33. Peter Shares His BIG Secret to Entrepreneurial Success With Peter Mayberry

Multi-laundromat owner and serial entrepreneur, Peter Mayberry, drops so much wisdom and advice in this show that you’ll probably need to watch it more than once! He has extensive experience in the laundromat industry, but has also ventured into other businesses like hotels, self storage, bitcoin mining, and is even pursuing building casino!

If you’re someone who wants to grow your business, find financial freedom doing something you love, or if you have ambitious goals, Peter is a guy you’re going to want to hear from!

In this episode we talk about:

Building a laundromat from scratch
Building vs. Buying your first laundromat
The #1 reason Peter eliminates a potential laundromat from consideration
Free laundromats
Managing multiple laundromats
Networking as the key to business success and rapid progress
Specific numbers in his businesses
The best locations to build a laundromat
Goals driving your actions
How to find a mentor in the laundromat industry
And Peter drops a tip to close the interview that is a game changer for any laundromat owner!

And much, much more!

This was an incredible interview that you definitely don’t want to miss! See below for links from today’s show.

Watch The Podcast Here

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Episode Transcript

Read the Transcript Here

hey what’s up guys it’s jordan with the

laundromat resource

podcast this is show number 33 and i’m

pumped that you’re here today

because today we’re talking with peter

mayberry and peter

is i mean if you have entrepreneur blood

in you

you’ve got to listen to this entire

episode because peter

has just he’s got entrepreneur blood

running straight through his veins

we talk a ton about laundromats today

and he gives a ton of great advice about

laundromats

but we talk about other businesses also

and the things that he’s doing

some of his goals and aspirations and

they

are all over the place from more

laundromats

and more laundromat locations to

self-storage

to hotels to even uh he’s trying to get

a casino and he’s going to talk about

that

i mean he’s he is doing big things he’s

got big goals big aspirations and he is

always looking for opportunity i

loved every second of this interview and

i know you will too

so i don’t want to take up too much time

in this intro part but

i did want to give a laundromat

insider tip i’m going to try to give one

of these going forward laundry my

insider tips just to help you

use laundry resource to help you find

greater and greater success

today’s laundromat insider tip is this

if you haven’t yet make sure you create

an account a free membership account

on the website and it gives you access

to member

resources so all you got to do is log in

click on member resources up at the top

and it gives you access to a bunch of

free resources that you can use to help

you

succeed and i’m going to be building

those out more and more

we’re working on some stuff over here to

help

help you find more success with those

free member resources so make sure you

check those out

use those to help you do everything from

figure out

what a good location is to figuring out

how to value a laundromat

and uh there i mean there’s a tool on

there to help you keep track of your

coin collections if you need help with

that

there’s all kinds of stuff going on over

there so make sure you click on those

and check those out i want to remind you

those forums are

active there’s a lot going on over there

i’m not going to go over any today

because we have a long interview

but make sure every single week you are

asking a question

answering a question and i hope that you

wake up in the middle of the night

you know hearing my voice say go ask a

question answer a question on the forums

because

it’s so so so key to be

meeting people to be interacting with

people those forums are free

free of charge you can go over there and

network and if you haven’t yet

obviously go over there to the

introductions form laundromat

resource.com

forums click on the introductions form

go introduce yourself and go welcome

someone else who’s

introduced themselves on the forum i

can’t tell you

how many opportunities can come your way

just by

meeting other people who are like-minded

who are doing things

who are out there making stuff happen i

i just can’t tell you how how much can

come your way from

uh just introducing yourself putting

yourself out there and going

and meeting some other people so go do

that all the links and all the

information from today

you can find it at laundromat resource

dot com slash

show 33 show three three um

and that’s where all the show notes will

be that’s where the links from

everything will be

and if you haven’t yet whether you’re

listening on a podcast or on youtube

do me a favor and do yourself a favor

and make sure you subscribe so you don’t

miss

anything that we’re putting out there uh

because there’s just

we’re just throwing gold around like

it’s free like it’s nothing

uh so you do not want to be missing it

all right

so uh let right after this let’s jump

into this

interview with peter because it is

incredible and you’re gonna have a lot

of information

to process after this is going and as

always stay tuned because at the very

end i’m gonna give you my takeaway and

uh i’m gonna

crack the whip to make sure that you

come up with the takeaway too

in today’s world if your laundromat is

not online you’re losing business

customers increasingly decide who to

trust with their laundry

by the quality of your web presence but

creating a professional logo

and website that instills trust in

potential customers

and can be found on page one of google

can be difficult to create on your own

and expensive to purchase through a

traditional marketing company

as part of our mission to help

laundromat owners succeed

and find financial freedom through

laundromat ownership we are launching

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tailored specifically for laundromats

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the description

peter what’s up thank you for coming on

the show today i’m super excited about

this

cannot wait how you doing i’m doing

pretty good i really appreciate you

having me

oh man i i’m pumped i cannot wait to

hear

your story and we’ve talked a little bit

and it just got me a little bit

more excited about it so hey uh i know

that you

have a ton of experience you have a ton

of knowledge about this industry

and uh i’m you know thanks for coming on

to share it but before we get

into that tell us a little bit about you

who are you

and and how did you get into this

industry you know random industry to be

in how’d you get in here

well my name is peter mayberry like you

said but i got in this industry

actually it was actually kind of a weird

thing because i actually

had beca i was a sales manager for

general electric and i was becoming more

and more successful and i started having

more and more

extra income and i’ve always wanted to

to start a business

so really what happened was i just delve

into doing tons of stuff and looking at

different businesses

and i wanted to have a business where i

could keep my job because i truly did

love it

i did recently leave my job like two

years ago but

it was a tough situation because i did

love it like i didn’t it wasn’t the guy

that hated my job or like dreaded it

like it really i actually quit because i

had to decide

to keep expanding or to keep my job

because i was getting to be where i

couldn’t do both

but essentially i was looking for a

business that i could

run and still work and i actually was

gravitating towards car washes

and i was gonna buy a car wash and i

just couldn’t

find a car wash that that was for sale

and it was trouble like trying to get

them built because of different

restrictions on the city and whatnot

and even like the zoning for the city

which i knew nothing about but i learned

about zoning and all this other stuff

and then i got onto the laundromat thing

but no

and the thing with the laundromat deal

was like i kept running into owners and

nobody would sell them like they

absolutely wouldn’t even talk to me

and i was like this must be a great

business like nobody in omaha is willing

to even talk to me

about selling a laundry so ultimately i

i started meeting some different people

i got into i mean i started reading some

different

forums and whatnot and i ended up

building

my first laundromat from scratch like i

bought a building and converted it to a

laundromat

and then like i said i got the bug and i

just started really enjoying it i got to

be networking

you know i just started networking in

the laundromat community

and then from they’re on like i said

then it just kind of

gravitated to more and more of my time

being dedicated to laundries

so you you jumped in with both feet and

you built your first store

because you couldn’t find one to buy is

that is that why you decide to build or

so i actually i i feel like some people

don’t even believe this is true but like

i actually

found a building and i actually started

working with distributors

and one distributor well i won’t mention

did some pretty shady stuff

and then i met with i was meeting with

another distributor who a guy actually

had surgery so i mean he was a good guy

and i ended up actually building a store

with this guy later on

but he he had some medical issues and he

ended up being gone for like six months

but there’s a guy named john olson that

used to run laundry lux and

i was just searching for equipment and i

looked for electrolux and at the time

there was no electrolux distributor in

omaha

so i actually had sent what i did is i

sent this information

and john olsen was vice president of

laundrolux he contacted me directly

and he was like you should do electrolux

and there was no distributor

so i was like trying to figure out how

that would happen well it ended up being

that was the single greatest phone call

i could have ever made because john

olson is probably one of the greatest

people i’ve ever met

and he’s also a great person in the

industry but he actually flew me to new

york

i actually got to go and see the laundry

lux facility

in new york and to this day like john

olsen is

probably my best friend in the world

that doesn’t live in omaha you know he

without a doubt is my best friend in the

world

that doesn’t physically live in omaha

and

like i said he got me in touch with

other owners and different things

and i and i had a construction

background being in sales for general

electrics i did the electrical side of

general electric

so i knew general contractors and

subcontractors and

i basically got them all together and

with john’s help i laid it out and then

i built it and like i said i oversaw the

building of it and

i bought my equipment directly from

laundry lux since there was no

distributor

at the time so i built my first lawn

right without a distributor

and without ever being in the industry

or without knowing anybody in the

industry until jonathan

[Laughter]

