Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey everyone, welcome to the latest episode of Laundry Talks. I'm your host, Eric Smith. Laundry Talks is the podcast for the textile rental industry. We like to talk to all kinds of people in the industry and share their stories while learning what the best operators and the best suppliers are doing in their businesses. Now, I've been looking forward to today's episode for quite a while, and we've got some great guests. And yes, that was plural guests. Honestly, this has been very difficult to gather this group of experts and put them all together at the same time. But we made it happen and I'm going to introduce them in a moment. Today's topic is the benefits of joining and participating in industry peer groups. You know, one of the great things about this industry is the collaboration that occurs, the sharing of information, the opening of doors by operators to other operators, and even sometimes ones that may compete against one another. Now, every company and every operator has their own secret sauce that makes them successful, that they execute. But I love seeing the type of sharing that helps to lift all boats. So what I'm seeing is that operators that participate in peer groups and industry groups, trade organization organization committees, and industry training programs are growing and more adaptable, more open to using technology to their advantage, and have specific goals that they're working towards and actively measuring that progress. So those are just some of my observations. But today I want to learn more about what others on the supplier side of the industry think about the same topic. So I've gathered my own peer group of suppliers so we can discuss it. And what happens typically in this industry is there's a lot of great suppliers out there in and we get to see each other at industry events and trade shows and conventions. And a lot of times those discussions happen, maybe at the bar after events, but then we go on our separate ways with our jobs, and sometimes suppliers can feel like they're on an island. Today I want to share not just the benefits of operator peer groups, but how I've personally benefited in the same ways in an industry supplier peer group that I was invited to join. And I'm so happy I did. So today we're going to talk a little bit about how we formed this group, what the purpose is, what the benefits are, and we'll also lean on this group to hear what they're seeing in the marketplace today. So 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.
We're going to dive in and meet our guests. Guests today. First guest, Casey Wahl from Amtex Innovations. He is the sales and marketing director. Hello, Casey.
[00:02:57] Speaker B: Hey, Eric, how you doing?
[00:02:58] Speaker A: I'm great, yeah, there you go.
We also have Matt Vaca. He's currently the regional sales manager for standard Textile. Prior to that, he had a long history working as a national account manager at Tingu. Matt, so excited for you to be here today.
[00:03:19] Speaker C: Thanks, Eric. Appreciate being on.
[00:03:21] Speaker A: Yeah, welcome. Curry Gilbert from performance matters. He is the director of business development. Especially interested in talking to Curry because he himself helps facilitate a peer group in the industry. And so we're going to get a lot of his input today. Curry, welcome.
[00:03:36] Speaker D: Thanks, Eric. Long time listener of the pod and.
[00:03:39] Speaker A: First time on awesome. And last but not least, we've got Levi Nix, the director of sales for M and a matting.
This guy is everywhere, all over the country. I see him all the time. So glad you're with us today too, Levi, how you doing?
[00:03:55] Speaker E: Thanks, Eric, I appreciate it. Appreciate you having us. Means a lot.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: Perfect. Okay, so my first question here is that all of us, I think, agree we've seen the benefits of peer groups in the industry and we're going to talk a little bit about what operators are doing in a moment. But I want to know more about this supplier group first. So what's going on here?
I'm going to let you, Levi, answer this first question. You're a founding member. Why don't you quickly share a little bit about first what you do at M and a matting and then give me a quick update on how this group first got together.
[00:04:27] Speaker E: Yeah, of course, Eric, I'd love to a little bit about what I do. So I started with M and a matting about five years ago, started out in our management and trainee program and then moved into some different regional sales manager roles and then currently now reside as the director of sales for Textile Rental. So my main job and my main role is really just getting out in front of the customer, being the voice of the company and learning how we can better improve on our service to customers, but also helping our team that's out there in the field as well, helping them service their customers, product training, education, things of that nature. So just kind of a quick background on how the group got started. It was actually really fun and interesting story. It was at the TRSA annual conference a couple of years ago. I think it was the Nashville event, actually. And I had never met David Tengu with Tingu before. And lo and behold, him and I got together on one of their events making goo goo clusters, which is a candy that I have never heard of. So we enjoyed our time together kind of in a roundtable, really intimate setting, and got to know one another. And he had the idea of, what about a group that comes together maybe once a month that's made up from the various suppliers in the industry, just to grow as individuals grow, as better parts of our family grow, as better parts of our community grow as professionals, but also try to help one another out as business partners or in the industry altogether. So that's kind of a brief history of how it got started. And then, obviously, Matt, here on the call, was really a key factor on bringing everybody together and inviting everyone else to be a member. So it's an honor and a privilege, to be quite honest, to be a part of this group. And everybody always says, you are who you surround yourself with. And I certainly have become a better person, better business professional, just being a part of this group.
