Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi everyone, Eric Smith here, your host of laundry talks. Excited for today's episode and normally I talk to textile rental professionals or people in the commercial and industrial laundry industry, have great conversations, learn about some of their stories, and talk about maybe some challenges and ways they've solved those challenges. Today I've gotten a few questions from people that wanted to learn more about some of the general business problems that operators face in this industry.
Things like secession planning and dealing with a multi generational family business and insurance questions. So I went outside the industry and bringing in an expert today. Wanted to talk to someone who is a financial planning expert. Not just a financial planning expert, but someone who's a certified plan fiduciary advisor. That's just kind of complex name for someone that will provide transparent information and put their clients best interest in front of ahead of their own. So pleased to welcome TJ Achero of the Avail wealth group, who's going to help answer some questions I've got and hope you enjoy the episode. So with that, welcome TJ.
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.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: Hey Eric, I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: Absolutely, absolutely. So just a real quick, so people a little bit understand a little bit of your background. Tell me just something about yourself. Tell me a little bit about what avail wealth group does.
[00:02:00] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's a great question. Thanks for asking. Avail wealth Group we work with businesses and individuals to help them pursue their financial goals. There's many things that come up in life, so we want to help prepare our clients for those and also make sure they're doing everything they can to plan for the future and obtain what they want most.
[00:02:23] Speaker A: Perfect. I know that most of your clients are outside of this industry, but you are familiar with the textile rental industry and you've even been to the annual alliant con conference before. So you're very familiar with the similar types of companies that are represented in this industry. Is that fair?
[00:02:43] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
There's important things that each business faces on their growth and when they mature in their different business stages and working with someone who knows their industry and someone who knows how to plan for things that they might not normally think of.
[00:03:02] Speaker A: Well, I'm just going to jump in and get to some of the key questions I had and some of those deal with secession planning. So one of the things about this industry, a lot of family owned businesses, and some of them are on their 2nd, 3rd, fourth, and even have clients that are on their fifth generation in some companies. And I did see a statistic recently that said something like, over 60% of small and mid sized family owned businesses do not have any type of formal written succession plan. Let's just start there.
What are some of the, you know, things that these businesses should be thinking about? Why? Why is it so important to have a plan moving forward?
[00:03:48] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a great place to start. You know, it's alarming when you look at that or you hear that 60% haven't addressed it and, you know, it's, it's not uncommon. Right. It's something we see all the time with clients that, you know, it's just something they've put on the back burner for a while and they know they should do it, but they might not know where to go to for help. Or, you know, they're just focused on continuing to grow their business.
You know, what we often see at times as well is they might have a plan in place, but it hasn't been updated for 510, 1520 years. And there's things that change in your industry. There's things that change from a legal perspective. So, you know, not only having it, but also, you know, making sure it's updated.
[00:04:37] Speaker A: So is that something that you would like, have your clients on an annual basis or maybe every other year sit down and review and just to make sure that that information is accurate?
[00:04:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I'd say annually is a good pace to kind of look at, even if it's just 15 minutes and an annual business meeting or quarterly meeting, making sure it's addressed. Because a lot of this stuff, you do have to plan for the long term and think ahead about. But there are things that change on a shorter term basis that need to be addressed.
[00:05:12] Speaker A: So while I think the majority of companies don't have a formal plan in place, I will say that I continue to be amazed at many of the family owned businesses in this industry.
And you see it all the time where I've got companies and clients that are celebrating their 50th and 60th and 70th anniversaries under family ownership, and it's really a remarkable feat. I even want to just real quickly, I want to brag about one of alliance clients that we've worked with for a really long time, and this summer, summer of 2024, they're celebrating their 100th year in business. And that's just really remarkable. It's almost unheard of. The company is called Liniform, they're located in Ohio, and it's just such an unusual feat that I'm not sure people realize all the things that you have to do right to create that type of longevity. So they're obviously, they're probably, obviously doing some things right, correct?
[00:06:16] Speaker B: Absolutely. I'm sure they could probably teach me a few things. You know, 100 years is, like you said, a remarkable feat.
The amount of challenges that that business has faced over time, the things that they've overcome and all the success that they've made, you know, only speaks to that. So I'm sure, like I said, there's some things they could teach me and maybe vice versa as well.
[00:06:41] Speaker A: Yeah. And I suspect if they've made it through 100 years, they've obviously made it through at least one successful succession transition and likely multiple.
So there's a lot of clients, operators in this industry that have similar stories.
