I got sick one final time while I was working for somebody else.

I went to the hospital with depression and I said, you know what, I'm

tired of working for other people that, that don't use me correctly,

that don't really care about me.

I said, maybe it's time to, we're in a different financial position.

Maybe it's time to pull out that laundromat idea again.

Um, uh,

How do you rebound from financial ruins and personal challenges

to rediscover entrepreneurial success and fulfillment today on seat,

go create the leadership journey.

We're joined by Mark Sordos,

A seasoned entrepreneur who founded CNS mystery shoppers Inc, and later reinvented

himself in the laundromat industry after facing bankruptcy and severe depression,

Mark, a Rutgers university alum and author of business lessons for entrepreneurs

shares his remarkable journey of resilience from gaining early recognition

in the New York times to overcoming personal and professional setbacks.

Glad to have you here, Mark.

And, one of the things I want to do is just to to dive in and get

our juices flowing is, we have just met, we connected on LinkedIn and

I've loved what you were doing.

I said, this would be a great guy.

I'd love to talk to him for an hour.

So I reached out to you and you graciously said yes, but,

let's pretend or not pretend.

We just met and we're not around your business or we're not at a.

Chamber or something like that.

And I say, Mark, what do you do?

What's your answer?

When people ask you that question,

I help people get into and understand the laundromat industry,

period.

period.

of the more succinct and clear responses

that I've had in a long time.

And, so I'm going to ask one laundromat question, then I'm going

to go backwards a little bit to see how we've arrived at this, but.

Why is the laundromat business something that people should consider?

Because it's a great, steady, solid business

that's actually still growing.

The first laundromat came about, I think, in like 1934.

So it's well established.

Everybody knows what a laundromat is.

But it's actually in a growth period, believe it or not.

Thank you very much.

Because with wash and fold and pickup and delivery, everybody is now a customer.

another reason the laundromats are great is because it's good, steady income.

revenues are very predictable, profits are very predictable.

In good times and bad, people still have to wash their clothes.

So they still need to, they still need a laundromat.

So I told you this before we clicked record, but because

we're, we're in RV world, I just want everyone to know I'm the laundry guy.

My wife hasn't done it in years.

And we, I don't, I don't think it would really be considered a laundromat that

they have in most of these RV resorts, but they're set up similar, they even have

the, they either had the app recorders it's, it's that type situation, but.

I was three days ago in a hard core laundromat here in Rapid City, South

Dakota, because I have three or four rugs here on the floor in the RV.

Not many machines can do that.

So I went in and found one of these 50 or 60 pound machines, loaded

the thing up and let her rip.

And it did a great job, man.

I, my wife says, you like going to laundromats, don't you?

I go, actually, I really do.

maybe I should consider getting one or something like that.

But before we, we're going to talk, we're going to go in deep with laundromat.

I just read your, cause you've written the laundromat Bible.

I want people to know that we've got some biblical, stories that we're

going to be telling here from the laundromat Bible in a little while, but.

I want to back up a little bit.

One of the things we love here is just talking about people's journeys and

how they come to be where they are.

And none of us I think arrive at success, just like bam.

And your story seems to be kind of an up and down type story.

did you grow up in the Jersey area or where are you from growing up?

born and raised in New Jersey.

Born and raised in New Jersey.

And what kind of upgrading upbringing, just give a little bit, I know you ended

up with Rutgers and we're going to pick up some stuff there, but just give a

little bit of, mark the early years.

younger brother and sister.

my mom stayed home until we were old enough.

my dad worked at Budweiser.

they had a plant, they still do have a plant in New Jersey.

So that was your typical middle class upbringing.

nothing said any of us were going to be entrepreneurs.

I'm the only one who wound up being one out of the three of us.

I went to Rutgers, the home state university, out of there.

I started my first business, so I didn't graduate in a nice, compact four years.

I graduated probably about, I don't know, five and a half, six years.

and then I started my business, C& S Mystery Shoppers.

And I did that for four years and, started off slow, but once we picked up

steam, it really, hit the ground running.

So what was it that sort of provoked you coming out of, cause.

Coming out of college, most people's path is go through the interview

process, check what's out there, not necessarily start a business.

I say that I started a business while I was in college, sold it, not really

sold it, gave it to somebody else almost, and then worked corporate

and then got back into business.

But why was there something that was going on that you decided not to go through

the interview process or to get a job?

Pacific Tea Company.

People might know it as that.

It's now out of business.

But for a while, it was one of the biggest, companies in the country and

also one of the biggest grocery chains.

And I lived, literally on the other side of the fence.

We used to hit our wiffle balls and stuff into the parking lot.

So I had worked there, for about eight years in high school and

college, part time in high school and then full time in college.

And I realized, wow, this is not really a great place to work and I don't want

to work here, but I did come, I came across an idea with the mystery shopping.

I read about it in an article and I was like, wow, you know,

is a billion dollar company.

We could use this, but I've never even heard of it before this article.

So it stood to reason to me that other companies.

Could use it also and that's when I said, you know what forget the amp

Let me let me see if I can start this mystery shopping company, and My

girlfriend at the time later my wife And my best friend were basically as

naive as I was, I said, Hey, I'm going to start this mystery shopping company.

