Turn Chores Into Opportunity: How a Shopping Center Vacancy Became a Laundromat Business

Ken Wimberly (00:00)
what’s gonna go wrong or how I’m gonna sound or how it’s not gonna work out or how it’s this. I want just people to sing that song, whatever it is that they need to do, get out there and do it. You don’t have to have it all figured out. Take the first step. And then tomorrow, take another step. And the next day, take another step. People get hung up. People get real hung up about not starting or if I make a misstep, they stop. Okay, we can course correct.

We can calibrate what needs to be calibrated and keep on going on in the right direction. But I want more people in this world to do what’s inside of them that they know they ought to be doing.

Quentin (02:12)
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds, and I am super excited today about just life, about being here. And you know, if you watch me long enough, I am excited because I have someone new that we get to talk to. And I always say this, no matter, we could be doing the exact same things in business and in life, but because each person is unique and different, we’re going to do it a different way.

They’re going to be unique spins. They’re going be these unique strategies and ideas that come from our mindset. And so today, that’s why I’m happy because we get to peek into the lens, through the lens of someone who

Ken Wimberly (02:50)
.

Quentin (02:51)
has their strategy, their mindset about something that some people think is a kind of antiquated conversation, but I love that he’s here because he’s going to tell you about ⁓ how this thing can really breathe life.

and maybe give you a different way of perspective of a business to go into. And so I’m super excited for us to learn from Mr. Wimberly. Mr. Ken, how you doing today,

Ken Wimberly (03:16)
I am done. my thank you for having me here good, sir

Quentin (03:20)
Yeah, absolutely, man. Thank you for being here, sir. And listen, man, I kind of want to dive right in. I would love for you to tell people what your main focus is. I would love for you to give them a little bit of an origin story, kind of how you got to where you are. We love origin stories, they hear about your journey. And then, tell them where you are, because geographically, it matters to people, especially if they’re close to you they’re like, oh, I can partner up with this person. So Mr. Ken, what you’re doing, your origin story, and where you are. You got the floor, sir.

Ken Wimberly (03:44)
Yeah.

Well, my name is Ken Wimberly. live in Fort Worth, TX. Married to my beautiful wife Amber. We got three kids, Grace Knox and Kai, 23, 20, almost 22 and 10. And today I’m in the laundromat business and we’ll talk about that in a minute. But origin story. Like I have had, I my children in my.

Friends that are I call my bonus kids during my family. I tell them all the time look You don’t have to have it all figured out when you graduate high school or college because in fact you’re not gonna even if you think you got to figure that you’re not because You will likely have many many different journeys. Certainly I did I’ve had I had a short career in the Navy in the middle of my college career I left and joined the Navy during Gulf War one Out of the Navy. I did insurance and investments after that

I opened up a pizza chain. I say a chain. We’re gonna open up a chain. We opened up one and failed. We could spend the whole day talking about the failure of that and the lessons learned from that. But from there, I eventually made myself into the real estate business. So 2002, I entered commercial real estate space, did land brokerage for a long time. Then 2008, 2009 hits. Make it through that, then get into.

Triple net investment sale do that for a while and then get into and end up becoming a Kellogg Williams franchise owner owned a KW franchise and we’re still doing random very large successful brokerage team doing triple net investments. And then you know from there I started buying real estate as well and bought buying things with partners bought a shopping center in Abilene, Texas and.

Buying that shopping center is what eventually led us to the laundromat business, because we had vacancy in the shopping center. I was just looking for a tenant to come in and fill our shopping center so we could be a good owner. And lo and behold, that led us to being a laundromat owner. We got good at being an owner. We now own four ⁓ laundromat locations of Laundry Love. And then we now help other people become laundromat owners. And so we started franchising a year ago.

⁓ have our first franchise partner getting ready to open up their first unit and then we’re helping others go through the process. So that’s the, that’s the short version of a long story.

Quentin (07:04)
Man, ⁓ man, you said so many parallels. So one, I too have a son named Knox. So you said that, so I call myself Mr. Ken, a professional bonus dad, a professional stepdad. I, this is funny, man. I have two kids, I’m remarried. So I came into my daughter’s life. Yep.

