168. Family Business Dynamics and Entrepreneurship With Lisa Ebanks

Jordan Berry [00:00:00]:
Hey. Hey. What’s up, guys? It’s Jordan with the LornaMed Resource Podcast. This is show 168, and I am pumped you’re here today. Today, we have an awesome guest, Lisa Ebanks, whose husband, Joe Ebanks, was on the show not too long ago. But listen, we gotta get the real scoop here. We gotta get both sides of this thing. So Lisa agreed to come on, and even more special is our very own Madison Anderson actually did this interview.

Jordan Berry [00:00:27]:
So you’re gonna hear Madison and Lisa talking today, all things Laundromats, going through a lot of just practical, just tangible things on how Lisa and Joe are scaling up their business quickly. They got a goal to have 10 Laundromats by the end of the year. Now that’s an ambitious, ambitious goal, so I’m rooting for them. Hopefully, you guys can get behind them too and learn all these lessons they are learning, along the way. So I know you’re gonna love this thing. Today’s Fastlane tip is, hey, did you know most of the podcast interviews that I’ve done with people in this industry, those people have shared an email address or a website or a phone number that you can reach them at. So, hey, if you’ve listened to past episodes and you’re resonating with these guys, listen, there’s nothing better than to connect with other people in this industry. That’s what this whole thing is all about, connecting people, sharing, and helping each other do better, serve better, go farther, go faster.

Jordan Berry [00:01:30]:
And, that’s what this episode is all about too. So you’re gonna love it. Enjoy your time with Madison and Lisa, and I will catch you on the backside there.

Madison Anderson [00:01:39]:
What is up, everybody? I know this is not to what you guys are used to. Yes. You do not have to adjust your screens. This is me, Madison Anderson, represented for the Lingerbat Resource Podcast. I know you’re, like you’re thinking, did Jordan turn into a little black girl? No. He didn’t. This is Madison Anderson coming live to you from the laundromat Resource podcast. This is my first solo podcast, so I’m gonna need all of y’all’s input, good and bad.

Madison Anderson [00:02:06]:
I’m a take all the bad ones because we need the engagement. And, yes, tell me how I do it after this is all said and done. I hope y’all get a lot from this. I know I’m gonna get a lot from this. I got my questions ready. We have Lisa e Banks here with us. We have we previously had her husband come on the podcast and, we were like, that’s cool and all, but we really wanna talk to the person who who really who really got it like that. So how are you doing today, Lisa?

Lisa Ebanks [00:02:33]:
I’m good. Thank you for having me. Alright. Let’s do this. Let let let the women do this,

Madison Anderson [00:02:39]:
Okay. Because it’s a rare it’s a rare situation. You see 2 beautiful black women on your screen. Okay? Also, so if you guys haven’t already checked out Joe E. Banks podcast, episode 153, please check that out after this one. But if you have already, if you guys have already, watched that podcast, I’m sure you guys are gonna love this one. We’re not gonna hit on the same topics as we did in the last one. This is gonna be all about operations.

Madison Anderson [00:03:11]:
We’re gonna get down to the nitty gritty on the operations, a little bit of marketing, a little bit of SOPs, a little bit of what’s the future plans, so please stay tuned. So, Lisa, please. We know from the previous podcast that your husband did that you guys started in real estate and jumped in to laundromats, back to back laundromats at that. How many how many laundromats did you guys acquire?

Lisa Ebanks [00:03:34]:
Well, I mean, a lot. We’ve we’ve been doing a lot of things since Joe got on his podcast. We were we’re on track. We wanna have 10 by the end of the year. A couple of them, we had some issues with, like, leases as far as that killing the deal. You know if you don’t have a good lease, you don’t have a deal. And we’re not just gonna buy anything if the numbers don’t make sense. So since then, we have 3 laundromats right now, and then one of them 2 of them fell out of contract.

Lisa Ebanks [00:04:02]:
And then now we have 4 that we’re actually going through looking at the numbers. Today, I’m actually gonna go with Joe today and look at, you know, another possibility opportunity for a laundromaster. Sometimes things don’t work out the way they’re supposed to, or you think they don’t work out the way they’re supposed to and they work out just how they’re supposed to if if you understand what I’m saying.

Madison Anderson [00:04:23]:
I do. I get you a 100%. That’s awesome. And how many you so now you have 4. The goal was to have how many by, this month, by the end of the month?

Lisa Ebanks [00:04:34]:
I think by June, we wanted to have at least 5 by June. So we’ll be a little little behind that goal, but that’s okay because we’re revamping. Now that we have at least 3, we’re gonna start bringing them all to look the same. We’re gonna rename everything, do a lot of retooling, a lot of rehabbing. A lot of things are gonna be happening. So now as we go forward and we add more to our portfolio, we’ll have our system ready to go and we can just breeze right into these things because, you know, the reason why we do this is cash flow. So we’re trying to basically get everything and organize and create a well oiled machine right now.

Madison Anderson [00:05:11]:
Wow. That is amazing. So y’all have acquired 4 laundromats in about a half a year span. Is that correct?

Lisa Ebanks [00:05:19]:
Yeah. I mean, what is this, like, 7 months? I think it’s about 7 months now. And it’s not like look. We fell into the laundromat business. It’s not like we just said we’re gonna go buy a laundromat. I mean, I’m sure you guys heard how Joe said we got into a laundromat business. And then since we bought the first one, the next thing you know, hey. Do you guys wanna know about this one? There’s another one over here.

Lisa Ebanks [00:05:40]:
You want so people are just bringing opportunities to us because, you know, we’re ready. We want more. You know? So it’s it’s just like it’s the way God is working this thing and I’m look. I’m I’m I’m following the path.

Madison Anderson [00:05:51]:
Okay. Because he’s the shepherd and we’re gonna follow the shepherd.

Lisa Ebanks [00:05:56]:
There you go.

Madison Anderson [00:05:58]:
Yes. That is all we still got the goal of owning 10 by the end of the year. We are on track. So

Lisa Ebanks [00:06:05]:
I mean, as far as, like, me and Joe, I don’t know if Joe told you guys, like, how we met. Did he even go into, like, any event?

Madison Anderson [00:06:14]:
Did he? That’s a good question. Let’s

Lisa Ebanks [00:06:17]:
I must admit I didn’t watch the whole podcast. Don’t tell Joe that.

Madison Anderson [00:06:21]:
Listen, you get enough of his voice at the house. We that’s fine. That’s fine. But if you wanna go ahead and tell us how you guys met and how you guys got started in entrepreneurship. I would love to hear that because that’s a part of my questions. I need to get all into the dirt.

Lisa Ebanks [00:06:37]:
K. Daryl, you want to tease. Okay. So I don’t know. So me and Joe met, like, 20 some years ago. His uncle was, like, my manager back in the day and he was, like, hey, you know, I have a nephew, I I think that you guys would be good to together, you know, I wasn’t even an entrepreneur yet, you know, I was just I was, like, what, 22? I I was working at budget car rental at Tampa International Airport. His uncle was my manager. He told me about them, but, you know, I was like, yeah.

Lisa Ebanks [00:07:05]:
Yeah. I wasn’t really, you know, really like, you know, really into them like that, but I was like, okay. We’ll give it a try. Fast forward when I met Joe, he was actually in the mortgage business, and then he was doing his very first flip. And what’s great about his story is his family, like his uncles and his dad, they all come from, you know, that entrepreneur background to where they used to have their own painting companies up in New Jersey. Their grandfather had a big painting company. They were already into, you know, knowing how to fix and flip a house. So Joe was doing his very first flip on his own, and, you know, that made me say, well, you know what? Let me go get my real estate license, and I can sell this.

Lisa Ebanks [00:07:45]:
I can learn this and sell this for you. So, you know, I got into that fast forward. I was like, well, I got my license, but you seem to be making way more money doing this fix and flip. I wanna learn all about that. So I kept my license, but I went over to the investor side. And since then, you know, Joe would be the face. He would talk to the sellers. You’ll put them on the contract.

Lisa Ebanks [00:08:05]:
I would I would take the contract. I would talk to the title company, talk to the buyers because we were doing wholesaling at that time, and we just basically ran a wholesale business and started making 2.50 our 1st year, and then we build that up to about 800 some thousand by, you know, right before the crash, and and that was our business model. And what what great for us is Joe’s a visionary. He has these big, big ideas that, you know, he wants to put in place, and I’m the integrator. So I listen to what Joe say. Sometimes it’s a little scary, but, you know, he he has a vision. That’s what he wants to do. And then I take it, and I reverse engineer it, and I and I implement it.

