Steven Taylor is a prolific real estate investor who ventured into the laundromat business. The reason he bought his first laundromat is a funny story he shares in the interview. He owns one laundromat and is looking to build two more in properties he owns. He’s hooked on laundromats and he’ll tell you why you should be, too.
As a career investor, Steven has some great advice for anyone wanting to find financial freedom through investing in hard assets like laundromats and real estate. He’s a wealth of knowledge and experience and shares openly as he weaves his story throughout the interview.Â
Be prepared to take some notes because in today’s show, Steven and I discuss:
- How Steven got into real estate investing
- How Steven went from 1 to 300 real estate investment units
- How he started a property management company and manages 1,100+ properties
- Why he bought a laundromat after owning so many rental units
- Where he found his first laundromat deal
- Where he learned about the laundromat business
- How he increased his laundromat’s income by 800%
- Renovation tips for laundromats
- How he plans to expand his laundromat empire
- Online advertising for laundromats
- Basics of laundromat ownership
- Where you can get educated about the laundromat business
- His keys to success in business and investing
And so much more!
Watch The Podcast Here
TODAY'S SPONSORS
AtmosphereTV– We’re brought to you today by my friends at AtmosphereTV! Now You may have heard my interview a few months back with Mike Kelly from AtmosphereTV where we talked about what a simple change in content on your TVs can do for your laundromat by getting depressing news stations OFF and something much more fun, entertaining, and family-friendly ON. Since then, Atmosphere has grown to 50+ channels included in their service with everything from Surfing Dogs to Extreme sports, hilarious fails, and jaw-dropping videos from all over the world built specifically for business use. Atmosphere can be used to supplement your cable or you can completely cut your expensive cable bill and use Atmosphere 100% FREE saving thousands a year! Use my code RESOURCE when you check out or click the link or image to have your setup fee waived or contact [email protected] for more information!
Episode Transcript
hey what’s up guys it’s jordan with the
laundromat resource podcast this is
show number 51. i’m pumped you’re here
today because today
we have on stephen taylor who
is first of all he owns a ton of rental
real estate like
like 300 plus units of rental real
estate and just got into laundromats
than the last year and he’s going to
talk about his experience why he did it
which i thought was kind of a funny
reason why he decided to buy a
laundromat
even though he had so much rental units
i think he’ll get a kick out of it
but he talks a lot about how he got to
the point
he’s at right now in business so it’s a
lot of fun i will tell you
that we’re both a couple slow talkers so
this would be a really good one
to listen at to at a faster speed uh
probably if you’re not patient with
these slow
talkers like my wife who’s not patient
with me when i slow talk
anyways just wanted to give you a heads
up on that one
uh man not only is this a super cool
show
with steven but uh man i there’s just so
much cool stuff happening right now with
laundromat resource first of all the
forums have been
going like crazy and i’ve just been
loving loving all the conversations
happening over there
one i just wanted to highlight real
quick somebody’s trying to start up a
machine brand
thread where you can just talk about
machine brands the pros the cons of
those
i thought that would just be awesome to
hear from
those of you guys who have a particular
brand that you like or don’t like
and can be able to just have a
conversation about that over there on
the forums
that one’s in the laundromat forum um we
have a few different forums over there
that one’s in the laundromat forum
also i wanted to take a second to say
welcome to all the new members
who’ve uh come over to uh laundromat
resource and signed up for the
for the membership over there and in
particular
i want to say a huge huge welcome and
thank you for those of you new members
who went over to the new members
introduction forum and introduced
yourself
uh real quick i just want to say welcome
to elias
tim tim who uh who
he titled his something like hello
laundromates
which i thought was hilarious and i
think probably should stick laundromates
like what’s up mate uh i don’t know i
just for whatever reason i was cracking
up that
um so elias tim gnr5
nicholas alex glenn k andrew
shelly anthony chris and more i mean
just
welcome to you guys super glad to have
you part of the community if you haven’t
gone over there and introduced yourself
yet on the new member introductions
forum there’s a lot of really cool
conversations happening and not only
that what i
see happening a lot right now is people
in
the same general area are starting to
gravitate towards each other and to
connect with each other which i think is
oh so so cool like awesome incredible
so if you’re looking for people in your
area i know atlanta is going off right
now new jersey is going off right now
there was somebody lonely in florida
and uh man if you’re in florida go find
uh go find that person and connect
because there was nobody else in florida
who reached out to them and i know
some of you guys are out there in
florida so anyways i just wanted to say
a huge welcome
to you guys who introduce yourselves
over there
go meet somebody welcome them to the
community if you haven’t done that in a
little while
go ask a question answer questions jump
in on these discussions maybe the
machine brand discussion or another one
there’s a lot of really cool
conversations happening there
and you can jump in at any point in time
also i wanted to uh just
let you know or remind you if you
already knew that i do a webinar
a live webinar every single thursday you
can sign up at laundromat resource.com
there’s a form right at the top of the
page there
you can sign up as many times as you
want and listen to me drone on and on
about laundromats
uh every single week it’s a lot of fun
in fact a lot of you guys have been
coming
been very very cool bringing questions
and
uh yeah learning learning all about
laundromats so come join us if you’re
interested in that
and a special special thank you and
hello to denise
at the laundry room culver city who you
know gave me this
spiffy spiffy yeah spiffy i’m gonna say
spizzy
spiffy hat which you probably can’t see
if you’re on the podcast right now
but uh you know all the ladies
are saying that it makes my eyes pop and
by all the ladies i mean my mom
mostly but no but seriously denise thank
you i love
the laundry room uh culver city hat
and i will rock it is it cool if i wear
it to my own laundromat can you rep
another laundromat at your own
laundromat i think you can and i think i
will uh so anyways
hey what’s up denise and thanks again
for the hat all right let’s jump
into it uh with steven because this is
an awesome awesome episode you’re gonna
learn a ton
even if you’re just uh interested in
investing in general i mean
stephen in order to get this many uh
rental properties and laundromat and
more um you just have to
you got to have something special and he
shares that something special that he
has
with us today so you’re definitely going
to want to pay attention
and maybe speed up the playback if
that’s your
deal too all right i’ll catch you on the
back end where we’ll talk about
some takeaways from today’s episode
let’s jump into it
stephen how are you man thank you for
coming on the podcast how you doing
i’m doing great thanks for having me oh
man it’s
my honor and i i’m really excited to
talk to you about your story i know you
have a pretty cool
way that you got into the business and
a lot of what you do in terms of like
your real estate investing is
right up my alley i love real estate
investing so i’d like to explore that a
little bit before we get
into all of that and your laundromat
experience
uh why don’t you tell us a little bit
about who you are
tell us about your background well um
born and raised here in ohio up uh close
to the lake uh
we um married
two kids um just a
normal every day joe just hard-working
and enjoy what i do
awesome do you uh do you work uh
like a normal job quote unquote
i haven’t worked a normal job in
probably 15 years
i work for myself we got about 30
employees that
help us with our real estate company all
right
yeah we’re gonna have to talk about that
because that’s i mean that’s the dream
right that’s what a lot of people
get into real estate investing for
that’s what a lot of people get into
laundromats for
uh so you know why why don’t you
why don’t you tell us how did you get
into maybe real estate
and then maybe lead into how you got
into laundromats
sure started with real estate right yeah
real estate
yeah sure well when i was
getting you know going through high
school and i was coming out of high
school uh
my mom was telling me how my uncle uh
