Laundromat Investing: The Key Strategies You Need with Jeff Grampp

Jordan Berry [00:00:00]:
. Hey. What’s up, guys? It’s Jordan with the Loan About Resource Podcast. This is Show one eighty five, and I am pumped you are here today. Because today, we have on the show Jeff Grampp, who has just got this systematic way of running this business that I love. Absolutely love it. And we’re going to go through a lot of details. You’re going to get a lot out of it.

Jordan Berry [00:00:19]:
I guarantee it. Money back guarantee right there. Before we jump into it with Gramp and Gramp, Jeff Grampp. Man, Gramp. I want maybe I should just call him Gramp. I don’t think he’d like that. I’m a call him Jeff before I jump into it with Jeff. Today’s fascinating tip is this.

Jordan Berry [00:00:37]:
Make sure you keep an eye on events, happening at laundromat resource, laundromat resource dot com slash events to check that out. And also make sure you’re signed up on the email list because we email out those events as they come out. But, hey. We’ve always got stuff going on. We’ve got webinars going on. We’ve got Q and A’s going on. We’ve got meetups going on. We’ve got all kinds of stuff going on all the time.

Jordan Berry [00:00:59]:
So make sure you check out lawnmowerresource.com/events. Alright. Let’s jump into a Jeff, not Gramps, and Jeff Gramp today. Right now, listen, let’s just let’s just do it. Let’s just do it. Jeff, thanks for coming on the show, man. How are you doing?

Jeff Grampp [00:01:14]:
I’m very, Jordan. Appreciate you hosting me. Thanks so much.

Jordan Berry [00:01:17]:
Oh, dude, it is my pleasure. I’m super excited about this. And, man, I just learned that you’re, like, right down the street from my house. So, we should have just done this thing in person. So next time

Jeff Grampp [00:01:31]:
mean, maybe in Hawaii.

Jordan Berry [00:01:33]:
Hey. That’s not yeah. I’m in Hawaii right now. Yeah. So maybe we should come out here and do an episode or two. That’d be a lot

Jeff Grampp [00:01:40]:
of fun. If you need me to get your mail, just let me know.

Jordan Berry [00:01:43]:
That’s that’s right. That’s right. Any volunteers? Any volunteers? Yeah, dude. Well, hey. I I’m excited to jump into this thing. Why don’t you give us a little background to who you are, and then we’ll we’ll jump into how you got in this business?

Jeff Grampp [00:01:56]:
Sure. So my name is Jeff Grampp. I was born and raised in Southern California here in Orange County. I would say at an early age was kind of a numbers money finance person, so kind of followed that path pretty quickly from kind of, I don’t know, maybe high school, time. Got my undergrad degree in in business, and I’ve been working in kind of the financial services industry for pretty much all my working career. As I started building some, you know, wealth and getting some savings, started thinking, okay, what’s what’s out there that I can do? I think probably like a lot of people went to real estate as kind of the easiest easiest path, I guess. So I I acquired a few residential investment properties, kind of around pre COVID and then in the first maybe twelve or eighteen months post COVID, bought a few as I think a lot of us know prices, interest rates, like everything was going against buying those kinds of assets. So took a step back and said, you know, what’s what’s really out there, of other kinds of assets to look at.

Jeff Grampp [00:03:07]:
Started getting into the, you know, the Cody Sanchez’s of the world and yourself and seeing, you know, all the people putting out really good content for these other asset classes. And so, you know, laundry mats quickly kind of fell into the things that seemed kind of attainable and that I could get my arms around, of an asset class. And so, you know, that’s kind of what I think first got me into this particular entrepreneurial journey relative to, you know, kind of more passive real estate investing.

Jordan Berry [00:03:38]:
Yeah. Awesome. Well, I I mean, I love that. I think, I think there’s a lot of real estate investors that are like, man, where can I go? Where can I put my money right now? Out of curiosity, did you buy your real estate in California? Did you buy out of state? How’d you how’d you do that?

Jeff Grampp [00:03:54]:
So I was fortunate enough that my first I owned a, a town small townhome, in Orange County. Was able to hang on to that and buy a single family home to to start a a family with. So that was kind of the first one, just kinda fell into it. And then, yeah, I mean, California real estate, I just I’m more of a value kind of buyer, and I just, I can’t make sense of that. So, out of state I went. And so I I bought a couple properties, in Tennessee and one in, in Kansas City, Missouri.

Jordan Berry [00:04:28]:
Nice. And so that’s that’s

Jeff Grampp [00:04:29]:
and then, you know, and then everywhere went crazy. And so I’m kind of on the sidelines on the real estate side for now.

Jordan Berry [00:04:36]:
I know. Yeah. It’s it’s wild because it used to be like, hey. You know, you’re in California. It just makes sense to go to the Midwest, you know, to buy these properties. But now you go look in the Midwest and you’re like, Hey, man. It’s expensive out there too. So I’m sure I’m sure you guys in the Midwest are feeling it.

Jordan Berry [00:04:52]:
And we do apologize, from California, to to all of you for driving your prices up. Sorry about that. Awesome. Okay. So you got into just kind of looking where else to put your money and stumbled on on laundromats. Can you can you talk to me just a little bit about like, okay. You started seeing laundromats. You got intrigued by that.

Jordan Berry [00:05:15]:
How did you how did you start that process? How did you start that journey towards owning one?

Jeff Grampp [00:05:21]:
Yeah. So for my day job, I’ll call my day job, which I still have. So that that still produces, you know, pays the mortgage and all that good stuff. A lot of research goes into my day to day work. So naturally, you know, researching everything I can about car washes, vending machine routes, laundromats. Very quickly, you know, it’d kind of be like, I don’t know, once or twice a week, I’d do an hour or two of research. I’d find something else I didn’t know. There’s kind of that period where like, you know you don’t know anything and then you think you know a decent amount

Jordan Berry [00:06:00]:
and

Jeff Grampp [00:06:00]:
then you realize you know you actually know nothing. And it’s kind of that, I think they call it like the the pit of despair where, like, you know enough to know you really don’t know that much.

Jordan Berry [00:06:09]:
Yeah.

Jeff Grampp [00:06:10]:
And I kinda get, like, frustrated or just kind of, like, I guess, lacking the confidence to move forward. So I just said, I don’t I don’t I can’t figure out how to run the laundry. And so I just kinda, you know, let it go. A week later, I do the same thing. And then, I I had a personal development coach I was working with. You know, once a month, we kinda meet and talk about, you know, what do you want out of life? Are you making progress? And he finally kicked me in the pants enough to say like, hey man, just what’s the harm in talking to some owners and talking to some brokers? No one’s gonna, you know, grab your hand and make you write them a check to buy something you don’t want. So to go have some conversations and see what happens. And so, finally started doing that probably two ish years ago, maybe a year and a half ago, something like that.

Jeff Grampp [00:07:02]:
Okay. Quickly got, I think, like, probably a lot of other podcast guests you’ve had. You know, brokers can be tough to deal with. They get, I’m sure, a hundred calls a day from tire kickers and people that don’t know anything. And so for me, like like I have no small business experience. I have some money, but I’m not, you know, a millionaire who can just write checks for these kind of businesses. And so I found it really hard to get the attention from brokers to be taken seriously. And so very quickly realized that that probably wasn’t gonna be a good route for me to effectively get anything.

Jeff Grampp [00:07:37]:
And being kind of a a stingy value buyer like I was on the real estate side, am I gonna be the highest bidder with a broker whose literal goal it is, is to get the highest price possible, right? Like that’s just not, that’s not a good situation for me to be in. And so started looking at, all right, how can I go off market? I think one of the things you have on your website is like, hey, here’s kind of a template to go just reach out to owners and start a conversation. And so I, I happily took that and put my name at the bottom. I made some tweaks.

Jordan Berry [00:08:11]:
Nice. But it was

Jeff Grampp [00:08:11]:
a great a great resource. And me and my I think she would have been five year old daughter at the time, hand wrote 200 pieces of mail to all the laundromats within, I don’t know, 20 or 30 miles of my house. And off off we went to see what kind of response we would get.

Jordan Berry [00:08:31]:
Okay. Yeah, that that’s awesome. Okay. And I think there’s a lot to pull out of there. And especially if you’re out there and you’re trying to get started with your first laundromat, there’s a I think there’s a lot to learn here. So I mean, I want to go back just, you know, first of all, kudos to you for having a personal development coach. Like, that’s a that’s a that’s a big deal. And I think, in this industry in particular, I’ve just noticed and I see a little bit less of it.

Jordan Berry [00:08:58]:
But I see a lot of, I see a lot of, like, DIYers in this industry and people who, you know, like to learn. And and honestly, like, this is sort of my nature too. It’s like a lot of us just like to learn the hard way for some reason. Like, we just like to figure it out. And it takes decades and eventually you just figure it out. Right. And, I am more and more understanding the value of having somebody outside and outside perspective speaking into your life and helping push you in the directions that you say you want to go, because it can be really easy for me at least, you know, to talk myself out of doing the things that I say I want to do or to procrastinate on them or, you know, all those things. Right.

Jordan Berry [00:09:45]:
So kudos to you on having that having that coach. Do you feel like, I mean, it it seems like that coach has not only just kinda helped you push you in the direction you wanted to go, but has sort of accelerated that journey. Is that is that true?

Jeff Grampp [00:10:06]:
Yeah. I think that’s fair. I mean and and a lot of it what what I always found interesting is, like, these were not answers that I couldn’t have thought of on my own, but it’s very hard to have conversations with yourself. So by the by the end of me spitting out a sentence to to coach John, as I call him, I already knew the answer that he was gonna give me, because I knew what I needed to do. But when you’re sitting in a room by yourself, it’s very easy to have negative self talk and talk yourself out of doing the uncomfortable thing. It’s very comfortable to watch your podcast episodes, or some of the other, thought leaders or watch a video on how to repair a machine. I don’t have to do anything after that. Right? Like, no one’s you’re not going to come knock on my door and say, hey, Jeff, did you call that broker? Or did you

Jordan Berry [00:11:01]:
Well, now that I know you’re local, I might do that. So be careful.

Jeff Grampp [00:11:06]:
That’s what

Jordan Berry [00:11:06]:
I’m saying.

Jeff Grampp [00:11:07]:
Fair enough.

Jordan Berry [00:11:07]:
Fair enough.

Jeff Grampp [00:11:08]:
Fair warning. Yeah. So it’s just it’s it’s nice. I mean, even if I mean, I get look. It’s not it wasn’t cheap to have a a coach like that. Even having friends in your network to just say, can you call me in a week and, like, kick me in the pants and make sure I did the thing I said I was gonna do? And just finding something or a family member who can provide some kind of accountability to follow through on the things that you say you wanna do.

