106. The BEST Way to Dominate Your Laundromat Market

00;00;00;01 – 00;00;23;00
Speaker 1
Hey. Hey, what’s up, guys? It’s Jordan with the Laundromat Resource Podcast. Is this show 106 and I am pumped that you’re here today because today we’re doing something a little bit different and I can’t wait to share it with you. Actually, I just I’ve been reading a book and I’m to share that with you in a second. And man, I just started contextualizing it in our industry and I think it’s going to blow some minds.

00;00;23;00 – 00;00;40;09
Speaker 1
So if you’re a laundromat owner out there right now, today is the episode for you because we’re going to show you how to crush the competition in, you know, in a in a loving way, but not by doing anything towards them. But just by up in your game so much, they’re either going to have to up their game or die.

00;00;40;20 – 00;01;07;23
Speaker 1
So that is the name of the game today. I can’t wait to share what I have for you today. Real quick, I want to do a little gasoline tip fastlane pretty sure carpool lane or whatever. And sadly tip is just one way laundromat resource can help you excel rate your your path towards achieving your goals and help you achieve higher goals even than you had originally imagined.

00;01;07;23 – 00;01;31;22
Speaker 1
So that is what we’re all about here at Laundromat Resource. So today’s fascinating tip is did you know that quite a few people have connected up with each other on the forums and have partnered on deals, have shared resources, have shared connections and really have just up their game, just by connecting with each other over there on the on the forums, those forms are free.

00;01;31;22 – 00;01;53;02
Speaker 1
You can go over there any time. There will always be free. Lot of my resource dot com slash forums and go connect over there. There’s an introduction forum. Go check that out, introduce yourself and then there’s a few other various forms, laundromats, specific forums. There’s a commercial real estate forum, there’s a financing forum, there’s a machine repair forum.

00;01;53;22 – 00;02;19;13
Speaker 1
Go connect over there, ask a question, answer a question. Be engaging over there, because then who knows? You might meet your new business partner or mentor or mentee or, you know, just somebody who can help you out with your business. So a lot of really good stuff happening over on the forums, connections galore, which I love. That’s what we’re all about.

00;02;19;22 – 00;02;43;16
Speaker 1
And little secret, if you promise to just keep this between you and me because we’re not quite there yet, but we’re going to be there in a couple of weeks. A lot of my resources is about to really up its game in terms of connections and building that community here in the next couple of weeks. And you’ll be hearing more about that, especially for the pro community.

00;02;44;05 – 00;03;08;22
Speaker 1
It’s about to go up about like seven notches. So super excited about that. You’ll be hearing about more about that in the next couple of weeks. So keep an ear out in an eye open. I don’t know, but I’m super excited about that. Okay, so that’s the fast trip. Fast Lane. The Speed Lane. I don’t know. I, I got to nail down a name for this thing and remember it fast lane tip for you today.

00;03;09;08 – 00;03;35;07
Speaker 1
Okay, so let’s jump into today’s podcast because today’s podcast is all about value and this word, I’m kind of actually getting sick of it. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m kind of getting sick of it a little bit because I just hear it all over the place. And every time I hear it, especially in our industry, it’s it’s usually a vague term provide more value, right?

00;03;35;07 – 00;03;57;09
Speaker 1
And so that’s up to us to fill in the blank. Well, not any more. No longer will this be a vague term. I have been reading a book actually. I read a book a few months ago and then I picked up the audiobook and really listened to it while reading it again. And then I just started contextualizing it into our industry.

00;03;57;09 – 00;04;20;07
Speaker 1
Okay, so the book is Alex Hermosa, $100 million offers. You’ve probably heard of it, but if you haven’t, me and I just highly suggest you go pick it up. There’s a link down below in the description offer on YouTube. If you are listening to the podcast, you can get a link to it at one of my resorts dot com slash 106.

00;04;20;08 – 00;04;52;07
Speaker 1
Okay, super good book. Really, really good book for any business owner. And when I first read through it, I really loved it. But I had a hard time contextualizing it to laundromats because we’re not really selling anything in the way that he is kind of talking about it. But in the second pass through, I think the idea is just started flooding in the floodgates opened and it just became more clear to me and I’m sure kind of the more I think about it, the more interactions I have with some of you guys.

00;04;52;07 – 00;05;21;02
Speaker 1
I’m hoping that this episode of the podcast will actually inspire some conversations on the forums or wherever about how to implement some of this stuff in our businesses. Because I think when we talk about, you know, going to the next level in this business and adding value and all that stuff, I think this book really contextualizes it and just makes it very concrete on what we should be doing.

00;05;21;02 – 00;05;39;08
Speaker 1
Okay. So what I just want to share one little part of the book. In fact, it’s just one little equation. So all you math buffs out there, you’re going to get super excited. And all you guys who hate math out there, don’t worry, it’s not a very complex equation. You can handle it. Okay. So he shares the equation, which he calls the value equation.

00;05;39;08 – 00;06;18;16
Speaker 1
Okay. So again, in my opinion and or just my kind of feeling, I’m like kind of getting sick of value talking about value, value, value. But what I love about this value equation that Alex Moses spells out in his book is it’s very, very concrete and has some very interesting implications in our industry. Okay. Now, real quick, before we get into what this equation is and how we can apply this equation in our industry, I want to say real quick, you can go about this by by implementing some of these things.

