Have you ever wondered if it is possible to manage a laundromat remotely while still benefitting from the incredible perks of this business? Or, do you just want more free time while still owning a thriving business? Well Thomas Landenberger has the answer for you!
Thomas owns several small laundries where he lives with his family in Italy. He also owns a laundromat in Florida with a partner, who lives in San Francisco! How do they do it? In today’s show Thomas lays out exactly how he’s able to own and operate a laundromat on the opposite side of the world from him.
He’s convinced that if he can do, so can you! And in this show Thomas shows you how! In this episode Thomas talks about:
- Italian laundromats!
- How he found his Florida laundromat
- How he manages his Florida laundromat from Italy
- The benefits and downfalls of partnerships
- How to get started with owning laundromats remotely
- Books he has read that have helped him succeed in his laundromat businesses
- How he supports veterans with his laundromat
- And much more!
Thomas also shares his secret sauce to running a laundry business remotely and gives tips to new and first time investors on how to succeed in the laundromat industry. In addition, Thomas shares specific books he recommends that you read to help you succeed in life and in business (Links below).
Don’t miss this potentially life-changing episode of the Laundromat Resource Podcast!
Listen To The Podcast Here
Watch The Podcast Here
Today's Sponsor
Laundromat Resource Marketing– If you need help building or managing a website for your laundromats, let the experts at Laundromat Resource Marketing help you design and build a custom, professional website for you! As experts in the laundromat industry AND in web design and online marketing, we at Laundromat Resource Marketing are able to provide you with a professional website at an affordable price. We’re always transparent so there are no hidden fees. What we quote you is what you pay. Satisfaction and performance guaranteed! With no contracts to sign and guarantees like that, why not let us take care of your online presence while you focus on welcoming all of your new laundry customers? Click the logo or link above to find out more information.
Thomas's Recommended Resources
(May contain affiliate links that help support Laundromat Resource with no extra cost to you.)
Laundromat Resource Forums
Start Your Own Corporation: Why the Rich Own Their Own Corporations and Everyone Else Works for Them
Rich Dad, Poor Dad
Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done
The One Thing
The Go Getter
Total Money Makeover
The 4 Disciplines of Execution
Connect with Thomas
Email: info@veteranscoinlaundry.com
Social Media: @vetscoinlaundry
Tuscan Short Term Rental: mytuscanrental.com
Join The Laundromat Resource Community!
Episode Transcript
hey what’s up guys it’s jordan with the
laundromat resource
podcast this is show number 26 and i am
pumped that you’re here today
because today we are not only going
international but we are going remote
laundromat
ownership with thomas i this is
something that i’ve been looking forward
to
for a long time i needed some answers
and thomas delivered he more than
delivered i think you’re gonna love
love love this episode super cool guy
doing some super cool stuff and he tells
you exactly how he’s doing it
uh you are going to be pumped so
i don’t want to take too much time shout
out to dan on youtube who does not like
the little intro part uh but
uh i i just i did want to highlight one
thing on the forum
joe uh over there is i had a question on
the forums about how to
find um hire and manage employees he’s
taken over a laundromat he needs to
completely uh switch out his
employees and wanted some tips on how to
do that well
and how to manage those employees well
so if you’ve got some tips for them head
over to londonmyresource.com
forums and help joe out again every week
go over there ask a question
answer question and real quick i did
also want to say that we
have been having all kinds of website
problems this week so if you
have tried to sign up on the buyers list
this last week
i know we were having problems with that
those should be fixed now so go
uh re-sign up if you need to on that
and we had to kind of put up a temporary
home page i mean we had all kinds of
problems things were running slow
i get it we’re working on it sorry about
that if you have been
on there and been frustrated with our
website
we’re in the same boat join the club uh
we’ve been frustrated too but we’re
getting things fixed and hopefully it’ll
all be squared away so make sure you
come join us
laudermintresource.com join come be a
part of the community
super cool stuff happening over there
there’s there’s a lot of us over there
right now
uh it’s been very very cool to see that
so come join us and i don’t i mean
there’s a ton of stuff we can talk about
but because of dan we’re gonna just jump
right into it today
dan enjoy man uh brief brief ad
uh for the marketing and then we’re
going to jump
into it with thomas who is coming to us
from
italy and owns a laundromat in florida
blows my mind and he’s going to tell you
all about it
get excited we’ll see on the other side
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[Music]
thomas hey how is it going man thank you
for coming on the show
no thanks for the invite jordan uh yeah
i didn’t uh didn’t imagine that i’d be
on a podcast for laundromat resource
yeah especially a world famous
outside of antarctica podcast i mean
this is it’s crazy yeah
still working on antarctica still
working on an article yeah you’ll get
there you’ll get there yeah maybe there
might be
some scientists that might you know be
listening you know you never know
we’re we’re a weird niche people i mean
we we are a very unique people that’s
a good point that’s funny well hey man i
am super super excited about today uh
you got a very very
unique and very cool thing going on and
i want to hear
all about it but before we get into it
tell us a little bit about you and who
you are and
and a little bit about your background
hey uh
name’s tom landenberger um what else i’m
48 years old you know
married three kids uh live in italy at
the moment
i’ve been here about 20 years i was in
the uh
marine corps reserves from 91 to 98
and uh you know when you’re in the
recruiter’s office the
recruiter promises to show you the world
and what you know the marine corps
showed me the hottest deserts in
california in the coldest winters in
wisconsin so
after what left it so in august of 98 i
decided that i uh you know i think i’ve
had enough
strapped on a backpack and traveled
around the world for about three and a
half years
just backpacking throughout europe
western europe
eastern europe uh the middle east and
then
south pacific you know new zealand
australia south pacific islands samoa
cook islands what have you so and then
in 99 i think it ended up i think i need
to stop the interview now like i’m just
the envy is just rising up in me right
now
i don’t know if i can handle i think i
just need to cut this off i can’t
because i know it only gets better from
there so
all right sorry yeah it gets better yeah
no worries yeah so ended up meeting an
italian girl when i was working at an
italian restaurant
in greece in 90 well i was there and i
worked in 98 and in 2000
so uh 2001 i can’t remember the dates
anymore too long ago i’m getting old
but uh anyway i thought i was forever
going to be a bachelor
hop skipping around the globe chasing
summer and uh
ended up putting the roots firmly down
here in italy
marrying an italian having kids and uh
starting off with businesses here
uh yeah started off initially with uh
a pastry shop like the local starbucks
type deal you know and uh
in a decent area and ended up
they have a great saying here in italy
it’s uh
partnerships are better in
odd numbers and three is too many
meaning that i had a uh i had a business
partner that was pocketing money so i
decided it’s better to go on
just doing stuff by myself oh man that’s
a really funny saying
and it rings really true it should be a
saying everywhere
yeah it is but i mean i’m lucky enough
to with my laundromat in in
the state side i do have a partner and i
mean the laundry is
the same partner but then but we’ve been
on we’ve been good friends since college
so
that makes a big it’s who you can trust
so yeah
uh yeah so what else after the pastry
shop sold the pastry shop
my half um bought a dilapidated old
tuscan farmhouse
uh without a roof or windows uh anything
like that and
made that into a uh i don’t know if
you’ve read the book under the tuscan
sun that’s kind of what or seen the
movie that’s kind of what i
did so with an old tuscan farmhouse
remodeled it and
put it into uh two apartments to rent
out and our home
so and uh so you’re living in
how do i countries yeah
that’s that that’s yeah i live in the
tuscan countryside so but i mean it’s