[00:06:58] Speaker B: And whether you're at ten, 2100 years, I think what's important to realize is the impact that these businesses have had in their community and in their industry, and making sure they're successful and go to the next generation is so important.
[00:07:15] Speaker A: Yeah, I looked up a couple other stats because I think even though in some ways the laundry industry is maybe a little bit behind the times, technology wise, in some cases, a lot of these long term family owned businesses, they might be exceeding the market averages as far as the ability to transfer from one generation in the next. A couple of numbers I saw was that less than a third of companies ever even make it from generation one to two, and then I think it goes down to 12%, they get to three, and then fourth generation, 4%, one in 25 companies. So that's how hard it is. And I'm sure some of those companies had actual plans in place that still can be difficult to get there, right?
[00:08:05] Speaker B: Yeah, and I think that's a great point because it's not just about having the plan, but doing the things that are going to help make implementing the plan when that time arrives to be more successful, because it's good to have something on paper, but also taking the time and make sure your team is educated, the roles and responsibilities are outlined. You have a group to plan and think ahead. A good legal and financial team as well.
[00:08:34] Speaker A: Absolutely. I get a little extra research I did, I was looking at, you know, a lot of the alliant clients and, you know, just look at, you don't have to go very far back to see the number of clients that have, have, you know, either sold or transitioned to new ownership in just the last ten or 15 years. And I think that number is somewhere about close to 25% to 30% of just the companies that utilize alliance. So, you know, even for people that are planning to sell, you're having that plan in place. There's events and things that happen that are really out of your control.
Health reasons, maybe. You never know. A global pandemic could come around from time to time. And so there's all these things that you can plan for. There's a lot of things to plan for, and there's things that you need to plan for that you don't even know that are coming.
Well, let's. Let me, let me talk. So let's talk a little bit about what your recommendation is like. What's the first step? Say you have no plan. You have nothing written down. You're not sure what you're going to do.
Maybe it's a family business. You have maybe siblings in the business or children in the business. We don't know if they're going to continue, continue on. What are the first steps that you come in and advise people to do?
[00:09:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's important to first outline what the objectives are for the business. What are the goals for the business as you look at it in its current form and as you think about the next successor, the next generation, start thinking about who are those potential successors. Obviously, we like to keep our independents in the laundry industry. So looking towards what internal partners, other potential competitors to maybe team up with or, you know, even looking at your employees to be a potential owner in the future. There's a lot of different structures, and the sooner you evaluate those options, the more educated you're going to be on what's best for you.
[00:10:42] Speaker A: Yeah. And I want to ask a couple questions about the employee options in a little bit. But probably the most common, again, is going to be either parent, child or sibling, multi generational families that maybe each person is walking their own journey and the goals just may be different at different times. And so do you have clients where you've walked in and just had to manage a little bit of.
Everyone's got their own agenda and what are some things that those companies can do to kind of all, all get on the same page?
[00:11:20] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, people think financial advisor, it's just the numbers guy, but there's a lot of psychological aspects to our business. So, yeah, we've walked into those meetings and, yeah, it can be different opinions, you know, different siblings want different things and sometimes they don't want to be involved or there's a competition. Right. And you want to make sure that you know that each one is taken care of appropriately. So we do have a lot of that type of family discussions, involvement, because we don't want anybody to be burnt or have a feeling that they've been burnt. So it's really just about being upfront with everything, having those discussions, and taking the time to walk through different pitfalls of what could happen.
[00:12:07] Speaker A: Cool. So you talked a little bit about maybe an employee, employee ownership program. So usually when companies get into their succession planning, one option for them always is to sell. Sell to an outside company, a larger company, a chain. It could be a competitor, like you mentioned. Typically, I think that you're going to see in a sale of that type the benefits there are going to be. Maybe you're going to get the highest price in that scenario, but at the same time, you're also going to then lose the history. The business will not continue to operate as it had in the past versus an internal sale or a succession plan where maybe the highest price isn't achieved, but there's other goals that get achieved. And so we see that happening a lot. And what I'm seeing in the textile industry is that those phases go through big cycles. There's times of acquisition and there's times of secession, and they're going to always kind of continue to overlap one another. But a few companies that I've heard of have gone the route of an employee ownership or stakeholder option. Can you talk a little bit about that? I think that's probably a little bit uncommon in the textile rental industry. I think people would love to hear a little bit more about how does that, what's the mechanics of that? How would that happen? Do you mind sharing some information?
