Special Guest Peter Lowin from LaundryaGoGo

To see the video inside the van go to https://youtu.be/QfmS9KiiEd0

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[TRANSCRIPT]

We’re gonna be talking about the Foltex A230 folding machine. Stay tuned. At the end of this episode, I’ll share my thoughts on this machine you sent over videos of the folding machine that you have, and it just looks ridiculously good. <laugh> , I was really impressed. It looked like you’ve got doing different types of garments in there from shirts to sheets to towels. What your experience with that and has it helped with efficiency ?

Speaker 2: 0:24

So we went to the clean show last year. One of the things we had on our eyes was a folding machine. We went there with intention to look at them and see, number one, was it something we can afford? Was it something that we thought would benefit our business? And we looked around and, and I talked to a lot of people in the industry. I have peers, mentors all over the country from Washington, California, you guys, Texas, New York, Cleveland, you know , just about everywhere. And , and I try and share and exchange ideas. I try and bring value to the discussions. I found what I thought was the machine. And we talked with, with some peers and they said , well, I think you ought to take a look at this one. So we took a look at that one. We went and visited that one from a much larger commercial business than us. That was a couple hours away. And we left there with a totally different understanding of the machine. I’ll say it like this, in a laundrymat, the weakest link in a and most laundry mats is folding. You can wash, you can dry, and then everything gets backed up at the fold. It became obvious to us if we were gonna grow this business the way we want to, that we were no longer gonna be able to count on people being able to fold. You know, the , the conversations that you have, Hey, how many pounds are your people folding an hour? 20, 30, 40, 56? Whatever it is , it’s all great. And it’s all interesting. We didn’t wanna be in that space . We wanted to be in the space where we could fold 500, 600, 700 pounds an hour. So that’s the equivalent of what three, four people can do in a day, in an hour. So we decided that we were gonna make a change. We didn’t do this as a employee hour reduction exercise. We believe in the team that we’ve got. We just don’t want to be adding as we grow and scale our business, tens of people to be able to maintain that. We want to grow it with 5, 6, 7 people that we believe in, that believe in us in the model, and can help us get where we want to go. We believe this is a big game changer . I’ll share an interesting story about the folder. So we’ve had it for maybe a month, a month and a half now. And the team was very apprehensive when we bought it. And I’ll , I’ll share a little joke. So a lot of ’em would go to the back of the laundrymat as far away from the machine. They, as they could get and fold on the tables back there. Why? Because if they didn’t look at the machine, it didn’t exist. And they just continue to fold. So then we had to have discussions with them of, hey, this, this isn’t designed to cut back the hours. So we had a compressor and I just pulled a compressor out of my garage and we took it and installed it at the laundry mat .

Speaker 1: 2:49

The air compressor?

Speaker 2: 2:49

Yeah, air compressor. Excuse me. And, and so we put it in and it was an older one. It was fine and it worked good, but it died this week. So the interesting part was we went to get a new one and we decided we were gonna go from 110 to two 20 electric. It took us about a day and a half to get it installed. And I walked in there yesterday and I said, oh guys, you’re not gonna believe this. It’s not gonna be ready for a week and a half. And the boohooing that happened in that room was glorious to me, <laugh>, because I’m sitting here and that tells me they now buy in .

Speaker 1: 3:19

That’s awesome. That’s great.

Speaker 2: 3:21

Yeah . So the supervisor, she actually called me and , and this is a , a little bit of an internal joke, but she has a week, which she can’t complain, self-declared. She called me yesterday and she said, all right , I’m gonna complain. And I said, you’ve , you’ve got till next Tuesday, you’re not allowed to. She said, this is a good complaint. I’m sitting here folding these pillow cases and I’m thinking I could do this so much faster on the machine.

Speaker 1: 3:43

That’s fantastic. What’s the learning curve? Say like you hired somebody new to use the machine. How long does it take to get them up to speed on it?

Speaker 2: 3:50

Less than a couple of hours. It’s point and clicks. We think we’re with the right partner again, I used the word partner, not vendor. They’ve been out multiple times since we’ve installed it to help us program it because we’re doing all these different things. Residential clothes, linens, towels, formats, you name it. We put through that machine and it does it all very well and very consistently. It’s a touch screen . You put the type of item you’re putting in it and away it goes

Speaker 1: 4:17

Nice. And it just helps somebody, a client of ours on their website and now they’re getting a whole bunch more commercial clients and different types of business . He’s not doing pickup and delivery yet. But one of the first questions that people ask when they call in is, do you do a pickup and delivery? So it all kind of fits together. He’s getting a lot of bites and some of ’em are now using him, but you’d be providing more value and be able to convert more sales if he did the pickup and delivery. So I mean, this all is just one big puzzle. It all fits together. You got the wash and fold , you got the pickup and and delivery. Now you added a new puzzle piece that just makes everybody more powerful or more efficient.

Speaker 2: 4:55

Yeah, we’re, we’re very excited about that. We , we believe this is a game changer for us. We believe in peak times. This takes it from something that, you know, we are busting at the seams . We can’t move to something that becomes a much more , uh, predictable process. And we’ve got a lot of process learnings as to how we want to do things. But the early feedback is just, it , it’s, it’s unbelievable. There’s a lot of people that are watching this, watching what we’ve done with this. I think you’re gonna see a lot more people adopt

Speaker 1: 5:27

It . It’s a com huge competitive advantage. And going back to your maid, to your June and then to July last year and your numbers are just going off the charts, how were you able to deal with that type of growth? And this before you had the folding machine as well. What about hiring, what about processes, trial by fire? How did you pull through that and continue growing your business?

Speaker 2: 5:49

We, we were scrambling. I have the luxury of a, of a great business partner who, who can help from a staffing from time to time if we just need, need short term help, number one. Number two, for some reason I do not know how to say the word no to new business opportunities, whether it be residential, commercial, whatever it is. We , we want to be able to say yes. And having said yes in this instance created more work than probably we should have taken on at that point. So we quickly hired, we had a little bit of a , of a ramp to get up to the right headcount. We were busting at the seams. We had more people in the laundromat than we had folding tables, which in the learning curve was part of our tough learning . We didn’t know that was counterproductive at that point, but we’ve since learned that somebody’s there, we have to have a table form . So we’ve learned the hard way in many instances.

Speaker 1: 6:41

It’s all learning. These are great problems they have and , and you’re able to adapt. What would you say to somebody who’s doing wash and fold thinking about pickup and delivery is kind of on the fence? What, what advice would you have for them?

Speaker 2: 6:52

In my mind, there’s really three types of people that are looking to do this. Somebody that’s looking to offset the cost of the attendance. And this is a generalism and I hate to do this, but they, they’re typically the ones that go in and undervalue the wash and fold. Meaning they’re gonna do it at a price that we may or may not be willing to do it at. So it, it helps offset the cost for the attendance. Then there’s others that probably heard it was a good thing but are unsure. So they want dip their toe in the water, wanna start slowly, probably look to start by controlling the introductory costs and it becomes a piece , part type of discussion. What can I use for my point of sale? Well I think I can use my calendar over here to do the pickup and delivery. And then you’ve got all these disparate parts that you’re trying to bring back together at some point in time . And then there are people that are looking to build this as a separate part of the business that complement the business but can stand alone . And that’s really where automation’s the priority and everything And and everywhere you do it, anytime you can reduce potential errors through a systematic approach to this. I believe there’s significant merit.

Speaker 1: 7:57

What you said about the automation is so key. I’m gonna do a YouTube video just on this. There’s a Steve Jobs, he’s addressing some business students. They took a look at all these companies and everybody’s spending about the same on technology, but they’re spending it in different ways. And the most successful companies weren’t just using technology just to manage their communication or they weren’t just using technology to handle their QuickBooks type stuff. They’re the most successful ones. Were using automation for their business process. Like for taking orders. You’re an airline company, not just using technology, just manage the flights. That’s important. But also allowing the customer to schedule flights. Mm-hmm <affirmative> from the laundry point of view, allowing customers to schedule pickup and deliveries. You’ve got the technology, the right place, you know, which is facing the customer. And then, then you could scale on the front end. And then our software also helps out a lot on the back end because we’re doing it too. It’s not just taking in the order , it’s well what happens after the order is taken, you know, where that order is and what, what happened to it and who worked on it. So we’ve got all the different pieces in there and we keep making things better is where you see the business going. What , what are your goals?

Speaker 2: 9:04

So we had our 2023 what I’ll call planning session and it’s with growth as fast as we’re growing, it’s tough to say we, we think we can be here, but we believe this business continues to grow significantly. We’re still very heavily investing in the business to fuel the growth. There’s a niche in this, in the marketplace for this type of business. You’ve got the, the large trucks, the you first , the Cintas , all of them. They’re not addressing the component or the , the parts of the market that we’re servicing, which is residential commercial at the smaller end of the business.

Speaker 1: 9:40

I think that’s important for people to be very cognizant and aware of is some places try and be the centas and we’re just a different business. We are the high margin, low volume business and that’s a great place to be. <laugh>

Speaker 2: 9:53

That , that was me initially I wanted to go get ’em and really felt that that was, we’re gonna take their business and the , the more I got into this, the more I learned and understood that it’s really not who we are or what we’re skilled to be and nor is it to your point, it’s not what we want to be.

Speaker 1: 10:09

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 10:09

I have no desire for high volume , low revenue business. Zero.

Speaker 1: 10:13

Absolutely. Well just wanna thank you for being on the podcast. I think people are gonna learn a lot. It’s unbelievable because I look at your January to February, it’s about a 25% increase and that anybody would get a raise if they were the chief revenue officer, hey 25% increase and then another 25%. And then you look at where you’re at now and it’s just <laugh> . We’re not talking about 25 percents anymore. We’re talking about hundreds and hundreds of percentages. And so you’ve been able to , to lead and guide your business and I’m really thankful you chose curbside to be the platform you’re running your business on cuz you take a lot of attention to the details and the customer experience and that’s what we’re all about. And then you’re taking that to a whole nother level where you just really appreciate the feedback you’ve been providing along this time that’s helped us make the software better. We listen, we love getting feedback and I will say on the software side, initially when you get feedback, there’s two avenues of going. It’s easy to get defensive cuz it’s like the baby. But then the flip side is just the different mindset, which is what we’ve adopted, which is we want the software to be the best it can be. So when somebody has advice, the most important thing we could do is listen, I just wanna thank you for, you know, speaking up and you know, letting us know about different things that could improve the process. So we’re very thankful,

Speaker 2: 11:25

Appreciate your help. All the partnering throughout the way.

Speaker 1: 11:29

My recommendation is one, do your own due diligence. Don’t rely on any brochures. I would talk to people actually using it and also make sure that the company using it has laundry like you do. Are they doing primarily commercial or are they doing a mix of residential? So you wanna find out, are their needs the same as your needs because maybe they’re just doing towels or maybe they’re just doing a lot of sheets. You wanna make sure whoever you’re talking to has as similar experience as you do. That being said, I know a lot of people who I’ve got a lot of respect for, who are doing really, really well in pickup and delivery, wash and fold who are buying this machine. In a short period of time, there’s gonna be more and more people to talk to who are using it. My second recommendation is to, is to grow organically. I wouldn’t put yourself in debt before you have the business. I’d make sure you’ve got the business there and then this machine could immediately provide value to you. That way you’re operating more efficiently and you’re making money on day one. Don’t forget to click like and subscribe. And if you’re listening to the podcast, please leave a review that helps other people like you find the show. Thanks again and see you next time.

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[TRANSCRIPT]

Thank you everybody for attending today’s webinar about pickup and delivery liftoff. Today’s webinar is focused on two different things, which is one, we’ve got a whole bunch of new features coming out real soon and we want to show you how to take advantage of those features to make more money. And then also the main reason you’re here as well is how to grow your web presence . How to get your pickup and delivery to take off has to do with your web presence. So we’ll be focusing on that for the second half,

Speaker 2: 0:27

The first half of this webinar about how to make more money using the new curbside laundries software features. It’s gonna be made public for everybody. However, the second half, which is all about increasing your web presence so that more customers could find you online, that’s gonna be available just for curbside clients only.

Speaker 1: 0:45

What’s really exciting is we have 121 registered people for the webinar. When I first started doing this about like five years ago, the webinar open to everybody and we had about 20 people. It’s just pretty amazing that we’ve got 121 clients who are on here. We’re all in it together with pick up and delivery and wash and fold and just try and make it the most successful businesses we we can help out with. Just wanted to start off with, I just got this email yesterday , uh, from <inaudible> Washington Fold and pick up and delivery and he’s got very successful business and he sent me an email saying, I do Google searches from time to time and I saw a new place come up on the ranks. It looks like definitely one of yours. I definitely see them increasing their ranking on Google and doing good on reviews. I didn’t know you had any curbside around. The reason why I wanna start off with this is there’s a mystique around the curbside laundries clients and people who are using curbside laundry software and I think it’s because it’s the reason why we’re all here together on the webinar today. We’re not sitting on our laurels. We’re constantly saying How do we do better? That’s commonality and things are constantly changing in the online realm. Things are getting more competitive and you always have to do more to stay ahead of your competition and that’s what we’re gonna be sharing today, is how to get ahead of the competition. That’s something that makes curbside curbside. I went in and I saw th this particular person who they were talking about and sure enough their numbers are off the charts, their pickup and delivery and their was forward , had grown significantly since the year before. Reason I mentioned that is that is a direct result of the web present . Your web presence has a strong, strong correlation, if not causation of how well you’re doing. It is just so important. It is important to do what this person did as well, which is do searches on yourself incognito and we’ll be going over that cuz that is really important to kind of measure where you’re at, what you’re ranking for and where you’re ranking. That’s a big part. You do have a new software release. We’re tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, February 14th. It’s a big change. We’re updating the ui, we’re updating the backend so things will be faster, there’s gonna be less depth involved to place orders. It’s gonna a lot of new features and so we’ll be sending out some videos on on that as well. That’s coming out real soon. And then you’ll start seeing more regular updates as well just because we, we hit a point where we couldn’t develop on the old, we had to just keep developing on the new . So this is the new, this is gonna free things up. So then we’re able to release things a lot faster versus software just looks a lot more beautiful, easier to use, more intuitive. We’re really excited about that. The new software does bring about some new features that I want to go over so you can kind of keep it in your mind on how to take advantage of some of the new features. One of ’em is you’re gonna be able to charge a delivery fee or a fuel surcharge fee. You could name it whatever you want to name it. That is per pickup , we’re charging at super subs . You could see it highlighted on the screen. Two and a half dollars a delivery fee. I figured we’re not gonna lose any customers over a two and a half dollars fee. I would do somewhere between a couple bucks to four and a half dollars. I’d make it low enough where you’re not gonna lose any customers over it. But what I like about the delivery fee, I think it’s good to get in there because then if you ever need to crank it up a little bit, you’re not introducing a brand new charge. So if you introduce a brand new charge, I would keep it low so that way people don’t use that opportunity to say, Hey, maybe I don’t want to do that anymore. That’s how I would introduce it. And then later on, if fuel prices spike or whatever it is, you now have a tool in place, they could easily adjust and you could charge a different delivery fee or fuel surcharge based upon the service area. So you could charge different areas, different amounts, and you could see down below that’s actually a report from our laundromat, super suds . And keep in mind, we didn’t start this on January 1st, so this is really just like two weeks data and we collected about $800 extra just by charging an extra two and a half bucks. So you know the money’s out there. We didn’t lose any customers, we got an extra 800 bucks just by doing a little data entry and it’s automatic. So that’s great. The second thing, I’m gonna go ahead and open up a poll , which is, do you do any well packages for new customers? Yes or no? It could even be a card, you know, do you do anything special for new customers on pickup and delivery? So the results are coming in and I’m gonna go ahead and close a poll and we’ve got 73% of people voted. Here are the results. One fourth of you do and 75% don’t. We’re also in the 75% categories. Now this is really important and this is a underutilized feature. One issue with their software previously was it told you it was a first time customer when you’re doing the pickup . Well that’s not as useful as on the delivery cuz if you’re doing a welcome package, you really want know that it’s a first time customer when you’re doing the delivery. Now you can see in the top right corner, that’s what your driver is gonna see in the new software update. It’ll tell you right there, it’s a first time customer. And I would get prepared, you know, both if you’re doing a delivery fee or fuel surcharge, how you wanna do the messaging on that. Going back one slide, just to let you know, they will see the two and a half dollars fuel surcharge right there when they place in orders . That’s what it’ll look like to the customer. But your reoccurring customers may not see that. So maybe you send a message or an email or something to your reoccurring customers and just your other customers will see it. But I think it’s better not to surprise them. Sending out a mass email for something like that I think is the way to go. Now we’re back to the first time package. 25% of you, one fourth of you do send out a welcome package and I think it’s a great, great, great, great, great idea. And really it should be a hundred percent of us that do it. And the reason being is there’s a , the biggest dropoff rate between somebody placing an order and not placing their next order is after the first time. If you know a ton of your customers, we get like a hundred some new customers per month, but a lot of them do not order. Again, it’s one of the biggest opportunities. If you are getting new business, you wanna retain that business, you want to close that gap. And right now there’s a big gap. There always will be between ordering once and ordering again. How do you close the gap? Well, a welcome package could be really nice. Some people go pretty extravagant and provide a free laundry bag. You know, that’s one way of going, but that’s pretty pricey. Five bucks. But then again, it gets your branding out there. One thing we’re doing is we’re doing these magnets. That’s the magnet that you see on the bottom. We just ordered those from next day flyers . So it’s next day , flyers.com business size , it’s got the QR code on there. Number one reasons why somebody doesn’t place an order from you again, is they forgot about you. So how do you keep people from forgetting about you? Magnet on the refrigerator, it’s got the QR code so it’s functional. They could scan to schedule a laundry pickup and guess how much that cost ? Each magnet is 14 cents. The local signed company by us, they , they wanted to charge us $1 and so we went to next day flyers . And for 14 cents, that’s a pretty good deal. In addition, you wanna have some card stock, give them a root promotion to order a second time. But also if you have ozone or you’re doing something special or just you know how you care about your customers, put your mission statement in there. Something about how you value and how you care about your clients, tell them about yourself. That’s something we should all be doing right Over here. This is a new feature. This will be slight premium to get it installed on the software. It’s a return on advertising spend . They spent quite a bit of time developing this, but it’s awesome. Let me uh , open up in new poll , what types of advertising have you done in the last 12 months? And you could check as many of them as you want. Google AdWords, Facebook ads, Yelp , cold calling door, knocking that in the pounding the pavement section, direct mail or mailers that would include Val Pack , all that stuff. We got the results coming in. About 60% of people voted. We’ve got 71% of people doing Google AdWords. That’s great to see. That number surprises me because I didn’t think as many people did it. It works. Google advertising works with your business taking off. There’s really two main ways of getting customers in terms of web presence. My opinion, it’s Google AdWords and organic, meaning your website just ranks. And that’s a lot of what we’ll be focusing on in this presentation. We’ve had very positive success on Google AdWords. I’ll go more into detail on that. 64% of people are doing Facebook ads. From my experience, and I could be totally wrong here, but this is just what I’ve seen is Facebook ads are great for awareness, so you’re gonna get a lot of looky loses . I mean, how many times have you clicked on a Facebook ad? Oh, that looks interesting. And how many times have you actually bought something off of Facebook? And that number’s a lot, lot lower. And the reason being is they’re more shock value. It’s like, oh, that’s an interesting thing for sale , let me click on it. You’re , you weren’t even in the mood for that before. So that’s an awareness ad . It’s just letting people become aware that laundry pickup and delivery is a thing. They weren’t really looking for it. With Google AdWords, the reason why it works so well is because they’re looking for wash and flow . They’re looking for a laundry pickup and delivery. You pay money and your link appears in front of them. So you’re not convincing them of anything. I ran for city council and this one campaign consultant said you could convince somebody to vote or you could convince somebody to vote for you, but you can’t do both. And I feel that way with advertising to get the best return on investment. We’re not selling people, we’re just, if they’re looking for us, we want them to find us. So for that reason, Facebook ads are gonna drive a lot of traffic. But the common thing I hear is I got all this traffic but nobody bought. Well , that’s the reason. Okay? 22% are advertising on Yelp. Yelp was our first time we had a positive return on spend because it was online. And think about it, Yelp, they don’t just see your ad. That in a way is a little bit like Google AdWords. They’re looking for laundromats, they’re looking for laundry services. But when we used a very good Google ad marketing company, we found we got a much, much higher return on investment when we did Google AdWords than Yelp. So if you have a really good marketing company, I would take that Yelp money and put it into Google AdWords money, but don’t tell Yelp. The other part is 27% colder calling and door knocking. I’ve talked to a lot of people doing that and with mixed results more folks, it doesn’t work for some people, it does work for mailers. We tried that. We didn’t get very good results at all. I would just save your money on mailers and put it into Google AdWords. In fact, I’d put everything you see in here, I’d put it into Google AdWords. If you’re gonna be spending any money or time or energy, that’s what I would do. Speaking of Google AdWords, let’s go ahead and open up another poll . This is optional so you don’t have to, if you don’t feel comfortable, it is private. How much are you spending on Google AdWords stuff ? You are doing it and we do not do Google AdWords. I’m just, just , I’m just curious. We have about 60% of people voted about one third is at zero. And again, I would’ve thought that number is higher because there is a barrier of entry to do Google , Google AdWords . Then we have the people at one to $500. Now those are probably people doing it on their own. And the reason I say that is usually when you hire a company, they do a Google ads management fee. What I mean by that is they’re , they’re gonna charge 350 or 500 bucks or 700 bucks or whatever it is just to manage your Google ad words . And then whatever additional you spend actually goes to Google. So you get a much higher return on investment with Google AdWords when you spend more money because then a percentage wise , less money is going to your management company and more is going to Google. But if you don’t know how you’re spending the money or the marketing company isn’t doing a great job and it’s really hard to like know what your return on investment is. And look, about 10% of our clients are spending over a thousand dollars or over $1,800 . And so that is some serious money and everybody has one thing in common when they’re doing Google AdWords. A lot of people say, yes it works, but then they have no idea how well it works. You get these reports back from the MA marketing company and they say, oh yeah, you got a 12% increase to your CTR ratio. And it’s like, well what does that mean? We knew people were spending big money on this. But then the issue is you need to know if you’re spending that kind of money, what type of return on investment you’re getting. We have a client that’s making hundreds of thousands. He’s, he’s just doing phenomenal six figures per month and he’s spending four or $5,000 on Google AdWords. He was talking about dumping and I’m like, you can’t stop. You’re doing so well. And he goes, why ? I have no idea what my return is. We built this return on advertising spend report to answer that question, how much money are we making? And so you could see over here February, this is real data. This is how much money we spent on Google AdWords, $3,800 and we made $11,000 of sales from that. We got 17 new customers. The reengaged means they previously clicked on an ad and they clicked on one again, only have a more in depth thing on this just because I need to get moving on this report. You could even say, show me one month of data. How much money did we make back? How many sales did we make during the first month? Yeah, let me actually show you over at supered. So one moment just makes more sense when you see the the data live. So I’m gonna go into the return on advertising spend. So this is the report right over here. Gonna do 2022 December and, okay , perfect. And I’m gonna do one month search. So in one month we actually lost money. Let me make this screen bigger. We did get 21 new customers, or actually 21 sales, 17 new customers. And I could even see the names of all these customers we got and how many orders they placed, but we lost money. So why would we spend almost $4,000 on Google ads? Well, here’s the reason. That was just one month of data, meaning those customers spent $2,000 in one month. But how much did those same 17 customers spend over the course of one year? So now those same 17 customers over o course of one year have spent over $11,000. So we turned that $3,800 into $11,000. It’s pretty incredible. So that’s what this report does, and it’ll even show you the names and the orders and you can see whether or not your advertising is working and considering 70% of you’re doing Google advertising, this will help you note down to the penny, which campaigns are working, which ones aren’t, and what your return on advertising is. The other part is this webinar. I guess now the second half of this webinar is focused on what’s going on in your website and how that’s reflected online.

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[TRANSCRIPT]

Speaker 1: 0:00

In this week’s episode of State of the Laundry Industry, we feature Randy Hollingsworth of Laney’s Laundry. He had been doing pickup and delivery for years, and within one year of getting the curbside laundries washing fold and pickup and delivery solution, he over tripled his pickup and delivery business,

Speaker 2: 0:18

Their system. It , it , it’s almost like hands off every , everything you want is, is there. I would have no clue where I’m going, where I’m headed , uh, without the software, especially for the , uh, the pickup and delivery.

Speaker 1: 0:32

I’m really excited to introduce Randy Hollingsworth. He’s with Laney’s Laundry over in Long Island and the guy’s just absolutely crushing it. So I’m just so excited to hear his story about how he got into Washington fold and pickup and delivery or just the laundry business for that matter. And his numbers are just incredible. I wouldn’t be surprised in just a few years that he’s gonna be grossing over a million dollars in Washington fold per year at his current trajectory. He’s just growing really, really fast. The other thing is his pickup and delivery is going off the hook too. He started up with curbside laundries just a couple years ago and already his pickup and delivery has tripled and in some cases quadrupled from year over year. So it’s just fascinating to watch him grow. He’s doing a lot of things right. I wanna find out what he’s doing, and he is in an area where there’s a lot of competition. So to see him rising to the top is just really exciting. And just wanted to introduce Randy and just curious as far as how you got started in , in Washington and , and in the laundry business.

Speaker 2: 1:31

Ooh , that’s a good question. Let’s see. Well, I got started seven years ago. I wanted a business that was more or less hands off . Well , I thought it was gonna be a hands off , you know, I’m not physically doing the, the laundry, but I just wanted something that, you know, I could go away on vacation and not have to worry about being there. So with that, I picked, you know, laundromat, why not?

Speaker 1: 2:01

That’s kind of the common joke in the laundry business is everybody got into it because it’s hands off . But then it turns out that there’s a little bit of work involved.

Speaker 2: 2:10

Yes, there is phone calls dealing with staff and soap and product and drivers, but it’s pretty easy, especially with the software.

Speaker 1: 2:21

So in washing fold , you know, it does add some more moving parts. So you got was and fold , which means you have to have staff and then you got pickup and delivery means you gotta have the vehicle. So just wondering like why you added that to, to the mix.

Speaker 2: 2:35

Well , we added pickup and delivery in the beginning is was because people were asking, oh, do you pick up? And I’m like, yes, <laugh> , you know, but we didn’t. But I’m like, yeah, what’s, yeah, what’s your address? We, we’ll , you know, we’ll we’ll pick it up. And we started doing that and was getting up to one, maybe even two pickups every day or every other day. But now we’re averaging about at least 20 a day. Some days we have 40 stops.

Speaker 1: 3:04

Tomorrow you’ve got like 36 stops , um, of pickup and deliveries . So it’s gone off the hook. Yeah. And how long were you doing pickup and delivery before you got curbside laundries ?

Speaker 2: 3:13

Uh , a few years. But it wasn’t anything , uh, you know, heavy. We’d get a call. It wasn’t , it wasn’t , uh, reoccurring customers. It was just, you know, more, more of a one-off. I see . I hurt my leg and you pick up my laundry.

Speaker 1: 3:25

Yes. So fascinating because now you have close to a hundred reoccurring customers, it’s like guaranteed money every week or every two weeks, they’re placing an order. Other part is you were doing pickup and delivering your numbers are good because you’ve been at it for a while . But then after you did , went with curbside laies one year later on average numbers tripled from what you’ve done

Speaker 2: 3:44

Before. Yeah, it took off. And I always feel like I’m not doing enough. I’m always striving to do more. Always pushing for, all right , how can we get more customers?

Speaker 1: 3:54

It’s always a good question to be asking it. That’s what I like about the software is that handles the day-to-day. It kind of puts out fires or prevents fires in the first place. It’s just a well-oiled machine. It goes into the system, there’s a system in place and then you can focus your time more on how do I get more customers? And that was interesting how you mentioned there’s an issue on quality control for a short period of time.

Speaker 2: 4:14

Yeah, I had some staffing issues. Had my top lady leave. She was putting in some uh , some pretty heavy hours, like 60 hours. So it’s almost like I had to replace two people and then they weren’t as fast as she was, wasn’t as neat as she was then you just kept hiring and kept hiring. And we finally are at a point now where I’m like, okay, we’re back to being close to where we were when she left. At that point I’m like, it’s time to do the , uh, text message blast. Like, hey, I know we haven’t been the , uh, the best lately, but we’ve gotten our act together. We’ve got new staffing, new procedures. Give us another shot. Here’s 15 bucks off. They got their prep together, you know, let me give them a shot. They’re reaching out to me, I’ll reach out to them.

Speaker 1: 5:03

The customers came back and then a lot of people who may not have placed an order for a while came back too. And something I thought you did was really smart too. We had a good reason to get them back in the mix. They might have been turned off and didn’t tell you they might just go somewhere else. And you were pretty generous with , with the coupon because you understood this is a retention business. Correct. And it’s all about the annual value of the customer, not the next order. And you’re like, you know what? I wanna get these guys back into the mix. And it was hugely successful. And I think that also because we’ve had the same stuff. We went through some dry cleaners, they were doing a good job until they weren’t probably because the staffing issues. And we had to tell our clients who were doing dry cleaning, Hey, we got a new dry cleaning partner and we were able to earn their business again. Same thing happened with our drivers. We , we , we were short on drivers and things kind of turned into a mess for about four to six weeks until we found the right team again. We let people know. So I think think one of the main lessons here is communication. We all go through our ups and downs and we hit our groove. And if you get outta groove, that’s okay, but get back on groove and let your clients know. Give us another try and we’re , we’re back to where we were.

Speaker 2: 6:09

Yeah, it’s very important. Don’t let it go too long. Don’t go six months and go, oh, let me reach out. They’re like, who are you? <laugh>? You gotta get ’em while it’s fresh.

Speaker 1: 6:20

Yeah, it’s another part, the software, it’s kinda like a nervous system where you could see what’s going on. You could just look on your dashboard on your phone or at home or wherever and you could say, wait, what’s going on? Why is the driver taking this much time? Or you could, you see instantly what your schedule for the week looks like. So it’s just right there at your fingertips

Speaker 2: 6:39

Right there.

Speaker 1: 6:41

There’s a lot of different pickup and delivery solutions out there. I was just curious as far as why you chose curbside laundries.

Speaker 2: 6:46

Well , I looked at all the others and uh, I dunno , this one just seemed to offer more. And uh , you know, when I called and I spoke to a curbside team, they were able to answer my questions and uh , not have to get back to me. Whereas others were like, oh, you know, we’re , we’re working on that. Oh, that’s something that we’re gonna be rolling out in the future. I know you guys are always rolling out, which is good, but these other people, they just had too much to roll

Speaker 1: 7:12

Out. Software takes time to roll stuff out. I’ve seen people strung along for six months or year. That feature was quote , being rolled out just never happened. They got strung along for six months or a year and then they’re like, you know what, I can’t wait any longer. So , exactly. We’ve got a software update coming out next month. We already started beta testing, so we’re just constantly making improvements. What your long-term strategy as far as where you see this going on pickup and delivery?

Speaker 2: 7:39

Glad you asked . <laugh> long-term strategy I see is getting another delivery van so that we can increase the areas we’re able to pick up from and deliver to. And as far as getting another store to handle it, we don’t need that. We can just increase the hours at our current, you know, location, which next week we’re starting 11:00 PM to 7:00 AM shift for the , for the first time.

Speaker 1: 8:07

Oh, that’s fantastic.

Speaker 2: 8:08

Yeah, I got a one employee for that shift. She’s gonna do uh , five days,

Speaker 1: 8:13

You know, the nighttime shift. It’s a little bit harder to find the right people for it. Some people say, oh yeah, I’ll do that . And then they do it one time and they’re like, you working in the night shift is not for me.

Speaker 2: 8:21

Exactly.

Speaker 1: 8:22

But , but the people it does work for, they love it because they don’t have somebody over their shoulder. They don’t have customers putting their load of laundry into the same machine that they were using. Cuz sometimes the attendance get kind of territorial, like these , this area’s mine, and then it’s just, they could do their thing without interruption. They’re just so much more efficient.

Speaker 2: 8:39

And you get so many people who want that 11:00 PM to 7:00 AM shift . I’ve gotten a a ton of people and none of them can do washing fold . I’m like, you told me you had experience. What , what is this <laugh> ? We test everyone out a couple hours. We put ’em on day. Like I’ve had this young lady on days for about two or three weeks. She’s gotten it now. So now we’re gonna shift her to the night shift, which she was hired

Speaker 1: 9:03

For. The software makes it so much easier because you could track the pounds at your fingertips. You could also see the initial weight and the final weight. So if there’s a discrepancy, like, hey, maybe there’s some mixed up stuff going on. So it does definitely help you keep tabs when you bring on new talents. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 9:21

Hard to find good. Hard to find good people.

Speaker 1: 9:24

It definitely is. We’ve got our core group and we keep adding to it. When you find the right people, you wanna keep ’em <laugh>. Yeah. I’m showing a map of, of New York and Long Island and just New Jersey. Each pin is a client of curbside, laundries gonna pick up and delivery. And you can’t even see New York. It is just covered in pins and there’s just so many people doing pickup and delivery. And then I see your numbers and it’s just crazy because you’re num you’re just growing. There’s no, and inside I think they’re just going up and up. Some people hesitate because there’s quote competition. What , what’s your feeling as far as how that affects business? How that’s affecting you?

Speaker 2: 10:01

Well, there’s a ton of competition in our area. In fact, there is a laundromat, I would say 50 feet from me . You can park in front , in front of my laundromat and either go into me or walk two doors down and go into the other guy. And the other guy is pick up and delivery only customers can’t walk in and do their own laundry. He has a lot of corporate accounts and things like that. He’s actually looking to go out in a few years. So I , you know, I told him , Hey listen, I’m, I’m here to take all your clients when you’re, when you’re ready. Lot of competition around the corner, there’s laundromats all

Speaker 1: 10:38

Over. I thought Long Beach was bad because there’s 80 some laundromats just in Long Beach and we’ve got so many that are within a half mile but not 50 feet. Because when I was in commercial real estate, the broker said if there’s a pizza place on each three corners of the block, so they got four corners and there’s a pizza place on three of the four corners, what should you , what should you build on the fourth corner? Pizza <laugh> ? The answer is pizza. Because that neighborhood loves pizza. <laugh>

Speaker 2: 11:06

<laugh> ,

Speaker 1: 11:09

Yeah . Yeah. Really comes down to your reputation of, because people are gonna look at your Yelp reviews and your Google reviews and are you guys doing a good job?

Speaker 2: 11:17

Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. They’re gonna look at all that Yelp, Google, word of mouth.

Speaker 1: 11:23

And ultimately it comes down to doing a good job. And that was awesome to see that you’re responsive. Like you hit a rough patch and then it’s like, okay, I got that fixed, but now I have to let the customers know I got that fixed. You know , getting it fixed isn’t good enough. You gotta communicate or taking care of the customer.

Speaker 2: 11:39

Yep . And that’s, that’s my main focus is , you know, take care of the customer. You , you’d be surprised what $10 off will do to a customer’s mindset. Oh, I wasn’t happy with this. They gave me $10 off my next order. I’m gonna continue to use them every week. That goes a long way.

Speaker 1: 11:54

That’s a great point. And also if a customer has a problem, store credit when possible is always the best route of going versus just, here’s a refund. Yeah. Store credit, one, they feel compensated. Two, it also implies they’re coming back so you have another chance to earn their business. Exactly. Thank you for being on the podcast. I think people will learn a lot as far as your journey and like the most important parts, keeping in touch with the customers and just doing a good job and wish you a continued success. And I think that’s fantastic. Just seeing your progress.

Speaker 2: 12:23

Yeah. Thank you so much. I love growing with , uh, curbside. You guys are helping me. So, you know, with your help I’m able to to keep it moving.

Speaker 1: 12:31

Yeah. And that’s one of the fun parts about building the software is we’re, we’re like, okay, which features are gonna help our clients make more money? And so those features go to the highest priority because we’ve got a laundromat too and just want stuff done so quickly. But, you know, things do take time, but we’re pedaled to the battle as far as development because the sooner certain features are out, the more money everybody’s gonna make. So we’re all in it together. So. Awesome. Just appreciate you for being a client and , uh, we’ll continue doing what we’re doing and hope , you know, keep making things better.

Speaker 2: 13:00

Thank you so very much.

Speaker 1: 13:02

If you’d like to learn more about the curbside laundries Washington fold and pick up and delivery solution, the same solution that helped Brandy triple his pick up and delivery business and just one year, go to curbside laundries.com. Don’t forget to click, like and subscribe. See you next time.

