102. Small Space, Big Impact with Jason Foster

00;00;00;00 – 00;00;23;03
Jordan
Hey. Hey, what’s up, guys? Is Jordan with the Laundromat Resource podcast? Is this show 102 and I’m pumped you here today because today we are back on the show by popular demand Jason Foster, self-proclaimed mom and pop laundromat owner. And he’s coming back because his last episode really just seemed to strike a chord with people. And so we brought him back on.

00;00;23;03 – 00;00;44;08
Jordan
He was super excited to come back on and share more of how he runs his mom and pop laundromat. And so we get into all kinds of things from marketing as a mom and pop laundromat owner to community outreach, a whole bunch of stuff to help you improve your business. Whether you have a mom and pop laundromat or you have a huge empire, or you’re trying to buy your first laundromat.

00;00;44;09 – 00;01;06;00
Jordan
So a ton of good stuff in this episode today. I know you’re going to love it. I got a bunch of a bunch of notes that I that I took from this interview. So great, great stuff. Okay. So before we jump into it with him, let’s get to today’s Fastlane. Fastlane is how can Lord Matt Resource help put you on the fast lane toward success, whatever that looks like for you.

00;01;06;00 – 00;01;29;06
Jordan
Maybe that’s leaving your 9 to 5. Maybe that’s just getting some passive income. Maybe that’s escaping the rat race. Maybe that’s, I don’t know, put your kids through college, whatever it is. Right. So today’s Fastlane is you may or may not know that I’ve been doing consulting for laundromats for a couple of years now. I’ve done over a thousand consulting calls now.

00;01;29;28 – 00;01;55;05
Jordan
And in fact, you can go read some of the reviews. I believe they’re at laundromat resource dot com slash test, Jimbo. Uh, or I’m going to put a link to it in the show notes, which would be a long resource dot com slash show 102. Or if you’re on YouTube, you can look down below in the description and the link will be down there to you can go read a bunch.

00;01;55;05 – 00;02;37;06
Jordan
I think I have over 125 reviews that you can read there and tons of really good feedback there. And the reason for that is because number one of all the pain that I’ve gone through when I first got into this business and into the very expensive and painful lessons I learned. And number two, because I’ve been talking with you guys for years now, and so, you know, whether that’s through consulting calls or whether that’s through webinars, I do the weekly webinars or just talking to you guys, you know, via email or on social media or through just meeting with you guys at different events and stuff.

00;02;37;06 – 00;03;11;18
Jordan
So tons, tons of great stuff there. Well, that’s not necessarily the only part of this fascinating, very exciting announcement is that coming on board on the consulting is Andrew Cunningham. You may remember him, I call him the Human Laundromat Encyclopedia and speaking of very popular podcast guests, Andrew Cunningham is one of the most popular and reached out to guests out there and he is super excited to come on board and offer his consulting services also so you can find out how to book a call.

00;03;11;18 – 00;03;31;20
Jordan
Or you can book a call with Andrew or me at a lot of my resource dot com slash coaching. And again, I’ll put that link in the show notes. Let me resource that conversation one or two and on down below in YouTube and also there’s two more people that are coming on board, I believe here pretty soon. Can’t wait to announce who they are.

00;03;32;14 – 00;03;59;19
Jordan
I’m super excited and they’re super excited to help people. And the reason that I’m bringing more people on board is because there’s just a huge need. So whether you’re trying to get into this business for the first time and you need somebody to help walk you through deals, or if you’re already in this business and you want to take your business to the next level, or maybe your business is struggling and you need to figure out a way to bring in more income.

00;04;00;16 – 00;04;30;18
Jordan
That is what those consulting services are for both for me. That’s why I started offering them, because I couldn’t find that help when I was in serious trouble, when I first bought my first laundromat and I didn’t know where to look. And so I wanted to make sure that was available to anybody else who needed it. So that’s there a lot of my resource dot com slash coaching book a call with me if you don’t like me and yet want nothing to do with me, you can book a call with Andrew now, now.

00;04;30;19 – 00;04;50;19
Jordan
But in all seriousness, he’s got a ton of knowledge in this business. He’ll be great and there’s going to be a couple more people that I think you’re going to love and who can really help you wherever you’re at in the process of this business that are coming up pretty soon. So all that’s them as soon as we finalize all the details on that.

00;04;51;09 – 00;05;11;20
Jordan
So cool that’s today’s Fastlane. And seriously, that is genuinely the best way to put you on the fast lane toward success. Talking with people who have been there, who’ve done that, know what they’re doing and who’ve been doing it for a while. So a lot of my resource dot com slash coaching. All right. Let’s jump into it with Jason Foster.

00;05;11;22 – 00;05;21;07
Jordan
Self-proclaimed mom and pop laundromat owner and glean some wisdom from him. Jason, how is it going? Awesome to have you back on the show. How are you doing, man?

00;05;21;26 – 00;05;31;10
Jason Foster
I’m doing great. It’s good to be back, Jordan. It hasn’t been that long and I’m thrilled to share whatever info I can about the mom and pop perspective of the industry.

00;05;31;18 – 00;05;51;09
Jordan
Yeah, it’s awesome. Well, it’s funny because, you know, you came on the show. First of all, I didn’t know you from from Adam’s at the same. Didn’t know you from Adam. Really? When you yeah. When you came on the show and we came out, we had an awesome conversation. Speaking of which, if you haven’t listened to the first episode with Jason yet, that is one of my resorts dot com slash show 92.

00;05;51;16 – 00;06;05;13
Jordan
That link will be in the show notes and in the description down below if you’re on YouTube. So make sure you go check that one out. It’s got really good feedback all over the place. I know I’ve been hearing good stuff. I think you said people have been reaching out to you also. Yeah.

00;06;05;29 – 00;06;28;28
Jason Foster
Yeah. I’ve had some people reach out to me, ask me about various components of that podcast. A big one was pay range and payment solutions in terms of credit card capabilities in a blended format for customers. And it’s been really popular since I was on last time, actually, I didn’t have it installed on my dryers and I said it was coming and it’s been on my dryers now for a couple of months.

00;06;29;10 – 00;06;43;16
Jason Foster
And not only has it made me more money with the dryers, but my customers are like, Yeah, thank God I don’t deal with quarters because they didn’t with the washing machines. And it was kind of silly that they had to do with the dryers. And so I was able to wire them into the control panels and do all that.

00;06;43;16 – 00;06;44;19
Jason Foster
But that’s been great.

00;06;45;03 – 00;07;05;24
Jordan
Yeah, well, maybe we can get into some of the details of that and how that has I mean, everybody’s ears got to be perking up when you’re like, Yeah, it made more money. Okay, we got to hear more about that right now. That’s working out. So we’ll jump into that real quick. Can you just give us a quick overview of who you are within the context of the Laundromat business?

00;07;05;24 – 00;07;11;09
Jordan
Like how long have you been in it? What do you own? You know, that kind of those kind of details.

00;07;11;09 – 00;07;48;24
Jason Foster
Sure. So I’m I’m currently and still in the same place at Western Massachusetts, about 90 miles west of Boston, a town called Northampton. And I’ve been the owner of this laundromat, and it’s the only laundromat that they own. It’s about a thousand square feet up in the owner for about three and a half years. And when I took over, revenue is up significantly from when I first took over, just from doing a couple of simple things, customer service being one of the biggest pizzas, maintaining the equipment, putting in some a couple new pieces of equipment, not like break the bank investment and and things have just been going in the right direction since since I

00;07;48;24 – 00;07;53;26
Jason Foster
took over three and a half years ago. Well, maybe that’s the only it is the only laundromat that I know.

00;07;54;18 – 00;08;23;16
Jordan
Well, maybe we can start there. I mean, because I think, you know, a lot of a lot of people. Well, and I see this trend, right, where larger laundromats are coming in. People are advocating brand new everything all the time. And it ends up, you know, being being big bucks. And I on the one hand, I think that there’s some there’s some good that comes out of that, both, you know, for the community and the industry as a whole and also for the owner, so long as that’s managed.

00;08;23;16 – 00;08;42;03
Jordan
Right. But what I also see is that that can be kind of discouraging for people who don’t have half a million bucks to drop on a laundromat. So, I mean, can we talk about like how how have you gone about growing your revenue as a thousand square foot laundromat owner?

00;08;43;19 – 00;09;02;00
Jason Foster
Well, there’s a couple of things. So first, I would say, not only is it it’s challenging to come up with a lot of capital, but even if you have it, it’s intimidating. Because if you don’t if you’re not part of the laundromat industry, like I wouldn’t necessarily recommend just jumping in with half a million dollars to find out if your if if you can be successful, if you’re any good at running a laundromat.

00;09;02;10 – 00;09;38;28
Jason Foster
And that’s you know, that’s not what I did. I will say this isn’t my first business. So I’ve owned multiple businesses throughout the years, but it is my first business in the laundromat industry. But there are ways that you can drive revenue. You know, in the last podcast I talked about Google at customer service and how to put yourself in front of Google and provide great customer service so that people want to give you good Google reviews, which for me it’s been a big driver of business, but there’s other things that you can do that I started, I’m just sort of tapping into, which is turn your laundromat into a community oriented business.

00;09;38;28 – 00;09;54;05
Jason Foster
And I don’t mean, you know, you open your doors and suddenly you’re giving out all these free things for people in the community. If you want to do that, you can. I mean, that’s not what I do, but you can do things like when I first took over, there was a what I would call censored community bulletin board.

00;09;54;19 – 00;10;16;10
Jason Foster
And that is basically, you know, I’m right in the city center, so I’m right downtown. And a lot of people come through the city firing, meaning they want to announce if they’re having an art show, they want to announce if they’re going to be a certain band playing at a certain venue, whatever it is. Meditation, you know, I always joke when someone comes in the poster and put something on the board.

