Some Simple Tips For: Starting With a New Approach

Every fall someone preaches to laundry folks about the need to clean up and get ready for the busier time ahead. All of the magazines and newsletters do it. They talk about getting rid of the junk, graffiti and accumulated mess to get ready for those (hopefully) busier fall and winter seasons.

We do it too, but this time we are going to be a little different. We are suggesting each laundry operator clear his or her mind of all negatives while also freeing their laundries from all that dirt and accumulated gunk.

When a sign is taped to a laundry’s front window, it quickly disappears from the eyes of the owner and employees. Even if that sign was for a circus that left town two or three months ago. In your laundry, to you and your employees, things look like they should look, because you are all so used to seeing things the way they have become.

We suggest you begin to see things the way they should be, rather than the way they currently are.

Look carefully at each individual element of your laundry business. Examine washers and dryers, one at a time. Are they as clean and bright as they were when new? If not, what is it they need to shine? If they need to be cleaned better, then do it, one washer or dryer at a time. It could take you some period of time to go though them. But, when you are done, that part of your laundry will be as good as it can be.

What about the floors? You know that they need regular attention anyway. We operators, over time, tend to get a bit sloppy about the way floors are done. Employees are worse. There is a right way and a wrong way to get the floors done. Have you and your laundry slipped into doing it the wrong way? Grab a damp mop and wipe it down not realizing that all you are doing is spread the dirt around.

Your mind set should be that having a clean floor is vital to your profit structure because you know that having grime on the floor tells prospective customers that your laundry may not be as clean as it should be. Have some of them gone elsewhere? And if they did, how would you know?

Waxed floors should never be just gone over with hot water, and a single bucket. Hot water spoils the shine and using a single bucket will spread the dirt around. We know that, yet it’s how floors are done in many a laundry. With the right mind set, it won’t happen again in your place of business. Doing it right is too important for profitability.

It is easier to keep the dryers bright and shining, because they don’t have the same steamy water vapor to contend with, and few customers to pour soap powder in and around them. Yet, dryers that are not properly cared for will really affect the bottom line.

Accumulated lint and fuzz builds up over time and cuts air flow and causes a laundry to have higher gas bills and less satisfied customers. Burning more gas than a dryer should burn brings higher gas bills and costs you more money. That negative to your profits should keep any operator on their toes. Spend time and energy to clean the duct work on your dryers because it is better for you.

It has been said before in the News and other publications too: Look at your laundry business through the eyes of someone who has no laundry experience. That requires you to have a new mind set. If you don’t see things the way that they are, you will see things the way they should be.

Clean and bright are not dirty words, yet many laundry owners seem to think that they are as the way their businesses are run shows wrong processes. This new way of thinking can make you lots more money. Try it!

 

---