Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, everyone. Eric Smith here with Alliance Systems. I hope you're ready to go today, because we're going to just jump right in. Today, we're going to learn about a family owned textile rental company that's been around for nearly 120 years. But starting about seven or eight years ago, they really started to expand and grow. And to me, this is something that's really exciting for me, to see a company in our industry transforming like this. But what I really want to know is what are some of the strategies and processes being used to drive this growth? And how does a family owned company that's going through these types of changes still maintain the same service level attention to detail and keep that locally owned and operated feel and pride? So this is something that I see in the, in the industry, and it can be a real challenge to thread that needle. So, to help us out today, I'm joined by Colin well Alpher, president of City Clean and Simple, based in Olwine, Iowa. Welcome, Colin. Thanks for joining me today. How you doing?
This is the podcast for the textile rental operator community to learn new things, share ideas, and drive conversations. Welcome to laundry talks with your host, Eric Smith. This episode is brought to you by Alliance Systems.
[00:01:16] Speaker B: Doing good, Eric. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: Yeah. What's new? What's new with you?
[00:01:20] Speaker B: Oh, man, it's, Summer's in full swing.
My children don't sleep and, you know, trying to do a bunch of lottery in between. So that's about it.
[00:01:28] Speaker A: And they're home all day now, is that right?
[00:01:31] Speaker B: They're home all day and all night.
[00:01:33] Speaker A: Well, cool. Yeah, we got a busy. Summer is a busy time. Let me start out by asking 01:00 a.m. i, pronouncing Ola wine correctly.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: You are. I think somebody told me it's like old German for old wine. Oh, and you just dropped a d, so I think you got it right.
[00:01:51] Speaker A: Okay. It's close enough. Yeah. So as a kindergartner, having to learn.
[00:01:54] Speaker B: To spell Owine and, well, offer, they didn't set me up for success, Eric, so.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: So, yeah, saying that name, it goes way back in all wine, your fourth generation of wet Laufer to oversee the company and tell me a little bit about how the company got its start.
[00:02:13] Speaker B: Yeah. So my great grandfather founded the company in 1906. He came to Owine that year, and, you know, I believe was 18 at the time.
And he had, I don't know if he got it once he came or bought it on the way, but he had a horse and wagon at the time. Owine was the hub for the Chicago Northwestern Railroad. So all the lines out of Chicago went to old wine, and there was a lot of people working, a lot of people living in tents. Logic things. The population of Owen, I think, was higher in 1906 than it is today by a lot.
So he found somebody with a washing machine, he started selling the laundry, had somebody else doing the laundry, bought him out six months later, and the rest is history.
[00:02:58] Speaker A: I saw in your company timeline that actually, one of the key moments in the history of the company was when the horse retired and you went to your first delivery vehicle.
[00:03:09] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. This has got to be one of the only industries where you see pictures of, you know, horses, model t's, vans, trucks, all the way up to semis. So it's a fun part of the story. So we still have a restored model t that we do in parades and things. So.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: Wow. Now, is your grandfather in this picture that's behind you? That's my great grandfather.
[00:03:32] Speaker B: Yeah, that's the founder. Yeah. So he had seven kids, and his oldest was the next Gerald, and then my grandfather was the youngest, so there was greater than 20 years between them. So he was actually already graduated from college when my grandfather was born. So I'm fourth generation, but technically there could be five in there, so it's been a little bit. And my grandfather left the business after the navy, started his own laundry in Arizona, and then later was convinced to come rejoin when none of his nieces and nephews stayed in the business who were his age, and they had all left, so they convinced him to come back to Iowa.
[00:04:15] Speaker A: Well, I've got a lot of questions that I want to get to and that people want to know. Last question, just kind of about the history of the company, is, tell me, what was it like from your perspective, kind of growing up in a laundry family, and is this something you always wanted to do, or did you explore other options or kind of. How's your journey into the family business?
[00:04:36] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you got a family business, and you've got a small town and then a lot of people in it. So, you know, when I was little, my grandfather was in the business, obviously very active. He was the president when I was born, and my father was in the business. You know, laundry's everywhere is all that was talked about. All the dinners, you know, Sunday, Sunday dinners, and as soon as desserts served and reviewing things for the week and things to do and the size of the company at the time, you know, really, you've got owners doing everything in the business, and so either hands are on everything, they're touching everything and you see it all. So we had a fire in 1992 which was a total loss fire of the rental plant. We had a separate dry cleaning operation then but we had set up temporary staging of clean products, route delivery in a warehouse and we're renting a laundry third shift that was about an hour away and bust all the employees ran that laundry for disaster recovery. So I was eight years old when that happened and it was June so you know that's where my dad was. He was working, he was doing stuff and I started coming in sorting hangers and I'm sure my mother wanted me out of her hair. They wanted me to stop doing stuff and so started being around it. Then you start doing yard work, mowing lawns, doing those things. When I was twelve the person that did our first sort which back then was a person assigned to a job, uh, she had her first child and was going to do maternity leave in the summer and so uh, somebody's idea was well teach Colin how to, how to run first sort and sort. And you know it was a very manual process and I think I did it about 50% as fast as her. Yeah. But by the end of the summer was fairly, fairly good and then you know you work in the plant and then back when I turned 16 you could still drive her out but you didn't need any special safety certifications. So started jumping routes then and you know, try to touch all the different parts. So I think you know having that be so much of kind of a family identity and you know, multi generations of touching stuff and doing stuff, I think there really was never a thought of not being in the business. And I think one of the neat things about Citi for from my perspective is everyone put a different stamp on it generation. The business changed based on the direction and the strategy they wanted to have of that leader and I felt like there was opportunity there to do it. The big negative was that it was in very rural Iowa so that was probably my only hesitancy. But I married my high school girlfriend so coming back home made that a little simpler.
