64. What To Do When Your Laundromat is Destroyed 3 Weeks After You Buy It with Shawn Dandridge

Shawn Dandridge, former White House employee and Congressman candidate, shares his laundromat experience with us. His laundromat was destroyed shortly after he purchased it and Shawn shares the difficulties of dealing with that and what it’s taken to claw his way back.

In this episode, Shawn and Jordan talk about:

The difficulty of running a laundry pick-up and delivery without a laundromat
Rundown laundromats
What to look for in a laundromat to buy
Grand opening promotions
Community events in your laundromat
Tips to buy your first laundromat
Resources to help you succeed in your laundromat business

And a lot more!

Watch The Podcast Here

TODAY'S SPONSORS

AtmosphereTV– We’re brought to you today by my friends at AtmosphereTV! Now You may have heard my interview a few months back with Mike Kelly from AtmosphereTV where we talked about what a simple change in content on your TVs can do for your laundromat by getting depressing news stations OFF and something much more fun, entertaining, and family-friendly ON. Since then, Atmosphere has grown to 50+ channels included in their service with everything from Surfing Dogs to Extreme sports, hilarious fails, and jaw-dropping videos from all over the world built specifically for business use. Atmosphere can be used to supplement your cable or you can completely cut your expensive cable bill and use Atmosphere 100% FREE saving thousands a year! Use my code RESOURCE when you check out or click the link or image to have your setup fee waived or contact [email protected] for more information!

Episode Transcript

Read the Transcript Here

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

laundromat resource

podcast this is show 64.

