52. Brian Wallace, President & CEO of the Coin Laundry Association

Brian Wallace is the long-time President and CEO of the Coin Laundry Association. He has been an advocate for the industry for nearly 30 years. He has networked with hundreds, if not thousands, of laundromat owners, traveled all over the country visiting owners and laundromats, and facilitated research on the industry to help owners better their businesses.

Brian joins us on the podcast to share what he has learned about this industry, about what it takes to be a great owner and operator, and to talk about the trajectory of the laundromat industry.

In this show, Brian and I discuss:

Brian’s background and how he got his position as the President and CEO of the Coin Laundry Association
What he has done to advocate for the laundromat industry
What the trajectory of the industry is
How technology is shaping this industry
Passive laundromat ownership
Laundromat management companies
The fragmented nature of the laundromat industry
Tips on running a great business
Attendant training
Laundromat Marketing
Coin Laundry Association research
Networking in the laundromat industry
Lease negotiations
CLA resources
The Laundry Cares Foundation

And way, way more!

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

show number 52 and i am pumped

that you are here wait are there 52

weeks

in a year i mean we haven’t been going

quite a year yet but man 52 weeks a year

is that right i think that’s right man

that’s a big deal but i launched with

three so

we got two more to go for a full year

but that’s right i started in may

exciting stuff coming up oh my goodness

well hey

happy episode 52 i am pumped that you

are here today

not only because this is episode 52

which seems like a big deal to me for

some reason

but also we have brian wallace the

president and ceo

of the coin laundry association joins us

on the podcast today and we talk

laundromats it’s

really really interesting stuff that we

talk about today i know you’re gonna

love it and i know you’re gonna get a

lot

out of it so i cannot wait for you to

hear about that but before we get there

real quick i just want to say man

there’s been a ton of stuff going on

uh with laundromat resource lately both

behind the scenes and also in front of

the scenes

is that like a thing in front of the

scenes

but just a couple of quick things first

of all i want to just get back on that

brainwashing

uh train that i’ve been on uh for

a lot of episodes now but get over to

the forums ask a question answer a

question

there’s a lot of really awesome

conversations happening

in those forums over there in the

laundromat forum in the commercial real

estate forum

in the repairs forum and also in the new

member introductions forum

again i just want to highlight i mean

first of all welcome to all the new

members

we got a bunch over this last week a

couple i just wanted to say welcome to

is frank and jignesh i hope i’m saying

that right

but uh welcome to you guys i know you

introduce yourselves over on the

introduction forum

one of the cool things happening over

there on the introductions forum is that

people

are starting to find each other in

similar areas

and that’s just like by far one of the

coolest things that i’ve been seeing so

you know if you’re looking to connect

with other laundromat owners or

other people interested in buying a

laundromat make sure you check out that

uh new member introduction forum and see

if there’s anybody who’s popped up in

your area

or if not maybe introduce yourself and

let people know where you’re

you know where you lay your head down

where you’re from where you’re from is

probably an easier way to say that

let people know where you’re from and uh

hey try to connect over there with

people in your area

super super cool makes me so jazzed that

that’s happening over there

um also a lot of really great

conversations happening so go jump in

on those one that was really interesting

uh i think popped up this week maybe it

was last week and i think it was this

week

um was how to value a laundromat that’s

not making any money

and i thought that was a really

intriguing topic

and i bet there’s going to be a lot of

different opinions on that so

go join that conversation some of the

others go ask a question

answer a question if you’re listening to

this

like right when it’s coming out this

comes out every tuesday in case you

didn’t know if if you’re listening on

tuesday

what is it uh april 20th

uh or maybe early on wednesday the 21st

make sure that you join myself and dave

laundromat millionaire men’s we have a

live

q a going on we do one every single

month so even if you’re listening to

this

after the fact head over to

my youtube channel dave’s laundromat

millionaire’s youtube channel

and uh subscribe so that you know when

these are coming up but i’ll also put a

link

in the show notes which will be at

laundromat resource.com

show 52 show five two um

and if you’re on youtube i’ll also put

it down in the description down below

so you can click on that make sure that

you hit that notification bell so you

can join us for the live q a

uh either here in april in 2021 or in

our future ones because we do win every

month

um and then also just a quick little

reminder that i do

a free live webinar every thursday you

can sign up at laundrymyresource.com

there’s a forum

right at the top that you can sign up in

okay that was just a whole bunch of

stuff i threw at you but i just want to

let you know there’s a lot of cool stuff

happening

all this stuff is geared towards helping

you find financial freedom through

laundromat ownership so

make sure you’re jumping in and being a

part of what is going

on and there’s more coming super excited

about all that

but without further ado let’s just jump

into it with brian wallace the president

and ceo of the coin laundry association

i know you’re gonna love it

all right brian thank you so much for

coming on the show how are you doing

today

hey jordan everything’s great here in

the chicago area

it’s a little bit of a rainy day but uh

we can always brighten it up with some

laundry talk

that’s right that’s right nothing says

sunshine and warmth like

laundry talk maybe we should talk about

dryers to kind of just warm things up a

little better

i don’t know but uh i love that uh i am

actually a this is a little known fact

is i am a

long long time chicago bears fan

um i think i jumped on the bandwagon way

back 85-86 when they won the

super bowl and have pretty much

regretted it ever since because i have

not won anything since then

but you and me you and me both uh you

know and

uh you know one of my brothers has

season tickets so we’ve definitely uh

had uh some good times uh over there uh

tailgating and enjoying the games uh

not often in a winning uh capacity but

uh it’s uh nice to get out there on the

on the lakefront and

enjoy some football so uh i’m a

long-suffering fan too so we’ll just

keep uh we’ll keep at it

i’m a cubs fan too we finally got that

world series in 2016 so uh

anything can happen yeah that was a big

one for you guys

i’m a dodger fan so i can’t you know i

can’t sympathize with you there but

we’ll stick with the bears and and have

some solidarity there

no doubt well hey i thought it would be

awesome to just

start this off by taking us way back in

your life and

and i mean i kind of want to hear the

path and how you got to where you’re at

now

because you know obviously we’re in kind

of a little bit of a niche

industry here it’s a little bit random

whenever i tell people

you know that i own laundromats you know

people are always like what that’s

so weird that’s so random right and so

people don’t think this industry when

they think of

business so i’m just i’m curious can you

take us back and and maybe

we’ve uh we have a story for us about

how you ended up where you are

sure yeah i’ll be happy to it’s uh uh

it’s

you know i wasn’t a young boy dreaming

of someday being in the laundromat

business

i know we have some of those folks out

there mostly the the second and third

generation

uh owner operators but for me i was just

looking for a gig you know i i

got my degree in uh corporate uh

organizational communications and

uh came out of school and looking for

that first opportunity in business and

uh you know where i’m standing here

today cla’s headquarters

is about i don’t know 10 miles from

where i grew up and

when i started to look for work i had

heard a lot about

you know sort of trade associations and

nonprofits

especially in the context of meeting uh

communications professionals marketing

professionals and that sort of thing so

it was always sort of in the back of my

mind that

uh you know association might be a good

place to land with my first job but

uh sure enough i saw that’s how old i am

jordan i saw an ad in the paper

uh and responded to yeah

you know so i i started my gig here

really is my first job out of school

as uh at that time they called the

communications

specialist and had a chance to be

mentored by

a cla’s communications director at the

time a guy named dick torp who’s an old

school like newspaper man like

a northwestern university grad and was

you know so

one of those guys you could picture with

a fedora in the little press pass

in the brim of his hat and uh learned a

lot from him uh

about uh writing and communicating with

folks and that was sort of the beginning

of my laundry education

uh it’s really to take that job here and

that was almost 29 years ago

29 years next month and as i got into it

i started write for

our magazine which at that time was the

journal of coin laundry and dry cleaning

is now you guys know is planet laundry

uh wrote press releases just got engaged

in some of the work that we did here

as a trade association started to meet

mentors in the business from a laundry

education standpoint

kind of transitioned into director

communications

and then i had an opportunity to get

into

some of the management aspects i was

sort of the deputy executive director

for

a couple of years and around

i guess would be 1999 our

executive director uh at that time john

vasileides who’s a great mentor to mine

and just spoke with him

uh just in the last week or so uh jordan

he’s a

lifelong laundromat business broker he’s

probably bought and sold more

laundromats than any person alive wow

um and and he was um you know he was

moving on and

uh the board of directors here gave me a

great opportunity as a younger guy i

think it was 29 years old to

take the role as president and ceo and

so i’ve had

you know no direct experience running a

laundromat but

uh you add up the 29 years and uh

you know two and a half million miles on

american airlines and

uh trips all across the country and

around the world

not just talking about laundromats and

best practices but more importantly

listening

you know visiting stores hearing from

people that have been successful

so i kind of see my job in part with the

association is try to synthesize

all that information those relationships

what i’ve learned and

put us in a position through the

association to share that with all of

you

uh to help the industry do more and get

better so i’ve had an incredible

opportunity

over this time and so it’s not a

terribly exciting story but

i started at the ground level and uh now

going into my

21st year as president ceo

started from the bottom now you’re here

i like it

right at the top right at the pinnacle

well what was it i mean i’m curious what

was it like as a 29 year old to

move into that role as president ceo

of a pretty big association i mean that

it seems like that’d be a little bit

scary but what was it like for you

[Music]