Jordan Berry [00:11:34]:
Yeah. Yeah. And I I mean, listen, again, my my forever, I, I had that sort of DIY mindset, that lone wolf kind of mindset. And, you know, now I mean, I’ve been pretty open. Like, I, I pay lots of money every single year to have people like that in my life. Coaches, I have I have a one on one coach. I’ve got a mastermind group that I’m in who I I’m actually in two mastermind groups, and we meet every single week. And we go over, you know, the things that we say we’re gonna do.

Jordan Berry [00:12:05]:
And I know that if I don’t do the things that I said I was going to do this week, I’m going to hear about it, from my mastermind groups. Right? Like and it just it gives that little extra motivation. Like you said, like, most of the time, it’s it’s nothing that I couldn’t come up with on my own. Right? But like you said, having somebody to talk through through things with having somebody to hold you accountable is I mean, I just think it’s invaluable and it does feel like it’s an expense. It does feel expensive. You know, and I pay, you know, expense. It does feel expensive. You know? And I pay I I pay over $25,000 a year for that stuff, and that’s that’s a lot of money.

Jordan Berry [00:12:45]:
Like, like, there’s no getting around that. That’s a lot of money. But I think my I mean, I know for a fact my ROI is significantly more than that just from having those people in my life. So, anyways, I just wanted to kind of hit on that because I think that’s a big deal. And I think it’s something that resonates with me because it was it’s not my natural, ability. It’s an area of growth for me. And I’m it’s almost like a a leap of faith, there Yeah.

Jeff Grampp [00:13:13]:
For that. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:13:13]:
So it’s

Jeff Grampp [00:13:14]:
hard to define. Like, when I when I buy a new machine, a new washer, I kinda have a sense of what I can get out of that. It’s harder to define with with a coach. But, yeah, I totally agree. Like, I’ve I’ve gotten multiples, in terms of an ROI on that. Both both financially as well as just lifestyle. Getting comfortable with what do you want your life to be and how do we work with with each other to get you to where you wanna be.

Jordan Berry [00:13:40]:
Yeah. Cool stuff. Well, I could I could geek out on that with you all day, but I won’t, because people will stop listening. So, Fair enough. Okay. So you you, were sort of pushed into, like, hey, get out there and just chat with some people, which which is good. Right? Like, one of the one of the things I hear all the time is, like, I was thinking about buying a lawnmower mat forever and just never did. And like you said, it’s very comfortable to, you know, just kinda listen to the podcast, watch the YouTube videos, scroll the TikToks, all that stuff.

Jordan Berry [00:14:13]:
But, you know, taking that action is important to do. And so you started reaching out to brokers and stuff. This is a complaint I hear all the time on how do I actually get a broker to call me back? How do I do that? Right? So that was a struggle for you. I mean, did you just did you try for a little bit and then just, like, throw in the towel and be like, this is not for me? Or what did that process

Jeff Grampp [00:14:40]:
look like for you? I probably talked to maybe three three brokers. I probably called more than that, but that was, like, the amount that I that I talked to. I mean, it was helpful to just sign some NDAs and get some financials on a few businesses. I didn’t take those very far. But I every broker was the same conversation of, well, how much money do you have in the bank? What business experience do you have? And all these things that, like, putting myself and and I don’t harbor much ill will. I harbor a little ill will.

Jordan Berry [00:15:11]:
A little bit. Yeah.

Jeff Grampp [00:15:12]:
Not not not I get where they’re coming from. Like, their biz their job is to sell this business for as much as possible to get their commission. Talking to this guy who cannot make a cash offer and has never owned a business before sounds like not a great use of my time. And if there’s another guy who’s or gal who’s got a bunch of experience and can write a check, that’s where I’d be spending my time. So I I I realized that it would not be my first my first approach. If if the, you know, dialing for dollars, mailing strategy didn’t work, I probably would have gone back and tried to make the broker strategy work, but I just thought it would be a better use of my time to go that route.

Jordan Berry [00:16:01]:
Yeah. Yeah. And that I mean, and that’s real. I mean, everything you’re saying is real. Right? And I’m speaking as a broker. Like, I I’ve brokered laundromats. Right? And so and especially right now in today’s market where there’s just a lot more buyers than there are sellers, especially in Southern California or in California in general, some of the bigger markets, especially there, New York, New Jersey, some of the Florida markets, some of the Texas market, Chicago, like there’s more buyers than sellers. And so brokers have the, I guess, luxury of being pretty picky, which makes it tough.

Jordan Berry [00:16:35]:
Right? If you’re not coming in with a cash offer, if this is your first business, it can be discouraging when those are the questions you’re getting when you finally actually do get a hold of a broker and then you never hear from brokers again or they never call you back in the first place. So it can be tough. However, you know, with all that said, I still think, you know, it’s it’s a viable way to pursue buying a laundromat. Right. And, but I want to get into what you did because I think this is this is the big lesson that I wanted to get to here. So you decided, okay, I’m gonna go look for my own deal. And you decided to write, write letters in, you know, I don’t know how how accurate the number is. But you said you wrote like 200 letters.

Jeff Grampp [00:17:21]:
Yeah. Like the Excel sheet. It’s like like two zero six or something like that.

Jordan Berry [00:17:25]:
Yeah. Okay. And my point here that I wanted to get to is I hear all the time, I sent out letters and I didn’t hear anything back. And when I asked the question, okay, well, how many letters did you send out? You know? And I get, like, eight, twelve, even 20 letters. Listen. This is this is a little bit of a numbers game here. Right? You’ve gotta send out enough volume, and sometimes you’re gonna have to send the same 206 people another letter or two, right, for for you to find that deal. Yep.

Jordan Berry [00:18:02]:
So, I mean, I first of all, kudos to you for for getting after it. How did you decide to say, okay. I’m gonna send out 200 letters. What made you decide to do that?

Jeff Grampp [00:18:12]:
I basically went on Google Maps. I started around my house. And that’s not true. I I found a list of all the ZIP codes, around our house. And then I just went through on Google Maps, and I wrote down all the addresses of all the laundromats until I got far enough out where I said, I wouldn’t want that commute, which I think was roughly twenty to thirty minutes one way, something like that. And so if that number was was 50 or if it was a thousand, maybe not a I don’t know if I would have done a thousand, but, 200 felt like, a good starting point. And you’re right. I mean, I think my response of just number of return calls that I got, maybe 10.

Jeff Grampp [00:18:59]:
So what is that? A 55% response rate? Mhmm. Something like that, which is not going in. I that’s probably about what I would have guessed more or less. I certainly wasn’t expecting to get a hundred callbacks. I mean, most of those, I’m sure, didn’t even get open. They went in the trash.

Jordan Berry [00:19:13]:
Yeah. Yeah. And and what I see is about that five to 10% return rate a lot of times, in terms of sending those mailers out. So there you go. If you’re out there thinking about writing letters, you know, you can expect maybe five to 10%. But the less you send, the less predictable that percentage is. So just keep that in mind

Jeff Grampp [00:19:36]:
too. Yeah. And that’s the amount you get back. I mean, how many of those are businesses you want, or are or are acquirable? Yeah. So that that’s just your starting point. So it’s Yeah. It’s tough.

Jordan Berry [00:19:48]:
Yeah. And I get a lot of callbacks that’s like, hey. I just I thought I’d see how much you’re gonna offer me for my laundromat, you know, and they’re not really even selling unless you’re, like, gonna give them, you know, a ridiculous amount or or it’s like this laundromat really is not going to be a viable laundromat for anybody. Even, so, yeah, there’s a lot of different things that’ll come back. So that’s a great point, too. So that’s what you’re getting back. And out of those 10, out of curiosity, how many of them were like viable deals for you, if you know?

Jeff Grampp [00:20:24]:
So well, I guess it depends how we wanna define viable. So there was so of the I would say three of them, I set spent a reasonable amount of time doing diligence on. The first one that got back to me, was like a mile from the house I grew up in. So I was like, you know, super excited to hear where this guy was. And he was in a pinch because he basically did no due diligence. He had owned it for maybe six months and knew he was in over his head. And it was like, I want out, like, please help me. A mile from my house, desperate seller.

Jeff Grampp [00:21:05]:
I’m like, good. Got it. There were you name, an equipment manufacturer, they had that kind of machine, and it was 15 to 20 years old.

Jordan Berry [00:21:17]:
Yeah.

Jeff Grampp [00:21:18]:
It was it was a mess. The financials, if they were what they said, were were good. Like, it was a profitable business. But the guy was just so burnt out with repairs, and, and it was a mess. And he wanted the the hard part too with something like this I found, which I I didn’t even expect would be an issue, he was anchored to the price he paid. I would not have paid what he paid. Yeah. And so there was gonna be this challenge there that I anticipated coming.

Jeff Grampp [00:21:52]:
I was slow. I was kinda dragging my feet because it was it was a big laundry mat. I mean, he it was a few thousand square feet and something like 50 or 60 washers. So it’d been a big deal for me personally, just the size of that business. And he got impatient and hired a broker as I was prepared to kind of put down an offer and I’m pretty sure he got what he bought it for. Someone else had a similar view of him that, Hey, this business makes, a hundred grand a year and so, you know, you wanna put a four to five multiple on that, which some people wanted to. They’ll pay 450,000 or something. The equipment, the washers are 20 years old.

Jeff Grampp [00:22:41]:
I don’t I I hope it works out, but that wasn’t for me.

Jordan Berry [00:22:45]:
Yeah. Yeah. And there’s a lot of that right now. Right? And that’s part of this being sort of a buyer’s market where there’s, you know, there’s there’s people who just either want to get in and so they’re going to get in however they can or there’s people who can look at something and see things that other people can’t see. Right? Maybe somebody found this thing and was like, yeah, you know, all those washers need to be replaced. It’s going to cost me $750,000 to do it. But, you know, I’m looking at this opportunity because of X, Y and Z variables that are in in the favor of this thing. And I think I can make it work.

Jordan Berry [00:23:22]:
Right. So hopefully hopefully, it does work out for whoever bought that one. Okay. So that one didn’t go through. Tell us about another one, the second one.

Jeff Grampp [00:23:32]:
So there was another one that, exact same this guy bought it six months ago, Didn’t do enough work. I mean, over my head, please help me. Equipment was even older. It was, like, all 20 year old top loads. The dryers are probably older than I am maybe. I don’t know. And, but it had a dry cleaning business as well, which was a wrinkle I was not anticipating. Oh, yeah.

Jeff Grampp [00:24:00]:
And I did no work on dry cleaning. I mean, I you know, I work in the financial services industry, and I’ve noticed year by year, you know, the amount of, money I spent on dry cleaning was going down. Like, that just to my personal view was, like, that’s not a growth industry. But I was like, hey. That’s a cool little wash, dry, fold setup where you’re dry cleaning. And they didn’t have equipment there, dry cleaning equipment. They would just go to the bigger places that do that.

