me. So I gave my dad the vision. Here’s what I want to do. I want to do this. I want to start this passive income stream.

Aaron Hopson [00:54:51]:
Remember you told me years ago that I needed to find a way for my money to work for, like, for my money to work for itself, right? Instead of me working for it. You told me that. I read it, I researched. Here I am coming back to you. I need a couple thousand bucks to cover the gap for me to buy this first rental property. And so my dad said, okay, here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna invest in you. You’re gonna pay me.

Aaron Hopson [00:55:17]:
You’re gonna pay me. I’m not giving this to you for free. You’re gonna pay me. And so I pay my dad an interest payment. And so he comes in, he gives me some money to cover that gap. It’s not a whole lot. It’s just a little bit to make sure I can get this down payment. But I had to pay him every month.

Aaron Hopson [00:55:32]:
Had to pay him the interest on this thing. And so it’s a couple hundred bucks a month until I pay him off. And so I ended up using his money, plus the motorcycle money, this thing that I sold. And so I don’t know what you have. I don’t know whoever’s listening to this, I don’t know what you have. That you maybe have overspent on because it’s luxury for you. But a vehicle goes from point A to point B. That’s all you need it for.

Aaron Hopson [00:55:53]:
Doesn’t have to be fancy, doesn’t have to be expensive. So you can reduce your payment to get something, you know, that’s not as nice. You can sell your baseball card collection or whatever else you’re collecting, your Pokemon cards. Get rid of something, right, to make some money. And then listen, there’s people out there that believe in you, whether they’re your friends, whether they’re family members, whether they’re people in your church or some organization. There’s people out there that believe in you because they know you, they trust you, and they see something in you that they will be willing to help you. You just have to put your pride aside and you just have to ask. You have to vision cast, get on social media, talk about, hey, man, I got this vision.

Aaron Hopson [00:56:32]:
Here’s what I want to do. You know, I’m offering this for this, or, you know, somebody will help you to get you started. There’s plenty of people out there that will believe in you enough to, like, help you. And so for me, that was my dad. He got me. He got me, you know, gave me. Gave me a few thousand bucks to cover that gap. Got me my first rental property.

Aaron Hopson [00:56:53]:
And from there, man, it was just one thing after the other. Now we’re at the point now when we’re buying, you know, we’re buying big stuff. You know, I don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars just sitting around ready just to purchase something else. And so at this point, we actually, we have investors that we reach out to. We have investors that come alongside of us that help us cover. Cover our down payments. They get a return that’s structured. It’s creative, so it’s structured.

Aaron Hopson [00:57:19]:
However they feel good. And we put a contract together, and so it’s all legal and binding and all that kind of stuff. But we use other people’s money to continue growing and expanding as much as we can. Occasionally, I’ll sell something small to get something big. We do that, too. But it’s using leverage and using other people’s money. Getting rid of something that you don’t need, need, you know, for something that you actually want to make your life better, it’s making some sacrifices. And so, yeah, that’s how we got started, man.

Aaron Hopson [00:57:49]:
I know it’s a long story, but I got rid of something that I love or something that I love more.

Aaron Hopson [00:57:56]:
I mean, I was just like, A master class right there. I mean, listen, this is what it’s all about, right? It’s like you hit it right on the head right at the end there, I think, where you said, hey, you got to set aside your pride and go after it. Like, you just gotta go after it and not be afraid to fail, not be afraid to look bad, not be afraid of what people are, what you think people are gonna think. Probably people aren’t thinking whatever you think they’re gonna think, but that’s a real pressure that we put on ourselves. And. Right. And. And you’ve gotta, like, I think again, it comes back to that.

Aaron Hopson [00:58:36]:
Why? Right? It’s like, you know, am I gonna go walk up and down the street, you know, in LA or Honolulu here, right. And just ask people for food because I’m hungry for lunch probably? No, right. Like, I probably am not gonna do that. But if my kids hadn’t eaten in three days, I didn’t have any way to feed them. Do you think I’m gonna go? Absolutely. That why is big enough for me to be like, yeah, dude, listen, I know. I don’t know how I got here in my life. I never pictured this for myself, but here I am and I’m going to beg for food for my kids if I can’t figure out another way to feed them.

Aaron Hopson [00:59:15]:
Right? And that, that why. That driving why that we talked about earlier, there can overcome a lot of obstacles if it’s a big enough why. And so it’s worth. I just kind of want to reiterate here, like, it’s worth taking a Saturday or a Saturday and a Sunday and drive in the middle of nowhere with a notepad and paper, leave your phone at home or turn it off or put on airplane mode or whatever and remove the distraction and really dig deep into what it is you want out of life and why you want it. Because if you can get clarity on that, that you’ll find the money, right? You’ll. You’ll. If you find the right deal, you’ll find the money. If you, you know, whatever the obstacle is, like, you’ll figure a way past the obstacle, around the obstacle, over the obstacle, under the obstacle, whatever, right? You will find a way.