Ken Wimberly (07:10)
Ooooo

Yeah, me too.

Quentin (07:28)
So I gave to my daughter’s life when she was a year and a half, she’s 22, she’s about to be 23 this year, so 22 now. And my son, Knox, I came to his life probably when he was around six or so and he will be 12. And so I call myself a professional bonus dad, man. And so as you talk, man, I’m like, see, I’m I’m living up with this guy here, absolutely. But I love it, know, Amber, I caught Knox and Kai. What was the other, you had three, right? Grace.

Ken Wimberly (07:54)
I did mention Grace. So my daughter,

my daughter is grace. She was the my first born and had me wrapped around little finger ever since so.

Quentin (08:04)
Yes,

sir. Nobody get it. Went to the Navy, man. Went into insurance. I got into the commercial real estate space. There’s some stuff with Carla Williams, four laundry loves. And I’m regurgitating the stuff that you said for a reason, because you said so many great things. And Mr. Ken, I say probably every podcast, destiny has no wasted moments. Meaning no matter what we go through in life, different mindsets

has helped us be the person that we are today and kind of form the mindset, the mission that we do, the passions that we have. So over time, just these moments have formed the person that we are. So Mr. Ken, I would love to know what has these moments revealed to you about yourself? Has it revealed discipline, tenacity, humbleness? Like what have these moments revealed to you, Mr. Ken, about you?

Ken Wimberly (09:00)
That’s a great question. ⁓ You know, I tell you this. Interval the number of different things over the year. Early on, it revealed a lot of humility in my the need for humility because I had hubris.

Quentin (09:15)
W O O

Ken Wimberly (09:15)
Right, had too much hubris and

I needed some humility. And life has a way of showing up and teaching you the lessons you need to learn. And so early lesson into that. And as I’ve evolved today, I’ve been taught a lot of peace, patience. I’ll give you great example. was driving back from.

Las Vegas. It was a 16 hour drive, but we had a franchise, not a franchise show, yeah, a franchise show in Las Vegas last week. And I was driving back and everything was going great. The drive gone great. And all of a sudden I see this rock fly up from a truck engine. Bam, smashed my window.

And I said, this guy trying to teach me a lesson. And I said, I’m not sure what this lesson is. I think it’s trying to teach me.

Patience and it’s trying to teach me To that our expectations don’t always get met in fact oftentimes they don’t get met and in But you get what you need right there. So anyway, I Every day I have lessons that show up and all I have to do is Be attentive to realize what’s going on

in my life and to realize there’s a lesson to be learned and for me to implement something in my life because of that.

Quentin (11:22)
Yeah. So well said, man. Actually, when you were talking, I was getting chills. And as you was talking, I started thinking about my own life. This past weekend, or weekend before, we had a plumbing issue ⁓ and I wanted to save us some money. So I figured, what? Don’t look like that, Mr. King, bro.

Ken Wimberly (11:41)
⁓

man, I’ve heard this story because it’s coming from me, yeah.

Quentin (11:44)
You don’t even know what this is going. So,

I, and I’m going tell you what the issue was. I could not get a certain piece off. I could, was literally on track and knew what needed to be done. But Mr. Ken, you know what? I did not have the right tool. And so I went and I tried to buy the right tool just to buy a tool that was useless because of

the way the plumbing was down bottom. I say all that to say, I couldn’t get it done, so I had to hire somebody. But the difficulty taught me that I need to have the right tool. And I think what difficulty in life does, it prepares us to be able to develop tools that we can use at the right time. Because sometimes, if you don’t go through the difficulty, if I did not go through the plumbing issue, I would not know a Basin Wrench. I never heard of a Basin Wrench.

Ken Wimberly (12:25)
you Mm.

Quentin (12:43)
until the guy would start explaining to me, yeah, if you have a bass and wrench, that’s going to be helpful. And I think what these moments teach us, like, cause you was talking about patience, there’s no, you do not know what patience is unless you operate the tool of patience. If you never operate the tool, you don’t, you don’t know. Or if you, if you don’t operate the tool, you will never know what it is. So it’s like these moments teach you how to develop the tools that you need to get the job done.