Jordan Berry [00:24:28]:
Okay.

Jeff Grampp [00:24:28]:
It was in a, I would say, middle upper class neighborhood, which was kinda weird for a laundry map. And I was like, this is actually pretty cool for wash, dry, fold. But I gotta re equip it, and I don’t know how to do wash, dry, fold, and that’s I don’t know if that’s a business I wanna get into right away. And so I would say one of, like, the the key lesson for me there was, like, know your buy box. I think you’ve talked about this kind of stuff before and, like, that could be a really cool setup for the person who wants to retool it and set up wash dry full that knows how to do that. I didn’t want that big of a bite my first go around. So I I reluctantly, stepped away from that. I don’t know what ended up happening, but, it just wasn’t for me.

Jordan Berry [00:25:15]:
Yeah. Well, that that’s yeah. Good for you, man. Because I I think that that is, that’s where people go wrong. I see people go wrong a lot of times, right, as they’re buying things they don’t really want for, you know, just just to get in the business or they don’t really understand kind of what they’re buying or they’re biting off more than they can chew, which sounds like maybe is what happened to these first two owners here, you know, where they just sort of bit off more than they could chew and found themselves in a situation where they wanted to get out or needed to get out. The the. What’s interesting about that deal is that number one, I mean, I think a lot of people probably are listening to this right now and like salivating like, dude, these that sounds great. I would love that fall into my lap right now.

Jordan Berry [00:26:09]:
Yeah. Because I mean, there’s just a lot of people looking, but kudos to you for sort of sticking to your guns there and saying, you know what, that’s not me. That’s not going to fit. You know, speaking of like having a coach and helping get clarity on what you want your life to look like and and all that, like, kudos to you for having a good understanding of this is sort of what I want my business to look like, at least for now. Yeah. And and sort of sticking your guns on that. That’s not easy to do sometimes.

Jeff Grampp [00:26:34]:
Yeah. And and to be fair, I mean, I don’t know if if, hindsight’s kinda twenty twenty. That day, I literally pulled out of of the parking lot for that laundromat, and that’s when I got a call from the place I did ultimately acquire. And so that did take up most of my time because that fit my buy box a lot better. So had had that not existed, maybe I would have twisted my own arm into doing something with with that second one. I’ve who knows? So maybe I’m giving myself too much credit for being disciplined when, you know, opportunity just fell in with, with option number three.

Jordan Berry [00:27:11]:
Yeah. Well, hey. You know, what sometimes what’s luck is when what what is it? Preparation meets, Opportunity. To opportunity. Right? So, like Yeah.

Jeff Grampp [00:27:22]:
I’m like, Hey,

Jordan Berry [00:27:23]:
listen, man. It’s kind of lucky somebody called you right as you’re pulling out there that same day. But, you know, if if you hadn’t done that. You know, then you might have missed the the opportunity that you actually was going to be the best fit for you. However, I mean, there’s not there’s nothing wrong also with just, you know, adjusting the vision. Right. And if it was came back down to that second one, then I’m sure you could have made it work. And, you know, there’s nothing wrong with that either.

Jordan Berry [00:27:51]:
But, you know, with all that said, it it did. It sounds like it did work out for you better. So talk to us about the one you ended up buying.

Jeff Grampp [00:28:01]:
Yeah. So it’s, it was owned by a, a woman who inherited it from her boyfriend. I don’t think they were ever married. He passed in 2020 or 2021. She just did not I don’t think she really wanted this. This was just kind of an asset that, he had and for whatever reason gave it to her. And so she had been operating it for a few years. So when I first started talking to them, the pitch was, hey, you know, we’ve been thinking about selling.

Jeff Grampp [00:28:39]:
It’s not really for her. She was born and raised outside the country and I think wanted to return home, And so owning this didn’t make sense. But hey, we’ve had this employee who’s been here seven years. She works every day, three sixty five days a year, and I’m like, and she’ll teach you the ropes. And she was amazing. She’s like, this is my life. Like, she was so committed to the laundromat. And, oh, the owner’s, son, the guy who passed, he manages the place and kinda does coin collections and does a lot of the other stuff.

Jeff Grampp [00:29:19]:
Like, great. So I have a manager who I can learn from for the first, whatever, three to six months, and I have an employee who knows where all the skeletons are, and can teach me everything. And she could do way above it. Like she could I wouldn’t say she could repair machines, but she could fix coin jams. She could fix a lot of the smaller things like way above and beyond a traditional kind of worker for a laundromat. So I was like, this is really good, for me, the newbie who knows nothing to go ride the coattails of these people while I figure things out. Came to terms pretty quickly. While we were negotiating things, the workers said, hey, my mom’s sick, out of the country.

Jeff Grampp [00:30:07]:
I’m leaving, like, very soon. I’ll I’ll stay I’ll stay a little, but I’m I’m gone. The family of the owner who passed was very upset that this woman was selling it outside the family, So that guy stopped returning my calls, and now I very quickly lost my my support system that, I was very excited to, to get into.

Jordan Berry [00:30:31]:
I was I was noticing the past tense, language you were using and was anticipating some sort of train wreck happening. The turn. But that’s Yeah. Yeah. That’s, pretty that’s pretty rough, man, when you’re expecting that.

Jeff Grampp [00:30:43]:
Yeah. You

Jordan Berry [00:30:43]:
feel like you’re you’re buying that. Because, I mean, that’s haven’t have an employee who’s been around that long and kind of knows, you know, there’s pluses and minuses to that. But it’s part of the asset of that. You’re that you’re buying right or like when when you’re anticipating them staying as part of the asset of like, hey, They’re gonna help me get this thing off the ground. And so that’s a pretty big blow Yeah. There.

Jeff Grampp [00:31:07]:
So but nothing, nothing’s ever easy in the industry. So that’s not not insurmountable. Yeah. So and then the other the other wrinkle in this one was they were on a month to month lease and had been for a few years or something like that. And so I basically said, like, there there’s no deal unless I have a a long term lease. Yeah. That took six months. And I won’t even say to negotiate.

Jeff Grampp [00:31:35]:
There was no negotiating. It was me calling and emailing the bro the, the leasing agent every week and saying, hey, where are the terms? Where hey, where where’s the lease? Is that is that coming? And and that that took four of the six months was me just calling him every week waiting, not negotiating, just like, can you tell me what the initial offer was? And so in the meantime, being the research guy, I’m researching what are all the different angles you can negotiate and things you should ask for. And there’s like, I should ask for a TI allowance, then I should ask for cotenancy clause. And this is in a pretty good shopping center. There’s a there’s a Dollar Tree. There’s a Michaels. There’s a TJ Maxx. There’s some fast paced places like a Habit Burger.

Jeff Grampp [00:32:22]:
I don’t know how widespread those are outside of California, but pretty good shopping center. So I had all these terms. I was already negotiate. And he’s just like, no. No. No. No. No.

Jeff Grampp [00:32:37]:
No. Yeah. You’re Yeah. You’re you’re the 1,400 square foot laundromat at the corner. You’re not TJ Maxx. You’re not Dollar Tree. Who do you think you are?

Jordan Berry [00:32:46]:
Yeah. So Yeah. Well, and that’s that’s that’s pretty common too. Like, you know, it’s Listen, there’s a lot of there’s a lot of content out there, you know, saying a lot of stuff, but a lot of that content is older now and things have changed pretty dramatically in the last, I’d say, three to five years. Things have changed pretty dramatically. And so it’s much more difficult, especially if you’re if you’re not going to be sort of the anchor tenant of a center or something like that. It’s pretty difficult to get things like tenant approved. TI is tenant improvements.

Jordan Berry [00:33:23]:
That’s money the landlord gives for you to improve the space, the interior space of your business. You know, rent abatement still around a little bit, but landlords have gotten more and more stingy with that. And I’ve seen a lot of you know, I all the rent abatement I’ve ever negotiated for myself has been like, you don’t pay rent for three months or six months or whatever it is. But now I’ve seen more and more of like, Okay, we’ll defer your payments for three months, six months. You know, like things have just gotten tighter and and tougher, and landlords have not had to negotiate as much as they. They used to, at least in, at least in some of the bigger markets. So you know, and, and Southern California is the biggest market, right? New York, Southern California, the biggest markets. And so these landlords are they’re they’re tough cookies, man.

Jordan Berry [00:34:23]:
So were you negotiating with, I mean, I’m assuming there was no broker, so I’m assuming it was you negotiating with this leasing agent or trying to, I guess.

Jeff Grampp [00:34:31]:
It it was it was me and and my agent, mister Chat GPT, which which I’ve been a very liberal user of it. God bless it.

Jordan Berry [00:34:40]:
Yeah. I

Jeff Grampp [00:34:41]:
don’t know what I would have done, with with a lot of my figuring out, of things. There was a friend of a friend who was a broker and so I kind of picked his brain, but I felt it was a limited resource. I didn’t wanna The guy wasn’t getting paid on this and he lived across the country. I wasn’t gonna call him up every week for every little detail. So yeah, basically me on my behalf doing that. And then, I did use a, an escrow company for actually executing the transaction to run title and all that stuff just to know there weren’t any outstanding liabilities or anything. I think it was a few thousand bucks maybe, and we split it fiftyfifty. So like $1,500 to make sure I’m not inheriting some debt bomb or this lady who is the girlfriend of the guy who died doesn’t actually own title to this.

Jeff Grampp [00:35:35]:
Like, it’s a good insurance policy in my mind.

Jordan Berry [00:35:38]:
Yeah. %. If you’re going outside of well, even if you’re going inside of like a broker relationship, Either way, you should have either an escrow company or a lawyer, depending on your what area you’re in. In any area, you can have a lawyer do it in in a lot of states. You can also have an escrow agency or officer do it. But just to keep any earnest money deposit, you don’t ever give that to the seller. You give that to a third party that’s going to hold it in escrow, you know, and and enforce the terms of the agreement, all that stuff, right? So that’s huge. And you definitely need to do that if you’re acquiring a business and, you know, making sure that the seller actually owns a business sounds.

Jordan Berry [00:36:25]:
Sounds kind of ridiculous, like, of course, they’re selling it. Of course, they own it. But yeah, that is not a given whatsoever. And I’ve seen some nightmare things happen, with people thinking they’re buying an asset that they’re not buying because the seller did not have the ability to sell or there were other people who also own that did not sign off on. That is another thing. So huge, there. Real quick. Going back to the landlord.

Jordan Berry [00:36:49]:
I mean, did you I mean, I’m assuming you eventually got something sort of negotiated. Were you able to get enough years? And did they give on anything or they gave on nothing and

Jeff Grampp [00:37:01]:
just So I got three years no increases on rent.