00;06;18;16 – 00;06;40;29
Speaker 1
And and go there’s there’s kind of two different ways you can go about implementing this, in my view, right? There’s the incremental way, which is awesome and adds up. There’s a camera of his this book out of some book that I read talks about just the value of making small changes consistently over time and those small changes compound and I love that.

00;06;41;02 – 00;07;03;22
Speaker 1
Right. And then there’s kind of my way of doing things and some of you guys might relate to this and it’s the 0 to 100 and you just obsess over these things until, man, you’ve just kind of crushed it, right? And that’s the way I like to do things, but that’s not everybody. So I just wanted to point that out, that you can go 0 to 100 on this thing, and that is the way I love to go, just obsessing.

00;07;03;22 – 00;07;30;08
Speaker 1
And there’s a whole like grand chord cartoon, B obsessed or B average, and I subscribe to that in I do, I subscribe to that. I think there’s a lot of great criticisms of that approach and like the hustle culture and all of that. And you know, I’m still kind of working my way through that. But generally I think you do got to be obsessed or, or b average, but you can also be obsessed and be more incremental.

00;07;30;08 – 00;07;49;04
Speaker 1
You have to go full bore. Okay. So I just want to point that out real quick. Okay. So let’s jump into what is this value equation? Okay. So imagine with me a real quick a a fraction, right, with the line there and then we’re going to have some stuff above the lines and stuff below the line and that’s going to be our equation.

00;07;49;04 – 00;08;15;03
Speaker 1
Okay. So let’s talk about the above the line stuff here. Right? So the equation starts, it’s got four variables and the first one is the dream outcome. Okay. So if your selling, you know, you’re selling some product, right? You’re selling a dream outcome, whatever it is that, you know, people need that product for or what they’re hoping to get out of through buying that product.

00;08;15;03 – 00;08;43;22
Speaker 1
That’s your dream outcome, right? Okay. So you’ve got dream outcome times perceived likelihood of achievement. Okay. So how likely if they buy your product, how likely are they to achieve the outcome that they are hoping to achieve that dream outcome? Right. And he gives the I think he gives the example of, you know, you got like $20,000 for liposuction and, you know, a $5 e-book on how to lose weight.

00;08;43;22 – 00;09;15;08
Speaker 1
Right. And why are these prices, you know, so the wise are such a big discrepancy between these prices? Well, one of the reasons is because you’re pretty much guaranteed to have a smaller waist immediately, which we’re going to get to in the second. When you do liposuction. And if you do the e-book, you know, if you follow it, you should have a pretty reasonable likelihood of of achieving that dream outcome of a smaller waist.

00;09;16;01 – 00;09;38;19
Speaker 1
But that’s where the other two variables come in. Okay. So we’ve got on the top of the equation, on top of the line here, we’ve got dream outcome times perceive likelihood of achievement and then below the line we’ve got two more variables. Okay. And that’s where I’ll I mean, Alex Hermosa basically says, hey, this is where the fortunes are made on the bottom of this equation here.

00;09;38;19 – 00;10;11;16
Speaker 1
So let’s talk about what that means. Okay. So number one is time delay. So how long between the time you start to the time you achieve your dream outcome? Is that timeline right? And you go back to the light perception versus the e-book time delay is a few hours or maybe even a couple of weeks after recovery and everything versus it’s going to take you three, six months, a year, two years, five years, whatever, depending on how much you need to shrink that waist, it’s going to be right.

00;10;11;16 – 00;10;54;08
Speaker 1
And so one of the reasons liposuction is so much more expensive is because that time delay has shrunken way down. Right. And there’s there’s not much of a time delay between your dream outcome of a smaller waist versus, you know, versus that e-book there. Okay. So that is one. So we have on the top again, we have dream outcome times perceive likelihood of achievement and then on the below the device or the vision line I may have my math is rusty, but below the division line is time, delay, times, effort and sacrifice.

00;10;54;20 – 00;11;21;04
Speaker 1
How much effort and sacrifice do I have to put in to achieve my outcome? Right. And again, going back to the liposuction example, not much effort and sacrifice on your part. Yes. You’re going to have to go under the knife and then have a little bit of recovery, but a whole lot of effort and sacrifice to implement a diet and exercise plan that’s going to give you the waist that you want.

00;11;21;04 – 00;11;46;06
Speaker 1
Right. So that’s another reason because it’s low effort, low sacrifice on the liposuction, the value of that seems to be higher. And so it ends up costing a lot more than that e book that could get you the same results. Just a lot more effort and sacrifice. Okay. So we have dream outcome, perceive likelihood of achievement. And underneath that we have time, delay and effort and sacrifice.

00;11;46;12 – 00;12;12;27
Speaker 1
Okay. So if we think about this equation on the top half dream outcome, we want to make that bigger and better. Right, and perceive likelihood of achievement. We want to increase that right. So we’re looking to increase the top of the equation and below the divider line on the bottom half of the equation. Right, the fraction time delay.

00;12;12;27 – 00;12;42;26
Speaker 1
We want to shrink down as much as possible and effort and sacrifice. We want to shrink down as much as possible. Right. And that will increase our value. So now we have bigger numbers on top, smaller numbers on the bottom, which are net us equals a greater value for our customers. Okay. So I’m going to put just this equation on the Shownotes page in case you need a visual dream outcome.