[00:06:25] Speaker A: Oh, wow. Thanks. And the funny thing is, I was at that same event. I remember making those candies and had no idea that this discussion was going on. And possibly the table next to me, sometimes, you know, the luck is just follows you around. Levi, that's fabulous. So, yeah, so David T. Really was the inspiration here, Matt.
He came back from this event and then pitched you this concept. Is that what happened?
[00:06:52] Speaker C: Yeah, that's right. So, as you mentioned at the front, the new regional sales director for standard textile. However, before that, as you mentioned, I was national account manager for Tingu. When David introduced me to Levi, I was a little skeptical at first about this conversation that David suggested I have with Levi, but it took about five minutes of having a conversation with Levi that we just really hit it off. We align, you know, with similar values, similar work ethics.
So it just, it progressed from there, and Levi and I thought that it would be a good idea if we invited somebody else, and that somebody else was Casey, who I knew a little bit, but certainly not as well as I now know. And I think Levi said it very well. It is certainly an honor and a privilege to not only have been paired up with Levi and Casey, but now also curry and you, Eric. So it's just, it's been a blast. I've learned and gained so much from this group.
[00:07:59] Speaker A: Yeah, that's great. That's a great lead in to Casey. And I'm gonna have Casey talk a little bit about, you know, how he got involved, a little bit about what, what you, what you do. And also, people love to hear how in the world did you end up in the laundry industry, Casey? So why don't you just tackle that section for us?
[00:08:16] Speaker B: That's a lot. I might need a refresher along the way, but yeah, Matt came up to me at an industry event, I think it was a TRSA sales and marketing conference and introduced themselves and we had a little bit of a small talk situation and then he invited me into this group, as Levi described, to make me a better professional and potentially as a better person and followed father and whatever else. And I mean, at that point you're kind of silly to turn something like that down if people want to invest into you and want you to invest into them. So I saw it as a win win situation and little did I know I was getting involved with SEAL team six here with the quality of people we got ourselves around here, but SEAL team six of the laundry industry, I guess. But like you said, everybody has an interesting story of getting in the laundry industry and mine's no different, I guess. But one of my wife's relatives works in the industry and I got married and was moving to Cincinnati, relocating, looking for a new position and kind of spread my resume out and got into the laundry industry and now I've been in almost twelve years. So once you hit that five year mark, you're in for life. I think we all have been told that many times and probably all agree with it now too, but that's how it goes.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: Awesome. And I was fortunate enough for had some knowledge of KC. We have some mutual friends, we have people that we know that go to TRSA's EMI program together, so we kind of knew one another. But then luckily you're the one that asked me to join the group. I was so excited, didn't know what I'd be getting into. But it certainly led to a lot of personal improvement and enjoyment. Kind of just really added a lot to my career personally, so. And then of course, we don't want to forget.
Lastly, here is Curry Gilbert from performance matters. He's the person that joined after me. And again, I mentioned you facilitate a peer group, so I already, I knew this would be up your alley. I knew you would probably join, but tell us a little bit about that.
[00:10:32] Speaker D: Well, when Eric, and I believe it was Eric, you approached me. I think it was at an itcher conference. First thing you know, it screamed pyramid scheme to me. So I was, I was wary at the very beginning, you guys coming to me.
But, you know, it's like most of you guys, I've worked in other industries, been with other companies or outside this industry, but never had the opportunity to join a group like this, to come together, as the others have said, to challenge each other professionally, to challenge each other personally. So not just how are we growing professionally, but how are we growing personally and to know others at a deeper level within the industry? Because, Eric, I think you set it up well. Too often we find ourselves, whether you're an owner or an operator, whether you're someone within, within the plant or within the sales team or within the supply base that's on an island. So coming together on a regular cadence every six weeks or so, looking at new ideas, sharing ideas, all of those things. As soon as you guys kind of explain it to me and we crossed off the pyramid scheme thing, I was in.
Cool.
