Multi-laundromat owner and serial entrepreneur, Peter Mayberry, drops so much wisdom and advice in this show that you’ll probably need to watch it more than once! He has extensive experience in the laundromat industry, but has also ventured into other businesses like hotels, self storage, bitcoin mining, and is even pursuing building casino!
If you’re someone who wants to grow your business, find financial freedom doing something you love, or if you have ambitious goals, Peter is a guy you’re going to want to hear from!
In this episode we talk about:
- Building a laundromat from scratch
- Building vs. Buying your first laundromat
- The #1 reason Peter eliminates a potential laundromat from consideration
- Free laundromats
- Managing multiple laundromats
- Networking as the key to business success and rapid progress
- Specific numbers in his businesses
- The best locations to build a laundromat
- Goals driving your actions
- How to find a mentor in the laundromat industry
- And Peter drops a tip to close the interview that is a game changer for any laundromat owner!
And much, much more!
This was an incredible interview that you definitely don’t want to miss! See below for links from today’s show.
Listen To The Podcast Here
Watch The Podcast Here
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Links from the show
- Interview with Luke Williford
- Laundromat Investor Resources
- Join Laundromat Resource
- Laundromat Resource Forums
- Laundromat Resource Blog
- Be a guest on the podcast!
- Sell your laundromat
- Laundromat Resource Coaching
Connect with Peter
Email:
nebraskalaundry@gmail.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 33 and i’m
pumped that you’re here today
because today we’re talking with peter
mayberry and peter
is i mean if you have entrepreneur blood
in you
you’ve got to listen to this entire
episode because peter
has just he’s got entrepreneur blood
running straight through his veins
we talk a ton about laundromats today
and he gives a ton of great advice about
laundromats
but we talk about other businesses also
and the things that he’s doing
some of his goals and aspirations and
they
are all over the place from more
laundromats
and more laundromat locations to
self-storage
to hotels to even uh he’s trying to get
a casino and he’s going to talk about
that
i mean he’s he is doing big things he’s
got big goals big aspirations and he is
always looking for opportunity i
loved every second of this interview and
i know you will too
so i don’t want to take up too much time
in this intro part but
i did want to give a laundromat
insider tip i’m going to try to give one
of these going forward laundry my
insider tips just to help you
use laundry resource to help you find
greater and greater success
today’s laundromat insider tip is this
if you haven’t yet make sure you create
an account a free membership account
on the website and it gives you access
to member
resources so all you got to do is log in
click on member resources up at the top
menu
and it gives you access to a bunch of
free resources that you can use to help
you
succeed and i’m going to be building
those out more and more
we’re working on some stuff over here to
help
help you find more success with those
free member resources so make sure you
check those out
use those to help you do everything from
figure out
what a good location is to figuring out
how to value a laundromat
and uh there i mean there’s a tool on
there to help you keep track of your
coin collections if you need help with
that
there’s all kinds of stuff going on over
there so make sure you click on those
and check those out i want to remind you
those forums are
active there’s a lot going on over there
i’m not going to go over any today
because we have a long interview
but make sure every single week you are
asking a question
answering a question and i hope that you
wake up in the middle of the night
you know hearing my voice say go ask a
question answer a question on the forums
because
it’s so so so key to be
meeting people to be interacting with
people those forums are free
free of charge you can go over there and
network and if you haven’t yet
obviously go over there to the
introductions form laundromat
resource.com
forums click on the introductions form
go introduce yourself and go welcome
someone else who’s
introduced themselves on the forum i
can’t tell you
how many opportunities can come your way
just by
meeting other people who are like-minded
who are doing things
who are out there making stuff happen i
i just can’t tell you how how much can
come your way from
uh just introducing yourself putting
yourself out there and going
and meeting some other people so go do
that all the links and all the
information from today
you can find it at laundromat resource
dot com slash
show 33 show three three um
and that’s where all the show notes will
be that’s where the links from
everything will be
and if you haven’t yet whether you’re
listening on a podcast or on youtube
do me a favor and do yourself a favor
and make sure you subscribe so you don’t
miss
anything that we’re putting out there uh
because there’s just
we’re just throwing gold around like
it’s free like it’s nothing
uh so you do not want to be missing it
all right
so uh let right after this let’s jump
into this
interview with peter because it is
incredible and you’re gonna have a lot
of information
to process after this is going and as
always stay tuned because at the very
end i’m gonna give you my takeaway and
uh i’m gonna
crack the whip to make sure that you
come up with the takeaway too
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the description
peter what’s up thank you for coming on
the show today i’m super excited about
this
cannot wait how you doing i’m doing
pretty good i really appreciate you
having me
oh man i i’m pumped i cannot wait to
hear
your story and we’ve talked a little bit
and it just got me a little bit
more excited about it so hey uh i know
that you
have a ton of experience you have a ton
of knowledge about this industry
and uh i’m you know thanks for coming on
to share it but before we get
into that tell us a little bit about you
who are you
and and how did you get into this
industry you know random industry to be
in how’d you get in here
well my name is peter mayberry like you
said but i got in this industry
actually it was actually kind of a weird
thing because i actually
had beca i was a sales manager for
general electric and i was becoming more
and more successful and i started having
more and more
extra income and i’ve always wanted to
to start a business
so really what happened was i just delve
into doing tons of stuff and looking at
different businesses
and i wanted to have a business where i
could keep my job because i truly did
love it
i did recently leave my job like two
years ago but
it was a tough situation because i did
love it like i didn’t it wasn’t the guy
that hated my job or like dreaded it
like it really i actually quit because i
had to decide
to keep expanding or to keep my job
because i was getting to be where i
couldn’t do both
but essentially i was looking for a
business that i could
run and still work and i actually was
gravitating towards car washes
and i was gonna buy a car wash and i
just couldn’t
find a car wash that that was for sale
and it was trouble like trying to get
them built because of different
restrictions on the city and whatnot
and even like the zoning for the city
which i knew nothing about but i learned
about zoning and all this other stuff
and then i got onto the laundromat thing
but no
and the thing with the laundromat deal
was like i kept running into owners and
nobody would sell them like they
absolutely wouldn’t even talk to me
and i was like this must be a great
business like nobody in omaha is willing
to even talk to me
about selling a laundry so ultimately i
i started meeting some different people
i got into i mean i started reading some
different
forums and whatnot and i ended up
building
my first laundromat from scratch like i
bought a building and converted it to a
laundromat
and then like i said i got the bug and i
just started really enjoying it i got to
be networking
you know i just started networking in
the laundromat community
and then from they’re on like i said
then it just kind of
gravitated to more and more of my time
being dedicated to laundries
so you you jumped in with both feet and
you built your first store
because you couldn’t find one to buy is
that is that why you decide to build or
so i actually i i feel like some people
don’t even believe this is true but like
i actually
found a building and i actually started
working with distributors
and one distributor well i won’t mention
did some pretty shady stuff
and then i met with i was meeting with
another distributor who a guy actually
had surgery so i mean he was a good guy
and i ended up actually building a store
with this guy later on
but he he had some medical issues and he
ended up being gone for like six months
but there’s a guy named john olson that
used to run laundry lux and
i was just searching for equipment and i
looked for electrolux and at the time
there was no electrolux distributor in
omaha
so i actually had sent what i did is i
sent this information
and john olsen was vice president of
laundrolux he contacted me directly
and he was like you should do electrolux
and there was no distributor
so i was like trying to figure out how
that would happen well it ended up being
that was the single greatest phone call
i could have ever made because john
olson is probably one of the greatest
people i’ve ever met
and he’s also a great person in the
industry but he actually flew me to new
york
i actually got to go and see the laundry
lux facility
in new york and to this day like john
olsen is
probably my best friend in the world
that doesn’t live in omaha you know he
without a doubt is my best friend in the
world
that doesn’t physically live in omaha
and
like i said he got me in touch with
other owners and different things
and i and i had a construction
background being in sales for general
electrics i did the electrical side of
general electric
so i knew general contractors and
subcontractors and
i basically got them all together and
with john’s help i laid it out and then
i built it and like i said i oversaw the
building of it and
i bought my equipment directly from
laundry lux since there was no
distributor
at the time so i built my first lawn
right without a distributor
and without ever being in the industry
or without knowing anybody in the
industry until jonathan
[Laughter]
oh my goodness man you just i mean you
just went for it was that like
nerve wracking to you know i mean
because that’s a lot of money that
you’re
investing into a business you don’t know
a whole lot about and don’t really know
a whole lot of people in at that point
in time right
it was nerve-wracking but i i with john
olson like i mean like i said he
definitely is an expert and he
knows like he had thousands of resources
so
truly i did i didn’t know what i was
getting into because like
i mean what i know now versus building
from what i knew then but it was all
learning experience and there was
definitely mistakes i made and
issues but like i got through it that
store still around it’s still a great
store