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Transcript

Welcome to State of the Laundry Industry with Laundry matte episode 41, increasing Your Profits through Route Density. And this is the final recap of CRA’s Wash Dry Ford Conference. Before we get started, we need to know what route density means because it’s one of the keys of profitability. So route density is the number of pickup and deliveries you have per square mile. And this is going to be different whether you’re urban, suburban, or rural. But the point is you cannot make money in pick up and delivery if you’re just going out and picking up one order at a time. So you could see right here, this is an actual morning route over at at our laundromat, supered. And this took some time to build up, but you could see how close together our pickup and deliveries are. And again, if you’re in a rural area, it’s gonna be a farther spreader apart, but you could factor that into your pricing as well. Point is, if you want to have a competitive price, you need to have high route density. And if you’re just making one trip at a time , going back and forth, imagine this route that you’re looking at right now. Imagine if you had to go back and forth every single time you had a pickup . Go back to your laundromat. Well, that actually is the case. If you look at Uber or DoorDash, they aren’t picking up 10 orders at a time. They’re making one trip at a time. So you could imagine that the price of gas that is just cost prohibitive and you can’t just say, whoa, the customer’s paying for it , so don’t worry about it. No, the customer won’t pay for it if the price is prohibitive. So you need , if for long-term success, you need to focus on route density, which Im , which impacts what areas you’re serving, how you grow organically. So without further ado, let’s hear about one of our speakers from the Walsh STR Fold Conference. Art Yeager . He’s the owner of La Butler for you. He’s , he’s also a former vice president at Capital Records, needless to say, pretty smart guy. And if you ever have an opportunity to hear him speak, you gotta check him out. Um, he gave a masterclass presentation about pick up and delivery. He went over some of the biggest lessons he’s learned over time. Uh, he got started, started in pickup and delivery in 2019 and has just hit it outta the ballpark doing just killer business. And it also illustrated to me why it’s so important to share information because he was sharing cutting edge information. And then in 2017 I did a webinar and put the show notes in there about how to get started and pick up and delivery. Basically information’s perishable, especially cutting edge information over time. People are gonna get it and there’s gonna be more and more people who are , who will be able to share that information in the future. You’ve really got two options. If you’re doing it and you have some information that could help other people out, you could do one of two things. You could sit on it and just personally benefit and that’s, you know, one option or two, you could share it with others. And guess what? That’s gonna help elevate the industry. And also it creates a culture of collaboration where we could all grow together. Cuz it’s a big market out there. There’s more laundry than any one of us could do. And some of the stuff

Speaker 2: 2:58

Our Yeager talked about is route density. And he said, that’s the secret to success. That is what you need to do to make it profitable. And he’s kind of talking bad about Uber and DoorDash saying that doesn’t make money because the route density would be one. And it doesn’t make money to just pick up one order and bring it back, pick up another order, bring it back, what makes pick up and delivery a thing. What makes it profit, profitable and affordable to the consumer is picking up as many orders as you can in the short period of time. And you do that be by picking up more than one order when you leave the store. I mean, could you imagine driving out to one location, driving back, back and forth? No, that, that doesn’t make any sense in my opinion. People will tell you that makes perfect sense because they want to sell you software. But the most important thing is talk to people, experts who are actually doing it and seeing if they’re successful people using Uber or DoorDash and making sure they’re not getting paid by Uber or DoorDash. Something Art Yeager said, because I said, you know, you did such a great job and everything was on point. And he goes, whoa , my secret is I’m a truth teller . I tell the truth. People know when you’re telling the truth because over time people are gonna figure out what works and doesn’t work. And if people are promoting something that doesn’t work over time and time passes, you’re gonna realize, oh, a lot of people got led the wrong way. I tried Uber or DoorDash, it wasn’t successful. We had a company meeting and somebody said, Hey, you know, if we offer DoorDash or Uber, then we’re gonna be able to make more sales . And our response was, but it does , it doesn’t matter. I mean, going back to the hero’s journey, if we were to offer that and then we know that in our opinion that’s not gonna be successful because the route density would be one, and yet it’s just not profitable at that rate. And then three months, six months later, they’re not hitting the numbers they want to hit, nobody’s placing orders because it’s cost prohibitive. Then our cu our customers would be calling us and saying, Hey, why is it not working? And it’s like, oh, we just included that feature to sell more software. No way. So we are living true to taking care of our customers and our customers customers fol , making sure that the hero is set up for success. So it’d be really easy just to add a new feature. The APIs are , I get calls every week, emails every week, please integrate with us. But we’re committed to our client success and we can’t in a good conscious sell something that we feel very strongly is not gonna work. Another thing Art Yeager talked about is if you’re subcontracting wash fold for another company, it’s not your business. You’re basically getting paid like a job. That company could take it or leave it. And he said, don’t fool yourself. So I do think it’s really important if you do wash and fold , you do pick up and delivery. It’s important. You do it under your brand, your company, and then you own the customer. I was reading on Facebook, somebody was subcontracting the laundry service or they were doing it for another company

Speaker 3: 5:56

And they just weren’t getting enough washing fold and they wanted to do more marketing, but they felt it was the other co other company’s job. So here he wanted to do more business and he had his hands tied and he also didn’t wanna do the marketing himself because he’s like, that’s what I’m paying that company for. So once again, I feel you’re much better off when you’re in full control of your company and you could do what you want and you could help yourself. And that’s one thing at Curbside Laundry is , is we , we provide the tools to help you and there’s all these stuff you could do to help grow your business. The launch drive fold workshop I felt was a huge success and is great seeing everybody in person. If there’s an event nearby you, I’d make a , a special effort to go, whether it’s just a local event or if he have to travel because there’s no replacement. Like when you dedicate the time and you take away and you learn these different things and it just becomes a part of you, becomes a part of your business. I used to go to the department owners association meetings and Dan Fuller, the, the president would say, if you learned one thing, it was worth it. I’m very confident, like every single speaker, we learned a whole bunch of one things. You put it all together and it was just a great place to be at. And it’s neat to see the focus on was fold because for a lot of us was fold is the biggest revenue generator at our laundromat. Thanks again for tuning in to the state of the laundry industry. I hope to see out the next get together. To learn more about the curbside laundries point of cell and pickup and delivery solution, go to curbsidelaundries.com.

Working harder and faster isn't enough. To scale your business, you need to outsource your time and enable others to help out, while maintaining quality. This can be done through Standard Operating Procedures. 

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[TRANSCRIPT]

Welcome to the State of the Laundry Industry with laundry matt , episode 39, the C Wash Dry Fold Workshop Recap part one. Today I’m gonna be talking about the Wash, dry and fold workshop, brought on by the Coin Laundry Association. And a big shout out to Nika and Danielle for putting together just a phenomenal event. So this was three days, two nights we flew into Chicago, and just to let you know what a big deal this is, at curbside laundries, we put together a client appreciation dinner. So we had dinner, drinks, education, and that was like putting together a wedding. So I could only imagine what it would be like to put together three days, two nights, and to handle all of the logistics. And the event was a huge success. I think people walked away with learning so many different things. And I’m gonna be talking about my highlights, you know, my memory, my recollection of this, but I’m confident you talk to anyone who went there and they’re gonna have different memories or different recollections or things that were meaningful to them. So this is all just from my perspective, but there, there were just phenomenal speakers and people who are doing it, which is a world of difference than people, than just being theory. And I’m really glad the Coin Laundry Association is taking a focus on wash and fold , because I think in the old days there’s such a big focus on buy more stores, buy more machines. There’s a whole group of us who wanna maximize each opportunity. And I think the way to do that is through wash fold and pickup and delivery. At our laundromat, we gross over a million dollars a year just in wash fold . So we know this is a huge source of revenue. You know, we used to just tout our success at supered, but what’s really neat now is we’re able to show the success of different clients of ours using our software, doing pickup and delivery, doing washing , fold , fold. And to start things off, Brian Wallace interviewed Brian Henderson and Sharon Brinks about in-store washing fold . And one of the takeaways is everybody’s really stepped up their game. You know, it’s no longer just tickets on triplicates. Now we’re, everybody’s got like a professional washing fold system. We’re not just hacking it together. And the customer’s expectations have also gone up as well. It was just about five years ago that was fold was an afterthought, is a way to help subsidize the cost of your attendant. But now was , fold is a primary income source for many people, and you’ve gotta treat it as such. You have to deliver top-notch service. Speaking of delivering top-notch service, Paul Pettifer , so he’s the owner of Laundry , laundry World , and he talked about commercial accounts and one of his experiences he had was he saw some of his commercial clients that were doing the self-serve. He had some butchers who would bring in these aprons with red blood stains in them. And when after they laundered it, the results were not that great, they still had red stains on them. He said, Hey, we could wash ’em fold for you if you like, save yourself a lot of time. And they said, sure, that sounds great. And so he did it and he did a better job than they did, but there was still red stains on there and they weren’t happy. And he had an aha moment that here he did a better

Speaker 2: 2:58

Job than they did. But the expectation when a quote professional is doing it for you, and they’re paying for the service, they want it done better, they want it done right. So he had to up his game and really learn the chemistry of how to really do a good job in wash and fold . And he did. The takeaway was, wash and fold is a service business and you need to deliver a superior product. And even during this wash fold conference, they even had hands-on folding, learning from the best on best ways of folding different types of garments. And there’s no right way of doing it, but however you do it, make sure you have a consistent experience. Because if one person’s folding this way and another person’s folding that way, you’re going to get people requesting specific launderers. So it’s good to be like McDonald’s and just have a consistent experience no matter when or who the actual launder is. So eyes on the following panel for pickup and delivery, it was a lightning round , so it was question after question after question, and it was a little bit of a blur. But the one part I do remember is I was asked, are we in the first quarter or the second quarter or third quarter, fourth of pickup and delivery, where is it going? Has the market been saturated? Is it still growing or is it leveled off? And my response was, it’s still growing. And the reason being is two factors, one is culture and one is awareness. So culturally, I think you could look around and you know, we are entering more and more of a service industry, we’re entering more of people expect and want people to do stuff for them, whether it’s shopping, whether it’s delivery, whether it’s driving, there’s all sorts of services to do stuff for you. So you could save time. And that’s just the direction our culture’s going. And I don’t see that going anywhere. So culturally that is on our side. So that’s gonna be driving pickup and DA delivery and wash and fold because that’s a major chunk of time that’s being spent by everybody every week. So the second part is awareness. And I still think awareness is low. Granted, it’s higher than it’s ever been for laundry pickup and delivery. But if you go ask a random person, did you know laundry pickup and delivery is a thing, they’re gonna say, no, I had no idea. But that sounds really cool. So I, I see both culture is on our side and awareness has nowhere to go but up. So I think those two things are very, very powerful. One of the speakers was Dave Coyle . He’s the owner of In the Bag Cleaners. And one of the things he talked about is the hero’s journey. And the hero is your customer. And you wanna set your customer or the hero up for success. You know, you don’t want to embarrass them and you want to help them be successful. So I’ll give you an example, and this is something that is just sole core to us at curbside. And I’m not just saying that because, because he talked about it, you’ll see it everywhere inside of our advertising and even our banner at the Clean show. So we describe curbside laundries at Smart software that optimizes your customer’s journey. Now

Speaker 3: 5:56

The, the customer’s journey begins even before they start looking for washing fold . It’s after they place the order, it’s when they get to your website, what happens after the order. It is everything. And you wanna make sure it’s right. I mean, you can look at the customer journey even when they walk into your laundromat is are you setting them up for success? Are you helping them achieve their goals? Or is your operation, everything is hair on fire and you’re trying to put out fires and it’s not organized. So in a way, just having your software and washing fold organized through a system that helps with the customer journey. So if they ask you any questions or have any issues, you are able to help them out from the get go . And I’ll give you another example of the customer journey and our focus on that is , years ago we used to print out through our software the receipt and attach that to every order. I mean, that’s how everybody did it. They would slap the triplicate ticket on it. And so we were kind of fancy because it was printed out and, and so it looked real nice , but it still showed the dollar amount. And here’s where that becomes an issue. And Kuda embarrass the hero. So now we get into pickup and delivery. We got these nice printed receipts attached to each order, and it’s not always the person who placed the order, who picks the order up from their front door. And what would happen is either the kids or the spouse sees that the dad or mom spent $75 on washing fold . And they said, you spent 75 bucks on laundry that could embarrass the hero. You want the hero to be a champion. And so what we did is we re , we replaced the receipt with a ticket that just described the services offered such as 30 pounds of washing fold , two dry clean shirts, you know , that type of thing. And then we discreetly email the receipt to the customer. Now when the spouse or children see the the laundry, they go, wow, dad, great job on the laundry. And it looks better than ever. And that’s a way of treating your customer with respect and setting them up for success. I’ll give you another example. Say like you’re doing pickup and delivery and the customer doesn’t leave their laundry out, so you charge them a late fee. Well, how did that situation happen in the first place? Because you really don’t want to charge them a late fee unless absolutely necessary. In our software, we send out an email the day before we even allow them to reply, skip sk i p , they only have to text back , skip. Then our software’s updated and we don’t make a drive out there. So if you don’t have a system in place and you drive all the way out there, you’re gonna wanna get compensated for your driver’s time, gas, et cetera . But it’s better. You don’t really wanna make your money off the hero’s failure to cancel a pickup . You wanna make it so easy for them. So that situation never comes up in the first place. So rather than just looking at things as revenue opportunities, it’s better to look at things from the point of view of is this a good experience for the customer and how do I make it better? Stay tuned for part two of the Wash Tri-Fold Conference recap in which we’re gonna be talking about how to scale your business. Don’t forget to click like and click subscribe. And if you’d like to learn more about the curbside, laundries, wash and fold point of cell and pick up and delivery solution, go to curbside laundries.com. See you next.

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[TRANSCRIPT]

Welcome to State of the Laundry Industry with Laundry matte , episode 38, how not to raise Washington Fold Prices. This episode is about how to raise prices on Washington fold or even in store for that matter. And so first I want to ask the question, how do you cook a frog? And the answer is you turn up the heat. What you don’t do is you throw it in boiling water cuz it’s gonna jump out. And the same thing is gonna happen to your clients if you drastically raise your prices. So one of our clients , uh, they came back from the clean show and they’re told over and over again, you need to be a price leader. And they got pumped up, you know, yeah, that’s what we need to do. And they raised their prices by 50 cents per pound on was , and fold both in-store and pickup and delivery. And as a result, his first month went great. His income went up, the people, people still placed their orders and he had a record September. But then after that he had a massive fallout and he called saying, Hey, the floor just fell underneath me. He business went down by almost 50%. It was just too much all at one time. See, the psychology behind pricing is you need to raise prices frequently, but do it in such a manner that the customer doesn’t say, doesn’t decide to stop using the service. If you raise prices drastically, people are going to be shell-shocked and walk away. Same thing for in-store, self-serve. Same thing for Washington and pick up and delivery. So one of the lessons here is you don’t just wanna wait and fall behind in raising your prices two years later and then suddenly jump things up by 50 cents all at one time. Typically wilburys prices by 5 cents or 10 cents, usually 10 cents at a time at our laundromat. Every single time the customer’s faced with a decision, when prices go up, one, do they notice the price went up? And two, if they notice, is it enough to change their behavior? So let’s take a look at what happened. They raise prices in September and their profit went up, their revenue went up. But then in October and November things went down drastically down. So these numbers include both the drop-off and delivery. Let’s just take a look at the delivery numbers. We could see the bump is not quite as big as their overall business. And the reason being is on pickup and delivery. The customers saw the prices go up by a lot. And the switching cost, that’s an important term, is switching cost. How easy is is it for the customer to go somewhere else? So in pickup and delivery, switching cost is actually pretty low. They could just go to a different website and place an order. So he didn’t get that massive bump by increasing his prices because a lot of the customers just went elsewhere. But then in October, November, people got the bill. They saw how much it cost and then they changed their behavior. Now if we take a look at the in-store after this drastic price increase, he had a huge bump in September. The reason being, if somebody brought their laundry all

The the way to the laundromat and they found out prices went up by a whole lot, then they’re not gonna just take their laundry somewhere else because the switching cost is higher. They have to drive somewhere else, they have to find another place. They have to research all that stuff. So they just dropped off their clothes, but you better believe they didn’t come back, or many of them did not come back. Come the following months , October, November. The number one lesson here is you need to frequently increase your prices because if you wait too long and you have to do a drastic price increase, it’s going to make people reconsider research and decide whether they want to continue using the service. So you’re better off doing a 10 cents at a time. And you’ll see on Facebook every single time somebody says, oh, you gotta raise prices. Everybody cheers ’em on because everybody wants everybody else to raise their prices. And then when the going is safe, then they’ll go ahead and raise their prices too. So I do agree with bringing a price leader, but only so much. You have to look at the landscape around you and you have to look at what the market will bear. So for this client, we’re gonna help make things right and get these customers back in the door. And the way we’re doing that is for their in-store washer board clients, we’re gonna send them a text message. We’re also gonna send a different text message to their pickup and delivery clients and letting them know we’re rolling back prices. But it’s still gonna be 20 cents more than it was before, but it’s not gonna be 50 cents more per pound. This business, it’s all about retention. And no matter how much new business there is out there, it’s always good to take care of the clients that you have. That’s really where the bread and butter is. So we’re gonna get these people back in the habit of doing wash and fold , but I just wanna let you know, avoid Jurassic price increases, but it also illustrates the importance of frequent five or 10 cent price increases so you don’t rock the boat. If you enjoyed the content, please click like or subscribe. It really helps the channel out. Also, I wanna thank the curbside laundries client for generously allowing us to use his revenue numbers, you know, to help illustrate the point so we could all learn together. And if you’d like to learn more about the curbside laundries pick up and delivery solution, please go to curbside laundries.com. See you next.

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[Transcript]

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to State of the Laundry industry with laundry matte , episode 37 from 10 to 700 laundry pickup and delivery customers in just three years. If you grew up from 10 to like 700 plus customers from your own vehicle, you know, than you hired more, how long were you at the curbside for , uh, before you sold your business? So

Speaker 2: 0:21

I was at curbside for almost three years.

Speaker 1: 0:24

Just remember your growth was tremendous. And also remember, you’re so busy and one , one time you’re like, Hey, you know, I want to kind of throttle it like over the weekend, you know, so you get your weekends back because you’re, you’re hustling. I mean, you’re a hard worker. So we just turned off Saturday and Sunday, or just Sunday, and you’re like, well , this feels great

Speaker 2: 0:41

About that . Yeah, I , and that was another great thing about curbside, you know, it’s someone who knows the business, right? You know, someone who doesn’t say, Hey, listen, naturally, if I work seven days, I’ll make more money than five days. You know? But someone who knows that the business, like curbside knows the busy days, knows the national averages on the, you know, what the busy days are. We shut down, pick up delivery on Saturdays and Sundays, and I wound up doing more business.

Speaker 1: 1:03

There are also sometimes where there’d be like a slow down , but it’s like, Hey, let’s go do a text message blast. And

Speaker 2: 1:09

Oh , that was great. That was great. Yeah. I , I never knew about that. You said, Hey, you know, make use of, you know, what you have, right? What you have as your customer base that’s, you know, you worked hard building that up. They , you can sit there and let them just be your customers or you can offer things to them and market things and, you know, use it. So upon a curb size recommendation, we would send a , um, you know, a one time , you know , right . $5 off. It would always net us profit, you know, a thousand dollars, $2,000.

Speaker 1: 1:37

And I’ve got a , I’ve got a credit, Steve Locke , he’s got action laundry over in Michigan. This is just brilliant. There’s two reasons Somebody doesn’t do business with you. So reason number one, they don’t know who you are. See , normally you ask somebody what’s the number one reason and it’s like, oh, they don’t trust you or this, or, you know, they , it’s always like, maybe we didn’t do a good job, but no, number one reason is they don’t know who you are. And you touched upon that with the, when you’re saying your online reviews and your online presence , so many people don’t look at their online presence when they’re looking at their , but that’s what people do. That’s what the consumer does, they say. And you gotta think of like when you go to a restaurant, I’ve never gone to a restaurant that I could remember that. I didn’t look at the reviews first.

Speaker 2: 2:16

Cause it’s becoming , you know, a cyber type world, you know, everybody, everybody goes to their phone, myself

Speaker 1: 2:22

Included. And then the second reason somebody doesn’t do business with you is because they forgot about you . And then that comes in with the text messages. It’s like, okay, they used to be in the habit or the scheduling pickups through the software, but then they just, maybe they fall off the wagon and , and then by just reminding them that, Hey, you’re out there. Really, the promotion is so secondary, you know, whether it’s five bucks off or 10 bucks off, it doesn’t really matter. Yeah . It’s just like, Hey, don’t forget about us. Here’s a link.

Speaker 2: 2:46

Yeah, absolutely. Uh , 700 people, they get a text message. If any of those 700 people, that’s how I get a lot of customers. They would people call up and say, Hey , you know, my friend uses you guys. Just

Speaker 1: 2:56

Curious as far as like why you sold the, why you sold the business. No ,

Speaker 2: 2:59

The business really did well. It did real well. And I said, you know, how much more business can I do out of the store? I couldn’t do that much out of the store , uh,

Speaker 1: 3:06

Because it’s like 1200 square feet, is that right?

Speaker 2: 3:08

Yeah, it’s 1200 square feet for what I bought it for and for what , uh, I was making, you know, because of the pickup delivery, you know, it exceeded all expectations. Um, a family friend who I had , uh, advised me throughout the whole process, he’s got eight stores. I called him up and said, Hey, I bought it for this and I’m up this amount. And he turned around, he goes, oh , great. Sell it <laugh> . And I said , what, you know, you know , I’m putting everything my world into this. I’m doing 78 hours a week, you know, I said, are you cra ? He goes, he goes, that store, you know , it’s , it’s , it’s a , it’s a dinky store. You’re not gonna do much more business outta that store,

Speaker 1: 3:42

You know ? That’s so amazing because it did all that business because the pickup and delivery. And

Speaker 2: 3:46

That was the only reason it did all that business. You know, you keep your numbers, what’s the pickup delivery, what’s the business from the store stores kind of , you know, really.

Speaker 1: 3:54

And I had that with the , with the fourplex. I split up, you know, it’s a tripex , I got an extra unit put in there. Just keep in mind, this was like on a half lot. So it was so tiny, it just made sense to do a 10 31 exchange because, and then for the exact same cash flow , I was able to get like two bedrooms, you know, with garages and a much better neighborhood. I did the best I could out of that original investment that helped me get the next one. And I kinda see it like what you did too. Like you, by bringing in pickup and delivery, you took this store that is really capable of so much or X amount and you just maximized the opportunity.

Speaker 2: 4:26

Yeah, I mean it’s just , it would’ve just been like a flat line investment. If you wanna build up the pickup delivery business, you can try, you know, with your own car, you can,

Speaker 1: 4:34

Yeah, you could have the employees pick it up after their shift. I mean, there’s so many options. The reason you’re able to sell and get the amount of money you got for your laund for the investment was because you had a thriving pickup and delivery,

Speaker 2: 4:45

You know, the buyer, he said, you know, alright , I’m happy. He goes , I , you know , he said , I’ll tell you the only reason you know nothing against this store . He goes, but the only reason I bought this sort was cause of this pickup and delivery business.

Speaker 1: 4:55

Wow. Wow. That’s, I used to sell houses and you’d get like three serious buyers or one or two, but there’s not like a hundred buyers out there. There’s really, you’re doing all that marketing. Find out one or two people, and if that top buyer, obviously that was the top buyer, that’s why you sold to ’em , the top buyers in there, the next best offer, maybe 50,000, a hundred thousand dollars less. You , you’d never know. And we , we’ve had , uh, other clients where the person sells and the person buying it had been watching YouTube videos. The state of the Laundry podcast, when they bought the Laundrymat, there was no accent . They bought one with a thriving pickup and delivery business that happened to be a curbside client, <laugh> . And so easy transfer, in many cases, those buyers, they were looking for something with pickup and delivery. And so that, that’s, in many cases, that’s why they sold to that particular buyer.

Speaker 2: 5:39

Once I stopped delivering or once it got too busy, in most towns, there are local drivers, you know, and you say, Hey, this much per hour, you know, you get ’em on the books, you know, use your own car. It’s great. There are many people that will use their own car. Maybe you pay ’em a little more, but you look at it over the course of the year and you see, did I really need a $40,000

Speaker 1: 6:00

Van? I know people bought the van and then they don’t want their drivers driving their van <laugh> .

Speaker 2: 6:05

Yeah, that’s the thing.

Speaker 1: 6:06

A lot

Speaker 2: 6:06

Of money it , I used to have a couple drivers say, Hey, I got this ticket, it’s $130, you know, what should I do with it? And I would say, right , you can plead guilty or not guilty, <laugh> . If you need a van, that’s a good problem. I think you right ,

Speaker 1: 6:20

Right . You’re like , exactly. And then you can solve that problem with a van. You may not need to buy the van before you have the business goes both ways. It just depends upon the operator, right ? We , we’ve got a client in Sacramento who they hit a guns blazing, you bought the van, did all the stuff, grew the business huge. So everything came true. And some people, it’s for them, it may better grow organically. So there’s lots of ways of doing it. My biggest point I wanna get across on this podcast is do whatever you wanna do it. If you wanna buy it, you can. If you don’t, you don’t need to. Yeah. Don’t let a software company tell you, you gotta go buy a van. If you’re doing it yourself, you don’t need, you know, that’s not true

Speaker 2: 6:54

By saying that. And it creates this full spare to entry when you know it’s not there. Some places do need a van, you know, if you have, hey, you buy a store that has this robust pickup delivery and they’re sending vans out, they’re packed. They need a van. I wouldn’t buy the van. And then try and see if , if you need it. It’s almost like buying a pair of Michael Jordans and expecting to be a great basketball player. You know, Hey, you got the , you know, right , you got the Jordans, but you got no game. Right? You can have a brave van, but if you don’t have a pickup delivery list, you have no one to deliver to. So I think you’d rather better spend the money on software and advertising.

Speaker 1: 7:31

The van is good advertising once you’ve got pickup and delivers, you know, so it does help. And then the neighbors see , hey, every Tuesday, that van’s dropping in front of so and so’s house and it’s branded, and then they may become customers. Yeah . So I do like the branding on the van, but when you first get started and you really need to get a , your presence, that van is just, it’s not on the road. It’s not advertising for you

Speaker 2: 7:53

On time delivery, being courteous with the customers, things like that are much more important than what you show up. And you know, if you have a driver show up in a nice van, he’s rude to a customer. People don’t even think about the van. It’s nice, it’s embellishing, it’s a bit cosmetic, you know, it’s , it’s professional, you know, going around with the van, but you , you literally do not need it to get a , a pickup delivery business going. I know with curbside, along with the software, you know, Matt and Aaron , you were always there to help. I don’t call in the middle of the day, it’s , Hey, I got, you know , got this going on. You know , so to me that was always important that that came along with the software and everything, you know, that I was paying

Speaker 1: 8:30

For, A lot of these software companies don’t know the laundry business, and you could just tell talking to them. And so good luck calling them and asking them, Hey, how do I grow my business? Or what do I do with this commercial account? How would you price that?

Speaker 2: 8:41

So, and then I would do it, you know, bit by bit, make sure it is always worth it to do it. Or you can go in and, you know, build it and say, Hey, I’m up to 30, 40 customers now I’m up to 70 customers, but more important than that, am I up to 70, 70 customers and still not making money and I’m running around like a maniac, or is it scaling? Like,

Speaker 1: 8:59

You know, that’s a great point, great point. Because I’ve seen competition both locally and then some of our clients are facing some competition where some of the numbers, what people are charging doesn’t make sense. And you find out, like a year later they go out of business or they start doing a really bad job because they, they’re like, why am I working hard on this? I’m losing money on every order.

Speaker 2: 9:17

Yeah, right. You know, and I could tell you another good point too, with the pickup delivery, it was much, much easier to raise prices. You know, you have a , you have a store, you know, your machines are, you know, whatever, dollar 25, the small ones, two 50, and then , you know, $5, you know, if you raise ’em by a quarter, you know, you’ll hear it from a lot of people. Oh , that’s, you know, they , they’re making like a quarters, like $1 million , you know, never

Speaker 1: 9:42

Going back again.

Speaker 2: 9:43

Yeah . Then it’s personal. And yeah , I said , fine, I’m gonna use the one down the blocks . And people do that, they switch, you know, because, you know, and granted people are, you know, on budget, you know?

Speaker 1: 9:52

Yeah. You know, I was helping out a client with something, and I noticed he had a big jump in August. He had this big uptick in revenue. And I’m like, wow, how’d he get all that new business? It wasn’t the new business that attributed that. He goes, I just raised my prices. And so you could see his revenue charge just went way up. It’s not like he lost customers, he just made more money.

Speaker 2: 10:10

I mean, it’s something you have to do as a business owner just because of everything goes up every year.

Speaker 1: 10:14

And I think customers understand and they’re sticky. We , we had a competitor at the time that was charging a dollar per pound, and I’m thinking, who’s gonna order from us? You know, we’re almost twice that. And it wasn’t a blip on the radar, you know, I think people, if they’re happy with you, they’re happy with your service. Yeah . They’ll stick with you. They’re not as price sensitive as the in-store customers. Well, just wanna thank you for being on the podcast. I think a lot of people are gonna learn a whole bunch. You know, I think the number one takeaway is if you wanna get started, you could get started, you know, the right software, right web presence, right. Guidance. And you grew from 10 pick up and delivery customers over 700. That’s just incredible. And you’re great operator. So I hope you get back in the game because you’re top notch and Yeah ,

Speaker 2: 10:55

I , you know, I’m , I’m itching a little bit, you know, it’s here and there. I’m going to take a look at a couple of things. I haven’t seen any, you know, but it’s all about getting a good store and , uh, you know, if I do, I would just follow the same path I did before with curbside and just, you know, get it going right away and follow the same, follow the same method, you know?

Speaker 1: 11:13

Yeah. If it works, <laugh> , why reinvent? Well, thanks again.

Speaker 2: 11:17

Absolutely. Thank you, Matt.

Speaker 1: 11:19

For more information about the curbside, laundries, wash and fold and point of sale and pick up and delivery solution, go to curbside laundries.com and don’t forget it . Click like and subscribe. See you next time.

The owner is using Curbside Laundries software solution and visited our family's laundromat to learn how to grow his business. The owner appeared in a previous podcast episode, hear his story direct: https://youtu.be/TiDTAGWlS-Y

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Speaker 1: 0:00

One of our clients over at Curbside Laundries is selling his business, and I'm helping him out because he has to sell due to personal reasons. But this is also just an amazing opportunity for somebody looking to just crush it and wash and forward and pick up and delivery and just hit the ground running and then some. So in just two years, this owner with our help grew his business to over a half million dollars in Washington Fold . Take a look at his year over year growth. For example, in July, 2022, he grossed nearly $50,000, and just one year ago, during the same month, he gross $20,000. We're talking about it , two and a half times growth in many months. He saw even greater growth and he's actually turning down business. He's waiting for more washing washers to arrive in the mail , and then he is gonna be able to just do even more business. And there's a general manager who runs the Dayday. So again, it's just a great opportunity and it's not just the wash and fold business he's selling. It's two different laundromats, one laundromat, they own one , they're leasing. It also includes three vehicles, two brand new cargo vans and one box truck. So they're asking nine or $50,000, and in my opinion, that is just way too low. I think it's because a lot of laundry owners may be looking at that brand new shiny store, but here you've got a business that's already up and running with just amazing location and the future is unlimited. I mean, they're just tapping the surface. So if you are interested in this opportunity with Wash and Fold , that has tremendous growth potential two locations, and you already have the revenue stream, I mean that's one way of lowering a risk is when you already know there's a revenue stream and there's a general manager who handles the day to day . So it doesn't get better than that. We've recently helped a client get a five times multiplier, and knowing that this business has a general manager who runs the day by day , I mean this is just, in my opinion, it's a fire sale . So hopefully somebody good gets in there and helps take this business to the next level. It's already growing at Insane Rate and somebody just needs to grab the reins. So if you are interested in learning more about this opportunity, I have the email address and the comments section or the note section or the video. So feel free to check that out. If you are looking at getting started with pickup and delivery, curbside is always happy to help out. So we've got a very successful long amount over in Long Beach. We've helped hundreds of clients to earn five figures per month, and we've got a number of clients as well, hitting six figures a month as well. Again, we don't guarantee success, but we do provide guidance to help people reach that next level the best of success. Finding the right buyer for this opportunity, my opinion, it is way too cheap, but you know, if the seller's looking to sell quickly, maybe it's the right price. To learn more about the curbside LA's pickup delivery, and wash and fold and point of sale solution, go to curbside laundries.com. See you next time.-Y

This episode is jam packed with business lessons, including how Bill got started with laundry pickup and delivery out of his Nissan Altima. And he grew it from just 10 pickup customers to over 700.

Speaker 2: 0:13

Yeah, it was like in your face sometimes , you know , the whole passenger side, you know, it was like, I would , I couldn’t make a right turn cause I couldn’t even see outta the whole right side of the car . But I was, you know, hustling and doing it myself. And I said, I’m gonna do this until, until I have good problems where all right , there’s too much for me to do.

Speaker 1: 0:29

Welcome to state of the laundry industry with laundry, Matt , Episode 35, the laundry business plan. Where is the hedge? So I’m really excited to have Bill on the program with us today. He is a very successful, he bought a laundromat over in Brooklyn and just ran a really, really strong pickup and delivery. And he is got a unique story, which is just curious , um, how you got into the laundry business in the first place.

Speaker 2: 0:57

Well, I had , uh, I was a , uh, I worked in the financial services down in New York. Uh , I had a family friend, the older gentleman was in a textile business, retired, but then he started buying laundromats. And so I , I approached him and I said, Hey, I think this may be something I want to do . He taught me the biz, he took me under his wing and , uh, really taught me the real way. And, you know , to be , uh, you know, discerning and even pessimistic at times to make sure you’re not getting, you know, ripped

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Speaker 1: 1:25

Off. The number one role in any investment is how do you get your money back? Yes. Question number two, how do you make money? Yeah . So if you get, and I’ve seen that where somebody bought the wrong investment because they weren’t pessimistic or they weren’t scrutinizing the numbers, and he basically had to hit a grant slam every single day just to stay above water. You know, a lot of people are real hungry to go find that opportunity. And that’s such, you have such good mentor because he helped you stay, you know, stoic level headed and wait for the right thing that made sense for you .

Speaker 2: 1:56

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I hadn’t looked for stores actively in Brooklyn , Queens, in the Bronx, in New York, and looked for over two years, almost three years. And I would call him up and say, Hey, I got one. And then 95% of the time he’s like, That’s garbage. Or he would say, he wouldn’t , you know, he would say, All right , okay, this guy says he , oh , he says he’s doing this much in revenue. Why is the, why is the water, You know, why is his water bill so low? You know, you can’t do that much business without using that much water. So the water, as we know, is the true tell . Or people would say, I’ll sell you this store for 500,000, but I want 200 in cash. You know, I would say, Hey, this is the deal. He’d say, Are you crazy? He says , You gonna drive around with $200,000 good cash in the car? He goes, Boy , what are you gonna go in a room and count it up? He goes, No, no , no . The way he looked at things, he would rather buy a store, pay a little premium for a store with a solid revenue stream, basically buying a revenue stream that he thinks he can improve upon.

Speaker 1: 2:54

Yeah . And I like what he said that he could improve upon. That’s one of the keys . Yeah , because if you’re just buying the revenue stream and you can’t add value, then you’re not really gonna get the best return on investment because, but if you could buy something and then add revenue to it, which is exactly what you did. So, I mean, that’s one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you about this and do this podcast with you is because you took , uh, a laundromat in how big , how many square feet was it? Just curious . Uh ,

Speaker 2: 3:20

It’s small. It’s about 11, 1200 square feet.

Speaker 1: 3:22

So about 1200 square feet. The amount of business you did outta that because of pickup and delivery was just astronomical. And what was really impressive to me is like, I remember we were talking on the phone quite a bit. Every time I talked to you, many times you’re in the car and doing the pickups on your own and growing that pickup and delivery, There’s a lot of software companies that are pushing Uber and they’re saying, Oh, you don’t wanna pick up the laundry yourself. You wanna go pay somebody else to do it. One of their things is they say, You have to spend a gazillion dollars, or, you know, $70,000 on a van and you have to hire a driver for this much. So before you know it, you’re in a hundred thousand or $200,000 to get started. And that to me is , is just not true because you’re a living testament. So

Speaker 2: 4:03

The way I got into the pickup delivery business was honestly through curbside. I had been in contact with you and your brother in the event that I was gonna buy a laundromat. Cause I , so I always had in mind to enhance any laundromat I bought with, you know, increased pickup , delivery. Cause I think that’s the way going forward. Store that I had was , uh, on the Brooklyn Queens border in New York. It was kind of like a hip area. Nowadays it’s, if you don’t have a great , uh, Yelp ranking and Google ranking, which most of us know you sunk, it was a lot of younger people around. Everybody’s on their phones. Nobody does anything dry, cleaning food, anything without checking it out first. And so that was huge to put it out there, to promote the store. That way when I bought the store, he didn’t have enough time to , to spend building up the pick up delivery. So they only had about 10, 15 customers.

Speaker 1: 4:48

W was that something you, you sought out right at the get go with pickup deliveries to grow that part? Or is that

Speaker 2: 4:54

Anytime I thought about this business, you know, maybe it’s coming from like, you know, commodities background. I wanted to hedge, you know, if I’m gonna buy the store, I would say to myself, Where’s the hedge? Right? So this store is this , It’s a sedentary type of establishment without pickup delivery, there’s a finite number you can do as far as business with what you have. And the area. If they were to build new condos and co-ops and projects around you that would, you know, be great. But you kind of, you know , simple yards . I said, How are , well, if I buy the place and maybe it doesn’t work as well as I wanted, you know, what’s my head, I have the place, you know, I have, I can do pickup delivery out of it. If I build up the customer list enough, I can, once my lease is up, I can, you know, in effect take the business with me. You can . So I’m hedged against the lease expiring against profit declining. You have a much better chance to increase the business with pickup delivery because

Speaker 1: 5:46

Of Yeah, especially what you’re saying. Hedging the bed is so important because a new laundromat totally outta your control could open up just down the street. And if your sole revenue source is the self serve business and it’s good. I love self-serve. It brings in it’s dependable and all that, but it’s really nice to hedge your bed and have multiple revenue streams. Cause in a way you just paid for 10 pickup and delivery customers. I mean, you probably didn’t even pay anything for that, you know, just came with the laundry and just curious what you grew too . So

Speaker 2: 6:13

I , when I left, I was up to, is just over 700 customers. Wow. Yeah, it was Google. It was Yelp. It was , uh, recommendations from curbside. It was you getting on the phone with me and walking me through how to do things. You guys stress once you have the, the customer base, the database with

Speaker 1: 6:31

Your customer ? Yeah. That , that Rolodex, you

Speaker 2: 6:33

Know, the Rolodex, then you can send out, it’s like find an excuse to talk to someone. You know, you could send out, hey , uh, $5 off. I would do that sometimes if it was a little slow or I want a little revenue jolt here. So I would run a little special. I would net a thousand dollars or something like that. You know, I always like to have avenues just buying the laundromat loan . Before I developed a pickup delivery, my thought was, Hey, I’m , I’ve got a 13 year lease. I’m paying rent for 24 hours a day and the store is only open for 10. You know, it’s a wasted asset to me. You know, I wanna run, I wanna run laundry out of there, You know, I wanna utilize all 24 hours.

Speaker 1: 7:06

It’s the idle resource that night. And the machines aren’t spinning. And that is actually the very first article we got in American coin op was at our Lauder map . We spinning the, the machines are spinning or turning all night long. And that’s because we’re bringing laundry to it. So when you first started pickup and delivery were , did you, were you doing out of a van? Did you buy, you know, the special wrapped vehicle with shelves and all that?

Speaker 2: 7:28

You know, I decided to do the pickup delivery myself because I had the time. I only had a , uh, Nissan Altima, which is a smaller car. I said, I’m gonna do it. The online , uh, placement upon your recommendation was, you know , the biggest thing.

Speaker 1: 7:42

You’re picking it up at Nissan Altima. And I could just imagine, like when I was talking to you, you’re like, Wait, hold on. I got a pickup and

Speaker 2: 7:49

Oh yeah , totally

Speaker 1: 7:49

Reconvene a couple minutes after you got the new clothes . And I was just imagining it in the passenger seat. I mean, was this thing stuffed to the brim or how did you

Speaker 2: 7:56

It was like in your face sometime , you know , the whole passenger side, you know, I was like, I would , I couldn’t make a right turn cause I couldn’t even see outta the whole right side of the car. But I was, you know, hustling and doing it myself. And I said, I’m gonna do this until, until I have good problems where all right , there’s too much for me to do, then that’s a good problem. Then I hired someone to come on and help me out.

Speaker 1: 8:16

See, I think that is just so brilliant. See , you grew organically and I , and there a lot of people, I think because because we’re , as laundry owners, we have the mindset of we’re gonna spend like so much money on capital assets, like the washing machines, and you can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on that. So people think, Oh, I’m getting to pick up delivery. I want to go spend $70,000 on new van, 2,500 bucks , get a Rav $5,000 on the shelves. I’ve seen people go all out buying the vehicles before they have the business. And in your situation, I , we got started with Izu Trooper as a diesel, the license. There

Speaker 2: 8:48

You go. ,

Speaker 1: 8:50

The license play frame said zero to 60 and 45 minutes. And then on the flip side, we were shorter driver. And it is actually, my mom went to pick up some , some laundry and she’s driving a Tesla. The person gave her a $10 chip and , and , and is a aha moment for her that, oh, these drivers, they’re making , they’re making a little bit more than what they’re telling us. So do you, did you see any like, negative reactions to people with a personal car or no ? Was that an issue?