Lisa Ebanks [00:08:41]:
I’m the integrator. So our relationship has worked pretty great as far as being in business again. And we’ve been in business together for many years. We’ve been together for about 20 years now. You know, we have a whole bunch of kids, but, you know, that’s another topic.

Madison Anderson [00:08:55]:
How many kids do y’all have right now? I said right now, like, don’t play that anymore.

Lisa Ebanks [00:09:00]:
I I have one and he had 2, and then we end up getting married, and then we had 3 more. So we have 6 kids. We have 3 older kids that are in their late twenties, and then I don’t know what’s wrong with me. And then we have 3 younger kids. My youngest is 9, so can’t wait to they, you know, grow up.

Madison Anderson [00:09:17]:
Feel your girl. Having to hit the reset button? Oh, I’m debating that right now. My daughter is getting to that age to where the age gap is starting not to make sense anymore. And I’m thinking like, okay.

Lisa Ebanks [00:09:30]:
How old is she?

Madison Anderson [00:09:32]:
She’s she’s about to be 6. Me and my sister are 6 years apart. I feel like if we reach anything past 7, it’s not gone. It’s

Lisa Ebanks [00:09:41]:
Look. My oldest son is 10 years apart from my from my 16 year old daughter, so I I get it. I met when I met my husband, he had 2 sons, and they were all, like, back to back. I think my youngest son was 6 or 7, then he had a 8 year old and a 9 year old. So they were they all grew up together, and that was great. But then when we got married, he he wanted to have another child and one turned into 3. And then after that, I was like, okay. I’m done.

Madison Anderson [00:10:07]:
Girl, he got you. He got you good, girl.

Lisa Ebanks [00:10:08]:
Got me, girl. Blood heavy. That’s it. We have grandchildren. Okay? We have grandchildren, so I’m good with being grandma right now.

Madison Anderson [00:10:16]:
I feel that. I feel like grandmas, y’all gotta mate. Y’all gotta be. Y’all don’t have to keep the children. Y’all can love on them, spoil them, cherish those moments from when your children were, you know, nice and peaceful in newborn stage, and then you just send them back and

Lisa Ebanks [00:10:28]:
they start

Madison Anderson [00:10:28]:
back up.

Lisa Ebanks [00:10:29]:
Give them back. Here you go. Spoil them and make it difficult for them like they did us.

Madison Anderson [00:10:34]:
Honestly, I tell my mom all the time, grandparents are the best and the worst invention ever because y’all don’t listen. Because y’all don’t listen, but y’all will take the children, and that is appreciated. So y’all have 6 kids total. My god. What’s the ratio, boy to girl ratio?

Lisa Ebanks [00:10:51]:
What do we have? We have 4 boys and 2 girls. So the older 3 year old boys, you know, that what are they? 26, 27, 28. And then the younger ones, the 16 year old, that’s my daughter. I have a a 13 year old, soon to be 13 year old, and she reminds me every single day that her birthday’s coming up. She’s about to be 13. And then the youngest is our young son, and he’s 9. So yeah. And that’s it.

Lisa Ebanks [00:11:13]:
No more.

Madison Anderson [00:11:15]:
Okay. Put a period at the end of that sentence. That’s perfect. And y’all have been in real estate the entire time y’all been together, so about 20 years?

Lisa Ebanks [00:11:23]:
Yeah. About 20 years. Yes. As soon as I met him, he was flipping his first house. So we were doing fix and flips, and then next thing you know, we transitioned into wholesaling. And wholesaling before it got real big the way it is now, we were doing it way back in, like, 2014, 2015. And we did that for a couple of years, and then we were like, okay. We’re giving away all these amazing deals.

Lisa Ebanks [00:11:45]:
We might as well start taking some of them down ourselves. So we start, you know, fixing and flipping some of those big big deals. That’s that’s especially how we bought our own house that we live in now. It was a wholesale deal that we end up keeping. Then we went into multifamily, and now Joe is he’s into building luxury houses out on the beach on Reddington Beach. So yeah. We still love real estate. Real estate is a great tool and and especially it helps our laundromats as well, but that’s our long term game.

Lisa Ebanks [00:12:12]:
The laundromats are, like, short term. Like, that’s our cash flow. That’s where we make our money right now. And then our multifamily and anything we do in the developing world, gonna you know, you have to stabilize that for the next 2 to 3 years. So that’s our long term money. So I think we’re gonna stay with these two avenues. Mhmm.

Madison Anderson [00:12:27]:
Mhmm. That’s perfect. When you got into real estate, did you say bye to that budget job?

Lisa Ebanks [00:12:34]:
Yeah. What? Yeah. I said bye to the yeah. I said bye to the budget job. Yeah. Why when I get my license and I started, you know, hanging in with a a broker, started learning a little things, you know, networking, meaning, mingling, and mixed with all these different people. I said bye to the budget job. And then, you know, I think his uncle, he might have stayed there for maybe another year, and then he went on to some big sales management job somewhere else.

Lisa Ebanks [00:12:58]:
So we both said bye. Mhmm.

Madison Anderson [00:13:01]:
I know that’s right. And when how old were you when you did get into, real estate?

Lisa Ebanks [00:13:06]:
Let’s see. I met Joe when I was, like, 23, so it had to be 24. The next year, 24 is when I started to get my license. Now

Madison Anderson [00:13:14]:
I’m having my license. Have any type of entrepreneurship background?

Lisa Ebanks [00:13:18]:
Okay. So, my dad, yes. That’s where my inspiration, that’s where that’s my why, that’s where everything comes from. My dad, like, when I was growing up, my dad was murdered when he was when I was about 17. So I only have my dad in my life up until the age of 17. But while he was here, he always had his own business. He always showed us, you know, how to run your own business. And it’s funny, right before he died, he got into mortgages.

Lisa Ebanks [00:13:42]:
So I’m sure if he would’ve still been alive today, he probably would’ve transitioned, you know, right into, you know, what we are doing. So, yeah, I I I got that, you know, that that entrepreneur spirit from my dad, and then I happened to run into Joe who has so many similarities to my dad. Their name’s Joe. My dad’s name was Joe. I’m married to Joe. Isn’t it weird?

Madison Anderson [00:14:04]:
That is

Lisa Ebanks [00:14:04]:
so crazy. It just clicked and it’s you know, we we’ve been doing this ever since.

Madison Anderson [00:14:09]:
That is amazing. And that 24, when you did jump into entrepreneurship, that was full time full time entrepreneurship.

Lisa Ebanks [00:14:17]:
I mean, there there have been we’ve always done real estate, but there have been other businesses. I remember we used to own a landscaping business because, you know, we have properties and instead of paying somebody else to do it, we was like, well, why not just have our own landscaping business? So we had that for a while. We build that up alongside our real estate business and we end up selling that. And then we call ourselves buying a jazz club in Tampa. Oh my god. I don’t know why we did that. Did that for a little bit. Learn yeah.

Lisa Ebanks [00:14:44]:
We didn’t wanna do that, so we were done with that. But we’ve always came back to real estate. That’s been, you know, our that’s been our staple in in in the things that we do.

Madison Anderson [00:14:53]:
That’s awesome. And you guys have done that full time? Like, no other 9 to fives, part times, DoorDashin’, nothing like that?

Lisa Ebanks [00:15:02]:
No. I mean, it it’s been all or nothing. I mean, it isn’t it was no plan b. This was plan a. A, b, c, d, e, f. You’d be like, this is what we stuck with. The highs now don’t get me wrong. Like, we’ve been through many things, but we we stayed the course.

Lisa Ebanks [00:15:16]:
We might have pivot within real estate to something like a different strategy, but we’ve always been in the real estate game. Buying the larger man, we just basically apply what we learned and how we ran our real estate operations to the larger man business. So we kinda went ahead and

Madison Anderson [00:15:32]:
That’s amazing. Yes. Full time the entire time. No plan B through Z.

Lisa Ebanks [00:15:38]:
She said no plan B.

Madison Anderson [00:15:42]:
I love that. I feel like when, when I do see a lot of people in the Facebook groups that are either interested in laundromats or are operating laundromats, They do a handful of other different things that may not even relate to like cleaning or real estate or anything like that is like, yep. I own a laundromat, but I also do, you know, shoe shining or don’t that’s related. Or I do like, let me think I have a daycare or I have, a microchip company or something like that. It’s like, okay.

