Jason Dodge, author of How to Find, Evaluate, and Buy a Laundromat, joins me on the podcast today to tell his incredible story of how he got into the industry and what his experience has been like so far.
His journey into the laundromat business begins with him on unemployment, leads to him writing a book out of desperation to help his laundromat survive a new competitor, and takes us up to now, where he’s doing one of the exact things he advises NOT to do in his book!
You’re going to love his story, get a lot of wisdom from his experience in the laundromat industry, and you’ll love him as a person, too!
In today’s episode, Jason and I talk about:
- Buying a laundromat while on unemployment
- Creative financing techniques
- His experience opening his first laundromat
- What to do when new competitors invade your territory
- Creative promotional ideas
- Online advertising
- Building a laundromat from scratch
- His tattoo of his grandma
And so much more!
Check out what Jason posted behind him in the pictures below! Ha! The world may never know…
Listen To The Podcast Here
Watch The Podcast Here
Today's Sponsor
Laundromat Resource Marketing– If you need help building or managing a website for your laundromats, let the experts at Laundromat Resource Marketing help you design and build a custom, professional website for you! As experts in the laundromat industry AND in web design and online marketing, we at Laundromat Resource Marketing are able to provide you with a professional website at an affordable price. We’re always transparent so there are no hidden fees. What we quote you is what you pay. Satisfaction and performance guaranteed! With no contracts to sign and guarantees like that, why not let us take care of your online presence while you focus on welcoming all of your new laundry customers? Click the logo or link above to find out more information.
Links from the show
Resources
- How to Find, Evaluate, and Buy a Laundromat
- Rich Dad, Poor Dad
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
- Sample Pro Formas
Get Connected
- Laundromat Investor Resources
- Join Laundromat Resource
- Laundromat Resource Forums
- Laundromat Resource Blog
- Be a guest on the podcast!
- Sell your laundromat
- Laundromat Resource Coaching
Connect with Jason
Email: [email protected]
Website: howtobuyalaundromat.com
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/capitolquickwash
Instagram: @capitolquickwash
Jason's Bio
I’m married and I have two boys. I was in the car business for 10 years. My wife decided to scale back and work part time and go to college full time, all while we were raising our two young boys. Then, I and got fired. That’s how I got into the laundromat business. I have now been in the laundry business for 13 years. I am building my 3rd laundromat now.
I own a few residential rental properties. I just bought my first commercial building. I am building my newest laundromat in that building.
I wrote the book How To Find, Evaluate and Buy a Laundromat. This book began when I had a laundromat being built in my trade area and I started to outline how I was going to survive. That book somehow turned into a how-to book as I started adding analysis data. I looked at so many laundries for sale that I got good at analysis. I do suffer from analysis paralysis and quite honestly have struck out many times at putting deals together for multiple reasons.
Join The Laundromat Resource Community!
Episode Transcript
hey what’s up guys it’s jordan with the
laundromat resource
podcast this is show number 42 and i’m
pumped
that you’re here and i’m also a little
bit relieved to be on
this side of the interviews again uh
now i’m just kidding uh last week if you
missed it uh peter mayberry former guest
of the podcast
interviewed me uh for last week’s show
so if you haven’t checked that out go
check that one out
uh laudermintresource.comshow41
where you can find that but today i’m
very excited for you because we have
uh author and forum superstar
jason dodge on the show today um he
just i just i loved this interview
uh he has a ton of wisdom a ton of great
things to say
he’s the author of how to buy uh how to
find
oh man it’s right here how to find
evaluate
and buy a laundromat um and i will put
links to that you will be talking about
a little bit later but i’ll put links to
that in the show notes or if you’re on
youtube it’s in the description down
below
um you can find the show notes by the
way lottermyresource.comshow42
and uh there’s actually a couple little
easter eggs
over there some funny stuff that jason
sent me so if you want to go check those
out uh do that
but uh speaking of forum superstar the
forums were going
crazy this week there was a lot of
action happening over there
if you have not yet headed over to the
forums and check those out
asked a question answer the question
should be doing that every week
first of all i haven’t brainwashed you
in a little while but get over there and
do that every week
but genuinely that is a great place to
network not just get questions answered
and answer other people’s questions help
them out but also
just to network and again we got a lot
of really cool stuff
uh coming up and the way that i found
jason to come on this podcast is over
there on the forums as he was helping a
ton of people out
um so huge huge hero in my book for
a lot of you guys so head over the
forums check those out
welcome to all of you new people who
just
uh signed up this week and who
introduced yourselves on the
introductions forum
uh man just so much cool stuff happening
over there
very very excited and super super glad
to be a part of that
um hey there is something a little bit
uh different that i’m gonna start doing
starting this week
actually it’s kind of a soft opening for
this i guess
but head over to uh lotterysource.com if
you want to
jump on board this very first one if
you’re getting this if you’re listening
to this like within the first day or two
this episode’s coming out i’m gonna
start doing webinars
every single thursday uh
so that’ll be at four o’clock pacific
time also known as best coast time or uh
what is that
what did i say seven o’clock east coast
also known as beast coast
yeah i guess time uh so four o’clock
on thursday pacific time seven o’clock
thursday
east coast time they’re gonna be live
webinars
you will get a chance to ask your
questions over there
i’m just really looking forward to it i
think it’s a great way for us
not to just get some information across
but also have some cool interactions
uh as a group so again soft opening this
week so if you’re listening to this
right away
uh head over there and and join us this
thursday that’s february 11
2021 uh for our very first webinar all
right
i’m excited about that another little
tweak that i’m making
is i don’t know about you but i’m kind
of tired of hearing
the advertising advertising company at a
lot of my resource marketing
ad that comes on on the podcast and i
started thinking about it and
i just decided that from now on if we’re
gonna have any kind of ad whether it’s
for
something that we’re doing or someone
else is doing it’s gonna be a value
first ad and the whole point of
uh of the ad for me is one to give you
exposure to
uh people resources services
equipment whatever that is going to be
beneficial to you
first and foremost and the way that that
ad
gets delivered to you also needs to be
beneficial so we’re not just wasting
time it’s not just a commercial
something that’s actually adding to your
uh your journey your experience with
laundromats so
with that said uh we’re gonna introduce
a little segment in place of the ad it’s
gonna just be
quick marketing tips i’m gonna be doing
some of them
john who’s the head of marketing for a
lot of my resource marketing will be
doing some of them we’ll do some of them
together
but hopefully that will be a better
tweak for you guys
and uh and bring some more value all
right let me know what you think about
it
and with that said let’s roll into this
week’s
marketing tip hey what’s up guys it’s
john here head of marketing and i’m here
for your
marketing tip of the day and it is
simply this
i need you to be easier to find
than your competition that means
here’s what you need to do you need to
go claim your google my business
if you already have it i need you to
update your google my business
weekly add photos add posts
and keep that bad boy updated i also
need you
to update your website if you had your
website built
in the early 2000s it is time to update
that if you don’t have a website it’s
time to get one
they are pretty cheap and pretty easy to
get going so do that
and lastly be where your customers
are if your customers are on facebook
get your business on facebook
if your customers are on instagram get
on instagram
if they’re on tick tock it is time for
you to start dancing on tick tock
in your laundromat make sure you check
out laundromat resource
dot com slash get online all right have
at it guys
you got this all right without further
ado let’s jump into it with
author and laundromat resource forum
superstar jason dodge jason
thank you for coming on the show how are
you doing man i’m doing awesome
how are you sir i am doing great this is
uh honestly man this is an
honor for me i have been looking forward
to this one for a long time
for a few different reasons we’ll get
into you know some of those later but
one of them is
uh you have been just killing it on the
forums and helping
tons of people out i just been blown
away
uh and i you know as i started reading
your forum post i was like this guy’s
got to come on the podcast
so here we are man this is awesome i’ve
been doing this a little while and i
you know there’s some questions if i can
add some value i will if i can’t i just
more or less keep my mouth shut
so yeah that
is a rare skill my friend
a rare skill uh but well i want to hear
about some of this wisdom and experience
that you have
in a second but before we do that can
you give us a little bit of a background
about who you are
and absolutely catch us up until you get
into laundromats
before i jump into me i just want to
thank you for doing this
and not not for doing this with you and
me but just for doing
laundromat resource and doing these
podcasts and talking to people
and um it’s weird because like you know
you’re on these facebook groups and you
you know you’re commenting on stuff and
you see these names but you don’t really
know who they are or
how long they’ve been in business or
whatever but you know i feel a lot
closer to all those people
even though i’ve never even spoken to
them directly but because i saw them on
a podcast or listen to them
and i kind of have a little bit of their
background like i feel you know like i
could call a rock star
you know and i could i could call peter
mayberry i’ve already spoke to dave
men’s you know i can
i can just call these people and i feel
like i know them already to a certain
extent so i think that you’re really
you’re taking this huge community and
you’re kind of shrinking it down
um and that’s cool so so thank you for
that
i think uh and we’ll and we can talk
about you know
later you know about the book and stuff
like that but because there was nothing
out there back then
you know on this stuff and now this is
great so so
thank you so there we go yeah thank you
i appreciate you saying that it is funny
because it is
i feel the same way and it’s funny
because you know some of these guys like
the three guys you mentioned and some
others they’re like some of my best
friends now and i’ve only
really known them for a couple of months
you know and but we’re chatting all the
time we’re talking business we’re
talking life and
um and it is this is a very cool format
to just kind of get to know people
and build that community aspect
of it and and really get a feel for
people so yeah
but thank you for saying that i really
appreciate it it’s been a lot of fun for
me and it’s
a huge honor and enough about that let’s
hear about
you right so um
so me i mean i’m a regular guy um i’m
married
i’ve been married my wife and i uh we
met
she was 18 i was 20. i’m 48 now so we’ve
been together a long time we have two
kids
uh carson and aiden one is a sophomore
uh at uw wisconsin madison so he’s a
badger he’s in the business program
there he’s doing very well uh my younger
son is a senior in high school just got
accepted at madison
um uw wisconsin so direct admit to the
business program so we’re super proud of