00;12;42;26 – 00;13;07;11
Speaker 1
Times perceive likelihood of achievement over time. Delayed times evidence based. So again the shownotes are at ultimate resource dot com slash show 106 case. You want to visualize what this equation looks like as we talk through. Okay, so if those are the things we’re trying to do, we’re trying to increase the dream outcome and the perceived likelihood that they’re going to achieve that dream outcome.

00;13;07;11 – 00;13;31;04
Speaker 1
And we’re trying to decrease the time delay and the effort and sacrifice required by our customers. Let’s contextualize that to our businesses so that we can just crush it and really deliver a ton of value for our customers. Okay, so let’s start at the top dream outcome. What is the dream outcome of our customers? Well, it kind of depends on our business model a little bit, actually.

00;13;31;04 – 00;13;50;02
Speaker 1
So we’re going to try to talk through some examples. This will not be exhaustive. And again, I hope that this actually spurs on more discussions in the forums. A lot of my research that comes out forums and or wherever or just, you know, in your in your circles there, I hope this spurs on more conversation because this will not be exhaustive.

00;13;50;08 – 00;14;17;24
Speaker 1
But I want to talk through some practical examples of things we can do to offer more value to our larger customers. Okay. So let’s talk a second. We’re going to talk of about the value, both in terms of self-serve curve laundry and in terms of drop offs, laundry and pick up in delivery laundry. Okay. So let’s talk about both of them as we go through each of these and talking about dream outcome, right?

00;14;18;08 – 00;14;42;01
Speaker 1
So obviously dream outcome for our customers in the laundry business is clean clothes, right? Maybe maybe good smelling clothes, clean clothes and and a good experience. And we’ll kind of talk a little bit more about that when we get to the other variables. Right. But clean clothes is the dream outcome, right? Look and fly maybe. But you know, they got to buy their own clothes to look.

00;14;42;01 – 00;15;05;10
Speaker 1
Fly. We can only do so much with that, right? So clean clothes, maybe good smelling is the dream outcome for self-service laundry, for drop off laundry or pick up a delivery laundry? Maybe the dream outcome is never do laundry again. Right? Hate laundry. Don’t want to spend any more time than I absolutely have to. So it’s never do laundry again, right?

00;15;05;10 – 00;15;21;27
Speaker 1
So those are the dream outcomes, clean clothes and maybe, you know, for the service side of things, never having to do the laundry again, never worrying about it, never folding clothes again is more likely the scenario because most people don’t mind throwing things in the washer and move it. It’s the dryer, it’s the folding and the putting away.

00;15;21;27 – 00;15;53;15
Speaker 1
Right. Okay, so those are the dream outcomes of our industry and maybe there’s more. So again, let’s have that discussion, let’s share those ideas. Okay, so that’s the dream outcome. Now perceive likelihood of achievement. How do we increase the ability for our customers to feel good that they’re going to actually achieve this clean, clean clothes when they come home and, you know, and maybe never doing laundry again?

00;15;53;15 – 00;16;16;13
Speaker 1
If they’re on the service side right now, this seems really obvious, right? Throw them in the washer and let the washer do the work. But there’s more that we can do. Okay, so let’s dig a little bit deeper. So how likely are they to perceive how how how likely are they to achieve what you know, what they’re set out to do now?

00;16;16;13 – 00;16;37;11
Speaker 1
I want to I want to pause just for a second and talk about zombie mats. Okay. Now, zombie mats are sort of notorious in our business. And basically, if you’re not familiar with that term, zombie mat is is a laundromat that’s, you know, just not performing well. Right? It’s dark, it’s dirty. It’s you know, the machines have the machines are out.

00;16;37;11 – 00;17;04;21
Speaker 1
And, you know, it’s just not a great experience right now. I’ve mentioned many times before a zombie mat usually is a zombie mat when an owner does not want to reinvest or just doesn’t want to reinvest into the business right there. They’re not keeping up on maintenance. They’re not making sure the place is spic and span. You know, they’re not replacing machines that they need to be replaced.

00;17;04;21 – 00;17;31;29
Speaker 1
So maybe they have 34 year old machines. Right. But one of the one of the reasons that zombie mats end up becoming zombie mats and not performing well is because the perceived likelihood of achievement of the customer achieving their goal goes down significantly. Right. So how do we combat that now? There are some basics here that everybody should be doing anyways.

00;17;31;29 – 00;18;00;07
Speaker 1
Right? Let’s keep our machines working. One of the things that make zombie mat zombie mats is, you know what I call the laundromat slot machine, right? You put your quarters in to the machine and you kind of hope that they work, but you’re not really sure if they’re going to work or not. Right. And you’ve probably seen or heard maybe you have some of these machines where sometimes customers put them in and the machine just isn’t going to work.

00;18;00;16 – 00;18;24;00
Speaker 1
And especially if your store is unattended or partially attended, you know, the customer is going to get frustrated because, you know, there’s nobody there to give them a refund right away or start a new machine for them right away or whatever. Right. So keeping your machines working is going to keep confidence high that if somebody comes to your store, their clothes are going to come home clean by the end of that.