oh my goodness man you just i mean you

just went for it was that like

nerve wracking to you know i mean

because that’s a lot of money that

you’re

investing into a business you don’t know

a whole lot about and don’t really know

a whole lot of people in at that point

in time right

it was nerve-wracking but i i with john

olson like i mean like i said he

definitely is an expert and he

knows like he had thousands of resources

truly i did i didn’t know what i was

getting into because like

i mean what i know now versus building

from what i knew then but it was all

learning experience and there was

definitely mistakes i made and

issues but like i got through it that

store still around it’s still a great

store

i still actually love the layout of that

store but that’s probably because i had

had john’s help

so i mean and it’s also the store where

i honestly i’m not in my office today

because we kind of talked about that

before this but i still go there every

day i love it i mean it’s like always

gonna be my baby

always gonna be my first oh man well

can you tell us a little bit about that

experience i mean what was it like to

build

a laundromat you know as your first

foray into the industry

it was challenging but like the truth is

too there’s there’s other distributors

like i think one of them comes to mind

is like carl hendricks i mean i’ve never

really met carl but he has a great

website and it talks about performers

and spreadsheets

so i’ve never met him but he helped me

like this this man helped me in new york

that doesn’t even know me

but i also like there’s different videos

on how to

to install bases and install equipment

i just had guys you know like we

literally bought bases

john had connected me with a guy that

sold them in california

and like we we grouted them we used

washers to level them and

i mean we watched the youtube videos i

did um chemical bolts on the first one

because that’s what the video we’ve

watched and

and like i said now fast forward i’ve

done chemical bolts i’ve screwed them

directly into concrete i’ve done

i mean i’ve done anything and everything

i’ve done the red heads where you hammer

them in

so i have three laundry mats with three

different installs and all of them work

so people have this myth that you have

to have professionals install

your laundry and that’s the only way i

mean if you just do it right you take

the time and you get the right people

anybody can install them correctly i

mean i i feel like that’s one of the

biggest myths is like

or like to like it voice the warranty

i’m like why would it avoid the warranty

i mean

matter of fact i can tell you this and i

won’t mention the distributor i have

built three stores personally myself

where i’ve

supervised everything in the install the

only store that i had installed

by a distributor there’s no lie is my

worst install

and i’ve had to do more to fix that

install than all

the other three i did on my own yeah

i mean that doesn’t necessarily surprise

me i just

my my experience with installers um

especially the ones that work with the

distributors is that you know they’re

just

they’re not anything special because

they’re using

you know maybe there’s like one guy who

knows how to install

all this stuff but they’re just using

regular you know

guys to help them install stuff so yeah

and they don’t care about the equipment

like you would i mean like you you just

paid like six hundred thousand dollars

for the equipment

they probably don’t even know what it

costs they’re just slamming it in and

they look at like maybe it’s a thousand

bucks they don’t care yeah

yeah i’ve i’ve always had an issue

when i’ve used an installer so i’m not i

mean not they’re not all bad but

uh yeah so it doesn’t surprise me well

the professional installation actually

cost me the most too

and was the worst so it cost me the most

and was the worst job

yeah man it’s expensive to get these

things installed all right so

you built your first laundromat tell me

about like when you

you finished okay you you decided you’re

you’re you’re jumping in both feet

you’re going all in

with laundromats and so you find a

building

you build out a store and you’re

throwing open the doors for the first

time tell me about that a little bit

so that’s where i made some mistakes

like so when i built this like i didn’t

understand that you have

contingency funds in building right so

when i built this

i got a loan for the exact amount to buy

the land to build it out

and to do this well during the course of

construction i had to come eighty

thousand dollars

more out of pocket that wasn’t financed

because i didn’t realize

like all the issues and stuff that would

arise so

when i first did this i had a big fund

where i felt like i could run a full

year without making a profit

well with that it really cost me so like

this account that i set aside

i’d already used pretty much my entire

contingency fund for running the

business

so then like when i started obviously i

didn’t make money right you got the bank

bills you got the water bills everything

else and

in even though it’s a tremendous area

and today it’s a great laundromat

when you open the doors right people

aren’t standing in line and saying oh

thank you i couldn’t wait for this like

i’m so glad that you’re here

i mean they don’t even know about you so

like for the first six months it was

rough because like i was using my

personal

checking account and thankfully i had a

awesome job that

you know paid six figures to where i was

able to write

checks to keep the business because i

could truly

if i had to quit my job i would have

been bankrupt like i would have been

bankrupt out of the gate and it would

have been because of the

not realizing i needed 80 000 extra

because of just problems arising and

things i didn’t think about

but yeah i mean it truly was an

eye-opener and i think it took me like

six months

it was funny because like i was blowing

through personal savings

i think at the six month mark i remember

having a conversation with my wife and

saying

you know this is it this is about all we

can feed this business

and magically by the grace of god or

some i mean i think it’s god i mean he

literally made me profitable

like an exact breaking life for myself

yeah

and the rest is history but the truth is

like people would say that that was

probably horrible but

that was that first store i learned so

much

and understands so much more and

and like you they always say like what

doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and

know that i mean it

it was all wonderful lessons and like

i’ve i’ve made other mistakes of course

but

well and like like we’ll get into later

probably because you’re going to

probably ask about advice but

financing is a huge deal like i didn’t

realize it but it definitely is and we

can do that later but

yeah it’s it was almost

like i’m doing great now but it almost

wasn’t meant to be i came one month from

catastrophe i mean that’s so stressful

so nerve-wracking i spent i mean i

bought

i made so many mistakes buying my first

one and i wrote

you know big big checks every month for

like over a year and a half um and

it’s just it’s so hard to watch that

money go out

and you’ve already invested all this

money

into a business and now you’re paying

to have the business and it’s just it’s

so stressful man i

i get that and but awesome that you

you know you made it to profitability

right in the nick of time by the skin in

your teeth and i tell people all the

time like

hey if you get in this thing right you

know

then sky’s the limit for you you can you

know as soon as your business is

profitable

as long as you’re managing your money

well like sky’s the limit for you but

if you get into it wrong and you’re

writing checks every month and you can’t

dig yourself out of that

well that’s a recipe for disaster real

quick right

yeah um but uh

was there was there anything that you

feel like you did

to get it to that profitability point or

do you think it just business just had

to build

uh over that six months or seven months

or however long

to to get profitable so what i’ve

learned now is that

that location i put this on the front

but the cars that travel by that

location

are 45 miles an hour right so i should

have had signage on the building because

nobody could even tell what it was they

were driving by it and this is just

something i learned

randomly right and i’ve also learned now

that

when you’re in a well from now on i’m

only going to build in like high

commercial areas and like i kind of got

what i feel is like a little secret

sauce for successful laundromats

but that one is in a tremendous area but

it just like i said you pass by it so

quick it’s really close to the road

so that one needs a little bit more

advertising but now even as the

development has gone on in that area

like they put i don’t know if you have

quick trick trip where you are but it’s

massive gas station well they put that

right across the street so

tons of my customers use that gas

station and and

truthfully i didn’t even realize and

that’s when i realized like about

location and signage and stuff

but i had a huge jump in business when

that gas station was

actually built and i finally came to

realization that people are pumping

their gas and they’re sitting there

looking around they’re like holy cow

there’s a laundromat right here you know

i mean so i really believe that the best

advertising i ever got was a quick trip

gas station

servicing like you know 5 000 cars a day

filling them over the gas and being able

to look around and see that i’m just

physically there

yeah having that captive audience is

huge so they’re just they got nothing

better to do than to stare at your store

and

admire admire it and realize oh man this

this is convenient yeah well hey i mean

that’s awesome

that’s you know again like that’s a

that’s a lucky uh kind of break in some

ways you know to help you get to that

break-even point

uh as quickly as you as you need it to

uh okay so you have built a store

you’ve thrown up in the doors you had

been biting your nails for six months

until you hit

profitability which i’m sure was

incredibly stressful

and i mean it sounds like you have more

than one

uh so what happened from there

so i i built my first one

and i actually bought my my second one i

bought

a store that was that was small and

and well i bought it i bought my second

one and then i built my third one i

built my fourth one i got my fifth one

for free i got the building and the land

for free

and then i built the sixth one i’m

building a seventh one right now

but through all in all like the one i

got for free and the one i bought

i’ve gotten rid of both of those and you

know you probably

talk later about like how you run your

store well

they were 2500 square feet or less they

were both unable to be attended

because of the size and the amount of

volume they could do

and also i don’t know there’s two stores

in omaha like of all of omaha there

might be like 100 laundromats there’s

two stores that i would buy

right now which i’ve just come to

realize and

they’re not for sale right now but

there’s two i would buy and there’s not

a single other one that i would like i

just wouldn’t i just built one because

a lot of these laundry mats are over 20

years old they’re too small for the

market like the run unintended

that’s the business model the parking

lots only got like eight stalls versus

like 30.

so knowing what i know now like i will

not buy any more lawn rats in omaha

except for possibly two and only two so

like and i’ve actually had people come

to me and say like hey

would you be interested in buying it and

i’m like

no and then like they’ll even sometimes

say like four years ago you asked me i

said four years ago i asked everybody

because i wasn’t in this business like

now i have different goals

and like i said i i don’t if the

location was amazing i’d probably

consider it but like i don’t ever plan

on building

a laundromat under 5 000 square foot

again like it’ll be 5 000 square foot

it’ll have at least 30.