and i’m pumped you’re here today because

today we’re talking with sean

dandridge and this was an incredible

conversation i mean

this guy went from basically i mean

essentially

being the leader of the free world to

owning a laundromat

uh and tells you the story of how he got

there is really really fascinating

he had a lot of really great stuff to

share and uh

his process has been insane and i think

you’re really going to enjoy it

get a lot out of it cannot wait for you

to meet him

and in fact i think it’s going to spawn

a new maybe

short series podcast uh talking about

his experience in politics because i

just found that super fascinating we

might actually

get together and uh talk about his story

and

what that was like not here on this

podcast uh but stay tuned just in case

you’re interested

after you listen to this podcast and i

think you might be

she’s a really really fascinating guy

okay well

uh we’ll get to sean here in a second

but real quick i wanted to let you know

that

um our sponsor here for this episode is

atmosphere tv you’ll hear about that in

a second

but i just want to let you know that

mike kelly from atmosphere tv who’s a

previous podcast guest

he and i are going to be doing a webinar

together

about atmosphere tv what it can do for

your business how it really

uh can improve your business and how he

can do it all with no

upfront cost from you um and it’s

incredible i love love love atmosphere

tv if you’re not using it

and you own a laundromat or multiple

laundromats you should be using it

so come check out this webinar if you’re

interested in hearing a little bit more

about atmosphere tv and not only that

but we’re going to talk about

atmosphere of your laundromat in general

and how to create a good

positive vibe in your laundromat and how

that can translate to more and better

business for you so make sure you check

that out

you can register at uh laundromat

resource dot com

on the top of the home page you can go

to londonmyresource.com events

join us it’s gonna be a really good time

and uh yeah i mean just just be there

especially if you don’t have atmosphere

tv yet come here

what it’s all about and he’s got a

a great offer for you where basically

you can get one for free

so we’ll talk about that at the webinar

but come join us and check it out see

what it’s all about

okay i gotta take one second to stop

and say a huge thank you to stephen

clayton who sent me

a shirt if you’re on youtube you can see

says peace love and the laundromat

resource and the laundromat resource

logo

is in there it’s awesome uh huge shout

out and thank you to stephen clayton for

that

and a big shout out to the anonymous

gifter

who sent me the rage against the washing

machine

t-shirt love it love it love it you’ll

see that one in a future episode i’m

sure

a lot of fun so anyways make sure you

are jumping on those forums throughout

the week there’s a lot of awesome

conversations happening over there all

the time

go introduce yourself in the

introductions forms laundry source dot

com

forums go introduce yourself over there

let people know who you are

where you’re at in your laundromat

journey where you’re located in the

world

and who knows you might make a new best

friend over there i hear that’s

happening

all the time on the introductions forum

and then make sure you go jump in on the

conversations on the other forums as

well the laundromat specific one the

real estate one the financing one the

machine repair forum

we got it all happening over there so go

jump in be a part of

the conversation meet each other and i

say it all the time but i truly believe

it we are all

going to succeed faster and hit higher

heights

when we are working together helping

each other out

all right so that’s on the forums i mean

there’s a lot lot going on

make sure you’re checking us out on

youtube if you haven’t done that yet

check out the blog i’ve been blogging

every single week

and there are new blog posts coming out

every single thursday so make sure you

check

those out those are sponsored by sense

make sure you check out the webinar with

sense and i mean there’s just a lot of

awesome stuff happening right now

so much good stuff in fact that i

when this happens man my brain goes nuts

and i just come up with more and more

ideas

um and so there’s more and more coming

up on the horizon

two final things i wanted to let you

know about very very

big and monumentous in my

career i don’t know uh is number one

this week on the laundromat millionaire

podcast

i finally have made it in my life and i

am on

the laundromat millionaire podcast this

week so make sure you check

that out you can just search laundromat

millionaire uh in any podcast platform

go to the laundromat millionaire youtube

channel i’m sure you can find it there

uh check out londonmillionaire.com it’s

all over if you search along about

millionaire you will find it’s coming

out this

week and also speaking of dave and the

laundromat millionaire men’s

he and i are doing a live q a together

on july 28th which is a wednesday

uh four o’clock pacific time seven

o’clock eastern

this month it’s on my youtube channel so

make sure you go subscribe over there

and jump in on the live q a

there and every other month

we switch offs we do a live q a every

single

month and this month happens to be on my

channel make sure you go to his 2 and

subscribe because we’ll do

next months on his channel so make sure

you’re checking

those two things out my featured podcast

on the ladder met millionaire podcast

super pumped to be on that and our live

q a but with me

and dave the lottery millionaire mint

and so stay tuned for all that

but without further ado let’s skip the

ad read

come to the atmosphere webinar instead

hear what it’s all about come ask your

questions

and maybe just come give it a try try it

out so that’s happening on

thursday that is july

i don’t know what is it the 22nd

something like that 20 21 yeah july 22nd

4 o’clock pacific time 7 o’clock eastern

time

come check that out we’ll skip the out

read just come to the webinar

talk with mike talk with me we’re going

to have a good time and you hear all

about atmosphere tv

and also we’ll talk about atmosphere in

your laundromat

all right without further ado i don’t

think i had anything else let’s jump

into it with sean dandridge because this

is an

awesome interview i know you’re gonna

love it i know i loved it

super cool guy lots to offer let’s do it

sean thank you for coming on the show

how are you doing

i’m doing good my man how are you i am

awesome i’m awesome i’m really excited

you know i

we chatted just a little bit and you

promised some good stories so i’m really

excited i always love a good story

uh really excited to hear about your

experience with laundromats

and to hear how you’re you’re like a

little

like somewhere around a year in is that

right well

actually not even a year i bought my

laundromat

in january 31st of this year so

literally about seven months or so in so

not even a full year yet

all right good well you know what if

there’s anything that i know it’s that

seven months in laundromats you can

accumulate

quite a bit of experience in this that

seems like a lifetime

yeah it can it can seem like a lifetime

you’re right so

but before we get into that story and

all of that i want to hear a little bit

about you can you give us a little bit

of backstory

about you and who you are yeah

absolutely so

like you said my name is sean dandridge

i’m currently in the dallas fort worth

metro area arlington to be exact

was in the army for about ten and a half

years

deployed to iraq a couple of times i got

a bronze star one of those deployments

right worked at the white house for

about five and a half years so i was a

white house aide to

president obama uh my background is i.t

so i did worldwide communications for

the president the vice president

cabinet members so

okay well hold on time out i didn’t know

it was an interesting guy

i just got super nervous i didn’t know

you were such a big deal here

oh man all right well well i don’t know

well can you

before i mean listen you can’t just drop

something like that we got to talk about

that for just a minute can you tell us

about

maybe your experience uh working in the

white house and

thank you for your service by the way

and you know we really appreciate

welcome not a problem

that that does for us and in our country

uh but tell us a little bit about

working in the white house what was that

um it’s a very interesting place it

never slows down

it never stops there’s always something

to do and

always somewhere to be like i said i did

communication so

the team or the organization i was with

is actually called

waka it stands for white house

communications agency so

basically we travel all over the world

in support of the president and the vice

president

and cabinet members i actually worked at

camp david so

when the president would be on air force

one or anywhere away from the white

house we

were responsible for ensuring that he

could connect with world leaders

and the command and control of the

united states wherever he may be

wow okay okay man i mean you’re just

making me more nervous

that’s pretty cool i mean essentially

what you’re telling me

is that our country stops to function if

it’s not for

what you did during those years that’s

what i’m hearing

there’s no communication we’re done for

if it wasn’t for you

if if the president cannot talk we’re in

trouble so

i would say that’s an accurate statement

so yeah so i mean

yeah basically you ran the country

the quasi-type of way yeah i’m just

saying it out right you ran the country

and you’re on the podcast i love it uh

well that is

crazy okay so i mean this

begs the question in my mind then uh how

do you get from the white house to

laundromats how does this happen

so so um i got out of the army in

april of 2016 moved to dallas um

for years my wife always had this uh

this thing with

like laundry it’s like oh man we need to

start this laundry business you know we

can pick up people’s clothes

and wash them and do all this stuff i

was like okay you’re

kind of crazy i don’t want to do that

did she not know that you were

basically the most powerful person in

the world at the time

i don’t think she cared she still

doesn’t care

sounds like my wife i don’t know okay so

of course i didn’t know about the whole

you know the technical terms to pick up

in delivery

and the wash and fold i was just like

okay she wants to go to people’s houses

and pick up their clothes and watch them

that sounds

crazy there’s no money in that so

we actually so after years and years and

years

i finally relented and i was like okay

we’ll try so we did it and we

actually did very well but what we found

out is

we we contracted with a laundry local

laundromat

but what we found out is if you don’t

control the entire supply chain of

actually owning the laundromat and

owning the processes

it’s never going to work so it started

out pretty good but

as we got bigger and grew it very

rapidly

failed because we didn’t control the

critical piece of the laundromat

can can you tell me a little bit about

because i get this question a lot is can

you start

without a laundromat doing exactly what

you guys did can you tell me some of the

struggles you guys had

um doing it that way i

i would say the the easiest thing was

actually finding a laundromat to

do it i mean we have several laundromats

and they were already doing it so it was

just kind of like

hey can you give me a corporate rate

type deal if i bring in x amount of

pounds every week

but the biggest part was finding

reliable workers to actually

pick up the laundry and drive that was

the biggest thing and we were scaling so

quickly that

we just could not find reliable people

and

then my wife started law school and i

had a full-time job so it quickly went

bust just because of logistical things

yeah that makes a lot of sense and i

mean i think that that

those can be difficulties whether you

have a location or not especially right

now when there’s

you know we’re in middle of 2021 and you

know it’s

labor is tough right now kind of all

across the board not just in our

industry but across the board so

yeah but i also think the biggest thing

is obviously we knew

nothing about the laundry industry so we

were kind of

learning on the job and learning with

our own money so that was

that was a very eye-opening experience

as well

yeah so would you would you suggest

people get into the business that way or

would you say hey

you know what you’re way better off

saving your money and buying a

laundromat

and doing it that way like i said i

i think you’re at a significant

disadvantage if you don’t own the

laundromat

so i personally would not recommend

people

go that route to get into the business

because you’re kind of at

someone’s someone’s mercy along the

entire

chain of the process other than

you know having the website and having a

phone number where to pick up laundry

but

yeah other than that you don’t control

anything else

right yeah yeah i know that that is

tough we had a guy mark vlaskamp who’s

actually also in texas

who him and his buddies started that

same way

and there they’ve scaled crazy amounts

and you know last i talked to him they

were looking for a location for the

exact same reasons because it just

didn’t make sense anymore for them to do

it the way they were doing it so

can be difficult for sure okay so

your wife pestered you and then promptly

started law school

and that fizzled at that point did you

guys stop doing the business or did you

continue what happened

um we continued for a while uh i also

have a full-time job i’m

uh i t manager at a publicly traded

company so okay

i really couldn’t do both she couldn’t

do both so it kind of slowly

fizzled out from there as we both got a

little busier but

always in the back of our minds we were

like man that was a good idea