00;10;16;17 – 00;10;37;06
Jason Foster
I always ask, Is it a dance, yoga, meditation? You know? And usually it’s one of those three categories. Or it could be, you know, a clinic for people to learn, a new skill, music lessons, whatever it is. And so when I first took over, I noticed that there were certain things, you know, the previous owners would tell me, oh, I wouldn’t let them post this because of their political views.

00;10;37;06 – 00;11;00;20
Jason Foster
And I thought, all right, I’m going to eliminate the censorship. Obviously, I don’t want anything profound, you know, in terms of like profanity and things that are illegal. But I’m not going to put my own political views into what I allow in the laundromat. And I want like this to be representative of the entire community. So whether it’s, you know, whatever their political perspective is, they can put it in the laundromat.

00;11;01;01 – 00;11;20;17
Jason Foster
And I mean, it’s like every time that I be standing at the laundromat, when I first took over, so many people would tell me a lot of customers, Hey, thanks a lot for allowing us to poster in here. And my customers would also say, Hey, this is great because I’ve got nothing to do for the next 30 minutes as I transfer my washing to the dryers.

00;11;20;29 – 00;11;42;11
Jason Foster
And I love that I can learn about all the things going out and going on in the town and the community. So it was all the things that people would tell me I would always hear. I love the fact that you have this community bulletin board because this is like the greatest resource in the town. We always know what’s going on based on what’s happening in the laundromat.

00;11;42;16 – 00;11;59;10
Jason Foster
And you’re nice enough to let anybody poster in here. And it’s true that like people really I used to hear that over and over and over, so I knew that that was a big pull for people coming into Laundromat like, oh, this is community oriented. I love the fact that you like let people in the community share what they’re doing.

00;12;00;13 – 00;12;25;10
Jason Foster
The other thing that you can do is I actually was approached by an art student and they organized an art show in my laundromat, and that has been a huge success in terms of just like awareness in the community. And there’s artwork all over the walls and it’s an unattended laundromat. So it’s pretty interesting to me that I have art on the walls that I can’t protect.

00;12;25;19 – 00;12;46;23
Jason Foster
You know, they signed a simple like liability waiver. And I don’t know one issue. You know, the art show has been going on for a little less than a year and not one piece has been stolen or damaged or broken or anything. And I get comments very frequently now about I love the fact that you have this art venue for people and artists in the local community.

00;12;46;23 – 00;13;11;28
Jason Foster
And it’s not just, you know, we’re in the Smith College area. Smith College is associated with Northampton and it’s not just Smith students, even though that schools are primarily as in the laundromat, but it’s some of my customers have put it, put the pieces in the laundromat. And I tell anyone, like if you’re an artist and you know, people that walk around, I happen to be in there, I’m like, Hey, you’re an artist and you’d like to have something in here more than happy to put it up and like, Oh, that’s fantastic.

00;13;11;28 – 00;13;37;27
Jason Foster
And they love it. So it’s that’s another way to build a little more community oriented space. And the the other thing, like the last thing that we have that is definitely more community oriented is what I call like our community library, where it’s basically free books. You can drop books off, you can take books and people know, like I have people that come through regularly that do their wash and they’re like, they’ll bring a stack of ten or 15 books that they’ve acquired.

00;13;38;07 – 00;14;00;21
Jason Foster
They drop them off and sort of rifle through what I have, and they’ll take whether it’s magazines or whatever it is. And I just when you look at those three different components, they don’t cost money. It’s a little bit of time, but it’s very, very community oriented and community driven. And people love this idea, but they feel like there’s a sense of community.

00;14;00;21 – 00;14;33;04
Jason Foster
It’s not just a generic laundromat to them, but it feels like a little bit of a homey place for them to just feel like I belong here and I want to come back here because it’s a slightly different than the person that’s four miles down the road that isn’t doing these things. And it’s like it’s a great marketing tool, not to mention when you have an art show, then local newspaper does an article about it and before you know it, like you’re gaining a little more momentum for people that didn’t know about your laundromat or didn’t know that you have a large comforter sized machine, which somehow you managed to squeeze it into the newspaper

00;14;33;04 – 00;14;46;24
Jason Foster
article. So, you know, it all adds up and it doesn’t cost money. And it’s not like you need to have a social media presence, which I recommend, but you can do these things without investing dollars and it does lead to increased business.

00;14;48;00 – 00;15;09;17
Jordan
Yeah, I think that’s really awesome and just so if anybody wants to take a look, Jason actually sent me some pictures of his laundromat with some art up on the wall, and there’s a picture that has the bulletin board and all that stuff. So I’ll put those on the show notes in case you want to go take a look at Jason’s Laundromat and see some of the cool are actually some of the art really, really good.

00;15;09;26 – 00;15;36;07
Jason Foster
Yeah, actually we have what I’m dubbing the first and only sock. I was calling it a sock museum. And then when we did the art show, I know I now call it a sock gallery, so I’m sure every laundromat owner that’s listening can appreciate the fact that you’re probably getting like, I do 2 to 3 socks every single day instead of putting them in a generic lost and found, which nobody really rifles through lost and found to find by both socks.

00;15;36;18 – 00;16;00;27
Jason Foster
I actually tag them up and I put them on a big eight, but I think it’s eight or six feet by four feet bulletin board. And I actually have socks hanging on my wall with a thumbtack of every sock that’s left behind. And it’s gotten so ridiculous that I have so many socks that I’m now very selective in the socks that I will display because I can be selective.

00;16;01;00 – 00;16;21;25
Jason Foster
I don’t have to have just like black socks or white socks. I have the most colorful themed socks hanging on my wall and the funny thing is, if I get three a day, you know, maybe one is a good one. Out of those three, I lose a few socks every week because people reclaim them. They’re like, Oh, that’s my cat special cat sock that I love.

00;16;21;25 – 00;16;42;09
Jason Foster
And I didn’t know where the other one was. And they take it off the wall and then they’ll take one of the socks that’s near it, that’s sitting on the table, and they’ll put it up in its place. And so it’s like it’s a very funny, interactive art that people think is hilarious. And I’m saying it’s probably the only one of its kind in the entire, if not United States world.

00;16;42;24 – 00;17;03;01
Jason Foster
And it’s probably featured in several hundred Instagram selfies that people come in, they take a picture with it, and then they post it. So, you know, it’s like it’s like that’s another thing. And that was my contribution to the art gallery was just creating this art sort of out of socks and it’s, it’s visible for everybody to see and interact with.

00;17;03;23 – 00;17;23;12
Jordan
Yeah. And again, that’s free promotion there that you got to, you know, when people are posting selfies with it and all that, which is great, you can see pictures of it on the pictures that Jason sent me. It’s pretty funny. There’s a lot you can tell that you’ve been selected with the socks because there’s they’re all different colors and and patterns and all that stuff is pretty.

00;17;23;12 – 00;17;40;19
Jason Foster
Yeah, I just have a little funny story. I had a regular customer that comes in and every time she’d come in she’d comment, Oh, I can’t believe that that Rolling Stone stock is still there. I love the Rolling Stones and it must have been a few weeks ago she came in. I happened to be there and she commented and I went over to the board.

00;17;40;24 – 00;17;56;07
Jason Foster
I took that rolling stock, the Rolling Stone stock down. I gave it to her. It was like she was a she’s going to be the most loyal customer ever because now she has this I don’t know what she’s going to do with one sock, but she has this Rolling Stone stock that she loves. And, you know, she said she’s always going to come here.

00;17;56;07 – 00;18;20;18
Jason Foster
She’s never going to go anywhere else. So I think eventually you may go somewhere else if you move. But I appreciate the fact that, you know, you enjoy that stuff. Yeah. With the with the other socks. So I still get 2 to 3 black socks that don’t make it to the the bulletin board. I probably have a bag, a big trash bag full of about 400 socks that I will be bringing to a local shelter and donated.

00;18;20;29 – 00;18;36;15
Jason Foster
So they do get used. And, you know, I think people and some people know that and they like the fact that, you know, I’m sort of helping the community in a way that, you know, maybe I wouldn’t otherwise do, but I have access to all these single socks that people can make pairs of that, you know. So at least it’s not going away.

00;18;36;15 – 00;18;38;01
Jason Foster
It’s and it’s going to good use.

00;18;38;18 – 00;18;43;15
Jordan
Yeah. Can I ask you, how did you get started with the art gallery? Like, how did that even start?

00;18;43;22 – 00;19;08;00
Jason Foster
So it’s an interesting story, but basically I was approached there’s a one of the Smith students that studying ethnography was she created a podcast for Smith College. It’s called Ethnography 413 or something like that. And she interviewed me and she called me out of the blue because she thought, I want to go to different businesses where it’s a blend of the community.

00;19;08;12 – 00;19;26;21
Jason Foster
She’s gone to taxi companies. She has gone to, you know, mechanics. And she thought, I going to a laundromat is the perfect cross-sex version of a community that I have and agree with. I think it is. And so she called she was really surprised that I answered the phone because she said she called three or four of the laundromats and no one answered.

00;19;27;05 – 00;19;45;28
Jason Foster
And she called me. I answered. And before you know it, we were doing a you know, she interviewed me, we did a podcast. And a few weeks later, you know, she was texting a couple of questions and we became, you know, sort of friends. And she was like, listen, I’m thinking about, you know, what do you think about an art show in your laundromat?

00;19;45;28 – 00;20;05;13
Jason Foster
And I thought, if you want to organize and help me, that’s a fantastic idea. And she didn’t know that I actually had, you know, a portfolio when I was in high school. And I thought about art as, you know, an architecture at one point in my in my my youth. But in the end, I went a different direction.