so that’s one thing i do too like i was

saying like i go out and

most of my days right now is like

looking for buildings for sale

especially with

the pandemic i just bought a village inn

which was a restaurant they’re kind of

you know having a lot hard time during

the pandemic

yeah so i’ve been looking at tons and

tons of property and

the number one reason i eliminate all

property is parking

and it’s like there’s been some

tremendous locations but if i have a

tremendous location and a great building

for laundromat but i have six parking

stalls

that could maybe work in new york where

they have like a good transportation

system but it’s not going to work in

omaha nebraska

yeah i mean we can have like 20 30 000

people one square mile

and there’s still no buster out there i

mean it’s like

everybody in nebraska drives i mean for

the most part you know i mean

yeah well i mean you mentioned you

mentioned

some of your criteria do you have like a

list of criteria i mean

you mentioned parking and square footage

is there a list of criteria

that you’re looking at either for

location to build out or to buy

yeah so i have like areas that i have

set in my mind now that i want

that i’m just waiting for the right

opportunity

like right now like i am right now

wanting to build as

fast as i possibly can but i i mean i

would build three stores right now if i

had three right locations but

i don’t and i’m also at a point now

where i’m not going to force something

i’ll just like i’ll wait it out to see

when it’s right and like i said i’ve

built some and i’ve owned some

and i can tell you when you the two that

i like i said i bought one

and i sold it and there’s one that i was

i literally was

i took it over like i basically paid

nothing for i took over the store

and the building i just basically took

the burden off of them and took over

like the payments and whatnot

but it cost me like i mean there was a

cost to it but like out of pocket i

spent zero dollars i guess is what i

want to say

and i ended up giving that store away

like it was my cousin

and it was profitable like i said i

don’t want to

sell i mean i don’t want this to come

off the wrong way but the other store i

sold too

i think it made two thousand dollars a

month so i made 24

000 a year and i remember going there

one day

and i just was dreading going there and

dealing with the problems that i store

it was older equipment

and i literally decided to lock it just

one day i locked the doors

on a business that was making money

because it was more of a burden for me

to go there and spend my time to collect

that 24 000

a year and i also had a maintenance guy

that was spending half his time there

and i don’t know how you quantify that

into cost but

it was just more headache than it was

worth and it was profitable

but it wasn’t profitable enough and like

i said i don’t want to sound

i don’t want the wrong message conveyed

because when i bought that store 24 000

extra year was wonderful at the point

where i

locked the doors the 24 000 wasn’t

enough

for the hassle it was causing me yeah my

lifestyle my life changed with the

success

and like i said and like again i mean i

really really don’t want to come across

cross across wrong but i was willing to

lose

i actually think my clothes i still had

payments on the store so i went from

making 24 000 to losing 24

000 by closing it and i still was happy

with the decision and it still took like

this burden off me and i felt

i was very at peace with it i was so

glad that i didn’t have to jack with it

the people trying to it was unattended

so people were trying to break in the

machines and

it was an area where like literally

someone at noon was trying to pry open a

machine and there’s three people just

watching

no one’s calling the police nobody cares

so i just like

it’s unbelievable to me that they would

just watch

this happen yeah no i’ve definitely seen

that but i i mean i get what you’re

saying because

at some point i mean like you said early

on when you’re when you’re getting

started

an extra 24 grand a year is worth it but

once you’ve

you know once you’ve found kind of a

formula

once you kind of found your rhythm and

you’re making a little bit

better money at these larger locations

and

you know i get it like the the money at

some point the money is not

is not worth the effort of running that

business so

i don’t think it’s coming off bad at

least not to me because i

i understand that for sure

i was gonna ask you a question right now

this is a little bit off of that topic

but i get asked all the time so i do

coaching consulting i talk to current

owners i talk to

you know people trying to get in the

business for the first time and i get

asked all the time

uh whether they you know people should

build or

buy and i was just wondering what

what advice do you have for people who

are who are wondering whether they

should build or buy

so i think that’s a hundred percent

dependent on

so one of my good friends is in in this

business is in des moines i think he has

like nine laundromats

like he has a different philosophy than

i do like

he likes to get ti money and he likes to

take over laundromats and he can do them

for very cheap

and he doesn’t mind paying rent but my

criteria

i’m very different like i own every

single building

that i’m in like i would not buy a

laundromat where i don’t own the

building

and like right now i’m sitting in a i

own a 10 000 square foot building and i

was telling you before this i didn’t

realize that they were

i have employees having a meeting in my

office right now and we have a garage

that we can use for other stuff like

right next to my office

so i drove over here and i’m like having

this this

you know i got this space and like this

space this whole building is paid for by

the laundromat

it’s making money is profitable and i

have this six thousand extra square foot

that

hopefully when covered ends yeah i can i

can lease this out it’s not getting a

lot of

a lot of action right now but if this

will be a revenue producing

space you know what i mean like and

for me just owning it like i can do

things right like i mean i feel

like i look at what he does and he may

use like pvc

and he may do different things like with

pecs where like when i build a

laundromat like i’m using cast iron

drains it’s not pvc i use copper lines

because i want it to last for 20 years i

don’t want to be like band-aiding it

but i also understand that if i am

renting someone’s building do i want i

mean

the village that i just bought i’m

spending like 650 000

after buying the building just to make

it a laundromat right

well if i didn’t own that building would

i be spending 650

i honestly wouldn’t i would be cutting

some corners i’d probably use less

expensive tile i’d use less expensive

plumbing different and different things

like that because

at the end of the year if i have a 10

year or 20 year lease at the end of that

i don’t get to reclaim any of that right

where when i own the building i do it’s

also different i mean

the stuff i’ve learned like right now

too is that if i buy a building

it’s great because i’d appreciate it

right i mean i get

i mean i never really understood all

these people like saying that the rich

don’t pay taxes well

i don’t pay taxes right now because i

have a massive depreciation i have

equipment that’s depreciation i have

vehicles i have buildings

so on paper it looks like i broke even

but

a paper loss of depreciation is not

actual cash leaving right

so that’s a tough question like i

personally will not start a lawn amount

without owning the building

like i i don’t know like i said i won’t

buy any more laundry mats in omaha

but the guy in des moines has got

different philosophy

i also want a laundromat i’m not saying

i own a laundromat that doesn’t

that all might do this but like from now

on if a laundromat is not going to

produce 10 000 income a week

i don’t want it like again it’s like i

only have so much time in a day

i only have so much resources available

and

instead of having five laundromats

that are all making a little bit of

money i’d rather have one laundromat

that’s making equivalent to that money

but i only have to deal with it

and that’s why the 5 000 square foot

thing like

i mean i actually am getting into the

distribution of equipment right now

and i’m kind of putting my toe in i

think i’m going to go full force but

that’s another conversation like i have

with people like

i’m willing to build someone a

laundromat in omaha that’s 2500 square

feet and i can honestly tell them that

that laundry mat at that size will be

successful for this area

i personally would not build a

laundromat at 2500 square feet in that

area even though i know it’ll be

successful

because it won’t hit the success

criteria that i want to hit

so like i said i

do i do i advocate never

buying a store i would say absolutely

not a matter of fact if i had to bought

that council bus store

let’s just put like this actually let’s

look i mean i never really thought about

this but now i’m thinking about it

if i bought that council bluffs store

and made that 24 000

i would never be where i’m at today

because i wouldn’t realize

i would think that’s all a laundromat is

capable of doing and that’s

i mean like that’s i have to spend a lot

of time here to make this money

and like these machines are breaking

down all the time well they’re breaking

down all the time these are 20 years old

like i got

new machines that don’t ever break down

right so

if i would have bought that council

bluffs i can honestly say that you and i

would not be having this conversation

i’d probably still own it and i’d still

probably be working at ge

and i would still be happy like i

wouldn’t like i said i didn’t hate my

job i didn’t leave because i was

miserable

i actually like i said i actually missed

a lot of aspects about that job

ironically

but i mean my life wouldn’t be horrible

or bad or anything it just would be

different

yeah like knowing that i can build a

store and what it can do and

and getting the right area and also like

when you buy a store you’re buying

someone’s bad design you’re buying their

problems you’re buying

the corners a day cut i mean because

like i said i got the drains

in the one i bought were like i’m sure

it’s what they allowed but i mean

i don’t have a laundromat that has

smaller than a four inch drain sometimes

they’re six inch trains i mean

if you’ve got a smaller four inch drain

it’s gonna plug it’s gonna get caught

with something and it’s gonna overflow

the store and then you’re gonna have a

nightmare

you have a plumber all the time and

they’re snaking and jetting and

i’m getting off in the weeds a little

bit here and i don’t know this is really

what you want but yeah i mean it’s

i personally see the benefit of both

what works for a guy in des moines it

really works for him he’s very

successful

and he has more managers and he enjoys

what he does so

i’m not going to say it’s wrong it’s

just not what i would do yeah and i mean

i think i think that’s the beauty of

this

industry too and one of the things that

has surprised me you know doing this

podcast talking to owners

is there’s just a lot of different ways

to skin this cat

right which is a weird thing

[Music]