Lisa Ebanks [00:16:11]:
And I think a lot of people where they get lost and where they where they, don’t become successful is because they’re doing too many other different things that has nothing to do with their main business. If you’re gonna focus on one lane, you need to stay in that lane. Now you could do sub businesses that all relate to that business that you’re running, but if you’re running a day care and a laundromat, your focus is gonna go where you focus. So if you focus more on your day care, you’re gonna you’re not gonna grow your laundromat business and vice versa. People, like, with the laundromat business, if you’re gonna be in the laundromat business and you first get started and you start out on the coin operated side and you say you wanna add pickup and delivery or wash, dry, fold, that’s within the laundry business. So you’re focusing on all that at the same time, but running something different. Who let me see. I know someone that runs a, a business notary business or they’re doing they’re doing other, well, I guess credit still goes along with it, but they’re doing many different things and and where your focus goes, that’s where your money goes to at the same time.

Lisa Ebanks [00:17:11]:
So that’s why anytime we’ve ever owned the business, we made sure whatever biz whatever other income strategy we add to our current business, it all falls together. So that way, we can still stay the course and still remain on the same path. So, I mean, if people would just do that, they would become a little more successful in what they want to be successful in.

Madison Anderson [00:17:31]:
I agree. I totally agree. A 100 per I I would say at least a 100% focus on one Yeah. On one thing. At least 100%, please, y’all, because we don’t we don’t need all these side failures. I feel like that just hurts the ego. What a side of the down. Yes.

Madison Anderson [00:17:50]:
Alright. So let’s get into marriage and business because I have some questions. So it’s me and my man’s we’re gonna get married soon. We’re about to start marriage counseling, and he is a, engineer. He is a software developer right now, but he is on this wave of building out, like, a handheld toy, and he’s like, you know what my dream is, Maddie? I’m like, what, baby? He’s like, my dream he’s like, my dream my ultimate dream is just to own and operate a company with you. And I said, oh, really? But my gag the gag is we’ve worked together before previously in, my company where he built my website. I gave him something that I knew he would be great at, and we started butting heads. I wanna know about y’all’s operation.

Madison Anderson [00:18:34]:
Have y’all been in business together since y’all have been married, like, the entire time of y’all’s marriage and togetherness?

Lisa Ebanks [00:18:41]:
Yeah. I mean, me and Joe, we we’ve done this thing. Any business we’ve been in, we’ve been in it together. And there have been some head bumping along the way. But being that we’ve been together so long, well, first of all, it’s important to be with someone that you’re on the same page with, that you both have the same goals, you both share the same vision for where you want your family to go, and you both support each other’s dreams. Because, I mean, if you don’t wanna at least have that foundation, you’re in for a a very rocky start, middle, ending, you know, period in business. And then we’ve learned along the way is you gotta stay in your lane. Like, I remember that was my keyword.

Lisa Ebanks [00:19:20]:
Whenever I saw Joe jump over him, like, hey, stay in your lane. Even the employees at 1 of our at our wholesaling company, they would tell him whenever he gets out of his lane. Joe, you better stay in your lane. At least we’re gonna tell you that’s not something you’re supposed to be working on. So it’s important to know your job roles. If you 2 are gonna work together, then you have to sit down and you have to say, okay, I’ll be responsible for this, this, this, and that, and you be responsible for that. And then we’ll come together and we’ll have our means. And I’ll tell you what I’ve accomplished.

Lisa Ebanks [00:19:47]:
You tell me what you accomplished, and then we’ll talk about how we can improve upon what we’re doing. But it’s important for you to know your your job roles and your responsibilities. That’s why we run EOS. We use traction in all our businesses, and we set up our job roles now. Not it wasn’t always like that in the beginning, but now in order for us to take our family to the next level and accomplish the things we want to accomplish, first, we’re on the same page, number 1. But number 2, we make sure we do we stay in our lanes. You know what I’m saying? I do what I do. He does what he does, and we don’t cross over or or else I don’t cross over, but, you know, you gotta ask Joe Ebanks if if he’s sticking up to his his his line.

Madison Anderson [00:20:28]:
Not saying he

Lisa Ebanks [00:20:28]:
doesn’t cross over sometimes, but he knows. You know?

Madison Anderson [00:20:32]:
Mhmm. Mhmm. I totally get it. And how would you define y’all’s lanes? I know that from the episode that we had previously with Joe, he’s more of the, the hide and seeker, defined and the seeker on when it comes to laundromatza real estate and your HR and operations. Is that is that true?

Lisa Ebanks [00:20:51]:
That’s pretty much what we do. Like, he’ll find them. I mean, he’s finding them so fast. I’m like, dude, slow down. Like, he was like, why do we need to slow down? I’m like, calm okay. Let’s put these processes in place first before you buy the next one. He’s like, I’m hot. I’m on it.

Lisa Ebanks [00:21:03]:
I’m you know, we’re we’re we’re we have a goal of what we want to achieve, but I’m like, dude, let us let us get this under get this all together. So, basically, he was right about that. That is our he finds them, and I do operate them. But I mean, when it comes to running like the employees dealing with that, dealing with payroll, dealing with, like the customers because I’m very hands on with our customers and, you know, I’m very hands on with being at the actual laundromat with our employees. That that’s my job Joe will come when it’s time to do our rehab and he’ll run the contractors who make sure all of that gets done even after you know we buy it so we still stay in our lanes sometimes and unless Joe comes over and he happens to walk up and the customer walks up he might take a order. I’ll let him have that. But other than that, stay out of the way, Joe.

Madison Anderson [00:21:54]:
No. That’s right. Is that the same when it does come to real estate as well or is your y’all’s sole focus right now is the 10 laundromats for this year?

Lisa Ebanks [00:22:04]:
Well, I mean, well, our focus is to do the 10 laundromats, but at the same time, Joe is also focusing on building luxury houses over on the beach. So, I mean, you have to have a team. You have to have great leadership in order to lead people in the position that you put them in. So that way you’re able to go and run these multiple businesses at the same time. So, yes, Joe, he comes and he focuses on a laundromat at the stage wherever I need him to be and then he goes back over and and does his thing.

Madison Anderson [00:22:35]:
Gotcha. So you don’t go over to real estate with him or you or how does that work?

Lisa Ebanks [00:22:40]:
As far as the what he’s doing with his new bills, I mean, no. I I kinda don’t get involved with the new bills, but multifamily, you know, I I I do, you know, give them a little input over there on multifamily. But laundromat is basically, like, where I choose to, like, have my focus in the day to day operations to make sure that, you know, everything is is is happening how it’s supposed to be.

Madison Anderson [00:23:00]:
Love that. Is that how it is in the household too? Everybody’s got their lane. You focus on these 3 kids, I focus on these 3 kids.

Lisa Ebanks [00:23:07]:
No. Actually, Joe is Joe, like, the kids. Okay. So, Joe’s taking up golfing, you know, he’s trying to become, Tiger Woods. I don’t know him and him and his son, like, my my youngest son and my my my older daughter, they love the golf and they can actually golf. So Joe, like, he’s very hands on with the kids. There’s it’s funny because I hear, you know, you’re on social media and they’re like, oh, the man should do this. We we actually don’t have that.

Lisa Ebanks [00:23:32]:
Sometimes Joe cooks, which is shocking. Sometimes he’ll clean. Although, you know, he’ll hire a cleaning company in a in a hot minute because, you know, he not gonna do that all the time. But I’m just saying, like, at home, it’s kinda like we just jump in wherever at home versus at when during business, we stay in Atlanta. Because, you know, you don’t wanna have the argument. You don’t wanna have the tension. And I like whenever we have a problem. One thing about when we’re facing the issue, it’s me and Joe against the issue.

Lisa Ebanks [00:23:59]:
It’s never me and Joe arguing about the issue and the issue coming between us. We have a problem. We need to work on fixing it. We don’t dwell on the negative. We don’t dwell on, oh my god. The sky is falling. The sky is falling. What do we need to do to fix it? So that’s a a great quality to have in a partner.

Lisa Ebanks [00:24:15]:
Don’t tell him that I, you know, I said this, but, I mean We won’t let him know. But his head getting big, you know?