we just need to control more of the

process so

that kind of after i relented and i saw

that okay this can make some money the

laundry business is

okay i just always kind of kept my eye

out for laundromats and

you know signed up for business mailing

lists from different brokers and stuff

and that’s kind of how i got into owning

a laundromat

just so happens one day i got an email

for laundromat

about 45 minutes from me it was a

complete dump

the guy just wanted to get out i went

over there and i was like okay

i’m gonna do this so that’s how i bought

my first launcher man

holy cow okay so you you had just talked

to a bunch of brokers and eventually

somebody brought you a deal that was

close enough and

made sense enough for you to pull the

trigger is that how you feel well

well this broker i got an email from a

broker i

honestly didn’t know the broker never

talked to him don’t even know how he got

my email address but

it was a laundromat it like i said it

was it was run down

it had about eight machines working in

there

and i was like okay i think this is what

i’ve been waiting for

so i’m just gonna do it without even

knowing much about

laundromats in general i just decided

okay this is what i’m gonna try

okay so

all right but i mean here’s what you

just here’s what i just heard you say

is this laundromat was run down it had

barely eight machines working and i said

this is what i’ve been waiting for and

what i’ve been looking for

what was it about this place that was

falling apart that was what you were

looking for

what made you say oh yes this is the one

when i got there when i first pulled up

i immediately turned across the street

and there was

an entire apartment complex i drove down

the street

there was three more apartment complexes

and a gentleman on the outside of the

laundromat

decided or told me he’s like hey you

know none of those

apartments have washer and dryer hookups

so at that point i was like i know i can

make this work whatever’s going on

inside i’m sure i can fix it i can make

that work

if there’s 500 apartment units within

a walking radius and they have no no

washer and dryer hookups

so that was kind of my determining

factor without even

delving much into anything else

yeah good uh okay so

what was the process like buying it was

it easy did you just kind of be like

okay we’ll take it and that was it or

did you

go through a process of evaluating it

at all or did you not bother because it

was so run down

well i did do some due diligence the

guys they were kind of selling it

i guess ass is is what they called it so

they had some numbers i wouldn’t say the

books were very good

because when i actually took ownership

and

and got in there the first week was

significantly lower than the average

week of the numbers they gave me which

which i kind of expected yeah because

i’ve done real estate and other things

um the numbers are never what the owners

say they’re always much more rosier than

what they actually are so

i negotiated on price and discounts for

that because i just

knew just based on how i looked i i knew

you weren’t making the amount of money

that you’re telling me

so so did you negotiate after you had

made your initial offer or

when in the process did you negotiate

that um it was

pretty much at the beginning when i saw

it they told me what they wanted

and i just straight up told the guy i’m

not giving you that i’ll give you

probably 60 of this

because mainly 30 for potential and 30

for the equipment that’s there that’s

actually functioning

right so okay

so you negotiated this deal got it at

deep discount what i mean what did you

did you

replace equipment did you put some new

stuff in use stuff

leave it as is what’d you do so um

the first day i got there they they had

like a

i honestly still to this day don’t know

what they’re trying to do maybe create

like a little grocery store on the side

or something

so it the place was filthy like i’ve

never seen a place more dirty in my

entire life

so the first thing i did was hire a

cleaning company to come in there and

like just

get all of the years of lent and dust

and

all of that stuff yeah just everything

and even just by doing that people are

like whoa

did you do anything different in here it

looks different

i was like no all i did was clean yeah

yeah i haven’t done anything else i

promise you um

after that like i said it was only seven

or eight machines working and

they were they just needed a good

cleaning and but

the interesting thing that i saw was

even though the place was run down it

only had seven or eight machines

people would still come in there and do

laundry and i’m like i would never come

in here and do my laundry

but that just tells me that there’s a

significant need

for a laundromat in this area even

though there’s

a huge one up the street and another one

a couple of miles away this

in this area right here this is the only

laundromat that people can actually walk

to if they don’t have a car

from these apartment buildings right so

that that really caught my attention and

piqued my interest

yeah okay so i mean does it still only

have eight working machines in it or

now we’re closed um i decided i don’t

know if you’re familiar but in texas we

had this major storm in february where

they turned off all the power

and all that stuff so during that time i

had

pipes that burst in all types of things

but

the plumbing was already like crap it

was

one of the workers when i walked in

there they actually told me hey you know

when you came in here and

did an inspection with the plumbers the

guys turned off the water so you

wouldn’t see the leak

so the previous owners but

but when i immediately when you walk in

you see the entire floor is wet behind

the washer so you know there’s a leak

somewhere even though water isn’t

leaking

so everything was rusted out leaking

so the storm was kind of a blessing in

disguise because it kind of solidified

hey

you know in order to make this work i

need to get in here i need to rip all

this stuff out

i need to redo the plumbing i need to

you know make it look nicer build a new

office for

wash and fold service there was really

no office it was kind of like a run down

closet that they had

so the building is i completely gutted

the building

reframed it um put new ac units in there

the place hadn’t had ac for like 15

years the lady told me that worked there

so um got new equipment uh went through

uh laundry

lux electrolux for new equipment so

all new equipment and that’s kind of

where i’m at now just

going through a i wouldn’t say a full

remodel but

a pretty big remodel to get things

up and the way working should be

sounds like it i mean you’re you’re

you’re trying to rival

ross dodds here who came on the podcast

in his

his laundromat burned down after i think

five days of owning it or something like

that wow

but i mean having i mean your pipes

basically burst a month after you bought

it right

three weeks three weeks oh gosh

well if it makes you feel any better

ross now has like a thousand

laundromats and you know he and i are

buying

laundromats together and stuff yeah i’m

a big fan of ross i’m

on the laundromat owner’s message boards

i always love his stories about his

wrecked vehicles so i am definitely a

ross fan and i am looking forward to

meeting him one day

oh yeah he would love it he listens to

every episode so he’ll hear this and i’m

sure he’ll reach out

um that’s good uh that’s if you haven’t

i’ll put the

in case you listen to this and you want

to hear ross’s story which is pretty

crazy it’s probably time to have him

back on because he’s

he’s doing a lot of stuff right now but

um i’ll put the link to his

episode just in case anybody wants to

hear it in the show notes

or if you’re on youtube down below in

the description it’s worth a listen for

sure

um okay so you bought a lot okay

man i had no idea like he bought a

laundromat three weeks later the pipes

burst he had to shut it down and

basically have to do a get

job is that a good summary

yes it’s a great summary so what’s your

what’s your timeline looking like in

terms of

reopening now but before we

get to that question i want to move back

a little bit let’s go back um this kind

of um

talks about your episode with the

distributors i have

so once i bought the laundromat and i

was reaching out to these distributors

my local distributors here uh the sales

guys they were okay

i had one he was um dexter guy

you know they just about every

laundromat in dallas for whatever reason

has dexter’s machine so they

they’ve like cornered the market here

reached out to this guy he was going to

give me a quote

never heard back from the guy and i was

looking to spend

you know hundreds of thousands of

dollars the guy wouldn’t even give me a

quote

i’m like you don’t want to make any

money

so that guy never heard back from our

local dexter distributor in dallas

shouldn’t be too hard to figure out who

he is there’s only one

um then i went over to um

hips my local hips distributor heard

back from him but

the financing guy there was like

it was weird it seemed like he was much

more interested

in how i made my money even though i

have a full-time job

to be quite honest he was talking to me

like i ran like a drug cartel like i was

like pablo escobar or something

i’m like i’m showing you all this proof

that uh this is how i make this

do money know who i am i ruled the world

at one point in time

that didn’t click with him yeah so but

then i reached out to uh

laundry luxe and um texas coin laundry

they were fantastic within the week of

reaching out to them

i had a quote a week and a half later i

had an approval for all the equipment

and it was on order so that was probably

the easiest

process i’ve dealt with with a laundry

distributor in

seven months so it was definitely night

and day

between dealing with the other two yeah

and funny enough when i got the approval

from laundry lux the same day i got an

approval from hips

that’s how that works yeah yeah of

course they didn’t get a call back

i know still well one of the problems

with the distributorship model right now

that i didn’t even touch on in that

episode that you referred to which i’ll

put a link to if you’re

um interested in hearing that one

but is the

the sales people are assigned

territories basically

and they can’t sell outside of their

territory so if you’re stuck in a

location with a bad

rep like you know a rep who won’t get

back to you or somebody who

is obviously just in it for a quick buck

and is not there to help you long haul

um you know then basically you either

gotta suffer with that or you have to go

to a different brand because you can’t

use a different rep and like you said in

dallas there’s one

rep so if that guy doesn’t get back to

you you can’t get that brand of

equipment

right and that’s a huge huge issue not

just for owners because we get stuck

with bad ones

if we’re unfortunate enough to live in

an area where there’s a bad rep but it’s

also

kind of unfortunate for the good reps

out there because there’s there are a

lot of really great reps i’ve had a few

of them on the podcast

who i would consider great you know jd

dixon would be one michael ambrose would

be i mean there’s some great reps out

there

um but they can’t help you if you don’t

live

inside the territory that they’ve been

assigned

um and that’s that’s a pretty big

problem because if you had wanted dexter

you’d have just been out of luck right

that’s such a broken system and

it is not sustainable over the long term

especially in this hyper-inflated

technology space that we currently live

in i don’t see how that is

even sustainable for an additional 10

years personally

i just think that’s a dying model yeah

yeah i think you’re probably right um

okay

so yeah thank you for thank you for

sharing all that that experience because

i get that

question a lot too about how do you you

know how do you go about

finding distributors or choosing one

sometimes it’s just the only one who

will respond to you

um if that’s if that’s the case

uh but okay so all right so going back

to your rebuild

what is your timeline looking like so

um the equipment should be here within

the next couple of weeks and

hopefully i’ll be open by the beginning

of september

okay awesome are you going to be doing

or maybe you haven’t thought about this

yet but

just out of curiosity are you going to

be doing any kind of

grand opening or any kind of promotions

kind of try to win some customers over

when you when you open up

yeah i’ve um kicked around a couple of

things and the thing that i’m kind of

stuck on that’s doing

one dollar washes for two weeks or a

month

i think if someone sees a big banner out

there that says

one dollar washes no matter what machine

you pick that

it’s kind of hard to turn that down yeah

yeah that is attractive especially you

know when you have all those apartments

right there right and our favorite guy

ross i

uh posted this uh a similar question

what should i do for a grand opening he

responded um

so i’m also getting the the laundry lux

app

and he responded that maybe i should do

like a match

whatever you load on the app do a match

so thinking about doing that too i

never thought about that so that’s a

good idea

yeah you know what luke williford who

was show 10 which is another

classic episode if you know if anybody

hasn’t listened to that that’s another

one

i’ll put a link to it um but he does

that

um he does a match for i think he does

it for the first

month i want to say um where however

much people load onto there they’ll

they’ll match it and it’s a huge success

for him i mean they’re pushing 40

laundromats now so

you know he and his brother lee know

their stuff and they know what they’re

doing and

you know not a bad not a bad

team right there to model after so um

yeah so that’s that’s a good good one so

but i mean

i think the dollar wash is equally um

[Music]