Aaron Hopson [01:00:14]:
You better believe I would find a way to feed my kids if they hadn’t eaten and I had no job, no money, no. Like, I will find a way. Like, it doesn’t matter, right? So, yeah, and. And like, in this same scenario, right, like, people will want to help me feed my kids. You know what I mean? That’s exactly what you’re saying, like people want to help you and the one thing that you can do. I think again, this is kind of bringing back to something we already been discussion, right? Is like be.

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

Aaron Hopson [01:00:46]:
If you haven’t started yet, start becoming the kind of person that people want to help. People don’t want to help people who are sitting around not doing anything. People are wanting to help. There’s a, There’s a classic story of. I can’t. I think it was a comedian actually who was talking. I can’t remember who it was now. Credit to whoever it was, they were telling a story about how, you know, they, somebody got, they, they stalled their car in the middle of the road.

Aaron Hopson [01:01:09]:
People were whizzing by. Nobody like stopped to kind of help or anything. But then they got out and started pushing the car. And then people started. Started coming out to help get the car out of the road, right? It wasn’t until they actually got out and started pushing the car themselves that people kind of came out and helped. And it’s a similar thing, right? So become the kind of person. The way you do that is you read some books, you educate yourself, you try some stuff, you figure out what your why is and what direction you want to go. And you start, even if you don’t know really what to do, start trying something, right? You can’t steer a park car kind of thing, right? Get moving and then steer along the way, right? And I, I just think that what you just outlined is, is a masterclass.

Aaron Hopson [01:01:52]:
And then the, the last thing I want to say about it too, and then I’ll give it back to you, is it’s interesting what happens once you have one asset, right? If you can get one. If you can get one, things start to open up for you because for one, you, you have something. And so people think, okay, this person has something. This is a direction they’re going. And so, I don’t know, like, I’m not like a big law of attraction kind of person, but for some reason, like once you own some real estate, people think of you when, you know they’re looking to sell their real estate. And you get these weird calls out of the blue. Or once you own a laundromat, opportunities open up to you and people are like, hey, I’m selling a Laundromatter. I heard about this person who’s selling a laundromat.

Aaron Hopson [01:02:40]:
Or what, right? Like, like financing options open up to you. You have an asset that you can leverage to buy more assets and, you know, stuff Happens. So. So get one. Find a way to get one.

Aaron Hopson [01:02:53]:
Yeah.

Aaron Hopson [01:02:54]:
And then see where it takes you. Okay, I’m gonna stop there because I don’t. I feel like I. I don’t want to ruin the. What you said, because what you said was just. It was gold. Like, that’s.

Aaron Hopson [01:03:04]:
Oh, thank you, man.

Aaron Hopson [01:03:05]:
That’s it, man. That’s it. Okay. Dude, I. I don’t know how long we’re in. We’re like almost an hour in or something, and we have not even talked about Laundromats at all.

Aaron Hopson [01:03:16]:
Okay. Okay.

Aaron Hopson [01:03:17]:
Can you tell us how you found that first one?

Aaron Hopson [01:03:20]:
Yeah, man. So. So obviously it’s hometown, man. We. We got rental properties. It was, again, it was all my heart. Like, we, you know, passive income streams. More passive income streams.

Aaron Hopson [01:03:28]:
And so I’m looking at what those could be. Car washes. You know, the whole. There’s a list, right? You know. You know, the list exists. And so I’m out there. It’s going to help fund, you know, the real estate things, and it kind of play back and forth. And.

Aaron Hopson [01:03:40]:
And so, man, it was. I ended up. Ended up buying a building downtown off of a guy, okay. He had a restaurant on the first floor, his apartments on the second floor. And actually the guy that I bought it from when I was 15 years old, it was my first job delivering pizzas for this guy. So I’ve known him a long time. You just said, I’m in the real estate business. He wants to sell.

Aaron Hopson [01:04:04]:
He’s in his 70s. He goes, hey, would you want to buy this building for me? I’ve known you since you were 15 years old. Like, you know, 30 some years now. I think you. I think it’d be a good cash flow for you. I’m like, okay, cool, man. So we set it up and we got creative. And so I’m a big creative finance guy.

Aaron Hopson [01:04:21]:
Seller finance guy. If you can make those deals work, they’re. They’re amazing. Again, it’s any. It’s whatever you want to do, however you want to do it. It’s just two parties agreeing to what those terms look like. Have a lawyer draw up a contract. Boom, there you go.

Aaron Hopson [01:04:34]:
So I ended up getting this restaurant, this building. It’s got a restauran apartments, and we did a seller financing deal. And so he owned another restaurant across town. Well, in front of this restaurant used to be an old laundromat, and it had closed down years ago, and it was an eyesore to him because it was right in front of his restaurant, and it was Just dilapidated. So he bought the building, put a new roof on it, put new siding on it, and he was going to turn it into a laundromat, but he just. Just didn’t. And. And so he.