Madison Anderson [00:24:24]:
I hear you on that one because lord have mercy, we know that these men do not need bigger heads.

Lisa Ebanks [00:24:29]:
But he’s hard headed now. Don’t get it wrong. Joe is still hard headed, but, you know, having meanings and and basically saying, oh, if if you do come over into my lane, what’s your lane looking like? Did you do this, this, and that? And then and if you haven’t, then it sounds like you need to jump back over there. Otherwise, mind your business. You

Madison Anderson [00:24:47]:
know? Okay. Hurry, you better stay on sit down, you know, sit away

Lisa Ebanks [00:24:52]:
But I’m welcome to help. I mean, I I like I like when he gets involved as far as, like, walking around the laundromat, talking to the customers, building rapport, like, there are some customers that we have from when we first closed the laundromat that they met Joe and they know him, and they’re like, hey. And Joe goes and and builds great rapport. You never know who you’re gonna meet. I mean, there’s all types of, professionals and and many different people that come through the laundromat. So, I mean, even the guy that we we you know, the first guy that we met when we first closed the laundromat, he came. Joe was like, oh, I love your hat. He brought Joe a hat and was like, hey.

Lisa Ebanks [00:25:27]:
I noticed you love my hat. Here’s here’s a fedora for you so that way, you know, we can look like twins or or, you know, you really keep this place going. I wanna make sure that, you know, I show my appreciation to you because you guys are doing a good job and you treat us right. So I like when he’s really involved on that. And I I I really don’t, you know, fuss with fuss with him at that when he’s when he’s mingling and mixing with the customers.

Madison Anderson [00:25:48]:
That’s awesome. Now since y’all have been together for 20 years and y’all have been in business together for that entire time, how many businesses have y’all had? I know we heard landscaping, we heard real estate, we heard jazz.

Lisa Ebanks [00:26:02]:
Yeah. We called the Fox jazz club. I Joe always wanted to own the club, so we did that. It’s not pretty much it. Everything else has been surrounded around real estate, the landscaping business. Yeah. That’s yeah. And the laundromats now.

Lisa Ebanks [00:26:19]:
Yeah. That that’s though those are all the businesses we have.

Madison Anderson [00:26:23]:
Gotcha. So in your view, it’s safe to say that the jazz club was the worst one out of all of those. Okay. And

Lisa Ebanks [00:26:30]:
it and it’s not that it was the worst one. It’s that we came into a situation where we didn’t know that there was politics going on between the management company and the building where it was. So I’m not gonna say that I would never, like, would ever wanna buy a club again, but now I know if we ever were to decide to buy, like, that type of club here in Tampa to own the building. You see

Madison Anderson [00:26:52]:
what I’m saying?

Lisa Ebanks [00:26:52]:
So that way, you don’t have any of those issues because if it was a standalone building that we owned, then we can control that environment, and we wouldn’t have the issues with the management company and the and the building itself. That was a learning lesson.

Madison Anderson [00:27:06]:
Mhmm. She was

Lisa Ebanks [00:27:07]:
a learning lesson, but it was a learning lesson.

Madison Anderson [00:27:10]:
Hey. We gotta learn them. Expensive or cheap? We we all gotta put in our dues. Now out of all those businesses, what would you say is the best so far?

Lisa Ebanks [00:27:18]:
Oh, it’s all hands down real estate. Like, oh my god. We love it. We we we try when we go on dates, you know, to have a nice date night and not talk about any business and try to keep it personal. But, I mean, we just get so excited about real estate and real estate deals and things that happen, and laundromat, it just always comes back to that. So sometimes we gotta kinda, like, you know, say, okay, this is really truly date night. Let’s let this be date night, but we actually love what we do. So it’s not like it’s a job.

Lisa Ebanks [00:27:43]:
It’s not like we’re working. It’s it’s it’s a part of us. You know? Our kids are a part of it. Our family is a part of it, and, you know, we just enjoy it. And flipping into laundromat, they were just like, wow. That that’s really exciting. They just love to see us hop into new things and not be afraid to do it because, listen, I’m a figure it out. If I fail, I’m still gonna keep pushing and I’m gonna figure it out.

Lisa Ebanks [00:28:08]:
We just don’t stop. We don’t give up. You know? Coming into laundry mats was it was it was natural from what we were already doing.

Madison Anderson [00:28:16]:
Mhmm. That’s awesome. I love that. Ciao. I have 6 kids. 3 of them out the dough. 3 of them in the dough. How how y’all doing this? Because y’all y’all making my head hurt thinking about this.

Lisa Ebanks [00:28:28]:
We doing it. I mean Yes. Yeah. Our our life is very busy and hectic, but we still have to take time to check-in with our kids and check-in with their mental health. Like, I’m always checking in with with my daughters to find out, you know, how they’re feeling. What what are they, you know, what are they dealing when I check-in with them at school. Even my young son, like, my young son, for a lot of people that don’t know, Joe is dyslexic, and so is my older daughter and my youngest son. And we’ve hired people.

Lisa Ebanks [00:28:57]:
We’ve hired a a dyslexic coach, a therapist, you know, people that can that can help them maneuver because, I mean, it’s like it’s a superpower for them. You know how how their brains, they think totally different than us, and I’m trying to help my son have those tools in place so that way he can take and he don’t feel like he’s struggling or like his father did. Like, his father really had a hard time with him growing up as a child, and it’s a blessing that he’s here and we’re able to get the resources and give them to our kids so that way they don’t have to go through, you know, what he went through when he was younger. So we we’re always checking in with them. We’re always having family game nights. We travel with our kids, you know, a certain amount of times a year. And then, you know, we have our mommy and daddy things that we do and our date nights and our and our trips that we take alone, but we make sure that we include our kids in this because we want our kids to see the type of life that we’re living. So that way we can leave a legacy for them, and they’ll do the same thing for their kids.

Madison Anderson [00:29:55]:
That’s amazing. You definitely have to lead by example when it does come to kids. I’m learning that every freaking day. My guys is like the things that I have displayed to my daughter, Winnie, like, when she when I come across something that’s difficult before therapy, I would scream. I would, like, take I would take myself to the car to scream or I would punch the pillow or I’d tell daddy hold this pillow real quick, and I would punch the pillow. And I started to see Winnie, like, when she was playing with Barbies and whatnot, she’s yelling. Like, the Barbies are yelling at each other. I’m like, okay.

Madison Anderson [00:30:29]:
I can’t do that no more. And we have to also tell her, like, it’s okay to have big feelings, but let’s let’s both work on other ways to display these feelings. Even when it does come to getting up and trying things again it’s, it’s the same thing. I have to lead by example. This is hard. But

Lisa Ebanks [00:30:48]:
that’s good that you noticed that and you redirected yourself. I mean, when we were younger, what we were taught to be seen and not heard, you know, we were the way our parents raised us back in the day was a whole different way that we’re trying to raise our children. And it’s good that you were self aware and, and you noticed that and you said, okay, I gotta do something about it. I gotta make a change about it because you know, your kids mirror what they see.

Madison Anderson [00:31:10]:
Mhmm.

Lisa Ebanks [00:31:10]:
You know, we we, it’s not like that I I wasn’t yelling. Everything that I learned as a child didn’t bring it over into my adulthood, but it came a time where I was like, no. I wanna do something different. I we seek therapy. We talk to a therapist. We we work on our triggers our traumas our triumphs we we have a therapy coach that we talk to that helps us because you need that as an entrepreneur you need someone that can help you with your business need someone that can help you with your your health because your health is everything If you don’t have that, how are you gonna take these businesses and and be there for your children? We need someone to help you with your mental health. All of that is very important, so that’s good that you saw that and and you started working on it. You go ahead, Madison.

Madison Anderson [00:31:52]:
Thank you, girl. Thank you. Let me say it to myself. You go ahead, Madison.

Lisa Ebanks [00:31:56]:
Girl, pat yourself on the mat. Thank you.

Madison Anderson [00:32:00]:
That’s awesome. Okay. We gonna we gonna step out of we gonna step out of the family and the marriage. We’re gonna talk about laundromat operations because that’s what I really wanna know. A lot of people out here are not operating their laundromats like they supposed to, and it from from a bird’s eye view, it looks like y’all are doing such a wonderful job. I I stalk y’all on Instagram. I surely do. I saw I see everything.

Madison Anderson [00:32:23]:
I see I love I love the event that y’all just hosted, the free laundry day. Was that it?