not
all it’s not all bells and whistles
either you know
it’s fun when you see a country through
the uh tourist sunglasses
but uh once you pick a country just put
your feet down
you know there’s always going to be
pluses and minuses of wherever you live
so for sure yeah for sure
wow so yeah it’s uh yeah i’m a busy guy
in the uh i have what i’ve called uh
i have shiny object syndrome so you know
once yeah
once i started so after this after i got
done with the project of the uh
you know remodeling this old tuscan
farmhouse i did all the demolition
myself and designed it myself and what
have you had you know obviously had
masons because i’m not a bricklayer by
any means
but uh had people to help me out with
that
um so after it was done and up and
running it was probably 2012
and 2012 2013. and started looking for
more shiny objects and i would take my
oldest daughter to school you know every
morning
and pick her up and what have you and i
would drive by in
an empty storefront and i was sitting
there
looking at this empty storefront it’s
like what can i do with this storefront
and when i had the pastry shop i had met
a
uh an american who came over here for uh
college needed a laundromat didn’t find
one so
he became a speed queen and the only
speed queen importer
in italy and he opened up launch mat
chain so when i saw that empty
storefront
i thought about hey i gotta go find that
guy
you know found him and that’s uh that’s
what got me on the path of uh
laundromats wow wow
it’s just it’s so crazy like where life
takes you
oh it is yeah it’s um but it’s it’s i
mean i can
well it’s okay it’s that empty
storefront that i saw that i decided to
put a launch right in there but what
gave me the idea to put the lawn right
in there is uh
i mean reading a little purple books
called rich dad poor dad i don’t know if
you’ve read it i don’t know
a lot of people yeah so it’s just
one of those things and what i took away
from that
is uh everyone’s got ideas
and we all have these uh at least goals
and what have you but
sometimes they stay as dreams but i mean
there’s like one word and that’s
there’s only one word that’s that that
you need to uh act on and that is
action if you don’t put anything into
action these things will just stay as
dreams and goals
and and and it’s like someone keeps
moving the goal line
as life continues you still think of
that dream
but uh yeah if you don’t work if you
don’t act on it
it just doesn’t happen yeah i love love
love that
that’s i mean because that is the key
and it’s so easy to get
you know just caught up in the research
and the learning
and the idea of creation and i i love
like i’m an idea guy
you know putting my nose to the
grindstone and and grinding things out
is not
easy for me i love people with ideas but
like you said they don’t get you
anywhere if you don’t take action on
them
and so yeah i love you exactly i love
that
i’m i’m definitely an idea guy too i
mean often times well even the uh
you just sometimes i sleep with a
notebook next to me so like when i wake
up in the middle of the night
i’m like the next morning after like
what did i write here and i got these
chicken scratches but you know that’s
but that’s how my laundromat was born in
in the u.s
it’s uh i went to u.s after
we had two laundromats here we were
looking for a third
location here um didn’t quite find
anything
i was getting it was a cold winter what
have you so i decided i told my wife i’m
like hey
listen you need to authorize me
gotta ask the wife you need to authorize
me for a one month trip i’m going to
florida i’m going to see if i can find
something to do there
and i thought it was going to be maybe
investing in a small
fourplex or you know small multi-family
something like that
because i didn’t know maybe my daughters
want to go to a university
in the states and you know just thought
it’d be good to get a foot on that side
to uh hedge my bets i got all my eggs in
one basket here in italy if the euro
were to you know fall apart if the
european union were to
you know break up with you know brexit
has now happened i didn’t even think
about that you know
five years ago of course um yeah so
these type of things and i was there
and so like i said looking for small
multi-family property
uh when i would see a laundromat i would
stop look you know
usually in a strip mall stop the rental
car get out
go inside have a look and you know maybe
take an idea back here to where i had
laundromats
and i came across one in uh you know
it’s in mayport florida it’s a
jacksonville beach so it’s right on
right off the on the intercoastal side
you know on the
beach side and uh went to open the door
and it was locked and
in the bottom corner of the door i kid
you not was a three by five note card i
mean this is and it said four lease
yeah i mean i mean a three by five note
card wasn’t that aggressive
exactly so yeah so anyway
the laundry had been closed for about
six years maybe seven yeah from what
they told me
and uh yeah it was just a zombie map
just just sitting there with all the old
top loaders and
the old everything was there and i
kind of thought i’m like you know what i
think i just found my
you know the diamond in the rough here
uh i don’t need to recreate the wheel i
know what i’m doing with laundromats
why don’t i open up a laundromat here in
the states and that was it
full speed ahead shiny object found and
you know just needed to polish it up
pursued
exactly well that’s i mean that’s a wild
story because
i can see like an average person
maybe you own i want to get i want to go
back in a second
because we’ve got to talk about
laundromats in italy but i can see
somebody in your shoes owns a couple
laundromats
comes out to the states looking for
their next shiny object
finds a laundromat says yep this is an
awesome shiny object
and that’s where it stops because
there’s a lot of obstacles that you had
to overcome
you know i mean yeah including an ocean
right like you’ve got
some big obstacles to make that happen
so i want to go back and get into that
and how you kind of started to overcome
those obstacles
in a second there’s a little teaser if i
had a commercial to put in i put it in
right here
um you need a sponsor i need a sponsor
yeah veterans coin laundry mate board
but i want to go back so okay so
you own laundromats also in italy so
you’re you’re an
international laundromat owner incorrect
i just let’s just call it like it is
international laundromat owner i don’t
know if there are too many of those
out there yeah ma’am maybe not yeah i
like it
i’m a pretty unique person yeah
okay so oh go ahead yeah the
so the launch mats here um so after
seeing that empty storefront
decided to open up the launch right
there and a laundromat here is i mean
one two i don’t know what is it one a
quarter of the size of a small
laundromat in the u.s i mean
my first laundromat had four washers so
two
20 pounders and two 40 pounders speed
cleans
and two stack dryers a 30 pounder and a
45 pounder stack
so that’s it you know four washers and
four dryers
change machine yeah which is here
there’s it’s a cash point really so you
uh
i like this system here it works out
really well people it’s just one
cash point and they put they press the
number of the machine that their clothes
are in and the machine starts
so it’s uh but you can the maximum you
can have 12 machines so
yeah yeah so but
uh yeah so then the second one was uh we
thought was going to be maybe a year
later and it ended up being two years
practically because uh
the we couldn’t find for the second
location we were looking for another
place to rent and we just couldn’t find
a place to rent
because it’s kind of difficult here with
the i mean
if you’ve ever been to europe you know
most of the
town centers they’re in very old cities
so it’s not it’s not like you can just
vent 20 dryers
outside of a building you know just like
the normal drive yeah so
they all go into one chimney and then
the chimney
you know has to per italian law has to
exhaust at the top of the roof so
we could not find a place to rent in the
different this town that we were looking
in and i
ended up just happening to see a uh a
closed garage door
would you know i knew there was must
have been a store there at one point
because on the outside of it i saw there
was a small
chimney that was coming out so they must
have had a wood-burning stove or
something in there at one point
so we’re talking maybe a six-inch pipe
that was going up to the roof
but i knew with that it was
grandfathered in and then i could make
it
i could get it authorized to get
expanded into a bigger one
and that’s a one foot so yeah that’s so
and then we ended up buying that
building because the guy did not want to
rent it out anymore he was elderly he
said no
i will uh i just want to sell it so gave
him a lowball offer
and he took it and he he’s still to this
day if i see him on the
face when i see him on the streets he’s
