How to Stand Out as a Laundromat Owner

"It creates camaraderie it creates passion gets you to otherwise not have a lot of people that are my customers like supporting my laundromat because they know I'm the one making money yeah and they're like oh because you're a good guy and you're local and we want to support you so yeah not only your social brand but laundries have to have a brand you know and your brand oh in a laundromat business doesn't matter nationally like you know yours for for YouTube and stuff but your brand for a laundromat needs to be known within a five to ten mile radius and that is very important and you've got a brand it's either positive or negative most laundromats is just negative and uh laundromat owners are like homeless people they follow the path the least resistance so the path of least resistance is putting the cash in your pocket and never we're showing anything and then when you need to reinvest you can't call up them don't hurt anybody and get any lending on it yep"

"what percentage do you think of your Acquisitions have been um zombie mat types and just write down locations definitely zombie map now as far as free not paying anything to the owner um that's been just a couple probably yeah I don't care about the free laundromat system why does everyone know how many times you're walking into existing infrastructure in your body I would say 70 percent of the economy oh wow we've actually never built from the grill so we make it off of financial decision we didn't have any windfall come in you know kind of like your story we didn't we were yeah existing stores that are typically just one store uh distressed under and they're looking to get out they they can't recapitalized get it best instead I Look to get ounce so very good"

"and the community loves it man and it's not a pizza the the market is not a pizza and we're not just slicing it up there's actually all this Market out here yeah and in every space that we don't even realize you know and that's that's what I think that uh is hard talking to people because I I know the backlash I get from people and they think that they're you know someone starts a laundromat they're going to take all of their business I'm like no that there's more business there's enough business out there for everybody but you have to actually do a good job yeah always use the Starbucks illustration put a Starbucks on that corner right there it's gonna do like three million dollars you put Luke's coffee shop that has no real traction I'll do 300 000. so and is the same amount of coffee being consumed in that area absolutely not they create coffee drinkers it's kind of like laundromats you create uh more laundry that's awesome"

"so right now what would you say is your coin operation versus uh wash dry fold zero zero zero wise drive folder pickup delivery we do all cell service we have no coins in our whole operation so we have our own proprietary payment system with grid so you don't do all cell service all self-serve no no laundry drama yeah a lot less uh if we had it like that my hair would look like leaves if we had that many stores with white stripe fold and pick up and delivery because this it's a trade-off yeah but it's uh you couldn't grow to 40 units that way yeah we reached a certain um a number of locations and we couldn't grow anymore on coins and we needed complete verifications and at the time there was the uh the payment systems out there that eliminated coins were just very dated and we talked to some of the manufacturers and they were they were really diving their investments into the hybrid system where you take a credit card on the reader or or on the machine is and you keep coins um but Lee calls that what do you call that when you keep going and it's a hybrid it's the worst of Both Worlds so it's uh what do you it's a Ferrari pulling a hornet it's a horse pulling a horse pulling a Ferrari so um but anyway we could not scale anymore so we needed verifications because Lee and I can be here and deposits can still be being made so can you have anybody like in-house that had at the laundromat right now like checking out things right now absolutely we've got about 75 employees there's different levels um so there's a regional manager and those are basically technicians most of those do five to seven locations and they cover over they do deposits so they collect and deposit it's all verified they take it straight to the bank well you know we never see a dollar you know all that's very very and it's all we just verify the deposits and that we couldn't do on old coins and and honestly you've got me out collecting quarters and I'm I just feel like my time is is uh better used because you could simply not get to that many locations and then when you hire somebody to do your coins for you you're gonna get stolen it's not if you will it's you will it and coin collections can turn an honest person into a crook and uh so so they'll do it to be there"

"and then when you hire somebody to do your coins for you you're gonna get stolen it's not if you will it's you will it and coin collections can turn an honest person into a crook and uh so so they'll do it to be there"

"so so so I want to know what happened with the Camry at 2AM did he catch them we did eventually we did yeah that night yeah I've got another I've got a better story in that same town when we came out of the back room leave my dad and my brother a guy had been stealing from us and we came out to back room at at about 5 a.m We had a guy doing the same thing oh yeah and we caught him red-handed and we uh my dad said you're either gonna write me a check for fifteen thousand dollars or I'm gonna make sure you're on the front page of the news dude it did Finance fifteen thousand dollar status back oh my gosh why and how do you think your family facilitated that that passion in you guys because I'm talking and I even worry about it for myself with my kids it's like how did you grow up in that environment to where you've taken out you've taken over the family business but you know your dad had 10 stores and you got way more than ten stores yeah"