i still actually love the layout of that
store but that’s probably because i had
had john’s help
so i mean and it’s also the store where
i honestly i’m not in my office today
because we kind of talked about that
before this but i still go there every
day i love it i mean it’s like always
gonna be my baby
always gonna be my first oh man well
can you tell us a little bit about that
experience i mean what was it like to
build
a laundromat you know as your first
foray into the industry
it was challenging but like the truth is
too there’s there’s other distributors
like i think one of them comes to mind
is like carl hendricks i mean i’ve never
really met carl but he has a great
website and it talks about performers
and spreadsheets
so i’ve never met him but he helped me
like this this man helped me in new york
that doesn’t even know me
but i also like there’s different videos
on how to
to install bases and install equipment
so
i just had guys you know like we
literally bought bases
john had connected me with a guy that
sold them in california
and like we we grouted them we used
washers to level them and
i mean we watched the youtube videos i
did um chemical bolts on the first one
because that’s what the video we’ve
watched and
and like i said now fast forward i’ve
done chemical bolts i’ve screwed them
directly into concrete i’ve done
i mean i’ve done anything and everything
i’ve done the red heads where you hammer
them in
so i have three laundry mats with three
different installs and all of them work
so people have this myth that you have
to have professionals install
your laundry and that’s the only way i
mean if you just do it right you take
the time and you get the right people
anybody can install them correctly i
mean i i feel like that’s one of the
biggest myths is like
or like to like it voice the warranty
i’m like why would it avoid the warranty
i mean
matter of fact i can tell you this and i
won’t mention the distributor i have
built three stores personally myself
where i’ve
supervised everything in the install the
only store that i had installed
by a distributor there’s no lie is my
worst install
and i’ve had to do more to fix that
install than all
the other three i did on my own yeah
i mean that doesn’t necessarily surprise
me i just
my my experience with installers um
especially the ones that work with the
distributors is that you know they’re
just
they’re not anything special because
they’re using
you know maybe there’s like one guy who
knows how to install
all this stuff but they’re just using
regular you know
guys to help them install stuff so yeah
and they don’t care about the equipment
like you would i mean like you you just
paid like six hundred thousand dollars
for the equipment
they probably don’t even know what it
costs they’re just slamming it in and
they look at like maybe it’s a thousand
bucks they don’t care yeah
yeah i’ve i’ve always had an issue
when i’ve used an installer so i’m not i
mean not they’re not all bad but
uh yeah so it doesn’t surprise me well
the professional installation actually
cost me the most too
and was the worst so it cost me the most
and was the worst job
yeah man it’s expensive to get these
things installed all right so
you built your first laundromat tell me
about like when you
you finished okay you you decided you’re
you’re you’re jumping in both feet
you’re going all in
with laundromats and so you find a
building
you build out a store and you’re
throwing open the doors for the first
time tell me about that a little bit
so that’s where i made some mistakes
like so when i built this like i didn’t
understand that you have
contingency funds in building right so
when i built this
i got a loan for the exact amount to buy
the land to build it out
and to do this well during the course of
construction i had to come eighty
thousand dollars
more out of pocket that wasn’t financed
because i didn’t realize
like all the issues and stuff that would
arise so
when i first did this i had a big fund
where i felt like i could run a full
year without making a profit
well with that it really cost me so like
this account that i set aside
i’d already used pretty much my entire
contingency fund for running the
business
so then like when i started obviously i
didn’t make money right you got the bank
bills you got the water bills everything
else and
in even though it’s a tremendous area
and today it’s a great laundromat
when you open the doors right people
aren’t standing in line and saying oh
thank you i couldn’t wait for this like
i’m so glad that you’re here
i mean they don’t even know about you so
like for the first six months it was
rough because like i was using my
personal
checking account and thankfully i had a
awesome job that
you know paid six figures to where i was
able to write
checks to keep the business because i
could truly
if i had to quit my job i would have
been bankrupt like i would have been
bankrupt out of the gate and it would
have been because of the
not realizing i needed 80 000 extra
because of just problems arising and
things i didn’t think about
but yeah i mean it truly was an
eye-opener and i think it took me like
six months
it was funny because like i was blowing
through personal savings
i think at the six month mark i remember
having a conversation with my wife and
saying
you know this is it this is about all we
can feed this business
and magically by the grace of god or
some i mean i think it’s god i mean he
literally made me profitable
like an exact breaking life for myself
yeah
and the rest is history but the truth is
like people would say that that was
probably horrible but
that was that first store i learned so
much
and understands so much more and
and like you they always say like what
doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and
know that i mean it
it was all wonderful lessons and like
i’ve i’ve made other mistakes of course
but
well and like like we’ll get into later
probably because you’re going to
probably ask about advice but
financing is a huge deal like i didn’t
realize it but it definitely is and we
can do that later but
yeah it’s it was almost
like i’m doing great now but it almost
wasn’t meant to be i came one month from
catastrophe i mean that’s so stressful
so nerve-wracking i spent i mean i
bought
i made so many mistakes buying my first
one and i wrote
you know big big checks every month for
like over a year and a half um and
it’s just it’s so hard to watch that
money go out
and you’ve already invested all this
money
into a business and now you’re paying
to have the business and it’s just it’s
so stressful man i
i get that and but awesome that you
you know you made it to profitability
right in the nick of time by the skin in
your teeth and i tell people all the
time like
hey if you get in this thing right you
know
then sky’s the limit for you you can you
know as soon as your business is
profitable
as long as you’re managing your money
well like sky’s the limit for you but
if you get into it wrong and you’re
writing checks every month and you can’t
dig yourself out of that
well that’s a recipe for disaster real
quick right
yeah um but uh
was there was there anything that you
feel like you did
to get it to that profitability point or
do you think it just business just had
to build
uh over that six months or seven months
or however long
to to get profitable so what i’ve
learned now is that
that location i put this on the front
but the cars that travel by that
location
are 45 miles an hour right so i should
have had signage on the building because
nobody could even tell what it was they
were driving by it and this is just
something i learned
randomly right and i’ve also learned now
that
when you’re in a well from now on i’m
only going to build in like high
commercial areas and like i kind of got
what i feel is like a little secret
sauce for successful laundromats
but that one is in a tremendous area but
it just like i said you pass by it so
quick it’s really close to the road
so that one needs a little bit more
advertising but now even as the
development has gone on in that area
like they put i don’t know if you have
quick trick trip where you are but it’s
a
massive gas station well they put that
right across the street so
tons of my customers use that gas
station and and
truthfully i didn’t even realize and
that’s when i realized like about
location and signage and stuff
but i had a huge jump in business when
that gas station was
actually built and i finally came to
realization that people are pumping
their gas and they’re sitting there
looking around they’re like holy cow
there’s a laundromat right here you know
i mean so i really believe that the best
advertising i ever got was a quick trip
gas station
servicing like you know 5 000 cars a day
filling them over the gas and being able
to look around and see that i’m just
physically there
yeah having that captive audience is
huge so they’re just they got nothing
better to do than to stare at your store
and
admire admire it and realize oh man this
is
this is convenient yeah well hey i mean
that’s awesome
that’s you know again like that’s a
that’s a lucky uh kind of break in some
ways you know to help you get to that
break-even point
uh as quickly as you as you need it to
uh okay so you have built a store
you’ve thrown up in the doors you had
been biting your nails for six months
until you hit
profitability which i’m sure was
incredibly stressful
and i mean it sounds like you have more
than one
uh so what happened from there
so i i built my first one
and i actually bought my my second one i
bought
a store that was that was small and
and well i bought it i bought my second
one and then i built my third one i
built my fourth one i got my fifth one
for free i got the building and the land
for free
and then i built the sixth one i’m
building a seventh one right now
but through all in all like the one i
got for free and the one i bought
i’ve gotten rid of both of those and you
know you probably
talk later about like how you run your
store well
they were 2500 square feet or less they
were both unable to be attended
because of the size and the amount of
volume they could do
and also i don’t know there’s two stores
in omaha like of all of omaha there
might be like 100 laundromats there’s
two stores that i would buy
right now which i’ve just come to
realize and
they’re not for sale right now but
there’s two i would buy and there’s not
a single other one that i would like i
just wouldn’t i just built one because
a lot of these laundry mats are over 20
years old they’re too small for the
market like the run unintended
that’s the business model the parking
lots only got like eight stalls versus
like 30.
so knowing what i know now like i will
not buy any more lawn rats in omaha
except for possibly two and only two so
like and i’ve actually had people come
to me and say like hey
would you be interested in buying it and
i’m like
no and then like they’ll even sometimes
say like four years ago you asked me i
said four years ago i asked everybody
because i wasn’t in this business like
now i have different goals
and like i said i i don’t if the
location was amazing i’d probably
consider it but like i don’t ever plan
on building
a laundromat under 5 000 square foot
again like it’ll be 5 000 square foot
it’ll have at least 30.
