(This is NOT a Joke) An Attorney & an Engineer Buy a Laundromat with Donnell & Tahra Wright

Jordan Berry [00:00:00]:
Hey. Hey. What’s up, guys? It’s Jordan with the Loan Demand Resource Podcast. This is Show 165, and I’m double pumped that you are here today because today on the show, we’ve got 2 of my favorite people, Donnell and Tara Wright, and we jump into their business. This is a very cool episode for me because we talked maybe a couple years ago when they were first starting to look for their 1st Laundromat, and we’ve we’ve, done some consulting over the last couple years. And they’re coming to share about their experience about buying their 1st Laundromat, what it’s been like running it up to this point. Super duper cool episode. They are living the dream that so many people, probably so many of you, are hoping to achieve with Automotive Ownership, right, is trying to get that freedom in their lives, and that’s what they’re doing right now.

Jordan Berry [00:00:48]:
So it’s a very cool episode. A lot of practical stuff in there as well as always. I know you’re gonna love it. And real quick before we jump into it, today’s Fastlane tip is listen, mastermind groups are launching again, on August 14th. I mentioned it last week. I just wanna mention it one more time because this has been a huge hit, for a ton of pro community members. And so if that’s something you’re interested in, being in a group that meets at a regular interval to talk all things laundry, all things business. You need some encouragement, some accountability, some, you know, brain trust to solve problems that you’re dealing with so that you’re not doing the same all on your own.

Jordan Berry [00:01:31]:
I truly believe mastermind groups help you go farther, faster. That is, I’m willing to put my stamp on there. That is what will happen if you, join a mastermind group. You’ll be able to go farther, faster. So that’s something you’re interested in. Check out lawnmowerresource.com/pro. That is included in the pro community, and you get everything else involved with the pro community. But that is coming up August 14th.

Jordan Berry [00:01:56]:
We’re launching our newest batch, of of, Mastermind Group. So come join that if that’s something that interests you. And that is for wherever you’re at on the journey, whether you’re trying to buy your first laundromat or you already own 1 or multiple laundromats. We’ll get you in a mastermind group with some people that are along the same journey as you. Alright. Alright. Without further ado, let’s jump into it with the rights because this is an awesome episode, and you’re gonna love it. And I know you’re gonna love them just like I do.

Jordan Berry [00:02:25]:
Alright. Listen. I have been looking forward to this particular episode since January 26th 2022. We had our 1st consulting call. I’m super excited to have you guys on. How are you guys doing today?

Tahra Wright [00:02:39]:
We’re fantastic.

Donnell Wright [00:02:40]:
Fabulous. We’re we’re stoked to, talk to the community today. So thank you.

Tahra Wright [00:02:44]:
Yeah. Absolutely. It has been it has been a long time coming to be on this podcast. So we’re That’s right.

Jordan Berry [00:02:49]:
It has. That’s right. It has. And I mean, it’s it’s cool. We’ve done some, you know, calls, and so I’ve gotten to know you guys that way. But we also got to meet in person at at the Laundromat Millionaire Conference, which was awesome. So

Jordan Berry [00:03:00]:
this

Jordan Berry [00:03:00]:
is cool, man. I am I genuinely am very excited, about this because I know a little bit of the journey that you’ve been on, that you’re

Jordan Berry [00:03:14]:
Hey. Thanks. We always have a good time together. So yeah.

Tahra Wright [00:03:17]:
We like pizza.

Jordan Berry [00:03:18]:
Awesome. Well, I know we’re acquainted, but not everybody is. So why don’t you start with giving us a little bit of background of who you guys are, and, let’s weave that story into you owning a laundromat.

Donnell Wright [00:03:32]:
Excellent.

Tahra Wright [00:03:33]:
Ladies first. Oh, ladies first. Sure. So, I am Tara Wright. I live in New Jersey with my husband, and, we have 3 children, 2 of whom are still at home. My background actually is I am an attorney. I’m still practicing attorney. I’m a partner at a law firm in New York City.

Tahra Wright [00:03:54]:
I do that commute to New York City 3 times a week. And the other times, I’m either with the kids running them around. You know, we we’ve been involved in real estate for a number of years. So we have real estate properties that I manage. And now of course we have the laundromat, which I am the pro bono volunteer director of marketing. I

Donnell Wright [00:04:18]:
do pro bono work.

Jordan Berry [00:04:19]:
So if anybody is looking for anybody is looking for marketing, there’s I got a pro bono attorney here for everybody. Just reach out. She’ll do it for everybody for free.

Jordan Berry [00:04:30]:
Yeah. Right. She does do a

Donnell Wright [00:04:32]:
fabulous job for us here at the, laundromat. So I’m I’m we’re we’re very I’m very grateful that she’s doing it. My name is Donnell Wright.

Jordan Berry [00:04:41]:
Of

Donnell Wright [00:04:41]:
course, I’m I’m her husband. Yes. I my background is, I’ve been a telecom engineer for over 20 plus years. I actually left that, career about a year ago, to solely dedicate myself to to the laundromat business. I am the face, the presence here in the laundromat, every day. In addition to my engineering background, I grew up with a long line of builders, contractors. My uncles were all builders. So very young age, I was building houses, roofs, framing, and stuff like that.

Donnell Wright [00:05:20]:
So that kinda lends to, our real estate that we have as well in our portfolio. Funny enough, I got my lovely wife when we first met, into real estate. So real estate is one of our passions, and like I said, now laundromats is is the other. So I spend my time doing that as well as running around with my, 16 year old with soccer and track, so we enjoy doing that. Yeah.

Tahra Wright [00:05:47]:
That’s amazing.

Jordan Berry [00:05:48]:
That’s yeah. That’s awesome. And, first of all, congrats on, leaving your job and going to laundromats. That was the goal. Two and a half years ago when we first talked, you’re like, my goal is to get out of my job and help and have laundromats help me do that, which is the goal of a lot of people listening who don’t have laundromats yet. So, truly inspiring and,

Jordan Berry [00:06:11]:
exciting to hear that

Jordan Berry [00:06:11]:
you’ve actually done that. It exciting to hear that you’ve actually done that.

Tahra Wright [00:06:15]:
It is.

Jordan Berry [00:06:16]:
So let’s talk about how did you guys do that? Why first of all, you you do real estate, which, you know, obviously, I love I I love real estate and laundromat. So, you know, we’re

Jordan Berry [00:06:25]:
Yes.

Jordan Berry [00:06:25]:
Pees in the pod. I mean, you guys are, you know, lawyer and engineer, and, you know, I’m over here

Jordan Berry [00:06:32]:
Oh, lot of

Jordan Berry [00:06:32]:
nothing really.

Jordan Berry [00:06:33]:
I’m doing

Tahra Wright [00:06:33]:
I’m doing nothing really.

Jordan Berry [00:06:35]:
So, you know, you’re you’re above there. But we’re both like the the real estate and the laundromat thing. We got that going on too. So, which I love. But why why laundromats? What what attracted you guys to that path?

Tahra Wright [00:06:49]:
Tara, I

Donnell Wright [00:06:49]:
think you have a a good frame.

Tahra Wright [00:06:51]:
Yeah. I can I can kinda give, you know, how we got here? I mean, for us, initially, we love real estate. You know, we we still own a number of rental properties. We have actually one property we use as an Airbnb that we short term rental that we manage ourselves. And we’ve been in that since well, Donnell, as I said, he introduced me to real estate. Actually, the funniest funny story, when we first met, I was living in, a condo building. And I was thinking about purchasing it because we I was renting at the time, and Donnell and I were first going out. We were going out for, like, I don’t know, we’re on a date and we were walking and talking.

Tahra Wright [00:07:32]:
I said, I think I might try to buy this, condo in this building. He said to me, why would you buy a condo? Why don’t you think about buying a 2 family home? And I looked at him, and I was like, what’s a 2 family house? Like, I literally had no idea what that was. And I still this is, like, 20 something years later. I can still remember his face was, like, who is this chick? Like, where is she from? How does

Donnell Wright [00:07:58]:
she not valley.

Tahra Wright [00:07:59]:
Yes. I’m from the valley. I’m from, like, I’m, like, from, like, the boondocks of New York. Right? So, of course, now I’m very fully aware of where a 2 family home is, and that actually was what I ended up buying as opposed to the condo. I found a 2 family home. I lived in 1 unit, rented the other, and that sort of began like my entry into real estate. And then since that time, I mean, together we’ve owned 2 families, we owned an 18 unit building at one point in time. We flipped homes for a good 3 years up until COVID hit.

Tahra Wright [00:08:33]:
We were private money lending. We’re doing all sorts of things in real estate. But the goal for real estate for us, and this is when Diana introduced me to, was the idea that it would supplement your income and then eventually could lead to financial freedom. Right? And which gives you the opportunity to do whatever you might wanna do. Whether you wanna still work in corporate, whether you wanna just have this as additional cash, you’d have that freedom. And so what we found in real estate, as many people do find, is that, you know, when you’re professionals and you’re working in New York City, a major metropolitan area, you know, the real estate that we were collecting, the the the the small 2 family, 3 families, you know, after cash flow, they were not replacing an income. Not even 1, never mind both. Yeah.

Tahra Wright [00:09:22]:
And so we found that as much as we loved it, it wasn’t going to be, you know, the path for us to actually hit financial freedom.

Donnell Wright [00:09:30]:
Not at the time we wanted to.

Tahra Wright [00:09:32]:
Yeah. Which was, like, years ago, of course. And then you have a family of kids, and then it all goes out the window. So that was a part of it. So we kept thinking about, well, what is it that we could do? And, honestly, laundromats wasn’t on our radar at all. I mean, we thought we delve right into more investing. That didn’t happen. And then it was got crazy for me during COVID at work.

Tahra Wright [00:10:00]:
Got very, very busy because the stock market went crazy, and my line of work is sort of linked to the stock market. And so, I ended up taking a sabbatical for a few months, because I was just burned out, just couldn’t manage it. You know, I was working, like, 19 hour days. And Donnell and I, years ago, we began drop off laundry.

Jordan Berry [00:10:22]:
Yeah.

Tahra Wright [00:10:23]:
So when probably back in about 2016, 2017, all the kids were home. Laundry was crazy, and I had driven past the laundromat that was, like, local to us. And I saw this thing. It’s, like, wash, dry, fold, and I’m like, oh, that’s a thing. And so Darnell was the one who was always in the laundry at home, not me.

Jordan Berry [00:10:46]:
Miss Jamal.

Tahra Wright [00:10:48]:
So I said to him, I was like, there’s a wash dry folk place in the next town over. Just start bringing the laundry there and doing it. And then come to find out the place I told him to go to was not where he went. He went to some other place. I was like, what is that? Where’s that place? He found some other place he went to.

Jordan Berry [00:11:07]:
His own man. You can’t tell him what to do. He is his own man.

Donnell Wright [00:11:11]:
When I get in my car, I make my own decision

Tahra Wright [00:11:13]:
to go home. I was like, I don’t know where you went, but okay. And and he had sent me to go pick up the laundry one day, and this is probably 2017. And I walked in and to pick it up, and I saw there was, like, this cute picture of this couple up on the wall, and it was under new ownership. And I’m like, oh my gosh. That’s so cute. Their little picture, they bought a laundromat. Like, that’s so interesting.

Tahra Wright [00:11:39]:
And I never thought about it again. And then, 2021, I have this break from work. It’s summertime. So I’m, like, super happy, And I go in to pick up the laundry that day, and literally, I walk in there and I look around, and I’m like, we should buy a laundromat. And I walk out, and I text Donnell. And right away, he’s like, no.

Jordan Berry [00:12:08]:
He’s his own man.

Donnell Wright [00:12:09]:
Oh, I was in my car. I’m a make my own decision.

Jordan Berry [00:12:13]:
No. Just no.

Tahra Wright [00:12:17]:
And so and so, you know, we’ve been together for a long time. So I know with my husband, I have to sort of feed him things a little bit at a time over time.

Jordan Berry [00:12:28]:
Got that

Tahra Wright [00:12:28]:
in your mind. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And so then when he gets to the point where it clicks for him, then he’s there’s no stopping him. Then he’s like gung ho. He is like mister he’s like the you know, mister execute. I execute.

Tahra Wright [00:12:43]:
That’s all I do. And then I can’t

Donnell Wright [00:12:45]:
slow execution.

Tahra Wright [00:12:46]:
Yeah. And I can’t slow him down, which becomes a little bit crazy as well. So and that’s basically what happened. I was like, I’m going to research everything I can on this about the laundromat industry. And so the first thing I’ve started to do was just look at all of these podcasts, and start to see who they had on the podcast who could tell me what the laundromat industry. So I’m on, like, whatever it is, iTunes searching for everything, and then I noticed and I find out that, oh my gosh. Sorry. We’re at the larger.

Tahra Wright [00:13:22]:
Somebody’s not. Although we’re closed on Wednesdays. So I started searching through all these things, and I happened to find, of course, a Bigger Pockets podcast. As you know, Bigger Pockets, huge in real estate. So I’d always followed them for a long time, but at one time they had Bigger Pockets money, which was the pocket. Not sorry, no, Bigger Pockets business.

Jordan Berry [00:13:44]:
Business. Yeah. Yeah.

Tahra Wright [00:13:45]:
Yes. And I started searching through all the episodes, and I find Dave Men’s on the Bigger Pockets Business. And I’m like, I found someone in laundry. And so I listened to that entire podcast, and that’s how I found initially Dave Men’s Laundromat Millionaire. So now I’m, like, scouring all of his stuff, all of his podcast episodes. I’m on his website, and that’s when I find you because you’re on one of his first podcasts.

Jordan Berry [00:14:15]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Tahra Wright [00:14:16]:
So now I’m like, oh, this is all so now I’m

Jordan Berry [00:14:18]:
the good

Jordan Berry [00:14:19]:
stuff. You found the good stuff finally.

Tahra Wright [00:14:21]:
It took me a

Jordan Berry [00:14:22]:
while, but yeah.

Tahra Wright [00:14:24]:
I’ve yeah. I promise

Jordan Berry [00:14:25]:
I made fun of Dave a couple episodes ago from being, about being from Ohio, and then I told him, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that, and I won’t make fun of you anymore. And here I am. I just can’t help it.

