130. Bootstrapping a Laundry Business in the Backyard with Aprill and Shane Ashley

Jordan Berry [00:00:00]:

Hey. Hey. What’s up, guys? It’s Jordan with the Loan Amed Resource Podcast. This is show 130, and I’m pumped you’re here today because today, we have April and Shane Ashley on the show. And this one is a doozy. They started out with a pickup and delivery business and then moved into the laundromat space, they did it in a very unique way. And, so much good information comes out of this interview. It’s it’s so good.

Jordan Berry [00:00:26]:

I know you guys are gonna love it, get a ton out of it. Real quick before we jump into it. Number 1, I wanna say a huge welcome to all the new listeners out there, we’ve had a huge influx of people coming in and listening. So welcome to you guys. Hope you guys are getting, a ton of value out of these interviews. I know people are coming on here and sharing their experiences, their stories, and their secrets, trying to help everybody else out. So hopefully, that’s happening for you. The other thing I just want to mention real quick, some feature that we have in the pro community here that not a lot of people know about.

Jordan Berry [00:01:02]:

And just wanted to tell you real quick that when you’re in the pro community, you can actually see all the members of the pro community here. But then you can also filter by near you. And so it’ll show a list of all the people that are located near you. And you can see, if you’re on YouTube, at least, you can see here that all these people live near me in the pro community, which is pretty awesome. And so if something that you’re looking for is people to network with in your area, man, come join the pro community. There’s a ton of perks to it. Check out laundromatresource.com/pro to see all the perks. But one of the big ones here is the community self and the members that are part of this community, it has been by far the most rewarding, part of all of this is connecting with other people in this industry, the community is fantastic.

Jordan Berry [00:01:54]:

Mastermind groups are incredible. They’re changing people’s businesses, people’s lives. It’s been it’s

Shane [00:02:01]:

has been awesome. But anyways, I just

Jordan Berry [00:02:01]:

want to show that one little feature that I don’t think I’ve ever highlighted before, but you can actually search by members near you, you can send them a message on the platform. You can reach out to them and connect. And I know that’s happening a lot already in the membership there. Wanted to share that. If you’re interested in joining the pro community, laundromatresource.com/pro. Ton of perks there, but this is one of the cool ones that is it’s just underrated. And, it’s awesome. Alright.

Jordan Berry [00:02:26]:

Let’s jump into it with April and Shane Ashley and hear their story and learn from their experience. April and Shane, thank you for coming on the show. How are you guys doing today?

Shane [00:02:40]:

Oh. Doing pretty good.

Jordan Berry [00:02:42]:

Happy to have you to be here. Especially, this is not normally the Case, but we we’ve actually met before. Yeah? Can you tell us a little bit about that? Yes.

Shane [00:02:56]:

We met at the Cling show, this past summer in Atlanta. Got to spend a little time at your your booth there. It’s really nice. So

Jordan Berry [00:03:04]:

fun. And it’s

Shane [00:03:04]:

not normally the case.

Jordan Berry [00:03:05]:

A lot of times when I introduce people or when I interview people for the podcast, I’ve never met before. So it’s cool that it’s starting to get to that point where I’ve met some that have come on the podcast. So, very cool. Super excited to have you guys, and thanks for reaching out to to come on the show. Why don’t we start with Thanks. Who who are you people? Who are you guys? And, how did you get into the laundromat business?

Aprill [00:03:32]:

Well, we are Freedom From Laundry, and we’re just outside Chattanooga, Tennessee. So not Not in California any longer, although both of us lived in California years ago.

Jordan Berry [00:03:46]:

I

Aprill [00:03:47]:

was in Rancho Cucamonga.

Shane [00:03:50]:

Know? And we lived at, Palm Springs area.

Jordan Berry [00:03:53]:

I love Palm Springs in, like, the spring and fall. And the summer is

Shane [00:03:59]:

Yeah. Summertime is

Jordan Berry [00:04:01]:

That’s high. Yeah.

Shane [00:04:02]:

Way too hot.

Jordan Berry [00:04:03]:

Keep going. Sorry to interrupt. I got excited.

Aprill [00:04:07]:

It’s okay. That’s okay. Anyways, we’re just outside Chattanooga, and, I had spent many years actually designing and building custom homes and, yeah, small commercial buildings. And then, of course, there was the the whole crash of 708. And from there, I went into banking and also b to b sales. Love love b to b sales. But then I ran across this guy. Again, we had known each other about 15 years, but hadn’t seen him in about 10.

Aprill [00:04:39]:

We ended up getting married Hey. Almost 9 years ago. And so, yeah, he’s a good guy. So, about Four and a half years ago, was running an entire office for international company and came home and said, I’m kinda over this. I want to be self employed again. And he was like, what do you wanna do? And I started looking at all kinds of different businesses. And laundry was sort of in there, but, I wasn’t really sure about it. And then one day, I was going to the dry cleaner, And the I saw a van that said free pickup and delivery laundry service, and I thought it was coming out of the dry cleaner.

Aprill [00:05:20]:

So I asked The director said, so do you work with them? And she said, oh, no. She said, but, man, I wish we did because people come in here all the time asking for a laundry service. And I was like, really? I said, my husband and I are kinda thinking of starting a laundry business. And she’s like, oh my god. If you did, I could give you customers today. Today, I can give you customers. And I was like, really? And so I went home and said, hey, babe. I think we need to do a laundry service.

Shane [00:05:49]:

So that was how that started.

Jordan Berry [00:05:51]:

Feel like, Anne, my life has never been the same.

Shane [00:05:53]:

And then has not. So she’s wanted to dive into something, is really good about doing research And finding information about whatever direction we’re headed in. And spent a good bit of time just trying to find out who’s doing it, what are they doing, what does this even look like, what are the different avenues, costs, and stuff involved in it. So and then we found out there was really nobody in our area providing that service. And this area is, about 350,000 people with Chattanooga. It’s a pretty good medium sized towel, and it was it was just an open door

Jordan Berry [00:06:44]:

Yep.

Shane [00:06:45]:

As far as the laundry service goes.

Aprill [00:06:47]:

So I in my investigation, I found, 2U, laundry, and also the fold. And I am a huge believer in not Reinventing the wheel. And so I I believe we need to do what they’re doing. And Sometimes I feel like I know their business as well as they do because I’ve followed and followed and followed. And so that’s how we kinda started out. And, I quit my job within the month and said because I knew it was gonna work. I just knew it. And, like, because I he he said, I I dive in.

Aprill [00:07:21]:

I I dive in all all boy. And so I got with the Chamber of Commerce and got with, BNI’s groups and such and just started going, you know, business to business and such telling people, hey. This is what we got. This is what we’re doing. This is amazing. You should do it. And we literally have the many of the same customers we have today started with us the 1st month. We’re huge into keeping our customers happy.

Jordan Berry [00:07:50]:

We need to pause here for a second and go like, you are you just jumped into day here, and we need to go back a little bit. Okay. So first of all, you saw a truck pull out, you talked to 1 person at the dry cleaner, then you quit your job. Is that what I’m hearing, basically?

Shane [00:08:09]:

It yeah. Within within a short time period, it went from 0 to 60. And we were we were just I tried this. We didn’t have a lot of savings. So this was all shoestring. We had our little Nissan Cube, which quickly turned into our

Aprill [00:08:32]:

magnets.

Shane [00:08:33]:

Our delivery vehicle. And now this is in this is the last half of twenty nineteen. So around August, September, October, things started moving and pick up and delivery service. And she was asked to participate in a competition, in the with the local Chamber of Commerce, also, small business administration connections here in Chattanooga and, came in 2nd place at a competition that gave us a couple grand in prize money, Which we weren’t expecting at all and turned into bio laundry bags and more business cards and door hangers, which, we’re distributed all over the area.

Jordan Berry [00:09:30]:

Okay. Listen. We need to you’re still going too fast here. Because okay. Just just to clarify. So you guys started a pickup and delivery service, but you didn’t own a laundromat, you didn’t own a facility or anything like that. So when you say you quit your job and you started the business, what you mean by that is you quit your job and you just started picking up people’s laundry and and then doing what with like, what did you well, okay. Before we got to get to what what you did with it, I mean, what did you have to set up in the beginning? I I get asked a lot, like, can I start a pickup and delivery service? You know? And Mark Vlastkamp, who’s been on the podcast a few times now, and he started the fold that you mentioned, Jen, you know, he that’s the way that he started Mhmm.

Jordan Berry [00:10:20]:

With, you know, pickup and delivery. No laundromat. Dominique Boone, former podcast guest, same thing. And Mark now actually is like, man, that was a really hard way to go. I don’t know. Like, you better you you better be ready for it if you’re if you’re going that rate way. Right? So what did you do in order to actually set this thing up and and start. Like, if you were gonna start if you’re gonna advise somebody on how to start today, like, what would that look like?

Shane [00:10:52]:

Well, part of it was finding what we needed to contact our customers and keep, keep the business as far as who can contact us, whether it’s a website or even a phone number, we had we found somebody who had a pretty good system. Just he he had designed the system for his family and their laundromat so that they could operate a pickup and delivery service. And that was a very practical and economical way to go. That there was, the facility. We did not own a laundromat. So we we knew of a laundromat in our area. That was it didn’t seem like it was doing a lot of business, in the time that we were actually looking to to start this. So we got in touch with the owner.

Shane [00:11:55]:

He’s a local contractor here in the area. That’s one of his side gigs. So, he had a little office space next to the laundromat, that we were able to, secure it and rent it from him. And And then basically we were just feeding machines. Yeah. You know, we figured in the price of our laundry service, what we could do if that was the only thing that we had available was to feed these machines. And that worked out pretty good for starters. It it,

Aprill [00:12:32]:

It was it worked out pretty good because it gave us storage area. It gave us, we were able to, you know, not be carrying soap and fabric softener soap back and forth to a laundromat. We had our own private Office, if you will, next to the laundromat. And then and we worked out a deal with him that he gave us 20% off the machines. And so we did that for, several months, and then COVID hit. And that and that because by that time, we had several Airbnbs. We were working with a lot of Airbnbs pretty quick. And but then when COVID hit, all, of course, all the Airbnb stopped.

Aprill [00:13:11]:

And Within just a couple weeks of that, Chattanooga was hit with an Easter it was a Easter Sunday Tornado. Horrible, horrible damage to the area. It was it was pretty rough. We personally weren’t Affected, but the other side of town, there was a lot of damage. And so that hit on Sunday. And on Thursday, I get a phone call from what I thought was a Very young man, and said that we’ve got a a few crews coming in to help with the laundry. Would you be willing to help or helping with the cleanup? And would you be willing to help? Yes. Sure.

