No Guts, No Glory. Tessa Lennett’s Story.

Jordan Berry [00:00:00]:
Hey. Hey. What’s up, guys? It’s Jordan with the Laundromat Resource Podcast. This is show 174, and I’m pumped you’re here today because today we are heading to South Africa, Cape Town, South Africa. We’re gonna talk about Tessa’s laundry business. And this is just a wild ride you’re about to be on because she buys this thing while she’s backpacking through Europe. She doubled the business in less than 2 years. We’re going to get into all the details.

Jordan Berry [00:00:29]:
I mean, there’s there’s a lot to unpack here, and there’s a lot to learn from this episode. So huge shout out to Tessa. Can’t wait for you guys to meet her and, and hear what she has to say about building her laundry business because, man, again, wild ride and so much good stuff in there for all of us. So, real quick before we jump into that, today’s Fastlane tip is this. We’ve got that, we’ve got a we’ve got a webinar coming up November 12th at 4 PM Pacific, 7 PM EST. Where listen, we’re I’m gonna I’m gonna open up the playbook to you on how to buy your 1st laundromat if you that’s the phase you’re in, how to optimize the laundromat if that’s the phase you’re in, and how to scale your business, if that’s the phase you’re in. I’m gonna show you this playbook that we have built over here literally over the last couple of years. I’m super duper excited about it.

Jordan Berry [00:01:23]:
We put together a whole, program around it also. So come hear about it. It doesn’t matter where you’re at in the journey. If you’re brand new looking to buy your 1st Laundromat, if you already own a Laundromat or multiple Laundromats, listen. If you’re ready to go to the next level, we’ve got what you’re looking for. So November 12th, go to laundrometresource.com/playbook, and, you can sign up for that webinar over there. It’s free, obviously. Come hang out with me, ask some questions, hang out with, all the other people who are loving this business just like we are, and, have a good time doing it.

Jordan Berry [00:01:59]:
So I am super duper excited. Like I said, we’ve been working really hard on it, and I am very proud of, this program. So come check it out. And, again, that’s November 12th. I think that’s all I got before we jump in it with Tessa. Can’t wait to see you guys over there, and then I’ll catch you on the backside and talk about the action you need to take to, get going to your next level here. Alright. Alright.

Jordan Berry [00:02:26]:
Let’s jump in with Tessa.

John [00:02:27]:
What’s up, laundromat owners? John here again with Business Marketing Resource. Are you ready to make your business even more successful? Here’s a quick marketing tip that could really boost your foot traffic. Partner with local businesses. Let’s think about this. Nearby cafes, gyms, or apartment complexes have customers who might need laundry services. Why not create a referral program? Offer businesses a small incentive for every customer they send your way or create joint promotions like a free coffee with a wash and fold service. It’s a win win that builds community connections while bringing in new customers. And if you’re looking for even more ways to grow, business marketing resource is here to help.

John [00:03:03]:
We specialize in creating customized marketing strategies for laundromats, from branding and social media management to professional website design. We’ll help you build strong partnerships and make sure your laundromat is the go to spot in your neighborhood. If you wanna learn more, visit us at build with bmrdot com today, and let’s work together to make your laundromat the best in town.

Jordan Berry [00:03:23]:
Okay. I lied. Real quick. We’re gonna jump in to test in a second, but I just wanted to let you know that on the show notes page, laundromatresource.com/show174, She actually sent in some pictures of her laundry operations. If you wanna check out her South Africa laundry operation there in Cape Town, go to the show notes, lawnmattresource.com/show173 or no. 174. Oh, gosh. Limerickresource.com/show174 and, check them out over there.

Jordan Berry [00:03:50]:
Okay. Now let’s jump into it with Tessa. Tessa, thank you for coming on the show all the way from the other side of the world. How are you doing?

Tessa Leonard [00:03:58]:
I’m good. Thanks, Jordan. And you?

Jordan Berry [00:04:00]:
I’m doing maybe I’m the one on the other side of the world and you’re on the the correct side of the world, over there. Well, I am super excited to, talk with you today. Appreciate you taking the time to come on and share about your laundry business in South Africa. Oh my gosh. This is cool. I’m super excited about that. I’m sure everything is exactly the same as it is here in the States where I am. And we won’t have a whole lot to talk about.

Jordan Berry [00:04:28]:
No. I’m just kidding. I’m I’m very curious to see how you’re running your business over there. But real quick, why don’t you give us a a quick background of who you are and then let’s talk about how you got into this business?

Tessa Leonard [00:04:40]:
K. Hi, Jordan. My name’s Tessa Leonard, and I’m from Cape Town, South Africa. I actually went to, college in the states at Oklahoma State University. I was over there on a tennis scholarship, and I was there for 4 years. And then I went off to play professional tennis for 8 or 9 years, on the WTA circuit. Okay. Then I came back to South Africa, and I got married.

Tessa Leonard [00:05:07]:
And I had 3 kids who are in their twenties now. And while they were growing up, I actually started a photography business, property photography business. I also did I also coached some sports and tennis and hockey, and now I’m a laundry owner.

Jordan Berry [00:05:26]:
I mean, just a pretty typical path to laundry ownership there. You know, moving to the other side of the world, coming back, playing tennis pro, all that. Yes. Yeah. Typical. I hear it all the time. Look, I mean, I I don’t wanna go too far down the road. Can we talk just for a second about playing pro tennis? That’s pretty cool.

Jordan Berry [00:05:45]:
Yeah. Yeah. What was I mean, what was that like? What how did you how do you even become a pro? And then what did you travel around playing tournaments? Or what did that look like?

Tessa Leonard [00:05:52]:
Yeah. Well, I’ve obviously, it’s a long road as a junior in South Africa. The way to the only way for us in South Africa to get anywhere was to leave the country really and and go overseas. We are a long way away. So a lot of us at that time went went over to America and, went to college there. That was that was, like, the path that most of us did. And, and then, yeah, played, played 4 years of college tennis, which I loved, And then, and then went on to the circuit.

Jordan Berry [00:06:22]:
Singles or doubles? Singles or doubles? Oh, both.

Tessa Leonard [00:06:27]:
Yeah. I was top 100 in the world, so I got to play a lot of the grand slams and pretty much went around the world playing tennis. Yeah. It was a great time.

Jordan Berry [00:06:35]:
Did you play anybody that, that we would know? Like, a a name that we would know?

Tessa Leonard [00:06:40]:
No. I was sort of in the era of Lindsey Davenport, epigraph, that that era. Yeah. The South Africans that we where Amanda could send away in Herrera and see how that was sort of my time. Cool. That was very different then than it is now, but it’s still great. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:06:58]:
Yeah. That’s awesome. Well, that that’s true. I didn’t know that before right now. So that’s very cool to hear about that. And, you know, I grew up my dad liked tennis and so I grew up kinda watching that that era of tennis, with all those guys. So very cool. Okay.

Jordan Berry [00:07:13]:
So, I mean, you casually dropped this whole, you know, life path here and then you’re like, and now I’m a laundry owner. So how did, how did this happen? I mean, you had a photography business, property photography business, you know, you had kids, all that stuff. How did you transition from that into laundry?

Tessa Leonard [00:07:29]:
Well, 3 years ago, I got divorced, and, I was I was looking to buy a small business. And I’ve always had this thing in the back of my head that laundry business was a good business to had to buy. I always I don’t know why I always had it even even when I wasn’t really looking to buy a business. I just whenever I went past laundries, I always thought, wow. That place has been making money. Anyway and I was, I was sitting at my holiday home in the Eastern Cape in Saint Francis Bay. And, Saint Francis Bay is, a coastal town in the Eastern Cape. It’s where they did the movie Endless Summer.

Tessa Leonard [00:08:03]:
I don’t know if you know that movie, the surfing movie. And, we’ve got a holiday home there. And there was a solo

Jordan Berry [00:08:10]:
Great movie, by the way.

Tessa Leonard [00:08:11]:
Yes. End of summer. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:08:12]:
Great movies.

Tessa Leonard [00:08:12]:
Yeah. When they come over the Dunes and surf, that’s Saint Francis Bay. That’s what I’m talking about.

Jordan Berry [00:08:18]:
And I gotta watch it again too. So

Tessa Leonard [00:08:20]:
Yes. And you gotta come to Saint Francis. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:08:23]:
I do.

Tessa Leonard [00:08:24]:
Yes. Anyway, I was sitting there, and there’s this little laundry in this little coastal town that whenever I went past there, it was just pumping. It was so busy. And just owned by a little little bit of lady and it was so dirty and dingy, but she was just bursting at the seams. She was just cooking. And it just got me thinking. I thought, you know, this is something I really wanna I think I’m gonna investigate this. And I even went into her little laundry and I I asked her if if she’d be interested to sell it.

Tessa Leonard [00:08:51]:
And she and then she said, no. No. No. But, you know, planted the seed for me, and I went back to Cape Town. And I started looking around, you know, just just investigating laundries in in Cape Town, looking into franchises, all sorts of things. And I was about to, maybe buy into a a laundry franchise called Fresh Franchise that was in Cape Town. And I I went into one of them, and I I wanted I asked to speak to the owner, and I told him what I wanted to do, and I just wanted some advice. And he actually persuaded me.

Tessa Leonard [00:09:21]:
He said, just, Tessa, do not get do not buy into the franchise. It’s we’re about to leave the franchise. Rather, do something on your own. Buy buy laundry, rather. The franchise, they don’t help you. It’s just it’s actually a waste of time. So, you know what, he was quite he’s quite good to talk to. But he said to me, but listen.

Tessa Leonard [00:09:37]:
There’s a there’s a little laundry in in Rondeau Bosch, which is a very, very busy part of Cape Town in the schools school area, busy roads. It’s just a great little hub. And he said they it’s it’s about to come on the market, but it’s not on the market yet. It just goes go there now, speak to the owner, and and just see what he says. So I did. I got in my car, drove to that little laundry, and, got the owner’s number, phoned him, and I and I said to him, you know, I believe your your laundry is, about to come on the market, and I’m interested. Can we meet? And he said, absolutely. Let’s meet tomorrow.