And they're like, okay, yeah, it sounds great.

And like none of us knew anything, but it worked.

So tell for people that don't know, tell them what mystery shopping is.

Cause I think that's a cool business too.

And I also think we'll talk later when we go on the line, I think it helps.

It helps you later in your business that you open later,

but mystery shopping, what is it?

So our very first client was Pizza Hut.

And this is back when Pizza Hut used to be bigger and better than it is today.

today it's just takeout, but I believe it or not.

For younger people listening, there used to be a time when

you went to Pizza Hut and you actually had to wait to get seated.

So it was a big deal.

So our, the gentleman owned 18 restaurants, and we would go in there

based on preset criteria to see how quickly we got seated, how quickly

the waitress came over, how long it took the food to come out, how was

the food, did they suggest things, salad bar, breadsticks, to upsell

the order, were the tables getting bussed, was, how was the temperature,

the music, were the bathrooms clean?

All of this would go into a report, both of the raw score and comments.

So the owner had an objective idea of what it was like to be

a customer in his restaurant.

Because obviously when the owner goes in, everybody knows and they

treat the person differently.

When the mystery shopper comes in, They're just a regular couple on

a Saturday night having dinner.

So over the course of a year we did I think like 254 shops

for this pizza hut owner.

So he could see individual restaurants and he could also see individual

trends within, his 18 stores.

Like, You know what, we do a great job at the bathrooms, but we don't

do enough, suggesting salad bar, breadsticks, that's leaving money on

the table, that's a training issue.

And then over time, we did obvious places, we worked with a couple of supermarkets,

like Manhattan Bagel, restaurants, and we also did unusual places.

We mystery shopped the New, the New Jersey Lottery.

And, the New York Waterway were two of the more unusual ones we did.

I think it's gotta, I think it's gotta take a certain level

of self awareness as an owner or an executive team if it's a bigger operation

to say, we need to bring someone else from the outside in to be a customer.

Did you notice anything in common about the people that contracted with you?

Any commonalities there?

Usually it was the smaller companies that were harder to get.

The bigger companies were pretty easy.

once, like if you're a supermarket and you have, millions of dollars

in sales, hundreds, maybe if not thousands of employees,

there's, A lot of moving pieces.

When you own one restaurant, you might feel, nah, I'm here a lot.

Everything is good.

That doesn't necessarily, that's not necessarily true, but it was a little

harder to convince the mom and pops that, mystery shopping was a good idea

as opposed to the larger businesses.

All right.

so we look at the people that would contract with you, but what did you

learn about business in general?

Or I guess some point you wrote business lessons for entrepreneurs.

I don't know if it was during that time or later, but what are some takeaways

that you still use today that you learned during that season of your life?

One is patience.

When you start a business, it's going to take longer than

you want for it to take off.

and it might seem like times on paper that things happen quickly, but

during real life when you're living through it, it can seem like, forever.

So I think patience was one of the big things that I learned.

Also, be very careful of working with family.

A lot of times, When you have a small business, it's natural that you ask a

friend, a family member to help out.

What I learned was, would you actually, if they weren't your,

if they weren't related to you.

Would you still hire them, and if the answer is no just because they're

working for free don't don't use them, because that was a mistake now.

I'm married 28 years So we survived the mystery shopping But we did struggle a

lot because my wife is a little younger than I am and she wasn't prepared

For it to take off the way it did, we had, we were in the New York Times and

Vogue and, you have these companies, we went from me making the cold calls to

people reading about us and calling us.

And then, it became a lot and she wasn't prepared for it.

And to me, it didn't seem that difficult, but for her, In her early

20s it was and I would always tell her look you're not getting fired.

You're only getting promoted So you better figure this out.

And now today it's, we work together a lot better, but back then it was

it sounds like that was a pretty sweet statement that you made.

hey, honey, come on, buck up and get tough here.

I, yeah, I was probably, my wife still thinks I'm type A.

I was probably like A plus back then.

So I don't know if I necessarily had the, I could have probably massaged

it, said it better back then.

I would handle it differently

that goes back to the first thing you mentioned, patience, instead

of, maybe snapping immediately or saying something like, let me catch my breath

here and think about this before I.

Before I respond.

so that, that business sounds like at least for a while.

Was very profitable, very lucrative.

can you give me any info on what, people still do that, right?

That's, that is still an industry out there.

Haven't seen it in a while though, myself.

I'm sure it's still out there.

my, when my wife became pregnant with our first child I said, you know what?

Maybe this is a sign to move on and do other things.

I wasn't married to mystery shopping.

I just stumbled into it.

You I quit the A& P.

I burned my bridges so I couldn't go back.

And I was like, okay, you know what?

We did it.

I showed I could do it.

There are other things I want to do in life.

Um, this will get my wife out of the business.

And we'll move on.

I'll go on to, act number two.

Unfortunately, act number two was a little harder than, the mystery shopping was.

at what point, when did you write the book?

And I didn't read that book.

I wasn't able to get that book, but the, business lessons for

entrepreneurs, when'd you write that?

I wrote it right after the sale of the

business, while my wife was pregnant.