so that’s one thing i do too like i was
saying like i go out and
most of my days right now is like
looking for buildings for sale
especially with
the pandemic i just bought a village inn
which was a restaurant they’re kind of
you know having a lot hard time during
the pandemic
yeah so i’ve been looking at tons and
tons of property and
the number one reason i eliminate all
property is parking
and it’s like there’s been some
tremendous locations but if i have a
tremendous location and a great building
for laundromat but i have six parking
stalls
that could maybe work in new york where
they have like a good transportation
system but it’s not going to work in
omaha nebraska
yeah i mean we can have like 20 30 000
people one square mile
and there’s still no buster out there i
mean it’s like
everybody in nebraska drives i mean for
the most part you know i mean
yeah well i mean you mentioned you
mentioned
some of your criteria do you have like a
list of criteria i mean
you mentioned parking and square footage
is there a list of criteria
that you’re looking at either for
location to build out or to buy
yeah so i have like areas that i have
set in my mind now that i want
that i’m just waiting for the right
opportunity
like right now like i am right now
wanting to build as
fast as i possibly can but i i mean i
would build three stores right now if i
had three right locations but
i don’t and i’m also at a point now
where i’m not going to force something
i’ll just like i’ll wait it out to see
when it’s right and like i said i’ve
built some and i’ve owned some
and i can tell you when you the two that
i like i said i bought one
and i sold it and there’s one that i was
i literally was
i took it over like i basically paid
nothing for i took over the store
and the building i just basically took
the burden off of them and took over
like the payments and whatnot
but it cost me like i mean there was a
cost to it but like out of pocket i
spent zero dollars i guess is what i
want to say
and i ended up giving that store away
like it was my cousin
and it was profitable like i said i
don’t want to
sell i mean i don’t want this to come
off the wrong way but the other store i
sold too
i think it made two thousand dollars a
month so i made 24
000 a year and i remember going there
one day
and i just was dreading going there and
dealing with the problems that i store
it was older equipment
and i literally decided to lock it just
one day i locked the doors
on a business that was making money
because it was more of a burden for me
to go there and spend my time to collect
that 24 000
a year and i also had a maintenance guy
that was spending half his time there
and i don’t know how you quantify that
into cost but
it was just more headache than it was
worth and it was profitable
but it wasn’t profitable enough and like
i said i don’t want to sound
i don’t want the wrong message conveyed
because when i bought that store 24 000
extra year was wonderful at the point
where i
locked the doors the 24 000 wasn’t
enough
for the hassle it was causing me yeah my
lifestyle my life changed with the
success
and like i said and like again i mean i
really really don’t want to come across
cross across wrong but i was willing to
lose
i actually think my clothes i still had
payments on the store so i went from
making 24 000 to losing 24
000 by closing it and i still was happy
with the decision and it still took like
this burden off me and i felt
i was very at peace with it i was so
glad that i didn’t have to jack with it
the people trying to it was unattended
so people were trying to break in the
machines and
it was an area where like literally
someone at noon was trying to pry open a
machine and there’s three people just
watching
no one’s calling the police nobody cares
so i just like
it’s unbelievable to me that they would
just watch
this happen yeah no i’ve definitely seen
that but i i mean i get what you’re
saying because
at some point i mean like you said early
on when you’re when you’re getting
started
an extra 24 grand a year is worth it but
once you’ve
you know once you’ve found kind of a
formula
once you kind of found your rhythm and
you’re making a little bit
better money at these larger locations
and
you know i get it like the the money at
some point the money is not
is not worth the effort of running that
business so
i don’t think it’s coming off bad at
least not to me because i
i understand that for sure
um
i was gonna ask you a question right now
oh
this is a little bit off of that topic
but i get asked all the time so i do
like
coaching consulting i talk to current
owners i talk to
you know people trying to get in the
business for the first time and i get
asked all the time
uh whether they you know people should
build or
buy and i was just wondering what
what advice do you have for people who
are who are wondering whether they
should build or buy
so i think that’s a hundred percent
dependent on
so one of my good friends is in in this
business is in des moines i think he has
like nine laundromats
like he has a different philosophy than
i do like
he likes to get ti money and he likes to
take over laundromats and he can do them
for very cheap
and he doesn’t mind paying rent but my
criteria
i’m very different like i own every
single building
that i’m in like i would not buy a
laundromat where i don’t own the
building
and like right now i’m sitting in a i
own a 10 000 square foot building and i
was telling you before this i didn’t
realize that they were
i have employees having a meeting in my
office right now and we have a garage
that we can use for other stuff like
right next to my office
so i drove over here and i’m like having
this this
you know i got this space and like this
space this whole building is paid for by
the laundromat
it’s making money is profitable and i
have this six thousand extra square foot
that
hopefully when covered ends yeah i can i
can lease this out it’s not getting a
lot of
a lot of action right now but if this
will be a revenue producing
space you know what i mean like and
for me just owning it like i can do
things right like i mean i feel
like i look at what he does and he may
use like pvc
and he may do different things like with
pecs where like when i build a
laundromat like i’m using cast iron
drains it’s not pvc i use copper lines
because i want it to last for 20 years i
don’t want to be like band-aiding it
but i also understand that if i am
renting someone’s building do i want i
mean
the village that i just bought i’m
spending like 650 000
after buying the building just to make
it a laundromat right
well if i didn’t own that building would
i be spending 650
i honestly wouldn’t i would be cutting
some corners i’d probably use less
expensive tile i’d use less expensive
plumbing different and different things
like that because
at the end of the year if i have a 10
year or 20 year lease at the end of that
i don’t get to reclaim any of that right
where when i own the building i do it’s
also different i mean
the stuff i’ve learned like right now
too is that if i buy a building
it’s great because i’d appreciate it
right i mean i get
i mean i never really understood all
these people like saying that the rich
don’t pay taxes well
i don’t pay taxes right now because i
have a massive depreciation i have
equipment that’s depreciation i have
vehicles i have buildings
so on paper it looks like i broke even
but
a paper loss of depreciation is not
actual cash leaving right
so that’s a tough question like i
personally will not start a lawn amount
without owning the building
like i i don’t know like i said i won’t
buy any more laundry mats in omaha
but the guy in des moines has got
different philosophy
i also want a laundromat i’m not saying
i own a laundromat that doesn’t
that all might do this but like from now
on if a laundromat is not going to
produce 10 000 income a week
i don’t want it like again it’s like i
only have so much time in a day
i only have so much resources available
and
instead of having five laundromats
that are all making a little bit of
money i’d rather have one laundromat
that’s making equivalent to that money
but i only have to deal with it
and that’s why the 5 000 square foot
thing like
i mean i actually am getting into the
distribution of equipment right now
and i’m kind of putting my toe in i
think i’m going to go full force but
that’s another conversation like i have
with people like
i’m willing to build someone a
laundromat in omaha that’s 2500 square
feet and i can honestly tell them that
that laundry mat at that size will be
successful for this area
i personally would not build a
laundromat at 2500 square feet in that
area even though i know it’ll be
successful
because it won’t hit the success
criteria that i want to hit
so like i said i
do i do i advocate never
buying a store i would say absolutely
not a matter of fact if i had to bought
that council bus store
let’s just put like this actually let’s
look i mean i never really thought about
this but now i’m thinking about it
if i bought that council bluffs store
and made that 24 000
i would never be where i’m at today
because i wouldn’t realize
i would think that’s all a laundromat is
capable of doing and that’s
i mean like that’s i have to spend a lot
of time here to make this money
and like these machines are breaking
down all the time well they’re breaking
down all the time these are 20 years old
like i got
new machines that don’t ever break down
right so
if i would have bought that council
bluffs i can honestly say that you and i
would not be having this conversation
i’d probably still own it and i’d still
probably be working at ge
and i would still be happy like i
wouldn’t like i said i didn’t hate my
job i didn’t leave because i was
miserable
i actually like i said i actually missed
a lot of aspects about that job
ironically
but i mean my life wouldn’t be horrible
or bad or anything it just would be
different
yeah like knowing that i can build a
store and what it can do and
and getting the right area and also like
when you buy a store you’re buying
someone’s bad design you’re buying their
problems you’re buying
the corners a day cut i mean because
like i said i got the drains
in the one i bought were like i’m sure
it’s what they allowed but i mean
i don’t have a laundromat that has
smaller than a four inch drain sometimes
they’re six inch trains i mean
if you’ve got a smaller four inch drain
it’s gonna plug it’s gonna get caught
with something and it’s gonna overflow
the store and then you’re gonna have a
nightmare
you have a plumber all the time and
they’re snaking and jetting and
i’m getting off in the weeds a little
bit here and i don’t know this is really
what you want but yeah i mean it’s
i personally see the benefit of both
what works for a guy in des moines it
really works for him he’s very
successful
and he has more managers and he enjoys
what he does so
i’m not going to say it’s wrong it’s
just not what i would do yeah and i mean
i think i think that’s the beauty of
this
industry too and one of the things that
has surprised me you know doing this
podcast talking to owners
is there’s just a lot of different ways
to skin this cat
right which is a weird thing
[Music]
but there’s a lot of ways to run this
business such a simple business it seems