Tessa Leonard [00:10:12]:
So we met for a coffee. We bought a 2 hour coffee. And by the end of the coffee, the meeting, he said, you know, I wanna sell my business to you. I’m not even gonna go through anyway. I’m just I want you to buy my business. So I was like, wow. Okay. Amazing.

Tessa Leonard [00:10:26]:
And then we started. We started really talking. And but just before he left, he said, but but and there was a big but. He said, you have to take start this take over the business August 1st. Now we’re already in June, and I was thinking, oh my word. That’s quite soon. And I had just my daughter who was at a gap year in the UK, she just finished her schooling, and she was doing a gap year coaching sport at a at a school in England. And we’d always had this plan to to go backpacking in Europe.

Tessa Leonard [00:10:57]:
So I knew that we’d had this this trip coming up, and I was literally flying into Cape Town on August 1st. And that is when he wanted me to take over the laundry. So I I said to him, is there no way I can push it to September 1st just to give me a little bit of time? And he said, no. It’s either that or nothing. So I said, no. That’s fine. I’ll do it. Let’s let’s go ahead.

Tessa Leonard [00:11:15]:
So, anyway, 2 weeks later, I leave for Europe, and I’m we’re doing the due diligence, everything. And I’m on with a backpack in Italy on a beach, and I’m I’m scanning things. I’m like, just firing little documents on my phone and just invade just crazy. I mean, I was just insane what I was about to embark on, but there I did it. And, by the end of my 2 month backpacking trip with my daughter, we’d I bought the business. I literally had a laundry, and I was still in Europe. And then I flew in on August 1st, and I knew nothing about laundry. I’d I’d done, like, some I’ve been googling like crazy.

Tessa Leonard [00:11:55]:
I hardly knew how to do my own laundry, never mind anyone else’s laundry. And I literally walked into the the laundry on on that day, and said to the staff, you know, here I am. You know, I need you. You need me. Let’s go. And and I literally had to learn everything. And I knew nothing. I didn’t know how anything worked.

Tessa Leonard [00:12:15]:
I didn’t know how the machines worked. I didn’t know the detergents, invoices, the clients, customers. I literally was thrown in the defense. But here I am 2 years later, and it worked. But those first 6 months were crazy. So that’s that’s that’s the short version.

Jordan Berry [00:12:33]:
Oh my gosh. Okay. I mean, that first of all, that’s an awesome story. And I think it’s great. It’s funny. I was having flashbacks as you’re talking like some of my biggest purchases I’ve made in my life, like real estate or businesses, I did well, like on a cruise or, you know, like I’m traveling on the other side of the country or something and I’m like, Oh my gosh, this is crazy. But, but as somebody who talks to people all the time who are trying to get into this business or a business in general and who are afraid to take the leap. How in the world did you decide to buy this business knowing that all your due diligence, you’re gonna be backpacking around Europe and you’re literally getting home the day that you take over? Like, how did you how did you crossover that fear? Or did you have any fear? Or were you just,

Tessa Leonard [00:13:24]:
like, yep.

Jordan Berry [00:13:25]:
Let’s just do it.

Tessa Leonard [00:13:26]:
Yeah. No. Some people do say to me, Tessa, weren’t you scared? Weren’t you afraid? What did you do? And I just I don’t know. The whole time, I just really thought it I just believed that it was really the right the right thing to do. And I just I just took the plunge. And I the the whole time I really did did think it was it was gonna be a success. I mean, I think that and and it it was. It was a I I don’t know how I did it looking back, but I did and it’s it’s worked.

Tessa Leonard [00:13:50]:
But I I think sometimes you just gotta gamble and and and just go with your heart, and I really did go with my heart. I I really did. You know, people did try to persuade me not to do it. When I told people I was buying a laundry business, they were like, what? What are you doing? And why do you why? You know? They just they couldn’t really understand what I was doing. And now, they go, wow. You know? Jeez. It was quite a good move. So I think I think sometimes you have to take the plunge.

Tessa Leonard [00:14:14]:
You know?

Jordan Berry [00:14:15]:
Yeah. Well, and it’s interesting too because I mean, I experienced experienced a lot of the same stuff when I was buying my first loan. It turned out that in my case, maybe they were right about the particular loan, not about the the principle of it, but the particular one did not turn out how I was expecting. But, however, I think that, you know, it’s just kind of interesting. Like when you try to do something, you step out and make a move, you’ve got these, not, not you, but a lot of people have these sort of internal feelings of, oh my gosh, like this is scary and I’m making a move. I don’t know how it’s gonna turn out. I don’t know if it’s gonna, you know, bankrupt me or make me a gazillionaire, or I just don’t know. Right? And all the unknown.

Jordan Berry [00:14:58]:
And then you have these external voices a lot of times that’s really hard to overcome. Also, you know, when you try to do something that’s different than what most other people are doing, like buying a business and buying a laundry business at that. Right? Like, seems kinda crazy. And you’ve got these voices that are like, what are you doing? Like, this is ridiculous. Or, you know, how, I mean, did, what, did you just have like such belief in yourself and the business that those voices didn’t matter? Or or did you have any way of, like, overcoming those external voices?

Tessa Leonard [00:15:34]:
I just I I did have belief that it was gonna work. I I just I don’t know. I I don’t actually I can’t really remember too many negative feelings, really. I I just I just knew that I had to try and make it work. And I knew that whatever I put in, you know, I I would get out and and I and I I just knew that I’ve just gotta work. And those 6 months, I was literally just learning everything. I I mean, I was at the laundry at 6 or 7 in the morning. It’s the whole day just, like, learning everything.

Tessa Leonard [00:16:02]:
I had to learn how the machines work, how they fold it. You know? The like I said, the invoicing, it he was a cash business. So, like, I needed to change that. I needed to get credit card machines. I need to get a software. I needed to change the name. I need to change the the whole store. It was just, like, so busy.

Tessa Leonard [00:16:19]:
And there were times and I do remember, actually, there were times when I was was driving to the laundry going, my word. I actually don’t know what I’m doing. Like, I just did not know what I was doing. And then I would get to the laundry and I would just be, like, flooded with all the stuff. And and, you know, it just it got easier all the time. Every day was easier. And then, yeah, it it probably took 6 months for me really to to learn everything. And then and then it just got better and better and better.

Tessa Leonard [00:16:46]:
Yeah. Yeah. And now it’s now it’s really good.

Jordan Berry [00:16:51]:
I love that. I love that. And we’ll dig into what that means here in a second. But, I mean, you know, I I have a a one of the one of my values, right, is is default to action. Like, you’ve you’ve gotta like, it’s good to do some learning. It’s good to do as much research as you can, but eventually, you gotta take that action. And, you know, in your case, it sounded like you had a lot to learn still. And, you know, there’s a lot of people out there, and I can fall into this trap too, where, you know, you feel like I’ve got to know everything before I take the leap.

Jordan Berry [00:17:21]:
And the reality of it is you can’t know everything before you take the leap. Right? You can’t you can’t know something till you actually do it. And then also, you you know, you miss a lot of opportunities if you’re not willing to kind of learn on the job. And you said something that you just kind of like glossed over it a little bit, but I think it’s key in, in what you said was something to the effect of, I knew I was just going to have to work, you know, there at the end. And ultimately, you know, if you put in the work, you’re, you know, you’re gonna learn, you’re gonna succeed, you know, down the line. So, I love that. Okay. So

Tessa Leonard [00:17:57]:
good. Also thinking my, photography business, I I started like that as well. I wasn’t I wasn’t a I wasn’t a trained photographer. I I learned I learned it on my own. I learn I just I literally learned online what to do. And it was also a case of I re how I got into property photography was that a friend of mine was a real estate agent, and I I was doing people and sports and things like that. That’s the photography I I was doing. I wasn’t doing property.

Tessa Leonard [00:18:21]:
And and her regular photographer wasn’t able to do the shoot. She said to me, Tessa, come do the shoot. And I was like, well, I don’t even own a tripod. I don’t know what to do. And she said, just come. And I thought, okay. Okay. I’ll come.

Tessa Leonard [00:18:32]:
And I literally did that shoot. I don’t know how I did it, but we got through it. And then I thought, wow. I quite like this. And then and then I just learned everything that I needed to learn about property photography. And now and then and that’s how I got to be a pro property photographer. So you can learn. You know? You you can learn if you put your mind to it and you can pretty much do anything that you really want to do if you put your mind to it.

Tessa Leonard [00:18:54]:
So I guess it was the same kind of thing. You know? I I knew that I could do it. I just needed to put in the work, which I did.

Jordan Berry [00:19:02]:
I’m feeling so inspired right now. Like, that was it just felt like a pep talk. Like you can do it, you know, just put in the work. You can do it. Whatever you want to do it. I love it.

Tessa Leonard [00:19:13]:
To

Jordan Berry [00:19:14]:
yeah. Okay. So, so you, you talked to this guy. What, I mean, what were you doing for due diligence in it’ll like, I don’t even know

Tessa Leonard [00:19:24]:
Yeah. So I looked at my content and they they were all doing it. So I mean, they were in contact with me the whole time and they were they were going through all his books. And luckily, he was his books were in perfect condition. I mean, he really I was taking over a good business and there was nothing, dodgy about anything. And then they had to check all the machines and check everything was good. Yeah. Everything went really smoothly with the due diligence.

Tessa Leonard [00:19:46]:
So so I just had to just be in touch with them and and and keep signing stuff and going, yeah. Yeah. I was just doing scammy little things on my phone. And eventually, everything was good. And then and then we did the deal that it was closed, and and then I had a laundry. So nothing went wrong. You know? It’s everything went very smoothly with the takeover.

Jordan Berry [00:20:06]:
Who who did you say was helping you with the due diligence on on

Tessa Leonard [00:20:09]:
My accountant. Okay. Yeah. And and yeah. A couple of them. Yeah. And then and then we got, like, maintenance people in and, you know, to check all the machines and to go over the whole history. And yeah.

Tessa Leonard [00:20:20]:
So we did all that, and everything was good.

Jordan Berry [00:20:23]:
Yeah. Well, can you tell us, a little bit about, like, what was the what was the business like when you took over?