him i got some
luckily my kids got my my wife’s brains
because uh
because you know they’re doing great so
i’m really i’m really proud of them so
um but that’s that’s a little bit about
me my wife is a nurse she’s uh
she’s already been vaccinated so she’s
right
working you know working the front lines
there a little bit um mostly in
surgeries but she’s
also helped out with some of the kobit
stuff so
um but that’s a little bit about me so
i’ve been in the laundromat business for
13 years now i think um
when i first started um
i i worked a lot like i worked in the
shift i worked 40 plus hours
a week you know at my location at the
first location so
um but that’s a little bit about me i
don’t i don’t want to just ramble on did
you
yeah no yes okay well i mean awesome to
hear and congrats to your son for
getting into
uh into madison and in business you know
the business program and your other son
for doing so well and your wife for
saving lives and your family is like a
super family right now yeah
um which is cool about that but we’re
very lucky so yeah well very cool
um okay well let’s back up uh from where
you left off a little bit
and how i mean i’m always curious as to
how people get into this business
because it’s
it’s kind of a random little business
and i think it’s coming more to the
forefront
right now like it’s happening right now
but up until
i don’t know six months ago you know
this is what beginning of february
2021 until about six months ago uh
it was pretty much off the radar you
know and i think kovid’s really put a
spotlight on it so
tell me about how what why laundromats
and how did you get into this crazy
business
so um it started well 13 years ago
um my wife was in college i was in the
car business
um we just had our two boys
and the car business just really
consumes a lot of your time so i was
working i’m sure 50 plus hours a week
there’s always a sale you never have a
full weekend off you’re working every
saturday um
it just it was starting to wear on me so
i i did finance so when you buy a car
i’m the guy that you you know
arranges loans or the leasing for you
does all the contracts and stuff like
that
getting a little burnt out on the
industry i thought to myself i’m like
man i want to go work for a bank
so i’m gonna i want to be the guy on the
other end of the phone when i’m calling
to get deals approved i want to be the
guy that’s
the underwriter that’s improving the
deal and i had a ton of contacts and i’m
like how banks got
you know two weeks vacation and they
have all this stuff you know so i’m like
this is this is where i’m gonna go do
that
so i go on some interviews i come back
to work the next day
well this goes on for a while one of the
days i come back to work
my boss is like did you go on an
interview yesterday at a bank and i’m
like
uh no what do you mean i don’t know any
interviews you know trying to
because i didn’t get hired i’m like i
don’t want to get let go um
by the end of the day or maybe the next
day i was fired i was gone
so somebody saw me there interviewing
ratting me out and uh and i was gone so
then i’m just like
oh what am i gonna do now so i had i had
a couple rental properties
um i had filed for unemployment i was on
unemployment
and i started thinking to myself i’m
like i am i got two young kids
i don’t remember if they were in t-ball
yet or not but they were starting to get
into that
sort of some of those things and i’m
like and i don’t want to i don’t want to
miss that stuff you know i want to be
around for my kids so
i’m like i’m gonna i’m gonna start a
business
and really just blindlessly just kind of
looking at franchises and there’s like
this radiator business that i
almost bought and bought into i should
say it was a franchise and
just kind of exploring everything and
bumped into a laundromat that’s right in
my neighborhood here in wauwatosa a
little place
and it just and at the time like knowing
now
i’m glad i didn’t you know pursue that
one because there’s no parking you know
it’s it’s upside was limited
um it’s not even in business it’s not
even there anymore um
with the time i’m like oh this is great
i’m gonna buy this laundromat that’s
gonna be the answer
you’re not realizing that that little
place you know once i got into the
numbers of the place i’m like man it
doesn’t make any money
you know i’m like well this is this
isn’t my answer you know what am i going
to do here
um and keep in mind while i’m looking at
these businesses like i don’t have any
money
like i got you know i’m on unemployment
my wife’s in school working part-time we
got two kids a mortgage you know we got
all that stuff going for us so
i’m like all right so i had a 401k
and some you know some of that stuff
from um from the car business but
i didn’t really have much of anything in
the bank so
i really i just kept going i just really
wanted to be self-employed and kept
going for it
so i’m talking to my stepdad about this
laundromat that’s
right in the neighborhood and he says oh
one of my friends from high school has a
laundromat he’s doing really well
i’m like great can i talk to the guy
he’s like i think he sold it i’m like i
don’t care i want to talk to the guy you
know because i don’t know anything about
this business
and i need to figure out you know i need
to know if this is a business worth
going into and he’s like oh yeah i’m
pretty sure he’s selling the place well
you know that was a lot i’m sure it sold
you know i’m like okay whatever i want
to talk to him so
uh he reaches out to the guy and
the guy says yeah you know come on out
you know i think the next day or
whatever was thanksgiving day and he was
closed
and he’s like well i’m going to go there
and i’m going to be cleaning just doing
some stuff that we can’t do
when all the customers are in the store
so my son and i will be there and come
on in and i’ll tell you about it
great so i go in and i’m just helping
him move like top loaders and he’s
scrubbing the sides of the machines
because all the soap that’s spilled in
between the machines and you know he’s
mopping the floor and everything and
we just start talking about the business
and he’s like yeah it’s for sale you
know i had a guy that was interested but
he couldn’t come down with the money or
uh i don’t know something happened and
um
we just started talking and all of a
sudden
like i’m getting you know profit loss
statements from the guy and i’m trying
to find money and you know it just
um somehow i was i managed to buy this
place and it was way more than
like i’m i went from looking at a little
place that was unattended
you know that was netting like 400 bucks
a month you know to this business that’s
4 500 square feet
tanning beds dry cleaning wash and fold
and you know it’s got employees and all
this stuff um not what i was looking for
at all but um
somehow i ended up getting it i mean i
had to cash out my 401k
which is maybe wasn’t the best decision
how they got these programs actually
they had these programs then where you
could borrow money from yourself
right i’m just like i don’t know how i’m
gonna pay myself back like i’m gonna
have to work there all the time you know
and it just kind of
i had no idea what i was doing i just
jumped
um and i bought it that’s were you still
on
unemployment when you bought it i i was
i ran out of unemployment
literally the week that we closed so i
think you get whatever you get
it might be six months or something and
it’s like 300
a week you know it’s a lot of money so i
but we needed every penny of it i mean
we i wasn’t working and
that much money in the bank so it saved
us you know it bought us some time
and i told my wife i said i you’re not
you’re in college full now she was going
to school to be a nurse at the time i’m
like you
that’s the priority is is keeping you in
school
and looking out for the future you know
so we need to like i’ll figure it out if
i have to i’ll go back in the car
business you know but i don’t
that’s i don’t want to do that so when i
had some offers coming in because i
i was okay at my job so people were you
know i could have easily went right back
into the car business but i just
didn’t want to do it i wanted to be my
kid’s dad so
yeah yet i am i’ve been very good at
that so
um so yeah so there you have it well i
mean that’s a
that’s a that’s what i’m never like
i’m i’m still always surprised about
people’s stories about getting in the
business and that i mean that’s like a
pretty shocking
one right like you get fired or let go
and
you are on unemployment you’re looking
at this little laundromat and you end up
with
something that you thought was way out
of your range was your
i don’t want to pry too much into like
numbers and stuff but like
was your did your 401k cover it or
did you have to find how did you no i
can’t imagine you got like a traditional
loan no because i didn’t have a job
right
so how did that happen yeah so it was a
combination of a few things
um but it was my it was my 401k
it was my wife’s 401k um and she’s
always supported me 100
on all these goofy things that i do um
so it was both of ours so she was
invested in this um
i took a loan from the seller so
the guy selling the place they had a
loan with him for a certain amount and
then we got into it he wanted to have a
life insurance policy on me in case i
die he wanted obviously he has an
insurable interest
um if i pass away you know he wants to
make sure he gets his money so then we
got into it over that
so he ended up putting um we agreed on
him putting a mortgage on one of my
rental properties
and he’s like well i’ll just put this
mortgage on there and then if you pay me
off i’ll take the mortgage
i’m like fine we’ll do that so more or
less just kind of a placeholder on the
title
um and i raised some private funds from
family
um and a combination of those three or
four things i probably hit my credit
cards and you know all of that stuff so
um i don’t know how i pulled it off
honestly but it somehow worked
and that i mean that is
i mean i love that though because you
know it’s like
look you wanted to be a dad for your
kids right like you wanted to be
at home and you knew you had an option
but it wasn’t an option that was going
to give you
what you wanted in life right and
you know i think a lot of times we get
stuck in
you know you can either have a good job
that has a lot of money or
you can be present for your family or
you know there i mean there’s a lot of
either ores right in life
and we feel like we have to choose one
or the other
and my initial question is always okay
well how can i have both
right like i want i want both of those i
want a good job and i want to be there
with
you know see my kids grow up and be a
part of their lives and
have make good memories together and how
can i have both and
i just i love that you dug deep i mean
what you did was
was risky right but you dug deep because
you knew
you knew what you were what you’re going
after and you use creative financing i
love that you’re piecing together
you know cash out retirement accounts
and raising private money
and seller financing and
this insurance policy i mean and
cross-collateralizing with your real
estate i mean
you pulled out all the stops to try to
achieve your goal
right and i mean for me that’s i mean it
makes me i’ll be honest it makes my
palms a little sweaty
but it’s also super inspiring right i
mean it reminds me of a lot of the
stories of the successful owners we’ve
had
on here who just did
what it took to get it done you know
that first one
and and i say it all the time like if
you get that first one
and you do it right sky’s the limit for
you but
if you do it wrong it’s hard to get out
of that so
yeah kudos to you for for getting
creative with your financing and getting
in there uh can we talk a little bit
about your experience like
okay you did all this stuff right like
you jumped on there
yeah you left and you’re taking over
what’s that like so i started training
um with the owners
and you know they’re showing me around
but immediately the employees kind of
started thinking that i was gonna fire
everybody
i don’t know why they thought that but
they just had this feeling that
i was gonna let people go so people
started quitting they started finding
other jobs and i’m like oh i’m like i
need you guys i don’t know what i’m
doing
you know like i i really i really needed
these people i they know way more about
this industry working there that i
um i didn’t know how to fold clothes or
