126. 5x Your Commercial Laundry Delivery Business

Jordan Berry [00:00:01]:

Hey. Hey. What’s up, guys? It’s Jordan with the Laing of my resource podcast. This is show 125.

Jordan Berry [00:00:07]:

And I’ll put you here today if you’re just today. I got back on the show, David Laing, who you guys loved, by the way, last time he was on and and I did also. Which is why we had him back on. And in fact, since he’s been on, which was not that long ago, actually, he has continued to just grow his commercial corporate pickup and delivery side of the business. And so we get into a lot of exactly how he has done that. So if that’s something that you are trying to do right now, we’ve got something super special for you. You’re gonna wanna listen to the very end. This is dude, I’d I’m not gonna spoil it for you. Just make it to the end of this episode and I promise if you are trying to grow the you know, the corporate commercial side of your pickup and delivery business. This is the episode for you, and there’s an opportunity for you at the end that I am very excited about. And you’ll see kinda what that is at the end of the episode. So make sure you get that. That’s gonna be today’s fast lane tip is make it to the end of this episode, especially if you are either currently or, soon to be interested in getting those salons, massage parlors, restaurants, yadayadayada. If you’re looking to get that business in your pickup and delivery or drop off service, Negative to the end. That’s your fast lane tip today. Let’s jump into it with David because this son is jam packed with a lot of very technical information. He’s gonna tell you exactly what he does to grow his pickup and delivery business, and it has grown hugely, which he’ll share about and he’ll show you his numbers also. Alright. Let’s get into it with David Lang. Once again, right now. David, Lang. Welcome back on the show. How are you doing?

David Laing [00:01:50]:

Good day, sir. I’m doing well. Thank you.

Jordan Berry [00:01:52]:

It is awesome to have you back on. We have been talking since you have last been on. And, you’ve got a lot happening over there, and we are gonna chat about that. But real quick, just, checking in on how things are going up in the GreatWhite North, lately.

David Laing [00:02:11]:

It’s nice. Weather’s finally nice. It’s nice and hot. So we liked it. Yeah. Hasn’t slowed down business either.

Jordan Berry [00:02:19]:

Oh, that’s that’s good. That is good. That’s the that’s the real question. We’re over here.

David Laing [00:02:24]:

Yeah. Absolutely.

Jordan Berry [00:02:26]:

Her earthquakes and all kinds of weird stuff happening.

David Laing [00:02:28]:

Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:02:31]:

It’s been a lot of fun. It’s been exciting over here.

David Laing [00:02:33]:

Oh, I can imagine. Yeah. Actually,

Jordan Berry [00:02:36]:

this week, we had during the hurricane, both were very minimal, in terms of their impact around here despite what they’ve been saying on the media. So

David Laing [00:02:47]:

Yeah. I’ve been kidding.

Jordan Berry [00:02:48]:

Anyways, business has been going good. So that’s what we’re here to talk about. I mean, you were telling me about what’s going on with your business. And I was like, dude, are you willing to come back on and tell us how, like, what’s happening and how you’re doing what you’re doing. And you’re like, yes, let’s do it. And so it actually, we’ve been talking a lot about this, even more recently. So, and we’re gonna get into what that is. So make sure you stay to the end of this episode, because some cool stuff going on and some cool opportunities coming up. So let’s start with, business. Can you give us a quick recap? Just a short thirty second version of your story getting into the industry, and then we’ll go from our last episode to this one.

David Laing [00:03:30]:

For sure. So, I’m an airline pilot and I had some rental properties, a year and a half ago. I decided that it was tough to find another rental property. I I didn’t decide. It just is tough to find a rental property. And but I decided that, I wanted to get into the laundromat business. So, but 14 months ago, we bought our first laundromat, and, it’s been, a pretty exciting ride for the last year and a bit.

Jordan Berry [00:04:04]:

Yeah. I yeah. Well, you know, there’s it’s funny because there’s a whole boring businesses thing going around. Know, and laundromats are included on that list. And I get what they mean, but also, man, at least my laundromats are rarely boring. There’s always something always something going on.

David Laing [00:04:25]:

For better words. Yeah. I mean,

Jordan Berry [00:04:27]:

I get what they’re saying with the boring business thing, but man. At least mine, not boring at all. Awesome. Awesome. So you are, your laundromat is in, I mean, it’s not like a huge city. Right? It’s

Jordan Berry [00:04:41]:

—

David Laing [00:04:41]:

No. Yeah. No. It’s, it’s not. It’s we’ve got a 150,000 people here. We’re an hour, not even an hour west of Toronto. And, yeah, I mean, it’s a it’s a fairly affluent city There’s lots of jobs, lots of business. It’s a it’s a pretty robust economy here in Guelph Ontario. And, it’s been it’s been a good it’s been good for us.

Jordan Berry [00:05:09]:

Yeah. I

David Laing [00:05:10]:

think I feel like the demographics have been good, for you know, both the self serve side of the laundromat as well as the service side, like the washing fold pickup and delivery.

Jordan Berry [00:05:22]:

Well, and that’s what I really wanna talk about if you don’t mind. Cause as we were talking, you were telling me about what you’re sort of pick up a delivery, wash dry fold stuff is Laing, and specifically on the commercial side, of things. And I was just kind of blown away. So, you know, take us from from the last time you were on the podcast to today and tell us what’s been going on with your with your pickup and delivery business?

