Invest your time, or money... NEVER both

Investing

Time or Money, never both.

What does it take?

"WE DID IT!!! We have our first store!! We will be holding our Grand Opening Sept 18, 2010 at 10:00am. Thanks for all of the great information on the DVD. It was a big help. Our store has a drop off for dry cleaning, and we will be doing WDF. We would love for you all to be at the Grand Opening. "
Beverly Fontenot - Klassy Klean Services - Riverdale, GA

Just by reading this blog, you have taken the very first step to owning your own Laundromat.  Congratulations!  We all know that the first step is always the hardest.  Was Rome built in a day?  NO.  Did the Nazi’s fall in a month?  No.  Again, nothing worth achieving is easy.  But you now have the upper hand in this game.  While your brother-in-law is “investing” in a condo in Costa Rica, he will most likely fail because he is leaving it up to someone else to determine success.  You are taking it into your own hands.  You have this blog.  Your competitor most likely doesn’t.  If you take this blog seriously, you will absorb my mistakes, learn from my life experiences and vanquish your rival.  You will reap the rewards of preparation and vision that can only be set forth with the background knowledge that I will provide you.

The next step is requires some deep thought on your part.  You need to sit down and talk with your spouse or significant other.  You need to talk with your kids.  You need to look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself if you can invest the following: 

Time: a particular period considered as distinct from other periods *

Trust me, once your stores are up and running, you can run a Laundromat on two to four hours a week as an owner. I do, and that is your easily obtainable goal. Initially, though, there is a big time commitment.  You are the one scouting the stores. You are the one finding the stores. You are going to have to sit down and negotiate a lease. (unless you hire me)  You are going to be involved in the re-vamping of your Laundromat. I would rather spend 8 hours painting my new Laundromat myself rather than giving someone else the profit that I will eventually earn. You are going to have to make that initial, intense time investment to set yourself up for success.  But it is this initial time investment that will set you apart from you competitor. Let the other guy “buy a Laundromat”--he will lose! Think about it--“buying” anything inherently means taking some of your profit and exchanging it for a good or service which creates a profit for someone else.  Keep that profit for yourself. Don’t just earn an income--take the windfall and keep the windfall.

If you have a nine to five J-O-B (just over broke) can you be successful at this?  Yes.  If you already own a small business can you do this?  Absolutely.  Actually, if you already have experience as a small business owner, I would give you an even stronger chance at success, because you know the trials and tribulations of putting your ass on the line for the glory and the success.

Passion: a strong or extravagant fondness, enthusiasm, or desire for anything*

If you are passionate about being your own boss, there is nothing that is going to stop you from being an entrepreneur.  Being a self-made person is all about passion and testicular fortitude, gravitas.  No guts, no glory!  That is not just a slogan.  But the difference for you is you’ll have me and my experiences in your hip pocket!  I can feed you all of the ideas, but if you don’t have the time and you don’t have the passion, this will be a fruitless and frustrating exercise.

How many times have you run into someone you went to high school with, or who you lived next door to when you were growing up, who is rich and successful and you know you are smarter than him.  I firmly believe that what separates successful people and people who haven’t found their success is passion.  You don’t have to be Einstein. You don’t have to grow up with rich parents who weekend on a yacht and talk of dividends over dinner.  If you have a passion for something, it creates laser-like focus on the endgame.  If you have passion, I’ll put my money on you any day of the week. 

That is what is great about laundry business.  If you want to go to college, you have to take an entrance exam.  If you want to sell stocks, you need to pass a licensing exam.  If you want to be successful in the laundry business, you need to have passion.

Experience: knowledge or practical wisdom gained from what one has observed, encountered, or undergone*

Of course if you have experience in the laundry business, you may have clicked on this blog, but time has shown that the people who contact me are greenhorns in the industry. I’ve found those who grew up in and around family owned Laundromats are complacent and, many times, are set in their ways. Their adult mentors tell them that “this is how things work” and they follow that lead. Their Uncle says “We close at ten o’clock because the neighborhood is bad.” and they believe him. Mom works at the Laundromat twelve hours a day seven days a week while Dad holds down a job with the city, and their children will most likely do the same some day. They are sheep. But that’s okay, because without sheep there would be no sheppards. Without them we wouldn’t have any stores to improve. If they ran out and purchased the blog that you’re holding we would have some fierce competition. Don’t worry.