Lisa Ebanks [00:32:30]:
Yes. That was awesome. Oh, I loved it too. That was amazing. And we’re gonna do more of that. That’s what the community needs. And, you know, I tell the community, I tell the people in the laundromat, look, we are blessed to be able to own and operate a laundromat, but it’s not our laundromat. I mean, it’s the community laundromat.

Lisa Ebanks [00:32:46]:
So to give back to them and to show them that we’re here, we’re care, we’re not just in the business just to make money, but we also want to pour into the people that live there. You got to do that. I mean, I know a lot of operators probably don’t do that. They might turn their nose down to stuff like that, but I’m not. I mean, listen, I’m from the hood. I’m a little black girl from the hood of St. Pete. So to see someone that looks like me that owns a laundromat, and I’m able to do this and show little little young black girls and little young black boys that, hey, this is possible.

Lisa Ebanks [00:33:16]:
You gotta, you gotta pour into your communities. You gotta, you don’t just take from them. You gotta do that. So this is why we do this, and we’re gonna be doing that more at each and every one of our laundromats. So, yeah.

Madison Anderson [00:33:26]:
I love that. That’s what I envision for my laundromat as well. The laundromat that I work at, if y’all don’t know my story, I started a laundry, a laundry delivery company, ran that for about a year and a half, shut it down due to not putting, money in the right buckets in the business. And after 8 months, I wasn’t able to find a job, so I started working at the laundromat that I ran my laundry delivery company out of. In this place, 30 years old, borderline zombie mat, heat he the the AC is struggling, and the heat is running up in that laundromat. And, the owner does not really care about the community. Every time, like, a customer does something silly, he really goes in and, like, dogs on that on that customer behind their back, of course, and doesn’t offer anything, any type of community service, community support services in the laundromat. I have taken it upon myself to do that.

Madison Anderson [00:34:19]:
Like, if I do see homeless customers come in, I’m like, hey, would you like a free wash today, etcetera, etcetera, offering the kids snacks, coloring books so they don’t run amok in this laundromat. But I really love that that you guys do offer that.

Lisa Ebanks [00:34:32]:
It sound like you should own that laundromat. Why don’t you own that laundromat? You need to buy that laundromat. You want us to buy it with you?

Madison Anderson [00:34:39]:
Honey, if y’all wanna start the the laundromat train, let’s get into it. Let’s help let’s get this laundromat up up and running in Charlotte, North Carolina the way it’s supposed to be ran. Okay? Yeah. I’m the only person type

Lisa Ebanks [00:34:52]:
of laundromats that we buy. What you just described to us is what we’re buying all day long because they don’t even have websites. They don’t even have operating procedures they don’t have anything in place they’re just and you know some people that’s the type of business that they want to have and that might be okay for them you know like I’m not I’m not you know putting that down or anything but not for us. We’re we’re trying to build a culture to where we’re helping the community. We’re also helping our employees because, you know, we have I’ll I’ll tell you about our employee story just a little later, but I’m just we want to build something different than what we have seen as we go and look at these many different type of laundromat. So what you just just described is something that we will buy in Charlotte, and if you ever get the opportunity to buy that, talk to us. You know? We’ll come to Charlotte.

Madison Anderson [00:35:40]:
I’m a talk to I’m a talk to all of y’all. Y’all comment down below if y’all wanna help. Let’s help each other because this comment is lovely. I’m here to give you that. Please. Perfect. Well, speaking of, you know, since we’re on this topic of owning of, you know, starting into the laundromat industry and taking over a laundromat, let’s talk about what y’all did when y’all first got the keys to the first laundromat. What were some of the, what were some of the things that you did? Did you paint deep clean, upgrade machines, etcetera, etcetera? Let us know.

Lisa Ebanks [00:36:14]:
So the first laundry mat we were lucky to buy, it had newer machines. So we didn’t have to do anything. The machines were, like, 2 to 3 years old. So so we got lucky there. But it was an outside laundromat. It was, you know, it was very, very hot. It had a lot of fans. The floors were, like, buckling because the rain would come in, so the floors would buckle.

Lisa Ebanks [00:36:36]:
It had cats everywhere. The place was just a nightmare. So what we do is whenever we buy a larger mat, we execute our business plan first. So our business plan consists of what kind of rehab do we need to do? What kind of painting? What kind of what how do what do we need to do to get this thing looking up to par? We do that first. Then after that, we evaluate machines, like, can these machines be fixed? Do we need to, replace anything? Is this a a total retool project? We we look into that. So then we’ll we’ll go into the machines and then after that, we just start putting in our systems and our and our processes. All the laundromats that we bought had no systems and logic I mean no systems and processes. We had to do everything from scratch because it was just, you know, mom and pop, something they got into something they didn’t really want to do so we had to you know do what a site and we we we had to add a POS system we had to hire employees none of them had employees we had to hire we had to do everything from scratch which was fun at the same time but the point is that whenever we go into a laundromat we go in with our business plan and that’s written before we even close I mean some of them we probably even have to do like the electrical and the plumbing we do everything to get it up to par so that way when we hire, we have our employee going into a safe, clean, and an environment where all the machines are working so they can hit the ground running from day 1 when we get to that point.

Madison Anderson [00:38:04]:
I love that. That’s crazy that it had no SOPs to even, like, work off of y’all’s first laundromat. Y’all was really, like, well, here we are. Here we are.

Lisa Ebanks [00:38:15]:
But the rehab part was fun because that’s what we do. Now as far as, like, learning the laundry business itself, we we joined the coin laundry association. Laundromat Resource was our biggest Jordan’s, what’s the tool where you analyze that?

Madison Anderson [00:38:33]:
Oh, wait.

Lisa Ebanks [00:38:34]:
The the the deal analyzer? Deal analyzer? We use that. We use that. We watch this videos. We watch this YouTube. We watch podcasts. We went on we joined Facebook groups. We got very, very educated as much as we could, and then we took action. Now we don’t know everything y’all

Madison Anderson [00:38:51]:
do that?

Lisa Ebanks [00:38:52]:
How long did we do that? I mean, I wanna say we did that from the time Joe started when he was in negotiations with the lady about buying larger, man. What was that? Back in September or back in I think it was August, September. He was in the go it was like a 2 month conversation. That’s when we were like, are we really gonna want the laundromats? He was like, look, Lisa. The the the numbers. Look at the numbers. This thing can do this. And I was like, are you sure laundromats really do that? It was like, yeah.

Lisa Ebanks [00:39:21]:
So we started going and we started, you know, seeking out as much information as we could, but we didn’t let that paralyze us and stop us. Then we jumped in. You know, we jumped in. So what whatever mistakes we were gonna make, those were all gonna be learning lessons. We didn’t look at them as mistakes. We looked at them as learning lessons along the way. We failed for them. We didn’t we we didn’t just, you know, let that stop us.

Lisa Ebanks [00:39:42]:
So and here we are 7, 8 months later.

Madison Anderson [00:39:46]:
That’s amazing. Y’all learn. Y’all got handed the opportunity, said, okay. Let’s let’s talk about it. But while y’all was talking about it, I was like, let’s get all this information, and then let’s execute. Y’all see, that’s I’m not the only one that has this issue of analysis paralysis because I have been stuck at I am going through Jordan’s buying your first laundromat course, and I am only 13% done with the course. And I’ve been on 13% for about 4 months now.

Lisa Ebanks [00:40:16]:
Why, Maddie? You work in a laundromat. You you’re do you have everyday experience.

Madison Anderson [00:40:23]:
So you should Zoom at the back of operational side when it comes to the investing side. No. Y’all, Lisa’s kicked me in the butt, y’all. I’m a get it done. I’m a get it done by the end of June.

Lisa Ebanks [00:40:34]:
By the end of June? Okay. I’m a hold you to

Madison Anderson [00:40:36]:
it. Okay.

Lisa Ebanks [00:40:37]:
So what are you, like, what are you good at? What are you good at, Maddie?

