Content about Massachusetts

PEMBROKE, Mass. — Let’s talk relationships. You are the boss, and you have employees working for you. You pay them wages to do a good job. You expect them to want your company to do well and become mad when it seems they don’t care. Is there something more you can do to build allegiance and get them to care about your business?

Believe me, if you paid them one and a half times what they would earn at a competitor’s shop, you wouldn’t have created more allegiance. Money is not the answer. You build allegiance by creating a team.

One aspect of a team is that everyone looks out for everyone else. Since you are the most successful member of your team, the heaviest burden falls on you. You must be someone the others can go to when they need a favor.

This is tricky, because allegiance walks a fine line. Become overly friendly with an employee and you’ll lose the ability to be his or her boss. You will have difficulty making the hard decisions that are demanded of a business owner. The crew will take advantage of your softness.

HANOVER, Mass. — Lapels Dry Cleaning has built its franchise upon environmentally friendly dry cleaning methods, “outrageous” customer service and marketing, the company says, and now it’s looking to bring those signature services abroad with a new international division.

“I believe there are markets outside the United States that will be as strong, if not stronger, because of the lack of quality competition and the importance of quality garments and the care of those garments,” says Michael Eisner, director of franchise development for Lapels. “Over the years, we have been inundated with requests for franchising from overseas.”

“Being able to have your garments cleaned in an affordable and timely fashion that doesn’t negatively impact the environment is something that’s appreciated everywhere, not just in the U.S.,” says Lapels CEO Kevin Dubois. “With this new division, we are currently speaking with Franchise Partners from across the world and anticipate opening our first store within 2013.”

GILBERT, Ariz. — The newest Lapels Dry Cleaning plant from Massachusetts-based franchisor Next Step Franchising features granite counters, custom cabinetry, chandeliers, pendant lighting, French doors, etched glass, crown moldings, and a fully separated call area from the on-site plant.

Lapels offers dry cleaning, shirt service, on-site tailoring, leather/suede care, shoe repair, 24-hour drop-off, heirlooming, and same-day service, pickup and delivery.

The air-conditioned production area in the 2,200-square-foot facility includes a Firbimatic hydrocarbon dry cleaning machine, Wascomat wet cleaning equipment, and Forenta and Unipress finishing and tensioning equipment. Boiler room equipment is by Fulton and Ingersoll Rand. The plant utilizes DCCS and SPOT Business Systems point-of-sale software.

This Lapels location employs 12 full-time-equivalent workers.

Next Step Franchising designed the plant layout, and Mike Marden, Marden Design, was architect.

PEMBROKE, Mass. — Time—how do you manage it? Seems like a pretty basic question, doesn’t it? “I go in, ready the store, see a few customers, and then go from one matter to another until the day is over, and I have a few minutes to pay bills or call customers before I go home.”

It's possible your time could be managed better, more efficiently, more economically. Perhaps you could squeeze out an hour every day for reflection, future strategy, and employee education. Wouldn’t that be something!

At the end of a workday, review that day's actions. What portion did you spend profitably? By profitably, I mean that your time spent contributed to the flow of your concern. What portion of the day was spent unprofitably? What portion was spent doing the work?

That is, did you press for two hours, relieve the cleaner for two hours, and work the counter for an hour? If so, five hours out of eight or nine was spent on the assembly line. Maybe 60% of your time is spent processing.

PEMBROKE, Mass. — This actually happened to a dry cleaner friend of mine. His 15-person operation was going pretty well. The owner brought his son, recently graduated from college, into the business. But soon there was trouble. His key staffer began complaining about the company and management. Everything was, “The kid didn’t know what he was doing,” or “This place is run by lunatics.” The rest of the crew became surly and uncooperative.  The owner got scared—he didn’t want to lose his cleaner of 10 years—so he arranged for his son to leave.

Was this the right decision? Well, it was true that the son didn’t know what he was doing, but that was because he had just graduated from college and hadn’t spent a lot of time in the shop. But it was also true that the kid was young, energetic and full of enthusiasm. And he just might have been the best thing for the company. But the father will never find out because he cut his son’s dry cleaning career short.

HANOVER, Mass. — Having a “ton” of laundry is an often-used figure of speech. This year’s Lapels Dry Cleaning clothes drive put a visual to this expression by collecting 4,073 pounds for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

The May clothing drive included significant contributions from 18 Lapels Dry Cleaning stores and plants in Massachusetts and one in Rhode Island.