Tessa Leonard [00:20:31]:
Yeah. Okay. So the the previous owner was a 75 year old guy, old older guy, and he’s, you know, he would he just tired. He just needed I think he just wanted to retire. So the business wasn’t really he wasn’t really putting too much into the business, and he wasn’t there a lot. The staff were pretty much just left on to their own resources and doing their doing their thing, and he was just popping in every now and then. So they were really just going through the motions, but still still doing quite well. But it it wasn’t when I took it over, it it needed a lot of it was it needed a a real sort of overhaul, which I did.

Tessa Leonard [00:21:06]:
And the staff also needed a more little bit more training, a little more jacked up, and just just better. I mean, they were the folding was terrible. They were folding things like inside out and fluff. They would I don’t know. It just he wasn’t on it. You know, you really gotta be on those kind of things. So I changed a lot of things, the way the staff worked and how we did things. And then and, and I also knew, you know, if we can just just give a really, really good customer service to these customers and just make it really, really good, you know, it it can only succeed.

Tessa Leonard [00:21:38]:
You know, it’s such a customer service industry. You know, you’ve got it. They want the customers want their linen perfect. They want their clothes back even better than what they sent it in. If it can come back in a beautiful little package, all lovely and smelling great, they can only be happy. You know? So we we really I really focused on that. You know? Just really trying to like, my customer service was really I focused on that a lot, which I don’t think he was. And we just suddenly started getting more and more customers and people were coming back and we got we got some great a and b clients and guest houses and I started, I didn’t have a driver.

Tessa Leonard [00:22:15]:
I was driving, collecting, and I picked got that going with collecting delivery. So we just it just kept picking up in in all departments, really.

Jordan Berry [00:22:25]:
Yeah. This I mean, it sounds like it just fell in your lap. Everything no. I’m just kidding. Sounds

Tessa Leonard [00:22:31]:
like you worked

Jordan Berry [00:22:31]:
really, really hard for it.

Tessa Leonard [00:22:32]:
It didn’t come with it did they were I mean, they were few trial and tribulations. There were things that didn’t work. But, you know, like, I mean, you know laundry, it’s just there’s always stuff. There’s always things that go wrong, and, you know, you’ve gotta keep keep on top of it. And but, you know, we just I I had to get through all of those things. And, you know, even today, we still battle with a few things. But you just gotta

Jordan Berry [00:22:55]:
Of course. Time. Every time I feel like I’ve seen everything or, you know, like, in this business, like, I get a curveball. Like, there’s more to see. Like, things can still happen. Because we don’t know how long you’ve been in.

Tessa Leonard [00:23:09]:
Yeah. You’ve been in with

Jordan Berry [00:23:11]:
Yeah. Well, I mean, I think this would be a good time to just pause for a second and talk about your business model and the business model of laundry in, in South Africa and what that what that looks like, there.

Tessa Leonard [00:23:24]:
Yeah. It’s very different, like like we spoke briefly about. It’s very different to to the American Laundromat, which I’ve obviously, done quite a lot of research with the way you do things over there. We we don’t have a lot of the self-service laundries. Ours are are fully serviced and and so people come in, drop their laundry. Wash, dry fold is is the biggest thing probably. And a lot of customers, we’ve we’ve got our regular customers, then we’ve got a lot of Airbnb’s that we do, as as Cape Town is a very a huge hub for Airbnbs. And we’re in the season now.

Tessa Leonard [00:24:01]:
So from, like, October to March, April, we it’s busy, busy, busy. You had tourists coming in just all the time. And, I don’t think you’ve been to Cape Town. Did I did you say you you haven’t been to Cape Town?

Jordan Berry [00:24:13]:
No. Not yet.

Tessa Leonard [00:24:14]:
You are.

Jordan Berry [00:24:14]:
But but maybe I’ll come down there and maybe we can film a video so I can write it off as a business experience.

Tessa Leonard [00:24:20]:
Yeah. We could. It’s definitely a place to it’s definitely a place worth visiting, for sure. Yeah. And, so we’re just in it now. We’re just starting. So the the Airbnb’s and guest houses are just starting to really get busy. So we’re very busy with that.

Tessa Leonard [00:24:37]:
And then the customers go down a bit in in the season, and then they go up again in in winter when nobody can dry their clothes and they just need laundry mats. But yeah. So like I said, it’s it’s a it’s not a self self serve. It’s we are fully serviced, laundry like most of the others in in our in around the area. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:24:59]:
Yeah. Well and it’s it’s funny because I think a lot of, like I think of, like, Southeast Asia, even even a little bit Australia, like, I think a lot of them are mostly service based. Right? The washout fold, pickup and delivery. So it’s just kind of interesting. And I I think that we’re kinda moving more and more of that direction here, but, but self-service is still a huge huge business here in

Tessa Leonard [00:25:25]:
the States. I think it would be. I think it would be. And I think some tourists in Cape Town would love self-service, but it’s very different here. We’ve, it’s a whole different world down here. I I I don’t know how it was I’ve ever done that.

Jordan Berry [00:25:38]:
All upside down? Your toilet’s flushed the other way, apparently?

Tessa Leonard [00:25:42]:
I don’t know. I just I just don’t know how how how well it would work, But you never know. I mean, I haven’t got space to put machines in for a self serving in my laundry. But also, we’ve, you know, we’ve got a lot of crime around here. I don’t I don’t wanna say anything, but, you know, that that’s that would definitely put you know, there’s a lot of I don’t know. I don’t know if it would if if it would work as easily over here. That kind of thing. No.

Tessa Leonard [00:26:08]:
I’m I’m not saying it couldn’t be done, but, yeah. Yeah. Maybe it’s something for the future. I don’t know.

Jordan Berry [00:26:15]:
Yeah. Well, I don’t know. I mean, it sounds like you’re living in the future for me. You’re already doing all the the service stuff.

Tessa Leonard [00:26:21]:
Like, I

Jordan Berry [00:26:22]:
don’t know. I don’t wanna do laundry anymore for myself. Right? Like, I I just feel like most people, if they have the option and the ability would choose not to do laundry. I know there’s some weird people out there that really like to do laundry. I try to avoid them, unless they’re doing it for their business. No, I’m just kidding.

Tessa Leonard [00:26:39]:
No, I have found that more and more people are wanting, are wanting their laundry done for them. They don’t have time. They Yeah. You know, they they want they wanna drop it off, pick it up, and it’s all lovely. Put it in their cupboards, and they don’t have to worry anymore. Yeah. So but it’s it’s a big demand down here.

Jordan Berry [00:26:56]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I I mean, I see more and more of that happening here. I mean, real quick. I mean, we can jump into this a little bit more in a bit. But do you have any sense of how much your business is coming from? You know, like Airbnb, short term rental, commercial, like small restaurant salons, whatever, versus residential?

Tessa Leonard [00:27:18]:
Well, like I said, it it it does it does go in waves around, during the year, but we’ve I think when I took over, it was probably, sure, 70 70% customers, 30% the commercial. And now I think we we almost half half now. So we’ve, you know, we’ve been doing so so much more contract commercial based laundry. And we and a lot of, our clients are are, like, management companies that are managing properties, and they and we do they just literally throw the linen at us. They they just we got bags coming in every morning, and they’ve gotta go out every morning. And we just we just churning it off like that. So that’s our biggest I I think that is where the money is, obviously, and and that is where my business is going probably more and more. That route.

Jordan Berry [00:28:04]:
Yeah.

Tessa Leonard [00:28:05]:
But we’ll always have the customers, and, and they and they keep the business going. And they you’ve got our loyal customers that come in every week. And, you know, that’s what they do, and they like their laundry done by us, and they’ll always be there. But I definitely think, yeah, it’s it’s it’s going my business is definitely getting bigger and bigger with with Airbnb’s guest houses, restaurants, schools, linen, all all that kind of thing.

Jordan Berry [00:28:32]:
Yeah. Well, I, that that’s awesome. And I want to, I mean, I want to talk about how that’s happening here in a second, but real quick, I wanted to go back to over I mean, you basically said you overhauled a lot of stuff. I mean, did you get new equipment or was the equipment okay and overhauling was training people and all that? Or what does overhaul mean?

Tessa Leonard [00:28:50]:
Yeah. The equipment’s really good. I’ve got these good elect industrial Electrolux machines. They’re great. But they’re 20 years old, 15, 20 years old, but they’re still going strong. But that was another learning curve. I I had a the maintenance, learning how to how to fix these machines, which I had no idea about. And I, I took over this maintenance guy who was I think he was literally just just he knew I knew nothing, and he would just sort of half fix the machine.

Tessa Leonard [00:29:16]:
It would work. And then he knew I’d be getting it back, and then he knew I’d have to keep paying him. So I quickly learned about him, and, yeah, I’ve got I’ve got a really good maintenance team now. And the machines are are maintained. They’re running well. And, yeah, my maintenance bill has definitely come down. But that’s key. That’s really key to to keep the machines going and maintaining them because that’s when they start breaking.

Tessa Leonard [00:29:41]:
And, sure, that’s I’ve had that happen as well, and suddenly you’ve got no machines and trying to churn out laundry, it’s not fun. No. It’s good. Yeah. That’s so that’s a big thing, and and we seem to be on top of it now. So my I didn’t I haven’t had to purchase any new machines. I still I might, but I can still go above. I can still put some on top.

Tessa Leonard [00:30:02]:
I might get some more. But at the moment, we we’re coping.

Jordan Berry [00:30:08]:
How many how many machines are you working with or running with?

Tessa Leonard [00:30:12]:
I’ve got, I’ve got a big, 30 KG machine, then I’ve got 4 12 KGs, 3, 6 KGs, and then 4 big industrial dryers, 2 roller irons, and then 3 3 ironing stations. Yeah. We don’t really have that much space, so we’ve we’ve packed them in there. Yeah. But we seem to be coming. And I also got dry, lines outside. But our biggest expenses, electricity in South Africa is in Cape Town is huge and so high. So that’s my biggest expense.

Tessa Leonard [00:30:46]:
It’s trying to

Jordan Berry [00:30:46]:
keep More than electricity. Water even.

Tessa Leonard [00:30:49]:
Yeah. But, yeah, more electricity though. Wow. It’s crazy. Yeah. But but going back to the the laundry bag when I took it over, dude, he he also went struggled through COVID. So I bought the business in 2022, but he he literally started going, yeah, I think COVID really hit him hard. And then he never really recovered after that.

