41. My How the Tables Have Turned- An Interview with Host, Jordan Berry

Laundromat Resource Podcast guest from show 33, Peter Mayberry, turns the tables on host Jordan Berry. For the first time ever, Jordan releases the reins and hands them over to a guest host for the day. 

Peter and Jordan delve deep into Jordan’s experience getting into the industry, details of his businesses now, and goals for the future, both in his laundromats and with Laundromat Resource. With raw, honest conversation, they discuss their views on running a successful laundromat business.

And for the first time on the podcast, Peter and Jordan have an open conversation about running a laundromat in a rough area. Rarely addressed, or even acknowledged, both Peter and Jordan share some stories and lessons learned about owning laundromats on the wrong side of town.

In this episode, host Peter and guest Jordan discuss:

  • Jordan’s entrance into the laundromat industry
  • Expensive lessons learned
  • Rehabbing a zombie mat vs. rehabbing the reputation of a zombie mat
  • Who should buy a laundromat in a rough part of town
  • Networking as a superpower
  • Why Jordan might sell one of his laundromats this year
  • An opportunity to invest in laundromats passively
  • The future of Laundromat Resource
  • Why YOU should be active on the forums
  • Making opportunities for more voices to speak into the laundromat industry
  • Why books are so powerful

And so much more!

Watch The Podcast Here

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Episode Transcript

hey what’s up guys it’s jordan with the
laundromat resource podcast this is show
number 41
and i am actually a little bit nervous
about today because today i hand over
the reigns
and peter mayberry a former guest of the
laundromat resource podcast
i’ll link to his episode down below
because it was awesome
uh but he actually takes over as host
for the day
and he interviews me about my experience
in the laundromat industry uh we had
a ton of fun we talked about my
experience
getting into the industry and my
experience in the business
uh and a lot lot lot more and because we
get into so much
i’m we’re just gonna jump right into it
so here’s your ad for today
it’s a great time to be uh refreshing
retooling your
website if you don’t have a website for
your laundromat or any other business
uh now’s the time to do it so if you’re
interested in a website check out
laundromat resource.com
get online we do laundromat websites we
know laundromats
we know websites uh we also build for
other businesses so if you’ve got other
businesses going on
let us know we can help you out uh all
right that’s enough of that
and let’s jump into it i’m gonna hand
over
the reins to peter wish me luck
hey welcome everybody to the laundromat
podcast i am super pumped
because today we have an awesome awesome
guy that’s going to be coming on here
he’s doing some really really big
innovative things in the industry
so again i’m peter mayberry for one day
only
i’m taking over the podcast i don’t know
what jordan barry’s doing he must be on
vacation or something
i’m just kidding that actually our guest
today is
the jordan berry how you doing today
jordan
is that what i sound like
uh hey man i’m doing awesome today thank
you for having me on
your show yeah i mean if you’re gonna
host it for one day and you could have
anybody on it and you chose me i just
feel honest right now
well actually this is my first podcast
ever so i’m actually i mean this is my
first
actual podcast since i’m taking it over
i mean i did yours
which was my first time being a guest on
one wow now this is my first time
hosting one
you’re you’re like moving right on uh i
know i’m loving this
yeah so we might as well get into this
though because i know that i seriously
do believe
and i told you this beforehand i mean i
was very fascinated by your story and
just talking about some of the stuff so
so why don’t you start with just kind of
telling us your background and who you
are
yeah uh man i’m so nervous man this is
how everybody feels when they call on
the podcast i’m just i’m so nervous
yeah i think at first i was actually a
little bit
probably like the first like couple
minutes but then you just
you know so much about the laundry
industry so like honestly when you start
talking
well i told you too like i started
reflecting on stuff that i probably
hadn’t even reflected on
because nobody else asked me laundry
questions i mean
when i go out with friends and stuff
they’re like hey tell me about
laundry you know we’re we’re with you on
and the people that we deal with in this
industry i think
you do get more of those thought
provoking questions yeah
yeah okay well i’m gonna i’m gonna
swallow the nerves and get going but
i’ll tell you a little bit about me so
uh you know i’m here in southern
california and i’ve lived here
most of my life i lived up in northern
california for eight years for a little
while
my wife’s from up there um and funny
side note i just had to drive
up and back to san francisco last night
or yesterday
it was a long long day but uh i lived up
there but
back down here again in southern
california and i
my my background is in ministry
actually i was a pastor for 15 years
um and did that as a
job and then at you know at some point
i just was like you know i think it’s a
good time for me to kind of transition
out of doing this as a job you know i
love helping people
i love being a part of people’s lives i
love having conversations with people
um but it was just a good time for me
we had young kids and uh
you know i just wanted to spend more
time with them
so i actually got out of ministry and
you know doing it as a job and i
uh we had like a little i got out with
like no plan
at all like no plan and we had a little
bit of money
and we were trying to figure out what to
do we owned our house
here in uh in southern california in
whittier
at the time and uh
we were trying to figure out to do and i
had this genius idea and my idea was
why don’t we our kids were like one and
like three
they were like young and i said why
don’t we take
our money we’ll rent out our house in
here in southern california we’ll take
our money we’ll go buy like a condo
on the beach in hawaii somewhere live in
hawaii for a couple years rent out our
house in
in southern california then when our
kids are school-aged if we want to come
back
to southern california we can move back
to our house and
you know rent out our condo in hawaii
net game condo
in hawaii and i thought that was a
genius plan
still think it’s a genius plan but my
wife funnily enough
her her thought was well why don’t we
take that money and buy a laundromat
and thus begins the saga of the
laundromat
so that’s kind of where your wife’s idea
it was my wife’s and what’s so
surprising is okay so me like
i’m like the idea guy i’m like let’s do
this crazy idea let’s go on this crazy
adventure let’s take this
like left turn out of nowhere in life
like i’m always saying these ideas my
wife is very like
she likes calm and stable and
and but it was her idea to get a
laundromat um
and i think nobody saw it coming
including me but
we decided to buy a laundromat and i i’m
i still debate whether that was the
right call or not
uh you know because you know why she
thought laundry
yeah so
the reason was because um you know we
wanted
we wanted to be able to spend some time
with our kids and so we were looking for
a place to put our money
where it could work for us and it didn’t
have to necessarily support us
completely but we wanted we wanted money
coming in that
wasn’t tied to our time and that was
before i mean
literally for for us shoot that was like
kind of like incredible foresight for us
because we didn’t know anything about
business we didn’t know anything about
investing
you know like she’s a teacher i was a
pastor
like we we didn’t know we’re dumb like
i’ll just say we were dumb we had no
idea
but that was really good uh mindset for
her to
to kind of come up with and i don’t know
where she got it but
that was the idea behind it is let’s
let’s put that money to work and then
maybe later down the line we can go get
a house in hawaii
so still on the docket maybe who knows i
think
that that is awesome goal i actually
love that i mean
my wife talks about like maybe going to
florida or something in orlando but
i don’t know why hawaii would be perfect
i mean isn’t like the temperature always
70 degrees there or something yeah yeah
air and water man it’s like
awesome that’s crazy so so your first
so you bought the laundromat your wife
got you into it you what was your first
experience like when you got your first
laundromat
and actually i do have some follow-up
questions too on this when you get going
because
i thought before we we kind of talked
but we talked
before this kind of before the interview
started and
i also am fascinated to know more too
about the era that you got
because i think even for me like i have
water mats in all types of areas right
and i think that one thing that is
probably overlooked and not talked about
a lot is sometimes you can get these
laundromats that are not in
the greatest of neighborhoods and
truthfully probably
i mean a lot of your viewers would
probably like to know especially the
ones that are trying to get into
laundromat business
certain areas are not for everybody
right i don’t want i don’t want to take
anything over here but like
i just i hope you expand on that too
because i think that’s a really really
important thing
and like i said i know we talked about
beforehand so i know the viewers didn’t
hear that
but i want them to hear it so don’t let
me forget that part yeah
no i’ll i’ll definitely share some of
that and
uh you know i’ll get into you know i
mean you asked about my experience
getting in and it was
i don’t want to like depress anybody but
i mean it was
depressing like it was bad it was rough
um so kind of how it went down was
okay we decided we’re going to get a
laundromat and we’re like okay
what do we do like right i don’t know
like so
i tried doing as much research as
possible
um i checked out stuff at the cla i
joined the cla i checked out
their stuff i tried to reach out to
people i got kicked out of a lot of
laundromats i tried to go talk to like
laundromat owners and
there were like so many not not
everybody some talked to me but a lot of
them were like they didn’t want anything
to do with me they didn’t i don’t know
if they thought i was like
trying to move into their turf or i
don’t know what but
um that kind of inspired there’s an
earlier podcast episode i did
that i called the laundromat industry
needs to grow up
and uh that’s it was kind of from some
of those experiences and some other
experiences but
yeah so i just i struck i learned
everything i could
um and but i just i struggled finding
enough solid information hard numbers
like stuff like that
where i just didn’t know i just didn’t
know anything and i didn’t know anything
about business either
i didn’t know anything about investing
so i was we were just green everywhere
so
we started looking for laundromats on
online just like
most people like biz buy sell or biz bin
or whatever
um and you know you you may know but
like most of those deals are not
necessarily the best deals those are the
ones that kind of got passed over by the
investor list that these brokers have by
and large
and i didn’t know that and found one
that i really liked
called the broker went and checked it
out the
the owner was super unreasonable needed
a complete retool
and wanted like a crazy amount of money
for it wasn’t
there it wasn’t making any money it was
losing money and
um and the broker said well hey i have
this other one that i want to show you
[Music]
and it’s um on the border of east l.a in
montebello
and so we went and checked it out also a
dump there’s you know
roaches the the the walls had
you know different kinds of wood
paneling
a lot of the machines were broken a
bunch of top loaders
old machines and and it just kind of
looked dark and dingy most of the lights
were out
and the broker said hey you know i know
it doesn’t look it’s nothing really to
look at but
you know look at all there’s a ton of
apartment buildings around
the area he’s like look at the area you
know it can be
really great and i was like yeah this
makes a ton of sense
and uh so we ended up
kind of springing on that one and buying
it we bought it
all cash and then finance equipment
um which was another kind of ordeal in
and of itself and i think i’ve mentioned
this in other
episodes but i’ll give a quick little
rundown of it because i
ended up saving me 40 grand i was just
going with the equipment
manufacturer that the the broker was a
distributor for them
and they at the last like a week before
installation they decided to change
terms on me and uh so i was like well
i’m gonna go talk to some other people
then i didn’t talk to anybody else
beforehand didn’t even
cross my mind um and you know for most
people you guys are smarter than that
and smarter than me but
i was just not that smart um and so i
went and talked to some others and just
basically just handed them the quote
sheet and said hey can you beat this
and and what kind of terms can i get and
i did that a few times and and the price
ended up being
you know 40 grand less and i got 100