[00:11:47] Speaker A: Let's. I want to talk a little bit. We're going to talk a little bit about what we, what we, what we do in this group. But as far as the name, we, we spent some time early on talking about if we were going to have a group name or not, and really never formally came, came up with a name. But we use this term, the laundry supplier guy, as almost a placeholder. But from my perspective, it's like we've used that for so long as a placeholder, it's kind of almost become our, you know, dude, default name at this point. So we had some fun talking about some different ideas. But the name itself is also not exclusive to guys. It's just a term we use. So the group could possibly expand past the laundry supplier guys, but also we have a couple nicknames.
A mutual friend of ours, Emily Halber from clean and simple marketing, she uses a different name. She calls this group the. The laundry boy band group. And so we're always open to suggestions. Any others that you guys have heard since we started getting together?
[00:12:51] Speaker C: Eric, I will say that every time I talk to David Tingu, he asks me about the name and threatens to disband this group if we don't come up with something better. So we better get to that.
[00:13:04] Speaker A: So that's still on the table.
[00:13:06] Speaker B: I sat with him at this year's TRSA annual conference at dinner, and he was throwing out ideas and said it needs to be unrelated and it needs to be related. And it's pretty funny, but I know that we don't want to hear Levi or anyone else on this call saying, so we need to avoid the boy bam. Title, I think.
[00:13:25] Speaker A: All right, so, Levi, back to you. Let's talk a little bit about what a typical meeting looks like. So how do we schedule? How do we craft an agenda? How does that work? You might share in some of that.
[00:13:35] Speaker E: No, not at all. That's a really good question. So it's relatively structured, so it's formalized, but informal, if you will. So it's a little bit of the best of both worlds. So typically, we go ahead and set our meetings out. Usually, I think three or four meetings in advance. We pick one person to be the host of that meeting, and they really have the ability to create and structure and design the meeting any way that they would like to, with the purpose of the meeting being to grow as an individual, whether that's as a family member, or even grow personally and professionally as well. So it might be a book review that we go over. I know, Curry, you've done some chat GBT stuff and AI information that you really helped to educate us on. So it's really involved in terms of how a meeting structured and designed. And the thing that I really like about it the most is every meeting is different, meaning that there's no time. You come to a meeting thinking it's the same content, same information, same structure, same layout. So you really are always on your toes. But the thing that means the most to me is seeing how each person in this group prepares so well for the meeting to where it encourages me and challenges me to prepare very well for the time that I have the opportunity to host the meeting with structured notes, slides, things of that nature, and obviously prepared content. So we're adding value to the group and not just getting together to hang out, if you will.
[00:15:07] Speaker A: Yeah. Any thoughts on that, Curry? Do you want to add anything to that?
[00:15:12] Speaker D: I think Levi said it well. This is not just a social hour. There are components to that, but we're really here looking for a space. And I would add the one thing is everyone is transparent and vulnerable on this. You can be in other groups where you don't have a vulnerability aspect. And it's hard to really get down to a level of sharing that you can say, hey, I need help with this, and support, and others will be there not to condemn or criticize, but to say, okay, let's break that out. What problem are you having and how can we support you? So, that is a unique aspect to this, this group.
[00:15:50] Speaker A: And I'll say that Curry has brought. One thing that Curry has brought is a little bit more of the planning and measurement accountability from his side, because that's what he works a lot at with his.
Internally, at his company, and with the peer group he works with. So that has been.
We've seen a trend now where we're getting homework from time to time and planning and really enjoying ourselves. Matt, anything you want to add there?
[00:16:16] Speaker C: Yeah, I would just say that Levi hosted the first meeting with the five of us, and he commented on how much prep work we all put in, but he really set the bar when it came to that prep work. I remember seeing that PowerPoint presentation thinking, oh, my gosh, I'm going to have to actually do some work for this group. So it's really because of Levi setting that really high standard from the get go. And then Curry, just most recently, we worked on a goal session, and that's just been really meaningful and instrumental to set both professional but also personal goals.
[00:16:55] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Casey, any kind of final thoughts on that or what's been one of your favorite meetings that we've hosted or had, and what was the topic?
[00:17:05] Speaker B: Like how every meeting is slightly different, you know, from, from one person leading it to the next. We get different ideas and different tasks. You mentioned homework, so we may get a book to read. And there's been four or five books that I would have never been exposed to or even took, taken the time to read if it wasn't for this group. Curry's given me a couple podcasts, you know, in personal life, you know, working on different things. So it's really been, like you said, the full picture of us as individuals, you know, at work and outside of work, and trying to help each other get better and be accountable.
