Jordan Berry [00:00:00]:
Hey, hey, what’s up guys? It’s Jordan with the Law of Matter Resource Podcast. This is show 243. 3? Yeah, I think so. And I’m pumped you’re here today. Right back with you here. Bo Perez back on the show. He was on the show way back when. It’s been actually a long time since he’s been on, but he’s back with an update and it is not an easy update.

Jordan Berry [00:00:23]:
So listen, he’s had some growing pains, but that means he’s been growing and he shares exactly what he’s been doing. To grow his business and his brand. So I know, you know, if you’re an experienced owner, this one is going to be super valuable for you. And if you’re brand new, man, some valuable lessons learned upfront, even better, even better. So you’re going to love this one. Before we jump into it, I just want to say our team over here has been growing. And one of the biggest parts of Laundromat Resource has been growing is helping people get into the laundromat industry. Whether that is, you know, buying your first one or buying, you know, your next one, whatever that looks like.

Jordan Berry [00:01:12]:
We’ve got a team that we’ve put together to help people do exactly that. It’s full of coaches. We’ve got some, we call them acquisition specialists who are going out and actually finding deals. We have a concierge done-for-you program where we go out help you find deals and all that. Anyways, we’ve got all that going on. You know, if that’s something that you’re interested in, you want some help making sure you do it right the first time. I guess it’s kind of commercially and we don’t do that very often, but that resource is out there. And I know some of you guys don’t know about it.

Jordan Berry [00:01:42]:
So go check it out. You can book a free strategy call, probably with me. I’ll probably try to, I try to jump on as many of those as I can. And we could talk about where you’re at in your journey. And if there’s a way that we can help you out there, it’s a no pressure call there., and, uh, we’ll have a good time doing it all at the same time. So check it out. The link will be in the show notes. If you’re on the, uh, on the podcast, if you’re on YouTube, it’ll be down below.

Jordan Berry [00:02:08]:
Uh, click on that link, go book a free strategy call and let’s see, uh, how we can help you accomplish your goals.

Beau Perra [00:02:13]:
All right.

Jordan Berry [00:02:13]:
All right. Let’s jump into it with Beau. You’re going to love this update episode, uh, for him and a lot of, uh, hard-earned lessons that you don’t have to learn the hard way because Beau already did for you and he’s going to share them with you. All right, let’s do it. Bo, back on the show, man. How you doing?

Beau Perra [00:02:31]:
Good. How you doing, Jordan?

Jordan Berry [00:02:33]:
I’m doing excellent. Listen, it’s been about a year and we connected back up and decided, hey, we need to get an update on what has been going on because I know it’s been an eventful year for you, but you’re flying solo today. Yeah. Hopefully we can make it through this thing.

Beau Perra [00:02:51]:
Yeah. Yeah. If I start rambling, I don’t have Liz to reel me in.

Jordan Berry [00:02:55]:
Just stop. Nobody’s there to smack you if you need it. But you know what? Nobody’s here to smack me either. So we’ll just have a good time.

Beau Perra [00:03:03]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:03:04]:
Those are 3-hour Joe Rogan podcasts.

Beau Perra [00:03:04]:
That’s right.

Jordan Berry [00:03:05]:
That’s right. All right, cool, man. Well, hey, listen, real quick, if you haven’t listened to Beau’s previous episode, Beau and Liz came on from Lottos Laundry. Make sure you go back and check that out. I’ll put the number or the link to, the podcast in the show notes. If you’re on YouTube, it’ll be down below. So make sure you go check that out so you can hear their startup. But give us just like a very general brief rundown of you guys and your laundry business.

Beau Perra [00:03:34]:
Yeah, totally. Um, so yeah, um, I’m Beau. I’m one half of Lotta’s Laundry. Uh, my wife and I own Lotta’s Laundry. We started it on Bainbridge Island, Washington in July of 2024. Um, which just seems like a lifetime ago. Um, yeah, so it’s, uh, It’s been, we started pickup and delivery only. Initially we wanted to get a laundromat, was kind of the idea.

Beau Perra [00:03:58]:
There hadn’t been a laundromat on the island in like 4 or 5 years. And so our goal was to get a laundromat right away. We started with pickup and delivery because we knew we could just get going right away. So Liz and I were very much just like doers. When we have an idea, we’re going to send it. And yeah, we just got into it. It really took off. We started pre-marketing it before, which is a lot.

Beau Perra [00:04:17]:
The other episode that we chatted about, go back to that, check it out. We talked a lot about branding, about kind of early marketing pushes, organic marketing. We started this business on about $500, so it was important for us that we weren’t— we’re taking it one step at a time and kind of letting it flow as it developed and it caught on. We had really good branding, again, going back to Liz and I are designers, so we did all the branding ourselves. So we feel like that was kind of a good advantage that we had as well. We knew how to speak to the right person and yeah, we just got a lot of community support right away. We couldn’t have done it without our community and yeah, it took off and In that first year, we were one of the, we were like top 1% on cents for pickup and delivery operators, which was like crazy to hear. Like when our customer manager called us and told us that and I was like, sick, like let’s go.

Beau Perra [00:05:05]:
And you know, so it’s, and it’s kind of, you know, we’ve just kind of been increasing every month and yeah, right now we’re up to about 4, I think 40, 45 maybe recurring customers. So that’s been nice. You know, a lot of our business right now is recurring and we’re continuing to do organic marketing to push Lottas and yeah, so got to the point where just kind of things were rolling and, you know, and we, we took it into the 2024. Like you said, 20, you know, 2025 was a lot, you know, a long year for Lottas. It was a lot of building that happened for sure.

Jordan Berry [00:05:39]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Listen, you definitely go back and check this episode out. I mean, it was at definitely at the time and I think even since then it was one where we did a real deep dive on branding and I would say it’s actually worth watching that one if you’re normally a listener, just because they were pretty decked out in their brand during that interview as well. So they were just on brand and we were talking branding and it was a really, really good episode and really demonstrated how a strong brand can help you build your business. And you guys definitely have that. It’s a strong brand for sure. Thank you. So, okay.

Jordan Berry [00:06:22]:
You caught us up to last episode and, you know, a little bit more, but let’s, let’s dig into this last year. What, you know, what, what was kind of the goal for 2025 and, and how did, how did 2025 pan out for you?

Beau Perra [00:06:41]:
Yeah. So goal, you know, initially we, yeah, we put together a good 3-year plan. With some aspects of just a lot of things we wanted to do in the future that we’re still very much moving forward to. We can kind of get into later. But yeah, the goal with 2025 was just continued growth, continued market saturation. I think we went from probably 100 customers in our CRM, whatever you want to call it, to I think right now we’re at about like 250. So a lot of good growth within, again, the local community. Within that year, we definitely wanted to see if we could reach off the island as well.

Beau Perra [00:07:19]:
So we’re in a unique area. We’re on the island right across from Seattle, west of Seattle, and it goes up into Kitsap County. So that’s kind of tailing around and it comes back down. So really we have within 20 miles-ish of the island, we have 3 big communities, right? So our goal is to work our way up and around the peninsula. And it all came like very naturally, like kind of just opening up routes to those areas. And so we have some customers in Poulsbo now, we have some customers in Silverdale, we have some customers in Bremerton, and we’re kind of just like letting, we’re letting that grow for a while. And definitely got to the point of, you know, we just, the orders kept coming. And again, very grateful for our community, very grateful for all the people that want their dirty laundry done.

Beau Perra [00:08:03]:
That’s what we’re here for. And we can just continue to, you know, develop that brand trust and develop within the community. So again, going back to that old episode, we talk about a lot of the stuff we did, like dog treats, like thank you notes with everything, those personal touches on like why people are coming to you over anyone else, right? Especially in a big city, some people will be like, oh, well, you’re on an island, you’re a small community, blah, blah, blah. And it’s harder in the metro. I can understand there’s a different way of approaching, say you’re in New York or LA, we work with people in those areas and it’s a bit of a different approach. But at the end of the day, it’s the same structure and the same systems that we can put in place in those areas to grow like we have. And yeah, so the goal was to just kind of slowly take over, creep into those markets and things went good. But again, we just got super overworked.

Beau Perra [00:08:51]:
Like I think for a long time, I was telling you earlier, Jordan, like you step into this zone as a founder and as a business owner, as an operator, and you’re like, I got to do it all. Or like, I got to oversee it all. And like, I think one of the biggest things you can do as an operator, as a founder is trust in people and bring on people to help you to support a vision and support your growth. And it’s something we’ve kind of just hung onto very long. So I think at probably August of 2025, we were doing 3,500 pounds, just Liz and I. And it was just not possible to be like—

Jordan Berry [00:09:28]:
That’s a lot.

Beau Perra [00:09:29]:
It wasn’t, it was at a point where Again, super happy with the growth and we were like, we got to keep this train going. But we weren’t even, we were so in it, in the business that it was hard to take a step out and be like, how are we going to actually scale this thing? Because we’re getting to this bottleneck. And yeah, so that’s when Liz came up with some good ideas on how to flip the business. And at the end of the year, we transitioned the model a little bit where we were able to hire out, able to hire washers, drivers, And really the overall focus of the year too was to get into commercial space. We had so much trouble getting in the commercial space that we had to kind of diversify and think differently on how we can utilize local laundromats. And so we created some partnerships that were pretty good for us on some really new, some clean new spaces that were on brand with what we could do. And we kind of just grew that way. So we’re getting to this point now where we’re starting to get into these other communities and we’re able to give jobs to multiple communities now, which I think is just really, really cool.