work a cash register
um or any of that stuff it’s like i’m
good with people i’m you know because
i’ve been in sales i’m good with numbers
because you know i was in finance you
know but i don’t
i don’t know how to fix a washing
machine or you know any of this stuff so
so people started quitting and i’m like
well
i’m just going to take their house
because we have this big debt service
now that we have to take care of
you know going through the numbers 100
million ways i knew i was going to have
to put in time anyways
um to get through our first few years
because the business
the business was doing really good but
with the new debt and everything
it wasn’t really making much money so i
had to
i’m like i’m going to have to grow this
business somehow and to kind of give you
a picture of what the place looked like
um it was really dark and dingy
it had carpeting like this dark blue
carpeting in there like
commercial like really thin pile
carpeting but
the whole place is carpeted except for
in front of the washers that had
that vct or cvt whatever it is that kind
of vinyl floor
you know the squares square foot square
yeah they had those
and they were really i don’t know what
they did to them but they had no shine
to them at all
they had one tv like on a box kind of
there
with the big antenna on it and a lot of
handwritten signs everywhere in the
place and
it didn’t look good you know the lights
the lights were all on i think most of
them but
um it hadn’t been painted in a long time
and it just it just looked really
dated so i mean the first thing i wanted
to do was like well we’re gonna paint
you know we’re gonna do things we’re
gonna just try to slowly implement stuff
as we have a little extra money
um and we did that um over time so
but i ended up kind of taking i think i
worked like
i would work a day shift on mondays a
night shift on tuesdays and then a day
shift on wednesday i just ended up being
about 40 hours a week in the store
um and then somebody one of my weekend
people quit so then my
my wife started working the weekend
mornings and she quit her part-time job
um and then my mother-in-law started
working there for me
so like i had it made like um it was
doing i thought really well
like okay i got people in place you know
a couple of the good employees that we
had stayed
and they were on for years um
and everything was was starting to go
really good so
um business was slowly you know
increasing a little bit we raised some
prices
you know painted some things got a nicer
tv just kind of get slowly doing some
things
and i think we’re there i don’t know if
it’s a year and a half
two years somewhere in there and then
all of a sudden somebody’s like oh hey
um there’s a new laundromat getting
built down the road did you see that
i’m like i mean i like lost it
so i’m literally like my financial life
i think just passed before my eyes i’m
just going
i just invested everything i have into
this place like we’re just starting to
do better
and now this place is going to be built
you know down the road for me
um so i had to take a a serious
step back and just look at the bus the
building the business and just be like
okay what do we need to do
to remain in business and
um yeah that’s actually when i started
writing my book i i was more is more
therapeutic than anything
i was just kind of writing out how i was
planning how i was gonna survive
this new competition um and then when i
was telling i was still looking at other
laundromats to buy and they’ll tell my
buddies of mine
you know how i would analyze water bills
and all this stuff and they’re like you
got to write a book about this thing so
that their
influence kind of got me to write the
book about all the other stuff
um but that’s kind of how that
so it took about
it took a long time for that laundromat
to open like they were there’s all these
machines just sitting in a storefront
for months maybe it was even a year i’m
sitting there
so i personally saw it i got so mad i
started calling every distributor i
could find
i’m like who was building this
laundromat like i was just angry like
how dare you
you know we’re gonna go out of business
and i was just freaking out um
and it turned out it was some
distributor and owner like who happened
to own this strip mall but he has a
bunch of
places in the chicago area and he just
happened to you know he’s like well i’m
going to put a laundromat in my one of
my vacant spaces and his distributor i
think was from
the chicago area so nobody knew anything
about it
and you know in hindsight and now
knowing what i know and having
uh having survived that you know
um i’m not as worried about that anymore
you know but
at the time it was yeah i really was
pretty scared
so that’s a huge i mean a holy cow man
that’s like
and and that’s like a it’s almost like a
punch in the gut man because you
you take this huge leap you make this
it’s kind of a risky move
you’re putting everything into your
business you’re finally starting to see
traction
and you know you got a competitor coming
in down the road
and that is scary i mean
can we talk about i mean you said you
survived it so
yeah i’m glad you survived it but i
think that’s a huge fear for a lot of
owners
yeah you know a new especially you know
if you don’t have enough time to kind of
get established
you know if you if you buy a laundromat
that needs some work and you’re kind of
slowly putting some work into it and
you’re not
quite where you want it to be yet and
another one’s popping up
that’s a that’s a bad situation to be in
and i think that’s a fear of a lot of
owners
and you just said you’re not as worried
about that
anymore now that you’ve been through and
survived it so
put us at ease man tell us why are you
not
freaked out about that still let me tell
you what i did
um first so okay yeah when i found out
about it
you know i had to look at the business
and i didn’t not knowing a lot about the
industry i
asked my car i just started asking my
customers i
i bought a bicycle i put it up on one of
the bulkheads
and i had a card printed up from you
know uh
one of the print houses in the
neighborhood and it just had some
questions on and then there’s comments
up
and some of the questions were like how
do you feel about our vendor pricing how
do you
do we need more washers or dryers do we
you know and i just
are we clean you know i just kind of
asked a bunch of questions
and then if they answered the questions
they put their card in the box and they
had a chance to win this bike
so i started with that and
wasn’t thrilled obviously i wanted their
address and stuff too so that way i
could see where they were coming from
because i wanted to see
i’m like well i know where this guy’s
building are they
are they gonna pass him on the way to me
like i’m trying to think of all these
things in my head
um of what’s what’s going to happen um
a lot of the answers came back really
positive um
and we had made some changes coming up
to that
you know i think there’s some people
like you know it looks kind of old in
here and stuff like that so we made some
changes
that way a lot of people said we didn’t
have enough dryers which i knew was a
problem and i did not have the money to
uh add dryers at the time so there
really wasn’t anything i could do about
that
um but at least i knew that that was an
issue so
what we ended up doing is just really
going through the business we put a new
floor and got rid of the carpeting
the carpeting actually went up to a
chair rail on the wall that’s how bad it
was so it went up to
you know whatever 36 inches or something
okay
how can you get rid of that carpet man i
mean you got carpet in a laundromat
right i hope that you just went straight
shag carpet from there on
all the way up the wall yup yeah that
was that was our answer yeah that’s
crazy
and a disco golf ball with a disc and
then uh
i’m digging this laundromat now all
right that’s groovy
so uh so we ripped the carpeting off the
walls
off the floor it’s got to be a sentence
that you’ve never thought you would say
we ripped the carpeting off the wall all
right sorry i’m off the carpet
all right go ahead and put the carpeting
off the wall so yeah we got that off and
there’s all these glue marks you know
from the trowels where they glued it so
then we had to skim coat all the walls
but anyways we ended up painting them
all
over time replaced a lot of the lights
um
at the time this is led wasn’t really a
big thing so we’re going from t8 bulbs
to
whatever it is now you know the there’s
a little better
better ball or maybe it’s through the
tvs but um
so we you know updated the lighting um
painted
just i ended up putting uh we ended up
doing more raffles of bicycles
um the laundromat when i bought it they
had a rule that
under no circumstance would they refund
anybody anything
which i thought was ridiculous so when i
first got in there i’m like okay i’m
just gonna i’m gonna run
things the way that they’re around so i
just kind of kept that rule for like i
think maybe a week
and we ended up changing that rule i was
putting up like new signs and
a customer actually was like no refunds
like he was laughing at me as i’m
putting it up and i’m like yeah i’m like
why am i doing this
you know so then i you know after a
little while i took the signs down and
i’m like you know what
we are going to help every customer no
matter what the problem is
i don’t care they need a free wash we’re
going to get it so
um if they’re not happy with where they
parked we’re going to give them a free
wash you know let’s just help everybody
out
so we changed that philosophy and just
tried to really help people
um that was a big change um
lost my training thought there’s other
things that we that we that we did to
improve the place but it was mostly just
improving the atmosphere making it look
better
yeah um did you did you learn i mean
you said when you did your survey that
you know a lot of the feedback came back
you needed
new dryers and you already knew that um
did you
learn did you learn anything else like
did anybody
say hey you need to get rid of this
carpet
i’m stuck on the carpet but nobody said
that yeah they probably loved
it man i know i would have no but did
you learn anything
did anything else stand out from that
that survey
nothing else comes you know i i think i
put the answers in my book actually but
i don’t remember off the top of my head
but there were there were little changes
that we made
um to help people with that
but the dryer thing we just got better
at managing the dryer problem and we
were we had more wash capacity
and dry capacity and now
you know i you know in building the new
store you know we wanted
i think that you should always have like
10 more dry capacity than wash you shoot
for 110
you know on your dryers versus your wash
and you always want to have a couple
more drier pockets than washer pockets
um
and that is to alleviate those you know
those
backups of your dryers um we had way
less pockets
i think we had like 40 washers and
28 dryers or something you know but from
a compound perspective it was pretty
close but we had so many small washers
that um people would take stuff from one
of the top loaders and put in one 30
pound dryer
you know it’s like we could actually put
three more you know washers loads in
there but
it just didn’t work that way so it ended
up being a bottleneck but
um but we managed that better just by
helping people out
monitoring we put a process in place
that when we got that busy
um you know our attendance would be at
attention and helping people moving them
in and out of the dryers if they had a
problem
free drive you know we just made it work
out so um
when that laundromat opened you know i
was freaking out and i remember i posted
on i think the
coin laundry associations forum and
everybody gave me a bunch of bad news i
didn’t want to hear
um you know oh your revenue is going to
go down 25 and all this stuff
and and the revenue did go down but it
didn’t go down a ton
and you know so a little bit of gross is
a lot of nets
you know when you think about a little
bit of gross sales turns out to be a lot
of net income so the net income went
down quite a bit
the gross went down not too bad but
we started um doing time of day pricing
and we had run no specials at all and
we started you know i realized that the
new store once they opened they had a
lot of big machines i mean they’re
building like you see stores being built
now with a lot of big