like you really low-balled me
like you didn’t have to accept
so that’s funny so yeah and so that
second year was
we bought the building and then it took
us another you know a couple months to
get the financing to
put the machines into that one yeah so
do you own two
in italy uh you own that was two and
then we opened up the third one
uh in the perfect timing of covid you
know march of this year
we uh got a third location under our
belt yeah
literally perfect timing oh yeah i mean
you want to talk about a slow summer
wow okay oh my gosh i mean it’s seasonal
as
it is we’re here in italy it’s very
seasonal
um because i mean it’s so hot in the
summer that people
just you know if you throw some sheets
outside they’re drying literally and
it’s put them away and that’s it so yeah
it’s mainly a winter
winter activity which is fine because
with my holiday rental uh apartments
here at my home um that’s only busy in
summer so i
with two businesses i kind of created
one job
really yeah i mean it’s kind of nice i
always say there’s a lot of
uh synergy between real estate and
and laundromats and that’s that can be
one of the ways that
there’s some synergy there so that’s
pretty cool yeah yeah yeah it works out
really well
yeah so three locations in italy
correct and so well tell tell us just a
little bit about like how
how big are each of these so square
footage
well a square meters wise they’re about
40 square meters so
um i think there’s like nine square feet
in one square meter so 350 square feet
maybe
gee so that’s what they are i mean the
third location that we just bought is
much larger
but because i it was the only place i
found right that i could get the
authorization to put the chimney in or
what have you and
it’s big enough to where i can have an
office now and
make a happy wife happy life so she can
have her dining table
back you know dining room table where i
usually have all my my laptop and
piles and piles of paper yeah so
so yeah the the newer location we just
started small i
found a uh about all used machines that
i found a woman up in milan
that had been open maybe three years and
she just didn’t want to do it anymore
what she said so i picked up
three-year-old dexter equipment and
threw it in there the other the other
two laundromats are speed queen
so but uh both both great brands
can’t cannot complain and i mean with
the the usage that they get over here
is not the usage that they get in the
states so i mean these are like lifetime
purchases i mean there’s
very rarely there might be what is going
wrong
practically nothing knock on wood here
for one second you know right
but yeah exactly you know a little
thermostat here or
whatever but nothing major yeah
man that’s uh yeah that’s
really awesome and it’s it it gets more
and more exotic sounding too you’re like
yeah i’m in the tuscan
countryside i bought some washing
machines from lady and milan
and they’re just rubbing it in right now
well that’s what you got to do you got
to be hungry i mean yeah i knew
that to open the third location i knew
that i didn’t
want to go all new machines anymore
you know i’m just like you know that’s
just such a big hit
over here because uh they’re expensive
there’s the import fees and not because
they’re all
made in the usa you know and if you’re
the export
import fees and what have you so i
decided that it would have been better
just to pick up something that was
already here
so let’s see myself like again saved a
ton of money on that which allowed
more for the build out and the you know
leaving room for
expansion and then more machines in that
third launch map
so it’s uh but we’ll see i mean it’s
just starting to take off now
it’s been october’s like when we start
to pick up here so
which is good how many machines did you
end up putting in
that third location i just have a
20 pounder 30 pounder and a 40 pound
washer
okay and i have two 30 pound
dryers single pockets and a stack 50
pound
so
that’s cool sorry okay that’s okay i
mean it’s just so crazy
how different like i the trend that i
see here at least here in l.a and a lot
of the larger metros at least is these
you know six 8 000 square foot
laundromats going in and they’re
stuffing them to the gills with
equipment and you’re over here with like
yeah i have like three washers in mine
yeah that’s a crazy different business
model
it is yeah but yeah but for me to i mean
we always said that we needed my
business partner tonight he’s my friend
of mine he lives in
san francisco here at bay area and uh
to make it i mean they’re not like huge
money earners you know
we don’t pay off the debt and then you
know after the death paid off then you
start
cash one decent but uh you know what we
we just always when we get to that point
we then we go to another location and
then we get to that point and then we
open up another location so we’re always
yeah which is fine you know and
because once you get like i said if we
get the 10 of these little ones over
here
then that’s gonna be great yeah oh yeah
yeah and
i mean i think that’s i think having
that mindset i mean going back to kind
of rich dad poor dad but having that
mindset where you’re collecting those
assets like if you don’t need that cash
flow right now
and roll them back in and have
you know you got leverage working for
you you got compounding working for you
and
you have businesses working for you
other people’s money working for you so
i mean you just have a lot of things you
know working together
to really you know compile wealth
relatively quickly
by doing it that way yeah that’s exactly
i mean i had a australian uh tourist
that came here a couple years ago
and his situation was the same as mine
and he said it perfectly he goes yes i’m
asked it rich and cash poor
i’m like yeah that’s exactly me i just
every time i get cash i put it into
another asset
so i mean if you look at my pockets i
got nothing but
i i get the satisfaction i mean there’s
nothing i don’t know how it is for you
but i love
collecting you know i love collection
day love opening up that cash
and going gosh look at all of this money
i mean when i was a little kid
and one of my grandma’s you know and
after church on sundays we would go to
the bakery the italian bakery actually
and we got out of the car and i found i
opened the door
looked down on the ground and i find an
1888
organ silver dollar on the ground you
know
and ever since that day i’ve just been
addicted to like coin collecting and
you know anything to do with anything
numismatically coins what have you and
i mean i love collecting back back to
the state side at the laundry right
there because that’s all
dollar coins and quarters you know so
here it’s a bit
less it’s all bills over here which is
which is fine but
yeah it’s just another it just makes you
feel like a kid
i mean it just puts me back to being
seven years old finding that coin on the
ground
is what i feel like every time that i go
and empty out my cash routines so yeah
yeah so cool i have a little box right
behind me
kind of here on youtube it’s right here
and in that box i put
all the interesting like coins i get all
the silver quarters i get
and all the yep you know whatever kind
of comes through i have you know coins
from all over the world that
are quarter-ish size that ended up in my
machines and
just sure i mean it’s just kind of cool
to you know to see what comes through
and
uh yeah pretty cool yeah i do the same
thing
yeah do the same thing i mean
unfortunately there’s no silver coinage
over here that would work
yeah just once they change the euro and
that’s not going to happen though i do
get excited every time i find a silver
quarter back home though
not often enough well okay so i mean
pretty cool you have these
you know smaller locations and you’re
starting to stack them on top of each
other
and uh you know in italy and
how how far apart are they by the way
like distance wise um
about three miles apart each one oh
two to two to three miles so pretty
close so my house is like more or less
in the middle then i have one up a hill
and then one down the hill and then
another about two miles away from that
one
so uh and all in little town little
towns yeah so yeah
easy i mean that’s what i think uh that
i do have one
competitor um in between
my laundromats and uh but it’s not like
i want to put them out of business by no
means but
it’s just that my service i think coming
over here with an
american attitude and work ethic towards
service
yeah uh in italy services sometimes left
by the wayside so
i mean as soon as someone calls me i’m
i’m like okay i’ll be there in five
minutes
more or less you know i’m free enough
being self-employed that
if something happens i just drop what
i’m doing and go and uh that
wins me over a lot of customers yeah so
yeah
my my experiences in italy is you know
it’s just a different kind of pace of
life and different
priorities you know it’s not you know
