Tom Donnelly has built the life of adventure that he wants through investing in real estate and laundromats and he wants to tell you how he did it! Traveling the country in his RV, Tom is invested in 30 rental real estate units and a laundromat and has never seen ANY of them! And yet, he’s living a life of freedom and adventure!
Tom got his start in laundromats through soliciting laundromat owners in a wildly successful direct mail marketing campaign! He talked about it on the Laundromat Resource Forums (links to the topics below). From his acquisition strategy to his management strategy, Tom has been operating on a different level.
In this interview with Tom, we talk about:
- His background in investing
- How he got into real estate investing
- His multiple investing strategies
- Remote ownership
- His direct mail marketing campaign to buy his first laundromat
- Negotiating seller financing
- Negotiating the acquisition of a commercial building
- Tips on successful partnerships
- His plans for the future
- Working with distributors
- His strategy to get things done
- Gobundance Mastermind group
And much, much more!
Listen To The Podcast Here
Watch The Podcast Here
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Links from the show
- Laundromat Resource Podcast Show 2 with Dave Menz
- Tom’s Direct Mail Campaign Forum Post
- Tom’s Direct Mail Campaign Follow-up Forum Post
Resources
- Laundromat Resource Forums
- Laundromat Resource Podcast
- Coin Laundry Association
- Gobundance- Entrepreneurship Mastermind
Get Connected
- Diligence Capital Investments
- 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 Tom
Email: [email protected]
Instagram: @mynomadpad
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tompdonnelly/
Tom's Bio
Born and raised in Chicago, IL for the first 31 years of my life. Moved out to San Diego for better weather and a more active lifestyle in 2015. I lived there for 5.5 years and just made the move into a 40ft fifth wheel RV trailer with my girlfriend Erin. We are now working and traveling on the road full time with no end date in mind! The goal is to be on the road for 3+ years if we can make the new lifestyle work.
I’ve been buying up properties in the midwest and tennessee since 2018 and currently own 12 buildings (a mix of small multifamily, airbnbs and one commercial building – which is where the laundromat is).
I first heard about laundromats as an investment through a networking group I’m apart of in March 2020. Someone posted in the FB group that they had an opportunity to buy a few but didn’t know anything about them. I saw a few owners respond with great things to say and I decided to connect with them directly to learn more. I also found the Laundromat Resource podcast at the same time and starting learning as much as I could to solidify my conviction that this was a good asset to invest in.
Long story short, I was convinced and reached out to two buddies of mine who expressed their interest in partnering. We put together a list of laundromats we were interesting in buying, started calling them with no success. This lead to a mailing campaign to about 60ish stores with a couple of good leads coming back. One of those leads we closed on in February through seller financing. We also bought the commercial building it sits in after calling the landlord for a new lease and realizing he was ready to retire. The store grosses $160k/year and has been beaten into the ground with old machines, poor upkeep and mismanagement. We’re in the process of turning that around!
Our goal is to acquire one other laundromat in 2021 and operate in the top 10% of store operators.
Join The Laundromat Resource Community!
Episode Transcript
hey what’s up guys it’s jordan with the
laundromat resource podcast
show number 50 5 0
50. i can’t believe we’ve made it this
far so so excited and pumped
to be here with you 50 episodes and just
really humbled that we’ve made it this
far and not only that but we’ve just
been growing
by leaps and bounds way beyond my
wildest beliefs so
very very cool and very very fun and
hopefully you guys are learning
a ton about business and about
life and uh just you know enjoying every
second of
of the journey uh today i’m double
pumped because not only is it episode 50
i want to have somebody special on
for the big 5-0 and we do have someone
special on his name is tom donnelly
you may have seen him if you’ve been
over on the forums he had a couple of
posts a little while ago
about a direct mail campaign uh that he
did that was like
crazy wildly successful in fact led him
to the laundromat that he just purchased
uh i’ll link to both of those forum
posts down below if you’re on youtube or
on the show notes page
which is laundrymyresource.com show
50 show 5-0 big one wow
um but if you want to check those out
check those out there uh but yeah tom
is uh he’s a real estate investor just
bought a laundromat
relatively new owner and is actually
traveling around living in an
rv uh brand new thing that he’s doing
and does the interview from his rv very
cool
and uh man i mean you got to hear how he
pulls this off it’s very cool so
super pumped about that speaking of the
forum over there i just want to
encourage you
stay active over there a lot of
like just cool conversations happening
over there questions getting answered
but more importantly even than the
questions that are getting answered over
there and there are a lot of good
questions there’s a lot of great
information going back and forth over
there
but even more importantly than that in
my book and it’s a theme that’s going to
come up throughout this whole episode
is uh there are people getting to know
each other
over there in fact it was really cool i
was looking at the new member
introductions forum
and i’ll link to the forums down below
it’s just laundromat resource.com
forums and there’s a new member
introductions forum there’s a cool
little mastermind happening over there
with some people in georgia
uh somebody introduced themselves over
there and then a couple other people
from georgia
started connecting they started sharing
phone numbers and bam now they
just have like a group that they’re uh
working together getting laundromats so
very
cool get connected man this
my whole thing with laundromat resource
is
i want this to be something by
laundromat owners for laundromat owners
and so making these connections not just
with each other but with other people in
the industry
that can help you succeed in this
business super important to me
so head over there there’s a ton of
conversations going on there’s valuing
laundromats
that are losing money i thought that was
a really interesting topic conversation
i’d love to hear what some of you guys
have to say about that
um in the laundromats forum uh coin box
capacity retool estimates i mean there’s
just like a lot of questions happening
over there a lot of discussions going on
so go ask a question
answer a question be a part of that
community and again
start making connections that’s what’s
going to uh
leapfrog your success and shortcut the
time it takes for you to find success in
this business is starting to get to know
people in this in this industry
and helping each other out so make sure
you’re doing that
let’s jump into it with tom donnelly and
hear about this very unique way he’s
owning laundromats and how he’s living
his life
tom thank you for coming on the show man
i am super excited to hear your story i
know you have
like a really cool thing going on so
thanks for coming on man how are you
yeah man i’m good thanks for having me
i’m excited to be here oh dude it is my
honor and privilege and i cannot wait to
hear
your story because i mean we were
talking a little bit before this and
dude what what you have going on is like
super cool so
want to hear all about it but before we
do why don’t you tell us a little bit
about who you are and like maybe give us
a background on you
yeah yeah excited to share everything
i’ve learned so far so
yeah um tom i am originally from chicago
moved out to uh san diego about five and
a half years ago
and then this uh these past two months
made a big transition my girlfriend and
i moved into a 40-foot fifth wheel rv
trailer um big transition
yeah no man so we love being on the road
we love being able to travel
and coal would put a big damper on that
last year
um you know we go on multiple
international trips a year we couldn’t
do that last year so we said all right
it’s the next best thing let’s get a
trailer and let’s try and make this
thing work so
we are about seven weeks in um loving it
you know as i was telling you before the
first month was pretty hectic trying to
figure out the space and all that but
we’re settling in we’re getting into
that flow state we’re figuring it
out and we’re loving it so far so
yeah i didn’t go too far i’m out here in
palm springs which is
two and a half hours from san diego so
yeah still a familiar place
which i think was good for the first
couple months and uh
yeah we’re uh we’re heading out of state
here this weekend so
yeah probably won’t be back down to
southern california until next december
yeah until it starts getting cold you
gotta retreat back to the
safety of the socal warmth yeah exactly
yeah we’re both from the midwest so once
that snow starts coming down right now
we’ve got a little bit and yeah retreats
of the sun
dude that’s that’s wild man i could
imagine uh
i mean i just moved uh last year in like
august
and we actually moved to a bigger house
but still like the amount of stuff that
we got rid of even to move to
a bigger house was wild i can’t even
imagine
going from like that to
like a 40-foot rv yeah
it’s you go through like a purging stage
where
we did it over six months we’re selling
stuff on apps and
craigslist and facebook marketplace and
then you get to a point where you’re a
couple months in or
like i’m just giving it away i can’t
sell anything else
people not showing up you know
negotiating prices i’ll start giving it
some friends putting stuff out in the
alley
but yeah you know
it’s hard to let go of it at first but
what you do it feels great um
we literally packed up everything that
we had
and we put it in a small u-haul it was
like eight five
four feet drove it out to the fifth
wheel we picked it up in
utah at the end of january whatever we
had in that u-haul was pretty much
everything that we owned um so yeah we
just started
loading it up the day we got there and
we still realized we still have too much
stuff
so kept purging this would probably take
about another month
to just go through more material items
all right do we actually need this or do
we just want it
um you know overall i think we did
pretty good my girlfriend aaron did
did great you know we’re sharing a
closet now and
uh you can only have so many clothes
you know in a 10-foot closet so whatever
fits in there is what we have
yeah that you’re sharing a 10-foot
closet you’re sharing yeah
holy cow man well i mean it sounds
pretty wild and
uh i just i mean it kind of reminds me
of like a a yard sale where you have a
yard sale and then like
sunday afternoon like everything that’s
left suddenly becomes free
you know you’re like discounting it
throughout the day and then at the end
of the day it’s like free like just take
it
and then people are buying one thing
you’re like here take four other things
just take it
it got to the point where our friends
were like stop trying to offload your
stuff on us because
that’s funny yeah but pretty cool
process and
not one that you would typically assume
a
laundromat owner can you know
can like a lifestyle that you can have
so
i’m interested to hear about that
but let’s get into your your journey
toward laundromat ownership because i
know it started
more in real estate right
can you tell us a little bit about like
where you were and then how you got into
real estate and then
we’ll go from there yeah yeah so i had a
um a 10-year sales tech job
that i just left in september and
three years ago 2018 you know i had
money sit in a savings account
and it wasn’t making any money so i was
literally at that point where i’m like
all right what do i do with this money
how do i help myself achieve financial
