Seven Business (and Non-Business) Truisms That Can Be Applied Directly to Your Laundry Operation
Virtually everyone you run into knows something you don’t.
Think about that for a moment. With more than 300 million people in the United States, there are literally millions of things that they know – and you don’t.
The key lesson here is that you can learn an immense amount from others and that many of the truisms you uncover can be applied to the running of your vended laundry business.
I am always on the lookout for these magnificent bits of wisdom, because they have often proven extremely useful in my various business (and even non-business) activities. With that said, I’d like to offer up seven of my recent favorites with the idea that you may find one or, more likely, a number of them useful in the operation of your self-service laundry business:
- Peter Drucker – the late, brilliant management guru – loved to say, “In any business organization, culture trumps strategy every time.” This clearly means that the preexisting culture of a business can (and does) thwart any indispensable changes the owner attempts to put into place.
The ramifications of this “Druckerism” and highly intuitive statement for your business can be applied to your attendants and other employees as well. I strongly suggest you don’t assume that your staff members will automatically accept and adopt your proposed changes in their job descriptions and responsibilities simply because they came from “on high.”
No doubt, this infers that you need to explain these changes in their “culture” to them in a manner that encourages feedback and acceptance – not doing so surely will cause you one headache after another. You are not a general in the army, dealing with soldiers of a lower rank. Issuing “orders” will not work. Perhaps you’ve been there before.
2. “Be careful of reading books on health, because you could die from a misprint.” This was one of Mark Twain’s favorites. It’s not only funny, but it’s also quite true. Several laundromat owners read books on marketing and then buy into how “easy” the authors make the process seem.
Of course, much of what you read may not technically qualify as a misprint. However, in some cases, the “dosage of effort” required to make your marketing campaign work under the protective custody of being economically sane may be grossly understated.
In other words, be mighty careful what you read and easily accept, because what you swallow may indeed be quite a bitter pill.
3. You’re no doubt aware of Zillow, the real estate company specializing in houses and other residences. In my view, their radio and online advertising are brilliant. In fact, I believe their marketing director is grossly underpaid.
Of the many strong taglines the company uses to hook potential customers is: “You’re not just looking for a house; you’re looking for a place for your life to happen.”
Zillow clearly recognizes that people buy on emotion and justify with logic. Hence, it’s cleverly referred to as the emotion-over-intellect rule, which I’ve referred to in the past. Why not do the same thing with your laundry advertising? How about something to the effect of: “We know you’re not looking for just a laundromat – you want a sparkling clean, friendly facility with working machines that process your clothing exactly the way you expect, all in a comfortable environment.”
4. Over the years, I’ve discovered that most people – including vended laundry owners – commonly think of marketing and advertising as being the same thing. They’re not. “Marketing” consists of a number of factors, with “advertising” being but one of them.
I think the best way to explain the difference is with what I find to be a very funny analogy. I’m not certain who originally wrote this, but it’s exceptionally creative. Here goes:
You see a woman at a party. You walk up to her and say: “I am very rich. Marry me!” That’s direct marketing.
You see a woman at a party. You get up, straighten your tie, and walk up to her. You pour her a drink, open the door for her, pick up her bag if she drops it, offer her a ride home – and then say: “By the way, I’m rich. Will you marry me?” That’s brand recognition.
You see a woman at a party. You walk up to her and say: “I am very rich. Marry me!” And she promptly delivers a hard slap to your face. That’s customer feedback.
You see a woman at a party. You walk up to her, but before you say a word, another guy approaches and says: “I am extremely rich. Will you marry me?” And she leaves with him. That’s competition eating into your marketplace.
You’re at a party with a bunch of friends, and you see a woman. One of your friends walks up to her, points to you and says: “He’s very rich. Marry him.” That’s advertising.
I think you get the point.
5. I would have liked to have met up with Phaedrus, who was an Athenian associate of Socrates – at least until his death in 393 B.C. Apparently, he was quite an intuitive fellow, as evidenced by one of his most famous statements: “Things are not always what they seem. The first appearance deceives many; the intelligence of a few perceives what has been carefully hidden.”