but there’s a lot of ways to run this

business such a simple business it seems

pretty straightforward

but there’s such diversity in how you

can be successful in this business so

you know one person might want to own

all the buildings and build everything

out and another person might go in and

grab a bunch of those free laundromats

that make 24 grand a year and you stack

those on top of each other it doesn’t

take too many of them to

right have a pretty good income coming

in five of them

you could live a great life on owning

five 24 000

laundromats yeah yeah absolutely listen

i mean i don’t know where you’re from

like california yeah yeah so maybe not

you but

nebraska what i mean you could live in a

beautiful house in omaha for 150

thousand dollars safe nice neighborhood

i don’t think you can buy dirt out there

in la for that okay i’m

just gonna end this right now i don’t

want to talk to you anymore

i haven’t seen 150 000 anything anywhere

around here for

decades um there might be 200 here now i

mean

they are go houses are going up but yeah

yeah i’m just saying i mean

you’re not living in like a beirut where

you’re afraid against shock coming out

of your house at two hundred thousand

dollars here

yeah all right well okay so

how how many you do you own your bill

you said you’re building your seventh

right now

is that well it’s actually my fifth

because i sold those two like i said

i was up to six longer meds but now i’m

down to four i’m building a fifth i’m

actually

negotiating land on a i’ve never built

from the ground up but that might be my

next thing

negotiating right now so

excited and like i said i’m actually

trying to the the properties that i was

telling you about i

am always actually trying to buy the two

people

or older and every three months and like

this is the first window that i

i do it through a realtor but they were

like open to it and i’m like

if they want to sell me those two and i

want i i retool them because they’re old

and if i get this land i’ll do three at

a time for a time i mean even if i’m

still working on this one

i’ll do four at a time i don’t care you

the right people you can do

you can scale to whatever you want nice

uh one quick question i just know people

are going to want to really know

this but uh okay we talked about that

the one you got for free

uh just out of curiosity how did you i

mean i get asked about free laundry mats

all the time

you know there’s there’s all the videos

on youtube and everything but

how did you come across that one how did

that come across your desk

there was a guy that um does just

freelance maintenance that i’ve gotten

and and i used them before i actually

had enough to have a full-time

maintenance guy

and then he’s a good guy and he had just

mentioned to this guy my name

and at the time i was doing a pickup

delivery business which

i know you’re friends with dave mentz

like i do not recommend like it’s a

logistics business i hated it

i gave that away too it was profitable i

gave it away because i just hated it but

anyway

wahoo is the town it was kind of between

lincoln we were talking about expanding

to lincoln and i thought that this could

be like a

little hub for lincoln without

building a laundromat in lincoln and the

guy

just he was burnt out he hated it i mean

he he had bought

he built a laundromat but he had bought

actually he

bought like 15 20 year old equipment

from the distributor i was telling you

earlier

we won’t mention his name but just not a

good person

so he bought 20 years of equipment now

it was like 25 30 years old and and he

was just sick of working on it stick a

patch in it and and he had a great

layout and a great building

and like i said he had gotten some some

stuff from the city to build it so he

got a bunch of money and a bunch of

grants

so again he was just the guy that

that wanted to be out from underneath it

he was sick of making the payments and

he felt like he had to go do it and

he was he’s kind of like i was with the

council bluffs only he was in a

different situation he didn’t have any

income

like he wanted just to go shut the doors

but he had to keep it open

because he just had to keep paying the

paying the bills at this point half them

equipment didn’t work and

and like you know that that causes

people to leave the laundromat and he

he had gotten better like he’s a good

guy nothing against him

but he just got better he got sick of

dealing with the complaint so he wasn’t

dealing with the customer service side

right

and he was losing customers for that

because you know

he didn’t want to go out and refund

somebody at nine o’clock at night

and he just wanted out so i took the

opportunity and it was good like

i don’t feel like he got taken advantage

of he just wanted to be out

i thought this could be a hub for us to

go to lincoln and

like i said it like i said the business

i gave the way i also gave that laundry

is my cousin

and and the truth is my cousin’s doing

great with that laundry he’s retooled it

he’s um

it’s making a good income for where he’s

at in his life and he runs the like i

said he runs a watch drive full delivery

business

i think he’s actually using happyness

which i think is part of dave mentz

yeah when when we started it it wasn’t

happiness

it was like springboard and dave mentz

wasn’t a part of that company i think

when we started it was a

a different guy anyway it doesn’t matter

but

now dave metz is part of that i wasn’t a

part of it when he got on there but i do

do know dave pryor and

it is a very successful business i think

my cousin’s probably gonna make six

figures off of it but

owning a delivery wash dry service

is a logistics company it’s not a

laundromat and i want

old own laundromats and not a logistics

business

yeah and some people want that and you

can scale it and i get that you can make

a ton of money but that’s just

like where you want to spend your time

yeah yeah it’s definitely a different

business uh than the laundromat business

you’re just using your

same assets and i think that that’s the

attractive part of it is you can start a

business that you can scale

up pretty big uh with assets that you

already own right but it definitely is

a different you know it’s a difference

you’re getting phone calls i don’t know

that blacks out on the screen but no

you’re fine because i was gonna do this

from a computer in my office but i’m on

a iphone and

think it building i own it’s going low

budget no it looks good though

uh well okay so you own four right now

how

tell me about how you’re running these

things how do you how do you how are you

managing

these how are you running these things

so i have two managers and like i have

one that’s

that handles all like the scheduling and

the payroll and

i have one that’s moreover like making

sure the tenants are cleaning properly

and and

whatever the day-to-day stuff and and i

actually am involved like i like to tell

the maintenance people what to do and i

actually go into the laundromats

i go to l street every day but i don’t

necessarily

like i’m not needed i guess like i could

definitely leave

and for weeks months and it would it

probably wouldn’t run exactly the way

it ran but it would be fine it wouldn’t

we wouldn’t fall off a cliff like things

wouldn’t be done exactly the way i do

them but they’d be done

satisfactorily but and like i said i

mean i

i spent a lot of time just researching

going for other buildings like i also

am building a lake house right now so i

jack around with that

i mean i’m building a storage unit right

now so like i’m trying to work with

janus international

and i’ve never done a storage unit but

again

a laundry owner in iowa city who i’m

good friends with which would probably

be good for your podcast

he he owns like a tent business

um storage units in like

five laundromats and i asked him one day

so what’s what’s the best business and

i thought he would say laundromats and

he said the tent business

and then i said what’s the second best

and he said storage units i’m like

women you’re telling me laundromats is

third place i’m like i need to know more

about well i don’t want to do tents

because again that’s logistics business

like you’ve got weddings and stuff right

set them up take them down

but the storage unit thing i wouldn’t

spend a day out with him and

we drove around and i learned he gave me

like a

crash course like an expert crash course

storage units got me in contact the

right people so now

i’m going to build a storage unit i love

that man and

one of the one of the things that keeps

running through this whole thing that

i’m just seeing like

uh is i mean you seem like you’re a

great

networker because you know you’re you’re

meeting with you know john and with the

uh with the equipment and you know

you’re networking with

people who are bringing you free

laundromats you’re working with you know

networking with people who are

introducing you to

businesses that are fitting what you’re

looking for

and uh and that’s where all these

opportunities are kind of coming your

way

so well and i can tell you the story

about that like

when i was doing the car wash thing like

i told you about zoning in different

things like one of the first people i

called i had a location i thought was

gonna be great for a car wash

there’s a guy that knows anderson food

shops ray anderson and he owns like

probably 50 gas stations right

well there’s a gas station next to this

land and he owned the land and i was

like this would be perfect for the car

wash maybe i could talk to him

if he sold car washes at his pump i’d

give him a dollar

so i called this guy up and i actually

talked to ray anderson like literally