Speaker 2: 9:14

Absolutely. No, there’s not people, in my opinion, people don’t need to see a van show up. People don’t need to see a people want, they want you to be on time and they want their , their clothes back folded neatly. Yeah , you’re there for two seconds. It doesn’t matter what you’re driving.

Speaker 1: 9:29

Um , but the driver still is the face of your company. I mean, you’re doing the pickups , what, you know, special interactions you have versus like an Uber driver who may not even care about your , you know, the business.

Speaker 2: 9:39

Part of the reason I, you know, built up the successful in building up the , the customer base was yeah, my personal interaction. I had a stake in the game. So it was my business. So, you know, I naturally, you know, was very cordial with the customers thankful. And I think if you have an employee that’s happy they will represent the company well,

Speaker 1: 9:57

You know , that is such, so insightful because we had sort of a problem driver, problem employee. He kind of had attitude with some of the other people. I think he just wasn’t happy, you know, it just wasn’t the right situation for him. And then later on, and we were like, well , we kind of need , still need him and all that stuff. And then later on we start getting negative feedback from clients. It’s really important to have happy employees and creating that a good environment.

Speaker 2: 10:18

Absolutely. And, and Uber driver is not gonna pick , become delivery. I learned this from doing it myself. And if no one’s ever done it, it , it’s not perfect. People say, Hey, you know, can you come this time? Sometimes you’re little , a couple minutes late. Sometimes there’s miscommunication as to where they left the laundry. You know , sometimes they’re , uh, their partner or someone they lived was supposed to leave it there. Sometimes they said, Oh, I meant a different time. Right?

Speaker 1: 10:42

Oh . And then I’ve seen it because I’ve gone through the, actually these ride sharing programs have their own Reddit forums. And so you could actually see and hear directly from them. And it’s kind of what you’re saying, like , you know , return in terms of their happiness or non , their expectation normally is delivering food. Right ? And when they find out that they have to take a , some , a bag of heavy laundry up a flight of stairs, they’re mad. They’re like, and then they , they , they’ve even commented of like, somebody gave me their dirty laundry. How gross you could imagine . They’re not expecting that . What

Speaker 2: 11:13

About someone that’s not a good representative using Uber or anybody that doesn’t have a vested interest in your, your business is a disaster. First off, they don’t care. I mean, so the best you’ll get on a personal level is a thank you. Something like that. If it’s at all off, if it wasn’t there, an Uber driver’s gonna take off and say it wasn’t there. What do you want to do ? You know , I don’t,

Speaker 1: 11:33

You’ll never even tell you I’m

Speaker 2: 11:34

Not gonna stick around. If you have an employee, he may say, Hey listen, I’m here , I’m here at the stop. You might call the boss , Uh, I know this is an important customer,

Speaker 1: 11:42

The lawyer , or call the customer. I mean, there could be a lot of stuff.

Speaker 2: 11:44

I don’t wanna leave. I know this is an important customer. That’s someone who cares about the company. Yeah . You know , any kind of third party service, it’s just not gonna happen. You need someone who is , you know, who has an interest in it being done.

Speaker 1: 11:56

Right. Stay tuned for next week’s episode where Bill sell’s store for top dollar because of pickup and delivery. And to learn more about the curbside, laundries , wash and fold and pick up and delivery solution, go to curbside laundries.com .

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the State of the Laundry Industry with Laundry, Matt , Episode 34, The Coin Laundry Association’s Wash Dry Fold Conference. The Coin Laundry Association is having a wash and fold workshop on November 16th and 17th, and I’m honored to be a speaker at the keynote session. The future of was and Fold , so was , and fold is becoming more and more of the norm. I mean, most laundry mats are self serve only, but more and more of the new laundry mats that are opening are opening with wash and fold right outta the gates. And why is that happening? Number one is because of money. So it used to be , in order to make the numbers work, they would just say, Oh, you gotta do more turns per day because the rising costs of different things to make the numbers work, in many cases, you have to do wash and fold , and you have to do it successfully. And we’ve got a great track record of helping out our clients, you know, both in wash and fold and pick up and delivery. And we even have some of the biggest distributors across the country telling their clients, If you do pick up and delivery, you gotta use curbside. So that’s one reason. Go with experience. You know, we’re not just selling software. We’ve got a laundromat , very successful. We’ve helped hundreds of lamas make hundreds of thousands of dollars per year on top of the financial reasons why a lot of new owners are doing washing fold and pickup and delivery right outta the gates. There’s something else happening at the same time, which is consumer demand. More consumers are freeing up their time, or they’re paying money to free up their time. They’re outsourcing their chores. And laundry is one of the things that people are outsourcing. I mean, in 2010, we had to spend a lot of money at our family laundromat to do awareness campaigns. Now people already know what pickup and delivery is, and you don’t have to spend as much money letting people know that pickup and delivery is a thing. You could just work on your website, your web presence, online advertising, that type of thing to get people to your website. But you no longer have to grow the market. The market is there now, there’s more consumer demand for pickup and delivery and wash and fold than ever before. You’ve got new folks who are doing it right outta the gates. You’ve got old folks who have been doing it for a long time. But you know, there’s one thing everybody has in common. You’ve got to always step up your game. You cannot rest on your laurels. I mean, Ja , just last month I helped a client who’s been doing it for a long time, and they said, You know, my growth is slowed. And it turned out their web presence really just became blacklister. It was competitive at the time, but there’s new trends, new things you gotta do. So I helped him out with those things and, and they went from gaining one new customer every two days to gaining one new customer every single day. So they’re just ecstatic. So they’re back on track . But bottom line is the best way of learning more, of doing a better job is networking with other like-minded owners who wanna stay at top of their game. And there’s gonna be topnotch operators at the Washington Bolt Conference. So a lot of people, I’ve got tremendous respect for sharing strategies, marketing strategies, advertising, folding techniques, you know, talk about pickup and delivery route creation or more. And you’re gonna get speakers speaking officially about all these things. But I think the most valuable

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Speaker 2: 2:58

Thing is just getting everybody together because there’s no replacement for that, for those conversations that you have. You’re gonna , you get out what you put in, you get together with other like-minded owners , and you’re gonna get out a lot more than you ever would during like a Zoom meeting. So this, so I’m , I’m really excited. I think it’s great that everybody’s getting together, and I hope you can make it. The link for the Washington Forward Conference will be in the show notes. Also, if you like to learn more about the curbside LA point of sale and pick up and delivery solution, go to curbside laies.com. And don’t forget to click like or subscribe so you can keep up to date with the latest happenings. See you next time.

How to Get Started With a Pickup and Delivery Laundry System

Photo Credit to Pacifica Laundry

Speaker 1: 0:00

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Welcome to state of the laundry industry with laundry, Matt episode 33, how to get started with a pickup and delivery laundry system. People are getting into laundry, pickup and delivery because there are a lot of people who are making more money on laundry, pickup and delivery than the in-store drop off . And self-serve all put together and I'm talking about net profit, but there are some misconceptions. A lot of people are putting barriers of entry in front of themselves, stopping themselves from taking advantage of this huge opportunity. The misconception is they believe you need to get a totally decked out van spend 50, $60,000 on the van. Get it wrapped, put shelves in it. Also hire a full-time driver. But the reality is most laundry owners. When they get into pickup and delivery, they're doing the pickup and delivery themselves, or they have an employee drop off the , or pick up the laundry before or after their shift. So when you first start doing pickup and delivery, you're really picking up like one order, two orders. It takes time to grow. So it's ideal to grow organically. So you don't need to spend a gazillion dollars to get started. You could get started today. You really just need a way of attracting customers, such as a website and a strong online web presence, and also an easy way for customers to place orders. So soon as we made things easy at , at our laundromat , super subs for people to place orders, by having software, our pickup and delivery business went up by 32%. So it was drastic. And if you are still using an online form or saying text for a pickup , you're behind the times and you gotta catch up, the hard part is getting people to your website. That's something we help out at at curbside. But if you get somebody to your website, you need to make it easy for them to schedule a laundry pickup . And one of the things we did at curbside is the customer could just tap Google sign in and they're in and they're ready to place an order. So they don't even need to credit username and password. So you gotta make it frictionless. So next week on our podcast, we're gonna have a guest bill do who bought a 1200 square foot laundromat. And when he bought it, it only had 10 pickup and delivery customers. Then he implemented the curbside laundry solution. And within three years he had over 700 pickup and delivery customers and sold his little laundromat for more money than he ever expected. And he did this out of his Nissan Altima. So he was driving around, picking up the laundry. Then he had his employees do it later on, as he grew bigger, he never ever bought a van. Every time I talked to him, I could just imagine he had just piles of laundry in the passenger seat next to him. And he attributes a lot of his growth to curbside laundries and having the right solution in place. He would never have been able to sell his laundrymat for as much money as he did, if it wasn't for the pickup and delivery business. In fact, the buyer specifically bought it because of the pickup and delivery business. He was kind of offended like, wait, what's wrong with the laundromat, but the buyer was there because the pickup and delivery. So he did that. He grew his business and he did that out of his Nissan Altima. He

Speaker 2: 2:58

Didn't buy some fancy van with racks. No, you could get going with pickup and delivery today. And if some software companies out there pushing some ride share program said, Hey, you either need to use our ride share program, or you need to spend a hundred thousand dollars on a van and drivers and all this stuff. That's just not true. And we've got some great, great success stories of our clients, crushing it and pick up and delivery out of their personal vehicles. So don't put a barrier of entry in front of yourself. If you want to do pick up and delivery and tap into the market. There's no time like the present to learn more about how to get started in pick up and delivery, go to curbside laies.com. Don't forget to click like and subscribe. See you next.

I looked at all that equipment sitting there. And I said that equipment needs to be turning for it to be making me money.

Speaker 2: 0:04

When you first started with the pickup and delivery, did you expect it to eclipse your in-store washing fold many times over like it did? No,

Speaker 1: 0:11

I didn't. We have two , we have two vans right now and I've actually been holding back on it on our advertising dollars because I didn't want to get too busy.

Speaker 2: 0:18

Welcome

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Speaker 3: 0:19

To state of the laundry industry with laundry, Matt episode 32, roasting hundreds of thousands of dollars with the curbside laundry management system. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 0:31

I'd like to welcome John McLoughlin to the podcast. He has just a spectacular operation over in Oceanside or San Diego, California, and his was , and fold when you started with us, you're already in the five figures doing really, really well. Your pickup and delivery and your overall business with was , and fold has just gone off the chart. So I'm excited to have you on the program to kind of talk about like how you got into was and fold how or how why'd you get into the laundry business, how you've grown your business, because it's truly a like case study. I think something a lot of people would wanna emulate. So just wanna thank you for joining the program first off. What brought you into the laundry

Speaker 1: 1:07

Business? That's a , that's a good question. So thanks for having me today, Matt . I appreciate it . Thanks. Thanks for letting me get on here and talk about my story. Well , got me into this business. I had lost a job and I needed to come up with another stream of income. I had a rental property that owned free and clear, and it was generating about a thousand bucks a month in income, but that wasn't enough. I needed to generate more income. I looked at the laundry business and I figured, okay, this is a , this is a viable option. It can , it can put , put out better numbers than that. ING . I could pay cash for the business. I could turn that thousand into many thousands of dollars a month, which is really what I needed. And I thought that this would be a great passive business to get involved with. Um , it wasn't too long after I got the business and I realized it wasn't so passive as passive as I thought it was.

Speaker 2: 1:48

Yeah, that's the big joke in the laundry business is everybody gets in thinking it's passive and it turns out it's like any business, if you've gotta run it.

Speaker 1: 1:55

Yeah, well it was , it took a lot to learn it, but I put a couple years in, I learned the business. I remodeled the store about five years later, then that store became more passive income because I have everything dialed in. I had the , I had wired all the equipment was running. I had my customers educated to know that if something didn't work, they just put in for a refund and they get their refund a week later that prevent, that really prevented me from having to go there. If someone called me at two o'clock in the afternoon or nine o'clock at night,

Speaker 2: 2:20

At what point, because it sounds like you got it to where you wanted and in terms of passive income, but then at some point you added was and fold like how long and , and you , you must been attended.

Speaker 1: 2:29

Well, I didn't do that. I was looking for, I was looking for another opportunity because, you know , I liked the business. It did really well figured I could add to that. And I came across another opportunity to buy another store. And that store was a full service store. I had employees, I had a was and fold already in place . So I purchased that store and that had the was and fold component to it. The was , and fold was pretty successful. The guys that owned the place before me did a fantastic job in growing the business, but it was very limited because the manager that was doing it, wasn't very technology savvy. Everything was written on pieces of paper, what days we had to pick up for different customers on spreadsheets with the addresses. And , and she was the only one that knew the information. It was all , it was all in her head.

Speaker 2: 3:06

What led you go with the curbside laundries to help manage the Washington pour

Speaker 1: 3:10

Business. I ran into you guys back in Vegas, you know, maybe four or five years ago, camera along .

Speaker 2: 3:14

Yeah , 2017. Yeah , but

Speaker 1: 3:16

We ran in , we ran into each other at the cocktail party and we just started talking and you were telling me about your product. I think your product was pretty, relatively new at the time I saw that fulfilling and need that I had, it was my ability to take all that information that's being stored in my manager's head and on paper and wherever else it is and automating it, organizing it. And that would give me the ability to grow that business where it was at. I couldn't grow it anymore than it was because it was just unorganized. I mean, it was as organized as it could be with the systems that were in place, but you couldn't grow it from

Speaker 2: 3:47

There. I've seen a number of times where there's, somebody just knows the business who's at the laundromat. And one of the issues that winds up coming up a lot is they're not gonna be marketing the business. You know, they're just there and whatever business comes in through the door, they're not gonna go online and focus on, Hey, how do I get more business? They're just collecting, what's coming through the door. And a big thing here at curbside is we also wanna help you grow your business, you know, with your online web presence and things like that. What's great is you've been at a client of ours for , since I think 2017. And the growth has just been off the charts. Were you already doing pickup and delivery or was it all in store ?

Speaker 1: 4:22

We were , but it was very, it was very limited to probably maybe a five mile radius going further than that. It just would be too difficult

Speaker 2: 4:29

Before software. It was the wild west of us trying to manage the , the business you're total was and full for in store and pickup and delivery just basically doubled the following year . And then it over doubled again, the following year and then 20 of 22 it's , it's just gone up and up and up and we're talking big, big numbers. And then I took a little bit of closer look in things to drop off similar to our laundromat. Super SU our drop off is kind of stayed the same. It kind of plateaued. And that's, you know , I think people are only willing to drive so far to drop off their laundry. Looks like you kind of maximize similar to us, maximize our close to maximizing the local in-store drop off wash and fold . But the reason why the total numbers are going up so much is when we drill down to what's going on with the pickup and delivery. I mean, these numbers are just completely insane. Many times over, I'd say, what are , you know , many laundry maps make total. And that's just your pickup and delivery. Just curious, as far as like what you attribute the growth of your pickup and delivery to, or is it just being in the right place at the right time? Like how are you getting the word out to people? How , how are the customers finding you?

Speaker 1: 5:31

When I first got into the business with the , with the in-store sales, I looked at not the in-store sales, but the self-service customer I looked at, I would go in there on a Saturday place. We packed and you go in there in a Tuesday afternoon at, you know, one o'clock and there'd be like three, two or three people in there. I looked at all that equipment sitting there and I said that equipment needs to be turning for it to be making me money. So how do I get it to turn, to make more money? So when I bought the other store, I , I saw it kind of the light came on. I says, okay, I get it now. Now I've got people in there. And even if it's quiet in there, I've got my employees processing laundry, those machines are turning and I'm , and now I'm making money again, who can only have so many people come in, like you said, come in from a , within an area of your store to drop off laundry, cuz they're not gonna drive 20 miles. Now I can expand my market area. I can advertise to different markets and, you know, continue to serve as my local markets, but also grow, you know, 10 miles away, 15 miles away, 20 miles away for the customer. It's seamless. All they're doing is putting the back, outside the door and the next day it's showing back up again. It's and it's clean how we've grown that business. I think, you know, probably a lot of it's been internet advertising, Google ads. We've done some Facebook, but limited the business has been around for a while . So as a result of that, we've got a lot of good reviews on there. We've got a lot of positives, so that gives us a better web presence. So when someone's looking for pickup and delivery business,

Speaker 2: 6:46

When you first started with the pickup and delivery, did you expect it to eclipse your in-store wash and fold many times over like it did? No,

Speaker 1: 6:53

I didn't. We have two, we have two vans right now and I've actually been holding back on it because I've had some issues, you know, finding the right people to work. That's starting to change now, but I had held the throttle back a little bit on our advertising dollars because I didn't want to get too busy and then our product or service, you know, would suffer as a result of it .

Speaker 2: 7:10

And we noticed the same thing. Things have been the labor market's been easing up. I , I personally think it's with inflation. People have to go back to work in order to afford basic stuff. I just got an email today from a client who she , I mean, this was a tough one. She had a very strong pickup in delivery business and she, because the staffing issues just said, Matt, I gotta turn it off. The good news is I just got an email from her today saying, I wanna turn it back on. So I'm gonna help her send out a text message blast to all of her clients and say, Hey, we're back in business. So it's pretty cool. She , she can flip the switch.

Speaker 1: 7:38

Yeah. That's and that's kind of where I'm at right now, but where our , our season is very , uh, summer centric. We do a lot of vacation properties. There's a lot of, a lot of people come out to vacation, you know, in Northern San Diego. Now that that's coming, coming to a little bit of a low nail . So now I wanna drive more towards residential pickup and delivery customers and grow the market from 20 miles interest to keep expanding

Speaker 2: 7:59

It. That's fantastic. And, and then you recently purchased a second store, is that right? Well,

Speaker 1: 8:03

No. The first store that store has always been in place. That was my first store , but that was going to be my overflow because I just couldn't. My issue was that I had too many people working and I'm consuming too many machines and, and it was impacting a little self-service customers because if they come in, they want to use the big machines or they want to use, you know, they want to have enough dryers for them to work with. My idea was, and I haven't, I didn't need to do it, but I was prepared to do it was push a lot of the production over to the other location.

Speaker 2: 8:31

Oh, nice.

Speaker 1: 8:32

Your software. You , it was pretty easy to do that. You turn on a switch, you know, I redirect my drivers to go, you know, drop things off at that location. And I would just have a staff of people working in there. Um, but I didn't have to do it more than likely I will have to do it at some point

Speaker 2: 8:47

To me, the pick up and delivery just adds so much flexibility. And with the multi-store, it's pretty quick functionality in our software. What's pretty neat is the driver could just choose I'm dropping off the clothes in store a or store B. And then the clothes show up in the laundry, in the right laundry list at the right store. You know, one thing that's helped us with pick up a delivery. Is it just kind of relieved a little bit of pressure where it's like, we don't have to live or die by the self serve laundromat. We're able to supplement in our lion share revenues coming from, we just pick it up and we're less down to a fiscal location than ever before.

Speaker 1: 9:18

Yes. Correct. And I don't, I don't really want to lose that self-service customer. I like the self-service customer helps , you know , hopes cut to cover a lot of the overhead plans in the future might include going to more, more of a dedicated facility or just pick up a delivery. Um , but for now, you know, the , for now, you know, the , the immediate more immediate plan is find more people , uh, that can work night shift and then also push some of the production over to the other location.

Speaker 2: 9:41

It makes things so much easier to just have multiple revenue streams, because they don't wanna discount that the people who get into pick up and delivery without a laundromat, it is the tougher road ahead. And many times they don't plan on, you know, we're in the retention business. It takes time to build up that client base. I mean, you're doing like some 40 pickups a day. I mean, it's just a lot. And you know, when , but when you first are starting off, you know, you could be up and running for a little bit and then you get one order or two orders. And then it takes some time before they order. Again, a lot of people who are just in the pickup and delivery side , don't realize it does take time. You have to have a plan. And the nice problem when you have the laundromat, you're making money along the way and you could grow organically. So it just makes things a lot easier or grow. Then just curious, as far as why you went with curbside laies I

Speaker 1: 10:26

Bet you guys at the , at the show and, you know, thought you were nice guys thought you were , were up front , had integrity. And I figured after looking at your product and I saw what it did, it fit the need. I liked your pricing model on it. There were others out there, but they charged like a commission type based system, which I really didn't like. I like that. They're the clients that are in the , in the system are my clients. They don't, nobody else owns them. If I did ever have to make a change with it. They're they're my customers. And just looking at the product that seemed like it was reasonable, seemed like I did everything, what we needed it to do. It came with a website package , um, with it. So that was helpful because it was more of an all in one type one stop shop, pretty, pretty easy to implement. So yeah, and it's done, it's done everything we needed to do and you keep making it better.

Speaker 2: 11:07

That's fantastic. Right now we're upgrading to.net six . So it's the latest architecture built into that as new user interface make things even easier than before, we're gonna continue just making more and more features focused on how to make you more money. I mean , that's the bottom line. One of the things we've got a dedicated resource on is building out a CRM where text messages are automatically going out for different campaigns. That is something we're just eagerly working on in order to get that out the door. Because soon as text messages are automatically going out to your customers to remind them , or just get back in front of their face, you know, they may have forgot about you. Hey, it's been a while since you placed an order, it's gonna help everybody's business. And then we've also got some really neat Chan updates to the customer portal or where the client places, their order from that's gonna increase the conversion rate dramatically. So have more details on that a little bit later, just

Speaker 1: 11:56

Like I was just saying the automation part is key to be on one platform and to be automated. So I can check a couple boxes as far as what the frequency is. I wanna send, you know, how long has it been since the last customer, for example, is I would imagine you'd do something like that. So if a customer is in place in order in a month or two months, then they would automatically get something to have it in the platform is huge because I'm never gonna sit down and look at that data as I probably should. More, more than I do. I just know that it's gonna be one of the last things that I do. Automation is the key for me, because then I don't have to think about it . I just know it's being taken care of.

Speaker 2: 12:28

Yeah. I'm in the exact same boat. I basically do it. When , if we're having a little bit of slow down , I wanna turn the dial, then I go do it. But it's a whole nother job. Once it's automated, then it's just gonna be automatic. The return on investment for your advertising's gonna be better because your customer spend is gonna go up for each customers and you're right. It has to be built into the software because if it's two different platforms, they don't really talk to each other . Well, so we're gonna have two different systems. One is where it's automatic, where you just flip the switch and you turn on these type of marketing campaigns on. And the second one is more, a little bit more manual, but still not, not difficult where you could just say, Hey, I want to send out a blast to this group of people. And final question. What , what would you say to somebody who's thinking about getting into pickup delivery, but they're kind of on , on the fence.

Speaker 1: 13:08

It's definitely good business to get involved with. There's still a lot of space in it. So I don't, I'm not concerned about other people in my area getting involved in it. The whole COVID shutdown . People looked at pick and delivery a lot differently to think that, you know, you can put it on your doorstep one day and have it back the next day, clean, ready to put away. I think that's a big value add for people. People are more and more busy. They live busier schedules and they have less and less free time. So this gives them more free time. I like the business. It requires more my attention because it's another thing that I have to keep an eye on. But it's the training curve is pretty easy for employees for bringing on new drivers, bringing on new in-store people, as far as understanding the software, learning how the software works is relatively easy. I can bring on a driver and within, within five days goes the systems,

Speaker 2: 13:53

You brought up a bunch of great stuff. One is competition. Some people, they do searches online and they see there's a lot of competition and they're like, oh, maybe I missed the boat. But you're in an area in San Diego where there's a lot of people doing pickup and delivery and you're doing phenomenal. You're living Testament that there's more business out there than any one place could do.

Speaker 1: 14:11

Yeah. I don't think I've scratched the surface in what I can do here. There's a lot more business within my local market and there's a lot more business outside of my more , more business outside of my market that I haven't touched

Speaker 2: 14:20

Yet. I feel the exact same way. We're even in long beach, we're doing really, really well and same exact thing. We're just scratching the surface. There's so much more business than we could ever, ever, ever do. And the other part you mentioned was with C every , I think everybody across the country just saw like a big, big uptick and pick up and delivery was already growing really well before. But then for a lot of people, things just doubled looking at your numbers with pickup and delivery. C's been around for a little while. And even over last year to this year, you've essentially doubled your pickup and delivery. I think it is what you're touching upon, which is people are just changing their purchasing habits or their priorities, or they have less time than they did before it wasn't oh, there's a bump in business. And it's a one time bump. No, this is there's some drastic change going on.

Speaker 1: 15:02

Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think, you know, I have a couple customers that are, that I've been working with for a long time where they would, and they're more property management companies or cleaner cleaners for vacation rental properties. They would come in, they would drop off and they would pick it up a day later, two days later, a week later, depending on what their schedule was. And they came to me and says, well, you deliver, could you just deliver it to my property? For me, it's a convenience factor for them because now they just lock it in the closet. My drivers pick it up, bring it back and drop it up day or two later, depending on what their needs are. So it saves them time. And these , a lot of these, a lot of these people are very busy. These property managers or the cleaning people they want to get in and get out as quick as they can. And that's, and that's a 30 minute process to some of 'em to drive to the store, drop it off and then do the same thing in return when they want to pick it up

Speaker 2: 15:46

Again. That's fantastic. Because one, you could charge more if you're doing pick up and delivery two, that customer's now more sticky because if they're driving it, they could drive it anywhere. And what are you gonna do? Meanwhile, if you're picking up or, or delivering it in that case, they don't get the idea of like, oh, there's another place right down the street. Let me give them try. It's like cable. You don't even think about who you're using it . You turn on the TV, it's on, same thing can pick up and delivery . You're on a regular schedule unless there's a big interruption. That customer will probably be a customer for a long, long

Speaker 1: 16:12

Time. Well, even I notice too with my attendance, my attendance are they're processing laundry all day long. So if they're in the middle of doing a customer's laundry and someone walks in to do a drop off , you know, it could be five minutes to eight minutes. By the time they walk over there, they engage with the customer. They chit chat with the customer, which is a good thing. It's not a bad thing for them to have that rapport with the customer, but that's five to eight minutes that they're not pro processing laundry. That happens 5, 6, 7 times a day. That's a lot of time out of the day that they're not out there producing. So I tried to push customers to go to the pickup and delivery because for me, I gotta , my driver has to drive block or two blocks, but it's not eight minutes. It might be, might be just a couple minutes from the go to one , start to the next. And that's a lot more efficient for me than having someone come into the store and drop off and I can charge a little more

Speaker 2: 16:58

For it. Well, thanks again for coming on the , on the podcast. Yeah. I really appreciate you sharing your story with everybody. I think it's, yeah, very inspirational for a lot of people about getting into pickup and delivery. Even if there's competition out there, there's four opportunity than I think any one place could do. I just think it's neat to be able to have this additional revenue stream. I mean, when a lot of people buy a laundromat, they have no idea that there's this thing you could tap into that could actually turn out to be more profitable than the laundrymat itself that you actually bought. Yeah. And your numbers again are just off the charts and congratulations for just running a super successful business.

Speaker 1: 17:31

Well , thanks to you guys too. You definitely helped me get there. So I appreciate it and appreciate your attentive to the software and keep making it better for us.

Speaker 2: 17:38

If you'd like to learn more about the curbside laundries point of sale and pick up and delivery solution and what helps make our clients successful go to curbside laundries.com. Don't forget to click like and subscribe. See you next time.

Speaker 1: 0:00

Curbside laundries. This is what we use. It's good stuff here.

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Speaker 2: 0:06

Welcome to state of the laundry industry with laundry, Matt episode 31, the clean show wrap up . Welcome to the podcast. First off, I want to thank our nearly 1800 subscribers. Last month, we had nearly 6,000 total views and that doesn't even include the people who are listen on their favorite podcast player and nearly 35,000 minutes watched. So that those are just crazy numbers. This episode's gonna be focused on the clean show. And one of the things right before the clean show, we ran some analysis on our curbside LA just wash and fold software. And it turns out we've had more than 2 million wash and fold orders placed through curbside laundry software and over 90 million pounds of laundry's been processed through the software as well. And over 300,000 unique customers have been served. Those are just astronomical numbers, especially when you consider just five years ago, we were first presenting our software out of a 10 by 10 booth using computers. We didn't even have a point of sell at that time and we've been just hitting it like gangbusters. And a big part is because of you. So my brother and I, we were doing pickup and delivery from our laundromat. We knew this was getting big. I mean, we never saw numbers like this before, where it's like a hockey slope in terms of this is just a new trend. I fought tooth and no at the clean show in 2017, to have them have a whole seminar just on pickup and delivery for laundromats and they wouldn't do it cuz they thought this was a flash in a pan. This isn't gonna happen. We only see new technologies one year from the next, but we knew based upon the numbers and what we were experiencing at supersets that this is not a fad. This is culture is changing and people are trying to reclaim their time. For example, how many people do, you know, mow their own lawn versus hiring a gardener? I bet you when gardening first became something that you could outsource probably is all the neighbors looking down the street say , Hey, is that guy hotshot? He's having somebody else mows lawn. And now you're hard pressed to find somebody who does it , who does it themselves and wash and fold is moving in the same direction. More and more and more and more people are outsourcing laundry because people value their own time and some people are questioning well , what about the economy? No matter how bad the economy gets, there's gonna be a lot of people who are never gonna fold their own clothes again. So that's good news for us. The second thing is in a constricting economy where things are tightening up, everything tightens up, even the amount of money that a self-served customer spent goes down because they may not. They may make their jeans last a little bit longer, or they may not wash their comforters often as they used to, if they don't have the money, they don't have the money. So the question is not, Hey, maybe I shouldn't get into pick and delivery because things are constricting a little bit. The question is, could you afford not to get into pick up and delivery? Because if you have a single source of revenue and that's getting squeezed, wouldn't you be better off with multiple sources of revenue, such as self-serve wash and fold and pickup up and delivery. And that Biggs a question, you gotta do it right? Because there's a lot of companies out there who don't do it themselves like we do at curbside and they might be pitching stuff like ride share programs. And I tell you it's music to the ears of people who are laundry owners and say, oh , I love to do pickup and delivery, but I don't really want to do the work or I don't want to pick up the clothes myself. If I could outsource the driving and just have somebody else do it through, maybe let's say Uber or door dash or some other ride sharing company. That sounds pretty compelling. Cuz now I could say ID do it. But here's the issue at the clean show. Somebody came out to me and said he had six orders and two months get stolen from a ride share program. Now how much does that costing you in terms of your reputation in terms of compensation? And I mean, each one of these customers spends hundreds or thousands of dollars per year in wash and fold and pick up and delivery. And if you're burning bridges and destroying your reputation because you're outsourcing your driver is the face of your company. So if you're outsourcing the face of your company to some stranger with no accountability, good luck, that's not running a business, that's rolling the dice and hoping your reputation stays intact. Come full circle. Now I understand five years ago when Brian Wallace told me, he doesn't know if pickup and deliver is gonna be a thing, cuz he sees these fads pop up, you know, over time. So I ask you if you're thinking about outsourcing your pickup and delivery to a ride share program, first, find somebody who's actually doing it and not getting paid by a company to do it. What I mean is just a regular Joe laundry owner. Who's not getting paid to be a salesperson cuz there are those out there. So the key to pick up and deliver it , making it work, you need to have a route density when you're using a ride share program, your route density is one, meaning you're just picking up one order or just delivering one order that makes it very difficult to make money. So I could see how some companies are pushing stuff. And then all these people are like, oh, that sounds great. But then they actually do it and they're not making money or clothes are getting stolen, left and right. And then they realize it doesn't happen. It took me five years to figure out, but now I understand some things work and some things don't work. And one of the differences at curbside is we're actually doing it. So our stuff is proven. It's not some MBA PowerPoint saying, Hey, this is good idea. Give me some investment capital dollars. Now this is everything is developed at curbside based on real world use. And I want to give a shout out to two boys laundry and the reason why they chose curbside laies overall , the different competition is one of the owners said, I always go with passion. And at curbside we're passionate about pickup and delivery. We're doing it. We know if we develop a certain feature set, we're gonna make more money at our laundromat. And all of our clients are gonna make more money at their laundromats too. One of the highlights at the clean show for us, really a coming of the age moment, we had a curbside client reception dinner with over a hundred of our clients there, food drinks and education and networking too. We went over how to increase your web ranking. We went over strategies on online advertising. We went over a new feature development roadmap and we got a round of applause on different features. So that was pretty cool. It shows where on the mark. And it's just great seeing everybody in person, which is a proud moment for us here at curbside is in 2017, we had a tremendous success at our laundromat superstars. We're making over a hundred thousand dollars a month, every month in wash and fold . 70% is from pickup and delivery. And so we were able to tout our success in 2017, but a big difference between 2017 and now is instead of touting our own success at supered, we have success story after success story of our clients. We have hundreds of clients making tens of thousands of dollars per month and many making over a hundred thousand dollars a month too. So that's just incredible and it's great getting everybody together. And the conversations at the tables was just incredible. One of the most popular seminars at the clean show, 2022 was the seminar on pick and delivery. And man there's people left that seminar over 500 people were in there and as they left, people were just pumped up on pickup and delivery. And after the clean show, I noticed something which was, I saw so many Facebook ads about offering pickup and delivery on my own Facebook feed. Some people may wonder, wait, is it too late to get into pickup and delivery? But I say no way. See the more competition the better, because it creates awareness for this as a product in 2010, as we're doing pickup and delivery, we were doing the heavy lifting at super sus . We had to let people know that pickup and delivery as a thing. And now as people peruse Facebook, people are seeing ad after ad after ad about laundry pick up and delivery. So the market is growing faster than ever before. People are realizing this is a thing people value their time. Our business at super sus, just gone up and up and up. The pie is growing faster than the rate of new people. Getting into the business. One of the keys to growing your was fold business is you don't wanna really advertise to everybody. You want the people who are looking for washing and fold to find you. So the more people who are looking for washing fold , the better off we all are. And something where laser focus on at curbside laundries is helping people improve their web ranking so people could find you online. So we had some really cool reveals at the clean show. We'll be doing some videos specifically on these a little bit later, but first off we have a brand new user interface for in-store ordering. It makes it even easier for your attendance to place wash and fold orders provides information where you need it when you need it. I have to give a shout out to one of our clients, Joe Dan , over at splash him out the guy's genius operator. He gave us one of the biggest compliments you could give. He said, my favorite part about curbside laundries is my employees don't call me anymore on how to use the point of sale . And he used two different solutions in the past. It's just taking care of itself, which is important because he's got nine locations and we're making things even better with our new user interface. So keep a lookout. In my opinion, Joe, Dan made the best virtual clean show video out there. There's a link to the video in the show notes, or you could just do a YouTube search for splash 'em out anyways. Here's a 32nd snippet from his clean show of video.

Speaker 1: 9:16

Okay? People, if you like OZO already cleans the place to be, I guess. And this is uh , mark he's out of in Kentucky. Actually, this is where you get your boards, fixed mountain electronics, great people, good products. And this is a Alia ale names . This is what we use. Good stuff here.

Speaker 2: 9:59

I just wanted to thank all of our clients for helping us get to where we're at today. We couldn't do it without you. We're making the software of our dreams, both my brother and I are making the exact same salary as we have been for the past two years. We have not given ourselves raises. What we have done though is we've doubled our development team and we're gonna be adding even more developers too. We're just gonna keep putting the pedal to the metal and rolling out some great, great new features. So see you next time. We'll get back to laundry . Just wanna give you an update with what happened at the clean show to learn more about the curbside laundries wash and fold and pick up and delivery solution. Go to curbside laundries.com. Don't forget a click like and subscribe and see you next time.

This episode is brought to you by Curbside Laundries

You can make more money in a few minutes of negotiating than what takes years to make welcome to state of the laundry industry. With laundry , Matt , episode 30, how to negotiate a laundry lease increase your bad mat . Negotiating. A good lease is so important for the health of your business. The number one tool to negotiate a good lease is being able to walk away. Could you imagine if you're negotiating and the person you're negotiating with knows that you have to make a deal you're in a really bad position. If you're buying a laundromat, the laundromat you're buying is only as good as the lease, because if it expires in one to three years, you need to negotiate that. Now you can't wait until that time ends because it's gonna be a lot easier to negotiate a better terms on the lease or extend it . Then after you buy cuz after you buy the landlord knows you're stuck. Sometimes it's easy to get greedy meaning, oh, I want to get this opportunity. I wanna make it work. And you ignore the red flags. And the red flag is if there's not much time left on the lease and you're not able to get extensions. An important term is BATNA B a T N a. It stands for best alternative to no agreement. So when you're buying a laundromat and there's not much time left on the lease, you're BATNA. If there's no agreement, if you can't negotiate with the landlord, you're BATNA is you could walk away, take it or leave it. As long as you can walk away. You're in a much better negotiating position than after you make the purchase. And that begs a question. What do you do when you're renegotiating your lease? And you're out of options and all your machines are hard mounted in there. You got all the plumbing and the landlords looking at that and saying that persons in BATNA best alternative to no agreement is they lose their laundromat. They know they've got you. And it's gonna be hard to negotiate from a position of strength. One way of increasing your BATNA is pick up and delivery. If the landlord sees that you've got all this business with pick up and delivery and you could take that business wherever you want. And it's not hard mounted into that location that the landlord owns. You've got a strong BATNA. I've even seen it where somebody has not much time left on their lease. The future's uncertain, the landlord doesn't wanna negotiate. Right now. I've seen laundry owners purchase the second Lama and they start doing production over there. Not only are they increasing their BATNA, but now they're able to create value immediately at that second location. So as their operations expand, they're now in a better position and they're not going to sleep at night. Wondering is my business, is it gonna end when the lease ends? And I've also seen a number of landlords who at the end of the lease become laundry owners, but the landlord might just see it as a bunch of vending machines that are just accepting people's money 24 7. So it behooves you to have a business that expands beyond the bricks and mortar. If the landlord shuts down or takes over the business, what happens to your in store business gone? What happens to your wash and fold where people drop it off in store gone, but with a pickup and delivery, that's a brand that is not tied down to a location. The landlord can't take over your pickup and delivery business. And you own that . And you can take that with you. So your BATNA, your negotiating position is stronger than ever because ideally you could work it out, but you don't have to. You could take your business with you. So at curbside laundries , we have clients who they were not able to renew their lease, but their pickup and delivery business is going strong. Some of our clients who lost their laundromats, they're doing their laundry at other places. Some of 'em have bought another laundromat and are doing the pickup and delivery at the new location. Some of them have actually purchased warehouse space and are doing the wash and fold at an industrial location. But the point is, is when they were not able to renew their lease, they didn't lose everything. They still have their business. And especially during times of uncertainty, it's great to have a diversified business. One of our clients said he went into pick up and delivery defensively.

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Speaker 2: 4:00

It was a defensive play because if we didn't do it, we were afraid that, you know, there were gonna be the other laundromats. We gonna poach. Our was pole business.

