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The official podcast of Shoemaker Films. Every week we share content related to digital marketing, video production, and brand building; and frequently meet with local creatives, entrepreneurs, and business owners for in-depth conversations. Get to know local heavy hitters and influencers in the Greater Philadelphia region while picking up some tactical advice and tips on starting and running a business, being productive, creating content, and everything in between.
Hi. This is Dane Shoemaker with the Shoemaker Films podcast. I'm here with Ali and Mary Catherine with Lesson the Loads. How are you guys doing?
Mary Catherine:Good. How are you?
Ally:Thank you so much.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for, being a guest on here. Excited to learn a little bit more about your business. I feel like I reached out, I don't know, months ago now.
Dane Shoemaker:We had to keep rescheduling with the summer and everything, but, glad we got this on the books. Yeah.
Ally:We're excited for a sec. Yeah.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. So less than the loads, love the name.
Mary Catherine:Thank you.
Dane Shoemaker:So there's kind of like a dual, you know, that's purposeful. Right? Right? So why don't you tell us a little bit about your your service and your business?
Mary Catherine:Okay. I guess I'll start. So Less Than Loads is basically a laundry and organizational service. It started out of, you know, a need we've recognized in in the market, kind of a a gap in the market, And we can talk about that a little bit later. But Sure.
Mary Catherine:Basically, you know, we hire local moms in our area of service, and they pick up your laundry, bring it to their home, do the wash in in their home, and then turn it around, fold it, and bring it back, within 24 hours. So basically, you know, that's our bread and butter is that we have, you know, the pickup laundry service. But we also have a lot of organizational services available as well. So Okay.
Dane Shoemaker:You
Mary Catherine:know, anything from if you need your pantry organized to your garage organized, we can help you.
Dane Shoemaker:Oh, awesome. Okay. Yeah. I can see how that kind of goes hand in hand.
Mary Catherine:For sure.
Dane Shoemaker:Nice. And how long have you guys have been, been in business?
Ally:What's going on? It's two and a half years. Yeah.
Mary Catherine:I was just thinking, I'm like, I think it'll be 3 years in March.
Ally:Yeah. It'll be 3 years next March.
Dane Shoemaker:Okay. And you 2 are the owners?
Ally:We
Dane Shoemaker:are. Just 5050 split or Yep.
Ally:We don't
Dane Shoemaker:have to get into those details. So yeah.
Mary Catherine:Yep. We'll tell you that's.
Dane Shoemaker:That's awesome.
Ally:We were
Mary Catherine:high school friends,
Dane Shoemaker:so that's kind of, you know?
Ally:Yep. We always say always friends first.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. Nice. Did you grow up in this area? Did you go to high school around here or?
Ally:We did. We went to St. Pius in Pottstown, so, this is where we currently are still live. But a lot of our clients are obviously on the main line, Delaware County, Montgomery County, Bucks County. We service all of those counties, and so we spend a lot of time down there.
Dane Shoemaker:Okay. Nice. So tell me a little bit about more about your business. So you have, you have kind of a network of are they contractors? Are they employees?
Ally:Yes. So we hire all contractors. And the reason that we've kind of gone this route in this business model is because most of the contractors that we hire are moms or and are stay at home moms. And
Dane Shoemaker:Okay.
Ally:They're looking for a way to bring income into their family, but don't necessarily want a 9 to 5. That can be hard with your own children. Right? A husband who maybe travels or has a a busy job. So we really pride ourselves on providing a flexible income opportunity, a good flexible income opportunity for them to bring something into their household, but really to be able to maintain a schedule that's conducive to having a young family and and children.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Ally:So we hire all moms, in the counties that we serve. And that's also why, I I think we've been so successful is in in that model because they love to work. Yeah. I love laundry.
Dane Shoemaker:I mean, it seems for somebody who's a stay at home mom or anybody who who doesn't, you know, doesn't wanna have a full time job, it seems like a pretty flexible, you know, you
Mary Catherine:I'm sorry to interrupt you, but we also have folks that they do have full time jobs
Dane Shoemaker:and they're doing this
Mary Catherine:as a, you know, a side gig or, you know, something to just bring in a little bit of extra income. So, it really it's it's wonderful because we're able to provide, you know, opportunities that otherwise they may not have been able to have.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. And I
Ally:was going to say like, it is really hard to find flexible, legit work these days.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. You know,
Ally:a lot of the, I feel like a lot of the things that you find on Facebook are either like scams or you need to like bust your butt for, you know, like really hard. And, that's just like not the case here. It's, it's a legitimate job. And, so flexible, you can take your hours, pick your jobs that you want. You can take on
Mary Catherine:as much as you want or as.