pretty straightforward
but there’s such diversity in how you
can be successful in this business so
you know one person might want to own
all the buildings and build everything
out and another person might go in and
grab a bunch of those free laundromats
that make 24 grand a year and you stack
those on top of each other it doesn’t
take too many of them to
right have a pretty good income coming
in five of them
you could live a great life on owning
five 24 000
laundromats yeah yeah absolutely listen
i mean i don’t know where you’re from
like california yeah yeah so maybe not
you but
nebraska what i mean you could live in a
beautiful house in omaha for 150
thousand dollars safe nice neighborhood
i don’t think you can buy dirt out there
in la for that okay i’m
just gonna end this right now i don’t
want to talk to you anymore
i haven’t seen 150 000 anything anywhere
around here for
decades um there might be 200 here now i
mean
they are go houses are going up but yeah
yeah i’m just saying i mean
you’re not living in like a beirut where
you’re afraid against shock coming out
of your house at two hundred thousand
dollars here
yeah all right well okay so
how how many you do you own your bill
you said you’re building your seventh
right now
is that well it’s actually my fifth
because i sold those two like i said
i was up to six longer meds but now i’m
down to four i’m building a fifth i’m
actually
negotiating land on a i’ve never built
from the ground up but that might be my
next thing
negotiating right now so
excited and like i said i’m actually
trying to the the properties that i was
telling you about i
am always actually trying to buy the two
people
or older and every three months and like
this is the first window that i
i do it through a realtor but they were
like open to it and i’m like
if they want to sell me those two and i
want i i retool them because they’re old
and if i get this land i’ll do three at
a time for a time i mean even if i’m
still working on this one
i’ll do four at a time i don’t care you
the right people you can do
you can scale to whatever you want nice
uh one quick question i just know people
are going to want to really know
this but uh okay we talked about that
the one you got for free
uh just out of curiosity how did you i
mean i get asked about free laundry mats
all the time
you know there’s there’s all the videos
on youtube and everything but
how did you come across that one how did
that come across your desk
there was a guy that um does just
freelance maintenance that i’ve gotten
and and i used them before i actually
had enough to have a full-time
maintenance guy
and then he’s a good guy and he had just
mentioned to this guy my name
and at the time i was doing a pickup
delivery business which
i know you’re friends with dave mentz
like i do not recommend like it’s a
logistics business i hated it
i gave that away too it was profitable i
gave it away because i just hated it but
anyway
wahoo is the town it was kind of between
lincoln we were talking about expanding
to lincoln and i thought that this could
be like a
little hub for lincoln without
building a laundromat in lincoln and the
guy
just he was burnt out he hated it i mean
he he had bought
he built a laundromat but he had bought
actually he
bought like 15 20 year old equipment
from the distributor i was telling you
earlier
we won’t mention his name but just not a
good person
so he bought 20 years of equipment now
it was like 25 30 years old and and he
was just sick of working on it stick a
patch in it and and he had a great
layout and a great building
and like i said he had gotten some some
stuff from the city to build it so he
got a bunch of money and a bunch of
grants
so again he was just the guy that
that wanted to be out from underneath it
he was sick of making the payments and
he felt like he had to go do it and
he was he’s kind of like i was with the
council bluffs only he was in a
different situation he didn’t have any
income
like he wanted just to go shut the doors
but he had to keep it open
because he just had to keep paying the
paying the bills at this point half them
equipment didn’t work and
and like you know that that causes
people to leave the laundromat and he
he had gotten better like he’s a good
guy nothing against him
but he just got better he got sick of
dealing with the complaint so he wasn’t
dealing with the customer service side
right
and he was losing customers for that
because you know
he didn’t want to go out and refund
somebody at nine o’clock at night
and he just wanted out so i took the
opportunity and it was good like
i don’t feel like he got taken advantage
of he just wanted to be out
i thought this could be a hub for us to
go to lincoln and
like i said it like i said the business
i gave the way i also gave that laundry
is my cousin
and and the truth is my cousin’s doing
great with that laundry he’s retooled it
he’s um
it’s making a good income for where he’s
at in his life and he runs the like i
said he runs a watch drive full delivery
business
i think he’s actually using happyness
which i think is part of dave mentz
yeah when when we started it it wasn’t
happiness
it was like springboard and dave mentz
wasn’t a part of that company i think
when we started it was a
a different guy anyway it doesn’t matter
but
now dave metz is part of that i wasn’t a
part of it when he got on there but i do
do know dave pryor and
it is a very successful business i think
my cousin’s probably gonna make six
figures off of it but
owning a delivery wash dry service
is a logistics company it’s not a
laundromat and i want
old own laundromats and not a logistics
business
yeah and some people want that and you
can scale it and i get that you can make
a ton of money but that’s just
like where you want to spend your time
yeah yeah it’s definitely a different
business uh than the laundromat business
you’re just using your
same assets and i think that that’s the
attractive part of it is you can start a
business that you can scale
up pretty big uh with assets that you
already own right but it definitely is
a different you know it’s a difference
you’re getting phone calls i don’t know
that blacks out on the screen but no
you’re fine because i was gonna do this
from a computer in my office but i’m on
a iphone and
think it building i own it’s going low
budget no it looks good though
uh well okay so you own four right now
how
tell me about how you’re running these
things how do you how do you how are you
managing
these how are you running these things
so i have two managers and like i have
one that’s
that handles all like the scheduling and
the payroll and
i have one that’s moreover like making
sure the tenants are cleaning properly
and and
whatever the day-to-day stuff and and i
actually am involved like i like to tell
the maintenance people what to do and i
actually go into the laundromats
i go to l street every day but i don’t
necessarily
like i’m not needed i guess like i could
definitely leave
and for weeks months and it would it
probably wouldn’t run exactly the way
it ran but it would be fine it wouldn’t
we wouldn’t fall off a cliff like things
wouldn’t be done exactly the way i do
them but they’d be done
satisfactorily but and like i said i
mean i
i spent a lot of time just researching
going for other buildings like i also
am building a lake house right now so i
jack around with that
i mean i’m building a storage unit right
now so like i’m trying to work with
janus international
and i’ve never done a storage unit but
again
a laundry owner in iowa city who i’m
good friends with which would probably
be good for your podcast
he he owns like a tent business
um storage units in like
five laundromats and i asked him one day
so what’s what’s the best business and
i thought he would say laundromats and
he said the tent business
and then i said what’s the second best
and he said storage units i’m like
women you’re telling me laundromats is
third place i’m like i need to know more
about well i don’t want to do tents
because again that’s logistics business
like you’ve got weddings and stuff right
set them up take them down
but the storage unit thing i wouldn’t
spend a day out with him and
we drove around and i learned he gave me
like a
crash course like an expert crash course
in
storage units got me in contact the
right people so now
i’m going to build a storage unit i love
that man and
one of the one of the things that keeps
running through this whole thing that
i’m just seeing like
uh is i mean you seem like you’re a
great
networker because you know you’re you’re
meeting with you know john and with the
uh with the equipment and you know
you’re networking with
people who are bringing you free
laundromats you’re working with you know
networking with people who are
introducing you to
businesses that are fitting what you’re
looking for
and uh and that’s where all these
opportunities are kind of coming your
way
so well and i can tell you the story
about that like
when i was doing the car wash thing like
i told you about zoning in different
things like one of the first people i
called i had a location i thought was
gonna be great for a car wash
there’s a guy that knows anderson food
shops ray anderson and he owns like
probably 50 gas stations right
well there’s a gas station next to this
land and he owned the land and i was
like this would be perfect for the car
wash maybe i could talk to him
if he sold car washes at his pump i’d
give him a dollar
so i called this guy up and i actually
talked to ray anderson like literally
the guy like i don’t get a secretary i
don’t get anybody else
and i just asked him i asked him the
question right and the first thing he
said he said
you can’t build a car wash there and i
said why because you won’t sell me the
land and let me
he said no he says it’s not zoned right
he goes matter of fact i couldn’t build
a gas station there nowadays and i said
well how did you
because i built the gas station before
it was zoned and we went to this whole
thing
and he taught me about zoning and he was
so proud of like he actually ended up
offering me he said do you want to buy
that gas station and i said why would
you sell that gas station and he said
well i’m expanding in a different thing
so i need to generate some income
and i said how much is the gas station
he said 2.6 million dollars
i said i can’t afford to buy the gas
station but i mean
he was proud of what he did like this is
what i found and i learned from him
and i started calling i call laundromat
owners that i found on the cla and i
would call them
and they would spend two hours with me
like ray anderson spent two hours with
me
and like i had like this this myth that
people were rich she wanted to stay rich
and want to keep you from doing it
well i learned from ray anderson so
there’s a bucky’s it’s a chain of car
washes and it’s buchanan energy
i think it actually just got bought out
by casey’s but
ray anderson bought his gas from
buchanan
energy which was his biggest competitor
and they didn’t hate each other they had
a great relationship he was a supplier
for his gasoline i’m like
these two people have the most gas
stations combined in omaha and they’re
they’re friends
they don’t hate each other they don’t
look at each other the animosity but
then like i said
i feel like you cannot ask laundry like