And basically what happened, I, I just started writing

down the lessons I learned.

And these are the things that I wish I had known before I

started the mystery shopping.

And the more I wrote, because, she was pregnant, we had plenty,

I had plenty of time to write.

It just started to take the form of a book.

And again, being naive and coming right off the success of the mystery

shopping, I was like, yeah, I can write a book, I can be a published author.

And I mean, it did happen, but again, that also took longer than expected.

But it did eventually happen.

so what year was that book?

When did that come out?

Probably, I guess the early 90s.

wow.

Okay.

So that's been a while back.

90s or a

No,

early

I was going to say, wait, I didn't think you were that old, man.

That's you're not older than me, man.

It's okay, it seemed.

I'm 53.

It

seems like a long time ago though, doesn't it?

so early.

if someone were to pick that book up today, would you feel confident that

most of what's in there still applies, or would you feel like there needs to be

some pretty healthy adjustments based on 20 years later, almost in your experience?

I think most of it applies.

if I had to, add or edit some, maybe some of the technology has changed, but I don't

think the people haven't changed, the way that, I would deal with people, you

know, working with family, the patients, I really think most of the lessons I

learned They're I feel like universal.

They're the same ones that you know, I try to teach my kids and

Yeah, I would teach anybody that was trying to get into entrepreneurship.

And what's interesting is if we go back to that time,

because I had to do this recently on a project I was working on,

it was the internet was extremely young from a business standpoint.

And social media didn't exist,

Yeah, we'd have to add a chapter on that.

But most of it I would feel

And I guess Google wasn't even a thing either.

So anyway, that's cool.

All right.

so now I, I think we're at a kind of a pivotal time from what I read at the very

beginning of your laundromat Bible book that you did you go out and get a job?

Is that what you did at that stage?

I tried to start doing public speaking.

And I had a little success, not a lot.

But, it takes, again, it takes a while to get started.

And then 9 11 happened.

So all of like company, nobody knew what was going on.

So a lot of companies, they didn't spend any extra money.

So the training and all that kind of stuff, it.

They shut down the budgets, and since I was a beginner anyway,

there was nothing for me.

yeah, I'd say I spent the next 20 years just in a career wilderness.

I, we wound up having two more kids, I'm still happily married, personally

my life was good, personal life.

But as far as the career, you know, I'm not, I didn't really used to mention it,

but I think it's important to share now.

With people, I do suffer from depression.

I still take medication for it.

I've had several, major bouts of depression, in my life.

And that also hurt, subsequent business ideas that I've had because I'd be

going along and then, I have this bout of depression and then everything would

just stop in its tracks and that's really not, when you're a solopreneur.

You're basically, you're done.

so I've also worked, I've worked for a couple of companies that also,

uh, as a low level manager, and they were all they were honest jobs, but

to me, kind of like dead end jobs.

they weren't gonna go anywhere.

two or three of the companies wound up going bankrupt anyway.

I hope, hopefully that's not a reflection on me, like I'm bad luck or something.

You But yeah, so I spent, a good, I don't know, 18, 19 years just

like Struggling really, i'm not proud of it, but it happened.

we also went through bankruptcy um after I was working for a company that

later went bankrupt, but I got let go during the The great recession and I

was actually fired I wasn't let go but I felt like they used an excuse to get

rid of me You And I don't totally blame them in the sense, I remember walking

around there around Christmas time.

And I was like, wow, if I wasn't here, they wouldn't even know it.

And then, not long after that, I got fired.

yeah, so we faced bankruptcy.

we faced foreclosure.

I still, dealt with the, depression.

it was rough.

right now we're in a, we're in a good place, you know, and my wife, uh, You

know, every now and then, she, I mean, we don't have a, we have a nice house,

we don't have a mansion or anything like that, we have a nice house, And she's

just like, you know, from where we've come, to where we are now, sometimes

she just wants to cry, because this is, her house, and, we After a long time

out of the wilderness, so that's why I don't mind talking about the depression

because I want other people to know and I write about it occasionally

not a lot on LinkedIn, there is life afterwards and you can deal with it.

I wrote a post recently about Brad Delp.

if the listeners don't know him, he's the lead singer of Boston.

You know, so if you've ever rocked out to More Than a Feeling, or,

Amanda, who I named my daughter after, he committed suicide.

and you look at somebody who had, the ultimate in talent,

was in one of the greatest bands ever, I'm sure he had money.

But those things don't really matter.

he had an illness and, but I want people to know that there is a

light at the end of the tunnel, it's not always close, but it's

Is, would you say And I'm, pardon, this might be an ignorant question

related to that, but would you say it's cured, it's better, medication is helping

it, the fact that your business is doing well is a good thing, what, where would

you say you're at now with depression?

I would say it's managed, I made a deal with my wife.

That if we bought the laundromat because one of the things Mental health care

in america is sketchy, it's sometimes difficult to get good help there was

a point where you know, I went to one place and I basically just had rotating

doctors and they didn't know me And at a certain point I was just like they

just keep giving me the same thing I don't even know if it's working anymore.

The original person I met is long gone You know, so I stopped

taking any kind of medication.

I had a relapse.