00;18;24;08 – 00;18;51;05
Speaker 1
And it’ll reduce that frustration. Right. So keeping machines working, keeping your change machines full and working. Right. I’ve seen a lot and actually I had this in my laundromat sometimes where customers would come and the the change machine would be empty or whatever. And so that happens too many times. Customers don’t have a lot of confidence that if they come to your laundromat, they’re going to leave with clean clothes.

00;18;51;10 – 00;19;18;04
Speaker 1
You know, if they’re there may or may not be changing their and they don’t have in the change machine and they don’t have change to bring with them, then their confidence is going to be lower. You’re going to start losing customers, right? Cleanliness of your laundromat. Right. Be obsessed about keeping your laundromat clean. Obsessed. And again, I mean, this is the thing nobody wants to go clean their clothes in a laundromat that feels dirty.

00;19;18;04 – 00;19;46;06
Speaker 1
So when they’re folding their clothes, they don’t feel like those clothes are are super clean. Right. Excuse me. Okay. So keeping being obsessed about keeping your laundromat clean is huge because of this value equation, right? Because you want customers to feel like when they come to your laundromat, it’s going to be clean. And so when they leave, their clothes are going to leave clean.

00;19;46;06 – 00;20;18;16
Speaker 1
Your machines are clean, the floors are clean, the folding tables are clean, the walls are clean, everything is clean. You can even get away with having older machines if you can make sure and just be obsessed about keeping your place clean and keeping those machines working. Right now, let’s talk about the service side for a second. You want your pickup and delivery customers to feel like your what if they if they trust you with their laundry.

00;20;18;16 – 00;20;41;11
Speaker 1
And we’ve talked before about how when when customers are trusting you with their laundry. I mean, this is this is a pretty big deal because laundry people’s clothes is is a big deal. It’s how they present themselves. It’s how it’s the it’s the package that they use to express who they are and in various context, rides their business clothes and how they want to look professionally.

00;20;41;11 – 00;21;02;19
Speaker 1
It’s their casual clothes and how they want to look and feel when they’re hanging out with friends or they’re, you know, doing whatever they do casually, right? So so they’re trusting us with a lot, right? So we want to make sure that they feel confident that if they entrust us with their clothing, they’re going to get it back clean and well taken care of.

00;21;02;19 – 00;21;30;11
Speaker 1
Right. And in not ripped up and all that stuff and and using the proper detergents and softeners and everything to ensure that their clothes are going to be clean and hopefully, you know, smelling good and all that feeling fresh. Right. So we want to make sure that our laundry processors, the people, our attendants are are well-trained who are actually doing the laundry for our customers.

00;21;30;11 – 00;21;56;00
Speaker 1
Right. We want to make sure they know what they’re doing. They know what to use when to use it. They know how to fold. That folding is, you know, the same every single time. It’s standard, doesn’t matter which attendant is doing it. All of these things increase the perceived likelihood that if somebody leaves their clothes with you, they’re going to get it back clean, fresh, ready to just put away super easily right.

00;21;56;00 – 00;22;31;08
Speaker 1
Another thing you can do to increase the perceived likelihood of achievement is utilize a good software system to to track that laundry and to communicate with with your customers about the status of their laundry when when people drop off their laundry with you and they don’t hear from you at all, you know, until, you know, it’s done, or especially in the pickup and delivery, if they’re not if you’re not communicating with them, it makes them wonder like, oh, is that is that delivery driver actually coming?

00;22;31;08 – 00;22;57;20
Speaker 1
Is, you know, the you know, it’s my laundry coming back. I’m not sure when my laundry is coming back. All those questions that they have in their mind just creates doubt. And so eliminate that doubt. Utilize a good software system not only to maintain efficient systems, which we’re going to talk about, but also to to communicate and to track that laundry to make sure everything stays together and also to communicate with your customers.

00;22;58;08 – 00;23;35;29
Speaker 1
Right? All these things help build trust that the dream outcome of having clean laundry at the end of the experience or never doing laundry again or whatever that dream outcome is, will be increased. Right. And and again, the more obsessed we can be about thinking about ways to increase the perceived likelihood of achievement, it’s going to pay dividends and it’s going to allow you to have a better business and to be able to charge more for your services because you’ve thought through all of the factors of this equation.

00;23;35;29 – 00;24;01;08
Speaker 1
Right. Okay. So that’s the top half there. And I’m sure there’s plenty more that we can do to to increase that trust. The perceived likelihood of of achievement and to hone in on what that dream outcome is even more tightly. Let’s talk about the bottom of the equation here, because, again, this is where you can step on that gas pedal and just zoom past any of your competitors in the fast lane.

00;24;01;15 – 00;24;23;13
Speaker 1
And a lot of resources can help you with the fast lane. I don’t know, kind of working in the fast lane didn’t work. Okay. So let’s talk about time delay. Right. So that is how long does it take between when they when they throw their clothes in the car and come to your laundromat to when they’re pulling their clothes out of their car and ready to go put them away.

00;24;23;13 – 00;24;47;09
Speaker 1
Right. Or how long is that time delay between when they place an order on your website or your app or whatever, versus when when you come drop it back off. Right? That time delay and the more we can do to shrink that time delay, the better. Right. And the perfect example of who does this the best and actually do both of these things on the bottom of this equation.