attractive you know for people um

you just yeah that in i’m just thinking

mainly you know

you’re gonna no matter if someone shows

up or not you’re still gonna have the

same fixed cost so

get them in the door and hey look what

we got here it’s not the same laundromat

that you’re used to for the past 20

years look it’s it’s actually clean and

nice in here now

yeah that’s kind of what i’m going for

and there’s no

there’s no machine you know lottery

where you put your money in and you’re

not sure if it’s going to work or not

you know the lights aren’t occurring i

forgot to tell you that they had the

first day i walked

in a cat follows me in and

the attendant’s like hey we have a

mascot

there it is like what if you like hear

customers like oh my god there’s a cat

in here she’s like oh

this is the mascot i’m like you can’t do

that anymore

there’s no more mascot that ends today

that’s pretty funny so yeah when i was a

just related slideshow when i was

retooling my first store

um i had come in and you know in the

night time after they had

ended for the day and i was cleaning up

or whatever

and i kept hearing a sound

and a cat a little kitten had kind of

worked its way

into one of the bulkheads somehow and

was mowing

in there so we also had a little mascot

for a night that’s funny what you can

find in life

yeah it’s very interesting yeah i’m

curious

i mean i think we we need to have maybe

we should start a thread on that

facebook group the laundromat owners

facebook group which i’ll link to by the

way that group because it’s a good one

if you haven’t um joined it yet you

should

tell ross i said to let you in and he’ll

let you in

but we should start a thread on the

craziest animal

that people have found in their life i

would be very

curious to see what some people have

come across

oh yeah me too i you know you gotta know

that like some of these rural places

probably have like goats or i don’t know

cats yeah yeah exactly

some kangaroo down under i don’t know

man like there’s got to be some stories

out there so

maybe we’ll start that one uh okay good

let’s go back you you bought your

laundromat

three weeks later you guys had a big

storm blew everything out you basically

decided

hey i gotta retool this whole thing so

what’s that process been like

so far for you in terms of you know

redoing all the plumbing how did you

just out of curiosity how did you find

somebody to come do

plumbing so i

so like i said when i first bought it i

had all these leaks so i

had a plumber that i’ve been working

with he was fixing leaks and stuff for

and then i just copper was totally

corroded

most of the outlets didn’t work

it was just they were like hey even

before the storm they’re like hey

you need to replace all of this because

this

this is not gonna work you’re just gonna

continuously have leaks and

all this stuff so i was already thinking

about it before the storm but the storm

just kind of

you know sped up my process because it

broke everything

so so i just facebook groups people i

knew i

had all these plumbers come out and of

course none of them had ever dealt with

a laundromat so they’re kind of like

uh i’m like can you just copy what’s

here

just make it new

so kind of started out that way and

but i end up going with a guy that

actually did some work for me in my

house he owns a construction company

because the storm like flooded the first

floor of my house

so the guy came in and did all the towel

in my house and

i was like okay if you could do this i

got another project for you

come meet me over here one day so

had him come out there he looked around

he’s like okay i can do this he

he’s also in real estate investing so

he’s familiar with like you know fix and

flips

type of thing so so he’s the guy that i

contracted to do that and

they got the plumbing done um

and so far so good it’s just uh they

finished the framing yesterday so

it’s slowly coming back together it’s

looking like a laundromat again

instead of uh empty space with

absolutely nothing in it and busted

pipes

yeah yeah well it’s funny because

you know it takes a long time for all

that work and then it kind of just comes

together

fast once all the infrastructure is back

in place and

um yeah i mean it’s similar to like a

flip where

right you know you you’re doing all

these things that no one will ever see

and that’s what takes a lot of time and

then you know once you’re kind of

putting the finishing touches on that

stuff can go fast

and i know there’s been a backlog of the

machines too

you know they’ve they’re you know you’ve

had to order them and they’ve taken

eight weeks 12 weeks 16 weeks you know

to get in right now so

that holds things up too yeah um

i was told that six to eight weeks i

think it’s probably been about a month

so we’re coming up on it so hopefully

i’m done by the time the machines get

here

that that’s been my problem i don’t want

to i don’t want the machines to be

waiting on me i want to wait on the

machine so i’m kind of in a different

situation than

most people when they’re waiting on the

machines i’m like

please don’t get here on time i won’t be

finished

so but i think we’re making good

progress and we

we should be good by

our first september opening timeline

yeah awesome okay well

so i want to ask some

questions about the business i know you

haven’t really even been open that much

but i’m just kind of curious about that

but

we have a section called down to

business

[Applause]