Ken Wimberly (12:59)
.

Quentin (13:13)
And I love how you gave the story because yeah, I do believe God, he creates spaces for us to use the tools that he gave us. And you would never know that’s the tool unless you could pull it out your tool bag. You’ll never know. And so, man, I appreciate you sir. I appreciate you eloquently sharing that story. Mr. Ken, let me ask you man, what laundry love? Tell me about the name. I believe there’s powers in name.

Ken Wimberly (13:27)
Yeah. Yeah.

Quentin (13:41)
And so when I hear the name, of course I think all type of things, but what’s the story behind the name laundry?

Ken Wimberly (13:47)
Boy, isn’t that the truth? There are such power in names and you know, we started this

one of the things we noticed about the industry. We studied, we went to conferences, investor presentations, we went to probably 25 plus laundromats and looked at what are people doing right, what are people doing wrong, what are the opportunities. The thing we constantly saw over and over were moms in the laundromats with their children. And their children,

would be doing what kids do. They’re just burning off energy, being bored, pushing around carts, opening and closing up machines, doing all this stuff. And we said, look, what can we do for the families that are coming in? And how can we come in? We believe, my partners and I believe that it is our mission to spread love in this world. Like what does Jesus teach you? One thing, right? It says that means one word, right? It’s love. It is that. And so we believe.

Quentin (14:44)
Come

Ken Wimberly (14:47)
that it is our mission to spread love in this world. And we wanted that to be in our name. So actually Laundry Luv LLBE is actually a laundromat service organization. It’s a charitable service organization that partners with oftentimes churches or service-based organizations. And they will provide free laundry at laundromats for homeless folks, people that can’t afford it, homeless people, and they’ll provide it. And so I love that.

So I said, what if we did laundry Luv L-U-V? I said, is that a problem? Because I don’t want to be confused, but ⁓ they’re a service organization and we are an actual laundromat establishment. And so we were able to trademark it, get all that done, and become Laundry Luv. And it’s in our name, right? It’s a core value of ours to spread love into the world, to lead with love every day with what we’re doing. man, I can tell you.

We got a guy on our staff. He’s not a guy on our staff. He is my partner’s father, who was our first store manager, who was our first regional manager, who became our head of facilities, and who is now very appropriately titled the Minister of Love. And Q, I’m going send you a video when this is done of the Minister of Love, because it’s absolutely amazing.

Quentin (16:29)
Thank

Ken Wimberly (16:50)
It’s just good stuff. You’re gonna like it. But the minister of love, now his whole job is to go, I mean, we gave him the title because of what he just does naturally. He goes and connects with people every single day.

Quentin (17:03)
I’m excited to learn more about the minister of love. I’m so glad that you’re using the tools that God gave you to spread his love.

Ken Wimberly (17:11)
and

Quentin (17:12)
It makes me think about Genesis when it says there’s a lot of trees. It’s just this one tree. I don’t want you to touch. Sometimes we get focused on the one thing that we can do that we don’t see the many things that we can do. And so I love that you’re using laundromats to spread the love of Jesus. And I want people that’s listening to understand that there is something in your tool belt that you can use for your advantage. And if you like me and my friend about spreading the love of Jesus, there’s something in your tool bag that you can use to spread love. Go ahead, brother. It’s not like you want to say something.

Ken Wimberly (17:22)
yeah.

and that’s true.

Well, yeah, when you’re talking about this, something like, hey, how about just smiling at someone, right? Shaking their hand, looking them in the eye and knowing their story, right? Just a little bit of something like that. It makes such a such a difference. Just to and that’s, you know, the thing I want to train our people to do more than anything is just to see people just because sometimes it’s all they want is just to be heard. And that’s what makes the minister love so powerful, because that’s what he does. He just goes and

I’ll tell you what, Q, he wakes up every morning and he prays. He prays that God will give him someone every single day that he can help or serve them. And he won’t go home until he has found that person that needs his service and his help. And it’s, it’s, we’re, actually going to write a book about, we’re, my partner wrote a book, amazing, but called the steady leader. And his, second book that we’re going to write is,

it’s basically going these stories about

Quentin (18:42)
Yeah.