and this guy had been in the business a
long time and he knew exactly what to
put in there
um so i’m like well we got all these
small machines and i can’t afford to
replace them so i’m like i’m gonna do at
the time of 75 cent wash i’m gonna do
that three days a week
on these small machines and i’m just
gonna try to crank up the volume
and um it took some time but it ended up
taking in those
those three slow days tuesday wednesday
thursday ended up being our busiest day
um and all those washer turns you know
resulted in more dryer turns you know
at full price and so um it took a little
time but eventually we got back to where
we were
and then we exceeded that you know and
then we started raising prices all the
time so
um to get off because that’s pretty
cheap so
but we wanted to come up with something
you know and we didn’t do that right
away because we want to get into a price
you know thing where
you know a lot of people’s a new place
opens immediately they’re thinking oh my
gosh she’s doing half-price sales so
then they do it you know and it’s just
you don’t want to compete with that um
and that person never changed their
pricing strategy they just came out with
what they came out with and they just
ran with it
and we just made some changes to
compensate for what our
equipment layout was and it ended up
turning things around so we also
improved washing fold and stuff like
that
so the tanning business every year just
kind of went like that went down
um and dry cleaned never did great we
didn’t we contracted dry cleaning so
we’re just a drop off dry clean site but
okay
um but we didn’t need self-serve in
washington
so yeah yeah well i kind of like it’s
almost kind of like
guerrilla warfare a little bit in your
situation because
you just you were outgunned right and so
you kind of had to do the highlander hit
run hide kind of deal where you
you have you know what what i love
about what you did is that i mean people
are going to listen to this story right
now and think that you’re an
idiot for doing 75 washes
or 75 cent washes right and
but what i love about what you did is
when your back is against the wall
you got to do something dramatic right
in order to
to fight back like to survive you have
to do i mean think of a cornered animal
right they do
it gets dramatic real fast right
and so i and i it’s probably why
a big part of why you survived i mean
obviously there’s all the other stuff
you were doing also
improving the business but doing
something dramatic and
and i think the proof is in that those
three days became your
your biggest days right that and it
makes sense right
because everybody wants you know 75 cent
wash
oh i’ll bring my stuff from california
there to do so
well and keep in mind that was 10 years
ago too right the other thing is
um you know there’s a lot of especially
on these facebook pages in the forums
people you know they’re upset about free
dry
or or a guy that’s doing you know time
day pricing three days a week and he’s
really cheap on this or he’s really
cheap on that
these are all just marketing strategies
they’re nothing more than that
and um you know you can’t
you can come up with your own marketing
strategy you know and
you have to just make it work and every
every location is different i mean one
place might have killer parking
and one place doesn’t have good parking
so maybe you need to have a little
better pricing
because your parking lot isn’t great you
know or or maybe you do have some older
equipment and you just need to
be a little more aggressive on pricing
if you have a new store yes you should
be the high price leader i mean you have
big bills you have brand new equipment
you know
and you have the best of the best i mean
you should be charging more so
um everybody’s situation is different
and
i don’t look down on anybody for doing
anything um
because i think what works for one you
know situation may work
not work for the other or vice versa you
know it just everybody’s got to do what
works for them
and that’s that’s the bottom line so
that worked for me
um a lot of the guys that do the free
dry they charge a little bit more for
their dryer for their washes and stuff
like that that works for them that’s
their marketing approach
um so with our new location we’re gonna
have more stuff that we’ll do
i mean you had a guy i don’t remember
his name but he had that the
um one of the guy i can’t remember who
did the half price wash it was the name
of his store yeah
yeah hank so uh what was his name hank
yeah so yeah that’s his that’s his
marketing thing right so that’s what he
does i mean good for him he’s got
something that brings people in the door
so
um his pricing goes up and down it’s
half price this day is you know it’s
just
um that’s totally creative i love it
so um it’s a business like any other you
have to
run specials and do things and that’s
why pick and save in the grocery stores
they all send you coupons every week and
they’re pricing stuff so yeah yeah and
i’m glad you said that too because i
you know obviously we we all want
we’d all love to be the price leader and
to be able to do that and to command
those prices and and i think you can you
can get there
uh but the key to that is providing the
most
value right and so you got to figure out
where
can you provide the most value and
and leverage that right and if you can’t
provide the most value in
newer equipment you can provide the most
value
in you know maybe your your employees
that you have and your
your service that you offer and i love i
mean that was one of the things that you
did right help every customer out no
matter what
they don’t get a good parking spot let’s
give them a free wash you know what
whatever it takes right because that’s
providing the most
value right and so so i mean i love that
you said
you know hey it’s all marketing
strategies and
you know different things work for
different people um
and you know and our goal and like you
said too like
you did it for a time and you’ve raised
prices over the years and
you know and you get to where you’re
trying to go but sometimes
early on you know and i think it’s easy
for people who are
now kind of in the flow of successful
things to
forget how it was when you’re scrappy
you know you know trying to pull
yourself up by your bootstraps and some
of the things that they had to do
you know and now they just remember kind
of where they’re at now
and but and that’s why you say that
because i feel like
i’m still being having to be scrappy and
you know and do whatever it takes so
um you know this this new location like
it’s no different
you know this is so it’s so much more
expensive you know you would think i
know all this stuff right i wrote a book
on it and all this you know
but building this location i’ve learned
so much
you know so i’ve been you know a student
of the laundromat industry for
13 years now and i’m continuing to learn
every day in this build
um is i’m learning every day and
sometimes very painfully just as i’ve
learned all through my life
and by the you know i’m having to pay
for that lesson
um but it’s it’s uh
it’s interesting so i i still feel like
i i’m totally still the little guy who’s
who i feel like i’m still being scrappy
and having to do whatever it takes to
get there so
um because this location’s no different
i feel than the first one like i’m
putting everything i’m throwing
everything at it
um and we’re going to make it work you
know we’re going to be scrappy and we’re
going to you know
um but now we can utilize technology we
can really have
some good promotions you know so we can
do yeah
you know these app-based systems you can
do anything so it’s just uh
it’s a different ball game now but yeah
well let’s talk about that build
in a second because i want to hear about
what you have been learning i know
you’re not through with it yet but
you know that process a little bit but
just to kind of put a pin in
uh this competitor story
uh can you just kind of fill us in like
you said you
business did drop for a little bit and
eventually it kind of
can you give us like a timeline on
what that was um
and when he first opened it i don’t like
it can take
them about a year to ramp up to where
they’re going to be or even two years
so we didn’t notice it right away and we
opened i’m like i don’t even think i
don’t even notice it
but then that slowly it i think it was
probably
maybe it was about a year and i got a
horrible memory so i
um i’m really bad at dates and times and
all that stuff but
our business was pretty stable but then
it’s it was slowly trickling off
and all of a sudden one day i’m like man
the bills are getting really tight and
that’s when i kind of noticed that we
were down
um and then it just seemed i just i
could see the trajectory kind of slowly
going down so that’s when i started
freaking out a little bit and started
doing the time of day pricing and stuff
like that
um so we were probably about a year into
it
with that competitor before we made
pricing changes
and then that pricing change and nothing
happens overnight and i see this on the
um a lot of times in on these laundry
forums and stuff and they’re like i
i made this change and i don’t see any
any difference you know it’s like well
any change you make it’s kind of like a
ship in the water like it turns really
slow it doesn’t
turn really fast like a speedboat it
takes time for these changes to take
effect so
you know that that new laundromat took a
long time for that to turn
you know to get customers and then we
slowly kind of felt the effect of that
and then when we
made pricing changes it slowly turned to
our
favor back again and um
when you think about when you discount
prices now you have to do
like two turns where you did one turn
just to break even
so then it’s kind of and i ended up
making a little spreadsheet which i love
making spreadsheets so i made a
spreadsheet that showed
okay these are my terms and then if i
discounted it this many days how many
turns that i have to do to
break even you know and so how many more
customers and turns that i have to do to
break even and then
and then what did that do to my drier
revenue so i just kind of played with
these numbers a little bit
um but so to answer your question it was
about a year before it really started
affecting us
we made some changes and maybe it was
another
six months to a year before we kind of
came out of that yeah so it was a couple
year process
um because again nothing happens real
fast right
oh i love when people say they mail a
postcard and they’re like i don’t know i
sent out 1000 postcards and nobody
showed up it’s like well
it doesn’t happen that fast you know
first off don’t send any more postcards
but
uh yeah all right well good i mean
uh one more one more question i’m just
kind of curious about this is like
getting in the details a little bit but
when you did your
um your time of day pricing how did you
promote that
so i was big into social media
so when we bought this place almost no
laundromats had even a website and i
think a lot of them still don’t but now
you see a lot more websites
um we started doing websites we got a
facebook page right away
um we started doing promotions on
facebook we were doing adwords
um for stuff like that um
adwords can get expensive pretty fast
but
but it works and you can kind of track
to see at least you can see how many
people are seeing it and clicking on it
and coming through your site
um facebook worked really well for us
and we would advertise a really tight
circle around our location
probably you know just maybe two miles
maybe three miles something like that
just a tight circle which is great on
facebook you can
you can only advertise to that that
small group of people right
and people would comment and share and
you could interact with a customer in
real time practically and
that is just that’s one of the ways that
we did it so i
i really like facebook facebook
marketing but
yeah did you do signage in the store or
windows or anything like that oh yeah so
we put big decals on the windows
um we had signs on those banks of
washers
and um and they were big round
yellow bright yellow decals one on every
window i think we had three or four
windows on the front and we just put one
on every on every window
because you have to let everybody know
so there’s some marketing and then
obviously people are coming to the store
and they’re seeing the signage and
there’s then you start getting a little
bit busier and some people are like oh