Aaron Hopson [01:05:03]:
He said, hey, man, what do you. What do you think? I’ve got this building. It used to be a laundromat. And when he told me that, it was just light bulb. And I was like, having. Looking for a laundromat. This would be great. And so we went and looked at it.

Aaron Hopson [01:05:14]:
Small building. Small. All the machinery was ripped out of the thing. It’s basically just a skeleton, except there’s, like, eight dryers in there from the original owner. They’re these. The hips, you know, the double stack. Like, many things are super old. They’re still there, by the way, and they still work, and people still use them.

Aaron Hopson [01:05:32]:
It’s the only piece. Everything else has been replaced. Now what he did is. So I went to go get a loan. I was going to buy the real estate. I’m a big. Like, I won’t do a. I’m not buying in a shopping mall where I’m paying a lease.

Aaron Hopson [01:05:43]:
I don’t know people can do that. That’s up to you. I’m a real estate guy, so if I don’t own the real estate, I’m not interested. And so I said, hey, I’ll buy the real estate. We got this building. If the laundromat doesn’t work out, I still got a building. I could do something with the building. So no equipment in there.

Aaron Hopson [01:05:59]:
And so I go to the bank. I’m like, hey, I’m going to buy this building, and I have to spend. I think we had $150,000 quote from a Dexter distributor that had used refurbished equipment that we were going to put in. I go to the bank. Bank won’t fund the equipment, so they’ll fund the building, but they won’t fund the equipment. And I’m going, why? What are we doing here? They go, well, he goes, like a car. If we pay $150,000 for this equipment, as soon as it touches your. You know, touches your building, it’s worth half of that.

Aaron Hopson [01:06:27]:
And we. It’s not a. It’s not a safe enough loan for us. Like, okay, that’s interesting. So I go back to the guy. I go, hey, here’s where we’re at, man. Can’t. Can’t buy the building.

Aaron Hopson [01:06:35]:
Can’t do it because of this and this and this. And so he goes, well, I’ll go buy the equipment and then you can buy the whole thing from me as a package. I go, well that makes sense. So he put, put this equipment in there, redid the deal and ended up buying this also Creative finance. So I get into this first Laundromat basically because of a real estate deal. And my heart was kind of like, let’s give it a shot. And so here we go, we get into this couple years ago, we buy this thing. We re basically renovate the entire inside, you know, landscape the outside, you know, the whole shebang.

Aaron Hopson [01:07:10]:
Make it look really, really nice. And the birth of Clean Slate laundry company. There it is. And so, and then beginning of this year had a laundromat that was for sale for like two years through. I mean it was on, it was listed as, on a real estate broker. Broker. A real estate broker had it. Well, the guy wanted like 400,000 for this thing.

Aaron Hopson [01:07:33]:
And I. So shoot me your P and L. So he gives me the P and L statement. He’s making like 30 grand a year. I’m going, dude, like there’s. You’re so off on your numbers, man. Like it’s not any, I mean this ridiculous. So I work on this guy.

Aaron Hopson [01:07:46]:
I chip away, chip away, chip away, chip away. You know, boom, boom, boom for this like a year. Just, I mean just price keep coming down, keep coming. He gets to a point where he just will not, will not go. He’s I’m absolutely not going below this. I’m like, well then you’re, you’re basically not going to sell it because it, no one’s going to buy this thing for this with the P and L the way it’s just not going to happen. So it was also real estate included. There was a rental commercial real estate next to it that was part of the deal.

Aaron Hopson [01:08:11]:
It was a va, VA county va not hospital, but Touchpoint or whatever that had rented this thing. The lease was 20 years old, $250 a month. Water was included. There’s a little room. We can change that, you know what I mean? Which makes the P and L way better. And so the lease was just, he just never did anything with it. And so we went, kind of talked to them a little bit. We significantly increased the price and they didn’t even bat an eye for another 20 years with 5, 5 year renewables in there.

Aaron Hopson [01:08:46]:
And so then I talked to this guy. Go ahead, let’s get creative with this man. I know you, you won’t take a dollar less than this and you, you’re not going to sell the place, you know, less than I go. Let’s get creative. How you X amount of dollars, over a couple years, it’ll bring that balance down. And then when I go to the bank, my balance is this instead of this. And it makes sense now. And listen, if.

Aaron Hopson [01:09:07]:
If I get in there and the number. Because everything he did was on paper, pencil and paper. If the numbers don’t make sense, because I don’t know if you’re being truthful with me or not. I just. Here you go, man. Yours, I don’t. Anything in the back. You know what I mean? So we got two, you know, two.

Aaron Hopson [01:09:23]:
The first one is a really small. I think the store is about 1200s. There’s like 16 washers and, you know, 16 dryers or something like that in there. It does. Okay. It’s. I mean, again, small town. I’ve got two other laundromats here in town, so it’s not like this amazing.