00;20;05;13 – 00;20;28;23
Jason Foster
But I knew that there was a lot of talented art out there, but they have no place to display it. So when she was willing to organize and she curated this show and she organized all the students and different people from the community, I thought, This is fantastic. So she’s the one who organized it. We had a big opening night and you know, we had several hundred people coming through the laundromat just for the opening night of the art show.

00;20;29;05 – 00;20;54;10
Jason Foster
And that was also a great way for people to really see the laundromat for the first time, because in the community where I live, it’s considered the Smith College neighborhood. You know, these are families. They all have their own washing machines and dryers, but they don’t have washing machines and dryers big enough to do covers. And when they saw that we had machines big enough to handle comforters, like now I’ve seen some of these people, I’m like, Oh, and I love the fact that you’re supporting the Smith, you know, the artists and the local community.

00;20;54;15 – 00;21;12;16
Jason Foster
So it all ties in to, you know, what you’re really putting out there for the public in your laundromat. But so she organized it. And the funny thing is, in May, when some of the students graduated, I would say 60% of the art is now back in the hands of the artists. But she’s already planning a new show for the fall.

00;21;12;16 – 00;21;31;01
Jason Foster
And we’re going to curate. And the other thing that she wants to organize is live music, because I have a perfect alcove in the front of the laundromat with nice glass windows where, you know, once in a while I do get an impromptu artist that comes in and plays a guitar while they’re doing their wash, and someone else will start singing and it’s kind of cool.

00;21;31;08 – 00;22;05;16
Jason Foster
And I thought, Wow, if we could organize like on the weekends to do this, that would be great. So she’s the one that sort of drove this, and now I think she’s planning on handing off the responsibilities, but she’s graduating in six months. But this is something that I think Smith wants to build into their general sort of, you know, student population, like, hey, we can work with this local laundromat and they’ll display our art, which which is great because and to see the faces of the artists when they’re so proud to have their stuff displayed and then their parents come into town for parents weekend and like the whole family comes into the laundromat,

00;22;05;16 – 00;22;16;24
Jason Foster
they take photos in front of the art and it’s, you know, it’s nice to see and but it’s just such a simple way of bringing a little more business into the laundromat in a way that also helps build the community.

00;22;17;26 – 00;22;22;03
Jordan
Yeah. And, and kind of helps shape the atmosphere too as well.

00;22;22;03 – 00;22;39;19
Jason Foster
So it’s a whole experience. It’s whole experience of like, oh, it’s not just a place to wash your clothes, but it’s, it’s cool because I feel good that I’m part of the community and this laundromats doing what they can also be part of the community. It doesn’t it doesn’t cost anything. It’s just an attitude and a feeling. And your laundromat?

00;22;39;27 – 00;23;07;06
Jordan
Yeah, I love that. And I like the kind of community aspect. And one of the things I like about the community aspect of a laundromat, I mean, they’re a very communal community oriented business, right? Where the community guy is one of the few places left. I think that the community gathers and, you know, being able to sort of leverage that and really lean into it, you know, like you have and like some other people that you know on the podcast.

00;23;07;11 – 00;23;25;23
Jordan
But there’s a lot of different ways that you can do that. It could be something as simple as a sock wall and an art gallery, and it can be, you know, all the way up to, you know, doing free washes for the homeless or, you know, all those kinds of things where you’re just really helping, helping out the community so you can do good.

00;23;25;23 – 00;23;27;14
Jordan
And it also does great business.

00;23;27;18 – 00;23;57;13
Jason Foster
It’s a great cross-section of the community. And I have been in the laundromat when there has been people worth hundreds of millions of dollars and homeless people, three machines from each other. And, you know, everybody at some point needs to use a laundromat. It doesn’t matter how much money you have, if your machine breaks or you’re in a situation where you just can’t buy new clothes or whatever it is, but you’ll end up with all cross-sections of the entire community in a laundromat and even, you know, even people that have machines.

00;23;57;13 – 00;24;19;23
Jason Foster
Like, for example, my machine was broken three weeks ago. I had to I had to use my own laundromat for my own washed. And it’s interesting because you get a different perspective of what the experience is when you’re doing it yourself, you know, like just slightly I remember I was holding each machine like how does that would have any kind of mildew smell like it was I was giving it a once over like I’ve never given it a once over.

00;24;19;23 – 00;24;42;14
Jason Foster
And it’s a good experience to use your own facilities once in a while just to see what the customers go through. And, you know, so now I actually modify it. I do a slightly different clean piece on the machines because I know that it’s really important to not have any terrible, you know, any mildew or anything in those machines, because if I wouldn’t do it, I don’t want my customers to do it.

00;24;42;25 – 00;24;58;23
Jordan
Yeah, that’s totally why I do my laundry there at my laundromat. Sometimes, and not because I let laundry pile up so much that I can’t possibly get it all done in one day at my house. For sure. It’s quality control. Absolutely.

00;24;58;23 – 00;25;03;16
Jason Foster
Okay to say, man, it was nice to be able to have six things done. It was like.

00;25;03;16 – 00;25;05;15
Jordan
Oh, gosh, I love it. You’re done.

00;25;05;21 – 00;25;24;22
Jason Foster
I actually, you know, I sort of joke. I think my wife may have sabotaged my machine at home because she would hand me a pile of bags of clothes and it would come back an hour and half later folded and yeah, smelling great. And, you know, I was like, boy, this is some disincentive for her to get that machine fixed.

00;25;24;22 – 00;25;57;05
Jordan
Yeah, yeah. Not a yeah, it’s not a good spot to be in. You’re on dangerous ground at that point to become in the laundry person. So awesome. Okay, so you the other thing that you mentioned is, you know, you’re you’re doing all this community outreach. You know, in the last episode that we did together, the last show we did together, you talked about some of the other freeways that you’re promoting through Google my business, through having a website that has, you know, up to date information and stuff like that.

00;25;57;05 – 00;26;10;01
Jordan
Can we talk a little bit about on the maintenance side of things like how are you handling maintenance? Do you have somebody who comes in regularly? Do you call when something’s breaking down or you fixing stuff? How’s that working out as a mom and pop owner? Right.

00;26;10;01 – 00;26;33;14
Jason Foster
All right. So as a mom and pop, I will tell you my biggest concern before I bought this laundromat, which already had the equipment, was, I don’t know anything about how to fix any of this. I never thought I was mechanically inclined and I had no interest in becoming mechanically inclined. I bought the Laundromat 2019 when COVID hit, and all of a sudden I had a few machines go out.

00;26;34;02 – 00;27;07;22
Jason Foster
I thought, okay, I’ll call the guy that I normally call. And well, during COVID, nobody would come and fix anything. So now I had a few weeks go by and you know, this, this door latch wasn’t working or the water valve was not working properly. So I had to basically take the machines out of order. And when you only have six machines and two or three are out of order, you realize quickly that not only are the other machines going to keep breaking, but if you don’t figure something out, then you’re going to basically have no place for people to wash their clothes.

00;27;08;11 – 00;27;41;17
Jason Foster
So then I just out of frustration and necessity, I started Googling and through YouTube I was like, All right, I described the problem, describe the machine. And lo and behold, there’s like 20 videos with the exact same problem, and it’s basically a step by step and how to fix it. Next thing you know, I’m ordering these $20 parts and I realized, you know, after the first couple of times I started fixing things, this thing, you know, the most common issues, whether it’s a door lock or a water valve or it’s the rubber seal that keeps the water from escaping the machine, like those things are not that hard to fix.

00;27;41;17 – 00;27;59;00
Jason Foster
It only takes 15, 20 minutes and once you know how to do it, it’s like five, 10 minutes. So before you know it, I was fixing the machines and I would say 80 plus percent of the issues that occur, I’m able to fix in a matter of, you know, 15, 20 minutes. And like I said, 20 or $30 part, you get it through eBay or whatever.

00;27;59;17 – 00;28;23;10
Jason Foster
And when it’s something like a trillion or the burying or something major breaks that, you know, is a six, $800 issue. That’s when I call somebody or I decide maybe I should just replace the machine. And especially during COVID, like replacing a machine is so much more expensive than it used to be. And it may take eight or nine or ten months to get the replacement that it probably is worth it to fix it if the rest of the machines in pretty good shape.

00;28;23;20 – 00;28;45;22
Jason Foster
So I would say 80 plus percent of everything I’m fixing myself and it’s easy and it I know it’s going to get fixed and the minute it breaks within 24 hours, I generally have the most common parts on hand and I fix it. If it’s something that I don’t know how to fix. Like right now I have what turns out to be a bad control board on one of the machines.

00;28;46;03 – 00;29;06;10
Jason Foster
I’ve never done that before, but it’s almost a little bit of fun to sort of figure out how to make that thing work. So just do the process of elimination. And, you know, I probably put more hours into this than I should, but in the end, I I’m expecting their fixed control board to come back. Maybe the whole thing will cost 100 bucks, but at least I know it’s going to get fixed.

00;29;06;26 – 00;29;26;01
Jason Foster
And that one machine that’s out will finally be back in order after a few weeks. But, you know, I enjoy the challenge and I realized these things aren’t that hard. So, yeah, you could call a mechanic or somebody to come in, but generally I’ve found they haven’t been that reliable even, you know, their intentions are, yeah, I’m going to show up at this time, but they don’t.

00;29;26;09 – 00;29;45;15
Jason Foster
And it takes two or three different phone calls and then, you know, before you know it, you’re getting a bill for $400 to fix a door hinge that really takes 5 minutes. But, you know, it’s it’s just the circumstances. So I try to fix everything that I can myself. I have gas dryers, so it’s a little nerve racking when I deal with certain things with the dryers.

00;29;45;15 – 00;30;10;23
Jason Foster
But I’ve been able to fix a few things that aren’t that complex. So the minute it starts dealing, you know, you have to deal with the gas and all that. Like I just call up the pros and I don’t want to mess it up and I don’t want to be dealing with that. But for the most part, it’s it’s as intimidating as it felt when I first bought the Laundromat, you know, as long as you are patient and, you know, you’re willing to let it open up your mind to learning through YouTube, you’ll be able to fix most stuff.