[00:13:34] Speaker B: Yeah. So an ESOP or an employee stock ownership plan is a way for the employees to become partial owners of the company, so they really do have a true equity in the future of the business. And oftentimes that can really help carry forward the culture that the original owner or the original family created in the business.
So it is a process. It does have certain tax advantages for both the selling owner and the employees.
So it's kind of a win win situation, as long as all the other metrics line up. But we've seen that be a great method to have a good path forward for the business.
[00:14:20] Speaker A: And is that something that you see as being a good strategy when there's key, key members of the organization that really are looking to get more involved? They might not be part of the family, but they're highly valued employees, high level performers, and it may be the best path forward to continue that organization.
[00:14:51] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
Depending on what that group looks like. Every business is different. Sometimes we've facilitated what's called a management buyout, where it's more of just that kind of management that sees the vision and wants to be a big part of that. So it doesn't always have to be all the employees. There's different types of buyouts out there, but that definitely happens. And when the owner is considering what options are on the table, that's one they don't often think of and should.
[00:15:23] Speaker A: And that's something that you kind of help you bring to their attention, that they have a lot of different options.
[00:15:29] Speaker B: Exactly, exactly.
[00:15:34] Speaker A: And then do you also work in your capacity when you go into these businesses? Do you also help provide and perform that evaluation of the business?
[00:15:46] Speaker B: Yeah. So that was one thing I'm glad you brought up, because I think business valuations are, you know, a lot of times a business owner has an idea in mind of what it might be worth, but it is important to get a true evaluation done and know what. What the business is really worth. And, yes, we do help out with that, and we do work with, you know, experts across the country.
[00:16:12] Speaker A: Yeah. Cool. So you come in and help evaluate the company, help provide direction on maybe some different options that they have. And what are any other information that business owners should be concerned with as they kind of look towards what's going to happen with their company in the future that you get involved with?
[00:16:38] Speaker B: Yeah, I think two things I'll highlight. First is what are ways that we can increase the value of our business once we get that evaluation done? Is there anything that we can do to increase that evaluation? So we do spend some time there. And then on the flip side of the coin, the second thing I'd like to bring up now is, what are the tax implications? Right. How do we minimize the amount of taxes that are paid upon the sale, whether that's doing it through an installment over time or some other type of tax?
[00:17:13] Speaker A: And I assume that that's an ever changing landscape on having to keep up with all the tax rules. Correct?
[00:17:20] Speaker B: It is.
[00:17:21] Speaker A: There may be a benefit to selling this year versus not next year, and that's probably going to always continue to change for owners of textile rental companies. Mike?
[00:17:30] Speaker B: Yeah. We can't control the laws, and the IR's has a tax code that we have to abide by, but every financial decision we make has a tax impact. So the more we know about it, the more we plan for it, the more we can save.
[00:17:46] Speaker A: And outside of this industry, stepping away from the industry, I think sometimes is important because we can really learn from best practices of people that have already done things.
One of the things that we see is on the secession planning is sometimes there's a little bit of tunnel vision on the secession planning. If you don't know all the options you have.
I've had people tell me before, I just heard this company sold. I wish I would have known. I've got tons of interest and I would have reached out, but I didn't know. I think that's just maybe the nature of the beast. When someone's thinking about selling, it's kind of a little, a little bit more of a secretive process.
But sometimes maybe opening up your options, utilizing someone, a third party, you might find that you have more, the landscape's a lot more open than you realize. Is that fair?
[00:18:52] Speaker B: Yeah, it is fair. I think working with someone who's seen things play out, who has experience dealing with those transitions, you know, who studies ones that have gone unsuccessfully to make sure that our clients go successfully, there's so much value in that. So really you want to know all your options, but to giving the education on what those options and how they're going to play out often makes them more comfortable willing to consider those alternatives.
[00:19:22] Speaker A: Casey. And just from outside of, again, looking outside the industry, you see the same thing with mid sized companies.
Are you seeing the acquisition, acquisition kind of ebbs and flows in other industries, too?
[00:19:36] Speaker B: Yeah, it's all over, right? There's, we have this huge generation of baby boomers. They built these businesses up. So it's a very hot topic right now. And I think that's why it goes back to what I brought up first, is aligning with their goals, because it's not always selling for the top dollar. It's, hey, how do we continue this business, continue taking care of our employees?
And that's what we like to find.