Speaker 1: 4:10

I see pick up and delivery as the future because Washington fold clients value, convenience, and what's more convenient than having your laundry picked up from your doorsteps. You want to get as close to your customer as possible with nothing in between. And that includes not having a landlord get in between you and your customer. I've seen so many laundry owners stop investing in their business because they only have one or two years left on their lease with pickup and delivery. You could always have your foot on the gas pedal and continue growing your business. When it comes time to renegotiate your lease. You're in such a better position because you have already future proofed your revenue stream. To learn more about the curbside laundries wash and fold and pick up and delivery software, go to curbside laundries.com. You cannot take a chance with laundry software written by people who don't know the laundry business with curbside laundries. We have hundreds of successful clients making tens of thousands of dollars per month.

Welcome to state of the laundry industry with laundry mat , episode 29, the most common mistake when buying a laundromat, one of the most common mistakes that I see when people purchase the laundromat is they never get keys to the digital domain. We're talking about usernames passwords and more. When you buy laundromat, of course, you get the keys to the hoppers, to the vaults, to the doors. That's what makes it official. You got the keys now, okay? The keys are yours. You own it, but the same should be true with your digital presence. And so often I see people so eager, they just see what they see with their eyes. And they forget about the online digital presence and the online digital presence may be the reason why that laundromat is successful or not successful. It is crucial to driving business to your laundromat, to your wash and fold to your pickup and delivery. Can people find you online and you need the keys to your digital presence. And what exactly is that? That is your Google. My business. That's Yelp. That's Facebook. That's any of the business referral websites. So at the close of escrow, you need to be able to log into Google my business to Yelp and to Facebook, you need to be an administrator on there. And so often I see once the dust settles after you purchase the laundromat, you realize like, Hey, the information online is not accurate. The hours are wrong, the phone number's wrong, or I want to let everybody know I do wash and fold or pick up and delivery. And you realize you can't even log into your own Facebook webpage for your business, or you Google my business and you call up the old owner and the old owner they're done. They don't want to hear from you. I'm sorry, but that's one of the reasons why they sold it. It sometimes becomes difficult to get access to your own digital presence. So that needs to be in the contract that needs to be agreed upon. Usually owners will comply with all that, but it's a lot easier to get authorization before you close escrow. What about your website or the URL for your business? We have over 500 clients using curbside laundries washer , fold software, and pick , and our pickup and delivery solution. And one of our clients, they purchased a laundromat for hundreds of thousands of dollars, close to a million dollars. And they never asked about the website. They never even thought about it, but you know, the website's really important for their business, right? And just a couple months after their purchase, the seller let the URL expire. Their website got taken by somebody else. They lost their website. They had to change. URLs is very disruptive to their business and all this because the seller didn't pay $20 to renew the URL or call the new owner up and say, Hey guys, you may want to take ownership of the URL. Let's say it's laundromat.com. It just expired. They lost that website and they had to start all over with their online web presence. So this stuff is serious. It could cost you tens of thousands of dollars per year,

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Speaker 2: 2:58

If you lose your online presence. So make sure when you purchase your laundromat, that you keep in mind that you need the digital keys to your digital castle. And at curbside laundries, our software is made specifically for wash and fold because we're laundry owners and we needed a system to keep everything in order. But we also know part of the secret to success is your online digital web presence. So we have workshops and webinars just for our clients on how to build up their online presence. So that way they're successful. So all these videos that you see with all these successful people are growing their business multiple times over a big part of that is because we're consultants, we've done it at our laundromat and you could see from all those testimonials, we've been able to help out a lot of our clients, too. Thanks for watching. If you like to learn more about the curbside laundries point of sale , pick up and delivery solution, check out curbside laundries.com and don't forget to click like or subscribe.

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Speaker 2: 2:58

Stamped and it would have to be a long game of years and years in the making. There’s just no, no way I could feasibly see somebody faking their information with curbside laundries. So that goes two ways. If you wanna fake the information, don’t get curbside laundry software, but if you want to validate what you’re doing, and hopefully you’re doing very, very well. That’s where having software that has a tracking system that benefits you. So when it comes time to sell, you’re able to get top dollar because you can verify the information. Thanks for watching. Don’t forget to click like or subscribe. And if you’d like to learn more about the curbside laies washer forward point of sell and pick up and delivery solution, go to curbside laundries.com. See you next time.

Speaker 1: 0:01

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Welcome to state of the laundry industry with laundry mat episode 27, how to buy a laundromat and not get taken to the cleaners. Welcome to the first of a three part series of how to buy a laundromat. Today . We’re gonna focus on how to buy a laundromat and not get taken to the cleaners. I’ve been debating whether to do this episode because one, I want to help people. But two, I don’t want people to reverse engineer what I say and take advantage of other people. Here’s rule number one, almost everything can be faked when you’re looking at the utility bill. When you’re looking at counts, when you’re looking at anything, what exactly are you looking at? And you gotta answer that question. You need to trust, but verify, and you need to verify more than you trust. You’re not buying a laundromat based upon whether you think the owner’s a nice guy or not. I haven’t met too many people who aren’t very nice. One of our very first customers at curbside laundries was a working professional full-time job. And he took everything he had and put it into the laundromat. And every single trick you could imagine was used against him. And I had no idea at the time. And I just knew that keep in mind, my brother and I were , were literally working out of our garages at the time. And we saw his revenue go up and up and up. And we helped this person build up their wash and fold . We helped them build up their pickup and delivery business. And we were so giddy and excited. And we said, Hey, you know, aren’t you excited too? And he wasn’t and it turned out he wasn’t excited because he was losing money every single month. So despite growing his washing fold a lot, at least from our point of view , um , he was underwater every single month because he needed to hit a grand slam every single month because all the numbers that he used to base his purchase on was a lie. Number one rule is don’t get taken to the cleaners and it’s not just why are they selling? But you also have to look at everything and you need to verify everything. One of our clients, when he went to buy a laundromat, he put in a wifi camera in the laundromat. Of course he got the seller’s permission. And because everything was on the up and up, there’s no reason to say no to that. He had his camera in there. So he was able to do counts. And one rule of thumb when you’re looking at information is how hard would it be to fake it? And not only how hard would it be to fake it, but how long would it take? Are you looking at one months of utility bills? Are you looking at three years of utility bills with historical information is very important. When looking at data now on the flip side, we have a client who found a laundromat and the numbers for was , and fold were spectacular. He said, too good to be true. So he passed up on the information because he did not believe the numbers for the was and fold business. So he passed on it. He ran into the new owners and he asked them , Hey, by the way, were they telling the truth about the was and fold numbers? Because the records were not very well kept. It was just paper. They said, yes, he was telling the truth. And they took a leap of faith when they made the purchase, but it turned out, it paid off. Now I’m against taking leaps of faith. I always like verifying. Were there ways of really verifying that? Looking at the counts, looking, you know, dropping in at different times of the day, doing your due diligence, because in the same token where he didn’t believe those numbers, he missed out on an opportunity. So he didn’t trust, but was it verifiable? And if it was, there was an opportunity right there. And the second lesson is as a seller, when you do own the laundromat, you need to make sure that your numbers are verifiable too, cuz you never know if you’re gonna sell. I mean, five years down the road, it could be , everything could be totally different and you may decide to sell and you always need to be in a position where you can sell if you want to. So if you’re looking at your washing full numbers or anything, it really helps to have a system in place where you could drill down and prove the numbers. So that’s one thing at curbside laundries is if there’s a perspective buyer out there you could, and you’re using curbside laundry software, you could look at any month’s revenue. You could look at any order, you could drill down to any customer and you could see down to the time exactly when the transactions happened, everything is verifiable. And when you show charts that are beautiful and you say, okay, and here’s the historical information. There’s no question that it’s real by making sure there’s no question that it’s real. That helps significantly. When you do find the right buyer that they trust you and they’re able to verify trust and verification helps your resale value. In the meantime, when it comes to purchasing a laundromat, make sure you verify the information, make sure you do spot checks, make sure all the information lines up and is legitimate. One final tip. Make sure the laundromat you are buying has enough room for storage. You need a place to store the clothes for wash and fold . And a lot of our clients using our curbside laundries point of sale and also doing pickup and delivery. They make more money on wash and fold than they do their entire selfer business. So you wanna make sure whether you’re getting doing wash and fold right out of the gates that you give yourself. The opportunity to do was and fold . If you decide to do that later on. So if you like to learn more about the curbside laundries point of sale and pick up and delivery solution, go to curbside laundries.com and thanks again for watching.

Speaker 1:          

And if you’re CEO, you you’d get a big raise. If you increase business 20%, this is over double. And then the following year, it looks like 10 times the, the growth

Speaker 2:  

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It’s been, as I said, it’s been ex explosive. I’m looking at trying to focus everything on pickup and delivery with the growth that we’ve had. We’ve done no marketing.

Speaker 1:          

Welcome to state of the laundry industry with laundry, Matt episode, 26, 10 times washable growth in just two years. I’m super excited about our guest today. I would like to welcome Dan pack with mama’s Lama over in Leesburg, Virginia, and he’s got quite an operation. He’s had explosive growth. I think it’s beyond what he even expected and looking forward to learning about how he’s grown his business and how a curbside has been able to help him as well.

Speaker 2:          

Curbside has helped us to grow at a rate where we did not expect our original business model revolved around self service customers and also offering wash and full, but didn’t expect our washing fold to grow this much. And this fast now it’s becoming our main focal point. You know, curbside also owns and operates their own laundromats. So because of that, I feel like curbside is more of a company that understands where I, as an owner and operator come from.

Speaker 1:          

What brought you into the laundry business?

Speaker 2:          

Originally? My family were all, uh, small business owners and we, we started out with a small restaurant in a small town. Parents came here as immigrants with nothing, and they slowly worked theirselves up, purchased that restaurant. And after 10 years we decided it’s time for a new new business. And by chance we stumbled upon a laundromat. We haven’t looked back since.

Speaker 1:          

Wow, that’s fantastic. I mean, that is so cool to be able to go from basically nothing. And then within one generation, you’ve been able to help take this business to a whole nother level.

Speaker 2:          

I used to work as a, uh, federal contractor. I did help my mother on the weekends at the laundromat, cuz she obviously needed some help. Uh, as a single mother over time with the growth of our first laundromats, I decided that I had to quit my job and join her ever since then. We’ve expanded to four locations now I definitely would never go back to a corporate night. <laugh> we’ve done restaurants. We’ve done. Dels we’ve done car washes and the laundromat industry has been the most rewarding.

Speaker 1:          

Oh, that’s great to hear. Yeah. Yeah. We’ve got kind of a similar story. So parents were running the laundromat and my brother came in to help out. And then he just took the business to a whole nother level, bringing in technology, the software website with online presence, paying attention to the cus customer’s journey business just exploded. And then we realized we needed software to manage the process we realized pick up and deliver. So it’s just, the timing was fantastic. And who would’ve known that Lamas would become high tech

Speaker 2:          

And curbside has done that for me. Definitely

Speaker 1:          

Taking a look at your growth, your revenue back in 2021, actually 2020 was fantastic. I mean I think any laundromat doing wash and fold would be happy with that. And then if you look at one year later, year over year in March, the revenue looks like it over doubled. I mean these numbers are just astronomical because if you look at one year to the next, what other business goes up like that, normally you’re looking at 10% increase 20%. I mean, and you’d be happy with 20%. If you’re CEO, you you’d get a big raise. If you increase business 20%, this is over double. And then the following year, it, it looks like 10 times the, the growth

Speaker 2:          

It’s been, as I said, it’s been ex explosive and a lot of that’s I think helped out. I mean, COVID 19 affected everybody. I think we launched pickup and delivery just in time, right before COVID because everybody wanted to have the contact list service. We saw a lot more people trying out that service. And I think that also attributed to our success along with that, the processes that we put in, uh, the way we trained our employees to ensure that we can retain those customers that all had a huge play, uh, as well as the, the software itself without the curbside software. I can’t even imagine where I would be right now. I, I think we would still be relying on trying to survive with self service customers.

Speaker 1:          

I do a video on <laugh> our system. We had our paper system or whiteboard and dry erase and the employee who wrote all these crazy notes, <laugh> on the whiteboard. And I think everybody kind of developed some type of system. And I think what people didn’t realize is with pickup and delivery, it is an individually customized orders on a massive scale because every single order is different. You know, you’re picking it up at a different day, different time. You’re delivering a different day, different time. They have their own wash and fold preferences. They have their own delivery notes. I mean, I remember drivers so often before the curbside software would go out and then it says, oh, there’s no laundry there. Then the notes somewhere got lost along the way saying, oh, did you look next to the chimney? You really need to have something in place that helps keep it organized. Otherwise it just doesn’t scale. That’s where software really comes in handy. So as far as the growth, how have you been able to manage all this? Because you’ve got multiple laundromats. I mean, that can’t be too easy.

Speaker 2:          

Great question. So this, this was our third site. We actually built this laundromat from the ground up. It wasn’t an existing laundry that we took over. It was really scary for us to try a new location, uh, let alone offer pick and delivery, wash, and bolt. We still had multiple competitors around the area and we still had great huge competitors for the wash and bolt pickup and delivery. The original reason why I went with curbside was because I wanted to simplify my job, which was tracking the wash and bolt orders, doing inventory management, making sure that cash drops from employees were correct. And that was my main challenge. Running multiple stores is trying to manage all that. So I was really looking for a software program and I stumbled upon curbside. But with using curbside, my job has been so much easier at this site. I mean, I can’t say that I’m hardly here, but it significantly reduced my time and I can track everything from my home, my phone anywhere I am. It’s been great.

Speaker 1:          

We’ve been putting a lot of development time into multiple locations from one login. You’re able to look at store a or store B store C. You could see any order. The driver could drop off the laundry out store a or store B just makes it real easy just to track any order. The number one thing that we used to get hit with before software was customers would say, Hey, you know, this order got mixed up or this happened or this happened and just have all that information. Being able to say, okay, their order is this many pounds. They’ve dropped it off on this day. This person washed it. I mean, just having that knowledge is so powerful. We’re able to resolve issues before they become an issue. You know, we even knew they picked it up at this time, like in one case and they claimed they never picked it up and were able to look at the security cameras down to the exact timestamp.

Speaker 1:          

We’re using paper tickets. Good luck. I think when customers know that you have this information, they’re a lot less likely to make these false accusations because they know you wait on the end when they drop it off, they know you wait when you drop, when they pick it up, just having a good system in place, it’s good protection. It helps prevent some people try to become entrepreneurs and shake down. Laundromats. One thing I see is especially multi store owners. It’s a big decision whether to be fully attended, whether to even offer wash and fold because there is additional overhead. And it’s just wondering what your thoughts are on that. As multi store owner,

Speaker 2:          

I’ve visited many laundromats that have been unattended. There are pros and cons to both, as you said, overhead is a huge issue. But with unintended laundromats, what I see a lot is the machines break down faster. There’s no accountability from the customers to tidy up the laundromats, especially from myself, coming from a self-service customer background. I want to create an environment where it’s clean, it’s safe. It’s, it’s bright for customers to come and they’ll know, I can do my laundry here without issue, but a lot of unintended sites that I’ve visited, just walking in. It’s a place where I don’t want to be too rowdy. It’s trash everywhere. Even though it’s cleaned occasionally, you’re not gonna be able to get the same dedication as a attendance store. And then with attendance, if even if you hire them, you can make that overhead back. You know, as you said, through wash and folds through retail sales, through vending supplies, I mean all these things that can attribute to customers, spending more money at your store as a multi-store owner. Yes, it is hard to manage all those employees, but if you hire and train correctly, I think that it’ll pay

Speaker 1:          

Off. I saw a recent discussion between some laundry owners and they’re saying, well, if you could have the additional revenue from being attended, pay for the attendant, covering the cost and it’s quote free. So now the question is, is it worth a headache? Why even breakeven, you know, we’re in business to make money. And that’s one of the reasons like curbside, we’re not just softwares. I know you’ve called me multiple times. We’ve had lots of discussions, you know, about like how, how to grow your business and all those types of things. And I think, and, and you’d be successful no matter what, but I think we’ve been able to work together and be even more successful in a way like coaching. We’re talking to a lot of different laundry owners. We’re all working together. I’ve learned so much from you and from other laundry owners and you know, we’re just kind of working together to help everybody’s business thrive. I don’t think it’s enough just to cover your costs and washing fold. I think it’s with washing fold. It’s like, okay, if you’re gonna be managing employees and you’re gonna be paying the rent and paying for the machines and all this stuff, like let’s make some money, you know, let’s grow it. That’s what I find just so amazing with, with your numbers is you’re doing a whole bunch of things, right? No, you’re just bought another laundromat. Are you gonna be doing pickup and delivery over there?

Speaker 2:          

Yes. With the success of curbside that we’ve seen here at mamas, uh, we want to implement that same service to our newly acquired laundromat continuously to grow that’s that’s the name of the game, right? Just continuously grow.

Speaker 1:          

And what would you say to somebody considering getting into pick up and delivery?

Speaker 2:          

You’ll never know until you try. And even if you have a lot of competition, as long as you can provide the service to the customer that is on par with what you would expect, just trying it out, doesn’t hurt.

Speaker 1:          

It’s interesting about how you brought up competition. I see that as something that holds people back, there’s saying, oh, I missed the boat or there’s already people in my area doing it when I did commercial real estate. And there’s three different pizza places on a corner. What do you open up on, on the fourth corner? And the answer is a pizza place because that community likes pizza. It actually works out well. Like we’re doing better than ever at super sets. And we have way more competition. It used to just be like us. And now there’s pages and pages and pages on Google showing pick up and delivery, wash and fold. But the market is grown and I’ve got somebody on the flip side in a really small town of about 20,000 people. His business is going off the hook. He was actually excited to hear a competitor advertising on the radio. Why? Cause now more people are thinking about pick up and delivery. If there’s competition. That’s a good thing. And the, yeah, just sort our final question. What your expectations were when you signed up with curbside and where you’re at today?

Speaker 2:          

My expectations with curbside was originally. I just wanted a software to track my washing pulled orders and do my inventory management. That was my original expectation. Once I got talking with Matt, uh, he introduced me to the concept of pick up and deliver. At that time. I wasn’t a believer. I was really reluctant to launch it because I knew that there would be headaches along the way. I learned a lot. Now I’m looking at trying to focus everything on pick and delivery with the growth that we’ve had. We’ve done, no marketing, everything has been through word of mouth with this new growth I’m planning to do more marketing this year, seeing how much farther we can grow. I’m very, very pleased with the way curbside developed their software and their tech support. Everything is just amazing,

Speaker 1:          

Well, much appreciated. So yeah, we’re, we’re excited. We’ve got, we’ve increased our development team. So we’re pumping out new features all the time. Thank you for being curbside client and I’m yeah. Super excited about your growth and continued growth. It’s surreal. My brother and I, we will be eating lunch. We will kind of reflect upon the, the success our clients are having and it’s, it’s life changing and it, and it’s just really cool to be in this situation where we’re able to help out and got top notch operators like herself who are willing to take a chance or try something new. It’s easy to be content with what you got, but you say, Hey, let’s push things and let’s grow things. And I think as a result of that continued curiosity or desire to grow, I mean, that’s, you took this opportunity and it’s paid off. So just wanna thank you again. I wanna check in again, like maybe a year from now, you know, and maybe it would do update on the podcast because I can’t imagine the year over year growth. And I’m just so curious what next year bring, I just wish you had continued success.

Speaker 2:          

Thank you very much

Speaker 1:          

To learn more about the curbside laundries wash and fold point of sale and pick up and delivery solution and how we could help you go to curbside laundries.com. Don’t forget to click like or subscribe and see you next time.

Kent Wales of Happy Laundry describes how he made this financial discovery and how he incorporates this concept into his wash and fold business. A price increase allows you to do less work and make more money.

Speaker 1: 0:00

We have a special episode of state of the laundry industry. This episode features Kent Wells and him and his brother-in-law discovered something brilliant, which is a small price increase, leads to an exponential increase to profit. So if you raise your price just by a little bit, your profit goes up. Expon, let's take an example. If you are charging a dollar 80 and you increase your price just by 20 cents per pound, you go from a dollar 80 to $2. Your profit will increase by over 50%. So this is big. And the reason for this is because when you increase your profit one, you make more money. Your gross revenue goes up. And the second thing is your profit margin goes up, which means you're making more money on more money. So without further ado , episode 25, a small price increase leads to an exponential increase to profit. So I'd like to welcome to the program, Kent Wells of how happy laundry I just wanted to thank you for you came up with the idea, a marginal increase to price , uh , leads to an exponential increase to profit. And I've just been thinking about that just since you mentioned it to me, and it's just, I haven't , you know, made this calculator based off that. I mean, it just , uh , just blew my mind because like a little 10 or three 15 cent increase makes a big difference to your profits. And you also mentioned the reverse is true with a discount mm-hmm <affirmative> and where if you discount your price, that leads to exponential, it just zaps away your profits mm-hmm <affirmative> and it really makes you rethink your business. It makes you rethink everything and like which customers to focus on. Uh , if you could share like where you came up with this idea and how it all works and how it's affected your business.

Speaker 2: 1:48

Well, thanks. Thanks, Matt. And thanks for having me on again. I , yeah, it was one of those things I've been thinking about for a long time. Uh, I actually, I need to credit my brother-in-law who's , uh , uh , in pharmaceutical sales, in the back of his car, I was helping him clean out five years ago, had a much , these cards spilled out of his briefcase and it was basically one side of it had a grid that was, you know, your gross margin on one side. And, and if you increased your sales by one and I'm like, oh, that's interesting. So then you flip it over and it's the , it's the reverse of that. And if you discount, what is that? You know, it took me a long time. It , it carried around the car to my wallet for pro probably four or five years before I really understood the effect on our business. Uh , you know, the laundry business is not generally a one and done . We are a repetition with customers over time and I've, you know, had heard lots of conversations about low pricing is a race to the bottom, but I didn't really get a grasp on it until I , I started looking card again and really started to digest the difference and , and what it does for our business.

Speaker 1: 2:48

Two things happen . And , and this took me some time, like just going over the numbers to figure out how is a marginal price increase, lead to exponential increase in profit, turns out it's two things going on. One is your gross revenue goes up. And then the second thing that happens is your profit margin goes up. So you're making more money on more money, higher profit margin on a higher revenue. I mean, it's just incredible.

Speaker 2: 3:13

Yeah. I think one of the things to keep in mind with our business is it's, it is since it is a repetition business and you're getting customers over and over, there is some maybe need in the very beginning to attract someone with a discount or a coupon. You know, one of the , one of the hardest things I had to learn and I've been been in this business for 16 years was I almost tried to race to the bottom and beat large lending company prices like in the commercial side. <affirmative> because that's people were coming to me, well, this is the unit price, or this is that. Well, that's not what we do. Well, we do customer service. Well, we do flexible schedules. Well, we do their own items. Well, and that should command a bit of a higher price. Cause if you set like a discounted price for someone that's just stripping away your profit over the law long term , especially with some of those larger volume customers, I think that's one of the thing . I think it's one kind of, one of the bigger things too to think about is, you know, there's one thing to start and fill volume. It's another thing to kind of get up to where you wanna be and have, and make enough and make enough profit to make it where, but that's definitely one side of it. And then you can think about it from the other side, which is your margin. So anything that you can do efficiency with your team efficiency, with delivery, something to get some of those fixed expenses or, or even the variable ones down can increase your margin. It

Speaker 1: 4:38

Also points the picture of what are your, and you're alluding to that. Is your goal just market share or is your goal to be profitable? I think a lot of times we measure success by, oh, more laundry better. It's not necessarily better. It's the goal is to make money. That's why we're all here. And then you start rethinking which , which customers, sometimes somebody may have a really good and by good, I mean high volume commercial account, but is it really good for your bottom line when it comes down to your commercial accounts? Are there like, what are your thoughts about that? Like regarding discounting or because people are always asking that question, what should I charge my commercial accounts?

Speaker 2: 5:13

Yeah, that's a really good one. The true answer to that question is as much as you think they'll pay. I , I think when I think about it, I think about it in a couple D for in a couple different ways. So we have a seasonal business over the summer with some vacation rental companies and owners and also table in and for wedding venues. So for us, unless they're a huge volume account, there is no discount because you're going to be not a customer that goes 12 months out of the year. So as we've matured in our model, we've looked at okay, the ones that are 12 months a year, that we're gonna pick up at least once a week, if not three to four times, those are the ones that are of the most value to us. When I look at the big customers like, and we do have one that, that we do a lot of sheets and towels for, they do a lot of their volume in about five months with us. And it is hard to kind of schedule for that and ramp up, you know, labor and things for that. So when I look at it, I'm like, okay, they have to be to high enough margin that I'm gonna , that we're gonna make up for the extra work work that it takes to , to do them. Now they're a sizable enough account in this one particular thing that we get , uh , that we do give them a discount, but we've worked them up. You know, when I didn't realize this, they were way down below, over time said to myself, you know, we're, we can't discount like this. Especially if those things are true, which is, they're not year round account, we've, they've come up in price as, as in all of our new customers get here's what our price is. So, and it , and for us, we're in Washington with the higher minimum wage. And I, I wanna pay my people better. So we're well over $2, I think we're in the two 50 range.

Speaker 1: 6:52

I think everybody in this business has to kind of review their commercial accounts, kind of do some house cleaning and figure out, Hey, are all of them profitable? Bring some up to speed. Some of them you're gonna have to drastically change and you just have to risk losing them because it's like, Hey, they're, we're losing money on that. And we need to go up to this. And when you go up by a significant amount, you run the risk of the customer going away and that's okay. They either pay what is fair and everybody makes money or they, they really do need to go somewhere else. And then the guys who are kind of on the cusp, it's better to raise those people incrementally on a regular basis to bring them up to speed rather than all at once. Mm-hmm <affirmative> , uh , when you do it all at once, you risk losing that customer mm-hmm <affirmative> , but sometimes it's necessary. We had this , uh , big ship come into Harbor to pour and they wanted everything done real quick. Mm-hmm <affirmative> because they're gonna be leaving soon. So the natural instinct was provide a discount because there was a lot of laundry. And then we're like, Hey, you know what? We're gonna have to do overtime. We're gonna have to do this. Mm-hmm <affirmative> and our costs are going up. So we charge above retail because of their special circumstances. And realistically, nobody else could have done it that quickly on the fly and just ramped up mm-hmm <affirmative> . So we charge extra. And now using the curbside calculator, the profit, I just realized was double

Speaker 2: 8:03

What are my goals? And I'll just speak from my perspective in this business was to get to a , to full production on a, on a regular basis, all of those kind of ad hoc things that come in or big opportunities that people think they have. We don't just have a whole staff of people sitting around, waiting for these things to get done. What my goal is in my business is to have a steady level of work come in and increasing every month coming in every month, that's predictable and repeatable because that's something that I can count on schedule to deal with. So yeah, I'm in the same way we in fact told my staff, if we get, if anybody asks for anything, that's kind of over a hundred pounds, we have to push about an extra day or so, because it's just not, it's not that we can't do it, but I don't want to jump to every one of those opportunities. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . And if there are large opportunities , uh , something breaks down like at a hotel or which we've done before or a nursing home or something like that, it is not a retail price. It's retail plus, because you're absolutely right. You gotta factor in the fact that you're going to have to pay over time . There's extra runs to get out there. It's outside of kind of what we normally do. So yeah, I think that's a really good, I think it's a really good point.

Speaker 1: 9:19

Yeah. There's a , there's a cost to when you stretch yourself, mm-hmm <affirmative> , every restaurant goes through that. You got your busy weekend, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday or so. And then Monday, it's a little bit of regrouping and like getting everything cleaned up. And , and so there is a cost after stretching you might have of called in that extra favor for that employee to come in to really help out because we need you. And now <laugh> , it might be a few more days till she comes back.

Speaker 2: 9:43

Yeah, no , absolutely. I , I think, I think for some, I think this is different too , for people in different stages of their business. So if you're in the very beginning stage and you, you know , maybe you're the one doing it and you got one or two other employees, you're just trying to keep them busy. And so, yeah, that, you know, if you got a coin , if you're doing this in a coin laundry, you know, you're offsetting their labor, this is great. But at some point you hit this, this point where, oh gosh, we gotta, we gotta be more stable. We have to have enough because we need to pay revenue over of those stuff that we already have. That's that's already there kind of helping our coin laundry customers out. There is a shift that happens when you're, when you're building your business. So you're saying yes to a lot of stuff in the beginning, you're figuring it out. You're trying to figure out how to make more profitable. Once you get kind of close to full. And then you think about adding a second shift. There's no reason to discount anymore. You know, you, hopefully you have a good marketing system that's bringing in the customers or you're out selling one of the two, but , or a combination of both. And you can fill all those things. But at no point, I think after that initial stage, you really gotta think about where, how , how can I get the most revenue for each one of these pounds that I'm doing?

Speaker 1: 10:59

Yeah. And one thing about commercial accounts is a lot of times they over, they do a lot of puffy. They say, Hey, we're gonna be sending over all the , all this clothes . And then what you , when you actually get it, it's something else. And it's like, well, why did I provide that discount? Mm-hmm <affirmative> in the first place, probably do a whole podcast just on pricing. <laugh> commercial, because there's a lot to that. But I , I think just the, you know, a lot of people are just, you know, hemming and hauling over raising their price over 10 cents per pound. Mm-hmm , <affirmative> worrying that they're gonna lose so many customers. Let's say you're a dollar 80 and you're raising your price to $2 . So 20 cent increase. So you could reduce production by 27% and still make the same amount of money. Mm-hmm, <affirmative> translating that into English. You could lose basically one out of four of your customers. Mm-hmm <affirmative> and still make the same amount of money. Now, realistically, if you, any laundry owner, who's watching this. If you raise your prices by 20 cents, are you really gonna lose over 21 fourth of all your customers? There's no way.

Speaker 2: 12:00

So, Matt, what's your experience? You guys, I mean, you guys have been in business a long time as well. So when you did your last price increase, do I mean, and you have regular customers, not just kind of residentials as well, but did you notice, or did you have any loss?

Speaker 1: 12:15

Our profits went up so there wasn't lost there in terms of actual customers, didn't really notice too many people leave. I could count on two fingers. One person was on fixed income and we made a special accommodation for her. You know, older lady, one person we just lost overall. We've got hundreds or thousands customers . Yeah . Our profit just went up significantly. I think we just fear failure sometimes where we fear rejection and that one person could make it where you lose sight of your entire business.

Speaker 2: 12:44

I will tell you that in January, I took our most drastic price increase ever. And it has to do with labor cost of materials , uh , fuel, you know, all those things. I mean, we, I was nervous, but I got to the point where I just said, I'm not going backwards. And I looked at the cost and I looked at the potential increases coming up this year. And I'm just like, we're either gonna lose some business or nothing's gonna change. Or my price increase was 15% across the board. It was. And it was, you know, we do, you have a few on tracks that are, that are fixed for periods of times, but, and they'll got , they'll have to go up when their next renewal comes up. I will say this it's, we , it was terrifying for me. And I've done this. I mean, we have program price increases twice a year and we do it so we can keep up with increased costs and make more profit. We might have lost, I, I know we got feedback. Same as you. We got one person on a fixed income that was just like, well , this went up. I can't afford that. And I'm like, well, sorry. You know, we're happy to cut you back to our legacy price. Cause we kind of have a couple for those situations like you, but other than that, I didn't , we didn't get like , we maybe got one other phone call. That was it.

Speaker 1: 13:50

Yeah. So it's, it's sometimes our fear of that as much greater than the rare . And I think that's genius what you're doing with a raising your price twice a year, just on a fixed schedule. So many business operators, I'd say probably over 90%. They wait until that pain point happens like gas going up or this happening . And they're responding instead of getting ahead of the curve. When we outsource to our dry cleaner, he told me upfront , he goes, once a year, the prices go up and I fought hard back on that, but he stuck to his guns. You know, he was like, we're , that's just the way it is . And that actually helped us because then it forced me to say, okay, you're gonna raise prices. Our wholesale costs . I'm gonna raise my retail price by the same percentage. And actually we wound up making more money. That concept of being on a regular schedule of price increase. I think it's really partner just for the health of the industry

Speaker 2: 14:38

In any business has to go up in price. I mean, they're just, that's, that's kind of how the market works and Starbucks doesn't when you go to get a coffee, doesn't hand you a notice too , that says, Hey, our price of our coffee just went up. I think one other, just thing that I'll wrap into this conversation is is you get vulnerable. If you have a customer or a small group of customers, that is a huge percentage of your total revenue. I know that I've been burned early on. I had customers that were 40% of our gross revenue and it looked and it looked, you know, shiny, you know, they, and that was a lesson I learned me and me and an owner kind of got into a tussle and an argument about how things were delivered. And he wanted things at a serious discount. And I didn't really understand my cost back then. You know, I did gave him a price increase, kind of midyear. And he in October just came and got the rest of his stuff and said, we're done. And I'm like, oh no, because that was, you know , there goes 40% of my gross revenue out. The door happened one other time with the hotel where they just, they sold the hotel overnight. Uh , it was an asset sale and the new person called me up in the morning and said, we bought the assets to the company and it does not include contracts. And so by <laugh> , that was frustrating. So I finally, also so long , too long stories to make one point, which is, I also very much try to keep our largest commercial customers to less than seven and a half percent of our total growth . So if we get one or two of those that, that get up to that level, I look at it and go, okay, I can't take any more big work on.

Speaker 1: 16:09

Yeah, that's a great point. So if you don't want one customer over 7%, there's a lot of laundry mats out there that do all their washing fold on behalf of somebody else mm-hmm <affirmative> . So somebody else may be picking up the laundry, just having you quote , do the laundry. And so I've seen laundromats where a hundred percent, we're not talking about 7% or 40%. We're talking about a hundred percent of their washing fold . They is all coming from one customer. And then that's just way the power structure in that is just not mm-hmm <affirmative> conducive for success because that one person could just change the rules overnight and you either comply or you lose everything. So it's, I'm a big believer in fragmented. <laugh> , you know, when you basically want that's one reason why I love residential pickup up in delivery is because if you lose one customer, you know, it's not a great thing that if that happens, but it will happen at some point, but if you lose one customer, it doesn't stop the train mm-hmm <affirmative> you're able to keep moving along.

Speaker 2: 17:04

Mm-hmm <affirmative> yeah, absolutely. I , we call it , uh , diversified streams of income. I'm sure I sold that from someone else somewhere along the way, but we even use it than our small nonprofit that I'm on the board for a youth center. And one of the things is we had about two huge streams of funding that we're funding our organization. And, you know, as a board over the last seven or eight years, we've just looked at what are the other things that we can do to bring in revenue. And along those exact same lines, not be beholden to just one or two either grants or know ways of doing business. So

Speaker 1: 17:35

Yeah, it's so important for the health and continuity of the organization to mm-hmm <affirmative> have diversified income and, and make money while you're doing it, which goes back to the washing fold , you know, the , the price calculator who knew, but that document was in , was in your pocket all that time. Yep . I mean, that is just such a brilliant concept, you know , marginal price increase, exponential different in profit. And it really, I think everybody's got some homework to number one, figure out what their profit margin is. Right . And then number two, figure out, well, what if I were to make a change to my price? What would that do to the bottom?

Speaker 2: 18:08

Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 18:09

So, yeah, just wanna thank you. I mean, you are such a friend of the industry. Yeah . Who've helped so many people and, and that concept will forever change the way do business at our laundromat. I think it's gonna help everybody. I mean, this is something that affects everybody. It's so pertinent and just wanna thank you for, for sharing it with us.

Speaker 2: 18:26

No problem. Great Matt. Well, thanks for having me all . And I enjoy our conversations and, and especially, you know, just back and forth with the , with the business ideas. Thanks a

Speaker 1: 18:36

Ton. Terrific. Thanks again. In the next episode, we're gonna share how to get your own free curbside wash and fold price calculator. If you like more information about the curbside laundry solution for in a point of sale or pick up and delivery, go to curbside laundries.com.

Listen to the FIRST 10 SECONDS! Nick Bernaiche with Clean n Green shares his two prong approach which led to his exponential growth in laundry pickup and delivery. Find out how he produced more laundry without increasing his payroll, why you need a system in place before you grow, why he loves Zombie Mats, how he grows his wash and fold business without spending too much on marketing, and how wash and fold pickup and delivery sells itself.

#laundry #laundromats #washandfold

Speaker 1: 0:00

We have a service that can actually change people's lives when you have something that, that is that good that you're selling, it should sell itself. Everybody will think you're a genius when you've got 30, 40, $50,000 a month coming in. When I think about the potential out there, how much laundry's out there to go get and do at the end of the day, it's , it's like a blessing to be in this business, cuz it's just fun.

Speaker 2: 0:24

Welcome to state of the laundry industry with laundry, Matt episode 24, creating a system for exponential growth in laundry pickup and delivery. Starring Nick bene with clean and green . You guys are like such a huge, and I think a big part of that is you're doing such a good job with on the retention side as well, just doing a quality job, but on the pickup and delivery. So you're doing well, but it is, you know, right about, about the same amount for, I'd say the first year and then 2021, just when off the hook. And I'm not talking about like twice as it looks like it's about, I don't know , like five times as much. I mean, it's just going up and up and up and it's still on an upper trajectory

Watch The Video

Speaker 1: 1:08

That is factor of a few things. It's 2021. We really started pushing into it, you know, with the pandemic, I thought we were gonna need to have another revenue stream just to kind of pad things out while we went through that rough period, even 2020, we were , we were kind of like going slow with it cuz we were only doing Mondays and Thursdays. And I remember I was kind of working with you to improve a few things. You told me that you gotta start doing it five days a week, at least Monday through Friday. And yeah, ever since we did that, customers have a lot more choice and we're just getting a lot more people just trying it out. We why into the radius to the surrounding eight towns and we made it five days a week. So it's a lot more convenient for a customer to kind of pick and choose what they want basically a year of that has led to the numbers that we're now doing. So now we're, we're starting to get into a groove and hopefully those numbers keep going in the right direction.

Speaker 2: 2:01

We've found kind on across the board is the rate of growth stays consistent. Mm-hmm <affirmative> the difference is you now you have your base. So exactly. We had a client over in Los Angeles and he goes, this is great. You know , things keep going up and up like, but when does that end <laugh> and it's like, well it hasn't really ended yet. You know, we're we still keep growing. And, and then your washing fold revenue showing that right over here, you know, in some cases 22, 21 is double or nearly double what it was just one year ago, which is so crazy because, and you were doing phenomenal. You're like, if here's like the average you're up here and now it's even higher.

Speaker 1: 2:35

I'm going, I'm just heading to , I'm trying to get towards super suds level. That's ever since I saw your guys' operation. I, uh, I got envious.