the guy like i don’t get a secretary i

don’t get anybody else

and i just asked him i asked him the

question right and the first thing he

said he said

you can’t build a car wash there and i

said why because you won’t sell me the

land and let me

he said no he says it’s not zoned right

he goes matter of fact i couldn’t build

a gas station there nowadays and i said

well how did you

because i built the gas station before

it was zoned and we went to this whole

thing

and he taught me about zoning and he was

so proud of like he actually ended up

offering me he said do you want to buy

that gas station and i said why would

you sell that gas station and he said

well i’m expanding in a different thing

so i need to generate some income

and i said how much is the gas station

he said 2.6 million dollars

i said i can’t afford to buy the gas

station but i mean

he was proud of what he did like this is

what i found and i learned from him

and i started calling i call laundromat

owners that i found on the cla and i

would call them

and they would spend two hours with me

like ray anderson spent two hours with

and like i had like this this myth that

people were rich she wanted to stay rich

and want to keep you from doing it

well i learned from ray anderson so

there’s a bucky’s it’s a chain of car

washes and it’s buchanan energy

i think it actually just got bought out

by casey’s but

ray anderson bought his gas from

buchanan

energy which was his biggest competitor

and they didn’t hate each other they had

a great relationship he was a supplier

for his gasoline i’m like

these two people have the most gas

stations combined in omaha and they’re

they’re friends

they don’t hate each other they don’t

look at each other the animosity but

then like i said

i feel like you cannot ask laundry like

in omaha if i go ask the laundromat

owner stuff they’re going to be closed

off they’re not going to say anything

they look at me like a competitor

if i go to des moines i have two great

friends on laundromats in des moines i

have one great friend in iowa city that

owns

laundromats and they we share everything

and

and the truth is when you ask somebody

something like i’d tell people my story

because i’m proud of it too like i i had

some stumbles i did some stuff

but i am proud of it and and that’s what

the gray anderson was proud of what he

did so he shared with me his building

this

gas station empire not because he was he

was just proud he wasn’t gloating he

wasn’t

bragging he wasn’t and like i said and

he wasn’t hiding stuff because

he didn’t look at me as a threat even

though i wanted to build a gas station

knows that one gas station can’t serve

all of omaha there’s got to be hundreds

it’s not a threat to him yeah yeah

that’s awesome i mean

do you have uh do you have any tips for

people

on how to find people to network i mean

i i get asked this all the time and

you know how do you how do you find

somebody who can who can teach you

i mean it sounds like you just asked but

you know

it is i would say i would just call

people and some people will say no and

they won’t

but but as far as the sales guy too

right like i don’t mind

i took it and then maybe it is my

personality because i’ll never forget

like i did an interview once and they

had me take this test

and they flew this guy out and he wanted

to meet with me and he said

that on this test when they when they

deal with sales people like

there’s great sales people but they

don’t ask for the clothes they don’t try

to close the deal right

and he said i scored in the 99th

percentile in closing

and he said according to this you close

like a freight train

and that’s the thing i asked for the

order i asked for the thing like i’m not

afraid

i mean what’s the worst thing they can

say is like i’m not going to talk to you

i’m not going to tell you

well great go to the next guy i mean i

actually had a good friend in college

like he used to pick up girls

he’d ask five girls if they wanted to go

you know

to his house after the bar well the

first three would say no but the fourth

would say yes so i mean

he just was like there’s another one he

asked one more man

maybe he’s not never said he got one

okay

i mean i’m just saying like he set up

like he would like talk up five girls at

the end of the night

i actually remember because it was a

great line he was like let’s go and

sometimes they would pause

because like he didn’t he didn’t ask he

just said let’s go he didn’t ask a

question

and they’d look and like one was one

sometimes our friends were like no you

got to come home with us and the second

would be like uh

but he’d always get one like yeah sure

let’s go i was like this is genius

genius just ask but like i said you just

ask people

and like ask the girl out maybe she says

no maybe she says yes i mean

that’s how it works right laundromat

resource

podcast giving you dating advice right

here

well i can say you translate from dating

into like just asking right now you mean

like i said it’s and also i think the

truth is with me like

everybody has something to offer even my

customers like i love hanging around the

laundromats and i actually one of my

favorite things is to chat

to customers and people like you really

don’t like that i’m like

i do like and i think that everybody has

something to offer

like everybody and the truth is like i

share with these people too and

sometimes they’ll ask me questions like

why you want to do it like even rain or

she’s like why you want to do a car wash

and i was like tell them the whole thing

like i want a

business where i can keep my job and

like i said he wants to hear that too

like we just connected right like we

just

we had a conversation he asked me

questions i was honest with him

i asked him questions and like i said

he was happy to explain to me and he was

proud of what he did

yeah what do you build awesome awesome

tips

um on networking because i mean i do

think that

you know if you want to get somewhere in

life you want to accomplish big goals

you know you got to have other people

you know that

that have been there and that know what

you need to know to help you get there

otherwise you’re making huge mistakes

and it’s hard to really get off the

ground

right that little bit of luck so

awesome okay so now you’re you’re you’re

running with four

laundromats uh all over omaha nebraska

right now building another one and yeah

out of curiosity

do you have any do you have like a goal

number in mind of how many you want to

own

i think i want to do 12 i mean that was

kind of like a goal i have four kids

that would leave them

three each i don’t care they sell them

and do something else or run them but

that’s just kind of like an arbitrary

thing i threw my but then again

i’m branching out to like storage units

i actually

right when the pandemic happened i was

the good like talking with holiday inn

about building a

holiday in hotel because i think that’s

a great business too right because

wherever you go to a holiday inn they’re

all the same you they have a management

company they have these people that go

and

like score you so if something’s not

being done right you’re hauled in you

get to

retrain your managers and they they help

you right like you’re paying a franchise

fee

i also like that holding in makes their

money right by

by people renting rooms right so they

thought of every single way that

somebody could steal or manipulate the

system

to not pay them so they’ve taken the

guesswork out and like their master’s at

so i like the fact that you can send

three managers down to training

they come back they know how to run a

hotel they also made it so like you

can’t steal

like people aren’t giving free rooms are

they taking that out of the equation

so it’s like a true business that runs

itself

right i mean i know personally a guy

who i was like i i was a roommate with

his son he owns like eight laundromats

like some of them aren’t even in the

state i mean he can’t even drive to him

and they are successful i mean he he

doesn’t even go to them

and they’re successfully ranked so i

really like that

aspect but obviously during coven i

think the long

i mean the the hotel hospitality

industry is obviously suffering so

i’m definitely putting a pin maybe three

years i’ll build a hotel again

maybe not i don’t know maybe i’ll move

on to something else i don’t know

yeah well and i i just i what

one of the things just from talking to

you so far today one of the things i

really

love about you is you have this great

mindset right i see so many people who

are like i want to

you know learn it all myself i want to

do it all myself and you do have to

do you know some of that but one of the

things that i see you doing

is looking for other experts and

picking their brains and learning from

them and you’re doing it on forums

you’re making phone calls you’re

even even uh considering a you know a

franchise like that

that’s exactly what you’re doing you’re

taking you know this system

that basically has all the expertise

built into it

and uh and running with it you know and

taking off with it from there so i love

that mindset i think

we all would benefit from having more

and more of that mindset

to relying on the experts so thanks for

sharing all that

we have a little section called down to

business

and that’s just an opportunity for us to

hear a little bit about

your actual businesses uh

can you i don’t think you mentioned this

yet but can you tell us

when you got into the laundromat

industry what year

four four years ago four years ago

like four years and going three months

maybe four months yeah

like three years four years and three

months i think awesome

all right so you’ve been into it for