Ally:Yeah. I was gonna say, we have, you know, we have teammates who
Mary Catherine:work maybe 2 to 3 jobs a week, and then we have ones that are working, you know, 10 jobs a week. Right. So it all depends on their schedule and what they want. Yep.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. Awesome. Is there like a typical, like if I'm a contractor signing up to work with you guys, like how many hours a week, roughly how many loads, like, is there an average or is it minimum? You know,
Ally:so it's, It's so hard. We get this question all the time. It is so hard because we have so many different scenarios, so many different contractors. They all make it work with their schedules. Like again, like we could have somebody doing £300 of laundry a week, and then maybe we have somebody who's doing 50.
Dane Shoemaker:Okay. Right. So do you like pay by the pound or how does that? We do
Ally:for pickup drop off. We pay by the pound. And then for our in home services, we obviously pay by the hour.
Mary Catherine:Okay. Yeah. Which makes it a little complicated. Yeah. It also, you know, I lost my train of thought.
Dane Shoemaker:I have no idea what I was going to say.
Ally:I was going to say, I think it also like sets our business apart and like, that's kind of the difference between us and other laundry services, right? There's other obviously national laundry services that our competitors in this area, but none that also offer those in home services. And and that's where we also found the gap in the market Okay. Is right. Like, there are other pickup, drop off laundry services, but there aren't other laundry services that will also come in and reorganize your drawers, set it all up, and then continue with that same method.
Dane Shoemaker:Mhmm.
Ally:Right? So you don't have to do any of that. It's all great that you're that you have a pickup, drop off laundry service, but what if that's not how you fold your stuff?
Dane Shoemaker:Right.
Ally:Right. It doesn't work. Then what you have to refold yourself.
Dane Shoemaker:Okay. Because some people are very specific. Yeah.
Mary Catherine:Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And these are things we didn't think about in the beginning. And then we quickly learned them real fast is like, we have to go in and basically organize for you before, you know, we can do your weekly service.
Ally:Yeah, we suggest that to anybody who starts our service, whether you're doing pickup drop off or are in home services. It's really beneficial if we come in, reorganize your stuff, and then it you can maintain from there with our maintenance services.
Dane Shoemaker:So what what areas, like, geographically do you cover? Is that
Mary Catherine:So right now, we are in mainly south East Pennsylvania.
Ally:Yeah.
Mary Catherine:So you know, Burkes, Bucks, Montgomery, Chester, Delco. And then we also are in a small portion of New Jersey and North Jersey.
Dane Shoemaker:Okay.
Mary Catherine:Morris County. Yeah. So we we slowly are expanding out into New Jersey. But, yeah, we started, you know, in, like, this Pottstown Boyertown area and then have then, you know, expanded out.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Mary Catherine:That way.
Dane Shoemaker:I mean, I could see it being pretty, like, scalable. Like, it's basically just marketing and as long as there's people there to fold and clean lawn do laundry.
Mary Catherine:Like It's a fine line, though. It's a it's a balancing act because you we wanna make sure that we have enough team to perform the job, but we also don't want our team members coming on board and not having enough work. Yeah. So it's constant. You know, we hire some people, and then we're marketing like crazy in that area or vice versa.
Mary Catherine:We're marketing in that area to make sure that we have jobs, and then we're bringing people on board quickly. So it's a constant, constant balancing act.
Ally:I was going to say, we definitely are really cognizant about not over hiring so that the individuals on our team can make the amount of money that they want to make. Right? Like, I don't wanna oversaturate a market where there's 15 contractors there, and then they're only getting, like, 1 or 2 jobs a week, each of them. You you know what I mean? Yeah.
Ally:So we're really thoughtful about that, and I think that also sets apart our business. Obviously, we're locally owned. We care about the people on our team. Right? And I think that goes really far.
Ally:Yeah. I think they feel that if you were to ask them for sure. That we do truly care about them and want them to get what they need from this business
Dane Shoemaker:to. And we
Mary Catherine:try and check it with them on a regular basis. You know, I mean, we're, we're constantly, you know, talking to them all day, every day, you know, with different issues that are happening or, you know, just, Hey, so and so needs their laundry later this day, you know? But in addition to that, we are also making sure, you know, we're checking in and saying, you know, how's your how's your workload? Do you feel like it's enough? Do you want some more?
Mary Catherine:Do you want less? You know, we're going into the holidays. What does that look like for you? We're going into the summer. What does that look like for you?
Dane Shoemaker:Do you
Ally:need some time off?