[00:07:16] Speaker A: Nice. So when you took over and one of the changes we're going to talk about is the expansion. But can you tell us when you took over what were some of the first challenges that you faced and you were looking to address?
[00:07:30] Speaker B: Well I think you've got business challenges and you've just got family entering the business stuff. I think there's always that fear in a family business of too much nepotism. Frankly, by definition, family businesses is creating some level of nepotism. But you're having a path where you can earn things.
Being a small enough business, knowing everybody generally that was involved in the business, that helps when you're integrating things. But I think there's a testing period for everybody that's coming in. And when you enter a business, I mean, I see a lot of people do it different ways. There's businesses that feel like, hey, you should go away, prove yourself in other industry, learn skills, learn what it's like to work somewhere else. That whole thing, for me, I think diving in, the best advice I got from my grandfather after I graduated college is he said, you've got one year that everyone will remember, and you should unlock the door and you should lock the door. You've got nothing else to do, so you might as well hang out. And that turned out to be really, really good advice, because I think when you're trying to figure out your way, even if there's things that don't directly involve in your operational day to day, you get involved in things because you're present. And there's something about this industry that, you know, the blue collar ness, the sweat of dirty laundry that that's in everything we do. And I think you kind of have to earn that respect of those people doing the work. So, you know, coming into the business and just trying to figure out what that path looked like was a big deal for me. One of the best things that happened to me early on Washington. I'm a very competitive minded person that likes defined goals. And my father had set up like, hey, here's the roles you should really learn if someday you want to run this business, and here's what success would look like in that role. So there wasn't assigned timelines necessarily to that, but it was achievement markers. If you can go sell and you could maintain this rental sales average, then you'd be eligible to do something else, you know, et cetera. And that, that gave me a path that I thought made sense. And like all family businesses, that path changed, jumps different roles based on business need. But I think that really helped. And the biggest challenge from a business standpoint at the time was I think the business is really comfortable. And there's nothing wrong with businesses. I think, like, lifestyle company is a dirty word, right? So I don't know if I'd say lifestyle company as much, but there wasn't a high growth goal in the business. I think there was a very comfort level goal. There was no intent for geographic expansion and we had a lot of capacity in the existing facility. And so I think there was just a level of comfort and nobody was there on Friday afternoons. I mean, there was just a lot of things that were very different.
Getting to a point where you could be an impact on strategy as a next generational person coming in and then getting people to buy into that strategy, I think that transition takes a long time and is a real challenge.
[00:10:48] Speaker A: It was for me, that's great. It's clear that you obviously felt a little bit of that pressure stepping into your role, that you felt like maybe that people were watching you. You had an opportunity to. To show how you could put your stamp on the business, but you also took the time to work in all those different roles. And I see that as an important step a lot of successful people take.
A lot of people are going to want to know how you got to point a, to point b. Before we talk about a couple of those things you've done, do you mind just sharing contrast what the company looked like size, geographically, facilities ten years ago versus what it is today? And then we'll maybe talk a little bit about that.
[00:11:34] Speaker B: Yeah, well, so I'll go. I mean, so I started full time in 2007. In 2007, you know, we serviced about a 70 miles radius of Owine, which I'll bet the total population in that 70 miles is probably 600,000 people, and had a dominant market share as percent based on how we do market sizing work.
And obviously there were steps in the way. But today we have three processing plants, four depots, and we service a geographic area which encompasses all of Iowa, all of Minnesota, little bit, just Fargo, Sioux Falls, Omaha and the west edge. And then, you know, quad cities over to Eau Claire on the east end, up to. Up to Canada, basically. So significant change in geography and facility size. And so the business overall is just under six times the top line volume.
[00:12:41] Speaker A: Wow. Those are. Those are, I would characterize as big changes.
[00:12:45] Speaker B: So, yeah, a lot of changes.
[00:12:47] Speaker A: And what was, you know, if there, you know, I. They always talk about how you eat an elephant, which is one bite at a time.
What was one of the very first steps you took to move towards that direction?