Tessa Leonard [00:31:12]:
So I took it at when it was probably at its lowest, and and we’ve built it up again. Yeah. And I think that’s

Jordan Berry [00:31:20]:
what What do you think what do you think made the difference? You know? I mean, it sounded like he was pretty hands off and was kinda just on his way out and wasn’t checking quality and that kind of thing. But, I mean, do you think that’s what made the big difference in terms of why it was going down and why you were able to get it going?

Tessa Leonard [00:31:35]:
Yeah. I think I think he was I don’t think I think he was starting to be more and more absent, and I don’t yeah. He wasn’t there enough. I I will say I don’t think he was he had no social media at all, that I I quickly got jumped onto the social media, which has helped a lot. I got a new software package with Clean Cloud, which has helped us. I think that’s been a real game changer as far as keeping track of everything and and being and being able to link it to our collect and deliveries has been really good, having that app with the driver. Because our collect and delivery was all over the show. I mean, I mean, I had a I had a phone, a business phone that that people were were WhatsApping me to collect and deliver, and then I would have to then tell the driver, and it was just, like, all over the shop.

Tessa Leonard [00:32:23]:
We were just, like, I don’t know.

Jordan Berry [00:32:24]:
I don’t

Tessa Leonard [00:32:25]:
know. It was crazy. So now when I got the clean cloud, it just goes onto the app, goes onto his phone, and it’s just been a win. It’s very organized now, which has been great. And I think that’s helped us a lot. So the software, Clean Cloud, and, social media, has has really and and also getting changing cash only business to to credit cards, SnapScan, EFTs, the things like that. I mean, the the customers could only pay cash. He wanted that’s his side that his business was a cash only business.

Jordan Berry [00:32:59]:
Are you still accepting are you still accepting cash, or did you No.

Tessa Leonard [00:33:03]:
I you know what? I I tried to not. I I tried to say no cash, and there’s always custom the customers didn’t like it. There were some old customers that weren’t happy. And so then I thought, okay. That’s fine. It’ll it’s probably the like a 10 10, 15% cash now, which is okay. But, yeah, people don’t like, don’t like it when there’s no cash.

Jordan Berry [00:33:25]:
Yeah. I was gonna ask about that transition.

Tessa Leonard [00:33:29]:
No. They they didn’t like it. I I thought I could do it. It didn’t work though. Yeah. So I think I’ll always have a bit of cash.

Jordan Berry [00:33:36]:
Yeah. Well, maybe you can maybe you can just tell new customers. Hey. We’re

Tessa Leonard [00:33:41]:
we’re going. Listen, most people and the younger and the young the younger generation, they they pay only phones and that. It’s the older generation that’s that’s just like having cash. But, yeah, I I also didn’t wanna have too much cash on at the store. It’s just, you know Yeah. It’s a bit of a thing for us. I don’t like. But, anyway, it’s it’s been fine, and it’s on cope.

Tessa Leonard [00:34:04]:
It’s fine with 15% cash.

Jordan Berry [00:34:06]:
Yeah. 10, 15 percent is not too bad. Not too bad there. Yeah. What what I mean, were you okay. So you added social media and you added, obviously, I mean, you added the software and all that. So I’m assuming I mean, are there any people who order online through the through the app or the your site now? But they weren’t doing that before? Is

Tessa Leonard [00:34:27]:
that No.

Jordan Berry [00:34:28]:
Because there wasn’t

Tessa Leonard [00:34:28]:
I’m pushing that a lot, and that’s been great. I I’m actually I actually want I’m pushing the collect and delivery on the app a lot. Because also I had to change my the the pricing was also a thing for me. I had to I had to get my pricing right because, you know, the collect and delivery, I I wasn’t charging I don’t think I was charging enough. And I I I had to change that whole the whole pricing for collect and delivery, which I think I’m at a good place now with the pricing. And, yes, the customers book on the app. They do everything on the app, which is it’s it’s made a lot easier for us. And I and we’re getting more and more and more of those.

Tessa Leonard [00:35:04]:
So I think collect and delivery is something I’m really focusing on as well.

Jordan Berry [00:35:08]:
Yeah. Can we, can we talk about change the changing of the pricing? Cause I mean, I think a lot of people are always scared to change prices, especially, I mean, usually that means raising prices. I mean, can you tell us, like, what were you at and where did you go to? And then, like, the response of customers to that.

Tessa Leonard [00:35:28]:
That was a tough one because the previous owner was also his pricing was so low. It was really low. So that was hard for me. I too. I I knew I had to change the pricing, but I had to do it really slowly. Yeah. People freak out all the time. But, you know, they freak out.

Tessa Leonard [00:35:41]:
What I’ve learned is that they freak out for a little while, and then and then and then they still they they could they just come.

Jordan Berry [00:35:48]:
Like, what else am

Tessa Leonard [00:35:49]:
I gonna

Jordan Berry [00:35:49]:
do? Yeah.

Tessa Leonard [00:35:50]:
They they they like to make make a statement that it’s not not great, and then it’s it goes down again. Yeah. So I’ve I’ve I’ve started increasing our prices, like, every 6 months. I I just slowly and the other thing I do is I don’t I don’t increase at all. I I increase certain certain things on the price list so that sometimes the customers don’t really know that I’ve increased their prices. Because I’ve I’ve found that if I increased all everything together, they it it didn’t go down well. So I’ve got some good advice from a a fellow, a dry the dry cleaners that we actually do business together. And he said he actually said that’s what he did.

Tessa Leonard [00:36:28]:
And I started doing that, and, really, it was it was good. So I’ve done that. But going back to the collection delivery, I had to work out you know, it’s petrol. It’s time. It’s, it’s all that. So I I I did jump quite a bit. I mean, it’s it’s probably, like, 15% more to to book on the collect and delivery than just be a drop off customer. So you they are being charged more.

Tessa Leonard [00:36:53]:
But but they the the the the people that use the collection delivery want the convenience, and they don’t mind paying that extra. So that’s that’s what I realized as well. And and then it was a kind of a no brainer.

Jordan Berry [00:37:05]:
I think

Tessa Leonard [00:37:06]:
I think it was

Jordan Berry [00:37:07]:
Go Sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Tessa Leonard [00:37:09]:
No. That’s also why I’m trying to push the collecting delivery because it’s obviously we get more, but it’s, you know, it’s it’s actually quite a nice way of doing it. And and then we don’t deal with the customer so much. It’s just the laundry just comes in and out, in and out, and it’s actually quite good. The laundry isn’t so busy and it’s, yeah, I I like the collect and delivery a lot. I really do.

Jordan Berry [00:37:27]:
Yeah. I would just say I think I think a lot, if not most laundromats here, are significantly more than 15% more on the on the collect and delivery than the drop off. So I I mean, I think you probably still have room to go.

Tessa Leonard [00:37:44]:
I do. Yeah. I think I do have, but I had to do it quite slowly. So I will in December, I’m gonna increase again. So I I think I’ll just keep doing it every 6 months. And then I think my collecting delivery will be right. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:37:57]:
Yeah. How long do you think it’s gonna take you to get it to the right right price?

Tessa Leonard [00:38:02]:
Maybe another year. Maybe another

Jordan Berry [00:38:03]:
This is another couple of years probably.

Tessa Leonard [00:38:06]:
Yeah. It’s it’s it’s getting there, though. I mean, they there’s certain things that are right, and there’s certain things that that needs picking up. But I just I yeah. It’s so hard to to increase. I I find that very hard, and that’s something that I’ve had to learn. But we’re getting there.

Jordan Berry [00:38:22]:
Do you feel like, you get more pushback from your customers, residential customers, or your commercial, like, Airbnb commercial clients

Tessa Leonard [00:38:32]:
on the pricing? Tough one. I no. It’s about the same. They also they also try and keep them keep me they don’t like it. Yeah. And, you know, then we we kind of for my corporate customers, I do it a yearly increase. Mhmm. And then we kind of go as inflation.

Tessa Leonard [00:38:49]:
I I kinda just say this is what’s happening. This is what we’re doing. And then and then when I put it down like that, then they so and also they they’re giving me a lot a lot of, you know, we we doing a a lot of laundry for them, and they it’s daily. So, it’s not like it’s once a week. It’s, like, every day that we Yeah. They they’re sending us laundry. So I was I I can’t jump too high with them.

Jordan Berry [00:39:12]:
Yeah. Yeah. I get that for sure. But, I mean, it sounds like you’re you’re able to at least stay afloat right now with even with your prices a little bit lower.

Tessa Leonard [00:39:21]:
Yeah. Yeah. No. We are. We’re doing very well. Yeah. We’ve Yeah. We are.

Tessa Leonard [00:39:25]:
We’ve we had we had such a busy June, July because it was raining for a month in Cape Town in June, July. It was just it was just crazy. Laundry mats in Cape Town were just we just couldn’t cope the up to the ceiling with with laundry. So we’ve had, yeah, we had a great winter. And and now we’re heading into a good season. Yeah. But we’re busy. Yeah.

Tessa Leonard [00:39:48]:
We’re just making money and keeping afloat, paying staff, you know, doing all that.

Jordan Berry [00:39:54]:
How’s your how’s your capacity? Like, do you still have room to grow, do more laundry in your facility, or do you have to start thinking about adding another one or expanding?

Tessa Leonard [00:40:06]:
I think we we we are near and near capacity. And like I said, I might have to add some machines on the top, but there is, I have been thinking of of maybe, getting another not actually another laundry, just another place to do laundry. So we, we’ve got sneaker sneaker companies. I’m I’m sure you guys have the same as the sneaker sneaker cleaning companies

Jordan Berry [00:40:28]:
Mhmm.

Tessa Leonard [00:40:28]:
In America. And we, it’s called Sneaker Shack. So we we send all the shoes to them, and and they’ve got a warehouse and there’s space for for me to put machines with them, and they wouldn’t mind me doing that. So that’s the kind of thing I would do. And then the other thing that I might do is just get a little hub, a little drop off hub sort of maybe further down the line, and then people can just drop laundry there. We don’t do laundry there. Then the driver will pick it up and bring it to those two places. So that’s kind of my thinking going forward.