financing on that equipment and that’s
so i always tell people hey even if you
know who you’re going to go with
go get some other quotes too because you
know you might be able to
skim a little off the top and i would
actually say that that’s actually huge
advice
and the truth is is even myself i did
the exact same thing when i
i ended up honestly as you know from my
podcast i built my first laundry i
became a
i’ve gotta wash them and i bought it
directly electrolux i like to look very
directly from laundrolux because
they didn’t have distribution in the
town but originally i’d gone to one
guy and he he basically said yeah like i
help you find a location i help you do
all this stuff
and i was like oh wow i had no idea that
there would be someone that would
help me do all this stuff and i didn’t
realize
that all distributors basically do the
exact same thing
i just thought that oh man i’m so lucky
to find a guy that’s actually going to
help me from trail to grave but like you
he he took massive advantage and he
and i probably admitted that i didn’t
look at anybody else
and what really actually spurred me was
was
that my banker was like i feel like
these numbers are too high we’ve done a
laundromat like two years ago and
it wasn’t even close to this so my
banker actually flagged it
and he’s like i think you really need to
go get some other equipment
and that’s when i googled all the stuff
and then i mean that you know john
wilson and all that different stuff but
but the truth is like i really think
that’s a massive point and you should
definitely i’m so glad you brought that
up
and really that’s awesome for the
viewers to know because
i didn’t know that the guy i was dealing
with was such a shady
person just a horrible individual
because like he came off as generally
wanting to help me but
he was really trying to take advantage
and i think that’s excellent advice i
mean even if you really do like the guy
i think that anybody looking to do a
laundromat should just at least meet
even if you like the first guy you meet
you should definitely go
and meet other distributors yeah so
you got your you got your equipment
coming you got your quotes and
everything else so so what happens from
there then so
now you’re you’re retooling the laundry
mat yeah so well first of all thanks for
sharing that because that makes me feel
a little bit less bad
about myself yeah so
but but it makes me feel bad about
myself but it also makes me feel a
little bit sad for
our industry because there are and and i
say this all the time right if you work
with the best people
you’re going to become one of the best
right and so
you know i think it’s huge advice for
you whether it’s a broker distributor
whoever you’re working with even your
employees
you know if you want to if you want to
be one of the best you got to work with
the best so
go meet multiple and find out who the
best is so um anyways okay
so some people lie yeah and especially
when they’re incarcerated
yeah especially when their income’s tied
up in it right and i say that all the
time too like broker distributor
the advice they give you is yeah
probably to help you but it also
benefits them if you buy the laundromat
you buy the equipment so and not saying
that that’s
a bad thing necessarily but that’s where
the trust and verify comes in and that’s
where having
other voices speaking into that becomes
very important
because as a transition uh you know the
broker who sold me the laundromat
he sold me a bill of goods and you know
the pro forma started
super high like four or five turns a day
is where it
started and it went up from there and
this little laundromat i mean it’s a
little 1500
square foot laundry mat 1600 something
like that
um it was never going to do what that
broker told me it was going to do
it never has done what that broker told
me
it was going do um so uh yeah so it was
gonna retool so open the doors well
actually got the keys i remember the
first day getting the keys
right and they hand me there was like a
you know a bucket of keys that they gave
me and i
to this day i have this like little
cookie
dough bucket that’s full of keys that i
don’t know what most of them go to and
have never touched them but
and then i have a bag of keys that i
have to dig through all the time
looking for stuff got the keys my wife
and i took a little
a picture of us holding the keys up like
we bought a laundromat
um and then we’re like oh man like now
what
right we don’t know what to do and so we
kind of like hung out for a little bit
that day
and then we’re like i guess we don’t
really need to be here
i don’t i don’t know and it was weird
like leaving that first day
leaving the laundromat it was all open
and
you know not knowing what we were
getting into
so the next day i came back
and the first thing i saw i was greeted
by my the very day after we bought it
i walked into the laundromat and there
was a woman standing in there completely
naked
washing all of her clothes and i was
like what did i
get myself into like what is happening
right now
um yeah that’s happened to every
laundromat guy i had a girl she at least
kept her
raw and panties on but she did she
stripped down
and washed the clothes that she was
wearing and was just sitting in the
water man
like i said but she wasn’t naked but
maybe that’s a maybe every longer
vampire
i don’t know man i don’t know so
yeah so but that was kind of um
i mean it was it was comical and i was
like what is happening
but that was kind of like just a little
glimpse into what i was in for um
so we were putting in all new equipment
but what i didn’t realize is
you know retooling a store rehabbing a
store
is way easier than retooling the
reputation
of a store and the previous owner had
just let this thing go
not just the equipment like the older
equipment and stuff and i think this is
important to know
and and a little bit you know we’ll get
into what you were referring to earlier
but
you know you got to figure out how to
retool
the image of the store in the community
and and just putting in new machines is
not going to do it
and what i found is you know because
this owner had let and
can i i just want to take a quick second
to caveat this and say
this is not a my experience is not a
typical experience
i don’t and i’ve talked to a lot of
owners now and and people have had
you know rough goes into this and and
like
almost all of us have dealt with issues
with customers or homeless or vandal
like we’ve we all deal with these issues
but some of the issues that i
had to deal with early on are not
typical so i don’t want to scare anybody
with this and it’s not like this anymore
at that laundromat
but but you know we went to work
rehabbing and retooling the store by
putting new equipment in we redid the
floors we redid the folding tables we
took all the wood
paneling off we painted all that stuff
looked like a completely new place put
lighting in all that
but the
one of the things so the broker sold me
on
unrealistic turns per day for you know
highly competitive market
that i was in um but the thing that i
was actually
more upset about was the broker sold me
a dangerous
store this is a dangerous location and
um you know i would come in and find
needles
all over the place um a gang had
basically come in
and made it their turf um and i didn’t
really realize that so i mean i was
literally in a
turf war uh with a gang for a little
while
um and it
it was it was like it was not safe and
it was
i remember going to the laundromat early
on
and i would sit in my car for like an
hour like trying to work up the nerve to
go inside because i didn’t know what i
was going to encounter
you know when i walked inside whether
the place would be just
trashed or there was somebody in there
that i was going to have a confrontation
with
uh and it was and i’m not like a
confrontational oh i wasn’t like a
confrontational
person at the time and i’ve grown a lot
thicker skin
um i guess thanks to the laundromat um
but uh yeah i mean but there was
there were a lot of verbal
confrontations
but that also you know some a couple of
them had turned physical
and uh you know that’s that’s a scary
situation you don’t buy you don’t buy an
investment or a business
to get into a physical altercation you
know you just right you don’t
and so um it was it was hard and on top
of all that
we were losing a ton of money every
month
when we were expected to be making money
every month
and it was just it was exhausting
and difficult and uh
and emotionally draining and financially
draining
uh it was it was rough man it was real
rough
no and i just feel like it’s really
important to share that because i mean
i i know you probably talked a lot of
people that don’t have experience with
it but
i actually remember being on the cla and
i remember i
came over who it was but there was a
gallon talked about you know and she
didn’t feel safe and she overheard some
people’s
on our camera saying they were going to
harm her and she didn’t want to go back
to the store
and and the truth is is like i mean i
have a laundromat
that there’s been people shot and killed
by the pawn shop next to me
and at a tobacco and liquor shop next to
me
and there used to be a theater an old
rundown theater that there’d also been
somebody shot right before i actually
moved in
to this building so i just
think it’s important people know and
i’ve had physical confrontations in
there
and things have gotten out of hand and i
and and i don’t want to say that all
wonderments are like that because i
literally have one i used to have two i
mean on your podcast i talked
about when i owned in council bluffs
iowa where people would break in and
people would watch him do it and like
that was another horrible area with just
people just completely out of their mind
on drugs and like i said you walk in
there wake someone up and then you start
swinging at you
so i my only point was with that is
i’ve been listening to your podcast now
a lot more since i did it
and i get something out of every single
one of them
i just thought that when you share that
with me i think that’s some things
that’s overlooked right i mean if
i have stores under military areas that
are so safe i mean it’s so crazy i mean
i wouldn’t
worry about my kids playing and being
there at two in the morning
but i have i’ve had two locations where
i wouldn’t take my kids out for the dog
it was dark i’ll go there after dark but
i wouldn’t have my kids go there
and unfortunately we do have gangs
around some of these areas
that’s the only reason i was even saying
that i just think that some people
only you know what you’re capable of
right like i don’t
mind altercation obviously you’ve been
trained
to deal with altercation but if you’re
someone that doesn’t know how to
i wouldn’t want someone to buy a store
and be afraid to go there
and like you said too i think it does
change you because i’ve never been
afraid of confrontation but i never
really got physical with people
i’m now way more prone to get physical
with people than i’ve ever been
just because these situations do arise
in some of these areas
and it’s not and i want people to i
think to your point what you’re trying
to let people know is
no one’s going down there looking for an
altercation sometimes the people you’re
facing
have in their mind that there’s going to
be an altercation it’s not your choice
to make
you just have to defend yourself but you
didn’t get aggressive with them
they’re getting aggressive with you yeah
yeah and yeah and i i just want to
stress one more time like this
this is very location dependent right
this is not this does not have to be
your experience with laundromats and i
wouldn’t wish that on anybody and in
fact
this location now you know you know i’m
just gonna say it man now that i’ve
cleaned out these gangs with my bare
hands and my
you know my straight muscle and
you know no but seriously now that now
that that has been taken care of
i mean i bring my kids there and that’s
it’s not
it’s not this was a long time ago now
too this is you know seven or
so years ago um but you know
and i will say too that a lot of these
neighborhoods not all of them but a lot
of these neighborhoods
the majority of the people are great you
know and it’s just a small group of
people
that make not just the experience bad
at the laundromat but the neighborhood
too it brings the whole neighborhood
down
right and so they’re harvesting all
right and the neighborhood actually
usually thinks
so we don’t allow i mean obviously at l
street we throw people out we get the
police involved when necessary
and the community appreciates that that
we actually care enough
to because like they like you said they
bring their children they live there
and i shouldn’t have actually even said
like my wife doesn’t like me to bring my
kids on i do take my kids down there but
i actually have that one ebbs and flows
it’s like you said like
if we don’t watch it they start kind of
moving in and then we gotta really track
the whip and make sure that they’re not
hanging out coming in there
and then it returns back to the status
quo but it seems like every
i want to say like every 18 months like
it seems like the waters are tested at
that store again like that
when we laid the force down and tell
them we’re not dealing with it it goes
away
but i feel like it is about 12 to 18
months they start trying to creep back