[00:17:38] Speaker A: Yeah, that's been great. It's opened a lot of doors for me as far as we have the formal meetings, but it's just really opened up. There's four other friends, people that I have now that I can text or call and feel very comfortable doing that. I know that happens quite a bit on the operator side, and it's nice to have that kind of collaboration on the supplier side also, and really get some good feedback from one another. A lot of positive things. But we also talked about some serious topics, too, so really enjoyed it.
Let's talk a little bit about operators. All of us get around the industry quite a bit. We see each other at events. We're still very few events where all five of us happen to be at, so that's always a very special occasion. So I think we haven't had that yet in 2024, but I'm looking forward to it, keeping my fingers crossed. But, yeah, what are some of the things that you're seeing in the industry right now I'm going to start with. I'm going to go start with Matt. You're kind of shifting from one company to another, but when you're out dealing with your clients, what is it that they really need help with?
[00:18:50] Speaker C: Yeah, so if I could start just by saying I think there's a lot of amazing things happening in our industry with innovation and technology.
Casey mentioned artificial intelligence and what that's doing for our industry, which is really exciting, but obviously there's challenges and concerns. And the one that I seem to hear the most of as I travel and visit with these laundry owners and managers is conserving costs. How can we save money in a time where everything is just so expensive, be it labor, be it supplies?
Both at standard textile and at Tingu, the message that is delivered to us every day is we need to work with our clients to help save the money. Be it in a sheet that you're going to get more uses out of lowering that cost per use, or on the tingu side of things, an e commerce platform that allows our laundry customers to buy products. Twenty four seven to make sure that that equipment is. Is staying operational. So conserving cost. I'm sure I'm not alone in hearing that feedback, and that's just what I'm personally trying to do. Just help our clients run a better business case.
[00:20:02] Speaker A: Yeah. On that same subject, I would go back to Casey, because Casey's. I'm sure saving costs and sustainability are probably big issues in your line of work, Casey. And you want to talk about what you're seeing from your customers, what they're looking for, what you're kind of trying to help them with.
[00:20:22] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So, you know something we at Amtex have tried to target is utility savings. I know it's a point of emphasis across the industry. I know all the chemical companies are working on the same thing with formulations and trying to optimize different formulas for less water use, less time and less energy. That's what we're trying to do from the textile side, too, as our startup is. Look at textiles in a different way than we've done it for the last 40, 50 years, and see what kind of gains and changes we can make to improve costs for the operators themselves. In certain parts of the country, you may get limited on the amount of water you're allowed to use at a given time, just a blanket ten or 20% savings. Where you. We as an industry are getting the word out that we are great recyclers. We are already reducing water and trying to push back a little bit on that because we're trying to do the best we can at the beginning. Don't try and limit us even more. So, so the operators are trying to cut costs in every way possible with the economy the way it is, but utilities is one way to look at that and try and save an extra dime here or there.
[00:21:35] Speaker A: Perfect. Yeah. And, okay, so I'm going to ask Curry a question, a little bit different question, because Curry does, he works with operators all over the country, but a lot of those are independent operators. And one of the challenges that I see time and time again with independents, especially if they're not actively involved in a peer group, is, and they're kind of on an island, they just don't have that measurement benchmarking that a larger company or a national chain has. And so sometimes they, they feel like they're doing good. They don't really know how good they're doing. Could they be better? And so I think, curry, you have a lot of expertise in that area. Tell me a little bit about working with those customers, how they can benefit working with you and working within their own peer groups.
[00:22:19] Speaker D: Yeah, so, Eric, great point.
The peer or cost group model has been part of the industry for many, many years. There's great value in that and getting together with non competitive other owners and operators sharing ideas. And again, similar to how we've structured somewhat of this group, I would say the challenge that we see a lot of the times, and really what I'm seeing, and Casey alluded to some of it, was it's kind of a double edged sword. Our industry is full of doers. So the owners, the operators, down to the route, service level, sales. But even at that management level and the owner level, most in the industry work hard. They work really hard, nights, weekends, whatever it takes. But our industry, as it continues to sometimes swirl in a whirlwind or so, you can get sucked into that. So as owners or management levels, a lot of times we see them working at a level or even two levels below their true title. And so when you do that or when you get sucked into that because you're a doer and you're trying to plug a hole, you're trying to fill a route because route rep got sick all of a sudden and it pulls in the route manager on the route and then leaves the gap there. What that does is it distracts the strategy and the ability to look at your business and work really on it versus in it. So that's a common term that is not to our industry specific, but we just see it so much. And so by having so many doers and that double edged sword, it prevents them a lot of times from being able to look at their KPI's, look at their measurements, and really analyze the business in a way that we see and try to support with.