Madison Anderson [00:40:41]:
So I went to college for marketing. I will say that I’m really good at, I’m a visionary, so I am really good at coming up with the creative juices or, like, let’s and let’s incorporate this, let’s do this type of strategy, stuff like that. But when it comes to the execution, I’m like, what if it doesn’t work? That’s when the anxiety starts to creep up. She sits right here on this shoulder. She’s like, what if it doesn’t work? What if it’s looking

Lisa Ebanks [00:41:03]:
for like this. If you’re the visionary, Maddie, and you have the big ideas and you see the potential, you see what’s going, then all you need to do is partner with an integrator and let them execute. The reason why me and Joe work so well is because he’s a visionary and when Joe puts his mind to something, it’s go time. And he doesn’t let you just sit there and say, that’s one thing about them. Like, I I used to be like, well, I don’t know, Joe. What if this isn’t just like how are you feeling? What if this well, we we gonna figure it out why why it’s happening. We’ll we’ll cross that when we get there. Most of the times, we don’t even know how we’re gonna do something, but he already has it.

Lisa Ebanks [00:41:43]:
We’re doing it. So you just gotta kinda like if you’re not gonna be the person that’s gonna, you know, pull the trigger, partner with somebody that can pull the trigger, and you be the visionary that can lead them. You know? K.

Madison Anderson [00:41:56]:
Mhmm.

Lisa Ebanks [00:41:56]:
Yeah. I I believe you, girl. I know you can do it.

Madison Anderson [00:42:00]:
Thank you. Thank you, girl. I really need this. This is more for me, not for y’all, but I hope y’all enjoy it. I hope y’all are enjoying this episode. But, anyhow, let’s reel it back into, some more operations. So you said when you walked into this 1st laundromat, an outside laundromat, lord, in Florida, Tampa, Florida.

Lisa Ebanks [00:42:18]:
With fans and cats, and it’s dirty.

Madison Anderson [00:42:22]:
It was hot and stink. Hot, stinking dirty.

Lisa Ebanks [00:42:26]:
Rolledants, rats, I’m sure. Like, the dryer vents needed baby, when I tell you, this was but it was brand new machines. Isn’t that isn’t that rare?

Madison Anderson [00:42:37]:
That is. That is rare. That is so rare. So what so let’s let’s walk us through. So, of course, y’all closed the y’all closed the laundromat. It was no longer outside laundromat, and you got the cats out, and you put the AC in. Okay? And we got the the dryer vents cleared out so they can breathe.

Lisa Ebanks [00:42:56]:
Yes.

Madison Anderson [00:42:57]:
Well, now after that We do all the lines. All the okay. And, after that, what were some when it was time to, like, incorporate the SOPs on how we gonna win this? How are we gonna open up? How are we gonna maneuver through the day with customers in here? How are we gonna close-up? What, what was, what was that like? I’m sure it was a lot of trial and error, a lot of doing it, a DIY, do it yourself type of situation. Let’s sit in here for the entire day with the broom in our hand. Walk us through that when it does come to operating your first laundromat.

Lisa Ebanks [00:43:29]:
So in the beginning, I worked in the laundromat. Joe was like, what? Why are you doing this? You know, you can hire somebody to do all. Why are you cleaning the machines? Why? I was like, well, I just wanna learn. I just I wanna learn about these machines. Like, because when you look at these machines, they look very intimidating, like, I would see the guy come in and open them up and I’m like, oh my god, what is all of that, like, so I was learning from our repair guy when if if ever we needed to change a diaphragm, like, because we can change diaphragms, we can open the drains we can do all like the basic stuff ourselves from just learning whenever they came in so I worked in there I kept it clean I interacted with the customers on that community is very Spanish oriented So, eventually, yeah, I didn’t have to hire someone that can speak Spanish because I wanted them to have someone they were comfortable with talking to if they had any issues that that they can understand. So that way, they will have a pleasant experience whenever they came into the laundromat. So in the beginning, I did work there. I eventually hired someone.

Lisa Ebanks [00:44:29]:
We put in a POS system so that way they can clock in. They can, you know, track drop offs because we just focus on drop dropping off, laundry at that time. You know, people will come in, they would drop off laundry. The person would have to keep it clean. You know, they did a deep clean. So putting that POS system in was number 1. Putting in, a standard operating as far as, like, when you first come in, this is your checklist. This is what you need to do every single day.

Lisa Ebanks [00:44:56]:
By me being in the laundromat and and working in myself in the very beginning and interacting with the customers, I learned, okay, these are the things if I hire someone, this is what I need them to do when I’m not around. So what I do is I record videos. I record videos of what I do. Put myself in the mindset of a laundry attendant and I record videos. I do this when I come in, I make sure this is done step by step. So that way, whenever I hire someone, they could just watch the video and the video end up turning into our training manual and we still do that to, to, to this day. Now I don’t train them myself anymore. I have a young lady that I’ve hired that I got, I was blessed to finally have in my business and she goes around and she trains everyone.

Lisa Ebanks [00:45:39]:
But, yeah, in the beginning, my system, understanding how to operate a laundromat and hiring someone to actually execute everything that I needed them to do, you know, at that at that first laundromat.

Madison Anderson [00:45:52]:
Could you give us that, opening checklist? Because a lot of people don’t don’t know, like, what I need to do when it does come to opening a large amount until they do get those keys and have to really figure it out. Could you give us a little glimpse?

Lisa Ebanks [00:46:04]:
Well, the one thing that me and Joe did is we created a course called Wealth Off Washers, where if you get into the course, you we give you all of that. We’ll give you the checklist. We’ll give you everything you need because I find that when we got in this business, we didn’t have anyone to help us or show us how to do this. Now don’t get me wrong. We we since we’ve joined the Korn Laundry Association, we’ve met a lot of phenomenal people that gosh. Like, we’ve met the Williford Brothers. We’ve met this wonderful lady named Colleen. She’s out of Seattle.

Lisa Ebanks [00:46:37]:
Like, we’ve met some amazing rock star operators that we go to that they’ve already created the the lane on how to run the business, so don’t reinvent the wheel, just follow what they’re doing. So we’ve created what I was just for people that were just like us that had no idea about a laundromat, so that way when they first get into the laundromat, they know exactly what to do from day 1. So, I mean, I wish I could give it to you, but, you know, you gotta buy the course.

Madison Anderson [00:47:05]:
Honey, there’s a pay wall, baby. There is a pay wall, and it will be linked in the description. Okay. And in the show notes. Oh, right. I love that. Now when it does come to people, buying their 1st laundromat is like an opening checklist, like before ribbon cutting, is that, is that included in the course? Like, I need to do paint. I need to check the machines.

Madison Anderson [00:47:30]:
I need to check the plumbing. I need to check the electrical. Is that that type of checklist in the course

Lisa Ebanks [00:47:34]:
of the Look. When you first get into a laundromat, the first things you need to do, the first thing we do, plumbing. We blow our lines. Listen. We learned the hard hard way. We got a flood. So that’s number 1. Blow your plumbing lines out because I guarantee you, the previous owners never did it.

Lisa Ebanks [00:47:54]:
Clean your dryer vents because do you want a fire? Do you want your laundromats to blow up? We go in. We’ve hired a a great company by the name of Lint Busters in Tampa. He comes into every single one of our laundromats, and now we’re gonna be having him on rotation as we start to buy more, and he cleans our vents because we noticed when he came to our latest laundromat, it it looks like it was about to set on fire. So good thing, you know what I’m saying? He

Madison Anderson [00:48:19]:
Oh, lord.

Lisa Ebanks [00:48:19]:
We we have that in place and he caught that. So those are the first two things. Blow your plumbing lines, clean your your vents, look into your electrical. Like, all of that is in the checklist. That’s a part of Joe’s rehab process. He does all of that first. So before I even come in and do anything with operations, that has to be done first. So, yes, that that is a part of the course because, hey,

Madison Anderson [00:48:42]:
you know And it is linked in

Lisa Ebanks [00:48:43]:
the description.

Madison Anderson [00:48:43]:
In the show notes. And it is linked in the description and in the show notes, folks. Get it, get it. If you serious, if you’re curious, Hey, just listen to this. Listen to this podcast and Joe’s podcast one more time. All right. We’re going, we’ll skip, hop, and jump down to, hiring and training. Since you were, you were just talking about how blessed you are to have like somewhat like a regional manager to go around and train, newcomers into the laundromat.

Madison Anderson [00:49:11]:
I want to know what are some qualities that you look for when it does come to hiring staff for your laundromat?