So the deal that I made with my wife was, you if she let me, and she bought into

it, the laundromat, I went through all the numbers and explained why this will be

different than previous times, that I stay on the medication and that I agree to.

go to occasional therapy and see a doctor, you so I don't have to go once

a week, but as long as, like every three months, you just check in with

somebody, you don't backslide, she'll support the, the next business idea.

So that's where we are now.

So again, this may be another, ignorant question, but going

back during, you mentioned, I think, 18 years that were quite the struggle where

you were dealing with that and definitely ups and downs, probably financially and

just, Hate to have this awesome club, but yeah, we've gone through bankruptcy.

Yes.

We've had a home foreclosed homeless for a number.

I'm still homeless truthfully.

but more by choice now, my wife and I talk about where would we want to live?

We go, let's just keep roaming around, we'll just be nomads or.

I wish it was more like a pirate, but she doesn't like that terminology.

But, I've noticed with myself and I've been entrepreneur business owner since

mid eighties that, and I've never gone and gotten diagnosed with anything, so

I don't know, but like things are going great, man, and I'm in a pretty good mood.

Things are tough, not much in the bank account.

I'm still putting a smile on my face, things are turning on the inside.

we're about to have to tell our kids, that are right at in getting out of

high school, by the way, there's going, there's not going to be a home anymore.

And.

And I guess my question for you, and again, if it's related or not, you

definitely correct me, but did you notice any correlation and or causation

with the ups and downs of finances, Your situation business, because

entrepreneurship is already hard enough.

If all of a sudden now you don't layer that also there's, the

depression that's factored in.

So talk, whatever you want to take from what I said or correct me.

I'm okay with that.

it does run in families and, fortunately as I'm not aware of

my brother or sister having an issue with it, but yeah, so both my parents

had it and they had it, pretty rough.

And that's the thing with depression.

There's not necessarily a correlation.

there are, situational depressions that people can get into, like

with a divorce, that type of thing.

I've been hitting on all cylinders sometimes, and I'm still depressed.

It's just, it's like a chemical imbalance.

that's why you take the medication and that's why I agreed to, keep

seeing the therapist and the doctor so that it can be managed, and like one

of the things that I've told people because, you don't brag about having

depression, you usually don't tell people, if you had high blood pressure

and you were taking medication, You wouldn't think twice about sharing that.

There's no shame in that.

you have it, you take medication, the other person's not going

to think anything about it.

So it's the same with depression.

I take my medication, uh, and I manage it and I still have some bad days, but,

for the most part, you I have my goals and I just keep plugging away at them.

Yeah.

the, good thing about.

The way social media is.

And I think this may have been something that attracted me to you over on LinkedIn

is that it's okay for men of certain ages to show some vulnerability now where

years ago it was definitely not okay.

And, I just played pickleball this morning with a guy that, younger guy that a

year ago, his wife suddenly passed away.

And I'm just trying to check in and say, Hey, how are you doing?

And we had a very, it wasn't a very deep conversation, but And I do want

to say that just from what I've seen with the way you do on LinkedIn,

I think is extremely healthy.

The way you're sharing about your business and teaching and coaching and educating

people there, but also being human about.

the human behind it.

So that's probably why you and I are talking here, because those are

the kind of stories that we like to, to link in so at some point over

the last handful of years, cause you haven't been in the laundromat

business long, but at some point.

That started either appealing to you or it fell in your lap or it was an accident or

something I know in the book you go into a little bit more But let's start going into

the laundromat because I want to spend our time together really Kind of picking

that apart over the last few minutes So give me that story that kind of led up

to you saying I want to own a laundromat

I had read some books and, my wife liked the idea also.

So I got sick one final time while I was working for somebody else.

I went to the hospital with depression and I said, you know what, I'm

tired of working for other people that, that don't use me correctly,

that don't really care about me.

I said, maybe it's time to, we're in a different financial position.

Maybe it's time to pull out that laundromat idea again.

So I spent, I think like 10 weeks out on disability and I just poured into

everything laundromats, videos, articles, anything I could get my hands on.

And, I took action.

That's the biggest thing.

I took action.

I sent out letters to laundromat owners in my area.

They were I just, did a Google search around where I live.

I said, the very simple letter, saying that I would look into buy a laundromat,

if you're interested in selling or if you know somebody, here's my phone number.

That's it.

And I got three responses.

One wanted too much money.

One couldn't pull the trigger.

And the one is.

So probably a few months after being hospitalized, I was

the owner of a laundromat.

so I want to, I think this is a good time to talk about the process

of knowing if something's valuable.

And let me do this maybe before we even do that.

I put laundromats in the, in this category that are great.

Cash businesses that are not sexy at all.

And probably a lot of people, their ego wouldn't allow them to even consider it.

is that fair?

Or how would you respond if I brought that up?

Yeah, I understand.

they're becoming more popular with the internet, and there's a lie out there that

they're passive income, which they're not.

But yes, I do agree with the unsexy business.

most people, if, you if you wanna be on CNBC, be a tech entrepreneur,

but owning a laundromat, owning a landscaping company, owning a

roofing business, they're not sexy.