owned a couple of uh
duplexes and he rented them out and uh i
couldn’t believe that people paid rent
i just didn’t understand that you know i
grew up in the country i thought
everybody owned their own home
um and i i was
a pretty handy guy i liked woodworking
and uh
can fix just about anything so uh i
thought
well real estate that was for me so um
probably right out of high school i
bought my first four
unit apartment building um
well i i tried to buy a duplex before
that with my cousin and things just
didn’t work out we had a couple of
different
opinions and right then i realized that
i never want a partner
i if i can’t do it on my own i don’t
want to do it um
so we
[Music]
shortly thereafter i bought a four unit
apartment building uh in a nice city and
i moved into one of the units and
it almost broke even it uh
i had to pay a few hundred bucks a month
to live there so it was much
cheaper than paying rent so over uh over
the years
i think probably two years later i
bought a duplex and
the year after that i bought another
duplex and you know now
okay 25 years later 27 years later
yeah you’re you’re zooming by here holy
cow man this is
you’re saying it like this is nothing
but i know for a fact that people are
trying to figure out how to do exactly
what you just
nonchalantly did uh okay so back me up
here
uh to this four plex that you bought
first right
so you contact it right which is where
you live in one unit
and run out the others which is cool
you said you got that pretty much out of
high school yeah right out of high
school
how how did you do that well you know i
started back then you know people we
didn’t have the internet so we were
early
the internet was a thing
then but i i wasn’t into the internet
able to really qualify for a mortgage
easily so i ended up meeting a gentleman
that
sold me the property on land contract um
and we set up a 15-year term and
um i i didn’t even get much money down i
think a thousand dollars down on this
property and uh bought it for a hundred
thousand dollars and
uh over 15 years paid them off
and got the property free and clear and
um
i knew because i look at how much i paid
down every month on the principal
i knew that over time that uh it was
going to be worth it
and i knew that you know no matter where
i worked i would never be able to save
that kind of money
um so that’s why i kept buying more real
estate
so where did you find this guy
yeah he had an ad in the newspaper uh a
four-unit
apartment building for sale and it was
funny the first time i went and
talked to him he said uh
you know what did he say that
come back in a month and we’ll talk
again because i got some other people
that are interested
well after a month uh he still hadn’t
sold it
and i think i called him to the day
exactly 30 days later and
the persistence paid off i think it took
him a couple of months for him to
realize
that i was serious and that i was gonna
you know do exactly what i said i was
gonna do so
yeah okay so you found this in the
newspaper yeah
yeah before the internet so that’s where
everything was was
uh in your local paper i don’t think
anybody does anything the local paper
anymore
yeah i was gonna say what exactly is a
newspaper
exactly yeah uh man that’s
that’s pretty crazy you found this in
the newspaper you called the guy he’s
like i got somebody else
call me in a month and you call it and
then it took a couple months but you
you got this thing for like a grand
round
lived in it absolutely lived there i
lived there
probably three or four years
um and then i had a great aunt
that she had to go to the nursing home
and
she didn’t want her house to sit empty
so she asked me hey would you move into
my house and take care of it
no expenses just move in and take care
of it so
i thought well okay i can rent out my
unit then
and i can live in her place for free um
so
that was my next step that’s the only
reason i moved out of there
wow okay were you were you working at
that time
yeah i was working for coca-cola um i
was a delivery driver
i worked in the warehouse for a couple
years and then i spent 13 years at
coca-cola
okay okay so you moved out into your
great-aunt’s house
yeah okay because in your story
it was like about a four-plex and then i
bought a duplex and then i bought it the
relax and then i bought a duplex and
then i bought a dude
right like right how did you how did you
get that second one
second one um i found off the
from a realtor a realtor sold it to me
um
it was just an up and down duplex a
couple towns over
um and you know just from saving up some
money i was able to put i think at the
time i only needed 10
down or something so um so that one i
just went to a bank and did that one
um i i think it was probably maybe two
years after the first four plex it took
me to be able to do that one
okay and you didn’t house hack that one
that one was just a pure rental
pure rental yeah okay um
and then that was
back in the the 90s when the the
mortgage rates and the the lenders were
very easy to get loans from um
so as long as you could show that you’ve
you’ve had a history
of paying the the banks were willing to
give you money
um so it i ramped up really quick from
there on
out you know you would eventually
refinance one and pull out
you know 20 30 000 and you use that to
buy more and
um next thing you know within four or
five years from there i think it was up
to like 40 or 50 rentals
yeah um and then the market crashed
um i had a few people working for me at
the time um
so with the market crashing i i knew i
had to go somewhere else because the
banks weren’t going to lend me money
uh 2008 yeah right around 2008
yeah okay um but here in ohio the the
rates were so
cheap i mean they are the property
values were so cheap i mean i was buying
houses for
five thousand ten thousand dollars a
house um
so i was borrowing private money from
that 2008
uh i don’t even know 2012.
and i probably bought another 30 40
houses just borrowing private money
to buy those houses up um so the next
thing i know is over
over 100 properties by that time
so um and then i started a company that
we were doing repairs
for other landlords because people were
buying so many properties during
that period that um everybody needed
someone to fix them up
because they were so cheap so we were
doing repairs for other landlords and so
we got into the repair business
we did that we still do that today um
and then i started losing some of my
customers they were going with property
management companies
uh so i thought let’s start a property
management company
so we started a property management
company um
around 2010 2012. um
so now we manage probably i think about
1100 properties
here in uh northeast ohio and then
and then a lot of those properties that
we manage over time people are
you know they want to sell them and they
want to sell them on financing because
they don’t need the money and
um then you kind of blink in a 25 30
years have gone by and
you know we’re over 300 properties that
we own and
we manage you know 1100 properties so
keeps us busy yeah i would say so
that’s pretty crazy that’s a pretty wild
story and it sounds like you kind of hit
hit it like at your stride at a really
good time where
timing was very perfect yeah you got in
just before or you know a little bit
before and you got your experience under
your belt and you got a few units under
your belt
and then when property values dropped
you’re able to just scoop up a bunch and
right
it really worked out well it did we were
very blessed to have that all happen to
us and that
in that time frame um and you know it
was scary at the time too because you
didn’t know what the market was gonna do
um you know i either thought that uh
i was gonna be the brightest man on
earth or the dumbest man on earth i
wasn’t quite
sure um it went well
it worked it worked and even some of the
property i originally bought when the
market crashed
i actually owed a lot more on those
properties than what they were worth at
the time
and a lot of my friends that were doing
the same thing i did a lot of them gave
up and
just let them go in foreclosure um where
i just kept making the mortgage payments
the
the rents dropped a little bit during
that period but
nothing crazy um you know with some hard
work we were able to
um keep making the mortgage payments uh
we we never missed a payment through
that whole period
so it worked out well it really did it
was
some lean years without a doubt but um
and now after all these years we’ve got
a lot of them um that we’ve been able to
pay off
and uh you know acquire a bunch more
that we’re still working on paying off
i don’t go too far down the real estate
rabbit hole because i i’m like
i love the real estate so i can just
keep going with it but
you know it’s a little bit on that
podcast but
before we get to the laundromat stuff i
i do have a couple questions so
number one like what do you i mean so
many real estate investors lost their
shirts
in that period so what do you attribute
was that well so so many real estate
investors lost their shirts during that
2008 to 2012.