over and out yep and that’s where we

talk about

your business but real quick i’m just

curious

when you when you bought this laundromat

how much time were you and or your wife

spending there for those first few weeks

so the first three weeks i was there

just about every single day okay and

this is probably from we opened at seven

and i would probably get there about 10

and stay the close which is

9 30 a 10 every single day so

and mainly this is for a few reasons i

had um

two attendants there there’s a lady she

was there for the vast majority of the

day and

she was kind of left her own devices

with previous owners so

i think in her head she just was like

this is my laundromat i’m gonna

do whatever i want to so i kind of had

to be there to break that

cycle like this is what we’re gonna do

this is

my processes this is how i want it to

run

right and another thing is we have this

change machine it jammed every single

day

and i don’t have to reset it but the

previous owners would

like leave the key with the lady that

was there i didn’t quite feel

comfortable with that

right so i would just probably i would

just stay there just to

you know hey the change machine’s broken

and i can never find anybody to come out

and fix the change machine either

and other equipment would break and

they would call me in a panic oh my god

this machine’s broken like

i don’t fix machines i don’t know what

to do put an out-of-order sign on

it so so just things like that just

you know to kind of mitigate the

learning curve

i needed to be there just to okay this

breaks why is it breaking

what is this doing why is this like this

that was mainly the reasons i was there

so much

just because i didn’t i didn’t know

anything so i had to be there just to

learn

yeah so i mean were you working from

there or did you take vacation or

because you said you had a full-time job

right no i was doing both so i was

working from there and

handling the other stuff on the side

i like that i like what wait okay i mean

i gotta ask the question wasn’t this

whole thing your wife’s idea why wasn’t

she there

she was pregnant oh

a cop out a cop out come on you know

convenient excuse yeah it’s convenient

well was your baby born yet

my uh son was born february 28th

so three weeks

for four weeks um after we bought it and

a week after the storm that ruined

everything

well congrats on your son thank you uh

kind of unfortunate timing with

everything else that went

yeah he didn’t pick a great time to come

but yeah made it work

you always find a way to make it work

yeah it’s funny how that works huh yeah

that is funny

yeah well congrats and uh now that that

baby

is you know four or five months old i

hope you’re making your wife slave away

the laundromat now well when we reopen

she’s gonna be my uh

general manager she says so we’ll see

how that works she says she’s gonna be

there

and hang out during the day while i go

back to work

so yeah we’ll see how that works and we

might have to do a follow-up episode on

that one

yeah well i would like to hear if she

does how you made that work because my

wife told me similar things and i can’t

remember the last time she set foot in

one of our laundromats so

good luck with that if it works i will

bring her on and

tell and make her tell her story that’s

right

yes that’s good we’ll give her kudos

that’s funny uh okay so uh

so you’ve been i mean you were working

there a lot working from there

and being at the laundromat you know for

pretty much all day every day for a few

weeks there until everything went awry

um which you know i i mean i

don’t think that’s abnormal i think a

lot of people when they buy their first

laundromat they want to be there

and to help understand what it’s all

about

and how everything works and

you know to see you know their employees

and how they’re functioning all that

stuff so

i think it’s pretty typical um long term

are you planning on

being there a lot what’s your what’s

your game plan with it long term

well one of the main drivers of doing

this whole retool remodel is

so i wouldn’t have to be there all the

time i’m planning to automate a lot of

stuff

like with the app and new coin machines

and things like that new machine so

i don’t have to be there every waking

moment that i’m not at work

so that’s you know that’s not why you

do investing so you can have another

full-time job so

right so that’s that’s kind of where i’m

headed i just

like i said after the storm i figured

okay if i’m

gonna get my time back and make some

money

this is what i have to do to accomplish

that

so that’s what i’m kind of working

towards with this remodel and new

machines and all that stuff so hopefully

it works out and i can only be there a

few hours a week and my wife will be

there

a few days a week so hopefully that

works out for us

yeah well i’m sure i mean i’m sure it

will that is one of the draws of this

business

uh just out of curiosity did your wife

ever get her law degree

no so we she got pregnant again so i

have a

so i have a two-year-old daughter and

now i have a four-month-old son so

she’s been pregnant for like the past

two years so yeah

finished the first year and then she

started having kids

so well congrats on that

and uh she’s she’s a trooper then

she is what’s up with me so

something special about her yeah well

she’s smart too because you basically

ruled the world for a while so

she locked down a winner um okay

i’ll have to tell her that yeah you know

what you get her on here

and i will i will just to your horn for

you

to her i love it let her know who she’s

dealing with over here

uh yeah i got your back don’t worry

okay did you i can’t remember if we

talked about this

on the podcast or or before but can you

tell us where you’re located

i’m in the dallas fort worth area um my

laundromat is located in mesquite texas

which is about

15 or 20 minutes from downtown dallas

sounds very barbecuey mesquite texas

yeah

i like that yep okay so you’re there and

you have uh one laundromat do you have

any

real estate still no i i don’t have any

real estate i’ve i had

about four or five rental properties

that i

sold once i moved to texas and i was

kind of out of state

so i couldn’t really manage them the way

i wanted to

so i i started in real estate i did fix

and flips buy and hold so

kind of did that and then i got into

this crazy

laundry industry

yes that’s what i like to hear so there

are a lot of similarities between the

two industries funny enough

so i can see how people go from one or

the other because there’s a

lot of things that are very much alike

yeah i

couldn’t agree with you more that’s one

of the things that really draws me to

this business

and i think it’s uh

i mean i think there’s a lot of things

you know that are similar between them

but i also think they complement each

other pretty well

um so having both is is awesome if you

can do it

um which you can if you want to you can

do anything

one thing i do want to touch on before i

move forward is

um i friends and family asked me like

you know

how can i get into the laundromat

industry i

i don’t know if that’s a if we’re going

to talk about that but

one thing i didn’t know before i bought

a laundromat is

wow um they are very capital intensive

you have to have a lot of

upfront money and i think if i would

have known the amount of money that it

would have

cost me upfront i would have i would

have never done it because

i would have been like this is insane

like there’s no way i could do this so

luckily i did not know and i moved

forward anyways but

i i would say if i did know i probably

would have passed

what uh what i mean i think that’s a

really great point can you kind of

elaborate on that what are some of the

capital

expenses that you’ve encountered that

maybe you didn’t anticipate

can you think of any off top of your

head oh the first one is plumbing

to redo the plumbing it’s like 30 grand

i was like

for pipes am i missing something here

but i went and got four or five quotes

and

everybody was around the same price i’m

okay this is the price yeah and

if somebody would have told me it was 10

grand for a washing machine

i’m like a washing machine you’re out of

your mind

but it’s just things like that it’s just

very

eye-opening and you you wouldn’t know

that i mean i’ve visited laundromats

before i actually

ever thought about only one and i never

in a million years thought man that’s a

5 000 washer over there never crossed my

mind so it’s just things like that

yeah yeah well we’ll see how long they

stay

that much but yeah you can spend well

over ten thousand dollars

uh on a washing machine easier these

days

so i mean you’re right it is crazy and

you know when i

when i’m helping people buy a laundromat

whether i’m consulting with them

or if i’m representing them as a broker

you know i always

i always tell my clients hey let’s do

let’s pay a little bit of money and do a

plumbing

inspection i know you did that too but

just to know

what you’re getting into because

plumbing is expensive and if there’s

problems

you want to know about them beforehand

if at all possible

you know if a freak storm rolls in and

blows out all your plumbing then i guess

you’re out of luck but

yeah it’s uh yeah it’s

it is crazy it is crazy you’re right it

is capital intensive but

you say luckily

so does that mean you’re not regretting

it yet or

too soon to tell or what where are you

no even the three weeks that i was open

and

like i said only had like five working

washers and

the amount of revenue i was making off

of those five washers i was like okay

i i got something here it’s not where i

want to be

but i just need to

fix it so i never regretted it but

it was just a lot of i guess sticker

shock and

eye-opening revelations that i never

would have thought of

yeah no and i think that’s a really

great point i’m really glad you brought

that up because i do

think that it’s shocking you know and

there’s

there’s a you know i mean

the whole free laundromat thing is

really popular and

you know for the record you can you know

take over a location

for free but there is nothing that’s

free

out there right yeah i don’t subscribe

to that i see

people that say oh i got this for free

no you didn’t

yeah you i guarantee you spent some

money somewhere

and i would be willing to bet every

dollar i will ever make that you spent

some money somewhere there’s

no such thing as free especially in this

business

yeah and even if you didn’t spend any

money you will be spending money because

because like you said i mean the

machines are not cheap and you know

having work done on the place

you know is is not cheap you know the

plumbing’s expensive the electrical is

expensive you need commercial

electrician

you know the you know your boiler or

tankless water heater is going to be

expensive your card system

is expensi i mean it can go on and on

and on so

there’s a lot of expense so i’m really

glad that you brought that up and you

know just

for anybody out there who’s thinking

about getting in maybe you don’t have a

ton of capital

know that there are ways to do it um but

a lot of times it means that you’re

gonna have to put in a lot more sweat

equity

if uh if you don’t have the money to put

into it and

sometimes it’s not going to work um

and i’ve seen that happen unfortunately

quite a few times too

but yeah actually sorry once i’m

actually done with the remodel i would

love to come back and

come with raw numbers of what i actually

spent

break down everything line by line

because

one thing i’ve also found out about this

people are like very secretive in this

business for whatever reason it’s like

oh don’t steal my idea or don’t do this

it’s like