Tahra Wright [00:14:35]:
You can’t help you can’t help yourself. It’s

Jordan Berry [00:14:37]:
like you. Yeah. All good. All good.

Donnell Wright [00:14:42]:
But it was because of Dave.

Tahra Wright [00:14:43]:
Yes. Because of Dave. Thank you, Dave.

Jordan Berry [00:14:46]:
Thank you, Dave.

Tahra Wright [00:14:46]:
Thank you, Dave.

Jordan Berry [00:14:47]:
Yes.

Tahra Wright [00:14:49]:
And then so when I found you and your webinars, I was listening to every webinar I could, all the podcasts. I found the CLA, began like researching and reading. And it’s funny because it was, there was an episode. I won’t remember the gentleman’s name, but he was an engineer. He had left Microsoft to go build his own laundromat. I think it was in Washington state. I believe so. And I said to myself, okay.

Tahra Wright [00:15:19]:
This episode of an engineer leaving corporate to go into the laundromat industry, this is one that died out. Bingo. I was like, oh my like, heaven sent.

Jordan Berry [00:15:28]:
There’s a domino you’ve been looking for.

Tahra Wright [00:15:30]:
That’s right. So I shared that episode with Donnell, kind of peaked his interest a little bit more, and I kept doing my research. And I think sometime in the fall of 2021 was also when, I think, Dave released his book, or began maybe presale in his book. And so I ordered 2 copies of his book, so it would come to us. And then, eventually, I spoke to also someone else is on your podcast. John Dixon, JD.

Jordan Berry [00:16:01]:
Yep. JD Dixon. Yeah.

Tahra Wright [00:16:03]:
I for whatever reason, I know, you know, at the podcast, you always tell people reach out how can they reach out to you or find you or whatever? And for whatever reason, I said, I’m gonna reach out to him. And I remember it probably was early in 2022. I was honestly, I was sitting, like, in the parking lot, because my kids had a dentist appointment. But I was like, I gotta fit this in whenever I can, and they’re in the dentist. I’m in the parking lot. I’m on the phone with JD, and I’m just telling him what we wanna do and working through things. And we leave off, and he’s like, you need to find a great distributor in your area. And I said, well, how will I know if they’re great? And he said, look at their websites.

Tahra Wright [00:16:50]:
Once you go through their websites, like, you will know right away whether someone is, like, great or not. And, and so that’s what I did. At this point in time, Donnell still was not on board. I was still feeding him stuff here and there. He was kind of getting there. So I think by that time, we maybe maybe we spoke to you. So he was like, alright. Let’s see what we can do.

Tahra Wright [00:17:09]:
Maybe. Maybe. I’m not sure. I went on to all the websites within our area. Let’s say we’re in New Jersey. So we’re at Tri State area, New York City. Everything’s close to us. And I found, a number of websites, but only one had a section where you actually, if your investor, could, you know, submit your name and someone would contact you if you had interest in opening or building a laundromat.

Tahra Wright [00:17:36]:
And that was Metropolitan Laundry. And they are based in Queens and in New York, and I put my information in. And within, I would say, within 2 days, I had the sales representative, for the area reach out to me. And his name is Cliff Ross. I’m going to give him a shout out here.

Jordan Berry [00:17:55]:
Shout out to Cliff.

Tahra Wright [00:17:57]:
Shout out to Cliff from Metropolitan because he is the man. He’s was phenomenal for like, what a great guide and mentor. And the funny thing about it, although I don’t believe in coincidences, is that when I’m I was talking to Cliff, telling him, like, what we’re looking for, where we were looking. And he says to me, he says, well, so where are you looking? I said, we’re looking in, like, our county. And he said, where do you live? I said, we live in Westwood. He said, so do I. I was like, what? He literally lives in our town, and had been there for a number of years. And then to make things better, he was not only, like, a sales rep for distributor, he actually had owned a laundromat 2 towns over for a number of years as well.

Tahra Wright [00:18:44]:
So he really understood the industry. So and then from like that point on, he was phenomenal, you know, telling us different laundromats to go to just to get an idea of what, you know, being in business would be like. And also those where he felt like, well, maybe, they might be open to to selling. And so we spoke with him before we went to Laundromat Millionaire Conference.

Donnell Wright [00:19:09]:
Correct.

Tahra Wright [00:19:10]:
And then we went that week, and we met all of these folks from Alliance.

Donnell Wright [00:19:14]:
Yeah.

Tahra Wright [00:19:15]:
And they all knew Cliff. So by the time we came back to Jersey to meet the Cliff again, he’s like, I know all about you too. Yeah. These are the Alliance folks reached out to me. They were, like, tell I’m telling me about you guys. He’s like, I’m happy to work with you. What can we do? And so he’s the one who told us about, you know, our current location. This was, I wanna say, March of 2022.

Tahra Wright [00:19:42]:
Right. He knew that the current owner was looking to retire. He had sold him equipment about 15 years prior when he when he bought the business. And he said, I know him very well. I want you go over there, introduce yourself, and I’ll also text him and let him know you’re interested and that I’m recommending that he highly consider selling to the 2 of you. And then that began our, like, year and a half long courtship with the owner of what of the laundromat at that time. Yeah. With the spot.

Tahra Wright [00:20:19]:
So that’s how we initially kinda got got to the point, got here, and then began that process.

Donnell Wright [00:20:25]:
Alright. And I’ll

Jordan Berry [00:20:26]:
Well, Yeah. Yeah. Well, we did we did a call or 2 in there, when you were kinda waiting and you’re like, this guy is like I don’t know if we have to, like, move on. And I was going through our notes from our calls before, and

Jordan Berry [00:20:40]:
I was like, oh my gosh.

Jordan Berry [00:20:40]:
I remember all this saga that was going through.

Donnell Wright [00:20:43]:
Yeah. Tara was ready to move on because initially, like, when we first approached him, Tara was I I encourage her to be the one to go in to speak to him couple times a week.

Tahra Wright [00:20:54]:
He he thought my feminine wilds would, like, win the guy over.

Donnell Wright [00:20:58]:
I didn’t wanna say that, but,

Jordan Berry [00:21:00]:
working with him. Yeah. Guess what, though? You own the laundromat now. So yeah.

Tahra Wright [00:21:02]:
I don’t know. Yeah. She was she

Jordan Berry [00:21:09]:
Yeah. She was she

Donnell Wright [00:21:10]:
was like, I’m not doing this anymore. I’m not going in to see them anymore. And meanwhile, we were still going out looking at all these other laundromats, and the prices was 6, 7, 8 x the price and the location. They had no parking. So every time I would go out to see one of those, I would come back by here. It’s like, I can’t give up on this. And so more or less, the baton got passed to me. Oh, yeah.

Donnell Wright [00:21:34]:
Because that was that. Going into

Jordan Berry [00:21:36]:
Showed a little leg and got the wheeled up.

Tahra Wright [00:21:38]:
Showed a little leg.

Donnell Wright [00:21:39]:
Showed a little

Tahra Wright [00:21:40]:
leg. What happened what happened too is that it was, like, every week, go see him. Go see till the point where it was, like, a burden for me to

Jordan Berry [00:21:48]:
do it.

Tahra Wright [00:21:49]:
And this has been going on from, like, March until December of 2022. And then I was just like, look, you’re the one who wants out of corporate, not me. This is your show. You go in there, you get get him to sell you the the, the laundromat. I was done with

Donnell Wright [00:22:05]:
him. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:22:05]:
So You created that monster. I just I did. That out. So

Donnell Wright [00:22:10]:
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yes.

Jordan Berry [00:22:13]:
Right? Don’t point that out. She kept feeding me those cookies. Right?

Jordan Berry [00:22:17]:
That’s right.

Tahra Wright [00:22:17]:
That’s right. Happen. But then he went nuts over.

Donnell Wright [00:22:20]:
I did. I went nuts. I was I I I started to come visit him at least 2, 3 times a week. He was a little temperamental, so I got to understand what his temperament was. There was days where I would come here and he would be, very welcoming.

Tahra Wright [00:22:36]:
Oh, yeah.

Donnell Wright [00:22:36]:
There were days when I would come in the door and I could look at his eyes and tell that he just didn’t wanna be bothered, and I just say, hi. See you later. Just came in to see how you were doing, and I would leave. And I would come back the next day. He would be fine, and we would chat about it. And he would say, oh, you’re still gonna buy my laundromat. Right? I was like, yes.

Jordan Berry [00:22:55]:
You still gonna sell it?

Jordan Berry [00:22:56]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Donnell Wright [00:22:57]:
You still gonna sell it? So so yeah. So I think I think they’re, the the one thing I I I I wanna point out there, persistence does pay.

Tahra Wright [00:23:05]:
Oh, gosh.

Donnell Wright [00:23:06]:
Yes. So we just stay very persistent with with them.

Tahra Wright [00:23:09]:
And stayed and also stayed open to other opportunities. Because I know when we when we spoke with you, and we’re just just like, is there anything else that we can do, to try to move this along? You were throwing out ideas to us. You know? Part of it was also like, look, we’re we know we’re not giving up on anything else that’s out there because we were still going out to visit laundromats. Cliff was giving us some suggestions. We were in all the regular places you go to look for laundromats and driving around and brokers and the whole thing. So we kept doing that in the background. And we also were in the middle, actually, that summer of, like, this huge renovation project on our Airbnb. So I I was like, if it doesn’t happen now, it’s actually okay because I need to die now focus on finishing off this renovation and, like, getting this this short term rent rental on the market? So things always happen for a reason, and timing is always what it’s supposed to be.

Tahra Wright [00:24:09]:
At least when you look back on it, you can say this all went according to plan. And so that’s that’s kind of what happened. Because once I tell you so mister, mister Kim is his name. Mister Kim would always say to me when I come in, he’d always always ask, you still do you still wanna buy the laundromat? And I’d say, yes, mister Kim. We still do. And he’d always ask, who’s gonna run it? Who’s gonna be here? And I say, my husband is going to be the one to be here because mister Kim was here every day. So, you know, our laundromat is open 6 days a week. Even during the time mister Kim was here, he was always closed on Wednesdays.

Tahra Wright [00:24:47]:
And I think part of it was that, as you know, in the industry, Wednesdays tend to be slower days

Jordan Berry [00:24:52]:
Mhmm. In

Tahra Wright [00:24:53]:
the industry. So I’m sure that was part of it. And also, mister Kim was was 78, 79 years old. And so and he was the one opening every morning for 7 AM, 7:30, and staying until close even when the attendant was here. So he also would just need a break. He said, I just rest on my Wednesdays. So, so it’s it was a lot. It was grueling on him.

Tahra Wright [00:25:15]:
So I’d say, yes. My husband will be here. He’ll be the one here every day. So he’d always ask that. But I think come, like, January of 2023, when I stopped was like, I’m done going in there, and I now began coming in. I think I think for mister Kim as well, that finally sealed the deal where, okay, I know it’s not just her coming in. He’s gonna be the one to be here. He’s gonna be the ones to face.

Tahra Wright [00:25:42]:
Like, he was always very concerned about his customers.

Donnell Wright [00:25:44]:
Yeah.

Tahra Wright [00:25:45]:
His customer there could be just 2 people in here, but he thought my customers My customers. So and there were there really were only 2 people in here at the time.

Jordan Berry [00:25:54]:
He’s like, I go stand. He’s like, the customers.

Tahra Wright [00:25:57]:
The customers. So, he really did care about, his regulars and about the business. And for him, he was retiring. He’d been doing this for the last, like, 20 years of his life. So

Donnell Wright [00:26:08]:
Yeah. I think it was us reassuring him that we were gonna take good care of the customers

Tahra Wright [00:26:13]:
Yeah.

Donnell Wright [00:26:14]:
As well as the attendant he had working for him for 15 years. Right? So that was another one of his concerns as he wanted to make sure that we were gonna keep her on board.

Jordan Berry [00:26:22]:
Mhmm.

Donnell Wright [00:26:23]:
And that, you know, we were gonna take care of the customers. And I think once we reassured him of that, he was more comfortable to go ahead and get it done.

Tahra Wright [00:26:33]:
And get it done. Yeah. Yeah. So

Jordan Berry [00:26:35]:
I wanna I wanna just pause for a second because there’s a couple, like, takeaways that I, at least, am taking away that I wanna just kinda point out. One is, you know, it’s interesting. And I’ve I’ve been learning this a lot in my own life lately. So it’s kinda interesting that, that you said this, is this idea of coming, you know, coming and getting a laundromat came to you when you were on this break from work. You had a little space in your life. You made some space in your life. And I’ve been just realizing I don’t know if it’s because I’m old now or what the deal is, but I just been real what do you mean yeah?

Jordan Berry [00:27:15]:
No. No.

Tahra Wright [00:27:19]:
No. Yeah. Your oldest is 27. So, yeah, we’re we’re very much older.

Jordan Berry [00:27:28]:
No. But I don’t I mean, I don’t know if it’s because I’m older, I’m getting older, or whatever. I just kinda stumbled on this or whatever. But I just I’ve just found that when I make time in my life, it actually gives me more than when I jam pack my life with things to do. And and I opportunities happen, that way. I’ve just found that. I don’t know some magic formula, whatever it is. So it’s just interesting that you pointed out, like, I was burned out.

Jordan Berry [00:27:54]:
I was taking a break from work. I was on a sabbatical, and this idea just came to me, like, ran out of the blue.

Tahra Wright [00:28:00]:
Literally. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:28:01]:
And and I just True. I wanted to highlight that I, you know, I think it’s so important to intentionally create space. Like go for a walk and leave your phone and headphones and all that. Like create space. Those I think of, like on, on Reddit, which is like a forum website or whatever. They have a subreddit or a forum called shower thoughts. Right? And it’s like epiphanies people have or in the in the showers. And I’m like, the shower is like one of the only places that we get space.

Jordan Berry [00:28:33]:
Like, we don’t have something bombarding us like a phone or a TV or music or anything. And that’s why people have epiphanies in the shower. Right? Like, that’s why it happens because you have space. So be intentional about that. So I wanted to point that out. There was another thing that you were saying that I really wanted to comment on, which I will comment on in a second when it comes back to me.

Tahra Wright [00:28:55]:
Once you remember it.

Jordan Berry [00:28:56]:
I know. But we talked about them, like, in old and, you know, all that stuff.