[00:13:01] Speaker B: I think the first thing was when we had a first depot.
And for us, we're in the state of Iowa and we're considered an Iowa company. We didn't go to Des Moines, which was just under 3 hours from Hawaii, which is the largest metro. And the greater MSA of Des Moines is almost half the population in the state. Obviously, a lot of business potential at that time, we were 100% industrial in what we serviced. So looking at that market size, what was really there, and there was no real local independent that was committed to being there.
The biggest part of geographic expansion that we learned, but later ended up really defining our strategy, is we like to compete against the publicly traded national company when we can go to a market and we're the local independent or the largest local independent. Either way, we think that's a really different story that we can tell. I think the market was really hungry for somebody that was there.
There was one other laundry that was there that had to go there because their customers had pulled them, but they didnt want to be.
We were able to take a senior leader and move him to that Des Moines market and start that pretty aggressive growth plan, and how we wanted to chunk out, starting that depot, that was a big thing, proving the concept that we could do it. It also led us to a market that I think our market potential almost quadrupled with just that first move. So that was probably the first big step.
[00:14:42] Speaker A: Cool. One of the other things I did that I read on the website is that something that I think that you're really proud of, and that is a low employee turnover at Citi.
On your site, I see multiple instances of employees that use that term, hey, it feels like a family atmosphere. And then I even saw customers that are interviewed that say, really feels like a family. So I wonder, how do you keep that kind of feel alive in a large growth phase?
[00:15:18] Speaker B: Yeah, it's one of the larger challenges. I think the people that, you know, for a long time, like Mark Bala, was the person that went to Des Moines, and I think he's in his 42nd year with Citi. Um, he is family. Right. So I think that in, uh, in a family business environment, you have people that share a last name, but then you have people who share common sense of values and work ethic that are together every day. And, um, you know, at this point, from a day to day operations, I'm the only technical family member in the business. But I feel like we have a ton of family, and there's a lot of people that have done it, but we still have people that, um, that have interacted with, you know, three generations of family that are working in the business. And we recently had people lost that were good back to that fourth generation. So I think. I think you want to try to instill that how you talk about people, how you care about people. I I kind of joke, Eric. I don't want to work with people who don't want to know and care about me personally. And I think that's important. And I think that starts that conversation because we're, we're whole people, not just the, the time that we spend at work. So that's a big part of things. But frankly, it's the largest challenge with growth, I think geographically expanding, keeping that sentiment and then the acquisition aspect, it makes it even harder when that comes to play.
[00:16:40] Speaker A: And I imagine that one of the biggest challenges you probably personally deal with is just the demands on your time. Where when you're in a 70 miles area and managing a smaller organization, you have that know, getting to know the people. You probably have to make a much more conscious effort to keep those communications open.
[00:17:02] Speaker B: Oh, and it's one of my personal frustrations of we went from probably within six months after starting. I knew not only every employee personally, but probably their significant other, probably most of their kids, some of their dogs names. There's an intimacy of, you know, everybody.
And it's really challenging now. It's difficult to see everybody. It sometimes takes time to meet new employees. And you have to be really intentional about it. And the geography is harder than the employee count, I think because proximity makes things easy. If you see somebody regularly, you kind of get to know them through osmosis. When you have to put intention around it and process, that becomes a whole different thing.
And relying on other people to drive some of that information is a big challenge.
[00:17:51] Speaker A: Absolutely. One of the other things I've heard you say in the past is that you're very good as a company at asking yourself what your own weak points are. And that kind of brought me to, I know you have a program, a quality management program, you call, I think, city quality management. And I am assuming that you're leaning on a lot of those processes to help you through this growth. Is that fair?
[00:18:14] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. You know, systematizing things where it becomes a scalable and repeatable process I think is really, really essential. And there's a lot of tools that have helped us that are outside. It's not like it's a magic formula, but, you know, going from, so in my lifetime, you know, Carlos Guerrero was, was our plant manager for over 40 years, and he probably personally touched for 30 years garments every week on every route. You know, when you lose something like that, I mean, that's not a scalable process to ask somebody to do it. And so how do you have that? How do you define it? And using some of the things of the hygienically clean process through TRSA that standardizes some things from a quality control standpoint that you can lean on and then build into that your own process for checks and hopefully not stumble too much along the way.
[00:19:12] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, that perfect example of that you talked a little bit earlier about one of your first jobs was doing the first sort on garments. And then you've got an employee that maybe used to touch almost every garment each week. And now it's really technology that you're stepping in with. One of the things that, again, you guys promote on your site is the adoption of RFID and ultra high frequency RFID technology. You want to talk a little bit about the move towards that form of technology, how it's helping you grow.
[00:19:43] Speaker B: Yeah, 2009 we went to the high frequency, but not ultra high in mats. And then in 2011 we went to ultra high on garments. And from a barcode technology to that and getting more data with less labor, frankly, that was a big input.
It's interesting how the believability from a customer base and assurances of.