Beau Perra [00:10:35]:
And the flexibility we’re able to offer our employees, and that’s just been a whole new thing on top of growing a laundry business is like we were talking about earlier, coming into the staffing side of it. It’s very grateful for where we’re at now and just super excited for where we’re going next too. We got a lot of a lot of big plans for Lottas and where I think we can take this brand and what we can do for the industry. So super excited about that. But that’s kind of like a recap of the year. It was definitely like high, just high intensity, like laundry every single hour while growing the business, right? While remarketing and getting into a little more in the email and SMS marketing and retargeting and stuff without trying to annoy people and learned a lot this year within this business specifically too.

Jordan Berry [00:11:30]:
So yeah, that’s— and we’ll kind of dig into some of that too there. But just for context for people, like an efficient system, maybe doing like 35 to 40 pounds of laundry an hour. In kind of an efficient system of just like processing time. That’s not like running routes, pickup and delivery, kind of all that and sort of the transitions between everything. So I mean, you’re looking at 90 to 100 hours strictly in an efficient system of processing laundry. So you can see where that can get pretty overwhelming pretty quick, especially if you’re doing pickup and delivery and you’re bootstrapping it, right? And one of the, one of the things we talked about last time was how you guys were kind of bootstrapping it. You mentioned you started with $500, which is awesome. And, you know, but, you know, when you’re starting a business, you’re generally speaking, you’re either starting with a whole bunch of money to put into it and invest into it.

Jordan Berry [00:12:31]:
Yeah. Or a whole lot of time and effort and energy and, or both. Yeah. Or both. Right. And most likely it’s some sort of combination of the two.

Beau Perra [00:12:43]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:12:43]:
And so, you know, I mean, just driving, driving hard if you’re doing 3,500 pounds, you know, driving hard for just the two guys. So, I mean, you mentioned that you, at some point, well, let’s back up. So first of all, I mean, was there any new lessons or anything that you learned in terms of growing it, scaling it to 3,500 pounds of laundry?

Beau Perra [00:13:07]:
Yeah, absolutely. I think that like, Probably one of the first things that was hardest for me was like, I’m, you know, like I, now I’m not going to say a perfectionist, but like I, you know, I would expect laundry a certain way. So like there’s been a lot of situations where a customer wants, you know, so like for instance, a couple of our commercial accounts, like they do sheets, towels, stuff like that. They don’t want them to fold it. They want a better price for not having them fold it. I cringe every time I put that order out because I’m like, this is not how I would like want our company to be represented, you know what I mean? But so I think one of the big things I would take away from that is just meeting people where they are and really serving for your customer and not necessarily always for the system of how you do things. Right? So again, meeting people in the middle, I think that’s been a big thing of understanding that people are trusting you with their laundry and they also want stuff a certain way. So again, being very accepting of that process instead of being like, this is how I’m going to have to grow.

Beau Perra [00:14:04]:
In the beginning, I think you have to make, and some people would argue like customer’s always first and yeah, that’s the mentality or whatever, but I think it’s important to really meet them where they’re at on what they want, how they want it, and how they want that service. Because you also learn a lot from those situations too. Like, oh, okay. And it’s a benefit for us too, right? Like we can spend less time on an order and they’re happier. And so it’s kind of like understanding those like weird nuances of adjusting your business for sure. Yeah. And then definitely the one, I wish we would’ve hired help a little earlier. I think everyone says that or whatever, but the trust we’ve been able to put into our employees has been huge for our growth in this last half of the year and first quarter of this year so far.

Beau Perra [00:14:52]:
And so again, taking a step back, it’s so hard to be in your business and take a step out and take a breath and understand like, oh wow, okay, this is maybe what’s happening and be able to take advice from people too. I think we’ve done a lot of advice taking and drown out the crappy noise, but take the good noise in for sure. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:15:14]:
Where are these customers coming from? I know you do a lot of organic stuff, but where are you finding these guys? Yeah.

Beau Perra [00:15:21]:
So I mean, a lot of what we’re getting now within this last, I’d say 5 months has been a lot of word of mouth. Again, so we’re in a smaller community. I think there’s about, Don’t quote me on this, but I believe it’s about around 20,000, 25,000 in Bainbridge. So then Kitsap, as we’re getting wider into Kitsap, we’re really opening up the market, but a lot of it’s been word of mouth in this past 5 months. Initial things that we did, yard signs, you can have yard signs in certain locations for so long. So a lot of old school marketing too. Again, mailbox tags, door tags, the stuff that is boots on the ground, walking through neighborhoods, like the old school stuff. And that’s how we’ve really captured a local community, networking events, chamber events, just putting ourselves out there, like has been the biggest jump for us.

Beau Perra [00:16:09]:
Obviously we have social, that’s a good driver for us as well. But a lot of the residential outreach is just from repetition of putting ourselves in every area at once. Like I think back, I think in 2025 we probably were at 10 local events probably throughout the year, like big sponsors. So we sponsored the 4th of July parade in Bainbridge. That was a big one for us. And we did like an end of year auction gala for like a fundraiser. So really just getting our name out there over and over and over and over has been a big driver for us to get that community trust, that community recognition. And then yeah, the brand.

Beau Perra [00:16:55]:
We can’t miss the pink sign, right? That’s right. Everyone always says when they first see me here, when I’m talking to someone like, oh, I see your pink signs everywhere. It’s like, perfect. You know what I mean? So really just getting out there and getting in front of people and just continuing to put it out there. And I’m a big believer in putting out and getting what comes back. And so I think our mission the whole time has just been to open up people’s schedules and to give them back their time and sticking true to what we do and why we do it has again given us a lot of trust within the community. And trust goes a long way. This person tells this person, it’s the old school method of 2 people tell 4 people and it truly works like that.

Beau Perra [00:17:41]:
And I know that can happen in any community. It’s not just the small communities for sure.

Jordan Berry [00:17:48]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think you guys have done a really good job. I mean, obviously of like branding, but also just a really good job of like, you know, branding is one thing. I kind of learned this the hard way. My first laundromat, right? Is like, you can remodel or retool your laundromat and make it a whole lot nicer. You could have a really nice brand or whatever, but then if you don’t get in front of people and people don’t know about it, it’s all for nothing, right? And so you guys do a really good job of getting in front of people in the communities that you’re serving.

Beau Perra [00:18:20]:
Yeah, it’s really important. It’s always just been from the start, like one of our main, you know, one of the main ways we knew we were going to kind of capture the market. And like I said, we’ve had experience doing this with other businesses and, you know, for those that haven’t got on the past episode, Liz and I are entrepreneurs. So I think Bottas was like our 5th business we started and some failed miserably and some are still going in the background today. Right. So it’s, you just, it’s been a huge learning experience for sure and been cool to like see, okay, what if we take this idea that we know works in this business and bring it over here? And again, that lived experience is how we lead in a lot of, again, the people that we talk to or we help out or it’s all based on lived experience. And I think that’s in a world that’s, as you know, you do consulting and you have the community, it’s like, there’s a lot of bad information out there too. And just stuff like people just trying to shove down your throat.

Beau Perra [00:19:16]:
And I think you nailed it on the head. You know, it’s people often think, yeah, the biggest, baddest machines are what gets you there. And it’s like, it’s just not the case at all. Like, you could have— I know people that are thriving doing $40,000, $50,000 coin machines. So, you know what I mean? Like, it’s, it’s not like, it’s not like all the technology like that just makes your life easier, but you have to actually have systems before you do that shit because or else it’s going to all be out. Excuse me, excuse my language. Like, but it’s all going to be out the window. Like, if you don’t have the systems in place first, or understand the structure behind how you get business, yeah, it’s not going to do anything for you.

Beau Perra [00:19:51]:
So yeah, I appreciate you nodding to the branding because it is so, so important and it’s what we’ve led with this whole time. And again, it’s what differentiates you from the so-and-so doing it as a side hobby or these bigger companies like Poplin and Happiness and nothing against them, but there’s a sense of, you know, of localness that again, people I think will still, you know, especially increasing with the way, you know, AI’s going and everything, I think people are going to lean more on local, you know, especially in those communities, like people, like local people that are doing honest work. That’s kind of what we kind of embody at Lattice for sure.

Jordan Berry [00:20:33]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I know with scaling and growing the business comes growing pains. And so, you know, I mean, you mentioned you’ve now brought on some people. Number one question about that is, how did you know when it was time to bring some people on to help you?

Beau Perra [00:20:56]:
Yeah. So like I said, I think that was like one of the things is like we’ve gotten better at is laying out those things prior and like understanding where your bottlenecks are. Right. So, I think to fast forward and I’ll come back, we went way too long without hiring people. So we got to the point where we had to stop marketing because we didn’t have time to market. And like we’ve talked about in the last episode too, once you take your foot off the gas, that’s much worse than even not starting, to be honest.

Jordan Berry [00:21:28]:
You know what I mean?

Beau Perra [00:21:29]:
Like, you lose momentum and especially when it comes to social and stuff, all those apps work. You need to keep the momentum. And same with like SEO on your website. If you’re in more of a crowded area, so like once you lose that momentum, it kind of sucks. So knowing those bottlenecks, right? Like, so again, like working with people now, we’re able to be like, okay, this is where we saw trouble. Okay, we know it, you know, 18 orders or 18 customers, like weekly customers. That’s when you need to bring in, you know, X amount of employees. You should expect to be paying those employees X amount of dollars for.