Tahra Wright [00:29:00]:
No. I get I get it.

Jordan Berry [00:29:01]:
No. But this, you know, the the story of kind of that, you know, path that you take. It’s always interesting for me to hear that, the story because it’s such a weird little industry. And I’m like, how do how does an engineer and an attorney end up owning a laundromat? A laundromat. Yeah. And one question I had is, Donnell, for you, like, where in that narrative did you were you, like did that switch flip for you where you’re like, okay. I’m in.

Tahra Wright [00:29:32]:
When I was away.

Donnell Wright [00:29:33]:
It would yeah. I think Tara went on a retreat with some of her girlfriends.

Jordan Berry [00:29:37]:
Space in your life again. You know? Hey.

Jordan Berry [00:29:40]:
Hey. She gives you space

Jordan Berry [00:29:41]:
like the wife leaving.

Tahra Wright [00:29:44]:
It it was as on my yoga. She went

Donnell Wright [00:29:46]:
on her yoga retreat, and I was just having a really tough time at the the job that I was at at the time. I took a new position during COVID. I had been at a company for 20 years, and I don’t know if it was a midlife crisis or whatever, but a buddy of mine called me up, start a new division at this company, and wanted me to come over to to help. And I did. But I realized quickly that I made a huge mistake and I You

Tahra Wright [00:30:14]:
tried to warn him. And our oldest son and and the little bit of time I had during COVID, we were like, big mistake. Don’t do it. I was like, I have no time for you. I’m I’m out. Out.

Donnell Wright [00:30:24]:
Yeah. But that that’s when she also was working 30 hours a day, and she was crying every day. She she really didn’t

Jordan Berry [00:30:30]:
I had to give me

Donnell Wright [00:30:31]:
the advice that I needed, so

Jordan Berry [00:30:32]:
she wasn’t there for me.

Donnell Wright [00:30:35]:
So so I I think it was that I was just miserable getting up every morning. I was depressed. I didn’t wanna get out of bed. It was just, like, really bad. Like, you know, I I found myself going to the kitchen cooking, and I have a bar next to the kitchen, and I was I found myself drinking every day. So it was it was, like, really bad. So so Tara had been, like she said, feeding me the laundromat stuff over time, and I guess when she she went away, the Dave Mint’s book was there. And I, like, one night, I read the entire book.

Donnell Wright [00:31:04]:
Right? And that’s what made it click for me. Just kinda like going through reading Dave’s book and looking at his journey, and then I was like, wow. I can I can do this? Like, we can do this. And then I just got, like you know, once I go in, I go in. Right? Once I’m locked in, I’m like a pit bull on something, and there’s no releasing until, you know, we get to what where we wanna be. And so, like, she was gone, and I think I went to all of the laundromats in the tristate area. And I was texting her and trying to call her. Meanwhile, she was on a retreat.

Donnell Wright [00:31:34]:
She wasn’t responding. I’m like, what’s up?

Jordan Berry [00:31:37]:
We at? Stop looking at

Donnell Wright [00:31:39]:
my head. So I think that was the moment where it all changed for me. Right? Like, really realizing, like, this could actually replace, you know, my income from corporate. And, you know, that’s when I was locked in.

Jordan Berry [00:31:54]:
Yeah.

Donnell Wright [00:31:54]:
That was the point that Yeah. Made it happen for me.

Tahra Wright [00:31:57]:
And one of the things Donnell always you know, I I knew he always wanted to be able to run and own his own business. We had talked about it for years. We thought it would be real estate because as I mentioned to you, real estate was not gonna be the key for us to financial freedom and to leave the rat race. Who knew it would be, you know, the laundromat business? I mean, that never could have imagined that a 1000000 years, you know, 5, 6 years ago. But I think what also helped is that we had by that time, I listened to so many podcasts. I’ve read so much stuff. He is on board listening to podcast that we saw that we could make it something special. Right? It didn’t just have to be a laundromat that was sort of utilitarian and just functional.

Tahra Wright [00:32:48]:
Right? You can make it a space where you’d actually enjoy coming here. So customers could enjoy it, but you can enjoy being here and running it and being a part of and a part of the community. And that’s something for us, the community element, you know, because of the kind of of work that we we we do as professionals, you lose that a lot. Right? Working with clients, working, you know, with big transactions in these, like, Fortune 500 companies, you lose the entire sense of community and doing something more for people when everything’s just so transactional. And we are community focused people, we’re family focused people, And so we were kind of missing out on that within our professions. And so to us, it was like, oh, this could be something where it’s ours. It’s our business. We can do whatever we want with it.

Tahra Wright [00:33:36]:
It can be something to eventually replace income. But we also can just really dig into the community nature of this and really be part of, you know, what’s going on here. So all of that was just so exciting for us.

Donnell Wright [00:33:50]:
Part of it. Like, for me, like, I get my energy from people. Right? I’ve my my entire career, most of it, I’ve been a sales engineer. Right? So that’s basically I I had a book of clients and, you know, I would basically do designs for them. I would go out and do presentations and I would go out to lunch, golf, you know, whatever, dinners. So I enjoyed that aspect of it. But like I said, the last few years being in corporate, I took a different job, which was back office, and I I I wasn’t customer facing anymore. And I think that’s what put me into the state that I was in.

Donnell Wright [00:34:24]:
Right? Because I wasn’t touching people every day. I wasn’t talking to customers every day, so I wasn’t getting the energy that I needed to keep me recharged. So I was no longer fulfilled. Right? So if you’re in a place where you’re no longer fulfilled, you need to think about changing that. Right? So that’s really what made me really look at the laundry industry as being something that could get me back to a place where I can become reintroduced. Right?

Tahra Wright [00:34:52]:
Because because I I was I was what I wanted was I wanted to find the laundromat that was already attended so he could keep his job or find a new job, and then we just be able to, like, come in and check-in. So I I it but it took a lot for me when he was like, oh, no. I’m out. I’m gonna be in the laundromat all the time, and I was like, I don’t know how we’re gonna do this. But it’s it’s suspend you know, it’s it’s been phenomenal.

Donnell Wright [00:35:18]:
She worries a little bit more than I do. You don’t. I do. I I don’t. Like like I said, even, like, with us taking this over, and we didn’t intend to do all the renovations that we’ve we’ve done, but you can you can remember when she said, once I go in, I go in. And, like, for me, like, I know, like, we have a ton of real estate and things like that. I know we have the means, whereas if we need to sell off some real estate because I’m not in corporate getting that big check anymore and we still need to build this business up to bring in the revenues that we are so accustomed to, then we just sell some real estate off and then we we we we we live on that until we get the business to where we needed to be because I know we will. Right? So that’s why I I don’t worry as much as Tara does.

Tahra Wright [00:36:02]:
I worry for everyone. That’s my job.

Jordan Berry [00:36:05]:
I think every every couple needs one, you know, somebody who’s really to a fault, not worry about anything, and somebody who’s to a fault, worry about everything. That’s what

Tahra Wright [00:36:14]:
you got.

Donnell Wright [00:36:15]:
That’s what

Jordan Berry [00:36:15]:
we got. We got that going over here too. I’m like, I don’t know. Whatever. It’s like, we

Jordan Berry [00:36:19]:
lose everything. We lose everything. We’ll just start here.

Jordan Berry [00:36:22]:
My wife’s like, oh, my.

Tahra Wright [00:36:24]:
Right. Like, is that is just not an object?

Donnell Wright [00:36:27]:
It’s like sometimes I don’t even tell her, like, things I buy here at the laundromat because I don’t wanna hear them out, but, you know, like, I’m just doing it. You know? And we’ll talk about that

Jordan Berry [00:36:36]:
a little bit later because

Donnell Wright [00:36:37]:
I bought a van. It’s just like, don’t buy a van. We can’t afford it. And go to the

Tahra Wright [00:36:41]:
van Like, oh, no.

Donnell Wright [00:36:43]:
Buy a van.

Jordan Berry [00:36:45]:
Alright. I’ll,

Jordan Berry [00:36:46]:
I’ll leave the room and let you 2 duke it out.

Tahra Wright [00:36:48]:
Yeah. We’ll do 2. I’ll be recording it.

Jordan Berry [00:36:49]:
So We

Tahra Wright [00:36:50]:
will fix that out. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:36:53]:
Okay. I I I remembered while you were talking the other lesson I wanted to pull out. I mean and and this is something that I think is more applicable today than ever before. And it’s you know, one of the things I’ve I’ve been saying a lot in my webinars on, like, how to buy a laundromat. One of the struggles right now is actually finding laundromats that are for sale and finding, you know, deals and getting brokers to call you back and stuff like that. Like, it’s just it’s really difficult, to do that. But the thing that I think you did well is, you know, I have this I have this philosophy I share, which is, you know, when it comes to finding a a laundromat, if it’s something that you can do, sitting at home on the couch in your underwear, then anybody can do it. And in this market, it’s probably not gonna work.

Jordan Berry [00:37:36]:
You’re probably gonna have a hard time finding something. Right? And like going to that laundromat every day for like a year or more, a year and a half. Right? And building that relationship with mister Kim and staying in touch. Like, that was a lot of work and effort, but that’s what it took for you guys to get that deal. Now, hopefully, it doesn’t take that long for everybody. Right? But if it does, like, you gotta do what you’ve gotta do. Right? And nobody else was gonna get that laundromat. It was gonna be you when that when the tide came.

Jordan Berry [00:38:07]:
Right?

Jordan Berry [00:38:07]:
I

Donnell Wright [00:38:07]:
was gonna be I I I went to the bakery. I got bakery treats. I brought them in at times. It didn’t matter. I was I was gonna

Tahra Wright [00:38:14]:
We were gonna get it.

Donnell Wright [00:38:15]:
Win win him over, do whatever it took to to get it right.

Tahra Wright [00:38:18]:
We kinda we yeah. We felt like we know he’s going to sell, and we’re it’s gonna be to us.

Jordan Berry [00:38:24]:
Yeah. Like, we’re gonna

Tahra Wright [00:38:25]:
be at the forefront of that. We’re gonna be the ones on his mind or whatever. And we and we when we come in, we wouldn’t come and just talk about laundry. We just ask him like how he’s doing, about his family, you know, kids, grandkids. Like we get to sort of understand more about him and even about what his life was like before the laundromat.

Jordan Berry [00:38:42]:
Yeah.

Tahra Wright [00:38:42]:
Right? So we got to really, you know, know him. So I think that certainly helped in in the process. We were just coming in to make it a transaction.

Jordan Berry [00:38:51]:
Right?

Tahra Wright [00:38:51]:
I think that’s really important when you’re dealing with someone where this is their livelihood. And then for him, he’s retiring from it. So now he’s going into a life that was gonna be very different. So I think it helps.

Donnell Wright [00:39:03]:
I think I think the one key thing, for people to remember as you’re looking for laundromats is, if you go in the first time, even go in the second, the third time, the person might not be ready then, but maybe you go to the 4th or 5th. People’s situation tend to change at different times. Right? He may say he didn’t wanna sell, you know, last year, but maybe a year and a month, he’s ready for whatever reason. Some life event happened. Now he’s ready to sell, but he can’t remember who the person who came in. But if you’re front and center, you’re there regularly. Now when you come in, he’s like, yes. I need to sell.

Donnell Wright [00:39:40]:
So just stay persistent. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:39:42]:
Yeah. He wasn’t forgetting you. That’s for sure.

Tahra Wright [00:39:44]:
There was no way. No.

Jordan Berry [00:39:47]:
Well, which brings up another philosophy I like to share in those webinars, which is when it comes to interpersonal relationships, no means no. Right? Somebody tells you no. No means

Jordan Berry [00:39:57]:
no.

Jordan Berry [00:39:57]:
But when it comes to business and negotiations, no doesn’t always mean no. It could mean I’m not ready yet. Right? It could mean I’m not sure what you’re talking about. It could mean a whole lot of different things. I’m not sure about you or I don’t trust you or it could mean a lot of things. Right? So that persistence is it really is, key. And especially in today’s market. I mean, like, if you’re out there trying to get your 1st laundromat and brokers aren’t calling you back or owners have unrealistic expectations or whatever it is, you know, stay persistent.

Tahra Wright [00:40:28]:
Because

Jordan Berry [00:40:28]:
like you said, he wasn’t selling that sucker to anyone else. Or if he did, he you were getting first crack at it. Right?

Donnell Wright [00:40:35]:
Yeah. Correct.

Tahra Wright [00:40:35]:
And it’s funny because what when we did when we did purchase and close and one of the first weeks that we were in here, we were meeting some regular customers. They were shocked that he sold it. And someone said to us, there was a gentleman coming here from, from Brooklyn, New York, like an hour or so away. She said he would come here every Saturday. He’d come in and ask if he was going to sell, and mister Kim would tell him no and shoo him out the door every day. Yeah. He said I’m just she was like, I’m just shocked that you guys were here and he actually finally sold. Yeah.

Tahra Wright [00:41:10]:
So it’s even just a matter of how you approach people. Right? If and especially when they’re old older people, like, you just need to have the right approach for them, I think, as well. It can’t just be a financial transaction. It has to be like, no. I’m really you know, I wanna get to know you.

Jordan Berry [00:41:26]:
Yeah.

Tahra Wright [00:41:27]:
At least for us, that worked in our in our markets. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:41:30]:
And it didn’t didn’t hurt that, Donnell’s best characteristic is his upper thighs when he showed that leg.

Donnell Wright [00:41:37]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:41:47]:
Alright. So when, when when you guys finally took like, tell us about this laundromat a little bit. When you took over, what kind of condition was it in? What you know, tell us about the transaction a little bit.

Donnell Wright [00:41:59]:
Yeah.

Tahra Wright [00:42:01]:
Well, I’ll start with this before Daniel gets his thoughts together. So as I mentioned, the laundromat, I don’t know how long, was always closed on Wednesdays. So it was imperative to us that we were going to close on the sale on a Wednesday morning, because we had a commercial cleaning crew, like, at the door waiting to come in here the moment that we said it’s official. Yeah. Because it it the the place and I don’t know if it was maybe a store in I really can’t tell you, but it just needed, you know, more than a deep cleaning. And it they were here for over 10 hours

Jordan Berry [00:42:41]:
Yeah.

Tahra Wright [00:42:41]:
That day.