huh well look yeah as you’ve probably

found out in your

business life you know new opportunities

can sometimes be scary and so you have

equal

mixes of excitement and dread uh

you might have that impostor syndrome

creep into your mind

but for me it was just really just a

great opportunity and i

remain incredibly grateful to our

volunteer leadership that

really gave me an opportunity that maybe

i didn’t qualify for

at that time as a practical matter as a

manager

i had a staff of

eight nine ten additional people at the

time all of whom were older than me

uh i think nine out of ten were women uh

and so i had to you know really

try to accelerate my management skills

and my you know

ability to relate with uh employees and

uh you really do that in such a way that

i could hopefully

gain their confidence gain their respect

because i’m sure they may have been

looking at this like well this guy

becomes president

um he was the one who was sitting in the

worst desk over by the water cooler not

too long ago

and now he’s uh now he’s got the um you

know the executive office but

the team here was great the the

volunteers

were so supportive uh not only with the

laundromat

education but with uh just how to do

business

i’ve told people many times i don’t have

that mba after my name

but i kind of consider my mba

working with a board of directors of

18 to 20 laundry industry professionals

for 20-plus years and really the time i

spent

on the clean executive committee uh is

really been my

sort of informal mba education learning

from folks about

how to do business how not to do

business and i hopefully have been able

pull the best of that together over a

period of time yeah i think that’s an

awesome way to learn

how to do business from you know the

people who are doing it with people who

have been doing it and

you know that’s one of the big reasons i

started the podcast you know honestly is

talking to people like you and and a lot

of these other guests that i’ve had who

you know have had their huge successes

and their big failures and

you know are willing to share those and

and teach me and teach everybody else

listening

uh just you know some of the lessons

that they’ve they’ve learned along the

way and i think that’s a really great

way to learn business

uh so you know school of hard knocks a

little bit of

you know of business ownership uh that

so many

of us have gone through and and so

learning from

that is is a great way i think to

shortcut

some of those lessons so you don’t have

to learn the hard ones or at least not

all over

yourself well believe me if you’ve made

a mistake

by that time you hopefully have a friend

or a mentor

who’s made the same mistake or recovered

from the same mistake

and so you’ve got some relationships to

rely on and

uh so believe me there are times where i

i feel like i’ve missed

some of that so-called book learning you

know uh you know

in in this case maybe an mba track or

something like that but

i hope to make up for it with the

relationships and the real world

experience and being able to

uh you know pull together uh the best

possible solutions when we do run into

challenges

yeah yeah well i’m curious i mean you’ve

you’ve been in this role for a really

long time what are some of the big

challenges i mean you’ve seen a lot

you know the industry has gone through a

lot i’m sure you’ve gone through a lot

from being 29 running a

uh an organization like this you know up

until now

what have been some of the challenges

you know for you personally and or maybe

for the industry

over the you know the last 20 or so

years

well you’re right jordan i mean it’s

changed a lot this industry has changed

a lot since

1992 i guess if i’m doing my math right

uh when when i first got

introduced to it um you know certainly

there’s aspects that remain the same but

there’s certainly been a lot of growth

and i’d like to think the organization

has had a lot to do with the sort of

what i’ll say professionalizing of the

industry

um and we’re seeing that only accelerate

uh here recently with technology and

with

uh newer ideas new people getting into

the business different calibers of

folks with different backgrounds and i

think it’s all uh works together to to

bring the industry to the

to the next level i think when you’re

running a small nonprofit

uh dollars and cents are always on your

mind uh

you know level participation is always

on your mind

uh being able to work effectively with

an ever-changing group

of uh very independent-minded volunteers

uh you can imagine is is sometimes

challenging but i’d say that you know

the last couple years i think some of

the main challenges have been

you know just making sure that our

organization can continue to

evolve uh to sort of match

what’s happening in the industry and

still remain relevant

and remain a valuable resource to people

in the industry

uh you know uh in the sort of the trade

association world certainly 30 years ago

is very much a top-down scenario okay

well you’re the

uh you’re the industry authority uh it’s

very deferential

you know that’s where you get the

information and as evidenced by your

podcast and a lot of things going on

today you know information is more

dispersed and has more resources and

there’s more places from which that

comes from and again i think overall

that uh you know results in better

educated folks

in our industry but it also poses

challenges for how do we best

uh continue to do what we do here and um

sometimes with the trade association

some of the benefits

can be somewhat less tangible uh than

than a specific product or service and

so that’s another

uh good challenge is to help people

better understand

uh the role that we play and what we can

do working together to make this a

better industry you know that’s the end

goal

how do we make this a better more

profitable industry that takes better

care

of the tens of millions of families that

come to the laundromat

every weekend yeah i love that and yeah

i think you’re right like there’s been

so many changes in

the industry uh you know from

you know i mean shoot man since 92

the world has gone through a lot you

know we’ve we went through

you know 9 11 we went through the 2008

economic crisis obviously this last year

has been

again unprecedented and has shaken

everybody up

you know even even our industry uh you

know maybe not as bad as

some other industries but you know we’ve

all felt

that i’m sure you guys even as an

association have felt the effects of

that because pretty much everybody’s

been touched right

um so yeah yeah i mean people talk about

our industry being uh

recession proof i’ve always said well

we’re recession resistant

this is a little nuance yeah and the

term had a big difference yeah yeah and

you know i’ve been through those

economic cycles over that period of time

and it has been a very resilient

uh business uh not necessarily easy but

resilient

uh in the last year or so i you know

what i told our team here

uh when covet arrived was if we don’t

step up now

to support our members and to support

our industry when are we going to do

that

right this this is when the need is

arguably the greatest that we’ve had at

least in my 30 years and maybe in now

the 60-year history

of the organization you know so we had

step up and provide that help regardless

maybe cash flow slowing down or people

not being able to pay their dues right

away or

maybe somebody had some magazine ad

contracts uh that may have been canceled

but

we said look we have to deliver for the

industry

and um i think that the work that we are

able to do from an advocacy perspective

uh to maintain that essential status

state by state by state by state uh and

then

ultimately being able to be added to the

federal guidance for essential which we

were not on that list

we were not on that list it was very

expensive and very difficult to

get our names added to that federal

guidance and

in retrospect now looking back a year

later jordan

it’s not hyperbole to say that that

saved this industry

a billion dollars or more hey if we’re a

four or five billion dollar a year

industry

and we’re able to keep the doors open

for that two

three four five months that so many

businesses were in complete lockdown

i’d like to think that you know

collectively with us working together

and have an organization in place

uh was able to uh retain that revenue

keep doors open

and keep this industry firing off and

and we’ve always known that we were an

essential business

there’s a little bit more kind of

esoteric over time like well we’re

you know we’re um important or you know

and i’ve always

talked to legislators about us providing

a basic public health service but

this brought it into very sharp focus

and made it uh

really a opportunity to double down on

the value that all of you bring to your

customers and bring to the communities

uh clean clothes hygiene that dignity

and respect that comes from

being able to have clean clothes and in

the pandemic

uh it was probably the greatest

challenge we’ve had

as an industry and i’m just incredibly

proud

as to how well all of you responded how

well you

adjusted and modified operations and

stuck to it because it would have been

easy to curl up in a ball and say well

we’ll just wait till this is over

but our industry really stood up and

stood out

as a result and i think that that is

some momentum that’s going to carry us a

long way

into the future yeah yeah i think yeah

i think that’s a great uh a great way to

put it and i think a lot of people did

really

step up and we’re you know we’re able to

adapt um and you know i talked i’m sure

you talked to a lot of owners too i

talked to a lot of owners and

you know people were hurting for

especially early on there

uh you know people were hurting you know

and not really knowing

nobody really knew what was going to

happen not just with our industry but

with our world right

and it was a little bit of a scary time

but i do feel like

laundromats were you know they were

one of the businesses that mostly

remained open the whole time

but they also just became i at least i

what from what i saw they became

uh they became places of refuge almost

for

people in the community because

everybody was holed up in their houses