in
and if you let them they’ll come you
gotta be pretty firm
yeah and and i think to i think part of
that is because
people are locked up and they don’t get
the memo that there’s a new sheriff in
town and so when they get out they go
right back to
and i do think that there’s you know
something to that but you know all this
to say like
if you’re buying in a rougher
neighborhood you just need to be aware
of this like this there there will be
some conflict hopefully it won’t
ever be physical you know confrontation
but they’re
if you’re buying a rougher neighborhood
you’re going to experience some conflict
um so you know thinking ahead of time
how you want to deal with that whether
that’s maybe hiring security to be there
you know making sure you have camera
system there and checking the cameras
before you come
you know to the mat and if something’s
going down like i would call the cops
all the time for everything and
my main reason wasn’t necessarily to
have the cops come take care of the
issue
my main reason was to train the police
that this is a trouble spot so you need
to
be around a little bit more and they
would they’d come
and they’d walk the you know walk the
laundromat
a couple times a day they’d drive
through the parking lot and it and it
really helped
right and it didn’t just help business
and it didn’t really just help
me help the community right because the
people who were coming to their laundry
or who
like these moms or these ladies it’s all
your great don’t
feel safe when some of that stuff’s
going down
in in the laundry mat so when you come
and clean it up
you know it it was hard but it’s a good
feeling now like looking back at it even
though
you know the business isn’t what i
thought it was going to be even still
i feel pretty good about that business
and we’ll get to this a little bit later
but i’m actually thinking about
selling it for some reasons and i’ll
talk about that a little bit later
but i’m having a really hard time
selling it because
i just put so much into it and i feel
like so good
about where it was to where it is now
and
and i’ve made some great friends in that
community you know people who i’ve
gotten to know
and i enjoy talking to when i when i see
him there and
i just i like it you know i think you
said it perfectly earlier when you said
and it’s a fact i mean it’s a fact even
with my my bad location
it is a very very small amount of people
that are causing troubles like like you
said i’ve always said i think it’s i
don’t know i changed a little bit on my
stats but 95 percent of the people i
encounter on a day-to-day basis
are wonderful hard-working great people
that i’m glad to know it’s just the five
percent that
they want to wreck everything but so
that story is doing tremendous so it
sounds like it sounds like you turned it
around and
now you’re maybe thinking about doing
something with it but
but um yeah is that is that your only
you’ve got
you’ve got another i’ve got another one
so kind of even in the midst of
like the financial debacle of that store
you know because i mean early on we’re
losing like 1500
sometimes more than that a month uh
when we were expecting we went into it
expecting to be making
money and that’s just like a punch in
the gut you know it’s like holy cow
you know and that’s what the broker told
me right and and i i basically had to
rely on that broker
to give me all the information because i
didn’t really know anybody else in the
industry
and didn’t really know where to turn to
find somebody
um and all of this you know is
is part of my story of why i’m doing
laundromat resource while i’m doing the
podcasts why i do the youtube videos why
we have a little blog why we’re building
the forums i just
i want to make sure that there’s a free
flow of information
for people who already own businesses
you know in this industry and who want
to get in this industry
um and that not just a free flow of
information but that there is an
interconnected network there’s people to
turn to
there’s places to go when you have
questions you know
when there’s stuff that comes up in your
laundromat or when you’re trying to
figure out
you know whether you should buy a
laundromat or how to buy a laundromat
any of that stuff
i just want to make sure that there’s
information and
a network to tap into to make sure
you know you’re successful when you get
in the business and
you continue to be successful you know
moving forward too so
do you know what the average the average
turn for day is it like 3.2 or
it’s like 3.2 or 3.5 right that’s yeah
somewhere average
yeah somewhere in that range right there
so for the viewers out there you should
always start your performer i actually
started one and a half turns
i go one and a half two two and a half
three three and a half four four and a
half five
and and that’s usually i mean like i
said it’s funny because like some people
just do like
whole numbers but i’m like i’d put as
many data points as i can get on there
like i’ll throw it out there
so i’m like in the sky seven turns a day
yeah right
i’m gonna be rich but it’s still fun to
look at that number even though it’s
probably
not realistic but yeah i will say some
people are doing turns like
seven plus you know but i would i always
tell people hey
if you can run your turns per day at
like maybe two and a half sometimes
three but like two and a half
and you feel okay about the returns
you’re getting at like two and a half
turns per day
then you’re probably okay to move
forward if
you need like four turns a day to
you know be okay you might want to have
second thoughts because yeah i mean four
turns a day is totally doable
in in most locations i just wouldn’t
want to count on that
you know you’re having to do better than
that um that’s that’s
excellent advice i mean that right there
i think is you’re right i mean
i actually think that that’s probably
the best advice i heard
you should probably shoot for two and a
half you can make it on two and a half
you’re probably safe yeah it should be
so then
you got all this going on you might be
selling a laundromat you’re running
a successful podcast and it is
successful i know it’s growing
so what what are your future goals like
you were kind of talking
there might be some changes i had huh
yeah so
well real quick uh before we get there
because i did buy another one
in the middle of all i started saying
that and i got distracted but in the
middle of all that i bought
another one i found and i wanted to
bring this one up because
um yeah i get asked about this all the
time but this was a
um and i so i tell i tell you guys those
of you guys who’ve had i’ve
you know i’m doing like 15 to 20
coaching calls a day which is insanity
right now
a week i mean um but i’ve been telling
so many people lately like you gotta go
make you know meet these brokers because
by and large unless you’re finding your
own deals
and you’re out there hustling these are
the people who are
bringing you the deals and you’ve got to
get on their email list you got to be in
there
you know top of mind when you’re buying
because i met this broker built this
relationship
and he brought me a a deal where it was
you know real estate and laundromat in
l.a
and it was a seller finance deal and
that wouldn’t have happened without uh
you know without that relationship with
that broker so
um you gotta you gotta be out there you
gotta be you can’t just passively look
on
websites only if you wanna get
some of the best opportunities um so so
i did buy that second one it was kind of
like a
hey we paid a lot in money and emotional
turmoil
in lessons that we learned on this first
one so why not try to
you know our options are cut our losses
and
try something different or say you know
what we paid for these lessons so let’s
put them to good use
and so we decided to do that um
and so we we have two locations now so i
just wanted to put that out there it was
a seller finance deal it was brought
from a broker
um you know it was not was not listed at
that time
um and again i don’t think that was a
home run deal necessarily
but you know it’s tough to get real
estate you know with a laundromat here
in l.a especially right now so
well something you said i think is just
great too is that you you mentioned
that you just threw it out there right
don’t just look at websites and that’s
something that i
i really try to do myself is i just tell
people what i’m looking for like i just
vocalized it to lots of people broad
swaths
i’m in the laundromat business i’m
trying to expand and it’s funny because
you’ll meet these people
that you’ll all of a sudden like six
months later like hey you’re looking for
laundromats right
like i know a guy that might be selling
you’re like really i mean i’ve had
tons of people connect me with other
people in the laundromat business
just by being open to it and asking just
asking questions or telling people what
i’m looking for
so i would say to the viewers don’t be
afraid to just
get lots of pads throw down lots of
footwork like spread it out there right
you never know who’s going to get you
get you into something or who’s
cousins with somebody our aunt got a
laundromat i mean
maybe they’re getting ready to retire
then you can’t be there before the
brokers that’s the stuff you want
that’s what you’re in before the broker
yeah
so we talked on your thing and i totally
randomly talked about me but
i am buying the laundromat like i told
you there’s two that i would buy
you know i just made a deal for it like
last week
and like i said there’s three years i’ve
been talking to these guys
and they told me no for three years and
just last week
one down and hopefully the next one will
be coming soon when to go
all right but that’s like proof proof
you know it’s like
uh i don’t know i i tell people it’s
it’s so funny because i i talk to people
all the time right and they want to just
you know while they’re watching tv at
night and and do this like totally do
this there’s nothing wrong with this
it just can’t only be this if you want
the best deals out there you know they
want to watch tv and
browse the internet and they want
something to fall on their lap and
it could happen that way but
you know you don’t want it you’re not
likely and you don’t want to count on
that right it’s like
you could win the lottery but if that’s
your main wealth building goal
you’re you’re probably not going to be
wealthy right like
a little bit of a long shot yeah so you
need to make some other plans
in order to you know grow
and yeah and get the deals
and get the deals actually out of my
laundromat so yeah
i know that’s funny i don’t know you
know for those of you listening on the
on the podcast he’s got his uh like
security system
you know behind him so i can spy on his
laundry man while he’s
well he’s i just opened this two days so
this is gonna i was telling jordan
before that this this will be an
office for me like one of my offices but
right now i was actually showing them
like i only have this wall right now
because this is the only wall that
doesn’t have just junk and pals tools
and
everything that used installed a lot of
work going on over there
so this is the staged wall yeah
uh all right so you asked about like
goals going forward
uh yeah i i got i have a lot of goals so
i’ll
i’ll tell you a little bit about my
laundromat goals and
and maybe some of the laundromat
resource goals kind of going forward too
because i’m i’m just you know not to
make fun of myself but i am pumped about
about what is coming up for this year
uh i just love that i know well i it’s
funny i
i had a coaching call yesterday and
somebody was like i’m pumped to be
talking to you and i’m like you
punk it’s funny
uh yeah so i mean laundromat wise so i
did i
i mentioned that i might be selling uh
one
may possibly both of my laundry bets but
probably at least one this year
um but for a couple of good reasons
number one
is i mean first of all i love
what what’s happening with laundromat
resource right now it’s
uh been a ton of fun for me
uh making the podcast doing youtube
videos working on
you know the website there’s some huge
well what i consider huge projects
coming up
uh with laundromat resource that i’m
like super excited about and i want to
just continue to help
you know this industry grow and get
better
and you know elevate this industry i
think there’s
a lot of cool cool things happening
with a lot of these top-notch owners
which by the way i would not necessarily
consider myself a top-notch
owner like i think that i’ve learned a
lot of really great lessons but
you know just through talking to people
on the podcast and stuff i’ve learned a
ton
myself and um
yeah so uh
i’m so i’m excited about a lot of that
stuff but uh the
um it’s taking off right did i talk to
you like a couple weeks ago and more and
more people are starting to
to know about the hasn’t it been taken
off or no am i wrong
you talking about the podcast yeah the
podcast yeah oh yeah i mean
uh yeah this is already you know we’re
we’re a few days from the end of january
when we’re recording this
and you know this is already
significantly the biggest month
of the podcast here we’re coming up on
20 000 downloads uh yeah i mean it’s a
laundromat podcast like the 20
000 downloads is like i don’t know in
like
eight or nine months or whatever it’s
crazy for me well that and i told you