Beau Perra [00:22:01]:
And like you’re saying, They should be able to get to 30 pounds in an hour, 15-ish time. And really having those benchmarks and bottlenecks so you know, okay, we’re getting to 15 recurring customers. We know we hit 3 taller bottleneck. Let’s start looking for someone, looking for help. And then once you can get those systems dialed, when you need to hit those benchmarks, it’s like, it’s clockwork, right? It’s like, okay, ad goes out for hiring someone, bring someone in, you’re in. Now we scale to this next kind of point of deference, I guess. But so I think being able to sit back after going through such a growth period of a year, being able to step back and I’ll give the credit to Liz because she’s really good at seeing that vision and understanding kind of where problems are going to arise based on problems we’ve had in the past that are kind of pattern recognition, right? That’s going to be a big part of, I think, us being able to scale this business to the heights we see it going. But yeah, I’d say advice-wise, I’d just say planning beforehand is huge.

Beau Perra [00:23:07]:
Just kind of planning. It’s not like planning worst-case scenario type stuff, but understanding what your limits are and how you’re going to kind of fill those gaps. And I always tell everyone too, I believe it’s like I heard on a Mel Robbins podcast, is she was saying It’s like focus on your, it’s like your ABC work, right? So like your A work is something like you could do lights out, eyes closed, sleeping. Like it’s 100%. You excel extremely at that work. And then there’s your B and your C work, right? So your B is kind of like, I’m good at it, but like, you know, I could be doing better things with my time. And your C is like, I don’t need to be touching that at all. Right? So understanding like where you really thrive, staying in that part of your business and hiring for the other part of your business.

Beau Perra [00:23:52]:
Cause like, Best case scenario, you’re going to continue to grow, right? I think hiring and marketing or finding the right people and then marketing your business in a, at the very least, just a consistent manner, not to be like all-star, but if you can even market in a consistent manner, especially in this industry, you’re already, again, top 10% type situation just because there’s not a lot of attention in it. And that goes for like a lot of industries, but this one specifically, no shade, no shade to the industry, but I think everyone knows that, like, you know what I mean?

Jordan Berry [00:24:27]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it, you know, it’s really interesting, you know, just hearing how it’s gone, right? Because there’s, there’s different challenges and there’s different hurdles getting from one stage of your entrepreneurship journey to the next, to the next, to the next. Right. And when you get started, you know, you talk about your ABC tasks. Right? They’re all yours if you’re going to bootstrap, right? And you own all of them. You better want to do it.

Beau Perra [00:24:53]:
Great. Do it.

Jordan Berry [00:24:53]:
If you don’t want to do it, too bad. Do it, right? Like, it’s got to be done. You got to do all of them. But, you know, once you start getting momentum, one of the great things about being sort of a bootstrapped, you know, entrepreneur where you’re basically solo or, you know, you know, a tag team, partnership or whatever, is you have a lot of control over your business, right? And a lot of people want to leave their 9 to 5, they want to get into the laundry game, laundromats or pickup and delivery or both to get sort of that freedom and control over their life, right? Well, the irony of all this is that once you get to that phase where You’re overworked, you’re exhausted, you’re tired of doing all, like you’re burning out, right? Like, and that happens pretty commonly and you realize you need help. The hurdle, the thing you have to give up is the very thing that you wanted in the first place, right? Is that control. You’ve got to give up some control of your business and give it to somebody else. And there’s obstacles and hurdles to overcome with doing that, you know, mentally for yourself, but also like just very practically. You know, and, you know, we talked a little bit about some of it, like quality control and, you know, SOPs and all that stuff where, uh, you’ve got to kind of solve those.

Jordan Berry [00:26:20]:
But, but every phase is like, you work really hard to get one thing and then almost every next phase, almost across the board, the very thing you worked really hard to get, the freedom, the control, the, you know, you’ve got to, you got to give that very thing up to get to the next level.

Beau Perra [00:26:38]:
Right.

Jordan Berry [00:26:38]:
And then you get to the next level and you’re like, okay, it’s not so bad. The employees are good. They’ve been trained now. We’re rolling. We’re smooth. I’m ready to expand my territories. I’m ready to add some locations or, you know, whatever the case may be. But, but a lot of times the very thing that you’ve gained by adding employees, which is more free time and more freedom, you got to give up again so that you can scale to the next level.

Jordan Berry [00:27:03]:
Right. So it just kind of goes on and on and requires these pivots and these changes, let alone new skill sets. And it’s what makes entrepreneurship difficult. It’s so hard.

Beau Perra [00:27:16]:
That’s why it’s such a— Liz and I were just having a conversation last night. It’s such a mind game. And you could call that with any business owners too, aside from entrepreneurs. I was saying entrepreneurs is obviously like, there’s the multiple aspect of building multiple things at once and a business owner being I’d say like a business owner’s often stuck as a business owner. Like you’re saying, control is a huge thing, but we were just talking the other night, it’s just wild. Like it’s such a mental game, like understanding that like one minute you could be like literally up here, the next minute you’re like literally down here. And so it’s, but it’s fun. There’s a lot of joy and like purpose and self-discovery and, you know, so, I mean, so many things happen at once being in this business and being, you know, I’m grateful for being in a position like this to be able to kind of craft where we want to take things and make the calls.

Beau Perra [00:28:16]:
But like you’re saying, it’s like, it’s so important to get people in place to help you continue. You have to trust in people. Like you have to take a chance on people and just, you know, And I kind of think about it when we’re— I would want to be taken a chance on, like I would want someone to take a chance on me, right? So like I need to live that, live that same mantra and trust in people. And if it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out. Like, you know what I mean? And having that like, let go of control is like, it’s freeing and scary as, you know, it’s so scary.

Jordan Berry [00:28:51]:
At the same time. Yeah. Yeah, it is. It is. And it’s tough too. I mean, you nailed it, right? Like, it is a mind game. Just the roller coaster of trying to build a business, run a business is— Decisions, decisions. Yeah, it’s crazy.

Jordan Berry [00:29:10]:
I mean, it literally, it’s why we started, you know, I joined some mastermind groups and I’m still part of some mastermind groups, both in the industry and out of the industry. That’s why we started offering mastermind groups is because, you know, one of the things I found is that, you know, non-entrepreneurs, non-business owners don’t understand what you’re going through when you’re like, you know, my wife even sometimes, like, you know, for me, like things will start going really well. Yeah. And then I get depressed for some reason. Like, I don’t know why, like, I don’t know why. And she’s like, why are you depressed? Like, things are going really well. You just like got, new clients or, you know, whatever that is going on, right? They’re like, yeah, I don’t know, like, it’s the other thing that’s happening here. You don’t— yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:29:59]:
Or like, yeah, I gained, it grew, but I, I want it to be even bigger, right? So I’m depressed because it’s not as big as I want it to, you know, or whatever. I like, it’s just a mind game, dude.

Beau Perra [00:30:09]:
It’s crazy. You mentioned this too, our lot owners and not just pickup and delivery, or like they’re about to launch pickup and delivery, they have launched pickup and delivery, it’s going nowhere. And, you know, like there is this degree of like, you know, like you have to, you just have to be like very, very into what you’re doing, like to make this work at the end of the day. Like, yeah, you have to have kind of that undeniable confidence that it’s going to work out. And yeah, knowing that those, like you live a life that you focus on, right? So like, it’s important to continue to take in the wins each day and understand that growth comes in many different ways. I think that taking a step back and hiring people, people could even be like, oh, well now I’m making less money, or you know what I mean? Or whatever it may be. But that’s a stage of growth, right? So just kind of taking the strides as they go has been a huge thing for us this year too. And just trying not to, I think a lot of people start businesses and they’re like, yeah, I want to be making $10 million a year or $100 million, $1 million a year, whatever it is.

Beau Perra [00:31:13]:
And I want this in sales. And it’s like, just let life come to you, I think is what I’ve been discovering this past year or two is like, it’s so easy to be like, I want this and this is the only thing that’s achievable as like the gold medal or whatever. But it’s like, you focus so hard on getting there that you skip a lot of the steps. And that’s been a big thing for us this year is understanding that like, or in this past year is understanding that like, we have to let it come to us. We have to make the right partnerships and there’s a deeper Understanding how we’re going to get to where we want to get. And it doesn’t have to happen overnight because, yeah, like you said, it’s like, it’s this wild ride of like, I could be doing this though, or I could be getting to this. And it’s like, well, you’ll get there, right? Just let it come. You know what I mean? Keep running your routes and stuff.

Jordan Berry [00:32:00]:
So yeah. Yeah. Well, and this whole thing is about who we’re becoming. Somebody could hand you a business that makes You know, $10 million a year. And unless you’ve done the hard work of becoming the kind of person who can run a $10 million business, like you’re just, you’re going to fumble it because it takes some wisdom and it takes some experience and it takes some knowledge to be able to, you know, whatever. It doesn’t have to be a $10 million, $100,000 business, a $10,000 business. If you’re starting brand new, You know, from scratch, you’re going to run through a whole bunch of mistakes and errors and fumble your way through it. And, you know, if you’re lucky, you got somebody to help you guide you through it so you can avoid some of those things and speed up the process a little.