right and

laundromats were a place where they

could come

and proactively do something

to better their situation right

and i think even just the mental uh

mental boost that that gave people

during that time just from customers i

talked to

and other owners that i’ve talked to i

think was a big deal so

well i’ve always felt that you know we

are a neighborhood business

and um i i like to say that

you know the neighborhood laundromat is

a mirror held up to the community

right if you want to get a feel for that

neighborhood you want to get a feel for

that community

pop into the laundromat that’s where

you’re going to see the people that’s

where you’re going to see

the vibe and get a sense of what that

neighborhood is all about and so i think

as you’re pointing out jordan that sort

of community

uh around this mundane shore let’s face

it no one’s looking forward to do

laundry

but that’s part of this elevation of the

industry if we can make it nicer if we

can

make it more convenient if we can bring

people more

support through that corner laundromat

it really does

raise up those families in the

neighborhoods that need that help the

most

yeah yeah i agree well okay so you’ve

seen a lot of change

over the last 20 or so years out of

curiosity

i mean you like you said you talked to a

lot of owners you’ve

you’ve been all over you put a lot of

miles you know on your

mileage card i don’t know you’ve put a

lot of miles behind you and

you’ve traveled a lot what about looking

forward what do you

where do you see our industry heading

what

kind of what’s coming up on the horizon

that i mean i don’t you may not know but

you know i know you don’t have a crystal

ball but out of curiosity i’m just

curious

what you’re seeing well you know we’re

all experts in our own opinions but

i do think there’s some things that we

can look at going forward that

um i think are you know fairly concrete

if you look at the prevailing trends

before kovid

uptick major uptick in technology if you

look at the

greater sophistication in in the

marketing if you look at payment systems

if you look at

uh full service and wash dry fold in

commercial accounts

if you look at multi-store ownership if

you look at

sort of new dollars uh more than mom and

pop investors but

you know some bigger dollars expressing

an interest in the business

those existing prevailing trends have

just hit warp speed

in my observation so those are things

that have

just taken off and maybe progress

uh that would have taken another three

four five years to come to fruition

it’s happening now right so we are

seeing this this boost and

yeah i think a lot of it is underpinned

uh by technology advancements

and when i look at you know uh

high tech and laundromat some people

laugh that off that’s an oxymoron right

this is an analog old school business

you know

uh but if you look at uh what’s happened

with equipment

in terms of efficiency um we talk about

a major difference

you know from when i started almost 30

years ago we’re using

half or less the utilities

and if you look at uh payment systems

hybrid systems other things are letting

people pay

and in other ways uh you know that has

certainly driven

a big part of our growth the larger

capacity equipment has definitely driven

our growth and i think that the the

technology

in terms of being able to uh manage

remotely

and collect data i think that’s blown

open the doors to multiple store

management

and you know very well you know there’s

sort of a limit to how much you can

operate

uh you for yourself by yourself in terms

of locations

but as this technology comes on board i

think it’s going to be

more commonplace to see five stores 10

stores 20 stores i still don’t see

a big roll-up you know a thousand two

thousand five thousand locations but i

certainly see

the what i’ve always called

consolidation from within

you know it’s jordan adding the second

to third the fourth location

and you start to multiply that across

the country

and uh we’re seeing that uh multi

multiple store management and part of

what i love about that

is that you know let’s face it if you’re

in it for five or ten stores

you’re probably running a better

operation right because you have to

right so it’s clean safe well-equipped

taking better care of customers so as

that propagates

and aggregates in terms of the eyes of

the consumer i think we just have an

opportunity to bring more people

in to use laundromats than ever before

so i have a very

optimistic view of the future and a lot

of that is

underpinned by the technological

advancements that i think are going to

help us do the job even better

yeah yeah yeah i’m seeing a lot of the

same

the same things i’m curious do you think

do you think we’re we’re coming towards

an end of the single store

owner do you see it going that far or do

you think that there will always be

single store owners

they’ll just be more multi-store owners

and those multi-store owners might have

more businesses yeah i think it’s more

of the latter

um you know this i mean

i can’t think of another industry that’s

as fragmented as our business

right so even with all that we just

talked about

if we think there are still about twenty

nine thousand

twenty nine five out there um

you know we can count the number of

people with a with

80 or more stores on one hand

right the number of people with 100 or

more stores

perhaps on one finger so when you

it’s all relative right so yes there is

a lot more multiple store ownership and

the number of tens and twenties and

thirties is definitely way up

but still i mean that’s a just a

minuscule amount of consolidation given

the total number of units uh that are

out there so

i do think that there will always be a

role for them

for the single store owner if anything

just for the fact that most everyone

starts with one

right there there are some exceptions

you know i

you know more often seeing people that

maybe jump in with

two or three acquisitions but more often

it’s a progression right you’ve lived it

you get the first store and you kind of

get your feet wet and take a few dents

and

things and you kind of learn some things

and you get store two and store three

and i just think that that

will always be a part of the

um uh evolution of people uh growing

into the business

going from part-time you know you know

the story working the day job working

the career job with the one store

working the nights and weekends and

really pushing and then getting to a

certain

uh tipping point where that becomes your

full-time gig because you’ve got

multiple locations you can replace that

corporate salary you know that origin

story

uh much more interesting than the origin

story i gave you for me

uh is is really how these uh you know

great members of ours have

really planted the flag uh taking good

great care of customers and are starting

to build wealth for themselves

yeah yeah i i like that i

and i see that too uh out of curiosity

and i mean you may not know the answer

to this one either i just

i’m gonna throw it out there but you

know i think

for a long time our industry has

has had people interested in it who

you know have the concept of you know i

come in once a week collect quarters

that’s it um and you know you know as

well as i know that

pretty much never is that the case right

there’s more because

whenever i tell people whenever there’s

you know a business and whenever there’s

people involved

it’s going to take a little bit more

than that right

and there’s machines that break down

there’s all kinds of stuff that can go

wrong you’ll have to deal with

right but i’m curious

if you think that that message is

changing if that

is that that mentality is going away if

that’s still going to be

possible for people to kind of get into

the industry that way maybe like a

guy i talk to a lot of like high income

earners who are looking to put their

money

somewhere like doctors lawyers engineers

who want to put their money

into something and they’re interested in

laundromats i just talked to a

plastic surgeon in hollywood who wants

to who wants to do this right

and uh and i i think the concept

of it being mostly hands off is what’s

appealing to them

um and the high returns that you can get

obviously um

but i’m curious as to is that going to

be feasible for people

going forward or if maybe specifically

for that high income earner

uh demographic yeah well as you well

know we’ve had a lot of those high

income earners have been in the business

a long time

right and they uh either are hands-on

with the laundromat business or they

hire someone to help them

uh in that in that respect so you can

imagine from where i sit

you know i’ve always outright rejected

uh the word absentee

the word passive um i just don’t

see any evidence of that i haven’t seen

any evidence of that

now is it a simple business simple not

not meaning easy but simple in other

words the keys

the operation or a parent they’re

self-evident you know what you need to

but as you point out you still need to

put in the time and the energy to to

execute on that

you know so so the simplicity as opposed

to complexity

of you know 100 employees or you know

lots of reliance on receivables and

stocking inventory and you know from

that perspective yes it’s a simple

business but not always easy to execute

on so

i think you can have spend less time at

the laundromat than you might if you’re

running a subway or

or some other kind of small business

opportunity

um i also think uh when i talked to our

members over the years

and when i probe about well what you

know has you so excited about the

business again beyond the returns

because you know that the money is is

always number one but

i hear a lot of flex time

you know you have to put in the hours

jordan you’ve got kids taking school at

home

you’ve got other uh pressures on you got

things to do

so you can attend to the laundromats it

doesn’t have to be at a prescribed day

and time

right you can work in those hours over

the course of your week

and again what i hear from our folks is

i got to coach little league

i got to take my daughter on the dance

uh competition tour i got to do those

things

i worked my butt off at the laundromat

but i could

make those adjustments and have that