Aaron Hopson [01:09:41]:
You know, we’re. We’re. We’re getting ready to, you know, retire and go to Hawaii, you know, so.

Aaron Hopson [01:09:47]:
But maybe a trip to Hawaii.

Aaron Hopson [01:09:50]:
Yes, sir.

Aaron Hopson [01:09:50]:
Yes, sir.

Aaron Hopson [01:09:52]:
My cousin lives there. He lives in Honolulu Blue. So.

Aaron Hopson [01:09:55]:
Awesome.

Aaron Hopson [01:09:55]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But anyway, so. So we bought the second store. We bought this other one in the town next to us is doing really well. It’s the only laundromat in the entire county. And so, like, everybody goes there. It’s a. It’s.

Aaron Hopson [01:10:07]:
It’s old equipment. A lot of top loaders. We’re. We’re switching equipment out. We’ve put in eight front loaders in there so far, but there’s 29 washers and 14 dryers. So the dryer to wash to dry is not good. So the dryers are coming out. We’re going to go all double stacks in there to upgrade, you know, upgrade the dryers.

Aaron Hopson [01:10:24]:
And then we got a bunch of front loaders and stuff. So we’ll do. We’ll do like a retool there. But it all will start with the used equipment and for a couple years. Then we’ll go for a full retool of new. Of new once. Once we know everything works. But that’s how we got into the laundromat business.

Aaron Hopson [01:10:39]:
I mean, it’s just kind of like again, a real estate deal turned into a laundromat, which turned into another laundromat, and then that actually turned into a dry cleaning business, which we have been open for about a month and a half, two months. Have a dry cleaning business that we’ve. We’ve also purchased.

Aaron Hopson [01:10:53]:
So I mean, the question I get asked a lot is Laundromats versus dry cleaning. I mean, really, you know, in my mind, and you can speak to this more than me, probably even in my mind, they’re pretty like, they’re like water and oil. Like, they’re like totally different businesses really. I mean, we’re cleaning laundry, but there’s a lot of differences. But how do you like the dry cleaning business so far?

Aaron Hopson [01:11:17]:
So it’s going okay? It’s going all right. What we did is again, community oriented, community minded. There’s this one dry cleaner in this entire community, okay. The next closest dry cleaner to us is an hour in any direction. And so like it’s a, it’s a needed business here. It’s something that people were upset when the former owners were going to close it down. But this place was built in 1950 or after World War II. The guy who owned, you know, he built it, owned it, pass it off to his son.

Aaron Hopson [01:11:43]:
Son passes away, got other owners in there. It’s just a, it’s not. They’re break even, but they were just focused on the dry cleaning. And so I saw it as an opportunity when I, when I noticed that they were closing, it’s another, another crazy cool. So I’m on Facebook, right, because, you know, we’ll do that every once in a while. And I see the school of hard knocks guy, you know, I’m talking about, he goes around, ask me, hey, how did you know what’s the most amount of money you’ve made? Blah, blah, blah, right? So he’s. I’m watching an episode, he goes up to a guy in New York City, ask the guy what’s the most amount of money he made. Guy tells me, says, what industry are you in? And the guy says, dry cleaning.

Aaron Hopson [01:12:19]:
And a guy goes, oh, that’s interesting. How did you make this, you know, tens of millions of dollars dry cleaning? He goes, because I own the factory. And then I own a whole bunch of stores across New York City where people can drop the laundry off, we bring it to the factory, process it, and then take it back. And a light bulb went off in my, in my mind. And the very next day, this I find out. This dry cleaner in town, they announced that they’re shutting down. And so for my, for my mind, where we are located in all the areas that are around us, there’s a Laundromat in every county around us, like basically one. So I thought, man, if I could own the factory, the dry cleaning factory, and if I could own all these laundromats around me, then I essentially am doing what he’s doing in New York, but I’m doing it here in this little small community or this small corner of the of Ohio.

Aaron Hopson [01:13:05]:
And so we’ll make every laundromat store a drop off and pickup location for dry cleaning that we’ll grab, bring back to our store, process it and take it back. And so the other thing that is big now or has been big for a while is that, you know, the fluff and fold service, wash, dry, fold. Right. Well, I can’t do that in the laundromats that I own because that means I have to hire an employee. Well, they don’t have enough revenue. Again, small town America, you know, we’re not in a huge city that’s doing, you know, $10,000 a week. So I’m going, I can’t really start the wash, dry, fold. It doesn’t even exist here.

Aaron Hopson [01:13:42]:
No, it doesn’t exist, period. It’s not a service that’s here, but I know I want it to be. And so I go. If I buy the dry cleaner, well, that takes employees to run. And so now I have employees already in place. We can offer the wash, dry, fold service. People just bring it to the dry cleaner. My laundromat is literally around the corner.