I don't think anybody ever grows up and says, that's what I'm gonna do.

unless your dad or mom already owned one.

Uh, but you know what?

They're great businesses and they make money.

So they, I think they are sometimes overlooked.

And listen, it's one of these things where, if you

really evaluate what is needed.

by culture and society.

People are, let's hope this keeps occurring.

People are always going to wear clothes

and with me,

I guess it depends what you look

yeah, there could be some situations we don't

want to go down that path.

Let's don't do that, Mark.

And, and there, and those clothes are going to get dirty and

they're going to need washed.

And, some people say, people are probably going to have their own washing machine.

I don't.

And you know what?

I've got 400 people around me here that don't, maybe a couple

of them have, something in their rigs or something like that.

But, later this week, I've got three laundry apps on my phone,

three of the laundry apps.

So there's tech involved and I get emails from them and they market to me on it.

And so I'll go up and, put my clothes in and go to that.

I think it is.

And so I've got a buddy of mine who's in the self storage business.

And then I've got someone who is looking at the car wash

business, automatic car wash.

And I don't want to say I put all of these in the same category,

but sort of in the same category.

Businesses that a lot of people, like you said, that want to be on CNBC, they're

thinking, I need to start a new app and do this or do that, or, something.

May not be Thinking about those businesses, but those are great

businesses that people need.

so you evaluated the laundromat business talk before we go into it, talk about,

I think you said you, you got all this in the book, but 35, 000 laundromats

in the U S is that number still good?

There's roughly 35, 000 laundromats in the country, and as

an industry, roughly 6 to 7 billion dollars in sales for those 35, 000.

So someone's going huh, but so of that how many of those would be

would they be owner operator types and how many are there franchises are there

like any big dogs In the industry because I don't see that and I travel a good bit

Most of the industry, I would say, it's funny, I looked this stat

up for somebody recently, and I think it was 80% of laundromats are either owned

by Laundromat owners either own one or two locations So 80 of it right there

and then you have a couple of percentage That own maybe three a couple that own

four or five and then you have a couple

I think the biggest one I can think of is this it's a family

they've had it for like generation I think they own like a hundred.

So there's nothing out there that would be considered like a Walmart of laundry mats.

most of them, it's the mom and pop in your town.

Why do you, is there a reason for that?

Because one of the things that some people, when they look at business,

they want to think, how do I scale?

How do I grow?

How do I do it?

Is that just not the makeup?

Or what's the hindrance, if there is one, on why there's

not a Walmart in the industry?

In your opinion,

I think because of technology, laundry mats

are catching up on technology.

And so you go back to even like pre COVID, you didn't have a POS system.

Unless you created your own POS system, and so now there's companies

out there like sense curbside and they, you can have a POS system.

So now you can scale, you can have two, three, four, 10 locations.

They're all running on the same, just like target.

They're all running on the same POS system.

They're all charging the same prices before that, when you, before, like before

COVID, if you did pickup and delivery.

Or you did wash and fold.

You're literally writing it down in a notebook like this.

Just think about this, it's 2020 and people are keeping their

records in a spiral notebook.

Now there are still a lot of laundromats that do that, but there are, like

mine doesn't, I have a POS system.

So the POS is allowing you, and another problem I think was the inability of

these machines to take credit cards.

I mean imagine if you had a Walmart of laundromats and everything was quarters.

how many man hours would it take you to do all these quarters?

You know now they have you know, the newer machines have it like built in

but there's also things that you can do to adapt the machine so that they

can be hybrid They could take you know, the coins like they always did or they

could take, a debit or a credit card.

So those two things, or you could just have no coins at all.

Now, most laundromats still have coins of some kind, whether it's hybrid

or a hundred percent, but you could make it where you have a card system.

where people put money on the card and then it go, so then

you have no coins at all.

So now it's more attractive to, now you can start scaling it because I

don't have to worry about quarters.

I don't have to worry about you spilling a coffee on our, basically

our whole POS system, I always joke, you're like one Starbucks spill

away from losing all your records.

so those are the two reasons I think you don't see.

Yeah.

Like, a huge company in the laundromat

because one of the things I'm jump over to self storage, we've

had this conversation is that for years, self storage was mom and pop.

Some I had, but I have noticed massive, now that's in many ways,

that's a real estate business.

it's just, you have renters and tenants and I've got background

in real estate, but I have noticed massive consolidation and large

companies buying up all over the place.

and I guess it's interesting that you brought that up.

It is probably they can integrate that point of sale right into

theirs and just keep moving along.

do you see a future where.

Somebody big one of these, especially because, did I read this right?

That margins and laundromats are in the 20 to 30 percent range where restaurants

are like, 10 to 12 to 15 and all mean with margins like that, aren't they going

to be appealing for a fund that is just looking for return on investment or no?

what am I missing here?

venture capital comes in, they have a tendency to, to ruin

what made some of these businesses special, So you lose that mom and pop

feel, you lose that sense of community.

But yes, I could see it, it happening.

I hope it doesn't.

I would rather it happen organically, through some of the good owners that are

already in there rather than, somebody with a spreadsheet, in New York somewhere.