David Laing [00:05:52]:

Yeah. So we, Well, when we when we first, when we first took over the laundromat, we had, we inherited a few corporate accounts. There was a few hair salons and a few massage therapists. When we originally bought the business, there was a really I had talked about this on the last one. On the last podcast, we had it was just one really big customer, which we didn’t get the benefit of when we took over. So, unfortunately, we took over a business that was struggling. And, we, you know, over over time, while over the last 13 months, we’ve been able to improve that dramatically. And, so I don’t remember what the numbers were on the last podcast. But when we took over, in July of last year, July of

Jordan Berry [00:06:48]:

2022,

David Laing [00:06:51]:

I build out

Jordan Berry [00:06:51]:

$1400

David Laing [00:06:53]:

the 1st month. And now we’re regularly Laing around

Jordan Berry [00:06:57]:

$8000

David Laing [00:06:57]:

a month for the corporate. And, so it’s been and we’ve seen growth on the on the self serve side as well. And as well as on on the pickup and delivery. The pickup and delivery before was, like, the residential side was basically nonexistent. And now it’s, we we have regular pickup and delivery residential customers every week, and it’s, you know, what I like about that is because we have a fairly robust corporate Washington Fold operation where we have a driver going around the city Monday through Friday on regular routes, doing all the regular pickups, we’re able just to slot in new residential orders that come in. So any orders that come into the website or or people that phone in, we can just say, yep, you know, this driver going out tomorrow, so they can hit that house. So it it the in there’s a benefit to having that regular route happening every day because it makes the incremental pickup and delivery cost of new residential orders you know, very low because your driver’s already out.

Jordan Berry [00:08:15]:

Yeah. That’s awesome. Well, I had to while you were talking, I had to pull out the old phone and pull up the calculator app. And

Jordan Berry [00:08:24]:

1400

Jordan Berry [00:08:25]:

to $8000 in just over a year. That’s like a 5 70 percent plus growth, in in that corporate business account. So I’m curious, like, what what do you attribute that success to? Because, I mean, I think a lot of people who are trying to get started. And like you said, like, you you got punched in the get, you know, right from the get go, especially on that sort of corporate laundry service side of the business, right, and you lost that big client, basically, before you even got started. Right? And so Yeah. How I mean, how do you recover from that? And then how do you push and continue to grow, that that business there?

David Laing [00:09:14]:

You know, when we first, when we first, decided that we wanted to buy a laundromat, the goal was always to build the Laing fold the the service side. And so we were okay with buying a laundromat that didn’t have one that existed at all. We ended up buying one that had a small Washington fold operation, and it actually was a a decent one with the big account And when we did a risk analysis, like, we kinda did a a SWAT analysis as part of our our due diligence and said, okay. Well, there is the chance that we lose the really big customer. Like, it accounts for the majority of the Washington fold revenue, and we have to be okay with losing that. And and we, you know, My wife and I decided, well, you know what? The the goal has always been to build it ourselves. So, you know, that’s that’s what we’re gonna do. And, So that’s, you know, that’s what we had to do. Thankfully, there were small accounts already, like, outside of that big account, there were small accounts. As I said, we build 1400 that 1st month, which is, you know, it’s not a lot. And it barely covered barely covered the labor. Yeah. But We I reached out to all of those customers, and, they’re most they’re mostly massage therapists and and a few hair salons. And, we said, look, I just wanna introduce you and introduce myself. I’m the new owner of this business, of this service. And, I just want you to know nothing’s gonna change, you know, for the next while. So I just, like, I’m just Just wanna introduce myself. If there’s any problems, here’s how to get ahold of me. And, so we just kept everything the same as far as pricing and service. So that they got comfortable with us. And then I went out and started onboarding new customers at a higher rate because that the price that the previous ownership had set was losing money. So, we right away had to raise the prices on on on any new customers coming in. And then ultimately, at the end of the calendar year, we raised the price 50% on all of those existing corporate customers. And I had struggled quite a bit on how to do that. So so again, I I don’t wanna say that that 570% growth came solely from bringing in new business Part of it was raising the price on, existing business But we amazingly, when I contacted all of the existing customers, and I told them that the new rate going forward in 2023 was gonna be 50% higher. I only got 2 phone calls, out of like, eight people. So two of them called and said, you know, this is a tough pill to swallow. And I said, I get it. I struggled for a long time on how to do this, whether we do, like, the band aid approach or or incremental, you know, I said I I understand. It’s just, unfortunately, it’s it’s what we have to do. Because it was just ludicrously low before. It was Laing. Like, nobody can make a dime, but, like, you can barely even pay your stuff at what what the rate was before. So those two people got it and we actually we gave we for the 2 of them, I said, look, why don’t I’ll give you a few months at 25%. More, and then we’ll go to the full rate in a little while. That lets you, like, raise your prices or do whatever you need to do, you know, to adjust. And they were both happy with that. They were like, great. Actually, one we lost one customer. She was a a smaller massage therapist, and she said, you know what? I’m kind of easing out of my business anyways, so this is a good time for me to duck out. So but other than that, it was it amazingly was great. And no and all the other, customers like that, that’s, you know, they had no problem with it. So raising prices was one way that we did it, and the other way has been, a combination of onboarding new customers through, attracting through through our website Laing, Google ads. We run Google ad campaigns. Cold outreach and social media. So we’ve been able to pick up a few accounts using, through Facebook and Instagram. And not even paid campaigns, just just organic reach. So,

Jordan Berry [00:14:08]:

—

Jordan Berry [00:14:08]:

Who’s running that for you?

David Laing [00:14:11]:

So the the I’m doing the social media and myself, and I’m doing the cold outreach myself, and my one of our partners in the business, my bro he’s my brother-in-law, He’s running the Google Ads. He’s actually a Google Ads manager. So we have the benefit of using his expertise to run our campaigns.

Jordan Berry [00:14:34]:

That’s awesome. Okay. So we’ve got we’ve got a combination of bringing in new business and you’re getting those through sort of a variety of methods, you know, from running some ads. You got cold calling going on, and you’ve got, social media stuff happening. And so you’re raising prices. You’re getting new customers. You’re starting to you know, get that snowball working. You know, what’s really interesting too, actually, this just hit me. So, there’s a a book that just came out called a $100,000,000 leads, which I highly recommend, that you I’ll put a link to $100,000,000 leads book in the in the notes there. And it’s funny because I don’t typically think of It’s a it’s a sales book, like how to get sales. And, I don’t typically think of under mats when I think of you know, sales and getting leads and stuff like that. But as you’re talking, I’m like, dude, this is this is great. And a lot of what this book talks about is stuff that you’re actually doing. So it’s really cool. And I wanna dig a little bit into the details of because one of the things that we talked about in your last podcast episode is that you guys are I love how you have set your business up. In fact, if you haven’t listened to David’s last interview. You should go listen to that one first, or at least right after this one. And, I’ll I’ll put a link to it down below also or in the show notes. But one of the things that I love is that you’ve set your business up. And, again, this is a relatively small laundromat. It’s not in a big