Aaron Hopson [01:14:01]:
It’s a block away from the dry cleaner. We just run it over there, process it all, bring it back. The laundromat that’s in the town next to us, we, we can also pick up there. We have a delivery of pickup routes. And so we’ll bring it, we’ll bring it back, we’ll process it and take it back to them. And so it just allowed me this who thing, just allowed me to kind of like redo or kind of revolutionize and kind of corner the market here where we’re at, and then bring the two things together. So dry cleaning and the laundry service are actually, for us, it’s one business. We’re in the laundry business.

Aaron Hopson [01:14:35]:
And so it’s not a laundromat or dry cleaning, it’s laundry. And so that was just something that for me, it was like, how can we just maximize what we’re doing with the people we already have? I’m already paying the employees, you know, they were already there doing dry cleaning. People are already dropping off clothes. We’re already picking up and doing delivery with the, with the dry cleaning. But now I can add the wash, dry, fold service to it. And now I can use my laundromat for even more things than what I initially intended. So that’s how those all come together again. It’s unique opportunities and doors open, and I just.

Aaron Hopson [01:15:12]:
Just like, okay, man, let’s just give it a shot. You know, I know nothing about dry cleaning. No clue. None. So spent a couple days in there training and learning from the previous people, but that’s it, man. We’re just learning this as we go. And that’s how I’ve done everything. You know, I’ve did a little research.

Aaron Hopson [01:15:28]:
But like, ojt man on the job training is. Is the best. The best thing you can get.

Aaron Hopson [01:15:34]:
Yeah, Yeah. I also, like, I’ve heard it said, and I love this too. I utilize this just in time. Learning. Like, you’re learning just in time to utilize what you’re doing. Right? Like, that’s.

Aaron Hopson [01:15:44]:
Yeah.

Aaron Hopson [01:15:45]:
So. So I’m catching the vision here. You’ve got. You’re buying the town, and then you’re incentivizing them to go to your laundromats. And then you’re gonna say, why would you bother going to our Laundromats? Why don’t you just let us grab your stuff for you?

Aaron Hopson [01:15:59]:
Come on.

Aaron Hopson [01:15:59]:
And then we’ll take a dry cleaning along with it. So I. You’re just gonna own the whole. The whole area.

Aaron Hopson [01:16:08]:
Let’s do it.

Aaron Hopson [01:16:09]:
I think.

Aaron Hopson [01:16:09]:
Let’s go. Let’s go, man.

Aaron Hopson [01:16:11]:
Well, you know, and. And something we’ve sort of been. We’ve been dancing around, but haven’t explicitly called out about what you’re doing. That is great, by the way, is saying yes without knowing exactly how it’s all going to work out. Right? Like, yeah. And I know for. There’s a, you know, some. Some personalities, you know, sounds like you and.

Aaron Hopson [01:16:32]:
And me, like, we’re like, okay, yeah, let’s do it. I don’t know. I don’t really know, but we’ll. Let’s just do it. Right. And then there’s the other personality, like my wife, who’s like, okay, I see that opportunity. I don’t know how to make that work, and I need to figure out how to make it work. And I work with a lot of consulting clients who are like that and obviously, like a lot of good things about that.

Aaron Hopson [01:16:58]:
However, I will say, and especially the laundromat market today, where good deals are going fast. Laundromats are popular right now. They’re hot commodities. They go fast. If it’s. If it’s a decent deal, it’s. It’s gonna go. You almost have to be A say yes and then figure it out kind of person.

Aaron Hopson [01:17:17]:
Say yes, and then analyze the deal. Say yes, and then figure out how to get the money. Say, you know, you almost have to be that kind of person right now. In today’s market for laundromat mats, you might be able to, like, right now, right now I think this might be a little temporary, but right now, right now you might be able to be able to be a little more picky with some real estate. But in the laundromat business at least, and especially if you’re in a bigger town or bigger city, you almost have to be an act first kind of person. But that is something that has been consistent throughout your story where you’re like, okay, we’ll do it. And then like, dad, like, can you, can you loan me some money? Know, like, okay, can you seller give me money to buy your business from you? You know, like, and figuring it out. But that is like an under valued, I don’t know, undervalued, but under talked about skill and trait, personality trait that I see exhibited from a lot of successful people.

Aaron Hopson [01:18:21]:
Now, I’m not saying you can’t be successful by, like, planning out, you know, like the other way, but I see a lot of successful people where, you know, and one of our values in our, our laundromat resource community here is default to action. Right? Like, I, I see a lot of successful people defaulting to action. Like, let’s take some action and figure it out along the way. And I think you do a really, really great job of that, even when it comes to, like, all right, we’re going to add a dry cleaner. Like, I don’t, I don’t know about dry cleaning, but it seems to fit in with my total domination over here. So I’ll, I’ll plug it in. Let’s figure it out.