it’s like man i work i had a top secret

clearance and nobody was this secretive

what do you guys hide but i would love

to just

break down like every expense everything

that i have because

i personally have nothing to uh this

if it’s gonna help somebody i will tell

you because i mean

what i’m making and what i’m spending

what’s that gonna matter to you

right but other than helping you yeah

well i mean that’s the mindset that

this industry needs desperately right

now i mean it’s a big part of why i

started the podcast

because there’s not a lot of people out

there who are willing to share

that stuff and you know i was like i

know there’s got to be some so let’s get

them

get them here and start to shift that

culture of secrecy a little bit and

there’s

it’s it’s deeply ingrained in our

industry there’s

you know uh price you know secrecy

throughout our industry and all kinds of

different

you know arenas of our industry and

that’s perpetuated

you know by manufacturers that’s

perpetuated by the coin laundry

association

um and in others and it’s it doesn’t it

doesn’t help own it doesn’t do anything

good for owners

right so um but yeah i mean i let’s

definitely do that and we’ll

we’ll run through you know what the what

the real costs are

because i think that that would be

really helpful for people to know

before they get through the business

without enough money

to get them over a hump if their pipes

explode

yep yeah awesome well let’s talk about

those five

machines that you had working can you

if you can remember this far back can

you remember

like what sizes they were and about how

much

the vend cost was how much customers

paid to do their laundry there

absolutely so i keep a little so on my

phone i had this little

i started a little notes with laundromat

notes and i have all of that information

right here in front of me

awesome because i just organized keep

this type of stuff

yeah you are not a natural laundromat

owner here you don’t keep those kinds of

things

so when i first got there i had

16 um double stacked dexters

they were they’re the older model the

the kind of

i guess almond color so um

dryers that we’re talking about dryers

yes sorry

so um most of those actually worked

there was two that were like

in the corner burned out i guess there

was like a fire three years ago and

okay just kind of put some plastic over

two of them and

left them i’m like uh when did that

happen

they’re like oh about four years ago

okay well there you go

so those were 25 cents

um so i had a dexter t300

double loaders so there was actually

nine there

five were broken and the vin price on

those were two dollars for everything

okay um had a dexter

ford dexter 400s thoroughbred 400s

four of those three were broken uh

275 ben price

dexter t600s two of those

325 dexter

900’s uh the mega loaders two of those

450. okay that’s the vin price

so as you can see most of the machines

were broken right

yeah interesting yeah and

probably underpriced because so many i

was broken i was getting to that

so i go down i was like man this

this seems kind of cheap so i go down i

have a laundromat

a huge laundromat like probably a mile

down the street from me and i

go in there i’m like man all of my

machines are

underpriced by like a dollar dollar

fifty

and then i go to another launcher man i

have another one maybe two miles from me

same thing i’m like man they’re they’re

giving away washes over here

yeah so i increased the price by like

50 cents a machine and

the revenue probably doubled the next

week

just by doing that yeah and i also found

out that

my first day there hey you know there’s

no hot water here

i’m like what you’re charging people for

hot water but you don’t have any

you’re like yeah the hot the attendant

was like yeah the hot water

heater has been broken for i don’t know

a year or two

so the previous owner was charging

people for hot water

but actually no hot water so

obviously i fixed that yeah

i mean classic i mean kind of classic

mismanagement

stuff you know being underpriced which

is difficult man i think that’s a

difficult issue for a lot of owners and

raising prices but it’s also

when you’re buying a new laundromat i

would say it’s probably the number one

way to add value to your laundromat

immediately

is you know raise your prices up to you

know where they should be

if they’re not there um like you said

you doubled

almost your revenue just by raising it

by 50 cents a machine

so right and i have the actual numbers

and

what i want to illustrate by giving

these is

this is what the first week that i

didn’t really do anything

to the second week what was all i did

was

mop and clean so the

first week it was for washers 440

and dryers 220 okay

two weeks later 725 for washers

260 for dryers and i added some vending

machines

135 so that’s like two and a half times

or almost double from the first

and the third week and all i did was mop

and clean

yeah yeah well i it makes

i mean it sounds so simple right but it

makes so much

sense that people number one are going

to be willing to pay a little bit more

for laundry you know i’m sure they were

cheap because

they knew that their laundromat was not

as desirable so they’re saying well

you know we’ll just be cheaper than

everybody else so we’ll get some

customers that way

try to get more volume that way um but

you know keeping doing the you know

attending to the basics of laundromat

ownership right keeping things clean

keeping things working keeping hot water

hot i guess

is i guess you gotta say that happy hot

water period

yeah right uh you know those kinds of

things

are simple those are the basics

but really they can take you quite a

long ways especially if you’re buying

you know a quote-unquote zombie mat um

you know just by cleaning up and you

know adjusting pricing a little bit

accordingly and and taking care of

customers right right yeah that’s

exactly the point i’m trying to make

here you don’t have to be a genius to

figure

some of this stuff out you just what

would i what would i use

is is always the phrase that i kind of

tell myself would i go in here and use x

or would i do this if the answer is no

you probably have

100 other people the answer is probably

no to

so that’s kind of how i guide myself in

this journey

yeah i i yeah i mean i think that that’s

a great

way to think about it too you know is

think about your customers as people

right like do they

you know do they want to come to a dirty

place to try to clean their clothes

and do they leave feeling clean or do

they leave feeling dirty

right they’re just regular people who

want to

clean their clothes and leave feeling

clean right yeah of course

another way i put it is would you send

your wife or your mom here

or would you have them do this you know

if if you get an answer that’s no

you should probably do some type of

evaluation or

fix that yeah so

yeah um okay so i mean did you

did you keep track of like turns per day

at all

uh no not really turns per day because

like i said only had seven machines

there so

right i don’t think it was really worth

the effort

yeah yeah well i’m just curious because

it would have been interesting to hear

how many times those machines were being

used per day

week one versus how many times per day

those machines were being used week

three right and

if you were able to actually gain some

new customers

just by mopping up you know that would

have been interesting to know

um but okay and you said you’re

it was attended right right so i had a

lady she was there probably for 12 hours

a day and another guy he came in that

night

basically to three hours at night to

close down the place and mop mopping

clean i was

told but i don’t think that was getting

done

right so but i

funny enough i i i just take from my

time in the army and my time at my job

if people have proper leadership they

will do what they need to do

like this guy at night i never had an

issue with him he always swept

mopped it but i guess if you know you

have an attentive owner

you’re gonna do what you’re supposed to

do so yes

quite honestly i’ve never had a problem

out of either one of them but

i always say people are only going to

get away with what you let them get away

with so that’s

kind of the mindset yeah i like that

um yeah and i think that leadership part

of it

too is uh i mean i think it’s a

difficult one for a lot of laundromat

owners too and you know we come from all

kinds of backgrounds i mean you ran the

world

i was in ministry i mean all kinds of

different backgrounds right but

uh you know i think by and large a lot

of small business owners in general

we don’t have a lot of leadership

experience necessarily and so

um you know but again kind of the basics

of leadership is

you know let people know what you expect

and

you know keep them accountable for what

you expect and

that’s kind of when you boil it down the

essence of

how to how to lead your attendance right

and i think caring goes a lot into that

i mean if people see you care

of course they’re gonna care a little

bit more they’re like okay this guy he’s

just not

here to collect money every week he

actually cares about what’s going on in

this place so

obviously that kind of ups the annie

with them a little bit as well because

hey i gotta step my game up or

he’s probably gonna get rid of me yeah

yeah and that carrying is contagious too

right and

it’s really easy to get for an employee

to get complacent with any business

you know if the if the owner is

basically outsourcing

responsibilities to the employees

ownership responsibilities or management

responsibilities to the employees

you know then it’s really easy for them

to get complacent because they’re not

going to care about

your business as much as you should care

about your business

because not theirs they don’t get paid

anymore any less to do a better

or worse job right i have a funny story

about

you know complacency so when i was first

looking at this laundromat and

i went up there a couple of times you

know just to look around and

do some laundry as a prospective

customer and

they attended she kept going in this

back room

like what the hell’s in this back room

and she would like disappear for like

20 minutes at a time i’m like what’s

going on back there

eventually she finally went outside and

she left the door open in this back room

and

i kind of snuck back there and looked

looked around and

i eventually figured out it’s like the

mechanical room so the

you know the heating and water shutoffs

and stuff but she was back there smoking

like right on top of the hot water

heater like ashtray on top of the hot

water heater and she was just smoking

cigarettes in the back

i’m like uh you don’t care about your

life do you yeah yeah

but then i found out the hot water

heater wasn’t working so

right yeah it hasn’t been working for a

year

well hopefully there’s no like gas leak

or something because there’s no pilot

light

well she definitely would have died

already

like a cigar bar in that place back

there oh geez

that’s so funny so i just say that to

say

this is what happens when you just leave

people to their own devices and

yeah you think they’re going to do the

right thing even though most people are

good

natured people they’re going to get

comfortable with what they’re doing and

do things their way which most likely

probably doesn’t align with

your philosophy yeah yeah

no i i think that’s exactly exactly

right

and i think you know people tend to have

a tendency towards complacency when

they’re not inspired by anything

and you know to be honest like your

typical laundromat is not a super

inspiring place

in and of itself to work but it can be

right if if you’re serving more and more