Aprill [00:13:53]:

Turned down a few phone calls later, it was the local EPB or electric power board, And they had 1500 workers coming in, staying at 24 different hotels for about 8 weeks. And so we quickly hired 14 people, and we took over the laundromat that we were using. We called the owner and said, look. We gotta close it to the public because of COVID. We need to help the tornado victims. He said not a problem. And for the next 8 weeks, we cranked it out 7 days a week. Just 1,000 and 1,000 of pounds of laundry.

Aprill [00:14:29]:

It was it was Who is it? Learned by fire.

Shane [00:14:34]:

That

Aprill [00:14:35]:

Yeah. And f it was it was crazy.

Jordan Berry [00:14:39]:

Okay. Alright. You keep going way too fast here. We need to back up a sec. I wanna know we gotta we we’re definitely gonna dig into that experience because that sounds you know, that trial by fire is Trial by tornado, I guess, is is wild. I’m sure there’s a lot to talk about there. But let’s back up before that still. So okay.

Jordan Berry [00:15:00]:

You you had a conversation with a lady, and then you quit your job and started a business. So okay. I love you had, you know, a platform for people to be able to contact you, and then you found a facility to work with. How how did you gain pickup and delivery customers without actually having any facility? No laundromat, no building, really, other than this little office that you rented, how did you actually acquire your 1st customers before, you know, you were sort of, quote, unquote, gifted the the customers on Easter Sunday.

Aprill [00:15:38]:

I love I love b to b sales, and I love people. And so I went to every Chamber of Commerce event that I could go to. I visited every BNI, which is Business Network International, And let them know what what we were doing. We had door hangers. I put out probably 400 door hangers. I mean, it literally, we were just we put posters up at every coffee shop. Again, bootstrapped everything because we we didn’t have, like, media. And I’m be totally transparent.

Aprill [00:16:13]:

I’m terrible with social media. So I’m try still trying to learn that. I’ve got a company that’s working with us on that. But, so, really, no social media. Just Hit the hit the pavement. Lots of walking, lots of talking, and and didn’t it grew and grew quick.

Jordan Berry [00:16:31]:

Well, what I love about that is so I I talk with a lot of this is not just in the laundromat industry, but this is business owners in general. And I talk with a lot of business owners, but laundromat owners, you know, who are trying trying to grow their businesses, whether that’s self serve, drop off, pick them, deliver, or whatever. Like, okay. Well, what have you done to start to grow your business? And a lot of times it’s like, well, you know, I’ve run some social media ads or I post on social media or I, you know, I did door hangers around the neighborhood whatever. And a lot of times, the, you know, the the bridge from where you’re at to where you wanna go is spanned by quantity. Right? It’s like, you know, okay. Like, you put out 200 flyers. Like, you know, you you gotta do, like, so much more than that.

Jordan Berry [00:17:23]:

Right? It’s and, like, you’re it’s like what you’re saying. It’s like you put out a lot of flyers or door hangers or whatever, Andy hung, you know, posters in the coffee shop, and you’re talking, you know, to people at these networking meetings, and you’re doing, like, you know, contests with people who might be able to do business. You know? Like, you’re you do it’s, like, quantity. Right? Like, if you’re trying to grow something, especially from scratch, if you’re trying to grow something, you’ve got to, like, blow everybody out of the water with quantity. Just be everywhere that they’re turning where they’re like, fine. Get out of my face and just do my laundry for me. I don’t wanna hear from you anymore. You know what I mean? Like, it’s it’s almost what you have to do.

Jordan Berry [00:18:00]:

Much.

Shane [00:18:02]:

And that’s kind of how it was. She was in front of a lot of people. I was more like, I just want to do the driving. I want to pick up the laundry and then I’ll bring it back and you can wash it and handle all the business into this. And that changed real quick. We saw that there was we needed more contact with the public.

Aprill [00:18:26]:

He says that, but he’s extremely modest because this is a guy that, is went to school and is trained in Commercial diving. He does construction underwater. He’s done he’s built houses from ground up. He can do plumbing, HVAC, drywall, Concrete order, all of that. He he built our when we we haven’t got there yet, but after the tornado, we built our own location. He did all of the plumbing, all of the wiring, all I mean, he built the entire commercial location with with everything involved. So he he says that, but he’s just Sounds

Jordan Berry [00:19:02]:

like you guys are a good dynamic duo where you’ve got you doing all the real hard work and you doing all the fun stuff with all the people and getting all the customers. So I don’t know. I kinda feel like you’re getting the short end of the stick a little bit, but it sounds like you’re both in your element here.

Shane [00:19:19]:

Yeah. It’s a good mix. We we we work well together.

Jordan Berry [00:19:23]:

Well, and that’s

Shane [00:19:24]:

and all

Jordan Berry [00:19:24]:

times that’s what it takes. Right? There’s there’s multiple books written on this. You know, rocket fuel is one that comes to mind right now. Like, you know, where you’ve got somebody who’s, you know, that integrator, the one who’s, you know, doing the behind the scenes stuff. And then you’ve got that front person who’s casting the vision, maybe not even necessarily of the business, but maybe of the business. And also but casting that vision to the customers or potential customers to to kinda bring them in. Right? And it sounds like you have both of those, in spade, which I’m sure has contributed to your success. But we’re not at your success yet.

Jordan Berry [00:19:57]:

We’re still starting. Now you’re getting me to jump ahead. Okay. So you’ve got a bunch of customers, that are starting to roll in just through sheer pestering of everybody in Chattanooga is what I’m hearing. And things are starting to grow. And I was gonna ask you. It sounds like it sounds like you were driving and picking up, stuff. And you were actually processing the laundry?

Aprill [00:20:24]:

I was. But, Because we did a lot of Airbnbs and we had a ton of sheets, him and I got extremely good at doing sheets together. I mean, we could do King-size sheets in about 6 seconds. We just it’s almost like a dance. We we got it we got it down. So, yeah, There was a lot of togetherness. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:20:46]:

So I think maybe the 1st time Mark Vlastkamp was on the podcast, he was bragging about how quickly he could fold fitted sheets. So it sounds like we need to have a fitted sheet off between you and Mark Glasscamp, to see who really is the champion here. Yeah.

Shane [00:21:06]:

That’s dangerous.

Aprill [00:21:09]:

I I Mark to look at it.

Jordan Berry [00:21:10]:

That. Mark, you didn’t call that, buddy. I’m definitely gonna send him this episode, you know, to make sure he hears it.

Aprill [00:21:18]:

So Yeah. We we did get to meet Mark and actually talk with him Yeah.

Shane [00:21:23]:

For quite

Aprill [00:21:23]:

a while at the clean show as well.

Jordan Berry [00:21:24]:

So Yeah. Great guy. And him at 2 U Laundry. They’re 1 in the same now, the fold and and 2 U. So pretty cool. Okay. Alright. So you were you’re getting these customers.

Jordan Berry [00:21:35]:

So you ended up having to help, also with with some of the laundry processing. Did you was it just you guys until that tornado hit, or did had you hired anybody before? Okay.

Aprill [00:21:48]:

Yes.

Jordan Berry [00:21:49]:

So it was just you guys, doing that. And then 1 one just small little detail that, you mentioned. So you mentioned that you kinda negotiated, like, a 20% off with the, the owner of the laundromat, how did that work logistically? Did he have a card system where you could okay. Because I get asked

Shane [00:22:10]:

Yeah. Yeah. Despite a wash.

Jordan Berry [00:22:11]:

I get I get asked that a lot of how do you even practically get a discount? But think you do need a a digital payment system. I don’t know of a way to do that with the cash. So, Yeah. Awesome.

Shane [00:22:24]:

He was able to to to, you know, hand us the cards and say, use what’s on it. If it runs out, I’ll refill it, and then that’s how the discount would be figured in.

Aprill [00:22:36]:

Yeah. We just get mail him a check.

Shane [00:22:38]:

We cut him a check at the end of the month or whatever he needed, And that’s with the discount. We’d see a report on it, what came in, and what we used. And then he would say, okay. Then we take off so much. And here we

Jordan Berry [00:22:50]:

go. Basically invoice you. And so you would actually pay after the fact you’re not paying, which also I mean, that’s a that’s a hot tip right there is that, you know, if you can get invoiced and pay, like, a net thirty or something like that where you’re paying at the end of the month, actually helps you out, especially if you’re bootstrapping the business. Yeah. That’s Exactly. That’s a hot tip right there. So if you’re looking to get started, that’s that’s money in the bank, literally, right there.

Shane [00:23:21]:

That card system is invaluable when it

Aprill [00:23:24]:

Look into that.

Shane [00:23:25]:

Helping us Yeah. To get get the

Jordan Berry [00:23:26]:

That’s awesome. Okay. So let me see. I’ve been writing down notes here. What do I need do you have okay. I mean, we you started this, basically, from scratch. You said you’ve sort of shoestring this, and even you you won some money that you used to help get this thing started. Right? Like, how I mean, is do you recommend that to people? I mean, that’s it seems like a really hard way to go.

Jordan Berry [00:23:53]:

But, also, it seems like a a big opportunity if you can figure out how to do it. Could be a really good opportunity. So, I mean, how would somebody get let’s say I have $2 or something to invest in this thing. Can I get started on with that much money? Do I need more? What do you think?

Aprill [00:24:12]:

I mean, we did it. But, again, it’s We’re an awesome team, and we really have each other’s back. I don’t know that I would actually recommend what we’ve done Guess it’s a lot of work, but it worked for us. But if somebody is willing to really work and lose a lot of sleep, it can happen because people love the service when they find out about it. It’s mostly educating people that this service exists And then, you know, keeping the customers happy and a lot of customer communication. You know? Letting them know that we appreciate them And that we, you know, we like their input. Can we do something different? You know? Is there something else we can do? And listening to them, that makes them feel

Jordan Berry [00:24:56]:

That’s huge. What’s funny is that both you and Mark have been very successful. And either one of you really recommend going this route because it’s a lot of work. But I think there’s something to that. Right? Yeah. Go ahead.