freedom that was always one of my goals
so
you know just looked into different ways
real estate at state was one of those
things that always kept popping up
i didn’t know much about it the only
experience i had was a condo that i
bought with
an x you know years before and we lost
money when we sold it
in the real estate crash so i was turned
off by it for
a couple of years there but that was
just me owning that personal primary
property i didn’t know anything about
the investment side so
once i started digging into that and
learning about it
listening podcasts reading books you
know it’s one of those things like most
investors you get addicted to it yeah
why why didn’t i discover this you know
10 years ago
so we went i went from
2000 that was actually 2017 i started
learning
um consumed as much content as i could
within about six months and then made
the decision
like hey it’s time to buy a property um
i was out here in san diego didn’t want
to put
any of that money towards real estate
out here because i was looking for
passive income
that was my goal over appreciation so
look back in the midwest
i ended up landing on omaha
properties were really cheap there so i
found the lowest property
you know made some contacts kind of
found my boots on the ground there and
just built a team
um and then bought a couple properties
there that went really well
over the first couple of months which
you know led me into
some more properties buying airbnbs in
tennessee
some small multi-family up in michigan
um and then most recently the laundromat
and the commercial building that the
laundromats in
so you know that’s that’s what happened
over the
scope of those three years um
the biggest decision for me was leaving
that comfortable job that i had for ten
years this past september
because you know money was good um
i was working remotely so i have to go
to these meetings but
you know i reached the point i reached a
point where it just wasn’t fulfilling
anymore
and telling people the situation that i
had on the outside they looked at me and
said you’re crazy why would you leave a
job like that
but honestly i was probably three to
four years overdue
um there were some changes happening
within the company which
it was just kind of a sign from the
universe hey this is time to get out
and you know go deliver some of your
passions and do the things that you want
to do
take this investing thing to the next
level
wow okay well let’s
let’s back it up a little and okay so
you bought
out of state in omaha first right
and that went well how did you choose i
don’t want to get too far into the real
i mean i’m like
i love the real estate side so i i do
want to but you know it’s a laundromat
podcast so
but a little bit i mean i think there’s
a lot of overlap between we’re kind of
talking about that
between real estate and laundromats and
a lot of people who own laundromats
own real estate and a lot of people who
in real estate
should own laundromats so i do want to
talk a little bit about
uh real estate uh so how did you pick
omaha as your market
yeah from san diego right
yeah right so i i had about three other
markets i was looking at bigger markets
like indianapolis detroit
and cleveland and a buddy of mine in san
diego had worked for
he works for a landscape architect firm
that does these big projects around
different cities
and the cities that they’ve done them in
property values they’ve appreciated if
they were somewhat close to that part
but this company had just won a bid in
omaha
and he’s like have you ever thought
about you know looking in omaha to buy
real estate
no but that led me to starting doing the
analysis
and i’m just seeing the scope of okay
here’s what it’s done the past 10 years
here’s what happened in
in the real estate meltdown it didn’t
crash as hard as a lot of the other
markets
um so there weren’t really any red flags
it was a pretty stable market not huge
appreciation but also not these huge
massive crashes like a lot of other
markets so
to me it was the less risky
um approach for my first investment so
yeah flew out there and met with a
couple people and
after that you know started buying
properties you were there
i love it and then but then you didn’t
stay
in omaha and you went to other markets
so where’d you go next
i went to michigan next so
i’ll tell you a fun fact i’ve actually
never seen
any property that i own or the laundry
method i own
anything that i’ve bought which is
it’s it’s funny but i’m also at this
point where i just booked a trip at the
end of
the end of april to go to tennessee to
see the properties and then drive
to atlanta to see the laundromat
um ended up in michigan because we’re
going to talk more about that
in a little bit yeah we’ll talk more
about that
up in michigan because i had a buddy
that i met through a real estate
mastermind
group that he was living there he had
already owned some property
he was raving about the passive income
properties were
dirt cheap you know you’re talking like
80k for five unit
um and you know cash and cash return and
all that good stuff
was really high so all right we’re not
also not that risky we could put some
money into it we’ll get good returns um
it’s about a couple there and then
ended up going down to tennessee
afterwards which is
another story in itself okay so
so you i mean basically you decided to
go
from omaha to michigan because you had
another buddy who
was looking there too so you guys just
decided okay well
you know this worked out okay in omaha
so let’s go to detroit
basically and uh not even detroit
these are smaller municipalities so
one of them’s like bay city they’re
actually around big city michigan
so smaller city um again i was looking
for
passive income and now this huge
appreciation place so
to me it was appealing so
okay what i’m in omaha now i have a
couple properties there let’s diversify
a net
you know a little bit next that one
seemed like the next best choice because
my buddy was already buying properties
there and having success
yeah very cool is it is it like a
rough neighborhood is it what they call
a war zone or is it
it’s just a good market no yeah c class
b minus properties um mostly blue collar
you get some young white-collar people
in there yeah
not not rough neighborhoods by any means
um
yeah just c-class low-b class
neighborhoods
okay i i don’t want to like i want you
to
tell any of your real estate secrets
without anybody buying your
999 course but are you i mean are you
finding i’m just kidding i don’t know if
you have a course or not but yeah i
don’t know i don’t have requests to sell
but
yeah do it before this podcast goes live
and i’ll link it
uh the uh how are you finding these
deals are you are you going through like
a like a turnkey
or are you looking on mls are you
hooking up with real estate agents what
are you doing to find these properties
yeah hooking up with agents and
wholesalers so and when i decided omaha
i went on the bigger pockets forum i
reached out to about
30 people that were listed as agents
two people replied these two guys ended
up being partners one of them was a
wholesaler
the other one’s kind of an agent
investor
um so once i sync up with those guys
those guys seemed pretty legit
they already had their boots on the
ground one guy was holding a local real
estate
association meeting every month so flew
out there to meet those guys
show them that i was serious and just
you know liked everything that i saw
with them
um some pretty stand-up guys pretty
straightforward and then they
turned me on to lender local lenders um
property management companies so it kind
of almost snowballed so
you know all that stuff that you’re
learning from podcasts and
people that have been doing this years
before like oh it’s all this is actually
is true like once
you you meet one person there has
somebody else to refer to you and
as long as you find the solid first
couple people you know they’re going to
turn you on to
other people that you want to work with
yeah yeah because
i mean it’s true like the best people
work with the best people
right and if you want to become the best
you got to work with the best
so if you find the first couple of good
people then you’re
you’re in good shape because they’re
going to be working with good people
that’s how they
got to where they are that’s awesome
okay
so all right so you went to omaha you
bought some properties
you went to michigan you bought some
properties and you thought
i know i need to go to tennessee like
what how did that happen
oh i was going north and i’m like all
right what’s the opposite time to go
yeah um so
through that real estate mastermind
group i was a part of
the two guys wanted to get into the
airbnb management space
um so the three of us ended up starting
the company
and we managed at our highest point i
think like 22
airbnbs they were spread out throughout
the country
um a person that we met who’s from that
like tennessee
i think he’s from florida he spends a
lot of time in that tennessee area
he’s raving about how big a vacation
rail market is and there’s
there’s like 12 million people that go
through that market per year
it’s pigeon forged gatlinburg basically
all
cabin rentals and it’s within like
eight hours driving and i think like
i don’t know 20 or 30 sticks some crazy
number like that so a lot of people can
just hop in their cars and drive down
there and that’s
why their family um
we got turned down to that market ended
up
um didn’t manage any properties there
we kind of researched that market for
about six months and we’re just seeing
the appreciation that was going on we
started
connecting with other investors that
owned properties there
and they were getting these huge returns
and they weren’t spending
an astronomical amount of money on
properties now a little that has changed
with the way the real estate market’s
been the past year yeah um
but i ended up buying my first property
there
like two weeks before covered hit so
like my calendar was booked out for two
three months
this is an airbnb property right it’s an
airbnb
it got white for like two weeks
but then after that it was for
the entire year like
you know almost the entire year um
i had maybe one to two days of vacancy
on that property per month so it ended
up
going from like this big old crap moment
to
okay this is actually working out really
well and the research
you know what i’ve seen uh this this
market do in the past during crashes is
kind of holding up so
there’s something to this you know let
me put some more effort in there so real
estate-wise i’ve put
more resources time and money into that
market as well
yeah yeah and i mean it makes a lot of
sense if you can’t really go
there’s no like hotels and there’s
nowhere to go with your family
right then the airbnb actually makes a
lot of sense to
be able to still get away a little bit
and
be with you so yeah and that’s you know
i’m looking at the book and you got
these couples and families driving up
from detroit
new york carolinas people just wanted to
get out of their
house and go somewhere but they weren’t
flying anywhere so
uh i got you know grateful and lucky
that
that property worked out as good as it
did last year because if
it was complete opposite way we’d be
having a much different conversation
yeah yeah no kidding pretty crazy
well yeah that had to be scary though
initially
when everything just shut down and i
could
i could imagine you know and i feel i
feel for all the uh
like the business owners and you know
stuff where
in the tourist industry all over where
you know people either had been going or
had just opened up
and then everything just shut down and a
lot of those people aren’t
aren’t coming back you know so that’s
that’s tough so i’m glad it worked out
uh because like you said we’d be having
a different conversation or maybe no
conversation at all right now
or maybe not yeah yeah true okay so you
got into airbnb so not only were you in
a different market
you you went for a different model of
real estate investing
also good but
that was not enough excitement for you
so what happened after that i mean
what did you do from when did you buy
that airbnb like a year a little over a
year ago
yeah it was february of 2020. okay
13 months ago yeah okay um