Ken Wimberly (18:43)
love through the

and all these encounters that Clay has had with people over the years. It’s just a beautiful thing.

Quentin (18:45)
not sure if this internet

Quentin (18:50)
I love it. I love how you said that he goes out, he makes sure he finds somebody that day. He prays about it. He finds somebody. mean, that’s exceptional. So it just sounds like that weave into the core of your business, of Laundry Luv It just seemed like y’all just had some core values that just working for you guys.

And so I would love to know what’s your next main goal? Like, what are you looking to solve or scale next? What’s next for the business, Mr. Ken?

Ken Wimberly (19:17)
But for us is getting in business with the right kind of people that want to grow, know, spread the service that we’re doing throughout the country. you know, it’s a laundry is a chore that no one really looks forward to every week. We’re trying to provide a ⁓ wonderful environment where people can come and do this necessary chore.

And they can feel good about themselves, good about where they are and what they’re doing, good about what their kids are up to. And we want people are going to help spread our message throughout the world. We’re looking today, we’re growing throughout the Southeast. from we’re looking at Texas, Arizona, all the way through Florida up to the Carolinas. So we’ve got interest all over those places. So we’re looking for people that want to help us grow and do good things. So we’re looking for great partners.

Quentin (20:07)
Man, I love it. Speaking of partners, when you hear the word relationship, what comes to mind for you, Mr. Ken?

Ken Wimberly (20:13)
Hmm. I mean, when I think a relationship, is ⁓ a it’s a two way street and it’s built on trust, right? That’s that’s when they’re like

whether

that’s a ⁓

intimate relationship, it’s a business partner relationship. It’s a it’s a working relationship with with a client customer ⁓ relationships are two ways. They’re not one way and trust is the foundation of a mall.

Quentin (20:43)
I love it. I love what you’re doing. I love what you stand for. I love the name. I love everything about what you guys are doing. Listen, I’m going take a stab. Is there anything that I have not brought up that you want to talk about? Is there any other words of inspiration, education, motivation? Like if you came into this interview or this conversation with something you wanted the people to know, I just want to open up space if there’s something on your mind like that.

Ken Wimberly (21:10)
We could talk all day long about different things that I just want to get people fired up about, but you know what jumps out to me is no matter what it is in life, like we’ve all got something inside of us that needs. It’s a song that needs to be sung right in in. For so many of us, myself included for a long time, that song remains unsung. It just remains are silent. We’re we’re worried about.

Quentin (21:11)
Yes, we do.

Ken Wimberly (21:37)
what’s gonna go wrong or how I’m gonna sound or how it’s not gonna work out or how it’s this. I want just people to sing that song, whatever it is that they need to do, get out there and do it. You don’t have to have it all figured out. Take the first step. And then tomorrow, take another step. And the next day, take another step. People get hung up. People get real hung up about not starting or if I make a misstep, they stop. Okay, we can course correct.

We can calibrate what needs to be calibrated and keep on going on in the right direction. But I want more people in this world to do what’s inside of them that they know they ought to be doing.

Quentin (22:18)
Man, brother, my brother. Listen, man, I appreciate you so much. If someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can I get in contact with you,

Ken Wimberly (22:21)
Mm-hmm.

Really two ways. One, I’ve got a personal website. If you’re gonna reach out to me, it’s simply my name, KenWimberly.com. So KenWimberly.com. And then Laundry Luv is LaundryLuv.com. And you can kind of learn all about Laundry Luv and then on the LaundryLuv.com, if someone’s interested in partnering with us, there’s a franchise page on there. They can go check that out too.

Quentin (22:55)
Three things I want to say to you. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your story. And thank you for your mindset, the way you think and bringing that mindset to this platform. Sir, I greatly appreciate you, man.

Ken Wimberly (23:06)
Thank you for having me. I’m grateful for you.

Quentin (23:08)
Absolutely. Well, listen, y’all heard Mr. Ken, looking at show notes, please get in contact with him, but definitely make sure you’re subscribed here because we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people just like Mr. Ken. So sir, I say thank you again and everyone else. You all have a fantastic day.