Laundromat Owners Share Best Practices for Long-Term Success
[This is the first of a two-part feature on best practices for new laundromat owners.]
Starting a business – any business – can be stressful. It can feel like there are 1,000 things to think about and work on all at the same time.
There’s no avoiding this reality for new laundromat owners or potential investors to this industry. However, with a little planning, it’s possible to manage expectations and take actions with a sense of purpose toward building a new laundry business.
Beyond “giving it your all,” it’s critical to direct your energy toward the right tasks – especially at first. Experts say some good first steps in starting a small business include researching competitors, assessing the legal aspects of the industry, considering your personal and business finances, getting realistic about the risk involved, understanding timing, and hiring help.
This month, we asked several leading laundromat owners to share their best business and operational advice, tips and strategies for new store operators and those considering an investment in the laundry industry:
Jane Wolfe
Melba’s Wash World
New Orleans
I would share the pie. Whoever is a part of your laundromat business should have some type of financial structure that allows everyone who works in the business to benefit from the business.
Furthermore, find ways to engage with the customer base that push the imagination for the laundromat customers, as well as fellow dreamers in business. When people walk into Wash World, they see how we work with the community via our children’s literacy center. In addition, every machine features a sticker that offers a Twitter-style history lesson of influencers from Louisiana. As our customers wash their clothes, they also learn something new.
Best Advice I Ever Received: Give your customers more than what they expect. My dad instilled this business philosophy into my bones.
Beck Miller
LaundroLab
Charlotte, N.C.
Work with people you trust. This is huge, and it goes across the board. At the end of the day, the equipment you choose won’t make or break your store, but listening to bad advice and buying too much (or too little) equipment very well may.
Whether you choose to go through a distributor, take the franchise route, take on a mentor, or fly solo with the help of YouTube and other resources, doing your homework on who to trust and listen to is critically important. And the same goes for your architects, engineers, general contractor, employees, etc. Being intentional about selecting your partners will save you countless time, money and potential headaches.
Best Advice I Ever Received: While it’s a popular quote, the first person I remember hearing it from was my dad, who is also in the laundry and drycleaning industry: “Trust, but verify.”
Always check behind everyone. You want to verify that your equipment orders and prices are correct, that the architectural and engineering plans have the proper number of washers and dryers matching the equipment order, and that they’re in the right place. You need to check on your general contractor’s progress during the buildout or remodel against his initial timeline – and you want to audit all of the financials of your store. It’s important to understand the business that you’re in and to confirm that everyone is doing the job you hired them to do.
Sam McKnight
Little Giant Laundry
New Haven, Conn.
Before I got into the business, I remember talking with a man who owned a laundromat in Maine. He told me he left the keys for his soda vending machine with his attendants, and that he could tell those employees were taking some of his profits.
At the time, I didn’t pay much attention to his comment. However, after being in the business for 18 years, I have to say that not all attendants are the same. A person’s true character shows when they are alone and tending to your business.
Over the years, I’ve been disappointed in matters of “trust.” It’s a harsh reality, but I strongly caution existing and future owners never to take anything for granted with your staff.
Best Advice I Ever Received: Fellow Connecticut laundry owner Chris Balestracci encouraged me to join the Coin Laundry Association when I was first exploring the business in 2004. That decision to join gave me instant knowledge, contacts and confidence to join this industry – and to this day, it remains a valuable piece of advice.
Laurent Broda
My Sunny Laundry
Miami Beach, Fla.
When purchasing an existing laundromat, do your due diligence. Never fully trust the business numbers a seller is providing you, especially with regard to the laundry’s expenses. Typically, there will be a lot missing. In my experience, the store’s expenses will be about 15 percent higher.
Jim Hohnstein
Lafayette Econ-O-Wash
Lafayette, Colo.
My best advice came to me as I saw something in action that I had never witnessed before. In the mid-1980s, a new laundromat had opened in Colorado, so I went to see what was new.
Like most new laundromats, it was well lit, very clean and featured the popular colors of the time. However, at first, it appeared to be just another new laundromat – until I noticed that all of the attendants had garage door openers… at least that’s what I thought they looked like.
As it turned out, the owner had connected those hand-held automatic door openers to the store’s automatic door system, so now the attendants had the ability to open the door from anywhere within the laundromat.
What a great idea. And this was five years before any ADA requirements.
A customer now could enter or exit the laundromat – arms balancing laundry and a child or two in tow – and he or she no longer struggled to push or pull open the door. Since then, automatic doors have been an important part of the customer experience we offer.
Mark Vlaskamp
The Folde
Houston/Austin, Texas
My advice is to document everything.
A couple of years ago, laundry owner Ken Barrett emailed me his wash-dry-fold training guides. At The Folde, we were barely getting started. We had the delivery business and were wholesaling the laundry. No laundromats could keep up, but we didn’t own a laundromat. We needed to learn how to do laundry professionally – at scale.
Ken’s training guides gave us the structure and know-how to scale a laundry service. It was the inflection point when we stopped working in the business and started working on the business.
Ever since then, we’ve been documenting everything – turning one-off situations into clear protocols for the next time it comes up.
Mark Lessner
Wash for Less
Madison, Wis.
As a second-generation laundry owner with 20 years of multiple-store ownership, my thoughts are: do not purchase a laundromat if you’re looking strictly for passive income. All income streams take some effort, whether it’s real estate, the stock market, and especially a small business.
Many investors have come and gone because they didn’t understand the hands-on time commitment it requires to be successful. Based on customer surveys, I’ve found that our customers like to see the owner in the store, cleaning and working on the equipment. Business is about relationships, and laundry customers are no different.
Best Advice I Ever Received: A while back, I attended at a multi-store owner roundtable discussion in Chicago, and one of the participants offered this advice: “Don’t go into to this business undercapitalized.” That has always stuck with me and really changed how I handle equipment purchases, as well as how I work the depreciation options.