here especially here in california but i
think
in the states in general i mean you know
it’s
a now me now culture and you know there
like you go out to eat and you just kind
of hang out
for a while until you get your food and
then expect you to keep
hanging out while you’re eating and
after you’re eating yeah yeah
no one’s going to kick you up off the
table yeah exactly just stay as long as
you want
right so yeah yeah i can see where
coming in with a
hey i’ll be right there to help you out
would be appealing
you know in a culture where you know you
could make that call and somebody get
there in an hour
or two or next week
i think that’s cool cool little
competitive advantage
um so but you should probably look at
you know picking that
that location that competitor’s location
up to and just oh
i i i have i believe yeah i mean and
at the moment the the building that
because the my competitor is
leasing you know the space and the the
four walls are for sale
the owner wants too much so i thought
that would have been a nice thing
becoming the landlord of your competitor
check out that rent until he leaves i
foresee
a rent increase yes that’s what i was
forcing
[Laughter]
i love that that’s pretty funny you will
have to we’ll see if that ends up
happening because i will
yeah i’m gonna try well i’m actually
gonna approach him um
i think at the end of this win the end
of this year and because he’s he’s
getting
elder and he’s up there now too so just
going to just try and see if he wants to
sell
yeah and he has another location a bit
farther away
which would be fine that would be jump
jump us to four and five right away
yeah yeah cool yeah okay
well i mean very cool to get
you know just a little snippet of you
know what it’s like to
own laundromats in italy i mean that’s
that’s pretty cool i had i have never
talked to anybody else who’s owned
a lot of mats and it is pretty cool and
as far as day to day i mean really i
mean
could i could just go you know once a
week to collect
you know but i you know i drive by one
on my way to bring my daughters to the
train station so they can go to school
in
florence so then i stopped by and you
know clean it
before covid hit in march i did have a
guy that would do the cleaning and
closing but just because you know with
uh
it being illegal for you know the
lockdown i mean
italy was very strict at the beginning
so it was essentially
i mean laundromats over here were deemed
essential
but you didn’t have any customers
because it was illegal for people to
leave their homes
right so yeah so i did so i
had set up all these systems because for
me i’m a system guy
as i had the first when i opened that
first launch mat here
i did we opened it i think march and
i opened opened cleaned and closed it
because i think
any business owner should be the jack of
all trades you should know how to do
everything from a to z and whatever
business that you are
going to be doing so i did that for six
months
i opened it and cleaned it
for like three months i said man i don’t
want to be going down there
twice a day and got to close it at 11
p.m so
i said they call the security company
got them to close it
and then uh so my wife says well you’re
so lazy it’s just it’s you have one
laundromat and it’s just down the hill
why don’t you just go every night and
close it i’m like well because
when i have 10 laundromats i’m not going
to be able to be in 10 places at the
same time i got to put a system into
place
and then september came along and i’m
like you know what it’s been six months
and i’m cleaning that freaking place and
opening it so called the guy and said
hey
hired a guy that would go and open it
clean it
and that was it so i pulled the plug and
that was i would go once a month or i’m
sorry once a week and just collect
and uh then when the second location
came on you know the gentleman said yeah
i would like to do the second location
when the third location came on he said
yeah i want to do that
but because of covet i ended up taking
all the duties back
and when you know i think probably at
the end of this year once
if we can ever get out of this mess that
we’re in yeah then i’ll just
plug him back in and plug and play and
then that’s it i pulled himself out of
the equation again
so very important to get those systems
into place i agree i agree and
especially
you know i think when you’re you know
you’ve got some remote businesses too so
let’s chat about that
i mean i think a lot of people well i’ll
just speak for myself i’m really curious
as to
you know how this all played out from
that three by five card taped in the
bottom of the window to you
now and now you’re looking at
potentially maybe a second location
you know remotely so talk to me about
that
okay so after the three by five card in
the jacksonville
um took about nine ten months with lease
negotiations with the landlord so that
it took a while
yeah which was fine it was in no rush i
mean if it happened it happened if it
didn’t hey
okay levy uh we
uh when we got the financing we went
with dexter because uh
that’s i don’t know just who we got
financing approved by
put in all new machines total renew
build out
um i did end up going back for that i
was back about three months
doing i did a lot of the stuff myself
obviously the uh
the mounting of the machines what have
you that was the distributorship laundry
pro of florida who uh had a great great
uh relationship with carlos and ron
the owner um can can’t say uh
a bad word about it can really help me
out
and it was even they they were part of
the plan with me you know being the
remote you know they gave me ideas on
you know how to set it up if we were
going to go with the card store if we
weren’t
you know i wanted to do card store
because i figured that would just take
out all the uh
the problems with cash and collections
and what have you
but as we were sitting in you know the
area that my laundry mat is in
you know i’m sitting with the the
distributor and
he says to me uh you start looking at
people just in the strip mall he’s like
think that person has a credit card i’m
like um no
think that person has a credit card i
said probably not and he said
you think you want to go all card that’s
like no
so and at that point we went with uh i’m
in x drops
with the dollar and quarter acceptance
just for the fact that uh
with with today’s big machines now so
you get the 60 pounders that are costing
eight bucks you know people don’t want
to be chucking 32 quarters into
a lot of corners so it’s a lot it really
is a lot of quarters
so yeah we went with the dual coin drops
um dexter has a app
so now we are able to take credit card
payments that they rolled out i don’t
know if you know about it dexter pay
yeah which worked out it was really easy
for us to jump on board with that
to the fact that we got all that and
without without the
40 grand invested into uh credit card
readers
yeah and like i said with that
with learning about putting systems into
place with the three little laundromats
over here
i mean my business partner and i knew we
were gonna have to put some serious
systems
for uh for jacksonville um
and while doing we uh you know we just
needed to find a
honest person money manager so we do
have a manager over there
we started out with uh just going
we were open uh typical i think what
seven until 10 p.m because when you
spend 300 grand
it’s you know we the idea was to go 24
hours but when you really put that kind
of money into it and you’re like
do i really just want to leave the door
open on
300k you know it just doesn’t make sense
so
it took us uh probably a good six months
i was backing i think yeah it was six
months after we opened i was probably
there in september of
2018 and uh
i just called my business partner up i
said listen i think we should do 24
hours i sound like
the machines they’re six months old you
know the the
a bit of a lure has worn off i’m like
when i go home
tomorrow flying back family i’m just
gonna leave the door open
and that’s it we’re doing 24 hours so we
set it up with the you know people what
have you
but yeah and since then it’s been
phenomenal
i mean that i cut out the guy that had
to be there twice a day to open it and
to close it and so
all these little things that we learned
here we had to put in the place there
yeah yeah is it uh is it an unintended
store or
partially attended um we i mean we tried
well it was unattended at the beginning
after six months
i said okay let’s get there i built out
a corner of the store for
wash dry fold okay um we had
attendance for oh i’d say about a year
but
with they weren’t very proactive
um i don’t know it’s it’s a work ethic
i don’t know what it is but it just was
a difficult situation
it was costing us so much in payroll
that we weren’t even be able to cover
the payroll with the service that they
were doing
and at the end of it because you
you really need to be on top of uh your
wash rifle
employees i mean there’s just too many