“Our Massachusetts stores and our Lincoln, R.I., location really stepped it up for this clothing drive,” says Kevin Dubois, CEO of Lapels Dry Cleaning. “Lapels prides itself on being environmentally friendly. A part of that is giving back to the communities we serve. We’re grateful to have a customer base that shares that spirit of giving.”

Some of the larger contributors were Lapels of Norton (575 pounds), Lapels of Hanover/Assinippi Corner (437 pounds), and Lapels of Walpole (345 pounds).

“With 18 Lapels stores participating in this drive, it helped make this a huge success,” says Ken Higgins, Big Brothers Big Sisters dispatch supervisor.

PEMBROKE, Mass. — One of the best ways you can find out what the marketplace thinks of your business is to listen to your customers. They can tell what level of quality you churn out, how detail-focused your crew is, how pleasant and knowledgeable your counter staff appears, what makes patrons happy about your offering, and what upsets them.

But obtaining customer input is not always so easy. You can’t set up a panel of six customers and ask them questions. For one thing, they might not be truthful. For another, they probably wouldn’t agree to do it. Nor can you have them fill out a survey form, because most will not put too much thought into the effort. And if your staffers ask every customer their level of satisfaction, they would simply utter, “Fine.” So you must be creative, even ingenious, in obtaining marketing information from your customers.

PEMBROKE, Mass. — The Yellow Pages are dying, but they aren’t dead yet.  Many consumers over 40 still use them as their first shopping resort. Every household still has them.

Most dry cleaners put line ads in several area books, and one or two competitors have standard bullet box ads that aren’t terribly effective. What that means for you is that you can more easily stand out and that you can bargain for a better price.

New residents use this resource to find whom to go to for dry cleaning. Transients use Yellow Pages to bring a load of clothing. Others use the book to find a special service, such as drapery cleaning. Angry patrons might use Yellow Pages to discover another source.

If your market is stable, without many comings and goings, you probably only need a line ad. But if you have a mobile market, with quite a bit of movement, then you might at least try a box ad.

PEMBROKE, Mass. — A customer walks into your store and says a few words to the counter person. Your employee enacts some business: looks up an order, takes in money, pulls the order off the rack and hands it to the customer, or checks the status of an item. Then the customer leaves.

This exchange is typically brief—three to five minutes at most—but it is the most important few minutes for you and your customer.

This time of customer/employee interaction is an opportunity for your business to shine or to disappoint. It is how the customer forms his/her opinion of his/her dry cleaner. The customer walks out with answers to these questions:

PEMBROKE, Mass. — Tax time is here again. Before I give you some tax tips, I want to tell you to pay your fair taxes. I know that not all of you do.

While visiting a dry cleaner’s store, he said to me, “I pay myself a salary of $25,000, $500 a week. But I can’t make it on that. So I take another $20,000 out of here,” pointing to his cash register.

I looked around his small shop. This owner has worked hard 15 years to make his living. He’s doing no more business now than he was a decade ago, and he still does the lion’s share of volume himself. He works 50-55 hours a week processing clothes.

I ask myself, has he not progressed because he skims the top? Is he not interested in building a business? Is his only goal to make a living?

Would it have been different if he drew a fair salary, paid his fair share of taxes, and stayed focused on the business? I can’t say for certain, but I bet his unwarranted withdrawals have had something to do with his lack of progress.

PEMBROKE, Mass. — Raises are not exactly a hot topic these days, particularly in the dry cleaning industry. But here is a story of something that happened to a young person I know, and it’s worth reading.

This person—we’ll call her Liz—had been working at a dry cleaner for a year when she asked for a raise. She wasn’t the usual type of worker. She was a college graduate who had taken a lowly job at a two-plant, four-store chain in the hopes that she would move up the ladder. The owner, a sharp businessman, realized her worth and didn’t want to lose her. He sensed that she could grow to become one of his top managers. On the other hand, business was down. There were no raises.

The owner called Liz into his office and closed the door. “Liz, these are hard times. My business is down 10%. I’m hard up against all my costs. Things will improve, but not tomorrow or the next day. On the other hand, you’re a good worker. So I’m giving you a 50-cents-an-hour raise because you’ve asked for one and because you’re been a loyal employee. And, finally, I don’t want to lose you.