in omaha if i go ask the laundromat
owner stuff they’re going to be closed
off they’re not going to say anything
they look at me like a competitor
if i go to des moines i have two great
friends on laundromats in des moines i
have one great friend in iowa city that
owns
laundromats and they we share everything
and
and the truth is when you ask somebody
something like i’d tell people my story
because i’m proud of it too like i i had
some stumbles i did some stuff
but i am proud of it and and that’s what
the gray anderson was proud of what he
did so he shared with me his building
this
gas station empire not because he was he
was just proud he wasn’t gloating he
wasn’t
bragging he wasn’t and like i said and
he wasn’t hiding stuff because
he didn’t look at me as a threat even
though i wanted to build a gas station
he
knows that one gas station can’t serve
all of omaha there’s got to be hundreds
it’s not a threat to him yeah yeah
that’s awesome i mean
do you have uh do you have any tips for
people
on how to find people to network i mean
i i get asked this all the time and
you know how do you how do you find
somebody who can who can teach you
i mean it sounds like you just asked but
you know
it is i would say i would just call
people and some people will say no and
they won’t
but but as far as the sales guy too
right like i don’t mind
i took it and then maybe it is my
personality because i’ll never forget
like i did an interview once and they
had me take this test
and they flew this guy out and he wanted
to meet with me and he said
that on this test when they when they
deal with sales people like
there’s great sales people but they
don’t ask for the clothes they don’t try
to close the deal right
and he said i scored in the 99th
percentile in closing
and he said according to this you close
like a freight train
and that’s the thing i asked for the
order i asked for the thing like i’m not
afraid
i mean what’s the worst thing they can
say is like i’m not going to talk to you
i’m not going to tell you
well great go to the next guy i mean i
actually had a good friend in college
like he used to pick up girls
he’d ask five girls if they wanted to go
you know
to his house after the bar well the
first three would say no but the fourth
would say yes so i mean
he just was like there’s another one he
asked one more man
maybe he’s not never said he got one
okay
i mean i’m just saying like he set up
like he would like talk up five girls at
the end of the night
i actually remember because it was a
great line he was like let’s go and
sometimes they would pause
because like he didn’t he didn’t ask he
just said let’s go he didn’t ask a
question
and they’d look and like one was one
sometimes our friends were like no you
got to come home with us and the second
would be like uh
but he’d always get one like yeah sure
let’s go i was like this is genius
genius just ask but like i said you just
ask people
and like ask the girl out maybe she says
no maybe she says yes i mean
that’s how it works right laundromat
resource
podcast giving you dating advice right
here
well i can say you translate from dating
into like just asking right now you mean
like i said it’s and also i think the
truth is with me like
everybody has something to offer even my
customers like i love hanging around the
laundromats and i actually one of my
favorite things is to chat
to customers and people like you really
don’t like that i’m like
i do like and i think that everybody has
something to offer
like everybody and the truth is like i
share with these people too and
sometimes they’ll ask me questions like
why you want to do it like even rain or
she’s like why you want to do a car wash
and i was like tell them the whole thing
like i want a
business where i can keep my job and
like i said he wants to hear that too
like we just connected right like we
just
we had a conversation he asked me
questions i was honest with him
i asked him questions and like i said
he was happy to explain to me and he was
proud of what he did
yeah what do you build awesome awesome
tips
um on networking because i mean i do
think that
you know if you want to get somewhere in
life you want to accomplish big goals
you know you got to have other people
you know that
that have been there and that know what
you need to know to help you get there
otherwise you’re making huge mistakes
and it’s hard to really get off the
ground
right that little bit of luck so
awesome okay so now you’re you’re you’re
running with four
laundromats uh all over omaha nebraska
right now building another one and yeah
out of curiosity
do you have any do you have like a goal
number in mind of how many you want to
own
i think i want to do 12 i mean that was
kind of like a goal i have four kids
that would leave them
three each i don’t care they sell them
and do something else or run them but
that’s just kind of like an arbitrary
thing i threw my but then again
i’m branching out to like storage units
i actually
right when the pandemic happened i was
the good like talking with holiday inn
about building a
holiday in hotel because i think that’s
a great business too right because
wherever you go to a holiday inn they’re
all the same you they have a management
company they have these people that go
and
like score you so if something’s not
being done right you’re hauled in you
get to
retrain your managers and they they help
you right like you’re paying a franchise
fee
i also like that holding in makes their
money right by
by people renting rooms right so they
thought of every single way that
somebody could steal or manipulate the
system
to not pay them so they’ve taken the
guesswork out and like their master’s at
it
so i like the fact that you can send
three managers down to training
they come back they know how to run a
hotel they also made it so like you
can’t steal
like people aren’t giving free rooms are
they taking that out of the equation
so it’s like a true business that runs
itself
right i mean i know personally a guy
who i was like i i was a roommate with
his son he owns like eight laundromats
like some of them aren’t even in the
state i mean he can’t even drive to him
and they are successful i mean he he
doesn’t even go to them
and they’re successfully ranked so i
really like that
aspect but obviously during coven i
think the long
i mean the the hotel hospitality
industry is obviously suffering so
i’m definitely putting a pin maybe three
years i’ll build a hotel again
maybe not i don’t know maybe i’ll move
on to something else i don’t know
yeah well and i i just i what
one of the things just from talking to
you so far today one of the things i
really
love about you is you have this great
mindset right i see so many people who
are like i want to
you know learn it all myself i want to
do it all myself and you do have to
do you know some of that but one of the
things that i see you doing
is looking for other experts and
picking their brains and learning from
them and you’re doing it on forums
you’re making phone calls you’re
even even uh considering a you know a
franchise like that
that’s exactly what you’re doing you’re
taking you know this system
that basically has all the expertise
built into it
and uh and running with it you know and
taking off with it from there so i love
that mindset i think
we all would benefit from having more
and more of that mindset
to relying on the experts so thanks for
sharing all that
we have a little section called down to
business
and that’s just an opportunity for us to
hear a little bit about
your actual businesses uh
can you i don’t think you mentioned this
yet but can you tell us
when you got into the laundromat
industry what year
four four years ago four years ago
like four years and going three months
maybe four months yeah
like three years four years and three
months i think awesome
all right so you’ve been into it for
four years you man you’ve
you’ve covered a lot of ground in four
years man building all these laundromats
and
i always say i’m in a race with an
invisible person like there’s no there
really isn’t somebody i’m racing but
like i’ve just manufactured somebody and
i’m like
i tell my wife like i don’t even know
who i’m competing against i’m competing
against the visible man
that’s funny um all right well what uh
oh i need to pull this up can you
one of the well okay so you have um four
laundry mat you’re building another one
i mean you’ve mentioned you own the
buildings on all those is that
do you own more real estate too or is
that what your focus is right now
i do a little more real estate i bought
a building i was gonna make a laundromat
it wasn’t right with the city and what i
had to do to make it
and becoming a nightmare so i actually
leased that building out
um i bought buildings like i would also
say like i’m also
someone that’s not afraid to to reship i
bought a building in fremont
started going through fremont nebraska
which is close to omaha
and it started going through the process
to build that out
and i just started seeing too many red
flags so i just
i pulled the rip cord i said you know
what this isn’t right let’s not force it
and i sold it i sold the building before
i even
well i actually put it for lease or so i
didn’t care if i at least ever sold it
but
someone wanted to buy it so i sold it i
mean
i’ve i’m actually i shouldn’t even say
this like i’m
i went to uh so i actually went to a
fundraiser i mean the networking i
ran them like we it’s actually running
like my wife is a massive trump
supporter right like in and i’m a
libertarian so i mean i like trump but
i don’t really i probably vote more
conservative not that it matters but
like i’m a libertarian my wife is
republican
so we go to this trump rally and i’m
sitting this tent and it’s all these
people
and there’s like these four women just
drinking and having a good time i go
up and end up talking to this one lady
and she owns a car wash
and she’s like well but she goes where i
use my like the money i use
for fun and this kind of stuff is like i
run a firework stand
i get to talking to her because like i
had literally been talking about doing a
fireworks like getting into the
fireworks business like last year
and i randomly meet this woman that’s
trump rally and she gives me like the
number one distributor for importing
chinese fireworks
out of pittsburgh she gives me all this
stuff just sitting at this this table
and she’s telling me she makes 80 000
profit in a town of 5 000 people in
kansas
and i’m like if i got a million people
in omaha and it’s restricted to only 40
firework stands
these people literally have a license to
steal in this town
yeah so and the problem with the barrier
with
that is right if you go to china and you
buy fireworks so i’ve dealt with chinese
because i ran
a bitcoin mine and it’s funny because i
always hear people say they mine bitcoin
but
i had a 4 000 am switchboard where i ran
my computers i bought like a half a
million computers from china
and my electric bill was 31 000 a month
so that was bitcoin mining for me where
people say like oh i got my computer
running in the corner
that’s not that’s not bitcoin mining
right but anyway
so i’ve dealt with china like the thing
with china is like you give them a so i
didn’t give a half a million dollars a
once i gave them a hundred thousand