Jordan Berry [00:32:48]:
But there’s no getting around having to make a bunch of bonehead decisions and missteps and losing money and, you know, all that stuff because it’s part of the process of becoming who you need to be. To be able to go to the next step. So I mean, I think that’s why it’s important you don’t skip the steps, that you don’t rush too much.

Beau Perra [00:33:14]:
And yeah. And it’s like you said, there’s like so many levels of inflection. There’s these inflection points where like, yeah, if you’re skipping them, you’re not really understanding. Like, you know, if you didn’t play level 2, like level 3 is integrating on what you learned in level 2. Right. And if you’re like, so yeah, when you step into a business like that, like, yeah, you’ll get burned so fast. Like you don’t know anything that’s going on. Like, you know, so.

Beau Perra [00:33:34]:
I think that us too, maybe we thought we could step out of our business a little earlier than we wanted to as well. At the point of getting past $100,000 in sales or whatever, and under that first year was big for us. But then maybe it came with a little bit of an idea that like, oh, if we can step away from this for a sec and pull off, or we can go work on this right now. Because again, entrepreneurs are always cooking something, right?

Jordan Berry [00:34:03]:
Shiny object, man.

Beau Perra [00:34:04]:
Yeah, exactly. Next street, like, oh, what’s over next? Yeah. Like at dinner, like over here, someone’s conversation. I was like, we should start that business. Like we should be doing it like tomorrow. Yeah. But so, you know, it’s, that’s so that’s where we’re at this year. Like we’re stepping back in, we’ve kind of taken a little bit of a, you know, mind reset, I guess, and understood that like what we need to do to kind of take this to the next level as well.

Beau Perra [00:34:32]:
Kind of got back on some of our original plans with the business and I’m excited for some new growth this year with a little more of an understanding. So again, going back to maybe key things people can take away from this is not getting to the point. I encourage you to, again, plan for your reflection points and understand that you have to take time to step out of the business as well. Be that CEO of the business, especially if you’re in that position, right? Like you need to step out and not be so drowning inside your business because so many more decisions are made from the outside than the inside. It’s just, you get so emotional and, you know, it’s just like day to day just keeps running and running and running. And so I was thankful that we were able to like take a second, kind of figure out what’s next for us.

Jordan Berry [00:35:23]:
So. Yeah. Yeah, man. And that white space, that clear space is huge for any entrepreneur. Newer. And, you know, real quick, going back to your other point of like the shiny object, like one lesson, hard lesson that I’ve learned but have to continue to learn is that success in anything happens in all the boring repetition of just doing a good job for a really long time on one thing, right? It’s like you, like my, I’m like, squirrel, you know, to the max over here where I’m always trying and I have to find like little outlets within what I’m doing. Like, you know, if I’m in my consulting, I’m like, you know, maybe I’m talking to somebody and they’re like, yeah, I’m trying to figure out yada, yada, yada. You know, I’m like, well, I’m going to, I’m going to, you know, quench my thirst for shiny object by creating a tool that will help this person do this.

Jordan Berry [00:36:23]:
And then maybe it’ll help a bunch of other people. Right. But it’s within It’s within what I’m doing because I am constantly like, I almost bought a podcast studio not too long ago. I’m always looking at real estate and flipping. I mean, I’ve got like 1,000 different things that I want to do, but I’ve got to like constantly learn and remind myself the lesson that success in anything is just doing a really good job for a long time. Yeah. All the boring work.

Beau Perra [00:36:55]:
Yeah, no, it is. It’s about consistency and again, like kind of like 1% better each day type of deal. Like I listen to, like, I don’t know if you listen to Diary of CEO, but he was talking about like, you know, how he focuses on growing his business and the like, how can I be 1% better in what we’re doing? So like, you know, they’ll switch thumbnails and understand that like this thumbnail for the YouTube video gave 4% more viewership, you know, and kind of understanding all that stuff. And like you’re saying, just like really locking in on one thing. I think that that’s, again, for entrepreneurs, I’m with you the same deal. I’m like, you know, all these different things going on at once and I’m like, that sounds fun and this sounds fun, but like, then you get so spread thin on like where your time goes, right? Like, and if you have that infrastructure, like I’m saying to like, you know, people are running your business, you’re just CEO level of that. Like, yeah, you have more time to explore those other opportunities. But like you said, like that repetition, that consistency, it, you know, with marketing, with social, with literally building your business with, Testing your systems, all that is what gets you super sharp and can really make you stand out in your industry.

Beau Perra [00:37:59]:
And I think again, as entrepreneurs and as business owners, it’s so easy for us to be working on 10 different things at once. So I encourage people, just like you say, just to kind of echo what you’re saying, definitely that’s the biggest thing we’re doing this year as well. It’s just really locking back in on how we grew the business, in the beginning, but from a safe place now, right? Like a more place of like, okay, now I know what happened in that first year, but I also know how to grow 200 people in a customer database in one year. So like, let’s do that 3 years in a row now. Like, you know what I mean? So like, how do we take what we learned and move into the next year and build off that, avoid those mistakes. And then when you avoid those mistakes, you’re like, oh heck yeah. You know what I mean? Like, That was smooth. I knew I saw that coming and we did XYZ instead and anything good that came from that, I’m here for it.

Beau Perra [00:38:55]:
So that stuff’s really rewarding too on understanding that, okay, we’ve had this problem, this is how we’re going to fix it. And then getting through that problem, you’re like, oh sweet. You know what I mean? And then multiply that compound that by 10 years. Yeah. You have a thriving business. Right. So I think that’s right.

Jordan Berry [00:39:11]:
For sure. Yeah. Yeah. That’s exactly right. And You know, making these, making these like leaps or these inflection points is, I mean, you have to be able to create some white space to be able to make the adjustments, right? Like it’s, it’s necessary. I remember the first time that I hired an admin, I, you know, I felt like number one, you know, you talk about your ABC tasks, my, my C task, For sure, one of them is emails. Like, yeah, like all the time. You, I get slammed with emails and I am the worst at responding to emails.

Beau Perra [00:39:54]:
Like, at least you could admit it, right?

Jordan Berry [00:39:57]:
Like, yeah, yeah. And I know, apologies to anybody out there who back in the day was trying to get ahold of me. Yeah, you can get ahold of me now because I thought I had to be the one doing all the emails and I hired an admin. Yeah. And she’s like, well, let me, you know, take at least like the first pass of your emails. And if there’s anything I can’t answer or anything like that, then I can send it to you. And that was like a massive load off my mind, but I still had these emails that I had to go check, even though it was like way less emails, like a handful of emails. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:40:31]:
It was just like pulling teeth to even just go respond to those. So what we ended up doing was we will sit down at a meeting like once a day. And she’ll just say, hey, here, this person needs to know this. What do you want me to tell them? And I’ll just dictate and she’ll just, and for me that feels fine, like for whatever reason, but sitting down doing emails, I’m like, dude, that is like a C task for me. But I would never have known that I didn’t have to be the one doing all my emailing until I made that leap and, you know, and had that, right? And so, So I think that’s huge, number one. And we get stuck a lot of times in like we have to do everything and we don’t. And there’s every excuse in the book of why you’re the only one who can do XYZ and you’re just not. Doesn’t matter what it is.

Beau Perra [00:41:20]:
You’re not. To piggyback that, you know, like we had a business coach explain, you know, like she calls it the water bottle theory. So it’s like, you know, when you do put those people in place, like, so, you know, you give them the— I mean, do the best to explain this. And so the water bottle and you say, this is the water bottle. I need you at all All the times to have this water bottle remain full. This is your only task, right? Or, you know, your task is to make sure it’s full, make sure it’s clean every day. I have ice in it. I’m going to give this water bottle to you.

Beau Perra [00:41:48]:
I’m stepping back, right? You have to avoid coming back and taking back the water bottle, right? Like that’s their task. You put them in that role and that’s their duty now. And so like going back on what we’re saying, we’re like finding the times to get that help. It’s like you also need to understand like when you do put that place in help, and I’m guilty of Trying to take the water bottle back from people too is like, because as a business owner you’re like, well, that’s not how I would do it. Like, well, other people do stuff in good ways too, right? Like you can learn from people too. So again, having that humility to be able to learn from someone, but also like understanding, like you put them in charge of that, that’s their role. Let them own that role. Because when you’re trying to like micromanage, you know, as we all know, or anyone that’s managed employees now, it’s like, that’s just a recipe for disaster, right? Like you’re not giving people space to actually do their job.

Beau Perra [00:42:33]:
Because you’re breathing down their neck or whatever. You don’t want that either. So just finding the actual space for that as well, I think is a huge win when figuring out how to hire and when to hire. Just make sure you’re ready to actually accept that because again, especially if it’s like your first hire, it’s hard. I struggled completely with it for sure. Like what you’re saying, just in your admin role, it’s like you’re still checking emails at first too, or, so yeah, it’s a It’s interesting for sure. It’s a, it’s a, yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:43:04]:
It’s a, yeah. It’s an adjustment for sure. Yeah. It’s an adjustment. And, and the temptation can be for sure to, to take stuff back or like, I, I remember like, ah, that’s not how I would’ve responded to that.

Beau Perra [00:43:17]:
Or I, you know, like that. Oh, you know what I mean?

