Most laundromat owners are obsessed with the wrong things.

Cycle prices. Equipment upgrades. Whether to add a loyalty card. How to beat the laundromat two miles down the road.

I get it. I've been there. But recently I came across a book that does a better job than I have, with explaining how my wife and I have built our laundromats and the culture that leads them. I want to share it with you.

I was listening to a podcast, featuring Jeff Henderson, who wrote the book Know What You're FOR. Jeff built his career in marketing, working with Chick-fil-A, the Atlanta Braves and others, before spending years leading in the nonprofit world.

The conversation was framed around churches and nonprofits. But I'm telling you, every word of it was a blueprint for how a laundromat should operate.

Here's the questions that have driven me for 5+ years.

Two questions most businesses never ask

There are two questions at the core of any growing organization:

What do you want to be known for?

What are you actually known for?

Simple questions. But almost nobody answers them honestly.

The first one is fun. You get to dream. You get to say things like, "We want to be known as the cleanest, friendliest laundromat in town," or "We want people to feel cared for every time they walk through our door."

The second question is harder. It requires you to look at your Google reviews, listen to what your team says when they don't think you're paying attention, and notice what customers actually experience when they come in.

The gap between those two answers? That's where all the work is.

Why purpose beats price every time
WRITE THIS DOWN! "When you compete on price, your margins eventually disappear. When you compete on purpose, your profit grows."

Look around the laundry industry. Most operators are in a slow-motion price war. They cut their vend prices to get people in the door. Their competitor does the same. Before long, everyone's squeezed and nobody's winning.

That's what competing on price looks like.

Now think about brands you're personally loyal to. Brands you'd recommend to a friend without being asked. Brands you'd pay a little more to use.

Odds are, you're loyal to them because of how they made you feel. Not because they were the cheapest option.

That's what competing on purpose looks like.

What Wash Bar taught me about this

When my wife Hannah and I built our first Wash Bar, we didn't set out to build the cheapest laundromat in Oklahoma. We set out to build the "Chick-fil-A of laundromats." We wanted people to walk in and feel like somebody was genuinely glad they showed up.

That's what we wanted to be known for.

We built our CARE framework around it. Connect with every customer. Anticipate what they need before they ask. Resolve any issue quickly and without excuses. Exceed what they expected.

Was there a gap between what we wanted to be known for and what we were actually known for in the early days? Absolutely. There still is. Closing that gap is ongoing work.

But because we were clear on the answer to Question 1, we had something to aim at. Our team knew the standard. Our customers started to feel the difference. And our reviews started reflecting it.

The other box

Jeff talked about marketing surveys. The ones that ask, "How did you hear about us?" and list TV, billboards, social media, and then at the bottom, "Other."

The "Other" box gets checked more than any of them.

That's word of mouth.

And here's what he said that hit me: a business is no longer what it tells customers it is. It's what customers tell other customers it is.

Think about that in the context of your laundromat.

You can spend money on Facebook ads. You can run promotions and discount cycles. But if someone in your community asks a neighbor, "Hey, where do you do your laundry?" and that neighbor shrugs, or worse, says something negative, none of that paid marketing matters.

But when your purpose is clear, and your customers are actually experiencing it, they become your sales force. For free.

That's what Jeff calls unlocking "the other box."

Your homework before next week

This week, I want you to do something simple.

Walk around your laundromat and ask your team two questions:

"What do you think our laundromat wants to be known for?"

Then: "What do you think we are known for?"

Don't argue. Don't defend. Don't explain your vision.

Just listen.

If you hear the same gap come up more than once, pay attention to it. That's data. That's your starting point.

Next week, we're going to talk about how you close that gap, and the four groups of people you need to be intentionally FOR if you want this to work.

This is Part 1 of a series. Stick with it. The conversation gets better from here