Jim from Allegheny Laundry shares his experience of going from 0 to 126,000 pounds of laundry in 14 months. He shares information on one’s web presence and online advertising and how it direclty led to increased revenues. He says outsourcing delivery to ride-sharing programs, “Doesn’t work”. Jim gives advice to folks on the fence of getting into laundry pickup and delivery and shares how many pounds per hour his production workers produce.
Allegheny Laundry offers laundry pickup and delivery throughout Allegheny County in Pennsylvania for both residential and commercial clients.
[Transcript]
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.