Jordan Berry [00:43:19]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Beau Perra [00:43:20]:
You’ll always do that way too. Right. Cuz you just will. Cuz you’re like, especially if you’re like, you know, If it was a leap you took because you’re like, you don’t really have the cash for it, but you know you need someone in that role to expand this next— that’s a big thing too, right? Understanding with bringing someone in, with getting help, you open up your time to expand and do more of your A work, right? To get more business. That’s right. I read this sales book, or I’m reading this sales book. I haven’t finished it yet, but he talks about, yeah, 80% of his like high creative work and then giving the rest to someone else.

Jordan Berry [00:43:57]:
Right.

Beau Perra [00:43:57]:
It’s like just knowing where you’re best and offload the rest. Like, especially if you’re growing a team, like it’s just, yeah, it’s crucial for scaling for sure.

Jordan Berry [00:44:09]:
Yeah. Yeah. Dude.

Beau Perra [00:44:11]:
Yeah. Okay.

Jordan Berry [00:44:11]:
I want to ask you about hiring here in a second, but real quick, I want to go back to shiny object syndrome because I just know that it’s like a, It’s a common thing for especially like visionaries and, you know, I don’t know about you, but for me, I’m very good at coming up with ideas. I’m very good at like starting quickly and getting off to the races. I’m very good at launching stuff. But when it comes to maintaining and doing a consistent product for a really long time, I’m not great at that. Just like, yeah, defeats me. And so I need some stimulus of the shiny— the shiny object, like, brings life back to me. But that’s in direct conflict with what I said earlier of like, the key to success is just keep doing a good job at something for a really long period of time. And that feels like death to me.

Jordan Berry [00:45:14]:
And I’m like, ah, Does that mean that I can’t be successful? I don’t know that I’ve necessarily answered that question for myself entirely. Depends on what you mean by successful, I guess. But one thing that I have found, one like hack, I guess, that I have found, and I mentioned it, but I want to kind of bring it back around, is finding sort of these micro shiny objects within what I’m doing. I want to give one example of this and maybe, I don’t know, maybe you have an example of something too. But one example of this is, you know, we have a service where we go find, you know, laundromats or spaces to build out laundromats for clients. We go out and we look for them. We help them secure, you know, the, like, make offers on it or secure a lease if they’re going to build out or buy a property or whatever, and then help them through like the due diligence or the build out or whatever. Right? So we have this service, it’s our done-for-you kind of concierge.

Jordan Berry [00:46:14]:
Service. And one of these like micro shiny objects was I got super excited about, like I had some frustrations in this process where I was having trouble keeping track of deals and my coaches were having trouble keeping track of deals. And so I was like, well, what if we just built out a software where we can just custom build it specifically for this? And we custom built out this software so that we could have team members upload deals to this thing, tag the clients that it, it, those deals are applicable to. They can say, yes, we like it. No, we don’t like it. Or let’s discuss it. That can trigger a meeting with our coaches. And, you know, we’re, we’re off to the races.

Jordan Berry [00:46:55]:
All the information is right there. Everybody can access it. And so we kind of custom built this software. For me, that was like, our doing a good job for a long time kept rolling, but I was able to find this sort of like micro shiny object that stimulated that need in me, but also helped propel us forward in what we were doing.

Beau Perra [00:47:19]:
Yeah. And your same ecosystem, right? Yeah. No, I think that that’s definitely been something that we’ve talked about a lot lately too. And kind of like, you know, we, because we do digital marketing and, well, I hate that term. We do digital brand building consulting within growing your brand online, growing your brand locally. So anything from sometimes ends up being social media managing, a lot of it’s like strategy, a lot of it’s, again, learned experiences that we’re helping talk people through. And I think within that, I’ve realized even, yeah, what are things we can do in something that’s already generating income and it’s proving itself. Yeah.

Beau Perra [00:48:00]:
What’s something that doesn’t feel so left field from what we’re doing? So developing products within the industry or yeah, consulting within the laundry industry. So kind of niching more or less niching down, but kind of staying on track with what’s going on and kind of like if you are doing that side shiny thing, it’s almost like Adding value to your normal thing too, right? And I think that’s kind of what you’re saying too. Like it’s building your rapport, it’s building your reviews, your legacy, your trust factor just of being a mogul in the industry, right? Like I think you can get a lot out of that and like you’re saying, still satisfy that need for like change or creativity or like whatever you want to call it because I’m the same way. I can’t be working on like one thing at once. But I also understand that there’s so much value in just locking in on something because I’ve seen that happen when we were able to step away from coaching for social media we were doing back in 2023, before we rolled into Lottas. And then we rolled into 2024 when Lottas started really taking off. We stepped out of coaching to put it all in Lottas and grew that from $3,000 a month to $12,000 a month in revenue. So it’s like, that understanding and that seeing that in real time too, I was like, oh my God.

Beau Perra [00:49:24]:
Okay. Yeah. And you can step fully into something. It’s something that’s so obvious sometimes too, but it’s like, again, just even if it is your only thing, understanding there’s a difference between going all in on your business while you’re working in the business and then going all in on your business while you’re able to step out and actually be like, okay, I’ll be taking it from 10 to 20 to 50 to 60, whatever, maybe whatever your goals are. Yeah, I think that’s a big thing for sure.

Jordan Berry [00:49:52]:
Yeah.

Beau Perra [00:49:53]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:49:53]:
Okay. So let’s, I mean, one question for me is like, okay, so you got to this point where you were, I don’t know if you were burned out, but at least you needed some help. You’re kind of taking a step back and you decided, hey, let’s bring some people on. You decided it was the right time or maybe it was past the right time. You decided, you know, best time to plant a tree was back then. Next best time’s now kind of thing. And so, You, how did you go about finding that first hire and how did you actually hire them?

Beau Perra [00:50:29]:
Yeah, so we’ve, again, Alina was like, we’ve hired in the past, so I have a little bit of experience. Both of us have some experience with trying to find what we look for in people. I think the age-old hire for attitude, not for skill, that holds true, I think, in any industry. I think it’s so important to focus on when you’re interviewing people. Like if anyone wants any interview, you know, help real quick, like really focusing on like the type of person this person, like the company culture. Again, this is going to sound super cliché, but like it matters so much now more than ever, especially with like remote jobs and like everything, you know, like there’s just like, there’s a lot of opportunities for people out there. And so finding the people that really care about what they’re doing is crucial. So like a lot of beginning questions we ask in our interviews are like, how’d you hear about us? Like, I mean, if you don’t know anything about me, you just applied on Indeed, it’s like, All right, well, I mean, there’s certain situations where maybe it doesn’t matter as much, but I think that there’s a certain level of responsibility for someone that really can look up your company on Google or, you know what I mean? And so kind of asking some of those priming questions as well is kind of an easy way to see if it’s going to be a good fit.

Beau Perra [00:51:38]:
And then again, just kind of learning about this person within the hiring process. So again, we kind of have these benchmarks that we go on with hiring on how we’re finding out They’re going to be just overall a person with good attitude and understanding, especially with our business. This is the first time we were hiring for a role within the business, so I made it very transparent with everyone that we were hiring and like, this is a new role for us. I want someone that’s stepping in as well to be very open to giving feedback, right? Not to a point of causing an issue, right? But this is just a new—

Jordan Berry [00:52:13]:
Fine line. It’s a fine line.

Beau Perra [00:52:15]:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s a new role for us. I want to make sure that Our pay structure we set up is legit, like, kind of tough questions too. Like, not like in the interview, but like understanding, like, I want you to feel involved in this business, like, especially being a new business and like, it’s so crucial. Like, you are the face of my business at the end of the day as well, just as much as I am. Right? So like making sure that you’re finding a good fit with those people is so important. And like I said, I think we’ve always led with like hiring for attitude and hiring for personality.

Beau Perra [00:52:44]:
And I think it’s, done us really well on finding the right people. The people that we found right away weren’t on Bainbridge. It’s harder to hire on the island just with the age range of people and also just kind of the demographic of the island really at the end of the day. And so we’ve been able to hire other people from different communities in Kitsap, which is really cool. I don’t take that lightly, someone working for us and it’s There’s like, again, I know everyone feels that that has employees, like there’s this level of like responsibility that comes with like having a person that, you know, like that you’re paying their income or whatever. And, you know, even if it’s a side gig or whatever it is, it’s still important to them. And it’s like making sure that like, it’s not just, again, sounds lame, but like, I don’t want this to just be like another job. I want there to be some sort of pride they’re taking in what they’re doing, whether or not they’re working, you know, 5 hours a week or, or, you know, 30 hours a week, whatever it may be.

Beau Perra [00:53:42]:
Like, I, I think it’s important to, to have some sort of sense of responsibility and like pride in what you’re doing for sure.

Jordan Berry [00:53:52]:
Yeah. So did you find, you know, these first employee, employees, did you, I mean, were these like family, friends, or these, did you go to Indeed?

Beau Perra [00:54:01]:
Did you go to, yeah. Maybe we can get Indeed to sponsor this video.

Jordan Berry [00:54:08]:
No, I’m just kidding. Yeah.

Beau Perra [00:54:08]:
That’s right. We did Indeed. You know, I always worked well for us, just sponsored a job and found a lot of people. And obviously you get a lot of people that are, you know, that’s another thing. Like if they can’t even like do the basic asks of even getting an interview scheduled, like don’t bother with your time, right? Like if they can’t follow instructions, like it’s not a great start. But yeah, no, going on Indeed, we posted on Facebook. Again, like smaller community, so we took advantage of some of those word of mouth channels as well. And yeah, we were able to find solid people like right away.