opportunities for money to go missing
so yeah yeah so at the end pulled the
plug on the employees
found a woman who wanted to run her own
business out of there because that’s
what i was looking for at that point he
said listen i don’t care
i don’t want to deal with it it’s not
that much income i don’t that we’re
gonna be
missing so on a woman
she did that for about nine months she
just left last month
um so now we are unattended again but
just gonna
do that same that same system need to
find an
entrepreneurial minded person to do
their wash dry fold in there they don’t
paint well their rent is
cleaning the machines you know that’s it
right yeah so yeah
yeah it’s a good deal for somebody who’s
interested in doing
something like that exactly you need to
find yeah
go ahead how’d you find her out of
curiosity uh
just i think uh word of mouth from
the guy who’s uh my manager though
i don’t know if it was from someone that
he knew in their church or whatever so
yeah okay
cool and you’re i mean you’ve mentioned
your business partner a couple of times
and
it sounds like a really good partnership
is he is that the one that’s in san
francisco area
yeah he’s uh he’s in the
assuming he was there at the location
and you were no no no no
okay yeah so how did you find this man i
mean because the key to your whole
operation is having a good manager right
because you guys can
absolutely so how do you find a good
manager tell us the secret
oh the secret there um that is just fate
i mean literally fate found a
an extremely honest guy but
entrepreneurial minded
likes you know we just clicked yeah i
met him
uh when i was back at the laundromat in
florida
for whatever a week or whatever you know
checking out because i would fly back
every once every two months
just to double check on things and uh
now with covet i haven’t been back since
february but uh
the met him he was just you know a
student that was
living in an apartment near the
laundromat uh he was getting his
master’s degree
in marketing her business no business
degree business
this is master’s degree thinking
marketing actually and uh
we got chatting what have you and then
uh ended up
didn’t think about approaching him as
being a manager by no means
and uh ended up running into him at the
supermarket the next day
and we were chatting again more and
asked him and he’s like well how about
me you know i asked if he knew anyone
you know
he said i said sounds like a plan and
that was it
so he’s been fantastic yeah i hope he
you know i mean
we’re just his side hustle you know but
yeah
yeah and that’s really cool so okay so
you
just kind of it was just kind of fake
you didn’t you know you were just kind
of putting the word out there
and seeing exactly i mean which is key i
mean that’s
that’s really what it comes down to most
times you gotta let people know what you
want
otherwise how are they gonna know what
you want right so
yeah exactly yeah so that’s good okay so
what what exactly is he doing for you is
he the one
kind of cleaning or is he hiring
somebody to clean is
um well we had when i had the wash dry
full
woman there she would do the cleaning he
was just you know
any kind of maybe customer problems
refunds you know bigger
anything he would go do the you know
deposits at the bank
he does you know the coin boxes
collections um
any of that kind of stuff but uh just
recently
he’s uh because i can’t get back i’ve
uh expanded his uh role i mean
with his request also i mean so what
he’s ended up doing is now
uh he’s created his own business uh for
like
he does all the accounting now so
they’re taking care of
and he’s also taking care of the
cleaning so not himself
but that’s part of his services are
providing accounting services
and the cleaning janitorial services so
he finds a guy who’s
cleaning which is which is great for me
because i
i couldn’t be bothered with that i mean
it was so difficult to have to find
someone and then
go you know just yeah so now that’s off
my plate
yeah i pay him more he’s hey if we can
all make money i’m happy
you know i love that because it you know
not only is that helping you you know
obviously
you know run a business remotely i mean
which is huge
but the way that you set it up either on
purpose or an accident or however it
worked out
you know it’s allowing him to you know
explore
his entrepreneurship also and create
businesses that hopefully he’ll be able
to you know utilize with other
other owners so if you’re in jackson
exactly hey exactly i’m well i’m i’m
yeah i’m thinking you know if the second
location maybe he’s gonna be a partner
into that one you never know i mean
for this uh i mean he asked me if he
could put a uh
a vending machine so that’s his side
hustle now he’s got
so he took on the the the accounting
services for this
and you know i let him have a vending
machine
selling uh you know just snacks and
drinks and what have you right
and you know for he deducts a couple
hundred bucks off of the uh
the invoice for the rent for the machine
and what have you so yeah so that’s his
side hustles now he’s you know that
entrepreneurial mind you know he’s like
hey i noticed you don’t have a vending
machine in there can i put it i’m like
yeah i don’t i can’t have one
if i’m in my if i lived back in florida
okay i might have a vending machine
because then i would stock it
you know but i can’t be bothered with
that so yeah it’s just too hard to
you don’t want to fly i can’t even
imagine stocking
yeah exactly yeah just let me just take
that you know fifteen hundred dollar
flight back to me yeah
well that’s cool well okay but i mean
here’s
here’s the question that it begs in in
my view right okay so you have this
manager
he has a lot of control over a lot of
your
business right your success largely
depends on you and we’ve already talked
systems so
yeah talk to me i mean i guess
specifically the one that jumps out of
me the most is
you know collections how how are you
kind of monitoring that are you able to
monitor that at all
um yeah down down to literally the
quarter
okay well tell me about that yeah um
with the new machines i mean speed queen
or dexter
they all have the capabilities now so i
just pop on the app
look on you know dexter live i know
exactly how much has come in that week
um i can do an audit on the
when we put the changer in i had the
the company and it’s american changer i
had them put a
board in there that i can access
remotely so i know exactly how much
money is in my change machine at any one
time
i know how much money came in i know how
much money
he collected if it’s off i would say but
it’s always spot on
so it just takes you know it’s once a
week
when i know that they’ve deposited i get
sent they they deposit it i look
what it is and that’s it and i mean sure
it might be you know
is there a little bit of a difference of
course because maybe you know i’m
looking at it
at 12 o’clock and at noon and maybe they
did the collections at 10 so from 10 a.m
to noon
but come on where it’s minimal so yeah
yeah well i mean i think that’s i think
that’s huge because that really is the
key and i think that’s been
one of the big obstacles to doing some
something like this
for laundromat owners for a really long
time is
you know how do you how can you manage
it remotely and
give up control over part of the
business that frankly
launder my owners are reluctant for good
reason to to give over to someone else
but also have not really been able to do
that with
any kind of certainty that somebody’s
not ripping them off right
and because it’s just yeah sure exactly
yeah
so i’m sure the temptation is there you
know but i mean i
he even sees it you know as the stepping
stone
you know this opportunity that has
presented him with you know
essentially being a business owner he’s
getting all the experience
life experiences of being a business
owner without any risk
yeah and yeah so well it’s huge and that
would
yeah finding somebody with that kind of
mindset is
rare you know for one i think you know
a lot of people you know they just want
to be handed
you know something yeah they want a
consistent thing they don’t necessarily
want to build something of their own or
they don’t
know how but i mean you found a guy who
is not only ambitious but he is also
you know entrepreneur he’s using his
creative mind he’s thinking
about how he can turn you know this
opportunity that you guys gave him into
an opportunity that’s even bigger for
himself so
very cool exactly very cool to have that
well it’s about i mean
i think we were when we were at the
supermarket or maybe at the laundromat
but maybe we were talking about you know
the entrepreneurial ship and what have
you so i mean
if if you are willing to talk about the
things that you’re interested in
you can see that spark in other people
when you’re
and that you’re talking about it and
then they they like that idea so it’s
easy to find those people i mean