Speaker 2: 2:43

I love the , the grow and you're growing way faster than we did because you know, we started in 2010,

Speaker 1: 2:48

You know, for the first five years, maybe we were doing 5,000 a month, barely scratching to that 10,000 a month mark. Right . We started getting a lot better about our processes and making sure that each customer was happy with what they were getting back retention. And then just you guys getting our website and SEO to the point where, you know, someone searches, they're finding our website. Even if they look at a couple other ones they're on ours too , cuz it's in, you know, that top, top three ranking. So I think all those fact have contributed to where we are now where it's kind of like what's that growth chart, the hockey stick growth

Speaker 2: 3:24

Chart . Yeah. We , we had that too where it was kind of flat and then it was kind of incrementally and when it was incrementally going up, it was like 10 or 20%. We were happy. Wow. Business up 10, 20%. And then, then that hockey slope or hockey stick slope kicked in and it's like, wow, hold on. And it's really about getting all the ducks in a row and you also have to have that system in place as well to manage that business or else it's, you know, or not .

Speaker 1: 3:47

Yeah. You gotta have that. You have to have a vision for what it's going to be. And then think to yourself what would happen if there was double the amount of work in the store right now and how would I handle that? And then start planning for that inevitability because if you're doing the work well and you're in a , you know, a good enough market to where there's enough people that want , want the service, that work is gonna come. So it just literally is consistency and persistence day in and day out.

Speaker 2: 4:16

Kinda like when you walk into different laundry mats, you could tell, does this one have love? I think Brian Gill , he coined the term zombie laundry , Matt , which everybody just knows immediately what that means. And

Speaker 1: 4:26

I love , I love those laundromats . I love those laundromats cuz I get everybody who comes from those. They then come to our store and they it's night and day. You , you want those to exist. Exactly.

Speaker 2: 4:36

It

Speaker 1: 4:37

Gives people a, a true understanding of the hardware work that you were putting in to make their experience better.

Speaker 2: 4:44

Perfectly said like people make decisions based upon comparisons. And then the same thing is true with pickup and delivery. I've seen some people it has today because they go, oh, it's people are already doing it. There are these big companies out there already doing it. They know more than I do. The customers know the ones that take pride in it versus the ones that don't. And when there's competition in a way they are growing the market because they're , they could be spending money advertising. People are like, oh, I didn't know. That was the thing. And then when they, they try them and they're like, oh, it could be better. And then they give you a call and then once they're with you, they don't have a reason to leave.

Speaker 1: 5:14

Exactly. That's why I don't spend too much on marketing either. I let the , I let the competitors do that. And then when their product isn't good enough then , and they try our service and then they stick with us. This past year has been crazy. The pandemic has just been really crazy for us. It almost like helped us in a way. It made us like really hone in, make sure that we were putting out good, good quality. And that's kind of like, it's kind of like a two prong thing. Like I feel like you guys with what you provide in terms to the SEO and point of sale to make everything run smoothly is like the first step. And then the other critical component is just making sure that the quality of the work is there. And that's kind of what our challenge is now. It's like we did those numbers with the same amount of people. Wow. Because we improve , we improved efficiency and we hired better people who actually are tuning in and like working when they're at work,

Speaker 2: 6:08

Oh this is gonna be great. This is

Speaker 1: 6:10

Instead of like hiring three people who aren't doing much when they're there and not really paying attention to that, we got like, cause we didn't want to increase our payroll a ton because we didn't know how things were going. The pandemic. Yeah . Right. So we just kind of like tightened our belts with the people we had and you know, brought new people in and got rid of people who weren't working. That's where all my focus is going. It's just on building up the team. It's the most critical part of it all. Like you guys get us the, you know, perspective customer, but then it all comes down to how those clothes are handled and packed and brought back to 'em and when they open it up and they think, wow, this is like, this is a great service. This is actually helping me. Or they open the bag and it's, it's not folded well, or it's not packed well. And it's in , it's in a hassle for them to deal with that. Customer's for , are we not gonna wanna spend 50, 80, a hundred dollars when you go pick up a family stuff? And that's what the bill is. We've had all that growth with zero marketing. So

Speaker 2: 7:06

How are people finding you?

Speaker 1: 7:07

Well, they find us through the organic search, like curbside you've your SEO is still working well for us. You know, I test it all the time when I'm in different towns and I go in the incognito and I, you know, search the different keywords and we're still coming up in that one or two spot, which is, you know, that's huge.

Speaker 2: 7:25

You're implementing all these systems in place to keep the customers. Once they come on board , I've seen a lot of people. They're , they're looking at different like software solutions and it's like, oh, this tech versus that tech. And I think what you of kind of illustrated in a way is like, it's the whole picture. You know, it's not just one piece of the puzzle. I feel almost like sometimes people make a decision on a car based upon the cup holder, the way they're measuring their decision is based upon the wrong thing. Not looking at the whole car, the whole solution.

Speaker 1: 7:53

If you don't have a system, then you don't even wanna bring in customers because you're not gonna keep 'em it's it's like going to a restaurant that just opened and it's terrible. You're probably never gonna go back. And then you're gonna tell all your friends that it wasn't good, which is gonna be just a death. Now

Speaker 2: 8:09

At our laundrymat , before we had software in place, we had customers how to find their own. So , uh , laundry in the back room and orders were getting mixed up and we realized if we wanted to keep the cut customers , we have kind of same issue that you're talking about. We needed a system in place and we didn't call it a point of sale , the curbside software, because that short sells it. It's kind of more like a business process management solution kind of tracks it from beginning to end and

Speaker 1: 8:33

Well, that's why, I mean, that's why we went with you guys when we did, uh , you know, I think it was three years ago and I can came out and I saw your guys place when I was thinking about different point of sale systems, cuz I knew we were gonna try to grow the washing fold . That's why I ultimately chose you guys cuz of, I could feel that you guys were in the business of trying to improve constantly. And that's basically what I'm always trying to do is constantly improve. And I like the fact that, and still text you something that I should definitely be calling the tech support for. And I'll still get an answer from you. Oh this is this. Let me look into it, which you know, we're a local business and we're gonna remain, you know, a small family owned local BI business . And that's why I like working with you guys because it feels like I have like a partner, just those little things like that is why I would recommend curbside because you guys are still the ones running it. You guys care about it. You care about the success of what we're doing on the ground. Well, that's why I went with you guys because when I first came and was looking for a point of sale, we weren't doing big numbers. So thinking about a system where it was gonna be a monthly cost and it wasn't something I could just buy and have was a little bit daunting, but then thinking about it as being a fixed cost and something that I can grow into, that's kind of the route that I took instead was I want the system that I scale up to an unlimited amount and basically never have to worry about switching because it's not, it's not built for X amount. That's kind of why I wound up with you guys as well, is the , the continual software updates and improvements. And then just the scalability. We only have one locations. I haven't even gotten into the thought process of having multiple locations and using it at different stores.

Speaker 2: 10:18

We do have a really cool multi store solution in , in the software where you could just push about it and you could see store two store, three driver could unload it at store one or store two.

Speaker 1: 10:28

That's what we are , you know, hoping to grow into in the next five years, maybe one, two more stores. And that's it. Well,

Speaker 2: 10:35

Thanks again for, for being on the podcast. Really appreciate tons of insight. I mean, I think your real inspiration because you took your business, you've grown it, you're helping retain your customers and you could see a consistent pattern. Just see the way you're engaging with people online in your store, pick up and delivery past customers, current customers. I mean, it's all about, I think, acknowledging and loving and care of your clients and that's what you illustrate and your revenue illustrates that too. So it's , it's working. Thanks for tuning in to the state of the laundry industry to learn more about the curbside LA point of sale and pick up and delivery solution, go to curbside laundries.com . Don't forget to click like or subscribe. Thanks again.

Wash and fold PLUS pickup and delivery is complicated and you need software to make it simple. There are a lot of moving parts and the only way to properly design the software is if you are in the business. Software needs to be easy to use and have the flexibilities for real world applications. There are so many 'rabbit' holes in laundry pickup and delivery software delivery, because "What if this happens" or "What if that happens". There is no way to know "What happens" if you are not in the business. Laundry software needs to handle online scheduling, to route creation, to rescheduling, to communicating with customers, to adjusting routes, and making things accessible for your drivers and attendants. The goal of your software is to provide a great experience for your customers, while being easy to use by your laundry team.  

Step 2: Make sure the Customers Belong to YOU!

Too often, laundry owners take a shortcut that winds up costing them a lot of money in the long run. If a company offered to do all of the online marketing for you and bring you business, would you say YES? Not so fast. Who owns the customers? If the software company owns the customers you are building up someone else's business, not your own. At any time a company that is outsourcing the processing to you can pay you less per order or divert the business to another laundromat that is willing to work for less money. To build up YOUR business, you NEED to own the customer.   

Step 3: Avoid Gold Plated Solutions

Gold plated solutions are when you see something shiny and new, but the software solution does not have substance. One of our new clients who previously used a gold plated solution said, "That company does not appreciate the depth that laundry pickup and delivery software needs." At Curbside Laundries, we own and operate a laundromat and our solution has to work. We gross over $100,000 a month in wash and fold and we could not do it without the software we created. 

Step 4: Evaluate the Tech Support Offered

Tech support needs to be handled in house in order to get a fast and knowledgeable response. In addition, you need to make sure you can get someone on the phone when you need help. If you have to submit a ticket or e-mail in questions, that is not good enough. In the real world, your drivers may be waiting on an answer and you need to get those questions answered so he can get on the road. Software can not get in between you and your operations.  

Step 5: Make Sure Company has Numerous Successful Clients

At Curbside Laundries, we highlight a successful client nearly every week. We have hundreds of successful clients and can feature a success story every week for years. You may notice at other software companies that the success stories are from the same three people. There is a quality to quantity and we are proud that we have been able to create a successful wash and fold service and have been able to help other laundromats replicate success.  

Step 6: Schedule a Demo

It's important to see the software first hand and get your questions answered. One big question, does the laundry pickup and delivery software know THE LAUNDRY BUSINESS? That's one of the most important questions to get answered during the demo

Bhanu with Lavender Laundry shares his story about how he grew his wash and fold pickup and delivery business in Tukwila Washington to five figures in just five months. He previously used a competitor's software solution and the delivery business never took off. With Curbside Laundries, Bhanu's revenue keeps going up and up like a staircase.

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to state of the laundry industry with laundry, Matt episode 22, 0 to five figures in five months, I wanna welcome Bonu with lavender laundry who took his pickup and delivery business to huge, huge numbers in less than six months. What I'd like to welcome Bonu with carpenter laundry . He is such a success story, and I'm so excited to learn more about your story and share it with people because you've got two things in common. One is you've taken your business with a curbside LA washing bolt and pick up and delivery solution. And within one year of using our service, that's grown to like five figures within few months, and then it's just ballooned and ballooned , um , like a staircase, just the constant growth. And the other amazing part about it too, is you've done all that in one year and you've got a full-time job. And so I'm just excited to learn how you managed all that.

Speaker 2: 0:57

I had a , my job and , um , and I wanted another income service . So was , uh , looking into, you know, other businesses and stuff, you know, and, and I had some success with other businesses. So, and I , uh , I was looking for like a laundromat and , uh , I found exactly what I wanted, you know, so a laundromat in tuck Washington, once I bought it, you know, I, I wanted to, you know, increase my income. I mean, my, my place is a huge place is like 3,700 square feet. And , um, and there was like some room in the bag . So I started thinking, you know, what I could do with it. There was some rooms that the old owners use for tanning beds, you know, tanning, what

Speaker 1: 1:35

Is it with tanning beds and laundromats I've seen that . And I don't , I've still ,

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Speaker 2: 1:40

Yeah , exactly. Yeah . So they were not generating you a whole lot of revenue. So, you know, there was no point of keeping him , I got it , those , and then I started renting out the rooms, you know, to like a barber shop and , and there was a tax guy who to room , you know, rent, you know , place . And , um, so I did that. And then, and then in the meantime, you know, I was looking for ways to other ways to, you know, created my revenue for the laundromat. I , um , I started looking at laundry services and there was not a whole lot of computers in my area. No other laundromats were doing it. So I started doing, you know, I built my own website and I used clean clouds. Yeah . Clean clouds . Yeah . And I didn't have much success with it, you know, and one day I was , uh , I was searching on online , you know, for other ways, you know, to make more money right. For the Lama . And , uh , and I CA came across you guys and I started watching a video and, and it was great, you know, I mean, everything I wanted . And so I , you know, watching all bunch of videos from you guys, and finally, you know, I contacted you guys and , um, pretty much, you know, went from there.

Speaker 1: 2:44

Yeah. It's, it's amazing to me because a lot of people say, Hey, I got this software solution where they're looking at pick up and delivery software solutions . They're like, Hey, this is only 50 bucks a month or whatever it is. And , and so they're looking at it completely the wrong way, because they're like, Hey, I'm saving some money on my pickup and delivery solution. And they completely forget about the customer journey for a lot of these software manufacturers. They're not looking at the entire customer journey and how they find your website, how they find you, how, what happens after they place the order and all these different pieces you have to get, right. Because it's a consumer product. So they're saving a couple hundred bucks a month or whatever it is. And then, but what is the opportunity cost? Because now you're making five figures a month and before with a different software, it was,

Speaker 2: 3:32

Yeah, it was, yeah. It was not that, you know, that much, the thing is we couldn't get traction on, you know , commercial, you know, customers with the , uh , after we launched the, the website with the curb website , um, we start , you know, getting , uh , commercial, you know, customers within the first month. I think it was like , it was within the first month we started getting , uh , one commercial customer. Right. That was the starting point. And then we started getting more and more. So our first one was naturopathic place and we had that and we still have them as a recurring, you know, business customers. And we start getting more and more.

Speaker 1: 4:04

What , what industries and commercial clients have you been getting?

Speaker 2: 4:07

We Havelin company, they rent, leans and stuff. They are giving us, you know, business and also a plumbing company. You know, we are getting business from the everyday , you know , I mean , they , they get busy and we get busy.

Speaker 1: 4:18

Yeah. That's great. Yeah. Those commercial clients are golden and because they're consistent, you're just dealing with a single payer and they tend to give you a higher quantity. So it's just the perfect trifecta.

Speaker 2: 4:31

Exactly. Yeah .

Speaker 1: 4:32

And then it's also, the commercial clients do tend to take longer to acquire. Um , but then the residential are great as the bread and butter. It's nice because is a lot of them, but all comes down the same thing as taking care of your customers, doing a good job for 'em.

Speaker 2: 4:45

Exactly.

Speaker 1: 4:46

And that's what I find really impressed if you got a full time job, and I'm just wondering how you accomplished that. Like, how are you able to manage it all?

Speaker 2: 4:53

Well, I, I would say, you know, having a real good team, you know, I've struggle with employees a lot. It's not, it's not a easy journey. Yeah. Having a real good team that does it, you know, pretty much. So my, my dad retired as a truck driver, so he's helping me out with , uh , with my pickups and deliveries also. And then I have another person doing , uh , you know, pickups and deliveries. I also, I have helps from friend . I mean, they, they didn't have a job, so I offered them a job and pre trustworthy and hard workers . Yeah. Having a , having a good team. That's like the success that ,

Speaker 1: 5:27

Yeah, that is the , the key. And just last week I had somebody say, Hey, and they , they've got a really successful pickup and delivery service. And they said, could you turn off the pickup and delivery temporarily because we need to find more team members, you know, on the flip side, we're, we are spending a lot of money on indeed.com and different, you know, we're constantly, and we'd rather be in a position of having too many people and manage the hours that way, rather than being in the reverse situation. So I think it is good to have a solid team and then also kind of have some padding, you know, it's actually, I think it's actually easier when you get bigger. Cuz if you just have one person and then that person quits you're in a world of hurt. Exactly . But if you get bigger, you , it's easier to have padding. It's easier manipulate hours and give work to the people who are performing the most.

Speaker 2: 6:14

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. We guys struggling in the beginning because , uh , you know, we only needed like one or two presents, you know ? And so once we got bigger, we had more people. So if someone calls in sick and uh , you know , we could have somebody else cover that shift. It got a little bit easier.

Speaker 1: 6:30

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's like taking off with a plane in the very beginning. You know, they're using a lot of thrust, they're using a lot of fuel able to get off the ground and pick up and deliver is the same thing you really have to, it does take time to grow. I mean, in your case, it's just unbelievable, like one year and you've got, and I wonder like how much value that adds to your laundromat, you

Speaker 2: 6:50

Know ? Oh , a lot. Yeah . Yeah . I haven't even looked . Yeah .

Speaker 1: 6:56

Yeah . It's amazing .

Speaker 2: 6:57

I'm not , I'm, I'm not selling with this , uh , you know, laundry service . Yeah. I'm not selling, you know, I mean , I could , I could grow so much, so much bigger, you know, with this , uh , service. I mean, we just started, you know, like it's only been like what , um , a year or less. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:11

I firmly believe if something's making money, you don't sell it because when something is generating money, that is so valuable because in my opinion, money doesn't have a lot of value. You know, there could be inflation, there could be all these different things and whatever , if you just park your money in the bank that you spend the money and then it's gone, what has value is something that makes money? So you've got an asset. I remember I used to do commercial real estate and this guy, he owned a storage facility that made cleared $50,000 a month. And so I was trying to get him to sell and he is like, why would I sell every single month? I get a new $50,000. And it's hard to argue that

Speaker 2: 7:49

Yeah, pretty much with this growth . I mean, we had like, you know , drop off customers, right. I mean, we were not, you know, getting , uh , you know, income, you know, so that's why, you know, I started looking into , you know, pick Penn delivery with the website and everything. I started getting more, you know, drop off customers too , you know, with the website, you know , and they were , they were finding, you know, easier to find things online too, you know? So on the website,

Speaker 1: 8:10

It , around 2010 , we started investing in, or actually in 2010, we had our first website for a Lama. And we , the only laundromat in the , in long beach that had a, and it's just one page. And we start getting all this business and our wash and fold revenue went to about $8,000 just because we had a website and nobody else did your online presence that determines your success or failure just five years ago, 2017, half the laundromats didn't have websites when people did wash and fold , they, it was the afterthought. It was because they had an attendant there just to keep the Raff out or to fix , you know, make sure they could refund machines. So people didn't tip them over type thing. And, and so they had , they said, I'm gonna be attended and people keep going up to my attendant and asking, Hey, could you watch this for me? They got into washing full Delta , pay the wages. And if you do that without the web presence, you'll make between 520 $500 gross, which really just doesn't pay for a whole lot.

Speaker 2: 9:07

Yeah, exactly. Yeah . And , uh, you know, when I built my website, I had several pages, but they weren't as detailed as, as the website that you guys build super easy for customers to find information. And also also the , the keywords, you know, there's like, you know , so much keywords, you know, in the website. So it's easier for you to rank , uh , hire on Google. Most of the areas, you know, I mean , for commercial laundry service, I'm at the top. So, you know, that's , uh , I'm, I'm pretty happy about that. My website was okay, but you know, it was not ranking as high as the website I have right now with curb website .

Speaker 1: 9:41

If you're looking at Renta cars near the air , airport Pertz and budget, and all those different places are like jocking for position and they're spending a lot of resources in that. So it really comes down to it's like winners take all it's competitive, so you yeah. Really need the best. And then just sort of final question. What , what would you say to somebody who's considering getting into pick up and delivery?

Speaker 2: 10:04

I would say , um, go for it. I mean, initial, I mean, don't think about the initial investment, you know, like, I mean, you gonna , you gonna get so much more back, you know,

Speaker 1: 10:14

In any thoughts on like Uber or door dash to use for your drivers versus

Speaker 2: 10:21

I , I don't think , I don't think that's gonna work. You lose your control, find your own employees and , um , and have them, you know, do the pickup and theories .

Speaker 1: 10:29

Terrific. And, and then one thing Peter low with laundry at Gogo was describing how this is a, this business model is designed for of growth because you start get , you get these repeat customers, you keep bringing new people in. Is that what you're finding or is it all new customers or what are you seeing in terms of customer? Oh

Speaker 2: 10:46

Yeah, we get, we get new, new customers, our recruiting customers and also commercial customers. I mean, yeah. They are finding it easy to, you know , find us on Google. And we just had a customer, a commercial customer. It was at one time , but they give us over 2000 pounds of laundry . Wow.

Speaker 1: 11:03

Yeah . That's awesome.

Speaker 2: 11:04

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 11:04

Like bags of money.

Speaker 2: 11:06

Yeah. Bags of money. They actually bags bags for recycling please . So, you know, I'm pretty happy about that. And , uh , the software that , that you guys have, the pures ship and everything so easy to, you know, navigate.

Speaker 1: 11:20

Yeah. And I , I can't wait this year for 2022. I mean, it does take time for development, but a big push is a lot of automation we're gonna help you, like bring in new customers, get your regular customers ordering more often with a higher frequency. So whatever you're making right now, it's just, it's just gonna balloon. Even if you add one new customer we're going to , it's just gonna be tied in where it's gonna help your customers just order and order and order more and more and more it's it's gonna be. Yeah. So we're, we basically tripled our development team and we're just dedicated to just having the best software out there.

Speaker 2: 11:53

Awesome. Best . I'm pretty excited about that.

Speaker 1: 11:56

Nice. Well just , well thank you again for being on the podcast. I think your story is so inspirational because you've been in it for about one year. You've just said ridiculous revenues that people would be happy if their entire laundrymat made that in a month. And this is just one facet of your laundry. We're , we're glad I'll be able to help out. Thanks .

Speaker 2: 12:14

Thanks, Matt and curbside laundries.

Speaker 1: 12:16

Terrific. Well, thank you. Thank you for tuning in. If you like the show, please click like or subscribe. It really helps us out. If you like to learn more about the curbside laundries, pickup and delivery and point of sale solution, please go to curbside laundries.com. See you next time.

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Welcome to state of the laundry industry with laundry mat episode 21, all about the clean show and future trends. This episode is all about the clean show and the evolution of pickup and delivery over the course of five years. The clean show takes place this year in Atlanta, from Saturday, July to Tuesday, August 2nd. And can't wait to be there. In fact, we're having a big reception dinner for our clients. Over 100 of our clients are gonna be there at the dinner reception. So looking forward to seeing everybody there, I'm very thankful to my brother, Aaron , for recognizing this trend of software, washing , fold , pickup , and delivery before it even became a so if you know our story, customers had to find their own clothes in the back room because we were doing so much business and that was the result of a strong online presence. He knew if we wanted to continue growing and not lose customers, we needed a way of tracking all this and making it easy for customers to order online. It's similar to the famous quote by Wayne Gretsky about you need to skate to where the puck is going, not where the puck is. So as a result of creating software that handled pickup and delivery, one of the features is simply adding a button to your website that says schedule pickup . And it goes through an enterprise grade customer experience that allows the customer to schedule, to pick up and delivery. And that looking back, it's a like, well, of course you need that. Well, at that time, most laundromats that did pick up and delivery, if they even did it, they said to do pick up and delivery, call this number or text this number, or fill out this web form or fill out this contact form. Customers were typing in credit card numbers through an unsecure form, or sometimes people to schedule a pickup . And they had no , they got no confirmations. I mean, it was the wild west of pickup and delivery, even launders or laundromats, they would launder the clothes and not even know if they're gonna get paid, they'd drop off the clothes and hope the person's there. And they're like, how do you collect payment? So there were all these problems that people were having that you couldn't even imagine. Now with a enterprise grade solution, people are able to schedule, pick and deliveries online. As soon as we added a button on our website that says schedule pickup , and it went through an online ordering process through software, our pickup and delivery business went up by 30%. Okay. And we were already doing really well. So that simple thing was a big aha moment. It's all about the customer experience. And that's a big focus. Fast forward to 2022 development is focused on optimizing the customer experience because if you could increase online ordering by 30%, just by adding a button, think about what else you could increase. As far as getting new customer is retaining customers, getting customers to order again. So you're gonna see more and more and more development based upon optimizing the customer experience. So we know firsthand how much this helps as laundry owners. We know if we add certain features to our software, our loan demand is gonna make more money. You're gonna make more money. So we we're all in it together. So we are just so impatient when it comes to development. So we've actually tripled our development team, cuz we want these features done this year. I think when you look back at 2022, you're gonna see some huge improvements on optimizing the customer experie. So the first time there's software companies ha doing pickup and delivery and sh and selling to the public added a clean show was in 2017. We have 10 times the number of clients as we did just three years ago. One of my favorite parts about having a lot of clients is it allows us to reinvest in software development. And we need to always be the best in 2017. People were just learning about pickup and delivery and deciding if this is something they wanted to do if they needed. So to do it, I'd say about half the people came to our booth just five years ago, half the laundry owners didn't even have a website. So we were helping educate people about the importance of having an online presence. At the time, a lot of people thought, well, our customers don't use the internet or our customers don't find us online. And that turns out to be a total fallacy. I mean, it's true. If you're not online, they're not finding you online if you're not online, but if you want more customers, you need to have a strong online presence. And now people just take that for granted. But five years ago have auto mats didn't even have websites fast forward to 2019. Almost everybody had a website. So in just two years, things changed quickly. The clean show in 2019 took place in new Orleans. And that show was phenomenal. Our booth was packed for three straight days, just Wal wall people. We're taking up the aisle space . There's a big shift in just two years from the last clean show to 2019. And that was people realized they needed software. You can't do pick up and delivery just by filling out an online web form or contact us form or text. Okay. People realized that the customer experience was paramount. If they wanted to do a pickup and , and delivery, they needed software to do it right to make sure the customer experience was top notch . So we're super excited about 2022 we've tripled down on development. That way we have developers a hundred percent focused on optimizing the customer experience. And this is gonna help all of our clients be more successful at the clean show in Las Vegas in 2017. I remember my dad was pumping me before the doors opened and he said, look around, see all these millions and millions of dollars of equipment and booths and all this thing from major, major manufacturers. There's nothing in this entire expo floor that could help make individual mom and pop LA mats make more money than what we've got in this 10 by 10 foot booth. And he's a hundred percent, right? For example, if you bought a new washing machine, how much more money is your Laro Mac gonna make per month? Meanwhile, we have so many customers using our software who are making five figures in wash and fold per month. And the , and you could look at their revenues and it goes up and up and up and up like a staircase. We're very proud of that. And our customer success is what motivates us. That's why we're here. So we knew because we had the data and personal experience that pickup and delivery was not just a fad. It was a growing trend and it's just gonna get bigger and bigger and bigger. And things are not gonna go bad to just going , doing the in-store washing fold . Yes, you can make a lot of money doing that. But we also have a lot of our clients who are getting into pick up and delivery defensively because they don't wanna lose their in-store business to competing laundromats that are willing to pick it up. Just like pizza. If a pizza doesn't offer delivery, they may be leaving a lot of business on the the table. So we've always been about where is the puck going? Not where the puck is and where the puck is going in 2022. When we look back, it's all about optimizing the customer experience. So we've made a long ways from the days of when you call the laundromat or text to schedule a pickup . Now it , things are so much easier, but there more work to be done on optimizing the customer experience and making it better and better and better. And that's why we've tripled down with our developers. So we could focus on this because when you look back, it's not gonna be like, oh, do you have software? No, it's gonna be, what is your customer experience? What does that look like? And that's what we're focused on. Because if you take care of your customer, you're gonna make a lot of money. Hope to see you at the clean show. It's gonna be a great 20, 22. We hope you enjoy the show. If you like to learn more about curbside laundries, go to curbside laundries.com and don't forget to tap like or subscribe on YouTube or your favorite podcast player.

Matt: 0:01

Welcome to state of the laundry industry with laundry, Matt episode 20 laundry of Gogo , two bowls it's laundry delivery revenue in just three years. I'd like to introduce Peter Lowen . So excited to have you on the show. Peter low is the owner operator of laundry ago , ago. They're based out of Pasadena, California. Your growth has just been phenomenal. I mean, it's, it is just so exciting to watch you grow and watch your business grow. So you've been with us, I believe since about 2019, just incredible seeing your pickup and delivery, grow your wash and fold grow. And I think a lot of people could learn a lot from you is in terms of how to , how to bring your business to the next level. And I'm just so glad you're a curbside client, because it's been a real joy just seeing your business just flourish. So I'm just curious, like how did he get into pick up and delivery? What drove you into that, that direction? Well,

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Peter: 0:55

So we owned , uh , two laundromats , uh, and both , uh , laundromats are pretty good size , uh, one in Pasadena and one in Burbank. And about five years ago, my wife and I , uh , looked into doing a third laundromat. Um, and we got pretty far along the due diligence , um, with that location. And then at some point we kind of had an epiphany and we asked ourselves, why do we want to do a third laundromat? Um, you know, especially after we realized how much , uh, of an investment it was gonna be was gonna be close to a million dollars. We realized that pickup and delivery was, was on the radar and there were other , uh , businesses, you know, starting that. And so we decided that we were gonna leverage our two locations to, to generate more revenue. And so that's what we've done. And we , you know, another reason why we decided to do it was we kind of thought it was a defensive play because if we didn't do it, we were afraid that, you know, there were gonna be, the other laundromats were gonna poach our washing fold business. And, you know, we had a pretty good established washing fold service. And so that's why we

Matt: 2:16

Gotta do it well , that's fantastic. And I think you're right with was fold . What do we know? We know those customers like convenience. We , that's what they're paying for. They're trying to save time. If they're saving time, by bringing the laundry to the laundromat, they're saving even more time. If you pick it up and they don't have to drive to the laundromat and drive back to pick up their clothes, just wanted to dive right in there. Just so people could kind of see the growth that we're, we're talking about, just showing the, the chart and it shows you your rate of growth, just the pickup and delivery gross revenue from 2019 till today, these are just astronomical numbers because most typical laundromats would be happy to do what you did four years ago. You know, that would be if they made that per month, they would be happy and they'd be a success. One year later, you're basically doubling what you were doing the following year and pick up and delivery. The following year went up towards the end of year. It's basically double triple. Now it's just off the charts. I mean, at some point you're gonna be hitting like, maybe I shouldn't say this, we're gonna be

Peter: 3:17

Hitting , uh , as much as,

Matt: 3:19

Yeah , it's gonna be like six figures a month. I mean, you're , you're just hitting grant slams and it's growing. I'm curious, as far as, you know, in July to August, there seemed to be a pretty big bump. And do you , is there something that you attribute that to ? Yeah.

Peter: 3:33

You know, when we first started in 2019, it was kind of like a soft opening, you know, the , the , the first thing that we did was, you know, establish a good SEO friendly website , uh , with the help of curbside. Um, and then, you know, because, you know, it was all new for us. We got a van and , um, and then we kind of like soft launched. Um, we did do some , uh, Google AdWords advertising. And then after that, we continued with that. And then we did some Yelp advertising and for the first six to nine months, myself and my wife, we were the drivers and, and , uh , it didn't take very long, you know, it just take, you know, a couple of hours , uh , each morning to, to do the pickup and deliveries at the time. And then at some point the website gets its legs on the

Matt: 4:30

Internet. Yeah. It gets traction. It takes time for that to happen. Right.

Peter: 4:33

It , it does . We started, you know, getting increased traffic from the internet and our advertising as well. The Google AdWords I think, was starting to, you know , gain momentum and that also something else happened. And I think it was, oh yeah, it was COVID. Oh yeah. That's We , you know, we were on a steady path , uh , you know, growing, but COVID really sort of accelerated that, that acceleration kept growing through this past fall and through the winter,

Matt: 5:06

It was growing way beyond that too. I mean, that did make it double what it was before, but I mean, even without that, it was still significant from 2019 to 2020, and then it just, just ballooned again.

Peter: 5:19

So , yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So last year when the pandemic , um, sort of was more under control before, you know, OCN , I kind of wondered whether, you know, this was a , you know, this was a pandemic, you know, benefit , uh , for our business. My view is that it's not, I think that the convenience of the pickup and delivery service is something that people have gotten a taste for. And people have learned about people are looking for, you know, convenience waste to, you know, save time in their day and looking for services that they feel like is worth it.

Matt: 5:59

Somebody posted it on super sets or our laundromat, they uploaded to Google my business and the photo showed the laundry done by us right next to some Uber food or door dash . And, and also right next to like an Amazon box. So yeah , three different things picked up or delivered to them. And it's all in one picture. And they're just, you could tell they're so proud of it. And I remember reading in some magazine about how COVID in a way, ushered in like a new economy where not just a new economy, but it , it helped fast forward to where things were gonna go anyways, like working from home, a lot of people are doing and getting stuff delivered and, you know, just all these different things that we just thought we had to travel all the way for something. And now there's more virtual things. And I think pick up and delivery, saving time, Amazon deliveries, there's just a new way of doing things. Absolutely.

Peter: 6:51

And you know, my wife and I have have , uh , kind of a unique experience we bought and to a national house cleaning franchise in 2006. And we owned that business until 2016 until we sold it. You know, this pickup and delivery service is similar in terms of the convenience that it provides a household. I find a few different similarities between the two businesses. The first be the business model is very similar. The business model is fundamentally designed to grow because the bulk of our pickup and delivery business, I think , uh , between 60 and 80% are regular recurring customers. Right? And then we have another percentage of customers who don't use this every week or every two weeks, but they use this regularly. That's about 60 to 80% of our pickup and delivery business, as long as you keep taking care of, of , of those customers. And which is why I believe, you know, customer service is really, really important in this, then you keep gaining new customers. And so you keep gaining new customers on top of your, you know, existing customers. And so the model is designed for con continued growth

Matt: 8:13

Is so well sad . I mean, that's what it's all about. And I , and I think that caught us by surprise too. I mean, we saw the numbers, but it's took us a while to interpret it as we're growing. And that's exactly it. We were, it's all about retention. You know, I get people calling me, Hey, and they're making really good money, but they're like, how do I compare it to other people and this and that. And it's like, it doesn't even matter what number you're at right now. It's all about the Delta. What is the change? What is your rate of growth? Because that's gonna determine your future. Yeah .

Peter: 8:40

Because of COVID and because the economy has changed, we don't know what the, you know, each next six months are gonna bring, we may not experience the same speed of growth, but I strongly believe that we will continue to grow. And if we're not, then you ask yourself, why aren't we growing? And maybe it's because of advertising. Maybe it's because of this. Maybe it's because of that. And you make adjustments.

Matt: 9:08

Exactly. That's a fun part about the business. You can make adjustments, you could advertise to your existing customers, get them to order again. You could advertise a new customer. So they find you, there's a lot of different tools at our disposal. You know, a really great part about you is you are no stranger. You're calling and saying, Hey, you're looking for advice, looking for ways of growing your business. So , and so a lot of it was just dialogue and just talking about your situation and some people go on a it, and you're like grabbed it by the bull by horns and said, Hey, let's go figure it out. And, and I think that's a big reason for your success as well. At one point you're, you're growing and you decided to pull back on advertising. And I thought that reason was very interesting. It's because at that time you had a , maybe it was a single, like one van at the time. You knew if you on growing, you're gonna have to maybe buy another one. And you are at a sweet spot, you know, where everything was very, and if you buy another vehicle, then it just adds more pieces. So I just, right . If you could talk about that, as far as the reason to pull back on advertising,

Peter: 10:09

We had grown so much and so quickly that we needed to high more staff. The time between every additional vehicle is it's a big jump. You reach up to a point where, you know, I think I'm gonna need a new van, but you know, the expense of a new van and really not only the van, but the commercial auto insurance is also consideration. And then the most expensive piece is , is the driver for the van, right? So the additional payroll. So we were having a hard time finding staff. And so, yeah, we just, we pulled back all of our advertising , uh , that was about a year ago. And we have not gone back to advertising. We've been growing organically.

Matt: 10:54

Ultimately if they're scheduling a pickup and delivery, either going to your website. And so it's, and it's all connected to your web presence. And that's one thing to consider as well. Like you've got the website, which really helped you grow a whole bunch. And, but then it's also all the different , um, your online

Peter: 11:10

Reputation. We have an advertised anywhere print or internet for, for a year.

Matt: 11:17

You know, that's amazing because I see a lot of places, they , they get going and they're relying a hundred percent on Google AdWords and they're spending thousands of dollars. And then when you look at their customer acquisition costs, it's through the roof. And it's really hard to make money if all your leads are coming by paid advertising. So we, we do spend, you know, a couple grand at super sets to get more customers up , but we get way more just like you, we get way more customers just organically. So it's all about the website presence and all the things that go to factor. That's great that you could have the website and make sure your reviews are good and do a good job. And then you don't have to pay for advertising. If you ever want to hit the gas pedal, you can, if you want to, but you're already doing fantastic as it is exactly

Peter: 12:00

Matt . And that , that reminds me of another reason why we kind of pulled back. The advertising was we had , we were growing so much, you know, when you have so much more volume, invariably, you know, different things come up, more phone calls , um , more issues, you know, kind of come up. My wife and I, we have big aspirations to be able to travel next year. Our daughter is , uh , going off to college in Spain for a year. And we wanted to be able to digest all of the growth before we decided what we wanted to it to do in terms of growth, knowing like you said, you know, we can put, you know, we can press down on the gas pedal when we want to. And you know, that may happen sometime, you know, this coming year continued growth isn't necessarily ideal for, for every business, especially, you know, when we've grown, you know, this much already, that's the thing is you can accelerate the gas or you , you can pull back a little bit depending on what you want to do.

Matt: 12:59

Well, I just wanted to thank you for yeah. Being on the podcast, because I think your story's phenomenal. And I think it really puts perspective in like one approach of doing it. And the whole reason you got into pick up and delivery, and also just taking care of your customers, because exactly what you said, this is a growth business it's designed for growth and that's because of retention. So that's such an important factor and just, I'm so glad you're a client of ours and , um, just wish you continued success.

Peter: 13:25

Thank you. Thank

Matt: 13:26

You. If you would like to learn more about the curbside laundries wash and fold point of sale , pick up and delivery solution, or about the topnotch laundromat websites that we make for our clients. Check out curbside laundries.com. If you enjoy the show, don't forget to click like or subscribe.