period what do you what do you attribute
your survival to like what what did you
do different that
you know your investor friends who gave
up or just so many real estate investors
who
you know you know um i never bought a
bit off more than i could chew
um i never lived outside my means um
you know there is times that i could go
buy a big fancy house and drive
you know fancy cars um i’ve drove a
pickup truck my whole life
um my wife has always you know drove a
minivan
um we we have no extra sports cars we
um you know we just lived in a modest
house
you know nothing fancy uh we did just
uh buy a big fancy house but uh you know
today we can afford that
so yeah so yeah we live lower means
yeah kind of millionaire next door style
yeah
absolutely absolutely without a doubt
yeah people get anxious to get to that
sports car
nice fancy house phase without building
the foundation that you’ve built
absolutely
you know having you got to have the
foundation you got but you know
you also have to be willing to take a
risk you’ve got to be willing to step
out of your comfort zone and
you know some of those properties should
i bought them so fast
maybe not um but it’s
it’s knowing what you can handle and
then doing what you say you’re going to
do
you know when you say that you’re going
to make those payments you’ve got to
make those payments
and if that means
means you have to you know skip going
out with your friends because money’s
tight that’s what you have to do
um so um business has a lot of ups and
downs and you got to be ready for the
downs
uh put money away for a rainy day
because it’s going to rain
yeah that’s a great great line right
there
uh okay it’s true yeah and so
speaking of being able to take risks how
so you said you were
borrowing a lot of private money during
you know that 2008-2012 where were you
finding private money
at that time you know i was a member of
a local
landlords association um which basically
had a bunch of
old real estate uh investors and
over the years i created a lot of good
friendships by spending a lot of years
there
and they trusted me and when i said i
was going to make a payment i made a
payment
you know they never had to ask a check
was always in the mail
prior to the day that it was due um
and just building her a rapport
and and uh something that they can count
on
yeah that’s that’s huge you know that
networking and that reputation
those two uh they really go hand in hand
absolutely and and it is kind of the
pathway to success i think you know
from all the successful people i’ve
interviewed and and have seen and have
met
you know those those two things you know
getting
getting in the middle of the right
people and having a good reputation with
those people
absolutely it’s a big deal yeah
you know and find yourself a mentor or
find someone that’s in the business that
can help you and
in the real estate business i have a
gentleman that has kind of been in my
corner and uh he’s he was very
very successful in the business and uh
you know his door was always open to me
you have to be willing to uh oh i say
take advantage of it but it because it
worked for both of us i mean he made uh
a lot of interest off me over the years
but
i’m i have no problem paying that
because that’s what i signed up for it
and it’s made me money so
i have no issue with it yeah right
okay well i mean i have a lot more real
estate questions but
sure let’s talk about
how did you okay you got like three well
real quick i gotta ask them now
are you are you planning to buy more
real estate or you
are you capped out at 300
no i’ll still buy more um right now with
the market so high i’ve actually been
selling stuff
um just because the the prices are so
high
otherwise i would just keep me building
um
so as the deals come in i’m still buying
but then i’m also selling um
a lot of property too so um
i’m buying deals that i’m selling at
retail today
yeah cool all right
how’d you get into laundromats i mean
you got all these rental properties
where where did this laundromat come
from
you want to know a real stupid reason
um in my business everything comes in
in checks they pay online i have zero
cash
i never have cash in my business and i
thought
the only cash i ever get is my apartment
buildings i go collect all the quarters
um which i actually kind of like because
i get it makes me get through the
properties on the first of every month
and i check up on the hallways and i
make sure the units are clean i make the
outside
the outside the bushes are all trimmed
and the yards look good and
i leave with a bucket a quarter for
quarters from every property
so um and you know in our apartment
buildings we all have speed queen
uh washers and dryers and to be honest
they hardly ever break down
um in the hallways um and once they
start to get old i replace them
but some of them are 20 years old and
they just run
so i thought you know i always need cash
you know you need cash in your pocket
i’m tired of going to the atm
and then my accountant’s always like oh
would you do this withdrawal 4
and you know i’m like you know what i
just need a cash business that i can go
get some cash
that i can keep into my pocket so i
thought
boy what could i do so in one of my
apartment buildings i put a coin changer
in there that the tenants can put in you
know
five and get five dollars for the
quarters or ones and and it helps them
it also helps me not have to quarter
carry the quarters out and then i’ve got
some cash
so i thought boy this is working out
well i said man
i had to look at a laundromat um because
there
are you know there’s a few of them
around my town and um
so i started watching youtube um
and there’s a few channels that i really
got interested in it and uh
one day i’m sitting there in the living
room and uh watching some videos and the
wife is watching some tv
and i said you know honey i think i want
me a laundromat
and she says well i’ve seen you watching
all these videos and i knew that one of
these days you’re gonna tell me you’re
buying a laundromat
so um so that that’s how it came to be
was um um
that i decided what the heck let’s do it
uh so i started watching craigslist
um and i started to network with
a couple of um local laundromat owners
trying to pick their brain a little bit
trying to
learn the ins and outs of the business
and i started watching a lot of the
youtube videos and um
and then one came available um it was a
rundown
horrible laundromat and
i made the guy an offer and he accepted
it and i’m like oh no
no no in a laundromat so uh we closed on
it in about two weeks and
uh here i am wow
okay so how long ago was this when did
you when did you get that laundromat
probably six seven months now i’ve owned
it um
i i found it through craigslist um
laundromat for sale and the guy had
seven laundromats that he was
selling and the one was like 10 minutes
from my office
the other ones were all half hour to an
hour away
and i had zero interest in those yeah
just jumping into the business i didn’t
want to bite off more
than i could chew what i mean what’s it
been like
it was it did you put money into it did
you fix it up did you run it how it was
what’d you do
yeah you know uh i went all in uh
we the first week that i bought it did
six hundred dollars in sales
um and i i’m like yeah this is
unacceptable this isn’t even gonna
um but i thought you know i used that
one movie
uh field of dreams i thought well if i
build it they will come
so immediately i put a new furnace and
central air in because it was
you know like 95 inside the building and
nobody’s gonna go do laundry in a
building that’s 95 degrees that’s just
insane so we put in a new furnace in
central air
um the roof had like three or four leaks
so
i put a new roof on the building um
and then some of the equipment was 30 40
years old
so i called around to a bunch of
different distributors trying to find
one that i liked
um and
you know everybody you know says the the
dexter and the
the hips or speed queen um
but you know those dealers i really
i felt like they were just trying to
sell me a whole package
and i just i didn’t feel like they
really cared about me
um so i ended up going with continental
um
because our local continental dealer i
really felt like he cared about me
and what my best interest was so um
and he listened to me and that’s who i
went with um
i did have i think four brand new dexter
dryers already in the building
um and then the continental dealer he
had um
six thirty pound double stacks
that were like five years old so i
bought those
and then i bought uh two brand new
um 445 pound reversing dryers
um so this way all my dryers then i
didn’t have any problems with dryers
um so and they were in the back of the
building so i said well let’s do all of
those first
this way um as we remodel the place
it i just found that i thought that that
would be easier
so we did all the dryers first and as
soon as we got the dryers done then we
started putting in some washers
and it’s worked out yeah so
how did i mean was it your field of
dreams did people start coming when you
when
not immediately um but the numbers we
were growing
every single week every week the numbers
were going up
um and i think we’re up like 800
um within seven or eight months so yeah