i’ve been doing a lot of the podcast too
and and
i i i actually i mean i feel like i
really know a lot about the laundry
industry but like i said i get something
every time i listen to one and like you
said i’ve been here
like sleeping here like i mean actually
the install was easy but this is the
first time i ever installed a cci
stuff and i mean i have done and redone
it’s all working right now knocking wood
yeah right now but so i’ve had a lot of
time just connecting the same wires a
thousand times the machines
just repetitive stuff so i’ve been
listening to the podcast and and they’re
great like i said i mean
i i think i’ve gotten probably 20 of
them now so i mean
i i love that you’re doing this and like
i said i i didn’t know i would get
anything from him but i absolutely do
and and like i said that’s why i
actually even
you put that thing on facebook i do
really believe people want to know your
story i mean i’m very fascinated that
you put this together and you’re doing
this just
you’re just doing it to help people i
mean it makes sense because you i didn’t
realize that you had
a pastoral background but i mean it’s
just in your blood and it’s in your
nature to help people that’s awesome
yeah i love it i love it
yeah that’s so funny because i really
didn’t realize that i said that all the
time
until you started saying today
that’s awesome that’s awesome it is
great i just love it
i do like that it’s positive too because
so many things now like people want to
put negative stuff
on and like i said yours are always
upbeat it’s always a positive thing
like it’s always very supportive and i
feel like you really do root for people
and like i said that’s
it’s great i mean it’s like it’s like a
thing that you’re not going to listen to
a longer podcast and feel bad about your
day
right you’re not going to get like
slumped down it’s like it’s happy it’s
nice
unless you hear my story and you’re
depressed because you’re like oh man
i mean i just thought and i know we did
a little bit of dark side with that but
i think that’s important just for the
fact that
every business has its its trials and
tribulations and and
and i just and i do think that that
that probably doesn’t get brought up
enough but
i don’t like let’s say that the roles
were reversed and i was not
running the longer message my wife was i
think that my wife would really struggle
to run a location like my south omaha
location
i think and i think that it’s possible
too that people would like
try to like catch her leaving and jumper
or get money or i don’t know i mean i
just feel like
there’s a lot of people i’ve watched a
lot of people doing like these drifts
inside the laundromat they work in teams
right
like you’re dealing with one person but
there’s usually two people somewhere
i mean they do like these con artists
they work in teams and people don’t
realize that
they think that they’re only dealing
with the person in front of them but
they’re not so it’s like slight of hand
stuff
so i mean that’s all i was that’s the
only reason i wanted to focus on that a
little bit because i just feel like that
doesn’t get brought up enough that
location is extremely important on
building a laundromat and it’s success
but location also has a little bit to do
with what
you are willing to do yourself i can put
up with on a daily basis
yeah because not every location is going
to have
the warm fuzzies all the time right yeah
okay hold on my podcast so let’s get
back to you sorry yeah
the future so what’s the future with
laundromats so
getting back to that is you know i
probably will sell
one here pretty soon maybe both this
year i’m not sure but
a couple reasons so i’m loving a lot of
my resource i want to devote more time
to laundromat resource i
because i just love it a lot but but the
other kind of bigger
reason is and i already kind of alluded
to this i
would not necessarily consider myself a
top operator
it’s just not my skill set or it’s just
not what i’m like super excited about
necessarily
but with that said one of the things
that i went out and did is
got together with a couple other guys
one of which who i would consider
a top operator and another one who’s
pretty
connected in in the industry and we
uh basically put together a group to go
out to try to go after some bigger
deals with some real estate and some
bigger laundromats um so whether that’s
finding
you know strip center or whatever that’s
you know up for sale that we can
you know that maybe has a laundromat in
it that we can kind of you know
retool and get running uh you know
top-notch and bring in some more income
and maybe even increase the rent
thereby increasing the value of that
property then we can kind of decide what
we’re doing with the laundromat keeping
it
or selling it or whatever um or
finding you know strip center for sale
that would be a good location for a
laundromat and putting one in
um and i think right now especially
laundromats
having a laundromat in your real estate
strip center especially right now is
super valuable and i think
one of the things that came out with
covid is that hey laundromats
by and large stayed open the entire time
and
kept paying rent even if it was a
reduced rate for a little bit
kept paying rent kept serving the
community and that’s super valuable for
real estate um so having real estate
with a laundromat in it
especially one that’s being run you know
well is
super valuable both for the laundromat
and for
the real estate so we’re going out
trying to find some some deals
um and we’re partnering with investors
to go out and get some bigger stuff
and we’re getting really excited about
that um
and you know if anybody out there is
interested in kind of checking out what
we’re doing
uh diligentcapitalinvestments.com feel
free to
check that out and i’ll put a link i
mean i’ll have the host
put a link i’ll get right on that
yeah right yeah i’m gonna get my
assistant trying to help me maybe i’ll
call dusty
yeah right i’m a sound guy
uh yeah but i mean i’m just i’m really
excited about that
uh just because i’m i’m ready to be
doing some bigger stuff and i’m
i love uh despite kind of my entrance
into the business i really do believe in
my wife’s original vision
you know which is you know laundromats
can bring in
a great income and you don’t always have
to be at your laundromat
um you know in order for it to be making
money so
um i i love that and i think it’s a
great wealth building i
i’ve talked about um the wealth what i
call the wealth tripod
which is you know cash flow equity and
tax advantages and i think
laundromats especially when you partner
them with real estate hit all three of
those
incredibly well and can really
accelerate your wealth
um so whether that’s you know through
investing
yourself in those um or you know through
a group
like we’re putting together could could
be awesome
so i actually think that’s extremely
fascinating and
so so you guys would purchase the land
and
put a laundromat possibly in there and
you would manage the laundromat or you
would try to
to sell to somebody else to manage and
then just increase the value
and reflect the rents uh both i mean i
think it’ll depend it’ll be a deal by
deal basis basically so what we’ll do is
we’ll
you know we’ll go out and find deals we
have a pretty big network um
we’ll probably well i don’t know i mean
we’ll probably start here in southern
california but
you know figuring out the management
piece you know like i said i’m i’m
partnering with
you know somebody who i think would be
uh considered a top operator and so
you know figuring out that management
piece one of the things we’ve been
kicking around is maybe starting a
management
company in order to manage our
our assets and and you know have it
available for other people who maybe
want to be a little more passive in
their laundromats
to be able to utilize the company too so
but putting together a management
company
that has you know the systems in place
and as we build them out
you know we’ll we’ll put we’ll
incorporate systems in them to make them
you know easy to manage easy to track
you know easy to report
you know to investors those kinds of
things so some of them we may hold some
of them we may
hold for a period of time and then sell
some of them we may
flip because we just want the the real
estate
um i think it’ll be a deal by deal basis
so when we when we find deals we’ll
probably put a package together
and you know send that out to investors
to
see what the interest gauge the interest
in it i think there’s a lot of people
having success like in hotels or at
least pre-covered in storage units it
sounds like i
found that there’s several people do so
i mean i guess i don’t know why it
wouldn’t work for laundromats i mean
hotel has a lot more moving parts than
than a laundromat so actually that
that’s actually very fascinating
i don’t actually haven’t really heard of
many people i mean people are doing the
franchise thing but that’s not really
what this is
no yeah and this is more uh
yeah my guess i i don’t know the answer
to why more people aren’t doing it maybe
we’ll find out down the line but i don’t
think so like
i don’t know it all really makes sense
to me and and what i love about it is
the
um just the amount of value you can
create in the real estate
by having a laundromat operating at
its optimal performance like it it
really creates a lot of value for that
real estate to build a lot of equity
really fast
but i i would guess the reason it’s not
done more
is because of that management piece
and just fairly recently is when i would
say technology has caught up to a point
to where a lot of those management
questions can be
can be answered you know the reporting
accountability
is there now um you know with with
different card systems or payment
systems that have reporting
um you know even like things such as
like refunding customers you can do that
remotely now through technology
um you know so i i just think that
there’s a lot of
things in place now that make it doable
to
to have a management company for
laundromats and and so
you know acquiring you know 10 or a
dozen or 20 or 50 or whatever
laundromats i mean we know luke
williford who you know will eventually
own every laundromat in the world
i’m convinced you know he’s got i don’t
know how many
now i don’t know 80 or 40 i don’t know
yeah um he bought one today it might be
pretty i know
that’s what i’m saying he’s probably
buying a couple a day now i don’t know
he buy one he buys threes i feel like
nope yeah
he’ll own yours eventually too
i actually i mean i don’t know if the
the viewers would like this but
honestly to me i actually almost went to
kansas city
and because i thought that there was a
need down there for laundromats
and i literally backed out because
i mean it’s like i don’t know it was two
and a half hours three hours and i was
like
i didn’t want to have to be going there
a lot but i thought if i could get two
or three i could have a manager
so i mean obviously so i mean it’s
obvious the viewers that i am not a
person that you reached out to about
this investment thing but
i actually hope it does work because
like i said i personally even thought
about trying to just on my own not with
a group of people but
like i said i just i just didn’t want to
make myself miserable so i honestly wish
you luck and if you are successful with
it
you want to share any information with
some other people looking to do the same
yeah yeah i mean that’s kind of my mo
right like i’m not
i’m i’m here i think my my the way i
think about all this stuff is like dude
there’s
this is a big big country it’s a big big
world like we have
listeners all over right like i’ve had
vendors say hey
you know we just came on the podcast and
we got clients in
in italy and we got clients in australia
and we got you know like
it’s a big big world so there’s plenty
of room for everybody to be doing this
and if
other people are doing this already like
we’d love to learn too
you know what’s working but we feel like
we have a pretty solid plan
um you know going forward and we’re
pretty confident that it’s gonna be
uh like problem like profitable like
really
it’s great that it’s even good of the
box like i said i mean i feel like so
many people are going down this
franchise model
and i mean it’s just but
like i said this is a completely
different thing i’m just i mean this is
nice to see that you’re like not even
just going down like the me too group
right i mean this is a
innovative thing it’s cutting edge like
people have been trying to franchise
laundromats
i don’t know 15 years 60 years i have no
idea it’s been a ton of time
and i don’t know if anybody ever figured
out the secret to that but yeah i love
this this
is new it’s innovative i’ve never heard
of anybody doing this so
that is super exciting yeah
more about in the future yeah well i’ll
be keeping you posted
and uh again man if if anybody’s
interested go over to diligence capital
investing.com and you know there’ll be a
little form over there
um you know while we’re recording this
it’s not there yet
um but by the time this goes out it’ll
be it’ll be up there and
uh you know get on that email list at
least and you’ll be able to see
kind of what’s going on with it and and
check it out so that’s
that’s one of the things going on
there’s there’s so many things going on