00;30;10;23 – 00;30;31;22
Jordan
Yeah. Yeah, that’s. And that’s good. I mean, because I think that there’s first of all, I hear all the time and I’ll see just like comments from people on videos or articles or whatever that I’ve done. People are like, Oh, like, you can’t buy a laundromat, you can’t make money because repairs are going to kill you, right? Like it’s they’re they’re going to be too much.

00;30;31;22 – 00;30;51;10
Jordan
And, you know, I think part of that is a little bit of ignorance. Part of that is a little bit of the old school mindset. I mean, if you got 40 year old machines, you know, maintenance probably will kill you, kill your business along with those machines. So, you know, I think that’s a little bit of it, too.

00;30;51;10 – 00;31;13;19
Jordan
And, you know, kind of the way that I’ve handled maintenance myself is I’ve I’ve had up until COVID, I had a maintenance guy coming in on a schedule and I’ve had that that works. But it’s expensive. Right. And we kind of talked about this a little bit for a hit record, but there’s a lot of these things the marketing, the maintenance, all that stuff.

00;31;13;28 – 00;31;41;09
Jordan
There’s this inverse relationship between time and money, right? And so you can either throw money at a problem, whether that’s marketing, maintenance or whatever, or you can throw some time at the problem and fix it yourself and save yourself some money. But that’s kind of this inverse relationship, right? And so finding that balance, whether you’re a mom and pop owner, a lot of times if you’re a mom and pop owner, you got a smaller store you don’t have you know, maybe your margins are good.

00;31;41;09 – 00;31;57;07
Jordan
But the overall bottom line isn’t, you know, you’re not netting $15,000 a month or whatever. You know, you got to you know, it makes more sense to put a little more time in and a little less money in and and vice versa. But you got to kind of find that balance, right?

00;31;57;07 – 00;32;15;17
Jason Foster
And now that I’ve now there’s been three and a half years, I’ve sort of figured out what’s worth my time and what’s not worth it. Yeah, right. Like if I know that I’m getting an error or door lock issue, but I can replace that in 5 minutes and 20 bucks later. But if it’s, you know, wow, I’ve never seen this error code and that seems a little scary.

00;32;15;17 – 00;32;23;19
Jason Foster
And now water is gushing out of the machine. Probably not worth my time to figure that out. Just unplug the machine and call it. Call the repair guy.

00;32;24;20 – 00;32;51;13
Jordan
Yeah. And I. I treat it the same way now. I don’t. I don’t have first of all, let me just back up saying if anybody out there wants to partner up to to create a maintenance company, that can be all we really have to do to succeed. So somebody who sort of understands maintenance and somebody who will answer the phone when people calls and people who will show up relatively within.

00;32;51;14 – 00;33;14;26
Jordan
Yeah, that’s all it will take to become fabulously wealthy. So if anybody’s interested in putting that together with me, let me know. But second of all, I mean, the way that I’ve handled it since I don’t have that kind of ongoing stuff anymore is I have I’ve done a lot of similar things, like if there’s a drain issue, I know there’s probably a bra underwire in the drain.

00;33;14;26 – 00;33;33;16
Jordan
And so I’ll just pull the hose off and do it. And yeah, it takes me 5 minutes and I’ve gotten criticism. Some people are like, Don’t waste your time doing that two times more valuable. And while that might be true, if I’m waiting on a maintenance guy, you know, it might be a week, two weeks, three weeks that that machine is going to be down for something.

00;33;33;16 – 00;33;37;08
Jordan
I could fix it 5 minutes and I’d just rather do it so.

00;33;37;19 – 00;33;41;11
Jason Foster
It could take you 20 minutes just to get the maintenance person schedule.

00;33;41;15 – 00;33;47;00
Jordan
Absolutely. Oh, yeah, yeah. A lot of times it’ll take me less absolutely less time to.

00;33;47;08 – 00;33;49;22
Jason Foster
Fix it than it is to arrange for a maintenance person.

00;33;49;23 – 00;34;16;09
Jordan
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I will say that, you know, if you if you end up scaling back, then, you know, those bras underwire is getting stuck in the drain, start to add up a lot and it makes more sense to probably put somebody in rotation. But as a mom and pop owner, I mean, that makes all the sense in the world to me to, you know, do the majority of the repairs because like you said, the majority of the repairs are going to be relatively simple, easy to do.

00;34;16;09 – 00;34;34;04
Jordan
You can find how to do them. And and even if you’re not exactly sure, you know, on, you know, on the lawn Marissa’s forums or on the Facebook groups, you can ask other owners like how do you you know, how do you what’s going on with the machine and how do I fix it? And a lot of times you can get a good answer for it.

00;34;34;04 – 00;34;35;20
Jordan
So it makes all the sense in the world. I mean.

00;34;35;28 – 00;34;55;04
Jason Foster
Luckily, I mean, I’m lucky that most of my machines are identical except for the two new ones that I have. But since all the other machines are identical, I know how to fix these machines. Right. And luckily, you know, 80% of the problems are exactly the same. It’s always going to be two or three of the same things regularly every six months.

00;34;55;11 – 00;35;13;03
Jason Foster
Replace a door hinge or water valve and you’re good for another 6 to 12 months. So it’s not that hard once you learn the most common of the issues. But, you know, that was a very intimidating thing in buying a laundromat, wasn’t just, oh my God, am I going to make money? It’s what am I going to do when this breaks?

00;35;13;12 – 00;35;31;18
Jason Foster
Because Even the maintenance people, there’s been a lot of turnover just with people that are coming in to fix my machines. It’s even when I thought I had a company that I could count on. Next thing I knew, they were getting bought out and now they no longer had the rights or the exclusivity to fix the machine. I have speed killing machines, they know, and I had to deal with a new company.

00;35;31;25 – 00;35;49;05
Jason Foster
And then, you know, they got really busy because there was a several months of built up where other people could. And it was just like, it’s so hard to find a good, reliable, whether it’s a company or a distributor, an individual. It’s just circumstances are always changing. And the one constant is I know how to fix most of the stuff.

00;35;49;11 – 00;35;51;28
Jason Foster
And so it’s just easier, less stressful.

00;35;52;25 – 00;36;13;04
Jordan
Absolutely. And the second constant will be that business that we, you and and me, whoever you are out there, will be constant. I love it. Okay. I want to I mean, I want to keep it rolling on the mom and the mom and pop side of things. I mean, I think that that really resonates with a lot of people.

00;36;13;04 – 00;36;34;23
Jordan
And so I want to keep kind of talking about some of the mom and pop side of things because, you know, like I have mentioned before, there’s a lot of different ways to run this business. And, you know, some people their goal is to get, you know, like Ross Dodds, who was on the podcast episode recently or on the podcast recently, you know, he’s got ten plus laundromats.

00;36;34;23 – 00;36;52;26
Jordan
He’s he’s going to the moon, right? Some people just want to get in for some side income. Some people, you know, want to get in small and then decide they want to. There’s a whole lot of ways that you can do it right. But I think majority of laundromat owners and the people who get into the business for the first time at least start out as mom and pop owners.

00;36;52;26 – 00;37;04;05
Jordan
So I think that there’s a lot to learn about that. But can we talk a little bit about numbers and how to think about numbers? As a mom and pop owner.

00;37;05;26 – 00;37;39;22
Jason Foster
Sure. I mean, there’s you know, you have your your revenue, your expenses and what’s left over, if you’re lucky, that the revenue outpaces the expenses. So there’s so many different metrics to look at. But I think the easiest and the first would be your net revenue as a percent of your gross revenue. So, you know, there’s when I was first looking at laundromats, I was trying to get a sense for what is the net revenue, which really ultimately translates to your cash flow, how much money at the end of the day are you going to be taking home based on what your revenue is minus your expenses?

00;37;40;04 – 00;38;09;23
Jason Foster
And I think I read that the average is about 20 ish, 25% should be. So if you’re doing $10,000 to 2500 on average should be what you’re bringing home as a profit. Now, there’s going to be a lot of different factors that go into impacting that. I know if you have a washer dry fold and a self service, your net revenue may be a little less just because you have labor and the things factored in that are self-service may not have.

00;38;10;02 – 00;38;37;29
Jason Foster
So I’m in it. I’m in unattended self service laundromat and I don’t have a watch dry fold. So net revenue tends to be on the high end of that scale. But I would say if you’re a mom and pop looking at buying or if you’re wondering how well you’re doing, I would use that 20 to 25% net revenue as a metric to see if you’re not at 20 to 25%, then there’s something that probably should change in your own operations to get you to that point.

00;38;38;05 – 00;39;00;26
Jason Foster
There’s an expense that’s that’s probably out of whack with what the rest of the industry is. Maybe it’s your utilities, maybe it’s the rent that you’re paying, maybe it’s the financing. There could be a lot of factors, but the other big piece of that for me, the best the biggest expenses that I have are rent number one. I’m in a very expensive price per square foot.

00;39;01;07 – 00;39;29;05
Jason Foster
And as much as I’d like to own the building, the building owner won’t sell it. So I’m start paying rent and that’s a big percent of my expense. But the one expense that I think probably everybody else, the second biggest expense is utilities. So that’s going to be your water, your sewage and your gas and your electric and for me, I’m actually operating at a very efficient percentage of my, you know, my net revenue sorry, of my overall gross revenue.

00;39;29;05 – 00;39;54;14
Jason Foster
So my utilities tend to run. Let’s just round up to about 15% and I believe industrywide it’s closer to 20, 21, 22%. So I, I don’t I think part of it is attributed to the fact that my washing machines are all soft mat, which means they’re not shock absorbers. And instead of spinning it 100 G’s per second, like most hard mouth that are screwed.