Jordan Berry [00:16:21]:

—

David Laing [00:16:21]:

Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:16:21]:

—

Jordan Berry [00:16:21]:

you know, big giant urban centers or anything like that. And you’re but you’re running it very professionally. And I loved that. That’s what psyched me up about your episode, when you came on before. And I think that that has been a huge, a huge part of your growth in this pickup and delivery services that you are you are conducting yourselves, professionally as your business, but you’re also, like, portraying yourselves to clients and customers and potential customers, as a very professional laundry service company. And so and, you know, I, you know, again, we’ve been talking a lot about what exactly you’ve been doing and you know, you’ve been you’ve been kinda systematizing this for yourself, which has been very cool. So I I thought we could just jump into a little bit about you know, when we talk about professionalizing a laundry service business, I think for I’ll speak for myself. Hard to envision what that means exactly. And what exactly do I do to professionalize? But you’ve, I mean, That’s what you’re doing. Right? So I’m curious, like, what what are the things that you’re doing that are is helping you build a professional laundry service that’s portraying yourself as that that’s able, you know, allowing you to grow

Jordan Berry [00:17:50]:

570%

Jordan Berry [00:17:52]:

you know, where your current clients are okay with you raising your prices by 50% and you’re able to onboard new clients 50% higher than your old clients were onboarded on. Right? So talk to me about what what you’re kind of the system you’ve got going on that you’re doing, you know, to help you achieve this kind of growth.

David Laing [00:18:14]:

Yeah. Well, I think it starts with being professional in your branding. So so our our our branding from from day 1 was we we worked with a, a branding company in Australia, and we had our website designed by them as well. It’s called Sask Watch Digital, and and, if anybody’s interested, I can put them in touch. They did phenomenal work on our on our branding or logo and the website website looks fantastic. And then so and then because we’re we’re having people we’re having potentially large corporate customers, while corporate customers of all sizes really coming through and looking at our website, and I want them to feel comfortable that we’re professional enough to be a part of their business process. You know, people have to be feel good and comfortable that they’re going to get what they need on time and to the quality that they demand. So, I mean, that’s their livelihood.

Jordan Berry [00:19:33]:

I pause you right there? I mean, I think that was a — Yeah. That was a huge bomb you just dropped right there. Like, I I just That’s a that needs to be a perspective shift for anybody who’s trying to do corporate commercial, you know, laundry service, where you become a part of their business system. And so in order to, you know, for a business to entrust a part of their system, their process to you, you need to demonstrate that you’re worthy of being a part of that. System and process. And like you said, starting with the branding. That’s the first impression. Right? That’s the, you know, that’s your on your dating profile. That’s your picture that decide to put up there, and they’re gonna decide which way to swipe, right, or or whatever.

David Laing [00:20:20]:

Yeah. That’s right.

Jordan Berry [00:20:21]:

You gotta have, you know, professional branding, something that looks good. And that communicates, hey. You know, you can entrust us as being a part of your business system, your business process. I just I thought that was a huge golden don’t know. I don’t really like the golden nugget phrase, but it really was a huge play and a perspective shift that I think could serve all of us well to to think that way that we are actually inserting ourselves into, you know, a system that a a current business already has when we take on a corporate or commercial client.

David Laing [00:20:58]:

Absolutely. I love that. Absolutely. It’s like, it’s like you’re a supplier. You know, you’re they’re gonna shop around and find the best, quality supply. You know, that’s what we’re doing is we’re supplying something that they need inside their business. So I think that that’s where it started. And then, I guess, so the question was, how did we go ahead and do this? It started there And then, as I started doing, I started doing cold calls.

Jordan Berry [00:21:32]:

Yeah. Let’s let’s start with the outreach. Like, how how are you actually Who are you targeting and how are you getting ahold of these

David Laing [00:21:39]:

people? So the the majority of the new customers we brought in have been through our Google Ads campaigns. So the return on that spend has is just it’s phenomenal. Like, it’s we spend it used to be at the time, with most of the time, it’s been

Jordan Berry [00:22:02]:

$500

David Laing [00:22:03]:

a month on our Google ads. And we’ve got since stopped it to 700, and we’re finding it’s a little bit more optimal at that. For us, in our market. So it’s really not that it’s not that much. But, you know, we’ve added 1000 of dollars to our monthly recurring revenue on, on on just the corporate side alone. And and actually that

Jordan Berry [00:22:27]:

700

David Laing [00:22:28]:

includes campaigns for self serve and residential. So not all of that is attributed just to corporate. So the actual return on ad spend just on the corporate campaigns is, you know, many multiples. So yeah, so Outreach is is primarily has been Google Ads people coming through our website. We’ve also had good success we’ve picked up

Jordan Berry [00:22:57]:

4

David Laing [00:22:58]:

accounts through social media, just free social media, just and I’m not I need I need to post more or I need to find somebody to post for on our behalf. You know, I’m doing it myself, and I’m I’m I’m lucky if I do 3 in a week. You know, it’s it’s more like once a week, really, on on Instagram, and Facebook, I mean, Facebook. So where we’ve had success is on Instagram. Instagram has brought us. It was initially one massage therapist, and she works out. And what’s nice is, a lot of times, these, massage therapists and natural paths and osteopaths, they work in the same office. So oftentimes, they’ll start they’ll start sharing information. Say, hey, you know, every Tuesday, this guy comes and picks up our laundry, you know, do you want in? So she actually sent us one of the other massage therapists in her office. And, you know, that’s that’s kind of a nice nice referral. And then we also picked up through, Facebook, we picked up a local baseball team, So we do all of their jerseys. For the summer, it’s like the local, you know, minor league, team. And, but it has it’s nice because there’s partnership opportunities there, and they get about 10,000 fans a season through the season. We have a few 100 every game, like 500 a game. So that allows us we can get in front of eyeballs that way. And then there’s there’s been cold calling. Cold calling has been I’ve had some success with it. I I would say the best you’re gonna put any do anything, I would spend the time on branding and, website and Google ads, but certainly cold Laing. What cold calling did was it helped me identify some of the pain points in our, customer’s world, and it put me in touch Like, I was able to speak to some of the owners of these businesses where we’ve been Laing. We’ve been targeting massage like massage therapists are awesome. Like, they’re, they’re so good because their sheets are fairly small and quick to fold and quick to wash. You know, it’s it’s all like they some don’t even have fitted sheets and and they’re small, so it’s it’s not like it’s a big king-size sheet. It’s it’s like, you know, for the massage small massage tables. We really like them. The the only trouble with them is the the oil sometimes can be hard to get out. So we have, but we have special things that we can use for that. And, yeah, so that that’s that’s been, so we I have long story short. I have up a couple of customers using cold outreach. So, and then what I noticed was as we were doing this. Sorry. Yeah. No.