Mary Catherine:Right. We're always trying to, like, check-in and make sure that they're, you know, in a good, you know, headspace as well.
Dane Shoemaker:So, I mean, let's talk about, like, more on the customer side.
Mary Catherine:Sure.
Dane Shoemaker:You know? So I can see how this service would really benefit working families. Maybe you have, 2 two parents who are working. They don't have time to do that. Like, do you have, like, an ideal client
Mary Catherine:Yes. That's it. You
Dane Shoemaker:go after.
Ally:That's what you just said.
Dane Shoemaker:Okay.
Ally:Working families with young children who value their time more than doing laundry.
Dane Shoemaker:Sure.
Ally:Right? Like, for most people, and I'm speaking for myself as well, I don't enjoy doing laundry. It's like a dreaded chore for me. Yeah. And I don't have the capacity to do it either.
Ally:So, like, those two things combined is the perfect, so, you know, it's the perfect solution to outsource that task. Laundry is the most time consuming household chore out there because it's not like, I always say, you can go and scrub a toilet real quick. Right? You could probably do it in 5 minutes. You can't do your entire laundry process in 5 minutes.
Ally:Right? Like, you gotta collect it. You take it down. You gotta put it in the washer. You gotta wait for the wash and you gotta transfer it to the hydrant.
Dane Shoemaker:And then you gotta hold and put
Ally:it away. I mean, there's all those laundry memes out there for a reason, like, about, like, the process because it it's so time consuming. So our ideal client and and most of our clients are young families, working professionals. Right? Usually.
Ally:And they have young kids to a degree. Now I will say we also
Mary Catherine:we've gotten into different markets recently by just, you know, by word-of-mouth and folks hearing about us and they are saying, oh, we need your service, the elderly for 1, you know, they come up in age, whether they're living by themselves or they just can't necessarily get down to the basement to go do their laundry now, or it's too heavy for them or, you know, all these different reasons. We have I'm trying to think of, like, other, other clients that we've had recently that we were like, oh, that's a market we didn't even think about.
Ally:Well, I was gonna say, like, we, this is just like an unusual market, but we do, the football jerseys for a local high school. So after every game, right. Instead of, sending them jerseys and pants instead of like sending them out,
Mary Catherine:Which I didn't even know as a thing, apparently, you know, high school send out their jerseys to get cleaned and then they send them back to the school.
Ally:It's our 3rd
Dane Shoemaker:year doing
Mary Catherine:it. Yeah.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. And it's great.
Ally:There's a lot of like,
Mary Catherine:I got him hanging out back right
Dane Shoemaker:now.
Mary Catherine:But yeah, lots of different, you know, you don't realize, obviously everyone needs their laundry done.
Ally:Yeah. We always say like you, you obviously need clothes. Right? Clean clothes.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. I mean, it's it's yeah. Constant. It's
Ally:a necessity.
Dane Shoemaker:And especially if you have big family or small kids,
Mary Catherine:college students, that's another one. You know, that's that's another market that we've kind of tapped into as well.
Dane Shoemaker:Like working directly with the college on that? Or
Mary Catherine:We are working to get into colleges. We haven't, like, actively,
Dane Shoemaker:you
Mary Catherine:know, gotten it, but it's just been, you know, word-of-mouth. Oh, my son or daughter is here. Like, could you pick up at their their school? Or
Dane Shoemaker:Oh, wow. Okay.
Mary Catherine:You know, they're coming home for the summer. They have a ton of laundry that they're bringing with them. Yeah. You know, that type of thing.
Dane Shoemaker:I don't have time to do it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I can think for, you know, for myself, like, I have a lot of things around the house, like mowing the lawn.
Dane Shoemaker:Those are some that's like well, I've outsourced that to somebody now. I like doing yard work, and there's plenty of other stuff picking up sticks and things to get that scratch that ish a little bit. But, like, mowing a lawn, I think is, like, easy enough for someone else to do that you can kinda outsource that.
Mary Catherine:For sure.
Dane Shoemaker:We also have a cleaning person. Right? And, I will say that my my wife does spend a lot of time every week doing laundry. Right? So I
Ally:mean So you're the ideal client?
Dane Shoemaker:Probably. Yeah. Are there some people that are kind of, you know, apprehensive to hand off, you know, the laundry services? I mean, I think in a way, she kinda likes it a little bit because it's like kind of a mindless I don't know.
Mary Catherine:I don't know. Also has, like, the control as well. Yeah.
Dane Shoemaker:She can put on a podcast or put on a show. You know? Yeah. Kinda no one bothers her for, like, an hour or 2.