00;39;54;14 – 00;40;14;14
Jason Foster
Right. Sort of cement floor. I have a basement. I’m an old New England town. And since there’s a basement, I don’t have the option of having hard amount machines. So my soft math machines are spinning at four times. What the hard bouncer, I think is 400 G’s. I think it’s per second. And so that means clothes are coming out a little more dry.

00;40;14;26 – 00;40;38;14
Jason Foster
So my my gas usage in my dryers is a little more efficient because clothes are coming out a little more dry. So and I have EnergyStar on all my machines. So, you know, my machines are only using 13 gallons of water per cycle. So there’s things that are helping to bring my utility costs down. I don’t think it’s because the rate I’m paying for electricity or for gas is any lower than the rest of the United States.

00;40;38;21 – 00;41;02;09
Jason Foster
But I think it’s just some of the equipment that I have. I just got lucky and it’s a little more efficient. But the other thing is my revenue may be slightly higher because I’m it’s not that I’m charging more for drying, but basically the average someone spending on a dryer is over two bucks. So that helps increase my revenue, which means the rest of my expenses as a percent of my revenue tends to be lower.

00;41;03;14 – 00;41;28;16
Jason Foster
And that’s just I think in the industry they call it the full dry cycle or whatever it’s whatever it’s called. Instead, I’m just I’m using some signage and I’m encouraging people also with the app that I’m using for a credit card payment that I only give them an option of doing $2 and $1 increments. So I don’t have $0.25, $0.25, $0.25 for people that just select quarter in the dryers.

00;41;28;28 – 00;41;37;02
Jason Foster
So just I think my revenue is probably a little higher than most in terms of the expenses as a percent of the revenue.

00;41;37;02 – 00;42;02;26
Jordan
Yeah. And thank you for giving some, you know, just kind of semi concrete numbers to, you know, with 15% of utilities. I mean, I think that’s a goal a lot of people are shooting for, you know, rent wise. You know, I think a goal to shoot for is about 25%. People are going to creep over, especially, you know, if you’re in a competitive area and obviously lower than that even better.

00;42;03;15 – 00;42;20;00
Jordan
So I mean, I think those are kind of some ballpark numbers to be shooting for the the other expense that you don’t have, much of which is awesome. But if you’re going to be an attended laundromat, usually labor is going to be your number one and rent is going to be number two and utilities number three, something like that.

00;42;20;00 – 00;42;33;02
Jordan
And if you’re unattended, it’s going to be follows similar to Jason’s pattern of, you know, rent and then utilities are going to be number two instead of number three. So just to give people an idea of what that looks like.

00;42;33;02 – 00;42;52;06
Jason Foster
And just for anyone that’s out there that’s considering buying, in terms of you’re thinking about rent, I will tell you rent in Northampton on average to be in a location where I am tends to be about 40 bucks a square foot, which may sound low compared to a California price per square foot, but that’s very, very high for a New England, a small New England town.

00;42;53;07 – 00;43;17;29
Jason Foster
So, you know, if you’re trying to assess like, is it worth I don’t know, what strip malls tend to charge on average across the country, but my sense is 40 to 45, a square foot is probably high for, you know, for a lot for a laundromat. Yeah. So, you know, as a as a metric, I’m not sure what the average is, but it’s I’m going to guess it’s probably closer to 20, 25, a square foot for the average, you know, strip mall location.

00;43;18;19 – 00;43;19;24
Jason Foster
But I’m just totally guessing.

00;43;20;03 – 00;43;39;15
Jordan
Yeah, no, I think that’s probably probably close. I mean, that’s just based off of me talking to people from around the country, you know. So I, I always am trying to do the conversion because I always think about it price per square foot per month because that’s what the rent is. And so my go here at 40, that’s a little over three feet like.

00;43;40;02 – 00;44;11;20
Jordan
But yeah, that’s, I mean I think probably that 20 to 25 is probably, you know, which puts you at about $2 a square foot per month for the rent side of things. So yeah, I mean, that’s, that’s helpful. I think to give people a ballpark of what they should be looking for rent wise. And you can kind of back into, okay, you know, if I’m looking to buy a 2000 square foot, you know, laundromat and I’m going to be paying 2000, I mean, $2 a square foot per month, right?

00;44;11;20 – 00;44;34;15
Jordan
For rent, that’s going to put me at about 4000 a month. And if I’m shooting for that 25%, you know, rent to gross income ratio, you know, that means I got to bring in at least 16 grand a month. And so you can kind of back in there and assess sort of the performance of the laundromat a little bit based on the square footage and the price per foot.

00;44;35;09 – 00;44;58;08
Jordan
And again, that’s going to be ballpark and very location dependent. But you can also go on a website like LoopNet and go, which is like a commercial Zillow basically. And you can go see what price per square foot other retail stores are renting out for. And in that area. And that can give you a little bit closer of a ballpark of what they’re doing at your area, so.

00;44;58;12 – 00;45;18;08
Jason Foster
Right. Yeah. I mean, the other the other expense is going to be if you’re financing, you know what? I know that’s not part of your, you know, the the net revenue, but that’s still money that you have to pay and it’s still going to factor in. I don’t have that. So actually, that’s not true I have a little bit of financing that I the owner finance just recapped and I talked about this last part.

00;45;18;08 – 00;45;37;02
Jason Foster
Yeah. So we had a little bit of skin in the game that we have a great relationship and so it’s on call if I ever need them. But you know, luckily I haven’t really needed it in the last year or so. But it’s, you know, it definitely helped in the first year or so of owning a laundromat because my success was his success, too.

00;45;37;09 – 00;45;43;06
Jason Foster
He wanted to make sure he was still getting paid. And, you know, we were lucky to work.

00;45;43;06 – 00;45;59;23
Jordan
Yeah. So you mentioned that you put pay range on the dryers and I mean, it makes all the sense in the world, right? Like I’ve heard other people raving like, why would you put a card system on your washers and not on your dryers? And people are using cards and wine and coins and the other and that’s just so inconvenient, annoying.

00;45;59;23 – 00;46;09;25
Jordan
And you know, while that’s true, you know, sometimes you just got to do what you got to do. But did you plan on doing it in phases like that, or is that how it worked out? What was the now?

00;46;09;25 – 00;46;27;19
Jason Foster
So because I couldn’t really when I asked pay range, you know, how do you install this and who installs it, they said, oh, it’s really easy. They send you the equipment and then they show you a video, a training video. Somehow it’s never exactly as easy as anyone ever thinks. But I, I would have bought everything at once.

00;46;27;19 – 00;46;51;09
Jason Foster
And it’s a very small investment per machine. Let’s say it’s know approximately 30 or 40 or 50 bucks per machine. And then once you install it, the only other thing you’re going to have is a a transact per transaction percent. You know, let’s just say it fluctuates between three and 4%. Well, in some cases, it may be up to 5%, but you’re going to pay that to a credit card either way.

00;46;51;10 – 00;47;18;13
Jason Foster
So it’s not to me, it’s not a big deal, but I would have installed everything at once. But I wanted to make sure it worked and I wanted to make sure I knew how to do it. It’s much easier for me. It was easier on my draw, on my washing machines because they’re newer than my dryers. So the control panel, the machine, it was the known entity and a range already had a very comprehensive step by step in how to install into the computer, into the control board and how to program the machine so that everything worked.

00;47;18;13 – 00;47;35;18
Jason Foster
And honestly, it really wasn’t a big deal. I hesitated with the dryers because, like I said, they’re older and the control board was a little different. When I first called the range about the dryers, I said, No, no, no, we don’t. I don’t think those dryers are compatible because they hadn’t actually gone through the process with these particular vendor.

00;47;35;24 – 00;47;58;03
Jason Foster
Yeah, they’re just normal ATC dryers. Stack dryers. But when I pushed the little bit, we realized, wait a minute, yeah, this control board is not much different than this one. So this harness will work and we can send you that. So it just took a little bit of time, but then I was a little intimidated with the install on the dryers because I had to do a little more than just plug, plug, plug.

00;47;58;03 – 00;48;19;12
Jason Foster
It was, Oh, I have to actually I have to cut any wires, but I had to get a little more involved with splicing two wires together. And I thought, Oh no, if it doesn’t work, then the whole dryer is not going to work because it ties right into the coin mechanism. And I only have, you know, 12 dryers and I didn’t want to sort of sacrifice any one dryer at the expense putting pay ranging.

00;48;19;12 – 00;48;37;11
Jason Foster
But eventually I felt confident. And luckily for me, my father’s an engineer and he was visiting and I said, all right, we are going to do this while you’re here, because you know a lot more about electronics and mechanics than I do. And I finally had the confidence. And before you knew it, we got the first couple of dryers to work.

00;48;37;11 – 00;48;52;10
Jason Foster
And then we did the others, and it really wasn’t that big of a deal once you do one. But that was the only hesitation. I just wanted to make sure I knew how to do it and that I had a little bit of a backup expertize that we could reverse whatever we did. If it didn’t work, it worked.

00;48;52;16 – 00;49;09;00
Jason Foster
And, you know, my customers are so much happier because, like you said, it’s it’s a little silly to be able to use credit card for washing machines and it’s like, Oh, I need points for the dryers now. I had to go break a $20 person. I could get a $20 bill that I could stick it into the machine.

00;49;09;07 – 00;49;32;12
Jason Foster
And now I’m stuck with, you know, $18 worth of quarters and I’m not going to use till the next time. So but once I did and I was very incented to put pay range onto the dryers because I knew there was an opportunity to make more money. I charge it’s not that I charge more, but people that used to spend a dollar 50 for 30 minutes, so it’s $0.25 for 5 minutes.