Jordan Berry [00:26:03]:

Yeah. Go

David Laing [00:26:04]:

ahead. Did I answer the question? Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:26:05]:

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

David Laing [00:26:09]:

Yeah. So — So, basically, yep. Yeah. Yeah. What I noticed was that as as I was going through this process, whether it was people reaching out to me or or me actually, getting in touch with someone through cold outreach. There was kind of a a pattern in the sales process. And, basically it works. It I what I did was I started documenting it. I started documenting what I was doing in my sales activity because I was thinking, well, as we grow and down the road, I’d like to be able to actually train salespeople or a sales team. And, you know, if we expand into other cities, which is the it which is our goal, like like local community cities, you know, it’d be great to have a team of people making calls and going out and doing sales meetings and and landing corporate business for us. So I’d started documenting the entire process, and my sister was was going to help us as well, and, she’s she wants to get involved on the sales side as well. So I was like, well, you know, I may as well just put this all down into a process. And then as I made the created the process, I thought we’ll shoot instead of just having a PDF, you know, or or like a a Google, like a document with it written, I I created a tool, like an actual tool that we can use, in Notion. You know, Notion is a productivity app. I’m sure a lot of people are familiar with it. And, we can actually go through. So as I’m going through the sales process, I can refer to this tool, and it’s got all of my stuff that I need. It’s got, you know, email templates and and, marketing handouts and scripts and a CRM. It’s got tons of stuff.

Jordan Berry [00:28:04]:

Alright. So once you get, once you get a client or a customer who either, you know, through one of your ads or through a cold call or social media or whatever. And, you know, they reach out or or you get a hold of them or whatever. And they say, okay. Yeah. We’re interested potentially in your service. What what’s your next step? Like, what are you doing with them? There. Because getting a lead is one thing and converting that lead to a customer’s. It’s a that’s a skill set, in and of itself. So what are you doing to to initiate that process of converting them from a lead to a customer?

David Laing [00:28:38]:

Yeah. So, basically it’s this 5 step process as we talked about Outreach was step 1. So we’ve got a lead coming in now. Step 2 is what I call the laundry weigh in, and it’s basically a sales meeting. So the entire the entire goal of, step 1, responding to the person’s email, answering the phone, you know, or or cold outreach is to try to get, a meeting with them so that you can actually the the the idea is to give them an accurate estimate on what their costs are because what the laundry cost is gonna be for them because oftentimes the question is like, Hey, can I get a quote on laundry? You know, I’m I’m a massage therapist. I’m doing my all my laundry at home right now, and it’s really annoying because it spends you know, I I spent an hour a half every single night, what’s it gonna cost me to do laundry with you? So usually I ask them a few questions and I say, Hey, can we, I’d like to come by and, weigh out your laundry and and do an assessment so I can give you a more accurate estimate because it’s hard for me to do it otherwise. So so generally, there they got no problem with that. They’re like, oh, yeah. No worries. So we’ll set a time and a date and I’ll go and, basically assess their laundry and so I call it a weigh in. I actually bring a little scale with me and I’ll say, okay, so how many days worth of laundry is this? And, you know, they’ll be like, well, this is about 3 days’ worth or 2 days’ worth or whatever. And I’ll get a very, very accurately figure out what or by asking them what is it that we’re doing so they say okay well this this is one this is what I use for every single customer know, if it’s a massage therapist, it’s like the headrest cover, I have like a flat sheet, and then I have another sheet, and then I have a blanket on top or, you know, and then a towel or, you know, whatever. So I figure out what the product is that we’re going to be washing. I weigh it, and I figure, okay, so how many how many sets a week, how many customers do you see, and then we can kind of figure out what volume they’re doing and and what the weight is gonna be so that I can give them a more accurate estimate. So that’s the whole purpose of the meeting. You get some FaceTime And as I said, in my in my tool that I created in my Notion tool, I I call it laundry sales OS because it’s basically like an operating system for doing laundry sales. And, it incorporates a whole bunch of different, things into it, tools, and, and, you know, marketing concepts and everything, it all it is distilled into this tool, and so when I go to the laundry way in, I can u pull up I just have my phone and I can enter all this information. I have the questions right in front of me that I need to ask because I’ve done enough of these sales calls where I’m like, oh, shoot. I forgot to ask, like, what, if they want this or that, or, you know, there’s always like some detail missing. So, now I can just go through it and like, okay, this, this, this, this, and, and then it looks super professional. I give them a, like, a paper, marketing handout that has, you know, I I think it incorporates a whole bunch of awesome marketing concepts in it. It makes them feel at ease. It makes us look professional. And, you know, I can tell they like it. And then and so basically at the end of the sales meeting, once I’ve I’ve had some face to face with them, and I’ve kind of gone through their what their business is and what they need. And I’ve got all the details that I need. I’ll tell them, listen, I’m gonna go home, I’ve got everything that I need here, I’m gonna write up a quick summary of our meeting today, just take a quick look at that email for me, and let me know that everything looks right to you and then I’ll be able to send you a, proper estimate. So like, okay, cool. So I then go home. That’s now Moving on to step 3 of the sales process, which is, I call it the summary of notes or the deal builder email. Basically it’s it I think it’s it’s very often overlooked in in most sales processes, and I feel like it’s the linchpin to this process, like it should not be overlooked and it keeps the sales process moving forward in the direction you want it to go. It reduces the risk of, like window shopping, basically. Because the the problem is, you might get a lot of calls from inquiring potential customers saying, hey, you know, can I get pricing on this or that you know, they’re just shopping around, like, maybe this is something I would do, you know, I’ll I’ll think about it? What you want to do is set the expectation and say, I will put together a pricing for you. I’ll send you an estimate but if some if if one of these options looks good Here’s what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna go ahead and schedule a free trial. If it doesn’t look good to you, no problem, like we’ll just stop there. You’ve set the expectation that they’re going to take some sort of action. They’re either gonna say no, the pricing doesn’t look good to me. I’m out. No problem, or they’ll say, yeah, you know what? One of these things would work. That would totally work for my business. So, yeah, let’s go ahead and, keep things moving. So that keeps things moving ahead. Yeah. Real quick. Because you’re essentially a Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:34:36]:

Let me let me jump in because, I mean, I I love this. Right. So you have leads coming in from ads or cold calling or social media or wherever. Maybe your customer referrals. So you’ve got leads coming in. And I love the personal touch of going out, especially on a corporate client, right, a corporate account, that personal touch of going out and meeting with a decision maker of some sort. Right? It doesn’t have to be, like, the owner of the business or anything, but some sort of decision maker with the business. And, you know, number 1, you’re gathering information that you need to, you know, quote them out and everything like that. I love that you have this system, again, that you’ve put together this operating system that has all the questions you need to ask and all the things you need to do that’s in there for you to refer while you’re there and you I’m assuming do you fill it out while you’re there? You’re just asking them? Or how do you Yeah.

David Laing [00:35:31]:

I do. I I I used to go with a paper, like a paper

Jordan Berry [00:35:34]:

1.

Jordan Berry [00:35:34]:

Uh-huh.

David Laing [00:35:35]:

And then when I when I created the, this laundry sales OS tool. It’s it’s all in my phone now, so I literally just go through and, there’s like different check boxes and different fields that can fill out and stuff. So as I’m going through, I just asked them the questions and I just, you know, fill it out as I’m going.

Jordan Berry [00:35:52]:

Yeah. And I love the practicality of that. But I also love that that is I mean, that just shows your customer, your potential customer here. Like, okay. They have a system that they’re working through, and You know, they’re getting the information that they need. So they’re, you know, they’re gonna you just look like you know what you’re doing. Right? But also, so I love the practicality of meeting them face to face but I also love, like, I think specifically when it goes to btobbusinesstobusinessrelationships, that sort of interpersonal relationship thing. I think people negate that or

David Laing [00:36:26]:

downplay the importance of that, because

Jordan Berry [00:36:31]:

it’s It’s sort of this ambiguous, like, my business is doing business with your business. But even in B2B, it’s person to person. Right? This is a it’s a sales you’re you’re selling the person who’s the decision maker. Right? And so, you know, and one of the big tenants of sales is building rapport with you know, with your your, potential customer, your customers, and in understanding their needs. Right? And so I love that in person Laing. But then, I mean, I I think you nailed it with the linchpin comment. Like, this summary of the the meeting that you just had. You go home. You, you know, you throw it into, an email or whatever, a summary of the meeting. That just takes it up a notch in my book. Like, this is that is that communicates professionalism. It communicates that you you know, you understood their needs and that you have the capability of meeting their needs. And, you know, the, you know, the whole Listen. I I am no salesman, but, I’ve been, you know, making an effort to learn, you know, sales a little bit more. And, you know, just one of the things that I you know, scene is one of the core tenets of sales is that follow-up, right, the the fortunes and the follow-up. Right? And so just following up, and then by communicating them, hey. I’m gonna send this to you. Could you just respond and let me know that it looks Right. Number 1, allows them another opportunity to be heard. Number 2, it puts it on their radar that you’re gonna be emailing them. So they’re looking for your email, at that point too. And then number 3, it gives you another touch point with this client, another opportunity to build rapport. I just, I mean, I think that it’s money. Right? And I think that that extra little touch that you I mean, you nailed it. I think probably a lot of people don’t do that. But I think that extra little touch makes all the difference, you know, honestly. I think it makes a huge difference.

David Laing [00:38:32]:

Absolutely. And it also it also prevents you from accidentally getting the wrong you know, from grossly over quoting or under quoting. You know, if you if there’s something incorrect in the way you perceived you know, what their laundry needs were, you know, maybe they said we’re doing a £100 a week and you heard you know, £500 a week or something like that. You know what I mean? So, so you just make sure you’re both on the same page as well.

Jordan Berry [00:39:04]:

So Yeah. And I think that

David Laing [00:39:06]:

And they really appreciate it. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:39:07]:

I was just saying I think that that clarity plus commune like, good communication. Equals professionalism. Like, I think that that is really what it is. Right? You’re trying to be clear on what their needs are. You’re trying to be clear on how you can help them solve their needs. And you’re communicating well, both while you’re in person with them, but also, you know, through this follow-up summary email, and just making sure everything is clear and that you’re communicating well with them. I mean, I love it.

David Laing [00:39:34]:

Absolutely. Yeah. No. It’s it’s been powerful, and there’s a few other things in there that are pretty clutch that, I think are just are just powerful to to keep things moving along in that in that whole process.

Jordan Berry [00:39:48]:

One quick thing before you go on to your next step. I just wanna, like, I I don’t know. I I am a, you know, I take all the, like, the personalities has to whatever. And I am, like, high on the spontaneous and low on the plane drives my wife insane. Right? However, I have come to appreciate and realize the power of having the systems and doing the the same Laing, the right thing over and over and over and over. And so I just I want you to know that personally, as we’re talking, I’m getting more and more excited about this operating system that you have working because I mean, like you said, once you have something that, you know, works and you start tracking it and I mean, it’s just it’s repeatable. Right? Like, you can just copy and paste over and over and over. So I’m I’m loving this system. So we’ve got outreach. We’ve got your laundry weigh in in person meeting. You’re just going home and you’re sending a summary of email. So what comes next after you’re doing that?

