This episode is jam packed with info. Bill shares marketing techniques, we show a sample text marketing message, Bill explains how Laundry Pickup and Delivery was the ONLY reason his laundromat did so well, how to hire drivers, increasing prices, and more!
[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.