Donnell Wright [00:42:42]:
That day. It was a it was a 3 part series of cleaning, just because of how much dust had been caked up everywhere. Right? Even on the the soap the product soap bottles that were up on shelves and stuff. So it was it was it was pretty bad. Right? So it was the the aspect of the deep cleaning that needed to take place. Right? We wanted to because we because we closed on the Wednesday, then the store was closed on a Wednesday, and we couldn’t afford to close the store for a week because the bills needed to be paid. We wanted to make an initial impact to clean the store, that Wednesday, and we back open that Thursday morning, which we did. But then the cleaning crew we had scheduled to come back 2 other times to kinda finish the work, but they had, like, you know, did some good cleaning, as well as, they waxed the floors, which made an initial good impression when we opened the store Thursday morning.

Donnell Wright [00:43:40]:
But that doesn’t that doesn’t talk about the machines that were out of order. Right? So it was more than more than half the machines, and we have 28 washers and 28 dryers, in the store. More than half the equipment did not work. Right? So it it was to a point where we didn’t even realize how the store was functioning, but it was functioning. And the machines that didn’t work, he actually had articles of clothing in them. So people assume that maybe somebody else was using the machines. They didn’t really know that they were out of order. Right?

Jordan Berry [00:44:14]:
That was a pro tip for all you zombie mat owners. Yeah. Don’t put out a order sign. Just leave clothes in.

Donnell Wright [00:44:19]:
Yeah. Just leave clothes in there.

Jordan Berry [00:44:20]:
That’s smart.

Tahra Wright [00:44:21]:
You don’t

Jordan Berry [00:44:21]:
It’s like

Donnell Wright [00:44:21]:
a It would be

Tahra Wright [00:44:23]:
be will,

Jordan Berry [00:44:24]:
but that’s a that’s genius.

Tahra Wright [00:44:26]:
And here’s the the funny part about that is that Wednesday, mister Kim came back to the laundromat with us, and he came in here. He still has stuff all over his desk. Like, all his personal stuff is still in the laundromat. And I Donna had ordered these, out of order signs, and I had the a big stack of them on the counter. And mister Kim is looking every whatever we did, he was looking at it. Said, what’s that? I said, those

Jordan Berry [00:44:52]:
are the out of order signs. He said, you don’t

Tahra Wright [00:44:52]:
need that. I said, yes, we do, mister Kim. And then Dyna proceeded to have mister Kim. They took a a bucket. So we’re coin operated solely right now. A bucket of quarters, and he had him go through every single machine to see what works, what didn’t work. And if it didn’t work, an out of order sign went on it. Right? And I and although it was very something or whatnot as we were being very transparent.

Tahra Wright [00:45:26]:
Like, there’s a lot of work for us to something or whatnot as we were being very transparent. Like, there’s a lot of work for us to do

Jordan Berry [00:45:31]:
Yeah.

Tahra Wright [00:45:32]:
Coming in here. So give us give us a little bit of grace to be able to, like, manage through that process.

Donnell Wright [00:45:38]:
Yeah. So it it was a lot as she said, it was a lot of out of order signs, but I think, you know, the customers appreciated, knowing which machines didn’t work. But we also, we also had ready a technician that was gonna come and work with those 2, 3 times a week just to work on those machines to get them ready. And the first machines that we worked on, we worked on on the washers that we can get up and going. Like I said, we had 28 washer. We determined that 7 washers could not be repaired or just wasn’t worth being repaired.

Jordan Berry [00:46:12]:
Yeah.

Donnell Wright [00:46:13]:
So we we immediately, had consultation with Cliff, just to get pricing on replacing those 7, which which we actually did. And then all the others could be repaired, so we just had a schedule to actually get all those repaired. So it probably took us a good 2.

Tahra Wright [00:46:31]:
So we bought it in September.

Jordan Berry [00:46:33]:
Yeah.

Tahra Wright [00:46:34]:
Bought it in September. By the end of November, the new 7 new machines came in.

Jordan Berry [00:46:39]:
Yeah.

Tahra Wright [00:46:39]:
So I’d say by December. So all the washing machines

Donnell Wright [00:46:43]:
the washing machines were working

Jordan Berry [00:46:44]:
Yeah.

Donnell Wright [00:46:45]:
Working. By that time.

Tahra Wright [00:46:46]:
And that’s also just one thing to keep in mind is that we didn’t come into the laundromat having closed, not knowing what didn’t work. We brought the inspector in

Jordan Berry [00:46:57]:
as part

Tahra Wright [00:46:57]:
of our due diligence Yeah. To go through everything, to let us know what didn’t work, what could be fixed, what might need a new part, what had to be ticked, whatever it was. We already had an idea of that when we closed, what we’d have to do and sort of the timing of when things would get done. I will say it was my hope that the 7 machines that didn’t work could have at least been repaired. Because when I when Dial came back to me and was like, those are either it was this, beyond repair or if they repaired them, they’d be back every 3 weeks having to fix it. And then there are parts that just wouldn’t be able to get in. And so I and then he’s like, we have to buy 7 new machines. And I was like, here we go.

Tahra Wright [00:47:44]:
Here goes by now spending money left to buy. Are you sure we can’t set? And he was yeah.

Donnell Wright [00:47:49]:
When I go in, I go in. Right? And those 7 machines were Continental machines. Right? So all my other machines in the store were Hipsch machines. Yeah. The Continental machines that I deemed couldn’t be repaired were, here when mister Kim came. Those are the only machines he didn’t replace. All the other machines, he replaced 15 years ago. So

Tahra Wright [00:48:11]:
With hips.

Donnell Wright [00:48:12]:
With with the tune ups and refurbishment that we were able to do, you know, I was reassured that those can go a a lot longer for us. Right? So that’s why the decision was made to to swap out those 7 to get 7 new hips machines in which we did. Yeah. Which I think was a great

Tahra Wright [00:48:29]:
I think it was a great decision. It allowed us also to bring in I mean, you can talk about what kinda, like, equipment mix. It allows us to bring in 2 new 60 pounders. So we’d have 4 overall, and the 2 brand new ones went to the very front of the store. So now everyone was seeing those brand new machines coming in. And we tried to make it fun, like, on social media. It was like the hype. I had all the hype leading up to the new shiny new machines coming in.

Tahra Wright [00:48:55]:
Sidewalk. And so we had video and the whole thing and like the whole new consummate, a whole new concept, like drive by laundry,

Jordan Berry [00:49:05]:
drop it off in the

Tahra Wright [00:49:06]:
like, it was just fun. So leading up to, like, these machines coming in here. So a lot of people who either had been, like, old customers left. They left because machines didn’t work. They left because, it the place hadn’t been maintained and cleaned. But when I we could try to bring, like, this excitement to the laundromat, they’re like, once your new machines are in, then we’ll come and visit you. We’ll come and see you. So

Jordan Berry [00:49:30]:
She’s a

Donnell Wright [00:49:30]:
bit of a character as well. I mean, she’s our marketing director. She does a fabulous job at it. She makes she makes it fun. Right? She makes laundry fun, and a lot of customers tell tell tell us that when they come in.

Tahra Wright [00:49:43]:
Right? So

Jordan Berry [00:49:44]:
okay. First of all, I think you’re missing a memo. Laundry is not supposed to be fun and neither are lawyers. So Oh. What’s happening here?

Tahra Wright [00:49:57]:
I think I think I missed my calling in something else besides law. But, yeah, it’s funny funny because I do the marketing, but I have no background in marketing.

Donnell Wright [00:50:07]:
She’s great at it.

Tahra Wright [00:50:08]:
Oh, I just do what is funny to me and what I think I would wanna see if I were looking at, you know, an advertisement or whatever. And so I think it’s one of one of the first one of the first, posts I did was actually I was driving back from somewhere. I just had this inspiration about folding fitted sheets, which everyone hates to do. Yeah. And so I came back and the next morning I woke my 16 year old son up out of bed. I’m like, hold this sheet. Pretend you’re trying to fold the fitted sheet. And so now he’s like, oh gosh, the sheet’s like all upside down.

Tahra Wright [00:50:40]:
It’s all the dogs in the picture. And I just put, like, these pictures up of him trying to fold the fitted sheet, and and it the the the caption was, like, how do you fold a fitted sheet? There are 2 ways. You know? Number 1, you don’t. You drop off your fitted sheets in your laundry to, you know, our laundromat and have it done for you. And number 2, follow step number 1. Yeah. And then I had pictures of my son. They’re all, like, crooked, and I wrote I did, like, a PS.

Tahra Wright [00:51:14]:
You know, no child actor was injured or enthusiastic while taking, you know, this photograph. And, I mean, people were just I I and they loved it. And I was like, oh, I mean, I can do this. This is fun. I can do this. And so that’s how we’re kind of building up, like, our social media presence through Facebook groups and things like that, but it’s just I just try to make it fun. And I my job is to want them to come here.

Donnell Wright [00:51:39]:
Yeah.

Tahra Wright [00:51:40]:
Right? And then it’s Donnell’s job to make them stay and want to come back.

Donnell Wright [00:51:44]:
Yeah. Once they get here, it’s my job to engage with them, to make them feel comfortable at home, especially now that the the place is renovated. We we have 6 TVs up, and then and we have, just kinda like a real running, telling people who we are, our services. We we introduce, you know, our our team and our staff. We introduce ourselves on there just so people have a background, and we just have some little laundry tips and things on there. But, also, I have music playing in the background. Right? I got a business music license soundtrack, so it’s official. That’s important.

Jordan Berry [00:52:24]:
Official. Don’t

Tahra Wright [00:52:24]:
play your personal Spotify account.

Donnell Wright [00:52:26]:
Don’t play your personal Spotify. I’ve listened to some podcasts and longer net forms. So people appreciate that when they come in Adora. You know, people are here, and, I make sure I welcome them. One thing I do do which I think is important is I remember everyone’s name. When people come in and do it, I think it’s important to address them by their name and get to know them. People think I’m so smart that I do that. My little tip is when a person comes in the first time, I introduce myself, I know their name.

Donnell Wright [00:53:00]:
When I break from the conversation, I go to my my office, and I put it in a notepad. And then I put something next to their name that makes me remember them. Maybe it’s somebody who I went to college with, they may remind me of, or just somebody in my life. Or if there’s nobody that I can associate with them in my life to make me remember their names, I’ll look at their color of their car or the last three of their their, license plate number, and I’ll jot it down next to their name in the notepad. And we have, you know, 12 cameras up. So I can see where people come in the parking lot and they’re coming in, and I look at that. I make sure I know their names. So when they come in that door, the the second time they come in the store, hey, Tara.

Jordan Berry [00:53:42]:
How are

Donnell Wright [00:53:42]:
you today? And stuff like that. And people like, oh my gosh. You remember my name. How do you do that? Yeah. You know? So and and I have almost 400 names in this notepad of people I remember. And when they come in the door, I remember all the names. Right? And then I have genuine conversation with people just to make them feel comfortable. Right? And I think, like, that’s, like one of the benefits of actually being present at your store, if you can.

Donnell Wright [00:54:09]:
Is like, nobody’s gonna represent you like you for your business. So I we always talk about that. And I think that’s the most important part because there have been times where I had to go, you know, off, you know, to to a conference or a soccer game, and I wasn’t in the store. And on on a Saturday, and I’ll be in the next Saturday, you know, and my customers come up to me and say, oh, you weren’t here last Saturday. You know, we miss you. It’s not the same when you’re not here. You know, just because of the way I engage with them when they do come in the store. So I think that’s critically important.

Donnell Wright [00:54:45]:
Yeah. Absolutely.

Jordan Berry [00:54:46]:
That’s that’s huge. I mean, I’ve I don’t know. I’m gonna butcher the quote. But essentially, the quote’s something like, you know, the the sweetest word to anybody is their own name or whatever. You know, something like that. Like, their favorite I don’t know, whatever. But I mean, remembering people’s names is huge, because it does. It makes people feel important.

Jordan Berry [00:55:05]:
It makes them feel valued. It makes them feel cared about. And it makes them feel like, man, if I go somewhere else, I’m gonna be missed because he knows who I am. Right?

Jordan Berry [00:55:14]:
And I

Jordan Berry [00:55:15]:
think that is huge,

Jordan Berry [00:55:17]:
to be

Jordan Berry [00:55:18]:
able to do that. And and, you know, it what’s interesting to me is it takes extra effort to remember everybody’s name. Like, you have to go and be diligent about writing down, you know, something about them to help you remember and then to reference it. But, I I mean, the return on investment on doing that, those activities is gigantic.

Tahra Wright [00:55:42]:
It’s huge. Because I’m I mean, I’m not in the laundromat often. I might stop in here. I don’t know. Maybe a couple of times a month, usually just to do some kind of decorating for a holiday. I put up things around the store. But every time I am in here, a customer comes up and it’s always like, I don’t know how your husband remembers my name. Has to remember everyone’s name.

Tahra Wright [00:56:03]:
I mean, that is the comment I get the most when I’m in here. So it really is important to them. They really are, they really are happy. It makes them feel like they’re part of the family when they come in. Right. So it’s just, that’s the way we try to create that kind of environment in space.

Donnell Wright [00:56:17]:
And people are always watching you. Like, when I’m engaging with other customers, other customers that are in the store sitting down, maybe waiting for their clothes to finish drying, They’re watching me engage with other customers, and then we’ll get, like, some 5 star review of them discussing that. Oh, it’s it’s just great to see how he engages with other customers.

Tahra Wright [00:56:39]:
He really knows them.

Donnell Wright [00:56:40]:
He really knows them. So I know that because I always tell my kids. I was like, people are always watching you. So careful what you do. Careful how you engage with people because every people are just watching. So you just have to be mindful of that. Right? So for sure.

Jordan Berry [00:56:54]:
And, you know, just a little bit of a side quest over here. But, I mean, you guys do have I’d I’ll actually you wanna know what I did when we were doing before we hit record and we were just gonna catch up.

Donnell Wright [00:57:06]:
What did you do?

Jordan Berry [00:57:07]:
I scanned the QR code that’s sitting behind you there that leads to review. Yeah. I scanned it, and I left you guys a good review. But Oh. But I was noticing, like, you guys have a lot of you guys have, like, a 120 good reviews. Speaking of which, if you’re watching this on YouTube, go scan that thing. Give them a good review.