for computers and like the way china
works is they don’t start building until
you pay them like in america you receive
a product then you pay somebody china
you pay them
and then wait for them to build it and
hope they send it to you it’s like the
thing
but they do i mean every single one i
bought a month later my product showed
up i plugged them in and by the way
bitcoin
that’s the only reason i get back on the
cla i had a fight with larry anski he
told me bitcoin
would be zero i think it was ten
thousand and then it’s like twenty
thousand eighteen thousand right now
so larry was wrong yeah i told him wrong
mr rev man
rub it in like you said i’m a
libertarian bitcoin’s a perfect thing
for a
libertarian no government controls it no
person controls it
it’s like the perfect system love it no
central bank of bitcoin
that’s right that’s right nobody i mean
we’re getting the wheels down i mean
that’s what yeah all right well okay
let’s
reel it back in to laundromats here uh
we were seeing another business so the
bitcoin business i’m doing a distributor
i’m starting uh
the um right now i currently have got
land i’m i’m working with a layout with
janus for doing storage units cause i’ve
never done it but they’re the experts so
they’re gonna give me a layout
and i’m considering becoming a laundry
distributor
um i am 100 committed to that yet
and this fireworks thing is definitely
going to happen but i recently hired a
guy
well i’m paying a six-figure salary to
and i made him a ceo of a new
venture i’m doing that is um so nebraska
has just legalized gambling
so i have him looking into skill games
and doing distribution for that and i
actually got the exclusive for a certain
game in iowa
and i also i don’t know that i’ll build
a casino but
i doesn’t hurt to try and get
a casino license and the weird thing on
that is like i don’t have enough money
to build a casino
but as i told this guy i said if we get
if we secure a license in nebraska to
build a casino there will be zero
problem finding
people yeah yeah the money will be we
will have investors
yeah yeah i love that mindset too
all right well tell me what is uh i mean
you got a lot going on geez man
which is awesome i love with four kids
so i can’t do this at my house
three of them are triplets right is that
what you said triplet four-year-olds
they just turned four
oh my gosh i don’t know how i don’t know
how you do that that’s i got a great
wife that’s all that’s how you do it
that’s exactly how you do it yeah
uh well hey i’m curious it always blows
my mind
just the diversity of how much it costs
to do laundry all throughout the country
and places that i would expect it to be
expensive
are cheap and places i expect to be
cheap are expensive but
can you give us a ballpark of vent
prices like how much does it cost to
do laundry in omaha so
right now i have two i usually all do
all my stores at the same time but
with dexter i have two dexter stores and
two electrolux stores so the dexter i
actually just changed like changed
so a double load i charge
three dollars and by the way john olson
and dave mentz i was
struggling of going to four dollars on
that but i just i ended up going to
three
but a triple loader is five a four
loader is six
a eight loader is ten and a nine loader
is eleven
i charge two dollars for extra washer
rinse on anything above
a 40 pounder i charge a dollar for an
extra
washer rinse for anything but 40 pounds
and below
um dryers i do adopt some dollar coin
mostly like i have
so every one of my stores takes dollar
coins and everything’s in dollar
increments
sorry i got another call i just declined
but uh
i do 20 like a 50 pound dryer 20 minutes
for a dollar
it’s 24 minutes for a dollar on a 35
pounder and then i have 80 pounders
that are 10 minutes for a dollar
well actually i think it’s different on
dexter doesn’t allow you to do a half
cent or
i get two and a half minutes on
electrolux three minutes on the dexter’s
so they don’t let you do a half
increment
so i think that’s yeah that’s and i’ve
been yeah i charge a dollar for little
boxes of soap which i probably shouldn’t
jack that right now because that’s been
going up
i charged a dollar for a can of pop all
my vending machines are a dollar
like you buy a can of hop it’s a dollar
you buy any snack it’s a dollar
you buy a soapbox dollar but i i have
like the upright
vending so i got like the big bags of
soap i sell for 10 bucks i sell
little bottles that you get the dollar
tree for four bucks
and i only do that like i didn’t even
know dollar tree existed i mean these
dollar bottles
i was buying it from a soap distributor
for 275 for red tide bottles
and so i was charging four bucks which i
didn’t think it was outrageous and then
i find out that they’re a buck each at
dollar tree so then i have my managers
go buy those and they’re like should we
change the price i said
no they’re paying four bucks for them
like leave it charging four
i mean i feel like that’s gouging but i
wasn’t gauging even though they probably
thought i was when i was paying 275 but
whatever
yeah awesome i mean those are awesome
bin prices i love those
definitely higher than what we’re
getting for stuff out here
oh they’re higher they’re the highest in
omaha like no question i don’t know of
anybody
i think i got competitors defending 80
pounders at like 750 or seven bucks so
so i’m 11 and they’re at seven yeah well
it’s
clean and attended and my and my laundry
attendants aren’t doing wash dry fold
right because i don’t do that
they’re cleaning they’re helping people
they’re taking care of the store
are all four of yours fully attended no
they they i keep them 24 7 but
i have one woman that’s a rover that
goes around to all four at night
but mine are fully attended from
anywhere from 7 a.m to 12 midnight
but some of them are like 8 00 am they
open are not open they are they’re ten
at eight i have some that are like
they’re as early as seven a.m to eight
a.m and it’s late from 9 00 p.m till 12
p.m
but then i have a woman at night that
has access to all my cameras so she can
kind of go
i have two stores that are fairly busy
overnight and two that aren’t but
when you call yourself anytime laundry
you gotta be 24 7.
you gotta live up to it that’s right
christmas eve
christmas day we’re open yeah which
we’re actually packed on christmas it
blows my mind
i know it’s crazy yeah because i’m open
too
although i did spend one christmas eve
um digging a toy uh uh
um a potato out of one of my toilets
because i called i i called a plumber
the plumber came out
tried to root her he’s like oh there’s
something hard in there and i was like
yeah i know that’s why i
called you and he wouldn’t get it out
and left
this is a christmas eve and i’m like
dude so i had to drive out there and
take the toilet off and try to get a
potato out of the toilet so oh man
anytime laundry love it uh all right so
you said your dollar coin are you an
adamant dollar coin i know that debate
can get real heated
uh are you adamant so i’m i’m not
so all my laundry mats take dollar coins
or quarters every single one of them
okay i have an app store where and i
actually i guess i could
hook up dexter pay i haven’t done that
yet but
i’ve done a cci store and the truth is
like i probably will end up
i don’t know you know i actually even
this last story i
really and i even talked to dave i
talked to john about it
and i almost went hard i just wanted to
and like i said i do believe that card
is easier for the owner
and i handle a lot of cash a lot of
people handle cash which is dangerous
right
and i’ve had people steal cash but
it’s for the owner it’s not for the
customer so i i mean
this building i’m in right now like 4
000 square feet of it
or 4500 square feet of laundromat
and it’s this is a store that’s quarter
dollar coin i mean i could literally
walk over there if you wanted to see but
dollar coin quarter and credit card is
fast cards so we we take everything like
it actually will take tokens too like
because when i did do wash dry fold i
could give the tenants tokens instead of
money
but that’s i am an excitement six
quarters dollar coins
quarter tokens dollar tokens but
going forward i will do a credit card
payment on all
of my stores the app i mean so i have
the the wasco mat live or whatever that
that new thing at the other store and
it’s causing some issues because i mean
it’s still beta i think i don’t know
it’s actually
live fire so i mean i’m not trying to
knock on them but
i also don’t think i mean i have older
customers younger customers like younger
people don’t care they like apps and
apps is probably the future phone pay is
probably the future but
right now everybody understands swiping
a card
yeah i mean right wrong or indifferent i
mean
can people be taught yeah but i’ll tell
you right now i even have too many apps
on my phone i just deleted
50 apps i’m like why do i have this
garbage so i don’t
i got a fast card app that’ll tell me my
machines and i can give them a free
start
and like i said it’s just too too many
apps like i i just believe that
right now at the current time i want to
do quarter dollar coin
and and you know another thing is like
everybody tells me i should just stop
the quarters but
i have a location my first location i
get two thousand dollars in quarters
every single week and i was selling
people quarters like even during this
pandemic
dave johnson i sold him eight thousand
dollars in quarters the president of cla
because he’s up in in iowa right and
i would say that if i
stop taking quarters and let’s say it
cost me 500
a week that is not worth it to me like i
wouldn’t
lose 500 worth of a weekly customer by
showing off quarters
and would i and that’s the unknown right
because like if i went to card
where i lose five percent or at least
two percent some people claim that you
gain customers
so if i found out that if i went hard
everywhere and i knew that if i went
hard everywhere i would gain 10 percent
i would buy cards right now like every
store would be retrofitted this week
but if i went hard only and lost 15
of my business just for my ease of life
i i am not okay with that and and like i
said
i don’t know that i would and that’s the
worst part about it i don’t know
but i feel like if you can do like in
this store you can use a credit card you
can use a quarter you can use a dollar
everybody can use this system yep
i like that how many hours a week are
you are you spending on your businesses
are you running this is like a full-time
job are you doing it
kind of part-time i mean i know you said
you could be away you know but
yeah so that’s a tricky question because
like i said i’m doing all these i’m
doing a startup so i have conference
calls with the guy that i hired
just looking into the gaming i have i
have lots of
like today like i don’t know if you’ve
been noticing i think i don’t know my
screen goes
black or you can still see it but i
think i’ve gotten like something like 15
calls and
20 texts since we’ve been been talking
here i try to decline it as fast as i
can but
i mean i spent a lot of time on the
phone so i’m gonna talk with realtors
i’m always looking at new properties
like i’ll spend like half of a day
looking at buildings i mean i go
to the one that’s being currently
construction i i have like a fight with
the city right now because