sort of quality of lifestyle by being

able to uh take advantage of the

laundromat industry so

so it’s i don’t think it’s absentee i’ll

tell you just a quick anecdote jordan

this is several years ago um

i got an invitation it was from one of

these organizations that puts on these

hype

conferences you know these passive

income massive passive

you know make money sitting at home and

multi-level marketing all this stuff and

i just out of curiosity

and i later learned out of defense i

accepted the invitation

and i went to actually did it twice i

went to these

uh conferences where it was just it was

a hype job you know it was

it was just hey you’re gonna make money

you know show up once a week to collect

the quarters

so i took that speaking gig to defend

the fact that yes this is a great

business but you know here’s the reality

and if you do these things you can be

successful uh but it’s not sitting at

home

and collecting the quarters once a week

let’s kill you are

i was a total buzzkill this is one of

those things with the lights and the

music

and the the guy in the white suit and um

hyping up all these different

opportunities and i was the wet blanket

because i thought i had to

to uh protect these folks yeah from you

know having that

misperception now they only invited me

back twice i didn’t get that third

invitation

uh because i wasn’t there to sell

anything right this was a big you know

kind of go to the back of the room and

buy the dvds kind of thing but

my point of bringing that up is i think

that we do a service to people

by telling them yes this is a great

business but

here’s what you need to know right there

are challenges you do have

to do that uh but back to this

technology thing

and with the high net worth investor i

think that

the networked washers the ability to

remotely manage the store

being able to have confidence in the

cash control right that’s always been

the main leash that holds

laundromat owners to the store

rightfully is

the cash right so so if you have the

ability to monitor equipment monitor

employees have safety know exactly

what’s in the vtm know exactly what’s in

the changers

yes i do think that people can

you know reduce the number of hours that

they’re spending particularly over the

course of multiple stores

and you know really achieve those

investment goals

a side card to that is i think that

there’s going to be a a burgeoning

opportunity

for professional laundromat management

companies

uh that can put out their shingle and

say yes

you know plastic surgeon um we’ll help

you get into these couple of laundromats

and here’s a program by which we can

help you actually manage the day-to-day

clear the coin jams get make sure the

attendants are showing up making sure

the store is clean and

from that perspective so maybe that

investor’s return is a little bit less

but it still is a pretty gaudy routine

or return

on the cash invested and particularly on

the time invested even if they’ve got to

pay that extra layer

of supervision and management in order

to run the store on a day-to-day basis

yeah yeah i love that i’m actually in

the process of putting together a

management company here

in la with a couple former guests

actually were

because you know between us we have you

know i think

nine or ten laundromats and you know

there’s other people who we know

who want to take a little bit more of a

passive

approach to it or just don’t have as

much time so

yeah i think you’re right about that and

especially as

people start scaling out the number of

their laundromats

it’s going to be way easier to hire

almost like a hotel management company

right like

you get a couple of hotels you hire a

hotel management company to manage your

hotels

and that frees up your time because time

is the ultimate look at our friends and

competitors in the laundry route

business the apartment laundry route

business you’ve got

uh companies that you have uh

you know million million and a half

washers under management

uh half a million um hundreds of

thousands tens of thousands

so it’s not exactly the same thing of

course but

that mentality of being able to manage

those locations

uh you know not exactly treating them

like route stops but

maybe an amped up version of that i do

think that that will be in demand

like you said not just the person who

gets stretched too thin when they hit

that fifth or sixth laundromat

as an individual but people that want to

have a stake

they want to have an investment in our

sector

but don’t have the wherewithal to sit at

the counter every day

and and manage the store uh 40 hours

a week yeah yeah yeah and i think that

that is one of the ways that i mean it’s

been

the industry i think it’s been shifting

away from that but i think

you know when i think about laundromat

owners from

30 40 plus years ago i think a lot of

them sat behind the counters at their

laundromat that was their

their job right it was like a true mom

and pop

store where they that’s just what they

did like

and a lot of owners did that way and i

think less and less so that that’s the

case

from just my observation i haven’t done

any research on that but that would be

yeah

i think that’s a i think that’s a fair

fair assessment

um you know and again it’s such a varied

industry we don’t

you look you and i both know people that

love being in the store yeah

uh you know dust till dawn uh and then

dawn till dusk again and they love to

chitchat with customers and they like to

tinker and fix machines and that’s their

that’s their jam they love it

yeah um and you know just a different

a different approach from someone who

says well look i’m looking at this more

from an investment perspective

i’ve got cash to invest i’m looking for

the best roi

so i’m going to spend the time that i

need to spend there but then i’m going

to get help

i’m not going to turn a wrench i’ve

been telling people for years you know

the you can sum up some of this trend

and less time turning a screwdriver and

more time

turning a profit right the kind of that

mentality of

you know you know let’s let’s scale you

know let’s do multiple locations

and let’s know how to do those jobs but

better yet

knowing how to find people that can help

you do those jobs you can build

yeah yeah it’s been one of the most

i guess encouraging and surprising

things about doing this podcast is

talking to people all over

the world who own laundromats and

seeing the diverse the diversity and the

ways that they run

their laundromats right we had uh you

know jacob on the

podcast he runs a youtube channel there

i fixed it he loves to be hands-on

he you know is you know he’s in his map

and and just loves that um and then you

know

show 50 we i just interviewed a guy who

he’s never seen his laundromat he lives

he just moved into his rv and he’s

traveling the country

um from here in california and his

laundromats just outside of atlanta and

he’s never seen it right

and those are way different style and

and everything in between

uh you know so the diversity of it is

pretty cool that you can run and

run successfully in whatever you think

successfully looks like

with this industry and so that

flexibility is really nice

that really made me think going back

this i meant to say this earlier but i

really like that you

use the term flex time as opposed to

absentee or passive i think that needs

to get incorporated

into our vocabulary

more as the flex time because i think

that really does nail

for example uh just today like i have a

pretty

busy day today right we jumped on this

call at eight in the morning

i’ve got stuff going on with the kids

later we had a little neighborhood

uh like socially distance birthday

outdoor party

for a neighbor a little bit later so we

got like a lot going on today so i just

got up at four in the morning and i went

out

to my laundromat did my stuff that i

needed to take care of

made it back here in time to walk my

kids to school and then jump on a call

with you and

i can do that right i don’t have to be

there at a specific day or specific

time and um yeah getting up at four in

the morning to go to the laundromats not

ideal always but i can do it if i

if i have other things that i want to do

so yeah flex time

let’s keep that term going because i

like that

that’s yeah it’s it’s the truth and i

can remember we even did a membership

campaign years ago where we were

you know kind of featuring our members

but they weren’t you know the

stock photos of the person leaning on

the washing machine

it was um you know people that were out

fixing go-karts and people that were

taking kids to little league and people

that were

had their feet up at the beach and just

trying to emphasize that our industry

it’s a means to an end no one’s here for

the love of doing laundry right well

maybe there’s a few

couple people uh people people that are

obsessed but but it is a

pathway um when i do see those old

old-timers jordan you know one of the

things i

i hear a lot is you know just a little

longer but you know what i put two kids

through college

you know just a little laundromat but it

helped us um

you know navigate a family of six and

uh and we i don’t know what we would

have done if not for the laundromat

or it gave us the chance to travel or we

got a a

cottage uh you know summer cottage or

you know these

you know so in other words it wasn’t

about the glam and glory

of running the laundromat it was the

opportunity to work hard make an

investment make a great return

and then use that as the launching pad

pursue your real passions and the things

that you want to do for yourself and

your family

yeah i love that and you know the the

concept of lifestyle design

is really popular right now and i think

when a lot of people think of lifestyle

design they’re thinking like tim ferriss

like go live

somewhere else and you know

dance your days away and sit on the

beach or whatever that

you know the case might be right but

lifestyle design is designing a life

that you want to live right and so if

that’s fix and go cars with your kids

that’s coaching your kids little league

team right and that and

in in that sense i think that

laundromats can be a great lifestyle

design business um and

you know and this guy who you know tom