four years you man you’ve

you’ve covered a lot of ground in four

years man building all these laundromats

and

i always say i’m in a race with an

invisible person like there’s no there

really isn’t somebody i’m racing but

like i’ve just manufactured somebody and

i’m like

i tell my wife like i don’t even know

who i’m competing against i’m competing

against the visible man

that’s funny um all right well what uh

oh i need to pull this up can you

one of the well okay so you have um four

laundry mat you’re building another one

i mean you’ve mentioned you own the

buildings on all those is that

do you own more real estate too or is

that what your focus is right now

i do a little more real estate i bought

a building i was gonna make a laundromat

it wasn’t right with the city and what i

had to do to make it

and becoming a nightmare so i actually

leased that building out

um i bought buildings like i would also

say like i’m also

someone that’s not afraid to to reship i

bought a building in fremont

started going through fremont nebraska

which is close to omaha

and it started going through the process

to build that out

and i just started seeing too many red

flags so i just

i pulled the rip cord i said you know

what this isn’t right let’s not force it

and i sold it i sold the building before

i even

well i actually put it for lease or so i

didn’t care if i at least ever sold it

but

someone wanted to buy it so i sold it i

mean

i’ve i’m actually i shouldn’t even say

this like i’m

i went to uh so i actually went to a

fundraiser i mean the networking i

ran them like we it’s actually running

like my wife is a massive trump

supporter right like in and i’m a

libertarian so i mean i like trump but

i don’t really i probably vote more

conservative not that it matters but

like i’m a libertarian my wife is

republican

so we go to this trump rally and i’m

sitting this tent and it’s all these

people

and there’s like these four women just

drinking and having a good time i go

up and end up talking to this one lady

and she owns a car wash

and she’s like well but she goes where i

use my like the money i use

for fun and this kind of stuff is like i

run a firework stand

i get to talking to her because like i

had literally been talking about doing a

fireworks like getting into the

fireworks business like last year

and i randomly meet this woman that’s

trump rally and she gives me like the

number one distributor for importing

chinese fireworks

out of pittsburgh she gives me all this

stuff just sitting at this this table

and she’s telling me she makes 80 000

profit in a town of 5 000 people in

kansas

and i’m like if i got a million people

in omaha and it’s restricted to only 40

firework stands

these people literally have a license to

steal in this town

yeah so and the problem with the barrier

with

that is right if you go to china and you

buy fireworks so i’ve dealt with chinese

because i ran

a bitcoin mine and it’s funny because i

always hear people say they mine bitcoin

but

i had a 4 000 am switchboard where i ran

my computers i bought like a half a

million computers from china

and my electric bill was 31 000 a month

so that was bitcoin mining for me where

people say like oh i got my computer

running in the corner

that’s not that’s not bitcoin mining

right but anyway

so i’ve dealt with china like the thing

with china is like you give them a so i

didn’t give a half a million dollars a

once i gave them a hundred thousand

for computers and like the way china

works is they don’t start building until

you pay them like in america you receive

a product then you pay somebody china

you pay them

and then wait for them to build it and

hope they send it to you it’s like the

thing

but they do i mean every single one i

bought a month later my product showed

up i plugged them in and by the way

bitcoin

that’s the only reason i get back on the

cla i had a fight with larry anski he

told me bitcoin

would be zero i think it was ten

thousand and then it’s like twenty

thousand eighteen thousand right now

so larry was wrong yeah i told him wrong

mr rev man

rub it in like you said i’m a

libertarian bitcoin’s a perfect thing

for a

libertarian no government controls it no

person controls it

it’s like the perfect system love it no

central bank of bitcoin

that’s right that’s right nobody i mean

we’re getting the wheels down i mean

that’s what yeah all right well okay

let’s

reel it back in to laundromats here uh

we were seeing another business so the

bitcoin business i’m doing a distributor

i’m starting uh

the um right now i currently have got

land i’m i’m working with a layout with

janus for doing storage units cause i’ve

never done it but they’re the experts so

they’re gonna give me a layout

and i’m considering becoming a laundry

distributor

um i am 100 committed to that yet

and this fireworks thing is definitely

going to happen but i recently hired a

guy

well i’m paying a six-figure salary to

and i made him a ceo of a new

venture i’m doing that is um so nebraska

has just legalized gambling

so i have him looking into skill games

and doing distribution for that and i

actually got the exclusive for a certain

game in iowa

and i also i don’t know that i’ll build

a casino but

i doesn’t hurt to try and get

a casino license and the weird thing on

that is like i don’t have enough money

to build a casino

but as i told this guy i said if we get

if we secure a license in nebraska to

build a casino there will be zero

problem finding

people yeah yeah the money will be we

will have investors

yeah yeah i love that mindset too

all right well tell me what is uh i mean

you got a lot going on geez man

which is awesome i love with four kids

so i can’t do this at my house

three of them are triplets right is that

what you said triplet four-year-olds

they just turned four

oh my gosh i don’t know how i don’t know

how you do that that’s i got a great

wife that’s all that’s how you do it

that’s exactly how you do it yeah

uh well hey i’m curious it always blows

my mind

just the diversity of how much it costs

to do laundry all throughout the country

and places that i would expect it to be

expensive

are cheap and places i expect to be

cheap are expensive but

can you give us a ballpark of vent

prices like how much does it cost to

do laundry in omaha so

right now i have two i usually all do

all my stores at the same time but

with dexter i have two dexter stores and

two electrolux stores so the dexter i

actually just changed like changed

so a double load i charge

three dollars and by the way john olson

and dave mentz i was

struggling of going to four dollars on

that but i just i ended up going to

three

but a triple loader is five a four

loader is six

a eight loader is ten and a nine loader

is eleven

i charge two dollars for extra washer

rinse on anything above

a 40 pounder i charge a dollar for an

extra

washer rinse for anything but 40 pounds

and below

um dryers i do adopt some dollar coin

mostly like i have

so every one of my stores takes dollar

coins and everything’s in dollar

increments

sorry i got another call i just declined

but uh

i do 20 like a 50 pound dryer 20 minutes

for a dollar

it’s 24 minutes for a dollar on a 35

pounder and then i have 80 pounders

that are 10 minutes for a dollar

well actually i think it’s different on

dexter doesn’t allow you to do a half

cent or

i get two and a half minutes on

electrolux three minutes on the dexter’s

so they don’t let you do a half

increment

so i think that’s yeah that’s and i’ve

been yeah i charge a dollar for little

boxes of soap which i probably shouldn’t

jack that right now because that’s been

going up

i charged a dollar for a can of pop all

my vending machines are a dollar

like you buy a can of hop it’s a dollar

you buy any snack it’s a dollar

you buy a soapbox dollar but i i have

like the upright

vending so i got like the big bags of

soap i sell for 10 bucks i sell

little bottles that you get the dollar

tree for four bucks

and i only do that like i didn’t even

know dollar tree existed i mean these

dollar bottles

i was buying it from a soap distributor

for 275 for red tide bottles

and so i was charging four bucks which i

didn’t think it was outrageous and then

i find out that they’re a buck each at

dollar tree so then i have my managers

go buy those and they’re like should we

change the price i said

no they’re paying four bucks for them

like leave it charging four

i mean i feel like that’s gouging but i

wasn’t gauging even though they probably

thought i was when i was paying 275 but

whatever

yeah awesome i mean those are awesome

bin prices i love those

definitely higher than what we’re

getting for stuff out here

oh they’re higher they’re the highest in

omaha like no question i don’t know of

anybody

i think i got competitors defending 80

pounders at like 750 or seven bucks so

so i’m 11 and they’re at seven yeah well

it’s

clean and attended and my and my laundry

attendants aren’t doing wash dry fold

right because i don’t do that

they’re cleaning they’re helping people

they’re taking care of the store

are all four of yours fully attended no

they they i keep them 24 7 but

i have one woman that’s a rover that

goes around to all four at night

but mine are fully attended from

anywhere from 7 a.m to 12 midnight

but some of them are like 8 00 am they

open are not open they are they’re ten

at eight i have some that are like

they’re as early as seven a.m to eight

a.m and it’s late from 9 00 p.m till 12

p.m

but then i have a woman at night that

has access to all my cameras so she can

kind of go

i have two stores that are fairly busy

overnight and two that aren’t but

when you call yourself anytime laundry

you gotta be 24 7.