you know as you can tell by now i like
to diversify so i don’t like putting
all of my eggs in one basket in one
market so it’s all right let’s jump
around and you know if one market
doesn’t do so well
there’s other properties in this other
market to hopefully take care of the
losses
of the other one if needed um
so about that same time when i purchased
the property
i was telling you it was march 2020
um part of a mastermind group for
abundance
and somebody had posted in there hey i
have an opportunity to buy two to three
laundry mats in out of california
i know nothing about them anybody in the
group own them or the good investments
and literally there was i think there
was like
15 to 20 replies and then everybody was
tagging
like the same career four guys like talk
to this guy you know he owns one and
this person has been in the industry for
a while we kind of watched that
conversation play out
and it just got the wheels turning i
didn’t know anything about laundromats
um reached out to a couple of those guys
that were
commenting and tagged on at fred one of
them being ken wimberly who is
one of your guests and you know talked
to him and
he had all good things to say about how
his i think he built
if i remember correctly he built a new
store that was going well
there’s some other guys who’ve been in
the industry for like 10 years
and they basically all said the same
thing you know if you buy it right
um and and you’re going with the right
expectations and you try and be within
like the top 10 to 20
of operators there’s no reason that it
won’t work
you know as long as you do your due
diligence when you’re buying a store and
it’s in the right area and all that
so you know once once i heard that
i was already kind of convicted um
which i started doing some research on
google and that’s when i actually came
across your podcast
so hey showed up on google all right
the first podcast i ever listened to
about laundry mats was
the episode with you and dave men’s and
you know hearing that one like i
remember i think i was driving
to like a personal training session and
listen to it there and back and i was
all fired up and i’m like all right
this this is gonna happen like just
gotta decide where we’re going where i’m
gonna do it if i’m gonna partner with
anybody
uh do i wanna do it alone and you know
kind of figure out all those
all those steps yeah that’s a i mean
you got suckered man because that was a
good episode to
get suckered by uh and if any anybody
listening right now if you haven’t
listened to that episode it gets
mentioned a lot on here because
i think that one really stands out to a
lot of people and it’s by far
the most popular episode of of all of
them it was episode two so i’ll put a
link
uh in the show notes or if you’re on
youtube it’ll be down below in the
description
uh if you want to check out well if you
haven’t listened to it or watched it
just you need to if you have any
interest in laundromats because it’s a
really really good
episode so yeah okay
yeah a lot of value and you’ll get
pumped up because you know dave who’s
now
dave the laundromat millionaire men so
check out laundromat millionaire
and his youtube and his website and
stuff he’s got a lot of cool stuff going
on
um but he’s he’ll get you fired up man
because he’s passionate about this
industry
so all right so you got suckered by dave
manns i’m gonna blame it on him
god second yeah okay so
yeah i know gosh man
i’ll put you in contact with him so you
can give him a piece of your mind
uh so um
okay so you got you got excited you got
pumped up and so
yeah so what’d you do from there yeah i
got pumped up and started thinking
through it
and just writing out ideas and what was
realistic
so i this was march we’ll call it march
of last year march april
i had already known by that point i
wasn’t staying in san diego and that we
were going to hit the road
so i kind of scratched san diego as an
option
for even buying a laundromat there
because we wanted you know
somebody to be in that town to go check
on that thing we didn’t if we needed to
so reached out to my buddy matt who’s
the guy i’m buying real estate with
michigan and said hey
i got a great new investment idea
laundromats
and literally his response was laundry
mat
yup laundromats he’s like okay
and i just started getting into it and
i’m like nice great dude and
literally after a day or two of talking
to him
i think maybe he did a little research
he’s like all right i’m in what are we
doing
like all right great let’s start
reaching out to the owners in new york
city he’s in marquette michigan
there’s like five six stories maybe
seven
max like we’ll build a list of all the
stores we’ll start calling them
we’ll put together some letters and
we’ll send them out so did that
got calls back from three of them i
remember specifically
uh when it wasn’t going to work in this
market like
two people call me one of the owners
wanted
500k for a store his store was gross in
40k a year
with not operating income of like 15 to
20k
so i’m like you know okay like what a
bargain
incredible thanks for the discount
yeah seriously and then had another
conversation that was similar to that
and the other people that i talked to
just weren’t interested in selling yet
so we kind of just planned to speeds
you know with the ultimate down the road
something will change
so then we him and i were kicking off
you know the wheels are turning down
we’re kind of
okay what market are we going where do
we know other people
so we ended up talking to todd who was
down in atlanta just north of atlanta
he’s another guy that i’m not in a real
estate mastermind group so we had
already known each other for a couple of
years
only matt and i had done the real estate
deals together
we haven’t worked with todd but we’ve
been talking with him he’s buying real
estate on his own
um you know also looking to get out of
the rat race so
reach out to the side he loved the idea
right off the bat
um he grew up in like atlanta metro
area so he just loves that whole area
and everything that the markets have to
offer
so i was like where he kind of sold us
out of that market and he’s like there’s
hundreds of laundromats down here um
let’s start reaching out to them i’ll
have my wife basically build out
a list of the ones that are within the
proximity
of where we want to be and we would
actually want to purchase them
that’s how we ended up going down to
lenin
you know literally within two months
it went from just me to me and matt and
then we met
todd and then we really honed in on that
atlanta market we said all right this is
where we’re gonna make the deal happen
so you know one of the things i i kind
of tell myself when i get into
um a new industry or investment
is i’ll give myself like three months of
good solid
research to either make the conviction
or not make a commission and then once i
make that decision
it’s it’s either time to take action
you’re onto the next thing
so it’s kind of at that point we need to
we need to pause right there and if
you’re listening to this you need to
rewind it about 15 seconds and
listen to that again i can’t tell you
how many people
i do coaching calls with who have been
thinking about getting a laundromat
and researching laundromats for years
sometimes literally decades right
and what i love about what you just said
is you put a set timeline do your
research
in three months you can learn everything
you need to know to be able to get
started
in laundromats you can if you know if
you’re working at it
put a timeline on it and then
and then put it to action if you make a
decision and if you’re gonna go for it
then do it
and if not then don’t do it and look for
your next thing i love
love love that yeah i want to put that
on like a t-shirt or
a poster or something because that’s
amazing i love that it’s so good it’s so
so go listen to that again pump yourself
up it’s gonna be great
put on some eye of the tiger when you’re
listening that’s right yes get real
pumped up
that’s right i love that
okay sorry i mean sorry i know what to
do okay keep going no no
no no i’m glad i’m glad that i was a
valuable nugget
um but yeah that you know going back to
that it was like all right
learn everything you can in three months
maybe even sooner
and then it’s either time to make the
decision keep moving forward and move on
to something else so we
decided to keep moving forward narrowed
it down to atlanta
we built out the spreadsheet of about
call it 80 stores that we were calling
most of the time we couldn’t get past
the employees there’s a couple stores we
talked to the owners
you know they weren’t interested they
kind of have this weird perception that
you’re a telemarketer that you want
something from so
you know just explain like hey it’s it’s
me and two other other investors we’re
looking to buy our first laundromat
area we buy real estate um we’re
interested in buying your store
they didn’t get anywhere with that for
about a month
then we said okay let’s send out some
mailers so
you know i i didn’t never use the mailer
um
system at that point so i literally did
like just type them all out
and wrote all the envelopes and sent
them out
so i don’t know it took maybe four or
five hours in a day
um i think the hardest thing was licking
all the envelopes
and then getting them to the funny
stamps on them
from usps and within a week
we had people calling us and out of
those 80 mailers
i think maybe 12 12 15 people
called now given only three of those
were
real leads um we still kind of
gained interest from about 15 people so
just seeing that response of that first
mailer
honestly i didn’t expect to get more
than one to two calls if any calls
because it was our first one
and you you never know right like in
real estate markets could be pretty
saturated with mailers and ads
so i was just taking you know what i
knew from that
i’m like okay we’ll get maybe one or two
calls maybe none we’ll just do this on a
monthly basis well we got all those
calls um
we ended up getting a laundry amount
under contract
within i think like maybe two weeks
after doing that
um once we got into due diligence we
started figuring out the owner was
hiding
maintenance costs and things weren’t
adding up right like todd went there on
a sunday to coin collect
and her husband accidentally coin
collected the night before even though
she knew that we were coming that day so
we just started there’s a lot of red
flags so
after about a month we’re like all right
we’re excited we have this one under
contract but is it really the best
decision
decided no so we scrapped it um
moved on to the next lead which you know
there was there’s two other ones
um the one which we ended up purchasing
ended up being a really good deal um
happy to get into the numbers if you
want me to
right um you know this guy lived out in
west coast he was in california he
bought this laundromat
in 2013. he thought it was going to be
more
passive than it actually was um
and the thing he didn’t want to put the
money into it to get it to where it
needed to be
so this thing was kind of being run into
the ground but still making a decent
amount of revenue
so you know we get to talking to him
um wants to sell the thing within a
couple of months
so we get into the details okay how much
revenue is it making
you know how old and machines and chains
were some of them were like 40 or 50
years old which is absolutely crazy
maintenance costs were 1000 1500 bucks a
month just
for machine repairs um
a funny not so funny story we actually
had one
uh almost kind of catch on fire that we
had to take off
out of the store so these things just
need to go
so you know we’re looking at his p l
and there was really no uh net profit on
it
so i’m taking what i learned like how do
we value the store we’ll use it 3x to 4x
multiple off in that operator make them
alpha zero
yeah what’s that i said three to four
times
zero for the yeah
yeah so you know i’m having the kind of
conversation with him i’m like this is
how we value him
you know he’s got this thing depreciated
to the sense
for tax reasons so i’m like
and you know maybe we’ll offer you 40
grand for it
just put dealers out there so i’m not
going to take that
i bought it in 2013 for 175.