Tessa Leonard [00:41:04]:
Not starting another not having another laundry with, you know, it just it’s more just to do the laundry and to for someone to drop off laundry.

Jordan Berry [00:41:11]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, that sounds like a great business model, having drop centers and in a space that’s not public facing to do the laundry. And if you can get some warehouse space, even better. Because it sounds like space is tight right now. And you’re it also sounds like you’re doing a lot of stuff. You’re doing, you know, obviously washing and folding and all that, but you’re doing some ironing. And what what does that look like? Did did you when you took over, were they doing ironing already, or did you add that?

Tessa Leonard [00:41:39]:
Yeah. We yeah. Everything. We do we do wash dry fold is big, and then, obviously, there’s wash dry ironing. So we’ve got like I said, we’ve got this big roll lines for this for the linen, and we’ve got the hand ironing for the clothes and the and the shirts and things. Yeah. So we actually do everything. We do, you know, and then and then we send dry cleaning down the road to a to a dry cleaners that we’ve that we’ve got business with.

Tessa Leonard [00:42:03]:
And then, yeah. So we we pretty much do everything at at the laundry. A lot a lot a busy laundry.

Jordan Berry [00:42:10]:
I love it. Very busy.

Tessa Leonard [00:42:12]:
Yeah. We are.

Jordan Berry [00:42:12]:
That’s that’s cool. Making Why do you not? Go ahead. Sorry.

Tessa Leonard [00:42:19]:
The the iron? No. You mean, you you will do the ironing or

Jordan Berry [00:42:25]:
most most don’t offer ironing. There’s there are operators that have some some big ironing machines to to iron, sheets and stuff. I don’t I don’t know of many that are ironing clothes, hand ironing clothes.

Tessa Leonard [00:42:43]:
Yeah. That’s busy. I mean, we we did a lot of request finding. Lots. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:42:48]:
Yeah. Yeah. I I think it’s it’s just so time and labor intensive to iron that. I don’t know. Yeah. But, no, no.

Tessa Leonard [00:42:58]:
We we do charge extra a lot of extra fining though. That’s where I I had, like, my prices after because that takes a lot of time and electricity and all sorts of things. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:43:09]:
Yeah. Yeah. A lot of labor, a lot of time, space even, to do that. So, yeah. No, we don’t, we don’t do a lot of, I’m sure there are people who do it. But I don’t see it very often.

Tessa Leonard [00:43:25]:
I don’t

Jordan Berry [00:43:25]:
see it very often.

Tessa Leonard [00:43:25]:
Interesting.

Jordan Berry [00:43:26]:
In fact, I see more people doing what they’re calling wash dry bag, where they’re not even folding it. They’re just throwing it in a bag after they wash it and charging less because you know, foldings, you know, labor intensive also. But wash dry bag, I see well, I see a lot more of that than I see people ironing residential clothes for sure. So that’s kinda going the other way.

Tessa Leonard [00:43:50]:
Yeah. And we we haven’t heard of wash dry bag yet. Yeah. Yeah. Buses all moisturized, very neatly. Very neat little packs, and then off they go.

Jordan Berry [00:43:59]:
I think it’s it’s controversial over here. I mean, I think some people, it’s like, hey. It’s easy money. We can charge, you know, a little less than drop off service for it, but it’s just easy. We don’t have to fold anything. We just throw it in the bag. And, you know, and then I think some people are like, well, listen, you know, we can’t control the quality then, and, you know, people, you know, people like to complain. You were saying this, right? Like people like to complain about stuff and just another thing to complain about.

Jordan Berry [00:44:28]:
So, I think it’s pretty controversial, but I think there’s quite a few operators that are finding some success with it. So, you know, it’s just kind of interesting. That’s why I love, that’s why I love doing this. Right. It’s like some people are going one way and being like, okay, we’ll wash it for you. But if you, you know, we can just throw it in a bag if you want. And you got you, who’s like, we’re going to fold everything. We’re going to iron everything.

Jordan Berry [00:44:48]:
It’s gonna you know, smell fresh. You know? It’s great. That’s that’s part of the beauty of this business, I think, is there’s lots of different ways to to run it. It’s on the one hand, it’s just laundry, but on the other hand, there’s lots of different ways to do it.

Tessa Leonard [00:45:02]:
Absolutely. Yeah. No. Look. On the other look. Some people just come in and just say they want us to iron for them. So they’ve they’ve washed. They’ve done everything, and they don’t like ironing.

Tessa Leonard [00:45:11]:
So they they just use us as an ironing service. Yeah. And they can just do that.

Jordan Berry [00:45:16]:
I don’t like ironing either. Yeah. I’d have

Tessa Leonard [00:45:20]:
I don’t think anyone does.

Jordan Berry [00:45:22]:
Well, here’s the thing is that after I bought a laundromat, I mostly stopped wearing clothes that needed to be ironed. So that was my Yeah. That’s my trick right there. Okay. So, I mean, I’m I’m curious how how when you, you know, you took over this business, you did kind of your overhaul. First of all, I mean, it sounded like you who, you know, self admittedly said, I don’t really know how to do laundry very well at all. Sounded like you had to do some training of your Yeah. Staff that was doing the laundry.

Jordan Berry [00:45:56]:
How did, I mean, how did you figure out what to teach them how to do, and how did that training go?

Tessa Leonard [00:46:01]:
Yeah. And, Jordan, in the beginning, it was crazy. I they were training me. Yeah. It’s crazy. Well, I had to I I literally had to learn everything. I need I needed to learn how much detergent to put in, how much, what what because everyone had different the Airbnb’s had a different detergent and this, and it was just you know, I had to learn everything. Yeah.

Tessa Leonard [00:46:21]:
So we kind of helped each other. They they knew I needed them and and they needed me. So we kind of just worked together very well. I I did take over very goods very great staff, and they they they’ve still I’ve got 4 4 of them. 2 of them have left, but I’ve got 2 more. I’ve I’ve got really great staff, and, you know, I’ve also realized that, you know, gotta gotta have incentives for them and and all sorts of things because laundry is, you know, not great to be doing every single day. You know, they’ve gotta keep them motivated and keep them wanting to come back to work and also keeping the standards up. And so that’s been that’s been tricky.

Tessa Leonard [00:47:01]:
But I think we have worked that out, how to how to sort that out. But yeah. I mean, I I learned a lot from the staff, actually. They they were great. And then I’ve actually learned everything. I can learn the folding techniques and the ironing and how the iron is worked, those big roll lines. So it was it was hard. Yeah.

Tessa Leonard [00:47:22]:
But Did it I like

Jordan Berry [00:47:23]:
Did did the seller stick around to teach you any of that stuff? Or is he like Oh,

Tessa Leonard [00:47:28]:
he was

Jordan Berry [00:47:29]:
He said August 1st. I’m out of here.

Tessa Leonard [00:47:32]:
He he he did say to me, Tessa, I’ll be around. But I mean, he wasn’t really around. I used to phone him and go, Ashley, I’m really struggling. Can you please help me? And he’s like, sorry. I’m not coming back. So, you know, he he wasn’t much help at all. Yeah. Yeah.

Tessa Leonard [00:47:48]:
So, no, I couldn’t really rely on him. But I but, just the staff, you know, helped me. They they really did help me a lot. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, now I’m training that. Now I’m training the new stuff. Yeah.

Tessa Leonard [00:48:04]:
Yeah. So it’s

Jordan Berry [00:48:05]:
Well, I was curious. I mean, it sounds like you had a good staff experience. I’ve you know, a lot of times I hear and I’ve experienced this too personally, but, like, when you take over a store that’s not really being managed where the staff is mostly kind of left to their own devices and you come in and you start implementing some standards and some procedures, I found that sometimes staff don’t work well. And, you know, a lot of people too, when they when they, you know, buy, especially a higher performing laundromat, I’ve seen a lot of times where people will have the seller actually fire everybody on the staff, and then they’ll have to basically reapply for their job, which, again, I think is controversial. Some people like that, some people don’t. But, but I think the the heart of that is it can be hard to start demanding or expecting your employees to do things that they didn’t have to do before without basically being paid anymore or not much more or whatever. And and I think a lot of people have problems, in that scenario. But it doesn’t sound like you had that problem or much of that problem?

Tessa Leonard [00:49:13]:
No. I the the 2 that left, I did have a problem with. So I did there were 2 that that were that weren’t great, and they’re not with us anymore. But the the race were were were good. But, you know, at staff, I think, is is is your biggest it’s it’s kind of your hardest part of of of of of this business. It’s Yeah. It really is. It’s it’s hard.

Tessa Leonard [00:49:36]:
Like, that’s my that’s my biggest challenge, I think. Yeah. Is is keeping is is the staff. Not not saying of a bad staff, just keeping it keeping going, keeping them motivated, keeping them keeping them coming to work and, yeah, keeping the good ones. But, yeah, I I did find that I could sift through, and I I I knew who the good ones were, and I and I quickly gave him more responsibility. And, you know, one of them is my manager and I and I can rely on her totally. And she’s also loved being you know, getting the getting more more responsibility and just, you know, getting stuck into all the software and the the accounts and things like that. So that’s great.

Tessa Leonard [00:50:14]:
You know? I’ve they’ve been good. And there’s always challenges with staff. I mean, I I had a couple of stealing incidents, which is which was tough and a real learning curve. But, yeah, I think that’s also part of it.

Jordan Berry [00:50:28]:
Yeah. Yeah. And I found too, you know, and hopefully this wasn’t the case, but I found too that a lot of times going from a mostly cash business to adding digital payments, a lot of things can be revealed about your staff, both in terms of if stealing or things like that were happening or if they’re not tech savvy enough to be able to work with the software or just not willing to work and learn a software and those systems. I mean, how was that transition going from cash to having that?

Tessa Leonard [00:51:05]:
Yeah. That that was that was quite tough because they all I mean, we’ve got some some of our staff, they just weren’t interested to to even start learning about it. And I did need them to learn because, you know, I cannot be there all the time, and I needed to rely on them. So And you

Jordan Berry [00:51:20]:
got podcast interviews to do. You can’t be there all the time.