David Laing [00:40:54]:

Yeah, then so once the person has seen your summary email and they’ve responded and said, yep, everything looks good, then I sent the actual estimate and so I in the in the estimate what I what I so as a result of the summary we now know what it is they need, what does they want, and, we can now give them a pretty accurate estimate, and I usually give them a menu of services, I give them a,

Jordan Berry [00:41:26]:

generally

David Laing [00:41:26]:

there’s like the the granted it’s the most expensive option, but it’s the highest value, and that’s the full service, pickup and delivery, Laing fold. And, I, I, we discounted a little bit from our residential rates, So I I even say like, you know, this will save you X amount, over the course of a year. It’s it usually works out to 1000 of dollars and, and, you know, it looks good. It’s the best value for them. And then I usually have a few other options as well, like, if they wanted to save a little bit, but they still wanted us to Washington fold, they could drop it off, so they could save a little bit there. Or, it, you know, maybe it’s just regs, and they don’t need them folded, like for a shop or something, we could do wash dry bag, for example, where we just we wash it, dry it, then just throw them in a bag. So there’s no folding that saves labor. You know, and then the cheapest option would be they drop off and pick up, and we just do the wash dry bag. So I usually give them, a menu, but the, generally, like, everybody just does the full service 1. So I I we had one person do the wash dry bag for a little while, and we we have actually we have one person I think that does the drop off was dry fold. But, you know, like

Jordan Berry [00:43:00]:

90 5%

David Laing [00:43:02]:

of people, I’ll do the wash dry, the full service option. So so that’s the estimate. Again, I give I give the menu I think that’s unique, not a lot of people do that, and we also, you know, it’s a it’s some people have different needs as well, like some some people have, you know, so we we try to work out what it is that they want and we try to figure day for them. Again, that’s all part of the, the meeting, but I reiterate that in the actual estimate email, and then at the end of the estimate email, I I lead them to the next step, which is you know, if if, let me know which of these looks good for you. Basically, if you’re happy with one of these options. I’d love to go ahead and schedule a free trial for you so you can test drive our service. You know, it’s no obligation. And so if people once we get to that point, if people are interested and, many are many are, I I like I I don’t know what the percentage is but often if you’re going out doing I like more often than not people want to go ahead with the free trial and we we do get them as a customer and there’s only been one person we’ve done the free trial for, like if we’ve actually gone and if they’re like, yep, I wanna do the free trial, Once we do the free trial, there was only one person, you know, out of dozens that didn’t wanna go ahead. All the rest. If we did the free trial, they were happy to come on as a customer. So once you get to that stage, it’s it’s a pretty low risk Laing, but I think it looks really good. Because, again, it’s another touch point. Like, you’ve had the initial outreach contact with them. You’ve had the laundry way in in person. You’ve had the summary email back and forth. You’ve had the estimate and now you’re scheduling the free trial, and then you have to deliver back the product and follow-up and say, Hey, how did you like it? Was it good for you? So, you know, by the end of the process, you’ve talked to them like six, seven times and you’re starting to get familiar with each other, which is nice. So again, for the free trial, once it comes for that if they say, yep, let’s go ahead and schedule a free trial. Basically, it’s a game time. We tell the staff, tell the driver, listen, this is exactly how this person wants it. This is you know, when you’re gonna pick it up. This is how you pick it up. This is how we’re gonna bag it. This is how we’re gonna fold it. This is how we’re gonna process it. And, you know, you delivered back at the agreed time and day, and once it goes back, then, you know, I let them know, Hey, you know, your stuff has been just been dropped off. Hope it’s great. Have a great weekend. You know, follow-up on Monday and say, Hey, you know, how did everything go? Are you happy? Is there anything we can do differently? And they’re like, no. Yeah. I mean, again, it’s it’s over the one person, everybody else is like, yeah. No. It’s it’s good. Let’s, schedule something going forward, you know, whether it’s once a week or once every 2 weeks or whatever they’re twice a week, whatever their situation is, so basically that’s the whole process start to finish and yeah, like I said, it’s in well, like you said, it’s it’s repeatable. I made it so that I could give it to a sales team. I can give it initially was to make it for my sister. I made it originally. I I originally documented it so I could give it to my sister. And because she said she wanted to help out in sales. So, you know, yeah, I mean, it’s a 100% repeatable, and you could, you could have sales guys out doing it and, earning commissions or whatever. And,

Jordan Berry [00:47:24]:

Is she doing it?

David Laing [00:47:25]:

I think it worked well. Is she — No. She’s she’s involved in another business right now, like like at home. She’s got a little one too.

Jordan Berry [00:47:31]:

Yeah. I’m getting vibes that she’s wheezing. She was I I she

David Laing [00:47:36]:

said I think she wants to do it, but I I get it. She’s got — Yeah. She’s got a 18 month old at home and she’s starting a new job. So — Yeah. That’s awesome. But

Jordan Berry [00:47:48]:

Well, listen, dude. I mean, I I’m super pumped about this. You know, I know a lot of people who either have you know, pick up a delivery or drop off, laundry service or who want to add that or who even adding that without owning a laundromat yet. Right? And so — Mhmm. You know, I think this is like a system like that that’s repeatable and, an effective is, I mean, I think that’s awesome. Right? And so, you know, as we were talking about it and I was looking at you sent me over to your operating system and I was like, man, this really, really good. It’s really clean. It’s got everything that you need, to get started. And we had started having a conversation like, Hey. This might help out a lot of other people. And so we went through a lot of iterations of what that might look like. We’ve talked about Laing that operating system. We’ve talked about courses and stuff and, you know, we well, why don’t you why don’t you just tell us kinda like, what have we landed on? What are we doing? And, how’s this gonna help people?