And it's hey, you know what, if we bought all these laundry mats up,

we put the same coat of paint on each one, put the same name, boom.

You would take away some of what made them special, some of these stores, then

they'd just be like any other business.

so the other day, I'll, I'm going to go back to three days ago.

I had these rugs.

I'm in Rapid City, a city that I've never gone to a laundromat.

outside of this RV resort that we like to stay in, which I don't, I

think that's related to what you do, but I think that's different.

It's probably just a profit center for the resort, but it's probably run pseudo,

they don't have an attendant or anything.

And all of them are run with these apps now, by the way, the thing that annoys

me is when I go to a different resort and I have to download a different app.

So now I've got.

Three laundry apps on my phone.

And some of them are better than others, by the way.

But, I'm curious, I went in and I did a search and the, this

is exactly the way I did it.

I did a Google search and I looked at the ratings.

And the fortunate thing one was one that was rated pretty good was the closest

one to me and I'm going, perfect.

there's nothing that's far here in rapid city.

Anyway, it's a town of 70, 80, 000 people is that the discovery for most

people search ratings go, or what else happens that people find laundromats?

a lot of people, and that's why ratings are so important, and customer

service is so important because if I happen to be in the laundromat, and I see

somebody who hasn't been with us before, I'll ask them, how did you find us?

And a lot of people say I googled and you had good reviews.

I was like, okay, great.

Thank you.

so for a lot of people, and especially the younger you get,

the more you count on reviews.

I don't have the, I, I did a paper on that.

I don't remember the statistics off top of my head, it was

something like my daughter's 24.

So whatever, I, Gen Y, I guess she is.

They trust online reviews more than they trust personal reviews, you know

So I could tell her something and she'll believe a stranger online So yes,

they're hugely important, but I also try to do, be a part of the community

And do a lot of gorilla marketing.

You

I actually enjoyed the whole book, The Laundromat Bible.

My wife would say, what are you reading?

I said, I'm reading the Bible.

She said, The Laundromat Bible.

And I think there's a chapter here where you go through 21 or something

like that marketing chapters.

Tools methods or something like that.

And I enjoyed it cause I'm sitting here reading it.

I'm going, Oh, okay.

We actually did that.

Our real estate company, we went around and knocked on doors.

we put up a, door hangers.

to me, those are gorilla base level.

and I think a lot of businesses just miss those totally.

I think that's valuable for a lot of businesses to know.

principles.

Would you agree?

What do you want to talk about?

Just other things related to marketing before we move on?

know, everybody thinks technology now, and they still forget,

at least with laundromats, and really a lot of local businesses, like if I owned

a yogurt shop, I'd do the same thing.

I don't have to conquer all of New Jersey.

I just have to get a couple of miles around my store.

That's all I need to do.

So connect with the local school, connect with the Chamber of Commerce, do the door

hangers, go to sit, go to civic events.

they have a Matawan day every year and, you take the kids and you walk

up and down the street and there's face painting and those, you know,

nice cars and those types of things.

And people put out tables, they promote their business.

a lot of people don't realize, we're here.

they drive past you a thousand times, didn't even realize, Oh, you guys

will wash it and fold it for us.

I love that.

I hate doing laundry.

So yes, I think with tech, everything, everything in 2024 is, Instagram and

Facebook and, and you can get just as many customers by being in the

supermarket and waiting in line and saying, excuse me, you like doing laundry?

I got a 75 percent chance that they don't.

and I'll be like, yeah, I own the laundromat right down the street.

We do pick up and delivery.

Here's my card.

I got good.

I have just as much of a chance getting the customer out of that as

I do, posting on Instagram again.

I just think that people forget about

and one of the things that I like about it, that probably

some people struggle with is that it is truly a local business.

I wasn't going to drive two hours with my rugs.

To go get them washed on, a few days ago, I was looking for something fairly close.

I was looking for something that was rated well, wanted it to be clean when I

went in and wanted the machines to work.

And I wanted to get the crud off these rugs that we have

down in our, our RV here.

And, man, it did pretty well.

I do want to say this though.

It wasn't because I was in the middle of reading your book

when I went in there, it wasn't.

As clean as I would have liked for it to have been when I went in and had a

little bit of age and datedness to it is how critical is that in a business?

That cleaning stuff is what they purport to do.

I think businesses and laundromat owners don't realize

is that, if you have a clean place.

Place a lot of the other amenities, like I have a very small laundromat.

It's only 1500 square feet.

So I'm pretty much, I stick with the basics.

I, you know, I have washers, dryers, I clean your clothes,

we have a snack machine.

We have a vending machine for like soaps, but anything else, your massage

chairs, your video games, your.

Your coffee bar.

I don't have room for this.

Okay.

And most people will forgive me if I keep it clean and I keep it friendly

because that's all they really want.

They just want a nice place to have to, if they have to go do this every single

week, they want a nice place to do it.

So they want it clean and they want it friendly.

And that's what I always tell people.

when you're hiring for jobs like attendants, or even at

restaurants, anything like that.

Just hire friendly.

You can teach everything else.

Okay, if I can't teach you to run a register, we both have bigger problems.

Okay, I can't teach you to be friendly though.

I can't teach you to want to help people, and So I'm looking for friendly.