well now you just moved all your weekend
customers to your three days during the
week it’s like
it doesn’t really work that way so um
it’s funny people just start finding you
and and they start coming so um at first
yes maybe our weekend people
some of them turned into during the week
people
but then we got so busy during the week
that people are like oh it’s too busy in
here so then we would get
a little bit busier on monday and friday
when we had no specials going which were
generally not real busy days
because people just didn’t want to be
around the craziness on the busy days
um so it just i don’t know it ended up
just balancing it out so
it’s uh it’s not a zero-sum game it’s
not you’re not just moving that customer
from one day to another you know
other people come in so yeah
[Music]
cool i mean i appreciate you sharing
that let’s talk a little bit about this
build
uh that you got going on when did you
decide to build a laundromat
and how did that kind of process happen
yeah so it’s actually funny if uh if you
look in my book i actually suggest
against building laundromats
it’s one of the things i put in there
and a large part of that is due to
um my frame of mind at the time
when i started writing this book
somebody’s building a new laundromat
down the road for me
so i wasn’t happy about that so that’s
one of the things the other thing i do
know that it is easier to buy an
existing store and have a customer base
already
and then just improve that store and
bring in more customers whether it’s new
equipment or just
cleaning up the space or doing whatever
right um
and i didn’t have that money and i still
don’t i feel like i still don’t have the
money but
i didn’t have the money then even think
about building a new store so
um i’m just like it’s very hard to build
a new store and you have to
you know so i just kind of let put that
in the book and it is very hard building
a new store but
um knowing what i know when learning you
know throughout the years
and seeing what other people are doing
and kind of becoming a student of
just i’m i’m really big at getting know
other laundromat owners
and i just go in and talk to him you
know if i see dude’s car in the driveway
or in the parking lot of his store like
i just pull in i’m like hey man what’s
going on how are you doing you know
how’s business you know especially guys
that have news stores or newer stores
i’m talking to them because i want to
see
what what are they doing you know why
are they successful are they more
successful than i am with my older store
you know what are they doing
and over time i started to learn it they
were doing pretty good so
um it was a very expensive to get in but
they ended up doing really well
so i started to look into that so
um i ended up selling one of my
locations about a year ago
and a long story into that my wife and i
were thinking of well we still are
thinking having a place up north
and um in the northern part of the state
and that place is very management heavy
and i’m thinking well i’m going to sell
this place it might take a couple years
to sell it
and then i’m going to buy a couple of
smaller laundries they’re a little easy
to manage
and you know that way we can go out of
town more and live the lifestyle that we
want to live
well laundromats just don’t come up for
sale in milwaukee so
it just doesn’t often i’ve tried to buy
just about every single one that came up
for sale and i’ve struck out man
time and time again we can go in all
those stories if you want but
um there’s a lot of ways that i that you
know
laundromats it didn’t turn out that way
so about it i was just looking in the
timeline uh
last night about a year ago last
february i first saw the building that
i’m building it now and i didn’t know if
i would be able to
afford to build a laundromat or not i
was talking to a friend of mine who has
about 10 laundromats
and he’s like why don’t you just call
he’s like call my banker buddy
you know he does sbl sba loans and other
loans and
um just see you know just talk to him
and see if you think that you know if
if that’s a fit for you or not and i
wanted to
you know i i lease space now i wanted to
own the building because i just know
that that’s the better route to go long
term there’s different there’s more exit
strategies you know when it comes time
to sell and things like that
um you don’t have to worry about
somebody raising your rent and all that
goofy stuff so
i wanted to buy the building and i
didn’t know if i would be able to afford
it so i ended up talking to the banker
we talked for a while on the phone
i said you know he wanted all these
documents and taxes and bank statements
and all that so i just
downloaded everything over to him and
you know you know he called me back he
goes jason i think we can do it
he goes you just gotta be under this you
know this amount i’m like
okay well how much cash do i need you
know and he just you know he laid it out
and it was pretty much every penny i had
you know the amount of money that he’s
telling me to lay out i’m like okay well
let’s i’ve been in this situation before
and let’s figure it out you know so
yeah um so last you know february 2020
is when i
end up finding this building um
you know talk to the the banker about it
you know can i afford this can we do
this you know yeah yeah so
um about uh i think it was about a month
later we ended up putting an offer on it
after viewing the building put an offer
on it
the building was on the market for a
long time it’s very close to my home
which i love
there were two laundromats actually very
close to it that had gone out of
business
smaller locations and i tried buying
both of them over the years and that
didn’t work out but
now they’re gone um i
offered like a hundred thousand dollars
below asking because it was on the
market for a long time and he had just
reduced the price by a hundred thousand
and the guy never even responded to my
offer he just like
just he’s like this guy’s an idiot you
know
so that’s how you know you made a good
first offer though
right oh my gosh he snaps it up right
away then you’re like dang it yeah
should have gone oh all right well i
guess he doesn’t want to sell to us so
started looking at other buildings and
nothing else was coming up
and i’m like you know so i started
looking back at this building again
and then we talked to the selling broker
and he kind of informed us a little bit
like well the guy
owns he still owes some money in the
building he doesn’t want to take a loss
below what he owes
so we ended up putting another offer in
that was still below what he was asking
um but was more definitely more
reasonable and more of a win-win for
everybody so um
so we end up buying the building um then
the sba process starts
[Music]
i don’t know if you talked to anybody on
that yet but yeah well
why don’t you tell us a little bit about
it i mean we’ve we’ve hinted on it a
little bit here and i know that it’s a
it’s a bear to wrestle but tell us a
little bit about your experience with it
you know i knew that it wasn’t going to
be easy because i had talked to a lot of
people and
not that it wasn’t going to be easy just
that they they want a lot of documents
they want every document that you have
and um i decided to go sba because
their rates are so good like the
interest rate was really good it’s a
fixed rate it’s a
you know you can i can take a long-term
loan on the building at a fixed rate i
don’t have to renew this loan every 10
years
um i don’t have to worry about the rate
going up or anything like that so i’m
like all right so there’s a lot of
benefits to this
um the sba fees are high but it’s offset
by this
excellent interest rate um so in
is from a paperwork standpoint they want
everything they want all the p ls from
all your businesses
any rental properties you own they want
all of your bank statements um
all your taxes it just seems like it’s
just endless supply and then they just
make up forms that you want you know
it’s just
you know they want they want a lease so
you know one llc owns the building and
then another llc owns the laundromat
well they want
a lease document from the laundromat to
the building it’s like well i own both
you know oh we gotta have this document
it’s like well
okay you know but it’s just they seem to
invent a lot of documents
um and it’s it’s just kind of a long
grueling process and then the copic
thing didn’t seem to help because
everybody was working at home and it
just seemed to
yeah slow everything down and it was
kind of slowed down and the loan officer
that i had was excellent
like super nice guy i still call him on
the phone just to talk sometimes
um because he’s a great guy um
and was very helpful but he’s you know
he there’s just a lot of documents this
is part of what he you know he has to do
so
yeah um we had some problems coming up
to the closing
with appraisals um
with the coping environment for a while
the appraisers will not go into a
property
so i’m like well how can you appraise
something if you don’t go in it you know
so this we had some problems with like
they wanted to they wanted to appraise
my house
so um but they didn’t but they wouldn’t
go in it
i’m like oh so the appraisal came in
short and i’m like well you guys
you gotta go in my house you know yeah
i need to overcome some of that stuff um
and but it you know we ended up we ended
up closing
and it took a while we closed september
so sometime in march we had that
accepted offer and then we ended up
closing on the
the building beginning of september so
it was it was a process
it took a while um
and then we had to start the permitting
process
so right same thing it’s another covet
thing
getting i don’t know if all the
inspector people
i know they are for the city of
milwaukee a lot of them aren’t you leave
a message and then they call you back so
they’re not even in their office you
know they’re at home but it just took
forever for this
for the for our plan review to get
approved for our plumbing permits to get
approved our hvac i mean we just got
hvac permits a couple weeks ago i mean
it’s just
it’s just it’s been forever it seems
like but yeah
um but we’re going through it man baby
step in it
is there any uh is there any timeline
that you have right now i mean
whatever it is we can throw it out the
window i’m sure but yeah is there hoping
like so it’s the beginning of february
right now i’m hoping to be open
um middle of march okay so you know a
lot of
this has to do with um we have equipment
should be coming next week
but our bulkheads were delayed a little
bit um we had some last minute
measurement changes that we had to do
um just because the country got the
concrete guys
i don’t know where the problem was it
was the concrete guys or the guys the
people making the
architect drawing everything out but one
of the ball kit’s gonna be longer than
it should have been
or the trough was longer than it was
supposed to had to make the bulkhead
bigger now to cover this big trough so
just goofy little things like that that
come up and you’re
just pivoting to make all these right
make everything work so
so you already have plumbing laid oh
yeah you’ve pulled electrical
everything’s ready to go so you’re i
mean i know that
we’re originally going to postpone this
interview because you had machines
coming
and they got delayed but um so you’re
right you’re like there you’re you’re
ready to
put machines in and start doing
finishing touches we’re close
yeah so today when i stopped in this
morning the electrician was
still working on our ceiling fans a
couple lighting uh things in there
inside the store but the ceilings all
open exposed is black we got the big
chrome or
stainless looking spiral duct work
that’s all was laid in yesterday
some stainless ceiling fans that are um
come off the ceiling we’re redoing the
concrete floor like a natural
looking concrete so we’re still kind of
dealing with that’s one of the things
i’m dealing with right now is
the look that they were going to put
down isn’t the look that i wanted so
we’re trying to figure that out but yeah
um but we are we’re getting very close
like it’s
we have windows and doors now we didn’t
have that for a long time
um yeah well those are we’re getting
there so it’s um
yeah hopefully yeah soon those are yeah
those are big steps getting the windows
and doors in well
shoot man when when you get that thing
opened we’re gonna have to do a zoom
uh video tour and we can just throw it