David Laing [00:48:53]:

Yeah. Well, I mean, like you said, we we we went through a lot of iterations of it. And, what we finally decided was to do this 8 week cohort based course and, I’m so excited to to get into this. Like, I so we we decided that we would do an 8 week cohort based course. So it would be with a class essentially instead of just having like video tutorials or video lessons, it would be live instruction, so we would all meet once a week you know, virtually. And, you know, a a small group would would go through the 8 weeks together. You know, people that want to, get themselves started with growing their business, through corporate sales, you know, which which is a nice predictable income, you know, and and maybe these are people that don’t have, a washing full business they’re not really sure because the question’s always like, well, how to, you know, how do I start? Do I just staff somebody there? 8, you know, 8 hours a day? You know, a whole people come in, like, how do I do this? You know, you could go out and start getting corporate sales you know, bringing a few, customers and whether it’s massage therapists or hair salons or Airbnbs or what have you. And, you know, how do you do that? And, and, you know, that’s that’s a a good way to get started, bringing in some predictable income, which allows you to build upon that

Jordan Berry [00:50:49]:

Yeah. And

David Laing [00:50:50]:

as you were,

Jordan Berry [00:50:50]:

as you were telling me, I mean, you’re talking about growing your, you know, growing your business 500%. And talking about this operating system. And I’m like, well, I mean, like, is this something that, you know, could teach someone else and you’re like, yeah, it’s repeatable and, you know, showing me everything. And I was like, yeah, this is totally repeatable. And I’ve been on this, I’ve been on this mastermind kick. Right? We have mastermind groups, that are available, you know, in the pro community, it comes with the pro community. I’m a huge fan of those. If you utilize a mastermind group, if your group actually meets, you know, weekly or biweekly or monthly or whatever you guys, whatever cadence you guys can like, I’m a huge proponent of that. I pay a lot of money to be in mastermind groups. I had a mastermind meeting this morning. Before we jumped on this, call, and I’m a huge proponent of that. And so we had started talking about this cohort Laing. And I was like, This is awesome because not only are they gonna get your operating system on how to actually do these you know, corporate commercial clients, which I don’t see anybody else teaching people how to do those, by the way. I’ve seen, you know, classes on on, you know, pick up and delivery and on, drop off laundry and stuff that, but nothing on the corporate specific. So I love that. I I was like, this is something that people need to, you know, get together and talk about. So You know, and I was like, this is awesome for people who are just trying to get started. This is awesome for people who have this business now and already have you know, drop off or pick up and delivery and want to grow it. And really what growing it comes down to is having these repeatable systems in place and why reinvent the wheel? Like, you’ve got something. It’s working. It’s grown your business. Over 500% in just over a year. And from almost nothing, and I was like, this is awesome. But not only did you get the operating system, you know, weekly, we’re gonna get together for 8 weeks. For 90 minutes. And, you know, we’re gonna be teaching through the operating system and all that, but also it’s this opportunity to meet with other people who are going through it and have that accountability, have that encouragement. We’re gonna have scoreboard so that you know, you make sure you’re checking off the activities. Right? We can’t always control the outcomes, but we can control the inputs And so we’re gonna be tracking the inputs and all of that. And I the more we started, like I said, we’ve gone through a lot of iterations of what this could look like. And the more we started merging towards the cohort Laing. The more I was like, yeah. This is kinda merging that mastermind with, of course, with just getting after it and and taking advantage of it. So I’m super excited about this. I mean, I know you’re you’re heading it up, but I’m gonna be at, you know, at these Laing. And, I’m gonna contribute, you know, when I can and where I can. And, I’m I’m super duper excited about it. But one thing I should say is that, number 1, we’re gonna start October 2nd, of 2023. So if you’re listening to this beyond October

Jordan Berry [00:54:11]:

2 2023,

Jordan Berry [00:54:13]:

you know, we probably have another one, you know, coming out. This, in my mind, this is iteration 1 of what we’re calling laundry service accelerator. Right? So that’s number 1. And number 2 is, you know, we wanna make sure this is awesome for whoever decides to join it. So it’s super limited. We’re we’re taking a max max. I don’t I don’t even know if we’ll take this many, but a max max of 10, people in this thing. For this first iteration. So, yeah, so I I don’t know. I’m super duper excited about it. If it’s something you’re interested in, check out laudermatresource.com/accelerator. And, again, that link will be in the show notes. If you’re on YouTube, it’s down below in the description. You can just go to a lot of my resource dot com slash accelerator and check out more information about that. But, anyways, I didn’t mean to cut you off, but I got super excited about this

David Laing [00:55:13]:

thing is,

Jordan Berry [00:55:15]:

I’m just, like, where do you have an opportunity to be a part of other professionals who are trying to do the same thing as you and — Mhmm.

Jordan Berry [00:55:26]:

—

Jordan Berry [00:55:26]:

we’re all just gonna be committing to meeting together once a week for 8 weeks to grow our businesses. And, I mean, the other thing that we talked about is like, hey, this thing is only valuable if it’s valuable. Right? So we talked about it, and we’re like, 100% money back guarantee. No questions asked. If you go through this thing, you do all the actions and nothing comes out of it, just tell us. And your money, there’s there’s literally no risk. We anticipate everybody who goes through it is gonna make multiples of whatever the investment is to get into it. And, I don’t know. I’m just decided. Okay. Sorry. I’ll turn it back over to you. Anything else you wanna say about it?

David Laing [00:56:08]:

No. That’s I Laing, I mean, you’re absolutely right. It’s basically a built in mastermind. You know, you’re you’re doing this course with others and there’s going to be it’s going to accelerate, and and create more potency in in what everyone’s trying to do because there’s gonna be there’s gonna be shared information. There’s gonna be shared experiences that can be learned and, every and and I think it’s also important to say that in addition to just the weekly, meeting, everybody will be in this in will be in a community. So the 10, you know, or however many, like, we’re saying max 10 right now. We’ll be in a community, where throughout the week they can share and connect and I think there’s gonna be a ton of value in, connecting with these people and, and, I mean, you know with masterminds and myself, just how powerful it can be, and it just accelerates the learning curve, and it accelerates everybody gets to where they want to be that much faster. So, I’m really excited to to have this community of people come together.