Tessa Leonard [00:51:23]:
No. You

Jordan Berry [00:51:24]:
got podcast interviews to be on and you know?

Tessa Leonard [00:51:26]:
Yeah. No. So I had to I had to teach yeah. I had to find the ones that that really were interested and could learn. I’m trying hard to to get everyone to know everything about the business because, you know, that’s that’s then I’ll I know that I’ve succeeded with with all of it today. It’s hard. It really is tough. Yeah.

Tessa Leonard [00:51:48]:
Yeah. And the stealing incidents, I think, wasn’t a bad thing because it it made the other staff realize how what happens when that happens. And it just you know, they were it was inevitable they were gonna get caught, and they did. And they were out of there the next day. So it was just was a bad experience. But the other staff had big eyes and they knew that’s, it’s not worth it. Yeah. So

Jordan Berry [00:52:13]:
yeah. Yeah. And that’s hard. I mean, especially kinda coming in as a new owner and finding that stuff out and having to deal with that’s like, you’re like, Hey, Deepen, like here I come, you know, like just, just jumping, right? I mean, that’s kind of what you did anyways, right? Like, oh, I’m in your backpacking, I’ll buy a laundry and then just jumping in the deep end there. But I mean,

Tessa Leonard [00:52:33]:
that’s something that I didn’t know anything about laundry because it’s yeah. Maybe it was a good maybe. Yeah. It was my saving grace maybe. I don’t know.

Jordan Berry [00:52:41]:
Yeah. That’s the that’s the danger of doing too much research upfront. Right? Like the people who want to learn everything beforehand, you might learn everything and decide not to do it. Exactly. Yeah. But I mean, you mentioned, you know, trying to learn about how to keep them motivated and incentives. Like, how are you keeping them motivated? Are you offering incentives? And what does that

Tessa Leonard [00:53:04]:
look like? I do offer incentives. I mean, it it was the first incentive I tried to do was try to get my electricity bill down. And I was like, okay. If we can get to this point of electricity, you know, then we can get I will incentivize. And that didn’t really work because it wasn’t really working. So that throughout got

Jordan Berry [00:53:23]:
the job. Working in the dark so they couldn’t see. Saved electricity on the lights.

Tessa Leonard [00:53:27]:
No. That didn’t work.

Jordan Berry [00:53:29]:
Bring flashlights.

Tessa Leonard [00:53:31]:
But I, you know what? Now I just I reward them for for good work and good everything. Good with the customers. Good, neat work, neat, neat handwriting when on the on the side. Everything. Like, they know they know what they’ve gotta do and and and and they I reward them accordingly. And it’s just it’s pure incentivized by good work. And they and they know that it’s coming. And then I do it.

Tessa Leonard [00:53:56]:
And I, you know, it it might come every 3 months or it might come 6 months or I mean, they it it could come anytime, and I and I do just add it on their paycheck, and they know that it’s coming if it happens. And they know what they gotta do. So I I seem to have got that right with them because they’re working well, and they and they know that I’m on them all the time. And I can see what’s what’s happening. I would they they can’t really get away with too much slacking off because, like, I know I’ve got cameras. That’s another thing I put up in the laundry. I put cameras up immediately. So, they know that I can see what they’re doing.

Tessa Leonard [00:54:35]:
And, yeah, they they’re working really well, and and they and they seem look. They need the jobs. You know? There’s a high, high unemployment in South Africa.

Jordan Berry [00:54:45]:
Mhmm.

Tessa Leonard [00:54:45]:
And these these ladies need their jobs. Some of them are supporting, like, whole families and, you know, it’s tough. It’s really tough. They need the they they need this job badly. Yeah. So I like to reward them as much as I can.

Jordan Berry [00:55:00]:
Yeah. Well, and that, it, you know, part of what I like about this business too, I know normally we don’t have a ton of employees, but we do have an opportunity to take care of, you know, our employees and a good way to do that is to incentivize what you want to have happen. Right? Like, if you’ve got, you know, and we’ve seen like people, you know, Google reviews are huge here, Yelp to a little bit lesser extent, but those are, those are big too. Right? And even Facebook reviews. And so we’ve seen, you know, more on the self serve side because you’re interacting directly, but people are incentivizing their employees to, you know, they get compensated if they get mentioned positively in a review and, you know, stuff like that. Right? So it’s like whatever you’re looking for from your customers, if you can find a way to align your interests with theirs by incentivizing it, I mean, I think that’s huge. Right? And so letting them know what’s important to you and making it important by, you know, offering some sort of incentive is I think that’s huge.

Tessa Leonard [00:56:03]:
Yeah. Talk about the reviews. That was another big thing that I that I worked so hard on is getting is getting the reviews because the the previous owner was on, like, 2.9 or something. I mean, he had some horrific reviews Yeah. And wasn’t great. And so I kind of took that over. And then yeah. So I’ve I’ve worked very hard on trying to get reviews on and we’ve right up there now to, like, 4.9 or something.

Tessa Leonard [00:56:27]:
So that’s been good.

Jordan Berry [00:56:28]:
Woah.

Tessa Leonard [00:56:29]:
But I think reviews help a lot. You know, people definitely go in when they’re looking, you know, if if they they’re about 6 6 laundry mats in the space of, you know, 5, 10 kilometers. They’re gonna they will look at the reviews, and and it does help if you’ve got a good review.

Jordan Berry [00:56:49]:
Okay. Well, I mean, give us your secrets. How did you what what does it mean? You worked hard to get good reviews. How did you get good reviews?

Tessa Leonard [00:56:57]:
Yeah. I pushed, when I I I got one of those QR codes at the at the reception that they could just scan their phone to make it easy for them, You know? And I would ask the staff to, you know, especially if if the customers were happy, I would would say I’d tell them to say to the customer, would you mind, you know, giving us a review? And before they left the before they leave the premises, I was giving fudge out at some point. Every I would give them a free piece of fudge if they left a review. Oh. That worked.

Jordan Berry [00:57:27]:
Bribing the fudge, is it? That’s that’s a fail. Like, I can’t lot

Tessa Leonard [00:57:31]:
of I don’t know. We just we just kept asking and then, you know, the the customers to, you know, would you mind giving us a review? And then they did. I mean, the more you ask, the people people don’t mind doing it, especially if they’re getting good service. And every time

Jordan Berry [00:57:44]:
And fudge.

Tessa Leonard [00:57:44]:
I win. Sorry?

Jordan Berry [00:57:46]:
I said and fudge. If they’re getting good service and fudge, they don’t mind doing it.

Tessa Leonard [00:57:50]:
I’m doing the fudge because I couldn’t afford buying all the fudge in before. But, but and every time, you know, just say we went, above over and above for a customer and they were sort of going on and on about how great our laundry was and everything, I would always say to them, please leave us a review. And then they would, you know. They’re very happy too. So we I worked hard on that. You know, just try to tell people to please leave us a review, and and it it has worked. People are happy to leave reviews if they give if they get good service.

Jordan Berry [00:58:22]:
They’re also happy to leave reviews if they get bad service. So you gotta be careful. Make sure if you’re gonna be asking for reviews, you’re Exactly.

Tessa Leonard [00:58:29]:
Yeah. You know what? You gotta have a few bad reviews up like Yeah. To make it look like you haven’t earned each you know, just getting your friends to write reviews.

Jordan Berry [00:58:39]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Tessa Leonard [00:58:41]:
No. I know. Listen. Listen. Customers, I’ve dealt with those as well. Yeah. Those Yeah. Bad ones.

Tessa Leonard [00:58:45]:
And then I’ve also learned with those is sure. You just gotta, you the customer’s always right. And and how even if us, me, and the staff know that, you know, it’s just absolute nonsense what they what they’re accusing us of doing. We just have to go. It’s okay. It’s fine. We’re very sorry. We’ll replace it.

Tessa Leonard [00:59:05]:
We’ll do this. And we do. And and then they they leave the laundry happy and they come back instead of us fighting them and saying it wasn’t us. Then they leave. They they’ll probably tell about 10 friends never to come back and leave a bad review and then yeah. So it it definitely helps just saying sorry and replacing. Even if you don’t, you know that it wasn’t your fault. I’ve done that a lot.

Jordan Berry [00:59:31]:
Yeah. And Well, yeah. And I think that that I think that’s really, I think it’s just wise. Right? It’s it’s hard because when we own businesses, like, we’re proud of those businesses. Right? They’re like an extension of us, And so, we have this pride about it. And when somebody is attacking it, especially if it’s unfair, you know,

Tessa Leonard [00:59:52]:
and they’re attacking

Jordan Berry [00:59:53]:
it, are, for me, I’ll speak for myself. My it’s easy for my pride to kind of get wrapped up in that and to want to defend the thing that I’m proud of, especially when I know they’re just being ridiculous or what. I mean, we’ve all seen those reviews and those customers. Right? But like you’re saying, I think probably 9 times out of 10 or more, if you just, you know, eat eat some humble pie and just say, look, I know I have a good service to myself. Like, I know I have a good service. I know they’re being ridiculous. Let’s just make it right and move on and keep serving the customers that want our service. It ends up just working working out better.

Jordan Berry [01:00:36]:
And you have an opportunity to turn their opinion around about you. Now you’re not gonna do that for everybody. There’s just some people who are unreasonable.

Tessa Leonard [01:00:44]:
No. No. I actually it it definitely does. Just you like like you said, eat your humble pie and just just try and get them get them back. Yeah. It’s amazing how they their attitude switches. You know? As soon as you say to them, you know, we’ll we’ll we’ll take you know, it’s a free load. Don’t worry.

Tessa Leonard [01:01:02]:
Or I will replace that pair of jeans that we you said we ruined or whatever. We would do we do it? And suddenly, they yeah. It’s amazing, the switch. So I have realized it does. It’s you just gotta do it. It doesn’t happen that often. So, you know, just do it because it’s not like it’s happening every day. And when it does happen, you just have to do it.