i let go of it for a hundred thousand
you know me matt and todd i’ll talk
about it okay well
you know what if we pay him a hundred
thousand but we tell him he’s got to do
salary financing and carry the note for
seven years
so we did that um we said hey we’ll put
down ten percent we’ll pay the hundred
thousand
and we just needed to carry the note for
seven years
at this rate a five percent rate said
okay
okay great like we’re in this laundromat
it’s gross in 160k a year
um you know it’s got three employees
that are running the store so we don’t
need to be there every day
and everything just kind of aligned with
it we didn’t have to put a tiny
ton of money into it it didn’t seem like
a huge risk to us
when we went and hadn’t bought it so
we did that got into due diligence
the owner was very transparent about
everything the costs
and maintenance and you know what he’s
paying employees
and all that so everything just kind of
aligned we didn’t feel like there was
anything
we were going to walk into that was
going to kind of be like the you know
crap moment when we purchased it
did it turn out that way yeah for the
most part
so so yeah we get this under contract
and while it’s underneath
hold on real quick i want to go back is
this one of the mailer
uh the mailers leads that you got okay
this is longer than that
okay i mean i remember uh when you
posted about
your mailer experience on the forum uh
and that i mean that thread i think
really ignited a lot of people
on the on the forum because people were
like holy cow like you had that much i
think everybody was kind of surprised at
how much
success that you had and i mean you
basically said hey i have all these
leads i can’t do anything with them like
what
what yeah i think anybody interested is
there anything
like i can do with these leads uh i
remember i remember that and like
people were pretty excited about that so
okay yeah this is one of those how did
you get the addresses for the mailers
out of curiosity we just sent them to
the laundromat so we didn’t we didn’t
actually call the
owners mailers um so on the envelopes i
wrote
to the owner of and then the address so
that way it would keep a lot of the
employees from opening it up and
throwing it away
right yeah smart uh okay
so you kind of negotiated the seller
finance deal which is awesome you only
had to do 10
down which is awesome um but you have
these older machines now right and
you live thousands of miles away
from but you have a partner in town
basically right
um and and you decide to pull the
trigger
on this thing and owner finance the deal
okay so
i interrupted you again but okay so tell
me how how did it go
after you guys took yeah
so i mean even before we get into that
like
so as we have it under contracts i call
the landlord
and say hey we want to get this get this
thing on the 10-year lease with two
five-year options and he was running it
at about a thousand a month
which was a good five to eight hundred
dollars under market rent
if not more older guy in his 80s and
he’s like you know what i’m not going to
sign at least that long because i want
to sell the building soon if i do that
it’s going to value it
we said sell the building you know oh
really
yeah okay how much do you want to sell
the building for start having that
conversation with them
um so we ended up actually getting the
building and got that under contract and
closed on it
almost the same time as we did the
laundromat so it’s a fun
it’s a small commercial building there’s
four units in it
um one of them being the laundromat and
just looking at the whole thing
you know from a bird’s eye view we said
it makes sense to buy the building not
have to worry about the lease
really build up this laundry mat to
where we want it to be it
to be at and then we either hang on to
it and then down the road
you know if we do go to sell it now we
have the building
and the laundry mat and we can package
everything it’s going to be a lot more
valuable and we don’t have to worry
about the lease issue with anybody
[Music]
so so yeah yeah i think the
building was more dilapidated than the
laundromat when we got into like
due diligence of that you know finding
uh
rodents and like just lint that’s built
and
is built up in like uh you know
different events and
things that deferred maintenance that
hadn’t been taken care of and needed to
be taken care of so
we closed on both of them almost the
same time within a week of each other
and this was early february of this year
um closing on the laundromat there there
wasn’t
any major surprises when we closed
luckily
i mean we we had we’ve had our issues
right like we had the
washer you know the smoke started
coming out of it and we’re going to take
the thing out of there because it’s so
old
come on
part of being a laundromat
um yeah we had a coin our coin machine
broke on a friday
two weeks ago and so we were scrambling
to get a new coin machine
they both went out apparently on the
same day so
yeah one of them was able to get fixed
the other one we had to replace so we
did that
well you know those little things that
kind of pop up but
the revenue’s covering all the costs
right now so all that stuff that’s
happening
we’re paying from it from the business
um
we’re getting to the point of like we’re
figuring out the foundation of the
business which
it takes a little time especially being
a couple thousand miles away
yeah because yeah we have the three
employees
um you know we got these old machines
todd’s the only one
that he’s about 40 minutes north of the
laundromat so he’s there
two or three times a week so he’s going
to see it
even he’s the only one that’s saying
that
exactly so yeah we’re
we’re kind of getting to that point now
where we’re under
understanding like the ecosystem of it
how the employees work
work that needs to be put into it
customer’s perception and all that
so you know it took a little bit of time
when we closed on it
i felt like there was a hundred things
that came up that
we had to do that we didn’t know we had
to do like
getting a business license and you know
reaching out to the fire marshal and
having them expected
just all these little things you kind of
just take them on as they come
but overall i would say we’re pretty
happy
um and i always tell todd about this you
know
being in the partnership takes a lot of
stress
out of being in this alone because
there’s three of us doing it
we all kind of pick up each other’s
weaknesses and
you know everybody’s able to kind of
work off of their strengths so the areas
that we’re not drawing in
the other one is so it kind of uh meshes
together well and
you know the other thing too is if
something happens and we had a bad month
well now we have three people that cover
the expenses and it’s not just coming
out of one person’s bank account
yeah yeah there’s definitely strength
in in a partnership like that right
there’s
you know some people are very
anti-partnership
uh well let me ask you i mean you know
some people are very anti-partnership
just you know when it comes to real
estate investing
or partnering in business um
i mean tell me talk to me a little bit
about why
you decided to do partnership and what
you think it takes to to make a
partnership work
it’s like being in a in a marriage
honestly good communication
right on what i tell everybody and
that’s the one thing we discussed when
we got into the partnership
is rewind two years ago when i was in
that airbnb
management company there was three of us
our partnership
we did everything wrong ended up hating
each other at the end
of it and i told myself i’m never going
to get into a partnership
like that again but you know as i was
doing that i learned a lot from that
and i learned to not overlook certain
things and put the blinders on if you’re
going to partner with
somebody so if you are going to partner
with somebody i would say
make sure it’s somebody that you trust
don’t overlook
any of the red flags make sure that
person can communicate
well with you you know the three of us
we’re all very growth-minded
so the fact that we could go from
talking about laundromats
to family life to
you know what’s a happiness index this
week
it just all meshes together really well
now if one of us
wasn’t in that same mindset and they
were just focused just on the money
fight
or you know something else maybe it
wouldn’t work out so well
um so yeah i would say do you
make sure you really get to know the
person that you’re going to go into a
partnership with
and don’t put the blinders on you know
and try and convince yourself that it’s
a good idea if you really know it’s not
yeah i think that’s really good really
good advice but i also like that you
said that you you know you were in a
partnership
that did not go well and that ended
badly
and but like you took that lesson
and you know even though you initially
were like i’m never doing that again
you decided to put that lesson to use
right
and that’s kind of it’s similar to my
situation with laundromats actually
where i bought this laundromat it was a
horrible experience
i still have pain
you know from this my first laundromat
experience
and that i’m still dealing with you know
all these years later
but you know i got to a point where i
was like well i can either
you know call it quits and never do it
again
or you know these lessons i paid a lot
of financial
money for and also emotional
you know capital spent on these lessons
you know to to get this wisdom i can put
that to use
and help me further you know what i’m
trying to do help me grow more
and you know i love that you you did
that
and you know it’s probably too soon to
tell how this one is gonna go but i’m
guessing that it’s gonna go much better
than your last one because you
decided to take those lessons and apply
them and
you know approach this partnership a
little bit different so i love
i love that i love that that is very
growth mindset
abundance mindset if you will london
yeah find the silver lining and
everything right yeah
there’s a lesson to be learned even in
the time when you’re
like why is this happening it sucks
yeah i mean looking back on it there’s a
lesson there yeah
a lot of times you got to wait till you
kind of weather that storm to learn the
lesson
but it’s there if you’re looking for it
you’ll find it eventually
but you know when you’re in the middle
yeah yeah it’s it’s tough
it’s tough yeah okay cool so sorry to
take the partnership detour but i think
that’s a really important one because a
lot of people are
looking for different ways looking for
creative ways right to get into this
business maybe they don’t have as much
capital
or maybe they have capital but they
don’t have a lot of time
and we see you know we see people on