you gotta live up to it that’s right

christmas eve

christmas day we’re open yeah which

we’re actually packed on christmas it

blows my mind

i know it’s crazy yeah because i’m open

too

although i did spend one christmas eve

um digging a toy uh uh

um a potato out of one of my toilets

because i called i i called a plumber

the plumber came out

tried to root her he’s like oh there’s

something hard in there and i was like

yeah i know that’s why i

called you and he wouldn’t get it out

and left

this is a christmas eve and i’m like

dude so i had to drive out there and

take the toilet off and try to get a

potato out of the toilet so oh man

anytime laundry love it uh all right so

you said your dollar coin are you an

adamant dollar coin i know that debate

can get real heated

uh are you adamant so i’m i’m not

so all my laundry mats take dollar coins

or quarters every single one of them

okay i have an app store where and i

actually i guess i could

hook up dexter pay i haven’t done that

yet but

i’ve done a cci store and the truth is

like i probably will end up

i don’t know you know i actually even

this last story i

really and i even talked to dave i

talked to john about it

and i almost went hard i just wanted to

and like i said i do believe that card

is easier for the owner

and i handle a lot of cash a lot of

people handle cash which is dangerous

right

and i’ve had people steal cash but

it’s for the owner it’s not for the

customer so i i mean

this building i’m in right now like 4

000 square feet of it

or 4500 square feet of laundromat

and it’s this is a store that’s quarter

dollar coin i mean i could literally

walk over there if you wanted to see but

dollar coin quarter and credit card is

fast cards so we we take everything like

it actually will take tokens too like

because when i did do wash dry fold i

could give the tenants tokens instead of

money

but that’s i am an excitement six

quarters dollar coins

quarter tokens dollar tokens but

going forward i will do a credit card

payment on all

of my stores the app i mean so i have

the the wasco mat live or whatever that

that new thing at the other store and

it’s causing some issues because i mean

it’s still beta i think i don’t know

it’s actually

live fire so i mean i’m not trying to

knock on them but

i also don’t think i mean i have older

customers younger customers like younger

people don’t care they like apps and

apps is probably the future phone pay is

probably the future but

right now everybody understands swiping

a card

yeah i mean right wrong or indifferent i

mean

can people be taught yeah but i’ll tell

you right now i even have too many apps

on my phone i just deleted

50 apps i’m like why do i have this

garbage so i don’t

i got a fast card app that’ll tell me my

machines and i can give them a free

start

and like i said it’s just too too many

apps like i i just believe that

right now at the current time i want to

do quarter dollar coin

and and you know another thing is like

everybody tells me i should just stop

the quarters but

i have a location my first location i

get two thousand dollars in quarters

every single week and i was selling

people quarters like even during this

pandemic

dave johnson i sold him eight thousand

dollars in quarters the president of cla

because he’s up in in iowa right and

i would say that if i

stop taking quarters and let’s say it

cost me 500

a week that is not worth it to me like i

wouldn’t

lose 500 worth of a weekly customer by

showing off quarters

and would i and that’s the unknown right

because like if i went to card

where i lose five percent or at least

two percent some people claim that you

gain customers

so if i found out that if i went hard

everywhere and i knew that if i went

hard everywhere i would gain 10 percent

i would buy cards right now like every

store would be retrofitted this week

but if i went hard only and lost 15

of my business just for my ease of life

i i am not okay with that and and like i

said

i don’t know that i would and that’s the

worst part about it i don’t know

but i feel like if you can do like in

this store you can use a credit card you

can use a quarter you can use a dollar

everybody can use this system yep

i like that how many hours a week are

you are you spending on your businesses

are you running this is like a full-time

job are you doing it

kind of part-time i mean i know you said

you could be away you know but

yeah so that’s a tricky question because

like i said i’m doing all these i’m

doing a startup so i have conference

calls with the guy that i hired

just looking into the gaming i have i

have lots of

like today like i don’t know if you’ve

been noticing i think i don’t know my

screen goes

black or you can still see it but i

think i’ve gotten like something like 15

calls and

20 texts since we’ve been been talking

here i try to decline it as fast as i

can but

i mean i spent a lot of time on the

phone so i’m gonna talk with realtors

i’m always looking at new properties

like i’ll spend like half of a day

looking at buildings i mean i go

to the one that’s being currently

construction i i have like a fight with

the city right now because

i was the first business in omaha to be

fined for mass man

date and because i don’t require people

i said i’m a libertarian through and

through like i don’t tell people how to

live their lives as long as it doesn’t

affect me

i’m not pro master anti-mask i’m like if

you want to wear a mask if you don’t

want to wear a mask don’t wear a mask

so i don’t wear a mask because i think

i’ve already had coven not because i’m

making a political statement

i just hate them too like i i’ve already

got congestion whatever like i said i

don’t want to get on the weeds again but

i guess the whole point i’m making is

just yeah i mean

i just don’t even know what i mean i’m

getting busy you’re busy that’s what

you’re trying to say

i’m busy but i’m not i’m not working 40

hours a week in the laundromat

like right i’m not i got maybe and i am

actively involved and i do like to be

involved i like to talk to the managers

but

i could work zero hours i i probably put

i go to the office 48 hours a week

but i would say the time that is spent

on laundromat

probably well it’s hard to say like the

physical business is probably 10 hours

but

if you’re talking about going out to the

construction site and

dealing with the realtors i mean it’s

probably 30. yeah

yeah well that’s a whole other that’s a

whole nother deal

well cool we have a section that i like

to call

secret sauce listen up it’s the secret

sauce

and secret sauce is uh hey what’s one

thing that’s working for you

uh your business model your businesses

that you think other

uh other owners could implement into

their businesses to maybe help them

improve it i would probably i mean this

is probably some people say a lot but it

is people like

and i would say that people when you

watch football teams and they have

coaches or you watch

anything in life like people start to

emulate their leader so i’m in here

acting like a hothead and screaming and

acting irrational

like your management is going to take on

that

they’re going to take on that role like

if you’re if you’re having struggles or

you’re stressed out

like they’re going to reflect you

they’re going to emulate you so i think

that you gotta get the right people you

gotta have the right attitudes and those

people especially if that’s who’s

dealing with interacting with your

employees and your customers

i mean an excellent customer experience

is like what people should

you know and i try to ingrain like

there’s wording i was a market guy right

i was in sales i was

area manager for ge so like i have the

signs of all the time like customers are

the reason we have our job like

don’t come be combative customers like

you know

they’re not lying all the time like

sometimes the machine doesn’t work like

understand the situation don’t and like

i said when someone says something ate

their money i said the first time i

always say

just do it right i mean you don’t know

this person if like two or three i mean

i’ve had people two or three

weeks in a row say like there’s a

problem and i’ll go out there and i’ll

fight with them i said

there’s obviously something you don’t

understand about these machines or they

don’t work perfectly for you so this

probably isn’t

the right laundry map for you there’s

one whatever the nearest

location is i said maybe you should try

that one maybe it’ll be a better fit for

you

i don’t say it angrily or mainly i just

say it very plainly like that

and i’ve had two things happen i have

some people that don’t come back some

people do come back but also they stop

complaining because they know that

you’re gonna tell them that

you don’t want all customers but you do

want 99 of them well probably maybe 95

yeah and i also believe too though like

when you have a customer acting crazy

like i’ll

i’ll put it i’ll i’ll tell them they

need to calm down or leave because

some people don’t understand like that’s

affecting other people that they’re

uncomfortable because this person’s

screaming young at their kids and being

nuts

and it’s i mean like i said it’s this

delicate balance right like you have

you’re always walking a fine line but i

do believe it’s people this is the

secret sauce i believe that

like i am good at certain i would say

i’m excellent actually i’ll even say

that i am excellent at certain aspects

of business and life but there are stuff

that i would rank myself as that

poor and the things i’m poor at i hire

people to take on those tasks

i love that and don’t be afraid dude

like i mean like i said you’re not good

at something not not everybody is good

at everything

so hire the right person like

like i said i was terrible at scheduling

i kept on conflicting stuff

so i have a manager they do the

scheduling they deal with it when like

they’re switching switch shifts

and i that way like i said i always

schedule two people

i just get one personal work at two

different stores or something and like

at the same time i mean i was terrible

at it i just

i don’t know what’s wrong with my brain

but

i couldn’t do it or i would give someone

eight hours and they’re like why did i

do something wrong and i like didn’t

realize i wasn’t even given

i’m just filling these boxes i’m not

paying attention to who has how many

hours and like i said i was terrible i

only want to get into those i don’t do

it anymore i won’t do it because

it’s causing conflict and i didn’t mean

to and you got somebody good to do it

for you

so i mean i think that’s awesome that’s

that’s a huge secret sauce that’s hard

to do

when you’re first getting started uh you

know i hear people talk about that a lot

and i remember

you know just getting started it’s like

well how do you hire somebody when you

don’t really even have enough money to

hire

somebody so that’s really hard to do and

you can at first like when i was first

did this it was me and one other

employee

i worked in the stores like i don’t work

on them anymore

but like i did at the time and uh like

physically being an attendant

and yeah i mean you can’t at the

beginning you have to be all things

and like you just gotta get youtube

pulled up and

but i’ll tell you what it’s not hard to

schedule when you have one employee

right i mean everything was infinitely

easier well i don’t even think about

getting a loan now like to get a loan

like it is no easy task for me to come

up with financials like they change from

month to month drastically

so like it used to be easy to put

together a financial statement now it’s

it takes me four people in three days

like compiling information to put

together a financial statement that’s

true and accurate

yeah awesome secret sauce uh we have

another section we call

pro tips pro tips and pro tips is

uh what’s a piece of advice you got for

somebody who’s maybe looking to buy

their first laundromat they’re new to

the industry they want to

kind of get in you got any advice for

them

that i would tell them i said you we

talked about this earlier but

i would definitely try to understand

what they’re trying to do and what their

goal is like are they trying to replace

their job are they trying

to make this a supplemental income and

i would just say that like i said before

there’s so many laundry mats in this

town i would not buy i would not buy

them

for any amount of money and there’s

there’s there’s several other maps that

someone actually

physically gifted me like even wahoo

like the one in oahu

if someone were to ask me now like i

will give this to you for free i would

say

i don’t want it and i wouldn’t be lying

or hesitating

i don’t want it they’re not all good

there are some good ones there there’s

some ones that are probably been managed

poorly that are in good areas but like

area is critical

i would tell you that i truly believe

100

that you could be a piss-poor operator

with a tremendous location

and be successful and i believe you

could be one of the best operators

run a great tight ship and you will

never be successful

with the wrong location so i would say

you talk about real estate locations

every location is everything i mean you

literally

could build a laundromat and be terrible

at everything and succeed if it is like

this

a plus location if you got an f i don’t

care you could do everything right and

still fail

yeah so that’s why i spend all my time

looking for the majority of my time

right now is look locations i i

eliminate tons of them

i’ve looked at probably 40 buildings and

every single one of them i have the

capital to purchase

so that’s not the barrier it was this i

eliminated them on on something

and that’s i’ve looked at 40 billion

probably three months

because i really really want to build

right now but there’s just nothing right

yeah

you gotta find the right thing and i

think that’s huge you know take that

advice if you’re new

you know even if you’re not planning on