uh some of the stuff i’m like dying to
like
just blurt out right now and we’re just
not quite
ready yet but another thing that i’m
really excited about actually is
i’m just a huge believer that we need
more voices in
this industry um you know sharing
information
and educating each other it’s a big part
away not only that i’m doing the podcast
but that i’m doing it the way that i’m
doing it
um and probably the big reason you’re
doing it the way you’re doing it you
know your podcast today right now
um is just to have other people’s
voices and experience and wisdom and
lessons
to be shared and i want to be doing more
of that so like we have
we have a forum that’s been starting to
pick up a lot of steam on laundromat
resource
again i’ll put a link down i mean peter
we’ll put a link down below
uh or in the description or the buy or
whatever uh
but um i i want to really just kind of
ramp that up i want to help
give voice to more owners who have
things to share and things to teach you
know whether that be
whatever format that might be and it
could be you know
you know written format in blog posts or
one of the things i’m really excited
about that i was planning on
launching last year but due to covid
stuff i
couldn’t get my act together but um i am
launching a publishing company for it’ll
start out being a
laundromat specific publishing company
and i’m looking to
not only publish some books myself but
also
to you know partner with other people
who have books inside them
that are going to help this industry so
that’s one thing that will be coming out
uh this year that i can share about and
i’m very excited about
um i think there’s not a ton of there
are there are some books out there and
we got an author coming on
uh in you know pretty soon here uh and
it’ll be cool to talk to you know him
about his book and his experience
but i think there just needs to be a lot
more books and i have i’ve been making a
list of books and putting names by them
one of the reasons why i keep saying
like hey get active in the forums
you know get you know reach out put like
you were saying earlier like put
yourself
out there because that’s you know
that’s where we’re looking for voices
for this industry
you know come write blog posts you know
make make videos when you’re
when you’re doing stuff and let’s share
those things because that’s where we’re
looking
when we’re looking for things like you
know who who can write the who
who’s the best one to write this book
for this industry
um that’s where that’s where we want to
be looking so um but
we’re looking to you know give more
voice to more people
in this industry and i think it’ll just
elevate
all of us rising tide raises all boats
yeah that’s right well i’m being
completely sincere like i actually think
that’s
what you just told me obviously we
talked before this i had no idea you’re
going to mention this and i actually am
excited
i truly no pain no jokes like i’m
actually excited to be a part of that
because i think that that could be
amazing
and in all honesty i mean if i can’t
find any more laundromats to build i’ll
probably be one of your investors i
really think that that is
that is awesome jordan i seriously think
that’s a way for people to get into
business
like a safety net and i i just
like initial thought on that i think
it’ll be truly successful and
i mean congratulations for thinking that
up and doing it like i said i love that
you actually do stuff right i mean
you probably consulted with some people
and you just took the steps you started
making the progress
and you jumped with it and i do there’s
no reason there shouldn’t be i mean
there’s other industries that do it why
isn’t this one ever done like you said
the technology’s there
you have a card system you can know
exactly what you could be in miami
florida
and someone in omaha nebraska you know
exactly went through your laundromat
that day
exactly yeah or like or like thomas who
thomas landenberger who’s in italy and
has his laundry mountain florida and he
can
he can track it all right like it
doesn’t matter where you are in the
world
and you’re going to want to just pull up
luke then find out what buildings are in
kansas city right now
yeah like right now like stop looking in
omaha yeah maybe i just go to canada
let’s just
let’s just end this interview right now
and get on it
no but thank you i appreciate you saying
that but sincerely and i mean i’m not
i mean that that is a tremendous idea
and like this is the why i’ve been
listening to these podcasts like i love
this
yeah well hold on real quick because i
want to say one other thing
none of this and and this goes back to a
point that you made
earlier like none of this happened
unless i had put myself
out there right and like just started
the podcast started making youtube
videos
and when you were saying like let people
know about what you’re looking for let
people know about what you’re doing well
i wasn’t necessarily looking for
looking for this but these opportunities
like the
like this um this diligence capital
investments group
these are people that i met through the
podcast like
you’ll know you’ll know at least one of
the guys from the podcast
i figured i think i probably do know one
yeah so
sure but i mean obviously you didn’t say
the name so i’m not going to yeah well
yeah and get go it’ll be on the website
i mean we’re we’re being transparent
about everything but i just
you know like i said it’s not rolled out
i get i get why
you’re still putting it together i mean
i get what you’re doing i mean
right you’re still working probably out
the fine finer details i get it
yep but but we’re right there and we’re
ready to go but all that to say like
that’s why i keep encouraging you like
hey get over on the forums
asking questions answering questions
helping people out start
you know put yourself out there and
opportunities
open up right if you have your eyes open
if you’re networking if you’re meeting
with people if you’re helping people
opportunities open up and you know i’m
just this is not necessarily about like
a pitch for like diligence capital
investments or anything this is like
an example of though i’m serious like
this is a good idea
thank you thank you but it’s also okay
everybody else
but also it’s it’s an example right like
put yourself out there and watch what
opportunities come up so you know
you know come come write some blog posts
and see like my
the laundromat resource.com right now is
getting tens of thousands of
page views every single month it grew a
hundred percent
in january 100 like 14 in january
from december and december was our
biggest month it’s going like
gangbusters right now
and when you start putting your voice
out there people are gonna see
your stuff they’re gonna be appreciative
of what you’re
uh what you’re putting out there you’re
gonna make a name for yourself in the
industry
just as someone who uh not only just
knows what they’re talking about but
somebody who wants to help other people
succeed and guess what
people like it when you want to help
them succeed right they wanna
they wanna do business with you they
wanna you know associate with you
and opportunities open up so i’m just
excited
i’m i’m pumped about this
and there’s some other stuff i’m like
trying to share
uh a couple other things but that’ll
come here in the near future
and uh i just look forward to that so
anyways that
that was a long answer to what it was a
great answer though some goals coming up
so i am so grateful to be a part of this
this could be like a
big big thing in 10 years and i am the
i am the podcast host that launched it
that’s right man
that’s right you are well that
transitions perfect to a little thing
that
i like to call down to business
yeah uh yeah may or may not i just you
know who knows man
but it’s a love hate relationship with
some of these
that’s right uh so one of them’s in
montebell i mentioned that i already
montebello on the border east la
the other one is in south central la you
know over
where all the 90s rappers were from the
west coast rappers
south central man in the hood right next
to compton
inglewood yeah i think you actually
answered my next question you so you
have two laundry ads and you own the
real estate on one
i own the real estate on one i have
another kind of investment
property also and through
diligence capital investments looking to
own some more so
there’s another little plug for it
you how many other things are you in
like you’re you’re like a true
entrepreneur like i would say a lot of
people
probably getting into this business are
you do you have other things that you’re
working on currently that you can talk
about or is it just mostly
what so those are those are the majority
i i guess those are my hard assets i
have the two laundromats a couple of
investment properties
um you know i legitimately launder my
resources
it’s a business and it’s an asset i do
some commercial
real estate as a as an agent broker and
um and also laundromat um i helped
sell laundry mats and in fact um you
know
one of the one of the things with like
diligent investments is like
i’m one of the things that we do
we’ve been doing with laundromat
resource that’s been really cool is that
we’re helping people find brokers and
you know now we’re at a point where it’s
like hey
we might buy your laundromat from you so
like if you’re looking to sell a
laundromat like
i don’t know throw it out there and if
it fits kind of what we’re looking for
we might buy it from you
but even if we don’t number one anywhere
in the u.s
anywhere and and um number one
if it doesn’t fit what we’re looking for
that’s like no time to those
podcasts so whether someone does want to
sell a laundromat they can reach out
yeah i’ll i’ll link it i link it every
week but i’ll link it i mean
i’ll have you link it uh your your your
people
um well guys
it’s nice to have a team over there man
it takes me forever to put all this
stuff together you got this huge
massive team i actually have a guy but
he’s in
he’s in car nebraska which is like four
hours away today and i was gonna have
intro to set me up
everybody always has mics and i don’t
know how the computer thing works
but he was actually gonna come to town
there’s gonna be in omaha yesterday i
was gonna have to set up something but
i mean everybody’s got the headphones
sometimes and i don’t i actually thought
the
audio on the phone was good but i don’t
know how the computer will be i’ve never
yeah it sounds good it sounds good uh i
was really trying to do this for real
but yeah i don’t know how to do it
without these people
it’s your first one and the important
thing is that you got out there and you
did it
and you’ll just get better along the way
you know so that’s the way again
actually way more nervous doing this
than when i was in your spot
oh man you’re doing awesome uh anyways
so
yeah so one of the things that we do too
is you know for people who are
interested in selling their laundry mats
no matter where
they are you know if they don’t fit our
criteria to buy
um we’ll help people find really good
brokers and i think you know based off
my experience
and the experience of a lot of my
coaching clients that i’ve
you know had it’s so important to have a
good broker that you’re working with to
get your
laundromat you know in tip-top shape in
order to sell
and also to get it sold quickly for a
good price
and so we help people you know
nationwide
find good brokers to work with kind of
no matter where you’re at so if you’re
looking to sell
you know it’s watermelon resource.com
sell and and we’ll help you
out there and i’ll have peter’s people
link it
in the description or the show notes so
so so how long have you actually even
been doing this like
not too long the podcast is relatively
uh so i started in in december of 2019
so as we’re talking right now it’s been
like a year and a month
and it’s i mean it’s just been blowing
me away for the lot of my resource stuff
um laundry mats i’ve owned for
like seven and five and a half years
um how long was it do you think before
like you really
felt good about because i think that’s
another thing that people always ask me
and i never know i’ve heard them
ramp up fast and then ramp up slow like
your first laundromat where you really
felt like
maybe i’m going to do another one of
these like how long was that
well i’m not smart man so it was
not very long
yeah i mean it was not very long and
again it kind of came down for me like
i paid a lot of money to learn these
lessons let’s put them to use um
but i was i think when we bought our
second one we were still losing money on
our first one
and i was like well maybe the second one
will kind of make up for the loss of the
first one
uh yeah well we hit a little bit of a
rocky patch early on on that one but
then eventually it kind of leveled out
so it was better did you say the names
on them
what’s that did you ever change the
names on the laundry or did you keep the
names of them you know what i did not
do i didn’t do a lot of the things that
i tell people to do now and the reason i
tell people to do them now is because i
realize now how important
it is and how much better it would have
been for me so you know having like a
solid website
having like a good brand and a good name
having like new signage
when you take over a store that just
lets people on the outside know