00;24;47;17 – 00;25;11;14
Speaker 1
The best is Amazon, right? So Amazon, you know, you can order something and you know, you can get it next day or in two days is like, oh, my goodness. That’s like, you know, that’s like the longest and most in areas. Right? And even I just ordered something for I did a triathlon this past weekend and I ordered something that came the next day and I was ready to go.

00;25;11;15 – 00;25;36;10
Speaker 1
Right. I actually came the same day came later that same day. And I think I ordered at 1:00 and it came by 6:00. Right. So they continue to just compress that time delay from when you order to when you actually receive your product. And that just increases the value and the likelihood that you’re going to utilize their services, even though they’re selling the same thing as the store down the street.

00;25;36;23 – 00;25;58;02
Speaker 1
Right. Okay. So time delay. So let’s contextualize this a little bit. Let’s start in the self-service side of things. And, you know, one of the best ways to figure out how to how to how to improve each of these variables is to actually walk through that whole customer experience and break it down, you know, starting from, hey, they’re pulling in the parking lot.

00;25;58;11 – 00;26;27;26
Speaker 1
What is my parking situation like? Right. Make sure there’s plenty of parking. If you’re looking for buying a laundromat, make sure they have plenty of parking. Do you already own laundromats? You know, think of ways to to compress the time from, you know, when they parked their car to when they get that laundry into the actual store, you know, and just walk through the entire customer experience and look for ways to make it easier, more efficient, quicker.

00;26;28;05 – 00;26;51;23
Speaker 1
All those things for your customers, right? Another thing to think about is to make sure you have enough machines and make sure you have enough of the right size of machines. You know, I’ve seen plenty of laundromats where I’ve gone in on, you know, like a weekend or whatever. And there’s a line for 60 and £80 machines while there’s a whole bunch of smaller machines open and vice versa.

00;26;51;23 – 00;27;13;27
Speaker 1
I’ve seen that where smaller machines are more popular and the bigger machines are are open, while all the smaller ones 20, 30 pounders are being used. Right. And so knowing your customer base and making sure you have enough of the right size of machine will help again, you know, because, you know, put yourself in a customer’s shoes, right?

00;27;13;27 – 00;27;33;25
Speaker 1
If they know they’re going to throw all their clothes into the into the car and they’re going to drive and try to find parking, they’re going to haul those clothes in if there’s you know, and they want to use a £60 machine and all of them are being used and they got there right when, you know, somebody had just loaded all the machines.

00;27;33;25 – 00;27;50;23
Speaker 1
Now they have to wait for an entire cycle. And is that going to affect whether they come back again or maybe they load their clothes back in to their car and they go down the street to the next laundromat. Right. So we want to try to eliminate as much of that as possible. Now, that’s not always super easy.

00;27;50;23 – 00;28;21;10
Speaker 1
It’s not just easy to go buy more machines or bigger machines or whatever, but keeping track of what machines are popular, what you need more or less of for when that time comes is is critical and it’s a way that you can decrease that time delay from when, you know, when people, again, throw their their laundry in the car to when they’re pulling it out of the car and putting it away, clean, fresh, ready to go.

00;28;21;14 – 00;28;51;01
Speaker 1
Right. Okay. So again, I mean, even thinking through like making sure you have enough folding tables. I see people cramming their their laundromats with machines and there’s just not very much folding. Well, if you have to wait to use a folding table then or you have to put all your clothes in, you know, just into the bags or baskets or whatever and bring them home and fold them, you know, that is that that’s an efficiency deficit there.

00;28;51;01 – 00;29;20;15
Speaker 1
Right. And that’s something that lengthens out that time delay and again, creates a less appealing, less valuable experience. Okay. You know, I don’t want to belabor this too much, but thinking about throughput and flow and how easy it is to get in and out, you know, putting the most use machines closest to the door so that when people come in, they don’t have to walk all the way, you know, drag their laundry all the way through the store to get to those big machines or whatever.

00;29;20;29 – 00;29;43;12
Speaker 1
Just again, anything you can do to compress that time delay makes it more a more valuable experience, even maybe even offering a fashion fast wash cycle where, you know, people don’t need a thorough cleaning necessarily. It’s not super dirty clothes, but they just need a quick wash, maybe an offering that, I don’t know, that may be a good idea or maybe not a good idea, depending on your context.

00;29;43;21 – 00;30;07;04
Speaker 1
So they’re thinking through some of those self-service things. I just want to list a bunch of options because the self-service side, it seems like like there’s not a whole lot you can do, but there’s more than you think. And again, if you get obsessed with this stuff and you start really digging in and thinking through and talking to your customers and saying, Hey, what takes the longest for you when you do laundry here at this laundromat?

00;30;07;21 – 00;30;29;13
Speaker 1
How can I decrease that time? I think you’ll come up with more creative solutions than you might originally think. If you just kind of think about it for a minute, I’ll just speak for myself when I just kind of thought about it for a minute. I didn’t come up with a lot of stuff, but here I just threw out like five or six different things that you could do just for the self-service side.

00;30;29;20 – 00;30;54;23
Speaker 1
And if we move to the service side of things, you know, again, finding efficiencies in your laundry processing system. So, you know, either having attendants or laundry processors, you know, take a load all the way through or having them own pieces of it, you know, depending on your your setup and how you like to run your business. Different owners, operators run them differently.