Beau Perra [00:54:43]:
And a lot of people obviously apply to you. Everyone’s looking for a job. And again, it’s important for us that we’re bringing in like really committed people though to some degree. So yeah, use Indeed, use Facebook. Found probably right away we hired, I think we hired like 4 people right away. And then hired 2 more people and then we’re able to like, at one point, you know, and still at this point, I haven’t folded laundry in, you know, a while. So I’m very thankful for our, you know, for our team that we put together and it’s worked out good. And again, like once you get to that team spot, like really like checking, like I can’t stress and I’m sure you know enough, like just treating your employees really well too and making them feel like part of the job and part of, again, that’s why I just, it’s something again, we wanted them to feel very involved in what we’re building.

Beau Perra [00:55:32]:
If you have feedback, I want to hear it. If you had this service, what would you expect? And all of that stuff, right? We’re having these meetings probably every, probably we should do it more, but every other month and just kind of checking in on everyone and having open feedback. And so everyone feels like this is a really safe place to talk about what’s happening, what we’re seeing. Customer feedback, like we were just able to add tips like on orders. We’re able to finally do that with Sense. And so that’s been cool to see like some of our customers come back and tip some of our drivers and that being able to go to them too is just like, it’s all like, it feels good. It feels good building like a meaningful business that’s helping people and also helping employ people too. So it’s very gratifying for sure.

Beau Perra [00:56:19]:
But once you can do it in a sustainable way, I also know that employees are just a lot for people too. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:56:28]:
And I will say, I know there’s a lot of, I’ll call them critics of hiring people and you can’t find good people and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, I mean, I’ll just, I’ll just be the definitive opinion here, and that’s not true. You can find good people. There are good people out there. Are they easy to find? No, not usually. Uh, because good people usually have options. And so you’ve got to find the right fit. I like what you said earlier, hiring for the attitude, less for the skill, especially in this.

Jordan Berry [00:57:04]:
Maybe I want my neurosurgeon hired for the skill, not for the attitude, but, uh, but in laundry, Yeah. You know, it’s a, it’s a learnable skill fairly easily.

Beau Perra [00:57:14]:
Right.

Jordan Berry [00:57:16]:
So, yeah. So, you know, number one, I mean, you can hire people who are good people who can help you. Is it easy?

Beau Perra [00:57:25]:
No.

Jordan Berry [00:57:25]:
And I will say, you know, I’ve, I’ve had, I’ve shared a couple of like laundromat attendant stories that I’ve, of attendants that I’ve had that were not good. I had one of my attendants, I rolled up and she was screaming in the face of one of the customers in front of the store one day. And that was pretty much an immediate let go.

Beau Perra [00:57:48]:
Right.

Jordan Berry [00:57:49]:
And so, you know, but I will say that like, be as picky as you can be because the difference between a good hire and a mediocre hire, let alone a bad hire is night and day, especially if you’re having trouble with the concept of hiring other people. Hire somebody good. It’s just going to make your life so much better. So it’s going to take so much pressure off. And I, you know, for me, when I hired my assistant for the first time, I felt really guilty. I’ve shared this on here before, but I felt really guilty because I was like, okay, I’m really sorry, but I have probably like 3 weeks worth of backlog work and it was all stuff I hated and it was going to take me at least 3 weeks to do it if I just sat down and did it all. She literally finished all of it in half a day with a smile. And for me it was like eye-opening because I was like, number one, like not everybody likes the things that I like and hates the things that I hate.

Jordan Berry [00:58:50]:
So find the people that like the things you need to do. Oh, and not everybody you know, the things you feel like you can only do yourself, a lot of times other people not only can do it as good as you, but a lot of times better.

Beau Perra [00:59:11]:
For sure. And that’s like such a like humbling experience too. And I think once you can do it like once or twice too, like you start to understand that like the people that are helping you build your business and they’re inside your business, they should be better at that job than you. And you like that understanding of like, It’s not even passing the torch, you know, but it’s like, I think people oftentimes they don’t understand like what can come from putting people in that position too. Like you said, like, oh my God, like 3 weeks of my schedule just opened. Do you know what I mean? Like, it’s literally, it can be that illuminating and that’s like the ultimate like freeing experience as, again, as a founder, as an operator, as a CEO, whatever you are. That ability to put people in those places, it’s like, I mean, it’s next to nothing. But, and you make a good point of finding a good hire and some quick tips on that too, right? Like 10/90/90 people for the first 3 months or bring them on for, there’s ways you can kind of like stress test as well.

Beau Perra [01:00:16]:
And sometimes there’s a commitment level issue with people there too. But like you said, if you’re new to this, you have to understand that you have to be open to learning from people, especially like your people that you’re putting in place. You’re never going to get anywhere if you think you have all the right answers. That sounds like so easy to understand too, but I think a lot of people resist that kind of that point of growth because it is a part of growth, right?

Jordan Berry [01:00:49]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and unless we get too sort of warm and fuzzy of like put good people in place and treat them well and all that, the other kind of flip side of this, and this is part of what makes being a boss or a business owner difficult, is, you know, I’m of the opinion that as soon as you know somebody’s not the right fit, that’s the time to let them go. I have tried now, and that’s way easier said than done. I’ll just say, especially if you’re a good person, it’s really hard to let somebody go. But I would just say from my— yeah, that’s right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hire somebody to fire them.

Jordan Berry [01:01:27]:
Yeah, that’s right. Just from my experience, if you have one employee who’s not pulling their weight, it’s going to pull the rest of your team down and your own spirits down. If you have somebody who’s not embodying the values that you want to invalue, you know, an extreme example is they’re screaming at a customer in front of your store. But there’s less extreme examples of somebody complaining to other employees behind your back about you. Those things that really affect your business and your brand and productivity of your employees and the end product and the customer experience, all of that is affected. So as soon as you know you have an employee who’s not the right fit, they’re underproducing or they don’t have the right attitude, you know, obviously, especially if it’s an underproducing, you know, put some stuff in place to give them a chance to get up to par. But that attitude thing is difficult to correct. So as soon as you know, you need to put some steps in place to start making a transition.

Beau Perra [01:02:32]:
Yeah. I mean, you don’t want it to get too bad. I, I agree for sure.

Jordan Berry [01:02:38]:
Yeah. I’m curious. Yeah. I’m curious during your interviews with potential employees, did you make them try on a pink neckerchief to make sure they look good in the brand?

Beau Perra [01:02:52]:
Is that, is that part of the process? Yeah. It should be, right? Like, yeah. Yeah. All right. Yeah. No, I think the, the brand recognition that we’ve been able to get for sure has been really cool. Understand that we got some products that we’re going to come out with too, some merch and stuff. And that’s why I’m talking like the extension of the brand too.

Beau Perra [01:03:09]:
I think you made a good point that I want to touch on too is as far as bringing in good people when it comes to hiring, I think a lot of people just think it’s as easy as like, okay, I have a business, I need employees, I’m going to find employees and we’ll put them in place. And I think that again, your brand being a place that people actually want to show up to and work at, A little bit of that’s on you too as a business owner, right? And as an operator and understanding that the image you’re putting out and the way you go about business, all of that is very reflective of the type of people that are going to want to work for you. So again, jobs that are meant to turn over more, you get more of a, I’m not going to say lower class, but maybe even a younger person. It’s like they’re built for turnover jobs, right? There’s certain places that are, in certain areas. And I think that it’s important to understand that what you put out is what you’re going to get back, kind of the simplest way to put that. So making sure that you’re creating a good environment for people to work in and you have ways for them to grow as people. As I always say with Liz and I’ve always said, people that work for us, I don’t expect them to work for me the rest of their life. My only hope as being a good leader and a good manager, owner, whatever it may be, is like they leave the job a better person with more skills ready for their next opportunity in life.

Beau Perra [01:04:30]:
It’s not about enslaving these people for the next 20— ideally, if you have a great employee, you hope they stick around forever. But my mindset has always been like, whatever they do do, I hope they go on to bigger and better things because I’m not, I shouldn’t, unless they’re super, they’re older or whatever in their career and this is like their exit job or whatever. But for the most part, I want people to to continue to grow. And if I’m doing the right thing, I’m creating the better person out of them and giving them any sort of newfound advice or discovery or not to sound like it’s like a godly experience working for someone, but like, yeah, making sure they’re like leaving stronger and better, more equipped, not like, and really just happy that they had worked in that position. Or for that amount of time or whatever.

Jordan Berry [01:05:19]:
So sorry, orders are sliding through here. Hey, all right. That’s what I like to hear, man. Making money while on the podcast.

Beau Perra [01:05:25]:
That’s what it’s about.

Jordan Berry [01:05:27]:
Let that be a lesson to you guys who are out there that own laundromats or pickup and delivery businesses and have not yet come on the podcast. Listen, pretty much guarantee that if you come on the podcast, you can make money while you’re on it.

Beau Perra [01:05:40]:
So yeah, I know. Yeah. We’ve had a lot of people reach out, you know, I heard you on Jordan’s podcast and, you know, I think it’s been cool for us to be able to share our experiences across the industry. I’d say in general, I think we’re probably a more marketing-forward approach than a lot of operators have taken. We’ve talked about that before too. And so it’s cool to, I’m not trying to shake up the industry per se, but our goal definitely is to get a new look in line with what you’ve been trying to do for a long time now. You’ve cornerstone of kind of forward thinking in this industry. And we hope to do that kind of on the terms of branding and understanding the value and the trust that can get you to next levels in your business for sure.