up so people can
come check out your you check out your
new building and you’re new yeah we
could i’m excited about it you know
there’s a lot of
again it’s a learning experience for me
and there’s some things that i’ll do
differently next time
um and there’s a lot of lessons learned
in this process
um and something that i we
we probably did i don’t know 30 or more
equipment layouts like going this way
going that way mixing the machines up
and
you want to have your big machines and
i’ve heard this on on the on your
podcast too so
you want to have the big machines right
by the front door so people come in
i remember this over the years is this
your biggest machine you know like they
plop everything down right there so you
want that biggest machine as close to
the front door as possible
um so that’s what we were shooting for
but then we’re trying to work around
this these posts or polls that are
holding up the beams and you know you
got these
posts in the building or yeah and you’re
trying to work around that
and then when we were doing the demo the
floor was so bad
in half of the building that we had to
completely rip out
the concrete floor and pour a new floor
in half the building
so in order to save money there we moved
one of our bulkheads from where it was
going to be
where we were going to be cutting in new
pads and the plumbing and we moved it
over to the spot where
the floor was bad just to save money so
that kind of
um messed with our floor plan kind of
last minute we had to make some changes
that weren’t ideal
um but i simply couldn’t spend any more
money so we had to just find ways to
make it work and that was one of the
ways to make it work um
so there’s all these little shifts like
that um
well that’s why i mean one of the things
that i always say is like you can’t
you don’t know something until you’ve
done it
right like i’ve never built a store out
and i’ve talked to
i mean i’m talking to you right now i’ve
talked to a ton of people who’ve built
stores
and like i know it but i don’t know it
right because i’ve never done it because
there’s
all these little things that come up you
know when you’re doing
a build and you know lessons that you
can’t learn until you
until you do it right so you don’t know
it until you’ve done it you know i
i honestly thought that was very and i
feel like i still am mentally prepared
for everything but
i knew that people had problems and you
just can’t explain it until you’re in
the middle of it so i mean i’ve just
been i’ve never
you know doing my best to not get upset
when these little things come up and
just try to just roll with the punches
and just
okay that happens now we got to do this
you know what are we going to do to
to make that work and most of this stuff
comes up in your demo you know you just
that’s when you realize
oh yeah ceiling doesn’t look good and we
want to have an exposed ceiling well how
are we going to fix that you know so
right which is another problem well it’s
funny
like i’m like redoing our house right
now and the more you know it’s like the
more things you
pull down the more things you have to
pull down
you know so and the more problems you
uncover and
so yeah i get that well
okay i mean you may not even be in a
position right now
because you’re in the thick of it but
you may not be in a position to answer
this question but i am curious maybe you
have thought about this a little bit
what are your do you have any like goals
or aspirations
in regards to laundromats or maybe other
investments or businesses or just life
in general
yeah i mean i i’m really big on like
personal relationship like my family
type
goals um and then i try to figure out
how we’re going to make that a reality
so
um you know personal goals are you know
my wife and i we still want to buy this
property up in the northern part of
state we want
it’s going to be on a lake we don’t have
the boat and all this stuff so we’re
trying to
professionally i’m like all right what
do i have to do to get to that goal
so um and i’m not one of those guys that
wants to own 10 or 20 or
100 laundromats i just i want to get to
where
to a point where it’s comfortable i have
a very good
uh work life balance where
you know i’m i’m working a good amount
of hours but i can still get away when i
want to
um and do the things that are important
in life you know with family and things
like that
so i don’t you know professionally
you know i’d like to maybe build out a
couple few more stores we’ll see
is that you know is it having five
stores is it having
seven or eight stores i i don’t know so
um
so i i don’t know my goals are kind of
changing all i know right now is i’m
already thinking about
building the next one but i also know
that i’m like man where am i going to
get the money to build the next one
haven’t you learned already that’s
irrelevant like it doesn’t
it’s a relevant question the money just
shows up
i hope so yeah i’m i’ve been planting
money trees
and i’m just waiting so when the snow
melts
i don’t snow what is what is that yeah
i heard man it people are getting
hammered with snow right now it’s crazy
because it’s
70 degrees here in sunny i might go to
the beach later i don’t know
right might be too hot i’m not sure for
that
i went for a walk today because it was
sunny outside
regardless that it was it was 20 degrees
but i’m like you know i’m gonna go for a
walk it’s sunny it’s a nice day
and we’ve had so much snow over the last
couple weeks that the walk that
everybody’s sidewalk is getting
narrower and narrower and the new
building
the parking lot you know that once had
20 parking spaces now has 10 because
it’s just filled with snow
snow piles to the point that i literally
have
a front end loader coming this weekend
and we don’t even need parking x we’re
not open but
it’s in the way of other stuff that
we’re trying to do so i’m like i’m gonna
have a front end loader come and move
snow out
because um and that’s gonna be a problem
next year so i can see that already
coming where we’re gonna have
you know i i can’t lose parking spots
you need for you want to have enough
parking spots for when you
during your peak hours right um there’s
there’s nobody fighting you know parking
on the street and all that stuff so
um so we’re going to be moving snow next
year for sure
holy cow man i mean just foreign concept
to me
well i want to take a slight tangential
detour uh to chat a little bit about i
picked up
your book it’s called i got one too
hey yeah i’m gonna mail mine to you so
you can
sign it and then mail it back to me
right it’s called how to find
evaluate and buy a laundromat and
i want to hear a little bit about i mean
we’ve already kind of
you know teased it a little bit about
what the inspiration was
and um and all that but i’m just
kind of curious about you know what was
the
okay i’m gonna sit down and write a book
and how was that process
so and first i’ll explain the name my
name is jason dodge right the book is
written by jason lombardo
my that’s my grandparents name and my
grandparents i was very close to growing
up
um and my grandma lombardo i’m going to
stand up for a second
she’s actually tattooed on my arm that’s
my grandma lombardo there
if you’re listening right now you know
i’m going to take a screenshot of that
and i’ll put it in the show notes so you
can that’s a cool tattoo
i like that you so um but so that’s
that’s a family name and that’s one of
the reasons i
i put that name on on the book so it’s
just important to me and my family and
i’m a family guys
as you know so um so i just
the inspiration again it started with
just somebody building a lot the threat
of me losing my business i guess kind of
got me to start writing it writing about
how i’m gonna survive
and at the time even though you know i
didn’t have any money or anything i’m
looking at all these laundromats to buy
and i somehow got really good at just
analyzing
the data and you know trying to figure
out
how you know was the guy telling the
truth was he not telling the truth is
the least good is it is it bad you know
and i just kind of
you know how do you verify income and
and
and one of the things i mentioned in the
book is i paid too much for that first
laundromat
and the reason i paid too much is
because i didn’t know any better
and i didn’t know how to i just took his
word for everything and luckily
everything luckily he was an honest guy
and everything worked out just fine
but it could have gone so wrong
you know and had i not you know been so
lucky so
i started kind of documenting the ways
that i was
looking at these different laundromats
and keep in mind i struck out
like 99 of these so but i had like a
networking group of buddies that i still
go out to lunch with on occasion and
i would just tell them hey i looked at
this business and
you know the guy says his revenue is
this so i ended up pulling his water
bills and
kind of backed into it and i don’t think
he’s being truthful about this or that
and
um and they started you know just
jokingly
the friend of mine wrote a book about
like how to run marathons or something
he’s like you gotta write a book man he
goes it’s so easy i’ll publish it for
you know just start writing and i’m like
like joe i don’t even know how to like i
can’t i don’t know how to write like i
don’t even like to read that much
now i’m gonna write a book i mean my
spelling is so bad that the spell
checker doesn’t know what i’m trying to
say
that’s how bad my spelling is and
sometimes it’s frustrating now i’m so
happy to have google on my phone i can
you know
i can say the word they’ll just come up
and like oh that’s how you spell it you
know so
that’s how bad i am but so i thought it
was kind of laughable that i was gonna
write this book but i just started
one day just started writing things down
you know typing things down and i was
working at the laundromat my first store
um and i only had one store you know at
the time
and um and i still don’t have much but
um
i just in my spare time you know it’d be
nine o’clock at night the store was
clean there’s no customers
i’d open up the computer and i’d just
start typing you know just start typing
stuff out and i don’t know how long it
took me not
real long it’s not a real big book um
and then my body was like here we’ll
have it edited and we’ll have it i got a
cover guy for you
and he’ll design your cover and we’ll
make a kindle version and
um and we published it and at the time
so there were there was only one other
laundry book really
that was on amazon at the time and i
don’t remember the name of it i don’t
know i’m sure it’s still around but
the information wasn’t really out there
so when that book hit the market like it
was selling like crazy it was selling so
good
in my my definition of crazy like is
making a few hundred bucks a month i’m
like wow this is great you know i can’t
believe how much money this book is
making so
so it was doing really well um but then
right away somebody else wrote a book
you know and then the sales went down a
little bit and somebody else wrote a
book now there’s a ton of laundromat
books and i like to read all of them
so um when you were doing that
especially with dave mends and all of
those guys
they’re talking about the today’s
laundromat book i mean i bought it right
that second while you guys are doing the
thing i’m like i haven’t read it yet but
i love reading all these all these
laundromat books and
um and that’s what if you’re looking to
buy one you should read every
read everything you can especially books
about laundromats they’re pretty quick
reads so
yeah yeah well i mean i think that’s
huge i mean i love that you just
i mean again it’s like you just kind of
went out and did it and
i i think that that is awesome i do
think that even still there’s a lack of
books you know for laundromat owners and
people trying to get in the industry i
think that there’s a lot of room for
more
and you know i’ve got a i’ve got a
running list of
uh of book ideas going and
um you know one of my one of the things
that i want to do is
um and this year i’m actually kind of
launching it is putting out a publishing
company to get some of these books
um written not not all by me um but
you know one one of the things that
really intrigued me about you is that
you’re pretty active on the forums and
you’re
you know you’re very insightful you’re
helping a ton of people out and those
are the things that make my ears perk so
when i’m looking through my list of
books
i’m starting to write names next to them
