The Laundry List Blog

At least once per year, usually, when I am doing my annual planning, I like to remind myself of the key marketing systems for our dry cleaning company. I want to share with you the 12 questions I ask myself. And I hope that regardless of where you are on your journey and regardless of your company's...

We have talked before about defining the ideal target neighborhoods where your prospects live. And the easiest way to do this is to plot your existing Top 20% on a map and see where most of them live. Most of your competitors are not armed with this information.  You can get a list of these clien...

The best time to ask for a testimonial is after your client just had a great experience with your company. And the most meaningful testimonials come from your best clients – usually from your top 20% of clients that give you 80% of your revenue.

The challenge is that most dry cleaners do not giv...

It is important to have the right ingredients to produce the taste and experience you want when you are cooking. Likewise, there are a set of ingredients needed for you to be successful and gain market share in the dry cleaning business. And here they are:

1. Define your ideal client. Choose a ni...

The purpose of marketing is to create and build relationships with our clients, ultimately leading to more sales. We make more money. We keep our expenses in line so that we can keep more money. And the money we keep can be used to pay down debt, reinvest in the business, fund our lifestyle, or i...

We all love a good story. For generations, traditions and folklore have been passed down with stories. We are programmed to relate to stories that we like and find fascinating. In fact, marketing that incorporates relatable stories can help the recipient progress through the client's journey much mo...

The concept of the Dream 100 was initially introduced by Chet Holmes and later fully developed by Dana Derricks. Instead of going after your potential clients directly, like 99% of businesses or salespeople, you go after people with LISTS of your potential clients. I love this because you will find ...

Most dry cleaning owners I meet with are shooting for linear sales growth year after year. Maybe it is 5%, 10%, or 15% growth in sales from the previous year. These same owners have heard of exponential sales growth, but achieving them remains somewhat of a mystery. Until now…..

To achieve linear g...

Disney has an amazing add-on service called Fast Pass. It will add about $20 to your ticket that costs about $100 for kids and $150 for adults. It allows you to schedule when you want to go on popular rides and skip the line at your time.

And there is another option above the Fast Pass add-on at...

The old saying, “if you try to be everything to everyone, you end up being nothing to anyone,” is definitely true. That’s how I operated the first five years I was in the business – I tried to be everything to everyone. But it just is not possible. What became clear to me once I started pulling repo...

For many years, the largest contributor to having successful top-line retail sales was having a great location. Your location needed to be at an intersection with high traffic counts, on the going home side of the street, be in a center with other businesses that attracted similar clients as your bu...

Most dry cleaners run a route on Mon/Thurs and another on Tues/Fri. Not all. Some of you are still working with the on-demand concept for routes. Most offer these scheduled days. But what is the best use of your driver's time on a Wednesday?

As your clients wrap up summer and gear up for back to...

Through the help of our Point of Sale (POS) Computer System, we can see which clients have not been in recently. Hopefully, you can pull a report that shows their sales over the past 12 months, too, so you know who are your best clients on the list.

There are retention tactics that are more persona...

When prospective clients come to Maverick Drycleaners, about half of them are looking for a “hail mary pass” into the end zone. They are bleeding out, struggling with cash flow, and need relief fast! When I talk to a dry cleaning owner in this situation, I have them take 3 action steps that yield bi...

You have chosen to have your dry cleaning company be the primary vehicle that will assist you in living the life you desire. It serves you and your family. Or at least it should. Sometimes you might feel like you are serving your company, and that is backward.

What is important to realize is that i...

Entrepreneurs, by their nature, have strengths in ideation (they come up with great ideas) but are often not the best at taking action. Remember this – the universe rewards action. While most business owners get bogged down with analysis paralysis, the action taker can speed on past in the fast lane...

There have been many times in my life where I would not move forward with a project if I did not think it was perfect. I used to have a bad habit of getting in my own way, creating objections that did not even exist. In marketing, this can really be detrimental to growing your company and testing ne...

Last week, we talked about how your money beliefs/blocks from early in life could hold you back and limit your potential. I hope you took some time to dig deep and make sure you believe that you are worthy of financial success from all your hard work.

Money is constantly flowing. We have especially...

The perception and utility of money in each of our lives are crafted very early in our childhood. Have you explored your true beliefs about money? Is money good? Is money bad? What about being rich – is that good or bad? Does being rich imply excess where (as the rap song says) “More Money, More Pro...