Jordan Berry [00:37:05]:
Okay.

Jeff Grampp [00:37:06]:
I think that was probably the best thing I got. Yeah. Otherwise, it it was pretty much everything they they wanted. I do think though rent probably hadn’t been increased in probably a few years, and they kept it at that rate. So I kept that rate for for three years. It’s definitely above if I was in the I kinda think of a traditional laundromat is in a smaller you know, there’s a liquor store and a nail salon and a dry cleaner, maybe something like that. Yeah. It’s I pay a premium on a per square foot to that, but it’s not outrageous.

Jeff Grampp [00:37:40]:
And I do think it attracts a different client base. People can walk there’s a there’s a Target, there’s an Amazon Fresh, there’s a Staples, there’s a movie theater. Like, there’s a bunch of stuff either in my shopping center or, you know, one point of an across the street in in any direction. So it’s it’s a pretty unique spot for a laundromat that that attracts, I think, a pretty good customer base, and keeps it quiet, from a drama standpoint, shall we say.

Jordan Berry [00:38:10]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and that’s huge. Right? Because, you know, being in a bigger shopping center like that, obviously, you get a lot of foot traffic coming by and a lot of exposure just through that. Although it can be can be hard to stand out like on the street when you’ve got, you know, Target, T. J. Mac, like all these big anchor dollars tree, you know, tenants that have the big marquee signs, it can be really hard to stand on the street, but they’re drawing a lot in a lot of your target demographic. So if you can capture their attention once they’re in the shopping center, that’s huge.

Jordan Berry [00:38:42]:
But it also does, like you said, it does a whole lot to deter, you know, people who shouldn’t be hanging out at your laundromat from hanging out there, even if it’s unattended. Is your is your laundromat unattended, attended, partially attended?

Jeff Grampp [00:38:57]:
So partially partially attended. The, that worker who’d been there a long time, she worked at a school down the street. And so she would basically just zig zag. She’d do her school thing, check-in for an hour, go to school. And so she’d visit it, I don’t know, three to five hours a day would be my guess. And so I’ve I’ve largely kept that with the staff, which I guess gets me to staff. So staffing, took me a while, but I I finally was able to get two employees. One I’ve had basically since the beginning and then another started, in the summer.

Jeff Grampp [00:39:34]:
And so they’ve been there six or nine months each and they work, around six hours a day, roughly. So kind of couple hours in the morning, couple hours in the afternoon, and then, and then closing.

Jordan Berry [00:39:49]:
Were you able to hire the first employee before you opened, or did it take a little time after you, like, after you took over?

Jeff Grampp [00:39:58]:
Yeah. There was there was a gap. I mean, since since the closing process was so long to to negotiate, and then I didn’t wanna start the escrow process till I actually had a lease. So that also extended another, I don’t know, thirty or forty five days. So there was a lot of time for me to sit in this room and think about what I was gonna do once I got the keys. And so part of that was also the the hiring process, which, all is well that ends well. But obviously, as as I’m sure everyone who’s talked about labor with you, it it’s not easy.

Jordan Berry [00:40:35]:
Yeah. Yeah. How how did you go about finding that first one?

Jeff Grampp [00:40:39]:
So I did what everyone said, which is you put the poster up at your store because that’s that’s who you wanna hire. Right? The only person who called, like, mumbly left me a voice mail every day for, like, two weeks. That was the only lead I got was, like, some person I was not comfortable calling back. Yeah. So I did Craigslist, which I think I kinda seemed like there’s mixed reviews. Some people like it, some some don’t. Me being stingy, I liked that versus like Indeed or some of the others that that are gonna be more expensive. My my angle that I think helped me though was I used a website.

Jeff Grampp [00:41:18]:
I think it’s called tally.co or tally.com, something like that. It’s a free survey website. And so on my Craigslist job posting, I gave kind of the general overview of the business and what I was looking for. And then I said, click this link for a a quick job application. I don’t expect people, you know, part time laundry attendants are not gonna have resumes. Probably not. But can they answer 10 questions in five minutes and show that they’re interested and can follow directions? So anyone who just emailed back on the Craigslist thing, I didn’t call them back because that shows they’re not reading this thing and they can’t follow instructions. And so everyone who filled out that questionnaire, which was, what’s your customer service experience? Have you worked at a laundromat? What’s your cleaning experience? What languages do you speak? Things like that.

Jeff Grampp [00:42:11]:
And again, chat DPT, not that they’re a legal advisor, but can at least tell me if I’m doing anything from a HR perspective that’s gonna get me in trouble. From a discriminatory standpoint, made sure I was asking appropriate questions. And that was very helpful to distill the pool down. Still had to, you know, wade through some not, you know, I would say not great people, but just people that are that you don’t feel super comfortable relying on.

Jordan Berry [00:42:41]:
Yeah. Not not good candidates. Shows. Correct.

Jeff Grampp [00:42:44]:
Yeah. Correct. Yeah. So yeah. There were a a few people. So I think I’ve hired four or five people so far. One, filled out all the paperwork, did everything and then just never showed up for her training. One showed up for her training and I think said, Oh my God, this is actually real work.

Jeff Grampp [00:43:06]:
I don’t wanna do this. And so she politely declined after, training for I think an hour or so. Realized it wasn’t for her, which I appreciate. Like, she told me, hey. This isn’t for me. She didn’t just, like, you know, agree to a shift and then never come. So yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:43:23]:
Well, yeah. That’s you kinda prefer that, I guess. At least choose honest with yourself and with you.

Jeff Grampp [00:43:29]:
No one’s gonna hurt my feelings. Like, it’s this laundromat’s not my child. Just tell me, and and we can move on. And you can go do something that you’re excited about, and, and I’ll do the same. So I I I really couldn’t care less if if people think this is the stupidest job in the world. That’s I’ll find someone else that’s fine.

Jordan Berry [00:43:50]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and that’s I mean, I think that’s the mentality that we should have. It’s it’s hard. I mean, I think, you know, when when the laundromat is sort of your main thing or, you know, it is sort of your child, it can get a little more feel a little more emotional, I think, for owners and can feel a little hurt. Like, what do you mean you don’t want to work here? This is this this is the greatest place ever, right? Yeah. Yeah. But but I mean, I think that that’s that perspective that you just shared of like, hey, if this is not the right fit for you, go do the thing that is going to be the right fit for you.

Jordan Berry [00:44:25]:
And I’ll find the right person that this is the right fit for. That’s the perspective to have. Right? And honestly, it’s it’s it’s a hard one to hold in this business because there the turnover is so high. And, you know, like, what did you do during the gap? Because a lot of times we’re like, we just got to hire somebody to have a body in here, so we don’t have a gap. So did you man in or what did you do?

Jeff Grampp [00:44:53]:
So yeah. I was I was, very hands on at the beginning as as you’d expect. So I was in there, I would say the majority of days during the week. I I can’t honestly say I was there every day. Mhmm. And, and then that long tenured worker would check-in once in a while on kind of a call pro bono basis to help out. Because again, she was like, this this meant more to her than it did to me, I think, this business. Yeah.

Jeff Grampp [00:45:24]:
She was extremely committed. So I’m very grateful for the time she did help out and and help, help bridge the gap there. And then, and then, yeah, then I had the the workers come in and and so they work basically four days and three days each. But then another thing, like, on on retention, because that’s my biggest fear too is, like, I I wanna have some standards and and I’ll say discipline, but like, you know, they’re older than me, so there’s some age dynamic that that feels a little awkward, but like I’m I’m their boss and I set the rules, but I wanna be a disciplinarian that they hate talking to and dealing with and then they quit. So I give them a lot of latitude on shifts. I say, hey, you need to work two hours in the morning roughly. If that’s nine to eleven or ten to twelve or eleven to one, I care a little. I’m not gonna make a big deal out of it.

Jeff Grampp [00:46:21]:
If stuff’s getting done and we’re avoiding, you know, major issues with customers, I’m happy. And so I wanna give them that latitude. I have a bonus program or if they’ve been there six months, I give them quarterly bonuses. We’re just starting out with the first one, so I’m still kind of defining what that is. But I felt like anything I can do around the edges to give them a little bit better experience as an employee, is gonna help my retention because that’s the biggest I I don’t want I don’t wanna have to close on a whim because of a no show. And I’ve had no no show. They’ve outside of those couple kind of false start hires. They’re always there on time doing their stuff.

Jeff Grampp [00:47:06]:
They’ve been very reliable. So I’m probably luckier than most so far. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:47:11]:
That’s awesome. I mean, it’s really easy to be on time when it’s, you know Whatever

Jeff Grampp [00:47:16]:
you want.

Jordan Berry [00:47:17]:
Nebulous. Like, you just kinda come in. So that’s that’s good, though.

Jeff Grampp [00:47:20]:
No. But I

Jordan Berry [00:47:20]:
love I mean, that’s how I that’s how I handled it too. Right? I had a unattended mat, and then I, you know, I had a I had a cleaner basically come in for about two hours a day. And you know what I what I would tell her is or I had multiple, but I would tell them is, you know, come in for thirty minutes sometime mid morning ish and just do a quick tidy up and then come in at the close and, you know, clean up and and close close the store for me and a similar kind of mindset of like, listen. If you, you know, if you want to come in at ten or twelve or whatever, mid morning, that’s it doesn’t matter to me what time, as long as it’s kind of getting tidied and same in the evening, actually, that we would close at ten. And I was like, if you want to come eight to ten and close-up at ten, that’s great. If something happens, you can’t come till nine, you know, till 09:30 or, you know, or 10:30 or whatever. Like, that’s fine, too. If you want to come at ten and close and then clean, that’s fine, too.

Jordan Berry [00:48:24]:
Kind of whatever works for you. And I found that that was, because the main task was cleaning and the timing didn’t matter as much. Being flexible there just it paid off big dividends for me. Now, if I was doing wash and fold and somebody had to come before clothes and pick up their clothes, then obviously the timing matters more. But, you know, on that partially attended store, that unattended store was not a a make or break. And that did that did help, like, the mentality or the the atmosphere, the work environment there. So Yeah.

Jeff Grampp [00:49:04]:
Yep. But then I have my other employee. She’s like, just tell me the hours, and those are my hours. And I told her come ten to noon. And between 09:50 and 09:58, she texts me every day that she’s there, that she’s and that’s kinda how I manage the the timing is I, you know, I have them just text me and that’s my that’s my time clock.

Jordan Berry [00:49:25]:
Nice.

Jeff Grampp [00:49:26]:
And, that’s that’s what she wants. And so she wants the the structure of this is my shift. And within five minutes, that’s what she does.

Jordan Berry [00:49:35]:
She’s there. That’s awesome.

Jeff Grampp [00:49:37]:
Her schedule kinda bounces around, and she does works for her. And the place is clean, and we get good reviews. So what do I care?