Ally:You know?
Mary Catherine:So I will say personally. So Ali, the whole reason this business started was because Ali had her 3rd baby. And I can let you talk about this. But basically, she felt guilty for holding her baby and not doing her laundry. And that's how this kind of all started.
Mary Catherine:But long story short is that I'm the friend that likes to do laundry. Okay. And so she used our service from day 1. Right? Like, her she brought our team to her house.
Mary Catherine:They do her laundry in and out from day 1. I probably it took me probably, like, a year Yeah. To, like, actually let our team do my laundry. Not because I don't think I was afraid, but just because I enjoyed doing it. I liked knowing that, like, you know, my laundry was done a specific like, I I want my whites, like, OxiClean and my whites,
Ally:all that stuff.
Mary Catherine:We have all those options,
Ally:which we do. Right?
Mary Catherine:Right. We do. Well, now we've, you know Yep. Got all that on our list of things. But that's that's what I'm saying is that people might be apprehensive.
Mary Catherine:But once they, you know, talk to us and we answer all their questions or they go to the website and they check out all these options that we have, you know, we can make sure that we're washing your whites with OxiClean. We can we are always treat. We can saint treat. We're always only ever drying on low. We're never drying on high.
Mary Catherine:So like, you don't have to worry about anything like shrinking.
Ally:Well, hang dry. If you have certain items like you, that can't go in the dryer. Right. Basically we can completely tailor the laundry process to like what you would do at home anyways.
Mary Catherine:Yeah. And now I'm obsessed and I would never would go back ever, ever, like never in a 1000000 years.
Ally:I can't ever imagine doing my laundry ever again.
Mary Catherine:It's crazy. And it sounds so ridiculous.
Ally:No, it really does. But like,
Mary Catherine:I don't even have children. It's just myself and my fiance, like but Listen. It's huge. It's so huge. You never go back.
Mary Catherine:It's life changing.
Dane Shoemaker:No. I can I can believe it? Yeah. Because, I mean, for, you know, busy, like, any any any anyone. Right?
Dane Shoemaker:Business owner or working, you know, working 9 to 5. Like Right. There's only a few hours in the day, you know, that you get to spend time with your kids. If the kids have, like, sports and school, homework I mean,
Ally:I think about my household. We're running ragged every single day from thing to thing. Like, to not think about laundry is huge. I also have a cleaning service. Our service, our laundry service goes great with a cleaning service
Dane Shoemaker:because a
Ally:lot of cleaning services won't do laundry. Right? Maybe they'll throw it in, but they're not, you know, doing the whole process. Yeah. Most of our clients also have cleaners too.
Dane Shoemaker:Okay. Yeah. Like, they they hire a cleaning service.
Mary Catherine:They are a cleaning service.
Dane Shoemaker:They've already recognized, okay, this is hours back in my week. You know?
Mary Catherine:But we were talking about this earlier. I think once you outsource one thing, you realize the benefit of having all the that time back, and you're like, what else can I outsource? And,
Ally:like, for myself, time is probably the most valuable thing whenever I, like, whatever I can outsource, I'm doing it because I I just need all the time I can get. Yeah. Especially with young kids. Right? I mean Yeah.
Dane Shoemaker:You only get It's so hard. Years with them before they're out.
Mary Catherine:Exactly. Before they're
Dane Shoemaker:out of the house, they don't even care about you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. I mean, it's I love the business model. You know, it seems like such a needed service. Can you explain, you know, how does, like, onboarding work? If I'm somebody, like, do I go to your website and fill out a form?
Dane Shoemaker:What does that process look like for a customer?
Mary Catherine:Yeah. For a customer. So right. You can find us well, you can find us on all different platforms. Right?
Mary Catherine:We're on all the socials and
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Mary Catherine:But also our website is kind of our main main point of contact.
Dane Shoemaker:Okay.
Ally:You
Mary Catherine:would go on contact us page, there's a link you'd click, and basically, it would just take all of your information, you know, your name, where you where you're located. Basically, you know, what service you're looking for. So we have a number of different services. Obviously, we're talking about our pickup drop off pickup drop off service, which is our main kind of service that we offer. But, you know, we do just folding as well.
Mary Catherine:Like, if you can get your laundry washed and dried and you just hate folding it and putting it away, we'll do that too.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Mary Catherine:So basically, you know, everything's laid out there pricing all that click the one you want, you click on that. And then your preferences, you can fill out all of your preferences. Do you want to sustain treat? Do you want us to add oxy clean to your whites, like those types of things? Anything else that you would like to note?