Aaron Hopson [01:19:02]:
Yeah, they have a word for that. You know, when you, when you do that and you take that leap. It’s called faith, man. It’s called.

Aaron Hopson [01:19:08]:
That’s right.

Aaron Hopson [01:19:09]:
So I have faith that we’re going to figure it out. I have faith in the people that I have around me. I have faith in God because I can do that. I can take those chances. I can take those risks. Not because I have anything to fall back onto, because I really don’t. But listen, I’ve said yes to some things that you, you know, before where I felt the Lord kind of saying, hey, I want you to go here. And I didn’t know how it was going to work out.

Aaron Hopson [01:19:29]:
I didn’t know what it looked like, and I was scared to death. But anytime I said yes to what his, what he called me to and I stepped into that season, man, he always blew me away. He always, he always took care of me and provided for me. And so listen, if he did it once, I know he’ll do it again. And so I just say anytime I feel the Lord calling me into something, yeah, I’m scared. Yeah, I’m afraid. Yeah. I don’t know exactly how it’s going to, I’m not, not, I’m not blind to any of that, but I just know that I have enough faith that man, Lord, Lord’s going to make a way.

Aaron Hopson [01:19:59]:
If he’s calling me to it, he’ll equip me for it. And so I just believe in that. And so whenever I have these opportunities and I pray for all these things, you know, like God just open doors for us or give us more opportunity. And then when they show up again, man, I’m like anybody else, man. I have fears, I have doubts, I have things, but I just have enough faith to overcome those things. And my 19 year old said something to me recently because I, I recently just left my W2 job. I’ve had a W2 job for 20 some years and that was when things were falling apart. Early on in my life, I associated the W2 with being the savior.

Aaron Hopson [01:20:36]:
And so leaving the W2, there’s this fear and this doubt in my head that like, well, what if all this other stuff falls apart? What do I do? And my 19 year old son looked at me, he said, dad, he goes, if it all falls apart part, it’s going to be okay because you can start all over again. But when you start all over again, you’ll have an education that you didn’t have the first time. And so it’ll be better. I’m like, dang for my 19 year old. So I said, let’s do it, man, let’s do it. So faith, man, faith.

Aaron Hopson [01:21:06]:
Yeah, that’s, yeah, that’s awesome. And, and, and to like, you know, the, the other, the other side of this, right? And this is, I think the heart of what your, your son was saying too is, listen, you’ve also got some confidence in yourself. You’re betting on yourself, right? In these, you know, investments and these businesses that are going on. And that’s a big part of. You got to bet on yourself, right? And I think you should always bet on yourself. And a lot of times there’s, you know, fear and a lack of confidence in that. But confidence is built by taking action. Not by, not by, you get a little bit of confidence by learning, but real confidence in yourself comes by taking action and failing and overcoming those failures and moving on, picking yourself up, right? And you know, you’ve got, you know, you got faith that you’re going to be provided for, you know, by God.

Aaron Hopson [01:21:59]:
And. But you’ve also got some confidence in yourself. But that was harder. You didn’t have confidence in yourself when you first started, right? Like, that is hard earned confidence from, from taking that action. So again, if you’re out there and you’re like, I’m scared to take some action. I’m scared to buy my first business. I’m scared to buy my first property. Pretty great, like, welcome to the club.

Aaron Hopson [01:22:20]:
Like, I’ll send you a membership card, right? Like this is, you’ve gotta, you gotta do it anyways, right? Like, yeah, feel the fear. Be afraid. You know, take, yeah, you know, take some time to learn. Get some people in your corner. I mean, you said over and over, I can’t do it yourself, right? You need people around you, so get some people in your corner. And then, yeah, you know, be afraid, but do it anyways.

Aaron Hopson [01:22:43]:
Do it afraid, man. Do it afraid. Yeah, I’ll say, like what I said earlier, you know, when I was in the fire service, my perspective on life changed. I realized how short it was. I shared this, I shared this from a platform as a, as a pastor, as a preacher preaching. And I shared this story with people. And I’ll just share this with you because there’s someone out there listening that again, like you just said, they’re afraid. Like, what happens? What happens if I fail? What if I don’t do this? So as a paramedic and a firefighter for 15 years, I had the opportunity to go on what I called the last ride with lots and lots of people.

Aaron Hopson [01:23:12]:
It would be the last time that they went from where they were to a hospital. And I knew, knew in my experience that they probably weren’t going home, that they were either going to go to a nursing home or hospice or something like that. And so sometimes I would take that, take that opportunity to just ask them, you know, what did you do for a living and where did you live and who’s your family? And just speak to them and have some comfort, you know, just get to know who they are a little bit, have a good conversation. But I would always take the opportunity to ask them, hey, do you have any regrets in your life? And all of these people at the end of their life would tell me, yeah, I had some regrets, but here’s what they would tell me. They never once. I can’t remember one story in hundreds and hundreds of these rides over a 15 year career. I can’t remember one story where somebody said, man, I regret doing this one thing. I regret this thing that I did.