The ancient philosophers certainly seemed to have numerous and significant insights into human behavior that you can incorporate into the running of your laundry business today.
Let me attempt to illustrate this point by using a modern-day scenario: A bartender opens for business at 9:00 a.m. in New York City. Shortly thereafter, a well-dressed gentleman enters the bar and orders a straight shot of vodka.
The bartender is puzzled, because this customer doesn’t look like the type of individual who likely would be drinking at that time of the morning. Having received the vodka, the gentleman takes out a neatly folded handkerchief, wraps it around his index finger, dips it into the vodka, and proceeds to easily scrub away a stain from his necktie.
No, you can’t always judge a book by its cover, and this applies to the laundry business as well. Don’t prejudge customers or those applying for a job at your store based strictly on their “covers.” Doing so will prove very costly to you in many ways.
Through the years, I have conducted more than 500 seminars on coin laundry development at my distributorship. On one particular day, as the seminar was wrapping up and the attendees were slowly departing, a man approached me. He was unshaven and wearing very old clothing with a good number of rips and stains. He definitely didn’t look like someone who could afford to build a new vended laundry.
Nonetheless, he expressed interest and asked if he could meet with me in a few days. I agreed, and we set up a meeting. When he arrived, he sat down in a chair in front of my desk and said, “First of all, let me show you my financial statements, so that you will know I’m not wasting your time.”
As it turned out, his net worth was in excess of $5 million dollars, and he was debt free.
The lesson here is to never forget the wise words of Phaedrus.
6. Have you ever heard of Mitch Hedberg? My guess is that many people have not. However, he was one of the most brilliantly innovative comedians of all time. Unfortunately, he passed away well before his time.
But, during his short lifetime, he wrote several jokes that not only were extremely funny, but also contained deeper messages as well. One in particular goes like this: “My friend said, ‘You know what I like? Mashed potatoes.’ I was like, ‘Dude, you’ve gotta give me time to guess.’”
The message here is that we all must learn to listen better. So many of us are constantly interrupting others with our thoughts or finishing their sentences for them. Aside from being incredibly impolite, this rude practice prevents us from learning what others truly have on their minds.
When talking to customers, employees, or suppliers (or anyone, for that matter) afford them the opportunity to finish what they are saying. By doing so, many problems in your laundry business can be avoided before they ever begin to germinate.
Nobody likes to be misunderstood or not given the chance to fully explain their thoughts. If you avoid interrupting, I am confident you will have better relationships with all of the people with which you deal. And down the line this will turn into increased profits. Never forget that you can’t gain respect until you give respect.
7. I’m certain that you are familiar with Ray Kroc – the person who made McDonald’s the wildly successful international organization that it is today. The best description of his success I’ve ever heard is that “he didn’t invent the hamburger – he just took it more seriously than anyone else.”
There’s a huge lesson to be learned from Mr. Kroc. Your product doesn’t have to be complex for it to be widely accepted on its merits and to produce significant profits. It merely has to be predictable.
Kroc recognized the need for a predictable restaurant located all over the U.S., each with the exact same format and identical menu so that people – regardless of where they were at – knew exactly what to expect when seeing the “Golden Arches.”
The takeaway truism here, as applied to your laundry operation, is that the customer must always get the feeling that your facility and its services are predictable. Your store can’t be clean one day and dirty the next. The attendants can’t be friendly one day and grumpy the next. The machines can’t be working one day and out of service the next. The snack and beverage vending machines can’t be full one day and half empty the next.
The key to keeping a repetitive audience is predictability. It worked for Ray Kroc, and it will work for you. Having a sense of entitlement regarding your market share – without making certain that all aspects of your laundromat are predictable by all criteria – means you are flirting with disaster.
So there you have it – seven solid truisms from non-laundry owners, which can definitely be applied to your current vended laundry business.
Why not make “seven” your new lucky number?