[00:20:03] Speaker A: Yeah, perfect. Okay. If we have any more, if anything pops into our heads, we're going to come back to this topic, but we'll talk a little bit about another area of expertise for you. And that is really benefits. I think one of the things that you spend some time is helping companies optimize the benefits that they offer to their employees with obviously, the goal is to provide good benefits, but also make sure that you're competitive as you can be in new hires and recruitment.
So I want to talk a little bit about benefits. And it's no secret that we're not going to focus as much on wages here. Wages obviously are top of mind for everyone, for employers, employees. But I want to really more focus on benefits and start with 401K plans. I know you help companies select and administer their plans. So quick point for you. I did read that said companies that do offer a 401K plan, their employees are about 70% more likely to stay with that company. Is that, do you see, do you have similar information or does that sound true to you?
[00:21:20] Speaker B: Yeah, we do see some more information. There's studies and statistics. We look at all the time in that capacity. And just to put it simply, the less financially stressed someone is, the better they're going to do at their job.
It just all shines through with the value of what a company's offering is much more than just the salary. And all those benefits as part of the benefit package can really make an employee feel valued.
[00:21:48] Speaker A: Yeah, and I know there's been some improvements in 401K participation is also going to be important. So if you look at your company's participation rate, even if you offer a great plan, people aren't participating in it, then you're going to have some problems. So I know more and more companies are focusing on, you know, auto, auto enrollments and auto increases that might match a pay increase or things like that.
What are you seeing that the best companies are doing with their 401K enrollments and programs?
[00:22:23] Speaker B: Yeah. So those two things are probably very top of mind. Automatic enrollment as soon as they're eligible. Automatic increase. A lot of companies are now updating their default investment option to a target date fund to typically in the past it was money market funds, which aren't going to return as much as the market over the long term.
With Secure Act 2.0 law passed by Congress, now plans have to offer the Roth 401K option. So we're seeing a lot of people start to offer that ahead of time before it's mandatory.
And I think employee education is the biggest thing for a lot of our new clients that we're getting in the 401K space. Complain that no one's educated their employees on what the benefits are, how do they work, how to get the match and maximize what you're doing for retire?
[00:23:20] Speaker A: Yeah, I do think that education is important because I remember a long time ago with my first couple contributions and you'd see that on your check and I was like, man, this basically is locked in a vault till I'm 59 and a half, and I thought that was going to be a lifetime, which I guess it is, but I'm a good bit closer to that than I was when I started. And so I kind of see thanking my younger self for at least contributing the minimum at the beginning. I mean, those dollars people contribute in the first few years are probably the most. The valuable dollars that you have, they've probably doubled multiple, multiple times.
[00:24:07] Speaker B: Yeah. Because time's going to catch up with you. Right. And you're going to wish you started earlier if you hadn't. And for the people that have, like, what seemed like such a small dollar amount to start is going to compound and grow over time to be, you know, phenomenal asset retirement.
[00:24:25] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a hard, sometimes can be hard to see for new, new employees, and money's tight and things are expensive. It's having that education and having someone, whether, again, it's a company internal HR or a third party, that can really educate people on the importance of that.
That's a huge win for the employee. But for the employer, you know, again, having people invested in the 401K plan, we know it keeps them more loyal to the company they work for, and it certainly decreases, you know, retention, hiring, and retraining costs. So every time you, if you're able to retain those employees, you know, you're gonna save. The company's gonna save also.
[00:25:16] Speaker B: Yeah. The less time we have to spend, you know, looking for quality employees, the more efficient a business is going to be, the more educated they are, and the less stressed about finances they are, the more focused they're going to be at work as well. It really does come full circle.
[00:25:36] Speaker A: Do you come in sometimes and see maybe that the company maybe needs a little bit of help understanding the benefits that they should be providing relative to the competition as far as recruiting and retaining talent, is that part of the education that has to happen?
[00:25:55] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's definitely education on the employer side, where they have to realize that it's not always a dollars game. Right. Sometimes it's a benefits game. What else are you offering outside of the salary?
And, you know, we've. We've had situations where, you know, it was between them, you know, a smaller company and a bigger company, and we were able to win them over with having the right benefits, the right structure, and the community as well.
[00:26:26] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, I recently, on a recent episode of this podcast, I interviewed a gentleman named Joe Ricci, who's the president and director of the TRSA Textile Rental Services association. So he's really dialed into the industry, but he pointed out something that I think a lot of people don't think about that. A lot of times small business owners in this industry are kind of thinking that they're competing with their peers when they're really competing with the Amazons and the Costcos and the Bucky's of the world for those that are familiar with Bucky's that are offering good pay but top notch benefits. So that's really what I think is going to keep these companies sustainable and profitable moving forward.