Mary Catherine:You know, I'm going to pre sort my items, you know, I'm going to send them as is. Can you return them as is? Sure. Yeah. So we can
Ally:and then at the end of that, you pick your day and time and submit,
Mary Catherine:and then you'll hear from our admin Megan, within probably the day, we try to get back no later than the day.
Ally:It's it's like within the hour. Yeah. That you'll get a confirmation, like confirming your appointment, which we send via text.
Dane Shoemaker:Nice. Yep. So it
Ally:can be all done online from our website.
Dane Shoemaker:That's great. Do you, and then in terms of like the contractor, you know, when do you get people reaching out to you say, Hey, I want to work for you. Or are you kind of qualifying?
Mary Catherine:You know, we're definitely qualifying.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. Like
Mary Catherine:we're not just taking any
Dane Shoemaker:Joe Schmauer certification of like,
Mary Catherine:yeah, they actually have to.
Dane Shoemaker:Tell me about this. Tell me
Mary Catherine:about this particular,
Ally:which I think people think we're like crazy. I feel nuts and not like, I feel like we kind of.
Mary Catherine:Talk to them. We do kind of sound crazy. And then I think they get on board and they realize, oh, wow. Like, this is, you know, this is what the clients are paying for. They're paying for that aesthetic.
Mary Catherine:So we do need to get it right.
Ally:And like we deliver things back ready for your drawers. Like, there's no
Mary Catherine:You can literally lift it up and plop it in the drawer. Yeah.
Ally:Yeah. So we are a little neurotic.
Mary Catherine:A little bit. But I
Dane Shoemaker:think people appreciate that.
Mary Catherine:All good business people are a little neurotic. Right?
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. Yeah.
Mary Catherine:So anyway, the US about that process, right? So they will apply. We have an application link on our website. We have folks apply whether you're in PA or Jersey, you can apply.
Ally:And I mean, we get applications every day. Yeah.
Mary Catherine:Every day. Sometimes we're reaching out and saying
Ally:every day,
Mary Catherine:you know, can you, you know, we have specific areas that we're looking. We have a high need for it that we need in that that specific area. But, yeah, for the most part, we are getting applications like left and
Dane Shoemaker:right. Okay.
Mary Catherine:So once they submit their application, we'll review the application, and then we'll, you know, contact them and say, you know, we're interested in interviewing you. We bring them on for, you know, half hour interview via Zoom. They're given a lot of information prior to that interview to let them understand what, you know, this job entails.
Ally:Okay.
Mary Catherine:You know, what the pay rate is, what the, what the expectations are, etcetera, etcetera. And then from there, you know, if we think they're a fit, we'll say, okay, next steps are, we're going to send you this one pager, it has the link to our training videos, you're going to watch the training videos, you're going to go to your drawers, and then you're going to turn back around and send us pictures of your newly folded drawers the way that these videos are showing you how to do it.
Dane Shoemaker:Right. Right.
Mary Catherine:And then from there, we'll get back to them and say, hey, you know, we think you could crisp this up a little bit or, you know, if they obviously
Ally:or like good enough, like, right,
Mary Catherine:you know, like, we're gonna move you forward.
Dane Shoemaker:Okay.
Mary Catherine:And for the most part, I mean, it's not rocket science to to fold, but it does take a little bit of time to, like, get
Dane Shoemaker:I can't figure it out. So, yeah, it's definitely
Ally:Yeah. Yeah.
Mary Catherine:But then then they, you know, they get through that process, and then we put them into, like, our onboarding program. And our onboarding program is also a little bit, I think, intense for a laundry job. I think people think, oh, I was just signing up to, like, do laundry, but no. It there's there's a little bit of a standard here.
Dane Shoemaker:Yes. Good.
Mary Catherine:Good. So then that last part of that process is basically them jumping on a phone call with our, onboarding coordinator, Brit, who basically teaches them the systems that we use, You know,
Ally:like the app, like, you know, how to like, like all, all the nitty gritty.
Dane Shoemaker:Right.
Ally:Like we make sure they're a 100% comfortable, confident, ready to go and to take on jobs
Mary Catherine:before they
Ally:before we're just like, okay, go and do somebody's laundry. Like we are really,
Mary Catherine:we're making sure they have the supplies on hand that they need. We're making sure they know how to use the systems and you know, that type of thing. And, you know, making sure they're just they're comfortable.
Ally:And then we send them into a home with another tenured teammate as, like, a last final. Okay. Your folding's good and everything, but, like, go meet one of our teammates. Go into a client's home. Get the feel for, like, how does that feel?