both ends of that spectrum all the time
and so partnerships can be a really good
way to alleviate those you know whatever
you’re lacking whether it’s time
and effort and energy or knowledge or
money whatever it is that you’re lacking
partnership can alleviate that but
uh like you said it’s important to
approach a partnership
like a marriage like it’s going to be
that serious because it
you know it is like it’s a commitment
that you’re making to each other so
i love that love love love it okay so
you uh i mean you’re you guys are pretty
pretty new in to this laundromat journey
here you know you’re just like a couple
months in here
uh what i mean have you guys talked
about
what what your plans are with this
laundromat so right now it’s
you know it’s running basically how it
was when you bought it right
mine is that washer that tried to burn
your whole place down
yeah we lost the here yeah rest in peace
watching
yeah recipes we’re in pieces
yeah um so yeah we
right when we bought it we knew it
needed new machines
so we’ve been getting quotes um from
different people
or different distributors i should say
and you know everything that i’ve heard
about
distributors and wealth of knowledge
like all that’s really
held true um i feel like when you find a
good one they kind of
seem like they put your best interest
first uh i haven’t really talked to
anybody
been like super pushy and trying to buy
a machine to put more machines
in areas you know that could convert um
so yeah we we’ve gotten a couple quotes
we actually have a call
tonight we have our team call at 5 30
pacific time every wednesday and this
morning we were texting we said hey
tonight’s the night we decide
which distributor we’re going with and
that we’re buying bigger ships so we’re
we’re actually going to replace
everything um
you know i’m hoping about the cost too
like the cost per machine
is probably going to spend 280 to 300k
37 new machines 24 new washers
uh 13 new dryers now the distributors
were talking to
we’re probably going to go i think
dexter is what we’re going to go with
you know as long as like ever we look
good to them
on paper they’ll do pretty much 100 of
the financing
i think at most we have to come out of
pocket
i think they said probably 10 but we’re
hoping to get 100 of the finance
so it is a little scary to put in that
much money
into a new store but the way
i’m trying to look at this is like okay
if we were going to build out a new
store
we’re kind of going into it not knowing
anything
outside of the research that we’ve done
so we already have this concept
that’s working it’s already bringing in
revenue
all the complaints that we get online
are about machines not working
and everything just seems to
you know kind of lead to us needing new
machines and that kind of turning around
the store so i’m
probably going to place that order by
the end of the week i think
they’re backed up until july so we
probably won’t get those new machines
till july
um and then once we get that you know
i’m kind of like our marketing
and sales guy so i put up a
google or working on the google my
business page responding to reviews
we’re gonna do some marketing um
actually put up
uh a post on the cla about because our
stories kind of hidden
from from the main street and i was like
hey we have to sit in store
it’s a good way to to get you know get
it out there
and the responses you get are hilarious
because they’re all over the place some
people are just like online presents
that’s all you need
and there’s another guy he’s like get a
i put a hot air balloon on mine
that just said laundry and wash on it
and he’s like the response really got
out of it was fantastic
but then i had to take it down because i
was violating code in the city
ask for forgiveness not permission of
course that’s when they find you but
yeah yeah yeah so
our goal is like we’ll get new machines
we’re going to redo the floor
um we’re going to work on building out
the wash dry fold we already have that
we think we could
should be able to triple that so i’ll
start calling you know some commercial
accounts like restaurants caterers
even like high schools for people coming
to watch
uniforms i haven’t done any of that yet
but
we’ll see where it goes you know there
might be something there we’ll do that
we’ll do some online marketing
and just keep trying to build up as much
foot traffic
and awareness as we can you know into
the store once we get it
yeah yeah i like that what uh
what what factors were you guys
considering when you were when you guys
were talking about
the um like the
getting new machines and what
distributor to go with
what what were you guys looking for were
you are you looking mostly at the
machines are you looking mostly at the
distributor
what are what what factors were you
considering
it’s financing you know there’s a lot of
yeah all the above
honestly um at first there was a
distributor
and since we’re new to us you know
making sure that
nobody’s trying to pull over our eyes
and charge us a lot higher than we
should be
um every distributor that we talked to
we talked to three of them
everybody’s saying is very like genuine
very responsive and seemed like they
wanted to help us and
you know they’re not just trying to sell
us his new machine so
once we got past that then it came down
to the machines
and you know the reason we’re going with
dexter is
not to say any other machines are bad
but from the research that we’ve done
i’ve seen a lot of praise for dexter and
how they hold up and
uh owners just staying very happy with
them so
you know we we get that but if we go
with dexter we get dexter pay installed
um as part of the the cost we have to
pay actually for that which is a
an app pay system and
um you know just the one thing we really
like about dexley too
is and i’m sure most new machines do
this but it’s the way that the stores
network
and we can see how much one machine is
making
at any time so hey what’s this 60 pound
you know machine on the back wall doing
what’s the 20 pound closest to the front
door doing
and you can just see all that so that
way we can get a better grasp on where
our washer
fold is as well yeah awesome
yeah just just curious about that
because i get asked that a lot
like what am i what am i looking for
when i’m looking for
you know new machines for my store
should i be looking for
you know machine type which one’s the
best you know should i be looking for a
distributor how do i know if it’s a good
distributor who has my best interest or
not
you know and i like you said it’s kind
of all the above you’re looking for that
package of
you know what kind of financing deal can
they offer or can you get through
you know another lender um
you know how is the distributor going to
be helpful are they like a
um basically like a drop-off service
where they just
sell you the machines drop them off and
then you’re on your own basically or are
they going to help you out
um and are those machines going to hold
up and do what you need them to do and
you know give you the information that
you’re looking for so that’s good
yeah yeah we asked like once we decided
dexter we asked for
referrals talked to one of them the
store owner that went with them is very
happy
with their service and machines and all
that so it just kind of helps the
conviction
the other thing too like when you first
start talking to distributors and you’re
agreeing to the industry you’re kind of
like
oh man i don’t know much about it you
know these people are going to know that
they’re going to try and tell you
benjamin they don’t care right like
they’re there
to help you if they’re a good
distributor and somebody that wants to
see your business grow
so like once you get over that fear and
let them know it’s the first
one the first quote i’ve ever got you
know
go to the store give us a complete
remodel and drop of what you think we
should do and then let’s get on the zoom
call and
you know meet the two other partners and
you talk about it what our different
options are
and just kind of talk through it yeah
yeah i think that’s really good
really good advice and you know i think
what you
said is important because i think a lot
of people do feel like ah
like should i pretend like i know what
i’m talking about even if i don’t
well first of all they’re gonna know
pretty quick you know if they’ve been
around for a little while then
they’ll know but second of all
almost all laundromat owners
are first-time buyers like there’s you
know
there are obviously multi-store owners
but almost all of them are first-time
buyers
right even the multi-store owners were
first-time buyers at some point
and so that’s who distributors are used
to working with
right is people buying machines for the
first time
um so yeah so don’t be afraid of that
but but if you are afraid of that i mean
it’s where
talking to multiple distributors and you
know seeing
the different things they have to say
the different ways they present
information
the different options they give you um
you know that’ll that’ll help you kind
of figure out
who has your best interest in mind and
hopefully
hopefully they all do and you’re
choosing from between good and good
uh but sometimes you’ll be choosing
between bad and good and and that’ll
become
pretty clear if you’re talking yeah so
yeah and it’s it’s there is no rush
right we’re like let’s give this a
couple months let’s talk to
like we talked to dexter steve crane
moscow matt
and then we compared the prices and they
weren’t that far off we liked all the
distributors
and our conviction at the end was dexter
so
unless those two guys tell me something
different on our call tonight i think
yeah i think we’re going
with that oh man by the time this thing
comes out you’re gonna have speed queen
equipment in there
moscow matt get it installed right now
yeah
right that’s pretty funny
um okay well i mean i have more
questions but i think a lot of it’s
gonna come
out through our section called down to
business
uh let’s get down to business
over and out and that’s just an
opportunity for
us to learn a little bit more about your
business and again we know like it’s
pretty
pretty new um that you’ve had it and
you’ve actually never been there
or seen it in person so uh
so it should be it should be a fun down
to business to hear about your business
from your eyes
yeah we’ve only seen it probably through
zoom or pictures or whatever so
any security cameras yeah right yeah the
security cameras
um okay so uh you’re in the atlanta-ish
market right
yeah okay um and then you own you own
one laundromat how much real estate do
you own how many units do you own
12 buildings total
somewhere around like 30 units so cool
yeah that’s awesome and then are the
four