customers if you know if you’re part of

a team that’s

growing something you’re getting more

and more customers or you build deep

relationships

and attendant with customers or you’re

working with an owner who’s

you know who’s demonstrating that they

care by not just taking care of you as

an employee but by reinvesting

into the laundromat you know or

you’re starting new services that can be

exciting or there’s a

a management role that’s going to

develop

as a result that they have an

opportunity to apply for something like

that

it can be inspiring but

you know if things are just kind of

coasting along then

yeah it’s not that inspiring and your

attendance

will i mean just because they’re human

right right

they’ll tend to get complacent exactly

yeah okay uh last question

in the down to business section that i

have for you

is do you well actually i have two more

i just lied sorry

uh are you planning on doing pick up and

delivery again

i am but i think it’ll come probably

after a few months

once we get back open and i want to

establish like

processes first for even the just the

watch and fold

inside and then i think it’ll be a much

better transition of

doing pickup and delivery so i do plan

on doing it

again okay uh

i thought of another question while you

were talking sorry

i mean i was listening to you but i was

also thinking

uh did are you keeping your same

employees

for now yes to

to be quite honest i’m i’m kind of torn

on the

lady that was there i mean she’s she’s a

nice lady but

i think as i get more into this

and more changes come i i think she’s

gonna have a hard time adjusting

and i’ve already seen that so i don’t

i personally don’t think i’ll even have

like get rid of her i think she’ll

probably leave on her own because it’s

just

it’s too much i can tell at times it’s

like whoa

this guy’s like you know changing my

life here right

so so i that’s what i see but the guy

i have at 90s he’s awesome he seems like

he’s motivated you know

was looking for that breath of fresh air

to come in and you know shake things up

i kind of see both sides of the spectrum

from both of my employees here

yeah and i think also when i bring in

you know

new employees because i think we’re

going to have the business there i think

that’s also going to create some type of

you know thing with her where she’s

probably just going to

transition yourself out yeah

have you kept them employed while you’re

shut down or how does that work do they

go on yeah i’ve

i’ve continued to pay them their weekly

salary every week since i’ve been shut

down

are you having them do anything or

they’re just sometimes um

i’ll have them go up there if they need

to if a contractor needs to get in or

something like that but just little

stuff or when i was shut down if i

needed

you know go up there and make sure the

place isn’t flooded or something but

no major stuff that yeah during the week

but

i just couldn’t you know lay someone off

during the pandemic

and with everything else going on i mean

it’s it’s little it’s money but it’s not

enough money where i’m gonna miss it

i guess is what i’m saying so i’d rather

give it to them and

you know try to build some type of

loyalty as well

and and keep you with some money in your

pocket and not just

out here with all this uncertainty we

have going on now

so yeah i mean i think that that mindset

tells me enough about you to know you’re

you know you’re on your way to ruin the

world again uh

just from a different angle this time so

got it gotta rule the world twice

just from a different industry you’re

like i’ve already ruled the world once

so how can i make it a little more

challenging i’m gonna

i’m gonna start in the laundromat

industry and somehow

weasel my way into rule in the world

again so i have the uncanny ability to

find

anything that’s remotely challenging

that’s like why are you doing this i

i have that it’s just a gift that i have

i don’t know where it came from but

i have it yeah but you know what it is a

gift and i want you to hold on to that

and keep

keep following that because that that

does make life exciting

for sure oh it does yeah

uh what okay this is my actual last

question for the down to business

section is

do you do you have any future plans yet

i mean i know you’re

really early in and you’ve been shut

down and you’re focused on getting this

laundromat open i know you’re thinking

about adding you know fluff and fold and

pick up and delivery your location

are you planning on just scaling up that

way do you want to get more

locations have you thought about any of

that yet

oh yeah i definitely want to get another

location

uh probably within the next i’d say 12

to 18 months so

even the first week i bought it i was

like okay i

the laundry industry is i like it i like

it a lot

and i’ve always said yes i want another

location

i don’t know if i’ll have a hundred like

ross but i’m definitely thinking five to

ten is where i want to be

i don’t know if i’ll go above that but

that’s kind of what i have in my mind

yeah well ross is still i think he’s on

the upper end he’s got like

nine i think but he’s pretty

aggressively buying more so

yep he’ll be at that hundred in no time

luke williford watch your back

uh all right we have another section

called secret sauce listen up it’s the

secret sauce

and secret sauce is this do you

have any tips for i mean in your vast

vast three weeks of experience and

change

with the shutdown laundromat uh do you

have any

any tips for current laundromat owners i

mean

listen not too many of us can say that

you came in and doubled business so

maybe you got some real good tips for us

but any tips for laundromat owners that

can help them improve their business um

i would say

just don’t start something and don’t be

a part of the community

you’re in this community you want people

to come to your business and

spend money there you know be involved

in the community

you know do barbecues or

have a customer appreciation days or

something just don’t

just don’t be the typical owner and

investor just hey i’m coming to collect

my money and i’m

going back to the suburbs or whatever

you know stay in there get to know

people that’s one of the things that i

and all the time i did spend there over

the past the three weeks i was open is

i got to know a lot of the customers a

lot of the regulars and

and it was just enjoyable just to know

people and know their story and

i think that kept people coming back

because it’s like oh this guy you know

he’s he’s pretty cool he’s pretty

interesting you know i like him

so i’m gonna come over there and hey let

me see sean today and

hey what’s going on how’s your wife or

that was work the other night so

just things like that just knowing

people and

being relatable i guess is what i would

say

just just don’t come in and go hide in

your office get to know people

yeah i like that advice and i think that

you know when people know you and they

see around and especially

if you’re the kind of owner that cares

and that is

you know investing in that community by

trying to

improve the business continually i

always say that’s that’s

the differentiator between a laundromat

that’s going to be thriving

in five to ten years and a laundromat

that’s going to be

the new zombie mat in five to ten years

is if the owner

is continually reinvesting in that

business they’re gonna be thriving in

five to ten years and it doesn’t

always have to be in big ways it could

be big ways or small ways

um but reinvesting in that business and

showing the community that you care but

also just being

present and you know getting to know

people have a conversation with people

ask them what they like what they don’t

like about the laundromat

you know talk to them about things that

are going on in the neighborhood that

kind of stuff

people really respond to that and and

connect with that and that builds a lot

of loyalty

more than most loyalty programs do

actually right

those relationships you know it kind of

just boils down to good customer service

and

i you made me think of a story where i

was

in there one day and a lady she used

like an entire bottle of soap so she

still had soap on her clothes and

early attended were kind of you know

getting into a tiff and i was just

just kind of interjecting i was like

just give her the money let her redo her

clothes and the attendant kind of looked

at me like what are you doing you’re

giving away money you’re going to be

giving away a lot of money if you keep

doing that i’m like

two dollars does that really going to

change my life but

that’s gonna make her keep coming back

because it’s like oh this guy gave me

two dollars

to redo my laundry so

just building that loyalty and rapport

with customers is

is what you need to do yep yep yep and

and

you know taking that opportunity to do i

mean

it’s treating people like they’re human

right and just right exactly

basic human kindness and there are

people who will

try to take advantage of that but you’ll

find out who those people

are yeah i mean in the first week you

know you get your usual suspects or they

just come in here they’re looking for a

handout but

they they always present themselves very

early in the relationship

so they’re they’re easy to figure out

yep yep

yep um awesome awesome secret sauce

we have another section called pro tips

pro

tips and pro tips is for maybe the

people who are trying to buy their first

laundromat uh do you have any tips for

someone

before they buy their first laundromat

that you feel like they should know

about

yeah if i would say find someone that

has a laundromat already

that’s gonna be that is the best pro tip

i can give you because

what you think you know what you think

you’ve read in these

guru posts and forms it is not gonna

scratch the surface of what you’re gonna

find when you actually walk through the

door and start

dealing with the laundromat so i wish i

would have

had a mentor of someone even a

consultant someone that i can just say

hey i’m gonna take you to this location

and

you own 10 laundromats or 2 or whatever

and tell me what you see and what i need

to look out for and

aid me in my negotiation process of this

place

even if you literally have to pay

someone to do that that will be the best

money that you will ever spend i

guarantee you

yeah i mean i’ve shared my story on here

before and i

if i could go back and pay somebody ten

thousand dollars to tell me not to buy

the first laundromat when i bought it

i would do it because i literally lost

tens of thousands of dollars

at that first location and i mean i

think

not that you should go out and drop 10

grand on a consultant but

but the point is is you know don’t

don’t make an investment that’s going to

be a

pretty big investment even for a small

laundromat

you know don’t don’t invest that money

on your own it reminds me of uh the

richest man in babylon which is one of

my favorite books

um which is a book on finance basically

and a guy’s teaching another guy how to

build wealth and

he first teaches him that he needs to

you know set aside some of his money to

invest it

and he asks him after a year where he

invested it and he had lent it out to

i think a brick maker to go travel to a

different country and buy some

jewels right and he’s like you’re a fool

your money’s gone right because you

you know you didn’t talk to the people

who know about the thing you’re trying

to do right you’re not partnering with

the right people

he’s a brick maker he doesn’t know about

jewels and he’s going to get ripped off

and he does get ripped off and

there’s a couple other similar stories

like that in that book

but it the point being is

when you are making an investment