building and you’re planning on buying

uh which again you know different

different people can make it work

different ways

uh but the location still is huge

because it

you can’t move a laundromat you know so

it’s not either is it costly

yeah you just pick up the machines you

gotta put the infrastructure in right so

once you

lay down those routes once you commit

yourself to a location

you’re at that location so you know

finding a great location

is is key awesome

and like i said it truly doesn’t matter

what you’re trying to do i mean

if you when you get employees and you

start getting the bigger laundry mats

they are not

they don’t run themselves like you have

to be i mean when you’re running

unattended and you have like a cleaning

service going on once a day

that’s a completely different operation

than what i’m doing you know

is it bad i would never say that like i

know tons of people

are very successful it’s just different

goals so i would say

they really need to know what they want

and i’d also say don’t let it be a

crutch though because

if you’re looking for the i never find

the perfect

thing right like i mean i find something

that’s i would say i’ve never found an a

plus

well actually i lied i have one a plus

location

but there’s a lot of bees out there bees

are tremendous they can be very

successful

so you don’t want to stymie yourself to

where like you’re looking for the

absolute perfect thing because it

doesn’t exist

right well wow it does but i mean

it’s like a unicorn right how many

unicorns have you seen yeah

i mean i see daily so my daughter is

my daughter has a youtube channel called

evangeline unicorn she’s unicorn

all the time cool

awesome awesome tip i think man if

you’re new getting in the industry

write that one down put it on you know

the forefront of your mind as you’re

looking for locations

you know find a good location and i

think your your advice to

to understand your goal is a huge one

too because

you can easily you know purchase a

location that’s going to make 24 grand a

year

but if your goal is to get out of your

job and replace the six figure income as

soon as possible

that location might be great but it’s

not going to service your goal so i

think

both of those tips are awesome tips uh

we have another uh section that we call

recommended

resources and you know do you have any

resources that you recommend

to people to help them grow their

business or themselves personally

so i i went to the cla but i think the

cla is not as good as it used to be

because i feel like some of the

strongest contributors have

left but i’ve been in these facebook

groups and and why i don’t use them i

actually have a facebook group that it’s

called um

it’s laundry laundromat owners only

again only is the key word that we don’t

and it’s not for

like the newbies i mean there’s lots of

great

facebook’s already out there dedicated

to helping new people

so i actually wanted to make this a

multi-store group but we ended up not

making it the guy i started with

but um it’s more for like the seasoned

veteran right like i mean

this is i wanted this to be like kind of

like people talking about

you know that have been in the business

and like i said i do think it’s great

for the newbies but there’s probably

four already

that if you’re a newbie and you go on

there and ask questions people are

willing to help you

just like the cla there’s some people

that won’t help newbies some people will

so like i said it’s just more geared to

to the veterans but yeah i mean

and if you own a laundromat we’ll accept

you i mean but we we do boot a lot of

people that are in there just

trying to sell product or push in

laundry equipment or

sell soap so i mean we do actively

remove people

and it is if you own a laundromat for

three months like

you’re happy to join like you can

probably get a lot from it but

like i said we don’t generally take the

questions like what is the first thing i

well you find a location that’s the

first thing i mean

you’ll find a difference but like you

said distributors will help you with

that too i mean

resources i mean distributors are not

strong here in omaha but

there’s one in iowa that’s pretty good

but i mean distributors if you get the

right distributor

but i say get a man or call somebody i

mean just go to a city that you’re not

gonna be in and go

like i said i met um randy crone is a

great guy

in des moines i don’t talk to him that

much anymore but i literally just went

into his laundromat and i said i want to

build one in omaha

well like i said we went to his office

he had a bucket of cloud number he had

buckets of quarters like

lying around his office and we talked

for two hours and he told me he had to

go because he had another meeting

and he apologized this man gave me two

hours of his day and apologized for

having to leave i just was unannounced

unexpected visitor but he’s a great guy

salt to the earth i mean

like i said just just talk to people

they’ll they will talk i will talk to

people

if i have the time i will give you the

time but i don’t always

like i said i may be going somewhere and

don’t take it as me being rude or being

on interstate i just i just don’t have

the time in that second

but yeah and i think that’s a that’s a

perfect

recommended resource from you

particularly because you’re so good at

it i mean it just

it comes through hugely this whole

interview that you’re so good at

talking to people and

you know asking questions that you need

answers to and networking and building

those relationships and

and and using all of that to

you know further your goals and and to

take your next step forward so

awesome recommended resource whoa peter

this has been

incredible having you on you have been

dropping

all kinds of wisdom for over an hour now

just

it’s been it’s been awesome it’s been

super cool

i got one more question for you if

people have a

question for you or they just want to

say thanks for for sharing

you know all the stuff that you’ve had

what’s the best way they can contact you

i have an email address nebraskalaundry

gmail.com

but i mean i get at least 100 emails

there a day so

i would say that if they do contact me

and i don’t i may not necessarily see it

but

and i am extremely busy right now with

the new ventures but

i do i actually have responded to people

people have gotten that through the cla

well i was awesome didn’t you on your

questions didn’t you have like a pro tip

thing

cause i do have a pro tip let’s hear it

man let’s hear it so

my pro tip is like this building i just

walked into right

like i didn’t have to go find a key

every single building i own

i key with a master key and i have a

slave key so every one of my locations

there’s certain doors that my attendants

have

but i have a master key so i can walk

onto any of the seven properties

with one key open every single door on

there me only

can open every single door and my

managers

and then like my changers so i have

change machines that i own right like i

own my own

medico locker or medeco wherever you say

it medico

that i own it so i can open any one of

my i have four keys right

that i carry with me that i can get

access to everything like i have my own

paddle lock

so i have like you know i mean i have

some kind of special code

for a padlock that i have 50 of them so

every single padlock i own

i can open with one key i have all my

changers

all my doors and then like even my

vending machine like i have a tube key

because i don’t know if people know this

but i was getting robbed for my vending

machines because there’s only like three

different vending

keys that these vending manufacturers

use why am i own now

and i’ve have them all i think i have 15

vending machines

they all work on one key like i just

replaced it

so i mean i see and i still this day

i’ll go and see friends of mine

and they’ve got like just glove box full

of keys and i’m like

i literally and they cost me something

like four grand to do this right

four grand best four grand i ever spent

yeah that’s a that’s that’s an

incredible pro tip because literally

when i bought my first laundromat they

handed me

a bucket full of keys and

in a key like a few key rings and i

still

i have no idea what a lot of those keys

go to still to this day

and there’s you know the key i mean

i always joke about you know when you

when you buy a laundromat you’re

you’re really just getting a key

collection uh

because the amount of keys is crazy but

i didn’t even know you could do that

that’s awesome i mean

yeah here’s my keys like hearing this is

it i don’t know if you can see this it’s

this is my medeco this is my master and

i have an m on it

so i give them all different things but

i don’t know if you can see this it says

yeah so like my location’s like ames

will have an

a this master then i have like b for

bellevue

l for l street like i said they all have

a letter

for like so that way i can give the the

attendance keys

yeah i mean like i said like this

building is not even occupied

so i have an r key for renter so even

though

and that way i also have realtors right

they don’t realize that every one of my

buildings

that renter key will work on so this

realtor can show this i give her a r key

but i don’t need an r key i can walk in

here because it’s master key

that’s awesome every single thing i own

i actually want to put the

my locks on my house on it which i could

have done made my master key my home

thing but my wife was like

what if you lose your keys and someone

comes to her house i’m like

she’s crazy i mean that would never

happen in a million years but whatever i

just

i have so i actually bought one of those

little wi-fi ones that you can unlock it

with your phone so i didn’t have to have

an extra key for that i hate keys

yes me too oh my gosh the store you’re

not getting

your phone is your key like they’re

gonna they’re really gonna be able to

rent a storage unit online

use their phone to get to the gate and

instead of having like a lock that you

have to unlock

use your phone it’s like a little light

and it unlocks i’m like

genius genius yeah genius

awesome pro tip by the way i’m glad that

you stopped me

and uh and and gave me that tip because

especially for people with multiple

locations

you know that is huge because it can get

real complicated real fast when you’re

carrying all these different keys

for all these different locations and

you know we’ve had you know like luke

who probably luke williford i don’t know

if you know luke but he’s probably i

told him to get keys i literally

we we were talking on facebook once

because i don’t know him that well

but i i said look i mean you guys got a

million things like

why aren’t you master these things yeah

yeah i mean the guys got

i don’t know last check it was 40 so

he’s probably at 45

now who knows that guy’s collecting

laundromats like i know they’re

you know special quarters or something i

don’t know but uh

yeah like having multiple locations you

know getting getting a key like that is

awesome that’s

that’s such a great tip sweet man well

this has been

incredible thank you so much for taking

your time and coming on

and generously just sharing uh your

experience and your wisdom and knowledge

with us it’s been

so good and i’m you know i’m super glad

that we got to meet each other too

i can’t wait to you know hear more about

all these ventures that you got going on

so thanks for coming

on dude oh thanks for having me i

sincerely appreciate it

all right i mean that was so so good it

was

oh man i don’t know if you’re like me

and you’re just leaving this interview

super jazz super pumped up i know i am

maybe a little bit overwhelmed because

he is doing so much stuff

it’s so inspiring i just man i can’t

wait to hear

you know how things go for him i know

he’s gonna be shooting straight to the

moon

with all the things that he’s doing so

cool uh for me

it’s so hard to narrow it down for to

one takeaway

i mean there’s just so much in there but

the one thing that i’m going to take

away is this quote i loved this little

it was almost in passing this little

quote that he said and he said

everybody has something to offer

everybody

even my customers and it’s so

true and i love that he says he takes

time to stop to get to know his

customers

not just you know to help build his

business and build

you know relationships and loyalty for

his business sake but because he’s

learning from his customers and i

love that and i you know it’s so easy to

get caught up

in doing and running the business and

focusing on the tasks

that need to be done that it can be easy

to forget to slow down

and hey get to know your customers learn

from those guys

so that’s my big takeaway as always i

really encourage you

pick one thing if nothing else pick one

thing

from this interview put it into action

because it’s the action

that brings the results that brings the

success that you want

that helps you achieve the goals that

you want to achieve and that helps you

uh grow in in life and that’s what we’re

all

here for that’s what we’re all trying to

do so pick one thing

put it into action and next week i

cannot wait to get back

with you guys it’s gonna be an awesome

week with some more stuff that you can

put in action so if you haven’t yet

make sure you subscribe on the podcast

subscribe to our youtube

come find us over at instagram uh the

facebook page

got hacked and facebook won’t let it let

me have it back

uh i’ve been trying to get it back for

weeks

and then we’ll give it back so i don’t

know i might end up trying to

get that thing shut down and starting

over but

uh yeah i don’t know if you’re on

facebook

sorry i don’t know what to tell you

facebook is not cooperating with me but

anyways

go find us wherever we’re located and

get in touch with us because

we would love to hear from you and we’ll

see you next week

peace

[Music]

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