in episode 50 who’s traveling

the country in his rv you know while

owning a laundromat that he’s never seen

across the country

is a next level of that lifestyle design

it doesn’t have to be that extreme

but that flex time gives you the ability

to design

life the way that you like it and i like

i like thinking of it that way flex time

i’m going to use that more often i like

it all right you got it use it

use it use it use it yes um well okay

so i mean we’re talking about all this

stuff right so

what maybe i mean you’ve talked to a lot

of owners and you’ve been in this

industry

longer than most people have so

what i mean can you give us some some

tips on how do you how do you build a

good business

how do what you know and then once you

have a good business how do you grow it

you know

uh because i think you know i’ve i

talked to a lot of owners who

especially this last year have been

struggling right their

their income has been down or you know

they don’t have money to reinvest in

their laundry matter whatever the case

may be and they might be listening to

something like this well that’s not what

my life looks like right i’m

trying to like duct tape my laundry mat

back together

or whatever the case may be so i’m

wondering if you could give us

you know just maybe what are some tips

of being um

you know running a a solid laundromat

uh business and you know and growing

that into

something that can help you design your

life

the way you want it sure sure well you

know

that’s one of the things that probably

hasn’t changed a whole lot over the last

30 years

is you know some of these basic

underlying principles and you had kind

of previewed this question for me and

i’ll just tell you

just the first couple things i scratched

out um

in no particular order about you know

kind of recipes for success

um we’ve had a great webinar we filmed

right here yesterday

on uh creating an attendant training

program and we had a couple of our peers

ken barrett

and yvette morton williams came on and

just talked about how they put their

program together and what it

was just top of mind for me jordan was

just invest

in the attendant training and

that’s dollars and time and it’s not

just

all right welcome to your new job as uh

laundromat attendant

go work a shift with sally she’s my best

attendant you’re gonna work a shift

together and then off you go

uh that’s what i’m seeing among best

practices is having an actual program

having a protocol having

policies and procedures and investing

the time and energy

to have the best possible attendance

because you know we talk a lot about new

investors and people getting into the

business and one of the

uh one of the several things i try to

say to kind of sober uh

you know that that view is look you’re

gonna spend

a couple hundred to several hundred

thousand dollars

and the one person who has the most to

do with your success

is the minimum wage attendant who’s

visiting with customers every single day

yeah right it’s not you you we just

talked about that right you’re not going

to be there all the time yeah

so i think that we need to reapportion

the amount of time and energy we put

into

having the best attendance so that was

top of mind except from just from

yesterday

it’s good that’s good yeah the the the

modern uh

thing that popped on here uh as it

relates to

uh promotion and marketing is there’s a

lot of things you can do

we can help you jordan you can help

customers with with the marketing

but the one thing you need is a perfect

google listing

the google maps google my business if

you’re going to get one thing right

make sure that the people that are

looking for you and they’re looking for

you on their smartphone

that they can find you and it sounds

rudimentary

it sounds like the bar is low but if you

do that

that’s a distinct competitive advantage

in the laundromat business because most

of your competitors are not doing that

how much does that cost free yeah

zero and even if you hire someone to

help you with it you’re not talking big

bucks but we’re talking about a big

return real quick i mean i love that and

as somebody who owns a marketing and

website

design company for specifically for

laundromat owners

i would say that having a good solid

google my business listing

that you keep up to date is more

important even than your website because

i would agree most people are going to

go on their phone to their maps app or

or to google and search laundromat near

me when they’re looking for laundromat

and whatever laundromats pop up on that

map or at the top of google there

that is where they’re gonna go first

right and if they come to your store

first you have the opportunity to keep

them as a customer

right and most people aren’t looking for

your website

first and foremost well i mean it’s nice

to have everything nice to have a

holistic

uh campaign and you know we’ve been

offering

uh marketing assistance for 20 or 30

years everything from the old postcards

uh to door hangers and now you know with

our amp

program doing some of the same things

with websites and optimized online

listings

um and it’s just it’s just an absolute

must and you can’t tell me

you know look we’re not too far

a front of when you know laundromats did

zero

marketing it was to build it and they

will come you know and

i think that is really uh a significant

competitive advantage today to have your

act together when it comes to that

simple

uh digital marketing so get it from

jordan get it from us

get it from all you know multiple other

companies out there but just do it

get it done and your business will

benefit yeah agreed

all right sorry to interrupt you but no

i just i thought that

was a great point to google my business

it’s a great point

yeah and just when we’re talking about

let’s talk just a minute about marketing

messaging

is um keep in mind that i

at least i think that we’re selling time

savings inconvenience

and we’re selling clean clothes two

things that rarely come up in the

marketing messaging

in our industry yeah it’s dollar

tuesdays it’s half off of this or free

load or

and we’re not talking about the fact

that we get your clothes cleaner

right and we can get it done faster you

know and

and so when we’re when we’re thinking

about the messaging don’t

revert to selling on price because if

you’re a good laundromat owner

you can’t sell on price because you’re

doing too good of a job

you have well-trained attendants good

equipment a clean environment

and those things conspire to make sure

that you have to get a fair vent price

you know so uh will there be price

shoppers yeah they can stay in their

apartments

and do laundry there they can go to a

crummy laundromat down the street

but if you infuse that into your

marketing that this is a better place to

do the wash

um i think that’s a more powerful

message and

you know over the years we’ve done some

consumer

research uh you know what are laundromat

customers looking for

and i we did it several years ago i kind

of took those

results from that survey and i

synthesized it into kind of a motto and

i’ll try it out on you jordan

laundromat customers want time savings

and convenience

in a clean safe environment that’s close

to home

one more time laundromat customers want

time savings

and convenience in a clean safe

environment

that’s close to home yeah i mean

there’s not really much more to it than

that right like that yeah

yeah and if you have to wonder about

owners they want price they want price

they want price they want price well

that’s kind of what we hear and

yes there are price shoppers but you

know the lion’s share of customers

looking for value

right you know and i think if you’re

going to do the marketing

let’s make sure that that messaging gets

across clean clothes

saving time and taking good care of your

family

yeah yeah and i think that there i see

well i felt this

and i see this all the time in like the

forums and the facebook groups and

everything where

we’re we’re afraid of price like as

owners

generally speaking like we’re afraid of

price people are afraid to raise their

prices

i’ve been afraid to raise my price you

know and it’s a genuine

fear but you know what you’re saying

what we’ve had

so many of the just the top operators

that we’ve had on this podcast

have all said the same thing we don’t

compete on price

we we offer valuable

opportunities for for customers to save

on time

and convenience and we charge for it

because it’s a it’s a good valuable

service that we’re providing and

that message has been consistent over

and over and over and i think that we

and i’m and i’m saying we because i’m

speaking to myself too but like we

need to not be afraid of price

and and raising those prices because

our costs keep going up right like you

you mentioned

earlier that the technology has has

you know basically cut our utility

usages

in half over the last 30 years well it’s

a dang good thing because our utility

usage is probably

20 times higher than they were 30 years

ago right like yeah the rate

yeah they’re going through the roof

right and we’re paying those utility

costs

so we cannot be afraid to to charge more

in order to you know keep our business

afloat like if our business closed down

all the people that come to it

aren’t going to they’re going to have to

go further it’s going to be less

convenient and less of a time savings

for them

so do yourselves and your customers and

community a favor and keep your prices

where they need to be

georgia no look you know and again we’re

you know as a trade association we have

to be careful how we talk about price

and in terms of our

tax exempt status and not overstepping

on uh antitrust or anything like that

but we can talk about successful

strategies we can’t talk about hey you

ought to charge x for a 20 pounder

now we have all that data in our annual

survey you know people go on the

facebook groups and elsewhere and wonder

about well what’s the average price of

this like well we have the data

for 25 straight years we can give you

that benchmark

but if we made this list of the 100 best

laundromat owners in the country

and maybe i know 98 of them um

you know there’s not going to be one

person on that list that is the

discounter in their market

[Music]