Donnell Wright [00:57:24]:
Help help

Jordan Berry [00:57:25]:
them out. But, yeah, but you guys have a lot of really good reviews. So, I mean, can you talk about that? I’m assuming a lot of those weren’t there, when you took over. Or is that what you

Donnell Wright [00:57:35]:
can talk about? Yeah.

Tahra Wright [00:57:36]:
Rebrand. Let me say it because one of the things that from listening to podcasts is that we knew we wanted to rebrand the laundromat. It used to be called Michigan Laundromat, but we rebranded it as Bubbles and Baskets Laundromat. And so when we were preparing and working on the signage and that kind of thing, I didn’t want to I didn’t wanna take over let me let me just step back. There was a Google My Business page, and mister Kim had actually claimed it already. Mhmm. And at that point in time, there may have been about 30 reviews. I think he was somewhat, like, below 3.2 range or whatever.

Tahra Wright [00:58:19]:
Pretty typical. Sorry?

Jordan Berry [00:58:21]:
Pretty typical for a while.

Tahra Wright [00:58:23]:
Yeah. Pretty typical for for the way it had been, run at that time. And so based upon listening to to podcasts, I told mister Kim that I needed him to release the page to us when we closed, which he did. I went in. I responded to every single review. Some were from, like, 5 or 6 years ago. No matter what it was, I responded. I said who we are, and we took over the laundromat, that we have great things planned.

Tahra Wright [00:58:52]:
We if they’re still in the area, we’d love to have them come in and to meet us and whatnot. So I went through and went through every single review. And then I planned so that when we actually had our new sign, which came in, it was November.

Donnell Wright [00:59:06]:
Yeah.

Tahra Wright [00:59:07]:
So the sign came in probably mid November. So we have all new signage. Then I closed down that page, and I opened the new one, the new Google Business Profile under Bubbles and Baskets. And I completed all the information, all the details, the business profile, our services, who we are, that we were, like, the new we were renovating and taking over the the neighborhood laundromat. And that’s when we began, you know, asking for reviews. Right? But I want to start off fresh, because I felt like if we try to just keep taking in reviews on the old one, it would be impossible to get up to really see what was going on. So a whole new page began doing, like, Google Ads and whatnot to bring in more customers.

Donnell Wright [00:59:56]:
Yeah.

Tahra Wright [00:59:57]:
And then we basically we set we set ourselves up for a little, like, you know, competition. Not that they they knew, but against the other laundromats in the area. We just said they have x number of reviews. We wanna have more.

Jordan Berry [01:00:10]:
Yeah.

Tahra Wright [01:00:11]:
And so that’s when Donnell, like, stepped in and did his I mean, just just so you know, it was November 20 23 when we relaunched as Bubbles and Baskets with our new Google page. And now was it 7 or 8 months later, we have a 119 5 star reviews.

Donnell Wright [01:00:30]:
A 120, Jordan said.

Tahra Wright [01:00:31]:
Oh, gee, Jordan. Now you were 120 now. I know what you want. But, yes, in that period of time, a high oh, a 100 and 25 star reviews.

Donnell Wright [01:00:41]:
So my statement is, closed mouths don’t get fed. Right? So I I knew you were providing a great service. Just, you know, like I said, just following you and Dave Mins and the guidance that you guys have have given us in regards to the new modernized laundry mats. Right? Make them clean. Make people feel welcome when they come in. Provide us the great customer service. We were doing all those things, so I had no hesitation in asking the customers, for a 5 star review. I said if it’s not a 5 star review, just please, you know, let me know what we can do to to get a 5 star review.

Donnell Wright [01:01:17]:
And

Tahra Wright [01:01:17]:
That’s right.

Donnell Wright [01:01:18]:
And customers had no issues. Right? They immediately go and leave us a 5 star review because they saw what we have done and what we’re doing, and they really appreciated that we were here in the community doing the things that we were gonna do. Right?

Tahra Wright [01:01:33]:
Yeah. And we I mean, one of the one of the first things that we did just in terms of renovations aside from the machines, And, Jordan, I think I sent you a a link of some of the before and after pictures was the bathroom.

Donnell Wright [01:01:46]:
Yeah.

Tahra Wright [01:01:47]:
I mean, it was the bathroom was like something, I don’t know, in the middle of nowhere at a road stop. And I was like, if I don’t wanna go in there, I know that customers who are here for 2 hours during their laundry don’t wanna go in there either. And we’ve done because we’ve done a lot in real estate, we’ve done, like, 24 hour renovations. Yeah. So I was like, I know we can knock this bathroom out in a day. That’s basically what we did. Just the first big renovation was the bathroom, and people would come in and they were just like, my bathroom at home isn’t as nice as as what you’ve done here. Right? And for them, knowing that that was, like, the first major contribution we made to this laundromat was fixing the bathroom was huge.

Tahra Wright [01:02:34]:
It’s huge. Because that was really customer focused and customer centered. And so we began doing things like it. We did a, a holiday a holiday raffle. So we basically you know, we’re as I said, we’re coin operators. There’s no way we can collect things. We were able to collect any information. So people would have to fill out a little form, have their name, their cell phone number, and email.

Tahra Wright [01:02:57]:
They were allowed to, to drop their stuff off in the bin every time they came in to do laundry or drop off laundry. We had prizes from like, you know, local, the local jeweler, the certificate from there, the nail salon, the local massage therapist, gift certificates. We gave away a weekend at our Airbnb in the Hudson Valley in New York as, like, a grand prize. So we’ve been doing those kinds of things for, like, it was holidays and then it was Valentine’s Day. And people were just just so like, this is great. Like, we’re we’re getting prizes to come and do laundry. Right? Just making this a fun place to be. And part of that part of that was also collecting information.

Donnell Wright [01:03:41]:
Yep.

Tahra Wright [01:03:42]:
Right? Finding a way because social media is not yours.

Donnell Wright [01:03:45]:
And we had no POS yet or anything. So

Tahra Wright [01:03:48]:
So we collected information. We’ve been to build an email list for email marketing, so we can connect with people and let them know things that were going on. But folks were just so happy about what we were doing in the laundromat. And we’re in a very small town. I mean, I I it’s it’s tiny. It’s tiny. It’s about 85100 people who are in our town, but we also pull, we pull customers from 4 other towns that surround us. Right.

Tahra Wright [01:04:20]:
So I’d say altogether, maybe that’s, like, 50,000 people between the 5 towns, you know, give or take 50, 60,000. But the the town that we’re in, I abs I mean, it’s 10 minutes away from our house, so first of all. So, I mean, it is a quick ride to get here. It’s just it it they have people here have so much pride in their town, in their community, in their schools, in their homes. And so for us, that was so important because we have so much pride in the little business that we’re building right here. Able to, through our marketing, through Donnell being here, just the outpouring of support and like love and just whatever it was, they were they’re they had our backs.

Donnell Wright [01:05:10]:
Let’s just say I’m let’s just say I’m reenergized for sure.

Tahra Wright [01:05:12]:
Yes. Yes. So it’s so it’s just so important to really, depending upon where you are, get involved in the community. Cause it’s, it’s fun and people are great and we’ve just had like an amazing, amazing

Donnell Wright [01:05:26]:
time. That goes back to our core values, right? Customer service, cleanliness, and community. Yeah. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [01:05:33]:
Can you I I was gonna ask you. I wrote down to to ask you about sort of those core values. Like, where did those come from? And and, I mean, how have you seen? I I think a a lot of lawn mower owners don’t take the time to think through core values, don’t filter their decisions and their actions and all that through those core values. Can you just talk a little bit about your core values and, how you utilize those with your business?

Tahra Wright [01:06:03]:
I’ll take it. Okay. I’ll take it. You know, I think a lot of it stems from just, who we are as people. Right? And our mission in terms of getting into the business. We didn’t get, you know, it’s funny because initially, the idea was, like, get out of rat race, get out of corporate, all these kind of, like, financial goals. But then when you get here and you start interacting with customers and you see how, excited they are for you to be here, Just that 1st week, people were excited about it being clean. I mean, I think there was one there was one customer who dropped something on the floor.

Tahra Wright [01:06:42]:
She’s like, I don’t even care if it fell on the floor. I know these floors are clean. So when you start to see how happy they are about coming here to do laundry, it, like, triggers something in you. It resonates with you. And it’s such the bar, unfortunately, is set just so low. I mean, what could be lower than keeping a laundromat clean? I mean, people are coming in to clean their laundry, their personal items. Like, how how would you let them come into a place that’s not clean? So cleanliness is just to me, it’s easy. And we’re in a service based business.

Tahra Wright [01:07:18]:
And I think probably because Donnell and I, our whole professional careers, we were in service based businesses. We understand customer service. Right? We under we we just understand that. That’s what we’ve done. And so and now we’re in a position where we can provide customer service where it’s actually appreciated all the time as opposed to, like, you never know with your big corporate clients, like, how they all, you know, respond to you. And so for us, we get joy in delivering a great customer experience. We get when when we get the review and the review comes up and I read it, I’m I’m just always, like, get goosebumps. I don’t even know how to respond to people.

Tahra Wright [01:07:55]:
I’m just so pleased and so happy that they are saying we I I can’t wait to get there. I can’t wait to do my laundry, or I couldn’t wait to finish my laundry to come out in the car and leave this review. Right? Just by being, like, you know, simple, very like, nice people. And we’re just kind and we’re nice, and we help when we can. So for us, that’s the customer service part of it. And the community is what we were lacking in corporate for so long. Right? And to us, is that everyone who comes to the door becomes family, whether you want to be or not. You’ll I’ll come in the door and I’m hugging every everyone’s getting a hug.

Tahra Wright [01:08:32]:
I’m like, you’re new? I’m Tara. Let me give you a hug. Like, that’s just what happens here. And whether that is, you know, customers who are actually physically in the store, even on social media. There are so many people who supports in social media who are just like, I don’t even need to go into a laundromat, but I’m coming to you to do something. Just as to meet you, whatever it is. Right? And that’s the sense of community. It’s like, I always talk about what it’s like, cheers.

Tahra Wright [01:08:59]:
You know, the old TV show, cheers, where everybody knows your name. Well, Donnell literally does know everyone’s name. So it’s like that. I mean, he really so it’s that

Jordan Berry [01:09:07]:
Modern day cheers. Yeah. Yeah.

Tahra Wright [01:09:08]:
Yes. So it’s that kind of environment. And because community is important. You have your business means nothing and goes nowhere unless the community is involved. If you do not have customers, you do not have a business. Right? So to the extent that you can really ingrain yourself in the community and whether it’s because you choose to do the the laundry cares events or free dryers or free whatever it is, or just be active in community events. You know, sometimes the school PTA will call us and see if we’ll give a donation for something. More than happy to donate, put together, you know, laundry and goodies, whatever it is, to be part of what’s going on in this town.

Jordan Berry [01:09:48]:
Yeah.

Tahra Wright [01:09:48]:
Right? Because that’s it’s just so critical to us and important to us.

Donnell Wright [01:09:52]:
I think the community one is huge for for us for the simple fact. And this is one of the reasons why we believe we’re gonna stay closed on Wednesdays because there’s been some debate, of course, since we finished all our renovations. It allows us to be able to do, like, events for the community. Like, we have a ton of customers that have, you know, all these talents and skills, you know. We have, the local DJ, Charlie O, who actually was the one who did the music for our regrant opening. I have another, customers that’s a husband and wife, and, you know, she’s a, jazz singer. He plays, you know, various instruments. They wanna come in on a Wednesday and just do a 45 minute set for the community, you know, free of charge.

Donnell Wright [01:10:37]:
Right? So we have so many people in the community that wanna give back, and I think we have the environment to allow them to be able to do it just because of the space we have.

Tahra Wright [01:10:46]:
The way the space

Donnell Wright [01:10:47]:
that we wanna use Wednesdays to to do that, to be more than just a laundromat. I want people to ride by here and say, wow. I went to a comedy show at Yeah. At larger mat, Wednesday,

Jordan Berry [01:10:59]:
and it

Donnell Wright [01:10:59]:
was fabulous. And for people to just look and say, at the larger mat? Yeah. So that that’s what we wanna do. That’s what we wanna be known for.

Tahra Wright [01:11:08]:
Yeah. And we’ve and that and, you know, it’s it’s fun because we’re we’re coming up with all these different ideas for Wednesday night and what we’re gonna call it.

Jordan Berry [01:11:16]:
Yeah.

Tahra Wright [01:11:16]:
Right? We haven’t come out. I don’t know if it’d be club bubbles or what it will be. We haven’t decided on the name of the Wednesday night events, but, definitely, we have a customer who’s a comedian, and she actually told you that she got her start, like, in a laundromat. Yeah. I mean, so she said I would love to come in and do, like, a comedy set here. I wanna really promote the arts here. So even like trying to get some local artists to come in and maybe we do like a wine and cheese like art gallery event. They can come, they can put their art on the walls.

Tahra Wright [01:11:45]:
We make the place very clean. So it’s there’s not the only bright colors are our dryers, which you’ll you can see in our photos. Otherwise, it’s like a light gray and white, very clean to leave a backdrop for artwork to be here. Yeah. So they can showcase their artwork. We can have a, like, nice little gallery opening and leave it here to be sold. So there’s just so many like ideas we have for really bringing the community in and doing and doing just fun stuff. That’s not laundry.

Tahra Wright [01:12:13]:
That’s not like laundry. And one of the, one of the things that we actually we started is, it’s funny. I mentioned to you before we have this I have this YouTube show. It’s called so it’s called I’ll give you the it’s called t and t chat from the mat. And there we have a, in New Jersey, anyway, there’s, like, local, franchise owned digital online media, sources, and it’s called Tap Into each town’s name. So for our town, it’s called Tap Into Kenilworth. And, the woman who is the, like, editor of the local tap into, her name’s Talina, and she actually helped me do our holiday raffle. I caught the names and the whole thing.

Tahra Wright [01:13:03]:
And we had her energy is like mine. So we had

Jordan Berry [01:13:05]:
a lot of fun. It was like, all right.

Tahra Wright [01:13:05]:
She’d go all crazy and stuff and screaming.