Jordan Berry [00:49:43]:
That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. As long as customers are happy and everything’s working.

Jeff Grampp [00:49:48]:
There you go. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [00:49:51]:
Real quick, can I can I jump back to, to to before you bought? And did you do a whole lot of due diligence, especially with kind of the long time horizon and stuff? What did due diligence look like for you?

Jeff Grampp [00:50:07]:
Yeah. So fortunately, I guess I’m I left this part out. The the, the owner, I’m pretty sure English was her second language. So there was there were some challenges there. She had an attorney who had helped a lot of the administering of the estates and financial affairs. And so he was my main point of contact, which provided not that having an attorney all of a sudden makes everything like above board and that all the numbers are what they say they are, but I felt there was some validity to things having a professional, such as an attorney on their side. So they sent me two years of bank statements, basically from when the owner passed and they created a new LLC of all those bank statements, utility bills. I did a couple coin counts.

Jeff Grampp [00:51:05]:
This is partially I think me being lazy and self serving, but I convinced myself that like you if you wanna deceit a seller, you can do coin counts all day long, unless I’m gonna put a sleeping bag in the coin room or something. Yeah. There’s gonna be deceit. So I did a week of coin count. It generally correlated to what they said the revenue was. I got a one year tax returns because that’s all they had. Everything kinda correlated. I felt good about the owners.

Jeff Grampp [00:51:38]:
I don’t have a strong opinion. I mean, I’m curious if you what what your thoughts are. I mean, it’s a little bit of of woo woo. Does this feel right? They they didn’t feel like they were trying to pull one over on me. And all the numbers generally made sense from the different sources. Is revenue ultimately gonna be off to my benefit or to my detriment? Probably, it’s probably not exactly what I think it is. But it’s about right. The price I’m buying it at feels good.

Jeff Grampp [00:52:12]:
And I think that’s kind of all I needed. I mean, that’s kind of the industry we’re in, right? Unless you have like, a LaundryWorks or something that gives you a little more definitive, you know, definition of what revenue is. So that’s kind of the due diligence that I that I did on the financial side.

Jordan Berry [00:52:28]:
Yeah. Awesome. And so then when you took over, I mean, was it pretty accurate, or were there any big surprises?

Jeff Grampp [00:52:36]:
There were some so the part that I did not appreciate, which makes total sense when you think about it, but, like, the seasonality of the laundry business. Mhmm. So I closed May.

Jordan Berry [00:52:47]:
Okay.

Jeff Grampp [00:52:48]:
May was solid. June was way above what I thought. And so I just extrapolated that and I just said, okay. And then, and then July came, and I think business was down probably 20%, June to July. And I said, oh my god. What did I get myself into? Or what are we doing wrong? Every I’m living and breathing and dying every coin collection and count on, like, oh my god, like, this is going to zero. Like, businesses I I I’m, like, you know, jiggling my coin boxes and there’s nothing there because it’s 95 degrees outside or a 10. You know, I don’t know if you remember there’s horrible heat wave in California.

Jeff Grampp [00:53:29]:
Yeah. Yeah. And we just had no business. And there was definitely a thirty to sixty day period of panic to be sure.

Jordan Berry [00:53:38]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, everybody knows all July, we only wear Speedos and bikinis too, which, you know, don’t not a lot of laundry there. So Correct. No, but that’s that’s common, right? And especially, you know, in places where it gets hotter or sometimes in the winter where it snows a lot or ices and people don’t go out as much, There is seasonality there. And in Southern California, you know, I see typically 10 to 15% on average, where revenue will drop in the summer and then bounce back in the fall when all the disgusting children go back to school and need all their clothes washed.

Jeff Grampp [00:54:17]:
But

Jordan Berry [00:54:17]:
yeah, that’s that’s scary. That’s panic moment where you’re like riding this high of June and you’re like, we’re going to the moon. And then July comes and you’re like, we’re done. This is it. We’re it’s over. Yep. We’re going to zero. Yeah.

Jeff Grampp [00:54:30]:
Yeah. Yeah. So so we did that. And then the other big thing I did that I was pushing towards so they had a, a few fast card readers, credit card readers on their bigger washers.

Jordan Berry [00:54:47]:
Okay.

Jeff Grampp [00:54:47]:
And that was maybe 20 to 30% of of the revenue, something like that. I was very big on the automation side of things. And so from a from a very early stage was was having my eye on like a laundry works kind of system to to get away from the coins. My first sixty days of owning it only accelerated that view that I hate quarters. Yeah. Managing the coin jams, they hadn’t done any maintenance on the, the changer. And so that thing was that was my first, like, you know, drop the phone and go over there. We can’t make change.

Jeff Grampp [00:55:29]:
You don’t have a business you do, but you pretty much don’t have a business if if you can’t make change. Yeah. And it was just maintenance. I thought the the worker I inherited who helped out just kinda told me, like, yeah. This is this is what it does. Like, if and we had two, and she was she’d she’d tell me if lefty broke, it makes righty break too. I said, well, that doesn’t make a lot of sense. And she’s like, that’s just what it does.

Jeff Grampp [00:55:57]:
And so I said, that’s that doesn’t really make a lot of sense to me. It turns out we just needed to spend a few hundred bucks to repair these so they actually work. And buy, you know, some smart plugs. So I can on my phone, I can do a reset if it’s something like that. So little by little you just kinda learn every mistake, not mistake, but every hiccup you run into is an opportunity to learn what do I do here from an automation standpoint so that this is the only time I have to do that, or I can at least build on some some resiliency. But even then, it’s still if if someone jams in a dollar and and screws it up, I can’t reset that remotely. So, and the coin jams and all that managing refunds with Venmo ing people, I just hated all of this. Coin counting.

Jeff Grampp [00:56:54]:
I’m a data driven person. I wanna know what the machines are doing. Yep. I don’t wanna hear anecdotally, yeah, our top loads are really popular. People like them. I don’t even know what that means. And so I bought a coin scale, and I’m counting, you know, how many turns are our top loads doing? How many turns are our 30 pounds doing? Because that’s gonna inform what’s popular, and how I should price things. If if my top loads are being used a ton, probably raise prices a little bit.

Jeff Grampp [00:57:29]:
And so that was a big push for me early on, just understanding like I don’t wanna hear anecdotally what works. Like, show me the numbers of where we actually making our money.

Jordan Berry [00:57:40]:
Yeah. Which is which is huge. Right? Like, that’s that’s massive. And that’s, you know, we talk about that a lot on the podcast. Right? Getting the right data and making decisions based on that data, and doing some analysis on that data to help you, you know, improve your business. Right. And and know exactly how you should be running it. Did you end up, have you ended up yet getting a card payment system or any sort of digital payment system?

Jeff Grampp [00:58:08]:
Yeah. So my original plan, which I think, you know, you and I think some others, I don’t know if you’ve been this explicit, but, like, you know, for, like, six months. Right? Three, six months. Don’t don’t do anything. Learn the business, see how it ticks. I had a five page word document of stuff I wanted to do the day I got the keys. I love it. And I started it had just been neglected.

Jeff Grampp [00:58:33]:
They had two vending machines that had been vandalized and were broken and were just sitting there doing nothing but taking up space. And we’re we’re 1,400 square feet. We don’t have space. Yeah. So I sold I got, I don’t know, four or five hundred bucks for those within a week and just got them the heck out of there. We had the old coin push, soap dispenser that again broke and vandalized, not being used, got that out of there. We didn’t we didn’t have hand soap. How do you not have hand like, we we had no hand soap.

Jeff Grampp [00:59:10]:
It boggled my mind. And our paper towel thing didn’t work. The the lady’s like, yeah, you gotta when you pull, you gotta also go in and pull. Otherwise, it won’t work. Like, what? Like, what? Just a bunch of stuff like that that I just feel like it’s not in aggregate. I mean, we’re spending we’re talking a few hundred bucks here, which I can pay for by selling these broken vending machines. And it, like, has such an impact on consumer experience to have soap and paper towels to wash your hands. It’s like super basic stuff.

Jeff Grampp [00:59:42]:
The fans were broken. Just all that kind of stuff. Did that super quick. I’m, like, totally diverging away from your question, love of of coinless.

Jordan Berry [00:59:54]:
So Well, real quick. I mean, I just wanna I just wanna say I am not actually a proponent of not doing anything in the first three to six months. I know a lot of people are that I’m a proponent of getting in and making the improvements ASAP that, you know, need to be made. Now, some cases you’re buying like a turnkey laundromat. Maybe you don’t do anything and that’s fine. But if there are improvements to be made, I think you make the improvements ASAP because it’s only going to help your business. And not only that, one thing that I learned when I bought my first laundromat and had to basically retool the whole thing, I learned it was relatively easy to retool the the laundromat, put new equipment in there, do, you know, some of the things you’re talking about, the paper towel holder thing didn’t work, you know, all the all these little things that were just kind of new, you know, a nuisance to customers. What was much more difficult was rehabbing the reputation of the laundromat.

Jordan Berry [01:00:48]:
And if you can start doing that day one by making improvements, I think that’s a huge win. So I’m actually not a proponent of waiting, you know, three months or whatever before you start making changes. I think you make changes ASAP. Now, maybe you don’t make a whole lot of really big changes, but maybe you do. I made big changes, you know, by retooling my store within the first few weeks as soon as those machines came in. Like, that’s a big change. I wasn’t going to sit around with half the machines broken, some of the top loaders half full of water because they won’t drain and you know, how the condition it was in. I was gonna make improvements.

Jordan Berry [01:01:22]:
So I’m actually I like I like what you did. So Good. Stamp of approval. Not that you needed it, but I’ve given it to you anyways. Okay.

Jeff Grampp [01:01:31]:
Yeah. And I guess, to that point, you know, our reviews were it was kind of your standard, you know, there was no website. We didn’t have a phone number too, which also, like, I’m the last guy that wants to get all the phone calls for all the, you know, stuff that people wanna call about. But what if there’s like a flood or like my I have a dryer fire and I they’re not gonna get a phone call? Like Yeah. That just boggled my mind. So after I think probably forty five or sixty days of doing enough where I felt like there was enough of a discernible change, I went on Google and I replied to all the bad reviews. Hey, new ownership. Check us out.

Jeff Grampp [01:02:10]:
Like, so sorry. Whatever their complaint was. And perfect story. There were there were some I don’t know why I did this, but if it was more than like two years old, I just didn’t I didn’t reply at the time. So funny story. Over the weekend, I was like, why not? Like, what what’s the harm in going to a five year old review and saying, hey, new ownership? I replied to a guy or gal, said, hey. So sorry about your experience. New ownership.