you know what is the oh what’s the call
you know you just surround yourself with
five important people so you become the
sixth and fourth yeah so i mean that’s
it so i don’t know if he thought that i
was that person or if i thought that he
was that you know whatever but you know
it’s just a good symbiotic relationship
yeah i mean that’s it’s awesome and i
think that’s
uh you know i think that’s for
fortuitous for both of you guys to
find yourselves in that situation so
yeah well
talk to me about uh you know
okay so i mean we kind of started this
whole thing off with
you know odd number of partners is is
the best and three’s too many yes
right okay so yeah we talked about that
and then you come back and tell me well
hey i have a business partner
and and you know you said who knows
maybe
you know maybe this manager that you
have might be a partner in your next one
so
you’re breaking your own rule that you
talked about so talk to me about that
i’m breaking i’m breaking the italian
italian insane
exactly so okay so
we’re talking about that because first
business partner wasn’t italian so yeah
i don’t know i’m just sticking with
my clothes you know yeah but
but honestly i mean uh partnerships can
be really really great and really
powerful
or they can be disaster and it sounds
like you’ve experienced both sides of
that coin
yeah so yeah so talk to me a little bit
about what’s what’s making this
partnership work
for you um you know with your partner
partnership with my friend i mean dr
danke is this word that
uh we’re just on the same mindset same
wavelength we even
for even for the second location i mean
if we do the second location in jack and
you know
jacksonville or wherever and somewhere
near florida
um it’s going to be a larger laundromat
maybe you know i’m looking at
where our industry is going today is i
mean it’s not just wash dry fold
it’s now pick up and delivery service so
i mean i’m thinking that
is where you know and if that that next
location is going to have to have the
space available
you know to you know to do that also
because i think that’s where
the you know yeah self-service laundry
will always be
needed but i mean if you’re gonna do a
you know five thousand square foot
building
maybe you put 1500 dedicated 1500 square
feet to a self-serve laundry and then
maybe the other 3 500 is going to be
machines in the back and
in the loading dock for you know drop
off you know pick up and delivery
so it’s just but that’s a much bigger
investment
so
exactly yes exactly so we were just
talking on the phone with that this
morning
so about you know the kind of capital
that it’s going to take and
and what have you and even i
asked him like well do we need to maybe
look into getting
other partners and he said to me he’s
like but you and i we work so well
together because we’re on the same
wavelength
it’s that type of you know and maybe
you know obviously we would use the same
manager in this you know would he want
to pick up another
location for sure under his belt you
know that’s
i think we got something that’s working
you know until it you know until
something were to show up and we would
say okay if something
went wrong we need to you know work on
what the problem is it’s but it’s
working
so we just need to double down
yeah yeah well and that’s i mean i think
that’s a good thing i mean like
when you have something that’s working
you can double down you can
expand you can grow it you can’t take
advantage of that
uh once you kind of know okay we’re on
the same wavelength we have the same
goals we’re moving in the same direction
let’s put the pedal down and see how far
we can get
yeah exactly i mean and and if okay if
if it were to go um well that’s not
going to say that but
if if it were to go bad there
what would i do i would just you know
jump on a plane i’d be over there
and that’s it yeah okay so being
self-employed that’s it
um i would be over there for you know
whatever a month two
three whatever it takes to to to right
to the ship and get it going again in
the right direction
so it’s just one of those things yeah um
yeah you just got to be willing you need
to be willing to take the risks
and you know what the risks are um
everything that we’ve you know i don’t
know every entrepreneur even yourself i
mean
you bought your first laundromat yeah i
don’t know how much you knew about it
but i didn’t know much
yes yeah yeah exactly i didn’t work out
as well as years though
well mine was small so my risk was very
small you know i mean
four washers four dryers what can go
wrong you know 40 grand
okay so that’s it
but yeah yeah so
do you i mean do you have any advice for
anybody who’s maybe thinking about
partnering
with somebody uh i mean you have that
because i mean
on both sides yeah i mean so i guess
my uh original partner at the pastry
shop here
um he you know wasn’t the lifelong
friend but maybe sometimes you can’t use
lifelong friends i mean
wealth is a team-building sport i mean
you just you gotta put yourself
or you need to go to networking uh
[Music]
uh um word i’m looking for situations
network networking functions
to get yours to surround yourself by
people that are
thinking about the same things as you um
it’s there where you’re able to you know
spark up conversations and
i mean it yeah how do you find the right
partner
um i guess i got lucky
but i mean with my you know my partner
we had said
since the you know early 90s
you know maybe someday someday we should
do something together someday we should
do something together and it wasn’t
until 2012 2013 that we actually
pulled the trigger you know i called him
up and said hey remember how we always
used to say we should do something
together
i think i have this idea and i said you
know it’s a laundromat blah blah blah
blah blah
and he’s like yeah let’s do that so
i mean you the timing has to be right
the i mean you definitely you should
know the person um
yeah that’s a good question i don’t know
i think i just got i don’t want to say i
just got lucky because
no no yeah what i’m hearing is that
you you found somebody that you align
with you found somebody
who you know your your goals were the
same
your ambitions were the same your
mindsets were the same
and aligned and there was trust built up
between you guys for
a long time before you really pulled the
trigger on it i think those are
you know some of the some of the things
that happen and you know there probably
is
some amount of luck to it because you
you know you just never really know
you know i hear about family all the
time who get in business together and
things go bad so
i mean it can happen yeah sure
yeah those are some of the things that
kind of aligned for you guys that made
it
you know such a such a good good thing
and making money together never never
hurts so
yeah exactly i mean we’re cash flowing
but we i mean that’s the other thing we
neither of us have ever taken money out
of any businesses that we we just keep
rolling it over and rolling it over you
know i mean yeah the idea is to get out
of the rat race at some point right are
we all looking for that
you know that fabulous mailbox money
that on the first of every month all of
a sudden you got 10 grand and bang
you know whatever you know whatever it
is and there’s a lot of different ways
to do it
but that’s just yeah it’s the holy grail
exactly well i
i don’t want to like skip over uh
anything else any
any other parts that you want to share
about either experience in italy or
being remote here
in this in the states well it’s so with
with the laundromat back in the states
um it’s called veterans coin laundry and
i remember when i said that uh
i sleep with a notepad next to my bed
you know and so i woke up you know i was
at the hotel
after seeing that three by five note
card and then and
that name just popped in there we got
one because i’m a veteran i was in the
marine corps
it’s uh it’s about a mile away from the
the
navy air for navy naval air space at
mayport
so there’s a big you know military
presence there so i just always
and then once you get an idea like that
and it just starts snowballing and then
so the next location i mean reading
books on
um like how to start your corporation
how to run your corporation by like uh
garrett sutton and tax books by you know
wheel right and what have you there’s
all this reading of books
is it expands your mind to where you
know i mean every
i mean i’m always reading a book about
what i have next to me right now i have
a book called
execution the discipline of getting
things done you know i mean
it always be reading at least one
non-fiction if you want to read a
fiction book
you know to go to sleep or whatever do
that but at least you know 10 pages a
day of some
non-fiction whatever you’re liking
so reading books getting these things
and
after so after reading these books
veterans coin laundry
was born and uh there’s another
laundromat owner
named uh ken barrett don’t know if you