you know you can remodel the whole
inside of the store but if nobody on the
outside knows that you did it
and it’s going to be any different it’s
not really going to help you out all
that much
right you know so fixing stuff out on
the outside just to let people know like
hey we’re taking care of this
place i can’t remember who now and
apologize to whoever the guest was that
said this but one of the great things
somebody said
was every year do something to show your
customers
that you are reinvesting in your
business big or small whether it’s paint
or putting in new machines like it
doesn’t matter
but do something you know plant some
plants or something to show customers
you’re reinvesting i think that’s
awesome awesome advice um
i feel like i definitely listen to that
podcast too but i can’t think of this
either yeah somebody’s really really
smart and
probably like really good looking and
i’m just gonna make them feel good
because i forgot who it was
um but uh yeah but so i didn’t do
any of that stuff uh you know my my one
laundry mat didn’t even have a website
until
like a year ago you know and now we’re
building
you know our marketing company builds
websites constantly now
and for laundromat owners and other
businesses but laundromat owners in
particular
and we’re doing you know seo stuff but i
didn’t do any of that stuff for myself
early on i didn’t know
man i was because of your podcast i am
building websites so if i had anytime
laundry
like anything clinton i don’t know i
have a website right that i had
anytime laundry but not every laundromat
had a website and i didn’t even know
that was
a really important thing so i’ve
actually now
each warner mat is getting their own
website
are they all are they all the same brand
all ears so mine are all
anytime laundry now but when i would buy
a laundromat that i didn’t feel
you didn’t want it to be part of the
brain i purposely didn’t bring
all of them and i even remember i had an
employee that was actually my
manager at the time and i she didn’t
work for me she didn’t like being a
manager so she went back to lieutenant
but anyway
she had said that um she thought i
should call the council of western
any time laundry because she thought it
would help grow it grow the business
there and i was like
i just don’t want it yeah i don’t want
to be associated because
like i said that one was too small to
attend and all minor attended i couldn’t
justify attending it
so i didn’t that was my main reason i
didn’t want to call that i mean if i
could have
had enough revenue to attend it and to
try and grow it that way i would have
but it was just too small
but again like you said we all learn
from these mistakes like i love that you
you said that you learned from the
mistakes and i mean you jumped in you
just got to start pulling different
levers and see what works and what
doesn’t
i mean everybody that you say is an
expert or a veteran in this industry
i mean even people that think i’m a
veteran in this industry
i didn’t know it from day one i made
lots of mistakes
today and and i think that’s important
that people realize that i mean
nobody starts out just knocking homers
out of the park
every single decision they make and then
like we wouldn’t even talk about the
signage thing with mine
i screwed up the signs on my first one
don’t beat yourself up with it just
learn from your mistakes yep i think
it’s important
and and too like man i always want to
when i’m looking to partner with people
or invest with people or any of that
stuff i’m looking for people who made a
ton of mistakes
because the people who haven’t made
mistakes yet you don’t know how they’re
going to respond
in adversity when stuff goes bad you
don’t i mean
when somebody’s been through the ringer
and they’re still standing then you’re
like okay
you know like i can respect that and
you know let’s let’s do it you know but
when you haven’t gone through
something you just don’t know right
it’s a big unknown for me so so i talked
about the unintended tenant
do you run your laundromats attended or
do you run unattended
i have i have one of each so that
montebello one that was trouble
you probably guessed is unattended again
like yours
it’s just a little too small i think
that there’s
potential actually in that one it’s not
i think you probably could do some like
drop off service and and probably even
some pickup and delivery out of there if
if you wanted to but and in fact people
ask me this all the time because i had
talked about doing pick up and delivery
um and i have been doing a little bit
but i haven’t really made a big push on
that
and the reason was a lot of my resource
kind of just started taking off in a way
that i did not expect
and i started seeing some of these other
opportunities
that were out there and i started
weighing like if i’m going to do the
pickup and delivery i got to like go i
got to go all in
on the pickup and delivery right and if
i’m going to do laundromat experience
you do well you can’t do the towing
yeah and if i’m going to do a lot of my
resource i got to go all in
and i just was weighing my options back
and forth and i kept going back and
forth and i was like eventually i was
like you know what i really
love what’s happening with laundromat
resource and i love like doing this kind
of thing
uh you know with people like you and all
these other guests we’ve had and
i love doing you know teaching people
coaching call
all that stuff like i think i’m gonna go
all in with the laundromat resource
and so we do a little bit of pickup and
delivery but not very much
so that one i think that there is
actually more potential
in the city it’s in the direct
neighborhood is
a lower income neighborhood but around
it is
i think a pretty good area for pickup
and delivery so
there’s there’s room to grow there um
[Music]
but uh i forget what the question oh
it’s unattended yeah so it’s unattended
my other one
is attended uh full time so whenever
we’re open somebody’s there
i felt like when i was when we were
reversed like i did the same thing like
you go down these rabbit holes
[Music]
like where do we start what are we
talking about
i know well i try to shut my mouth
usually and then when i get talking man
it just
that’s what i’ve been trying to do i’m
like why am i keep talking like i’m
asking the questions i’m not a
contributor
yeah it’s hard so
you’re are you coining these you don’t
do card systems or do you do it
oh man i yeah no i have
coin like i said man i if i was to start
over
now from scratch like well for example
with diligence capital investments
but like what you know we’ll do a card
system because it just makes a lot more
sense
you know from a management perspective
obviously but also i love like what it
can do for customers like you can do a
lot of promotions
you can do you know just a lot of
loyalty stuff and you gather
you know you’re gathering data on your
customers but you’re also
you know gathering ways to communicate
with them through email marketing
through you know which we do like with
the marketing company now we do email
marketing and
retargeting ads and text message
marketing like all that stuff you have
that ability to do that when you have a
card system that’s really hard to do
that
with the coin system but the downside is
that
you know you got to buy those card
systems generally speaking
and you know they’re expensive and when
you buy your laundromat
horribly wrong from the get-go it it’s
hard to
you know hard to be able to pay that so
well i’m not gonna lie to you after
doing this cci thing with the quarter
coin and dollar coin
and just getting all that to work i
think i seriously am considering on this
next one going hard
yeah just because i mean i’m trying to
incorporate two technologies together
and like it even matters what dropped
here like i use ironic drop so like they
i’ve used different chords so
i’m actually on i might be jumping
aboard this card deal like i actually
i mean i mean it’s fascinating to say
that so you’re going to do that for sure
like if you do this investment thing
you’ve like already made the decision
worked hard
people uh i mean
listen i’m always open to you know what
makes sense for the specific situation
so i would never say
100 we would always do that but i think
we would definitely
lean towards that and a big part of the
reason is
you know transparency and accountability
is huge especially when you’re
partnering with people
and there’s money involved and probably
significant sums of money
you know you just want there to be a lot
of transparency and accountability and
so you want to be able to give hard
numbers
to investors and say here’s exactly
where the money’s coming from here’s
exactly where it’s going
and it’s just so much easier to do that
with a card system
so yeah yeah well i mean
like i said it makes sense and i’ve not
even noticed like
so i even mentioned some friends i have
in iowa like he literally is doing card
system right now he’s like his temple
honor man he said
he’s just contracting with points he’s
like for no other reason like i mean i
i think he’s just doing it because it’s
getting to be unmanageable with the
amount of coins in the store
and that’s probably why the wolfers came
up with their
i mean what i don’t know freedom by ips
i don’t think is that what this is
called
yeah yeah yeah so they came up with one
i mean their own because they probably
the same thing
just higher than the coin i think when
you get that mini 40 i mean
wow yeah that’s the name versus
in four isn’t tough yeah
i’m over it with two laundromats man
they’re not even like great laundromats
you know like jeez
so what have you been in your
laundromats at in california uh
yeah the best
yeah no you have been you know i just
i’m cracking up because you
have been listening to the podcast a lot
lately because you’re
you’re saying exactly it’s just funny um
yeah i don’t know how you you segway so
well and i’m like
no you do you’re killing it dude it’s
awesome how much do i contribute how
much do i ask where do i just
you know when you you know when you hear
yourself back and it’s just kind of
funny right like you’re kind of
i’m hearing myself back through you and
it’s just kind of funny uh that’s what
i’m laughing at
uh so right now my vend prices
are uh generally i think almost
generally speaking a quarter more than
the
poundage so like a 30 pound is like 325
oh wow 425 yeah so
is that would you how do you compare to
your competition out there at those
prices
higher end are you really yeah i don’t i
don’t
understand how people like
my competitors i don’t understand how
they can make a profit
i like i i don’t get it so i don’t know
but yeah i’m
and in fact like uh laundry like i know
some people like their whole family
works on laundry they do the fluff and
fold
is that why and how they’re doing it
with those prices you almost can’t have
stuff at those prices can you
what’s that i don’t know how you would
have staff with those prices
yeah i i don’t i mean i don’t know man
like
yeah i don’t know it’s it’s it’s tough
but it’s like super competitive right
there’s like
i don’t know how many laundry bats are
within a mile there’s probably
six or seven laundromats within a mile
radius like my south la one
it’s just super competitive and so
you know even like i’m all about like
and one of the big
takeaways for me from just doing this
podcast and listening to
who i would consider top operators which
again
you know i’m i’m trying to get better
but i would not put myself in that
category
um but one of the things that’s pretty
consistent is
compete on value not on price right and
try to be
you know on the higher end of your
competition if not the top
and then price-wise and so
trying to do that but it’s hard when
they’re
like we had a um we had a new one come
in near my south la one
and literally what they did is they came
in to my laundromat
at some point and look wrote down all my
prices and just went a quarter
underneath for all
and i was like okay well that’s like i’m
sure that’s what they’re doing for their
grand opening
and eventually they’ll raise their
prices but they they haven’t it’s been
like
a few years and they haven’t raised
their prices so
i know i see that all the time here like
there’s people that haven’t raised their
prices since i’ve been in this business
i don’t i mean the water bills go up i
don’t know what they’re
i mean why i just don’t get it i do not
understand that i never will understand
that
i mean man that’s brutal though that was
brutal i mean i can’t imagine having
you said eight within a mile uh
there’s six one yeah i think there’s six
six i mean i complain because i got
eight within three miles when you’re
like one mile that’s nuts yeah it’s
it’s crazy but you know i mean it’s
it’s like that in a lot of urban you
know places like
you know you’re gonna find similar
things in new york you’re gonna find
similar things in
chicago you know even maybe some of the
well i mean texas is a little more
spread out florida’s a little more
spread out but
you know in some of the metros it can
get really competitive
and you know i remember the guys in new
york on the forum saying about like
having two watermelons on the same
street like the same block
like oh yeah like there’s laundromats
like facing each other
you know like across the street from