Shane [00:25:12]:

It would be easier to have a little bit of capital to work with. But, there again, we would have lost the education, and we we’re taking kind of any job that we could get as far as, laundry service. And we even had to learn about that, that that’s not always the best thing to do. And the and then again to this was we started it 3 or 4 months before COVID hit. And along with our Airbnb customers, right as COVID started, all that traffic just stopped. And so we were that’s that’s where I said, Okay, I guess I’m going to go back to doing a little painting houses. There’s a couple remodel jobs I could possibly do. And And then, of course, we talked about the tornado hitting, and that just kinda went completely opposite of Stop the laundry service.

Shane [00:26:16]:

Go back to construction. Tornado hits, and then it’s wide open laundry.

Aprill [00:26:21]:

And it it never really quit from there because, I mean, he kinda went back into construction because after the tornado, we that’s when we built our own commercial location. And he did all that work with with 1 other guy, and that took a few months. And then and then we moved into our commercial location in 20, and then we doubled it in 21. He doubled it. And then in 22, we went back and bought the original laundromat that we started at.

Jordan Berry [00:26:47]:

That’s awesome. Okay. You’re Still you’re still going, like, way too fast here. 3a half. Come on, people. We’re like Alright. You’re you’re here going, like, 3,000 feet. I wanna get down.

Jordan Berry [00:26:59]:

You know what I mean? We wanna we wanna fly in a crop desert here and check this out here. Okay. So let’s go let’s go. So, Shane, were you were you also sorta not working when this thing got started? Or did what what was that situation like?

Shane [00:27:17]:

I had I was actually doing maintenance for a apartment complex here locally. And, I just got tired of being on call. I was I was on call for all holidays, all weekends, And it was just starting to kinda drag me down. And then then we decided to, we talked about it. She started she saw the the van, the delivery van there at the dry cleaners in Jeev. And I had decided I was working till August. One way or the other, I was working till August at this job. And so that’s when things started progressing real fast with, looking into the laundry service to see is just gonna be where we where we need to be.

Shane [00:28:08]:

But either way, I was I was stepping away from that job. It was just too much. Okay. Too much time. I thought it was too Yeah. Yeah.

Aprill [00:28:18]:

Yeah. And now we do this.

Jordan Berry [00:28:19]:

Now you’re spending all your time. Thought you had no time before. Yeah.

Shane [00:28:24]:

What’s a vacayce?

Jordan Berry [00:28:25]:

Alright. I mean, I just need I feel like I need to make this clear to everybody that you saw a van. You had 1 conversation, and then, basically, both of you quit your jobs and and just jumped in both feet. This is what I’m hearing, essentially, is what happened, if I’m gonna distill it down. Pass.

Aprill [00:28:43]:

Let’s get it.

Jordan Berry [00:28:43]:

I love it. Sums it up.

Aprill [00:28:46]:

Well and He had taken you know, between, I would say, August March, he had taken a few different construction jobs and and separate, You know, smaller ones, they were just 3 or 4 days, you know, a a piece. But, I was, I mean, I was hitting the pavement hard And just out every single day. Every single day. And then then the customers started growing, and then we started having laundry a lot. And it never we thought it was gonna quit, like, at the beginning of COVID and then the tornado, and then it never did quit after that because,

Jordan Berry [00:29:21]:

you’re a good girl.

Aprill [00:29:22]:

I’m jumping in.

Jordan Berry [00:29:24]:

April. April. Yeah.

Shane [00:29:25]:

You’re all Sorry to what you’re all hyped up.

Jordan Berry [00:29:27]:

Look, I’m trying to, like, have a mellow conversation. I love it. Okay. You’re just excited. And I love the excitement. Okay. Talk to me. You know, you guys are fresh in this business.

Jordan Berry [00:29:37]:

You’ve been growing it for, like, a few months now you’re seeing it take off. You’re you’re like, we both quit our jobs. We don’t care. We’re doing what we want. And things are starting to work, and you’re getting excited. And then COVID hits, and you’ve got a few days there where COVID hit before that tornado. Right? Like, how did that feel? Were you guys Scared. Were you like, okay.

Jordan Berry [00:29:57]:

What are we gonna do? What was the what was the sentiment there?

Shane [00:30:03]:

Yeah. It was it was you know, who who wants to just completely toss this whole idea in the garbage, running this laundry service when, you know, it’s a it’s a got a lot of potential. But here, our customers are disappearing quick or their their level of work has disappeared quick because they were still oh, we need you guys so much. You guys are such a big help for us, but, we just don’t have Any traffic right now. We still had some of the residential customers and and he had actually started with Instacart. You know, not going to do laundry service anymore. I’m going to start delivering people’s groceries for a little bit. Did that? Yeah.

Shane [00:30:48]:

And then I’ve always been able to I I people still call me all the time, need help with, remodel project, some kind of maintenance issue or something. So I don’t really have trouble Finding work, because we could always go back to that if it came to it. And that, of course, Yeah, that’s is a really scary time. You know, everybody in our, all our friends were, folks were losing their jobs and being kind of locked out of different things. Some of our friends clean houses. Some of our friends, you know, are involved in the public, restaurant workers, stuff like that. And everybody was just kind of Sold. Sold and needed work.

Shane [00:31:42]:

And we were kind of right there too for a little while. And, then again, that was just a little little twist of a natural disaster that kinda shifted our gears and shifted everything for us, really.

Jordan Berry [00:31:59]:

Just threw in there a little twist With the natural. I like listen. I like that you’re Twist. Yep. Keep it lighthearted here. It’s natural disaster. Okay. Well, let’s jump into that because, you know, you’re you’re on this high.

Jordan Berry [00:32:12]:

Business is growing. You get slammed. You know, COVID shuts everything down. You’re like, oh, did we lose everything? What’s happening here? And then just a few days later, right, this this tornado hit, which I’m sure was devastating for the community and, you know, had widespread ramifications for everybody. So that’s you know, obviously, everybody’s, you know, feeling the chaos of that. But you get this call and you start taking on this business. And then you said you hired 14 people. What was that like from being a 2 person show and then he just shitting his head right now.

Jordan Berry [00:32:52]:

And then having to hire 14 people. And now all of a sudden, you know, you go from, you know, just being you guys and being rock our sheet folders to having to find and hire and train and manage 14 people, you know, all in real time while you’re processing these laundries. Like, how how did you guys do how’d you find let’s start here. How did you find, employees that quickly and that many?

Aprill [00:33:27]:

We we reached out to our, Just friends and family and just said, here’s the deal. We need people. You know? And so Who do you know that needs work? And most of them were, wives with husbands who were home because of COVID. And one of them was actually, one of my best friends. Her husband, their business was shut down, and he was just going kinda stir crazy. So he came out as, yeah, as a 2nd driver. He went actually, he himself went and rented a minivan so he could do pickup and delivery on one side of town, and Shane could do it on the other And, brought everybody in and had group classes quick quick. This is how we’re gonna fold.

Aprill [00:34:11]:

This is how we’re gonna do it. And and that Kinda part of the story was, when they first called, they said, well, we’re gonna give you half, and we’re gonna give the other half to a local dry cleaner. And I said, I didn’t think they did laundry, and they said they don’t, but they’re gonna do it for us. So that was on Friday. We said, okay. That’s fine. Still you know, it was Fifteen hotels. And so we had to pick it all up, bring it over, process it, take it all back.

Aprill [00:34:38]:

And that was on Friday. And Sunday morning, They called back, and they said, we love what you’re doing. You’re so organized. Everything’s great. Not so much with the other guy. Would you take on all of it? And I called my crew, talked to him, and said, okay. Here we go. And it kept everybody employed for the next 8 weeks that were Unemployed otherwise and wondering whether we’re gonna get groceries.

Shane [00:35:04]:

Well, that’s

Jordan Berry [00:35:04]:

a little bit trial by fire there, you know, and having to do that. So did you did you know everybody you hired beforehand?

Shane [00:35:14]:

Most most everybody. Oh, another good friend of April’s, whose name is April also. She is like she’s networking queen. She is. She has just Excellent contacts and and really good resource for, knowing people. And so, the other April, she got everything. She started making calls and said, hey. This person needs work.

Shane [00:35:41]:

This person needs work. Hey. This person needs work. Yep. And so that, just it just kinda Yeah. There you go.

Aprill [00:35:48]:

With less less than 2 days, we had off 14 people, had them brought them in, got them trained, so this is how we’re doing it. And we went we went to town.

Jordan Berry [00:35:57]:

This is a little bit of a side note, you know, in terms of, what we’re talking about here. But it’s related because other April, other April being what I would call a super connector. Right? And just the value of having super connectors in your life, people who are just Good. You know, the people who know everybody, you know, and can introduce you to somebody, like, there’s so much value in that. So, you know, I I just think I just wanted to point out because I think it is it would behoove us, especially as business owners, to intentionally seek out and, foster relationships with people who are these super connectors because it can bring you opportunities whether you need employees or you employment. Right? Or or whatever the case may be. You need some sort of connection or resource. I’ve got a good buddy who’s a super connector.

Jordan Berry [00:36:50]:

You know and I just anytime I need something, I’m just like, hey. You know, Larry, like, I’m looking for this. And he’s like, oh, yeah. I know somebody that. Right? And I can introduce you. I’m like, dude, this is incredible. Right? So foster intentional relationships with super connectors, when they come across your your way. Okay.

Jordan Berry [00:37:09]:

So Absolutely. For 8 weeks, you’re just doing this Blitz, what was, you know, you’ve got all this sort of temporary work coming in. What about the rest of your customers? I know a lot of businesses shut down, so I don’t know if you had a lot of residential, a lot of business customers before that. What did that look like in terms of your customers before COVID versus the you know, during, while you’re doing all this other stuff. Did you maintain a lot of those relationships, Or were those on hold? How did that look?

Aprill [00:37:43]:

The residential, we kept. We just picked him up with the with the hotels. We’d be like, okay. Go to this hotel, this hotel, and go to this house. You know? And so we we kept the ride along, and and they appreciated that.

Shane [00:37:57]:

And there was a lot of the people, especially in that Stretch of town that they were without power. Maybe their house had been damaged. A lot of the utilities were still being worked on. And so they were just happy to have us Come get the clothes. It disappears for a day and then bring it back. And, to this day, we’ve still got customers that we’re with us. And It’s pretty awesome.

