The Laundry List Blog

When it comes to managing your team, most managers try to fix the person when they should be fixing the process.
 
If someone is not doing their job, there are only five possible reasons.
 
By sharing this framework with your team members, you can remove the personal blaming and focus on solving the cha...

As we have discussed before, there are only three ways to increase your revenue:

1. Get more clients, ideally right fit clients
2. Increase the monetary value of your current clients’ visits
3. Increase the frequency of your current clients’ visits

That’s it.
No other options.

You need to have a system...

Don’t look at complaints as problems.

Look at complaints as opportunities.

Opportunities to improve your business and an opportunity to WOW your client.

It’s important to understand that the client who complains cares enough to complain.

If they didn’t care, they would just move on to one of you...

Last week, I announced a proven roadmap for cleaning Patio Cushions. At In The Bag, we plan to pick-up over 6,000 patio cushions from our clients in Q4! And we’ve only been offering this service for the past three years.
 
Your list of clients, hopefully with full data points (name, address, cell phon...

I wanted to share with you a message I sent to my Leadership Team today. Since I work from home, I count on Slack for communication with my team, and this is what I asked them to do this week:

Team,
Can you please look up historical information so we can reach out to Patio Cushion prospects-
See how ...

Referrals can be extremely powerful in growing your business because a referred client already likes you because they have been properly introduced by another client of yours.
 
Before you focus on getting referrals from your best clients, you need to make sure your company is indeed referable.
 
Make s...

The greatest opportunities for increases in revenue come at the changes of seasons during the spring season months of April and May and now during the fall season months of October and November.
 
The goal is to make the spikes of “high season” spike even higher. Think of it like adding more logs on a...

After 25 years in the business, I thought I knew what type of experience our clients wanted when they visited In The Bag Cleaners.
 
In the Midwest, we pride ourselves on being friendly, and taking the time to visit with our clients. I thought all our clients wanted to spend time with our retail team,...

There was a lot of new technology to see at Clean 2025:

• Presso has a new spotting machine that uses AI to identify stains, and then automatically removes the stain and dries the fabric.
• Sankosha has an updated version of their folding machine for Wash, Dry, and Fold.
• Metalprogetti has the abili...

If you want to be in the top 5% of the industry, you have to see the “game of business” differently than the other 95%.
 
You have to be different.
 
Your team has to be different.
 
Your business has to be positioned in the marketplace differently than the other players. Much different.
 
You must see your...

Sales and marketing can generally be put into three categories:

1. Repair
2. Improvement
3. Opportunity

Let’s take a broken toilet, for example.
 
A company who wants to add value by taking care of your problem (broken toilet) can position themselves as: 

1. Repair – they will send someone to fix your ...

If someone came along and offered to buy my company In The Bag Cleaners, but told me I could keep just one service.... I know without question what service it would be.
 
I would want to keep cleaning comforters for our clients.
 
Comforters are the most scalable high profit item (only more profitable i...

Last week, I travelled to Upstate New York to a NEFA (North East Fabricare Association) conference.
 
The conference included a tour of both Cleaners’ Supply and Wedding Gown Preservation Company, thanks to brothers Jeff and Michael Schapiro.
 
It was great seeing a lot of old and new friends interested...

In my experience, there are four primary ways to grow your route business:

1. In-person, face-to-face selling in your dream neighborhoods, when someone is likely to be home
2.  Emails, texts, direct mail, and your website promoting your route service
3.  Leaving a bag, gift or some other mechanism offer...

One of the most common mistakes drycleaners make is trying to be everything to everyone. 
 
Make sure to define your ideal client—the person who will give you the most money in return for the value you are providing. Think of your ideal client as a target on a dartboard.
 
The top 5% of clients make up ...

Most drycleaning owners don’t know their numbers. When I get on an introductory call and I ask the business owner what their Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) was last year, or what their production payroll percentage is year-to-date (YTD), or their revenue per...

At the age of 52, I have been an entrepreneur for over 25 years, sold over $150 million worth of services and have failed many more times than I succeeded. My failures did not define me but instead redirected me to having a “rich life.” Here are 52 lessons I learned over the past 52 years:
 

1. Succe...

As an entrepreneur you must stay motivated by creating a future that is always greater than your past, regardless of how great your past has been. You always want to be moving forward, gaining more skills and knowledge and learning how to apply that knowledge to increase your earnings, your impact, ...

To get a post, video, or ad to be shareable on one of the social media networks (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tik-Tok, etc), your content must be share-worthy. 
 
Instructing people to share your content usually is not good enough if the content does not pass this threshold of being entertaining and...