00;49;32;12 – 00;49;56;27
Jason Foster
And my dryers, instead of them doing 30 minutes or 25 minutes, I only give them an option of swiping for a $2 cycle. So they’re like, oh, $2 boom, they just swipe it with their finger right across their phone. And next thing you know, they have 40 minutes on their dryer and they don’t think twice about it. And I was standing there once and someone said, hey, is there is there an option to do less than $2?

00;49;57;25 – 00;50;23;13
Jason Foster
And I said, no, because there’s a transaction fee. And honestly, it’s like going to, you know, our generic supermarket or whatever other grocer and you know, sometimes our $10 minimum is $5. And it was like, oh yeah, that makes sense. And that was a whole conversation. And next thing you know, like my dryer revenue as a percent of my overall revenue increased because instead of people spending a buck 50, they’re spending two bucks and it doesn’t bother them one iota.

00;50;23;23 – 00;50;44;27
Jason Foster
Not to mention their clothes are dry after 40 minutes. They don’t have to maybe come back and put 25 more sunset. So it’s it’s been great because they’re they’re spending more and for that person that wants to put 45 or 50 minutes on, now, they’re spending $3 because it’s $2 or a dollar increment. So nobody only wants to put 20 minutes.

00;50;44;27 – 00;51;06;25
Jason Foster
They know they need more than 20 minutes. So they’re doing two bucks no matter what. And then if they need more time, it’s like, Oh, whatever, I’ll just spend the extra dollar and they do it. And so now just as a percentage, it’s, it’s a noticeable increase. Within the first week I saw my dryer revenue go from the low to mid 40% to almost 50% of my wash revenue just from this one thing.

00;51;07;13 – 00;51;20;27
Jason Foster
And it’s not costing me any more now. You know, it’s everybody’s it’s a win win for everybody here. And just really because now they’re getting money and my customers are happy because it’s like they don’t have to be bothered with cash. And I’m happy because maybe I’ll make it a little more money.

00;51;22;07 – 00;51;43;04
Jordan
Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s awesome. Are there other competitors in your area who are doing similar things like a full cycle dry? How how did you decide to do that and how do you know our customer is pushing back on that? Because I can go down the street and just pay the quarter or whatever.

00;51;44;07 – 00;52;16;26
Jason Foster
If they are, they’re not voiced their concerns to me. So, you know, I think what I read is 90% of your customers are within a one radius of where they live. So there’s a convenience factor. But I think my customers, you know, I never thought about or my customers are going to be upset. Are they going to go somewhere else because I’ve always felt if a customer is going to get upset over 25 or $0.50 and threaten to go somewhere else because of it, I never really wanted them as a customer because they’re just not that great of a customer.

00;52;17;04 – 00;52;39;05
Jason Foster
I’d rather deal with the person that can appreciate the fact that wow is machines work. It’s convenient. I don’t. I’m not stuck using an Amex or a visa or a debit card. I can use Apple Pay, I can use Google Pay. I can use any form of payment that I want. Now that I’ve downloaded the app, it’s so convenient and I’ve already set up my account, which takes another 2 minutes.

00;52;39;13 – 00;53;05;01
Jason Foster
And once it’s done, all I can do, I can I can have five bucks. I can add ten bucks, I can add 20. So yeah, my competitors, they may offer a slightly different denomination of or you know, like, okay, 25 cent increments, but my customers don’t seem to be bothered by it. And I’m only seeing an increase in revenue and an increase in the number people using the app.

00;53;05;11 – 00;53;27;23
Jason Foster
So clearly I think it’s working and whatever my cost, wherever my competitors do, I don’t care because I know the value on providing for my customers. I think they appreciate the value. And when you tie that in with the community building and the community feeling in my laundromat, it’s more than just, Oh, I’m spending an extra 25 or $0.50.

00;53;28;05 – 00;53;45;29
Jason Foster
They’re like, I like this place. Like I want to see it succeed. And it’s interesting because I do get customers that thank me for keeping the laundromat open. You know, they’re like, Oh, I know. Sometimes I get worried that this place may be closed, you know, from previous owners or whatever. And I’m like, Wow, I have customers thanking me to spend money in my establishment.

00;53;46;09 – 00;54;09;13
Jason Foster
Like, that’s how, you know, something is working. And you know, if my competitors I do know that there is there’s somebody about six miles from me that does use pay range and they run a very professional laundromat. And I give them a lot of credit because they’re fairly new owners. They’ve only owned it for a couple of years and I was pleasantly surprised to find out that they use pay a range, but I think they’re the only other ones.

00;54;09;20 – 00;54;29;06
Jason Foster
Otherwise I think the nearest I don’t even think my closest competitor doesn’t have any form of credit card payment that I’m aware of. Plus they have electric dryers, which really, you know, customers don’t love, but the other, you know, my bigger competitor, that’s a few mile a couple of miles away, they do take credit card, but not they don’t have the cool factor.

00;54;29;06 – 00;54;51;02
Jason Foster
And I will tell you, when you have an app, it’s so much cooler for you’re under age 30 demographics and even over the age of 50 demographic, you’re like, oh yeah, wow, this is kind of cool. So Again, it works for people. It’s like modern technology that people are impressed with, like, wow, this place is really modernized and all this is an app, right?

00;54;51;10 – 00;55;03;17
Jason Foster
And it took me, you know, 5 minutes per machine to install the hardware. So and again, I’m not I’m not getting paid by pay range. One spent. But I really am. I will be paying back.

00;55;03;18 – 00;55;19;29
Jordan
Yeah, yeah. No kidding. Parents, step it up, guys. Come on. Yeah. No, I mean, I like that. And, I mean, I think that. Well, real quick, are you are you accepting only card now? Do you accept coins still or not at all?

00;55;19;29 – 00;55;37;00
Jason Foster
Yes, I accept coins. And you know, it’s interesting because people I’ve heard people in fact, I think Ross was saying that he only accepts card for me. Like I said, I live down I my laundromat is in downtown Northampton, which means a lot of people that are living in Northampton, believe it or not, they’re in the service industry.

00;55;37;07 – 00;56;03;09
Jason Foster
So they’re waiters, waitresses, bartenders, whatever it is. And they’re always used to dealing with tip money and cash. So there are definitely people that want to come in and use, you know, the four bucks they’ve acquired and cause for the week or the two weeks and they they’ll do sometimes they’ll use credit card vendor coins. But, you know, it’s funny because I was talking to one of the customers that came in and I know they always use they always use cash.

00;56;03;22 – 00;56;30;20
Jason Foster
And I said, are cash because, you know, you’re a waiter or a waitress and you have the like. Yes. But it also feels like I’m not really spending any money when I’m using my loose change. And I thought, why would I want to take that away? Like it’s not a bad deal for me to have to collect quarters and my trips to the bank are much less now that I’ve got so what I read was when you put credit card capabilities in, in the best case scenario, you’ll maybe get up there.

00;56;30;20 – 00;56;51;24
Jason Foster
If you’re allowing a bland meaning, you accept cash and credit card, the best you’ll see is maybe 50% cash, 50% credit card. Well, I’m already about 40 plus percent in credit card. So I know that it’s popular, but I don’t think it’s I really don’t think it’s ever going to go over 50% unless I stop taking cash. And I don’t need to.

00;56;51;27 – 00;57;07;27
Jason Foster
I want my customers to feel comfortable to pay with whatever method they want to pay. And even those people that use cash, there are going to be times when they come in my laundromat and they forget their cash or they don’t have the cash and they’re going like, Oh, I’ll just use the app. And once they download it, they’re not going to go back to cash.

00;57;08;20 – 00;57;15;24
Jason Foster
Because, you know, my customers are saying, I love that I don’t have to come in here with cash. Yeah, it does help build loyalty.

00;57;16;07 – 00;57;38;19
Jordan
Well, the I mean, it brings up a good point. I mean, you brought up Ross and how he’s card only and I mean think again it comes back to the how do you want to run your business right and if you’re going to be a mom and pop are going to own one maybe two laundromats, I think in my personal opinion, hybrid makes all the sense in the world because, you know, you give your customers the most options.

00;57;38;27 – 00;57;54;05
Jordan
If your goal is to have ten plus 15, 20, 30, 50, whatever I mean, at some point you’re going to have to be all card because it’s just going to be cumbersome to try to collect coins. Somebody’s full time job is going to be collecting coins, right. And so I love that it’s.

00;57;54;05 – 00;58;12;16
Jason Foster
Not just collecting coins, it’s also making sure your change machines work. Those things, they are finicky. And I’ll tell you, like I had to take those things apart and figure out some of the how do you clean it? How do you recalibrate it, especially when people are coming in on humid days with damp bills, that sort of gunk up your reader.

00;58;12;25 – 00;58;24;06
Jason Foster
But so it’s not just the collection, it’s also making sure change machines work because there’s nothing worse than people coming in with a 510, $20 bill and they can’t get change.

00;58;25;06 – 00;58;47;03
Jordan
Yeah, absolutely. And that’s another scenario where it’s nice to have the hybrid, right? Because if they can’t get change, least there’s another payment option right now for them and vice versa. If pay range goes down or something like that, there’s another payment option for them. I know Ross, speaking of Ross, has been dealing with having some of the card readers down one of the stores and not being able to get somebody out there.

00;58;47;03 – 00;59;07;02
Jordan
So, you know, there’s there’s headaches. There’s headaches, but, you know, you got to kind of assess like what’s what’s your goals here? What are you trying to do? Who are you trying to reach and and then make the best decision for your particular scenario like you’ve done, like Ross has done, and like so many of us are trying to do a lot of math.

00;59;07;02 – 00;59;07;10
Jordan
Right.

00;59;07;20 – 00;59;30;10
Jason Foster
Right. And I try to let it a good portion of it be driven by customers preference. I mean, you definitely can train your customers, but you don’t want to alienate them just because, you know, you stubbornly want to run a business a certain way. So for me, the blend is the best option. But I can understand if you had a lot of stores that, you know, you just don’t want to be dealing with coins.