Ally:Practice your folding. Get feedback from a teammate who's crushing it.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Ally:And then after that, they're good to go.
Mary Catherine:Then they can fly. They've got their wings.
Ally:It sounds so extensive. It does really, it sounds like you're applying to like Google and I
Mary Catherine:promise you're not, but I mean, we do have a standard.
Dane Shoemaker:You have systems in place and I I'm really impressed. So like, not that I like didn't expect that, but, like Nobody had to to back you have of somebody. Like, yeah. I mean
Mary Catherine:It didn't just happen in the beginning. Yeah. We were just willy nilly saying, okay, you seem like a nice person. Yeah. We're gonna bring you on board.
Mary Catherine:Granted, we do background checks and everything. We're not sending anybody into a home with everybody.
Ally:I have to have their clearances,
Mary Catherine:auto insurance. They need, you know,
Ally:even if they're doing pickup drop off, they have to have their clearances, like say, say they're like, I can't do in home services in client home services. I can only do pickup drop off. They still have to have their clearances. Like, we're really adamant about that.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. That's good. Yeah.
Ally:We run a tight ship.
Dane Shoemaker:Peace of peace of mind. Yeah. I mean,
Ally:it's I mean, families want that. Right?
Dane Shoemaker:Like Of course. Yeah.
Ally:Yeah. And like some of the, not to talk about a competitor, but some of the other laundry services, right. You just go on the app, you apply, you get approved. There's no kind of like fact checking like
Mary Catherine:or vetting or anything like that.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Mary Catherine:Yeah.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. Wow. So you were talking about a little just kinda step back to, you know, when you guys move into, like, a new area or, like, you have a you do some marketing and then you have a contractor or you get someone hired and then you do some more marketing around that. What kind of marketing are you doing in the area? You know?
Dane Shoemaker:Facebook. Facebook. Yeah.
Mary Catherine:That is our
Dane Shoemaker:Are you running ads? No.
Mary Catherine:No. We've not. Groups.
Dane Shoemaker:Okay. Mom groups.
Mary Catherine:Mom groups.
Dane Shoemaker:Okay. Tell me about that. That's interesting. This
Mary Catherine:is all how it started. I'm gonna let Allie talk about this because this is how we knew we had something here. This was our market research before we knew it was our market research.
Dane Shoemaker:Okay.
Ally:Yeah. So I had posted well because I suck at laundry despite owning a laundry business, but like originally, right? Like I was like, oh my gosh, I'm so overwhelmed. I had my 3rd baby going back to work full time. I need to outsource everything.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Ally:And laundry was one of those things that cleaning services didn't do. So I posted in my local mom's group and I said, hey, who is looking for like an extra 3 hours a week? That's what I estimated. I thought my laundry would take. Who's looking for an extra 3 hours a week?
Ally:I'm willing to pay. Who can just come over and help fold and put away my laundry?
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Ally:I will wash it ahead of time. I just need you to fold it and put it away in my drawers. I had so many comments on that post. One saying, I wanna do it. Like, I'm looking for side work.
Ally:I can give you through I'm a stay at home mom. I can give you 3 hours every single week. But then on the other on the other a 100 comments of that post was, I want the service too. Let me know who you hire. You know, I want that same person.
Dane Shoemaker:Wow.
Ally:So I was like, hold up. So then I I hired somebody from that post. She changed my life. She came in. Marie Kondo ed all my drawers, closets, every like, it was I'm telling you, it was life changing.
Ally:And then she came every week for 3 hours to just fold and put away my laundry. Game changer for me. I felt, like, immediately better. So I was talking to MC, and I was like, there is something here. Like, this just changed my life so drastically.
Ally:And look at this post of all of these moms who wanna work, and then look. There's all the clients sitting right there.
Dane Shoemaker:Boom. Right there. It's Wow.
Ally:What are we doing? And so she was like, let's give it a shot. I was like, okay,
Dane Shoemaker:here we go. Less than the lows is born. Yeah.
Ally:Literally. And then the rest is history. We quickly took off
Dane Shoemaker:from
Ally:there because I mean, I, we obviously like from that post, like we knew
Mary Catherine:There's, there's a market here.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now the people that are doing laundry, the contractors, are they at all going out and selling a little bit or recruiting or no? Okay.