it’s
it’s uh it’s really working out uh it’s
been a major money pit
i mean that equipment is expensive um
really expensive i mean those washers
aren’t cheap
and i’ve ended up replacing all the
washers except for
i had three big maytags two 60s and 280s
that were like five or six years old
um but to be honest they’re my best
producing machines in the building
people walk into them and they just go
right there i think they have larger
doors
and they’re nice big shiny machines and
people go right to them so so i left
those there because people loved them
um and then i had uh we had
14 um
horizons in there and i’ve replaced half
of them
with new um continental
20-pound washers but uh
for some reason people still like those
uh
those horizons so i’m probably maybe
going to replace them with horizons
and i i think it’s the same thing i
think it’s the big door
that people just look at it and i i
think that that’s what
the laundromat uh customers see
and they just feel comfortable with
where the continental doors are kind of
smaller
and it doesn’t look like you can put as
much stuff in there um
and i’m big at watching people and i
track the machines to know
you know i can tell you how much my 80
pounder does i can tell you
of the 60 pounders i can tell you
exactly each week how much each one of
them does so
i’m really tracking to know what people
want
um and i know a lot of it is they walk
through the front door and you know of
course the big ones are right there
they use those up but um
so yeah i i’m a big at watching people
and watching their patterns and which
machines are getting used the most so
that’s
um you know i don’t always listen to the
distributors and what they want
i’m i’m what what my customers want and
it’s based off what they’re spending not
just what they’re saying
so yeah i think that’s really smart i
mean
they obviously they are your customers
that’s where your money is coming from
so how are you how are you tracking are
you just using a spreadsheet when you
collect
yeah a google doc and
you know i have um
and every week i just put down all right
this is what we collected on 80 pounder
today this is what the
two maytag 60s collected this is what
the two
soft mount 60 continentals collected and
then
my 40 pound soft mount uh
continentals this is what they did and i
do that in a hole i mean we got six of
them but
it’s across the board um and then i got
a couple 30 pounders i track those which
uh those are in the far corner they
actually they’re horrible they don’t
hardly do anything and then the 20s do
really well so
um so yeah i’m big on watching people
and what they
um what they do and you know one thing i
found early on too is when i had some
real old beat up dryers in there
as long as the store is clean people
will use anything they
they didn’t even see the brand new
dexters down on the end they went to the
old you know 30 year old dryer
they i think they just don’t know any
different um as long as
as long as they work i don’t think they
care
that’s that’s what i’ve noticed yeah
yeah and i i’ve noticed too that some
people just have a habit they
they get the same machines every time
and so
even if you replace those machines
they’d go to the same
spot where the correct machines were
and they’re just getting rid of it but
i’ve also found that certain locations
perform better than other locations even
like
for mine i have some that are the ones
that are up against the wall
don’t don’t do as many turns as the ones
that are on the edge of the aisle
they’re easier to do or whatever
yeah yeah so just kind of interesting
like you said watching the customer
patterns customer behaviors
and you know what they like and what
they don’t like and being able to make
adjustments you know when you’re ready
to
replace machines and stuff you’ll know
what machines to put in there because
you know what your customers like
absolutely absolutely so that’s that’s
what i do is i
i like to watch the the cameras to see
you know what’s going through people’s
minds and
uh where they’re going so that’s
important to me
yeah okay so you’ve you’ve been
you’ve been working you’ve been hustling
did you do anything else to the store
other than
replacing machines we uh
we painted the outside of the store um
we put brand new awnings on the the
front and the side because in the summer
time the
the sun was glaring through and it was
making that place an oven
so we put some real beautiful awnings up
and then i took
and put some led rope light uh through
the awning so
this place glows we put up new signage
out front and
uh the place is absolutely gorgeous from
the outside
um and even the inside’s nice um
and i’m probably gonna do some new
flooring in the store too right now it’s
just painted concrete
um and i’ve i’ve been kicking around
different ideas to do inside the store
and i just haven’t pulled the trigger
yet on
what we’re going to do there but we’re
definitely going to do something the
painted concrete is
yes kind of blah um i’m thinking
probably some new vinyl plank or
something
inside there i just want to see what’s
going to hold up um
but uh yeah i had it was funny i
actually did
the epoxy flooring and sharon williams
had sold me
um the the product
and then i had to go back after we had
put in the dryers because we had
scratched them up so we sanded them down
exactly what they sold they told us
and then we went to apply it back on top
and they had
given us the wrong product and the two
um had a chemical imbalance and they
just
bubbled up and they looked horrible so
um
so i sanded it again i just put down a
porch and floor paint
for today until i come up with something
that we’re gonna do
yeah there’s always these little issues
that come up
you know when you’re trying to write
stuff right yeah
um yeah but you know it’s been fun
because like even my wife and my kids
uh i’ve taken my kids over there at uh
you know midnight and we’re in there
painting until three four in the morning
we’ll paint the floors or
now we have employees that do all this
stuff but you know my employees don’t
want to work in the middle of the night
but
uh you know if the kids are going to be
off for the weekend or something you
know we’ll make uh
you know we’ll make a fun night of it
we’ll go over there and we’ll move stuff
around and do some painting and uh
you know i’ve actually my daughter she
loves to go take the coins out of the
coin boxes and
um she just gets all gated giddy when uh
a box is full of money and uh so it’s
been a lot of fun
yeah i like that it can kind of become a
family
family affair and uh absolutely yeah and
do it all together
my kids come in and help me my wife not
so much
anymore she’s like you take care of it
but my kids will come collect me
sometimes and
it’s fun and they’ll play with the kids
at the laundromat and stuff yeah the
kids they’ll come over and
help me fill the snack machines and
stuff like that
yeah uh okay well
you got this laundromat you’re six seven
months
into it business is up you’ve been
working on it you got a lot
that you’re doing to it and i mean are
you enjoying it
how is it comparing to your real estate
stuff is it fitting in well um
you know the business is so small
compared to our real estate company
right um now when we first bought this
place i was there almost every single
day
um now that it’s kind of calming down
and you know we’ve got uh two ladies to
work at night
um they’re not at the same time but
different days of the week
they’re doing all the cleaning um so
they’re keeping the place looking good
they’re dealing with some of the
customers at night i’m only going there
about two days a week now
um which is kind of nice um so now it’s
it’s
it’s doing what it’s supposed to do
which um
i’m not supposed to spend a ton of time
in the place which we’re getting to that
point now
um so i like that yeah
that can take a little bit of time to
set that up and get everything running
learn the business get the right people
in there
get it fixed up the way you want it can
take a little bit of time to get that
going
absolutely absolutely and i i was trying
to
learn the business so that’s why
machines and stuff like that but
i personally was wanting to do it so i
could see what we were selling
um and now that i’ve got a good idea
what sells what doesn’t sell
i could possibly turn the keys over to
the vending equipment and let her
keep those things full so uh and i’ll
probably do that here pretty soon
yeah i i really i have vending machines
in one of my stores and i really
don’t like spending the time to fill
those things up
i feel like it takes me forever to do
that i’m like
man it is time consuming
um like i said on fridays i fill all the
vending machines and
um you’re right i i could definitely be
doing something more important than that
but uh i was trying to learn the
business and see what sells
so um and now that i’ve got a good grasp
on that then i can turn that over
yeah totally uh okay well
you got you got one and it’s it’s
rolling you’re starting to get into
a groove with it are you i mean are you
thinking about getting more at all
or you just get the cash in your pocket
and you’re you’re good to go
yeah i’ve got um two other buildings
that i already own
uh that we’re going to put them in i’ve