00;59;30;10 – 00;59;51;25
Jordan
Yeah, but I also think, you know, I’m pretty sure Dave Manns on about millionaire there he’s got not quite as many as Ross but he’s got a bunch five or six laundromats and he’s hybrid too. He’s got card and coins. So, so I mean you can’t own multiple and and be both so awesome real quick, I want to ask you a question.

00;59;51;25 – 01;00;17;13
Jordan
Maybe this would be a good way for us to to close down once you have more that you want to make sure that we get through. But now, you know, being being where you’re at now and knowing all the things you know now about the business, if I was to strip away, you know, your laundromat and say, okay, you got to do it all from scratch again, what would you do differently knowing what you know now?

01;00;19;07 – 01;00;42;24
Jason Foster
I would love to replicate what I did and I wouldn’t. It’s not that I would change anything in what I did, but now I know how much I have no, idea what I was getting into. And I got lucky, right? Because not only did I buy from an owner that was honest and told me, you know, he told me about the business and he was 100% correct in what he was saying.

01;00;43;06 – 01;01;09;01
Jason Foster
But I didn’t realize that I had good machines that were in pretty good functioning, working order. They were not I wouldn’t say new, but, you know, five, six years old when I took over. There’s just a lot of stuff that could have been wrong and could have gone wrong that didn’t. And so if I were to do it over again, I would have a lot more questions and a lot more diligence that I would have do based on everything that I know now.

01;01;09;01 – 01;01;38;10
Jason Foster
And I would, for me personally, I would love to find a laundromat that has bad Google reviews, which to me says opportunity to do something better. And that has been sort of run down a little bit because again, you know, I can deal with rundown, but I would probably in a next laundromat to avoid maintenance like, you know, I’m always having to fix something once, twice a week, whatever it is, nothing major.

01;01;38;20 – 01;02;02;17
Jason Foster
But I would like to put in all new equipment because it’ll minimize the maintenance, which means you could run it more as a passive income. I mean, you still have to provide good customer service and people have to be happy. But if your machines are new and your machines are working, people are going to be happy, right? As long as things are working, nobody’s going into a laundromat trying to find things that don’t work.

01;02;02;17 – 01;02;19;27
Jason Foster
Although sometimes I feel like I have a customer too that does that. But for the most part, if your machines work and they’re reliable, it’s a great business. It’s, you know, it’s when you have water on the floor or someone puts their money in and it doesn’t actually function the way it’s supposed to, like that’s when you have to deal with stuff.

01;02;20;11 – 01;02;40;24
Jason Foster
So it’s not that I would change anything, it’s just I know so much more now and the diligence would just be a different process. I’d be asking different questions about the revenue, about the expenses, and I would probably want to know a lot more about the machines and really what is the maintenance issues with the machines and what which machines have a longer life than the others?

01;02;41;07 – 01;02;56;06
Jason Foster
Because I’m lucky that my machines are all functioning and they’re well-maintained and so that’s a big piece of the expense that I don’t really have to invest in. But if I were to if I had to invest in all of that, I would rather just have new equipment and have a lot less headaches.

01;02;57;23 – 01;03;16;01
Jordan
Yeah, I mean, that makes a lot of sense to you. And it is true. Well, to an extent. So a lot of times every time I put in a new equipment in one of my stores, you got the early problems that happened. I don’t know. That’s just maybe that’s just my luck, but every time early on. But then once everything is running smoothly, you’re right.

01;03;16;07 – 01;03;29;23
Jordan
A lot less of the maintenance headache, a lot happier customers. Nobody, nobody’s at the Laundromat Casino putting their money in to see if the machines are going to work or not this time and you know, all that stuff. So it makes a lot of sense.

01;03;29;28 – 01;03;51;29
Jason Foster
I was I was nervous with pay range when I installed it because it’s, you know, I was taking a perfectly fine functioning coin mechanism and plugging into it and, you know, and tapping into it. But if that didn’t work, I had no way of taking money. And it wasn’t just the dryers, it’s also on the washing machines. But I have to say I was maybe it’s luck, maybe it’s the quality of their product.

01;03;52;06 – 01;04;07;14
Jason Foster
But it really it worked. And the one I had an issue on the very first two dryers that we installed, all I had to do was rewire it and it and it worked, right. We actually did it wrong the first couple of times. Even though it would work, it wasn’t as consistent. So, you know, that was a big leap.

01;04;07;14 – 01;04;15;03
Jason Foster
But once once you get those kinks worked out, it really you know, it was a reliable, reliable mechanism.

01;04;15;03 – 01;04;33;21
Jordan
Yeah. What, what? I mean you mentioned you’d probably ask do your due diligence a little bit differently, you’d ask maybe some different questions about revenue and stuff like do you, do you have any examples of maybe like what you didn’t ask that you would ask or. Oh, you know what I mean?

01;04;34;03 – 01;04;51;02
Jason Foster
So one of the things that I asked was related to maintenance and I said, you know, how often do the machines break? And what they told me was, we have somebody come in once every six months to fix things. And it’s totally fine and I drop out once every six months. That’s no big deal, right? I had no idea that.

01;04;51;07 – 01;05;08;25
Jason Foster
Yeah, they did that, but they had five machines out for five months of the year and then, you know, on the six month they’d have somebody come in and I said, Well, how much does it cost? He said, Oh, we pay them 500 bucks under the table because they’re not supposed to do it. They have this, you know, they work for a distributor and they’re sort of doing this on the side.

01;05;09;08 – 01;05;26;27
Jason Foster
And it just that was not a very reliable way. And I you know, I must have made 20 phone calls to try to find, because when I called their particular person, it was like, oh, I don’t do that anymore. It’s like, oh, great, now what do I do now? I had when I first took over, I think there were four, maybe five machines that were out.

01;05;27;11 – 01;05;48;18
Jason Foster
And, you know, I, I needed those machines to be up because I was already 20 or 30% of my machines that didn’t work. So I would have been a lot more vigilant about understanding the maintenance and who can actually fix these and what the costs are involved with. Fixing the machines and just knowing more about what are the most common issues that you’re having.

01;05;48;24 – 01;06;06;02
Jason Foster
Because I you know, I learned grassroots that, oh, you know, this error means this. And I’m you know, I wish I had known that right from the start because I could have fixed three of those machines in a matter of an hour if I had just known more about. So the maintenance and that just the equipment was something I didn’t know much about.

01;06;06;11 – 01;06;27;01
Jason Foster
I had no idea until a few months ago that my machines were spinning at a much higher G-force because it was soft mount versus hard math. So I didn’t even know I was getting a good value in the machines when I took over. So I probably would have known a lot more about the equipment, not just the maintenance, but really what is the equipment that I’m getting.

01;06;27;10 – 01;06;46;11
Jason Foster
And based on this particular speed query machine, I know what the depreciation life is of the machine, but what’s the real life? Are you going to get? Eight years, ten years, 12 years? Like, I just would have known a lot more about the equipment because I knew nothing about it. And I just sort of thought, Oh, if the machines are functioning now, they’ll function, you know, ten years from now.

01;06;47;28 – 01;07;09;13
Jason Foster
I also would have probably understood more about the size of the equipment. They had nothing in the watch in the laundromat that could handle comforters or big loads. And I knew that that was an opportunity, but I had no idea just what kind of an opportunity. I didn’t know how much a big machine would cost. Right. So that was another piece.

01;07;09;13 – 01;07;27;23
Jason Foster
You know, as it ends up now I have two big machines and you know, now I know what they cost. I know what the return is on those. And you know, the equation works. But I didn’t know, you know what? Maybe I should replace four of these broken machines with two big machines, and now I’m capturing a market I couldn’t have captured.

01;07;27;23 – 01;07;54;07
Jason Foster
So there was just it was just things that I didn’t know in terms of what’s the market like, what where am I deficient in terms of what the capabilities of this laundromat are? And for the first couple of years, I had to send people to my competitors because I couldn’t do covers. And it sucks when they come in with eight big bags of laundry, but if you can’t do that one bag that’s got the comforter in it, then they take all of that 20 or $30 worth of business somewhere else and they’ll never come back.

01;07;55;04 – 01;08;14;20
Jason Foster
And so when I you know that when I got the big machines, that’s the market I’m capturing is no one’s leaving now, or at least not that I’m aware of. So there’s just the equipment. And I probably would have wanted to know what is the growth potential like? Nobody really knows the answer, like how much money can you make?

01;08;15;08 – 01;08;33;22
Jason Foster
But I went to one distributor conference, you know, a few months ago and I was talking to other laundromat owners. I would have talked to other laundromat owners as part of my diligence, which I didn’t do it all partially because I thought, Oh, if I start talking to them, they made me realize there’s a laundromat for itself and you know, maybe they’ll grab it instead of me.

01;08;34;13 – 01;08;57;28
Jason Foster
But I always wanted to know, like, what is the revenue protector? What’s my best case scenario? You know, am I going to make $2,000 a month? Is it $10,000 a month? Like, I had no idea what it was. I have a much better sense now because after speaking with different people at different conferences now I know like the average 20 square foot or 2200 square foot laundromat, if you’re firing on all pistons, you’re going to make X amount.

01;08;58;11 – 01;09;23;26
Jason Foster
And I know that if I’m half that size, maybe I should be making, you know, this amount. I also wanted to know when I maxed out on revenue, what I do to increase it. And, you know, I had no idea, like the previous owners never said, don’t think of this laundromat in terms of square footage. Like if I’m a thousand square feet, think of it is how many pounds per square foot can you handle?