As far as having to match those types of benefits.
[00:27:19] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think with our team, we work well with the HR department, whoever's in that area for the business and just being an additional resource for them has been so valuable because they don't always know who to go to, what providers they should be working at, what different things they should be looking at. So just getting an unbiased opinion on what they should be looking at. Very bug.
[00:27:48] Speaker A: I'm curious, I'm just going to ask this. I don't know if you have an answer or not, but have you seen in your experience, anything you've gone in to work with companies and seen maybe some type of benefit that the company offers that you're like, oh, wow, that's really cool. I haven't seen that before in anything that comes to mind.
[00:28:12] Speaker B: Yeah, I've seen transportation benefits. That always surprised me, commuting to work, having that cost covered.
And I think one that people always talk about and is important is maternal and paternal leave. Yeah. So those are popular ones.
[00:28:30] Speaker A: Yeah. I have seen also more and more, I've seen people that are offering English as a second language classes and training, and you don't always know exactly what it is that people are going to grab onto. But there's so many different ways to help add to your benefit package outside of just pay.
So that's great.
One other thing I wanted to talk a little bit about insurance and kind of one of the things I think you also provide is insurance guidance for clients. As far as probably more of an assessment of are there insurance needs being met? Are there any gaps?
What do you do when you go in and assess a company's insurance needs?
[00:29:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I think there's, there's two couple ways to look at it. Right. I mean, first we want to, when we're doing the succession planning, making sure there's a buy sell agreement that's, you know, legal, properly set up, making sure it's a funded buy sell agreement, taking care of, you know, keep in, keep people and the business making sure they're protected, and then all the other areas making sure cyber insurance is taken care of. What about business continuity insurance? We talked about COVID earlier. Not many people were prepared for that. So there's insurance to protect against that loss of revenue.
Those are really hot topics right now. The cyber and the business interruption insurance.
[00:30:11] Speaker A: Yeah. And I assume that, you know, it's probably no secret that cyber insurance cost is going up, but it's almost a necessity. Something five years ago that a lot of operators probably wasn't even on their radar now is a must buy item. So do you have any advice or input on how to start looking for the best cyber coverage?
[00:30:37] Speaker B: Yeah, it's just working with a team that's independent and has access to, you know, a lot of the larger carriers out there that are offering the coverage at a good cost.
And also it just as important making sure they have things in place that can lower that cost of insurance. So having, you know, incident plans, you know, different, like two factor authentication, you know, there's a lot of things that we can do on the cyber insurance side that actually gets your premiums down. It just takes a little bit of work and preparation. So we really do advise our clients on finding a good coverage, negotiating that rate and doing as much as they can to bring it down.
[00:31:22] Speaker A: And a lot of those compliance measures are now certainly on the newer policies are basically requirements. So to get the policy, you're going to have this document of compliance requirements that you're going to have to be, you know, to meet. And so that's become obviously, you know, a standard in these agreements.
[00:31:46] Speaker B: Yeah. Because you got your general requirements, but if you can check off some that aren't mandatory, that that will also help you get your cost as well.
[00:31:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
You know, what else are you seeing on insurance trends or rates? Even on the, you know, on the vehicle side, our industries, route based delivery industry, they're delivering right to business. To business. So vehicle incidents are going to happen from time to time. I see there's cameras everywhere now.
There's even some AI that's coming into the camera systems of the truck and geofencing and things like that. Where do you see, you know, happening on the, on that, on the fleet insurance?
[00:32:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's, you know, carriers are smart. They're always trying to get as much information as they can. But having that, that documented evidence helps the business too, at times. But from what we've been saying, it's just making sure you're staying on top of your policies, working with the right brokers who know which companies to go to, for certain types of risks and how to. How to lower those risks in other ways.
Believe it or not, you know, sometimes you get loyal to a company, but they're, they're not always loyal to you, and you got to make sure to shop around.
[00:33:15] Speaker A: Yeah. You got to continue to have someone kind of working on your behalf and, and researching that. I totally, totally agree. So any, any. Oh, go ahead. Sorry.
[00:33:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I was going to say, depending on the business's size as well, there's different strategies that they can employ to lower their cost of insurance and keep more of that overhead in their pocket. So depending on the size of the business, they should be looking at other strategies to protect themselves.