Jordan Berry [00:38:26]:

And, I mean, I think it’s a testament to, you know, just the way that you’ve run your business and the way that you’ve treated those customers. You’ve already mentioned that and alluded to that. But that’s so important too is maintaining those relationships. And, you know, once you gain a customer, they’re your Customer to lose and the way you lose them is by not paying attention to them, not treating them correctly. Right? So, you know, congrats to you guys for having the kind of business that keeps customers around long term. That’s a big deal. Okay. So your your business is booming.

Jordan Berry [00:38:58]:

You’re doing a ton of laundry. You said 1,000 of pounds, right, a week, a day.

Aprill [00:39:08]:

A day.

Jordan Berry [00:39:08]:

Thousands and thousands a day.

Aprill [00:39:10]:

It all it

Jordan Berry [00:39:10]:

was the day. You’re processing. You’ve got all these people working with you now. Talk about, real quick, like, was it a dramatic shift, like, out of that when that 8 weeks was up, was it just, like, done? Okay. Team, well done? Okay.

Shane [00:39:26]:

Well, it actually tapered off. It tapered off. And, there was still some residual workers that were still there. And, the volume decreased a little bit and around that time. So this is a mid summer now of 20 and people just started going a little bit further with vacationing, You know, staying close to home, but still, breaking out into travel just a little bit. So that affected the Airbnb customers that we had. And, so that started picking back up again. It was almost as the tornado work tapered off.

Shane [00:40:09]:

The vacation rental clients kept picking up. And then we started seeing everybody is stuck at home. They’re they’re working remotely because of COVID, that they did not want to do their laundry After being stuck home all day at their computer or whatever. And it is then we started seeing more people Calling. Hey. Oh, when can we schedule a pickup? When can we schedule another pickup this week? The kids are home and I’m here working from home. So there was a lot of that. So that kind of helped.

Shane [00:40:50]:

After tornado tapered off, that kinda picked up and started, going with folks just who were stuck

Jordan Berry [00:40:58]:

at home. It’s just

Shane [00:40:58]:

kinda like get out and go

Jordan Berry [00:41:00]:

work. Almost right, where your one was sort of tapering down and your other one was sort of tapering up. And so, I mean, I guess that’s why you said your your business stayed

Shane [00:41:08]:

pretty,

Jordan Berry [00:41:09]:

you know, high, higher than before. Right? The fact?

Shane [00:41:14]:

Yeah. Right.

Jordan Berry [00:41:16]:

We

Aprill [00:41:16]:

didn’t keep all 14 people. We went we went back down to the 2 of us for a while, a short time, and then we started to stream

Jordan Berry [00:41:25]:

out of that school of 14 back on. Yeah.

Shane [00:41:31]:

Yeah. We feel some really good help. And now they’ve I moved on to different things. But during that time, they were absolutely amazing. And, you know, we got pretty good at what we were doing, but there was a few of our helpers that they just put us to shame. They. Yeah. Would love to have them any day any day.

Shane [00:41:55]:

If they become available, yeah, I hope so.

Jordan Berry [00:41:57]:

Business is so much, like, get the right people in there. I and your business looks very different than if you have the wrong person. Any business is like that really when you have employees. Right? So hiring you know, hiring the right people is so critical, to run-in this successful business there. What Yeah. Just out of curiosity, I mean, since you did have some success in finding, Part of that was just sort of luck of the draw of what kinda what happened. But do you have anything in particular that you’re looking for when it comes to hiring a good employee.

Aprill [00:42:37]:

I would say that 1st and foremost, is honesty, which is you know, you don’t think of that so much in a laundry, service. But when you come across somebody who’s very honest, then they’re gonna be responsible. They’re gonna do what they say. They’re gonna, And they’re and humble. Because if somebody’s honest and humble, they’re when you train them to do something, they’re gonna do it The way the company wants it done and not just, oh, well, this is how I do it at home, so I’m gonna do it this way. No. This is now you’re, you know, you’re working for Freedom From Laundry. And And so that’s you know, where we’ve had the most success is having people who are really honest and humble and and like being part of A company that cares how we treat our customers because we care.

Jordan Berry [00:43:26]:

Yeah. So we like That’s so it’s so key. Right? For any business, but specifically a service business, it you’ve gotta care about your customers. You’ve gotta care about the clothes, in how you’re treating the clothes also, it’s a big deal. So yeah. Okay. So you had this, like, huge rush, kind of, like, helped you jump start your business a little bit there. And then you decided to build your own.

Jordan Berry [00:43:53]:

How did that where did that thought come from? How did that process go, building your own?

Shane [00:44:01]:

Well, it was interesting. Once the tornado work started tapering off a little bit, our facility there, the laundromat we were using, renting the space next to it, it, sort of became a shared space involuntarily on our side. We kind of got pushed out of it a little bit. But that’s, you know, that’s okay. It it worked out. It was kind of is a necessary push because there was another company that needed the facility who was doing a good bit more volume Than what we were. And that was, kind of a lucrative thing for the owner. He said, you know, you 2 work together, share this space.

Shane [00:44:53]:

He’s making he’s making, alright, you know, double of of everything using that space, basically, 247, for commercial, our laundry service and then another linen service. And so we were still middle of COVID and we’re like, me personally, I was not comfortable being around a lot of people. So we just said, let’s let’s let’s take this a different direction. And we we actually moved everything to the house first. It’s not a very big house, but we did that for a little while. Laundry was everywhere. We had it was it was difficult. We were limited with machines, of course.

Shane [00:45:47]:

And so we found out really quick that we needed a little more operating space. And we were able to do that here on our property. I I started looking around for used equipment to see what we can make work with what we needed. And we got some pretty good machines that would get the job done for the most part. And then I just started building, started on Facebook Marketplace trying to find used equipment, and I managed to find a good bit of used equipment and have have been successful at getting it going, and and it worked good for a while while we needed it.

Aprill [00:46:30]:

So I figured. Yeah. Until, Like, until last summer when we said, okay. We need we need more, and then we went back and, I guess I purchased the laundromat, but I will say in the midst of all that, you know, and this is good for viewers to know, is sometimes you make mistakes along the way in business. And we we made a pretty big one. I made a pretty big one. He didn’t do it. I didn’t.

Aprill [00:46:56]:

I accepted a contract for a hotel. Brand new hotel that had opened that had no laundry facilities whatsoever. It was a 60 room hotel. And We had the contract for a year, and that was a

Shane [00:47:11]:

Enormous learning experience. We’ll

Jordan Berry [00:47:13]:

talk about why. What was the

Aprill [00:47:14]:

Don’t do that. Dump it.

Shane [00:47:19]:

The volume and the the stuff you come across, it was just way more volume than what we could handle with our shop that we built with the machinery that we had, and it was 3 days a week that we were doing this. We were picking it up 3 days a week and returning it 3 days a week, which was that in itself is a chore. That is a really big job if you’re not equipped for a large volume and then having to maintain the help. Because then then we had to ramp up the help to to cover these, you know, close to 1500 to £2,000 of just this one job that had to be done in a day. So that was quite a step up from just doing a few bags of laundry here. And

Jordan Berry [00:48:16]:

that’s

Aprill [00:48:17]:

Adopt it.

Shane [00:48:19]:

You know, some of the tornado help had had kind of gone on to other things too. And so we were having to rehire and retrain different people for this enormous volume of work. That was I mean, it took, 6 or 7 people all day to get this stuff done in a reasonable time. Then we have to turn around and do it again the next day. Same thing. Working on the weekends was just Yeah. Killing us, killing our crew.

Aprill [00:48:51]:

Yeah. We were 7 days away for too long.

Shane [00:48:53]:

Well, what what

Jordan Berry [00:48:55]:

We’re not. Ended that contract with that hotel or motel? How did how did that come about? Did they pull out? Did you guys say, we’re we’re

Aprill [00:49:05]:

done? Okay. Well, at the end of the year, I raised the price. I raised the price so much that they would say no. And I was like, okay.

Jordan Berry [00:49:12]:

And that’s a good way to handle that too. I mean, I think that’s a great tip. If you’re, you know, know, if you’re in a situation where you have a customer that’s just demanding way too much, you know, for either that you can handle or that you think is reasonable, you know, you can either just end the contract or you could say, this is the price point where it’s worth it to me to put up with what it’s gonna take to get this done. And it’s too high, and it’s all the bet. Like, you know, hey. Alright. Go get your stuff. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:49:43]:

And if they take it, then you make a whole lot more money. So Yeah. I think that’s a good good little tip there also.

Shane [00:49:52]:

And we weren’t we weren’t getting greedy with it. It was just, it needed to be at a certain level after we ran the numbers on it. And that’s what we we had to lock in and say, hey, this is this is what we’re putting into it. This is what we need back from it. And that’s all we did. We would still be doing it, but, you know, they decided to go a little different route, which we’re kinda glad. It was a Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:50:18]:

It was. I mean, I think that that is fine. And and that can feel you know, just kinda speaking from the human aspect. That can feel, like, difficult to do. It can feel confrontational. It can feel I don’t know. Like, I I’ve I’ve felt this myself. I’ve talked with other people who have all kinds of different feelings about that, right, and and how that makes them feel of, you know, say you’re try I’m just throwing out fictitious numbers.

Jordan Berry [00:50:43]:

Say you’re charging $2 a pound and you’re like, this is not worth it. It’d be maybe worth it to us at $4 a pound, which is like, woah, $4 a pound. That’s double the price. Right? And it can it can conjure a lot of feelings about going to, you know, a company and saying, hey. We’re basically double in price. However, you know, you guys have to be, you know, stewards of your own business and of yourselves and of your crew. And you said, like, everybody was being taxed. It was just weighing too much.

Jordan Berry [00:51:14]:

And, you know, you have to protect that because guess what? If you overwork your crew and they’re frustrated because they’re weekends and it’s too much turnover and, you know, to turn it around so quickly and they all quit, then you don’t have a business. Or if you guys burn out and you get Sick of the business? Well, something you loved is now gone. And now, you know, you either have to grind through it and it’s not enjoyable anymore, or you find something else to do and start over from scratch. Right? So you’ve got to, you know, come at this with a business perspective. That’s what I love about what you guys did with this is, you know, long, long winded way of saying, I love that you you you consider this and you thought about this through the lens of this is a business and we’ve got to run it like a business. And that was a a shrewd good business move, I think. So I’ll try to compliment you in a very long winded way. Okay.

Jordan Berry [00:52:08]:

So you built this facility. Tell us about the facility. What, you know, what was it like?