Jordan Berry [01:13:05]:
And a friend

Tahra Wright [01:13:06]:
of ours was here filming us do the, the, pulling out the names from whatnot. And my friend said, oh my gosh, you 2 should do a podcast. And I was like, there was one more thing I’m not going to do with that. So then instead I was like,

Donnell Wright [01:13:26]:
no offense,

Tahra Wright [01:13:26]:
no offense. I don’t understand.

Jordan Berry [01:13:30]:
You’re on the podcast right now.

Tahra Wright [01:13:32]:
Sorry. But I was

Jordan Berry [01:13:33]:
like, I’m

Tahra Wright [01:13:33]:
not doing that. So how are you? Anything else on my calendar? But Telena was like, why don’t we just do like, a little highlight show, 10, 15 minutes, and we can highlight businesses and we can highlight, like, individuals in town. And so it’s Selena and Tara, t and t chat from the mat. And so on Wednesdays, when we’re closed, once a month, Selena and I will get together. We’ll invite people from the local businesses here, and they come on. It’s like a 10, 15 minute just highlight reel about their business, how they got here, how they got into the business. Sometimes they’ll give away free stuff, whatever it is, but then we just edit it and put it out to all of the local, you know, Facebook groups and community stuff. And that’s another way that we find to give back.

Donnell Wright [01:14:23]:
Yeah.

Tahra Wright [01:14:23]:
Right? To let people know about the fantastic businesses that we have located, you know, in Kenilworth, in our town. And just letting people know, like, you know, they’re here. We’re here. Like, come on and visit. So

Donnell Wright [01:14:36]:
Yes. Really cool.

Jordan Berry [01:14:38]:
I already found it on YouTube. We’ll make sure we have a link to TNT chat from the mat from

Tahra Wright [01:14:44]:
the mat.

Jordan Berry [01:14:45]:
In the show notes. Actually and just this is a good opportunity for me to say, hey. We’re gonna have the link for that for sure. So go check that out.

Tahra Wright [01:14:52]:
Thank you.

Jordan Berry [01:14:52]:
But

Jordan Berry [01:14:52]:
we’ll also have the photos that you’ve been talking about a few different times, and we’ll have all the links and social stuff so that you can go check out the social stuff. And then I’ll also link Dave’s book, in case you haven’t read it yet and you’re interested.

Donnell Wright [01:15:05]:
Great book. Great book. Thank you, Dave.

Jordan Berry [01:15:08]:
Thanks, Dave. I’ve got a couple copies as well. So awesome.

Tahra Wright [01:15:12]:
Thank you.

Jordan Berry [01:15:13]:
Alright. Going back to, going back to getting this, Matt, like when you took over, I mean, did you feel like the picture you guys had of, like, how this mat was doing was accurate? It sounded like it wasn’t really doing that great. But, do you feel like you had an accurate picture of that, or no?

Jordan Berry [01:15:36]:
We had

Tahra Wright [01:15:36]:
we had an accurate picture of how Greta was not doing. We had that. We had yeah.

Donnell Wright [01:15:42]:
We talked to you about this as well on one of the consulting calls.

Tahra Wright [01:15:47]:
I’m trying to figure out the due diligence. You know, we did the best that we could with due diligence. You know, we got some random, you know, electric electric bills, gas bills, water bills, just from whatever periods of time he chose to gave up to give us. Donnell did

Donnell Wright [01:16:02]:
do a coin count.

Tahra Wright [01:16:03]:
2 weeks of coin count.

Donnell Wright [01:16:05]:
But

Tahra Wright [01:16:06]:
we also did the coin counts during the summer, which we also know traditionally, it tends to be a little bit slower in the summer, so we can make up a little bit for that. He didn’t he didn’t show us his he actually had a very small wash, dry, fold business already established here. And and he established that when he first when he first bought the place. So he didn’t show us his book or anything like that.

Jordan Berry [01:16:29]:
He just

Tahra Wright [01:16:30]:
kinda gave us numbers.

Donnell Wright [01:16:31]:
Yeah.

Tahra Wright [01:16:32]:
So we came in knowing that, you know, his numbers meant nothing and that we’re going to have to do a significant amount of not just the renovation work, but just branding Branding. And marketing and bringing people in and getting people to trust that this was gonna be different than the way it had been for so many years.

Donnell Wright [01:16:51]:
It was pretty depressing. Right? The the numbers that we did we did get. Right?

Jordan Berry [01:16:58]:
Especially with the goal of leaving your engineering job?

Donnell Wright [01:17:01]:
Yeah. And I was like, it made it real difficult for me to for me to do that. I mean, that that’s some of the the scariness behind when I did leave because of the numbers that he shared with us, you know, during the due diligence period. But I think it’s, you know, I go back to, you know, saying that it’s you have to look beyond that because I think, like, for us, the location was fantastic as well. And we knew, like, because this was a zombie map, we knew that if we do what we do, right, because we’re real estate investors, we Flippers. Flipped a lot of houses and stuff that we can make this place fantastic. And with our branding, we could bring people in, you know, just based off of all the stuff that we’ve heard you guys, you know, tell people over and over again. Right? So we believed in that.

Donnell Wright [01:17:48]:
Right? So you you gotta have something to stand on, and I think that’s what we stood on outside of the depressing numbers that we we saw doing during due diligence. Right?

Tahra Wright [01:17:57]:
And also, so Cliff, because Cliff had experienced not only as a distributor, but also having run laundromats himself, He was giving us an idea. So these numbers right now should be at least at this. And here’s where I think you could at least as a goal where we think you should be per rank. So in our mind, we’re like, okay. Someone who has knowledge and experience is a professional and who has been a great mentor and guide along the way is saying x y z, and I trust in that.

Donnell Wright [01:18:27]:
Right.

Tahra Wright [01:18:27]:
And I know that what we were bringing to the table because of who we are and how we operate and how we manage so professionally our businesses and our real estate that we could not only hit that but exceed it.

Jordan Berry [01:18:39]:
Yeah.

Tahra Wright [01:18:39]:
So I always had faith in that. I just would have liked to put a little bit less in to get to that point, but I know that’s not how it works. That’s not how it works. Well and I and I laugh because one of the one of the primary things is lighting. Like, who wants to come into a dimly lit laundromat? Mhmm. And there were fluorescent there were fluorescent lights throughout and sort of old, like, what is that? The casing or whatever you call it, what the fluorescent lights were.

Donnell Wright [01:19:03]:
Yeah. The housing.

Tahra Wright [01:19:04]:
The housing. And so initially, Donnell and I discussed the plan for renovations, and I was like, we can put in, like, LED lighting. Right? Because first of all, it’s, you know, better energy efficiency and whatnot. Pick up the fluorescence, put in the LED lighting.

Donnell Wright [01:19:21]:
The bulbs only. The bulbs.

Tahra Wright [01:19:23]:
The bulbs. And then we’ll just, like, paint the housing, and we’ll be good. I come in, and how many do we have?

Donnell Wright [01:19:32]:
We have about 48 recessed lights, and then we have 1 in

Tahra Wright [01:19:36]:
recessed lights. I’m like, what happened to the LED? He’s like, no. That wouldn’t have looked good.

Jordan Berry [01:19:42]:
I was like, oh my.

Jordan Berry [01:19:43]:
Janelle, the executioner right is his own man, and he does what he wants.

Tahra Wright [01:19:49]:
Yeah. I will I was like, where are I mean, rows and rows of recessed lighting, and now we have like chandeliers. I mean, it’s like being in a living room, to be honest. It was just it’s completely,

Donnell Wright [01:20:02]:
can’t do it halfway.

Tahra Wright [01:20:03]:
He never does stop halfway. It has to go all the way. So, I mean, so part of it, we also knew that some people were just waiting for this renovation before they’d even come in. So trying to take those steps to do that, to bring in more self serve customers, even just like the wash, dry, and folds, I mean, that’s just I mean, that just blew up for us over the course of the last, like, 8 or 9 months. Yeah. But it makes it makes a difference, you know, to to customers. And so and so because we had Thic had really given us that idea of where the numbers should at least be, we still right? If we can make that, we’ll be okay. Okay.

Tahra Wright [01:20:42]:
And then we’re gonna surpass that.

Donnell Wright [01:20:44]:
Yep.

Tahra Wright [01:20:44]:
Right? And take these steps to go above and beyond. And the more we deliver is the more we’ll get in in in return.

Donnell Wright [01:20:50]:
Yep. So you build it and they they will come.

Tahra Wright [01:20:54]:
Sometimes they come, but they’ve been coming.

Jordan Berry [01:20:55]:
They haven’t come.

Jordan Berry [01:20:57]:
Well, you’ve been doing a lot of, you’ve been doing a lot of stuff to make them. I mean, a lot of stuff on social media. And then, I mean, listen, like, you just can’t underestimate learning people’s names, being friendly, creating that good environment. I’m I mean, I’m glad we talked about why you were closed on Wednesday because you kinda casually dropped that a few times.

Tahra Wright [01:21:14]:
Yes.

Jordan Berry [01:21:15]:
You know, throughout. And I was I had to read it down. I was like, we we gotta find out why they’re not gonna reopen on Wednesdays. Yeah. And but I love the you know, I love it. I love I mean, it goes along with your core values and filtering decisions on how you’re gonna operate your business, off of that. And, you know, there’s a there’s a case to be made to say, hey. You know what? You’re not you’re not utilizing that day to it’s a revenue generating day.

Jordan Berry [01:21:39]:
Right? But you’re taking that as an opportunity to align with your core values. And guess what? That’s gonna pay off for you revenue. I mean, look at Chick Fil A. Right? Sunday’s gotta be one of the biggest fast food days out there, and they stay closed because it aligns with their core values, and they get a lot of press for it.

Donnell Wright [01:21:58]:
Hey. Look. I I think, like, the environment that we are creating here, people will make the adjustments in their schedule.

Tahra Wright [01:22:08]:
Have. And they have made it.

Donnell Wright [01:22:09]:
And they have made it. I have just yesterday, I have one of my customers that would always come here on Wednesday, and I’m always closed. And yesterday, she says she’s changing her schedule so she can come on Tuesdays now. So people will make the adjustments. Right? You just, to your point, right, we just have to stay true to our core values because I believe, like, the Wednesday will allow us to do so much community wise. And then I like to get out on the golf course every now and then as well, you know.

Tahra Wright [01:22:37]:
And have a day to have a little

Donnell Wright [01:22:38]:
And have a day. Like, normally, I get up by 4 AM when I come here. Right? Because I get up, I read, I work out, and then I’m here by 6. We open at 7. You know, today, I got up maybe at 7:30 Yeah. Or whatever. So it’s

Jordan Berry [01:22:53]:
it’s This is the

Tahra Wright [01:22:54]:
the first Wednesday since we took over in September that we didn’t have work happening, you know, at the laundromat. So it allowed for that. And the funny thing is, look, people as I now said, people will adjust because I know in a couple occasions before, folks came on a Wednesday, saw we were closed, went to another laundromat, and said, I’ll never do that again. Right? Like, we’re not making that mistake ever again. Right? And so and just because I mean, we have this probably 1, 2, 3, 4 other laundromats within, like, the 5 town area I was talking about. You know? And so and we’re I mean, we live close, so we’re familiar with all of them. So, you know, the goal for us is I don’t we don’t believe, like, in competition. I joked about competing about reviews, but honestly, there’s enough out here for everyone.

Tahra Wright [01:23:47]:
Right? And I truly believe that if you have the abundance mindset

Donnell Wright [01:23:52]:
Yes.

Tahra Wright [01:23:52]:
And you’re going to work with people and just sustain your lane and do the best that you can do for your community, it all comes back to you. What you’re meant to have,

Donnell Wright [01:24:02]:
you have. Absolutely.

Tahra Wright [01:24:03]:
I mean, even a young a young man and his wife took over a laundromat, a town over, and, he came in one day. Yeah. And he and I were just I’m like, we have to go out to dinner with my husband and your wife and talk more about the industry and what you’re doing. And we ask each other questions, and he asked me questions about what we’ve done. So we’re, like, totally open to to all of that.

Donnell Wright [01:24:23]:
Yeah. I’m willing to share anything, like, yeah, to a to a certain extent.

Tahra Wright [01:24:28]:
Some some trade secrets.

Donnell Wright [01:24:30]:
Like, if you think about it, right, we got inspired from one of the laundromats around here to open up this. Right? So, you know, without them even knowing it. Right? So, you know, if if we can help somebody else get further, then We’re gonna yeah. We’re gonna do it. Right? Do it. And in

Tahra Wright [01:24:47]:
the meantime, just sticking to what we know, is important for us to have within our business and for our community. Yeah.

Donnell Wright [01:24:53]:
I I always say, like, you know, you do good in the universe and the universe will take care of you. Right?

Tahra Wright [01:24:58]:
A 100%. So a 100%. So.

Jordan Berry [01:25:00]:
Yeah. I love that. And I I mean, I love that mindset. I think that that is we need more of that in in our industry. And I mean, it it’s real really when it comes down to it, that is the core of this podcast. Right? Is, hey, Let’s let’s get on here and let’s share what we’re doing that’s working and our stories and the journeys that we took to get there and the lessons we learned along the way. Right? That’s that’s what it comes down to.

Donnell Wright [01:25:25]:
Hey. Look. I don’t think Tara and I will be where we are without, like, listening to you and Dave Mins and all the other people that you’ve had on the podcast sharing their stories. Right? It just helped us get a good frame of mind and to have a basis. The the minute we came in.

Tahra Wright [01:25:41]:
Like, we were, like, off and we had a plan from the time we came in to what we had to do to execute to become a modern neighborhood laundromat. Yeah. Right? And I’m just I’m proud of what we’ve done here. I’m proud of the renovations. The place is just beautiful to me. I’m happy to come in here. You know? Before I was like, no, Donna. You can go in you can go in there.

Tahra Wright [01:26:01]:
It’s kind of like sad.

Donnell Wright [01:26:02]:
She’s always sending me in the dingy basements from all the flips. I fell through a bunch of floors for her.

Tahra Wright [01:26:08]:
Yes. He did. Real estate stuff. I’m like, I don’t do basements. It’s like dogs down there. You go. Oh, yeah. So now it’s, it’s, it’s a really, it’s a place we’re very proud of and the community is very, so happy that we’re here and we just do whatever the best is that we can.

Tahra Wright [01:26:24]:
So

Jordan Berry [01:26:25]:
I love that. Well, I wanna chat real quick before we jump into our next segment. I wanna touch on I mean, I know wait. When did you take over this laundromat again?