and a good chunk of them are going to be

a price leader no doubt but

there’ll be zero that are the discounter

in their market yeah

yeah well i mean that’s a good i mean

that’s just good good knowledge to have

and you know i just

speaking to anybody out there who is the

discounter in their neighborhood

like this is not to disparage anybody

but this is to give

insight that the real the real value in

your company is the value that

you provide to your customers not the

price cut

that you give to your customers right

you sell yourself short and you sell

your

your business short if you’re providing

value for your customers

and not charging enough for it right so

that that’s where the focus needs to be

and that’s what i hear consistently over

and over from top operators is focus on

providing value for your customers don’t

focus on being you know the low price

leader

in your neighborhood well sometimes what

some of those stores do jordan is

they’re really good at making a volume

but they’re not good at making a profit

yeah and you know

an educated buyer you know into your

world

in brokerage they don’t care about the

gross

nor should they right all that matters

is the net

and it’s very difficult to maximize that

net

if you’re the low price leader in the

market yeah

yeah awesome well that’s i mean i think

that

that’s a huge and i love the marketing

message that

you know that where we miss the mark all

the time um you know and

there’s there’s something to be said to

do promotions where you’re discounting

you know certain days of the week and

stuff like that of course but

but that i mean just straight from the

data right is

from from the consumer surveys that you

guys have done is saying hey people are

looking for time savings and convenience

you know marketing 101 is

find out what the customer wants in

their own language

and just tell them their own words back

to them right

and they’re you’re going to connect with

them on a level that they

didn’t even anticipate because you are

speaking their language literally

so i love that well well that that the

survey that we did

and and i i had the joy of being able to

sort of write the survey and i gave

like these nine characteristics of why

you would choose a laundromat

and we asked consumers to rank them in

order of importance

and price was like ninth

or seventh out of nine you know maybe on

one year was

six out of nine one year was eight eight

out of nine

and what people wanted if i can remember

this off the top my head the number one

thing that consumers told us they wanted

having enough machines available when i

need them

number one yeah okay uh number

two was uh feeling safe and secure yeah

right so you know we we tend to like you

said have a narrow vision

on ben price but the consumers are

telling us

that uh it’s in that bottom half of

considerations behind

availability of equipment a clean safe

environment

and several other factors that come to

mind before they worry about what the

price is

yeah what’s nice to know if you have a

super dangerous laundromat

that you’re probably going to have

machines open so customers will be fine

with it because their number one is they

want machines open right

number two yeah none of those factors

exist at a vacuum jordan you gotta you

gotta have

uh you know hopefully uh you’re hitting

on all checking all those boxes

yeah yeah yeah well and that’s true man

i i think that

you know having a safe place i mean

right the basics right

are having a clean place like nobody

wants to come

clean their clothes and then leave a

dirty store

you just don’t feel like your stuff is

clean right you got roaches walking

around and stuff this is like my store

when i took over

my very first one the roaches the size

of my face in there

and i’m like well who’s gonna come do

laundry here i’m not i don’t want to

bring one of these things home in my

laundry right like keep it clean

keep it lit uh you know keep it safe and

that sometimes depending on where you’re

is easier said than done and again going

back to that

that not being passive uh for me

in my first laundromat it was a

dangerous place i didn’t

i mean i knew it was like not a great

neighborhood i did not know it was like

outright dangerous place when i took

over it and it took a lot of time and a

lot of effort

to clean that place out but you got to

do it right it’s got to be a safe place

because that’s you know like you said

that’s top

priority in that top half so you know

focusing on those basics and you know

keeping machines

working keeping your coin changers if

you’re still

in a coin store keeping those full

making sure there’s coins available

which sometimes is easier said than done

in those unattended stores

um you know i i talk to people and this

happens in my unattended store and i

talk to people all the time who

people come by crazy amounts of quarters

for whatever reason right it can be hard

to keep them full but you got to do it

right

you got to go to the bank an extra time

a week you know all these basics

you just like you said it’s simple but

it’s not always easy but you gotta

you gotta stay on the basics keep doing

the right things

over a long period of time so

love that uh i mean we’ve mentioned

some cla research have you guys been

doing

any research recently or anything new

coming out just out of curiosity what

you guys doing i love

that’s one of the things i like most

about the cla is that you guys are you

know try to keep your finger on the

pulse of things you’re

always asking questions of owners and

customers and

vendors and all that so out of curiosity

you guys have anything going on lately

yeah there’s a i guess a couple things i

could mention uh we’re just about to

field our

for our 25th straight year our our

industry survey

which gives you know annual data

on event price equipment mix expense

ratios for utilities

for payroll for rent

for uh really all the basic things that

that we’re doing and so

we think it’s important to spend the the

money and again this is not an online

poll

you know we hire a professional research

company that does the

statistically sound surveying and we

make sure that

we’re investing in good data for all of

you and so that’s something that we

publish every year

it’s free to members annually as part of

your membership it’s in our store

uh it’s not less than 100 bucks if

you’re a non-member that wants to buy a

copy but

you don’t have to guess you know the

data has been gathered and aggregated

and we can you have the ability to look

at it

on a multi-year basis another thing i’ll

mention is we

especially with cobid we started doing a

lot more kind of a survey monkey style

pulse

survey so we were reaching out to you

in the beginning of the pandemic and

finding that the average store was down

30 percent uh in those first couple of

months and then quickly recovered as you

got into the

to the end of the year we did some great

survey work

in the face of our advocacy on the coin

shortage

we did an awful lot of work related to

the scarcity of quarters

i was personally engaged with the u.s

mint with the cash product office at the

federal reserve the u.s coin task force

and they were looking to us for data

they were looking for the data from all

of you saying i am having trouble

stocking quarters my bank does have them

available or doesn’t so we’re able to

get that information and

share it with all of you like we did but

also sharing it with the

regulators and legislators that you know

are involved in these key issues

i guess the third thing i say on

research is we continue to put out

once a quarter four times a year a brand

new white paper

which is a eight or ten or sometimes

twelve thousand word deep dive

into these key uh industry topics and so

again those are free if you’re a member

uh four times a year but they’re all

available a la carte in our store

so if you want to get the best

information on due diligence

or demographics and site analysis or

leases or we just did one on commercial

accounts uh we just released one on

writing a business plan so again

you don’t have to guess you know we’ve

got a

professional vetted authoritative

resource here

that can help you with that and you know

part of that goal is to have a you know

a distinctive library

that has the collective best information

and best practices

uh from all the subject matter experts

and make sure you can find that all in

one place

yeah i love that and you know i going

back to like

what’s changing in the industry and i

think that that is one of the things is

i mean the data’s been there right but i

think our world in general

like the biggest companies in the world

are all data companies right like

even amazon it’s a data company right

and they’re

you’re aggregating data and then using

that data

to you know to put the right things in

front of the right people to sell to

them right

so data is is king right now and so we

need to be making

business decisions based on data as

often as possible and that’s where

you know the the power of the network

washers the

you know the card readers that have all

kinds of data user data

all that stuff has so much power

in you know because that data can be

used to make the right decisions right

you’re not guessing anymore and so you

know i love that you guys are doing the

you know the the polls and the um the

industry

state of the industry um research

project the industry survey

um and the white papers all that stuff

because that data

is that’s like gold right it’s like

that’s how you

print money is you use the data to uh to

make your decision so

love that absolutely love that well we

got a few

little sections that we normally do and

i thought maybe

we could uh we could jump you and we

talked about a lot of these things

already but i just

you know maybe just to pinpoint we have

our first section listen up it’s the

secret sauce

called secret sauce okay and

uh secret sauce is basically you know

what what’s a good tip to help somebody

take their business

to the next level a current owner

something that they can implement into

their business to maybe

help them grow their business yeah i

shared a couple of those earlier but the