Shane [00:52:17]:

It, it’s not a very big building, but, it’s here on our property. We’re kinda out of town just a little bit. So it’s not like, high regulation. The county is kind of rural where we are, we’re 10 minutes from town from Chattanooga. So they they kind of, aren’t as strict. And the cost of it is not gonna be as extensive as it would have been for us to, go in town and buy some commercial space or rent a commercial space. So we had a, basically a covered carport that was her mother’s. We kept her mother’s camper in it and I built into it.

Shane [00:53:03]:

I took half of it and said, okay, this is just my laundry room. And we Pulled the power, pulled water and everything off the house originally.

Aprill [00:53:16]:

We got all the permits.

Shane [00:53:17]:

Yep. Sit up on the bed. Then just kind of built this this, it’s about 600 square feet that we started with, and it was, what, 12 machines that we had set up. With the hotel job that we were talking about, that got me to looking at some bigger equipment. And so I, again, was looking for used equipment, and I found a few sets of large commercial stuff, dryers and washers and just kind of combine them into what we already had out here. So we’ve got it’s a pretty good little setup and, that we got to see real quick that that little 600 square foot of just a a washroom wasn’t enough. So that’s when we finished the rest of the building out.

Aprill [00:54:20]:

Now it’s 20 by 60 or 20 by 36.

Shane [00:54:23]:

Yeah. So it’s it’s it’s bigger, but we’re not using that. As much.

Aprill [00:54:27]:

Yeah. Mhmm. But yeah. I mean, he found, like, Milner washing machines. He got a 100 pound dryer, a 75 pound dryer, Couple more 45 pound dryer. And he installed all of this. 33 face power. He did it all.

Shane [00:54:43]:

Yeah. It was a little bit of a learning experience too. But, you know, you just

Jordan Berry [00:54:50]:

That’s right.

Shane [00:54:51]:

You can YouTube it. If you don’t know everything about something. You know, maybe a few pieces, but you could always YouTube it. Or, I’ve got a lot of friends that work in different trades. So Just say, hey, how do I do this? Oh, yeah. Just step 1, step 2, step 3. That’s all you got to do. She got it.

Jordan Berry [00:55:10]:

Had to choose 1 word right now to describe you. It’d be probably, stallion is the word that’s coming to mind right now. Just impressive all the way around right now. Alright. So but you’re not really using that as much anymore, or what’s the space just mostly sitting there Not

Aprill [00:55:29]:

as much.

Jordan Berry [00:55:29]:

The laundromat that you purchased that we haven’t talked about yet. But we have talked about, but we haven’t.

Shane [00:55:36]:

Well, we’re actually in that commercial space.

Aprill [00:55:40]:

Right

Shane [00:55:40]:

now. I’ve turned it into his office. And, so behind us is is, the building. We’ve got a little screen up here because there’s still it’s probably going to be ongoing forever. It’s little things I’ve got to finish and do. We for for just being here on our property, we have the best laundry room in the world.

Jordan Berry [00:56:05]:

You’re probably just decked. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Shane [00:56:09]:

Yeah. Personal.

Jordan Berry [00:56:10]:

Just out of curiosity, do you guys have, like, picture of this thing when it was fully operating? Or, like, I would love to See if you have any or dig any up. Let me know. I would love I’d love to see just what it looks like.

Shane [00:56:24]:

You some pictures.

Jordan Berry [00:56:25]:

Yeah. Because, you know, when you talk about people doing big volumes of laundry and stuff, and then you’re saying, hey. This is, like, 600 square feet. And, know, you’re working with employees and stuff. And, like It’s that’s that’s pretty cool. That’s pretty cool. And, you know, the the trend, I think, has been moving bigger and bigger. And, obviously, there’s you need space and you need room for people to move and you need you need all that stuff too.

Jordan Berry [00:56:51]:

But, it’s kinda cool to hear that you can start with a smaller space and outgrow it. And, that’s that’s pretty I love that. I love that. Yeah. I’d love to see it. If you ever dig up some pictures, and if you end up digging up pictures and you don’t mind, I’ll I’ll throw them on the show notes page in case that’d be cool. Okay. So you’re working out of this commercial space kinda on your property here.

Jordan Berry [00:57:16]:

At what point were you like, okay. We need more space. And then how did what did you what was the process of going to find that space from there?

Shane [00:57:28]:

So, in between the time we got our original machines set up in the in our commercial building out here. We took on the hotel job that increased the volume enormously. And I that we we saw very quickly that the electric dryers that we have here, mostly residential, but but good equipment, was not gonna cut it for getting this stuff done. We needed big gas dryers. And we, went to another laundromat in town and we were just kind of looking at it in an emergency when we saw that we couldn’t get our stuff dry, we could get it washed, but that’s not the issue. Getting it dry in time without it taking a whole day to just do a few runs. So there was another laundromat in town, and the owner, we were able to get in touch with him. Super great guy.

Shane [00:58:27]:

Really enjoyed working with him. He had a pretty good setup. Still has. And, the his all his washers were eighties, sixties, forties, and then a lot of of the Horizon and Toploader 20 pounders. So we were just like, wow, was just hop over here for a while. And we did that, with the hotel. He had plenty of dryers, And we were able to get that done. It just, like, nothing.

Shane [00:59:03]:

Yeah. No waiting for grind. Everything was getting done really quick. But we had to we just had to make the call. And it was, our space was not big enough. Our machines were not there. And so that’s when we just had to say, Let’s hop over here for a while. And he kind of worked out a deal with us.

Shane [00:59:23]:

Same thing with the new cart system at 20% and we he would go to every month. He would send us an invoice and we would do it. We just kind of went back to that original system that we were doing in the in a public coin laundry. And then this whole time, I’m still adding looking for bigger machines to put here out in our building. And I actually did that. That’s when we I found the bigger machines, and and we were thinking if this, hotel job continues on into the future. This is what we’ll do and we’ll have our equipment here to do that. So the shop kind of our laundry room kind of evolved from just a few, you know, 12 machines to adding big commercial equipment in that time space.

Shane [01:00:22]:

And then that hotel job went away and we were kind of thankful for it. But then I had all of this commercial equipment set up and it works really great even for doing the Airbnb customers that we still have.

Aprill [01:00:37]:

Yeah. It it has really been an advantage of just overflow. Eve you know, even since the laundromat that we’re not talking about. You know, it’s, because for a long time, We were driving 6 days a week. Pickup and delivery 6 days a week. And we also, in the process, learned that’s not efficient. And and we have slowly tweaked that along the years

Jordan Berry [01:01:04]:

as well. Especially is I mean, it’s all about efficiency, especially as the volume starts going up. You know, you can actually make pretty good gains in your business and in your, your net income there by creating efficiencies, both in processing laundry and Also in the way that you pick it up and deliver it, and there’s different models of doing that. So yeah. I mean, I think that’s huge. And and that comes with you know, that’s part of the learning curve, right, as you’re as you’re doing it. You guys kinda got thrown into the fire. You can also, you know, shortcut that a little bit by talking to people like you, who’ve kinda gone through it and can kinda give, you know, tips, and it sounds like you guys kinda did that too through, you know, researching, you know, like, Fold with Mark and to You Laundry with Alex and and the way that they’re running things.

Jordan Berry [01:01:57]:

And, yeah. So, I mean, I think that that’s, an incredible way to to get going, if that’s how you’re getting started, pick up delivery or, you know, really any business is, you know, do your research, and you’re gonna have to just learn some stuff by doing, but also you can shortcut some of that by getting getting near the people who’ve done it and who are doing it well, you know, either physically or, you know, through researching their stuff. Okay. So we’re at 2019, you see a van, talk to 1 lady. You both basically quit your jobs and start this business. 2020, you’ve got this, you know, COVID hits and then this tornado hits and business goes wild, and then you build a commercial location. Right? 2021, I think, is what you said, is when you doubled your commercial location. Alright.

Jordan Berry [01:02:53]:

So what’d you do in 2022? Like, what’s I’m seeing a trend here. So there is something. There is something.

Shane [01:03:00]:

Okay. So, we had we had this this building set up pretty good, and it was rolling pretty good with the, the amount of work that we were doing. And we keep going by the laundromat that we started out at. We’re driving by and we see that the you know, it’s it’s being used. There’s a linen service that’s working there. And, you know, still COVID, Still not interested in being with with a bunch of other people at the same time. And so we were kind of thinking, what are we going to be doing in another year with what we’re picking up for the delivery service? Where do we need to be with it equipment wise? And then somebody decides we needed another job. It wasn’t quite the hotel, but it was still a commercial job.

Jordan Berry [01:04:02]:

We I feel like we need to just call April out here a little bit for throwing you into the fire. Jesus. I like how you’re

Shane [01:04:10]:

Amazing. Spending this positively,

Jordan Berry [01:04:12]:

but you’re also kinda saying, hey, April here. Like, look what you’re doing to me over here. So alright. Sorry. Keep going.

Shane [01:04:24]:

Hey. Leave us have you just learned? You just had to

Jordan Berry [01:04:27]:

As my father-in-law show.

Shane [01:04:28]:

She’s got another job. Here we go. Creator.

Aprill [01:04:30]:

So Yeah.

Shane [01:04:38]:

So 2022, we’re starting she’s starting to negotiate this other job, and it’s it’s a big commercial job. It requires way more than what we were anticipating. We thought it would be pretty easy to do. I’ll just say it. It was dinner napkins. For restaurants? Restaurant dinner napkins. And It’s it’s for one of the big, London uniform companies that most everybody’s probably heard of. But,

Jordan Berry [01:05:15]:

Anyway, it was just a little too much.

Shane [01:05:17]:

What was the issue? And once we got it. Volume and quality, with our equipment here, again, you have to have water at a 160, a100 just to For it to do its job, and they were white. They are white.

Aprill [01:05:37]:

Yeah. And if you you talk to anybody who’s down done linens, we learned afterwards. And, again, I am one to hop into things. I thought, table nap please read your table napkins. We done sheet. You know? Tableau. And they’re white. Leach them.

Aprill [01:05:50]:

They’ll be fine. No. No. These were white table napkins from Italian restaurants.

Shane [01:05:55]:

Yeah. Lot of ritz. Lot of ritz. Lot of barbecue.

Aprill [01:05:59]:

Lot of cleaning the grill, table left, and this is yeah. It was Anyway,

Shane [01:06:04]:

we we, we saw that that wasn’t going to fly at our little location out here in the country. And so in the meantime, we Already started looking into to perhaps purchasing the original laundromat where we started, and that was in March of 22. We started talking to the owner and he’s like, yeah, well, let’s see what we can do and let’s work something out. I’m not really doing a lot with it. And, don’t he was kind of feeling like it was a headache. He had another family member running it. Everybody was affected by COVID. They’re you know, like, seriously life threatening stuff, and it affected the way that that was being managed.