Jeff Grampp [01:02:38]:
We made a ton of changes. Come try us out. Within twenty four hours, that got changed from a one star to a four star. This this person wrote, like, a paragraph review, new owner, like, so great, you guys should come check it out. Which is, like, huge. Especially, I mean, look, we don’t have a thousand reviews. I think we’re at 75 reviews or something like that. So, like, changing a one to a four is meaningful.

Jeff Grampp [01:03:05]:
And maybe that person wasn’t even a customer, and so now they’re spending, whatever, $50 a month at our store that previously we weren’t getting because I didn’t write a 10 word response to them on Yeah. Google.

Jordan Berry [01:03:18]:
And they’re encouraging other people to come check it out. So all all the better. And, you know, just kind of give you some kudos. 75 reviews, a lot of reviews. I think most laundromats don’t have 75 reviews. So that’s good. You know, obviously keep going, man, because the more you have, especially good ones, right? The better that is and the more customers that’ll drive to you. Okay.

Jordan Berry [01:03:40]:
Wait. So so you ended up getting a payment system. We’ve cut you off there and I wanna bring you back to it.

Jeff Grampp [01:03:46]:
Yeah. So from a from a financial standpoint, the way I structured the, the purchase was I do owe the seller, I don’t know, 30 or 40% of the purchase price, one year from close. So I always had in the back of my mind, this thing needs to profit enough to pay that off at year one. I don’t wanna put any more money into the business. So I kind of wrote an initial check into the business that would fund, the initial portion of the purchase price, as well as some of the upgrades. And then the profit from year one should pay back the seller for the remainder. Since the business was doing a bit better than I thought, I was getting to the point where like, well, maybe I can do laundry works too, and still be able to to pay back the note. And so after a few months, it kinda felt like I was close enough.

Jordan Berry [01:04:41]:
Is this before July when you were still riding the high? You’re like, oh, maybe I can do it. And then you did it. And then July came and you’re like, oh,

Jeff Grampp [01:04:48]:
no. Fortunately not. But August was August was better enough to where I felt comfortable.

Jordan Berry [01:04:56]:
We’re not going to zero.

Jeff Grampp [01:04:57]:
Where I

Jordan Berry [01:04:57]:
where yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Jeff Grampp [01:05:00]:
And so and so I I pulled the trigger on that. That got installed, September. And the other thing too, that was a struggle for me is with going back to the coins, I was very confident we were underpriced. I visited the half a dozen closest competitors and realized we were pretty underpriced. I would say we were on par with them aesthetically in terms of like quality of store. I was like, I can make some upgrades and we will be above average quality. We should be at least average on price and we were below average. But the problem I ran into with the bigger machines, so we have a couple eighties and, and five sixties.

Jeff Grampp [01:05:48]:
The eighties are the problem. If I raise my prices, I’m just gonna have to go an extra day to to collect them.

Jordan Berry [01:05:56]:
Yeah.

Jeff Grampp [01:05:57]:
And so I’m like a return on my time. I don’t know that that makes sense. I’m gonna make an extra dollar return. And so I don’t know what that’s gonna you know, maybe I make $50 a week, but then I gotta go in and I gotta go in more. And it just it just accelerates my my coin, velocity. And so I was like, I I can’t there’s a cap on prices unless I have someone do collections or I’m gonna be there four or five days a week. And so that was another way to convince myself. Again, I kinda wanted that outcome, but I was like, let’s get Laundry Works and let’s really price this the way it should be priced.

Jeff Grampp [01:06:36]:
And so when we installed Laundry Works, we raised prices, maybe 10 to 20% depending on the machine.

Jordan Berry [01:06:46]:
Okay.

Jeff Grampp [01:06:47]:
Across the board, I did the dollar math, which I talked to a few other laundry laundry works users and they were big proponents of that. I had a heart attack after seven days of just watch every day I go onto the portal and just see how much money we’re giving away on this match. And I originally was gonna do it for two weeks, and I tapped out after a week. And I was just like, this is this is soul crushing with these people. And I was there every day teaching customers, and I tell them about the match, and we had some signage. And they’re like, well, like, what’s the limit on the match? I was like, I honestly don’t know. And so I I had, I had people coming in without laundry, just putting a hundred dollar bill in the machine, or the nail salon next to us, which only dries. They spend literally a dollar a week at our store, I think.

Jeff Grampp [01:07:41]:
They loaded up $200 And so, it was a good, good momentum builder for the store. I don’t regret it. But I also think it’s a good sleight of hand, not to be sneaky with your customers, but if I’m gonna raise my prices, I at least have something to go, hey, like, I’m giving you free money. Yeah. We’re raising prices. By the way, we’re still cheaper than our competitors. But we’re trying to work with you here. And and, you know, the price of everything’s going up.

Jeff Grampp [01:08:19]:
Right? It’s not like it’s hard to see that we’re not greedy. I think it’s a very reasonable, ask of customers, and we’ve received no pushback. I did another price increase a month ago. We’re kind of at a point where I feel more comfortable with our pricing. Still little to no pushback.

Jordan Berry [01:08:37]:
Was there okay. So I I wanna ask you this because there’s a huge fear for a lot of owners going from did you get rid of coins completely? Are you only caught up?

Jeff Grampp [01:08:47]:
I was I was very hesitant to do that.

Jordan Berry [01:08:51]:
Yeah.

Jeff Grampp [01:08:51]:
And I was gonna go hybrid for a while. The the problem I had was the kiosks were gonna go where my changer was.

Jordan Berry [01:09:01]:
Mhmm. And

Jeff Grampp [01:09:01]:
so my distributors like, well, you could just buy a smaller changer and mount it somewhere else. And then it’s like, okay, well, that’s another few grand to buy that changer and whatever to install it. And I’m just gonna do it for how long? Six months or something. And it just felt like it was kind of a a weenie out. And then your LaundryWorks adoption is not gonna be good because people don’t wanna change. So I I made the decision to just we’ll get rid of it, and we’ll we’ll go going less than a %.

Jordan Berry [01:09:34]:
K. So, I mean, the big fear is exactly what you were experiencing. Like, how are customers gonna respond to this? So how how did they respond to it? Did you feel like you and maybe it’s tough to know because you didn’t have good data before, probably. Yeah. Do you feel like you lost customers? Did people complain about the card system? Did the dollar match, ease everybody’s frustrations? How how did it go?

Jeff Grampp [01:10:00]:
Yes to all of those, just depending on on the customer. I had some people who literally, you know and and I was there, I don’t know, forty or sixty hours the the first seven to fourteen days a week, so something like that. So we were we were basically fully attended and then some the first two weeks to to hold everyone’s hand. I taught a 95 year old lady how to do it. And so once I did that, I was like, I think I think most people can figure it out. I invested in some nice signage to to help with that. But, yeah, for sure. There were some people who came in and, and I told them how it worked and they scoffed and they walked out the door.

Jeff Grampp [01:10:45]:
They did a lap, avoided eye contact with me and ignored me and then left. I did not see anything from a revenue standpoint that would suggest that, like, we lost 20% of our customers during there there was business has been, up, overall. I will say it’s hard, like, now we’re getting into winter and now so business is gonna be up regardless. So it’s it’s hard for me to say definitively, like, we’re doing 20% better because of Laundry Works. I don’t know that. But I don’t have to do collections anymore. I can do refunds through the system when people have issues. I don’t get chargebacks.

Jeff Grampp [01:11:27]:
Half of our negative reviews on Google related to bank holds with Fast Guard. I don’t wanna talk bad on them. That’s just the structure they have. But people were confused that we had a $7 wash and they saw $10 on their bank statement for a couple days. No one goes back and changes their Google review to go, Oh, my bad, five stars. So Yeah. There’s a bunch of negative reviews for bank holds. And so LaundryWorks, they don’t have to do that.

Jeff Grampp [01:11:58]:
I’m trying to think what else. I mean, just being there to hold people’s hands, you get enough critical mass that and I think LaundryWorks and laundromats in general are friendly community type places. And if you see someone just staring at the screen for a while, a friendly person will be at the laundromat to say, hey Yeah. Push this, do this, and they teach each other. I I think it’s it’s hard before you get Laundry Works to to buy into that. Like, I’m gonna make, you know, tens of thousands of dollars decision based on, well, they’ll teach each other, like, they’re they’re fine. Anecdotally from my experience, it’s it’s been pretty good, not without its bumps. Some people are confused.

Jeff Grampp [01:12:49]:
I did get some pretty negative messages, from customers, but they’re like one off. And I still see this person. This person was was livid, that we would it’s discriminatory against old people. How dare you? You raised your prices. You’re like a horrible person. I still see her. So sometimes people just wanna bet. They’re pissed like, Look, $5 a week on laundry might be really meaningful to some people.

Jeff Grampp [01:13:18]:
I I don’t wanna discount that. And so sometimes people just wanna yell at you and because they’re in a tough spot. That’s part of the part of the job sometimes.

Jordan Berry [01:13:30]:
Yeah. No. And that that’s real. Right? Sometimes you just need to hear people out and apologize and introduce them to the 95 year old who was able to figure it out. You know what I mean? Like and and just let people feel heard. And I I think that’s a that’s a big part of it. But it’s hard again. I mean, I think for you, you know, just kind of knowing your mentality a little bit in the way you’re approaching the business, maybe a little bit easier to hear some of that stuff.

Jordan Berry [01:13:52]:
But for, you know, some people who this is their child and to your people, it can bring up an emotional response from us in retaliation. But if you can try to, like, have a little empathy and just hear people out and yeah, you might lose a couple, but a lot of times, even if you lose them, they they just end up coming back. Not all the time, but a lot of time they end up just coming back and they just needed to be heard. And if you could play that role for them, a lot of times that’s that’s just kind of what they need. It’s kind of what they need.

Jeff Grampp [01:14:25]:
Yeah. I mean, I I didn’t think about it until being in this business. I worked at a grocery store for five years during college, where customer service is the name of the game. And there’s a lot of training there of just sucking it up, putting on a smile. And I just think of like, okay, let’s do the two paths here. One path is I meet anger with anger and I yell at them and say, how dare you talk bad about my business, get the heck out of here. And the others, hey, I’m really sorry that you feel that way. Happy to show you how it works.

Jeff Grampp [01:14:58]:
Or I’m sorry you don’t like our price increase, but here’s the reality of our situation with our costs. Look at all the upgrades we’ve made to the store to try to make this a nicer, cleaner place for you. Which path is going to help you? Like, I don’t Partially, I do this because it’s just an easier way to deal with people, but it’s also in my intro. Like, I want this laundromat to make as much money as possible, and I do that by having customers who are happy and like coming here, not ones that I fight with. So it’s it’s it’s not all altruistic. There there’s some self interest in there.

Jordan Berry [01:15:34]:
Yeah. Yeah. But I’ll also just say from personal experience, sometimes you just gotta throw down with somebody, you know?