[00:24:17] Speaker A: Yeah, and I'm going to add just that we see, again, this issue of being on an island. Again, there's people that benefit greatly being in groups. And even at Alliant, we have an annual meeting, which is in person and people love it and have a good time, but that's not available 365 days a year. And so one way that we've been trying to tackle it is kind of like Matt was talking about his the portal they have for Tingu and the success that they're having with that. We've kind of created a community on the alliance side where our customers can have that experience every day of the year. And what we've seen is that sharing of information, there's some very basic issues, questions that come up on the software side that have a really simple answer, but if you don't have anyone to talk to about it, you might struggle with it. And so that's just another benefit we see of peer groups and industry collaboration. So, Levi, you see you're on the road a lot. You're sometimes, I know, focused on your customers saving money and making the life of their product that they purchase from you last longer. What are you seeing?
[00:25:29] Speaker E: Yeah, so it's kind of, Eric, it's kind of a two fold approach. When we're out there on the road, we see couple things with our customers. Number one is everybody wants to increase their revenue. We all do. That's part of business as part of the strategy. And the other is to maximize the life of the product. Right. Because the longer you can have your product last, the more revenue you can get for that individual product ultimately help to drive down that payback period for it. So when we're out there with customers, we're really trying to accomplish two key things, is we want to work with the sales teams to kind of open up from the tunnel vision, because it's really easy to have tunnel vision when we're calling on the same customers every day or same end users every day. So identifying other opportunities with existing customers for those add on or complementary sales that can help to grow the bottom line and increase their annual revenue. The second part of that is working more with the production side or the service side of the business, which is trying to maximize the life out of their existing products, such as making sure that the wash process is the way that it needs to be to maximize the product. And one of the other things that we've seen this year so far, more in the economy side, whether you're on the east coast or West coast, it seems like overall, there's kind of a general concern, I think, with end users or restaurants, healthcare facilities, etcetera, of the state of the economy. So we started to see a little bit of a slowdown in terms of end users wanting to be more attention focused on their invoice. So being able to maximize the life of the product, being able to help our customers reinforce the value of their service that they're offering the end user and retain and sustain the existing business is a very, very important aspect. Being able to ultimately keep the bottom line, but also grow it as well.
[00:27:29] Speaker A: Yeah, that's great.
I feel like just back to the peer groups in general, one of the other benefits that I see is that when you get to a group like this, at some point you feel a little bit more of a, you're in a comfort zone and you feel a little bit more comfortable having some of those difficult or honest conversations. And the operators I know do that too, that I think that a lot of these groups that curry is talking about that have facilitators or cost groups, I think a lot of those that have been really successful have evolved from more of a social group to one that's really auditing each other's operations. And sometimes it's just the smallest little process or just moving a piece of equipment or just say, asking a question on a plant tour about why are you doing it that way? Have you considered this? And that's what I see from time to time that has been really successful. Any thoughts on that?
[00:28:28] Speaker D: I hear that all the time, Eric. As we go to, we run and facilitate two peer strategy groups. And within those, invariably it can be something so small. We even had a client have a little bit of an alliant epiphany at our last meeting where someone mentioned a query or report or something that they were trying to pull. The person next to them said, well, you here, just log in. They were on and be able to do it. And they're like, hey, that paid for the whole meeting right there. So it was cool. And that was just a sidebar. So whether you're at a plant or whether you're in a meeting room going through KPI's or best ideas or even worst ideas, what if there's something we failed at that could save another owner or operator $50,000 or six months of development of this or that. We want to share those ideas and be in a space to do those.
I think that's a good point in reference.
[00:29:28] Speaker A: Yeah. I had a similar experience when I was recently on site at a customer, and they were actually using some of the technology that we want our customers to use. And this happened to be automated credit card payments. But before they use the Alliant product, they were doing just every credit card payment was a one off payment. And when they moved to the alliant version, they just continued to do it one off, not realizing they could do all their payments in a batch and save hours of time. And so something very simple. I don't know, Levi, are you saying that when you actually get out and see how people are actually utilizing the product, where you're like, okay, I now understand the problem you've been reporting, and now I can actually see it because I'm on site. You know, those, those things helping you out?