one that i still have on the list here

is uh is networking with your peers

um you know this podcast is a good

example

of that and again when i talk to

long-time

members of the association and again we

do all these programs and

in events and services and

but what they come back to is the

biggest value i’ve had

is the people i’ve met through the

association and

um you know it’s those uh connections

those friendships

those abilities to talk somebody who

speaks the same language

and so i just would encourage uh people

that you know this can be an insular

industry if you don’t

leave your store and if you don’t go out

and make an effort

either virtually or in person to connect

with other people in the industry

uh you’re you’re just never gonna get to

the level of success that you’d like to

have

so so the secret sauce for me is your

peers

the other people in the industry and

jordan you probably

discovered this i don’t know how we can

you know take credit for it i don’t know

that we can but this industry

is very willing to share you know people

aren’t you know maybe if you’re across

the street that’s one thing but most

every store owner

is willing to you know share information

share best practices

and try to help the next guy and so

that’s something that i think

has to be part of the ingredients in

your secret sauce

yeah i love that secret sauce and you

know that is exactly what this whole

podcast relies on right it relies on

people willing to come on and share

their experience their lessons their

wisdom

you know with each other and i you know

there’s

there’s the whole um you know mantra

that

so many people spout you know you’re the

average of the five people you spend

your most time with

you know there’s i mean there’s in

things along those lines like it’s

important

who you communicate with and it’s

important who you take information right

and so if you want to grow your business

to the next level

you need to start getting around

networking getting around people who

are doing things at another level from

you

inside our industry and probably outside

of the industry also

um so i think that’s great secret sauce

yeah we got another section called pro

tips

and pro tips is directed to somebody

maybe trying to buy their first

laundromat you have any tips for the

first time or something maybe they

should be aware of or be thinking about

doing before they buy their first

laundromat

sure well i certainly love speaking to

prospective laundromat

owners um you you may not know this but

we have a program where i

uh we sent an invitation i want to speak

to every single brand new member of coin

laundry association and quite often they

are first timer so we

i’m having these conversations multiple

times a week

and so we kind of speak that language

what i’m hearing a lot from people are

looking to buy their first store

is kind of that tire kicking and the

frustration i have looked at five stores

i looked at 10 stores i looked at 15

stores in the area

and what i try to tell them is the

shortcut for that analysis

is talk about the lease first

everyone wants to talk about the revenue

or agent condition of the equipment

or you know why the person is selling

and again those are all things you’re

going to want to discover

at some point in your process but if the

lease isn’t right

the rest of it is a moot point right the

revenue doesn’t matter

what equipment’s in there doesn’t matter

how many parking spaces don’t matter

so you know when you’re going through

that arduous process of kissing a lot of

frogs

um you know if you can focus on the

lease

first and oftentimes at least if it is

bad it can be improved

but i’d view that as one of the more

compelling shortcuts for first-time

laundromat owners that may be

in a little bit of a fatigue stage of

looking at a lot of existing stores

have a laser focus on the lease because

if the lease isn’t right the rest

doesn’t matter

yeah i think that’s really great advice

you know i do uh

you know webinars every week and when we

do one on how to buy

your first laundromat one of the things

that i’ll say in there is

you know your lease is arguably your

most important asset

you know it’s at least as important as

your machines if not even more important

than your machines

more so yeah because if you have a bad

lease i mean

i can’t tell you how many previous

owners i’ve talked to who have

you know gotten out of the business uh

because they had a bad lease and you

know their laundromat just couldn’t

support it

and so you know i i think that’s huge

and

finding a good lease is probably even

more important than finding a good

location

uh or at least on par with that because

you know that lease is going to be one

of your two biggest expenses right

between maybe labor might be your other

big expense

but it’s a huge asset or a huge

liability to your business

right if we flip that for the existing

operators

the best thing you can do today to make

your laundromat more valuable is to

improve the lease

add time you know set the terms

because when it comes time for you to

sell which may be on your schedule or

life schedule you never know what’s

going to happen so if you’re on that end

of the transaction

making your lease longer making it more

competitive

is again probably more important than

you increasing the net

you have to have that lease right

whether you’re from the seller’s

perspective or the buyer’s perspective

yep couldn’t agree more uh awesome pro

tip

and for anybody looking to buy their

first laundromat uh

you know that’s a that’s a great

shortcut and not even just a shortcut

but that’s just good solid advice

in general that you need to be looking

at check out those leases find out the

the length left on them and the terms

left on them so

awesome pro tip thanks for sharing that

another

section called recommended resources and

obviously the coin laundry association

uh is an awesome resource for owners

maybe i don’t know if you want to

highlight maybe some resources

in particular that you guys have or if

you have resources that are not

coin laundry association or i don’t know

but do you have anything yeah

i think i can uh hit on some cla stuff

and some non-cla stuff uh maybe from

more of a personal perspective but

from the association standpoint again

this is an aggregation of 60 years of

industry know-how this is the knowledge

base

this is thousands of laundromat owners

over decades

and so we’re sort of the repository of

those best practices and that best

information so that comes through

uh you know planet laundry magazine

which you can

subscribe to for free just go to

plantlaundry.com

i mentioned the white papers is a great

resource

i said yesterday we did a webinar we’re

doing multiple

topic specific webinars each and every

month that you can enroll and take those

take those courses jordan one of the

things that we’ve really

uh beefed up here in the last two years

is what we’re calling cla business

solutions so

again it can be a little bit uh isolated

running a laundromat you don’t you don’t

have a lot of help

right you’re wearing all the hats and so

one of the things that we’ve done is put

together the cla business solution so

we’ve got

vetted curated uh discounted

support for your property and liability

insurance

your health insurance uh getting

demographic reports uh we just launched

a new program with paychecks for

discounted

uh payroll processing our amp digital

marketing

atmosphere tv we’re helping you with the

in-store video feeds and several more so

what we want to do is be an extension of

your business

you don’t have the ability to put on a

marketing director

you’re not going to have a accounting

department that’s going to go find you

the best deals

we have a great program on utility

buying uh if you’re in a market that’s

that where you can buy deregulated

utilities for either gas electricity or

both so

let us be an extension of your business

you can’t be an expert in buying natural

gas and finding payroll processing

and figuring out how to do the best

website you know but we can help you do

that

through cla business solutions and that

would be another resource you could find

on our

website at coinlaundry.org

on more of a personal basis on

recommended resources

a couple things came to mind i’m a

believer

in just recent years you know an old dog

learning new tricks is i’ve really tried

to take advantage of executive coaching

and you might automatically think that

that’s priced out of your range

uh don’t assume that i have found that

you know having a coach uh just like

anything else

can be really helpful and i tend to kind

of change up coaches with different

perspectives and just different

approaches um

and a friend of mine happens to run the

international coach federation so you

can go to their website they have a

great

tool for finding accredited local

coaches based on

uh topic of interest or price point or

the way you like to learn

so you know even though you said i’m

just a laundromat owner

no you’re a small business entrepreneur

you need you could benefit i think from

from coaching just like i do uh each and

every week so

uh the coaching i think is something

that i’d like to share as a recommended

resource

just uh generally um i love that i know

nobody’s brought that up before i really

love that yeah i mean it’s

like you know who couldn’t benefit from

from having a good coach

and um you had asked about maybe some

book recommendations i don’t think i’ve

got anything

uh you know super secret for you but um

actually through one of my coaching

engagements i really took a deep dive

into

simon sinek and his book uh start with

why

you may have seen it through i think

it’s the third most watched

ted talk ever from simon sinek and i

just think that that’s a great

book or watch the video or both about

just really understanding what makes

your business tick

why why are you there and using that as

the platform

for driving uh your decisions uh in the

business and making sure that

you’re taking the best possible care of

your customers those are a couple of

recommended resources that i’d

be happy to share yeah i love that book

and i think i