know who he is
but yeah yeah of course so yeah and
he uh when he trademarked his
law you know his first laundromat he you
know whatever it’s the washington coin
launch or whatever but
so then i was like hey that’s a good
idea you know create that llc
that’s gonna own that and then just you
know so now we’re gonna have veterans
coin laundry
mayport and then i’m gonna i wanna have
a veterans coin laundry you know
pinco something else you know and then
another one but always keeping that
to you know and that’s those are things
that i think that you need to think
about
even at your first laundromat you know
how
structuring the business is it going to
be an llc is
are you going to have a you know one llc
that
owns other each one separately and what
so yeah it’s all about you know how
you’re going to structure that
and that’s all about reading a book and
so we opened up the first one and we
we knew what we were going to do with
that going forward
and they’re all structured properly yeah
so
that’s uh so yeah what i mean what my
advice is
you know get yourself some good business
boring you know
non-fiction but i mean i love it i just
love
learning new stuff and then how i can
incorporate what i’m reading into my
real
world situation that’s where the thing
gets exciting it’s where the rubber
meets the road
yep and you know circling right back
around to that action right
learning and then putting it into action
learning into action and that’s the
cycle that spirals you up
to success yeah i’m going to ask you
in a few minutes for some specific book
recommendations that you would recommend
in a second but before we get there we
have a little section we call
secret sauce listen up it’s the secret
sauce
[Music]
and today’s secret sauce i want to just
adapt it just a little
bit it’s normally like hey what’s
something that’s working well in your
business that’ll help
other owners but i’m wondering if you
have one piece of it okay so like
just speak to me right so one of my
goals someday
is i’m in california in southern
california i’d love to own
a laundromat in hawaii one day just so i
can
head over to hawaii and yeah you know
business expense yeah exactly yeah yeah
no
when i go back to the states now it’s a
it’s a business account absolutely yeah
totally
yeah so okay so you know
so for someone like me who maybe wants a
remote location i get asked this
question
all the time in coaching calls and stuff
like i can’t find anything near me
can i do this you know a couple hours
away can i do this the next day it over
can i do this wherever
as someone who’s done that do you have
maybe one piece of advice for someone
who is thinking about maybe you want to
to run a laundromat remotely to run
along
remotely well i did cut my teeth
with local laundromats so and small
local laundromats so i did have those
few years of experience five years of
experience under my belt
to where i did have you know i don’t
want to say i was cheating
by you know opening up the one remotely
but it was that experience that allowed
me to say okay yeah i can do it as far
as your first laundromat
if you’re gonna go remotely that could
be difficult but i mean
you could do it i mean you already have
two laundromats yourself so why can’t
you
already know what how to put you have
systems yourself i’m certain of it we
all do
whether some are you know how we we
adapt our systems to our
situation personal situations so can you
do it absolutely
how do you do it you know the first
thing is you take the flight and you go
to hawaii no that’s a good first step i
can
that’s a that’s a step i can get on
board with okay yeah you can
say now you got the first step actually
is get the permission from the wife to
go for a month
yeah yeah she’ll she’ll probably want to
come with me but that’s fine
i’m fine with that so yeah the the the
secret sauce as far as for
opening up a remote laundromat
as your first laundromat i would
i don’t think there’s any secret sauce
there you yeah
that i mean sorry to no deflate your
balloon but i mean
you better get your eyes dotted and t’s
crossed and
get a little uh experience under your
belt yeah and learn the business i mean
that is
that is secret sauce right because i get
asked this all the time by new people
who
you know because the industry i mean
the business is relatively simple as far
as businesses go right and so people
mistake
that for easy and so
easy and simple yeah yeah two different
things they’re different
they’re different right yes they are
yeah you know because it’s a simple
business
you know why can’t i run a laundromat in
you know texas
if i’m in iowa or wherever you know yeah
and
sure and it’s not easy and it does i
mean like you said it
you flew out here for a month and you
spent nine or ten months of negotiation
you know for a lease you had to find a
manager yeah there’s a lot of obstacles
you have to overcome
to be able to do something like you’re
doing and
like you said not saying that you can’t
do it but
it takes work and it takes commitment to
do it so i mean i think that is
secret sauce okay
it seems i mean it seems obvious but you
know i
i think it’s good for people to hear it
from you because
you’ve done it and you know yeah and i
and i wouldn’t want to
you know sell myself as you know saying
it’s so simple that you know oh hey just
go i mean
i i don’t want to you know put anyone in
a bad position to do that you know i
mean really
make sure you know what you’re doing
when you know you get them
get on board with an idea good just cut
your teeth a little bit
and small yep start small cut your teeth
oh yes small local
and then go to hawaii there you go
why is so expensive cost of living
there’s a killer though man yeah
that’s true that’s true but you know and
yeah worth it all right
all right we have another little section
we like to call pro tips
and pro tips is just hey do you have any
advice for the new i mean we kind of
talked about that a little bit but just
in general for
you know somebody looking maybe to buy
their first laundromat
um any any big tips with them get
started
a lot of the questions that i see up on
the forums now it’s like
uh how do i
you know what should i how do i control
the p
l of the laundromat that’s for sale and
what have you and
and i’m like i said i mean i had really
good
uh relationship with the distributor so
i think what your
key number one thing you need to do is
get a relay a working relationship with
a distributor that you feel comfortable
with you like the machines i mean
i mean the majority of the machines
nowadays the big five i mean they’re
i mean all the big four or five
manufacturers out there
they’re all about the same quality so
find someone that you enjoy working with
set up that relationship and then use
their experience to your advantage i
mean
get the carlos the guy who said he’s
been in this he’s been in the industry
for
30 years maybe more i mean i was able to
you know find a guy who had 30 years
experience which was 25 more than me
and you know had laundromats he’s been
selling equipment and
that’s what i needed and that’s what i
found but i found it
you know by putting myself in the right
position at the
right place at the right time so yeah
the
definitely the new guy don’t
don’t believe everything that the seller
or the
listing agent is saying dot your eyes
cross your keys and get someone
in your corner that can help you with
some experience oh
i i mean i think it’s just that is
probably
the best advice you give to somebody new
and it’s come up here a couple different
times on the podcast but i mean it’s
just so
you know you don’t know what you don’t
know and in this industry there can be a
lot of little gotchas
that you may not know about and so
having that
30-year experience guy on your team you
know
helping you think through it crucial
yeah
exactly i mean even the the my you know
my friend that’s the
speed queen well not anymore but the
distributor here that was in italy
you know the you know what’s the word
the pro forma
you know that he you know gave me told
you know oh you know industry is you
know
four turns per day you know for i’m like
okay yeah so yeah in the u.s maybe it’s
four turns per day in italy it’s not
but you know so that first year was like
hey wait a minute here
these things aren’t turning as often as
i was promised so that was you know
the second one is he’s like hey you’re
gonna need this amount of machines i’m
like
no i’m not i’m gonna you know we’re
gonna need this amount
but the space can fit it yeah well we
can work on that later
you know so just those type of things
just always you know
got your eyes crossed your teeth double
checked you know as my grandfather said
measure
twice and cut once at once yeah exactly
yeah
yeah solid solid advice um yeah
okay i want to i want to circle back
around to those books
um and this doesn’t have to be books
necessarily but i would be curious for
you know a book or two or five or