Jordan Berry [01:06:27]:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dude, I mean, this has been good. I got a couple quick questions for you. Number one, and this is kind of Joke question, but also kind of a real question actually. And I’ll preface it by saying, you know, we’ve had some other people on the podcast who have started pickup and delivery businesses without a laundromat location, started from scratch that way and have shared similar stories of it just being difficult and a grind and a lot of work and a big learning curve to actually grow and scale, but have ultimately done well. Are you still glad that you started the pickup and delivery business? Yeah, that’s a genuine question because I mean, I know how much work it is.

Beau Perra [01:07:17]:
Sure. No, I absolutely like, you know, I think that that’s like from the beginning where obviously like, you know, you always start a business, you know, if you started a business in the past or whatever, like you understand that like a lot of things change within the first year of kind of what you had planned and then where you plan on taking it and then year 2 can be different. And they start to, like you’re saying, settle in as you get the repetition. I am happy, especially because I think the way we went about it was kind of like testing the market per se. We were like, okay, if we feel like there’s a need for a laundromat, like our goal after the laundromat was always to get like a facility, a bigger production facility where we can own a lot more of that margin. But I’d say I love the fact of pickup and delivery because it’s also solving the issue of time, right? People are increasingly buying back their time, right? What we do in the delivery space specifically, even DoorDash is what, I might butcher this, but I’m guessing 12, 15 years old. The whole delivery, that whole idea is still very new to people, right? So that’s really exciting about this industry and where it’s at is it’s very new. It’s a new idea still as much as it’s You know? Yeah.

Beau Perra [01:08:31]:
Some people are like, I don’t get it. And you want to be like, you don’t get it? Like, I mean, I show up and I pull the big laundry out. You know what I mean?

Jordan Berry [01:08:39]:
Yeah.

Beau Perra [01:08:39]:
Slow down, buddy. Like, that’s what I say to myself. But like, you know, and I explain it and like, people are like, oh my God, like, that’s amazing. Like, sign me up, blah, blah, blah. Like, it literally is like that for some people. Like, they’re like, holy crap, something like this exists. And it’s like, and then those are conversations I’m still having with people a year and a half in the business. And I’m like, that’s where I’m like, the roof to ceiling is like up here, you know what I mean? On where you could take this.

Beau Perra [01:09:03]:
And, you know, within that, I think that, yeah, it’s just like you’re seeing it turn from something that was always like, same with like, you know, cleaning people or these like, you know, service-based things that are, they used to be like, you know, higher luxury or like, oh, you’re really well off if you could afford, you know, a cleaning person. And yeah. And then like someone that comes to your house and details your car, like all of these things are becoming like middle-class things too. People are buying back their time because they know that if they’re going to spend $100 a week on laundry and they get to have a whole weekend away, you know what I mean? And even if they’re not in that position, just the time you’re getting to spend with your family and work on and do stuff for yourself and not just not worry about something as stupid as— not stupid, as something as annoying to people as laundry. Yeah. It’s a win-win, right?

Jordan Berry [01:09:54]:
It’s stupid. It’s stupid. I think that’s an okay word.

Beau Perra [01:09:57]:
It’s not stupid. We can’t do that. Yeah, no, but so we’re seeing that a lot, a lot more get down into that area to what you think. Again, families, I mean, you just can’t, you can’t put a, sometimes I just, you can’t put a price on it. Totally. And this is so much in line with that, right? It’s just like, it’s just such a nice service and I don’t have to think about it. I just put my laundry out and it’s great. And so I guess answering your question, I’m super happy we stick with pickup and delivery.

Beau Perra [01:10:28]:
Like I said, we have a lot of plans on where we want to take this and what this can be with the brand that we’ve built. And I think Liz and I are, we’re itching, feeling like maybe we do a little refresh rebrand. So we’ll see what happens this year. But we always like to, like you said, I think we’re really focused this year on chasing ideas within the business and not multiple ideas, you know, and really, really, you know, doubling down on everything. So it’s going to be, it’s going to be an exciting year for sure.

Jordan Berry [01:11:02]:
Yeah.

Beau Perra [01:11:02]:
Yeah. Okay.

Jordan Berry [01:11:02]:
I got 2 more questions for you. Well, maybe 3. Yeah. But, uh, okay. So question number 1, this is actually a command, not a question. Give me your best piece of advice for somebody trying to start a pickup and delivery business from scratch. Either on their own or in their laundromat, doesn’t matter, but just best piece of advice.

Beau Perra [01:11:27]:
Just start. I think that I’ve worked with a, we’ve worked with a lot of people lately that get so caught up in making everything feel like it needs to be perfect. It’s like, get a system, get on Sense, get on, I’m not going to push anyone specifically to get on Clean Cloud or whatever, and just start, set up your stuff, Go out, talk about your business, and really just get more exposure. I think that talking to more people and networking more is probably my biggest piece of advice on how to initially get the word out. But yeah, just get started. So many people get so caught up in, okay, I need to set this up, and then before I take an order, I need to get XYZ bags and this and that. And yeah, it’s good to have a system, especially if you’re a laundromat. Starting with pickup and delivery, yeah, you should have those systems for drop-off already.

Beau Perra [01:12:17]:
So you’re ahead of the game already, but again, in those situations, what are you waiting for? Get going. You know what I mean?

Jordan Berry [01:12:24]:
You don’t need systems if you don’t have any customers, so you work out those systems as you grow.

Beau Perra [01:12:30]:
Yeah, I know. So it’s like, just get started and hit the pavement running. I’m not preaching overworking yourself or anything like that, but just getting in front of as many people as possible right away. Giving people, you know, love reaching out to local influencers and getting them to like giving them some free laundry if they can make a video for, you know, like tapping into resources that again are organic. You can get them for free. You can trade people like this, like really don’t limit yourself on your options on how to like, how it’s going to happen and this and that and this and just go, just get started, start walking. Like that’s the only way anything’s going to get any momentum. Right.

Beau Perra [01:13:08]:
And again, just learn, understand that you’re going to learn as you go. Absolutely learn as you go. Unless, like you’re saying, unless you have people like us that can walk you through it, but like, you know, it’s, it’s, um, it’s all about action, like big time.

Jordan Berry [01:13:24]:
Yeah.

Beau Perra [01:13:24]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [01:13:24]:
I would, I would agree 100%. I talk to people every single day who I’m like, like they, they talk about what they want to do and I’m, I’m just like, the only thing that you’re missing is The work, like get started, just get going, man.

Beau Perra [01:13:44]:
Like you’re great. You’ve been over it a hundred times.

Jordan Berry [01:13:46]:
Yeah. You’re way past, uh, and it doesn’t take a whole lot. Uh, I had, I forget who it was. Somebody was on the podcast. They said, you know, to, to avoid the analysis paralysis trap, they say they, they give themselves 3 months to learn about something and they decide, is this what I’m gonna do? Or is this not what I’m gonna do? And then get going. Cause you can only learn so much and you really, I mean, I can say that, like, I can just say this truthfully to you. You can do all the research. You can listen to every single podcast.

Jordan Berry [01:14:16]:
You can watch every video. You can read every blog post. You can buy the books. You can do all that stuff. You really don’t know anything until you just start doing it. And that’s how you learn.

Beau Perra [01:14:25]:
And every situation’s different to some degree, right? Like I said, you can, you can lean on systems and, and, and get advice from people that you can skip years of studying and stuff. But like, yeah, until you do it, like. You don’t know how you’re gonna— some people don’t even know if you’re gonna like it. And, you know what I mean? Yeah, it’s a big part of this too, is like with anything you’re doing, like I truly do feel like you should like what you’re doing to some extent, you know? Like, yeah, well, I definitely continue, but keep doing it, it’s like, hey, then try something else. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jordan Berry [01:14:57]:
So I don’t know, especially if it’s a business. I mean, because running a business, and we talk about the roller coaster, the mental roller coaster, the financial roller coaster, like You know, especially when you’re running a business, like it’s just really hard. So if you don’t like what you’re doing, you might as well just go get a job or start a different business, something.

Beau Perra [01:15:15]:
It’s not worth it. Yeah, I agree. I agree 100%.

Jordan Berry [01:15:18]:
It’s not worth it. Okay. Second question. No, it’s not a question. It’s a command.

Beau Perra [01:15:25]:
Bring it more.

Jordan Berry [01:15:27]:
Love it. Give me your best piece of advice for somebody who has a pickup and delivery or drop-off and is trying to scale? Yeah, I know this is a difficult question because it really might depend on a whole bunch of stuff, but give me, give me your best piece of advice, at least just from your experience.

Beau Perra [01:15:49]:
Yeah, definitely. Like developing your systems, I think as you go, it’s important to like kind of document everything that’s happening as you go and making sure that like you’re using that data to kind of do better by yourself, right? And do better in your business. So what I mean by that is understanding, like I said earlier, when you’re going to have these roadblocks, if you will, within your current infrastructure and with what you have to come, like vehicle and just, again, just kind of knowing your inflection points of like, okay, at this point I’m going to need to step to this point. Because I think illuminating that path is definitely easier for you in the long run than, than guessing as you go. Like, I still think you should have a plan for where you’re going and try to hit your marks. But like growing and scaling, like again, like if you’re trying to scale, like you need to be okay with knowing you’re going to have to hire people, right? Because like in order to scale, you need to sell. In order to sell, you need to step out of your business for a sec, right? So like, again, I think it’s a different conversation. People having just started pickup and delivery with no laundromat infrastructure like that to people that are like, have a laundromat that’s doing well, but they want to bring up pickup and delivery.