just had to cure out this is my
curiosity probably nobody else cares
about this yeah
but the four units including your
laundromat in that commercial building
are those your only commercial
or do you have other commercial units
also it is
no this is the first commercial building
that i bought
cool so yeah everything else is
residential
small multi-family airbnb yeah
i just love it you’re like all right
omaha nebraska okay let’s go to michigan
okay let’s go to tennessee
but let’s do something different and
let’s do airbnb
and then you’re like okay let’s go to
atlanta let’s do something
totally different and let’s buy a
laundromat oh while we’re there let’s
get commercial real estate which is also
different so i’ll just love it
you got a lot of diversity of markets
but also a lot of diversity of
uh investment type too which actually
it’s a good thing
so yeah you’re getting a lot of good a
lot of good experience under your belt
so you can go in a lot of directions
in the future it gives you a lot of
flexibility it’s pretty cool
yeah uh did you say you
started doing real estate investing
three years ago
yeah almost three years ago to the mark
uh i’m closed on my first one on march
21st 2018. yeah man we’re at the end end
of march right now when we’re doing this
interview so that’s
uh that’s pretty cool man you you’ve
covered a lot of ground in
in three years it’s pretty awesome yeah
thanks man
you know honestly like with the
partnerships and
the one thing i always tell myself and i
heard this from
i think so many famous was like never be
the smartest guy in the room right
so like if you could constantly partner
or be in these groups with people that
are challenging your
your thoughts your decisions holding you
accountable for things
it just it takes your level of success
to a level at a faster rate i personally
think than if you’re trying to do it on
your own um
especially if you get around like
successful people that are also good
people
you know they’re working on all aspects
of their life so
yeah that’s one thing that i truly like
try to
to live by isn’t ever being the smallest
person in the room which
doesn’t that’s not hard
you know just surrounding yourself with
people that are motivated but also good
people and
we meet we’ll talk about business we
thought about life a little bit mix of
everything and
you know somewhat balanced yeah i
i love that and i it’s so funny because
like i’ve i’ve changed so much you know
my
my natural inclination is is
to like the lone wolf thing right that’s
like my natural
that’s like my background that’s where
it came from that’s how i grew up you
know and that was kind of my mindset
and it’s taken me a lot of like stubborn
like mistakes and setbacks and stuff to
get to a point where i’m like no
actually it’s like
it’s way better if i’m learning from
other people
you know i always was like very
proud that like if people asked if they
could help if there’s anything they
could do
i’d be like no i got it like i can do
this and i catch myself doing that still
just saying no but yeah but i’m starting
to see the value in
now actually if you’re like super good
at doing this thing and
you know i’m sure i could do you know
i’m like pretty confident my abilities
to do like
everything probably like to a fault
right like yeah sure i could do that
whatever it is
yeah i can do that yeah but you know
letting people who are experts in
whatever it is
you know do their thing and or give you
advice
about their thing or help guide you
about their thing
is going to get you farther faster than
if you try to figure it out yourself and
that was one of my big lessons
buying my first laundromat where i
essentially tried to figure it out
myself and
didn’t didn’t go over so well yeah
yeah it sucks right it’s like what
everybody says like you kind of have to
go through the school hard knocks and
make some of those
bad decisions and i was the same exact
way
like lone wolf do it on your own like
you know accomplishment by yourself it’s
an individual
thing and since i’ve i’ve worked on that
and tried to dissolve like some of that
part of my ego a couple years ago like
honestly i find myself having a lot more
fun with it too
because you know people say yeah it’s
lonely at the top
it is if you stay on that path the
entire time you’re doing
it but if you change lanes and you
talk to guys you know like you and me
and surround yourself with people like
that all the time then it’s not
because now you have somewhere to go to
share your successes
not feel bad about it um also share
losses and get guidance when you need it
so
yeah and two like i mean there’s three
of you right so like when something goes
down at your laundromat
like like a machine’s catching on fire
or whatever
or you’re trying to make a big decision
like do we invest 300 grand
in new machines right now all of a
sudden
you’re not making that decision on your
own
using your own experience and your own
wisdom you’re tapping into your
partner’s experience and their wisdom
and their observations and their
research and
all that you’re making a collective
decision you know together and when
you’re
leaning on uh you know experienced
owners and you’re talking to them or
you’re listening to the podcast or
you’re
reading on the forums or whatever you’re
doing like uh
i mean it’s just it’s it’s way better
like it’s it’s so much better great i
like you just made a great point it made
me just think like you’ve talked to
people that have been
looking at a laundromat for years and
decades
those people listening find that partner
that will go take action for you
yeah and go talk to the laundromat
owners and distributors
and then learn from them partner with
them like
you put it out there you’ll be able to
find somebody and if you can’t get past
that fear of
you know doing the unknown then find
somebody that well and partner with them
and you’ll learn a lot more doing that
in a couple months then
you know another year of reading books
listening podcasts reading form
right yeah i love that going right back
to your
like set a time period to do your
research and then
commit to making a decision one way or
another you know
at that point time and then start taking
action you know whether that’s
taking action and researching the
different topic or taking action and
making it happen
um yeah i love that i love that i can
talk about that an entire podcast
episode
but yeah i need to start like two more
podcasts i’m gonna start one about real
estate investing and then i’m gonna
start one
just talking about you know abundant
stuff and and
oh man because i just yeah my abundance
conversation
we we should have the uh episode on that
whenever you’re ready
i would love to get into that dude i
would yeah
all right we’ll we’ll do it yeah we’ll
do it
and i you know i just think that that
is such a needed conversation to have
in our industry and i think there’s more
and more of us who
are catching that vision in our industry
but for so long we’ve we’ve not had an
abundance mentality
in our industry we’ve had a very very
closed off mentality we’ve not
shared information we’ve not shared
stories with each other
in fact we haven’t even wanted other
people to know about our industry
kind of guarded our whole industry as a
secret you know for a long time
and frankly it’s probably why our
industry
is kind of behind the times a little bit
here we’re trying to catch up now
but uh we’re we’re behind the times you
know
and it’s i think largely because of that
so
we will do all right you and i and maybe
we’ll invite like one or two other
people we can have like a conversation
about that
i would love to man all right i’m ready
when you are you’re
first people you heard it here first
we’re doing it uh
look forward to that one that’ll be
awesome okay
uh where are oh well okay so
i don’t even know if you know but you
know how much does it cost to do
laundry out in like the atlanta area at
your laundromat
yeah so it’s talking about vendor prices
yeah vin prices
yeah so i mean we’re we have uh
25 machines they’re tired we’re charging
around like two dollars 30 pounds around
like three
325 um 40 around four dollars and then
we have 60 pounders
i think they’re around seven dollars
okay
um now when we put new machines
those will go up by 25 maybe a little
bit more
i think we’re going to kind of take the
distributor’s lead on that and if he
thinks
you know we can push a little bit higher
for having brand new machines we might
um you know with double-edged sword we
also don’t want to turn off our customer
base or
you know over charge them to a point
where they’re not going to come back
right
yeah yeah finding that balance is tricky
but it’s an
important balance to find
and putting in new machines is a great
opportunity to
set those prices um
you know right you know from from the
get-go
and because you know one of our
struggles
i hear it all the time from owners you
know in our industry one of our
struggles for
the majority i think of the industry is
raising prices
and knowing how and when to do that and
i love
kent uh wales a couple episodes ago
shared he he looks at his prices and
plans to raise at least
something two times every year which is
like whoa
like that was like a big eye-opening
you know thought for me to to look at
and now
he’s raising his entire store twice a
year but
you know maybe certain machines or you
know
he’s checking out the data and seeing
where where he wants to put people
and i like the idea of having that
schedule
you know where two times a year i’m
going to look at my prices and see
if i need to raise them somewhere um
but yeah i think it’s smart raise those
prices when you get the new machines in
and start it off on the right foot yeah
exactly you know and like we’re putting
the energy and the effort into it with
the money
like putting your seating in your
bending touring
possibly new uh you know drop tile
ceiling
so like as we’re redoing all that
you know just building a better
community around it
it’s it’s a higher quality store now
right we’re gonna be
washing clothes at higher quality so i
have to charge a little bit more than
we were before yeah you’re not going to
pay off your
300 000 loan breaking even every month
alone might get me up at night for a
couple months but
we’re gonna do it yeah i mean it is you
know
it is the with the technology now though
like you get a dashboard with these
machines
and you can figure out when your slow
hours are you can set
different um discounts you know from two
to four
on a monday if you want to all doing
that online then you have to be in the
store so
having the control to do a lot of that
with some of it just gives you a lot
more peace of mind
you know the other thing we’re talking