00;30;54;23 – 00;31;18;15
Speaker 1
But thinking through that process in terms of how can we compress the time it takes for us to to to process this laundry? Because the less time it takes, number one, the better for the bottom line it is for you. But number two, again, the more it compresses that time that you can get that laundry back to the customers.

00;31;18;15 – 00;31;43;06
Speaker 1
Oh, one of the one that I wanted to just throw out there, both for both self-service and the service side is, you know, making sure your dryer temperatures are calibrated correctly. Right. If they’re not hot enough and the dry cycles take longer, again, that is going to cost you more money because you’re using more gas to drive. But it’s also going to lengthen out the time it takes to do that laundry, to process that laundry.

00;31;43;06 – 00;32;22;03
Speaker 1
So that was another one I just wanted to kind of throw out there because that’s something, again, where you can kind of just geek out on these processes and figure out ways to make up a couple of seconds here, a couple of minutes there, and it all adds up a lot. Okay. So having again, on the service side, having efficient laundry processing service, again, the routes, your drivers routes, making those as efficient as possible and then having reliable, consistent drivers, which again is easier said than done and you know, not getting into accidents on the road.

00;32;22;03 – 00;32;54;06
Speaker 1
Ros dads and your drivers, you know, all these things, though, help you compress the timelines to when you can, you know, pick up that laundry process, get it cleaned, get it folded, and then get it back to your clients as quickly as possible. So again, geek out. Think through ways that you can compress timelines both on the self-serve side and on the service side of of the business, you know, and okay.

00;32;54;06 – 00;33;11;10
Speaker 1
So I want to that there’s a ton more I have a whole huge list of things that we can do. But I want, again, this to be a primer for us to start thinking about it in these terms, compressing how much time it takes. Let’s talk about effort and sacrifice real quick and how much effort and sacrifice it takes.

00;33;11;10 – 00;33;38;28
Speaker 1
Our clients to actually get their laundry done home, put away and be able to kick their feet up or do whatever they want to do. Right. So I mentioned before, you know, having those popular machines by by the doors so that people don’t have to drag their stuff through through there. It just makes it easier. They can come in, set their laundry down right in front of the machines, right by the doors, do their laundry and, you know, and get it done and then get out.

00;33;38;28 – 00;34;02;02
Speaker 1
Right. Now, you also have to think about, though, you know, is that going to clog up your entryway depending on how close to the door it is and can people get through to the other machines? You know, and again, that’s where kind of throughput and flow come in, too. So you got to think through all that, too. But, you know, getting those popular machines close to the door so you can get them and get them done, get them out and and be good to go.

00;34;03;17 – 00;34;19;12
Speaker 1
You know, maybe you can consider having a loading and unloading zone where people can come in, you know, parked there for 5 minutes, pull all their laundry out, drop it off to your attendants for a drop off service or go through it by the machines or throw it in the machines and and then go re park the car.

00;34;19;27 – 00;34;45;01
Speaker 1
Now the loading, unloading zone, that could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on if you actually want to monitor that, because depending on where you are, you may just get people park in there and it in kind of loses its effect there. But something to think through, right. Another thing, especially on the service side of things but also on the self-service side of things, is making payment options convenient?

00;34;45;15 – 00;35;10;18
Speaker 1
Right. Making them fast and convenient. And think about on the self-serve side of things. It’s kind of easy to to picture this right. If you’ve got, you know, I don’t know, an 80 pounder that’s $12 or $14 or whatever. That’s a whole lot of quarters that somebody’s got to put in and a lot of effort there. And you’ve got to get chains for all those and you got to carry all that change over to the machine and you got to sit there and feed all the right.

00;35;10;24 – 00;35;31;28
Speaker 1
That’s a lot of time and that’s a lot of effort that you got to put into doing a load of laundry. Whereas if you have an option for a card or an app payment, right, it could just be tap your card or swipe your card or insert the chip or whatever. And it’s quick, it’s easy and it gets people in and out and so that just makes it really easy.

00;35;32;19 – 00;35;56;10
Speaker 1
And so thinking through different options and you know, obviously on the on the, on the service side of things too, you know, if you’ve got, you know, people who can pay online, for example, you know, not making them go through multiple, multiple screens. Again, Amazon is a great example of this where they have the one click ordering. Now you can kind of select your stuff and just click buy.

00;35;56;10 – 00;36;26;22
Speaker 1
Now it’s one click and you’ve ordered it, right. And so trying to simplify that process as much as possible for your customers. Okay, man, you know, there’s just so much, you know, having frictionless handoff. So allowing, you know, especially for pickup and delivery or for drop off laundry, you allowing it to just be as smooth as possible, giving people options, allowing them to leave it on their porch, getting permission to leave their laundry on the porch.

00;36;26;22 – 00;37;08;15
Speaker 1
So if you go to deliver it and they forget they’re not home, you know, you got to take it back or, you know, just thinking through all the steps of the process and say, how can I make it more efficient? How can I make it quicker? How can I make it less effort and sacrifice for my customers and even kind of on that note, and we’re going to talk about this for a second in a second, but, you know, even, you know, making an effort to convert your drop off laundry service to pickup and delivery if you offer that service is a way to both decrease the time delay and also decrease effort and sacrifice

00;37;09;06 – 00;37;22;18
Speaker 1
on the part of the customer. If you say, hey, I know you’re spending all this time loading up your car with laundry, bringing it all the way over here, dropping it off, you know, coming back and picking it up. Why don’t you just let us do that? And all of a sudden it’s a lot less effort, sacrifice for you.

