“I think one thing for us all to do our job very well is we have to be consistent in what we do. The core business is just not enough anymore… It’s all about exceeding those expectations.”

Interview by Mike Sullivan

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Mike:
Hey, everyone, I’m Mike Sullivan. Thanks for joining me again on MO.com, where we feature small business owners and entrepreneurs and bring you hints, tips, insights, and perspectives on what it takes to be successful.

Today, joining us is Jason Loeb of Brandsies, LLC. Jason, you have a couple of companies, Sudsies Dry Cleaners and Laundry, and Rugsies Carpet Cleaning and Drapery. How did you come into this line of work? Is this how you got your start?

Jason:
What actually happened is I always knew I was into people and meeting people and building relationships, and I understand the power of those relationships in building goodwill. So I tried to find an industry where I could touch and communicate with a lot of people.

Out of college, my first industry I started in the coin laundry business, and subsequently they were called Sudsies. So I owned a bunch of coin laundries, and the industry in the beginning of the ’90s, the coin laundry was a great industry to be in. While I was in that industry, the opportunity came along to buy a dry cleaners, and I expanded into that industry, subsequently sold all the laundromats and expanded into the world of dry cleaning.

I kept the name for branding purposes, because I own the URL Sudsies.com. At that point, I saw the value in building other brand names, and I kind of had a feeling where the Internet was going. So I bought a lot of domain names in reference to the brand itself. I understood that Sudsies had the value of its core competency, which was dry cleaning, but I could also sell other goods and services to my customer base, which we service a very large customer database in dry cleaning. We wanted to be able to sell them other products and services and continue to build those relationships, and hopefully they would cross promote each other one day.

So, Sudsies was the brain child, and then Brandsies came along. Brandsies is the parent company that actually owns all the other brands. There are actually a few hundred brands SIES’s that I own. I own Foodsies.com, which I was just recently involved with, and Rugsies.com is another customer service based business, and that’s a carpet cleaning, upholstery cleaning, and home cleaning business. We’re getting ready to launch, and I’m looking now at a home pool cleaning, which will be Poolsies. I’m actually looking at Bugsies, which is home extermination. So we’re trying to build those two brands currently now to cross promote to our current database.

Mike:
Jason, tell me, what differentiates Sudsies and Rugsies from other companies in the industry. What sets you apart?

Jason:
We understand the value of the client and the customer. I think one thing for us all to do our job very well is we have to be consistent in what we do. The core business is just not enough anymore. Everybody says they do a good job. It’s all about exceeding those expectations. I think we hold very true to what we do, not only in providing the service, but actually exceeding the customer’s expectations. I think we’ve been hitting on that mark, which actually has been able to differentiate us against our competition.

Mike:
So I see that smile right there behind you. Tell me about your smile philosophy and what exactly that means.

Jason:
It kind of goes with the brand philosophy. That started several years ago when I had to write my mission statement. I was reading mission statement, and I remember in college and coming out, I was running companies and I was involved with employee and employee management, that mission statements were almost empty to me. It was like everyone had the same mission statement. We have integrity, we come to work every day, we work hard, we want to please our customer. I went with the acronym of Sudsies, and the first letter in Sudsies is S. I started with the word S, which meant smile. So, at Sudsies, our mission statement starts everything you do at Sudsies begins with a smile. So that’s where the smile campaign came from. Now, we’re just going to build upon that, obviously. Hopefully, that will infiltrate not only in the culture of our organization, which is not only important for your clients to understand the smile philosophy. I think it’s also important for the culture of your own organization to understand that, and then hopefully it will spread from within.

Mike:
Sudsies and Rugsies fall under the parent company Brandsies. What from a business perspective do you see as an advantage of having that parent company Brandsies as opposed to running the two companies as separate entities?

Jason:
They are two separate legal entities. Brandsies will be part of an exit strategy someday if I was able to build several companies, and hopefully I can go to somebody that will be able to buy the whole corporate philosophy, the service I’d mentioned. Hopefully, if they took Brandsies, it will come with several service organizations underneath it, and then they could take it and obviously expand upon it. I just thought there was additional value to somebody in the future, if they’re looking at our customers, at our database, at our business. I thought Brandsies was just something that somebody would see all inclusive, as a wholesome product.

The other thing is it’s a lot easier when I meet somebody, if I own several companies, I’m not going to give you several different business cards. I’ll be able to give you one business card that says Brandsies, and direct you at funneling you through the organization that way.

Mike:
Can you talk about the growth of the companies in the past couple of years?

Jason:
We’ve done really well. We continue to grow. When the economy had its challenges, as we continue to have our challenges, we’ve just decided we were going to get more aggressive. Our industry had some challenges, as well, along with many industries in our country. We just got very aggressive. We realized that we had our customer database, and we realized our average customers were spending less because they were just out not wearing as many clothes as they were, or not spending as much money in their core of cleaning those clothes. So what we did, we actually went out [inaudible 6:12] just attract more new clients and we were successful with the campaign. It helped us grow our business, and the growth just continues at this point.

Mike:
How has your involvement in your local chamber of commerce contributed to your success?

Jason:
When I first started as an entrepreneur and I went into business for myself, I tried to pick up a strategy. My strategy was, “What am I going to do different to differentiate myself? What am I going to do to make myself better at whatever I was going to do as an entrepreneur?” I realized the importance of building the goodwill with my clients and my customers. And how was I going to build goodwill with my clients and customers, and in what marketplace would I do that?

So I first realized in building goodwill, where was I going to find that? I went to a chamber of commerce, which I was able to build great new relationships and meet new people. So the chamber of commerce was a source for me when I first started my business 14 years ago. I was able to stay there. I’ve been very involved for 14 years, and the value of that continues to grow. I’ve gotten involved on many boards and many of the councils and the committees. I was on the Board of Governors for 14 years, and this past year I was actually awarded to be the Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce. I became Chairman last October. We’ve been hitting all the marks of the business growth in the community. In the Chamber of Commerce, we’re beating our budgets and our membership numbers and our goals. We’re doing very well.

This community is a great community, and it’s a great community to be a part of. I realize the importance of high tides raising all boats. When the community does well, I do well. It’s a philosophy that’s worked.

It contributed in many ways. If you go back to the strategy, the strategy was not only meeting people and building the relationship, the strategy was also to help expand my knowledge, to meet new people, to get involved in the community. If you put all the pieces of that puzzle together, it equaled the Chamber of Commerce to me. Though I thought the value was getting involved, but now getting involved, I was also becoming a leader. When you lead, people kind of tend to build around you. If you really believe in the philosophy of helping other people, people then in return hopefully want to help you and see you succeed. Also, in doing the studies now as the Chairman, I noticed that, approximately, people who buy from business and services, if they see the Good Housekeeping seal from a Chamber of Commerce, they tend to buy more goods and services from that company. So it’s a hand-in-hand relationship.

Mike:
In closing, what advice do you have for other business owners or entrepreneurs that are just looking to start out?

Jason:
The employee benefits, make sure your employees believe in the culture of the mission of the organization. If you start within, then you can actually let that feeling transcribe to your client base. If your employees believe, then your clients will believe it. If your clients believe it, the consumers will believe it. If the consumers believe it, the community believes it. It just becomes a grass-roots campaign with everybody really getting involved in the brand. The brand is not just about what you’re selling. It’s what people really get involved in and what they get out of that, the feeling they get from interacting with you and your organization.

Mike:
Jason, thanks so much for your time and your perspectives today. I appreciate it.

Jason:
Thank you very much for your time. If you ever need anything, feel free to reach out. Have a clean day.