Jordan Berry [01:01:25]:
Yeah. And and usually, it costs a lot less to just make it right, even if it wasn’t your fault to just make it right than to to butt heads with them. Especially, I’ve I’ve seen a lot of owners butt heads with customers online, like, on they’ll respond to a bad Google review and they’ll be combative. And it’s, like, the worst thing that you can do usually where it’s like

Tessa Leonard [01:01:48]:
I

Jordan Berry [01:01:48]:
don’t know. Just it doesn’t come off well for anybody else reading that that you’re you’re fighting them. So

Tessa Leonard [01:01:55]:
Yeah. No. You can’t fight them. Definitely not. Yeah. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [01:02:01]:
Okay. So, I mean, were you okay. I mean, obviously you improved the service a lot, right, when you took over from the other owner and you did a lot of, it sounds like you did a lot of very like strategic things to help kind of grow this business. Were you doing anything else in particular to, especially to get more of these Airbnb customers? It sounds like that’s like a pretty good source of daily, you know, daily laundry that you’ve got coming in. Did you do anything in particular to grow that side of the business?

Tessa Leonard [01:02:31]:
I think I think what we did and when when I took over, there was a lot of, the the actual detergents that the old owner was using was just it’s real. It wasn’t great. It was it was quite cheap and and and it wasn’t dealing with stains, properly. And so a lot of the a lot of those corporate clients were complaining about, you know, those yellow stains and the black stains and all that stuff. It’s really hard to get out of linen. And I was going crazy because I didn’t really know what to do because it was just I mean, I I didn’t we we were doing everything that we could with the with the detergents that I kind of I took over his suppliers and everything, and I thought, no. There’s gotta be something here. We gotta I’ve gotta do some investigating.

Tessa Leonard [01:03:10]:
So I literally did. I I I really investigated a lot about detergents and and what detergents to use for the for this type of linen that we were doing. We’re doing high end linen that needed to be perfect, you know, white, silky white, not not full of yellow stains. And I found this great company called Tex Chem, and they that was a huge game changer for us. We we they are they were more expensive, but they’ve been incredible. And and I think the linen that we started churning out was just so great. And and the stains went and it was just brilliant. And they’ve been so happy with us.

Tessa Leonard [01:03:44]:
And we’ve got more I guess, we’ve had good reviews and we’ve sent the words got out and we’ve had more and more and more Airbnb’s and guest houses coming to us. And I think it’s because we are, being able to get the linen back how they want it because some guests are terrible. You know, they this there’s there’s sunscreen stains. There’s all sorts of things that are they don’t know. They don’t care. It’s not their linen. So they don’t they don’t mind. And then we’ve gotta get it out, and we’ve gotta get it back to how it’s supposed to be.

Tessa Leonard [01:04:15]:
And that’s what they want. So and I I do believe that we’ve we’ve got to that level now. It took a while though. It didn’t it didn’t happen overnight. I had to really try a lot of different detergents. And then I found this amazing detergent that was incredible. So I think that’s been a a real game changer. Also, I think, just this the the level of of delivery and just getting like, those guest houses, they when when they’ve got guests coming, they they gave us all their dates, and we have to get that out when they want it off.

Tessa Leonard [01:04:46]:
There’s no being late or saying, sorry. It’s not ready yet. We’re a day late. They they when when they want it back, we have to deliver. And there’s no deviating on that one. So that’s also been good. I mean, and and we’ve I think we’ve kept our promise for that. Yeah.

Tessa Leonard [01:05:04]:
So I think I think that the 2 big ones were the detergents and our service delivery, which has it’s just been quite a good high standard.

Jordan Berry [01:05:15]:
Yeah. Well and you were telling me I think I don’t think we talked about this after we hit record, but you were telling me even even some of the Airbnbs every now and then, your people actually go in and strip the strip the sheets and stuff.

Tessa Leonard [01:05:28]:
Yeah. We do that. Yeah. So we all still I mean, a lot of the owners are maybe away. They’re living in another part another another part of South Africa. They’ve actually got a second home, and then they’re not even in in Cape Town. So they’ve got a housekeeper or or just or maybe a host that’s just letting them in. So they actually have asked us to go in.

Tessa Leonard [01:05:47]:
Can we can we get get the the apartment or the house Airbnb ready? So we will then take the old linen off the beds, put the new linen on the beds, and then the ladies will just quickly do a a clean and and get it ready for the guests. And that’s also becoming there’s more and more demand of that. So it’s a whole another business.

Jordan Berry [01:06:07]:
Sounds like a budding short term rental cleaning business happening over there.

Tessa Leonard [01:06:12]:
Cleaning cleaning is not a great it’s hard, though. It’s it’s not easy. It’s that getting that price right is hard because it’s, you know, you need quite a lot of staff and, it’s it’s quite tricky to get the price right there. But, we definitely do offer that service to put the linen on the beds, and then we just charge them more. It’s it’s on top of the laundry. Mhmm. And and they’re happy to pay it because it makes their lives easier.

Jordan Berry [01:06:36]:
Yeah. Yeah. That’s interesting. That’s interesting. I, you know, until we talked, you know, before we hit record, I had never really even thought of that kind of potential symbiotic relationship between laundry, pickup and delivery, cleaning, especially when it comes to the short term rental market. But that’s an interesting concept, I think. Like you said, I think there’s some, definitely some challenges to overcome to make that work, but probably overcomeable challenges for the right person

Tessa Leonard [01:07:09]:
who wants

Jordan Berry [01:07:09]:
to make it happen.

Tessa Leonard [01:07:10]:
No. No. Yes. It’s just there’s a there’s a demand out there for it, definitely. Yeah. Especially in the season. Yeah. You need to come out down to your town and see what I’m talking about.

Jordan Berry [01:07:20]:
That’s right. I’ll stay in an Airbnb and check out the sheets. Yeah.

Tessa Leonard [01:07:24]:
See how they

Jordan Berry [01:07:24]:
how they do.

Tessa Leonard [01:07:25]:
Exactly.

Jordan Berry [01:07:26]:
Yeah. That’s good. Do you do or do you do or have you done any, like, advertising or anything like that?

Tessa Leonard [01:07:34]:
For?

Jordan Berry [01:07:35]:
For your pickup and delivery service, like, run Google ads or Facebook ads or anything like that?

Tessa Leonard [01:07:40]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I do it all the time. Yes.

Jordan Berry [01:07:42]:
Okay. Yeah. Is that driving a lot? I mean, are you are you tracking that? Like, are you getting good business from that? How’s the response been to your ad?

Tessa Leonard [01:07:51]:
You mean off of Instagram and Facebook? Mhmm. Yeah. And and my social media. Yes. Yeah. I don’t know. We we definitely are. We boost the post, and we get to a lot of people that way.

Jordan Berry [01:08:00]:
Yeah. That’s Okay.

Tessa Leonard [01:08:02]:
Yeah. That’s been a big part of of me taking over from him, but he had nothing. And I think it’s getting to a lot of people. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [01:08:11]:
Yeah. What kind of just out of curiosity, I I’ve just I’ve I’ve started, and in fact, if anybody’s listening out there and wants to send me an example or 2 of a laundromat who’s doing social media really well, I’m just, I’ve kind of been digging into that a little bit to see like what, what’s a good social media strategy? But, like, what kinds of things are you posting for your for your ads or just on your social media in general?

Tessa Leonard [01:08:35]:
I’m I’m I’m boosting I mean, I’m I’m going over and over with the collect and delivery. I’m I’m really pumping that. I pa we we post a lot, that that we do Airbnb cleaning, you know, the for the for Airbnb’s and guest houses. Yeah. Just posts of the laundry, posts of the staff, posts of what’s happening in our laundry, what we offer, the service we offer. Just I think continual posting gets you know, you gotta be you gotta be consistent with it. So, you know, 3, 4 posts a week or and then the reels, Facebook. Yeah.

Tessa Leonard [01:09:13]:
I just I think it’s just to be consistent and to keep at it, gets the word out.

Jordan Berry [01:09:20]:
Are you the one doing all the posting in person?

Tessa Leonard [01:09:23]:
No. I don’t. No. I’ve I’ve had I’ve had different people doing my social media. I I’m not that great at it.

Jordan Berry [01:09:31]:
Are there people on your staff, or do you have, like, an agency or somebody helping you?

Tessa Leonard [01:09:34]:
Or I did have an I I did have a proper social media agency, but now I’m actually, my my son’s girlfriend is doing it, my social media for me now. She’s, yeah, she’s young. They you know, the they actually they’re they’re much more in tune with what how to post the reels and all that. So, you know, we we discuss what what we want, what I want, and then she does it for me and then posts. And it’s done well. Yeah. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [01:10:01]:
Sounds like

Tessa Leonard [01:10:01]:
She learns a lot as well. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [01:10:04]:
You better tell your son not to ruin it for you. Keep keep her around for a while.

Tessa Leonard [01:10:09]:
I hope so.

Jordan Berry [01:10:10]:
Yeah. That’s awesome. This is, this has been awesome. Like, I I feel like, first of all, you’re very inspiring just in the way that you kinda just went for it and jumped in and have kinda made this thing happen. I mean, I I didn’t ask, but, like, when you took over, was was it a profitable business, like, when you took over and then you’ve grown it from there? Or did you have to, like, get it?

Tessa Leonard [01:10:36]:
No. It it actually was making money even when I took it over, but it just was just, you know, making money in a in a different way that we’re making money now. But it was making money. We we’ve made money all the time. It’s just grown. I mean, as you you know, your revenue grows and then there’s more it’s just sort of, you know, you that’s what happened. Yeah. Yeah.

Tessa Leonard [01:10:54]:
You keep going up. But we’ve we’ve only doubled our revenue and and, yeah, it’s just it’s been amazing. I mean, it really has been an incredible 2 years. It it it really has. And I really I’ve actually really enjoyed it.

Jordan Berry [01:11:07]:
Yeah. Only 2 years though. That’s pretty that’s pretty impressive that, you know, in 2 years, you’ve doubled business. You’ve built this kind of machine that’s working, right now. And it sounds like you’re either consciously or subconsciously or subconsciously, laying the groundwork for some more expansion through maybe adding some warehouse or some drop spots or whatever, but it sounds like you’ve got it. No.