Lisa Ebanks [00:49:18]:
Work ethic. When we first started on our 1st laundromat, thinking about laundromats, you, I don’t know, I guess it may be a mental block, like what is the type of person who works here? Where do these people live? Like if you look in some of these communities, you know, they’re kind of like low income communities and what I’ve learned is you just can’t hire anybody just to put a body in there because baby, like I could tell you a couple of horror stories that we’ve had before me and Joe actually found our key person that I that I feel will take us to the next level with all of our laundromats. So the qualities I look at is your work ethic. A lot of people say, yeah, I know how to clean. Yeah. I know how to fold. I I fold my own clothes, but it’s not that simple. We’re trying to put on a presentation.

Lisa Ebanks [00:50:07]:
We’re trying to make sure that everything is consistent at a high quality, so you just can’t get just any old body working in your laundromat that knows how to clean because everybody clean is not clean. Some people say they know how to clean, but they don’t know how to clean and you can train anybody to do anything, but if they don’t have the proper mindset or work ethic, then it’s not gonna fit in our culture. So for me, like, now now that I have those first couple of mistakes in the beginning, it’s like I can kinda tell. Like the last young lady that I end up hiring, she used to work many, many years ago. She wasn’t even in the laundry business many, many years ago for another guy in the Tampa Bay area that owned 9 laundromats. So she already had her process of how I mean and and she taught me and and that’s okay. I don’t know everything in laundromats. So I’m not afraid to say or or learn from someone that may not be on the same level as me financially because anyone can teach, you know, anyone a lesson.

Lisa Ebanks [00:51:08]:
Don’t ever feel like you’re better than someone that’s making 14, $13 an hour because you make a 100 or whatever, a1000 a year. Knowing that she came from that laundromat background and she kinda had the basics of how to run the laundry business, oh my god, I’m so I’m I’m so thankful for her to this day. She fits into our culture. And since I’ve hired her, they have to be at least 60 to 70 percent or have 60 to 70 percent her mentality when it comes into my business because she has a phenomenal work ethic. The people around her have a phenomenal work. Her mother, the people she’s who used to work with at her last, laundromat business years ago, just getting her was heaven sent. I thank God. I thank God for her every day.

Lisa Ebanks [00:51:54]:
You know, because before when we had when I was hiring for our other laundromat, I mean, I had a young lady. She she had great, work ethic when it came to dealing with customers and cleaning, but she didn’t wanna work. She didn’t wanna show up on Saturday. She will always call out. It became a pattern. She didn’t wanna be there. Then the next lady that I hired, he, broke into my safe room, said she got a call. Someone’s trying to rob her over the phone.

Lisa Ebanks [00:52:19]:
I’m like, rob you over the phone? Like, it was ridiculous. Now the the way I hire is totally different than the way I hired when I first started out at my 1st laundromat. Now, the young lady that I have now, I mean, you have to have had experience working in a laundromat before I even talk to you. If you don’t even have any experience working in laundromat, we don’t really have anything to talk about because I need someone that understands the culture and what needs to be done on a day to day operations in the laundromat. I mean, because that lady that broke into our place, it was crazy, girl. The police came and everything, and she said she got a phone call. And I’m like, well, if you got a phone call, you actually listen to someone tell you to go. She went and grabbed the fire extinguisher from the inside of the laundromat, walked into the back room, broke it down on the door, and and was on video call with this person and they’re telling her what to do.

Lisa Ebanks [00:53:12]:
And she said, oh, well, I thought it was you. Why would I tell you to break down my door? Why would I? It was crazy. So I I I learned a valuable lesson in don’t just put any old body in your laundromat. You have to they have to fit into the culture that you’re trying to to build. So yeah, girl. It was crazy.

Madison Anderson [00:53:32]:
What platforms what platforms are you using to, post these jobs on?

Lisa Ebanks [00:53:37]:
Indeed, ZipRecruiter, meeting customers in the laundromat, like, seeing different people in the laundromat, like, there are some phenomenal people that kinda, like, do their own little side business, like, kinda, like, what you do, like, how you were running your washer on fold. So, I mean, I meet them in the laundromat, online, different places, but I have a process that you have to go through. Like, before they even talk to me, our VA’s filter them out and ask them questions and, you know, that’s the process they go through before we even get on the phone and talk. And then you after that phone call, it depends on how that phone call goes if you even step foot into the laundromat, so there’s a whole system on how we hire now because of what I learned before and and I have to stick to the hiring process because if I deviate from that, who knows, you know, what I’ll get. I don’t want those same, I want different results, you know?

Madison Anderson [00:54:28]:
Gosh. You’re you’re posting on in, on the well known platforms. Not no Craigslist, not no Facebook. None of that. You’re filtering through them. You’re asking them a series of questions. Do you send out personality tests?

Lisa Ebanks [00:54:44]:
Now in our real estate company, we did use this test, you know, because we wanted to make sure we had the right butts in the right seat. We use them there. But, in the laundromat, I don’t know. I just kinda got like an instinct. Like, you know how you can like, when I when I was talking to the young lady that I hired to end up being a a a a great, worker for us, I just I just got that feeling. You know how you get that feeling and then meeting her in person. It it just was a vibe. It was something that I didn’t have before.

Lisa Ebanks [00:55:13]:
So, I haven’t really used the disc test here in the laundromat business. I’ve kinda been going off instinct because of, you know, the the type of people that you’re gonna be meeting, you know, within the laundromat community. So we I haven’t used it here now. As we grow, we get to 10 and we start hiring, you know, managers and and COOs and all and and things like that, then I’ll I’ll place it, you know, I’ll use those kind of tests. But for right now, it’s been instinct, baby. And so far, my instinct’s been paying off.

Madison Anderson [00:55:44]:
Period. Shout out shout out to you, miss Lisa. Go ahead, girl. Now when it does come to this one employee, how are you planning to retain her or retain all the all the employees that you have that are really great employees? What are what are some things that you you’ve done and are doing to keep those good those good butts in those seats?

Lisa Ebanks [00:56:04]:
Well, what we’re doing is we’re building a culture. You paying people, you wanna pay them more than, you know, what the average what average people pay, but it’s not just about the money. You want to have them buy into your family, into your company culture. When it’s time for school, we we do backpacks for their kids. We, we give them, you know, days off. We give them paid holidays after a certain amount of time. My one young lady that works with me, she wants to buy a house so I’m helping her fix her credit. I also do business credit as well because, you know, that’s that’s something that I learned from my previous, you know, from being in real estate and I also apply it to to the, laundromat business.

Lisa Ebanks [00:56:49]:
So basically I pour into them because the more I pour into them, the more they’re gonna appreciate me as a leader and they’re gonna pour into the job and they’re gonna stay there because we’re building a family culture around them. I want people when they work for me. I don’t want them to just come in and collect a paycheck and go home, or I don’t want them to just come in and work for me and they’re struggling and they’re on food stamps and they can’t get, Like, no. I want people to flourish in their lives as well. I don’t wanna just take advantage and just keep them as regular workers and and build this big old empire and don’t pour into them because we wanna build a family culture so that way as I build my legacy for my kids, they can build a legacy for their kids as well. So it’s a family thing over there, you know, like, we have parties. They come to the parties. We have a big 4th July pool party every year.

Lisa Ebanks [00:57:36]:
I invite all the employees to that. Like, we’re building a culture that we wanna build a longevity, a lifetime business with these people. So you pour into them and you build into them as well. So that’s how we keep keep them, you know.

Madison Anderson [00:57:50]:
Love that because nobody can really operate at a low frequency. Like, when they have to go back to those homes, they gotta go back to that social security office, them horrible fluorescent lights and all that things. It’s like, why would why would they feel motivated to come do their best at work when they know everything back at home is crap. So I love that that you really do. It’s it is actually a family. It for what it sounds like a mom said too from what I’ve seen.

Lisa Ebanks [00:58:16]:
And if you do things like that, other people can’t steal your people because, you know, you’re always gonna get other, businesses. If they see that you’re running your operation well, they’ll go and approach your attendants or that, you know, they’re on approach your employees. But if I’m taking care of my employee and I’m paying her well, she’s not going anywhere because we built a culture over here that she may not get. When they see that we care and we pour into them, they’re not why would they wanna go work for someone else that doesn’t treat them the same way? So, you know, that’s just how we run, but we’ve always run our business like that. We’ve always cared and important to people as well because if the shoe was on the other foot, I would want someone

Madison Anderson [00:58:54]:
to do

Lisa Ebanks [00:58:54]:
it for me. So that’s pretty much what, you know, how we run our business.