00;37;22;18 – 00;37;47;06
Speaker 1
You just leave it out for us or just hand it to us when we get there and we’ll bring it right back to you. It’ll be clean and folded. Right? So utilizing sort of these variables to market to your customers also, which we’re going to talk about a second. Okay. Another one that can be easier said than done but is worth thinking through.

00;37;47;11 – 00;38;15;13
Speaker 1
If you can figure out how to implement this is having your laundry processors fold and then assemble clothing by family member as much as possible? Right. So if you got little girls clothes and dad’s clothes and mom’s clothes and teenage sons clothes and, you know, trying to separate those out as much as possible, now you probably are going to be able to know exactly who’s who’s and all of that.

00;38;15;22 – 00;38;30;21
Speaker 1
But you can get a pretty good idea of, hey, you know, this is a grown woman’s clothes versus a little girl’s clothes, and you can kind of separate those out. And what that does is it makes it so much easier for the customer on the back end to put the clothes away because they don’t have to go through it.

00;38;30;21 – 00;38;53;26
Speaker 1
Now, sort of the clothes that you’ve folded as much because you’ve done a lot of that for them and it takes, you know, relatively little effort to be able to generally get the laundry sorted for the customer and then packed in a way where it makes it obvious that, hey, this is a grown man’s clothes, this is a little girl’s clothes, right?

00;38;53;26 – 00;39;12;05
Speaker 1
And so, again, you know, there are plenty of scenarios where you’re not going to be able to know exactly who is this for, like, hey, this this is Dave’s clothes and this is John’s clothes and this is Sally’s clothes, right? But the more you can do that, the easier it becomes for the customer. And you can see how that provides huge value.

00;39;12;11 – 00;39;45;25
Speaker 1
If all they have to do is take it out of the package, put it in the drawers or hang it up or whatever, and then it’s good to go, man. That’s so much easier than having to sort through stuff, right? And again, I mentioned this before, but using software to communicate with your customers, it just is it makes the effort and sacrifice a lot less if they know, hey, it’s taken care of and I don’t have to do anything and they’re bringing it back up in this window of time or at this time or whatever.

00;39;46;10 – 00;40;13;29
Speaker 1
It’s just a lot less effort, a lot less sacrifice for them. So thinking through both on the self-serve and on the service side of things, how can you just make it easier so they don’t have to put any effort in as little effort as possible and as little sacrifice as possible? And here’s an interesting one. I don’t know sure exactly what to think about this or how it’s going to work, but I’m actually keeping an eye on this because I’ve been seeing, you know, commercials for Wal-Mart.

00;40;14;17 – 00;40;52;28
Speaker 1
I think that has started offering a grocery delivery where also they somebody from Wal-Mart’s delivery comes into your house, whether you’re home or not, and put your groceries away. Now, I’m not sure how I feel about that, but it’s really interesting, right? Because putting clothes away is a kind of a joke online and just in general where people will do laundry and and just not put it away because there’s that friction of having to put laundry away that for whatever reason, so many of us, myself included, just don’t like putting the laundry away.

00;40;53;20 – 00;41;26;10
Speaker 1
And so it ends up sitting there and, you know, you’ll see jokes about that, or maybe you experience that too. So, I don’t know, maybe offering a service where putting the laundry away is an option. There. And again, removing any effort whatsoever that you can and, you know, experiment that at your own risk or whatever, because I’m not sure what I think about that yet, but I am watching Wal-Mart to see if they continue to do this and how they’re able to make that work and if it works, because I think it’s really interesting.

00;41;26;10 – 00;41;55;04
Speaker 1
It is a huge way that you could remove some effort and sacrifice from your customers if you also put it away. I don’t know. I don’t know. Okay. So one other point that I just wanted to bring out before we wrap this thing up. I know I’ve been kind of just spewing things out right now. And last time I think I promise I think that I’ll say this, but I hope this spurs on some conversations and some thoughts in your own business.

00;41;55;04 – 00;42;17;22
Speaker 1
How can we make the dream outcome even better? How can we increase trust in us that, you know, if they if they, you know, utilize our services or our laundromats or whatever, that they are going to get that dream outcome in spades. And how can we decrease the time it takes and how can we remove as much effort and sacrifice as possible?

00;42;17;22 – 00;42;46;18
Speaker 1
Right. If we’re thinking through all this, having discussions about this, implementing some of these strategies and tactics that we come up with to do those things that we’re just going to blow everybody else and our markets out of the water like that is how you do it you obsess over these things. Big start with the big easy, low hanging fruit and go there and then work your way down and think through the details, get feedback from customers, all of that stuff.

00;42;46;24 – 00;43;19;19
Speaker 1
And then the other thing I wanted to point out that he kind of talks about in this book is this should also give you your marketing material, right? These are the things that matter to customers, right? How long it’s going to take, hey, you know, free overnight delivery, all of a sudden, bam. You know, that’s that’s a huge selling point because it’s going to be fast and, you know, the free always sells and all that stuff, right And, you know, or or all you have to do is put your clothes away, right?