Tahra Wright [01:26:34]:
September 20, 2023.

Jordan Berry [01:26:37]:
Yeah. September. So by March, when we had a call earlier this year, you had doubled your your drop off service.

Tahra Wright [01:26:46]:
Yes.

Jordan Berry [01:26:47]:
So I wanna hear a little bit about that. And then, also, if you can touch on pricing, because we had conversations about pricing. And, I think you guys were I wrote down, you guys were at a dollar 7 a pound. Yeah. So and talk to us just a little bit about that journey.

Tahra Wright [01:27:05]:
Yeah. So I’ll I’ll Donna can talk about through the logistics and operations. But, you know, when we first took over, I think the wash dry folds may have made up about 25% of, the revenues at that time. Now it’s about almost 50% of of revenues. And we had you know, we we always understood. I always looked at self serve as being your bread and butter. Like, self serve can come and can pay the bills, but to really start to accelerate financially, it was the wash, dry, and folds, and eventually would be pickup and delivery. So that was a real key aspect of what we did coming in was to really try to drive, wash, dry, fold, and let people know that it existed.

Tahra Wright [01:27:50]:
I mean, I’m I am look. What is it? 6 years ago, 7 years ago? I didn’t know what wash, dry, or it was. I just happened to drive past this laundromat and saw it, and it literally changed our lives in terms of our home lives, not having to do laundry all the time. So

Jordan Berry [01:28:05]:
That was

Tahra Wright [01:28:05]:
trying to, yeah, trying to get the message out to people. And and so we just I started just doing these fun little posts about drop off laundry in each of the local Facebook groups, you know, on social media. And people began, like, coming in. And then and then, I mean, Danelle can tell you more about how he’s, like, converted self serve customers to wash, dry, bold customers, which is just genius. Like, they’re already here. They’re captive. Like, what can you do to try to bring them in? So you can talk more about logistics and operations side of it.

Donnell Wright [01:28:37]:
Yeah. But from a revenue standpoint, like, you know, 25% more?

Tahra Wright [01:28:41]:
Oh, so we would no. So I would say let’s see. Between oh my goodness. So our 1st month of business, what I calculated, we probably made about revenues of a $95100 in revenues for 1st month. 25% of that was washed trifold. In our last full month, so not May, but April, our revenues were a little over 18,000. And then about 4 I think I have, like, 46% of that was wash dry fold. So, I mean, it’s just been it was so it was such a significant jump that we actually had we had to hire Yeah.

Tahra Wright [01:29:18]:
We more people.

Donnell Wright [01:29:19]:
We we we started with we we, Amalia, our our senior garment care specialist, came over with a purchase. She had worked with Mystic Kim for 15 years, and she’s phenomenal.

Tahra Wright [01:29:31]:
Oh my gosh.

Donnell Wright [01:29:32]:
In December, we we we saw that we needed help, So we brought on, Cindy who’s who’s been great as well. And then it got to a point where they were doing so much wash, dry, fold, and we have a very, straining cleaning process was taken 2 plus hours to clean so we brought on another, person, Denia, who’s been just fantastic as well. So we have 3 attendants now, right, just to support, you know, that wash rifle business, right, and to keep the store clean.

Tahra Wright [01:30:02]:
Yeah. Because we so that was the one thing is that prior to us coming in, there were no true cleaning protocols in place. And I laugh. I’m like, my husband’s a bit OCD, which is either, like, great for this industry or terrible for this industry because he is just like, you know, a nut. And so there there’s it’s 2 hours to clean our store every every soap dish, wiping everything that gets done here. But when the wash dry folds have picked up so much, tenants were like, we can’t, we’re leaving here at like midnight, we can’t get through everything. I said, well, this, that can’t happen. And so bringing Denny in initially, when she came in in earlier this year, it was to come in in the in the late afternoons and help with the cleaning.

Tahra Wright [01:30:48]:
But then we’re like, we have another body. She can also learn how to do the wash, dry, and full business. And so she is just sort of seamlessly moving to that area as well. So I think that’s been it’s it’s been, like, critical for us because we haven’t done you know, we’ve only done social media. I do Google Ads for wash, dry, and fold and for drop off ad as well as for self serve to bring people in. And I always whenever Donell says, oh, you get a new I drop off customers to them. Like, where did they come from? Like, what town? How do they find like, I wanna know. It’s kinda hard sometimes to get to get feedback on

Donnell Wright [01:31:23]:
Yeah.

Tahra Wright [01:31:23]:
Conversions, you know, who’s coming in, who’s not coming in. So

Donnell Wright [01:31:26]:
Yeah. And converting self serve, to wash my full list. It’s not like, you know, all the time. It’s just like I’ve gotten people to to understand, like, you don’t have to use the wash dry fold service all the time, but let’s just say you wanted to take your wife out to dinner or you guys just, you know, came back from a vacation or going to a vacation, you don’t have time to wash all those clothes, just bring them to us. You know, especially if you’re going on vacation, you know, like drop the clothes off. We know you got, like, 10,000 things you gotta do before you go on vacation. Drop them off with us. They’ll come back smelling good, fold it nicely.

Donnell Wright [01:32:02]:
You could just put them right into your suitcase. So I’ve been just, like, having those regular conversations with the self serve customers and they’ve been eating it up and they’ve been coming in and dropping off. They’ve been like, oh, you’re right. You know, I’ve saved so much time. You know, I have some that just they don’t come in anymore and I actually miss them. I’m, you know, I’m I’m like, you

Jordan Berry [01:32:22]:
know You’re like, now we’re done for you.

Donnell Wright [01:32:25]:
Come in every Sunday. Like, you gotta come back and hang out with me.

Jordan Berry [01:32:29]:
Just come hang out while we do your laundry.

Tahra Wright [01:32:32]:
Yeah. That’s funny. I know. I’m like, she’s no longer self sudser. I was like, nope. She gave that up months ago. Come on. So

Jordan Berry [01:32:39]:
So yeah. Yeah.

Tahra Wright [01:32:39]:
And that and that’s one of the things I try to I try to focus on. Because everyone’s like, oh, I have a washer dryer at home. I don’t need a laundromat. I said, but you may have that weekend. You know, we have you know, we had a point in time where we had 3 kids all in some activity or sports. Your weekends get crazy.

Donnell Wright [01:32:55]:
Yeah.

Tahra Wright [01:32:56]:
I might say, if you just need a catch up day, drop it off here, or come use our commercial machines. Because what I do know is when you have that much laundry and 2 plus kids, you are in your little residential machine, you are doing all day

Jordan Berry [01:33:11]:
for days. Yeah.

Tahra Wright [01:33:13]:
All day for days. I’m, like, come in here. Yeah. Throw it in our sixties. Get caught up in 2 hours. Yeah. And, like, be back home and call it a day.

Donnell Wright [01:33:20]:
And God forbid you forget it in the in the in the wash, you gotta rewash it because it’s stale. Right?

Tahra Wright [01:33:25]:
So Oh my god.

Donnell Wright [01:33:26]:
You know, people been talking about what?

Jordan Berry [01:33:29]:
No. No. It’s always

Tahra Wright [01:33:30]:
to me. It’s always on my time forgot again to to

Donnell Wright [01:33:34]:
So we’ve been we’ve been pitching that as well just for the convenience. Yeah. Great. You have the wash and dry at home. You got 3 or 4 kids at home. It’s gonna take you days days to get the laundry done. You come here, 2 hours you’re done.

Tahra Wright [01:33:46]:
Yep. 2 hours done, dry, folded, and I’ve gotten your life back. And there’s many, we had many customers who the washing machine or dryer broke and it was taking forever to get it back. And they were like, I don’t know if we wanna get ours back. We we come in here on a Sunday, and we’re done in a couple hours. Yeah. A whole week’s worth of laundry.

Jordan Berry [01:34:06]:
Mhmm.

Tahra Wright [01:34:06]:
So, I I think just getting that message out, letting people know it’s not just folks who don’t, have a machine at home or whatnot can still use the service. I think it just paid off for us in in in dividends. And then people tell other people, Right? Grassroots. Yeah. Grassroots.

Donnell Wright [01:34:23]:
It’s a

Tahra Wright [01:34:24]:
lot of word-of-mouth, right, in terms of coming in here and even just doing your comforters yourselves or whatever. So

Jordan Berry [01:34:30]:
Well, can you real quick, can you talk about pricing and your thought process and what you did with that and kind of, you know, just, you know, briefly.

Donnell Wright [01:34:41]:
Yeah. I think I think I think you talked about we we had a call with you. We’re originally at, like, the dollar, you know, 7¢ for a wash rifle. That business was picking up, and we know we needed to hire. And, you know, my wife is always on my my back about, you know, what I’m spending and what we’re bringing in.

Jordan Berry [01:34:59]:
That does not sound like her at all.

Donnell Wright [01:35:01]:
Not at all. And and we we we had a call with you, and and I think you have some form where you can put in all your information to get to a point where what you should be charging for wash trifold and Mhmm. And we we did that, but we want wanted to make sure we were spot on with it. So we had the call with you, and you kinda took us through that. And we came to a number. I think we came to, like, a dollar 46¢ per pound just based off things we were doing. And, and we bumped that up another 10¢. Right? Because, like, what we do with our wash, dry full service, I think, sets us apart from others.

Donnell Wright [01:35:39]:
Right? You know, we get clothes in, we sort them, we stain treat, we separate, you know, the darks from the white clothes and stuff like that. Anything in your pockets, we put into a bag and we return to them, and we we hang, you know, button up shirts and slacks. We just we don’t upcharge to do that. Right? And we use we use premium products and stuff. So and and I don’t wanna go from that and I don’t wanna I don’t wanna upcharge. You know? I know others do that, which is great, but that’s just not the way, we wanna run our business. So I said we need to get to a price point to, help us cover all the things that we’re doing. At first, we felt a little guilty to go from the dollar 7 to the dollar 50.

Tahra Wright [01:36:23]:
But And just let me explain the dollar sevens. That sounds crazy. Like, why’d you be dollar 7? It was the way it was. It was, a dollar 50 for the first £10 Yeah. And then a dollar per pound thereafter. So it basically averaged to a dollar 7. That’s that’s

Donnell Wright [01:36:40]:
Yeah. The more the more you brought, the cheaper it got.

Tahra Wright [01:36:42]:
Yeah. Which one

Donnell Wright [01:36:43]:
is Which was which was kinda crazy. Right? So so it wasn’t until I actually wash some clothes myself. I physically

Jordan Berry [01:36:52]:
did some wash and full.

Donnell Wright [01:36:53]:
I was like, man, this is not easy. Like, that’s what got me to the point where I didn’t feel guilty about charging a dollar 50. Right? And I was like, nope. We’re doing it. I I spent, like, all day washing clothes because we had so much and just it’s not easy. Right? So just me physically doing that got me to be comfortable, say, because Tara was still at dollar 40, and she was like, I know Jordan said a dollar 40, but should we really do that? I was like, after I did that, like, a couple days or what, I said, nope. We’re not doing dollar 4, we’re doing dollar 50. And I was comfortable with it.

Donnell Wright [01:37:26]:
Right? And and we we had a few customers that was a little uncomfortable with the price change, but that’s okay. Right? You know? And I I maybe lost 1 or 2, but we’ve gained so many more customers. And then I just explained, like, the process we do with their wash dry fold, and people love it. Right? So we’re okay. So for those of you who are considering a price change and you might be feeling a little guilty, like, I was feeling and like Tara was feeling, don’t. If you know you’re providing a great service like, you know, Jordan, you, and Dave have said in the past many times, then don’t feel guilty about what you’re providing to to people. Just you know, you you gotta you wanna continue to provide that service, and you you gotta get paid for it. So don’t feel guilty.

Tahra Wright [01:38:10]:
You can only you can only provide that quality service if you’re getting paid

Jordan Berry [01:38:14]:
for it

Tahra Wright [01:38:14]:
because it’s also, you know, payroll expenses. It’s it’s everything,

Donnell Wright [01:38:18]:
you know, everything.

Tahra Wright [01:38:20]:
So you have to be able to provide for your employees, for your business, and be able to make some money at, on, you know, on the back end of it all.

Donnell Wright [01:38:28]:
Yeah. And I and I also have been creating different categories now that we have a POS system. Like, you know, I like, a a person brought in, like, a bag of socks. It was, like, so many socks. And socks are light, so we weighed them, and I actually lost money doing the socks because we had to pair up all the socks. So now I

Tahra Wright [01:38:46]:
have price. A constant magic price.

Donnell Wright [01:38:48]:
I have a price per pound just for socks. I think it’s, like, 2.25 or whatever because it took my attendant like forever to fold socks and I did the calculations. It’s like wow we lost money on that. Like and people bringing curtains now, I brought like a commercial steamer. Like, I upcharge. We charge a separate price to do, like, drapes and curtains and stuff like that because we hang all those stuff. Right? So things so I’ve been playing around with just, like, customized, like, pricing for, like, patio cushion covers for the summertime. Right? So I’ve created a whole pricing for that.

Donnell Wright [01:39:20]:
Right? So we’ve just been having a little bit of fun with it.

Tahra Wright [01:39:23]:
And And you don’t you don’t know until they come in and bring something new

Donnell Wright [01:39:26]:
to you.

Tahra Wright [01:39:26]:
Like, what you’re gonna treat. You’re like,

Jordan Berry [01:39:28]:
oh, okay.

Tahra Wright [01:39:28]:
Let me figure this out now, and then figure out pricing for it going forward. So you may take the loss that first time, but then now you can with the experience, you can figure it out and, you know, go forward. And then and then we just also we just, last month, launched pickup and delivery.

Donnell Wright [01:39:43]:
Right. But before we go there, I wanna say, like, my my attendance now know, like, the 1.50 per pound is for clothes, bed sheets, and towels. Anything outside of that, if I don’t have a line item for and if I’m not in the store, call me.

Tahra Wright [01:40:00]:
Yes.

Donnell Wright [01:40:01]:
Because it’s a different price.

Tahra Wright [01:40:03]:
Whatever it’s gonna be. It’s gonna be different.

Jordan Berry [01:40:05]:
It’s

Donnell Wright [01:40:05]:
gonna be different. Yeah.