[00:30:13] Speaker E: Yeah, those are, those are huge. To be able to get to the plant and actually put eyes on the process or the product, because that really helps with understanding the problem or the situation, but ultimately is finding the solution for the customer. And I would kind of circle back a little bit when we talk about the advantages of being part of peer group. One of the biggest advantages that I think, and I would encourage anyone that's listening this podcast, is if you're not a part of one, absolutely. Try to be a part of one or join one or even create one. Would the main focus of it be when you're able to work and communicate in a network of people, we want to make sure that we're trying to protect the people in the plant. So the biggest thing I've noticed is when going on plan tours and hearing people communicate and network with one another, is seeing the safety protocols that different plants have around protecting their people and realizing, oh, well, you have this safety measure or this tag out lockout system, and being able to capture that and put it back into their plant is ultimately a huge advantage with protecting their people and keeping them safe.
[00:31:24] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a fabulous point. Thanks, Levi. I'll tell you one other side benefit of being in this group is that I know when I go to an industry event, sometimes you get up and show up at the breakfast buffet and there's all these empty tables. But if one of you guys is at that event, it's always nice to have someone ready to welcome you and have breakfast together. So I've definitely appreciated that.
Any other thoughts just on kind of what we can do to continue and help our customers and improve our careers at the same time?
[00:31:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I'd just like to add, you know, kind of where Levi was going to is, you know, operators go to each other's plants and they tour them and they give feedback and they help each other. There's a lot of vendors that are coming in to everyone's operation that have been to potentially hundreds of laundries.
And like Levi said, there may be a safety thing or just a different way that a different plan is doing something that could be helpful to another location.
So I would say use all the tools at your dispense there. Ask around, don't just ask other operators, but there may be vendors with other options, too. So just a thought.
[00:32:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:41] Speaker C: Eric, if I could just add to what you and Casey said prior to being part of this group, I would meet customers at the different networking events, TRSA, CSC, etcetera, by going up to them on my own. Whereas now, because of the four of you, I'm often being introduced to laundry managers, laundry owners.
So that's been incredibly helpful. And I imagine the same is true for the operators. If you've got another operator friend, I'm sure they're introducing you either to other operators or to other suppliers.
[00:33:17] Speaker B: Just to.
[00:33:18] Speaker C: Reinforce just the amount of value that's created because of this peer group.
[00:33:24] Speaker E: I would certainly second that. Being newer to the textile rental industry. When I first started going to the conferences and not knowing a whole lot of customers or people or other suppliers, I could always count on one of you guys to introduce me to somebody. But the biggest key is I could always count on Eric to point me where the closest Starbucks was. So that's probably the biggest takeaway.
[00:33:47] Speaker A: And my goal for this year is to drink less caffeine so we can. But how's it going?
There's a lot of things that are going well that I have not executed on that KPI. How about that?
[00:34:03] Speaker D: Can't win them all.
[00:34:04] Speaker A: We can't win them all. That's right.
Actually, I have a couple questions. Any other thoughts on customer peer groups? We can still cover them. I do have a couple. Just quick questions I want to ask some of the guys in the group here and learn a little bit about each of you. So I'm going to start with Curry. Curry Gilbert.
I do see there's guitars in the background.
We'll talk about maybe in another podcast.
The behind the music of your college band. But today we're just going to focus on what's your go to karaoke song?
[00:34:41] Speaker D: Oh, wow.
Great. Great question.
I'm terrible at singing, so I'm moderately poor at guitar and terrible at singing. But I will say that I've been listening to.
I've been going a little bit old school recently, listening to some classic Def Leppard stuff. Their stuff is just. Man, it is so good. And then I went online and saw the making of the hysteria album, where it took him forever. It took him because the drummer lost his arm, and they went through various producers, and it took him four or five years just to make that album and the whole history behind it. And it came out, there was so much pressure on him, and then it was just like, you know, it's all 12 million records in the first year. It was so that one's been. Those have been on my list, so.
[00:35:30] Speaker A: Okay, so you're saying that in the shower these days.
[00:35:33] Speaker D: Very poorly saying, yes.
[00:35:35] Speaker A: Well, what did you say? Very poor singer and moderately bad at guitar. That sounds like a winning combination to me.