We went from counting in my career to not counting. And then really our technology allows us to count without having to have the labor to count. And it's not magical, but it's good data that's easily there. There's a believability to it. I think people understand and expect mistakes. Our customers are operators, their own businesses, so they relate to that. I think when you talk about human counts or even light frames and things like that, there's a natural kind of tilting of the head. But when you talk about scanning a chip that's in a towel or a garment, it just. There's an assurance there and a believability. And as we continue to expand on how we utilize that rf technology, I think it's. It's really been neat. I mean, on the garments, to be able to prove to people that they're getting back what they sent in and have that assurance, that's a really big deal. You were starting to implement it in the healthcare division of our business. And I think there's even more applications there. When you talk about on site inventories levels, ensuring that those audits are being done, and linear utilization within clinics and acute care settings, there's a. There's really a ton of opportunity there. So it's giving real data in the hands of people and a really tough part of our business. And frankly, hiring for the soil department is a hard thing to do. So if you can reduce those, those needs and the amount of touches you have to have through technology.
It's pretty incredible of how that changes the feel within the plant.
[00:21:50] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a lot nicer if I'm working on the soil room, if I just push a soil linen back through a portal, I can tell you that.
[00:21:57] Speaker B: Yeah. For sure.
[00:21:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:58] Speaker B: Versus, versus a hand and touch everything. Yeah. It's a very different demand. For sure.
[00:22:03] Speaker A: Wow, that's great. Anything else you talked about how.
Well, actually I want to make a point on the inventory control side. I'm sure as you've grown, you're six times the size of the business, which means in some cases you've got six times the product acquisition cost. And things that you might have once done manually are going to be very, very difficult for you to do without technology today.
[00:22:31] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I think the realities of some of those physical inventories, how you handle things.
People, I think, tend to be really hesitant when you don't have any depot and you're an all one plant operator and you talk about the problems that can happen in a depot. I mean, every private laundry has sold against, you know, a big national servicing a part of their geography out of a depot who forgets things and it takes weeks to get back and all these things. Some of that's true and some of it's kind of, you know, stories that we tell, but have it being able to scan things, you know, on site, know what's coming before it's even put into the back of a semi trailer, know what's going back. You know, we're trying to get more on site now, customer scanning and some of the portal technologies where you said pushing whole carts through, whether it's clean or soil, it just is pretty darn cumbersome to not do that. I think the future of our industry will be guaranteed full scan at the customer level of everything that we're picking up. We know what that is when we're there and before we leave, and then we're bringing back. And they know that those returns are equal.
We're headed that way.
[00:23:46] Speaker A: Absolutely. And back to you, were talking a little bit about the depot, and you mentioned earlier that was really your first step. So when you decided to expand and open that depot, what did you do? Just go down there and find a facility and hire a salesperson or how did that process begin?
[00:24:03] Speaker B: Sure. So the very first one, the process we did, we had a leader identified, and his background was largely through sales management. So he himself was sales at the time. There was a lot of conservativeness still within the business that maybe has changed a little bit, but I didn't have the authority to just run with the budget at a loss for a long time. So it was pretty conservative. And so we sized the market, we brought all of our rental sales reps from anywhere there and really to make those initial prospecting cold calls, fill the database, then add a rep. And we started off with selling and doing a truck swap and not having a physical location until we built up to, I think it was three days of volume. And then went with the physical location and still did a truck swap for a little while until we had, I think went to a five day route and then moved to an actual shuttle transfer, larger depot. And we were in that depot until we were at two and a half routes.
And then we moved up to a bigger depot. Cause by then we were needing a full semi trailer for the transfer. And I think we hung there till about five routes and then we ended up building a facility.
The nature of it's almost like a trucking terminal, but with some specialized stuff with trolleys and things. So to only need 10,000 sqft. But twelve loading docs is a unique ask in the market.
So we just went and put our flag in the ground there. So that's how we did the first one. And we've modified that process a lot. As we've expanded. We try to go somewhere and grow organically in the territory. I think we understand the speed and the necessary levels better now, at least with our system, to attain profitability, afford different levels of assurance. I think all those growth steps are tough, right. To get to a point where you can really justify good service management, justify good relief drivers, what are those doing and when they're far from the hub? I mean, in our case, all of our depots are, well, three of our four deposits are more than 3 hours away from the plant that services one is only an hour. That's a little simpler. But figuring out what those numbers mean for you and your organization and I, how fast you need to hit it's kind of working backwards of how much you can sell, how fast you can sell it and go from there.
[00:26:35] Speaker A: And that opens up the door once you start kind of planting these people and employees three, 4 hours away. Now how did you handle that from an HR perspective? Were you taking existing successful team members and kind of planting them in new areas?
But how do you manage those people now in a different way?