Tessa Leonard [01:11:32]:
I’d love to. Yeah. I would love

Jordan Berry [01:11:34]:
to. Good system working. Awesome. I wanna I wanna ask you, what what advice do you have for somebody who’s maybe starting to think about going into the laundry business, wanting to get started? You got any you got any advice for somebody who’s maybe you a couple years ago before you, you know, flew off to, you know, Europe to go backpack and buy a laundromat?

Tessa Leonard [01:12:00]:
Oh, I think you know what? I I I think if they if they wanna get into this business, they they must take the plunge if they if they really want to. I think I think there are some things about buying a laundromat or a laundry business that that that I mean, I bought a laundry that was in a great location. I think location is key with this business, especially down here. I I don’t know. I’m sure in America as well. But I mean, I’ve you know, it’s gotta be there’s gotta be parking. They’ve gotta be visible. They’ve gotta I think that’s very important.

Tessa Leonard [01:12:28]:
I’ve I’ve seen laundry mats closed down in, in in Cape Town where they’ve they’ve been in areas where people just can’t really get to them, you know, so they they just won’t come, and they they just close. They just don’t get the traffic and the the foot the the drop off customers or, you know, people don’t really wanna walk with their laundry bags to the laundry. They so, gee, I think it’s got to if if I’ll try if they are looking to buy a laundry bag at the the location is key. Are they I really do think it is. And then once they, you know, once they’re in the laundry business, I think, you know, customer service is just so important. I think that is huge, that the type of service that that that you do. I mean, you know, you customers are very fickle. They it’s like, I guess, it’s like the restaurant business.

Tessa Leonard [01:13:14]:
You know, you have one bad pizza or whatever. You’re not really gonna go back. And if the lawn if people have bad experience, they you know, there are plenty other laundries that they can go to, you you know, and and they will do that. So I think your service has gotta be impeccable. Yeah. Train your staff well. Keep them happy. Have a good vibe in the in the laundry.

Tessa Leonard [01:13:37]:
You know, people also like customers love coming into laundries when they when there’s happiness and laughing and smiling faces. They don’t like coming in when it’s all dreary and negative and, you know, all those kind of things do help. Yeah. I think, I think if people wanna wanna buy, I would I would say go for it. Anyone out there sitting on the fence thinking, should they do it? I think it’s been a great experience for me.

Jordan Berry [01:14:02]:
This is the sign if you’re out there listening, waiting for a sign to take the leap. You have just got your sign from Tessa. It’s come from from South Africa straight to your ears. Take the leap. Make the jump. And I mean, such great advice. Right? I mean, I think location is huge no matter where in the world you are, you know, for a laundry business, but probably for a lot of businesses that are local service businesses. Right? And, I mean, customer service is is just so big.

Jordan Berry [01:14:35]:
And I think it’s, you know, at least here in the states, it’s only getting more and more important, you know, to to serve those customers well. Yeah. And even if you’re just a self serve laundry, you still have got to think about customer service and, you know, how you’re treating those customers. Even if you’re not there, you don’t have somebody there. You there’s still a customer service aspect to it that you wanna think through, strategically. You may not have an answer to this question, but I just kinda curious if there was one thing, customer service wise, one thing that you think is the most important thing to do customer service wise, you have something?

Tessa Leonard [01:15:13]:
For the customers coming into the laundry. Yeah. Cool. Wow.

Jordan Berry [01:15:17]:
Or if I was starting if I was starting a laundry service business and you’re like, if you do nothing else customer service wise, do this. Has there been something that you found that like I said, you may not know the answer to this or there may not even be a good answer to this, but because it’s a whole bunch of little things. But I’m just curious if there’s

Tessa Leonard [01:15:33]:
like Well, it is a whole bunch of little things. But I, sure, I would just say that the laundry that you give out, just make it look beautiful and perfect. Just when they when they receive their laundry, you know, if they can just receive lovely smelling, perfectly folded laundry, They can only be happy. They don’t really know what else has gone through the whole process, but that packet, just like giving them a present on this, you know. Just let them take their laundry and it’s and they can put it in their cupboards and it’s perfect. You can’t you know, that’s for for me, that’s number 1, I think. You know, just getting giving that them that pleasure of having perfect laundry or clothes or linen or towels, fluffy towels and, you know, it’s nice. Nice to get your laundry back like that.

Jordan Berry [01:16:23]:
Especially when you didn’t do it. Even better. Yeah. Yes. Exactly. What I love about that answer, and you’ve you’ve kinda said this a few times, is, you know, yes. You know, the thing you’re selling is is clean laundry. Right? But really a huge factor in what we’re selling is emotion.

Jordan Berry [01:16:45]:
Right? And you mentioned multiple times all throughout this that the customer can only feel happy when you when you give them good service and you return their laundry, you know, folded, soft, nice, looking perfect, smelling good, all of that. Right? And you said that a few times, like, they can only feel happy. Right? And, you know, when and you you also mentioned, you know, in your advice. Right? You mentioned having a good vibe and, you know, laughing people and, you know, just having a good experience. Right? Again, those those emotions and, you know, I I just think that that is so powerful, you know, and whether you are I mean, it sounds like you’re doing that intentionally. Right? Paying attention to your customers emotions and how they’re feeling. But even if we’re doing it unintentionally, we’re unintentionally or intentionally creating emotions in people by our atmosphere, by our service, and the more that we can intentionally direct those emotions, the better it’s going to be for business because people are gonna wanna do business with you if they get their laundry back and they feel happy. If they pop into your store to drop off or pick up their laundry and everybody’s happy and it makes them feel good.

Jordan Berry [01:17:56]:
Right? It’s a huge component that I don’t hear people talking about that often. So the fact that it came up a whole bunch of times, I think, is probably a huge contributor to why you’re seeing the success you’re seeing there. Mhmm.

Tessa Leonard [01:18:10]:
Thanks. Yeah. Also my staff, like, you know, the the ladies that are right at the front desk that that that are seeing the customers a lot because there there are a lot others that are too busy folding and ironing. But those ones, they’re engaging a lot with the customers. And and they’re talking to them and asking about their day or something or their child was sick or their dad’s ill and me doing their laundry for their dad. They they engage with them and they and they love that. I’ve I’ve seen that. I I I can see the customs.

Tessa Leonard [01:18:35]:
They they love that interaction and, having just a little chat with someone and who’s making them laugh or making them feel good or something. So it does help, definitely.

Jordan Berry [01:18:49]:
Huge. Yeah. I think it’s huge. Alright. Well, anybody out there who’s looking to get into the laundry business, probably your big takeaway from this is that you need to go backpack around Europe so that you can get a laundry business. That seems to be the way to do it. It’s working out well for you so far. Right?

Tessa Leonard [01:19:08]:
Yeah. I’m very glad I did that backpacking trip and didn’t cancel it. Yeah. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [01:19:13]:
I’m I’m sure that was

Tessa Leonard [01:19:14]:
I must say, when I was doing when I was on my backpacking trip, I was going, well, you better enjoy every single thing on this trip because you’re not gonna be backpacking for a while. But, anyway, yeah, it was great.

Jordan Berry [01:19:27]:
Yeah. I bet that was a trip of a lifetime with your daughter,

Tessa Leonard [01:19:31]:
kids around. So pretty cool.

Jordan Berry [01:19:33]:
Pretty cool to be able to do that. Yeah. Well, Tessa, this has been incredible. Not only, you know, is your story incredible, and not only did you, I mean, you just gave so many tangible things that are helpful, but you are incredible to speak with. Also, I just had a great time. Speaking of good feelings, I’m having a lot of great feelings, and I’m feeling super motivated, after talking with you, making things happen over there in South Africa. So thank you for taking the time to come on and and share your story with us.

Tessa Leonard [01:20:06]:
Thanks, Jordan. Thanks for having me.

Jordan Berry [01:20:09]:
Any Great. Anytime. You’re welcome. You’re welcome back on anytime. And, I’m gonna have to work on coordinating a trip, down there to inspect your inspect your linens and to make sure everything’s sparkling white and clean.

Tessa Leonard [01:20:23]:
I’ll find you an AB and B. I will I’ll find you an AB and B in Copay. Yeah. Google Copay, and then you’ll you’ll you’ll wanna come.

Jordan Berry [01:20:31]:
Done. I’m gonna do that as soon as we get off of this thing and, see about booking a trip because that’d be a lot of fun. It’s always been on the bucket list to do that. But really, my only my my main education about South South Africa is from Endless Summer or, the Discovery Shark Weeks where you guys have the great whites that jump out of the water and eat the fake seals. Like, that’s pretty much my the extent of my knowledge.

Tessa Leonard [01:20:58]:
So Well, there’s lots more.

Jordan Berry [01:20:59]:
Yeah. Okay. Great. Well, thank you again for taking the time to come on and really appreciate it.

Tessa Leonard [01:21:06]:
Pleasure, Jordan. Thank you.

Jordan Berry [01:21:08]:
Alright. Once again, huge shout out to Tessa. Thank you for coming on the show. So much good stuff, such a cool story, and super duper cool to hear how you’ve been building this business and and thrive and living your best life. So, you know, number 1, maybe we want to play tennis sometime. I don’t know if I even want to, but that’d be a lot of fun. And then number 2, listen, all of this is great. Tessa’s story is great.

Jordan Berry [01:21:35]:
So many golden nuggets, if you will, in this episode. However, for you, if you’re listening to this, like always, none of it makes a bit of difference unless you actually do something. So pick something, pick one thing in today’s episode and put it into action. It could be, hey, I’m coming to the November 12th webinar to get the laundromat playbook. That’s a great action. But also, you should probably pick something else there to put into action today. You know, for me, what was, what was incredible actually, was how she grew her Airbnb services there. And, and that led to her doubling her business.

Jordan Berry [01:22:21]:
And, you know, as I’m kind of thinking about my journey forward in laundry, I’m thinking of ways to incorporate that more into my business. So I don’t know. Stay tuned. Maybe we’ll see, what happens there. But that’s my action is to, call up some Airbnb managers and, start those conversations rolling. Alright. What’s your action? Let me know. I would love to hear what your action is.

Jordan Berry [01:22:47]:
If you go post it on the forums or, if you join, if you got a mastermind group, share with your mastermind group, whatever the case may be. But get out there and take some action. Alright. Go Dodgers.