Jeff Grampp [01:15:40]:
Yeah. I mean, I I did as as lucky as we’ve been for people, you know, there have been some, you know, unhoused people that I’ve had to, you know, not get physical with, but had to have some tough conversations with to protect my business, and make my customers feel safe.

Jordan Berry [01:16:02]:
Yeah. Yep. It’s reality of reality of the business, for sure. So I mean, you’ve you’ve kind of said and alluded to a couple of times, like business has been going pretty well for you. Like overall, how are you feeling about this investment? Are you feeling like this was a good move for you? And and, like, would you do it again out of curiosity?

Jeff Grampp [01:16:27]:
Yeah. So, I mean, I think going into it, if we rewind to, like, before buying it, I was 10 times more worried I would buy something and then screw it up than than buy something and, like, you know, knock it out. Like, I knew I was not gonna overpay because that’s my background and I was being very conservative. And so I felt very good that I would make a smart purchase. And, you know, my wife who’s extremely risk averse, that was always my pitch to her is like, look, if in six months I hate this and I stuck at it, I’m pretty sure we’ll get the vast majority, if not all of our money back. And it’s a solid one. Okay.

Jordan Berry [01:17:11]:
Two guys who I talked to earlier did the same thing, so so I know it can work. Yeah.

Jeff Grampp [01:17:16]:
Yeah. Yeah. So I I knew there was kind of that that parachute, emergency exit kind of option. But, you know, I figured it out like I think we all do in the industry. There’s a there’s more resources now than there’s ever been, thanks to to you and others, to to learn this industry. You just kinda have to invest the time and figure things out. And I think something I’ve given myself some grace over is like, I hate having machines down. I hate it, especially as a smaller store.

Jeff Grampp [01:17:53]:
Like, we don’t I don’t have twenty, thirty pound machines where if a couple are down, it’s not that meaningful. Like, you know, we do five to eight turns a day, and so I can’t have that many machines down. But like, if a machine’s down for a few days, it’s not the end of the world. I’m not gonna miss my kids, you know, gymnastics practice to go fix a drain valve. I’ll do it the next day. The the business is important, but, giving yourself some grace. Something’s on fire. I’m missing gymnastics practice.

Jeff Grampp [01:18:32]:
Fortunately, I still don’t know what the right amount of like dryer fire, like panic and run over there instances are. I’ve had a couple. No fires, no like major blowout water issues, but a couple things. I don’t know what the right number is to expect still. But just being comfortable with like, Hey, sometimes stuff’s gonna happen is not the end of the world if the machine’s down for an extra day. But again, I don’t want a lot of machines down for long periods of time. So that’s something I still hold to a relatively high standard, I think.

Jordan Berry [01:19:09]:
Yeah. Here’s a data point for you. In a little over a decade, I’ve had zero dryer fires, but I’ve had maybe three or four flood flooded like laundromats. So that that’s happened a few times. Yeah, there. So, but

Jeff Grampp [01:19:29]:
fun story I’ll interject real quick,

Jordan Berry [01:19:31]:
which

Jeff Grampp [01:19:31]:
I didn’t cover. So so closing day finally come. We’re gonna meet at closing. They’re gonna take their cash. I’m gonna get the keys and it’s mine. We basically do everything, kinda, you know, square everything up. We’re there for, like, an hour. We’re about to close the doors and leave.

Jeff Grampp [01:19:49]:
And I go, oh, like, can we go check-in the in the water room real quick? Like, I just I there was one thing I wanted to check-in there. They have, tankless heaters, and I just kinda wanted to make sure I understood those again. Open the door. The pipes are, like, maybe not gushing, but a substantial leak. Yes. At closing time as the business is now the the funds are gone. I I have I don’t think I have any recourse. Like, this ship has sailed.

Jordan Berry [01:20:19]:
Yeah.

Jeff Grampp [01:20:19]:
And we we just all look. No one says anything. We’re just staring at this pipe just leaking at 09:00 at night.

Jordan Berry [01:20:27]:
Oh, no.

Jeff Grampp [01:20:28]:
Oh, no. Like, what am I getting myself into? And so I think that scarred me a little bit. So for fortunately, like, complete hero, but the attorney, his brother-in-law is a plumber and lives a mile away.

Jordan Berry [01:20:46]:
Dude, what a champ.

Jeff Grampp [01:20:48]:
So he calls the guy up, he comes down in, like, practically his pajamas, and, we’re able to at least, like, turn it off and avoid the leak. He shows up the next day and, like, welds it back. Does what I’m out tomorrow. Fixes it.

Jordan Berry [01:21:05]:
Whatever he did. Yeah.

Jeff Grampp [01:21:06]:
I I beg him to pay him, and he’s like, don’t worry about it. Like, the attorney, Matthew, he’s like, that guy’s been more than kind to me and my family. So, I mean, don’t don’t pay me.

Jordan Berry [01:21:19]:
Awesome.

Jeff Grampp [01:21:21]:
But since that day, I’m just way I’m like, I guess just every week, pipes break and gush, and that’s just, like Yeah. A normal thing.

Jordan Berry [01:21:29]:
About once a week. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, it’s funny because I mean, you know, there are the sort like Ross Dodd, his laundromat burned down after a week or two or a few weeks, or I can’t remember what it was when he first bought his Sean Dandridge. His whole place flooded three weeks in. And I mean, there’s multiple people on the podcast who have had these crazy, wild stories of like, here’s what happened right after I bought my laundromat. So it does happen.

Jordan Berry [01:21:56]:
But I mean, listen, it it’s more fun to share the horror stories than the boring days where nothing goes wrong, right? So but there’s a lot more of those than than the crazy stories, out there. But you just hear more of those. So yeah, it doesn’t happen every week. Maybe every other week. No. Yeah, dude, this has been, it’s been awesome.

Jeff Grampp [01:22:22]:
I first

Jordan Berry [01:22:23]:
of all, I loved your story. I love the way you’re approaching the business, a very sort of methodical and systematic way. It’s funny to me that your your big worry was that you were going to like, you know, take over the business and and screw it up. Because to me, just as you’re talking about how you’ve like approached everything and how you’ve handled, like the obstacles that have happened, because there’s always obstacles, right? Just seems very like, okay, this guy, this guy knows what he’s doing. I know you may not know all the nuances of, you know, laundromats when you first bought it. But in terms of like, you know, how to solve problems, which is, you know, 80 plus percent of entrepreneurship like you, you have that skill set it’s there. So to me, it’s not surprising that you’re crushing it, over there. What’s, what’s the future hold for you? You think you got any more laundromats in you, or you think this will be the one for you?

Jeff Grampp [01:23:16]:
I don’t so I ask myself that probably weekly. The the the problem is I’m now spoiled with Laundry Works. And so, there’s two card stores within a few miles of me. They’re not Laundry Works. So like, if I’m gonna kinda do a hub and spoke model of building around there, I’m probably gonna acquire a coin store and that brings a lot of extra work. And so I’m kind of debating on, do you get some help, some kind of manager, more senior person to kind of help you, be in the trenches beyond just the kind of standard attendance? Do you hire that person before you have number two? Do you get store number two and then, you know, just tread water for a bit? I I don’t I don’t have that solved yet. I’m still working. I don’t feel like I feel like I’m in like maybe the bottom of the eighth of of the nine inning game of getting my store to really to where I really want it to be.

Jeff Grampp [01:24:11]:
So I’m I’m close. But I don’t know. I don’t know. I I answer this like I answer, like, a job interview is what’s your five year plan. I don’t I don’t have those kinds of plans. I just I wanna make this store really good. And maybe I’ll take my old coach’s advice and just, you know, go start another mailer strategy and no harm in talking to to to people. Right? And I found the laundromat community is is incredibly helpful.

Jeff Grampp [01:24:40]:
The idea of competitors is a lot different than like we’re not Coke and we’re not all Coke versus Pepsi or whatever. Everyone’s been very, very friendly and helpful in this industry to provide other resources or ideas. I made friends with another store owner five miles from me at a kid’s birthday party. We just randomly met each other and Like That’s awesome. He I’m gonna watch his store in a few months, and he’s probably gonna watch mine when we go on vacation. It’s like, we’re competitors, but at the same time, it’s like, hey, can you go do coin collection for me? I’m like out of the country. It’s like yeah. Yeah.

Jeff Grampp [01:25:18]:
The capuchin. Yeah. So it’s it’s very interesting how how competition works in this industry, and it’s good from my standpoint.

Jordan Berry [01:25:28]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and what’s interesting about this business too when it comes to, like, competition, right, is you really only have a few, like, true competitors. Right? Like, you’re probably not competing over one single customer with the guy five miles down the road. Like, there’s probably not one person sitting in the middle of there being like, should I go to his or should I go to yours? Yeah. Right. So while your competitors in the sense that you’re doing the same thing, like you’re really only competitors with a handful of people right around you. And even then, you know, you’re really only competing, you know, over a small contingency of those customers most of the time.

Jordan Berry [01:26:08]:
Because most of the time, the majority of the people were going to their laundromat are going there because it’s just the most convenient place for them to go. And the majority that are going to yours are going for the same reason. And then there’s a some smaller subset of people who have the option and prefer to go to one or the other, that you’re competing over. So it is an interesting, you know, industry to be in when it comes to competitors. And it is, you know what? I think one of the reasons this podcast has been so successful as in interviewing owners, because you can jump on here and say, Hey, I went coinless to a % card. Here’s how it was for me because. It’s not going to negatively impact your business to tell people that, right? Because you’re really just not competing with very many people across the nation, which is a pretty cool dynamic. So it does allow for that sharing to happen, which I love.

Jeff Grampp [01:27:04]:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think the one thing I don’t know if you have any thoughts on this that I really want better data on and I just haven’t found a good way to do it is why do I not get certain customers? Why do my competitors if I’m cheaper, not that I am now, but I was, if I’m cheaper and cleaner, Why are you not coming to my store? And the only people you talk you gotta talk to your customers. Ask your customers. My customers are already coming to my store. Like, they already like my product more or less. Maybe they want some things changed here or there. Outside of going to a competitor store and literally coaching them, which I’m not at all comfortable doing, how do we get data to understand what are we missing as store owners that’s not capturing other customers? I don’t I don’t know how to do I wanna do that.

Jeff Grampp [01:27:57]:
And sometimes I’ll ask customers, I haven’t been here in three years. Like, this is really cool. And I go, why? And I just I never get useful answers. It’s, well, I used to go to the place by my work, and now I don’t. Now I come here. Well, I I don’t know what to do with that.

Jordan Berry [01:28:13]:
You can’t extrapolate that to everybody else.