[Transcript]

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Welcome to state of the laundry industry with Laundry ‘Matt’ episode 19, how to raise wash and fold prices. Today, we’re gonna be talking about raising prices, which I know is everybody’s favorite topic, because that ultimately makes you more money. It’s something that most laundry owned are scared to do, because we don’t like to face rejection. If we lose that one customer, it’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. The bigger picture is this. We have never raised our prices and made less money. Let me phrase that another way. Every single time we’ve raised our prices, we’ve made more money. So let’s focus on that. And then we’ll talk about how to kind of capture. If you do lose some customers, how to get them back into the mix. One thing is I often see laundry owners, miss pricing , wash , and fold . And the reason is this. A lot of times they get into wash and fold and they already have the tenant in place. So from their point of view, they’re not paying for the attendant because the attendant is already there. And this is one great way of misconstruing your prices and setting up a bad precedent. The reason being is if you’re doing wash and fold , right, and you have a strong web presence and hopefully good software, you know, low plug for curbside LA, if you’re doing things right, and you’re growing your business, you will need to hire another attendant. You need to factor in the cost of labor, into your wash and fold pricing. I mean, that sounds obvious, but I’ll tell you there’s some hobbyists or people just getting into the business who don’t realize that you need to factor in the cost of labor or into wash and fold . Otherwise, it just doesn’t make sense. You need your business to , to scale. And if you Ms. Price wash and fold and you’re charging too little, well , winds up happening is some of those customers who joined you while you were real cheap, may not stick around. So were they really good customers or not? Are they really willing to pay market price , price or not? I’d rather you focus and create your business around real customers who are willing to pay what it costs and more. We’re raising our prices by about 9 cents per pound, which is gonna help us make thousands and thousands of dollars more per month. So one little price increase makes a big difference on the revenue. How do you raise your prices? Do you announce the rule that you’re raising your prices? I oftentimes see laundry owners kind of going back and forth on Facebook. Do you announce your price increase or not? And the answer is yes and no. For most of your customers, you should not mention your price increase. You . You don’t announce it. For example, when you go to the grocery store and they’re always raising their prices, there cost of milk is going up. The cost of gas is going up. When you buy gas, do they say, Hey, it’s now five bucks a gallon, but if you would’ve bought it a week ago, it would’ve been $4 a gallon. No last week’s prices is completely irrelevant because last week is done. We’re not there anymore. If you want gas, this is the price. If you want a gallon of milk, this is the price we do not need to be the only industry that says, Hey, guess what? The price is now this, but it used to be that next time they place an order. They’ll see for themselves, Hey, it’s a dollar 89 or per pound. They’ll see a , the price. And it’s up to them to remember, wait, did the price go up? It’s not our job to make a big spectacle of the whole thing. The customers who you do mention the price increase to are your reoccurring customers, because your reoccurring customers are scheduled for every week or every other week. And they’re not going to the PLA to the counter or to your website or to their app and placing the order. It’s automatic because there’s no time for them to be notified. There’s a price increase. It’s the right thing to do to let them know, Hey, guess what? Starting on this date a week or two from now, the price, the new price is gonna be X, Y, and Z E per pound. Okay. So you just let them know the new price. You don’t have to go over the old price again. That’s yesterday’s news or another way of saying it is the price is going up 10 cents per pound. That way they could decide, do I continue going forward? It’s gonna cost an extra 10 cents, but you don’t need to do a whole math equation. Say the old price was this it’s going up 10 cents. The new price is so I’d either tell them it’s gonna go up by 10 cents a pound or whatever you’d choose, or just tell them the , the new price. Secondly, we did get a little bit of uptick and cancellations on our reoccurring customers. We have 300 reoccurring customers who schedule weekly or every other week pickups out of those 300. We got five cancellations after we announced the price increase. All right ? And these are big spenders. Uh, these guys spend thousands of dollars per year. Now outta those five. So five outta 300, we’re looking at about almost 2%. We’re gonna reach out to those people, find out what, why they canceled. And you should be doing that for all of your reoccurring customers. You should be watching to see if any of them canceled. So we’ve got a real handed report in our software that lets you know, who has canceled or reoccurring when they last ordered. This is great information because as you could see, these guys spend thousands of dollars per year. So if somebody who spends thousands of dollars per year with you cancels, wouldn’t you like to have a chance at bat to get at them back. And if it is about price, guess what? You know, over 9 cents a pound, we’ll just honor the old price, but don’t tell anyone another thing that’s easy to forget about are your commercial accounts. A lot of times our commercial accounts, there’s paying a special rate. So when you increase your price across the board, it’s really easy to or forget about those special deals you gave to people, which is another reason why you may not wanna do special deals because it’s more maintenance down the line. Don’t forget to increase the price of your commercial accounts. For example, we have a dry cleaning partner who does all of our dry cleaning for us. We just drop off the dry cleaning garments with them and they bring it back. Our dry cleaning partner every year, he increases the price on us and, and we just come to expect it. So we get the new, this is the new rate and we just kind of factor that in. So you should probably do something like that with your commercial accounts review of them, make sure the price is up to date. The final thing I want to cover is don’t give away the farm. I’ve seen it so often with commercial clients that people just give them such a great deal and remember labor doesn’t scale, like other things do we typically try and just offer regular rate 10 cents off sometimes 20 cents off, but we’re not giving them a huge percentage off. We are not census . We’re not some huge organization that just, you know, we’re with these huge machines and it scales like that. It doesn’t. So you need to charge a fair market rate even for your commercial accounts. One great way of having the confidence to what you should be charging is to make sure you keep getting leads. We got a , a whole podcast just about that. As a result of the website we made for one of our clients, he gets a lot of commercial leads. So as long as you’re getting more, as long as there’s a next guy to talk to that could give you the confidence to do a better job charging what you should charge for commercial accounts. We had a commercial account, it was a ship coming into port and they called us while they’re still at sea. And they had thousands and thousands and thousands of pounds, huge amount, probably more than what many laundromats do in an entire month. The tendency would be to give them the best possible price, right? But they needed the close back right away because their washing machine. And they’re gonna go back out to sea in just a few days. And so rather than giving them a better price, we told them we’re going to have to pay overtime. We’re gonna have to have our people working around the clock to get this done in time. You’re actually gonna have to pay 10 cents more per pound. And they said, no problem. We just need to get it done. That was a aha moment. But because it’s like all this time, we’ve been charging less. We should be charging maybe in some situations more, keep in mind. What are the things at your laundromat that the customer is paying for beyond price is that you do a great job. You’ll be able to accommodate them. You’ll be able to wash it the way they want to. You have ozone. So you, you sanitize the , the laundry you need to know right off the bat. What makes you special? And maybe that should be a whole podcast episode right there. Cuz if you focus on what makes you special, you don’t have to focus on price. And when you don’t focus on price, you could charge more. I hope you take a look at your pricing, make sure you’re charging what you should be. You charging gas is going up. Labor’s going up and you need to make sure that your prices are anyways. Have a great day and make a lot of money. Thank you for tuning in to state of the laundry industry. Don’t forget to click like or subscribe and to learn more about the curbside laundries wash and fold solution for in store and pick up and delivery. Go to curbsidelaundries.com . See you next time.

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Welcome to state of the laundry industry with laundry Matt episode 18, how to hire a laundry driver. One of the biggest challenges with washing fold pick up and delivery is staffing and granted staffing is getting easier lately. So we recently put up an ad and we got 12 applicants for drivers. So that was a big change from just a few months ago, but it still is something that is affecting a lot of different operators. So I wanna share with you a little tip to help you find a driver because the driver is the hardest position to fill. And oftentimes they want the most money. Why cuz they have the most options. For example, FedEx, Amazon, all those different places are looking to hire drivers. So if you’re a driver and you know how to drive a bigger vehicle, you ha you actually you’re quite employable. And so we’re competing against the Amazons and the FedEx and UPSs. Here’s how to get a driver kind of going against the grain. So again, this only works. If you got more of a transit connect or, you know, one of the smaller vans, it is a handy way to find somebody. So when you’re looking for a wash and fold attendant put in your ad, driving is a plus. So if you don’t mind picking up and delivering laundry as part of the job, that’s a big plus. And so then as you’re looking to hire attendance, you could also find somebody who’s capable and knows how to of , and they may not see themselves as a driver. They may not be looking for driving jobs that tend to pay more. So you may be able to find somebody a good quality. Again, you may not wanna do this. If you’ve got a sprinter van that’s longer wider. And you know, they have to have experience knowing how to take all the turns and things like that. And then no matter how you go about hiring a driver, rural number one is do a test drive with them before investing any time with them . We used to do things in the reverse order. We’d do all this training and then we found out they couldn’t really drive. Even though they said they could, you got a test drive first, make sure they could handle the vehicle. One thing we found is with bad drivers is usually if they’re bad, the damage is almost always done right at the beginning because they don’t know how to drive a bigger vehicle. So that goes back to rule. Number one, make sure you drive with them , do the test drive, make sure they’re comfortable with it. And they know how to drive. If you are buying a new vehicle, make sure to get gap insurance. So it turns out when you have insurance, it doesn’t really cover replacing it with a new vehicle. It covers it almost for like, for like vehicle that’s used. And if you need to go out and buy a new vehicle, you’re gonna be short 10, $20,000. So it’s very important to get gap insurance, to cover the difference between what insurance covers and the cost of a new vehicle. And finally, it’s really important to have a vehicle maintenance guide, you know, a schedule. So you know when to get an oil change when to do this, because people are not gonna take care of the vehicle, like it’s your own. And sometimes it’s hard to let go, but it is very important to have a maintenance schedule cuz otherwise they’ll just keep driving and then say, what does that smell? And that’s because they forgot to change the oil. You want to be proactive. Many laundry owners do their own pickup and deliveries when they first get started. But if you want to keep growing and in order to scale, you do have to outsource driving. Plus your quality of life will be way, way better to you. And if something happens, you do have insurance. It’s just the cost of doing business. Going back to what I said in the very beginning where almost all the damage is done by drivers who just start with you. It reinforces idea of how important keeping and retaining your, your good drivers is because your good drivers, you want to keep them because they’ve got a good track record and they’re generally a whole lot safer than hiring somebody brand new off the street in a sense. So it does take time to build up that trust. It does take time to make sure that they’re qualified. There’s no replacement for actually being in the vehicle with them and making sure that they’ve got a good, that you trust them with your vehicle. So if you’re just starting off with pickup and delivery, there’s a lot of laundry owners who are a doing the pickup and delivery themselves. They’re they also are able to have their attendance, do the pickup and deliveries , uh , while they’re growing. And then as you grow, then you could have a fulltime driver dedicated to just doing the driving regarding the driver. Don’t forget they represent your company. And they’re the only ones. In many cases, who’s going to have a , an interaction with your customers. So many times your customer only knows your pickup and delivery driver. So does that driver represent you? So if you’re gonna have uniforms or some type of thing to show that they are part of your company, that is something that separates you, especially as we’re having more and more competition from these gig economy, people who are doing it for 99 cents a pound and they’re picking it up and they’re beat up vehicle. Well, you want to shine the light and show them the difference. And the way to do that is who you hire for pickup and delivery. So make sure they represent your brand, your company, that they’re professional, that they’re dressed professionally because they’re doing a lot more than just picking up and delivering the clothes. They’re doing a lot more than driving. They’re representing your company. And when that customer has a problem with anything where the clothes are picked up with skipping a week with anything they’re gonna be talking to your driver and that driver needs to be able to problem solve and connect with your customers. So don’t forget, they can’t just be good at driving. They also need to have a good personality, so best of success to everybody and keep those pick up and deliveries coming. Thanks for tuning in. Don’t forget to tap like or subscribe. And if you like to get more information about the curbside laundries , pick up and deliveries , salute , check out curbsidelaundries.com.

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Welcome to state of the laundry industry with Laundry ‘Matt’ episode 17. Does outsourcing driving to ride share companies, make sense? I’ve been hesitating to do this episode, because I like to focus on things that help improve your business. How do you make more money? But I just just have to make a public service announcement because I feel there’s a whole bunch of laundry owners who are getting burned and, and it’s really upsetting to see because if you’re a laundry owner, you know, you made the sacrifice to buy that laundromat. You you’re basically investing in your future. Your family’s sure you’re always on call . You know what ? If the, you know, there’s a water lake or anything like you’re always on call. We’re basically all in this together where we are trying to make a better future. And so I feel there’s a company out there who’s pedaling somewheres that just doesn’t work. In my opinion. And people are getting stuck in three year contracts with an idea that sounds good, but where the rubber hits the road, I’ve got a lot of questions and frankly, I just don’t believe it works. You know what brought this up? I saw a recent post on Facebook that said, I get that this company wants to market and other entities need money to pay the bills. But I’m so tired of every laundry related email that comes to my inbox is plastered with their name. It feels like everyone has sold out to them and somebody replied other people’s money known as private equity money is the easiest thing in the world to spend and waste. It will fade out and the length of time is only determined by fast. They burn the money. But I think the real core of this question is it feels like everyone has sold out to them because they’re blanking the market with a lot of money. And is the information that’s getting propagated? Is it helpful to the industry? And I don’t believe it is, you know, it reminds me of when I was a team teenager and I was heading off to, with a family to Las Vegas, my parents owned a self-serve car wash . They like businesses with no inventory like laundromats and car washes. We stopped by a car wash on the way to Las Vegas and the owner of that car wash came out and he is bragging to my dad. You know, I use the hand soap that they sell at the casinos and it is dirt cheap. It’s so cheap and I’m saving so much money using this hand soap. And my dad goes, you know , I didn’t know you could use that for cars. That’s great. Congratulations on saving, you know , money. And he thought that’s very interesting. And he goes ahead proceeds to wash his car, that zoos a trooper that later we wound up using for pickup and delivery at super SU . So he is washing that car and the dirt just streaked. It did not clean the car afterwards. I ne you know, my dad’s very cool and collect and I never seen him so upset at the owner. Bottom line is the car wash . Didn’t clean the car and people are stopping. They’re washing their car. He sees people stopping and they’re probably one time customers. He goes, you are ruining their reputation of selfer car washes for everybody. You’re hurting the industry. When people come to your car wash , they’re not gonna say, oh, it’s this self-served car wash . That’s bad. They’re gonna say self-served car washes are bad. They don’t. And every single customer that comes through here is another customer. You are burning the bridge with, and they’re gonna stop using self-serve car washes. And the guy wound up refunding my dad, but that didn’t fix it. You know, I’ve got a lot of respect for, so like 99% of our competition, especially the laundry guys, because they are trying to solve a problem. There’s been a lot of innovation because of competition and competition is good. But when people come out there and they raised money from investors who know nothing about laundry, and they say, Hey, Uber or DoorDash works for pickup and delivery. It solves a problem. And they get tens of millions of dollars in financing, you know, good on them. But does it work when a laundry owner, especially when they’re thinking about getting into pickup and delivery, they’re thinking if I don’t have to worry about the driver or a vehicle, that sounds terrific. That solves a problem. What they don’t realize is they’re getting a solution that in my opinion, just doesn’t work. And now they’re stuck in a three year contract. And when that laundry owner realizes that the solution they are stuck with for three years and they’re paying the lease on and they’re paying them for the equipment and they’re burning their opportunity. And after three years they realize this just doesn’t work. They’re not gonna say DoorDash or Uber doesn’t work. They’re gonna say that pickup indeed delivery doesn’t work. And they’re burning the industry, just like that car near Las Vegas. A lot of times when experienced laundry operators, talk to these salespeople who are pitching this concept, they burn it down in a second because they go over the math and they clearly see it doesn’t work. And then they say, oh, but you don’t need to do that. But it’s a UNSU . It’s the susceptible people new to pick up and delivery who fall for, because they don’t know the question to ask. And they’re the ones getting burned for them. They get pushed heavy and hard on pickup and delivery through ride sharing , but the people know better than they back off. They are pre upon people who don’t know any better. So I wanna just provide a public service announcement, provide the information so you can make an informed decision. Whether you go with our software or another software, that’s fine. That’s cool. But what I don’t want people to do is invest in a solution that just doesn’t math out. We’ve shared, you know, week after week and will continue doing so of clients of ours who have said things like pick up and delivery has changed my life. So I’m very passionate about this. This has changed families, you know, revenues and income. It’s life changing if you do it right. So I just want everybody to have that opportunity and I want to make sure people don’t go down the wrong path. Let’s take a look at

Pickup and delivery from the laundry owner’s point of view and outsourcing it to a ride sharing program. Now for us, the average order size for pickup and delivery is 40 pounds. And we gross about $70. Most places, the radius for pickup and delivery is about 15 miles. So let’s take half of that. And so your average is about seven half miles. That means you’re gonna be paying $30 in pick up and delivery fees on each order. So are you willing to take a $30 loss on a $70 order? Meaning you’re doing 40 pounds for $40. Now I don’t know about you, but at least in California, you cannot make money doing it . $1 per pound. I know from a mathematical point of view, no owner out there is willing to take a $30 loss on each order. And the reason why it doesn’t work out is the route density with ride sharing program is one, the route density is one. You cannot make money picking up and do delivering an order to one customer. The reason it works is because you’re able to fill up your van and you could create an efficient and optimized route using software. All right , so now you’re not willing to take the $30 loss is the customer willing to pay $30 more? And again, the answer’s no way I don’t believe a customer’s willing to pay a hundred dollars for 40 pounds. And if they are well, then you should just raise your price and do the pickup and deliver yourself and pocket the difference. Paying another company, $30 for picking up and delivering the laundry is equivalent to giving away over 40% of the gross revenue. That’s insane. You cannot give another company 40% and make money. It , it just doesn’t work. The second part is what is the reaction from the customer? Remember when you’re outsourcing to another company, it’s your reputation on the line? And if Uber or DoorDash does not a very good job that reflects upon your company and you can’t just blame the ride sharing company, because your customer’s gonna be like, well, why did you send them out to me in the first place over here is one of many, many stories from somebody using one of these ride sharing programs. And let me go ahead and read it. So just got my order of pizza and the dude, the driver was clearly drunk, inate art of our pizzas. What the heck now could you imagine if you’re just rolling the dice and you’re hoping a good driver shows up and you know, I’m sure most of them are good, but not all of them . And you’ve got no control. So imagine they show up and deliver the laundry or pick it up. They’re willing to eat their French fries on the way they’re willing to eat the pizza on the way, say , what are they gonna do when they’re not making a whole lot of money? And they get some really nice clothes. You better hope they don’t take the clothes. And yes, a sales company will tell you, oh, don’t worry. It’s protected with insurance. And you could get the money from one of these ride sharing programs, if any clothes disappear. But is that really accurate? If you lose the customer because of the driver, you’re losing five to $600 or maybe more of annual gross revenue. Each one of these customers spends hundreds of dollars on pickup and delivery, and you’re gonna roll the D and have your company represented by some stranger. Are they dressed professionally? And are they happy? Some of these software salespeople will say that they’ve negotiated $2 per mile with these ride sharing programs. Now, if you’re an actual driver and you’re getting $2 per mile, what does that even mean? First? It means you drive all the way to the customer’s location. Then you have to go up the stairs and pick up the laundry, and then you make multiple trips up and down, finally load up your vehicle, and then you start making $2 per mile. So how do actual drivers respond when they find out that they’re getting paid $2 per mile, this is from an actual driver saying $2 a mile. Am I right? I still took it because I was doing laundry. And wow. I feel like a loser. No tip $2 for 20 minutes of my time. Now that’s interesting. They mentioned no tip. See, people are very used to leaving tip for tips for food, but they know when they pick up something, that’s not food, it’s less likely they’re gonna get a tip, which means it’s more like that. You’re gonna get an inexperienced driver who doesn’t know any better, picks something up that is not food. And somebody said, shame on you for taking that order because nobody wants to work for that cheap. So the drivers are not even fans of this. And another part is the drivers. There is a physical requirement to be able to, to de liver and pick up laundry. So somebody said, I broke my back and I cannot regularly do my job anymore. I could only drive. So I’ve been doing door dash for two years and , and enjoying it until Walmart’s orders started, basically, they’re complaining about they can’t lift all the orders and going upstairs. Laundry could weigh too . You know, we’re talking about like 40 pounds and you know, many of these orders could be hundreds of pounds going up and downstairs and not every driver is capable of doing it. And so that is gonna lead to very upset drivers. And they’re gonna take that out on your customers. This is an , an actual post from somebody who said, I literally got an order to pick up a customer’s laundry and take it to the laundrymat . And the response was quite interesting, says if the laundry was already done and bagged and going back to the customer, sure. Why not? But taking in dirty laundry that’s nasty. And then another person said, but I’m not taking someone’s dirty stuff anywhere and smell at my car and somebody else, another driver posted, what if it had roaches? Could you imagine? So even these drivers who work for these driving companies are not too excited about picking up dirty laundry. And again, do you want somebody not happy? Who doesn’t know the drill, picking up laundry and interfacing with your customer, most of your pickup and delivery customer, the only interaction they have is with your driver. They reflect your company. And do you want these people who are scared of roaches and dirty laundry? Do you want them picking up clothes from your customers? So besides the physical requirements, the reactions from customers, the reactions from the drivers themselves, at the end of the day, in order to have a successful route, you need to have a higher route density. And I remember watching a coin lottery association webinar with four very successful pick and delivery operators. And they all said one thing in common, you can’t dip your toe in the water. If you want to get into pickup and delivery, you just have to do this. And what’s happening is people who want to tip their toe in the water are basically getting in my opinion, bamboozled and told what they want to be told. But when you’re lose , when you’re paying over 40% of the order, and that’s going straight towards another company and you’re losing money on every single order, it’s kind of hard to grow your business in that fashion. So I don’t think an owner’s willing to take a $30 loss. And I don’t think a customer’s willing to pay a $30 more. And I don’t think you want your company represented by somebody who doesn’t wanna be there. So for those three reasons, I highly recommend, if you do pick up and delivery, do it. If you don’t wanna do it, don’t do it, but don’t do it halfway because it could one ruin the reputation of your laundromat. And two, you could get into to a long term agreement and get burned by pickup and delivery. So I’d rather you wait for the right opportunity and wait for the right timing and do it right than to do it wrong. We have a proven model at curbside laundries. You’re not just buying software, you’re not buying laundry theory. We’re actually doing it. We’re grossing over a hundred thousand dollars a month in wash and fold from a single location. And we’re gonna surpass $130,000 in wash and fold just this month. We’ve helped hundreds of our clients achieve success and it does take time, but we’ve got a proven roadmap . If you like to learn more about the curve upside laundries, pick up and delivery solution, go to curbside laundries.com. Thanks again for tuning in, and please subscribe to our YouTube channel or podcasts and give us a like , thank you.

[Transcript]

Welcome to state of the laundry industry with laundry mat episode 16, how to get commercial wash and forward customers. So today we’ve got a super exciting podcast about how to get more commercial clients, cuz commercial clients spend way more money than the traditional residential customer, especially on pickup and delivery. Instead of spending about $70 on the average order, they’re spending over $200 on the average order and they’re consistent and it’s a single payer and it’s, they’re just beautiful things to get. So I just talked to somebody this morning who was so frustrated. He switched from another software company over to us. He’d just switched . He hasn’t gone live yet, but he was saying he was cold calling all these commercial clients. And he’ll talk about more, more about that during the episode, but it turns out cold calling just doesn’t work. And that’s why he got frustrated and we’ve tried direct mail in the past and that doesn’t work either. And it turns out the number one way of getting more commercial clients is your website. They need to find you, they need to find you. You can’t spend your time trying to find them cuz they could be anywhere. So when they’re looking for wash and fold services, they need to find you online. And that’s where the website comes in and we make fantastic websites at curbside laundries, unique and custom for each of our clients. So I don’t want you to , to just take our word for it. This is one of our clients who’s been with us since about 2017 and he’s gonna be talking about how much his website has helped him. Um, another way of getting commercial clients is Google AdWords. Um, we’d love to spend more money targeting commercial clients because commercial clients are so valuable. However, we could only spend about $50 a month because there’s not that high of frequency. There’s not that many commercial clients looking for washing fold every month, but when you get ’em oh man, could it change your business? I mean just two days ago we got a commercial count , 10,000 pounds. It’s insane. So we’ve got our own , um , excitement at the laundromat right now, as far as where to store it all. But that’s another story for now. Let’s go ahead and welcome Albert with Monterey express. I really think you’re gonna enjoy it. Today’s episode. Uh ,

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Speaker 2: 2:13

First I’ll say hello to everybody I’m from Hawaii. So I have to throw a shock out there. We have a laundromat it’s 1400 square feet here in Monterey, California. So I think by a lot of laundromat standards, people would consider that to be a little smaller of a laundromat. We are busy. However, we have a very robust , uh , fluff and fold department as well as a Veed department inside our laundromat. How I’d probably like to start off with this is just by thanking you guys first at curbside. Uh, we are a couple years ago. We’re kind of in the throws of , um , trying to figure out how to expand, how to be better at what we’re doing. I think that’s every laundromats question, you know, how do you expand and get bigger? And , um, with that, we decided to start looking around and uh, you guys were the option that fit a bunch of the criteria that we had here before we had curbside. We basically had no web presence, nothing at all. Uh , once we got the website up and running through your guys’ help and getting this professional image out there, there was a big turnaround in our industry and our business like you , as you can say, in regards to commercial clients coming in, we service one of the largest , um, Airbnb companies in this town in a nice way to say it. It adds 25% revenue to our business in just one year. And then since then we’ve had a , um , two government contracts approach us from our website alone. The website has really helped us because it has brought in a lot of clientele that probably would’ve never even seen us before. I know you guys talk a lot about SEO optimization and everybody kind of wonders. What is this guy talking about? SEO search engine optimization. And what does that mean for my business? And I guess if I could kind of clarify for people, it would be, imagine people in town when they type up Monterey laundry, I’m at the top of the list. That means that tourists is gonna come to do laundry at my business. That also means commercial clients will possibly give me a call. It’s not only that business that comes in, but it’s the word of mouth that comes in after I secure

Speaker 1: 4:20

Client. That’s great. You know, just this morning I was talking to somebody who he went with a different software and website solution. The person’s business had not taken off with other solution. And then he goes, you know what? I I’m ready to make the change because he wants to get his , uh , washing polo business growing and his pickup and delivery growing. And he asked me a question like how do I get these residential own commercial accounts? I spent all day calling and calling and calling out and they’re they’re like, who are you? Why, why would I need the service? And I told ’em , it’s kind of referencing what you’re saying, which is it’s better when they reach out to you versus you reaching out to them. Correct. And see, I think we have a mindset as laundry owners that were used to like a dense customer population and they just happen to be nearby the laundromat and with wash and fold or , and pick and delivery too. You may have to drive a little bit or they may be a little bit farther apart from each other, but they’re out there. But the key is, is when they’re looking for the service that they find you, that’s what it , that’s what it’s all about. One of the

Speaker 2: 5:17

Main reasons why we chose you guys, curbside is offering us now is the chance to do pickup and drop off laundry , which we’re gonna be doing here. It allowed us to dabble into commercial accounts and it’s taking just two revenue streams that we used to have in a limited area. And now expand it into multiple revenue streams that reach a wider base as a business owner. It gives me a little peace of mind, you know, not just having all my eggs in just one little basket and

Speaker 1: 5:46

Yeah, that’s a , that’s a great point. I , I know of like three different of our clients who it was because they diversified the revenue stream that they were able to when they had the shutdown and their laundromat was empty as could be, people were just scared to go out. They were still being able to do pick up and delivery and wash and fold and different things that helped them get through some very difficult times. So it’s always good to diversify.

Speaker 2: 6:09

Another reason why we went with you guys is I’m a small business owner and the whole point of having Monterey express, wash it, to build my business and to have my customers, basically our customers, my employees, and I, and to build it into a place that it reflects who I am. And as I build my business and we are gonna turn on, pick up and drop off the value to those customers will be tied to my business, not to another entity. Every customer that I get that comes into the business will increase my gross profit will increase my net profit. And then in return will increase the value of my store in the

Speaker 1: 6:45

Long run. Exactly. It’s your customers, it’s your brand.

Speaker 2: 6:48

It’s been great for us. I mean, growth has been phenomenal and I truly have to attribute it to curbside because our reach was very limited before we actually had curbside. And now I have people coming to me from all aspects from all industries asking me, can I do this? Can I do that? And it’s nice to know that they’re knocking on my door now that I’m not having to go out and hunt for the business. It’s kinda

Speaker 1: 7:12

Like, yeah . Somebody help bring you leads in a sense. And then you could just focus on that instead of drumming up

Speaker 2: 7:17

Leads. Yeah . Correct. You know, it’s nice when somebody calls me up and says, Hey, do you do this? And I say, yeah, let me come to your store in the next two days and pick up a load of laundry. You know, I can go out there, I can grab the laundry as opposed to me having to go out and cold called and you know, 99 people and maybe get one to show ’em what we can

Speaker 1: 7:33

Do. So, yeah. And it’s a road of difference in a sense where if a customer calls you, there’s like a parent child relationship in a sense. So they’re calling you, you’re the expert and they’re asking you the questions versus if you’re calling them, you’re trying to, it’s on like not be for their business, but it’s a different role. It , well, Albert, I just wanna thank you for being on the podcast. I think people have learned a ton as far as how to get commercial clients, because that’s really the whole, they give you big orders and, and it’s great to see having so much success attracting these clients. And I don’t think anybody is doing as much business as you out of 1400 square feet at your laundromat. And it all comes down to marketing and you doing just a fantastic

Speaker 2: 8:14

Job, super appreciative of, you know, the help that you’ve guys have provided us. The resource. There have been phenomenal as a laundromat operator. I’m not just having to reinvent the wheel every single day, that there are resources and tools that you guys give me. That allows me to kind of learn what I need to learn and kind of move forward with what I need to move forward with.

Speaker 1: 8:35

Thanks for tuning in to this week’s episode, don’t forget to like, or subscribe to if you’d like to learn more about the curbside laundries wash and fold point of sale , pick up and delivery and website solution, go to curbside laundries.com . If you’d like to learn more about how to get commercial clients, I have a whole webinar, one hour webinar about commercial clients. So go to youtube.com for slash curbside laundries. So anyways, thanks again for tuning in and see you next time. All .

TAGS: WASH AND FOLD

"So , Matt, I think you've said if they try our wash and fold two times they're Hooked, is that right?" Stephanie from We Wash Laundry Company

https://www.curbsidelaundries.com/episode-15-how-to-get-wash-and-fold-customers-hooked-on-your-service/

[Transcript]

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Speaker 1: (00:00)

Welcome to state of the laundry industry with Laundry “Matt”, episode 14, how to advertise, wash, and fold. This episode is the sequel and the features Claudia and Stephanie with we wash laundry company. He built a very successful laundry pickup and delivery service without a laundry mat. In this episode, they share some of their brilliant marketing techniques and the importance of having systems and procedures in place before you start. So you want to go over some of that, your advertisements, the first one, it’s basically three photos put together. It’s telling a story and it looks like somebody is relaxing, maybe drinking some wine or something cooler. And, and then the laundry is coming to the door and it’s like, the laundry is done. Easiest pie. You know, you just tap schedule a pickup. Just wanted to, you know, what inspired you on that? Or what was the messaging behind that?

Speaker 2: (00:59)

Well, we do just want to show how easy this is. Like your laundry day can literally take you five minutes and it’s a new lifestyle. And it’s really a lifestyle that I think with this pandemic and what has happened in the last year and a half as people have really decided what’s important in their lives and where they want to spend their time. Laundry is not one of them. And I don’t blame them, get out there and be with your family, your friends, doing activities or things that actually matter.

Speaker 1: (01:26)

Yeah, I think people would definitely have reprioritized and in a weird way, we’re busier than ever, because it’s harder to, you can’t have your kid just easily going to, you know, to acquire after school. Like things are just tougher, you know, less people are able to help out with pickups, you know, picking up your kid, you know, just because, you know, safety precaution. So our time is just so valuable. And I think just for Saturday, we, we need to figure out what can we outsource? And, and so that actually in another part that, that I love about that ad is it three parts? It tells the story and the audience is kind of putting the pieces together. You know, we’re, I think our minds just love connecting dots. You know, that’s what we do. And, and so you have like three, three dots in a sense, three stories, and, and then it’s using your audience to tell the story to themselves, it’s in their head, you know, and, and that’s not easy to accomplish. And I think you did that really, really well, where they’re putting the story in their head and then you, when you’ve got in their head and it’s a good story to tell.

Speaker 2: (02:28)

Well, when we first started marketing, we were doing a lot of like showing our black bags, which are cool, and everybody loves the black bags, but you know what? People really love the full, just see the actual final product. Like that’s what I can tell people all day long what we do, but that doesn’t sit as well as actually seeing the product. Yeah.

Speaker 1: (02:51)

You know, I did a whole podcast episode on that. The whole point of that podcast was he got to show like, what are you selling? And right. You know, there, if people are just, you know, if you’re selling ice cream, you want to show a picture of the ice cream, not how it’s made. You know what I said, you want to show the finished product. And I think, especially in the laundry industry, we sometimes forget that we’re showing off our, I was going to say, maybe because it’s like male orientated, you know, like, Hey, look at this washing machine over here, look over here.

Speaker 2: (03:18)

Honestly, what’s pretty about laundry bind. Let’s put it out dirty laundry. No, I know people are like, it’s so glamorous. We’re like,

Speaker 1: (03:33)

Well, and the other, the other picture I want to show as well. And I just think this one is great, is it shows mother the two kids and she comes out barefoot to pick up the laundry. So it’s like the laundry was done. She didn’t even have to put on her shoes. And I also love that. It’s multi-generational you got the kids saying, Hey, this is how a laundry is done. And I think mom’s pretty smart because she got it done in a Jiffy and she’s able to spend more time with them. And the kids get to see, this is how laundry is done, you know? And just, we were talking before the podcast started about your mentioning about even gardening and all these other different services that people outsource nowadays. And this is a perfect example, just even that touch of her, not wearing shoes, I think was genius because it just shows how easy is she just stepped out the front door.

Speaker 2: (04:25)

Yeah. And you know, what would typically have been probably a six to eight hour laundry day with children and all the laundry that comes with them turned into literally what, two, three minutes to bag it up, throw it at your front door and then a total of what, five to 10 minutes to have the children put it away. So, yeah, I mean, on our social media, we try to incorporate the kids as much as possible because you know, we are, um, setting up our kids for success in life. And we both work really hard and our kids work hard, our husbands work hard. And so we’re not going to let our kids get away with not doing chores around the house. So becomes their chore. It is their chores. So they don’t get to just, um, not help out around the house. You’re going to put your laundry away. You’re going to put it away the right place. Cause it’s already done. So just put it away. So,

Speaker 1: (05:18)

Yeah, that’s fantastic. Love it. And then you guys visited supersedes before you started the, your company or maybe at about the same time. And I was just wondering what inspired you to, to do that and like what your takeaways were after you visited our family laundry mat. And if you could just kind of walk us through that.

Speaker 2: (05:36)

So we went down to visit super sets in. The reason being is honestly, there’s not a concept like yours here in the Midwest, like we previously mentioned. So it was more so we had it in our head, how it would play out. But really honestly, we hadn’t physically been able to see how it would play out. So we wanted to get a lot of the behind the scenes as far as what does it look like when the delivery driver goes out and picks up laundry? How are y’all able to tag them? Um, how are you able to keep track of whose laundry belongs to who all the way down to, if we’re going to bring this concept back to Iowa, how do you fold? I mean little things as how, you know, we want everything to look very, very neatly and all the exact same way. So we took folding lessons from your launders they’re at super sets. They’re so great. We tried to talk him into moving to Iowa. It was a lot of background, just gaining more knowledge and information to actually, you know, make it real life. What does this actually look like? But we still had no idea. Even after we left, he did a great job. You guys made it look really easy. Really did. That’s all I’m going to say.

Speaker 1: (06:56)

What were some of the learning, I guess, you know, some of the challenges, you know, once, you know, rubber hits the road and you’re actually,

Speaker 2: (07:03)

Oh my gosh, this is so funny. So when we very first opened, we hit it off with a 50% off like new customers. And we had a certain number available for each route, oh Lord, help us. And we had two staff members with us and we thought we got out, we got this, got it. We got this. Oh, Matt. I remember I was the driver, you know, cause we had a laundry and a folder. That’s all we needed. I was the driver. And I remember calling staff and saying, well, I hope you don’t have plans this evening or tomorrow morning because we’re all night long. This van is full to the roof. And you know, as much as we were like excited to get the new business, it was also like sinking in and hitting us. Like who’s going to do all this laundry here.

Speaker 2: (07:53)

We are the two moms who despise doing laundry and want to come up with this great concept. And guess who was up literally through the night till six 30, the next morning, Washington folding laundry us with our two employees. Yeah. I mean, we cried, we cried. I remember it like it was yesterday. I backed the van into the garage bay door and open the back and Steph just started guys, what did we just get ourselves into? And here was a worst part. We would filled up our routes for an entire week, for an entire month. So when we had these customers, you know, who we offered the 50% off to take gain, um, momentum and to get business, we guaranteed a month. So they had to commit to us for a month. So we had to commit to them for a month. So it was like, who’s going to do all this laundry for an entire month. I mean, we both went home and slept. Maybe three hours got right back up, got right back up and did it again. Yeah. So yeah. And that first week we got a lot of phone calls about mixed up clothes. I mean, things that we hit, we learned some really hard lessons in the first couple of weeks because we really had never done this before. And the training with you guys was great, but you are a well operated well-oiled machine and we needed to figure out our,

Speaker 1: (09:20)

Well, I’ll tell you how to supersize. There’s this one order. And I didn’t put it through the software. I just said, because they’re a well-oiled machine. Like we’re doing like 70, 80 pickups a day and I figured they could handle this. I got to be careful. It was totally my fault. I just got to say that because I didn’t fit the order through the machine or, you know, through the software. And so I just, you know, just, Hey, could you make sure you deliver this to so-and-so they’re expecting their laundry back. And that order never got delivered. And it’s like, oh my gosh, like how that happened. And it’s because when you are, it’s all about systems. And, and I went outside of the system. So well-oiled machine also means there’s a system in place. It’s really hard to create a system on the fly. You know,

Speaker 2: (10:04)

You have to follow the procedures that we put in place,

Speaker 1: (10:09)

Stay tuned for next week’s. We wash laundry company. Finally also please subscribe and tap. Like it really helps us out. If you’d like to learn more about the croup side, laundry softwares and website solution that made this all possible. Please go to curbside laundries.com. See you next time.

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As a result of this conversation, it will change the way we do our deliveries at our seven figure a year laundromat, Super Suds.

[Transcript]

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to state of the laundry industry with laundry mat. This is episode 13, starting a successful lottery pickup and delivery business without a laundromat . So I’d like to welcome Stephanie and Claudia there with we washed laundry company they’re over in Des Moines, Iowa, and just wanted to add on . And I think the audience is in for a real treat . They are marketing geniuses. They have a unique take on their , both their customer segment, who they’re marketing to and the way they market to people, the way just the images they use, the way they visualize their , their audience. And, and they’re bringing laundry pickup and delivery to their, to their area. And one thing just to, you know, something unique about Stephanie and Claudia is they do not have a laundromat . So you guys are pickup and delivery only, which I think a lot of people are going to find very, very interesting. And just a little bit of a background is normally when, when somebody calls up without a laundry, without a laundry mat , I kind of make it , they got to jump through a lot of hoops. So I’ll put it that way. And the reason being is I’ve seen people without a laundry mat, get into pickup and delivery and without a business plan, without an idea of how to get customers. And, and so we had signed people up in the past and, and then it just doesn’t work out because, because they don’t, they don’t know how to bring in customers. And, and, and they may not, they don’t have the laundry mat to support them while they’re growing their business. And Stephanie and Claudia are both very successful in growing their laundry pickup and delivery service. And, and I think you’re in the thing that when we first started talking, but I saw is unique and it was, you guys had your own business plan already to go. And I thought that I’m like, well , they could do it. So , um, so I just wanted to find out like what brought you into the laundry business and, and , um, yeah . How you got into the laundry pickup and delivery business.