Aaron Hopson [01:24:01]:
I shouldn’t have done that. Every single person says, I had this opportunity, I didn’t take it. And I, and I regret not taking that opportunity, not taking that chance because I’ve questioned the last 50 years of, of my life, what if I would have said yes to that thing? And so I’ll never, I’ll never go, hey, at 80 years old, man, I should have done that thing. Or what if I’d have taken that chance? Or what if I’d have taken that risk? Like, I’m not going to be that person. I would rather take a chance and fail than not take a chance at all. Like, so what if you fail? Who cares? People are going to laugh at you. There’s people that want you to fail. Doesn’t matter.

Aaron Hopson [01:24:41]:
Like, I won’t get to the end of my life and regret all the things that I didn’t do. I’m just not going to do it. I’m going to try as much as I can, live this, live this life as full as I possibly can and have no regrets. And if I fail, who cares, man? We can start over. I mean, I think Gary Vee said that a 19 year old kid at one of his seminars was asking, hey, I’m 19, I want to do this thing, I’m scared to fail. And Gary Vee said, who cares? In 20 years from now you’ll be 39 and you can start all over again. And 20 years after that you’ll be 59 and you can start all over again then too. So take the chance, do the thing.

Aaron Hopson [01:25:15]:
Don’t let fear hold you. Do it scared. And just live, man, live the dream.

Aaron Hopson [01:25:20]:
Yeah, I saw a clip just yesterday of Gary Vee saying that exact thing to a 38 year old. So he’s like, he’s like, you’re 38, you’re a baby. Like, what are you afraid of? Like, go out there and do it.

Aaron Hopson [01:25:32]:
Yeah, do it, man. Do it.

Aaron Hopson [01:25:34]:
Yeah. Yeah, that, that’s incredible advice. And you know, it’s, it, it’s so true. And, and not only that, but here’s the reality, like here’s, here’s the reality about failure, okay? From my experience, Laundromat Resource doesn’t exist if I wasn’t the world’s worst laundromat owner, you know what I mean? Like, I lost six figures in my first business, my first laundromat, right before I figured it out and felt like a huge failure. And there’s, you know, a 95% success rate in this industry supposedly, right? I’m like, how am I in the 5% that can’t figure out, figure out this stupid easy business? Like, this does not make any sense to me. A lot of times this is like, this is hard to believe and, and hard to go move forward on, especially when you’re in the moment. But I firmly believe a lot of times our greatest successes come out of our, our biggest failures, like our biggest struggles and our biggest failures. You know, I mean, you shared your, your landscaping story and, and you didn’t go into a lot of detail about how you were feeling at the end of that, but I bet it was not a, a pretty place that you were in, you know, and, and not knowing where to go and what to do.

Aaron Hopson [01:26:49]:
And yet, like, because of that, you felt called to be a firefighter. And you got to, you know, among many other things, I’m sure you got to bless some people on their last ride by, you know, letting them feel heard and letting them share what they’ve learned in their, in their lives. And, you know, because you were asked to, to become a pastor and get to minister to people that way, and because of that you got into real estate, and because of that you got like a bazillion, you own like a whole county now and you know, like, you know what I mean? And like, and because that you got this 40 acre thing that it turned into a retreat center. And because of that, who knows, like, you’re still, yeah, like, there’s still a whole lot more of, because of that left in your life, right? And, and that’s the reality of failure that nobody talks about. That’s the reality of failure that gets overlooked. Is that failure is actually a good thing because it leads to better things because you become different when you fail. And it’s. Dude, it’s, it’s good.

Aaron Hopson [01:27:57]:
It’s beautiful, man. Like, yes, sir, I appreciate you sharing all of that stuff. I. This is probably like, like, it’s probably like the least laundromat related podcast ever, but one of my favorite ones ever.

Aaron Hopson [01:28:10]:
This is good, man.

Aaron Hopson [01:28:11]:
This is great, man. Well, hey, listen, can you, can you tell us your, your podcast? It’ll be when this. We’re. We’re in July right now. We’re only July we’re filming this, but it’ll come out, it’ll be closer to September here. Can you tell us what’s the name of your podcast that you’re going to be relaunched?

Aaron Hopson [01:28:30]:
Launching, yeah. So it’s called Living the Dream Podcast by Wellspring Legacy Group. It’s on Spotify and Apple. We’ve like, so we’ve had five, I think five or six episodes that we’ve got out there right now. And then we’re going to relaunch that when we, when we relaunch our Wellspring Legacy Group, which is the business, the ministry that my wife and I are doing in October. And so we’ll get that podcast fired back up in September. October take to partner with, along with, with what we’re doing.