i was the first business in omaha to be
fined for mass man
date and because i don’t require people
i said i’m a libertarian through and
through like i don’t tell people how to
live their lives as long as it doesn’t
affect me
i’m not pro master anti-mask i’m like if
you want to wear a mask if you don’t
want to wear a mask don’t wear a mask
so i don’t wear a mask because i think
i’ve already had coven not because i’m
making a political statement
i just hate them too like i i’ve already
got congestion whatever like i said i
don’t want to get on the weeds again but
i guess the whole point i’m making is
just yeah i mean
i just don’t even know what i mean i’m
getting busy you’re busy that’s what
you’re trying to say
i’m busy but i’m not i’m not working 40
hours a week in the laundromat
like right i’m not i got maybe and i am
actively involved and i do like to be
involved i like to talk to the managers
but
i could work zero hours i i probably put
i go to the office 48 hours a week
but i would say the time that is spent
on laundromat
is
probably well it’s hard to say like the
physical business is probably 10 hours
but
if you’re talking about going out to the
construction site and
dealing with the realtors i mean it’s
probably 30. yeah
yeah well that’s a whole other that’s a
whole nother deal
well cool we have a section that i like
to call
secret sauce listen up it’s the secret
sauce
and secret sauce is uh hey what’s one
thing that’s working for you
uh your business model your businesses
that you think other
uh other owners could implement into
their businesses to maybe help them
improve it i would probably i mean this
is probably some people say a lot but it
is people like
and i would say that people when you
watch football teams and they have
coaches or you watch
anything in life like people start to
emulate their leader so i’m in here
acting like a hothead and screaming and
acting irrational
like your management is going to take on
that
they’re going to take on that role like
if you’re if you’re having struggles or
you’re stressed out
like they’re going to reflect you
they’re going to emulate you so i think
that you gotta get the right people you
gotta have the right attitudes and those
people especially if that’s who’s
dealing with interacting with your
employees and your customers
i mean an excellent customer experience
is like what people should
you know and i try to ingrain like
there’s wording i was a market guy right
i was in sales i was
area manager for ge so like i have the
signs of all the time like customers are
the reason we have our job like
don’t come be combative customers like
you know
they’re not lying all the time like
sometimes the machine doesn’t work like
go
understand the situation don’t and like
i said when someone says something ate
their money i said the first time i
always say
just do it right i mean you don’t know
this person if like two or three i mean
i’ve had people two or three
weeks in a row say like there’s a
problem and i’ll go out there and i’ll
fight with them i said
there’s obviously something you don’t
understand about these machines or they
don’t work perfectly for you so this
probably isn’t
the right laundry map for you there’s
one whatever the nearest
location is i said maybe you should try
that one maybe it’ll be a better fit for
you
i don’t say it angrily or mainly i just
say it very plainly like that
and i’ve had two things happen i have
some people that don’t come back some
people do come back but also they stop
complaining because they know that
you’re gonna tell them that
you don’t want all customers but you do
want 99 of them well probably maybe 95
yeah and i also believe too though like
when you have a customer acting crazy
like i’ll
i’ll put it i’ll i’ll tell them they
need to calm down or leave because
some people don’t understand like that’s
affecting other people that they’re
uncomfortable because this person’s
screaming young at their kids and being
nuts
and it’s i mean like i said it’s this
delicate balance right like you have
you’re always walking a fine line but i
do believe it’s people this is the
secret sauce i believe that
like i am good at certain i would say
i’m excellent actually i’ll even say
that i am excellent at certain aspects
of business and life but there are stuff
that i would rank myself as that
poor and the things i’m poor at i hire
people to take on those tasks
i love that and don’t be afraid dude
like i mean like i said you’re not good
at something not not everybody is good
at everything
so hire the right person like
like i said i was terrible at scheduling
i kept on conflicting stuff
so i have a manager they do the
scheduling they deal with it when like
they’re switching switch shifts
and i that way like i said i always
schedule two people
i just get one personal work at two
different stores or something and like
at the same time i mean i was terrible
at it i just
i don’t know what’s wrong with my brain
but
i couldn’t do it or i would give someone
like
eight hours and they’re like why did i
do something wrong and i like didn’t
realize i wasn’t even given
i’m just filling these boxes i’m not
paying attention to who has how many
hours and like i said i was terrible i
only want to get into those i don’t do
it anymore i won’t do it because
it’s causing conflict and i didn’t mean
to and you got somebody good to do it
for you
so i mean i think that’s awesome that’s
that’s a huge secret sauce that’s hard
to do
when you’re first getting started uh you
know i hear people talk about that a lot
and i remember
you know just getting started it’s like
well how do you hire somebody when you
don’t really even have enough money to
hire
somebody so that’s really hard to do and
you can at first like when i was first
did this it was me and one other
employee
i worked in the stores like i don’t work
on them anymore
but like i did at the time and uh like
physically being an attendant
and yeah i mean you can’t at the
beginning you have to be all things
and like you just gotta get youtube
pulled up and
but i’ll tell you what it’s not hard to
schedule when you have one employee
right i mean everything was infinitely
easier well i don’t even think about
getting a loan now like to get a loan
like it is no easy task for me to come
up with financials like they change from
month to month drastically
so like it used to be easy to put
together a financial statement now it’s
like
it takes me four people in three days
like compiling information to put
together a financial statement that’s
true and accurate
yeah awesome secret sauce uh we have
another section we call
pro tips pro tips and pro tips is
uh what’s a piece of advice you got for
somebody who’s maybe looking to buy
their first laundromat they’re new to
the industry they want to
kind of get in you got any advice for
them
that i would tell them i said you we
talked about this earlier but
i would definitely try to understand
what they’re trying to do and what their
goal is like are they trying to replace
their job are they trying
to make this a supplemental income and
i would just say that like i said before
there’s so many laundry mats in this
town i would not buy i would not buy
them
for any amount of money and there’s
there’s there’s several other maps that
someone actually
physically gifted me like even wahoo
like the one in oahu
if someone were to ask me now like i
will give this to you for free i would
say
i don’t want it and i wouldn’t be lying
or hesitating
i don’t want it they’re not all good
there are some good ones there there’s
some ones that are probably been managed
poorly that are in good areas but like
area is critical
i would tell you that i truly believe
100
that you could be a piss-poor operator
with a tremendous location
and be successful and i believe you
could be one of the best operators
run a great tight ship and you will
never be successful
with the wrong location so i would say
you talk about real estate locations
every location is everything i mean you
literally
could build a laundromat and be terrible
at everything and succeed if it is like
this
a plus location if you got an f i don’t
care you could do everything right and
still fail
yeah so that’s why i spend all my time
looking for the majority of my time
right now is look locations i i
eliminate tons of them
i’ve looked at probably 40 buildings and
every single one of them i have the
capital to purchase
so that’s not the barrier it was this i
eliminated them on on something
and that’s i’ve looked at 40 billion
probably three months
because i really really want to build
right now but there’s just nothing right
yeah
you gotta find the right thing and i
think that’s huge you know take that
advice if you’re new
you know even if you’re not planning on
building and you’re planning on buying
uh which again you know different
different people can make it work
different ways
uh but the location still is huge
because it
you can’t move a laundromat you know so
it’s not either is it costly
yeah you just pick up the machines you
gotta put the infrastructure in right so
once you
lay down those routes once you commit
yourself to a location
you’re at that location so you know
finding a great location
is is key awesome
and like i said it truly doesn’t matter
what you’re trying to do i mean
if you when you get employees and you
start getting the bigger laundry mats
they are not
they don’t run themselves like you have
to be i mean when you’re running
unattended and you have like a cleaning
service going on once a day
that’s a completely different operation
than what i’m doing you know
is it bad i would never say that like i
know tons of people
are very successful it’s just different
goals so i would say
they really need to know what they want
and i’d also say don’t let it be a
crutch though because
if you’re looking for the i never find
the perfect
thing right like i mean i find something
that’s i would say i’ve never found an a
plus
well actually i lied i have one a plus
location
but there’s a lot of bees out there bees
are tremendous they can be very
successful
so you don’t want to stymie yourself to
where like you’re looking for the
absolute perfect thing because it
doesn’t exist
right well wow it does but i mean
it’s like a unicorn right how many
unicorns have you seen yeah
i mean i see daily so my daughter is
my daughter has a youtube channel called
evangeline unicorn she’s unicorn
all the time cool
awesome awesome tip i think man if
you’re new getting in the industry
write that one down put it on you know
the forefront of your mind as you’re
looking for locations
you know find a good location and i
think your your advice to
to understand your goal is a huge one
too because
you can easily you know purchase a
location that’s going to make 24 grand a
year
but if your goal is to get out of your
job and replace the six figure income as
soon as possible
that location might be great but it’s
not going to service your goal so i
think
both of those tips are awesome tips uh
we have another uh section that we call
recommended
resources and you know do you have any
resources that you recommend
to people to help them grow their
business or themselves personally
so i i went to the cla but i think the
cla is not as good as it used to be
because i feel like some of the