got
a building that i’ve owned for probably
four or five years it’s a commercial
building with apartments upstairs
well the first floor um the commercial
areas are vacant
i just had somebody move out of the
corner unit so
there’s no laundry mat on that side of
town
so right now i’m dealing with the city
trying to get
permits and a zoning change
um my lawyer’s dealing with all of that
so i’m waiting
to get the green light that we can start
to put it in
um i already own the building so why not
do it
so we’re putting one in there and then
um
i just bought a building that was an old
hardy’s building
on a super busy corner uh
right in the middle of a pretty rough
area um
but uh it’s right next door to a
a cvs and a walgreens and a bp gas
station so
it’s a super busy corner and there’s not
a laundromat within
probably 10 minutes and
the numbers are off the chart from the
distributor so
um i just closed on the building maybe
a month ago and i’ve just got the
architect he’s come over and looked at
everything and he’s gotta put all the
plans together so i can turn it into the
city
um so yeah we’re gonna convert a
hardee’s building into a laundromat
hardy’s is a fast food yeah it’s a fast
food like
like a mcdonald’s building of some sorts
but it’s been empty probably for
i think six seven years the building’s
been empty um
so i was looking for this area
because i know that it’s mainly all
rental so i was like all right
this would be a great area but every
building i came to
either had no windows or no parking or
um it just didn’t have the building
wouldn’t be a good laundromat
um so then i came to this one and i made
the people an offer and we went back and
forth a few times and
it’s got everything i need a lot of
parking it’s got the windows on three
sides so you’ll be able to see in
and you know we’ll we’ll light that
thing up like the fourth of july so
it’ll be glowing inside
so um so it’ll be great
i’m looking forward to the project uh
it’s nice that we’ve started
we started doing a lot of the demo and
stuff like that and
so we’re moving forward with it i don’t
have anything approved by the city yet
but that’ll come within the next month
or two
i like that i like that confidence so
that one you were looking to buy
specifically for
a laundromat yes yes i bought that for a
long time and you’re like i could make
that one
a laundromat yeah absolutely yeah okay
yeah and there will be about 10 minutes
apart but
that 10 minutes is like one
on another side of a river and you got
to go over a huge drawbridge to get to
it
um so there are completely different
groups of people that would use them
so i think they both will do really well
yeah so yeah man well that’s that’s
pretty exciting i mean what are you
gonna do if the city says no
uh they’ll say yes i’d like to hear yes
i have my ways right you know
i i was told a long time ago but
actually by my mentor he said you know
what you have your yeses before you even
ask
um so i know people that know
people in council and stuff like that
and you know i’ll go pitch the idea to
them
and let them know what’s coming so that
they can talk to their friends and
uh we’ll get the yes before it even it
even happens so
you just gotta know who to talk to and
who to sell the idea on and
um the one building uh that i bought for
a laundromat
was the building zoned properly we just
got to get the city to approve
the layout that we want um so we may
have to change some things up a little
bit inside
but that’s okay we’ll we’ll do whatever
they want
um we’ll make it happen yeah
i mean again it comes back to that
network
and having that reputation right and who
absolutely
who you know and what you can get
absolutely yep
absolutely um and you know even in that
you just always um
you know don’t make enemies with the
city you
um even though they tell they tell me
all the time things that i don’t want to
hear
um they don’t make it easy to be friends
a lot of times and i mean by there i
mean any city
really sure absolutely absolutely so
um i know enough people there that we’ll
we’ll get it done well one way or
another it may not be the exact time
frame that i’m looking but we’ll make it
happen
i’m confident i like that so
you’re kind of jumping in with both feet
what what made you make the decision to
i mean you’re only six or seven months
into your first laundromat
so and now you’re talking about building
two in places where you technically
don’t have permission yet to even build
them
so what made you kind of jump in with
both feet to do that
um i’ve always been that way
um when when i see something that i want
and
um you know where there’s a will there’s
a way
um you know right now the other
companies are doing well so i can uh
we can afford to do this it’s not a uh a
big financial
hit to the company to um to buy all the
equipment and make it happen so we can
we can do that but you know one thing
i’ve even found too is
you know a lot of the shows that i watch
and people making comments they’re all
you got to buy brand new equipment for
everything and i don’t think that’s
necessary
um you know most this equipment’s bought
and made to last 25-30 years
even the dryers um
network with people that don’t know how
to fix this stuff
i personally don’t have time to fix any
of it um you know i can troubleshoot a
couple little things while i’m there but
you know if if it’s acting up i just
call my repair guy
um make sure that you got enough money
that you can just afford to pay somebody
to do these things
um i found a a guy that’s all he does is
repair
laundry equipment um and
is he expensive yeah absolutely but uh
he’s good at what he does i mean he can
come in and fix it in an hour where i’d
be farting around for three days trying
to figure out how to do it so
i i’m happy to pay him to fix it but you
know
the new one that we’re building in the
hardy’s building
i found online um some used dryers that
were hardly used i mean they’re in
beautiful shape
um for 1600 bucks a dryer where they’re
like
7 500 a piece brand new so
and they can be fixed for a long time so
why would i spend
you know an extra 6 000 as a machine
for something that i can get you know
used on so um that’s that’s my opinion
i will put in some brand new fancy shiny
machines right by the doors
you know so that when people walk in
they see something
um to make them want to walk through the
door and you know this way they don’t
think it’s all
just old junk in here but uh and keep
the place clean
and you know hire some friendly
attendants that
make people feel comfortable there and
they will come
so yeah i think that attendant
everything is a big deal too
you know having you know if you’re going
to have attendance there just having
friendly people who
are you know i had i think i’ve told
this like way back when
but i had an attendant one time and she
literally had she was just as feisty
like she was super nice but she was
feisty
and she was literally getting in like
these like yelling matches with
customers and i was like whoa what is
what’s happening right now
when you got the right person in there
absolutely and if
that person doesn’t work then you got to
move on yeah you got to find the right
people people that
um you want to feel comfortable when you
walk through the door and you want to
feel welcome when you walk through the
door
um none of these stores are going to be
attended all the time
we’re going to do um you know definitely
every night there’ll be somebody there
for a couple hours cleaning and taking
out trash and
uh but we’re not gonna be fully attended
um
i’ll put on the doors that they unlock
at 5 00 a.m and then they re-lock at
midnight
um so yeah this way if somebody calls
off it’s not the end of the world
uh that’s my game plan yeah i like that
i like that well hey speaking of which i
got a little
section that we call down to business
let’s get down to business over and out
okay and that just i mean we’ve already
been talking about your business and
what’s been going on uh you know we’ve
been talking about it already so
but let’s just get a little bit more uh
details about
your business and how that journey’s
been over the last six seven months
okay so where where are you you’re in
ohio right is that
correct we’re in lawrence county we’re
in lorraine county up on the lake
right on lake erie yeah all right
moraine county ohio
sounds nice my uh my one store is in
illyria which is just south of lorraine
it’s uh we got about um
300 000 people in our county so it’s not
a huge area but it does have a good
amount of people here
cool um i normally ask people
how many laundromats and real estate uh
you got but you got one laundromat and
you got two
on the way yeah providing the city says
yes which they will sure
they will we’ll get them through that’s
right yeah and that’s like
300 or so units of real estate yeah
we’re just over 300 rental properties
yeah that’s pretty impressive yeah uh
and you’ve been in the business for six
or seven months we’ve already talked
about that
yep so tell me what is it what does it
cost to do laundry
in your neighborhoods what are vend
prices looking like
a two loader runs 250 a load
um our three loader is 350 a load
a uh 40 pound machine is
five and a quarter
a six loader is at um
675.