Jeff Grampp [01:28:15]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [01:28:17]:
Yeah. I mean, yeah. Like, it’s an interesting it’s an interesting question. Right? And, you know, I just as I was thinking, I’m like, there’s probably ways to do that. You know, just one that off the top of my head, I’ve never heard anybody do this, and this might not be a good idea. So, you know, anybody out there who wants to try it, let me know how it goes if you do try it. But, you know, I’m thinking like you could geofence your competitors. And instead of necessarily running them direct ads to your your business, you could, and just so everybody’s clear what geofencing is, where you basically put a virtual fence around your competitors.

Jordan Berry [01:28:55]:
So anybody who goes within that fence, you can run ads to them. So basically, all the customers of your competitor competitors, you can run ads to. Right? And so I’m wondering if there’s like, hey, take a take a two question survey and get LaundryWorks credit for our store. If you do that and just say, Hey, what do you love about your the laundromat that you’re at right now? And what do you what what do you not like about that line or like whatever the questions are right to try to get a couple of useful data and then you incentivize them to come to your store by saying, Hey, we’re over here. We’ve got, you know, here’s a $5 credit or $10 credit or whatever, that we’ll put on your LenderWorks card. And, you know, that might be an interesting way to do it.

Jeff Grampp [01:29:40]:
For sure. That’s a good point. Yeah. I mean, it’s just getting like, again, going back to, like, data, just like why our industry is not good at data. I think we’re getting better. No. But, Yeah. Just getting a better understanding for why do customers behave the way they do.

Jeff Grampp [01:29:57]:
It’s fascinating. I’d again, I I would like to that that’s kind of a goal I think about, but it’s just hard to really get a definitive action plan.

Jordan Berry [01:30:06]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that you get a lot of answers like this is the closest one to me or I walk and yours is too far to walk to or, you know, a lot of that stuff. But like I said, there is that small subset of people that you are competing over that it would be interesting to get their feedback from.

Jeff Grampp [01:30:23]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [01:30:25]:
Yeah. Interesting. Well, dude, this is awesome. I think a lot of people who are, who are trying to get their first laundromat. Will have loved this interview. Number one, Do you have, like, one piece of advice? Say there’s somebody that was you, you know, twelve months ago looking for that laundromat. Do you have one piece of advice on what could help them get that first laundromat?

Jeff Grampp [01:30:56]:
I mean, it’s it’s a little, I guess, counterintuitive advice, but just being patient for, like, like, your buy box. I would say you probably would lose a lot more sleep over buying something you shouldn’t have bought than not buying something you could have or or should have perhaps. I mean, you never know if you should have if you didn’t buy it, but, don’t force a deal. I definitely felt that pressure with that first one that was really close to the house I grew up in. It was like, this is it. Like, I don’t no one else is calling me back on my mailer. This guy’s interested. Yeah.

Jeff Grampp [01:31:37]:
It it’s now or never. And I’m almost glad that he went with a broker because I don’t even at the price I probably was gonna offer, it would have been a lot of work. Even if I even if I didn’t do a retool, like just all the different machines, it’s just big. It was a big store and I don’t know if I was ready for that. And so, it’s probably not advice to get you, you know, any listener to buying a store faster, but hopefully it’s a better situation in the long term to get something that truly fits whatever kind of experience that you would wanna have as an owner, however that’s defined. And being realistic, like I said, I think about wash, dry, fold now, like how can I make that work? But I’m also not comfortable to execute on that right now. And so I’m just not spending time on that. I think that’s an easy thing for people to pitch and go, Oh, like you had wash dry fold, it’s gonna double the value of the store.

Jeff Grampp [01:32:35]:
It’s like, it’s not, you don’t just hang it. The store we had used to do wash dry fold, the store I own, used to do it way back when and they stopped. I don’t think they stopped because it was making too much money. Like

Jordan Berry [01:32:48]:
Rarely is that the case.

Jeff Grampp [01:32:50]:
It’s a hard thing to execute. It’s easy to say, like, we’re just gonna do it and people show up and I’ll make an extra few grand a month or whatever. It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of extra staff. I don’t wanna do that right now, but I’m not. So just being being very clear about what you want and staying disciplined to that. And unfortunately, maybe you that extends your timeline, but I’m glad I was patient. Like, I I didn’t have to be that patient, but I did have to wait a little bit, and it was uncomfortable.

Jeff Grampp [01:33:22]:
So, I guess that’s what I’d say.

Jordan Berry [01:33:25]:
Yeah. Well, as somebody who did not get that advice, and so thanks a lot for nothing. I don’t know. You were probably 10 when I bought my first laundromat, but, and bought one that was rough, like losing money when I was expected to be making money and, you know, all the problems. Go Go listen to episode one if you’ve never heard that story. But, I will vouch for everything that you’re saying. It is much worse to buy something that you shouldn’t have bought and having to deal with the the consequences of that for long periods of time rather than passing even on a good deal. If you pass on, I’d rather pass on a good deal than buy a bad deal all all day every day as somebody who has bought a bad deal and suffered the consequences of that.

Jordan Berry [01:34:12]:
So I think it’s I think it’s great advice. And I think, you know, it’s it’s hard to be patient right now, especially where it can be a little bit more difficult than in the past to find a deal. It’s hard to be patient, but I genuinely believe the advice you’re given is really good. It’s better to to pass on a good deal than buy a bad deal. And obviously, like, try to buy the good deal. Yeah, but, if you’re not sure, you know, either get some outside in input, or or pass on it till you’re more sure.

Jeff Grampp [01:34:44]:
So Yeah. I’d say if if I can add one more too, I I think as I kind of I spend more time at my competitors, I did that over the holidays and just kind of thinking about like and I think, Wally Cope’s newsletter over the weekend kind of hit on this that like there’s a lot of zombie mats out there and I I’m sure some are negligent owners, but some are people who just are not literally making enough money to keep the store the way they probably want. Mhmm. I’m in a fortuitous position in that I have a day job, so I don’t need to pull money out of this business every every week and month. But the alternative is, like, if and when you buy a business, making sure you have enough to execute the plan you want. Like, I I put in more money than I needed to because I had a plan to do a lot of, I say renovations, but upgrades. And just finding out like, okay, what is the right amount of money that this business needs to get it to where it needs to go? If you have to spend every last penny just to get your foot in the door, and it’s a business that’s break even or maybe not making enough, you might find yourself in a difficult position, especially if the numbers aren’t what you think they are or something happens or you have two back to back months of really bad repairs or plumbing issue or whatever. So just making sure there’s a little extra a little extra juice, to execute your plan and not find yourself in a stressful situation where, you know, financials become a real problem for you.

Jordan Berry [01:36:19]:
Yeah. That’s a great I mean, that’s a great piece of advice. And, you know, I saw that, Walid’s newsletter. So make sure you subscribe if you’re not to watch weekly. But I mean and it was right. And Walid’s point there was like, hey, there’s a person behind that zombie mat. Like, let’s let’s try to exercise a little empathy and compassion. You know, a lot of times and this was the case for me, you know, early on when I was like struggling, I wanted to do more, but I was like losing money, you know, hand over fist, hand over foot.

Jordan Berry [01:36:48]:
I don’t know what that saying is now that I’m trying to say it. And over fist. But Okay, fist? Is it fist?

Jeff Grampp [01:36:53]:
I think I don’t know.

Jordan Berry [01:36:55]:
All right. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, like there’s a person behind that, right? And so. The the the takeaway there is when you’re getting into the business, just like you’re saying, like, Hey, just make sure you’ve got a little runway, you’ve got a little cushion and that you’re you’ve got a clear as clear of an understanding of the business as you can, before it becomes yours too. Right. And and you kind of reference like maybe if it’s not making as much money as you thought it was and which happens a lot in this business.

Jordan Berry [01:37:26]:
So, do the best you can. And, but just, you know, know that the the less runway you have on the back end after the purchase in terms of money, the riskier it becomes. Not to say that you can’t do it. I’ve I’ve talked with a lot of people who got in with their last their last penny, the last dime and, had to put in a whole lot of sweat equity to make the thing work. And it was a long road, but they made it work and you can make it work that way, but it just becomes more risky. The the less runway you have after that purchase there. So Yeah. Yep.

Jordan Berry [01:38:02]:
Which you love risk, obviously.

Jeff Grampp [01:38:05]:
I said, like, align your seller. You know, I I was it was, I’ll say, almost non negotiable to me to have some some component of seller finance. Maybe it’s easier said than done, especially if it’s like there’s a broker and there’s 20 other offers or something. But if you have a seller who really is not comfortable, like extending you credit on the business that’s supposedly good, because I’m sure they’re telling you it’s a great business, that’s kind of a red flag. And maybe if you can’t negotiate it, at least you know, get a really good answer for why that’s literally not possible for them. Yeah. Yeah. Because if they’re not willing to stick their neck out a little bit for the business that they’ve been running, then maybe it’s not such a good business.

Jordan Berry [01:38:50]:
Yeah. Yeah. That’s yeah. That’s huge. And that’s a way to sort of mitigate some risk as well. You know, if things turn out to not be as advertised, you can you’ve got some some leeway there to play with your payments or or the valuation a little bit. So.

Jeff Grampp [01:39:07]:
Yeah.

Jordan Berry [01:39:08]:
Yeah. Jeff, man. Awesome. Awesome interview. Tons of great, just practical stuff within your story there. But dude, I love the way you’re approaching your business. I love the way you’re running your business.

Jeff Grampp [01:39:23]:
And

Jordan Berry [01:39:24]:
I selfishly hope you go out and buy some more down the line here because I, you know, I just I love the way that you’re doing this, man. And I love the way that you’re, you know, thinking about your customers and your employees. And I just I think there needs to be more owners doing that. And there are there are more owners thinking of their customers that way. Just treat them with a lot of value and respect and same with employees. And I love the way you’re doing it, man. So hopefully you’ll go out and pick up some more and then, then you come back on here and have a good time again.

Jeff Grampp [01:39:58]:
Councilman. I appreciate it. Yeah.

Jordan Berry [01:40:02]:
And next time I’m back in SoCal, let’s, let’s make a point to get get back together.

Jeff Grampp [01:40:06]:
All right. Get your mail.

Jordan Berry [01:40:08]:
That’s right. That’s right. Or come out to Hawaii. Either way, I’m good with that.

Jeff Grampp [01:40:12]:
All right. All

Jordan Berry [01:40:12]:
right, man. Appreciate you.

Jeff Grampp [01:40:14]:
Thanks so much.

Jordan Berry [01:40:15]:
Alright. Once again, I absolutely love the way that Jeff is is approaching this business and the way that he runs his business. It is it’s kinda refreshing to me because it just feels so polished. You know what I mean? So huge shout out to Jeff. Thanks for coming on. But listen, take one thing, put it into action this week. That’s what it comes down to when it comes to your success. So put it into action this week, and we’ll see you again next week.

Jordan Berry [01:40:42]:
Peace.