The Laundry List Blog

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...

Prospects are not always ready to buy when you want them to buy.
 
A compelling, irresistible offer will help you get more prospects to change their behavior and become paying clients but many will still say no.
 
It is important to understand that “no” does not mean “never” but instead usually means “n...

The game of entrepreneurship is 51% money management.
Most drycleaning owners don’t realize this until it’s too late.
 
As an owner, you must strategically put yourself in a position to:

1. Grow revenue – a number of factors contribute to revenue growth, but the most important is what you spend your ma...

Last week, our Warriors Group met in Wichita for our quarterly meeting.

We talked about a lot.

Marketing tactics that are working.

Team Development to increase our freedom from the business.

Growing our routes.

Completing acquisitions.

But one of the most profound and simple concepts was:

Be ...

A company without a secret sauce will be commoditized in the eyes of the consumer. 
 
A company with a secret sauce will become exponentially more valuable, in the eyes of the consumer, and in the valuation done by prospective buyers of the company.
 
In marketing terms, we call this differentiation. 
 
H...

As we reach the end of the school year, now is the perfect time to reach out to schools to secure the cleaning of their band uniforms, choir outfits, and the costumes they use for theatrical performances.
 
Most school districts like to have this work arranged well before the end of the school year, a...

As an entrepreneur, you will always be looking to go to the next level. Regardless of the success you have achieved. 
 
Most of us have worked our way up from the bottom, learning the technical parts of our business. Customer service, cleaning, pressing, inspection, assembly, bagging, and maintenance....

Social media is crucial for drycleaning companies to build brand awareness, engage with clients, and attract new clients through targeted content, create interactive campaigns, and showcasing expertise. 

While many of our prospects and clients go to social media for entertainment and not for making a...

A couple of times per year, I like to post my Direct Response Checklist. I keep a copy of this laminated and in front of me whenever I am creating, optimizing, or reviewing any type of marketing.

There are essentially two types of marketing – 

1. Brand / image based marketing where the goal is to cre...

Most of your contributions to your company should be leveraged, meaning your work should create tremendous value without a lot of time spent.
 
Once you have your daily operations running well, you will focus your time on three primary activities:

1. Increasing Top Line Revenue
2. Increasing Profitabili...

Are you building a company that focuses on providing you an income?
 
Or are you building a company that is an asset?
 
The majority of businesses (roughly 80%) are built with the purpose of providing an income to the owner.
 
To stay out of financial survival mode, the owner has setup the company to prov...