like hey
you know this guy might be a good one to
write this book if he’s interested you
know
and i’ll help i’ll do that um yeah
so you’re gonna get my it’s gonna be
really
it’s gonna be a run-on sentence all
misspellings
that’s what editors are for man right
you gotta you gotta
put the knowledge in it and then the
enemies make it look pretty and sound
pretty
that’s what they’re for um yeah but
awesome man and so what was the
experience like writing it
uh you know what it was a good
experience really because whenever i
would kind of hit a roadblock you know
i’d call my buddy
you know who gave me the idea i’m like i
don’t i’m like i don’t know what should
i do here and he’s like oh you got to
put a couple case studies in there you
got to do this you got to do that you
know so then
i mean you know people need examples of
you know
different scenarios so give them some
examples of stuff so i you know put a
couple examples of places that i looked
at in there
um and you know put the p
l’s in there and i really like the
performance you know and
when it comes to evaluating a business
you really need to know what a
performance and i
when i was looking at you know buying my
first place i didn’t know
all the incoming expenses that are
associated with a laundromat you just
kind of think oh well there’s utilities
and there’s rent and
or a mortgage and i don’t know what else
is there you know it’s just kind of
but there’s a lot more to it if it’s a
small unintended store it’s really not
that much but
something with tani and washing fold and
if you don’t pick up on delivery even
there’s all these different layers of
things so um i really wanted to make
sure that there was a profit loss or
performer or something like that
in the book so that people had something
to to look at and
at least know that oh these are some of
the common expenses you know and you can
kind of fill in those blanks what the
numbers are but
um that will that tells you a pretty
good story of what
the business financial picture is just
by looking at their
their performance maybe sometimes you
can figure out why they’re selling
you’re like wow
why is the rank so high you know yeah
yeah
they’re doing all this business but
there’s no bottom line why is that you
know so there’s
um and if you have all those all the
right numbers in there you can kind of
figure out what’s going on so
but so the experience was good um and
i’ve had i’ve actually helped
a couple other people write books since
then is going back a few years but
um i tell guys you know um just kind of
help them organize their thoughts and
write write the book a little bit and
now
i don’t even know if i would know what
to do but um at the time you know
there was a company called create space
where you could which was owned by
amazon which i think now it’s all one
company under amazon but
once the book is edited in the cover
work you literally just upload it to
this site
and they just put it on amazon so like i
don’t even
have to sell this book like it’s just on
amazon
you type in laundromat all these
different laundromat books come up
mine’s one of them
i don’t have any inventory or anything
you order it it just comes from
amazon’s wherever and it just shows up
at their door
the coolest thing so um
so i don’t know i guess it’s i guess
that’s really what mailbox money is
what people are talking about male 1 box
money for you right there well hey i’m
gonna put a link
to the book in the description in the
show notes so
if you’re looking for a good laundromat
book to to read especially if you’re
looking to buy your first one
um you got to pick it up how to find
evaluate and buy
a laundromat by jason lombardo aka
you got the inside scoop right here
jason batch
all right well we got a little section
we call down to business
let’s get down to business over and out
and that’s where we just talk about some
of the details of your business so tell
us where
where are you located so in milwaukee
city milwaukee in wisconsin
um and right now i just have i have one
unattended location and i have the one
we’re building so i sold the uh the big
store
um just a little over a year ago now um
so we’re in milwaukee we just have a
couple locations that we’re working on
and um that’s where we are nice
uh man you just skipped right down there
i love it uh and
you’ve mentioned you’ve been in the
business for 13 years is that in
business for 13 years yeah
yeah that’s a long time long time uh
can we i’ve never i don’t think i’ve
ever been to milwaukee
wisconsin so can you tell me what does
it cost to do laundry in milwaukee
wisconsin
so we like to drink beer a lot if you’ve
never been here there’s a lot of little
breweries
around town uh whenever we go like we go
to key west like i did it last week
everybody is just amazed at how much the
wisconsin people can just down because
it just
i don’t know what it is we just drink
here but you know what it is look at
your question but
you get holed up in the winter over
there you don’t have anything better to
do
looking for something to do so yeah
we’re gonna have a beer so
um so prices and like at the
at the new location we’re gonna we’re
gonna do our best to be the high price
leaders and we’re gonna run some
promotions and things like that
obviously we have grand openings but
then down the road with our app and i
haven’t really
um thought everything out completely but
we’ll probably do some sort of bonus
that people are loading 20 bucks
they get a percentage back um and i
don’t know if we’ll do like maybe the
lucky wash or you know one of those kind
of lucky spin kind of things too like
every so many cycles you get one for
free and stuff like that but
i want to make sure that we kind of keep
it interesting and i don’t know if i
want to do something that’s
kind of a rolling promotion that it
might be one day a week or
or two days a week but it might be a
different promotion each time we’ll have
to kind of see how all that plays out
once the software
once i get to learn all the software and
all the fun stuff but so event prices
you know our double loaders i i’m
thinking like we’re gonna be 275 three
dollars
probably for a you know small front end
loader our
40s in in our equipment mix is going to
be 20 40
60 80 and 100. pound washers
and um so our 40s will probably be five
bucks
60s should be seven our 80s will be
eight and it’ll be eleven dollars
probably on the hundreds
um i’m most likely going to do single
dry pricing
i’ve heard a lot of good feedback on
that i do not do it right now
um but everybody that has done it swears
by it
and you always get the people that come
in and they want to try
one pair of underwear and they’re upset
that it doesn’t dry for a quarter you
know and it just kind of it’s just
floating around in this machine and then
you gotta have the conversation of you
know why there’s no friction
and you know so yeah um it you know
you know just drying i just keep putting
quarters in there to dry their underwear
anyways but
i think just with the single drive a
single price vend
you know it’s a buck 50 to start that
that dryer and it’s guaranteed dry so
we’ll have an attendant there and if
it’s if it’s not dry we’re going to dry
it for you
and with the high extract washers that
we have it’ll probably be dry in 20
minutes anyways so
that’ll be if they overload the dryer a
little bit um so we’re probably going to
do a dollar fifty on the 30s
two dollars on the 45s and three dollars
on the 75 pound dryers
and that could change in an hour i’m
always
you know changing everything um
so that’s roughly what you know what
we’re shooting for
yeah i mean that’s good i’ve heard
really great things i
i don’t do the single
uh vin price or drive in price um
but i’ve heard great things too and
right and i should probably sit down at
some point and
you know work it yeah it’s probably i
think it’s easier when you have a new
location or
maybe you put a new dryers or something
just to start with it yeah
um as opposed to take somebody that’s
paying
you know whatever they’re paying per
quarter and then and then now they got
to pay a dollar 25 or more so maybe
you know maybe and maybe you start off a
little less and it’s a dollar and then
it’s a dollar 25.50 you know you kind of
inch it off to ease people into it so
you’re not upsetting your your customer
base but
um but the people that i’ve talked to
that have changed over um
they all seem to like it so i i don’t
know i think that
i think the good offset’s the bad really
you don’t have the guys putting in
a quarter anymore because they have to
put in about 50 but they’re happy
because they get their stuff dry
so yeah uh
i mean can i ask about you know for your
your store that’s open obviously but
what can you give us a ballpark of like
turns per day that you’re you’re doing
over there
yeah we do like 35 turns a day um
so no i’m kidding so it’s what can you
give me the address again
yeah we’re probably we’re probably
really close to what the national
averages are for laundromats and
i’m just and i don’t haven’t read that
in a long time but i think it was
somewhere around three three and a half
somewhere in there
we’re probably right in that ballpark um
obviously it varies on the different
types of washers and dryers and things
like that but
um and i haven’t calculated in a while
i’m hoping that we do more than that in
a new location but time will tell
um but that’s probably where we’re at so
i you know i calculated a while ago and
that’s about where we’re at probably
yeah uh
attended unattended
so are you planning on doing fully
attended for the new one we’re most
likely gonna do fully attended so and
i’m
still kind of trying to figure that out
exactly so the plan is to be
fully attended but the store is built in
a manner that you know it can be
unattended so the doors will lock and
unlock lights will go on and off all
that kind of stuff
um the areas that need to be locked up
are locked up so
the store could be unattended but we
want to do the kind of volume that
requires an attendant to be there so um
and i think that stores with attendance
if you can afford to have that attendant
there
you’re going to do a lot better your
customers will be a lot happier um
the store is going to stay in a better
condition much longer
yeah but you have to have a certain size
store
um to have that or you need to have a
washer bowl or something else to
supplement that income
so um now the unattended store
is so easy like it’s just it’s it’s
great because it’s so easy
like there’s nobody calling in sick you
know nothing like that um
we have a cleaning person but if she
can’t do it then we just going to clean
the store you know i just go down there
and clean it but
um the simplicity sometimes of the
smaller stores and it’s a really small
location so it doesn’t
do a ton of revenue but it’s but it’s so
painless that it just kind of just does
what it does
um and you know people are just there it
unlocks and people go and it’s just so
easy you know
in that store you know for a while and
my initial thought when i had sold the
bigger store was i’m like i’m gonna own
some more of these smaller ones but
obviously that didn’t pan out but it’s
just the simplicity with some of the
smaller stores is great
so it’s you know you work two three
hours a week and
uh well it’s probably sometimes it’s
more than x i fix all my own equipment
but
um it’s just so easy compared to
dealing with attendance and everybody
else well that’s the
that’s the whole dream right of people
wanting to get in the businesses
easy peasy not too much time and
you know does what it’s supposed to do
and right
you know it is not passive everybody
there’s all these people that just think
that it’s passive income and you have to
work at it so
and i say like oh that one location
doesn’t require much but
that relocation doesn’t do a lot of
revenue so it doesn’t you know it’s it’s
a smaller store
and we actually had somebody that built
within a mile circle of us and
for whatever reason it never affected us
ever which is really weird
the day they opened and it’s been a
couple years now our revenues
never went down so it’s just um i
can’t explain it but it just never went
down it’s all like great we’re doing the
right thing man
it’s just cruising love it oh yeah we’re
just keep going so then i thought i’m
like man if i could just own three or
four of these little stores that’d be
great
so um and some people do that yeah so
you’re building a big new one with