Because it makes such a huge difference.

Because you're also with these people for a lot longer than

you are in almost any business.

You if you're a cashier at a supermarket, yeah, that interaction's important,

but it doesn't last that long.

You could be in the laundromat for an hour.

Hour and a half, especially if you decide to fold everything there.

wouldn't it be nice, if the attendant was friendly, you had a

conversation, we have many people like, Hey, I'm running to the store.

Do you want a coffee?

Do you want this?

Do you want that?

how many other customers at other businesses will be, Hey, I'm going out.

Do you want something?

I'll bring it back for you.

You know, so friendly is like paramount.

Clean as Paramount.

Everything else is extra.

my wife says, why do you enjoy going?

first of all, like getting our clothes clean, but secondly it depending on

if there's a sitting area, if I've got my computer or laptop, if I'm reading

something, it's like an hour and a half, depending on how fast the machines are.

I love good, fast machines, by the way.

it's like alone time.

It's quiet time or whatever.

Yeah.

I actually just love meeting people and talking to people.

One thing I didn't like about this one is, they had one TV going and what

they had on the TV mark was they had this true crime thing going on, where,

some guy disappeared and all that.

I'm guessing there's a mood you can set with what you pop on the TV screen too.

Right.

like, when I go to the doctor.

They usually have the most boring thing on.

like the House Hunters.

Nobody's gonna get upset at that.

The Cooking Channel.

if you come into us, and I tell them, you guys, you can change the channel.

But it's always like American Pickers.

So it's, or put on Seinfeld and stuff like that, but yes, I agree, especially

when you get like in that political realm, you don't really need, just

stay, just put Seinfeld on everybody like Seinfeld, or if there's a bunch

of kids put on, cartoons or something.

Yeah, just keep it very innocuous.

A couple of the quick things here before we wrap up is that I spent

some time in the early two thousands with a guy named Dan Kennedy, great marketing

guy, guerrilla marketing, did a lot of cool things and he used to always,

I, I have his book.

yeah, no, no BS marketing and stuff like that.

I

So I was in his masterminds and one of the things that he would

always just hammer home to us, because we were starting to coach real estate

investors and things like that.

He goes, yeah, you could coach people.

And he said, you could give people training.

You could, give people access to things.

He says, but really the ultimate is when you get into the done for you.

type business.

And as I was reading, the Bible, the laundromat Bible, I was fascinated because

I probably knew this existed, but I don't know that I truly understood the

value and probably margins and how well it can help you scale a store to start

adding in what I call the done for you.

Stuff, I guess y'all call it wash and fold and the pickup

and delivery and all of that.

And I don't know if that's newer, if it's always been around, but I

can see that is going to be huge moving forward is probably big now.

So talk a little bit about that and how powerful that is in your industry.

it's huge.

And it started when people had attendance.

They wanted something for the attendant to do there's always so much cleaning

you can do and handing out quarters So they figured if I do a little

folding Washing and folding that'll least pay for the attendant and then

what people realize is that a lot of people hate doing laundry and the

washing and the folding part of it.

So it really just became like the service unto itself.

And then with COVID, a lot of people have become taught or accustomed

to having things delivered.

you want Walgreens?

Okay, they'll, Uber, somebody will come and they'll pick

it up and deliver it to you.

You want Burger King?

It'll cost you 10, but your 13 combo, they'll deliver it to you.

a lot of people are catching on.

You can do the same thing with laundry.

and you don't have to do it.

All you have to do is, you go on the website, you fill it out, just

like any other thing, and then you leave your laundry, you can leave it

in garbage bags by your front door.

We'll come, we'll pick it up.

And then the next day it comes back all nice, neat and folded.

All you have to do is put it away.

I'm sure there are people that would like us to put it away too,

but we're not at that point yet.

And this.

do you look at it as that's the future expanding that, especially

an operator like you, where you've got limited space, what would be

a, what would be your growth plan?

Would it be in areas like that?

No matter how much technology we get,

we never have enough time.

so you look at my family, now my youngest one is 18, but when they

were smaller, I had two in softball, one in Little League, my wife

worked, I worked, we have two dogs.

Come.

That's a lot of laundry, come Saturday and honestly, my wife's

not gonna hear this probably.

she does most of the laundry.

Okay?

You do it on your side and I was thinking, oh, your wife must love you for that.

I don't do much laundry.

Okay, I'm not really a big folder either But just think how much time you spend

on a weekend with three kids and you know two with you know Ah, we had a

lady the other day you talk about, the convenience and if you she brought in

two She has six kids Okay, she brought in 230 pounds of clothes for us to wash

and fold seven garbage bags of clothes That's like a 300 something dollar order.

Cause she's like, I don't want to deal with it.

And it's at this point, you can't deal with it.

This would literally be like 20 loads of laundry.

so yes, it, and there's a lot of people too.

it's just that convenience.

it's that treat for them.

I'm not a coffee drinker, but a lot of people, you know what,

every day they go to Starbucks and they know it's overpriced,

but that's their treat to them.

So a lot of people, especially single people, they're like, you know what,

I don't have a lot of expenses.