[00:35:42] Speaker D: It's all for the next bod.
[00:35:44] Speaker A: All right, so. Okay, I'm going to jump down to Levi because he's farthest down on my screen here. But Levi, relatively new father, young child, and, I believe another child on the way. So two questions for you. What's the best dad advice you have here for this group? I think all of us here are fathers, and you have a good dad joke.
[00:36:09] Speaker E: You want to share who those are? Two really good questions. I feel like I'm learning both of those. Definitely learning both of those every day. I would say the biggest thing for me, for dad advice or new fathers is grace. Showing grace to our children, but also showing grace to ourselves as fathers and making sure that we're taking time, whether that's, you know, ten minutes, 15 minutes, or once a week, to spend really just with ourselves, to really reflect on what am I doing poorly, what can I do better? But just to take a step back and provide that grace for ourselves to relax and understand we don't have all the answers. Because I think the biggest thing for me being a new dad is I was like, I've got to know every single answer, and that's just not the case, and I'm never going to know every single answer. So take a step back. Provide myself a little bit of grace, but also to seek out wisdom from others, which I know you guys have been a big asset for me there. Best dad joke. I have a couple. Actually, probably more than a couple.
So probably one of my favorite ones that I've ever heard is, why did the cookie go to the hospital?
It was feeling crummy.
[00:37:25] Speaker A: All right, there we go. Got it.
[00:37:27] Speaker E: I'll add a bonus one. Do you guys want one?
[00:37:30] Speaker A: Sure, sure.
[00:37:31] Speaker E: What do you call a bear with no teeth?
A gummy bear.
[00:37:36] Speaker A: Oh, you had it. Yeah. That's fabulous. Well, I really love the advice on the grace because that's one of the things that's actually I appreciate about people when they are comfortable enough to say, I don't know. And that's always nice to see. All right, um, that's gonna be a tough, tough one to follow. Um, Casey, let's talk a little bit, a little bit about you. You're in the Cincinnati area, but let's, let's dive into Casey's, um, you know, sports. Uh, give me your sports routing interests real quick. Who, who's on your list? Who's the teams you follow?
[00:38:10] Speaker B: I've adopted the Cincinnati Bengals being here for about twelve years. And I grew up in Indiana and, you know, kind of followed the NFL, but not too close. But once I came here, it's kind of everywhere when they're really good. And lately it's been a lot of fun. And I got three young boys who have gotten into it as well. So, you know, Joe Burrow and the team get a lot of interest from the young elementary kids because of all the dancing and scoring and everything. So, yeah, it's been a lot of fun, of course.
[00:38:43] Speaker A: So are we predicting a Super bowl win this year?
[00:38:46] Speaker B: I don't know. The division we play in, and, you know, the conference we're in, too, it's very tough.
[00:38:54] Speaker A: So, one question I've got for Matt is that Matt is a busy, busy guy and, but married, family with young kids, job, a new job, and also full time night student, if I'm, if I'm correct. So you're getting your, your master's in business soon. So how do you, how do you deal with all your people pulling at you for your time?
[00:39:19] Speaker C: Yeah, thanks. If I could just say, just on the subject of Joe Burrow and his dancing.
Curry might be an average singer and guitar player, but you should see him dance. And I would encourage anybody who sees him at the next industry event to ask him to show off his moves. And Levi, we were hoping that this, this podcast would entice some other talented suppliers in the industry to join. But after they hear those jokes, I'm not sure if there's going to be much interest so we might have to work on those. But yeah, Eric, thanks for saying what you just did. I am busy but anything that matters, at least this is what I've learned. Anything that matters to you, you sort of make time for. So I've certainly made some sacrifices. Less patriots games, less bruins gains, a little bit more studying. I'm just five weeks away from graduating with my MBA. So very excited about that and I'm looking forward to having some more time on my hands. But I'll just say about being back in school, it's been really fun. You mentioned my children. I have an eleven year old and an eight year old and one that's not yet in school. But it's been really fun to talk to them, sort of go through school together, talk about studying and having to do homework and sort of share in some successes and maybe complain that we've got work to do that we maybe don't want to do. So.
[00:40:41] Speaker A: Yeah, awesome. Thanks for, thanks for sharing that.
That's it. Oh, go ahead, Eric.
[00:40:48] Speaker D: Did you notice Matt said school and fun together? Yeah.