that’s going to be fully attended i’m
pivoting and changing my mind all the
time so
yeah me too man yeah me too are you are
you planning on doing wash dry fold or
pick up and delivery
with the new one possibly so we’re
at the moment we want to open the launch
mat we want to get that place cruising
and then
and then we’re going to consider the
other stuff the only you know
and i think peter uh mayberry said it
best
is you know the pickup and delivery is a
logistics business
and that’s i think that’s the i knew
that but that’s the first time i heard
somebody say that
and there’s just a lot of things you
know that need to happen
um you know behind the scenes work
having the right software and the
drivers and all the people and
and honestly one of my weak points is
hiring i feel like
um i don’t mind training people i’m
really good with processes and
i actually enjoy kind of creating
processes and doing some of that stuff
but the the constant management
um of hiring firing and
just people calling in sick and all of
that stuff can sometimes wear on me
so i need to find the perfect marriage
um and maybe it’s with a partner or
somebody down the road or something
where i can you know
or maybe just hiring the correct manager
where i can
you know do those things but then remove
myself
to a certain extent so i can have
somebody else hopefully that’s much
better than i am and enjoys doing that
stuff
um and i can just concentrate on running
the business or expanding the business
so
yeah so maybe so i’ve talked to some
people on that and we’ll see
uh we’ll see where that goes so i hate
to part of me it’s like i hate to have
this business sitting there
we built this beautiful laundromat tons
of capacity we have all the room for
folding tables and storage and
everything
and you hate to untap it you know what i
mean like but then you’re like
oh do i want all those headaches you
know like all the stuff that
you know that just comes up when you
have more employees so i have to just
if i have the right manager that would
alleviate a lot of that i just need to
come i just need to figure that out
so yeah uh coin card
both hybrid yeah so um
both i guess so i got um we have an app
based system and
and quarters uh at the small store the
new store will be quarters and dollar
coins
um and an app based system so
um what i love about the app is we can
run it a lot like a card store where we
can run promotions and
um we’re going to have a promotion when
we open that will drive people hopefully
towards that app and i know that we’ll
never
get 100 and we’d be lucky probably to
get 50
on the app base but i think it’s i just
like that if you bring in cash
or credit or whatever you want to do you
can still do business here
so the industry is slowly going away
from quarters
just because prices are going up and
these machines are so big i mean who’s
going to want to stick
11 dollars worth of quarters in the
machine even 11 coins is a lot just
you know you know you know 11 of those
um
so i think having that app and watching
people use it in the store and there’s
like
and it just starts you know it comes
down and it just goes i’m like wow
that’s pretty cool so
nice yeah um so we’re kind of all of the
above we’re not we’re not a card store
um and i have nothing against card
stores i really love the management
capabilities of card stores
um but that just i didn’t decide to do
that on here but there’s some really
cool programs out there now that i would
definitely consider in the future
so yeah uh how many
hours ish a week on average are you
putting into your match right now
yeah so i mean right now i’m sure i’m
all of 40 hours a week or more because i
just
i have the habit of um even when i’m at
home sitting on the couch i have my
laptop on my lap and i’m just kind of
going through things and planning things
or like we’re already advertising on
facebook and stuff like that so
um i tinker a lot so i’m sure i’m all
over 40 hours a week
and when we open this location i’m you
know i’m just a hands-on guy so i’m
gonna be there a lot
in the beginning and then um as time
rolls on
you know i’ll have a staff when we open
but then
i’m gonna put myself right in the
schedule but then eventually i’m hoping
we can scale
rather fast and i’m really going to be
aggressive coming out of the gate that
we can then get full-time staff in there
um so i’m hoping you know even though
i’m 40 hours a week or so right now that
when that store opens i’m sure i’ll be
right around the same or more
but then hoping to probably get back
down to my you know 15 hours a week
somewhere in there
you know i like this i’ll be at that
store every day for
a couple years that’s just what i do so
um
but then i need to find a way to get
into another store which requires time
so yeah and you know i gotta
plant some more dollar trees so that’s
right love it
i’ll fill my backyard up with those
suckers to get those dollar trees going
man
visit yeah come come dollar picking
uh we got a section i like to call
secret sauce
listen up it’s the secret sauce
secret sauce is you know what’s
something that you feel like is working
in your business right now
other owners can implement maybe that’s
in your
in your current laundry matter or pass
laundromat or even in the build
so i wrote a few things i you know i got
i put my notes here so i got a few
things that i put down on notes but
the biggest thing and i kind of came up
with this you know it was just thinking
about this morning on my walk and
um just help with the customer you know
it bothers me a little bit when people
post on forums and stuff and
and they’re talking about even like like
oh man losing all my quarters
this guy comes in he put a 20 walked out
of the store you know it’s like man
that’s part of business you know you
can’t get upset about that
but the people that you know their
clothes got damaged in the washer or
even though
they over soaked it their stuff is still
soapy you know just
just help that customer i’m telling you
that every problem is an opportunity for
you to increase
business and to solve that problem so um
and it’s not it’s not even a problem i
mean i
somebody has they have an issue and
they’re like
you know this machine won’t start or it
won’t take my quarter or
uh my clothes didn’t spin out properly
or whatever it is
you know don’t ever judge that customer
whether they did it to themselves or not
just help them out and then educate them
be like oh
well let’s take a look here you know
let’s take let me put you in another
washer just in case it was my washer but
oh wow this is really soapy how much
soap did you put in there you know
and just kind of talk to them really
nicely hey man i’m going to put this in
another machine i’m just going to rinse
it and spin it real quick while you’re
talking you know
and just kind of like oh thank you so
much and like hey you know what i’m
going to dry that for you too oh you’re
going to try it for me too you know i
mean
they go home and they tell their friends
and their neighbors and and everybody
else and you just turned a
20 to 30 dollar a week customer now and
into a 60 or 90 or you know 110 dollars
because all your friends are now coming
because you were such a nice guy and
help them out it didn’t accuse them
or judge them you know based on whatever
so
um i just always believe in going the
extra mile
and helping people and even if they’re
coming in to get change
and you know they’re walking out i’m
like hey man you bring comforters back
someday you know okay
you know just kind of hopefully they’ll
be a customer someday
um and losing quarters is just part of
business so um
that’s gonna happen but so don’t sweat
the small things
help everybody that you can that’s the
secret sauce right there
um otherwise we’ve already talked about
this doing promotions
advertising you have to advertise your
laundromat it’s a business
so just do it um and stop selling uh
sending postcards it’s not working
so advertise your laundry mat
right but not with postcards
like i don’t even know what it’s down to
it’s like one between one and two
percent is your rate of return on a
postcard
i’m not saying that that’s not it just
seems like a colossal waste of resources
just sending all that paper
around you know and then and then 99 of
the people throw it away you know so
um where social media you can see you
can you can see how many people click
through to your site or
many people commented or shared you get
that real-time kind of
satisfaction and knowing that it’s
working so um
[Music]
awesome secret sauce we got another
section we call pro tips
pro tips pro tips is for the newbie
who’s maybe looking to buy their first
laundromat so
other than i mean the ultimate pro tip
obviously is
go buy the book might be one or two pro
tips one or two yeah there’s yeah i mean
the pro tip is go by the book and again
there’s a link
in the description in the bio in the uh
in the bio what am i on instagram link
in uh
in the show notes uh for you to go pick
that up
it’s a goodbye so so go grab it so other
than that
i appreciate that thank you very much um
honestly i mean you’re doing a great job
but just networking with people
um reaching out to people so one of the
things that i’ve done is i just i drive
around the city and i’ll walk in the
laundromat
and i’ll talk to the owner and as soon
as they realize that you’re not a threat
you know and you’re not trying to build
a laundromat across the street from them
they’ll usually open up and you know
sometimes i’m just like hey just
i’m gonna say hi how you doing i’m jason
you know um
and then going to the once we get out of
the kovitz stop
hopefully the manufacturers will start
having their school
you know their events where they bring
people in and have their specials and
stuff well then you can network with
other owners there
um get to know people um get to know the
distributors the repair guys you know
the repair guys are the ones that know
what’s working and what’s not working
around the city you know get to know
them ask them questions
you know drop them a car hey man if you
got anything that’s coming up let me
know or do you see a place that’s being
neglected just
you know let me know i’ll i’ll send the
owner a card and try to call them and
um there’s there’s ways
to get in there so networking is
important um i’m just
naturally kind of i think good at that
because i just like talking to people
but
um read everything you can i mean now
there’s more stuff out there even though
it’s not
enough there’s still more things now
than there ever have been i mean we got
this podcast
there’s all the literature that you have
there’s guys that are coaching there’s
all these books the coin laundry
association you know has
has materials and white papers and
things you know that you can do and
um so there’s just a lot of information
out there and nobody’s right or wrong
everybody has a little bit of a
different approach on things and i don’t
know everything that book doesn’t teach
everything and um some of my early
comments were
you know i’m kind of disappointed he
didn’t tell me what kind of equipment to
buy i’m like well
that’s the whole ford versus chevy thing
you know i’m like i don’t know you know
a lot of them are good machines and
everybody has an opinion on it and i
don’t want to jump in the middle of that
so um so i don’t talk about
you know if you’re looking for the best
equipment you need you need to make that
decision and you need to go around a
laundromat
and just use some machines which one is
user friendly
you know which ones are not out of order
you know i mean that’s how you kind of
make your decision on that stuff so so
there’s some pro tips i think
yeah awesome pro tips appreciate it uh
you got any resources you’d recommend to
uh to anybody to help them grow their
business or to help them grow personally
yeah i again i’m besides besides your
book which is
the ultimate resource i don’t read a ton
and i listen you know i
i even have a hard time with audio books
because i get i’m like man this guy
can’t read but uh or i don’t like his
tone of voice or something but
um i get you know i don’t really have
much to give you there other than all
the things i just listed
you know um a second ago just
networking and reading other laundromat
books and things like that if this if
this is the business for you you just
need to
reach out and suck in all the all the
information that you can
um and just take it in like a sponge and
learn