[00:26:55] Speaker B: Yeah, it's really changed our structure and so we only did that once. So the very first depot we did, we took an existing high culture individual that we felt like understood who Citi was and relocated them. I would love to do that every time we haven't had other people in that situation. So we typically start with sales in the market, and so the sales is a little simpler because they're less tied to the rest of your leadership structure. But once you're selling in a market and then building that service infrastructure. So over time, I think we've really defined what type of person works best with us. In our case, we like people that don't know the industry as well. It seems to align better with what we're doing. We've made every mistake you can possibly make, I think in this process, both from a hiring and a management selection, getting those people that can support the growth and the only real change is I think we now over hire in service versus what the math would say we need because of the lack of support. Because you truly are on an island and you need to build bridges as best you can. But we have to have more oversight than we have. So we've grown too fast in markets and that's almost a worse problem than not growing fast enough.
[00:28:19] Speaker A: Right. So back to looking at growth, as operators are kind of looking at what their opportunities are for growth, a lot of times that happens in two different types of formats. Some companies, one option is to just slowly expand geographically in any direction where they feel the market warrants it. And they might start by running an overnight route and they might turn that into a depot.
The second option is either through acquisition or building from the ground up. They may see the need that it's an opportunity to grow through a new facility. So why don't we talk first about how you first started with moving to a depot?
[00:29:02] Speaker B: Sure. I think the real first question is what do you want to do?
It's easy to just say laundry. And that's Audrey talks to the podcast. Right. But are you a healthcare provider? Are you a uniform provider? Are you Matt, only you industrial mix you f and b. F and B linen.
And then understanding of your existing customers. We reference a lot internally. We talk about our share of wallet, of the products and services we offer, how much of that are we getting with our existing customers? And kind of doing a sizing of where you're at and say, okay, what's your potential? And for us in the industrial side of things, the easiest information to get is employee size of potential customers. And so we quantify gross employee count to a share of wallet and how it relates to the services and products we provide. And then we can look at a market and say, this is what we think the marketing potential or the weekly revenue is in industrial laundry. And you can look at competitors in the market and Google Maps and all those things. I feel like thats all secondary data. I think you have to start with who you are and what the potential is within your existing market, then identify those markets that have the highest potential and the highest ROI. I think as you grow as a company, I think the leader, the capital allocation is the toughest thing. I feel like youre presented with all these opportunities and potentials for growth, but where do you go? How do you spend?
Figuring out what the highest opportunity is is really the biggest thing we looked at after we'd done the Des Moines, I was really clamoring to get to the next largest metro. That was close, which for us was the Minneapolis region. And that was a little scarier for people with a different state, different areas, about half an hour further.
And then we were helped out with the tides a little bit. G and K Sol, which was based in that market and had a really, really large presence. And we made a full commitment to go. And then it was even better tides when a few months later, Ameripride sold in that market. So we got really aggressive with it how to go within that market and sell. And that was the second big push for us of geographic expansion to get up there.
I probably meandered around your question, Eric, but I think understanding that and how you want to go attack those customers and generate opportunities in the market is the real big decision. With expansion.
I don't know if it's possible. Maybe somebody's done it where they just greenfield at a plant with no business. But to me, starting with the flag of the depot is the first big thing. And then deciding, are you acquisitive or nothing? You know, do you want to, are you open to the possibility of acquiring additional customers or businesses? And for us, in 2017, you know, after I had become the full owner of Citi, you know, reentered a different planning process. By then, I felt confident about my team in place, you know, kind of being aligned strategically. And we really looked at our business and wanted to have a healthcare division, that process, healthcare laundry, and really started that process seriously. And the first year was kind of assessing what we thought that looked like. And we really felt like we didn't want to be a mixed plant.
You certainly can do it and be successful having healthcare mixed with other types of business. But we really wanted to have standalone healthcare facilities. And so we identified, you know, potential targets and started working on it and it took a while, but in September of 22 we closed on the two plant acquisition in the healthcare business and started with the plant side of things. So it was a different division, different market and then also two plants at once. So there's a big bite to take off there.
[00:33:10] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's interesting because I think what I'm hearing is that as a company today, Citi is much more data driven. And you talked about the concern over the capital expenditures when money is nearly free to borrow.
That decision is completely different than where we are today.
Having that data justify it makes it a little bit easier for you to probably make some of those strategic decisions.
[00:33:38] Speaker B: Absolutely.
A little bit ago you talked about scaling and challenges with scale. And I think that's really one of them is when you're, when you're the president CEO of an organization and the bets aren't as big, frankly, you know, you can, you can probably absorb some things or justify some things, but when numbers start to change and bets get bigger and like you said, when money isn't free, those things have a, have large impacts on, on the ROI, on different projects and getting disciplined about how you track them and not just passionate about it. I mean, I think every single plan operators probably bought something at the clean show before that they just saw and wasn't part of their plan. And I think transitioning from, you know, hey, this was on sale to being really strategic about what do we need, what's the plans for the future, what does that look like?
That's a big transformation within a business. At least it was with us.