Beau Perra [01:17:01]:
Those are kind of two different areas. But at the end of the day, especially for that laundromat, if you’re having a suitable place, there should be no reason you’re not introducing that service as long as, especially with like Sense, you can use Uber for driving or you don’t have to have drivers now. And again, there’s a quality control with some of this stuff and I’m understanding that, but But I would say like best piece of advice to scale fast is put the right people in place and understand that you’re going to have to pay to get, right? There’s an understanding as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, like, yeah, you have to pay to get to places. And I have been a firm believer of like, you know, spend a dollar, get a dollar one, great. Like, you know, like we’re making progress, right? Like, understanding, like, it’s like you said at the beginning of this, like, It is kind of this like you hire and you make more money, you get to the point that you’re going to dip for a sec and you kind of like, you know, you’re just kind of like riding an upward wave is kind of the idea, right? Because it does like the more people you get, the more supplies you have to get, the more, you know, insurance and all that stuff, it just, it all kind of changes. So like, again, just having that forecasted, I think is a lot easier to breathe day to day and not seem like, okay, This month they forecasted XXX, like, okay, but this month XXXXX happened. It’s like, okay, well at least we had an idea of some of the stuff that was going to happen. And it’s not so much of this like month-to-month swing shift of emotions that, you know, having an idea of what might come is always good.

Beau Perra [01:18:33]:
And yeah, just again, just having people in place, it’s like, that’s the only, obviously, I mean, simple. It’s the only way to scale, right? Like you have to understand that, like you have to, You have to step out of your business and you’re going to have to put people in place to get the job done for sure.

Jordan Berry [01:18:50]:
Yeah.

Beau Perra [01:18:50]:
Okay.

Jordan Berry [01:18:50]:
I’m going to, I’m going to put you on the spot one, one time and then, and then we can wrap this up unless you have anything else.

Beau Perra [01:18:58]:
Okay.

Jordan Berry [01:18:59]:
Let’s say, let’s say I came to you and I said, Bo, my business is, my pickup and delivery business is going to die. If I can’t get 10 new customers this month, okay, what would you advise me to do to get these new customers in the next 30 or 60 days?

Beau Perra [01:19:27]:
Yeah, I’d say first move is calling. I mean, if it’s dire circumstances, we’ll go, we’ll even go to 2 weeks. I’ll say like tapping into your net I, with any consulting we do, we preach over and over, like, your network is your net worth type situation. And I may not have ever even said that directly, but like, just the idea behind like, the more people you know, the more people you can call on at certain times, right? So like, if you have people that you know, again, from jobs or work or experiences, friends, family, like tap into those people, right? Come support a brother out for 2 weeks, right? Give me some orders at the door. But no, and having them tap into that, their network, right? I mean, there’s referrals, there’s guerrilla marketing. I’m saying I would again go back to the same thing. You need to get in front of as many people as you can as quickly as you can, and you need to start talking to people. If there’s an inflection, there’s a difference between commercial and residential, right? What’s turned You need 10 residential customers.

Beau Perra [01:20:29]:
Let’s turn that into 3 commercial customers, right? What are we doing to do those commercial customers? Well, we’re calling, we’re following up with an email, we’re walking in places and just really putting yourself out there is kind of the extent I would take that for sure. But yeah, I mean, 10, it can be done. I’m about to do it again. I think that getting the way we were able to do that is getting in front of people, putting ourselves at the right networking events, asking relationships, in-kind sponsorships. People think to sponsor stuff, you have to pay these ridiculous amounts of money. No, if there’s someone you can do their laundry and then you can be a sponsor, there’s auction, you can be a sponsor of an auction and do a donation. You know what I mean? There’s so many ways to put yourself out there without spending a bunch of money because these people in this situation too probably are strapped for cash, right? Because they need all these clients, they need these customers. Um, but yeah, I would say my, to boil it down without going on a tangent, like I would say like you, you need to put yourself in front of anyone and everyone you can in the next 2 weeks.

Beau Perra [01:21:34]:
Right. And you’ll be surprised just that, again, consistency of getting out there and, and putting yourself out there and putting your brand out there and it, it’ll, you’ll get there for sure.

Jordan Berry [01:21:44]:
Yeah. I love it. I mean, I think you’re, you’re dead on. I always, the way that I approach it is. I do the thought exercise of like, what if I did it would virtually guarantee that I would succeed, right? Like if I, yeah, believe that if I reached out to 1,000 people in the next 30 days, do I think that I could get 1% of them to, right. You know, to, to, to do laundry, right? Like if, if no, then, you know, what if I reached out to 10,000? What if I got in front of 10,000 people? How could I get in front of 10,000 people?

Beau Perra [01:22:15]:
Right.

Jordan Berry [01:22:16]:
Like, so, It’s, it’s, I love what you’re saying because it, to me, most of the time it’s just a volume thing, right? When I talk to consulting clients or somebody and they’re like, hey, I can’t find a laundromat for sale. And I’m like, okay, well, how many brokers have you called? How many direct mail letters have you sent? Right? And a lot of times it’s like, well, I just, I browsed on BizBuySell. Right? And I’m like, well, you and everybody else in their underwear Home and couch, right? Yeah.

Beau Perra [01:22:46]:
Yeah. I talk about relationships, right? Like, no one knows you. Do you be interested, like popping up at a chamber event, you’re meeting a realtor that literally sells 30 houses a month. That one relationship could get you thousands of dollars in customers. You just don’t know. You know what I mean? So I would say taking every, I’ll go back to a story that happened just a long time ago in a whole different industry. We were doing social media management or we were doing print advertising. We were selling essentially like print space for advertising and just like a direct mailer.

Beau Perra [01:23:19]:
And the gentleman went in, we talked to him, basically he was like, no on the spot. And then we were going to call him back and offer him a discounted rate. And he called back and actually bought like a year’s worth of ads. And so like understanding to like, I guess what I’m trying to say about this is like, you never know what’s behind like a conversation, you know? And then like, Again, letting people come back to it and every conversation is worth a million dollars. And so understanding that the more people you talk to, yeah, the deeper network you get, that’s where you don’t even, that’s where you turn outbound into inbound, right? Obviously the ultimate goal for any business is zero outbound, 100% inbound as far as customers, clients, right? But knowing that those, that comes through strong relationship building and And it, you know, as a business owner, if you’re not prepared to build relationships, like you should, I truly think you should think about something else because like that is every part of business is relationships for sure. Customer, that goes down to residential, to commercial, to like literally anything.

Jordan Berry [01:24:23]:
Anything. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Such good advice, man. All right. My very last question I have for you is people are vibing with this thing. What’s the best way they can connect with you?

Beau Perra [01:24:34]:
Yeah, I love it. Lottas Laundry, L-O-T-T-A-S Laundry. We’re on Instagram. Yeah. And then we have our website. Go check our website out. Without giving too big of a call, we work more specifically with consulting as well on branding and what that can do for your business. And yeah, we’d love to chat if you’re, even if you’re having this kind of reflection point of like, where should I go? We’re always here to chat for sure.

Beau Perra [01:25:01]:
Just hit us up on Instagram. Yeah, that’s the best place to find us.

Jordan Berry [01:25:06]:
Love it, man. Love it. Well, listen, I appreciate you taking the time to come back and catch us up over the last year. I know it’s been a very eventful year, a lot of growing pains, but listen, man, it sounds like you’ve laid that foundation to really, you know, take, take the leap to that next level. And it’s just all natural part of that growth.

Beau Perra [01:25:31]:
Yeah, 2026, they, they yearn the horse. We’re ready to just—

Jordan Berry [01:25:35]:
that’s right, get running.

Beau Perra [01:25:38]:
That’s right, that’s right. Cool. Jordan, hey, thank you again.

Jordan Berry [01:25:41]:
Yeah, well, hey, maybe we need to do, uh, an update in 2027 around this time, our yearly recap. Just an annual update of, you know, until you run the whole country.

Beau Perra [01:25:56]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [01:25:56]:
So yeah.

Beau Perra [01:25:57]:
Sweet, man.

Jordan Berry [01:25:58]:
Appreciate it. All right, man. Appreciate it. And, uh, hey, you’re welcome here anytime. You don’t have to wait a year. Uh, you can always, you can always do something fun together.

Beau Perra [01:26:06]:
So appreciate it. Awesome. Well, we’ll talk soon.

Jordan Berry [01:26:08]:
All right. I hope you love that episode with Beau. So much good stuff. Uh, like I said, he has been learning some tough lessons because his business has been growing so much. It hurts. Incredible.. And hey, wouldn’t we all like that, that problem to solve, right? Uh, but some really valuable lessons he’s been learning along the way. So again, I’m going to say it, pick one thing, put it into action, do it today if at all possible.

Jordan Berry [01:26:36]:
And if not today, do it this week for sure. And we’ll see you in the next one for some more action that you can take towards your goals. All right. All right. Let’s do it.

Beau Perra [01:26:47]:
See ya.

Jordan Berry [01:26:47]:
Peace.