strongest contributors have
left but i’ve been in these facebook
groups and and why i don’t use them i
actually have a facebook group that it’s
called um
it’s laundry laundromat owners only
again only is the key word that we don’t
and it’s not for
like the newbies i mean there’s lots of
great
facebook’s already out there dedicated
to helping new people
so i actually wanted to make this a
multi-store group but we ended up not
making it the guy i started with
but um it’s more for like the seasoned
veteran right like i mean
this is i wanted this to be like kind of
like people talking about
you know that have been in the business
and like i said i do think it’s great
for the newbies but there’s probably
four already
that if you’re a newbie and you go on
there and ask questions people are
willing to help you
just like the cla there’s some people
that won’t help newbies some people will
so like i said it’s just more geared to
to the veterans but yeah i mean
and if you own a laundromat we’ll accept
you i mean but we we do boot a lot of
people that are in there just
trying to sell product or push in
laundry equipment or
sell soap so i mean we do actively
remove people
and it is if you own a laundromat for
three months like
you’re happy to join like you can
probably get a lot from it but
like i said we don’t generally take the
questions like what is the first thing i
do
well you find a location that’s the
first thing i mean
you’ll find a difference but like you
said distributors will help you with
that too i mean
resources i mean distributors are not
strong here in omaha but
there’s one in iowa that’s pretty good
but i mean distributors if you get the
right distributor
but i say get a man or call somebody i
mean just go to a city that you’re not
gonna be in and go
like i said i met um randy crone is a
great guy
in des moines i don’t talk to him that
much anymore but i literally just went
into his laundromat and i said i want to
build one in omaha
well like i said we went to his office
he had a bucket of cloud number he had
buckets of quarters like
lying around his office and we talked
for two hours and he told me he had to
go because he had another meeting
and he apologized this man gave me two
hours of his day and apologized for
having to leave i just was unannounced
unexpected visitor but he’s a great guy
salt to the earth i mean
like i said just just talk to people
they’ll they will talk i will talk to
people
if i have the time i will give you the
time but i don’t always
like i said i may be going somewhere and
don’t take it as me being rude or being
on interstate i just i just don’t have
the time in that second
but yeah and i think that’s a that’s a
perfect
recommended resource from you
particularly because you’re so good at
it i mean it just
it comes through hugely this whole
interview that you’re so good at
talking to people and
you know asking questions that you need
answers to and networking and building
those relationships and
and and using all of that to
you know further your goals and and to
take your next step forward so
awesome recommended resource whoa peter
this has been
incredible having you on you have been
dropping
all kinds of wisdom for over an hour now
just
it’s been it’s been awesome it’s been
super cool
i got one more question for you if
people have a
question for you or they just want to
say thanks for for sharing
you know all the stuff that you’ve had
what’s the best way they can contact you
i have an email address nebraskalaundry
gmail.com
but i mean i get at least 100 emails
there a day so
i would say that if they do contact me
and i don’t i may not necessarily see it
but
and i am extremely busy right now with
the new ventures but
i do i actually have responded to people
people have gotten that through the cla
well i was awesome didn’t you on your
questions didn’t you have like a pro tip
thing
cause i do have a pro tip let’s hear it
man let’s hear it so
my pro tip is like this building i just
walked into right
like i didn’t have to go find a key
every single building i own
i key with a master key and i have a
slave key so every one of my locations
there’s certain doors that my attendants
have
but i have a master key so i can walk
onto any of the seven properties
with one key open every single door on
there me only
can open every single door and my
managers
and then like my changers so i have
change machines that i own right like i
own my own
medico locker or medeco wherever you say
it medico
that i own it so i can open any one of
my i have four keys right
that i carry with me that i can get
access to everything like i have my own
paddle lock
so i have like you know i mean i have
some kind of special code
for a padlock that i have 50 of them so
every single padlock i own
i can open with one key i have all my
changers
all my doors and then like even my
vending machine like i have a tube key
because i don’t know if people know this
but i was getting robbed for my vending
machines because there’s only like three
different vending
keys that these vending manufacturers
use why am i own now
and i’ve have them all i think i have 15
vending machines
they all work on one key like i just
replaced it
so i mean i see and i still this day
i’ll go and see friends of mine
and they’ve got like just glove box full
of keys and i’m like
i literally and they cost me something
like four grand to do this right
four grand best four grand i ever spent
yeah that’s a that’s that’s an
incredible pro tip because literally
when i bought my first laundromat they
handed me
a bucket full of keys and
in a key like a few key rings and i
still
i have no idea what a lot of those keys
go to still to this day
and there’s you know the key i mean
i always joke about you know when you
when you buy a laundromat you’re
you’re really just getting a key
collection uh
because the amount of keys is crazy but
i didn’t even know you could do that
that’s awesome i mean
yeah here’s my keys like hearing this is
it i don’t know if you can see this it’s
this is my medeco this is my master and
i have an m on it
so i give them all different things but
i don’t know if you can see this it says
m
yeah so like my location’s like ames
will have an
a this master then i have like b for
bellevue
l for l street like i said they all have
a letter
for like so that way i can give the the
attendance keys
yeah i mean like i said like this
building is not even occupied
so i have an r key for renter so even
though
and that way i also have realtors right
they don’t realize that every one of my
buildings
that renter key will work on so this
realtor can show this i give her a r key
but i don’t need an r key i can walk in
here because it’s master key
that’s awesome every single thing i own
i actually want to put the
my locks on my house on it which i could
have done made my master key my home
thing but my wife was like
what if you lose your keys and someone
comes to her house i’m like
she’s crazy i mean that would never
happen in a million years but whatever i
just
i have so i actually bought one of those
little wi-fi ones that you can unlock it
with your phone so i didn’t have to have
an extra key for that i hate keys
yes me too oh my gosh the store you’re
not getting
your phone is your key like they’re
gonna they’re really gonna be able to
rent a storage unit online
use their phone to get to the gate and
instead of having like a lock that you
have to unlock
use your phone it’s like a little light
and it unlocks i’m like
genius genius yeah genius
awesome pro tip by the way i’m glad that
you stopped me
and uh and and gave me that tip because
especially for people with multiple
locations
you know that is huge because it can get
real complicated real fast when you’re
carrying all these different keys
for all these different locations and
you know we’ve had you know like luke
who probably luke williford i don’t know
if you know luke but he’s probably i
told him to get keys i literally
we we were talking on facebook once
because i don’t know him that well
but i i said look i mean you guys got a
million things like
why aren’t you master these things yeah
yeah i mean the guys got
i don’t know last check it was 40 so
he’s probably at 45
now who knows that guy’s collecting
laundromats like i know they’re
you know special quarters or something i
don’t know but uh
yeah like having multiple locations you
know getting getting a key like that is
awesome that’s
that’s such a great tip sweet man well
this has been
incredible thank you so much for taking
your time and coming on
and generously just sharing uh your
experience and your wisdom and knowledge
with us it’s been
so good and i’m you know i’m super glad
that we got to meet each other too
i can’t wait to you know hear more about
all these ventures that you got going on
so thanks for coming
on dude oh thanks for having me i
sincerely appreciate it
all right i mean that was so so good it
was
oh man i don’t know if you’re like me
and you’re just leaving this interview
super jazz super pumped up i know i am
maybe a little bit overwhelmed because
he is doing so much stuff
it’s so inspiring i just man i can’t
wait to hear
you know how things go for him i know
he’s gonna be shooting straight to the
moon
with all the things that he’s doing so
cool uh for me
it’s so hard to narrow it down for to
one takeaway
i mean there’s just so much in there but
the one thing that i’m going to take
away is this quote i loved this little
it was almost in passing this little
quote that he said and he said
everybody has something to offer
everybody
even my customers and it’s so
true and i love that he says he takes
time to stop to get to know his
customers
not just you know to help build his
business and build
you know relationships and loyalty for
his business sake but because he’s
learning from his customers and i
love that and i you know it’s so easy to
get caught up
in doing and running the business and
focusing on the tasks
that need to be done that it can be easy
to forget to slow down
and hey get to know your customers learn
from those guys
so that’s my big takeaway as always i
really encourage you
pick one thing if nothing else pick one
thing
from this interview put it into action
because it’s the action
that brings the results that brings the
success that you want
that helps you achieve the goals that
you want to achieve and that helps you
uh grow in in life and that’s what we’re
all
here for that’s what we’re all trying to
do so pick one thing
put it into action and next week i
cannot wait to get back
with you guys it’s gonna be an awesome
week with some more stuff that you can
put in action so if you haven’t yet
make sure you subscribe on the podcast
subscribe to our youtube
come find us over at instagram uh the
facebook page
got hacked and facebook won’t let it let
me have it back
uh i’ve been trying to get it back for
weeks
and then we’ll give it back so i don’t
know i might end up trying to
get that thing shut down and starting
over but
uh yeah i don’t know if you’re on
facebook
sorry i don’t know what to tell you
facebook is not cooperating with me but
anyways
go find us wherever we’re located and
get in touch with us because
we would love to hear from you and we’ll
see you next week
peace
[Music]
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