[00:33:45] Speaker A: So companies that are in a growth mode absolutely should be revisiting those insurance coverages every year. Now that we got a little bit out of the way, I got a couple personal questions. So you got to give the audience a little bit of information, couple a question and a recommendation. So, TJ, you get an expense paid vacation for one week anywhere in the world. Where are you going?
[00:34:14] Speaker B: Good question.
Would probably be like Thailand or Bora Bora, somewhere across the world, because I haven't traveled overseas yet, and I love scuba diving, so a tropical beach and, you know, being under the water with the fish and coral couldn't be it.
[00:34:33] Speaker A: Okay. Just good to know. Whenever, if we've got anyone that wants to offer that trip to you, we know where you'll be going.
Okay, how about. Tell me. I mean, outside of laundry talks and all the different, you know, financial planning podcasts that are probably on your playlist. So any fun podcasts that you've listened to recently that you might recommend?
[00:34:59] Speaker B: Laundry talks.
[00:35:02] Speaker A: Well, I appreciate that, but maybe, you know, and if you don't have one, that's fine. I've got another question. If there's anything you have listened to, feel free to share it.
[00:35:14] Speaker B: Now, most of the ones I listen to are financially related, so.
[00:35:18] Speaker A: Okay, well, give us a good. Give us a good finance related podcast.
[00:35:23] Speaker B: The compound in friends.
[00:35:26] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:35:26] Speaker B: Hosted by downtown Josh Brown. He's on CNBC all the time. He's very open and upfront, transparent type of guy. So I like that.
[00:35:36] Speaker A: Perfect. There we go. And how about a show you've binged from start to finish in the last year that you would recommend a show?
[00:35:48] Speaker B: I've binged, you know, it's not a new one, but I always find myself going back. I've seen it. I think that twelve seasons, I've seen it multiple times. Modern family.
[00:36:00] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. It's just a great show.
[00:36:02] Speaker B: Classic show. It's got good values. It makes me laugh, it makes me cry. I'm not afraid to admit that it's one of my favorites.
[00:36:11] Speaker A: Yeah, that's awesome. That's the beauty of the binging is now there's amazing tv and shows that are available, but there's all these old shows that a lot of people haven't experienced that now they can go back and binge.
I've got daughters and they got onto this. There was this whole suits phenomenon in the past few years where people started watching this, this older show suits.
So. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So that's great. So there's one vote for, for Modern Family and then last question.
You live in the New Jersey area, correct?
[00:36:48] Speaker B: Yes. Yep.
[00:36:49] Speaker A: Sports. Are we going to get a sports affiliation update from you? Who's your favorite team? Who's your favorite athlete?
[00:36:56] Speaker B: So it might surprise you. My favorite team is the Pittsburgh Steelers. So when I started playing football, we were the Monmouth Falcons. We were black and gold. And I said the Steelers is my team.
[00:37:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:09] Speaker B: So I've been there many times. You know, probably a lot of people want to hear giants or eagles or jets, but now I'm, you know, Pittsburgh.
[00:37:19] Speaker A: Ride or die, Pittsburgh.
[00:37:21] Speaker B: There you go.
[00:37:21] Speaker A: All right. Well, thank you for sharing all of your expertise.
Love having experts on the show just to provide some information. Sometimes kind of maybe step back a little bit. So really appreciate you joining us today.
[00:37:40] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks again so much for having me. I'm glad we could put this together. It was fun.
[00:37:45] Speaker A: Thanks, TJ.
Hey, guys, I hope you enjoyed this episode of Laundry Talks and make sure you come back for more. One final thing, my family, my wife and my daughters, we were having a discussion and laughing over dinner earlier this week about just kind of the differences in generations and how we pay for things and what forms of payment we like to use. And I still write a few checks from time to time, although that number has gone down. My daughters, I dont know if theyve ever written a check before. They dont use a lot of cash. They use a lot of electronic payments like Zelle and Venmo. And that change is not only happening on the consumer side, it's also happening on the business side. And we're seeing in all industries, and especially the textile rental industry, that less and less people are using setting up customers on COD terms. Less people are processing manually written checks and obviously huge uptick in credit cardinal ACH transactions. So you want to learn more about some of those changes and how they're impacting your business. Click the link below. We've got a great ebook about integrated payments in the textual rental industry. I think you'll find it informative and interesting, so thanks again. Have a great day.