Shane [01:06:55]:

And so, we just kept on and said, hey, we’re, you know, we would really love to have this location. We can see that this is what we need. And he said the number and we were like, okay, we’re going to get this laundromat now. And this is the same place that we started, we rented the little office space next to it, and it’s where we did all the tornado work. So we know what this building and what the facility is capable of because we we turned out a lot of laundry with it. And that’s what we have now. So that’s what it progressed in 22. We we purchased the laundromat and, we kinda held off a little while after we got it.

Shane [01:07:38]:

It was right in July, and we we’re just still working at at our space here at our house. And it it started Getting to the point once we took on that other, dinner napkin job that this little space just ain’t doing it. It is not gonna cut up. So we packed up and took all our stuff over to the new laundromat that we I’ve recently acquired.

Jordan Berry [01:08:09]:

That’s wild. Yeah. I mean, it’s it’s funny full circle. Right?

Shane [01:08:13]:

And I think

Jordan Berry [01:08:14]:

too I mean, I like, your story, I think, parallels Mark’s. I because I’m pretty sure he bought the one that he originally started, in 2. So it’s pretty funny. You guys are, like, literally just taking the playbook and and putting it into action, which is not a bad idea because he kills it down there. So

Aprill [01:08:35]:

No. That’s why I go back to not reinventing the wheel. I I watch closely what 2 you and Mark has done along the And so well, they’re doing it. Yeah. So how’s it been owning

Jordan Berry [01:08:46]:

a laundromat? I mean, because pick up and delivery and self-service, they’re 2 kinda different business is almost even. So have you liked owning the lawn mower? Do you keep it open for self serve to the public? Yeah. So how’s that experience been?

Shane [01:08:59]:

Yeah. It’s well, we it’s a diverse community that we live in, and we got to deal with a lot of the, the locals. But Locals. Yeah. And they, anyway. But it is as far as it being a, a step up. I think that was definitely the thing to do. It is a little more work, especially at first, kind of, making the place your own.

Shane [01:09:33]:

We had to kind of shift the clientele a little bit was, was, a lot of people were kind of run off from having that linen service work there.

Aprill [01:09:49]:

The guys for the linen service were actually telling people, this is our laundromat. It’s not open to the public anymore. So the public literally Pretty much thought that it wasn’t open to them anymore. And so we we got rid of that linen company because that was there were trouble on many levels. So they we kinda we said we told the owner, on a closing day, they have to be out. And so we got them out and Just let it know, you know, open to the public. We’ve switched the signs, and the public has now been coming back. It was Not a zombie matte, but it needed paint.

Aprill [01:10:23]:

It needed, you know, some work done, and we did all that. And community is loving They’re they’re really, really lucky.

Jordan Berry [01:10:31]:

That’s that’s the angel. You know? I mean, it’s unfortunate the way that it worked out, you know, for the the previous owner. But those are the opportunities. Right? Like, when you can, when you can help somebody solve their problems, you can you can end up with a good deal. Right? You were solving multiple problems on multiple fronts here for this guy. You ended up with a laundromat. And because of it, I’m sure you get much better margins on your, you know, on your money that you’re spending. But it was funny to hear you say that going from pick up and delivery, especially the way you started it, and then buying a self serve laundromat, that was a lot of work.

Jordan Berry [01:11:12]:

Because, obviously, we would naturally think, you know, the opposite would be true where it’s a lot more work for the pickup and delivery. And I’m sure it was a lot of work for the pickup and delivery. But, but it is interesting making that adjustment kinda going the other way, which is usually backwards from the way that people go, was the was the big adjustment for you. So Exactly. Alright. So as we’re doing this interview, it’s the middle of 2020 3. Have you done anything massive this year, or is that still to come?

Shane [01:11:47]:

Well, we’re we’re still, adjusting to the laundromat. There’s still few changes that we’ve had to make to it. But it is it. The 2 businesses have kinda Merged. Merged, and they both help each other.

Aprill [01:12:06]:

But I would say that I mean, the big thing for 23 is we just invested in, a significant what I feel is a significant investment, in more speed fleets. We just added, 2 80 pounders, 2 60 pounders, 2 40 pound washers to the laundromat as of last week, and we have 4 more dryers that are coming. So, and that’s that’s helped our team as well as the the public that’s coming in. They’re just They’re kinda loving it. Yeah. So having sparkly new machines right

Jordan Berry [01:12:40]:

up front. That as being your big 2023 thing. I won’t, yeah, I won’t close the door on if it’s more to come. I won’t close the door on it, but I’ll allow that. Because I I mean, that is a pretty big deal, especially you’re buying those big machines. Those are those are not cheap, for sure. But I think you’re gonna see a good response to those things, as you go forward, and it’ll probably just continue to be A better and better response.

Shane [01:13:06]:

And Mhmm. Again, that was last week, and people are already, Oh, wow. This is really nice. I still working on some of the equipment issues and getting the card readers and stuff going and That thing that everybody who comes in just love it. The distributor, I worked with they’re, they’re tech who does the installations in this area. And Nice. We we work together on it. So, yeah, it was

Jordan Berry [01:13:37]:

I stand by my

Shane [01:13:39]:

It was fun.

Jordan Berry [01:13:39]:

My stallion comment.

Aprill [01:13:41]:

Yeah. And I, Well and I do have to say that he, and I’m excited to say this, we’re actually for the washers

Jordan Berry [01:13:50]:

Okay.

Aprill [01:13:50]:

We are doing the sense card readers, The sets connect. And talking about. He’ll he’ll be installing them.

Jordan Berry [01:13:57]:

That’s what I’m talking about.

Aprill [01:13:58]:

So he’s gonna get trained on installing those.

Jordan Berry [01:14:00]:

Might just, Hey. You’d install them all over the place. Who knows? That’s that’s what I’m talking about. Okay. Awesome. Alright. So you guy I mean, and you guys are running your pick up and delivery now, and you are, running your laundromat now, And you’ve got the world’s greatest laundry room at your house now slash, podcasting studio today. What are just kinda my last question before we go into our our next segment.

Jordan Berry [01:14:30]:

Like, what what are you guys’ aspirations? Have you thought about like, are you trying to own more laundromats? You trying to grow this pickup and delivery huge. Are you good with where you’re at now? Do you have any plans for the future?

Shane [01:14:46]:

We’re okay in so many different directions. If it if it grows, which we hope it will, you know, we have the the space and the equipment to deal with it. Should the opportunity present itself to own another laundromat, we’re not ruling it out. We’re always looking. We had our eyes on 1, out into town, But maybe things didn’t need to go that direction. And we’re Seem to be happy with what we have right now, but we will Yes. Keep it posted.

Jordan Berry [01:15:24]:

Open. I like it.

Shane [01:15:25]:

And we don’t leave them static here for too long.

Jordan Berry [01:15:31]:

For a fact. Yeah. I get the feeling you’d be okay if things leveled out a little bit. But April’s like, nope. Not having that. We’re going to get you know? We’re doing Space laundry now or something. I don’t know. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [01:15:45]:

I’m gonna give you some crazy

Shane [01:15:47]:

They’ll say that. They’ll say that out.

Jordan Berry [01:15:49]:

I’ll shoot you an email. Don’t worry. Awesome. Alright. We got a segment of the show called Down to Business and just to get a little more details about the business. So we know you’re in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which is cool. Love Chattanooga. I’ve a lot of family in Tennessee, but they’re mostly in, Knoxville area.

Jordan Berry [01:16:09]:

So I spent, like, all my summers, out there in the Smokies and stuff. So a lot of did you? I love it.

Shane [01:16:16]:

I lived in Knoxville for a while too.

Jordan Berry [01:16:18]:

California Knoxville connection going on

Shane [01:16:20]:

here.

Jordan Berry [01:16:21]:

This is great. We’re basically twins. So Wow. Essentially, I’ve been working that angle so that I also can be a stallion. But it’s just not turning out well for me. Alright. So you guys have been in since about 2019, which is great. Can I ask you, what does it what does it cost? Let’s say I wanna come and do my laundry or have you do my laundry in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Jordan Berry [01:16:46]:

What’s that Pickup delivery cost in right now. Okay.

Aprill [01:16:52]:

Well, we actually have a hybrid of how we do it, we started out kinda copying to you by the bag. So all of our customers got used to by the bag, and then we learned a whole lot from Dave Mints. So we now have a hybrid of how we do it. It is, by the bag, but it’s 2.49 Per pound with a 20 pound minimum. So if the bags are over 20 pounds, then it’s 2.49 added per pound. And that’s for just weekly or biweekly. And then for just per request, it’s 2.79. Again, 20 pound minimum.

Aprill [01:17:30]:

And for our walk in customers that want drop off, it’s $2 a pound with a 15 pound minimum.

Jordan Berry [01:17:36]:

Cool. Yeah. I mean, I like that. It’s an interesting, you know, pricing model there. But I like the regular sort of cadence Discount that you get, basically, because that encourages that, you know, subscription esque income They’re in you know, it’s all about cash flow. Right? It’s all about the cash flow. And when you can get somebody to give that recurring revenue, that’s that’s pretty valuable, you know, stuff. So I love that.

Jordan Berry [01:18:01]:

I think that’s great. How was the, you you mentioned Dave’s seminar. I’ve I’ve heard a great thing. Obviously, I I’m a I’m a fan of Dave Manns. He and I are good buddies, and we do a lot of stuff together. But how was his, so you you just dish the dirt here. You can tell us, for real. Like, how was it? Was it terrible, or was it great?

Shane [01:18:24]:

Well, I’m I’m always kinda, like, the reluctant participant.

Jordan Berry [01:18:30]:

She dragged you there, didn’t she? Did she grab you by the collar or by the collar? That’s what I wanna know.

Shane [01:18:38]:

Yeah. So we went and just excellent information. Dave and Carla were wonderful to work with and really helped everybody out. Their information was well worth Of course, of what we what it cost to do and Awesome. Would recommend it to anybody. Yep.