00;43;19;22 – 00;44;00;17
Speaker 1
Or never do laundry again. Those kinds of things. No more effort and sacrifice on your part. We take all the effort and sacrifice and and do it for you. We worry about it for you. You know, these are your marketing points, right? So we look for ways to communicate to customers what the actual dream outcome is. Sometimes they don’t realize that never doing laundry again is is a possible dream outcome and then show them how it’s possible right by giving testimonials by, you know, operating in a way that increases and improves trust, right?

00;44;00;17 – 00;44;39;04
Speaker 1
Then the that perceived likelihood of them never having to do laundry again goes up right and and communicate ways that you have decrease that time delay. Right. We have, you know, our biggest machines are right up front for you or whatever, you know, whatever the things that you come up with, those are your marketing messages, right? It gives you your copy and your marketing that you can use on your social media, on your website, if you’re running ads, which probably you should be, especially if you’re doing a service side of the business, you know, and, you know, market the ways that you’ve reduced effort and sacrifice.

00;44;39;06 – 00;45;05;21
Speaker 1
So I don’t want to belabor this too much, but I think it’s this is huge. Again, I’ve been getting kind of tired of the value thing. I mean, I love like offer more value, offer more value, offer more valuable after I read and then reread. Alex For most these hundred million dollar offers again link is down below. Go get it if you haven’t read it or on a lot of my resources dot com slash 126.

00;45;05;21 – 00;45;36;24
Speaker 1
You can get the link there too. But after I read and reread it and started thinking about it in the context of laundromats and really just kind of took a little bit of time, I came up with a huge list. This is like a partial list. And I, I feel like I’ve been rambling about these different ideas for a long time, but there’s so many more that I have because the more you kind of geek out on it, and the more that you really put concerted effort and think about these things individually, each of these variables individually, and look for ways to optimize it.

00;45;37;00 – 00;46;03;10
Speaker 1
The more you’re going to come across and the more valuable your business is going to be. Even on the self-serve side and of course, on the service side of things. And that means the more value that you’re providing, the more you can charge and the higher your margins are and the more customers you’re going to attract and the more word of mouth you’re going to get and the more praises that are going to be selling your way and the more glory you will get and the more quickly you will be able to take the whole world.

00;46;03;11 – 00;46;27;14
Speaker 1
So as you can see, I’ve just laid out the path to world domination for you, but kind of I mean, I think that this is a solid, solid and compelling route to taking over your market. If you look and kind of geek out on on ways to optimize all of these things. So let me know what you think.

00;46;27;15 – 00;46;48;18
Speaker 1
I’d love to hear what you think. Is this as revolutionary as I feel like it is myself? Or is this you know, everybody else knows this and it’s just me? I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me that’s like having this aha moment. But I think it’s so, so good. And a huge shout out to Alex Hermosa for sharing that in his book.

00;46;49;13 – 00;47;15;28
Speaker 1
And man, go have a conversation, go on the forums. A lot of my resource that comes on forums have conversations there, have conversations in the Facebook groups have conversations, you know, just with other owners or other business owners that you have. Because this is not obviously this is not meant specifically for laundromats as for any business. So if you have other business owner friends, then it can help them dominate the world in their industry also.

00;47;16;00 – 00;47;36;27
Speaker 1
So I hope you like this. I hope you got something out of this that was valuable. That is my goal. And always when I do these solo shows, which is not super often, I’d like really crossing my fingers that this is something that you can get something valuable as always, try to find something in this episode to put into action, right?

00;47;36;27 – 00;47;57;15
Speaker 1
So if you own laundromats, you know, go through each one of this is your action. So I’m just going to give it to you this week. Go through each one of these variables, dream outcome, perceive likelihood of achievement, time, delay and effort and sacrifice. Go through each one of these and look for ways, big and small, to optimize each one of them a little bit.

00;47;57;25 – 00;48;27;22
Speaker 1
If you are trying to buy your first laundromat excuse me, you’re trying to buy your first laundromat. You know, this is a way to kind of frame the way that you can set up your business when you do find that laundromat. Right. And, you know, I when I had the four pillars of laundromat due diligence and the fourth pillar of laundromat due diligence when you’re buying a laundromat is look for value add opportunities right now.

00;48;28;03 – 00;49;00;03
Speaker 1
Now we can kind of incorporate this value equation while we’re looking for value add opportunities. Look for that dream outcome, look for ways to increase the perception of the likelihood of achieving those dream outcomes. Look for ways to decrease the time it takes for clients to get the results they’re looking for and look for ways to decrease the effort and sacrifice required by our client’s customers to achieve that dream outcome.

00;49;00;03 – 00;49;22;04
Speaker 1
And and you will be ready to rock and roll and take over your market day one. Love it. All right. Hopefully you got something good out of that. If not, let me know. I will not be offended and I would just not do shows like this if you did let me know that too. I love to hear because I want to give you as much value as fans.

00;49;22;04 – 00;49;36;29
Speaker 1
I really I can’t even say with a straight face I really am. Just get bugged by that for some reason. But it is true. So I hope you guys have a great week. I will see you next week on the Ultimate Resource Podcast. Go take some action today piece.