to the distributor about too is doing
like six months of
interest only payment so you know for
people listening to
i try and do that on all my real estate
deals too like always push the lender
and say hey can i do six to 12 months
interest only
and while i’m building up that foot
traffic building and you know
having more revenue come in so that way
it takes your payment
in our case from being in 4 000 a month
down to 1500 a month for six months
yeah and that’s huge and that gives you
the ability to kind of ramp up
like you were saying like ramp up that
business to be able to cover
that loan payment because it won’t
happen you know
right away right it’s that if you build
it they will come mentality
where you know it would be awesome but
the word has to get out and people have
to kind of come check it out
and so that’s where the marketing comes
in and all that so
it does take a little time to ramp up
but it will happen
uh what what do you i mean if you know
i mean again it’s pretty pretty young
into your journey here but do you have
any sense of turns per day
what you’re what you guys are doing yeah
so according to our employees we’re
doing about three turns per day
um and the weekends a little bit more
than that
but right now i think
industry standards like three or four
and we’re sitting at about three
our most our busiest days uh on a friday
saturday sunday
as i would imagine most laundromats are
so
[Music]
yeah you know that it goes back to the
machines because we keep having to fix
all these machines and people going in
there and there’s not a working dryer
washer
and looking at our reviews
and store reviews from other laundromats
i swear
all the bad ones that i see are about
broken machines
like if you have all your machines
running and they’re doing their job
people seem to be pretty happy yep yep
yeah and i i
think people don’t like that
slot machine aspect where they’re like
they put their money in and
they’re not sure if they’re actually
going to get a wash or not you know
because
yeah you know is the machine going to
work is not going to work like
exactly suspense in that sense is not
fun for them
it’s not it’s not the type of suspense
you want yeah exactly
uh okay and are you doing full coin
well you’ll do the dexter live app right
when you get those in
if you go with dexter yeah if we go
if spirit queen is not being installed
right now right um
yeah so right now they’re all coined but
we’ll install
it’s actually a lot of dexter pay and
you know
start building up that pay business i’ve
heard
talking to different owners i’ve heard
anywhere from like 13
to 40 percent of their businesses at bay
so i don’t know
maybe that depends on what area you’re
in but
i like the idea of having it there and i
think over time
that concept gets more popular
you know within all stores and all
demographics
yeah well awesome man well how much time
are you spending
right now on this business are you
spending much time yeah i mean i don’t
know exactly what you would be doing
other than like prepping maybe for the
marketing stuff what are you watching
the wide cameras
yeah right that can’t suck a lot of your
time up
okay what’s going on right now yeah uh
honestly working just on the store
itself in hours two hours per week
but you know talking to partners
and like deciding all these other things
talking to distributors and all that i
would say
probably three to five hours maybe six
hours a week
yeah um but we’re also at that point too
where like it’s it’s really exciting for
us so
okay like put in the new machine
machines like
we’re gonna do marketing and sales you
know you don’t have to do that that’s
something we want to do
because we want to see how much we could
get out of this store
so yeah we’re doing that and then we
actually started another letter
campaign last week um
so on to trying to find the next one on
to the next one already i love it you
know you catch that
laundromat fever in here are you are you
looking in the same market
are you moving to europe or something
where what’s happening yeah you know
we’ve been in atlanta for like two
months so i should probably go to like
florida or something yeah exactly
now the same market we have a good thing
going on there so
our goal there is if everything goes as
planned and these stories keep working
out
maybe have a portfolio of three to five
stores um
and then hire an operator where we could
remove
you know todd or one partner and i just
have something that’s going around the
stores and operating them
nice i like that sweet
well we have a section called secret
sauce
and that is you know what’s what’s a
piece of advice you have for existing
owners that might help them
improve their businesses from your vast
experience so far
yeah i don’t have a ton of experience
owning the store yet
um so i think my
value more comes in for the people that
are listening
and getting you know trying to get that
first storm
tips going back to set that timeline how
much
you know what’s your learning timeline
set that cap
and then start taking action and build
out your
your action this timeline like for us
you know once we start taking action
it’s the first two months
all stores we don’t have any leads by
then we put together a mailing campaign
mailing campaign was going to be more
consistent we were going to do that
monthly since we ended up buying one
from the
first campaign we put that on hold and
we just launched
you know our second letter last week so
just get out there and take action right
like small action steps
literally every day just gets you so far
there’s a quote i had in my computer for
a long time
and i said ordinary things and
consistently over time produce
extraordinary results
just a reminder right like you don’t
have to get
to that end level tomorrow next year but
if you keep making these small
daily actions towards your goal you’re
gonna get there so whatever it is you
know
spawn a distributor signing up for
cla tell me start reaching out to
laundromat owners even if you don’t want
to buy those
tell them that you’re interested in
buying a store start talking to them and
just start
getting a feel for the industry and what
you’re going to deal with the walk
through stores
i mean there’s so much you can do before
you even make the decision to buy one
um yeah that would be my advice
yeah i love that that’s a good uh that’s
more on the pro tips which is advice for
for newbies which is awesome i mean
because i think it’s great advice and
again like i
love your uh your emphasis on you know
set a timeline and then start taking
action like to learn and then start
taking action and i like the uh
you know i even wrote down what you said
your quote forget the quote that’s on
your computer your quote
of taking small action steps every day
you know we’ll take you
it’s going to take you far um and that’s
true right and i think it’s hard for us
to think about
like okay if my goal is to like buy a
laundromat
well that can be like really
intimidating right
but if you break it down into small
action steps that you can take every day
like contact
you know a laundromat owner a day it’s a
small action step like send a letter
uh you know to a few laundromats or you
know
sign up for the cla or jump on the forum
and
ask a question or you know small action
steps but if you’re doing them
consistently
like you said that’s that’s the path to
accomplishing huge things right like 30
plus
units in in three years like that’s
incredible that’s like crazy
um and awesome uh well i want to go back
to secret sauce because i feel like
you sold yourself short a little bit
there because
while you may not have or maybe i set
you up to sell yourself short
with my little joke about not having a
ton of experience but
um while you may not have a ton of
experience owning a laundromat first of
all you have a ton of experience owning
investments
but i i really think that for
you a big part of your secret sauce like
it’s a theme that’s run
all throughout your whole story is uh
you know having like your whole not
being the smartest person in the room
you know networking one of the uh
one of the um i’ve mentioned him on the
podcast before one of the guys i love to
listen to is dan sullivan
um from strategic coach and one of the
things that he always says is think
who not how and actually i think he just
came out with the book
who not how um which i haven’t read but
i will read because i love
what he says but um you know it the
basic concept of it is like
hey you know i want to get into
laundromats and it’s not
don’t think okay how can i do that think
who can help me
make that happen and that’s exactly what
you did right you like you went to your
first friend in michigan
he said okay he can help me make this
happen but you found out that wasn’t
gonna work so then you thought okay who
else can
help make this happen you found your
friend in atlanta
and you know you guys jumped into it
together and
and there you go right like it’s you
have a laundromat and
you’re off to the races listen up it’s
the secret sauce
yeah yeah i’m problem solution
right like and somebody’s laid out the
model before you
like one thing i’ve realized you know
you’re not recreating
the wheel or doing something that hasn’t
been done so find the successful people
that are doing it
model them and start taking action
i mean one you know i think i told you
like i picked up where i listened to
your
your podcast last may and that was the
first time i listened to a laundry mat
podcast
or um that was kind of the first time i
started learning about laundry math
and i mean here we are not even a year
later
and we’re looking to purchase our second
one it’s not like we
we didn’t do anything special right
we’re just following the steps that you
take
to achieve your goals and get to where
you want to go
and here you are the pinnacle of your
life
on the laundromat resource podcast
there’s nowhere to go but down from here
i know so we’re gonna have to grapple
with that after this is over
i don’t know uh no but seriously i mean
that’s
that’s what it is right like i love
hearing that
because like i said i talk to a lot of
people who you know
will listen to the podcast for years or
who will research
who will engage on the forums or who
will read or who watch youtube videos
and never end up owning a laundromat or
a real estate investment or whatever
it is that they’re you know that they’re
into and
and that’s not really to fault them
because it is scary right like that
first step
that’s a scary step to take but i love
what you said earlier when you said
you know if you’re too afraid to take
that first step
find someone else who isn’t afraid to do
it and partner with them
you know and just yeah you know borrow
