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!

Listen To The Podcast Here

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