01;09;23;26 – 01;09;45;27
Jason Foster
How many pounds a day can you handle? Because if you have bigger machines that, don’t take up much more of a footprint than a £20 machine. You could get a £60 machine. That’s a slightly bigger footprint, but that’s like three times the size of a 20 machine. So if you put all big machines in, you have a much higher square footage capacity, a pound capacity per square foot.

01;09;46;05 – 01;10;12;07
Jason Foster
So it’s just things like that that I didn’t know that having done it for a few years now, I have a better sense of how to measure certain metrics. So it’s nothing earth shattering, but enough to know that I got very lucky and the next time around they’ll just be a little more diligence, much more related to the equipment and sort of the market and what are we able to service versus what we could be servicing?

01;10;13;26 – 01;10;37;23
Jordan
Yeah, I mean, I thought those are really, really great. I would just let you roll on that because I thought those were really great questions that I mean, I didn’t know to ask any of those questions when I bought my first laundromat. And even when the distributor was like, okay, we’re going to replace, you know, this equipment, we’ll put this in, I was like, okay, I mean, I didn’t do a whole lot of research on, you know, kind of machine.

01;10;37;23 – 01;10;56;14
Jordan
It was off man, hard man. I didn’t know the difference between those, you know, I didn’t know how long the machines were going to last. All those things that you were saying. I mean, those are great, great questions to be asked and great answers to be finding during due diligence on a laundromat. So those was great.

01;10;56;14 – 01;11;17;06
Jason Foster
Yeah. And I probably would have pushed them a little more like, you know, all right, I know your tax returns are running at break even, but really, what are you guys making? And, you know, I’m sure, if I pushed a little more, I probably could have gotten a slightly more comfortable answer. But like I said, the last podcast, you know, the Water and sewage bill gave me a pretty good sense what their revenue should be.

01;11;17;13 – 01;11;34;08
Jason Foster
And it was, you know, 90 plus 95% accurate. So at least I had some comfort. But for those people listening, if you if you know it’s a cash business and you know, the previous owner or the seller is pretty much, you know, running break even or a little better than break even. And you want to know really what they’re doing.

01;11;34;15 – 01;11;47;04
Jason Foster
Look at the water and sewage bill because I think that Laundromat resource does have a tool where you can plug the numbers in and, you know, it’ll spit out how much revenue it should do based how much they’re charging and how much water it’s using.

01;11;47;27 – 01;12;03;24
Jordan
Yeah, yeah. Thanks for sharing that out. We do have a tool. You can download it, you know, when you log into your free account or obviously the community can download it to you got a water analysis calculator to walk you through and it’ll give you a ballpark of how much money should be coming into that laundromat. All right.

01;12;03;25 – 01;12;25;12
Jordan
I want to close it down with this. What I have has your vision of the future in this industry evolved at all over the last couple of months since we last talked? Our is your goal to just, you know, run this laundromat and do it efficiently, have a good time. Richards community are you looking to scale, grow? Where are you at now?

01;12;26;14 – 01;12;54;14
Jason Foster
Everything you just said. Okay. So just to give an example, I actually contacted a couple other laundromat owners because I wanted to buy their laundromat, so I would love to expand, but I’d like to expand within my ten mile radius of where I live because I feel like I want to be really hands on for the first, you know, months or a year or so to get the laundromat in the place that I’d like them to be before I could be a little more passive.

01;12;55;22 – 01;13;18;29
Jason Foster
If I only stay with this one laundromat, I’m with that too, but I want to maximize what I currently have and I’m not there yet. Like I still believe that there’s definitely room to grow and there’s bigger equipment I can put in or the same equipment, but just newer. And I would love if someone said, Hey, we could do 20 laundromats within this, you know, this whole radius.

01;13;19;08 – 01;13;42;22
Jason Foster
I would do that too. I don’t have any preconceived ideas or notions of where I want to go in the industry, but I do feel like there’s there’s some kind of change in air. I know very little about the industry, but it does feel like there’s this sort of I don’t know if changing of the guard is the right word, but there’s this newer generation of laundromat owners that are trying to bring laundromats into the next century.

01;13;42;26 – 01;14;07;00
Jason Foster
Right. Like all of a sudden, you know, less than a year ago, people were trying to sell me credit card swipe swiper to install on the outside of every single machine. I’m like, why would I do that? Why wouldn’t they just put an app on my phone that barely cost anything? And so it’s like there’s sort of these two worlds of like the New Age Laundromat owner that they could be 65 years old or they could be 25 years old.

01;14;07;10 – 01;14;27;27
Jason Foster
But there’s that sort of mindset of, I’m going to bring laundromats into the next level of technology and everything else. And then there’s the the fossil laundromat that had been there forever, and people are just sort of running them into the ground as hard as they can because they don’t want to invest or whatever it is. And I just feel like I think things are shifting.

01;14;28;08 – 01;14;47;23
Jason Foster
And because there’s so many sort of old laundromats out there, it’s it’s like it’s going to take time and I would I would love to be part of the just acquire a bunch of laundromats, bring them into the New Age and show people that use laundromats. It doesn’t have to be terrible experience. It could be a good experience.

01;14;48;03 – 01;15;05;18
Jason Foster
They’re happy owners are happy making money and it’s much more convenient than it used to be. So any any direction, any anything of those various scenarios that you present that I could see myself going into?

01;15;05;18 – 01;15;36;25
Jordan
Yeah, I think you’re right. On the on the new kind of age that dawning older that’s I, I like where things are going I think that the mindset is shifting. There’s more savvy people coming in. I’ve said that before and. I love, love, love. Having conversations with people like you who are embracing that. I think that there is a contingency of people, our industry, who are fighting against that.

01;15;37;21 – 01;16;04;01
Jordan
And number one, I think it’s a losing battle anyways. And number two, I think all that that does is slow the rest of us down. So the perception of this industry down and honestly, I think it costs us all a lot of money to have that perception being dominant in our industry. You know, that laundromats are old and dark and dank and and all that stuff.

01;16;04;25 – 01;16;16;13
Jordan
And so everything we can do to kind of flip that on its head and show people now we’re bringing laundromats, you know, into next century, like you said, will benefit all of us.

01;16;16;13 – 01;16;29;13
Jason Foster
I think right when I find an old dark laundromat, I’m thrilled because that to me, that’s a huge opportunity. Buy it and turn it into the next century.

01;16;29;13 – 01;16;58;10
Jordan
Yeah, well, Jason, this is awesome. I love, love, love having the mom and pop perspective. I mean, we’ll see how long you’re going to be able to claim that mom and pop, you know, title. But at least for now, I mean I like, you know, you just you’re awesome just sharing, you know, everything that you shared, the details you shared about your business, sharing photos of what it looks like, share numbers, share and what’s worked for you and what hasn’t worked.

01;16;58;10 – 01;17;17;12
Jordan
What products are working, what products, you know, maybe are not working as well or haven’t tried. And all of that information is just so helpful. And I think we were talking a little bit before we hit the record button, too. And, you know, there’s a ton of value for having some of these really big laundromat owners on and talking about how they got to where.

01;17;17;12 – 01;17;32;14
Jordan
They are because a lot of us want to get to where they are, but a lot of us are either trying to get into the business or are, you know, are at a point where we have one or two lot we’re basically mom and pop laundromat owners or we’re at least going to start off that way if we’re not even in yet.

01;17;32;26 – 01;17;44;07
Jordan
And so having that perspective super duper valuable and really, really appreciate you coming on and sharing all that stuff twice now so far. And man, appreciate it.

01;17;45;14 – 01;18;07;19
Jason Foster
I appreciate the opportunity to share whatever I can and help any other mom and pop that’s out there. And I think you said by definition, a mom and pop would be one, maybe two, three locations. So I think in my immediate future, I’m definitely going to be a mom and pop. That’s dementia. If you can create one or two that’s spinning off a nice cash flow, then you know, you could ride that right into retirement.

01;18;07;25 – 01;18;10;15
Jordan
That’s right. That’s right. Sounds awesome.

01;18;11;04 – 01;18;18;29
Jason Foster
All right. Well, thanks. I appreciate it. And hopefully we’ll do some live session at some point and really take questions from other mom and pops.

01;18;19;06 – 01;18;34;03
Jordan
Hey, you know, if you’re down to do a live at some point, we’ll get one on the calendar. Check out a lot of my resource dot com slash events and and you know we’ll be sent out emails and I’ll be announcing stuff before we do that. But let’s do a live and talk mom and pop laundromat ownership. That’d be great.

01;18;34;03 – 01;18;35;25
Jordan
I think a lot of people would come to that.

01;18;35;25 – 01;18;36;13
Jason Foster
Sounds good.

01;18;36;20 – 01;19;04;17
Jordan
All right. I hope you love that interview. A self-proclaimed mom and pop laundromat owner, Jason Foster, once again, bring in the good stuff to us. Hey, every week I say let’s pick one thing, one thing and put it into action, because that’s the action that’s going to help you achieve your goals. Taking to the next level, whatever the case may be, action is what’s going to get you there, not just the learning and listening, which is good when you put it into action.

01;19;04;17 – 01;19;24;13
Jordan
So pick one thing from this week’s episode for me. I wrote down a quote that I really loved and he said, When I maxed out on revenue, how can I increase it? Just having that mindset of, you know, okay, I feel like I’ve plateaued or I feel like I’ve gotten to where I want to go now. How do I take it to the next level right.

01;19;24;13 – 01;19;47;03
Jordan
And whether that’s a revenue number or whether that’s how do I serve my customers better, which coincidentally will increase that revenue number. Right. So that’s my takeaway. What’s your takeaway? Head over to the forums. A lot about resources dot com slash forums and maybe go share your action takeaway this week so that we can get that action going and help us all achieve our goals.

01;19;47;03 – 01;19;56;04
Jordan
I always say we’re all better together. Let’s get some accountability going on my resource that said forums go share your one take away. All right. We’ll see you next week piece.