My dad advice for the rest of the group because you've gone through with kids, but for the ones with a little bit younger, avoid the whole teenage years because then, you know, school one, you don't have to, you could, you can go away, go on vacation and come back after a few years. So yeah, there's, there's the advice.
[00:41:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree too. I've enjoyed all phases of being a father. Even the teenage years which are, can be a little bit bumpy. But you know, they're only for a short period of time. So.
[00:41:21] Speaker D: That's true. Ups and downs.
[00:41:23] Speaker A: Ups and downs. It's all good.
And even, even the bad times are good times. That's, that's my takeaway as a dad.
[00:41:30] Speaker C: So Eric, you're not getting off the hook.
[00:41:34] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:41:36] Speaker C: This doesn't have to be the question, Stephanie, or team, but when you're not working, Eric, what are you doing for fun? What's your favorite hobby?
[00:41:46] Speaker A: Oh, that's really great. I'm actually quite, I like reading and I'm. Now let me, let me see, let me see here because I don't have a lot of free time. Let me go back as far as my free time. I just like spending time with the family. When we get a chance to travel, we like going to the mountains. Of course, we're here in Texas so we don't really have a lot of mountains. You got to go a long way to get to the mountains. But when we have time to get away. We like to go to Colorado. We like to go to the mountains. We like to hike and just spend time with family and the kids. I've almost grown children and really tried to take as much time and spend time with them as I can. So that's my part time outside of.
[00:42:37] Speaker D: Work to continue with the line of questioning on our host here. Eric, I know you, you may probably weren't going to bring this up, but you're training for a really special event coming up, I think July.
And it's an amazing event, but, but quite, quite a physical challenge riding through, you know. So tell us a little bit how the training's going and what, what that's going to look like as you ascend the, the Colorado mountains.
[00:43:07] Speaker A: Yes, I did get roped into they bike charity bike race. Not really a race. It's more about just can you complete it? I have a brother in law that lives in Denver, and there is an annual event in the mountains outside of Denver called the triple bypass. So it's kind of a scary name, but it includes pretty big elevation change and about 118 miles race through the mountains and the Rocky Mountains.
And so that's happening this summer. I don't know if I'll complete it or not, but I'm going to try. So luckily, there's a lot of, a lot of support teams and, you know, people on hand if, if I fall off the bike and have to walk back, so that's what I'll do.
[00:43:51] Speaker E: But how are you, how are you training for that, Eric? Do you have a bike or are you doing treadmill or stationary bike or what?
[00:43:59] Speaker A: I do have a, I do have a road bike and I've been writing a lot, but it's hard to simulate the mountain air and elevation and hills.
Texas, we have some hill country down here, but it's not quite the same. So that's a, that's a great question. I ask myself that every day.
So thanks. Thank you, Curry. And, oh, and that race, the team is open to join. Anyone that would like to join me on that is more than welcome.
[00:44:26] Speaker D: Outside of nominating this group, certainly friend of the podcast, Tim west, would be by recommendation.
[00:44:32] Speaker A: Well, that, that invitation has already occurred and it is pending. So if Tim's listening, this may be, this may be accountability now. Yeah, this is the accountability part.
So perfect. Well, thanks, guys.
Pleasure. Hope people got a little bit out of this. Maybe it'll, you know, spark another group to get together. And I think any of the people in this group would be happy to talk about it or help encourage or help foster those things happening. So, you know, we're all in this together. It's a big industry at the same time as a small industry and open and sharing of information, I think, as I said in the opener, is really going to help lift all boats for all operators.
Any final thoughts?
[00:45:22] Speaker B: Yeah, I'd like to invite anyone to talk to us to join a call to tell us what we could do better to help the industry from the supplier side.
Reach out to any one of us and we can work you into one of the meetings upcoming. And we did really enjoy that.
[00:45:41] Speaker A: Oh, and we're always guest speakers are always welcome, so we'd love to learn if there's something that topic that we need to focus on. We're happy to have guest speakers join us.
[00:45:53] Speaker E: New group names are highly needed as well. So any recommendations, whether fun, silly or professional, would be fantastic to learn of. But on a serious note, Eric, thanks for having us and always bringing the group together. I think it's a fantastic time for us to connect and improve and learn, but also help our customers as well.
[00:46:15] Speaker A: All right, couldn't said it any better.
Thanks guys and we'll see you next episode.
[00:46:23] Speaker B: Thanks Eric.
[00:46:24] Speaker A: Thank you, Eric.
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.