each other and they’re just facing like
it’s it’s
craziness man no so how many hours a
week are you spending in your water maps
um it’s an interesting question because
it kind of ebbs and flows
uh and in fact um you know
so normally on a normal week i’m
spending probably more time in the car
going to and from
the laundromats you know because i’m
here in l.a and then i spend at the
laundromats
uh but usually a couple hours you know
maybe like
three or four hours a week literally or
physically at the locations
um but my unattended one since
the covet thing i’ve had a lot of issues
trying to get
in an attendant to just come clean not
even an intended but just somebody to
come clean
and especially when they were making
more money to not work
than they would make to come you know do
work
uh just through unemployment and it was
tough so i’ve had
i’ve had uh times where i’ve had to just
go in and clean
for you know periods of time because i
couldn’t find somebody
um and and when that’s the case then
usually take me a couple hours a day
to clean take me you know i could go off
traffic hours which
is nice but um you know 35 minutes there
clean for a couple hours that adds up
real fast
and i tell people all the time like you
know
try to have if you’re running an
unattended in particular but even an
attendant laundry try to have some
backups i was doing a coaching call and
i told you know somebody’s asking me
should i
should i hire try to hire one attendant
should i try to hire two attendants
and and do like split shifts because
they were trying to do split shifts like
in the morning and in the evening
to try to like launch their wash dry
fold and
so we were kind of talking about that
and i was like well if you’re gonna do
split shifts i would try to hire
three and split it between the three
because if you do
split shifts and you have two and one of
them doesn’t show or can’t make it or
quits without warning you know
you only got you only have one person to
fill in but if you have three and
they’re splitting those shifts between
the three of them
it’s a little easier to maneuver and it
can buy you a little more time to find
a new employee right and the same like
if you have a cleaner try to have
a substitute or a backup or something so
when they quit unexpectedly or that
whatever
you don’t have to go clean your
laundromat and i had this funny
actually with one of the partners of the
diligence capital investments we were
chatting one night and i was like
sweeping up the floor at my laundromat
and they were both you know at their
houses
you know drinking a glass of wine or
whatever and
i was like yeah i’m over here like
sweeping or whatever
and uh one of the guys was like uh
he’s like have fun enjoying your
financial freedom through laundromat
ownership
because i say that all the time and i
was like you jerk i’m over here sweeping
you know my freedom over here but people
make fun of me though and i said well
i’m making money while you’re sleeping
i’m making money while i’m sleeping so
whatever i know i know and it is i mean
it’s part of the business right like
it’s a business and you know and it’s
your business so
if stuff goes wrong like you got to do
what you got to do
to keep your business going right and so
sometimes that means
you’ve got to go clean sweep the floor
you know or wipe down the machines
and that is it just is what it is and
uh you know for me you know obviously
that’s not the ideal situation
but it’s it’s not horrible
well i mean i was telling you like i
usually spend 10. i spent 80 hours
in my laundromat last week because i
kept doing and redoing the
like i said i’ve never done the cci
thing for a quarter coin
and dollar coin and i had to literally
redo it three times like i just
installed it it was wrong
we went back to everything else did
something else it was wrong
did the third time finally got most of
them working so i mean it was just like
you won’t talk about frustration like
doing the same task over and over and
thinking you have it and then redoing it
all
but you know you said who else is going
to do it i mean i am my distributor
like i i am now awful i did go ahead and
do the full blown distributor things
like
there’s no one to call it’s me
i don’t know i don’t even mean to talk
bad about cci it’s a great product i
just never
i’ve never done it i’ve always had
someone else do it so the learning curve
on it like if i go do the next one
it’d be a lot faster probably three or
four days instead of a week and a half
yeah yeah exactly yeah it’s part of the
learning process your drill bits that
work really good at drilling fronts i
mean like you said it’s
we tried four or five different things
and we found this the right one
so that’s probably a great time to move
into a little segment i like
to call secret sauce
listen up it’s the secret sauce
so what’s something that is working well
for your business right now that owners
can implement into their business to
help them improve it
[Laughter]
i like that you put it in quotes uh uh
uh yeah awesome awesome question first
of all i mean
you are just nailing this thing i cannot
work on that one i thought about that
one
a lot yeah uh
man it i mean it’s so hard to to boil it
down
to one thing and i’m realizing that now
so sorry to all the past guests who i’ve
kind of put on the spot with this
um but i guess you know one thing you
know a lot of things have been shared
already
but one thing i would say that is
really working well for me is
putting into practice
i guess modeling some of the things that
these what i would consider top
operators are
doing so trying to be uh you know
provide the most value to your cut like
always looking for how to
you know make it easier to do laundry i
love one of the
one of the things elizabeth brick and
wilson said a couple episodes ago
is she said you know laundromat is an
extension of your customers homes
that really stuck with me i was like man
i never really thought about it like
that but how do i make it feel more like
an extension of their homes
which makes it feel you know just
a little easier to come do laundry and a
little more enjoyable to come do laundry
and a little bit
you know more comfortable to come do
laundry and so trying to
i’ve been saying this at the end of
episodes and probably people turn it off
before i do my little thing at the end
but one of the things i really try to do
for every podcast
is find one thing that
that guests say that i can
put into action right and it kind of
goes back into
you know you can either just try to do
things passively listen to the podcast
and absorb information which is good but
much better is to absorb that
information and at least put
one thing into action every week and
that’s really what i’m trying to do so
whether that’s
trying to make it you know more homey
for
my customers or whether that’s trying to
be top of the market
you know vin prices but also top of the
market value for my customers
um or whatever the case may be there’s
been a ton of lessons that i’ve taken
away
from these guests but it’s really
putting it into action is the secret
sauce
i think so a serious question i have is
like
what do you use to determine what you
think is a top
operator and the only reason i ask that
is i mean i used to be on the cla forums
a lot and i used to be on different
things
and there’s a lot of people giving
advice out there but i always had the
back of my head i’m like
is this someone that i should actually
be taking advice from
right and that’s why i mean i even talk
about this sometimes like on my own
facebook page like ben gottlieb and
larry yansky used to have
knocked down brutal fights on the cla
and i know that some people hated that
they were like people complain about
like that we should be respectful
but in all seriousness i got
the absolute i was brand new when those
were going on and i got the most out of
those
because you had two opposing views and
you had two people articulating
exactly why they had opposing views and
doing a really good jump
and i honestly appreciate that more and
that’s why even on my
my facebook group the lawnman owners
only people will ask is this allowed
like you can attack anybody within
reason i mean let’s not be ridiculous
but yeah
attack people’s ideas and tax the
thoughts like i actually we
i would say on our facebook page it’s
welcome
i mean be respectful don’t just attack
someone like personally or whatever but
if you have an idea that they want to
attack i think you should pick it apart
i mean let’s discuss it let’s find out
what is the best
way to operate so truthfully i do want
to know
sincerely like how do you bait what do
you base that on when you say top offers
yeah i mean i i think it’s a great
question first of all and i think you’re
like
nailing it head-on because anybody can
say anything right
especially online these days uh you know
you don’t know who you know who’s given
what advice
um but for me first of all the podcast
gives a
a unique perspective because i’m
interacting with somebody
real time and i’m getting to really know
them and i can ask them questions
interact with them you know if it’s a
forum post or something like that it’s a
little easier to hide
um behind jargon or or whatever behind
attacks or whatever
um but for me i’m looking at results
right because that’s what that’s that’s
the key you know to everything is
is results what results are they getting
you know whether they have one
laundromat where they have multiple
laundromats
in in the business
in their business the way they’re doing
their business
you know what kind of results are they
getting and you know on top of that i’m
also looking at
character right and because to me
character
character counts and not to be like
cheesy and cliche but like
you’re absolutely right but yeah but i
mean i want to take my advice from
somebody with good character who’s
getting good results
and so when i am interacting with people
you know on coaching calls when i’m
interacting with people on the podcast
or even in the forums and stuff i’m
looking for
you know what kind of results are they
getting and are those
the kind of results i want to get and if
so then i probably want to
you know learn something i mean i’m
learning stuff from everybody
but i probably want to implement some of
the things they’re doing if i’m trying
to get results similar
to what they’re getting right does that
make sense it makes perfect sense i
think you hit it i mean you nailed it
with the character like i’ll never
forget my dad always said
you get one name in this world don’t
ruin it
once you ruin it i mean you could spend
10 years building your name and you
could ruin
five minutes yep happens all the time
yeah
well yeah i mean yeah i i guess i just
was more
asking for myself because i feel like
there’s been past where
i maybe was following somebody in their
advice and then i find out that they’re
running like a
laundromat that’s got four parking
installed there’s one guy in particular
four parking stalls in the front i won’t
miss any names but
it’s got like eight washers eight dryers
and
he’s vending at like a dollar for a
double load and i’m like
i should not be taking any of this man’s
advice right yeah
yeah it’s easy to sound like you know
what you’re talking about especially if
you have a long time to respond like on
a forum or something like that
it is but you know i i think you’re
right and i you know
again i’m i’ve been big about modeling
you know even like with laundromat
resource stuff like i’m modeling
a few different like i’ve gotten
comments all the time about like man
this is a lot like bigger pockets
which is a real estate investing forum
and podcast and it’s super successful
and i am modeling it after that and a
couple other things too but
um but shoot man they have a lot of
success and they’re helping a lot of
people and a lot of people are getting
good results from it so why wouldn’t we
you know try to get the same kind of
results for people right if it’s not
broke why fix it
exactly i don’t need to reinvent the
wheel and the same is true with
you know my laundry mat businesses right
like i don’t need to reinvent the wheel
for my laundromats either there’s a ton
of people
doing this business really well in a lot
of different ways
surprisingly it’s one of the big
surprises is that
people run this simple business in a lot
of different ways
um and so just run totally different
than me that i would say are successful
and probably do a great job
total different model zone yeah and
there’s stuff to learn from them right
so
absolutely okay so now we’re gonna move
into
pro tips
what’s the best advice for someone who
wants to buy their first laundromat
for jordan berry
uh yeah i mean for me and this is i will
say that this is based
on my experience personally and i’ve
said this a lot of times already but
the best advice i would give is and it
kind of ties into the secret sauce too
but it’s like
you know when you work with the best you
become the best and so
work with the best people which means
you have to find the best people
and in order to uh you know in order to
find the best people i think
you know you need to meet people you
need to put yourself out there a little
bit
and let people know what you’re looking
for ask a lot of
questions be dumb like i tell people all
the time
don’t ever assume you know something