Speaker 2: 2:08

Well, you know , um, we just jumped right in, so I love Matt that you think we had this perfect business plan because we didn’t. So we’re kind of planning as we were learning, we were learning. Yeah. So just a little bit of background about us. Um, I’m Stephanie, this is Claudia. We have been friends for over seven years. Our daughters actually introduced, they became friends at daycare, and then we introduced us and then we became friends. And as you know, mom, friends love to chat and gossip and complain to one another. Um, so one of our major complaints was our lack of time. She has three kids, they’re all seven years apart, which is crazy. So they’re in different activities. Her oldest son is track. I mean, he’s like in every year he does cross country track baseball. I mean, very so. And then her son , she was seven at the time. Um, when we started, this was in competition, gymnastics, and then she had a baby and then I have three kids and they’re all really young. So like, we, it was hard to keep up with life and we’re like, okay, we can get our groceries delivered to us. We can get our lawn care, brought to the house and taken care of for us, we get our house clean , like there’s ways to help all these moms and families, but there was not anything for laundry. And that’s like the one thing that we , we need to spy laundry, we’re not supposed to say,

Speaker 1: 3:30

I love your shirts. I’d say laundry haters

Speaker 2: 3:34

And the laundry agents . But , um, we found really great people that love laundry. So that’s our team. But anyway , um, so as we were kicking around ideas, we already know that there’s laundry services in California and New York and Chicago. And we’re like, where’s that here in the Midwest. And yes, we’re a different demographic here, but there’s a real opportunity for busy families. And , um, we , we looked around, we started the research process. We looked at other wash and fold services reached out, asked what called you guys, you know, tried to figure out like, is this really practical? Can we really do this without a laundry mat? Um, and here we are today.

Speaker 1: 4:20

Yeah. And , and as far as, and who’s your target clientele, are you just going for a , you know, everybody is a , do you have somebody a particular in mind?

Speaker 2: 4:30

No. Like ours or families, but I would say busy moms. I mean the bigger the family, the better as you guys know, because we do have to make the trip to their house and we want it to be worthwhile. Um, we do have a pickup and delivery minimum amount, which helps with that because we are spread out here. We service 11 suburbs. And so that’s a lot of ground to cover. Um, a lot of people say to us, Hey, you should really go for like the senior centers. Right. But you don’t have to think a one person household. I mean, where are we going to get more business? Is it going to be a mom and dad with three, four kids? Or is it going to be the senior with one bag of laundry? And now don’t get me wrong. We’re open to all the business , but our target demographic would definitely be the bigger families ,

Speaker 1: 5:22

Um, sense . He has a very interesting dynamic and never thought about which is, if you’re more spread out, you really need more clothes per pickup. You know, if it’s a tight, dense, you know , city in a sense, then you can kind of get away with more going after some of the smaller orders in a sense.

Speaker 2: 5:39

Well, and here’s the thing that’s great about having a partner is we remind each other, we are a business because we get these stories that are really sad and we want to help everybody, you know , but we do have to make it work for us and to be able to pay our employees and make sense. And it’s sometimes it just doesn’t make sense. And we’ve had to learn the last two years to say no to business . And that has been really hard. We have a hard time saying no, but we can’t just go and work for free 30 minutes away to pick up one bag of clothes. It doesn’t even hit the minimum and then we have no business. So we are, we’re trying to grow and grow in a way that makes sense for everyone.

Speaker 1: 6:19

Yeah. And on the flip side, sometimes when we expand to a new area, that first pickup is so expensive because we’re in, we’re doing a kind of like, I guess, longterm , but it has to be a part of the overall strategy, you know? So, yeah. And it’s kind of, there’s a saying the most expensive transaction for bank is the first one because he had to build a whole bank. And so , um, so we experienced that too. Like when we go into like a new area it’s, you know, at first it doesn’t really make sense, but then it does. But at the same time , um, yeah, especially when it spread out, got to make sure is that part of our big strategy, are we targeting that area or is that someplace where if we only have one customer there, then it’s better to focus on other areas.

Speaker 2: 7:02

Yeah . Well, and it’s funny, you bring that up because we do have a suburb it’s about 25 minutes away from us. It’s Huxley . They have such an opportunity for growth, but we literally have two customers there. So you know what we did with your software, we were able to just in that location up the minimum order amount. So it makes sense for our drivers to go out there. So they know that they’re okay with that. And we’re okay then making that extra drive .

Speaker 1: 7:27

That’s great. And then a lot of times they see your vehicle over there and then it just starts building. So

Speaker 2: 7:32

No, and just little we’ve come up with little marketing things. Like we recently had one of our part-time folders who was interested in working more hours. We throw her in the band with our driver on a Friday and said, Hey, while he’s doing his pickup and deliveries, why don’t you hit two houses to the left and two houses to the right, with door hangers? Why not

Speaker 1: 7:58

Love it, love it. That is so smart. I, you know, I have a real estate background and I didn’t learn some of the strategy is towards the end of when I wasn’t a real estate anymore. One of them was very similar to that, which is, and I’m like, oh my gosh, I should’ve been doing that the whole time after you get a listing, the best place to market to is all the houses next to that listing because they saw you did a good job and, and they’re going to see your vehicle there, like twice a month. And, and then every time they see it, they go, oh, there’s we wash ? And, and so that’s great marketing because yeah. Yeah. I love that because

Speaker 2: 8:32

Marketing works, it works. He had found out of all the ways that we’ve marketed. Yep . That is the best. We’ve done the most business besides that website, besides Google the website, but it’s just old school marketing hanging door hangers. So we’re cutting through the clutter, you know, it works. Yeah. And it

Speaker 1: 8:55

Works great together because you’ve got a beautiful brand of vehicle. And now every time the neighbors see it, it means something more because they already got the brochure for it. Whereas if they just saw the vehicle by itself, that’s effective, but it’s even better when there’s two tattoo , unique types of touches, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel and podcast because Claudia and Stephanie will be sharing many more of their secrets to success. They couldn’t rely on their laundromat to help them ramp up. They had to focus on marketing to make their business thrive. So if you’d like to learn more about the curbside laundries wash and fold point of sale or pickup and delivery solution, please go to curbside laundries.com. See you next time.

[Transcript]

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to state of the laundry industry with laundry “Matt”, episode 12, talking shop with Jim Antosz. This is a continuation of our conversation from the last episode. So if you haven’t listened to episode 11, make sure to check that out. In the previous episode, Jim talks about how he took his brand new Washington Ford business from zero pounds to 126,000 pounds. Within 14 months at this rate is scheduled to launder over 300,000 pounds of laundry. In year two. This episode is a meaty episode. You’re going to hear Jim talk about his revolutionary new sliding shelf system for stamps. And if you’re watching this on YouTube, you’ll see photos of the system, then it gets an a plus for efficiency, got to see it to believe it . You’ll also hear about pickup and delivery, service, radiuses strategies, accordance of employee handbooks, new curb side laundry software features, which will help you go after retire buildings. And lots , lots more so buckle up. I probably shouldn’t say this, but we lost a client. I mean, he’s still using our software in store, so I guess we didn’t lose them , but we lost him in pick up and delivery. And the reason being as he was doing too good and his business just grew and grew and grew. And he was picking up the laundry after five o’clock and delivery , you know, between five and it just got too much. I actually helped him sell his , uh , pickup and delivery business to another curbside laundry , his client nearby. And so she was happy. So it all worked out, but you’ve got a full-time job and, but you do such a good job managing your business. I mean, you know, the numbers, you know, you, you said like, I’m just curious, like how you’re able to do it, where you’re able to set up a business without having to be there all the time.

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Speaker 2: 1:54

Um , I mean, my big thing is I heard , uh, my manager, Stephanie, you know, I paid her , uh , you know, a good wage. Um, she does a lot of my, you know, stuff that I can’t do. I mean, I still try to help as much as I can, but , um, stuff that I can’t do, she picks up the slack , um, same thing with , uh, answering the phone , um, and doing all that. So she’s like my right-hand man. Um, plus my wife helps out , um, she stays at home with the kids, but she helps out, you know, as, as, as needed. So , um, you know, it’s not super bad. Um, you know, with us taking on a second location and stuff like that, we kind of, kind of got the systems set up there for , um, you know, from the first one. So the second one, isn’t, isn’t going to be that bad, but it’s going to be focused on , uh, just commercial , uh, just make it easier from a OPL perspective.

Speaker 1: 2:48

And so you just recently purchased the second location, is that right?

Speaker 2: 2:51

Yeah, we bought it yesterday. Um, and we need to get the ground running. We got linens , uh , a lot of table linens. We were starting to do , um, fr clothing. If you guys are out there , um, you know, hit up the mills or like , um, heavy industry , uh, you know, a lot of the pricing is, is very lucrative. Uh, you know, the , these big companies, these big steel mills make millions and billions of dollars. And , um , a lot of it is you don’t have to be a Cintas or a uni first or whatever. You know, they , a lot of places they’ll buy their own stuff because they get a better price and all they’re looking for you guys to do as laundry . So , uh, there’s a lot of them out there. So it’s a good opportunity to, if you can wrestle up that business, now it might be pay wa you know, it might be 90 day pay, but they’ll pay, but it just, you gotta wait on your money, but it’s, it’s good money.

Speaker 1: 3:43

Yeah, that’s exciting. And we just, just this morning updated our software. So now for the commercial accounts, not only is it automatically generating the invoices, but it sends them a link where they can just tap to pay and it’ll make bill collection a lot easier. And then you’re going to love the multi location functionality in the software to basically what it does. It allows you to, from one you could log in anywhere was , you know, software’s in the cloud and then you could switch between stores. So click a button and you could see how store one is doing, how store two is doing what their workload is, how many pounds then another cool part is when your truck or van unloads on that reminds me when your van unloads the laundry, it automatically shows up at the right laundry is orders . So the laundry list at that store, they’ll start filling up. And so store a only sees the laundry at that store. A store B only sees the laundry out there store. It just makes it easy to manage. So that’d be really cool. So what we’re looking at right over here is you developed this new rack system or a shelving system for the vehicle. And I just, when I saw the picture, it was like light bulb went off. It’s like, oh my gosh, this is too good. You know, once people see this, I think that you’re going to, I see you as a pioneer where you saw an issue, and I guess you’ve got the engineering background where you saw a problem, or I knew this shelf is just so beautiful because I knew somehow it just, wasn’t super efficient to have a walkway in the middle because that’s so much precious space. I mean, that’s expensive space and you just solve that problem. So if you could take us through that,

Speaker 2: 5:18

Yeah. I grew up in a trade and stuff like that. So we had shelving in there that just, you know, same thing you guys had in your advanced , like just on the sides and yada yada yada, well , I’m like, well, I don’t need, like, we don’t need to walk in there and get tools out or nothing like that. So I’m like, we’re just eating up the space. So as I looked around, I found this company is basically pull out drawers. It’s not super heavy. I think they do three to 500 pounds. Um, you can fit, you know, we do basically same like the standard 16 by 24 by 36 high bag. So you can fit non of them on the shelf. Um, so you got 27 and then you can pull out from the side too . And then we do the, like two hanging racks in there for , um , for that. So it’s basically, it’s almost like, you know , drawers like a filing cabinet. You open your filing cabinet up and here you go. Here’s there’s customer a customer B you know, and it’s same thing, you know, but it’s super nice with a high top roof. Like the first vehicle we have is just the regular F150 or, you know, for transit , um , which that limits you are height on the third shelf. But with the high top, you have, you know, their packages are like 14 to 16 inches high. So it’s perfect where you can do three shelves, pull it out, you can stand up there, you can get nine out nine packages fit . So that’s 27 plus whatever you want to do in the side. And then we have the space for, you know, hanging stuff. It works good for us to start out. You know, now that we’re getting into a lot of commercial, we’re probably looking at some kind of box truck , uh, just because you know how it works, but, but the racking is super nice. Um, it’s, it’s we just bought one for the second van. Uh , it’s like two grand, 2200 for that setup . Um, but it works. It works nice. You know, it’s all a roar. Ball-bearings, you know, little kids can push it in . My kids are six and eight. They can push it in and out. Like, it’s nice. Can , can stand off to the side and grab all nine packages. You know, it’s not like if the reach over top,

Speaker 1: 7:09

I just gotta say it is genius. I mean, it is, it is such a good idea because our , our drivers like the smaller vans, because they’re easier to drive less likely because the drivers don’t always know don’t take those turns sharp, you know, because it’s longer than a regular vehicle. So we do have a longer van that holds more, but that kind of makes it obsolete in a sense, because we could probably hold more of the smaller ones and we’ll find some happening as you are , you know , experienced drivers, know how to drive it well, but some the other people cut the turns to , to tie it. And that could be an expensive turn. And so this makes it, everybody likes driving the smaller vehicles and now you can hold more. So it’s just revolutionary.

Speaker 2: 7:51

It’s awesome. I mean, you can customize it to more or less, you know, how you want to do it. And I, I , you know, I’ve seen, like we have model out here that’s a bigger drag. They have pretty much dominated Pittsburgh area as far as the , uh, like dry cleaning scene . And I’ve seen them have like one road down the center and have the shelves on each side that are smaller, but they primarily just do dry cleaning. So, but you can customize it and get deeper shelves. You can get them higher. I think they’re like three inches high the sidewall now, but I think you can get them up to like six or something like that. If you’re,

Speaker 1: 8:23

Yeah. Those cycles are nice because when you go around the turns, it helps keep the clothes on the shelves, right?

Speaker 2: 8:28

Yeah, yeah. Um , like a sticky bottom, do it, you know what I mean? So he wants you to put it nice. Could you pull it out? You can set them down, you know, and you don’t have to shove them in and shove them out, you know? So yeah .

Speaker 1: 8:38

Got some grip and if you’ve got, and a lot of times I’ve seen people where they’ll just do a two mile radius around their laundromat, because for whatever reason in their mind, I think it’s the mindset of like, well, you know, it’s nearby the laundry mat. So that’s where my customers are. But with pickup and delivery, I mean, how far out do you go for on for your miles? Twenty-five miles. That’s pretty good . Wow. That’s pretty good. We’re about 10, 15 miles

Speaker 2: 9:03

Commercials. What pushes it out farther? You know, just from a , you know, we pick up a nursing home, we do this, we do this, you know what I mean? So like, it’s a nice run . If , when I go to a nursing home and pick up two , all 5,000 pounds at a clip, you know, versus going to Joe or Bob’s place to pick up, you know, 35 or 40 pounds, it we’re already out there. You know, like I said, we’re putting on, we already bought a second truck. We’re probably looking at a third truck here by the end of the month. So staffing spent pretty decent, you know, I mean, we pay the girls pretty well. Um, we’ve learned a lot, you know, as far as employees and ground rules and handbooks, that’s another thing, get a handbook, you know, make sure everything’s cut and dry because , you know, give them an inch, they take them off.

Speaker 1: 9:44

That’s great advice, great advice. And I’m glad you made the jump into pickup and delivery because you know , it really is. Life-changing in terms of, cause you know, the reason you got into the, into the whole business in the first place you mentioned is passive income. You know, I know it’s not so passive in a sense, but it’s income and you’re building wealth. You know, this is your business,

Speaker 2: 10:05

The amount of people that call us day in and day out looking for service, you know , um, even it goes a long way with , uh , older people. You know, we give them the senior discount, you know, we do a whole , uh , high rise in one community that we just start the eighth floor and just work our way down and pick them all up. And you know, we don’t charge them the minimum, but we’re stopping and picking out every week, 15, 20, 25 of them. So it works out, they get a better price and you know, they love it, especially in a wheelchair or stuff like that, you know? So, you know , we do the dry cleaning, which is a nice add on piece. Um, it’s not like our bread and butter, but you know, it’s , it’s nice because it gives people that option, you know?

Speaker 1: 10:45

Yeah. And sometimes they want to place the order if they didn’t , if you weren’t a one-stop shop. So don’t give them a reason to go elsewhere. Right . And you bring up a great point. Like some, sometimes if you’re, if you’re doing pickup and delivery and you already do pick up and delivery in a building and you feel there’s a lot of business there, you know, maybe drop off a brochure or a card , you can put them on their doors because you’re already there and then you’re lowering your per visits or your purse stop , pick up costs to virtually nothing you’re already there. And then inside our software too , you could change, you know , the order minimum, you could change the price per pound on an individual customer basis. They’ve got a lot of flexibility to really cut them a deal and provide an incentive to just capture that building.

Speaker 2: 11:24

Right. And then even the , like the Airbnbs and stuff like that, you know, also looking into, cause we’ve had a few , uh, as far as management, I know this is a separate side piece business, but you know, a lot of times these places, they can’t find people. So they’re looking for you to manage their inventory. So like we started with one place that we buy the towels and the sheets and stuff for them and we set their par and then, you know, as stuff get ruined or they add on more locations, we just keep pumping it full of systems . So that’s another add on if you , like, we have the space to do that. And then once we get bigger, we’ll just get a warehouse, but it’s additional 20%, you know, just more money that you’re going to bring in. And all you do is you have to sit there and just have the inventory and eventually it goes through, you know, you go through it and then you’re good.

Speaker 1: 12:13

And the customer next time around the customer’s paying for them and Tori. So that’s yeah, that’s fantastic. I mean, you really help illustrate just there’s no limit. I mean, you , there’s different niches in the business and it looks like you’re open for those opportunities, you know , and looking at, Hey, how do I do this? Well? And so, yeah, we’re just so happy for your success. And I’m really glad you’re with curbside.

Speaker 2: 12:34

Yeah. We appreciate it. Like I said, we got next location. We’re looking at a third location to do strictly more heavier commercial stuff , uh, institutionalized stuff. So like as long as you want to grow with us, we’ll grow with you guys. So

Speaker 1: 12:47

Terrific. And yeah, one of the things that put in the email, we went out that went out today regarding the new software updates. We put an over, I believe it was over 600 hours in the most recent sprint and we’re already working on the next two sprints right now. Basically I thank you for your support because without you guys, we won’t be able to make the software. We want to make, you know, for, for everybody, we could be just doing a lot better if we just kept the software the way it is. But we are committed every month to pouring in a ton and development because we want to have the best software . So anybody just even thinking about getting into the space, they’re going to say, wow , there’s already like five years of software development by these guys. There’s no shortcuts. I mean, there’s a lot of nitty gritty stuff that you wouldn’t even know about the last year in the business.

Speaker 2: 13:32

Yeah. And we looked at some of the other ones, the springboard happiness, and you know, a few of the other things. And just with your guys’ AOI on all my customers, I can set how much I spend for advertising. I’d rather be controlled. I spent the money that , you know , to start the business. So I’d rather be in control of it versus, you know, having to share a percentage of my profits and, and having outsource call centers and like, you know, stuff like that, or yes. I mean, it might not, it might work for some people, but it just doesn’t work for me. You know, I guess it depends on how you’re wanting to be a business owner. You know, if you want to be hands on and know what’s going on, you know, and I, I know it’s like shameful to say this, but like up until like a couple months , two months ago, like I knew all the customers, we were getting so many new customers that I’m not even sure, like I’m starting to remove myself from it because I’m looking for big fish. Now, the little Fisher is just coming in, you know, as, as they come in, try to have that more personal, like, you know, feel and talk, you know, that’s what we, that’s what we do with our manager. You know, she’s, you know, she knows everybody, that’s her job so that, you know, go , Hey, Mary, you know, like, oh, what you want an extra, you know , bleach today or whatever, you know what I mean? It just goes a long way. They want that. They want somebody personal to talk to versus like a recording or somebody doesn’t know, or sit in an office halfway around the world.

Speaker 1: 14:51

It just doesn’t work out in my opinion. Yeah. And I think that’s a competitive advantage because you’re local and it’s a real business, real person answering the phone, not someplace outsourced to a company that knows nothing about laundry. I think that in customers could tell the difference and they also know if you’re intimate with the orders or whether it’s call centers in a different state. So I think there’s tremendous value. And you also touch upon something too . I mean, we were in the exact same boat as you, when looking at different software, you know , some number of years ago, about five years ago, there’s only one software company out there and they wanted a big chunk of our gross revenue. And that was just a no go for us. And so we followed the golden rule, which is do unto others as you did for yourself or sell Florida . And that is, you know , why we don’t do the royalties or any of that stuff because the software shouldn’t cost more because you’re doing better. You know , if you’re doing better, you should benefit. Not, you know, we’re a fixed cost. Yeah. It took a toll for like anything else, you know? Well, I’m really happy for your success and thanks for joining us on the state of the laundry industry. And until next time. Yeah. Thank you.

Allegheny Laundry offers laundry pickup and delivery throughout Allegheny County in Pennsylvania for both residential and commercial clients.  

[Transcript]

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Speaker 1: (00:00)

Welcome to state of the laundry industry with laundry mat episode 11, zero to 126,000 pounds in 14 months. This episode is about a curbside client who just grabbed the bull by its horns and rocked it.

Speaker 2: (00:19)

It’s like free money, low hanging fruit to go out there and grabbing.

Speaker 1: (00:24)

I’d like to welcome Jim with Allegheny laundry. Uh, he is to provide, it’s just a tremendous success story. He’s a curbside laundry’s client and he’s just been kicking butt. So he’s been using our software for about 14 months. Has an incredible journey, like to just ask you like how you got into the business and you know, how you got started and where you

Speaker 2: (00:46)

Today. Oh, I bought the laundromat, uh, five years ago with the quote unquote, uh, looking for passive income and you know, that the age old story as far as like, oh yeah, just, you know, throw the machines in there and you’re good. But, uh, I have a degree in electric and stuff like that. So I grew up in a trade, so it was pretty easy for us to fix machines and stuff like that. So basically we, we got a small inheritance probably about six years ago from uncle passing way. Uh, we took that money, threw it into this laundromat, bought the building a business and we kind of just muddled along for a few years, put some new equipment in and we were doing okay, but it was a little 20, we have 21 washers and 15 dryers. So it was just kind of like putts along, yada yada yada. And then one day I was just like sitting around and just like, you know, in the morning we’re super slow. I was like, you know, like the machine is just sitting here. So I’m like, well, you know, may start doing some homework on, you know, pick up and delivery and yada yada yada. So that was when was that? That March, April, I guess I started talking to you and Ken and that there’s guys, and then you just pull the trigger and paid for the software and then just grew from there basically. Yeah.

Speaker 1: (01:59)

You talked about the growth. I’m going to do a screen share of just that showing the growth that you’re having at your laundromat. So what you’re looking at here is the gross income for Jim’s business and he’s just have, he’s just has had exceptional growth over the past 14 months. So I started with us as he could see in the software and partway through September, 2020. And for those of you who are listening to this online, we’ll try and paint you a picture. What, what we’re looking at here is it looks like pretty modest revenue. And because we had to keep the dollar amounts blank, but then in September, it is just off the charts. We’re talking about deep, deep, big five figure numbers. All right. And so in October and November, 2020, when he first started, it looks like little. I mean, it barely shows up on the chart because 2021 is making so much more money that it makes 2020, it looked like nothing, but it turns out 2020 was actually really good.

Speaker 1: (03:01)

Jim’s probably making here over twice as much as what most laundromats make in Washington per month. And that was one year ago. And now an incredible part is it’s November 2nd. And Jim has already done better than his 2020 November. Okay. So in two days, Jim did better in 2021 in two days than he did and all of November last year. So imagine if, yeah, it’s just crazy. So, so then fast forward in another thing, a pattern you’ll see on this chart. And I tell this to clients all the time after about three months, a lot of our clients experienced tremendous growth and there’s because we provide a top top notch website at curbside laundries. And that’s one of the reasons why clients do so well. The other thing that’s really important, we send over some information as far as what you need to do to make your website rank even better.

Speaker 1: (03:59)

And it’s really important to do those things. So if you’re a curbside client, make sure you do those things because those things do help. Um, so now after about three months, his business just picked up a whole bunch. It may not look like much compared to where he’s at now, but it’s tremendous growth. I mean, basically by March, like in about five months, he’s doing triple what he was doing in November. So in about five months he tripled his business and then he basically tripled his business again. I mean, basically Jim is doing about eight times as much business as this year and this September, then he did and last November, eight times, and he’s doing really good back in November. So we help our clients Excel. One thing, you’ll notice another big jump. Besides after the three months I was talking about, he had another big jump in revenue and that was because he started doing pay-per-click advertising through marathon consulting.

Speaker 1: (04:59)

So Jim gives a lot of credit to marathon consulting for doing just tremendous, tremendous work on Google ad words. And you could see him having another job as a result of being real aggressive with, with Google advertising. So we’re a big believers in Google advertising, but we’re also really big on organic getting customers organically. And they go hand in hand because this way you’re making money. So Jim made all his money going organic. We got him to a certain point and then he was able to afford to double down and start paying for Google ad words. And now he’s doing even better. So it’s just a great, great business to be in. I was just curious, as far as your expectations, expectations, when you started with curbside and where you’re at now and happy with the way things are going.

Speaker 2: (05:41)

Yeah. I mean, it’s, like I said, this, the software is intuitive for everybody to use. Um, the expectation was, you know, I don’t know what we’re going to do, you know, first month or two, you know, and you know, it’s, it’s daunting once you start out, like, Hey man, I got this bill from the curbside ads. Like whatever it is, I don’t know how much it is now, which is silly because it’s only been 14 months, but you’re like, oh man, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do all this, but, um, once you do it and you figure out some kind of system and get the advertising, you know, it it’s good. But I mean, from your guys’ perspective, I mean, I came on seeing you guys in July, you know, toward your place. Um, just because I didn’t know, you know, especially you’re talking to your mother and your dad was super cool.

Speaker 2: (06:21)

You know, they had been in the game a long time, so they, you know, help with helping out and stuff like that. But from, you know, curbside perspective, it’s, you know, it’s life changing, you know what I mean? And we’re talking 120 550,000 pounds of laundry this year and this, our first full year, you know, I mean, we’re probably looking at doing 300,000 next year and incredible. Yeah, it’s incredible. So like we, me and my wife, uh, you know, really appreciate curbside from that perspective, you know, talking to you guys down to earth, you know, like you guys are in the business, it’s not like you’re selling me something that you don’t nothing about. So, and you guys developed it as we grow and you guys grow, you know what I mean? You guys come a long way too with people and help and stuff like that. And, you know, we appreciate it. Yeah.

Speaker 1: (07:04)

That’s fantastic. I’m curious, as far as knowing what you know now you’ve been in it and just immersed in it for just a little bit over a year, what do you think about it? Like ride sharing services, whether it’s like Uber or door dash. So imagine if you’re outsourcing to an individual who, you know, nothing about,

Speaker 2: (07:23)

I don’t envision that working at all, uh, just from our perspective, you know, like first off that they don’t work for you. So, you know what I mean? Like they’re on their, their schedule. Communication would be an issue with them, changing things on a fly and, you know, somebody cancels, Hey, we have an add on pickup. Like I just, you’re better off spending the time having the extra money obligate hiring and that driver biting the bullet, you know, and if they can do both, you know, wash clean up, you know, do that, but they have to sub it out basically. Like, I just think you’re asking for trouble and you know, it’s just, uh, it’s just not a, I feel good business practice. We have a lot of our customers that sees, sees the same driver. We run a north and south route. So they see the same driver. They’re comfortable with them, especially older people, you know, like, Hey, this, you know, Joe’s come in, you know, on Wednesday. And they, they love it versus having anybody come and then just, you know, appearance to, you know what I mean? We’ve been working on uniforms and stuff like that. So you look like a clean cut professional operation, not like, you know, a bunch of hobos pick up some laundry, you know?

Speaker 1: (08:28)

Yeah. That’s fantastic. I mean, they’ve read the driver is that maybe the only person from your laundry mat that they see from your laundry service and they represent your competencies. So you’re running a company and you’re growing quickly. And what you would say to a laundry owner is kind of on the fence of getting into, they’ve got the laundry mat, they’re on the fence as far as getting to pick up and delivery. So if you’re talking to one of those laundry owners and they’re thinking about getting into pick up and delivery, what would you say to them?

Speaker 2: (08:57)

Um, well, we started out, we didn’t do any, uh, any, any laundry at all, you know, drop off, you know, we didn’t have a drop-off clientele when we started. So from that standpoint, you know, um, it’s way easier. Um, I feel under the pickup and delivery because people want the convenience, but also you can kind of dictate schedule. And when it gets back out to them, as far as if you’re on the fence with it, you know, if you have the time to support it, like it’s tremendous as far as growth, um, you know, how we, how we got going, it was no secret. You know what I mean? We just, you know, picked up the phone and called some people. And then, you know, we got up, got up and running with you guys and, but it has to make, it has to be easy for your girls.

Speaker 2: (09:40)

Um, you got to have space, um, like we fold, we have a separate folding room. We’re fortunate. We, we own the building, uh, in both places. So we have a separate area. That’s a 32 square foot table that we can process. We can push the 35 to 40 pounds per hour, you know, limit, you know, as far as that and be more productive. I mean, we’ve only been doing this 14 months and we’re, I think we did a hundred and twenty five hundred twenty 6,000 pounds so far this year. And you know, it’s like free money. It’s, it’s a low-hanging fruit to go out there and grab it.

Speaker 1: (10:13)

I think that’s the best way to sum it up. It’s it’s there for you to grab it. Thank you for tuning in to the state of the laundry industry podcast. Jim has taken his business to the next level, using curbside laundries wash and fold and pickup and delivery solution. We could feature different client, a different successful client every week for years. And we’ll probably do something like that. If you, if you’d like to learn more about the curbside software package that helped Jim go to curbside laundries.com to learn more and schedule a demo, don’t forget to subscribe and see you next time.

Stop working faster and harder. At some point you can only work so much in a day before burning out. Take some tips from Kent Wales on how to work smarter, by making yourself not essential to your business’s operations

[TRANSCRIPT]

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Speaker 1: (00:02)

Welcome to state of the laundry industry with laundry matt, episode 10, going from laundry operator to business owner. In addition, we’re also going to be providing some top tips on how to hire in today’s difficult hiring environment. This episode is part two, a B series, featuring Kent Wells of happy laundry. In the previous episode, we discussed tips on how to find top talent and retain the team members that you have. I always learn a lot, look talking to Kent, and I hope you enjoy the show without further ado. Here’s Kent Wells from happy laundry.

Speaker 2: (00:38)

I’ve gotten so much information over the years, not only from other laundry owners, folks that I met in the CLA and in the business, people have talked to clean shows and got to know, you know, the biggest thing for me, I think is that I’m really personally trying to make a transition from an owner operator to a business owner. And that’s a, you know, I’ve been in the business for 15 years. It’s been in other businesses before this, but I don’t want to spend my whole life being an operator. That’s not my, that’s not my job. And then, and honestly, that’s not my skillset. The more I’ve thought about this, and this has been a huge personal growth thing for me, which is all right, what do I need to do to just be the business owner? How do I support my team? How do I empower them to make the decisions with the customers? And honestly, I don’t really talk to customers much anymore about what’s what we have folks to do, and you give them the power to resolve situations and, you know, drive it home and get me out of the, from being the sticking point to

Speaker 1: (01:36)

That is such a great point. You know, I remember, you know, I kind of grew up with entrepreneur. My parents were entrepreneurs and their parents were, I remember as a kid where one of my parents’ friends said, how do you let your employees do this and this and this. And you know, my dad, you know, he did, he’s good at delegating and also empowering people to make their own decisions. And instead of micromanaging. So you’ll see two different types of owners. A lot of times he got the people who are saying, it’s called task management, where do this, do this to this? And the other person is more, I think your style where you’re empowering your employees to, you know, make your own decisions. And I think one of the keys to that is you have to allow them to make mistakes. You know, you have to be okay with that. Absolutely. And then they learned from that, you’re allowed to look at the bigger picture because you’re not micromanaging. And I think that’s just a great philosophy,

Speaker 2: (02:23)

You know, it’s interesting, interesting. You say that I was at a Dave Ramsey, uh, contrary. It was either entree leadership or I can’t remember which point he into a couple of his things. And he was talking about his gay kids growing up. And as they were maturing and getting older and have more responsibilities, like giving them a little bit more rope and I’ve kind of switched that in my head and said, you know, that’s really for our leads and our management team. So it does take time and you’re investing time and effort into people to kind of show them how you want things done. But you do as they, as they mature as a leader, as they get more business experience, you want to give them a little bit more and more rope. And, and of course, if they, you know, betray your trust or, or they show that they can’t handle it, you got to pull that back in. But, but that thought of giving people more responsibility as they earn it or demonstrate that they’re, that they’re good. And even, you know, how do they handle situations where they’ve made mistakes? Are they blaming other people or are they the type that goes, you know, I did this, I could’ve done it better this way. Here’s how we move on through it and don’t hold it against themselves.

Speaker 1: (03:29)

That’s terrific. Well, one final thing, there’s all, I feel like Columbia, there’s like one last thing before the door closes. Right. And that was the pay range. I forgot to ask you about that before, which was, this helped us significantly and helped increase the volume of phone calls and interest in the job opportunities. So if you could explain the idea behind that and how that works.

Speaker 2: (03:51)

Sure. So on our, um, we’ve started out with this with honor third shift ad. So we’ve moved a lot of our residential wash tri-fold production to third shift. Uh, we’re more of a two shift town there. I didn’t think that there was going to be a lot of third shift applicants. So what we started to do was put the pay range or earn up to, uh, because we’re paying our third shift folks a bonus based upon production and what they could potentially earn at that level. It is a part-time job. So they in three shifts a week. So they can, I mean, it’s definitely a, uh, a big thing to add and it’s usually after kids go to bed or right. You know, kind of in that timeframe. So we did find when we started putting that, what was possible in the title, we got a lot more applications that we could look through, you know, an applications is key to us.

Speaker 1: (04:43)

Yeah. So rather than just putting down a fixed dollar amount and Hey, this job pays you, you’ve got a range in there,

Speaker 2: (04:49)

That’s the blue, do you, and, and we’ve tried both between your range and then like in our case, uh, $18 plus an hour up to, you know, so our kind of range for third shift is anywhere from, I think it’s 15 to $21 an hour that they, they can kind of top out in the twenties. Is there a stellar production worker? So yeah, that, that really got a lot more interest. And we explain that to folks in the interview as well.

Speaker 1: (05:12)

Well, that’s terrific. And you know, one thing I want to remind everybody about is, is paying for production. You know, I’d rather have a $20 an hour employee. Who’s able to crank out a whole bunch of, you know, just as more productive than a $10 employer that, you know, it’s like, well, I got a good deal on the hours, but what’s the actual production per dollar. And, uh, that’s something to always kind of keep them on.

Speaker 2: (05:34)

No worries. That was one thing I just want to add to, you know, we’re, we’re a long way away from we’re over 10 years away from just having attendance. So we really have production workers now. And so it’s a completely different mindset. Um, we’re not just looking for somebody to mind the store and do a couple of orders. We’re looking for them to, you know, again, they’re cranking out a lot of laundry week after week after week.

Speaker 1: (05:58)

Yeah. I’ve got to work on my God, work on my vocabulary because words carry power and it changes your mindset. I noticed you used the term team member and I’m using the term attendant and, and you know, the, and that philosophy, you know, you change your language to reflect what you’re thinking, and then it changes the way you think. And I think that’s one of the reasons you’ve got such a great team on your side, you know, and you guys are just kicking butt. So, yeah, thanks again for joining us on the laundry podcast. I’d like to think Kent Wells for sharing his knowledge and wisdom with us on the state of the laundry industry podcast. Another thing that could help with employee retention, because that’s so important because if you can retain your employees, you don’t have to hire new employers unless of course you’re growing.

Speaker 1: (06:44)

But that being said, one of our keys to success with employee retention is our tips. So if you could pay them more than that does help with retention. And one way of paying your employees more without costing you, anything is by collecting tips. So you can see right here about one third of our customers do tip and they do that through the curbside laundry is point of sale system for wash and fold and also a pickup and delivery. And on average, the out of all our customers are tip. They tip on average about 13 and a half percent. So in the month of September, you could see right here, 591 customers tipped. And we received a total of $4,660 in tips that came out of the customer’s pocket, not ours. And as a result, we were able to pay our employees an extra dollar per hour for their, for their help.

Speaker 1: (07:39)

So that really makes our pay that much more competitive. In addition, there are a lot of nuances with tips. There’s one way you got to collect the tips in store for wash and fold, but something unique to our software is it collects tips for pickup and delivery customers. And also for reoccurring, remember your reoccurring pickup and delivery customers are your best customers. They spend between like about 1700 to over $3,000 per year, if they’re every other week or weekly respectively. So these guys spend thousands of dollars. They’re your best customers, but how do they tip if they don’t even have to log into the system into the software, you just show up there every week to collect their laundry. We have it all figured out we’ve saved their tip amount or their percentage. We get their opt-in and it’s easy, and customers are doing it.

Speaker 1: (08:28)

And as a result of all our different ways of collecting tips, we’re collecting a significant chunk of money that goes right to our employees and helps us with retention. So that’s just one thing to consider. If you’re looking at pickup and delivery, make sure to check out the curbside laundry software. And one thing I want to leave off with is in the previous episode, Kentwell said, we, when it comes to searching for new employers, nothing is off the table and something. And we took that to heart. And there’s a place where we’ve found some really great employers in a place you wouldn’t necessarily expect to. And that’s with drug rehab centers, or even other halfway houses, people who their past is behind them. They’re looking for a new opportunity and they’re having, they’re getting rejections everywhere. They’re just looking for a job nine to five, where they could get there, get back into society and get a job.

Speaker 1: (09:24)

And, and that’s something that we could provide. And these people may have had really high quality jobs in the past, and they just can’t find that opportunity again. And so we’re providing that stepping stone where they could get back into the fold and they could get back into, into the society. And they’re just so thankful to have a job. And some of them are so high of quality. So will that work out longterm? Are they where they off the wagon? Now they’re on the wagon, then they’ll fall off the wagon. I don’t know, but it has been working for us for some time. Um, it may be a place where if you’re really looking, that could be a place where you could find some quality people who want to who need a second chance. It could be a win-win for both.

TAGS: WASH AND FOLD

In this episode, we learn how to increase the number of applicants, where to advertise, how to retain talent, and more!

[Transcript]

Watch The Video

Speaker 1: (00:02)

Welcome to the state of the laundry industry with laundry mat episode nine, where do I hire attendance for my laundromat? This episode is actually about a lot more than just where to find attendance. This episode is also about how to increase the number of applicants, how to create harmony among your team and how to retain your employees to this episode, Starz, Kentwell the business owner of happy laundry. I’d like to welcome Kent Wells to the state of the laundry industry podcast. We’re honored to have you as a guest Kent Wells for people who don’t know he’s the owner and proprietor of happy laundry. He’s been doing pickup and delivery probably for quite some time and has tons of experience. I learned so much every time. I’d speak, talk to Kent and, um, and thanks again for joining our podcast.

Speaker 2: (00:53)

If you could let

Speaker 1: (00:53)

People know we’re, uh, we’re happy laundry is also since you’ve got a really great perspective of pickup and delivery when you first started and we let people know when that was and also where it is today and how things have changed over time.

Speaker 2: (01:08)

Sure. So we’re spoken in Washington, uh, we’ve got one location and we focus the majority of our effort on routes, um, and, and picking up and delivery between customers, residential customers, a little bit of dry cleaning and a lot of wash dry fold. So, uh, I’ve been in the business for 15 years. Uh, we started routes 12 or 13 years ago. I can’t exactly remember when, um, but you know, you were asking, how has it changed? Uh, for us, I did not see the potential 13 years ago in wash dry fold, uh, picking up the residential areas. I’ve just kinda missed the boat on that one. So, um, that has been a huge, huge growth area for us. And I would say the pandemic has helped in bringing more customers to the market. And then, then also just the idea that it’s available. I hear almost every week for my team members cash, we got a call. They had no idea this was even possible. So yeah.