whatever that you
think are most influential or and who
might help people either grow their
business or grow personally but what
resources do you recommend to people
oh well then laundromat resource of
course
beforehand come on down to southern
california you can stay in my house
anytime yeah the forums are really good
i mean
launch my owner’s showcase launch my
resource um
the cla i’m a member of the cla
obviously
there’s a lot of you know talk pro and
on about every form and what have you
but um
there’s a lot of info out there i mean a
ton of info
it’s uh as far as as far as the you know
laundromat specific kind of information
um as far as books i mean yeah
how to start your own corporation run
your own corporation these are by
garrett
sutton i believe um rich dad poor dad
that’s the thing that got me
thinking outside of my outside the box
you know about what
what what what is your financial
statement
assets income liabilities these are
types of things that
people need to understand i mean credit
and
other people’s money and though all
these type of things are all things that
i’ve just picked up by reading books i
mean
like execution that’s something of
getting things done these are i mean
that’s action
action action i mean
how to use credit to your advantage i
mean i mean what’s the
even uh the situation of the the
the economy now i mean the dollar and
you know there’s so many things that you
can learn about and read about
that i mean i saw a what was it a
quote or something recently that most
college graduates
once they graduate from college i think
some ungodly
like 70 percent don’t ever pick up books
again
to read you know so that that’s
phenomenal
that is i mean you need to pick up books
and read we mean
we’re i mean you’re either growing or
you’re dying i mean as a plant the plant
is either growing or it’s dying
there’s no in between so to keep growing
i mean
as a human you just need to keep
expanding your learning
yeah i i was going to let you keep going
man because i i think that was awesome
no i mean honestly like i think that
there’s a lot of truth to that and i
also think that their
that self-education you know aspect of
of what you’re talking about is probably
the most important
education that you can get and reading
books like the ones that you mentioned
i’ll put links to all those by the way
if you’re interested in
you know picking one of those books up
i’ll just link them in the description
or the show notes
um anybody’s getting those yeah
unfortunately i didn’t i just put away
all my books because i’m
in the process of moving all of my uh
all my books to my
office at the new laundromat so
otherwise i would have just read down
the books you know i mean
yeah but there’s the one thing by gary
keller i love that
i mean there’s the go-getter is it the
go-getter
yeah i mean i don’t know even if you’re
if you’re in trouble at the moment go
go the the dave ramsey route get
yourself out of debt i mean there’s i
mean
there’s so many things and it depends
where you are in your life
that which book you need that will
resonate the most with you you know
so yeah huge huge and and like
like you’re saying i think that
self-education aspect of it
is so key and there’s a lot to learn
about and you can i tell this to my kids
all the time right i kind of use a
little reverse psychology on them
you know they’re trying to keep them
engaged in reading and you know
sometimes it could be like pulling teeth
with them but
i i tell them hey look i don’t want you
to get too good at reading
because as soon as you’re really good at
reading you can learn about
anything in the world that you want to
learn about right i tell them they get
all excited
about raucous you can read about rockets
you know whatever
you know but it’s true it’s i like
really believe that like
you can learn about anything that you
want to learn about so whether that’s
you know economics whether that’s
building a business whether that’s
you know some hobby or crap like it you
should be
learning you should be growing um you
know to
like you said you’re either you’re
either growing and living or dying
and yeah exactly so huge huge huge
awesome i’ll link to all those books
that you mentioned there’s a ton
have you ever real quick have you ever
read uh four disciplines of execution
no it’s a good one i’d i would
definitely recommend
uh that one i’d probably read that one
at least once a year
uh super good really yeah okay good
um okay well hey this has been
incredible i’ve i’ve like thoroughly
enjoyed every single second
not just to hear your story and how
you’re doing stuff but i love hearing
just the way that you’re thinking about
things the way you’re thinking through
things
it’s super inspiring to me to hear
uh just the process that you have gone
through to get to where you’re going and
you know your your goals your
aspirations to
you know continue on that path and you
know you’re looking to maybe pick up a
second location in florida you’re
wanting to get 10 locations in
uh you know in in italy there you got
some rental stuff going on i mean you
got a lot of stuff going on and a lot
that you’re trying to build off of
and it’s just it’s really inspiring to
me so man i really
really appreciate you coming on um real
quick
anybody wants to just shoot you an email
and thank you for coming on the
on the show or contact you it doesn’t
have to be email but or contact you and
just sure say thanks or ask you a quick
question is there a good way for them to
get in contact with you
um email for uh it’s info
at veterans coin laundry or you can you
know
facebook or instagram what all
vets coin laundry um if you’re looking
for uh
get away for a holiday coming over to
tuscany um my tuscanrental.com
awesome yeah but yeah so
yeah you got to have a lot of a lot of
irons in the fire so
especially when you’re an entrepreneur
because yeah you never know
you got to be true yeah that’s true
exactly
i mean if if this year’s taught us
anything it’s that you never know
yes exactly that is so true yeah
well hey man this has been incredible i
really appreciate taking time out of
your day to come on
i know that people are going to really
love
every second of this and really resonate
with you so i appreciate you coming on
man
hey thanks for the invite jordan it was
a pleasure anytime you’re welcome here
any anytime you want and if you’re ever
in socal
let me know man well i i will be because
i have this dream you know i i
woke up just really quick here i want to
ride the transamerica trail so the next
time i go back to the uh
states i’m probably gonna buy a kawasaki
klr 650 and drive it from you know one
coast to the other coast so
i might be passing through california oh
my gosh that sounds incredible
now you’re yeah you started off rubbing
things in and now you’re just really
grinding it in there we have laundromats
because
you don’t have to be there it’s it’s
that system’s in the place and go and
enjoy life
i love that and that’s so true man and i
love that you’re
you’re utilizing what you got to be able
to do you know live life to the fullest
that’s what we want right we don’t want
to
you know be grinding away our whole
lives and that’s why we’re trying to
build something for ourselves so
thank you for being an inspiration for
that not just through
your business ownership but also the way
that you’re living your life and
you know and spending time with your
kids and i mean all that stuff
very cool very inspiring so thank you
man appreciate that a lot all right
thanks jordan all right we’ll talk to
you soon man thomas is
so so cool i mean i love what he’s doing
starting out with these tiny laundromats
in italy and
you know and now being stateside owning
one in florida
with his partner who is in san francisco
and looking for another one
super super cool what he is doing how
he’s doing
it and i learned a ton i hope you took
good notes uh i know
that i did i have a page full of them uh
literally right here
page full of notes and uh again every
week i want to encourage you
find one thing that you can take away
from this podcast episode and implement
it into your business
or into your personal life he drops some
incredible incredible resources
that he recommends for you pick up one
of those books
i’ll link to all of them in the show
notes or down below
um if you’re on youtube and you can go
pick up
one of those books there uh incredible
stuff
i’ve read almost all of them and they
are
that’s so good you’re going to grow a
ton so go check out one of those books
find something that you can do to
implement from today’s podcast and
again head over to the forums
lottermyresource.com forums
ask a question answer question come be a
part of the community and what’s
happening over there
love it thank you guys for being here we
will see you
next week this is jordan with the
laundromat resource
podcast peace
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