Do you need experience?  Yes!  Does it need to be in the laundry business?  Not necessarily!  Do you need to be an experienced small business owner?  No!  You don’t need to be experienced at being your own boss.

NO WAY

!  It is your life experiences that you need to fall back on—whether you were a part of the Fortune 500 culture or the local Rotary club--you already have experiences that you can draw on.  That is why you are ready to be your own boss. That is why you are dying to own your own business.

Common Sense: sound practical judgment that is independent of specialized knowledge, training, or the like*

You hear a lot of people out there talking about how much business-sense they have….You and I know they are most likely full of s*#@!    You don’t need to have a degree from Harvard or Columbia to run a business-- big or small.  Look at what those Ivy League types have done to companies like Enron, Worldcom, Bear Stearns, and Lehman Brothers over the last ten years.  Certainly these degrees help in getting a job in the traditional world.  A degree also helps you make someone else money. You just need common sense.  Common sense equals business sense.  I’ll take someone with a GED who has 10 years of experience sweating to make a living over someone who learned about life from a book, or a professor any day. Sergeants run the Army, Chiefs run the Navy.

The neighbor I wrote about in the previous section may not have been book -smart, but I guarantee you that he has some common sense.  In this day and age, there are a lot of people out there that don’t have common sense. Some of them made millions in the real estate boom. I said made, not kept! If you have it and you aren’t afraid to show it in the face of the lemmings out there who always go with the crowd, then you will put yourself in a position to succeed.

Guts: courage and fortitude; nerve; determination; stamina*

There are a lot of words for this: audacity, hutspa, grit…..I don’t care what word you use.  It takes guts to be your own boss.  If you need someone to kick you in the ass, then you should stop reading.  If you don’t know what it takes to be a self-starter, then you should stop reading right now.  If you are afraid of dealing with people, afraid to solve problems, afraid to be creative, then this probably isn’t right for you. You should stand in line for that paycheck and a 3% raise every spring and a dim hope for a Christmas bonus.

You need to be the type of person that knows how to stand at the precipice, look down over the edge, and, whether or not you have fear or trepidation, you………..

JUMP!

You jump with the confidence that you will make it.

We are almost at the end of this blog and there is one thing I haven’t mentioned: money.

Money: Assets and property considered in terms of monetary value; wealth*.

I am all about FREE. So money has little to do with my program. I will admit freely that when I started My Laundromat Empire I had money, and lots of it. That’s why I wasted so much. I went after my first mat with gusto and figured it was like everything else in business, go in guns blazing and BUY - BUY - BUY! I was wrong, dead wrong.

The good news is I quickly learned from my mistakes and would go on to build stores with less and less cash, eventually perfecting techniques that result in store grand openings that cost me NOTHING!  The resulting speaking lectures, seminars, DVD’s and this very blog will allow you to overcome that perceived need for money to start a Laundromat.

WATCH DANNY in action!

The best part about your moving forward with my mantras flowing from your lips, with my bravado coursing through your veins, is that you start off knowing what cost me tens of thousands of real dollars to learn;

Laundromats are FREE

-         Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not in ten years,

-         but today they are FREE

I will teach you How to buy a laundromat - But with one difference - you will obtain it for FREE .

WHY BUY A LAUNDROMAT FROM THESE PEOPLE?

Business brokers are working for a commission. Real estate agents are working for a percentage. Distributors are working to sell more equipment. Laundromat sellers are working for a retirement fund. 

I am working FOR YOU.

The blog that you are reading is not a novel. This is not fiction, But for you it is still just a dream. It’s up to you to make it a reality.  

LEARN MORE