"it would be my faith in Jesus Christ and my my bro my goal to honor him in all that I do so that would that would be um really the big thing in the driver we're all made differently but our uniquenesses are are it's like the best chess player ever Lee and I are very different but we work so well together and uh but we're just passionate and without passion you can't do anything you couldn't have built what you've built without passion Church somebody's got to be passionate so um as far as work ethic and not you know ever being really satisfied being content but not being satisfied with 20 stores or 30 you know or a certain amount of Revenue or income is just wanting to serve more people that's the thing my dad always says let's serve more people because every time we open a facility the communities are grateful as well as we're able to staff more people and provide for more families so that drives us and and uh leaking yeah you're I was going to defer to you what do you think what what would you see as the reasons yeah our parents have instilled in us a passion to serve the Lord and we do that by serving other people we do it at a level of Excellence that I think has exceeded the standard especially within our industry yeah and we love people we go to stores and we've got you know a few dozen and if people know us by name they enjoy seeing us they give something with Joanne because we exist to serve them do well and it's it's really well received very good because because that that's my general plan with my kids is like you know number one you're Christians guys and you have to serve God and you serve God by serving other people yes and I don't care no the caveat is I don't care whether they get in my business or not but whatever they did I want them to do to do a good job yeah and that's kind of like what I'm telling that's like my current plan and I'm hoping it works out but then I run in so much of my Acquisitions and I'm sure somebody made me even a lot of your Acquisitions are from second generation or third generation owners that did have any passion whatsoever and I've shared multiple multiple stories on my Channel about people I've run into their children inherited it and it just it was millions millions of dollars just disappeared almost overnight it was business in there took with like one of two things they're either there an investment that somebody's just trying to get a return out of before they'd created with themselves a job and almost like a burden yeah and so when you don't look at it like that and say okay this is something I'm passionate about doing Serving people how am I going to do it and what industry am I going to do it and then yeah you rise to the top"

"one thing I'll tell you and I'll tell the people that are watching people are the same all across the country Burger King sells the same Whopper Taco Bell makes the same Taco because by and large we're all the same Mountain Dew sells the best in your vending machine um I mean it just this is the same for me um so it's the same with laundry um people try to say well in my market this won't work I'm like you know nothing"

"this is the first of what will ultimately be multiple videos with the Williford Brothers in the near future I will drive to North Carolina to do more content with them I want to show you guys the equipment they're manufacturing on site because I think it shows you how you can make more money in your own businesses and be ultimately more successful because they also came from an upbringing just minimally involved in the laundromat industry to be absolute Kings of an Empire of laundromats and I feel like if somebody like do it or they can do it I think that somebody like you could do it too with some effort and sacrifice"

"it's gonna happen for Mom and Pop laundromats too or they're going to die"

"your brand for a laundromat needs to be known within a five to ten mile radius"

"70 percent of the economy oh wow we've actually never built from the grill so we make it off of financial decision we didn't have any windfall come in you know kind of like your story we didn't we were yeah existing stores that are typically just one store distressed under and they're looking to get out they they can't recapitalized get it best instead I Look to get ounce"

"there's actually all this Market out here yeah and in every space that we don't even realize"

"it's kind of like laundromats you create uh more laundry"

"we reached a certain um a number of locations and we couldn't grow anymore on coins and we needed complete verifications and at the time there was the uh the payment systems out there that eliminated coins were just very dated"

"and then when you hire somebody to do your coins for you you're gonna get stolen it's not if you will it's you will it and coin collections can turn an honest person into a crook"

"we couldn't do on old coins and and honestly you've got me out collecting quarters and I'm I just feel like my time is is uh better used because you could simply not get to that many locations"

"well well they can't it's completely verified so they can only screw up once"

"we do all of our own installations so our installation team is actually regional managers we just bring them all to one facility"

"people are the same all across the country Burger King sells the same Whopper Taco Bell makes the same Taco because by and large we're all the same Mountain Dew sells the best in your vending machine"

"I want to show you guys the equipment they're manufacturing on site because I think it shows you how you can make more money in your own businesses"

"they also came from an upbringing just minimally involved in the laundromat industry to be absolute Kings of an Empire of laundromats"

"if somebody like do it or they can do it I think that somebody like you could do it too with some effort and sacrifice"

"our business meeting was tax deductible today"