we have a seven loader at 7.75
and our 80 is at
9.25
do a lot of people use that 70 pounder
um it is probably our slowest machine
but it’s also because it’s off in a
corner
um i actually just ordered with
continental
a self injecting
um softener and soap so you won’t have
to put any soap and stuff on it it’s got
you know lights on it and it’s going to
inject the soap
and it kind of like puts on a little
circus kind of thing
um and i’m hoping that that will make
pick up that machine
um you know i put the machine in brand
new three four months ago
and i ran a special on it uh when i
first put it in for like three dollars a
load
and it ran non-stop for a month but then
it’s just kind of
died off when i put it back up to its
normal price
so i’m thinking if i put that soap
injector in there that maybe that will
make that machine busier so
and take some pressure off of the you
know the 80 and the 60s
so that’s my that’s my goal we’ll see
how it goes
yeah i’ll be curious to know how that
works out
yeah yeah i’ve never used one of those
uh self-injected
kind of machines but yeah it looks cool
um
i don’t know if it’s a waste of money
yet or not but uh we’re gonna find out
um it’s only one way if you don’t try
you don’t know
so exactly and i think that’s a big
point actually you know i think a lot of
people are afraid to try different
things and i know
even you know even me like i’m sometimes
i’m afraid to try different things but
you know one of the things i’ve found
that is if you don’t
try stuff you don’t have data points
to help you make good decisions down the
line right like you could try this
and it could shoot this thing through
the roof and now when you’re building
your next
two you know hey i need to include
you know i need to include this stuff in
my next two
because man it’s shot you know it shuts
the roof but you know if it doesn’t do
anything for it then you probably know
hey i don’t need to put that really in
my in my next two right
but you have those data points because
you’re willing to try something so
right exactly because if it picks up and
does really well
we’re gonna we’ll put it in the other
laundromats if it doesn’t work we’re not
gonna do it
yeah yeah smart
well what i mean what do you you said
you’ve been tracking your
your machine so what do you what are you
doing turns per day are you tracking it
that way
um i don’t always crack it by turns per
day but this last
week i did check uh track my 80 and we
were averaging five
a little over five turns per day nice
um in the 80 and
but on average we’re more around three
and a half to four uh
turns per day on the rest of the
machines um so
which is good i like that
of course i’d like to see more but who
wouldn’t you know i
i don’t know what the national average
is i don’t know what people are doing
but
uh that’s where i’m at right now yeah
well i found that
i i don’t really i hear all kinds of
numbers for the national average
and i kind of got to a point where i’m
like i don’t really care actually what
the national average averages really i
only care what my businesses are doing
right right i agree with you how do i
get mine to do more
you know but my 70 pound machine
probably only does
uh a little over one turn per day i mean
that’s just
you know so that’s horrible so that’s
why i’m putting that injector on top to
see if i can get that one up to
you know three or four times a day um
and then it will pay for itself
once um you know if it does do more
and if not it was a waste of money and
we move on you know
if not it was a valuable data point you
know
absolutely absolutely i’ve never seen it
in another laundromat in our area
so it’s something new um and maybe you
know something new will draw people in
uh i don’t know we’re gonna find out
though
maybe you should have them set it up so
it looks like a flux capacitor
exactly exactly time back to when your
clothes were clean or brand new
oh right i like that that’s good
marketing right there look at that right
that’s a free one for you right i’ll use
it uh yeah
uh okay oh man
uh all right so you’re gonna go with
kind of a partially attended
model where you’re gonna have people
basically coming in and cleaning up and
sure yeah customers for a couple hours
exactly when we open the new ones we’ll
be
fully attended probably for the first
six months and then we’ll start to back
out
some of the hours uh to where we’re not
fully attended
yeah i was gonna ask you and i forgot to
um did you when you were putting in new
equipment and stuff did you do anything
marketing wise
uh to let people know i mean i know like
doing stuff to the outside let people
know that you’re doing stuff
probably too outside and attracts people
right but did you do anything else
you know i did a lot of facebook ads
it was kind of nice that our local
councilman
at that store was sharing everything
that i put out
so that really was good
and every day i’d put up hey you know
here’s the floors we’re putting in or
here’s the new
60-pound machine or here’s the new
dryers or
um every day i was putting out a
facebook ad and then i was paying
you know to you know like twenty 30 a
day worth of advertising too
but i haven’t had to do a lot of that
lately i think i did one last week for a
new coin changer that i just put in
one that’s uh a build a bill with some
coin
return i did an ad on that one
it was just something different
different nobody else has that here but
i noticed uh
you know everybody that comes in they
have a 20 and they’re like hey can you
break this for me i don’t want 20
worth of quarters in my pocket so
i ordered a build a bill so if they put
in a 20 they get three fives and five
dollars worth of quarters
um so uh
you know to cut back i don’t have to
have as many i don’t have to be as
manpower as much
and i don’t have to leave a bunch of
fives there with the employees wondering
are
they not that they’re gonna i trust who
i have there but
you know you also don’t want you know
someone held up
because they have money there i mean it
just it makes it safer for everyone
yeah yeah were you just uh were you just
boosting
those posts yeah yeah just through
facebook
it really worked um we we picked up a
lot of business through that
so i highly recommend that for people
yeah
that’s a good good tip did you did you
know the councilman who was re-sharing
your stuff or he just
never met him before uh she just was
yeah she liked uh what we were doing and
i uh
you know i kind of kept her uh in the
loop of what was going on and she just
loved what we were doing uh we had the
mayor stopped by one
day to see what we were doing and uh he
did a little
boost of you know this is what’s
happening on the south side of valyria
and
uh you know so it’s just little things
like that and it was
it’s a nice pretty store now so uh they
were grateful that the that side of
town’s getting cleaned up a little bit
yeah i wonder if i can get uh the la
mayor to swing by my
little laundromat and boost maybe the
councilman willow you never know yeah
yeah uh so you’re running
100 coins is that what you’re doing we
we are coin plus pay range uh we
installed pay range
um and you know it’s kind of funny pay
range
on a continental machine was a little
bit of a pain in the butt because they
uh as soon as you put in you have to
select a
um like hot cold or whatever and then
the little flap will open so you can
start to put quarters in
well if you pay with pay range it would
just eat the money unless you
selected the button of what to use so
i’m like oh we can’t do this this just
isn’t gonna work and i called
continental and they’re like well
there’s no other way around it
um you’re just gonna have to educate
your customers to
you know hit you know button four before
you
pay with pay range and oh yeah this
ain’t gonna work this this is
um so my repair guy i was telling him
about it and he’s like
there’s gotta be a way around it and he
read the manual and he figured it out so
they were able to keep that door open
all the time and then it just puts the
money
on there as a credit so it really pays
to have
intelligent people that know your
machines in and out
so i hate this guy at
should all should but uh there’s always
where there’s a will there’s a way
that’s right so i like
pay range um i’m debating on the next
doors whether i go with a card system or
a quarter but
uh to be honest i think i think people
like the quarter
uh i i you know
especially where i’m at if i was in a
high end city maybe la or something i
don’t know maybe there they
would want you know a card system but uh
i don’t think so not where i’m at i
think they
like to put quarters and i think that my
clientele
i think are you know not as educated i
think a lot of them don’t have a debit
card or a credit card and
i think they don’t want to leave you
know four or five dollars on a card
i don’t think they have that extra kind
of money um
so that’s my personal experience from
what i’m saying with my people so i’m
thinking i may stay with quarter and pay
range
um pay range does about
i think we’re probably at 15 percent of
our people are using fifth
pay range uh the rest are all using
quarter