i mean i think that’s great for anybody

looking to buy their first laundromat

maybe

go check that book out first before you

pull the trigger on that because that’s

a great book

and it really digs deep into you know

what your motivation is and if it’s

if if your motivation is going to line

up with you know owning a laundromat

you know because that’s a big question

and i see a lot of people who

you know buy a laundromat and a year or

two later they’re out of it because it’s

it didn’t line up with what they were

looking for so you know start with why

and and also i think that’s a great

resource for current

business owners too um like i mean like

you mentioned so

great yeah great yeah and you know and

you know starting with why maybe that

could be a segue for me to talk about

these signs behind me here

and uh next yeah the laundry the laundry

cares foundation because for me this has

had a lot to do with why and so the

short version

is uh myself other friends in the

business we just feel an immense

amount of gratitude for this industry

and the livelihood that it’s provided

you know the way i look at it my career

for almost 30 years

starts with that mom dropping a quarter

in a washing machine you know and those

families are often from under-resourced

neighborhoods that we serve

and it got us thinking about what can we

to give back and support the families

that have been supporting our businesses

all these years and so we

created a separate foundation the

laundry cares foundation really with

that mission of giving back

to the families that support our

businesses and as we’ve

dug deeper into that work we found that

we really have a

unique opportunity because we are a

channel we are a conduit

for connecting resources with the

families that need them most

if you talk to people that are engaged

in literacy people are engaged in

uh health care people that are engaged

providing providing resources to

low-income families what they’ll tell

you is these families are hard to find

right there there’s help available but

it’s just hard to

connect with them based on those

families are busy and they have multiple

jobs and they’re

you know they’re uh often uh sort of

dispersed

and we said yeah we know where they are

we know where they are every week

and we have this tremendous opportunity

to connect them with resources

you know so uh our three pillars real

quickly are

our free laundry and literacy days uh

where we

uh put on or encourage you to put on uh

a day of free laundry

uh but build that with uh perhaps free

food free soap

and connections to local organizations

whether it’s a wic clinic or a health

literacy group or

a financial literacy group um or a

reading

campaign group to you know come to the

laundromat and help connect

those customers with the resources that

can help them

you’ve probably talked to the willowford

family a quick anecdote from those guys

is you know they had one of the

breast cancer awareness charities

approached them about setting up a table

on a saturday afternoon

and the net result of that was they had

more sign ups more connections with

at-risk

women than they had found in any other

outreach that they’ve done

so what we’re trying to do with the

foundation is

activate this continuity this connection

that we have to the communities that

need the most help

and our primary effort has been this one

over here which is the

uh laundry literacy coalition talk about

oxymorons

but knowing that you know the families

and their kids that are coming to the

laundromat

are behind when it comes to kindergarten

preparedness

reading at the third grade level by

third grade uh they often live in book

deserts

uh i take for granted with my

ten-year-old we got more books than we

can

uh you know stack up in any one place so

delivering books

uh you know is an important part of that

laundry and literacy day the second

thing is

our family replay learn centers which is

building a mini

library space in the laundromat we’ve

all got that

that corner that you can sort of up

cycle into a little space with a

bookshelf and a table and if you’ve seen

uh the videos at laundrycares.org you

see that it it is a game changer

it uh lifts up those families your

attendants

hold their heads a bit higher you feel a

greater sense of purpose

in your business as a laundromat owner

and it’s delivering real

measurable help in the communities by

having those connections and then we

partner with local library systems and

other folks that can come in to

read stories the third pillar is a

disaster response and recovery you know

we know that when there’s a hurricane a

tornado some kind of natural disaster

there’s ready help when it comes to

finding people

a hot meal a place to stay but laundry

is one of those really acute needs

that’s really hard to

match and solve right away so that’s

the part of our foundation that we’re

working hard to develop further but all

of you are in a position to

uh provide that type of support we get

calls from fema we get calls from other

relief organizations because they really

need access to

to laundromats in the wake of those

storms so the way that

all of you can help go to

laundrycares.org one of the things you

can do for free jordan is just simply

enroll your locations in our laundry

cares network

it’s free put in your locations and all

you’re doing is raising your hand and

saying i’m a community friendly

laundromat

that’s only that the only commitment

you’re making but as we work with local

partners and have opportunities come

that come up we’re able to find you

literally on the map you’ll see the map

coin on closing in on a thousand

locations

and that way we can connect you with

these opportunities to give back to the

community so

um for a higher sense of purpose for

giving back

and taking care of the the families that

take care of us

laundry care’s foundation is a great way

for you to live that

and tying it off with new investors

jordan what i’m hearing from a lot of

people that are new to the business

is they’re looking for that corporate

social responsibility they’re looking

for

getting into a business where they can

have a real impact and so laundry cares

has actually

made our industry that much more

attractive to new investors because

there’s a built-in csr program

a ready-made uh banner for them to help

the community

yeah i love that i love you know i i

think that

you know the the two biggest reasons

that i think that i hear

people wanting to get in this business

is one you know the

the time and money freedom kind of that

flex time uh you can have and but

number two is that you can you can do

something good for your community right

and so i think that

laundry cares does a great job i love

the three pillars you know those are all

huge needs and

i people don’t think laundromats when

they think of community outreach when

they think of

you know disaster relief those kinds of

things

but you know as as we’ve seen over this

last year

you know laundromats can play a huge

role in

in all of these things so i love that

there’s an organization out there

uh getting us together and

and empowering us and giving us the

opportunities to

um you know to give back to our

communities and

to help you know our communities in

times of need even

so and and and just in general not even

just in times of need but it’s just in

general

it’s it’s a it’s a real honor to do this

work and and

encourage all of you you volunteer at a

free laundry day event and it’ll it’ll

really change your perspective

and uh you may have seen our hashtag

laundry’s connecting communities

because i think that’s really what it

boils down to you know

laundry’s connecting communities we have

a tremendous opportunity and i would

argue an obligation

to do this work and to take care of the

families that take care of us

awesome well brian this has been awesome

i’m

super super grateful and humbled that

you came on and talked to

us about you know what it is that you do

in at the cla and laundry cares and just

sharing all the wisdom and experience of

your last

you know almost 30 years now and

congrats on 29 years next

month by the way that’s a big thank you

big milestone we’ll have to uh

you know throw some kind of party or

something next year

you know maybe a makeover i didn’t have

all this great stuff

when i started out yeah yeah maybe

you’ll have to get i don’t know do you

get like a

like a mid-life crisis for being you

know

being in there for 30 years let me go

get a harley or something for your third

year

uh i don’t know i’ll just i’ll be

content with uh

getting back on the road and getting out

to see everybody

again here after the after the pandemic

but uh

my pleasure to be here jordan i really

appreciate the invitation and the

opportunity to connect with

with your followers and i just hope

everybody understands that

there is a community in this industry

both from a business perspective and

from a charitable perspective and

i appreciate you giving me the

opportunity to share a little bit about

what’s going on here

yeah and just real quick uh why don’t

you tell people how they can get a hold

of you

or um you know find out more information

about the cla the coin laundry

association

yeah thank you for that yeah just like

most things uh start at the website

uh coinlottery.org

our listing is in is in good stead but

we’re kind of national

uh in scope so coin lottery.org is a

great place to learn about

your membership uh getting engaged to be

part of this community

as well as some of the individual

resources i mentioned laundrycares.org

which is another place where you can

learn about the activities of the

foundation how you can get involved

and last but not least planetlaundry.com

which is our flagship publication we’ve

been uh

just now past our 30th year of

publishing the best

magazine resource in the industry and so

again if you’re just getting

your feet wet you can sign up for a free

subscription print and digital

and get the best information your hands

every month from planet lottery magazine

awesome well and those links and all the

Links from the Show

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