Speaker 1: (02:14)

Yeah. People used to mow their own lawns and now it’s unheard of.

Speaker 2: (02:18)

Yep. Yeah. They used to clean their own house and though some people still dealing, some people still cleaning their own house to,

Speaker 1: (02:24)

Right. Yeah. I’m sure there’s a few of that stone. And I’m curious, what’s the role of technology being played in there because it may be, I’m doing, this is just speculation, but maybe you got into commercial when you’re just doing pickup and delivery because they’re regular, they’re consistent, you know, with pickup and delivery, it’s every single order is customized. You know, it’s, there’s a specific pickup, Dave specific pickup time, uh, things could change. They have everybody else’s specific laundry preferences and it’d be really hard to track it that when you’re dealing with the volume that you’re dealing with. So do you think it could be, uh, is technology played a role as far as why you may have done residential later? Just curious on that,

Speaker 2: (03:07)

You know, we did residential dry cleaning to start with, uh, because it was something previous jobs I kind of knew. Um, but I will say that, you know, our progression, we started, you know, paper and pencil, three color or three carbon copy forms in the very, very beginning. So, you know, it’s, you know, mine had one, one or two or three deliveries a day. That’s not a big deal, but you know, now we have hundreds. So I think, yeah. Technology in the ability to have attract customers, uh, optimize your routes, but then also have, you know, just track the information from carbon copy forms. We went to Excel spreadsheets, which we maintained and, you know, people had to know where addresses were in that kind of thing. So yeah, it’s, it’s made it super, super streamlined and a lot less friction for the customer as well.

Speaker 1: (03:58)

Yeah. We were there too with the triple kit tickets and we got a whiteboard with magnets, the only person that understood it was the person who made it and they weren’t always working every day. Yeah. So the main topic I want to talk about, this is such a hot topic. I see it all over the forums. People are always asking about it is how are you hiring? How do you staff with a quality people during this difficult hiring time because people are choosing not well, there’s a lot of different reasons. People are not working right now. It seems like, and it’s hard to convince people sometimes to work when they may not necessarily have to. Um, and, and so there’s a lot of the job. The available labor pool is smaller than ever before. And you’ve had success, finding quality people, maintaining your company culture. And, and it’s just, uh, just something I think people should emulate. So if you could talk about like your philosophy, like where are you going to hire to sort of your process?

Speaker 2: (04:57)

Sure. You know, it’s one, one figure it is the backup. Just the hair. One figure I heard is there’s 11 million open jobs in the country. So they know that’s a huge, that’s a huge number. And I think our workforce has shifted, especially with the pandemic. So I don’t put any, and nothing’s off the table. As far as hiring, we’ve had our, in the last year, we’ve had the most success kind of in three different avenues. One would be indeed and this and this for drivers, customer service people and, uh, laundry workers, um, or production workers, if you will, Facebook has probably been our biggest boon to find production workers. Uh, both of those we have to, um, boost or guests or paid advertising. And I’ve spent more in this last year and then I’d probably have done any other, all the previous years combined just to feel kind of the need that we have had this year.

Speaker 2: (05:51)

So we’ve had a big growth year, um, on top of kind of the pandemic, um, and you know, employee turnover, that kind of thing. That’s the bigger you get. The more employees you have, the more team members you have, the more that’s just going to be a way of life. So for us, we, you know, my wife was really instrumental in talking to me about creating a system that we, that we use and we hire from. So, uh, the third thing, you know, you asked about where the third thing is, is we have gone to temp agencies and we have a couple of different, uh, relationships with express personnel was one and then another local company. And we’ve actually tempted to hire probably, oh man, I want to say four or five people in the last three years through that way. I mean, so they started out as a temp, kind of filled in where we needed them. And as we got to know them and they got to know us, we made them an offer. So there is cost in that, that they’re not free, but you know, we’re past the, just fill in kind of people in with ours. We’re, you know, we’re looking for efficiency, production, teamwork, and teamwork is probably number one. So

Speaker 1: (06:58)

Yeah, I was just at Rubio’s other day and there’s a sign outside that says, walk them interview as welcoming. And as at a pizza place, you could see the places I go to. I go to eat, um, that was at a pizza place and it was a pretty new pizza place. And it says we’re only open for dinner because it’s hard to hide. You know, they didn’t have enough staff and they’re just closed during lunch time, you know, they’re selling pizza. So it’s really amazing that you’ve been able to diversify the different locations you’re hiring from the other part. I think this illustrates is the importance of keeping your employees happy, um, and, and re in retention because now the cost of replacement is higher because it takes longer to find them. Yeah, it takes longer. And then you have to run the advertisements for longer. So it is a little bit, so that is something to keep in mind. And I remember in a previous conversation, we had, you mentioned about internal and external customers and that was not life changing, but it was operationally changing. It changed my whole perspective and it helped me so much. And I just wonder if you could tell the audience about that.

Speaker 2: (08:03)

Yeah. So we, in our, in our company, we look at, you know, as an owner or as a management team, leadership team is what we call it. We serve not only our external customers, they bring in the, they bring in the dollars, the orders, the work, but we also serve our team and we call them internal customers. You know, we have a responsibility as a, as a, as a leadership team. And as an owner, I, I feel a good responsibility to my P my people, my team, not only to like, not micromanage them, get in their way, but to create systems and help them make their life easier. You know, when we think about the internal customer, we’re also thinking, you know, how do we make the light? How do we make the work and the life easy, easier, or more efficient for our folks?

Speaker 2: (08:47)

I’ll be the first to tell you, I mean, I’ve done this for years and years. And, you know, I worked on the floor as well. I’ve delivered, I’ve kind of done all the jobs and it is not an easy job. I mean, you know, maybe being an attendant where you’re, when you’re only doing one or two or three orders a day, we’re doing hundreds of bags of laundry per day. We have three shifts, uh, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, we’ve got two shifts Thursday, Friday, and then we have attendance on the weekend for our laundromat portion as well. So we have a huge team these days. I think it’s 22 employees today for 22 team members. So, you know, making sure that we can try to keep as many of those as possible and kind of, you know, listen to what’s going on, be aware. We always try to promote from an intern from our internal staff. Uh, sometimes you can’t do that, but you know, our leads definitely come, are working leads. They, they come from that and they have more responsibility. And then we’ve got laundry manager, delivery manager and customer service manager. So, you know, all the time we’re looking to up train, give people, um, opportunities, that kind of thing. So,

Speaker 1: (09:55)

Yeah, and that, that helped us at supersets quite a bit because, you know, w we had somebody who’s terrific. And there, there just was, you know, sometimes there, there could be like a clash between owner employ, you know, and, and I take full responsibility on this. You know, it was just more about ego than anything else. And, and it’s like, well, I expect a person to do, you know, this, and, and, and then, and it kind of, but then I thought about what you’re saying about internal customers, you know, you make your money from external customers, but you also make money from your internal customers, which is your team. And I’m like, you know, what, what am I doing? You know, I’m going to make you better. And it’s going to have more harmony if our internal customers are happy. And then I realized, you know, I was able to make an accommodation. I just changed my frame of thought by. And I’m like, we’re going to make more money with him. I don’t have to go back to the drawing board and, and you know what, he’s happy, we’re happy and everything worked out. And it was just a change of philosophy, a change of perspective that really, really helped out.

Speaker 2: (10:59)

Yeah, no worries. Any time like, um, this is, you know, I’ve gotten so much information over the years, not only from other laundry owners or folks that I met in the CLA and in the business, people I’ve talked to clean shows and gotten to know, you know, the biggest thing for me, I think is that I’m really personally trying to make a transition from an owner operator to a business owner,

Speaker 1: (11:23)

Stay tuned for next week’s episode on Kent Wells, making the transition from an owner operator to a business owner. It’s not about working harder and faster. It’s about working smarter. In addition, Kentwell shares his number one tip on how to increase the number of applicants for job for available job openings. If you enjoyed this episode of the state of the laundry industry podcast, please click like or subscribe on YouTube or your favorite podcast player. In addition, if you’d like to see the curbside wash and fold software in action, please visit curbside laundries.com. See you next time.

TAGS: WASH AND FOLD

Watch this video to see actual gig economy drivers do shocking things while on the ‘job’.  

TRANSCRIPT:

Speaker 1: 0:04

Welcome to the state of the laundry industry with laundry mat , episode eight, hiring gig drivers for laundry. Does it work today? We’re joined by Kenny Simons of the dirty hamper. He talks about the competitive advantage he has over laundry services using the gig economy.

Speaker 2: 0:23

Watch The Video

All right , Kenny, let you , I’d like to ask you about there’s a, the, the competitive landscape is constantly changing. So originally I’d say it’s just , uh , you know , mom and pop laundromats doing pickup and delivery. Sometimes it gets to just call on the phone and you know, now there’s a bunch of different options for the customer, but you kind of guide that discussion in a sense, but have you come across any of these different services out there and just wondering how you compete against them? Yeah ,

Speaker 3: 0:51

I actually have , um, and it seems to me that they’re app based the , these people don’t own laundry mats , um, or they just created the service. Um, one instance I found , um, what they’re doing is they’re , they’re bringing it back to their house.

Speaker 2: 1:09

They’re still there . They’re picking up the laundry,

Speaker 3: 1:12

They’re picking up the laundry and they’re bringing it back to their house and their washing it. So the customer doesn’t know if they have 20 cats, 20 dogs, anybody’s sick. I know I wouldn’t want my laundry in someone else’s , uh, in , in their house. So that’s one, that’s one example. Then, you know, my, my name, the dirty hamper it’s everyone gets a kick out of it. You even have competitors trying to steal , you know, trying to steal your name and take your bags. So it’s crazy what people will do, but I’ve noticed a lot of it is them outsourcing the laundry, not even the laundry mats , but they’re saying, Hey, you’re, you’re a single mom or single dad, and you want to make a few extra bucks. Well, here, sign up with our app and we’ll, we’ll pay you a compensation for going to a laundromat or doing it at home. Um, but the problem I have with that is nothing’s going to be consistent. It’s a great, it’s a great model in hindsight, where you can contract a bunch of people all over California and have them do the laundry, but everybody’s laundry is going to be different. And the last example I’ll give you , um, this, this company had, for whatever reason, there was a link involved and my customer clicked on that link. She got back her launch , she thought it was us. She got back her laundry and I kid you not, everything was in a basket, a basket in a basket. Like you, you got it right out of the dryer and you put in a basket, nothing was folded. Wow. She , she called us crying state saying, what did you do? Like, right. And we, and this is, I was with a different , um, platform at the time when this happened. And I said, what , what are you talking about? I have no idea what, we didn’t even have an order from you. And she clicked on an old link that went to the other company. And so, no, I think what those apps, no product is going to be the same. And the way that I saw your podcast or , or a link you had on the drivers, the power of the driver, Uber driver doesn’t care. If the clothes you throw is on, on, on the porch, but your driver is going to interact and take a little extra time and talk. And there’s even been times I’ve had to do pickup and delivery is where I’m stuck with a customer for 30 minutes, just shooting the breeze, having a good time. And they, they want to put a face to a company to a brand, right .

Speaker 2: 3:45

They’re trusting you with their clothes. Yes . I mean, that’s a really good point. I mean, you know, I always say in the first first example, however you fold your clothes is the right way. And consistency shows it’s the right way. So if it’s different, every time, if McDonald’s was different, every time it wouldn’t be McDonald’s and people went, oh , there in the same thing, laundry, they like consistency. And especially with their clothes. Yeah .

Speaker 3: 4:10

Well, and , and I, and I’ve noticed even with some of our , uh , uh, our launders , our customers know who’s doing it, they’ll request, Hey, I want the person I did last time. Cause I like how they fold everything. So I think it’s really important that whoever’s in charge of the people that are doing the laundering and everything’s done the same way as absolutely. Like I said, the McDonald’s saying every burger needs to be saying, you know, pickle, onions, ketchup, and mustard on a bunk that’s basic, just , just don’t, don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Right.

Speaker 2: 4:43

And then w with, and then you’re segwaying into Uber and all of that. And they represent your company. I’m not sure if you saw take talk video. I saw somebody ordered, it went viral as , is a DoorDash driver, and they picked up somebody ordered a television from Walmart. So they pick up the TV from Walmart and the DoorDash drivers videotaping himself. Like, I can’t believe these guys ordered shame on them, but he used some fancy language shame on them today and shame on them tomorrow for having me pick this up. And I’m not sure every door dash driver expects to pick up laundry. I didn’t want you to know

Speaker 4: 5:24

Whoever ordered this show and do it as your whole hope, your whole, whole day and tomorrow,

Speaker 5: 5:44

So I can make it right. How much of this is an $8 tip? I gave an eight . Okay.

Speaker 2: 6:03

Are there different examples you have of like some of the laundry that they’ve, you know, imagine door dash driver receiving that type of order and how they respond to the customer?

Speaker 3: 6:13

Right. I think one he’d had, he’d kind of have an issue with , with the pickup or the delivery of the instructions, because the same guy that’s picking up is not going to be the same guy delivering. Um, he may pull up in his Prius and find 600 pounds of laundry, you know, full of cat hair and cat urine. And he’s looking at it going, well, I’m not going to pick up this order. Then your customer is going to call you and say, Hey, what happened to my pickup? Um, so I, I see things like that. I think that that Uber mentality for laundry is transaction-based , you know, when they do a food, a food runner or whatever, they’re getting a percentage of whatever that order is. Um, but with the laundry, I don’t know how they’re going to get a percentage of the pounds or anything like that. That that’s way above my head, but they , they’re not invested with your company. They’re invested in their transaction.

Speaker 2: 7:08

That’s a great way of putting it because you know, I come from a real estate background too. And my broker would always say, you want to be a relationship based . We’re not transactional brokers or realtors over here. And, and I think you’re right with Uber and door dash , it’s that transaction. And you never see that person again. There’s no accountability. Versus when you have your driver representing your company, that’s relationship based.

Speaker 3: 7:30

Well, it’s crazy because with, with your brand and with your drivers, it all represents you. I had, I had somebody call me on the freeway saying, Hey , um, your driver is smoking a cigarette. I would never pick up laundry from you. I would never have you pick up laundry. And I, and I said, okay, well, thank you for the update, right? And he’s the drivers , not with me anymore. I had to contact my driver. I said, Hey, where are you smoking in the car? And he said, how did you know, do you have a camera in the car? I said, no, you’re a billboard. And a potential customer looked over and saw you smoking a cigarette and thought, wow, all those people’s clothes are going to smell like smoke

Speaker 3: 8:14

With the Uber thing. You don’t know if they’re smoking marijuana, smoking cigarettes, you know what I mean? It’s you don’t know what you’re going to get.

Speaker 2: 8:22

And the customer is not going to care. The customer’s not going to care that, oh, well, why do you send door dash in the first place? Right . You can’t blame it on door dash. You know, it’s your business.

Speaker 3: 8:30

Exactly. You , you have to be accountable and kinda like you with the real estate thing. Back in the day, I went to a thing years ago called a by referral only. And that was the whole thing. You know, you want referrals, it’s, there’s nothing better than when you’re doing someone’s laundry. And their neighbor says, Hey, you know, give me their card. I want to use.

Speaker 2: 8:49

Oh , terrific. Yeah. I appreciate your time. And yeah, thanks again for joining us on the state of the laundry. This is pertinent stuff that’s happening. I mean, it’s real stuff. Real laundry owners. Yeah. Appreciate your time. Oh, you’re welcome.

Speaker 1: 9:04

Thank you for listening to the state of the laundry industry, please subscribe or click, like wherever you see this episode. And also if you’d like to learn more about the curbside laundries, pick up and deliver your software, go to www curb side laundries.com. Thanks again.

Transcript:

Welcome to the state of the laundry industry with laundry and mat episode seven, crushing it and pick up and delivery. This episode stars, Kenny Simons of the dirty hamper, who is absolutely crushing it and pick up and delivery. You won’t want to miss it.

Kenny, just want to thank you for joining me on the podcast, the state of the laundry industry and, and you are like such a success story. So I’m just so glad that you’re part of the podcast. Um, thank you. Thank you. And we appreciate being a curbside client, um, because it’s been awesome just watching you grow. So, yeah, I’m just curious as far as like what brought you into the laundry business and yeah. How you got here?

Watch The Video

Yeah. Um, one of my best friends, who’s kind of like my older brother. Um, his family has been in the business for 60 years and, uh, I really only wanted one laundromat. That was a mile from my house. And I told him that 15 years ago, when that becomes available, let me know I want to buy it. Well, I think, I believe it was 2014, 2015. He said that the owner was ready to sell. And so little did I know they had two at the time and they didn’t want to sell the one I wanted. They wanted to sell me their dog. And when, I mean, dog, every machine was broken, it looked like it was back in 1975. It was just bad. So with his help, um, he was able to pretty much put all the new equipment in there designed a laundry mat, um, and make it modern. So he helped me out with that. And my goal was just to buy one laundry mat a year and get going.

Nice. And, and did you, before you got into pickup and delivery, were you doing wash and fold or did you just go straight into pick up and delivery?

So when, when I got into Washington, it was kind of on accident. Um, I didn’t know anything about the laundry business. Um, like I said, my best friend, he, uh, his family owned many throughout the years and all he knew was laundry mines. And, uh, I remember where I have a full-time job as well. And I remember calling my wife who was a full-time teacher and, uh, asking her what she was doing on her lovely Saturday. And, uh, she snapped at me and she said, I’m doing eight loads of laundry and hung up on me. So I was bored and I, I Googled, um, how to start a washing full business. And, um, in the beginning, at my first location, we, um, we just had off and we used the paper receipts, the carbon copy receipts, and it was cash. And so everything involved from trial and error, I wish I knew you guys, you know, years ago, but it, it was, it was great for me to learn that way, what worked, what didn’t, what could be better.

So we started off with the, with the receipts and then from there I learned about square. So from square, I started marketing. I have a very good friend who’s who’s in marketing, um, purple cow, social media, Tiffany, and she helped design a website. So with that website, she was able to incorporate square. So now it started to evolve in a way where people can schedule online. So another laundry mat near mine about a mile away that became for sale. So I bought that and it had a lot, it had more space than that. I knew what to do with it. So I thought, wow, well maybe I can grow it here too. I’ll have two locations. And then it evolved to, Hey, can you drop it off? Can you pick it up? And, you know, for older clients, and of course we’ll do that. Well, then the word got out that, Hey, they do pick up and delivery. Now I need a van. So I went down and got a van Dodge van and, uh, wrapped it. Um, I sent you some pictures of it earlier, where it was just a noxious, um, very colorful, very bright. Um, my drivers would laugh because as they’re driving people to stop and take pictures of it and, uh, it, it was just, it, it was funny. It

Got attention,

It got attention. And people started going to the website

And your marketing. Person’s the purple cow, which is all about standing out.

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Tiffany has been great. She, she actually did marketing for a large furniture company as well. I highly recommend her and what’s been great is she’s been able to assist me with the curbside website, any changes I need, and she’s been able to coordinate with you anything that we need as well. So that’s,

And I remember also you’re using, you got an, a pickup and delivery you’re using and, and your growth has just been exponential. And, you know, I’m not sure if we mentioned your laundry mat, it’s the dirty hamper based out Los Angeles, um, LA area and the, so I believe you’re using a different platform and you switched over. I’m just curious as far as what brought about that change or, you know, things were going well before. So I’m just curious, what was the impetus?

What I learned is no, system’s perfect. Um, with the one I went with, it was an app based, um, uh, system and it was good for what it did, but it was mainly geared towards dry cleaners. And I’d been talking to you for probably a couple of years just feeling you out and trying to get information from you. And it got to a point where it was just irritating dealing with, with this company. And so I thought, you know what, I’m going to call Matt, see, see what he can do, what he’s going to promise me like the other guy did and, uh, probably switch in six and I’m

Going to show it on the screen for people watching, um, which is the, the gross income. And it starts in about 2009, 2012. So just about a year ago in April. And so April is in red from 2020 and the blue is this year, 2021. And, you know, I notice even at the time, you know, between April and August, it’s actually pretty significant growth because percentage wise that’s huge. I mean, now it’s about five times that number one year later. So that’s just unbelievable. Um, but then I noticed a huge jump in August and September, just curious what you attribute that to. Um, and then how were you able to manage it because that is disruptive, your business went way, way, way up your operations definitely would change. And I was just wondering how you accommodated to those, I guess, you know, th that growth.

Well, I think I came on board with you in March just as COVID started. And maybe it was a little bit before, but we had our record month. We did I think, 3000 pounds and we’re jumping up and down like idiots. No. Oh, we made it right. And then once we fully transitioned over from that other app and then went all in with curbside, it’s crazy. I was worried with COVID that people weren’t going to order. Um, because what happened was I started, as soon as COVID happened, everyone started canceling their orders and I was panicking. So I honestly with curbside, as well as Google ad words and Instagram, I dumped, you know, a couple thousand into marketing. You know, if I’m going to go bankrupt, I’m going to go bankrupt, but I’m at least going to swing the bat. So from there, it was crazy.

We, we just kept climbing and climbing and climbing. And I remember talking to you or Aaron, and you guys said, ah, it’s a snowball effect. You’re, you’re going to see it’s a, it’s a slow snowball and it’s going to grow and grow and grow. And then at a, at a point it’s, it’s grown so fast that we’re having a hard time maintaining employees and drivers. And that that’s the next headache, which is a good headache, but, you know, it’s, uh, it’s completely caught me off guard from what I thought it would do. It’s grown fast.

Yeah. It’s definitely high in demand. And do you see this being consistent or, uh, you know, with, or, I mean, you’re seeing continued growth even from like January until now. Um, and, and so do you think it’s a trend? Some people are attributing well, it’s just with COVID. Um, or do you see this as just a new way of being as this, the new normal, I’m just curious how you see the future

With COVID. I I’ve noticed people are afraid. Well, last year they were afraid to leave their house. So I’m going into my laundry mats and they’re bare, and I’m looking around going, how am I going to pay the rent? So for whatever reason, our website, we have something on our website. You know, about that. As soon as someone comes on it, it alerts us that someone’s on it. That thing is nonstop. I have to turn it off because people are on it all the time. And even, even my partner get, gets irritated. She’s like, really? I mean, people are looking on this at two o’clock in the morning, you know, for laundry. But the real thing we’re selling is time. Um, I think as things go and as expensive as California is, you’re going to have it a dual, uh, household where both parents are working. So nobody has time to do anything at home.

Yeah. It seems like I’m busier than ever. And everything is more difficult in a sense, like things just take more time. You can’t just, and it’s hard, harder to get help, you know, to like even babysitters and this or that, or, you know, school’s now shorter than ever before. And there’s always minimum days every day, it seems like, right.

Well, and it’s, you know, you have Uber coming for food, you know, nobody wants to leave their house because no one has the time. And when I got into this, I thought, well, how is this product or service going to, what is my demographic? I completely gave up on that because I have rich people in mansions all the way down to low low-income housing, and they’re not doing 30 pounds. They’re doing 200 pounds at a time. It’s crazy. Like, I don’t like,

I totally agree. And it’s, you know, those, the demographic reports it’s like, what do they even mean? Because I tend to go by population because if there’s people, there’s people who need it. Right.

And it’s each month, I wish I could say it’s slowing down, but each month it’s growing little by little by little.

Yeah, it’s definitely. And you may not notice it so much one month over the other. It’s like, Hey, that’s extra 500 bucks or extra thousand bucks, but then one year, if you keep growing at that rate one year down the line, I mean it’s, and, and then what, what does five years down the line look like? Um, and just curious on the software side of things, are there certain features that you’ve seen that really helped out or certain, um, just where you feel like you have an advantage?

Um, I like knowing who is signing up. So I really target that, um, the prospective customer. So I’ll go after that and I’ll put it on either, um, MailChimp or I’ll do the easy text and I’ll send out to them, Hey, I’ll give you 20% off your first order. And I’ll just keep hitting them. And eventually they, they convert over because they want to try it,

You know? That’s fantastic. So yeah, what Kenny is referring to is the, we have a report called the prospective customer list. And those are people who went in, they create an account, they gave us their email. They gave us their phone number, but they never placed an order. And new customers are a lot harder to get than existing customers and re-engaging them. But you always have to add new customers to the mix, you know, because, you know, it’s just a healthy thing to do. And you bring up a really good point, which is maybe just sending them one message is not enough. These people may need just like with anything else. They say what the commercial is. It takes like three times before you even quote, get it, you know, the first time might not be the right time or you’re not paying attention. So I think just continued effort. That list is money. And a lot of people it’s there, but not everybody uses it. And it’s valuable.

I, and I, I did real estate before and it was the magic number was what seven touches. So if you can hit them seven times, they’re gonna, you know, they’re gonna know

First, like software updates or new new features.

Yeah, no, they, I mean, it seems like, uh, you’re, you’re sending something out every week saying, Hey, we have a new one, we have a new one, we have a new one. Um, but it, it seems like, it seems like the curbside laundry, um, laundry website and everything that you’re providing, it almost seems like it, it, it, it’s growing. Like you just feed it more knowledge and it grows, you feed it a little more knowledge and grow. So I don’t think you ever have a finished product

Because we’re learning.

Yeah. Because you guys, um, you guys come from a laundromat background and issues come up. Okay. Well, what about this issue? Well, what about this issue? So you’re constantly trying to grow it and it’s, you know, it’s not three steps. It’s continuous non-stop and, um, yeah, my hats off to you guys for, for continuing to work everyone’s problems up, because I see on the Facebook, the curbside Facebook, um, members, group, everyone has questions. And it’s nice that you have that community where everyone might have the same question or same issues. And, you know, it’s all always been addressed and in that team environment,

Well, thank you. Yeah, that’s something we learned too, is when we first started this venture, we thought the software would be started and completed and then be a finished product. And we realized it will never end. It’s always never, always things to add ways. We’re like, oh, if we have this new feature, we’ll make more money. I mean, just in about less than 30 days, we have another update coming out. That’s gonna allow the commercial clients to pay, pay their invoices online. So, yeah, so it used to be, we paid our manager the whole Saturday or Saturday morning to send out all these invoices and they take a long time to tabulate. Everybody’s paying a different price per pound, and now the invoices are automatic. And now we’re completing that loop. So not only are we automatically batching the invoices, we’re saying, Hey, click here to make a payment. So it’s like one less job that we have to do manually. And that’s kind of how we see the, or even on the marketing side, on every single facet of it. And just over time, it’s going to get better and better.

Well, and I, I love that aspect of billing, you know, residential and the commercial before I had you guys, um, I was doing everything off square and having to sit down and send out the

Invoice, click, click, click, and I got too busy and it’s hard to rely on someone else. Who’s doing all the work to add that to their plate as well. Yeah. And that was a big thing when we designed the software, so automatically do the billing because that’s a job and better, the software says, Hey, the credit card didn’t go through and they could click here to update it then to make those phone calls. And, you know, I’ve talked to laundry owners where they’re making those phone calls and sometimes they get adversarial. It’s like, Hey, you need to pay your bill. And they already deliver the laundry. And it’s like, well, how did that situation happen in the first place? You know?

And I’ve had that where I’ve dropped off 300 pounds of laundry and they say, oh yeah, I’ll pay it. And they don’t. And you’re out that money. Cause you already paid your staff. You already paid your costs. And if it, if it, the thing I do like about it is if the payments are unsuccessful, then it doesn’t load up for the drivers. So the drivers not going to take it, it’s going to sit on that rack until they pay for it.

Right. Exactly. It’s kinda like you don’t get your car back from the oil change until it’s paid for. Well, I really appreciate your time and yeah, I wish you continued success. I man, it is a great, great success story. You know, somebody within basically a year and a half goes from a very, you know, very legitimate business where you’re doing great and be happy at that time. But now in hindsight, it’s, you know, five times or so, what it was before. So I mean, that’s in most businesses, if you go like 10% increase over last year, that’s great. Your 500 times or five times. So that’s phenomenal and yeah. Show you out of tons of props. You’re a grid operator and great person. And yeah, I really appreciated working with you,

You for all your help. I really appreciate it. All

Right. Well, thank you.

Transcript:

Welcome to the State of the Laundry Industry with ‘Laundry Matt’! Episode six: Future-Proofing Your Laundromat’s Revenue Stream.

This episode is about future proofing your revenue stream. Isn’t that why we started up laundromats in the first place? To have a revenue stream that we could depend upon, that we could retire with and to help our quality of life. What’s more important than future-proofing your income! We’re no longer just running a day-to-day job where you clock in and out. No, this is an investment. This is a business that has value. How do you future-proof the revenue? First, I want to start off with how I came up with the idea for this episode. Three times last week, this issue came up were I helped two different laundromat owners sell their pickup and delivery business. It was pretty amazing because without pickup and delivery and they were using our software, but without pickup and delivery, they would have had nothing to sell. This was something they built out of nothing that had value, that they could have taken with them. Or in this case, they wound up selling to another laundry operator who’s doing pickup and delivery.

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With one of them, their lease was expiring, so if your lease expired, we’ll go into detail on that. I mean, that could be because they’re building a new shopping center, it may be because your landlord wants to own a laundromat and they’re looking at, Hey, I just don’t have to renew their lease and I could have a laundromat. There’s a lot of situations where your lease may expire outside of your control. In one case, one of our clients, his lease was expiring, and he was not too happy about it because he was making really, really, really good money on the pickup and delivery. He could have taken that pickup and delivery business, gone to another laundromat, or bought another laundromat and done the processing there, but he decided he wanted out. The good news was he had a five figure a month pickup and delivery business that was doing very, very well. He was able to sell the pickup and delivery business for a lot of money. So, it was pretty neat because his laundromat, with all those machines in there, he couldn’t take it anywhere else. It had almost zero value. He wasn’t able to renew his lease and without a lease, you know, how much is that worth? He had a business that he could have taken somewhere else, but in this case, he decided to sell it, but at least he had something to sell.

The second one, this is a little bit different. This is one of our clients that we provided a lot of guidance to. He wanted to hit it hard and kick butt. We helped him grow his business so much in six months that it actually became a little bit overwhelming. Maybe I shouldn’t mention that, but, you know, he had a nine to five job, and this pickup and delivery business grew so much in six months. He was planning on picking up the laundry after five o’clock before going home. He wound up doing so many pickup and deliveries that he wasn’t getting home. So, he said, “Hey, I need to stop pickup and delivery.” I’m like “Why? You’re growing so much.” And he said, “well, it’s growing. That’s the problem.” So, we were able to take his pickup and delivery business and sell it to another Curbside Laundry client nearby. So, they just increased their business a whole bunch and he was able to make a whole bunch of money from nothing. I mean, in six months he had nothing to sell and now he had something so, he’s happy and the new buyer is happy. I mentioned that story because it illustrates that your pickup and delivery business is a business, and you could run with it, you could take it to a new laundromat, you could sell it, but it’s something special.

Then a third person I talked to, he’s another person making five figures a month gross on pickup and delivery. He knows he won’t be able to renew his lease, in about four years. So, in four years, I’m not sure what’s happening, but maybe they’re building a shopping center, something out of his control. He won’t be able to renew his lease, but he knows that pickup delivery is a big business. I won’t be surprised if it’s making more than as laundromat, either way, he’s doing pretty good. So, he’s buying another laundromat so he could take his pickup and delivery business with him. That is just really cool. He knows he created this out of nothing. He’s got a thriving pickup and delivery business, and he’s able to, future-proof his income by moving that business to another laundromat. If it wasn’t for pickup and delivery and he knew he had to close down his laundromat in four years, think what a difference that would be. I mean, that’d be devastating. You put all this hard work into it, and it’s totally out of your control, but he’s not a victim. He knows he’s going to be able to take the lion’s share of the revenue and apply it somewhere else. I think that is just fantastic. And in fact, we got an email from one of our clients, thanking us. It said, “we would not be in business today without pickup and delivery.” Why? Because COVID hit them so hard. And, the dry cleaner nearby went out of business and other places went out of business, but her pickup and delivery was thriving and it carried her through a very difficult times. Again, pickup and delivery, future-proofed her business from a pandemic that she didn’t see coming, none of us did.

It’s so important to diversify your income because anything could happen. A new laundromat may open up across the street. Maybe they’re able to get their machines for half price because they have a special connection with the manufacturer and they’re going to have brand new shiny machines and how is your physical bricks and mortar presence going to compete against that? At our laundromat, for the longest time we had about 20-year-old, Wascomat machines, I mean, the Wascomat machines are great. They work great, they lasted 20 years, right! We didn’t really care too much about updating our machines because the pickup and delivery was doing so well. Pick up delivery could future-proof you against older machines because chances are your machines will get older and how often do you want to update and buy a brand-new machines and take on that more debt? We got brand new Continental machines, and our in-store business is more than paid for itself to update and get new machines. But then again, older machines, pickup and delivery could help overcome that as well. If you want to learn more about pickup and delivery, we have webinars at curbsidelaundries.com telling you exactly how to get into pickup and delivery, because we’ve been there, we’ve done that. We’d know how to do it. We know there are hurdles you’ll run into and how to overcome those. And don’t forget to subscribe to this channel because we’re always dropping new nuggets of information that we’re experiencing firsthand, both from ourselves, our own perspective and from our clients and what we’re seeing around town. So, thanks again for joining The State of the Laundry podcast.

www.CurbsideLaundries.com

Welcome to the State of the Laundry Industry with Laundry ‘Matt’

Episode Four, Offering Dry Cleaning at Your Laundromat

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Welcome to Curbside Laundries, State of the Laundry Industry with ‘Laundry Matt’. This is Episode Four, offering dry cleaning at your laundromat. There are two parts to this episode. Number one, should you offer dry cleaning at your laundromat? And number two, it may be time to check to see how your current dry cleaner is doing. So first off, should you offer dry cleaning out your laundromat? There’s some good reasons to do it. Number one, I would only offer dry cleaning out your laundromat, if you do pick up and delivery. The reason being is if you’re just counting on people, bringing in dry cleaning to your store, they might just bring in one piece and then you now have to make a trek all the way to the dry cleaner. And is it really worth it at the end of the day? You may be losing money on every order you bring in.

The beauty of pickup and delivery is now there’s an order minimum. So your order minimum may be $35. And so now you’re guaranteed to make money by offering dry cleaning. In addition, the second reason to offer dry cleaning with pickup and delivery, a big part of it is that you want to be that one-stop shop. You want them placing the order with you, and they may very well have wash and fold on top of the dry cleaning. And if you’re not the one-stop shop, they may go to your competition and get it done somewhere else. So let’s go ahead and take a look at the numbers at our laundromat at Super Suds. And you could see in 10 days from September 1st to September 10th, we brought in 50 new wash and fold customers. Out of those 50 new wash and fold customers, five of them did dry cleaning.

80% of the guys who did dry cleaning also did wash and fold. So you could see now each one of these customers is worth about 500 some dollars per year. So as a result of offering wash and fold, and dry cleaning, we’re making a lot more money than if we just did wash and fold by itself. So dry cleaning is an important part. About 10% of our new customers are doing dry cleaning, and that’s why we offer it. And that’s why we encourage you to offer dry cleaning too. If you’re doing pickup and delivery. That being said, you need to be working with a reputable, dry cleaner that does a good job. I’d rather not offer dry cleaning at all. If you’re partnered up with a bad business partner. So I would only offer dry cleaning if you have a good business partner. And that brings us to the next point.

Have you checked up recently to see how your dry cleaner is doing? Cause I’ll tell you a lot of places went out of business, a lot of dry cleaners went out of business as a result of COVID. So it’s very unfortunate. People are just wearing their suits and ties from the pants up or shirt and up because they’re just doing zoom meetings. And so, and less people are dressing up for work. So there’s less business out there and now people are dressing up more casually or just zooming into work. So there’s less business in dry cleaning. As a result, a lot of places went out of business and the ones that stayed in business, they may not be doing dry cleaning six days a week like they used to, or five days a week, they may only turn on their boilers three days out of the week.

It may not even be cost effective to ramp it up. So they might only be processing three days a week or less. And then they might’ve gone from only processing three days a week or less, which affects your turnaround times. And it’s takes longer to deliver the clothes. And now many of them are outsourcing. They even stopped production altogether and they’re outsourcing their dry cleaning or your dry cleaning to another plant. So you’re outsourcing to somebody who’s outsourcing. And as a result, the quality may not be the same as it used to be. So I would just take a look because you might not have, you know, taken a look at it, how the dry cleaning is. You might think, oh, I’ve got a great partner, but are they doing the same job that they used to? And I would take a look at the quality, the turnaround times.

It’s better that you find out yourself that they’re not doing the same job they used to, and you want to find it out yourself before a customer alerts you. Or if a customer alerted you, you want to see, is this an isolated problem or is this a widespread problem? And you got to pay attention to it because your reputation is on the line. They don’t care who you’re outsourcing to when they go to Yelp and they leave a review, they know they’re doing business with you. So the dry cleaning reflects the job that your dry cleaner does ultimately reflects the quality that your laundromat does. We’ve got a video for Curbside Laundry clients over on Curbside file camp. So if you’re a Curbside client, we’ve got a video specifically on how to find a good dry cleaner, how to create a healthy relationship with one, how to negotiate the best pricing with them as well.

So, make sure you take a look at that before approaching a dry cleaner, it’s a great resource. And for everybody else, just make sure your dry cleaner is doing a good job. And, if you’re not doing dry cleaning, I look to get into it. If you’re doing pickup and delivery. And finally, it may be a good idea to make sure you have a backup dry cleaner, just in case something happens with your dry cleaner, that you don’t have to start from scratch. So if you have somebody on the bench ready to go, that’s the ultimate protection to protect your laundromats reputation. At Curbside Laundries, we made our wash and fold point of sale specifically for laundromats. So not only does it handle the wash and fold in store and the pickup and delivery, even the dry cleaning is made specifically for laundromats. So it keeps track of which orders are at the laundromat, which dry cleaning orders need to go to the dry cleaner, which orders need to come back from the dry cleaner. And it handles all the billing. It lets you know, how much you owe the dry cleaner. It does everything specifically from the laundromats point of view. And we designed it that way on purpose because we’re a laundromat owners too. So if you are looking for a wash and fold solution that handles in store point of sale and pick up and delivery, and you’re thinking about doing dry cleaning, you ought to take a look at our software.

TAGS: LAUNDROMAT, PICKUP-AND-DELIVERY, WASH AND FOLD

www.CurbsideLaundries.com

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Episode Homepage:

https://www.curbsidelaundries.com/state-of-the-laundry-industry-the-laundromat-website/



• The latest trends with laundry pickup and delivery
• How the founders of Curbside Laundries applied their laundry expertise to pickup and delivery software made just for laundromats
• Pickup and delivery success stories
• Two BIG pitfalls to avoid. One of which can cost you 25% of your gross revenue, the second can impede your business's growth.

Webinar on How to get Started with Laundry Pickup and Delivery: https://youtu.be/DhdI-zRVmz4?t=595

Working harder and faster isn't enough.  To scale your business, you need to outsource your time and enable others to help out, while maintaining quality.  This can be done through Standard Operating Procedures.