um so i think we’re probably going to
stay that way
have you tried incentivizing using
pay range in any way um
i made up a little business cards that
uh told people if they gave us a
five-star google review i’ll give him
five bucks on pay range
and then i’ll send it to him through the
app um
so when i bought the place it was like a
1.2
google and facebook i mean it was
horrible um
so but now we’re up to almost four you
know a four-star
um and a lot of it has to do with you
know giving me the five dollars
freeway which i don’t care my my
daughter says oh dad you’re um
i don’t remember what she said but it
wasn’t positive
she was like you’re you’re just buying
your votes here dad i’m like
you want them i’m just trying to get a
higher
google you know rating and and uh
oh what’s the other one uh google and
facebook
um yeah we don’t do yelp much out this
way it’s not very big here
um but you know people love it now they
they love
the store they they love when they come
in that it’s clean
and the equipment always works it drives
me nuts when there’s an odd order sign
on there
um i call my guy immediately when
something breaks um
get it fixed and uh let’s get this whole
store up and running again
so yeah is it what
yeah that’s yeah well first of all
that’s a good
good habit to have you know if you if
you got the guy who can come fix it man
then you know those machines down you
know not only is it a deterrent for
customers you know if you start if you
get too many machines down
customers are like hmm but also
that machine’s not making any money when
it’s broken exactly
exactly get it back up and running you
know some of the things i noticed too is
like i had bought a bunch of
folding tables i bought the ones off
amazon
the stainless steel like kitchen tables
i bought a bunch of those to replace
those old nasty tables we had in there
but i found with the stainless steel
they’re always smudged up you know with
the fingerprints and people leave their
soda bottles up there and it just
always looks dirty unless you were
attended full time that somebody’s in
there wiping
non-stop yeah and we’re not attended all
the time so that didn’t work for me
um and every time i’d walk in and see
those tables it would just drive me nuts
i’d immediately go get the cleaner and
make it look good and i thought you know
what
i got to get rid of these tables so i
ended up buying the new actual
folding tables i know they were a lot
more expensive
but you know when i walk in there now
the place doesn’t look dirty
um so if i was attended i would have
left those other tables in there but
that was something i learned that i
wouldn’t do again i would
next time i’ll be buying just regular
folding tables and
paying the price for them because
they’re worth it yeah
another good tip how many i know you
said you’re
you’re down to about two times a week
going to the laundromat how many hours
are you
spending when you’re there or how much
time um
mondays i’m there half hour
to an hour depending on what i run into
um and mondays is usually it’s that’s
when it’s dirtiest
because sunday was packed and if i go in
there on monday morning and
you know from the time our attendant
leaves at 8 p.m and we close at midnight
sometimes on monday morning the place is
just
a big pen and i go in there and i clean
um
so sometimes it can be an hour i’m in
there and then fridays i’m in there for
about an hour hour and a half
yeah it’s amazing how quickly
people can destroy a place oh man
you’re not getting trash everywhere yeah
yeah as soon as that first dryer sheet
hits the floor it’s like a free-for-all
like yes
chicken bones on the ground yeah it
doesn’t matte like just
it doesn’t matter the dryer sheet hits
the floor it’s it’s right
sometimes i walk in i’m like did like a
tornado happen in here like
right it hasn’t been that right like
what happened i think uh
following keenan says the dirtier the
laundromat the more money that’s in the
coin box so
uh and it’s 100 correct um so when i
walk in and the place is
disaster that means we did well the
night before so i don’t mind cleaning
um i i you know i may change up i may
even hire someone in the morning that
comes in for an hour every morning just
to do it one more once
over um but uh i like my laundromat
clean but
uh it it doesn’t hurt my feelings when i
walk in in a place as an actual big ben
because that means we did well
so unless you have a homeless problem
and it’s just dirty because you got a
homeless guy in there
um one of the things i did yeah one of
the things that i did
um and again this kind of depends on
who you hire but i would hire somebody
to
basically work a split shift just for
two to three hours but
they would come in either in the morning
and do
their their you know hour and a half to
two hour
clean up of the place okay or however
long it took
um and then i’d have them come back for
just a quick like
30 minute tidy up like if they came in
the water
and have them come you know in the
evening and do a quick
30 minute tidy up where they pick up the
shredder sheets and the chicken bones
and whatever else is in there absolutely
um wipe stuff down real quick exactly um
and that
really helped um you know it gave them a
little bit
more i hired people who were just right
in the neighborhood
um for my unattended store i just found
that they’ve
had more of a pride of ownership and
they’ve ended up taking better care
of you know the store when they when
they’ve been working there um so it’s
easy for them to walk across the street
for 30 minutes and
and tidy up but that had a big impact
because it just
my unattended store would get thrashed
you know
from sure they come in the morning or in
the evening whatever like by the next
time they come it would just be
trashed but i found sure just a 30
minute tidy up
made a huge difference for absolutely
i can really make that place look good
in 30 minutes yeah
yeah exactly so i get it well we got a
section called
secret sauce listen up it’s the secret
sauce
and that is you know what what’s
something that you feel like is working
really well for you
that other owners can implement into
their business to help them
improve their business uh definitely the
facebook
ads that that has done wonders for us
um and keep your store clean
and don’t be afraid to meet your
customers and talk to them
and you know one thing that i found
every time i’m there
i open up the pop machine and i pass out
free drinks
um it you know it puts smiles on
everyone’s face everyone’s grateful
um and what does it cost you 30 cents a
pop
i mean for a can of soda um
and i just uh i asked the kids for you
know hey what would you like would you
like a candy bar
you know sure so when i go over there
cost me five ten bucks but
you know it just puts smile on people’s
faces and it doesn’t
really cost you much um and if i see a
new customer that walks through the door
i offer them today’s laundry on me uh
here let me start this machine for you
hey let me show you pay range
uh it’s an app that you can put on your
phone if you like and um
you know this is how it works and then
like oops i just paid for your laundry i
hope you don’t mind
um and it uh it makes them want to come
back
when they get something for free so
and even if you see somebody that comes
in all the time and you happen to be
there
uh start their machine um
what does it hurt to me i
it doesn’t really cost you much um and
the goodwill
and if somebody ever complains about
they
lost some money in the machine i just
give them their money back no questions
asked
i do have a couple of people that i’ve
seen repeat
that they keep asking all those i might
say something to eventually but
um but if they’re losing if they lost
money whether
i had a guy the other day that the new
bill machine it gives them three fives
back and then
five dollars in quarters well he didn’t
realize that he gave three fives and he
left the three fives in there
and someone came in later and
it’s like oh free money in this machine
um
so i gave him his 15 bucks that he
lost because he didn’t know how the
machine worked um
what it doesn’t really cost me that much
i’m not going to lose any sleep over 15
bucks so
um but i made him happy and he’ll come
back
so uh take care of your customers and
they’ll take care of you
yeah that’s great and you know even that
15 bucks
i mean over the lifetime of that
customer that 15 bucks ends up
being well worth you know absolutely
worth it but i know a lot of
a lot of laundromat owners tendency is
to you know be very tight with their
finances
sure which is not a bad quality per se
but at the expense of
a customer you know if you lose a
customer over a 15 bucks
that’s probably not a good decision
right right i completely agree i like
what you’re saying i like taking care of
your customers
and i think you’re right you know i’ve
had a couple guests who’ve said
yeah no questions asked we’ll we’ll
refund money or whatever
um there are people who try to take
advantage of that and you can address
that but by default
i like that mentality of oh you lost
money okay
you know here right or you know one of
the ones that happens a lot
you know with with at my stores is you