Aprill [01:19:02]:

I mean, the and he literally was kicking and screaming because it’s it’s not cheap. It is a big investment. But after about 2 hours of 1st Today, he turned to me and said Yeah. This is worth every penny. Every penny. It’s absolutely it really, every Laundry owner, pickup and delivery owner should go take their

Jordan Berry [01:19:21]:

I don’t want Dave to get too pissed. But no. But in general like, I mean, obviously, I know like, I I think Dave probably puts on a great I haven’t been to it, personally, but I’m sure I’m a 100% confident he’s putting on a really great, program over there and he’s given you great information and great resources and stuff. But just in general, just to speak generally about that, because one of the things that I hear in this industry, which kind of annoys me, to be honest with you, is that people will complain about, you know, a pricing for something like that. And while it’s not cheap, I don’t remember the pricing off top of my head, but It’s multiple 1,000 of dollars. Right? And you gotta travel there and go you know? And so there’s it’s an investment. But we’re talking about a business where you can make significant amounts of money. You can you can recoup your money in 1 month, you know, in this business, not saying there’s no guarantee there, but you you can recoup the entire investment in 1 month, there and talk about an ROI.

Jordan Berry [01:20:19]:

Like, I I don’t I understand where people are coming from when they’re saying, hey. It’s really expensive. You know, why is he charging so much? Yada yada yada. But he’s not just Dave, but anybody who’s doing something like this, it should be, at least, giving you far more value than you’re spending. And, so I like to hear that you, Saying that that’s what he’s doing there, because

Shane [01:20:49]:

and again, my take on originally was I don’t know if we could swing this. This is a lot of money. And then when when they gave us the manual for the for the course, it’s all spelled out. It’s all documented. Just that manual was worth the cost of the the course.

Aprill [01:21:11]:

It it’s gonna help us for years. I mean, we we literally have been implementing So much that we have learned and will continue to do so. And but I’m a huge believer in continuing to learn and continuing to learn from others. You know, it’s one of the things that my father taught me was surround your in business, surround yourself with people who know more than you do. Let them do what they do best, and you do what you do best, and everybody wins. Well, in business, when you get a win win situation, it’s the best it can be. And and that is what Dave and Carla provided, and that’s that’s the same reason that you listen to your podcasts. You know, it’s We really do wanna learn and continue running.

Jordan Berry [01:21:50]:

Hear you guys say that. And, you know, Shane, I appreciate you, with the transparency of, like, not want because, I mean, I think your your sentiment is it’s a natural one. Right? Like, woah, that’s a lot of money. I don’t know if we can swing it. I don’t know if it’s gonna be worth it. But you know, if you can kind of either have somebody, like, in April or maybe just April. We’ll just drag I don’t know. If you’re listening to this and you’re trying to get to something, just hit up April, and she’ll drag you there.

Jordan Berry [01:22:15]:

You know? And Shane will probably be there too because she’s got 2 hands. She’s dragging both of you. But you know what I mean? Like, if you can get there and you can kinda have that bigger perspective of, like, okay. I don’t you know, I’m just gonna throw out a random number. Let’s say it’s $10 of an investment all in or or whatever, 15, $20, you know, if you can get there and you learn something that’s worth, you know, $20 every 6 months, every year even, then holy cow. What kind of investment is that? Because you’re gonna benefit that going from that going forward, you know, Long term. So Years. Anyways, I don’t wanna beat on that.

Jordan Berry [01:22:50]:

But that’s something about our industry that I think we need a little bit of growth in, which is recognizing the educational investment and the resource investment there. So I appreciate you guys sharing that. Okay. Do you have a sense of, you know, this laundromat that you bought last year, you have a sense of, like, turns per day. Do you track that at all?

Aprill [01:23:14]:

I do. I’m kind of the nerd. I’m a huge spreadsheet nerd, and, although I’m really looking forward to the since hard readers and such, spider wash is decent, and they they get pretty good reports. And what I found, is that our larger machines, Our sixties and forties were doing 2 or 3 turns per day. And interestingly enough, our horizons

Jordan Berry [01:23:40]:

Interesting.

Aprill [01:23:40]:

Were doing less

Jordan Berry [01:23:43]:

Probably because I don’t know. Should I say I mean, horizons are horrible. I don’t know. I’m just gonna say. Like, they’re like the bane of my I have so many in one of my laundromats, and I’m like, why did they sell me so many? It’s I don’t know. But that’s really interesting that they’re doing, like, 2 or 3 times more on the bigger machines, which means you should probably continue to get those bigger machines and replace Those horizons. Yeah. As you go forward.

Jordan Berry [01:24:08]:

Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. That’s awesome. We, you Yo. We didn’t really talk about this, but do you have any sense of, like, how many pounds per week of, you know, this the service side of the business you guys are doing? Like, ballpark? Or

Aprill [01:24:26]:

Oh, yeah. We’re doing well Well, including the other, she’s looking at, I wanna say about

Jordan Berry [01:24:41]:

pretty good.

Aprill [01:24:42]:

3 to £4,000 a week. Awesome.

Jordan Berry [01:24:43]:

We get. Yeah. Dude. Yeah. You guys you guys are awesome. I love what I love what you guys are doing over there. Alright. So your laundromat, is it attended? Is it unattended? What’s how are you running

Aprill [01:25:02]:

it? Ah. As as of yesterday.

Jordan Berry [01:25:04]:

News, everybody. Breaking news.

Aprill [01:25:06]:

Our attendant yes. Yes. SOV, because all the kids went back to school. So, Nice. Then we are now attended Monday through Friday. So

Shane [01:25:18]:

not not

Aprill [01:25:18]:

on the weekends as of yet, but we’re we’re working on

Jordan Berry [01:25:21]:

then I had you guys taken, like, drop off laundry there. It’s yeah.

Aprill [01:25:29]:

And that’s exactly why we we moved our attendant Mhmm. And and expanded because Yeah. And then it you

Jordan Berry [01:25:35]:

still have a you’re you’re using the spider wash card system right now cool. Okay. And then Okay. Are you guys, are you guys still doing all the stuff. Are you there? Is this still your your job? You’re driving and you’re folding and doing laundry? What’s what’s that look like now?

Shane [01:25:57]:

Well, she’s more the accounting business end of it for the most part. Today was the exception. Having to jump in and help because the the crew was sick.

Aprill [01:26:10]:

Which COVID.

Shane [01:26:11]:

Yeah. Just, you know, you think it’s all gone and then they get to, we get to help them out a little bit. So usually, I’m doing more maintenance repairs of a laundromat or, any anything I need to adjust or modify On on the days I’m not driving. And then we’re looking for another driver currently to Kind of helped fill in the gap because the route is growing and we’re probably going to have to double the route pretty soon. We do it kind of a different, that part of it with, I know Dave and Carl, they run theirs at night, we run our, laundromat, our our Replays. Yeah. We the floor employees are there doing the processing during the day, just a few days a week.

Aprill [01:27:08]:

Well, what we pick up on Mondays, we process Tuesday and deliver Wednesday. And then Wednesday, we pick up and deliver. And what we pick up, we process on Thursday and deliver it on Friday. That we don’t work anymore.

Jordan Berry [01:27:21]:

Sure you’ll find yourself a

Aprill [01:27:22]:

Help him.

Jordan Berry [01:27:23]:

Like, a large chain hotel that’ll do all that for you. So it’s it’s fine. You know, I’ll give I’ll give Marriott a call after this thing and

Shane [01:27:32]:

Will they keep Jordan?

Jordan Berry [01:27:32]:

I’ll take care

Shane [01:27:33]:

of the

Jordan Berry [01:27:33]:

weekends for you. You guys seem like you’re getting bored or something. I don’t know. I don’t want you to lose your edge.

Shane [01:27:44]:

We still have people calling and asking us to put in bids for doing their hotel. And, right now, I don’t know if we want to tackle that, but maybe at some point down the road, we we could look back into Taking all hotels. We then need to add a few more machines to the laundromat, so that’ll definitely help.

Jordan Berry [01:28:05]:

To you guys for understanding, like and I know you kinda learned it the hard way a couple times, but narrowing down, like, who your customer is and, you know, like I said earlier, like, we business owners in general I have a hard time firing customers. Like, we’d have a hard time turning away money. Right? And we’ll just be miserable for too long. Yeah. You know, because we have a hard time turning away money. But kudos to you guys for saying, you know what? That’s not our that’s not our demographic. And, and so, alright. Sweet.

Jordan Berry [01:28:37]:

And we already kinda talked about, what direction are you going in the future? Oh, real quick. Do you guys have a ballpark? Like, how much time are you spending in your business now? Or, like, how about when you first started versus now? Like, is it looking the same? Is it looking different?

Aprill [01:28:53]:

Oh, yeah. No. I’d say we spend almost half of What we did in the beginning. Because in the beginning, again, we were literally working 7 days a week. We were probably working a 100 hours

Jordan Berry [01:29:04]:

a week. Whose fault was that?

Aprill [01:29:06]:

No.

Jordan Berry [01:29:08]:

I’m just kidding. Okay. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going.

Aprill [01:29:13]:

It’s okay. No. I would say we’re probably back to 40 ish hours a week. 40 to 50? Yeah. 40 to 50. But he, you know, things like the 2 sides of the laundromat because there was the private side and no. So he he put a door in, and now we’re putting a window in so can do have a drop off. So he’s always doing construction, you know, that kind of thing.

Aprill [01:29:36]:

We work at the laundromat when he’s not driving, and I help out driving when I need to. But I it’s always good to stay in front of the customers. That’s that’s kind of what what we use that

Jordan Berry [01:29:46]:

That’s awesome. And I’m glad to hear that you’re not working 100 hour weeks anymore. And that is why I’m gonna pick you up with the Marriott, because they will they will suck that up. Just kidding. Okay. So we got a couple segments. I am super excited about hear your guys’ take on on these. So the first one is this, secret sauce.

Jordan Berry [01:30:07]:

And secret sauce is, what advice do you have for current owners? People who currently own laundromats or who currently run pickup and delivery. What advice do you have for them to help them sort of level up their business.

Aprill [01:30:24]:

I would say stay in your lane. And this is something that Dave and Carla helped us to kinda cement, and that is, You know, really know who you’re going after and and stay there. Don’t don’t don’t grab every shiny thing that comes along, which I am guilty of. And so and that’s a hard lesson for a lot of people that are, you know, entrepreneurs like me that are just like, I can make everybody happy. I can do it, you know, hey. Yeah. If it’s me, I can do it. And So yeah.