Mary Catherine:It's strictly. So back to the, you know, I think your original question was where are you marketing? It is all mom's groups that we use.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. That's
Mary Catherine:it. That's that's. And we're not paying for anything.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Mary Catherine:Like, I mean, granted now, you know, we do different, you know,
Ally:I was going to say there's like a few bigger groups, like mainline parent community, where it's like a membership to be able to post in their group.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Ally:But that that has paid off tenfold. Yeah. So, like, there's a few groups, like, mom groups or parent community groups like that that we do pay for, but the majority we don't, and we just post our once or twice a week, whatever they allow, or maybe it's like once a month. And that honestly is how we grew our business originally.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. That's huge.
Mary Catherine:I mean, we have still growing from those.
Ally:Yep. And also a lot of it is word-of-mouth now from our other clients, we have so many clients because of other clients now. Right. And that kind of just spirals from there.
Mary Catherine:And I would say that's, you know, our team as well. I think word-of-mouth, our team is whether or not we say they're marketing or not, you know, they're talking about the job that they have and the service they perform. So I think, yeah, word-of-mouth, for sure. We
Ally:have gained so many also teammates from current teammates. So like we have a pair of sisters on our team, 2 pairs of sisters on our team. Like, do you know what I mean? Like friends of friends, it has, which are end up being the best, teammates do.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. Busy people hang out with busy people typically, you know, and Yeah. Usually, you know, yeah, friend groups and colleagues and peers that, you know, yeah, I can see how that, you know, just kinda grows organically like that. Yep.
Mary Catherine:It definitely does.
Ally:Literally how it happened.
Dane Shoemaker:Do you guys own any trucks or lawn, you know, laundromat? I mean, is that any of that stuff like in the future
Mary Catherine:or. Might be.
Dane Shoemaker:Might be
Mary Catherine:the, the laundry. Okay. I'm not going to, well, I'm not allowed to say
Dane Shoemaker:it. The,
Mary Catherine:I would say laundromat esque is, is something that we have been thinking about.
Dane Shoemaker:Okay.
Mary Catherine:Just mainly, you know, it would be great if our team could just have a base to drop in and do larger orders and, and such like that.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Mary Catherine:If they wanted to. Right.
Ally:And like as an additional option. Yeah.
Dane Shoemaker:Sure.
Mary Catherine:Yeah. But right now, no, we don't have trucks. We don't have, you know, any other areas aside from our own homes. I mean, I'm getting a second hookup in my house, but that's about it.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. Pretty low, like overhead. I mean, it's not
Mary Catherine:Oh, for sure.
Dane Shoemaker:It's a pretty, pretty great business model. I gotta give you a kudos to that. Mhmm. So anything, like, anything that we haven't covered or anything you wanna wanna talk about?
Mary Catherine:I mean, we could talk forever, but Yeah. Yeah. No. I don't. I mean
Dane Shoemaker:I mean, what's what's one of the biggest challenges that you think you've run into just from running
Mary Catherine:That's a good question.
Ally:We we did briefly talk about this recently. And because our business model is so unique in terms of hiring contractors that are doing work in their home, but then also we have services where they're going into a client's home and we have, like, the reorganization piece too, or the organization piece too. It's been a really difficult to find back end systems that support the complexity of what we're doing. Right? Like, our pickup drop off services are by the pound.
Ally:Our in home services are hourly. Our reorganizations are something else. And then to have a system that can support con 50 contractors assigned to certain jobs at different pay rates. And like, it's a nightmare to be quite honest. Yeah.
Dane Shoemaker:So you're talking about like a, like a software, like CRM.
Mary Catherine:Like an app or some sort.
Ally:And like, everybody's like, oh, we'll just use like the softwares that laundromats do who do, like, curbside laundry and stuff. Well
Mary Catherine:We vetted so many of them. We've been on so many calls. We've done
Ally:It just, like, doesn't work with our business model.
Mary Catherine:Mhmm. So it's frustrating.
Ally:Not having, like, a base or a laundromat to kind of run it out of, which I don't think we'll we would ever go that route entirely anyways because, you know, allowing them our team to have the flexibility and to be able to do the the job from home is is what is bringing them and keeping amazing teammates
Mary Catherine:working.
Ally:So, anyways, all that to say is the systems thing and figuring that out for the last two and a half years has been nothing short of a nightmare. But Yeah. Here we are.
Mary Catherine:Now we have, an amazing tech. We call her our tech guru, Alyssa on our team who has done phenomenal in terms of, you know, providing us with kind of shortcuts and helping us integrate systems to speak with one another. But it definitely took a while for us to get there, and it's it's not perfect by any means.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Mary Catherine:It's still struggle on the regular. Yeah. So, you know, we're hoping one day we're making our own app and having our own system. Sure. But until then That's definitely where we're headed.
Mary Catherine:But until then Yeah.