like just be dumb like if you’re willing
to just
be dumb people will talk
[Music]
you’ll learn a lot right and here’s
here’s the here’s the big secret is that
you probably are dumb you know like
because you can’t you can’t know
something you haven’t done
right and it goes back to your last
question on like what’s a top operator
it’s someone who’s done it right and if
they’ve done it then they know it
and if they’re just talking about it
then they don’t know it
right and so find people who’ve done
what you’re trying to do
and be dumb because you’re dumb because
you haven’t done it yet right whether
that’s buying your first laundromat or
whether that’s
scaling to 40. like if you’ve never
scaled to 40 you’re done
in scaling to 40. so go talk to luke you
know
and he does respond to texts he’s
actually pretty yeah he’s awesome i
asked him a question today like i’m
buying this slaughter man i don’t buy a
lot of used laundry mats
so i’m like how do you dispose of the
equipment these laundry bike and he shot
me a text back he gave me two
two resources yeah dude i tell you
leaving now i’m talking about the phone
like i said people will help you use
hands yep who can i do not know each
other well but when i ever ask him a
question he always responds
yeah he’s an awesome guy yeah so
where what oh yeah this is a huge one
what resources
would you recommend to help others grow
their business or to grow
personally
man there’s just oh gosh man you are
just ah
these questions are just
i love it uh all right listen
you know i’m gonna say something that a
lot of guests say which is
in something i just kind of said is you
know first of all
other people are great resources so
utilize other people and again that’s
another i’m just
you know my way of promoting what’s
happening this year again for me
you know another reason why i want to
help people get their voices out you
know
whether that’s on laundromat resource or
whatever through publishing through
writing blog posts through making videos
the podcast whatever like i want to get
people’s voices out because
you know i think other people who have
done what other people are trying to do
are great resources
so that’s one but i want to give a
couple books too because i read a lot of
books
i’ve been reading like 50 or 60 a year i
tried to cut back last year i ended up
reading like 40
um and i just end up reading a lot of
books or listening to them as i’m
driving around the l.a freeway sitting
in traffic or whatever
um so one that was huge for me it was
really it was life-changing for me
it’s called four disciplines of
execution
and it’s all about how to get
things done right and for me i’m not
naturally like a doer i’m not i’ve been
a doer
uh now because i’ve seen the value but
i’m like a learner
and a researcher and an analyzer and
i’ll do that forever
and i’ll turn around and be like man i’m
in the same place
and again i’ll feel like i know stuff
but i don’t because i haven’t done it
right and so four disciplines of
execution is like how to
how to really like do big things and you
know i want to do
big things with my life and it takes
operating in a certain
way so four disciplines of execution
highly recommend it i would i would
check it out if i were you
another one i really love is called
principles by ray dalio
and it’s just ray dalio you know he
he runs a huge huge uh
investment fund um like like i don’t
know
i don’t even want to throw out a number
but it’s like i don’t know like a
trillion dollars or something it’s like
huge
uh and he wrote this book called
principles and it just has all these
like
incredible principles that he
implemented in his business
in his life and it was just really
impactful for me
um and then the other one again kind of
along the lines of doing
is atomic habits there’s a lot of habit
books
that i really like i i’ve read atomic
habits
uh most recently probably out of all the
habit books i’ve read
and seeing how you can accomplish
things that you want to accomplish by
putting the right habits in place and by
removing
the habits that are holding you back i
think was a was a
perspective shift for me that i had
never really thought about
and so now i try to be very intentional
about what habits
i have in my life so you really do feel
like
you know actually i i never get to have
these discussions but like
you know people always ask me or they
assume that like i’ve read rich dad poor
dad or something like dave ramsey or
would you i’ve never read dave ramsey or
i don’t even know if he’s a read or a
speech guy but i feel like my lifestyle
is exactly the opposite it is i
love to go into it i love to leverage
money me too but
people always assume that i read books
and like people even ask me like the
books i’ve read
and like literally the only one i could
say that even closely pertains to
business
but doesn’t is i read the power of
positive thinking
by norman vincent hill and that
did really change
and like i said i actually feel like
that that looks very old and i feel like
people have just probably stolen from it
and put a twist on it
but i feel like that was probably the
original and i keep
trying to tell myself that i’m going to
sit down and like read these books that
people assume i’ve already read like
this rich dad poor dad or what you just
said like
do you really feel like you get a lot
out of see i feel like i’m more like i
just call people like i mean and you we
talk about that thing like i
called ray anderson who owns 60 gas
stations
like i was roommates with you know a
guy’s dad
ran a chain of hotels so i feel like i i
probably skipped
the books because i got to ask instead
of reading what someone thought that i
wanted to know i got to ask the actual
people
what they did maybe i don’t know i just
feel like
am i missing the boat with these books
well i mean
first of all i say hey give it a shot
but i mean i think i think that’s huge
like
again going back to you know if if
somebody’s doing what you want to do
and you have access to them like that’s
going to be your number one resource i
would say like go
go to that person find out what they did
because if you do what they did you’re
gonna get
results similar to what they got most
likely right so i think
that’s huge and like i think honestly we
talked about this during your episode
uh but i think that’s one of your big
strongest
assets like your strongest character
tracer i don’t know whatever but like
it’s one of the things you do the best
is you’re a really good networker and
you find the people that
you know you that can help you get
accomplish what what you can accomplish
but for me when i’m
like when i’m driving on the freeway
like i don’t listen to music ever
and people either i just listen to plain
dead car and yeah
did you guys do you get audiobooks i get
audio books and i get podcasts like so
right when you finish all the podcasts
go download a couple audiobooks and
there’s a
there’s an app i love whatever like
which one do you feel like
change jordan bear the most and don’t do
a clutch to anyone like rich dad poor
dad like what do you really believe
it’s changed me the most i’m gonna
definitely
the audiobook thing i don’t listen to
radio i literally just listened to blank
i’ve been listening to black like when i
drove to indiana i told like i think i
called you and i said i listened like
a 10 hour drive to listen to my ninth
podcast yeah
yeah i haven’t been doing that but i’m
almost out of them so maybe that’s
exactly what i’ll do i’ll get
books that’s what that’s what i do and i
you know i sit on the freeway i i’m
man for me i think i think richard poor
dad did shift my thinking
the most initially because it just
opened yeah
they’ve assumed i’ve read it i’ve never
read it yeah open i mean it’s it’s short
it’s a short listen
you probably find it for free in fact
there’s an app you should download it’s
called libby
and you libby libby aspen’s are going to
write this down right now
uh i’m going to attach it to the yeah
put it in the show now
but you you basically connect your
library card with it and you can
download
audio books for free from your library
um
and you know i i listened to all the
nonfic like i
cleaned out all the non-fiction books in
my whole library
it took me like two years or something
and i listened to every single one of
them and some of them multiple times
and i guess for those of you guys out
there who have you know who are
realtor the national association of
realtors i guess has their own library
that you can connect on libby to and
they have a
ton of non-fiction books um there but i
would say
for me the uh besides richie at poor dad
i think probably the four disciplines of
execution was really the one that really
shifted my thinking i don’t know that it
would for you necessarily because you’re
like a
get it done guy man you’re like a go do
it
um in my things on my plate right now
matter of fact i’m actually putting the
i’m still going to do the storage units
but
since i got lots of balls in the air
whatever it hits right
so i was going to do the storage units
but then this new laundromat
thing came up so now
so i would say that’s what i do i just
put a lot of balls in the air
yeah and whatever one drops first i just
go jump on
me too i mean that’s what i’ve been
doing lately and people are always like
you’re doing too much and it’s probably
true
so but you know just georgie the thing
like you my wife she likes you’re not
gonna do it i said i never said i’m not
gonna do it i’m just not gonna do it
right now
yeah like i mean we own the land we have
the dirt everything stays the same
i just choose to not build it right now
because it’s gonna be a learning curve
right i’ve never
done it so there’s going to be mistakes
and problems and issues and it’s going
to be tough
but like i said i 100 i’m going to do it
i just don’t know when it was going to
be next
and now it’s second but something else
might come in and version the third
right yeah you’re flexible i mean that’s
huge when opportunities come
you jump on them i love it so
audiobooks though man i’m a huge
proponent of audiobooks
no i actually that when i write the
thing of what i got the most out of and
i don’t know if you’re going to have me
record that but that is going to be
it i don’t know that’s such a such an
obvious thing
i don’t listen to anything in my car
just silence
like i do i still do need that because
like i process stuff right like
yeah i go home i got four kids in the
wife i go to watermelons i got
you know what 32 employees 34 employees
like my phone again like i know you can
see this is just like
i have the ringer off though and
obviously now but this thing’s just
blowing up
yeah mine too when i get in the car like
it’s like my
i got like a half hour to drive home and
i’m like let’s download
what’s going on right yeah and you need
that i think that that’s huge and i
think that’s something i didn’t really
appreciate
until you know maybe the last year or
two
you need that silent time and i find
that like
when i give myself that space that
silence
that’s where i get like my best ideas
that’s where i get my best thoughts
because i’m going like a thousand miles
an hour from one thing to the next thing
to the next thing all the time
and then when i get that silent time my
brain’s like okay
let’s sift through this a little bit and
i get like
i mean genius you’d be blown away i’m
just kidding
but like i get my best ideas
well i don’t even see this so like when
i was driving to indiana like what i did
i put the earbuds in and i was the
podcast because they listened
you know we have a denali that’s got
screens so they’re listening to their
disney movies and stuff
and i usually just drown that out and i
do my thinking because like i can just
draw it out i’m not interested in the
disney stuff going on but like i said i
really appreciate you saying that
i’m gonna get audio books i mean i can
just throw the earpods in they can be
listening to their
paw patrol and i’m rolling down the road
with
and the nice thing with earbuds you can
either let sound in or let them out so i
can let the sound in so i can be aware
of what’s going on but yeah
i’m not doing unless i’m doing audio
books i just
and like i said i don’t know that it’s
like i’m not against reading it’s just
when would i read yeah totally well and
that’s where i think audiobooks come in
you know when i’m when i’m driving or
when i’m you know
whatever like i’ve been working on the
house i’ll have an audio book going
while i’m
you know sometimes it’s just the obvious
this is so obvious
i could have been doing audio books
while i’ve listened to your podcast
but way more valuable than other books
the next laundromat i can’t
unless you make it like 20 more but it’s
not like it’s this little red going
so yeah all right perfect i love it
so lastly which i think probably most
people know but i’ll ask you because
it’s on the list
how can listeners get in contact with
you yeah
uh yeah i mean shoot me an email jordan
at laundromat resource dot com
linemen resource dot com action
obviously is
a good place to go check out what we
have going on you know if you’re
interested in
even just seeing what’s going on with
diligent uh diligent capital
investments you know check that out over
there
you know if you wanna i don’t know
i’m on like social media sites you are
you enjoying yeah you’re on facebook i’m