How You View the World Has More to Do with the Success of Your Laundry Business Than You May Think
“People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude” – John Maxwell, American author and speaker
It’s no secret that people are unique in many ways. This, of course, includes self-service laundry owners. And I believe it’s accurate to say that your attitudes determine how you view the world, conduct your life and manage your business.
In fact, just as a point of interest, your attitude is often technically referred to by psychologists as your “world view,” which is defined as the cognitive (intellectual) and emotional presuppositions you make about things and use to structure your life. In other words, your attitude is your particular philosophy of life and, essentially, how you view the world in general.
Typically, it’s a well-established way of thinking or feeling about things that is commonly reflected in your overall behavior.
For the purposes of this article and to illustrate my main point, let’s view your self-service laundry as a commodity. It – like all other laundries (excluding décor and other specific nuances) – essentially is a space containing washers and dryers. How you operate your laundry in all of its aspects is a direct function of your attitude toward life. More succinctly, it’s a function of your world view.
An appropriate analogy is the automobile. All automobiles are essentially commodities (like self-service laundries), because they all do the same thing. It’s the driver who determines the direction, acceleration and behavior of the car. Similarly, it’s the laundry owner who determines the direction, acceleration and behavior of his or her laundry business.
Clearly, demographics and competitive influences play a role to a degree, but the real success or failure of your laundry is determined by how you view the world, and generalize and apply those attitudes directly into running your laundry on a day-to-day basis.
With that said, let’s examine three significant areas of your laundry business that are susceptible to your attitudes (world view) about life in general. Once we do so, I hope you will realize that the behavior (degree of success) of your laundry has a strong positive relationship to your specific attitudes.
Selecting attendants to work at your laundry: Your attendants are your frontline personnel. They interact with customers more than you do, so they should be carefully selected. If you have a friendly attitude toward others, you will tend to hire friendly attendants. If you are the type of person who is a perfectionistic rule-enforcer, then you likely will end up with attendants who mimic your own style. Friendliness and a positive attitude toward customers are what good attendants are all about. Do you have these positive attitudes?
Maintaining your laundry: What’s your attitude toward cleanliness? Does a little dirt on the floor of your facility bother you enough to prompt you to clean it up? Although you may have many washers and dryers, does one or two being out of service irritate you? It should. If the answers to the two questions above are “not really,” you need to adjust your attitude.
Handling customer complaints: What’s your attitude toward being criticized? Does it set you off? Do you respond in kind? If criticism is your Achilles heel, this attitude will definitely cause problems with your customers. Life is not a zero sum game, so you don’t have to win every dispute. Do you permit every moment to become a monument? What’s better, refunding a few quarters here and there, or losing customers entirely and forgoing hundreds of dollars a year?
Your laundry business has many aspects and perceptual opportunities by which your customers can judge it – such as (but not limited to) your exterior signage, your parking lot, your exterior lighting, your attendants’ behavior, the condition of your equipment, the air conditioning and heating, your vend prices, your hours of operation, and your ancillary products and services.
The condition and nature of all three of the aforementioned items are a direct function of your overall set of attitudes. In other words, you as the owner set the tone by virtue of your attitudes toward each item.
Therefore, the take-away lesson here is to examine your world view and see what you come up with. You may find that some corrections need to be made so that your laundry is not a “commodity,” but in fact is outstanding in terms of its unique selling features.
Knowing yourself and developing positive attitudes applies to achieving uncommon success in virtually all walks of life. Let’s look at sports, for example.
There have been many pitchers in Major League Baseball, but in my opinion, none have been greater than Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax, who pitched 16 seasons for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Legend has it that he would deeply study his pitching mechanics, actually using the science of physics to perfect any flaws in his motion. As the result, he stood out from all other pitchers during his era.
His approach was far from a “commodity,” which is why he excelled. In fact, perhaps the best description of Koufax’s pitching skills was given by former Chicago Cubs outfielder and fellow Hall of Famer Billy Williams, who once said about Koufax that “the ball just comes out of his hand different than anybody else’s.”
Examining your attitudes (much like Koufax studied his pitching mechanics) in an objective and realistic manner and correcting your flaws will often enable you to find out what’s wrong with your business before your competitors do. It also will stop you from “functioning in dysfunction” while thinking that you’re doing otherwise.
If you want to become a hall of fame laundry owner, get a good handle on reality – because the easiest person to fool is yourself.
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