[00:34:36] Speaker A: So big challenge just went out for clean 2025 to get Colin Whitelaufer to buy something.
[00:34:42] Speaker B: There you go.
[00:34:43] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of the data, that kind of opens up another question I have as far as some of the things that are driving your growth, some of the decisions you've made, one of those is been on the marketing side. And one of the things that I gathered from your marketing team in the past is that they really started kind of digging into that customer data. Who are the customers that we want to serve? You talk about healthcare and you talk about the food service industry.
And that was an area where you felt there was a lot of opportunity and you really started using technology to identify those customers. Rather than just naturally growing and cold calling, you started to really target customers much more systematically. How's that process been for you?
[00:35:29] Speaker B: Yeah, probably like a lot of companies, you know, when I, when I sold full time, it was, you know, here's a map of your geography and you're driving up and down streets and you know, entering stuff in and started with a notebook and then migrating to CRM and going to those things versus really being intentional about prospecting. And I think for rental sales reps in this industry, one of the hardest things is just identifying what a good opportunity is. And everybody probably attended a session at one time or another with a publicly traded CEO said, oh, everyone's a potential customer in this business.
That's kind of true, but it's not true for Citi. And the people that are potential customers of Citi. We have very defined, we know what those NASA's codes are, we know what the opportunity is within them. We sell to them differently, they have different needs for a marketing lens.
I guess I kind of started from it on the sales end of people don't care about what you do, they care about what you do for them and how it impacts them. And so starting from the customer viewpoint and working backwards was really a big deal. And I don't know that there was anything new about that, but it was new to us of really saying, okay, if you're a food processor, what are your needs and what are the differentiators that are really there? And that's a lot different than if you, you know, service diesel trucks and identifying whatever those segments are and going from there. And then, you know, then you have a list that you can not only work on in the sales process but in your own business of how you can approve those differentiators. And so for us, when, when we think about marketing, you know, everybody thinks about customer acquisition and that's marketing. I think that's an aspect of marketing.
I think if customer acquisition is pretty far down the sales funnel, you know, branding is top of sales funnel. I also think branding is number one in recruiting new business. And I think it's, I think it's important for, you know, just to identify who you are. It helps your people know who they are. It helps people be proud of where they work and what they do and customers be proud of how you integrate with their business. And I think our business is just, it's not a transactional industry. It's, you know, we're married. You know, we, people put on pants if it's a small percentage of somebody spend, but the CEO of company finds out if there's a hole in your crotch of your pants. Right. So it's kind of a silly thing to think about, but it's so intimate what we do and, you know, it can get oversimplified and we get put, lumped in with the trash guy. But this is, this is a different thing. There's such a service component.
So I think trying to tell those stories through marketing to your current customers, to prospective employees, to current employees, that's really where the marketing component comes in. And to me, marketing is very strategic, and sales is really just tactical. Right. Our sales departments still marines, and they go out and they've got orders, and marketing is like the Pentagon, and they've got to figure out where we're going and what beaches we're storming.
[00:38:33] Speaker A: But I'm hearing in both situations, though, one of the keys to your growth, whether it's in opening a depot or a new plant or changing your marketing strategy, it's first knowing who you are, what you're good at, and what you want to be, and using data to back up a lot of those decisions. So.
[00:38:50] Speaker B: Well, I don't think you can say yes to things until you understand what it is that you want, because at a certain point, say no to something is saying yes to who you want to be. And that has been a very transformative thing for Citi. And it's something I struggle with mightily of saying no to opportunity.
But I think it's really important because at some point, you just get spread too thin and you do it to your people, and they work hard enough in this industry, there's enough things that can happen without making it crazy. And you just can't be everything to everybody.
[00:39:27] Speaker A: One of the things I love about some of your videos is it's really not videos about city clean and simple. It's videos about your customer. And I really love that because you're really almost creating an advertisement for your potential client or your client. And that's what people, you know, that's what people want to see. You know, one of the social media feeds I follow is, is Red Bull. You know, they have a very good, very good instagram feed, and nowhere on that feed do they ever talk about their products. It's always about someone jumping out of an airplane and, yeah, you know, that's just kind of what I'm seeing, you know, a little bit of the same spirit in the city marketing.
[00:40:04] Speaker B: Oh, it's such a good call out. Right, Eric? And, you know, everyone knows when you see the guy jump off a building with a red bull logo on his back, that Red Bull is about taking life to the extreme and what it does to you. Right. And our hope is that whatever your work may be, the way we support that and support you to execute on your plan.
That's what we are. And I think there's a subtle undertone that we're trying to convey.
I mean, that's obviously the intent. The other thing I'd say, eric, is that getting people excited to do videos about laundry all day is a hell of a lot harder than some of our customers that do really cool things. I still think one of the most fun things about what I get to do and when I talk to my six year old about my week, if I go get to tour a business of a customer or prospect and learn about what they do, it's just so cool. And I think if you're a genuinely curious person, this industry is just fantastic to get to see how other people do things and take those learnings back to you. And frankly, marketing lets us do that in a deep way and hopefully deepen those partnerships to our customers so we can add a little value for that.