You guys do my laundry for me, you have seniors that can't get around that.

they might have a washer and a dryer, but they can't move that well We we pick it up

for them, you know, so really the world's It's open any anybody that doesn't like

doing laundry we can help you so that opens up your customer base To everyone.

Is there anything you noticed from demographics?

You mentioned your 24 year old daughter.

We've got a 30 year old, 33 year old, children.

do you notice anything about the age of people?

I guess it.

I guess it matters who's around you, but is there anything that's exciting

that you see, Oh yeah, younger people are really using us or and we only see

mature, I call them old people coming in.

Anything like that, that you're able to observe?

Cause I know you also do things with the bigger, the laundromat

association, but what are some of the trends that y'all are seeing there?

I think it's easier to reach the younger people with the

delivery delivery Because there's so much more use of technology.

a lot of seniors would probably do it if they even knew that it

existed or where to look for it.

so I think with younger people and they're used to like the whole gig economy, like

I'm not going to move from my couch.

My whole life is going to come to me.

My medicine is going to come to me.

My food's going to come to me.

My laundry is going to come to me.

So they're much, they're much more comfortable with going on

the website, downloading an app.

It's just, it's second nature to them.

I think, once, once you start, I shaved, but I'd have gray too.

if I hadn't shaved the other day.

And, for us, it was like, Oh, not another app.

I don't want to go on another website.

But for the younger generation, I mean, that's just what they do.

So they're used to it.

So I think going forward, um, it'll just keep growing and growing.

So one thing, Mark, I'm watching my time here, but

I definitely recommend someone get the laundromat Bible.

I'm looking at my Kindle over here where I've got it loaded, went through

my highlights just a second ago, make sure I wasn't forgetting anything.

definitely.

I feel like you wrote that book for someone who might be thinking about

possibly doing something in this industry, but just verbally, if someone's Interest

is peaked or they're curious or whatever.

What would you tell them right now?

Just like maybe speak to the person that's like going, yeah,

I might be interested in this.

What would you tell them?

Are you interested because you heard that it's great passive income

from somebody on YouTube because if it is you're in for a surprise If you

really are into it the best place to go obviously they could contact me but the

best place to go for free information really is the coin laundry association.

I'm a member of it.

You don't have to be a member of it.

They have a lot of free information.

And if you're serious about putting out six figures, maybe

seven figures for a laundromat, join the coin laundry association.

It's a couple hundred dollars.

They have a lot that they offer to members for free.

free, a ton of white papers, a lot of videos on basically every subject

that you could possibly imagine.

They also have a free magazine, it's called Planet Laundry, and I'm

actually in it just about every month.

No, seriously, I, I write, I'll either write an article or, I'll

get quoted on one of the topics.

you'll get me for free, but the magazine's for free too.

and it comes out every month.

So that's the, that's one of the best places.

And they're not They're unbiased really, because they're not like if you

go to a distributor or somebody that sells Like dryers or washing machines.

obviously they have an economic Benefit, you know if you buy these and so they're

kind their information can be somewhat slanted toward the rosier You know, the

Coin Laundry Association, of course they would like you to be a member, but they

give you more just unbiased information.

And they're really good people too.

I know

Yeah, very good.

Also tell us now where people can connect with you.

I know you're pretty active on LinkedIn, but, tell them if there's a place to find

the book and I think you've got a personal website to go and give us all that

we'll include it in the notes, but tell us all of that right now, anything you

want to share or, promote with anybody.

they can email me.

It's marksordos at gmail dot com.

And you'll have to look in the links how to spell my last name,

because I got a silent C in there.

And also my website is marksordos dot com.

So I just try to keep it really simple and I'm happy to connect

with anybody on LinkedIn.

I post pretty much like seven days a week, a lot about laundry, some

about entrepreneurship and on the weekends, I usually just have some fun.

Very good.

We'll make sure we include all that down in the notes.

great conversation.

I've enjoyed this, Mark.

We are Seek, Go, Create, those three words.

And just as my last question, I'm going to allow you to pick one of those that maybe

means more, or I don't know, Seek, Go, or Create, and why, which one do you choose?

I would say go because that implies, that's action.

you have, you know, a lot of people, and it's not just with laundry

mats, it's about anything in life.

You know, I've written books and people ask me about it.

and they don't ever take any action.

They want to write a book and then they never write anything.

So to me, the go would be the action.

if you're serious about owning a laundromat or any business, you have to

take some action, go do your homework, do your research, talk to other business

owners that would be non competing.

Usually if they're non competing, they're very, they're very happy to talk to you.

You they'll give, there'll be a wealth of information, but you have to take action.

You can't always be a bystander saying someday, so I'm going to go and

Excellent.

Great choice.

Mark Sordos.

Thank you for joining us on Seat Go Create.

I appreciate you sharing.

I appreciate you being vulnerable and sharing a story.

I actually believe all the laundromat stuff is really cool, but I think just

the background on the depression and all is very helpful and very helpful.

Probably we need as a society to talk about that more.

So I appreciate you doing that.

Thanks for listening in for those listening.

We have new episodes on YouTube and on all the podcast platforms every Monday,

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And until next time, continue being all that you were created to be.