Madison Anderson [00:59:00]:
Very true. I love that. So we got that. Hold on. I gotta think of this. I had a question. Think about it. Oh, training.

Madison Anderson [00:59:10]:
When it comes to training, I know you’re not training any, employees anymore. You have somebody that does that for you. What does the training look like and how long is it? I know you got the videos. They’re like, do new employees get like a test trial week or a training week to see if they are actually a good fit for the laundromat?

Lisa Ebanks [00:59:28]:
So in the beginning, I did do that. I did, like, a test trial for a young lady to see if she was gonna make the cut, and she did. She rose to the occasion. Basically, what we do is, like I told you, I have all my videos, I have all my training, I have all my checklists all broken down. Every week, we have our our Monday meetings. So that’s how we ensure from our KPIs that everyone is doing what they’re supposed to be doing. All the bags are looking the same. All the clothes are folded the same way.

Lisa Ebanks [00:59:56]:
The laundromat, I’m so involved in the laundromat operations, like, on a weekly basis. I’ll pop in or or I’ll come in and I’ll help out on the shift. So I’m paying attention and looking to see, okay, are these is the bathroom getting clean? Is the floor getting locked? Are these vents? Are the vents getting cleaned out? How’s the wash dry fold? Are the customers happy? I’ll call the customer and say, hey. How did you, did you love the way we, you know, we folded your clothes? Do you have any issues or any concerns or any complaints? Like, I double check. I follow-up. So by doing that, my employees know, okay, she’s gonna double check. So let me make sure I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, but I really don’t have to do that because the young lady that I hired, she stays on top of that, and they don’t wanna let her down. So they they basically, you know, they do their job, like, I I I thank God for her, like, every day because baby, you know how it is.

Lisa Ebanks [01:00:47]:
People don’t want to really work, you know, so when you get good people, you you keep them. Mhmm.

Madison Anderson [01:00:54]:
Very true. I love that. Alright. I know we got a few minutes left here, so I wanna go through something really short and simple. And I just wanna know how are you incorporating technology into your laundry message? Y’all have a lot. Y’all have 4 is a good amount of laundromats on top of the real estate and everything. You gotta keep all those things organized. And, I don’t know how people do it without technology, but I wanna know how y’all do it with technology.

Madison Anderson [01:01:19]:
What is all everything that you guys use? Do you guys have door automatic door locks, automatic lights, automatic entertainment systems, POS, what machines are you using, all that stuff?

Lisa Ebanks [01:01:31]:
Okay. So basically being that we’re going through like a rebranding, we’re gonna every all the laundromats are gonna change into the same name, the same color scheme. We’re gonna do some rehabs to make them all look the same. Certain laundromats, we do door locks because they’re gonna close at a certain time depending on where that location is. The other laundromats are basically 24 hours, so they don’t have, door locks on them. We use SENSE as our POS system. We’re gonna be switching over to LaundraWorks for, the car system pretty soon because, I mean, when I first got into this business, counting quarters was cute. It it was exciting, you know, to count the quarters and go through each machine and and figure out what my turns were.

Lisa Ebanks [01:02:12]:
Like, that was very cute in the beginning but after a while it gets very tedious and it’s not really, it’s not really, like, effective if you wanna if you wanna scale and grow your business. Having the LaundryWorks system will be able to give us our KPIs a lot faster. We don’t have to worry about all this loose change and coins and money just floating around everywhere. It’s a little more safer, so LaundryWorks will be implemented into every one of our laundromats that we have coming up here. So in the next 6 months, you know, if you wanna, you know, I’ll let your girl and bring it back on here. I’ll show you all the pictures of everything that we’ve done, all the new systems we put in place, how all the laundromats look because we’re trying to make this all, you know, in unison. When people go on our website, if they wanna do wash, dry, and fold, they can just click on the location nearest them, and then they can, you know, get the wash, dry, fold wherever they’re located. Since LaundraWorks, we do have, Alexa.

Lisa Ebanks [01:03:06]:
We have Alexa in some of our laundromats. We’re gonna play the music for everyone. We have TVs, and we also have our VAs that basically pretty much run everything behind the scenes. They record our videos. They basically kinda like nicely tell the community to keep keep the laundromat clean, the cleanup behind yourself, to not use this much soap. You only have to fill the the washers this high or the dryer this high. So we have those videos running on our TVs, you know, on a loop. So that way, you know, of course, you’re still gonna have the customers that leave soap and, you know, make it mad.

Lisa Ebanks [01:03:39]:
You’re still gonna have that. You’re not gonna be able to avoid that, but it’s just so they can see that, hey. Try to clean up, you know, try to keep your your laundromat as clean as possible as you can. Of course, my workers, they’re always on it. They’re always cleaning when they first get there, cleaning before they leave, cleaning during the shift. So, you know, that’s just something that we implemented so that way people can kinda like pay attention because once our girls start cleaning and and and and keeping it clean, then you’ll have our our regulars like, hey, don’t don’t leave that there, don’t pick pick up but they start to pick up behind themselves, they start to have pride in it because you have pride in it. Like if you’re taking care of the community and they see that you’re keeping this place clean and safe and you’re keeping the machines working, then they’ll start having pride when they come in there. When they’re washing, they’ll start cleaning the bathroom themselves.

Lisa Ebanks [01:04:26]:
So they’ll kinda, like, you know, police themselves. But yeah.

Madison Anderson [01:04:30]:
Yes. I love that. Well, our time has come to an end. I will sing a song for y’all about how we’ve come to the end of the road, but I’m a save that for another day. Oh, pizza. To the okay. Nope. It’s not karaoke night y’all.

Lisa Ebanks [01:04:52]:
When we leave, as you can see, we we were trademarking. You see my little logo back here, girl? That’s that’s what we all trademarking. I don’t know if you can see that, but we’re trademarking, our our, our new brand, and we’re doing a whole new color schemes with whole new, it comes in it’s gonna be amazing. So I can’t wait to, you know, come back and basically show you, you know, everything that we’re doing here in the next 6 months with with these laundromats. And by then, we’ll probably have I don’t know. We’ll probably be closer to our goal by then.

Madison Anderson [01:05:24]:
Okay. Come on, 10. Big 10 for 2024. I love it. Wow. I love it. I really appreciate y’all time. Right? Why not? Why not? And we’ll add on 11 here in Charlotte.

Lisa Ebanks [01:05:35]:
Well, let’s go, girl. Just let me know when you want me to come. I’ll fly out there, and we’ll help you because that’s that’s what we wanna do. We wanna get by. So if you need any help, listen. Pick up the phone. Call me. You know? Message me.

Lisa Ebanks [01:05:46]:
Whatever. We’ll come to Charlotte. We’ll help you find a laundromat if that’s what you want. I’ll be

Madison Anderson [01:05:51]:
your integrator there. Check a fully thank you. Thank you. And y’all check on me at the end of June to make sure that I am still not at 13% of the Jordans.

Lisa Ebanks [01:06:02]:
Jordan. Yes. Cool.

Madison Anderson [01:06:04]:
Because my gosh, Lisa, it’s been a wonderful time. I wish we had more time, but I know you have to go collect every laundromat in Tampa. Please. Please enjoy the rest of your day.

Lisa Ebanks [01:06:15]:
Find out if he wants to sell, me and Joe will come up there, and we’ll help you negotiate that thing. And we’ll help you get your own laundromat.

Madison Anderson [01:06:22]:
K. Period. Hey. Y’all heard it here first? We get wealth off of washers, and that’s all Period. That’s all period. He’s talking to you. Likewise. Catch y’all later, and I hope y’all enjoy.

Madison Anderson [01:06:35]:
Peace.

Lisa Ebanks [01:06:37]:
Peace.

Jordan Berry [01:06:39]:
Alright. I hope you love that episode. I know it was a little bit of a change of pace from the norm, but so much good stuff in there. Huge shout out to Lisa for coming on. Huge shout out to Madison for stepping out and doing her first solo podcast interview. Big deal. Big time happening right there. Listen.

Jordan Berry [01:06:57]:
As good as that was, it’s so much good information that was in there from Lisa. None of it’s gonna do you any good unless you put it into action. So pick something, put it into action, get after it. Go make your goals happen this week, and we will catch you next week. Super special episode. Super excited about it, at the very next one. So I’ll see you then. In the meantime, stay fluff and awesome.

Jordan Berry [01:07:26]:
I couldn’t say it with a straight face.