their courage
basically um take that step but that’s
the whole problem solution
thing problem solution just there’s a
problem just find a solution to it right
like we couldn’t buy one in michigan so
on to the next market
and you know one other thing to note too
about the letters
like people that are afraid to call
stores if you send out letters those
people that
reach out to you are reaching out to you
for a reason you’re not making a cold
call
and then i think that can help a lot of
people get over that
kind of first year by reaching out to to
approach somebody to buy their store if
you do
send out letters that person
contacts you there’s some kind of
interest there they want to know
what can this person offer me or you
know
what angle are they taking so have the
conversation with them they’re most
likely going to be
somewhat welcoming if they’re reaching
out to you
yeah yeah that’s great and and the same
is true like if you pop into a
laundromat just drop a letter off
whether you talk to somebody there or
not
i encourage you like just drop a letter
off with them and introduce yourself and
let them know
what you’re looking for and that you’re
interested yeah you never know what
country
i mean like think about it if somebody
reached out to you or me
like looking at this from a year ago
like yeah you’re nervous calling that
first door but if somebody called
me and i’m sure you and said hey i’m
looking to buy my first laundry
laundromat
i’d actually be very interested in like
hey
what made you call my store like how far
along in the process are you
yeah and like you know even if you’re
not going to sell it that your store
doing
probably give them a couple good tips
absolutely
yeah and i found the same you know goes
both ways actually and if you
um one of the things that makes it
easier i found for a lot of my coaching
clients to reach out is
come with a you know yes with
you know a message that hey i’m
interested in buying
but also have something to give too so
like if they’re not interested in buying
say okay yeah no problem let me know if
you if you become interested down the
line because i’m looking
you know just remember me and here’s
something that i found
valuable you know for me it’s easy i’ll
you know i’ll mention my podcast or my
website or whatever
the forums and you can you know you can
do that too
but it could be whatever something that
you feel like might be valuable for that
owner and then all of a sudden it’s not
like hey i’m trying to get something
from you
it’s like hey i have something to give
to you too so if you’re not interested
in selling no worries
check out this article or check out this
podcast episode or check out this video
that might help you you know with your
business and that way it feels a little
more like you know mutual it’s abundance
mindset right there
exactly that was a very good point yeah
all right we have another section called
recommended resources
uh you got any resources you might
recommend to help people grow their
business or
just themselves personally yeah yeah so
i mean for the laundromat
business um you know like i said first
podcast i listened to
it was yours i’m gonna plug your podcast
on your podcast
that’s what i’m talking about
good looking out right there i got i got
you man um
this the cla the coin laundry
association like i was hesitant to pay
the 300 bucks to sign up for it
and i can’t tell you how many times a
week i’m on there i
post about once a month like asking
about my like asking about marketing and
asking about machines
anything and i mean you get all types of
response from all different types of
owners
all over the country which is awesome
it’s just a cool forum you can go on
um and see what other people are doing
for
you know how they’re growing their wash
dry fall business or
they’re having issues with customers how
to raise reviews
that’s the cla has been a huge uh huge
huge resource for us and for the growth
mindset
you know i said i was in the go
abundance mastermind group
um for people that don’t know what that
is i mean it’s an entrepreneurship
accountability networking group that’s
growth minded
and all aspects of life right like a lot
of guys that join that
have already figured out the finance
vertical of their life but they haven’t
figured out the relationship the
spiritual
contribution giving back so just
becoming a more
long rounded person i’ve been a part of
that group since 2019 and
you know it’s one of those things just
surrounding yourself with the right
people
um helps keep you in the right mindset
all the time and
challenges you and helps you grow so
yeah i’ll tell you beforehand i’m super
jealous that you’re in go abundance
because i
i got my eyes set on that so i’m working
on it
come on man let’s go i know i gotta get
in there
i gotta get in there so uh that’s
you already did the research i’ve done i
know
in fact i’ve already made the decision
like i’m i’m in
uh you know i just i have some other
decision makers
to pull along you know with me so yeah
that’s
that’s where i’m at with that one so
it’s a process it’s a process i’ll get
there
but but now it’s out there so you can
you can hold me accountable to that
speaking of holding people accountable
yeah right i know i love that uh all
right dude this has been
this has been awesome like i’ve like
thoroughly enjoyed this because you’re
doing things
way like you’re you’re literally in your
rv right now
uh doing this podcast as a laundromat
owner as a real estate investor out in
the middle of the desert uh just loving
loving life and and looking for your
next location to take your rv out to
and it’s so it’s so cool to just see the
different ways that people
are doing this thing and are enjoying it
and not only that but you just
you brought so much like
wisdom and just good solid
advice and not even advice but just like
good solid
like ah like yes like like
advice man like i’m just i’m so pumped
right now
uh just after talking to you because the
way that you approach
uh life and the way that you approach
business and the way that you’re
approaching you’re investing is just
i think that’s what a lot of us are
striving for right it’s like
we want that freedom that comes with uh
you know having the financial side taken
care of
for one but also just having a mindset
that allows that freedom
right if you if you don’t have that
abundance mindset it’s really hard to
get the freedom that we’re all looking
for
and uh i just love you know all the
things that you’ve
shared and how you got there um and
thing and it’s in it what i love about
it is that it’s things that we can all
do right it’s like nothing
nothing not not in a bad way but nothing
special about you
that you did different that that other
people can’t do this is duplicatable
i was like trying to speak it out with
yeah yeah yeah
uh well anyway appreciate you saying
yeah but i do i hope i added some value
honestly like
tons of giving back whenever i can and
uh yeah well i regret saying that what
if people
want to get a hold of you and uh maybe
ask you some questions or
maybe you want to hit a ride with you in
your rv or
yeah or whatever is there a good way for
them to get a hold of you
all right so our instagram handle it’s
being there and my girlfriend is my
nomad pad mri
um and then you can reach out to me via
email
literally at any time uh thomas t
h o m a s middle initialism
and donnelly d o n d-o-n-n-e-l-l-y
8-4 at gmail so yeah don’t be afraid to
reach out
um you know that’s that’s i’ve realized
that’s the best way to teach
people to reach out and then we can just
set up the time to talk
you know i’m happy to share the letter
that i’m sending out i didn’t let i
just give them the value that i can dude
love that
love that well thanks man appreciate you
coming on and there definitely was a ton
of value
and even if which is not going to be the
case but even if nobody else got a ton
of value out of it
i did i know a ton of people pretty much
everybody who listened to this is going
to have something to take away from this
because it was
it was a top-notch episode so i really
appreciate it and cannot wait to hear
how the journey goes when you get your
new machines in and your next
mailer campaign and you just got a lot
of cool exciting stuff going on so i’m
looking forward to hearing the update
here in the future appreciate it man
awesome man yeah thanks for having me on
it’s a pleasure
anytime all right we’ll talk to you
again soon all right what a
super super cool episode that was i mean
tom is i mean it’s like that whole
lifestyle design thing right he is
designing the life that he wants he’s
living it and he’s
he’s investing in a way that allows him
to live uh
life the way that he wants to live it so
he’s truly designing his lifestyle
so very cool very inspirational i took a
lot of inspiration from that
because i have some interesting things
that i want to do with my
life and you know always trying to
figure out okay how can i set my
investments up to
to give me the freedom and flexibility
to do those things so very cool that
he’s doing that
and super cool that he came and just
shared all this wisdom
and and a lot of his mindset stuff too i
loved
love love just his mindset stuff now
every week i encourage you take one
thing
one thing that you can take from this
podcast
and put it into action because we can
learn
and and you know listen and watch videos
and read all we want and we could learn
a bunch of book knowledge stuff
but if we’re not putting it into action
it does it’s not going to get us where
we want to go right so pick one thing
put it into action for me this week the
one thing that i’m going
to just take away and try to put into
action i loved
like absolutely loved
his concept of you know he says i give
myself a set number of time to do my
research
and then i make a decision and then i
take action and i just
love that formula and i think i would
benefit from doing that
um not just my laundromats my business
stuff but
in a whole bunch of areas of my life
really uh where i can kind of
tend to drag my feet um and
i just love hey okay i got two weeks to
you know do what i need to do or three
months or whatever the case may be
then i need to make a decision and then
once i’ve made a decision i need to take
action on
that decision keep things moving forward
uh
love that absolutely loved it all right
hope you gained a ton
from the 50th episode of the laundromat
resource podcast
cannot wait to see you next week for
number 51 where we start the back half
of our first century
of podcasts all right all right guys
we’ll see you
next week on the laundromat resource
podcast
this is jordan peace
[Music]
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