Harvest Season Discipline

The money is rolling in right now. Here's exactly what we do with it, and the two temptations that take good operators down this time of year.

If your store runs on the calendar mine does, you're a few weeks into your harvest right now. The ramp that started in early September is building, and it'll keep building into January. Deposits are growing. This is the good part.

Which means this is the dangerous part.

Go back to the first issue of this series. My grandfather didn't warn me about bad years. He warned me about great ones, because the season with the most money in it is the season that takes the most discipline. So this week I want to open the books and show you exactly what we do with the harvest while it's coming in.

It starts with something I decided years ago that a lot of owners never do. I pay myself first.

So many owners pay themselves last, or not at all, until every other bill is handled and there's something left over. I understand the instinct. It feels responsible. But I decided a long time ago that my family is not the leftover. My family is a bill, and it's the first one paid. Everything else gets paid too, the loans, the rent, the utilities, the insurance, all of it. But I stopped treating my own household like it was optional.

Then comes the stash, and here's the actual system. A couple of years ago, I set up a separate savings account for every one of our stores. Every month, after I pay myself but before I pay the bills, I transfer a set percentage of that store's total revenue from the previous month into its savings account. And then I don't touch it. That money doesn't exist for ordinary problems. It's there for the serious ones, and nothing else.

The target I hold is 4 to 6 months of complete operating capital. Not 4 to 6 months of rent. Every single manageable bill: all loans, all payroll, rent, utilities, insurance, everything it takes to run every store. I don't think I've ever been below 4 months. I try to stay close to 6.

Now here's the part people get wrong about that money. They think it's there for the January dip. It's not. The dip is predictable. You read the forecast issue last week; I already know what the slow season will do, almost to the week, and the business is built to ride through it.

The stash is there for the tornado.

I live in Oklahoma. That's not a figure of speech here. If a storm took the roof off one of my buildings tomorrow, insurance would eventually make the building whole. But insurance checks take time, and my team's rent doesn't wait on an adjuster. That cash exists so that if something catastrophic happens, every single person who works for us keeps getting paid while we rebuild. The money isn't a safety net for me. It's a promise to them. More on that promise next week, because I want to deep dive it.

And here's the thing about that fund. I don't have to wait for a tornado to prove it works. In Oklahoma, winter proves it almost every single year. That story is below, From the Floor.

So that's what we do with the harvest. Now let me tell you what the harvest will try to talk you into instead, because I've watched it happen over and over, and I've felt the pull myself.

In our industry, the John Deere dealership has two doors.

The first door is the one-off equipment buy. Let me be clear about something first: I am a huge believer in investing in your store. I retool. If your machines are pushing 10 or 12 years old, depending on the brand, it may be time. Keeping your equipment tip top is not the trap. The trap is the shiny one-off bought on a hot streak. I know operators, and I love these people, who have a good month or a good quarter in Wash and Fold, and they run out and order a $20K press. Or a boiler. Or a steamer. Can those machines make you money? Absolutely. But they bought at the top of a good stretch, assuming the line only goes up.

And when it falls, the payments don't fall with it. That's my grandfather's tractor with a different paint job.

The second door is bigger. It's the second location. A few good weeks, the store feels backed up, and suddenly you're driving past empty buildings doing math out loud. Sometimes that math is real. Some stores genuinely earn a second location, and the numbers prove it month after month. But I know people who started hunting for location two off the strength of several good weeks, not several good years. The business hadn't earned it yet. And inevitably, it comes back to bite them.

Here's the test I use for both doors, and it's just this series stacked into one question. Before any big purchase, ask: am I buying this in harvest with cash I set aside, at a size my slow season data says I can carry? Or am I buying it on payments, at a size my hot streak feels like I can carry? The first one is my grandfather buying the tractor at a discount. The second one is the farmer he bought it from.

There's an old proverb about the ant storing up its food at harvest. My grandfather never quoted it at me. He just lived it, and it made him the man still standing when the drought came.

Next week is the last issue of this series, and it's the one all of this money talk exists for. The promise we made our team years ago, what it costs us on the slow days, and what it's built that money can't buy.

For the past 5 years, somewhere between January and February, strong snow and ice storms roll through Oklahoma. Now, plenty of states get weather like this. The difference is that those states are ready for it, with real road crews and cities that know the drill. In Oklahoma, we get this weather every single winter, and you'd swear every year is the first time the local governments have ever seen ice.

So we close. Averaging 5 to 9 days every winter for the past 5 years. I will never endanger our team members with icy travel to work or a slip and fall at the store. It's not worth it, ever!

But here's what those closed days used to mean for our team: fear. The store is closed, and their bills are not. Rent doesn't care about ice. Car payments don't care about ice.

That's when the savings accounts come into play. When the ice hits, that money hires the companies who scrape the snow and ice off our parking lots, and it pays our team members their full wages for every closed day, so they don't have to stress about their bills while they're stuck at home.

I can tell you something for sure. Team members who've gone through a winter with us never leave us. When you still get a full paycheck after missing several work days, that changes how you see the place you work.

That fund isn't sitting in those accounts to make me feel safe. I use the funds to better the lives of the people who work for me. That's what the harvest is for.

Build your drought fund this harvest, while the money is coming in. Open a separate savings account for each store you run. Then pick a percentage, and every month, after you pay yourself but before you pay the bills, move that percentage of last month's total revenue into it. To know when you're done, add up one full month of everything: every loan payment, all payroll, rent, utilities, insurance, every bill it takes to run your store. That number times 4 is your floor. Times 6 is your goal. And pay yourself first before any of it, because your family is a bill too, not a leftover.

Then tape the purchase test somewhere you'll see it between now and January: cash I set aside, at a size my slow season can carry. If a purchase can't pass that sentence, it's not an investment. It's a payment waiting for a drought.

Discipline is a lot easier when you're not the only one practicing it. Most operators have nobody to compare notes with on capital, reserves, or when a store has truly earned its next location. Inside Laundry Advisors, that conversation happens every week.

Laundry Advisors is a community for operators who want to grow and scale, with trainings, weekly video calls, and resources covering the things that hold most laundromats back: staffing and HR, marketing, SOPs, equipment mix, customer retention, and expanding to additional locations. On the weekly calls, operators put real numbers on the table, including the ones this issue is about, and get straight answers from people who've already made the mistakes.

Every store's next hurdle is different, which is why we start with a conversation instead of a pitch. Schedule a complimentary call with our team, tell us where you are and where you're headed, and we'll point you to the tools that fit.