Aprill [01:30:52]:

No. Sing your

Jordan Berry [01:30:53]:

Like, it’s especially hard when there’s a dollar sign attached to that shiny object. Right? You’re like, well, Might be willing to chase that shiny object for you know? But and especially if it starts taking away from your core business. Right? And, you know and I I’ll add too, like, you know, for somebody who’s brand new or who’s just kinda getting started or who’s just kinda starting to scale, it can be hard to know what that lane is. Right? So it’s not bad to try, you know, okay. I’m gonna try a hotel. Like, it wasn’t I’m I’m sure eventually, you’re like, oh my gosh. Why did I do that? But you don’t know that until you know that. Right? And Right.

Jordan Berry [01:31:32]:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and then that’s the other thing. Right? Like, once you learn that, take some action and don’t wait a whole year to What happened? You know, fire that customer. Right? So Yeah. I I I do think, like, hey. It’s not bad to say yes because you can find opportunities there. But, you know, once you figure out it’s not the right fit, you gotta take some action on that no matter sort of the feelings it’s conjuring up.

Jordan Berry [01:31:57]:

Or it could be scary, right, to have that conversation. So I think that’s awesome secret sauce advice. Stay in your lane. You know, know who your customer is. And especially, like, the other thing I’ll say about that, I’m I don’t know. I’m talking a lot right now, but sorry. But I got excited about your secret sauce, is once you have that base foundation of, like, this is our customer and your business is stable and, you know, then you can kind of venture out from there and try yeah. We’re gonna try these napkins.

Jordan Berry [01:32:29]:

It sounds easy, but, you know, we have the solid base. So we tried these things. Okay. That woah. Okay. That that was hot. I’m not gonna touch that. Like, you know, the stove was on.

Jordan Berry [01:32:38]:

Oh my goodness. Right? Like, pull back away from that. Right? But you can you have this ability to try a whole bunch of different things once you have your solid, stable base. And as long as the things you’re trying aren’t taking away from your core business, then you have that flexibility a little bit to try stuff.

Shane [01:33:00]:

I just I’d say, too, another thing is, don’t be afraid to start small. When we started, we basically, made use of what we had, which was a, you know, a 10 year old Nissan Cube and somebody else’s laundromat.

Aprill [01:33:19]:

Yeah. Now we have a wrapped van and and our old laundromat, but that’s, you know, a couple years down the road.

Jordan Berry [01:33:24]:

I I mean, it’s tough to start small when you got April over there who’s just pulling everybody and their moms in the business, and

Aprill [01:33:32]:

you’re like,

Jordan Berry [01:33:32]:

we’re trying to start small over here, and you’re bringing in hotels and restaurants. No. It’s awesome. Okay. April, I don’t know what happened, but somehow, like, I’m over here giving you such a hard time, and Shane’s getting all the praise over here. I don’t know how that happened, but he is he is the stallion. He’s like a shirt.

Aprill [01:33:53]:

He’s a stallion. It’s okay.

Jordan Berry [01:33:54]:

Stallion or something. I don’t know. That’d be good. Okay. Alright. We have another segment called pro tips, and this is for you guys in, like, 2019 in that brief, brief window between when you saw a van and talked to 1 lady and when you quit your job, what advice do you have for somebody? You know, let’s let’s stick with who wants to start picking up another one. Maybe they have a laundromat. Maybe they don’t.

Jordan Berry [01:34:21]:

What advice do you have for a newbie who’s trying to get started in this business?

Aprill [01:34:30]:

I would say first thing is, go to your Chamber of Commerce and start visiting BNI, Which is Business Network International. And talk to any Airbnb owners that you know, because that is That is the wonderful place to start laundry service. People that you do owners?

Jordan Berry [01:34:51]:

Did you talk to management companies? What did you both. Yeah. Awesome. Good advice. And that’s just a good, practical, solid way to just get started. And then I’m gonna echo what you said earlier and just, like, go big on being everywhere. Right? Like, be in all places that you can be, you know, even if you’re bootstrapped, like, find the creative ways to just get in front of people, you know, both online, but also don’t don’t neglect the offline. Right? Don’t neglect the posters.

Jordan Berry [01:35:24]:

Don’t neglect knocking on doors of businesses, of people, you know, all that stuff and just kind of be be everywhere. Great advice that you’ve been giving this entire this has been awesome, by the way. Alright. I have 1 more segment. And then I have, so 1 more question there. And then, then I wanna hear how people can talk to you more if they are interested, which should be, because we’ve got April and Thee Stallion here. That’s like a sick band name. You guys should start a band.

Jordan Berry [01:35:56]:

April and Thee Stallion. Oh my gosh. Oh, god. That is so brandable too. Okay. The last I don’t know. Like, I’m just excited to be talking to you guys, I guess, today because the ideas are just coming. You know when you’re, like, in that flow state? This is happening right now.

Jordan Berry [01:36:12]:

Alright. Last segment is has to do with resource. We’re laundromat resource over here. So what resources can you recommend to help people grow themselves personally or their This is, you know, going forward.

Aprill [01:36:29]:

Well, when you had asked about that earlier, I would definitely say, you know, check out the courses because I know you got some courses. Dave and Carla have courses. The Willofer brothers do. There’s also a book that I just find fascinating, and I really, really like it, especially for any entrepreneur, which was Profit First. Love that book. That that’s amazing. You’re done.

Jordan Berry [01:36:54]:

Awesome. I will just for anybody who’s interested in any of those things, I’ll I’ll put links to, Dave and his stuff, Lorna Mac Millionaire, the Wilford brothers. That’s Luke and Lee. They’ve been on the podcast a couple times, and they’re awesome. They have really great stuff too. And and my stuff, I’ll put links to all that stuff. And then I’ll also put a link to Profit First. Profit First is a great book.

Jordan Berry [01:37:18]:

You know, there’s there’s lots of them, but that’s definitely one that’s on my recommended reading list too. And you know what? If April says it, then you do it. Right? Right, Shane? Right, Shane? That’s exactly right. Yeah. Shane That is that is exact you don’t know how right that is. I hear what I hear the undertones there, Shane. I hope you survive after this podcast, I hope you’re gonna be good.

Shane [01:37:41]:

That’s alright.

Jordan Berry [01:37:45]:

We we reached That’s true.

Shane [01:37:46]:

We have some of the push

Jordan Berry [01:37:47]:

just putting positive spins on everything. He’s like, are you a politician? You should be. Yeah. No.

Shane [01:37:55]:

No. 1 thirty.

Jordan Berry [01:37:56]:

But I got a good campaign manager for you if you want 1. April will force everyone to vote for you. So, that’s good. No. Profit First, awesome, awesome book. I’ll put so, anyways, I’ll put links to all that stuff there. Guys, this has been not only super educational, super cool to hear your story, hear how you grew this business from scratch, and quit your jobs basically on a whim with no supporting evidence or reason to think that you’re gonna be successful and have made something awesome out of that. Seriously, I I’ve been joking about it, but it’s it’s genuinely very, very impressive and, you know, very encouraging, I think, for a lot of us who are in this business or trying to get This business, not only that it can be done, but also you shared how you guys did it and a lot of practical tips.

Jordan Berry [01:38:46]:

So all of that. And it’s been a lot of fun. You guys are great, great to just have a conversation with. So I’ll have to do this again for sure. Last question I have for you is if people want to, you know, either be pulled around by the ear by April or they just wanna be in the presence of the stallion. No. But if people want to contact you guys, what’s the best way they can get ahold of you?

Aprill [01:39:15]:

Well, the best thing is our email is [email protected]. Or they’re welcome to call the business number, which is 423-463-5709.

Jordan Berry [01:39:28]:

Guys, please please email them first.

Aprill [01:39:31]:

You’ll get one of

Jordan Berry [01:39:32]:

I I should have warned them about putting a phone number out there. Please email them first. Don’t bombard them with phone calls and, you know, set up a phone call via email. So but, guys, this has been awesome stuff. Anything you gotta you you wanna say? Parting words of wisdom or advice or anything.

Shane [01:39:55]:

Well, we really appreciate all that you put into this. It’s it is, an amazing aid and, help to anybody who is getting into the business or has been in it for a minute. They can definitely benefit and do benefit from what you put together with your podcast.

Aprill [01:40:14]:

You were actually one of the very first resources that I did start sing 2 back in 2019. Mhmm. Back and you got just a few out at the time, and we’ve sent to you ever since. So and it was like I said, it was fun for us to meet you in the at The Clean Show and to actually be on your show is, I’m You know, Crowley the highlight of our life.

Jordan Berry [01:40:34]:

Let’s just call it like it is. No. I’m just kidding. No. Well, I appreciate you guys. Again, always cool to meet, you know, people in this industry and who are kinda laundry geeks, you know, also and and who can get excited about talking about stuff with me. So I’m always looking for people to get excited with about laundry. So I appreciate you guys.

Jordan Berry [01:40:56]:

Lot of fun. Again, thank you so much for everything that you’ve, shared today both your story and all just the wisdom that you guys have gained over the years. And, looking forward to having more conversations with you guys, maybe online, but also offline. So appreciate you guys.

Shane [01:41:14]:

Thank you, Jord.

Aprill [01:41:15]:

Thank you, Jord.

Jordan Berry [01:41:15]:

Enjoyed it. I hope you loved that interview with April and Shane. I know I did. And, you know, I learned a lot. I hope you learned a lot too. But, really I mean, listen. You’re only hitting your goals when you actually take action on this stuff. So as always, pick one thing to take some action on this week.

Jordan Berry [01:41:35]:

When we stack those actions, that is what takes us down the path towards accomplishing our goal. So pick 1 action and commit to actually taking it this week. And maybe go share it on the forums at lawnarmadresource.com/forms. For me, my one action, revolves around I’m always you know, if you’ve been around here for, for a while, maybe you know. I’m a sucker for the super connector talk. We had that talk around a half hour into the interview. And, we’re talking super connectors. And for me, man, it is just fostering relationships more intentionally.

Jordan Berry [01:42:10]:

I’m not very good at it naturally. You know, there’s probably some of you out there waiting on a phone call from me, so I apologize, is not my natural thing. But I need to be more systematic about connecting with people because we are meant to go through life together and to help each other, and we are stronger when we’re together. So huge takeaway from me. I loved it, and a huge thank you to, the Ashleys least for bringing that point up and, and talking about it with me because I’ve always, I always love doing that. Alright. Pick one thing for you. Put it into action this week.

Jordan Berry [01:42:44]:

Maybe go share it on the forums