[00:41:17] Speaker A: Absolutely. And that's phase one. In my overall attempt to get Red Bull as a sponsor of laundry talks, we haven't made it through yet.
I'm drinking a ghost, so I don't.
[00:41:26] Speaker B: Know if you want to take this another direction.
[00:41:29] Speaker A: Exactly, but. And, you know, things about, think of. Think about things that are really fun. I mean, I think that brings other things you're doing on video. It's not kind of looking more at other partners, your customers, but also your suppliers, is that I was fortunate enough to come on site and our team got to participate in your other video project, the wash, which is a knockoff of a hot wings heating contact show on YouTube. And just great, just a great opportunity. You want to talk a little bit about that?
[00:42:02] Speaker B: Well, I hope your digestive tract has recovered, Eric. It's. Yeah, you know, I think our industry, it's funny to me because I'll back up for a second. I think we have one of the neatest industries that exist. There's genuine connection, there's sharing with people in different markets in a different way. The networking is fantastic. That I don't think exists in a lot of industries, and yet we don't have, like, a consistent form of content.
I think what you're doing with lottery talks is so great and some of these more industry specific things. So we're trying to search for things that continue to be good for the industry and selfishly, things that I would want to watch and things that I would be part of. And, you know, I've been in this industry forever and we talked a little bit about that. But what got me to in love with it and hooked in this industry is the amount of help and support and camaraderie I've received from industry, from people all over that have similar problems. And it's really, really special. And hopefully there's a lot of opportunity through marketing, social media to expand on that.
[00:43:11] Speaker A: Yeah. Since you brought that up, I want to talk a little bit. Is there anyone outside of your family, anyone that you feel like that has been a huge mentor to you in that kind of line of thinking, as far as being able to lean on someone, get some good advice from kind of a third party?
[00:43:29] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, frankly, there's, there's a bunch, and, uh, there's been different people at different stages in my life. And, um, you know, I think, you know, when you're, when you're 23 years old and you're trying to figure out your place in, in the world and your place within your business, I think talking to people that have been there and done, that's incredibly helpful. When you're going from one plant to two plants, that's a really big part of that journey of understanding, talking to people who've been there before.
So there's a bunch of people that would be. It'd be hard to name them all, but specifically the one that, frankly, I call all the time and bug him. So Michael Potak, who's the chairman of the board at Unitex, since I met him, he's challenged me in a different way to think about things differently. Frankly, I probably wouldn't have wanted to expand into healthcare without some of that support and direction. And it's good to have mentors and friends and peers that are supportive, but it's better to have them that challenge you in a way that somebody can, only in a deep way. So I'm fortunate that I've done a bunch of them. He's somebody I would call out because I bug him probably a lot more than he'd like, but he keeps answering me, so I'll keep doing it.
[00:44:51] Speaker A: That's awesome. So now, if I'm someone who was in your spot ten years ago or more, and I'm thinking about taking this step, what advice would you give to that next generation of textile rental operators that want to expand their business, what would you tell them?
[00:45:07] Speaker B: Well, I think the first thing is, is go talk to a lot of people and go get involved with things. Go see other, other plants, other laundries. I think that I've never toured a laundry where I didn't learn something, even if it was something I didn't want to do. And, you know, those are, those are important parts of going. And I think you can get really, really bogged out in the day to day in running things that you don't ever stop to talk to people and to learn from them.
Hopefully, your problems evolve and you're continuing to find different people and even support people. So there's a lot of cool industry cost groups, but there's a lot of industry events. CSC has a lot of events. Specifically, there's alliant con that happens.
Tiers a has got some cool events, and there's a ton of opportunity to network and see people. And almost always, people in this industry will answer the phone and say, come on it, let's talk. And unless somebody's a direct competitor, and even then, oftentimes people will review things, share things. And I still, it's one of my favorite things is go to two or other plants, talk to people, and share over a meal. So I think when you are getting into this industry, I think you've got to find that not be afraid to it, whether you're extroverted or introverted or any of the above. And I mean, gosh, Eric, when did you start this industry?
[00:46:31] Speaker A: I started part time at Alliance Systems in the fall of 1992.
[00:46:39] Speaker B: Yeah, right.
[00:46:40] Speaker A: And did not envision I would be there for much longer than six months. But next thing you know, you're in.
[00:46:50] Speaker B: And the lint gets in your blood, even in software.
[00:46:54] Speaker A: That's true. It is.
[00:46:55] Speaker B: But if you think about all the people that you've known, and I don't know if you would have different advice, I'd be curious. But I think just continuing to expand your network and your reach and have those people who answer this all when you call, I think that's how it starts.