know people will put a lot of soap in
there
sure and they’ll say you know your
machine’s broken look at all the soap
and you know trying to explain to
somebody that the only way that there’s
too much soap
in there is that if you put too much
soap in there
right it found to be a very fruitless
conversation
right so just you know saying hey throw
in some fabric softener
here it is i’ll give it to you sure and
absolutely i’ll run a rinse cycle again
and it’ll be fine
you know it’s way easier than trying to
say
you know explain to them absolutely
yeah and then taking the opportunity to
educate them at the same time
yes completely agree yeah cool
well that’s a that’s great secret sauce
uh i think
you know all those things we can learn
from uh
all of us you know implementing the the
facebook ad stuff
you know keeping the stores clean seems
like obvious
but i don’t know i’ve been in enough
laundry mats to know that it’s not
obvious to everybody
right i agree and then i really like the
you know meeting the customers building
that relationship it really
if you can put that personal touch on
there and then just
kind of make them feel special you know
whether that’s absolutely
soda or starting their laundry form
every now and then or
whatever you know buying their kids a
little candy or whatever
uh absolutely i know one time over the
summer i was there and
it was lunchtime and i ran up to
mcdonald’s and uh
you know i knew there was a lady there
with her kids and uh i bought them all
you know the little ice cream cups from
mcdonald’s i mean
you know and that lady’s been there
every week ever since
so it’s like what did that i mean i
spent four bucks for
you know some ice cream and mcdonald’s
for the kids i mean it does
they’re gonna choose you over somebody
else um
because of that rapport that you’ve
created with them
it goes a long ways yeah i’ve mentioned
this
quite a few times since but uh
past guest elizabeth brick and wilson
said
you know your laundromat is an extension
of or it should be an extension of
people’s homes
and you know doing things like that just
makes it feel
homey right just makes it absolutely
feel like home and
absolutely that’s what we should be
doing i love that
completely agree well we have another
section called
pro tips pro tips and pro tips
is for the newbie somebody
not so different from you seven or eight
months ago
where they’re looking to buy their first
laundromat uh do you have any advice for
them
get educated um you can get free
education on youtube
uh watching um i like
following kanan chock full of quarters
uh there i fixed it um
your podcast of course um but
and you know every laundromat can be
different um
just because one person runs theirs one
way doesn’t mean you have to run it that
way
do what works for you but be consistent
and that’s the most important thing and
your customers will know how consistent
you are
um and that’s what really pays off so
spend the time on youtube watching those
videos and
find the type of laundromat you want to
own
yeah that’s good that’s great advice
great advice and those are all awesome
youtube uh channels all
linked to all of those uh if
if you haven’t checked them out you can
just click on those links
uh those will be in the show notes or uh
if you’re on youtube already it’ll be
down in the description
go check those out give them a subscribe
and uh
and learn a lot from those guys they’re
all doing a lot of awesome stuff
okay last uh last little section we have
is called recommended resources
and i mean you just mentioned a bunch of
awesome
youtube videos where people can or
youtube channels where people can learn
about the industry
anything else you want to add to those
few channels
no you know um you know just because
one of them say this is the way you got
to do it doesn’t mean that necessarily
works for you
you know i know um you know some of them
you know they do all the repairs
themselves
i i don’t get dirty in an aspect you i
mean you’ll see my finger and as i have
no grease on my fingernails i’m never
going to tear a machine apart and try to
fix it
hey i don’t know how to um i don’t
really want to know how to either um
so i’m gonna be just the investor side
of it
but you know if you were a handy
individual
this could also be a great business for
you because you can make all your own
repairs and you can save money on that
side so that’s why it’s so important
that
just because you do something different
doesn’t mean that it’s still not going
to work for you
um and just find out what works for you
and then
play on those strengths yeah i like that
and it it never ceases to amaze me
how differently people run their very
simple laundromat businesses right
there’s just a lot of different ways to
do it
and there’s a lot of people saying this
is the way to do it and you’ll hear that
from uh you’ll hear that from brokers
you’ll hear that from distributors
you’ll hear that from
people on youtube you hear that from
people on the podcast you’ll hear that
all over the place and there isn’t one
way to do it right
you absolutely you said to follow your
your strengths and make it work for you
the way that it’s going to work best for
you
absolutely absolutely
yeah well listen this has been
awesome awesome so much good stuff it’s
so funny because
you i mean obviously you’re fairly new
in the industry
but you’re a incredibly seasoned uh
investor and have a
ton of really great advice uh for
for all of us and i love what you’re
doing um
with real estate stuff obviously but
also i love what you’re doing with your
laundromat you have
the right mindset uh to
you know to succeed i can’t wait to see
the
the next two that come out and i also
can’t see your
detergent flux capacitor and
it’s gonna be great it’s going to be
great well thank you for coming on
and just hearing so much about your
experience and
uh and just your wisdom that you’ve
gained and i
really really appreciate it man all
right i hope you got a
ton of value out of this interview with
stephen because like i said in the
beginning
i mean in order to accumulate 300 units
and a laundromat and more uh you’re
doing something right and he’s got a lot
of wisdom share i know i gained a ton of
wisdom i was kind of geeking out a
little bit on his real estate investing
and in particular but also about the
laundromat stuff
um but you know every single week i
encourage you guys
pick one thing to take away from the
interview put it into practice because
action is what’s gonna lead you to
success not
learning by itself uh knowledge is power
when you put it into action so let’s get
powerful let’s get pumped
uh yeah okay um for me
my big takeaway he had this quote and i
wrote it down
and i thought it was really genius as
i’ve kind of been thinking about it
since the
interview i’m recording this a little
bit after but um i’ve been thinking
about this quote
that says know what you can handle and
do what you say you’re go
what you say you’re gonna do and for me
i
what i love about that is the times
where i find that i’m dropping the ball
you know somewhere in my life whether
it’s you know not getting back to some
of you guys who’ve emailed me because
i’m like
inundated with emails or you know
whatever the case may be like
that’s just recently on my mind because
i’ve been trying to catch up on emails
uh but uh you know whenever i drop the
ball
it’s because of a lack of understanding
or a lack of
my own ability to admit uh
to what i can handle and what i can’t
handle and
that leads me to saying that i’m going
to do something that i
can’t do and i loved i mean one of the
big themes in his
in stevens interview was to
network with people who are successful
and then to have a good reputation with
them um
with with that group of people and that
comes through knowing what you can
handle and doing what you say you’re
going to do
and that part is huge because a lot of
people say they’re going to do a lot of
things
and don’t do it so for me that’s kind of
what i’m doing
uh this week is i’m taking a little bit
of self-assessment
and saying okay am i doing things that i
just can’t handle
and i need to back off of that so that i
can do the things i say i’m gonna do
that’s my takeaway what’s yours maybe
head over to the forum
introduce yourself in the foot in the
introductions forum
and then maybe go find a spot on the
laundromat forum to
uh to let us know what your big takeaway
was all right
thank you guys for hanging out with us
today hopefully you got
a lot of value out of this episode next
week
we have another in incredible
uh episode so if you haven’t subscribed
yet make sure you subscribe
and if you haven’t done so yet maybe
jump over to apple podcast or google
podca
google podcast where is that i don’t
know wherever you’re listening to this
or right here on youtube if you’re on
youtube and uh
and subscribe to the show and maybe
leave me a rating and review
so that i know how to get better for one
and what you like and what you don’t
like
but also so that other people can find
us here on the podcast alright guys
we’ll see you next week and thanks again
[Music]
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