Jordan Berry [00:57:21]:

Yeah. One other thing that I wanna say is that because I’m so excited about it and because We both want this to be as valuable as possible. This is only gonna be for people who, number 1, are gonna commit to being at every meeting for 8 weeks unless they or somebody very close to them is on their deathbed. Right? Like, it’s gotta be a priority to be at these meetings. But number 2, this is not it it kind of is a course sort of, but it’s not really a course. It’s more of, like, it’s it’s action oriented. Right? So every week, everybody’s gonna have things to execute on to grow your business. Right? If you’re If you’re committing to meeting once a week for 8 weeks to learn how to grow this business, you’ve gotta take the actions to grow the business. Right? And so Listen.

David Laing [00:58:19]:

If you’re

Jordan Berry [00:58:19]:

at a point where you’re you’re not starting that or you’re not trying to grow that side of your business right now, or you don’t feel like you can commit to, to to doing some work, during this thing to grow your business. It’s no worries. No problem. Just probably not for you or at least not at this time. Right? Because this the the higher the caliber of us that are in thing, the more committed we are together, and that’s what I mean by high caliber. Like, we’re committed, to Laing the actions to showing up to not be in late. All those Laing. Right? Like, the more everybody’s gonna benefit, the more everybody’s business is gonna grow, and So I just I wanted to point that out because this is not like a willy nilly thing that we’re putting together here. This is for people who are excited about growing the corporate commercial side of their laundry service business. And that will be the aim of this. And our mission in doing this is to help you grow that. And so and like I said, We’re gonna give you all your money back if you don’t grow. If you go through it and you don’t grow it, which we’re a 100% okay with saying because we are a 100% confident that you’re gonna grow your business. Far more than any investment in joining this thing. So anyways, I wanted to point that out too because we want you to want you to commit to it. Want you to be excited about it. We want you to grow that business because it changes your life. I mean, that’s the whole goal here, right, is, like, Yes. Growing your business is fine. You know, bringing a little more income is fine, but the whole point of having a business The whole point of all of this, I think, is number 1, to, you know, serve your community well, to serve know, your customers well and to do that. And number also in 1 is to change your life, right, to accomplish your dreams, to realize your dreams, to you’d be able to use your time the way that you wanna use it. Right? So that is the whole goal of all of this is to serve your community well and to build the life that you wanna build for yourself. So those are I don’t know. I’m I feel like I’m just rambling, but I’m just very excited about this. And I’m hoping some of you guys are pretty excited about this too. So again, check out lunarmatresource.com/accelerator.

David Laing [01:00:45]:

David. Awesome.

Jordan Berry [01:00:47]:

Dude, I’m number 1, I’m super pumped for you and your business. Like, growing, you know, that that business that much in that short of time is a huge accomplishment, a huge feat, in and of itself. And, you know, pointing out that you’re doing it as You know, you’re you’re a pilot. You’re gone a lot. I always see you, like, posting pictures with your feet up in, like, Paris or Barcelona or something. I don’t know. But, you know, you and your team, you know, are they’re work you’re working. Like, you’ve got stuff going on too. Right? And so kudos to you, but double kudos for being willing to come on, share how you’re doing it. And if nothing else, you know, if you haven’t you’re not planning on joining the the laundry service accelerator, nothing else. Like, take take these steps that David has, outlined in helping him grow his business and start to incorporate that into your service business because it will help you grow. It will help you grow. So I appreciate you coming on and sharing all that stuff too. Any parting words of wisdom for us?

David Laing [01:01:58]:

Well, I mean, just thank you once again, Jordan. It’s always great to catch up with you and yeah, I just I just I Laing like you said, action is what drives the results and you know, imperfect action is better than no action. So just getting out there and whether it’s even just shoot, just po- posting on your social media, you know, even setting up your social media if you don’t have one, you know, just just that alone, you know, and just having some sort of commitment to, you know, what I’m gonna do? These two things every single week, you know, that’s the it’ll it’s amazing with whatever you do with consistency. What it can do to transform your business. So that’s all I got, sir. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [01:02:44]:

And I mean, I think I’ve I’m I’m gonna keep going here. Because I’m just pumping.

David Laing [01:02:48]:

Yeah. Absolutely.

Jordan Berry [01:02:49]:

I I mean, I think that consistency evolves into a system, right, if you can keep that consistency. I think it evolves into a system. So you can build a system for your business to improve and increase your business by choosing actions, the right actions to be consistent at. Right? Yeah. And I think the point of this cohort, this Accelerator, laundry service accelerator is to say you can build your own system and maybe some I’m sure some of you guys have your own systems already. Which is awesome. But why why reinvent the wheel? Because not only is that are those systems in place already and documented and able to just transfer to you? But you don’t have to do the work of building them yourself, but you also save yourself all the time. Like, it’s taken you over a year to you know, build the system, test it, make sure it works, see some results from it. So and and I think you know, just from my experience of talking to a lot of other people who’ve been building their businesses, I I mean, 14 months is on the very low side of how long it takes. I’m seeing more 18 to 24 to 36 plus months, to see the kind of growth that you’ve seen. And my question is, Why? Why not just shortcut that accelerate, if you will, that process of implementing these systems and starting to see that growth in your business? So that’s what I love about what you’ve done. And this has been all this has been all you. Right? Like, you built the system. You came to me and said, check out what I’ve built. Do you think this could be helpful to other laundromat owners and have taken that initiative? So kudos to you, hats off to you for, you know, doing both building it for yourself and then wanting to share it with other people. So I know I already said that, but I That’s what I wanna see more of in this industry is people, you know, helping each other out, build better businesses, serve, you know, our communities and our customers well. So I admire you and I appreciate you for doing that.

David Laing [01:05:02]:

Thank you, Jordan.

Jordan Berry [01:05:04]:

Awesome. Alright, guys. Hope that you got a lot out of this episode because I know that I did, and, hopefully, you can hear it in my voice. I am, I’m pumped about, David and about what he’s got going on and about this laundry service accelerator. So, again, none of this means anything unless you take some action. Maybe your action is to go to lawnresource.com/accelerator. And, you know, check that out over there. Maybe your action is to pick something that David talked about. Implement it into your own service, laundry service system that you got going on. Alright. See you guys on the next episode. Peace.