[00:47:09] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, the most exciting thing for me on the sales side is that there's a lot of sales opportunities, and a lot of them, they don't come through. And the beauty of working in an industry for a long, long time is sometimes you get a second chance and even a third chance to, you know, to opportunities come, come around. And being in that, being in this industry is very special, and I agree with everything you said about it.
[00:47:33] Speaker B: So, yeah, for us, you know, one of my in the business mentors, this guy, Rick Bohr, was a district manager. He said his best customers, he had to lose for three years to become his best customers. And sometimes people need to see it the other way and see what's on the other side, on the vendor side, I'm sure it's true of you got to be careful because these businesses stay around for a long time. Absolutely. There's probably opportunities that come back around as a way.
[00:48:03] Speaker A: I have a couple final fun questions, but before I do that, anyone that you would personally like to see, I'm going to use this as leverage to get someone on the show. So anyone that you'd like to see as a guest on an upcoming episode of Laundry talks.
[00:48:20] Speaker B: Boy, you know, anybody doing, you know, cool new things, I think is. Is always good.
I think, you know, maybe. Maybe the next step in this series, people that are building plants would be really good, I think. I think Greg Shames would be really interesting to talk to about that. I think Peter Brown would be PJ Dempsey.
Brian Lecter went through that process. He's not a customer of yours, I don't think. But I guess great shame doesn't either. But anyway, that doesn't matter. But I think anybody that's doing some of those things would be maybe a cool next step.
[00:49:01] Speaker A: Cool. Okay, that's great advice. Thank you. Last section here, just to get to know something about Colin that no one knows. Talk about music. I was there last summer. We had some great music discussions. We'll talk about that in a second. But start out, what's the last concert you attended in person?
[00:49:23] Speaker B: The last concert I attended in person was a Primus concert two years ago.
So I'm a child of the late nineties who was into metal, so it was a very nostalgic. Yeah. Silly concert.
[00:49:39] Speaker A: That's. Well, now, is this one of your fate in that genre? Who is your favorite artist then?
[00:49:45] Speaker B: Oh, I don't know. It's. It's probably hard to say. I. You know, back. Back when I used to like things that made me major bleed and headbang a lot, you know, there were a lot. So I went through all those metal stages, and, you know, I'm from Iowa, and slipknot came out with their first album when I was in 8th grade from Iowa. So that was a. That was a big thing growing up. But, you know, the concert I went to before that was the Yvette brothers with my wife. So my music tastes kind of run the gamut. And, you know, I played the cello in orchestra all through fifth grade, through high school. So I'm an eclectic, weird music lover here.
[00:50:23] Speaker A: Well, then let's learn just a few final questions. So, Elvis or the Beatles?
[00:50:29] Speaker B: Elvis.
[00:50:30] Speaker A: Okay, uh, Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin?
[00:50:34] Speaker B: Led Zeppelin.
[00:50:35] Speaker A: Ac DC or Nirvana? Nirvana and Jimmy Buffett. Or Dave Matthews.
[00:50:42] Speaker B: Dave Matthews.
[00:50:43] Speaker A: Okay. And then, uh, almost to that, Van Halen. With. Or without. With David Lee Roth or Sammy Hagar?
[00:50:50] Speaker B: David Lee Roth.
[00:50:52] Speaker A: Okay. And Taylor Swift or Adele.
[00:50:55] Speaker B: I'll go with Adele.
[00:50:57] Speaker A: Oh, that's. That would be terrible in my household.
[00:51:01] Speaker B: Just fighting words for you.
[00:51:03] Speaker A: You know, this is our second conversation about Taylor Swift, so. Not our first. So that's interesting.
We talked about the Arrows tour last year over lunch. I think you were surprised by my level of interest in Taylor Swift.
[00:51:18] Speaker B: Well, I think it was the ability to recite all the verses from multiple albums that was impressive. So, I don't know. Surprise or just blown away impressed. I mean, Superfan, I don't know if.
[00:51:32] Speaker A: I'm super fan and I'm not necessarily reciting Taylor Swift and reciting my daughter's. Reciting Taylor Swift.
[00:51:38] Speaker B: I get it. Yeah. So somehow I missed the Taylor Swift thing. My daughter was pretty nuts about Katy Perry, man. So I've sang roar with her top of my lungs. So there you go.
[00:51:48] Speaker A: That's the same thing. Well, good. On that note, the great thing is there's something in music for everyone, so. Absolutely, Colin, thank you so much. Great guest. Loved hearing your knowledge and input.
[00:52:01] Speaker B: All right, thanks.
[00:52:02] Speaker A: All right. Hey, guys. Thanks for joining us for today's podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. We've got a great resource that you can fill out if you're interested in learning how to streamline your routes. We've put together a ROI calculator that just takes a few pieces of information about your operation, and we'll run the numbers and tell you how much money and time you can save every day. Click the link below if you want to go to that webpage. If you're listening, you can go to the alliancesystems.com website, click on resources, then click on Laundry Talks podcast, and you'll find a blog recap of every podcast and a link to that calculator. Thanks.