Tahra Wright [01:40:06]:
For sure. For sure. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [01:40:09]:
Because you get

Tahra Wright [01:40:10]:
you get unusual things unusual items that come into you. So, but, yeah, let me launch pickup and delivery. Donnell is currently our driver. We did it locally first within our town to just get a sense of what it’s going to be like. And now we’ve expanded to the other towns in the vicinity. I’ve just just barely began advertising that. I haven’t really gone, like, in-depth in it yet. But, you know, we we charge a dollar 75 for pickup and delivery.

Tahra Wright [01:40:39]:
So we’re hoping to really just sort of build that out as something that we can see going towards the summertime when it might get quieter with self serve. We also have this other product offering. So service offering.

Donnell Wright [01:40:51]:
Yeah. And I just bought a van 3 weeks ago, which Tardan wanted to do, which I did anyway.

Tahra Wright [01:40:56]:
I was like, you have a big truck. Just get some mag like, the magnets to put on the side with bubbles and baskets and go. He’s like, I’m buying a truck.

Donnell Wright [01:41:05]:
I picked up I picked up, like, a £150 of, restaurant napkins, and my truck smelled like food for 2 days. And I was like,

Tahra Wright [01:41:20]:
It’s all good.

Donnell Wright [01:41:21]:
I love it. I love it.

Jordan Berry [01:41:22]:
Well, that’s awesome. I mean, that just means we’re gonna have to have you back on to hear how the pickup and delivery

Tahra Wright [01:41:26]:
How that takes time.

Jordan Berry [01:41:27]:
Over time. Pretty cool. Well, okay. Listen. I I feel like we can just keep talking about

Jordan Berry [01:41:34]:
long acting.

Donnell Wright [01:41:35]:
I’m sorry. Yes.

Jordan Berry [01:41:36]:
No. It’s great. I love I’m loving every second because I I think what I what I’m loving about this is I mean, obviously, you guys are hilarious and just super easy to listen to, and talk to. But, you know, your stories are very interesting. You have done what so many people are trying to do, which is trying to, you know, have an opportunity to leave their 9 to 5 and and build something for themselves, which is what you guys are doing, which is super inspiring. And then just in the way that you guys are are talking, you’re just sharing, like, gold, just in the middle of these stories. Right? There’s just so many, like, practical things. So, I’m loving every second of it.

Jordan Berry [01:42:18]:
Yeah. But let’s here here’s here’s what I wanna do. I wanna do something a little bit different than I normally do. Uh-oh. I mean, in the same vein. I mean, the same vein. A little bit. Normally, we have we normally have a few different segments.

Jordan Berry [01:42:29]:
I’m gonna collapse them down into one segment called pro tips.

Tahra Wright [01:42:32]:
Okay. There

Jordan Berry [01:42:33]:
it is. Aw. I

Jordan Berry [01:42:34]:
always hit the wrong one. Pro tips. And and because, before we hit record, Donnell said, I’ve categorized I have a bunch of tips and I’ve categorized them. So let’s just go through your categories.

Tahra Wright [01:42:46]:
That’s the engineering.

Jordan Berry [01:42:47]:
Typical engineer. I know. In engineering fashion.

Tahra Wright [01:42:49]:
I’m categorizing his

Donnell Wright [01:42:51]:
tips. So

Jordan Berry [01:42:51]:
he’s got a list of tips, and he’s categorized them all. And I wanna hear every single one of them. So let’s jump into that right now.

Donnell Wright [01:42:57]:
Alright. Yeah. So I I I broke pro tips down to 3 categories. The the first pro tip category is team. Right? So I would say, like, because we’ve we’ve expanded our team from 1 to 3 in the space of 8 months. Yeah. I would just say you gotta be patient understanding with your team and treat them like family. Let them know you really appreciate their hard work.

Donnell Wright [01:43:21]:
Celebrate their special moments. And what I mean by that is like a birthday is coming up, you know, like we just had one of our attendants, Cindy, had a birthday a couple weeks ago. It was nothing for us to go get a cake and some balloons and, you know, come in here in a laundromat on a Saturday, walking in with the cake and some candles and singing happy birthday to her and with the other attendants, and she just loved that with flowers and stuff. So, you know, the the way Tara and I are, we feel as though, like, you know, the team is, like, so important for our business. We couldn’t have the successes that we have with Wash Dry Full without them doing all the hard work that they do. So they they need to know that we care. We they need to know that we have we genuinely care about that. Right? And, like like like, I have some attendants that are great and experts and fold quickly.

Donnell Wright [01:44:20]:
I have some that’s a little bit slower to do it, but I know, like, if you show them genuine care and appreciation over time, they’re gonna get better. Mhmm. Everybody learns at a different pace, and I know I do. Right? It takes me forever to learn something, but once I get it, I got it. Right? Tara, she learns much quicker than me. She gets something, and she’s done. You probably got a sense of that doing the whole podcast and stuff. But she’s really introverted, but you could probably couldn’t tell that during this session.

Donnell Wright [01:44:50]:
So that’s a pro tip that, you know, I think is important. Right? And provide your team with a guidebook. Right? So we’ve created, like, a guidebook and I know, Jordan, you guys have some resources. Has some resources and stuff, and we probably use and took from that. I’ve created a guidebook, for them. So they have to understand what we’re expecting from a cleanliness for the store as well as their engagement with customer customer service. So we go over that. And then I do, like, a a a Saturday memo to them just, like, reiterating those tips, like, cleanliness and customer service to them.

Donnell Wright [01:45:27]:
I do that, like, every week. I’ll send it out a little funny thing to them just so that they know. Right? So that’s the team pro tips. The customer pro tips, we probably talked about a little bit of these, like, during this session is, like, you know, be present, you know, if you can at your laundromat laundromat in the beginning. You know, get to know your customers. Right? I know some people don’t have the the time to do that because I know a lot of laundromat owners that own a laundromat. Maybe they still work. I understand that.

Donnell Wright [01:45:55]:
But even with that, if you can, like, maybe make some time available, like, on a weekend, on a Saturday, just to make it a point to go into your store just to genuinely have conversations with your customers, get to know their names, maybe buy some Dunkin’ Donuts and have some donuts and coffee in there, that would be great. I know we often we do that as well. I think that’s critically important and it’s gonna pay dividends that you don’t even know. I gave the tip about get to know your name and the way that I do it. I just use my notepad on my iPhone. And every time a new customer comes in, I’ll put their name in there, and I’ll do some little association to help me remember their name. The next time they come back, I’ll see them in the parking lot. I’ll see them come into the door.

Donnell Wright [01:46:38]:
I’ll quickly look at my notepad, do the reference, and then I’ll greet them as they come in the door with their name. Again, that pays dividends. So if you could take some time to do that, I highly recommend men doing that. Take time to have genuine conversations with your customers as they come in the store. You know? Get to know them. Right? And people can sense, like, when you’re genuine and when you’re not. Right? Right. So, like, I’ve been working in sales for over 20 years, and I’ve read a ton of books that kinda help me develop, you know, the way I approach doing that, but it just it really helps.

Donnell Wright [01:47:15]:
Just the smallest conversation, like, if they have kids, talk about what sports their kids are in. And remember that if maybe a birthday, they party they have for their kids, they tell you that one day they were in, they come back next week, you ask them how was the birthday party. Just little things like that. Now they know that you genuinely care about them. Right? Again, pays dividends. Detergent, like, some customers come in, like, that are regulars. Sometimes they forget their detergent. I give them, you know Yeah.

Donnell Wright [01:47:48]:
Detergent. Like, I know they always come in. They have their own. Maybe sometimes they forgot and I’m like, no. You don’t need to buy or they run out.

Tahra Wright [01:47:55]:
It’s like, you’re not gonna buy 1.

Donnell Wright [01:47:56]:
I sell it here. I said, no. You don’t need to buy it. I just give them detergent or fabric softener. Just, you know, that just kinda shows the genuineness. Right? So I think that goes a long way as well. Give customers a helping hand. So customers come in whether they self serve or wash their own phone customers, I always make it a point to help them to their cars with the the bags that they have.

Donnell Wright [01:48:18]:
Even self serve customers, they have a ton of laundry. I’ll help them out to their car, see if they need help. Or if I’m in the front of the store and I see somebody coming in the door Struggling. Struggling, you know, you may get a point to go and open the door for them and help them position your laundry in front of the machines that they’re gonna use. Right? And my attendants know the same thing. They do the same thing because I wanna show people that we genuinely care. Right? I’m sorry? Cleanliness. Yes.

Donnell Wright [01:48:48]:
Daily cleaning practices. So every night, we clean soap dishes. We clean the leftover soap that’s in there, the leftover softener that’s in there. We wipe down the machine, to its entirety. We wipe off the top of the machines. We clean out the dryer lint trays. We vacuum and mop the floors, and we clean the bathroom. So and wipe off the chairs and tables.

Donnell Wright [01:49:10]:
So every night that gets done. I think that’s critically important, for when you come in the store the next day, it should be it should be clean. And then on Saturdays, we do a deep cleaning of the the machine soap dishes with the disinfectant toothbrushes and stuff. And then we also use a steam cleaner just to make sure that anything lurking between the crevices and cracks that we get those every week. So those are just some pro tips that we, live by, and that’s Mhmm. Helped us become who we are.

Tahra Wright [01:49:41]:
Yeah. So yep. Agreed. I agree with that message.

Jordan Berry [01:49:46]:
You approve it.

Tahra Wright [01:49:47]:
Stand up. Approval. I approve that message.

Jordan Berry [01:49:50]:
Yeah. No.

Jordan Berry [01:49:51]:
I mean, that that was awesome. Thank you for sharing that and even kinda just breaking it down into categories. Because I think, you know, it’s it’s easy to talk about, a lot of like the big big picture stuff. But, like, some of these details, it’s I mean, it’s hard to do that on a podcast when you’re talking about your story and stuff like that. But just taking the time, and I appreciate you putting in some prep work on this actually. And take the time to actually think of some just practical tips and categorizing them and and sharing out there. Because I think that that is, helpful, especially for people who, are either currently running laundromats that could use a boost in their team or, you know, boost in their customer service or, you know, some cleanliness. But also for the people who are getting started, and thinking about what their own laundromat is gonna be like when they when they get it.

Jordan Berry [01:50:42]:
So huge, huge there.

Tahra Wright [01:50:45]:
That’s how we took the protests we learned as we came in having them already written down based upon some of the podcast and then just executing on that as soon as we get. So it’s it’s really is huge.

Jordan Berry [01:50:56]:
Yeah. Well, listen. This has been incredible. I I like I said, this is a long time coming. This is probably, if not the most one of the most anticipated,

Jordan Berry [01:51:07]:
podcast, at least for me.

Tahra Wright [01:51:09]:
So you’re speaking.

Jordan Berry [01:51:10]:
I know. Well, it’s just been so cool to hear and be a small part of that journey and just to kinda watch you guys, go through the process and feeling some of your frustrations with you with getting that location and, you know, trying to figure out how you’re gonna, you know, make everything work for yourselves and and realize that goal of leaving your your job.

Jordan Berry [01:51:33]:
Right? Yeah.

Jordan Berry [01:51:33]:
So it’s been very cool to see you doing that. And, this, generally, this is an awesome, interview. So I appreciate you guys taking the time on your, on your Wednesday day off.

Donnell Wright [01:51:46]:
And my day off.

Jordan Berry [01:51:48]:
You’re giving back over here and, coming on the show and sharing your story. The last question I have for you Mhmm. Is if people wanna connect with you guys, what is the best way for them to you know, if they have questions or they just are digging your vibe or maybe they have a similar goal to you, what’s the best way they can connect with you guys?

Tahra Wright [01:52:07]:
So we are on Facebook and on Instagram. Our handle is bubbles and baskets laundromat. And I am on top of everything on the social. So you send me a message, I’m going to receive it. I’m gonna respond, and we can take it offline or whatever we need to do, but that definitely is the best way to to reach us. So Facebook, Instagram, Bubbles and Baskets Laundromat.

Jordan Berry [01:52:33]:
Awesome. And, again, we’ll have, links to all that stuff in the show notes if you’re on YouTube down below. And if you’re on YouTube, click on over to that link so you can get the chat from the mat Thank you. Over there and go check that out too.

Tahra Wright [01:52:47]:
Thank you.

Jordan Berry [01:52:48]:
Guys, you guys are awesome. Cannot wait to hear sort of the continuation of your guys’ story. Keep killing it over there, serving your customers well, creating an amazing team over there, and, cleaning up the place. Keep keep it sparkling, man.

Tahra Wright [01:53:02]:
Keep it sparkling.

Jordan Berry [01:53:03]:
Thank you.

Tahra Wright [01:53:03]:
It’s like an honor and pleasure to be here. We’re so excited. Thank you so much for having us.

Donnell Wright [01:53:07]:
I really appreciate it. Thank you.

Jordan Berry [01:53:09]:
Anytime. You guys are welcome here anytime you wanna be here. And, looking forward to maybe, hopefully, someday heading over there and, seeing you guys in your in your laundromat in person.

Donnell Wright [01:53:19]:
That would be great.

Jordan Berry [01:53:20]:
You need

Tahra Wright [01:53:20]:
to come over here to the Beast Coast,

Jordan Berry [01:53:23]:
If I have to.

Tahra Wright [01:53:25]:
I know. I know.

Jordan Berry [01:53:28]:
Oh, I guess that’s a great, a great mic drop for you to just end this thing up. So I appreciate you guys, representing the East Coast over there. I’m over here in the West Coast, and we’ll see you guys soon.

Donnell Wright [01:53:40]:
Take care. Take care.

Jordan Berry [01:53:42]:
Alright. Hope you loved that episode with Tara and Donnell. Huge shout out to them. Thank you for coming on the show, sharing your story, sharing so much wisdom. Lot of fun, and a lot of really good stuff in there. As always, it’s so cool hearing people’s stories, hearing the things that other people are doing. But the things other people are doing are not going to help you achieve your goals. You’ve gotta be doing some stuff too to move towards your goals.

Jordan Berry [01:54:09]:
So pick something out of this episode, put it into action this week, and move yourself towards your goals just like Taryn and Danelle are with their goals. Awesome? Awesome. Alright, guys. We’ll see you next week in next week’s episode. Peace.