THE FEATURE
Last week, I took you back 250 years.
I told you about colonial laundry in 1776, about the women who washed soldiers' clothes during the Revolutionary War, about Sarah Osborn Benjamin who followed the Continental Army from West Point to Yorktown and at 81 years old argued before a cou...
We The People: The Ones Who Kept Us Clean
This year, America turns 250 years old.
I've been thinking about that number for a while now. A quarter of a millennium. And I kept asking myself what, if anything, that milestone has to do with what I do for a living. Why would a laundromat owner care ab...
In the first 12 months of owning our first laundromat, we had 4 attendant positions.
63 people filled them.
Sixty-three.
We couldn't keep a person behind the counter long enough to learn their last name. They'd show up, clock in for a couple shifts, and disappear. We weren't running a laundromat....
THE FEATURE
When Gratitude Goes Beyond the Job
I've talked about handwritten notes. I've talked about public bonus announcements. I've talked about Hannah writing cards to the same person three times over two years until they finally believed she meant it.
All of that is real. All of it matters.
...
THE FEATURE
Last week we covered the problem. A paycheck is not gratitude. Most owners think it is, and their teams quietly disagree.
This week is the harder part. Knowing gratitude matters is one thing. Knowing how to express it in a way that actually lands is something else entirely.
Most attem...
Most laundromat owners would tell you they appreciate their team.
Ask them when they last expressed it - specifically, personally, intentionally and the silence says everything.
Here's the honest truth about this industry: we've convinced ourselves that consistent pay is the highest form of grati...
Three weeks ago I told you about a woman with a red wagon.
I told you about a cattle rancher who needed someone to wash his wife's dresses before he buried her.
I told you about a young woman who lost both of her parents before she had the chance to figure out who she was.
I told you about a man ...
He was carrying a small laundry hamper and staring at the buttons on my washer like they were written in a foreign language.
I could tell he needed more than directions.
I had no idea what I was actually walking into.
THE FEATURE
The first two issues of this series asked a question and showed yo...
He told me, with a straight face and a proud smile, that he walked his laundromat every night and removed the "out of order" signs his own customers had left on broken machines.
So the next person would put money in anyway.
That conversation changed what I was willing to build.
THE FEATURE
Last ...
She pulled a beat-up red Radio Flyer wagon through my front door and asked if she could bring it inside so it didn't get stolen.
I said "absolutely."
What happened over the next hour changed everything I thought I knew about why I was in this business.
THE FEATURE
Simon Sinek opens Start With Wh...
The Feature
HAPPY HOUR
Last week I said your store runs 168 hours a week and most owners are only making real money during about 80 of them.
This week is the fix.
A few years ago at Wash Bar, we started asking a simple question: what would it take to get our weekend customers to come in on a Thur...
THE FEATURE
The $100K Gap, Part 3: Your Store Runs 168 Hours a Week. You're Only Monetizing 80.
Most laundromat owners think about revenue in one of two ways: daily totals or monthly totals. They check their payment system at the end of the day and see a number. At the end of the month, they look...