Aaron Hopson [01:28:58]:
Well, I mean we’ll definitely have a link to that if you’re on YouTube, that’ll be down below. If you’re on the, you know, listen on the podcast, we’ll have that in the show notes page there so you can go check that out. I know, I don’t, I just, I know that most of you guys listen to this, are just as pumped up as I am right now about life and, and business and the direction you’re you wanting to head. If people want to connect with you, you know, on the laundry side, the real estate side, the ministry side, side, firefighting side, the landscaping side, the great beard side, whatever the case, what’s the best way they can get in contact with you?

Aaron Hopson [01:29:34]:
Man, we, we, we’ve got our, our Facebook pages. I mean there’s Clean Slate Laundry company. We’re on Facebook and Instagram. Wellspring Legacy Group, that’s, that’s that ministry business. We’re also Facebook and Instagram for those. You can email me if you want to get in direct contact with me to know more about what we’re doing. I mean it can be the laundromat, it could be the real estate business or our coaching ministry related thing. It’s Aaron, Aaron ellspringlegacygroup.com that’s my email.

Aaron Hopson [01:30:04]:
Reach out to me and I’ll get back to you as soon as I possibly can. And man, we’re excited. We’re excited for what God is doing in our life and what he’s doing in northwest Ohio. And man, we just, we pray that he just continues opening doors and continues to, just to give us opportunities, man, and increase our circle of influence so we can impact more lives.

Aaron Hopson [01:30:26]:
Well, listen dude, hopefully I’m, I’m hoping I’m praying that coming on this podcast, you know, doing the things that you’re doing is just going to raise kind of more awareness and you’re, you’re casting some vision here that I think other people are going to resonate with and, and hopefully want to be a part of. So listen, he gave you his email address. You know, utilize it, get involved with what he’s got going on. He’s already mentioned, hey, I’m partnering with investors to make things happen. If that’ you out there, you’re looking to get involved in something, something that makes a difference, hit them up. Maybe there’s some synergies there, maybe not. Maybe it’s just, you know, worst case scenario, you’re going to connect with a super cool guy. So you really got nothing to lose here and you can get some beard tips along the way or something like that.

Aaron Hopson [01:31:11]:
Let’s go.

Aaron Hopson [01:31:12]:
Especially for the ladies out there, if you’re, if you’re wanting to grow a full beard, I’ll tell you how to do it. Just kidding. Listen, man, I, I really appreciate you coming on. This was, you know, I was not anticipating getting blown away like this today, but this was incredible. And I really, really appreciate you taking the time and reaching out and saying, hey, I’m willing to come on and share my story. And I appreciate your, your honesty and transparency, just sharing that story. The good, the bad, the ugly. Appreciate you, man.

Aaron Hopson [01:31:41]:
Yeah. Hey, thank you so much, man. It was been an honor and a privilege and a pleasure and man, I’m excited that just to connect with you and, and continue on this journey, man. I appreciate you so much. Thank you.

Aaron Hopson [01:31:54]:
Yeah, likewise. We’ll have to, we’ll have to have you back on and hear about how you, you’re spreading from, you know, from Defiant all the way out. And as soon as you hit California, I’m just gonna join, join you can’t beat them, join them kind of thing, you know. So let’s go taking over the country. I love it, man. Well, hey, I appreciate you and thank you again.

Aaron Hopson [01:32:13]:
Thank you.

Aaron Hopson [01:32:13]:
Thank you for, for coming on.

Aaron Hopson [01:32:16]:
Thank you.

Jordan Berry [01:32:17]:
Such a good episode. As man, as always, I just want to thank Aaron for coming on. So good, so much good stuff and so relevant to so many lawnmowers. One of the things I was having a conversation at the Clean Show a couple of weekends ago with an operator who was like, listen, we hear about all this stuff that, you know, that.

Aaron Hopson [01:32:38]:
We talk about a lot.

Jordan Berry [01:32:38]:
We hear about retooling your stores more often. We hear about all this technology and payment systems and AI and stuff, but it doesn’t always apply to small town America Laundromats. And listen, I heard that. And here we are, Aaron and I, we’re delivering for you. We want to talk about how are you? How can you be successful in. In. In the small town, in this business? So there you go. Now listen again.

Jordan Berry [01:33:03]:
I mentioned this right in the intro. You’re only going to get as much out of this episode as you put into it. So pick at least one thing. Put it into action today if at all possible. But if not, this week at the latest, and as we do that week after week, I think you’re going to be surprised at where your business ends up.

Aaron Hopson [01:33:23]:
All right, Action is what paves the way to success.

Jordan Berry [01:33:26]:
So take some action today. Default to action. That’s one of my mottos. That’s one of my core values. Default to action.

Aaron Hopson [01:33:32]:
Get after it.

Jordan Berry [01:33:33]:
And listen, let us know if we can help you. Check us out@lawnmower resource.com.

Aaron Hopson [01:33:37]:
We’Ll see you next week. Peace.