you know do it with people who know what

they’re doing right

especially in this industry where

there’s you know

secrecy and pitfalls everywhere you look

uh you gotta have somebody who can help

you navigate that so

awesome pro tip there yeah i think i

would have taken my own advice if

quite honestly i paid under a hundred

grand for my laundromat

and i think but i see laundromats

regularly going for

150 250 550. so

if i’m gonna spend that type of money i

think i would have been

much more engaged on probably everything

there is to know about laundromats and i

would have taken my own advice but

quite honestly i was like okay i can i

know i can get my money back

out of this thing so i can take this

risk without knowing

as much information as i needed to know

yeah and i mean there’s actually a pro

tip in that

also where you know i i can’t tell you

how many coaching clients i’ve talked to

who

you know been like i’ve been thinking

about buying a laundromat for years and

you know or 10 years even i mean i think

i want to say the longest somebody had

told me was you know multiple decades

that they’ve been thinking about buying

a laundromat but never did it right and

you know what i like about what you just

said is that

you learned enough of what you

thought you needed to learn to be able

to make a decision and once you made the

decision

you just pulled the trigger right and so

there is

a balance in there between how

you know learning and research and

you know taking action and the point of

talking to somebody who knows about the

industry

is just shortcut the learning so you

don’t have to go through all the the

learning process on your own

shortcut the learning so that you can

get to the action

and that is the action is where

the the money’s made right right not in

the learning

yep love that um okay we have another

section

called recommended resources

and just out of curiosity do you have

any resources that you’d recommend to

people to either

you know help their businesses grow or

to help themselves grow

personally my biggest resource

has been the laundromat owners facebook

group

i have learned more from that group than

i once again have learned

watching youtube videos reading guru

post and

things like that these people are real

owners who are

in the business day to day and run into

the same problems you will eventually

run into

on a daily basis so i i cannot recommend

that group enough it’s

just things about pricing strategies and

equipment makes and models and what

works here and

just things like you would never think

of that people post questions about

it’s just it’s been very eye-opening to

me to just

hear what other people have to say

especially in different parts of the

country what

or even the world there’s people there

from australia and

india with laundromats it’s just it’s

just a

fantastic resource just to just to pick

other people’s brains without

actually directly picking their brain

yeah i

i mean i think that’s a great

recommendation i’ll link to that for

anybody who wants to join in there

and again just you know let ross know

that i sent you and

you know you’ll probably get showered

with gifts

and praise and and all of that um not

really

but uh seriously just phrase this

wrecked band

[Laughter]

no but that’s a it’s an awesome group

and uh it’s

it’s super super valuable uh can i put

you on the spot

with the resources real quick uh just

because

and if you don’t have anything that’s

totally fine but we talked about

leadership

earlier and i’m wondering if you have

any you know i don’t know

books or resources i don’t know youtube

channel or whatever

uh on the leadership topic that might be

helpful for people who want to learn a

little more about leadership

do you have a favorite i don’t have a

favorite but

being a military guy read a lot of books

on you know

generals and military strategies and old

wars and things like that and i think

just

from that you could how those guys

survived with

essentially nothing as far as resources

like i watched um documentary on grant

it was a dvd and that dude is amazing

like and the funny part is he was

actually a drunk his entire time but

he left the country in a war like so it

doesn’t matter what

i say that to say it doesn’t matter what

you have going on

personally if you’re a good leader

it will show no matter what else is

going on in your life

yeah i read a i wrote a book it was a

super long book

i can’t remember how long it was super

long but uh on grant and

i mean he there’s just lessons galore

from that guy

and yeah i mean i think you make a good

point you know

we all we all struggle with whatever we

struggle with personally

but uh we you know he’s he was still

able to do

great things lead us you know in a war

and and do it

phenomenally and you know i think we can

do some of the same things right maybe

not in a war but

um in whatever field that we’re in you

know that leadership

lessons can translate so yeah i am also

big political junkie i another tidbit

about me i

ran for congress a couple years ago

texas sixth congressional district um

so um for you that’s kind of a step down

to be honest

but that’s okay okay it’s humble that’s

a very humble position for you

well go ahead so i read the

joe biden’s book promise me dad um it

was a very good book

it it’s really it’s not really

i think most politicians books are he

jus he just talks about you know

himself his family and things like that

i think that

the latest book i’ve read that would be

a good recommendation

it’s not you know partisan one side or

the other

it’s just a guy talking about his life

and his experiences and his family

yeah cool i’ll check that one out i

haven’t read that one

are you gonna run again

i’ve thought about it but it’s just the

political landscape now

i’m not really a fan it’s just two

extremes on both sides and

yeah that that’s not the point of

serving

in a position you’re supposed to help

out your country and your people

and not pander to one extreme or the

other so

i am not a fan of the current political

climate and i have

no plans to enter into it

at this point well for what it’s worth

i think we probably need more people

with that mindset

in our political system so but the funny

thing is people with my mindset don’t

get votes because i’m not

extreme enough so

it’s tough it’s tough hey

that’s another podcast for another my

experiences in running for congress

that would actually be a good podcast oh

it it’s

it’s full of gems i can tell you that

yeah

i bet so i bet and i would have to i

just hate to break up

you know a millennial

black guy running as a republican in

texas i will

start it i will that’s how i will

pre-phase the conversation

it is very interesting i mean it sounds

perfect i mean what’s not extreme about

that that sounds

good no matter what your beliefs are

your political

beliefs very eye-opening from all sides

of my life i don’t think i’ve ever

even working at the white house i have

never experienced anything quite what i

experienced in

the five or six months of running for

office

than i did i think it changed my life i

think it’s safe to say that

listen i think you and i need

to do a spin-off podcast maybe a short

series podcast where we just

talk about your whole experience with

that because i do i mean that’s pretty

interesting i bet it was a pretty

fascinating story

it was i if if people

understood how their political how what

it takes to get into office

they would probably hate every

politician they ever ran in contact with

yeah because politicians are better

actors than anybody you will ever see in

hollywood

that you could ever imagine you think

the rock is a great actor

no look at your local politician they

they are much better i can guarantee

okay first of all i can’t allow you to

insult brad pitt like that

second of all probably right

yeah no i’m i’m serious we need to talk

okay we need to talk offline and figure

out how we can get

this series i think people would love to

hear your experience with that

so i would love to tell it so let’s do

it let’s do it

all right stay tuned for this

other podcast that we’re gonna make

happen it’s gonna be

incredible don’t laugh i’m serious

sean aka ruler of the world

i appreciate you man and i

i’m really really grateful that you came

on to share your story

um and i cannot wait to hear you know

when when you fling open the doors again

how it goes

and if your wife actually helps you out

or not

and all the good stuff that you’re going

to be learning but thank you for coming

on and sharing your story here

and i really really appreciate it was

super

you know not just an awesome story with

with great lessons in there but you’re

just

a good good dude and really really

appreciate you man

i appreciate you having me on jordan it

was great i

i was been looking forward to this all

week i’m sorry we

couldn’t connect but the world was

melting around me at work

so i had to deal with all that crap but

i’m glad we actually got it got together

and got this done

because i i just like telling my story

because i know it’s

very different from your typical

laundromat experience so

the more information we can get out

there the more good people we can get in

this industry i think it’ll

help everybody i agree and i’ve never

had a former

world ruler on here before you’re the

first

you know i get that a lot yeah

i mean i imagine i imagine so

alexander the great is next if he buys a

laundromat so

he’ll be he’ll be on there next well hey

thanks man

and really appreciate it and i’m i’m

serious let’s do this

other podcast where you tell your

experience about you know

running for congress because i think i

am definitely down for that i am a

100 political junkie so

if we could talk politics you’re you’re

right in my wheelhouse

i can talk anything with anybody so

it’ll be great i believe it

it’ll be great all right man well let’s

connect soon

all right what an awesome episode with

sean is such a cool guy he’s got an

interesting interesting history and an

interesting path

like most of us do leading him to

laundromat

ownership uh so very very cool about

that

and uh man cannot wait to get an update

on how everything’s going for him

uh you know maybe a year or so down the

line but

sounds like uh he is on the right track

man i loved

loved a lot of what he had to say and a

lot of his mindset stuff

let me just remind you that every

episode i want you to try to pick

one thing that you can put into action

remember action

is what paves the way to success you can

learn all you want you can listen to the

stories you can

even meet the people but if you’re not

taking the action you’re never

going to accomplish your goals so pick

something

anything from this episode

and every episode that you listen to put

it into action put it to work

make it a habit to be doing things

uh to help you achieve your goals so if

your goal is to own a laundromat

be doing things that are going to move

you closer to that goal if your goal is

to optimize your laundromat

be doing things that will help you

optimize your laundromat

if your goal is to scale your laundromat

business maybe buy

more maybe move into you know more the

service side of laundry

whatever the case may be be doing things

to help you get to

that goal all right well listen

this was incredible as always thank you

guys for joining me we will see you

on the forums we’ll see you at the

webinar with mike kelly of atmosphere tv

thursday we will see you

i don’t know at the next on youtube

maybe we’ll see at the next podcast

episode we’ll see you wherever

you find us we’re all over the place

cannot wait

to hang out with you some more

[Music]

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