Dane Shoemaker:I mean, that's part of the part of running a business. Right? Is just figuring out all the Kinks. Yeah. And figuring out how to optimize everything and building processes.
Dane Shoemaker:And for me, I feel like that's, like, one of the best funnest parts or that's really where a lot of the challenges come from is, like, hey. How can I you know, because we're a service based business? We provide we make videos. Videos are very subjective and creative, but how do we kinda systemize it? Like, how we create it, how we come up with the ideas,
Ally:all that stuff.
Dane Shoemaker:So Yeah. Yeah.
Ally:I think about, like, where we started and, like, what we were using then and what we are using now, and I'm it's amazing how much we've grown and, like, the things we've been able to figure out.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. Look at this guy.
Mary Catherine:Oh, boy. Sorry. Yes. We're still recording.
Dane Shoemaker:Who's this guy? That's Duke. Duke. Oh, my gosh.
Ally:Our mascot, I guess.
Mary Catherine:Yeah. Our mascot.
Dane Shoemaker:So, yeah. Well, this is this has been really great. Yeah. I mean Thank
Ally:you so much
Mary Catherine:for having
Dane Shoemaker:us. Of course. Yeah. Anything, you know, coming out in the future you want to talk about or anything else?
Ally:Wanna. We do have a new website that is launching hopefully on Monday.
Dane Shoemaker:Oh, nice. Okay.
Ally:That's. Will be awesome.
Mary Catherine:We're very excited about that.
Ally:Yep. That was like a long time coming. Other things coming down the pike.
Mary Catherine:I mean, we, we didn't talk about our newest service, which is our last must express, which we maybe can kind of highlight right now. Yeah. Sure. This is also perfect for, you know, our target audience. And going into the school year, it's kind of prime, to use this service.
Mary Catherine:But basically it is, it is, I would say the
Dane Shoemaker:Say it again and then
Mary Catherine:talk about it. Less less mess express.
Dane Shoemaker:Okay.
Mary Catherine:So we call it our, LME for short. But basically, it's an hour service where we will come into your home and basically tidy up for you after say a crazy morning with children getting them out the door. We'll come in. We'll make sure, you know, whatever spaces are the most important to you, you'll let us know. Right?
Mary Catherine:You'll fill out a checklist and say this is the areas that I want you to focus on. We'll come in, and we'll tidy up that space. So whether it's you want the kitchen cleaned up, you want, you know, the dishes put away from the dishwasher, the dishes out of the sink, wipe the counters down. We'll make sure, you know, your toilet paper roll is refreshed, if the kids use the last of it or
Ally:Like all the toys picked up off the floor. Yeah.
Mary Catherine:The all the little things that you are leaving the house in the morning thinking, I wish I could just, like, make it look nice so I come in and my house doesn't feel like a bomb went off.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Mary Catherine:That's what less mess expresses.
Ally:It's like a reset, right? Like it's, it's all of the things that our laundry service doesn't do and that a cleaning service typically doesn't have time to get to.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Ally:Like in terms of like a lot of people say, like, I have to clean for my cleaning service. Right? Like, you have to, like, pick up the toys and put everything away.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Ally:This service also would be perfect, like, right before Right before your cleaning. Or like the day before.
Mary Catherine:Yeah. Yeah. It's really, really
Ally:It's like a home reset. So you're walking back in your door, everything's put away. It looks like Yeah. Nobody was here.
Dane Shoemaker:That's that's genius. Because, like, we actually have a cleaning person at our house right now. I I think they're here. They're supposed to come at some point today, but it's always, like, usually on a Thursday
Mary Catherine:A scramble.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. And so it's Wednesday night. Yeah. Jesus Christ. So Yeah.
Dane Shoemaker:You got your cleaner. You got your hot zones. You got your kitchen. Yeah. And then we have our basement that's just like an absolute disaster
Ally:Right.
Dane Shoemaker:Of toys and stuff. And, yeah. I mean, I can see how that's, like an hour. You know?
Mary Catherine:It's like an hour. Hour hour where you just come in
Dane Shoemaker:and make sure
Ally:because you say too, like, if you need more than an hour You don't need It's not then, like, a reset. Right? Like, unless you have a really large home, which we have a few clients who are their homes are are larger than usual, and maybe theirs is, like, 2 hours. Right? But if you need more than an hour, then we're, like, cleaning, and we're not a cleaning service.
Ally:This is just, like, a tidy service to get you feeling like you can walk back in the home and
Mary Catherine:not wanna leave again. No.
Ally:You're breaking.
Mary Catherine:I wanna turn back right back around.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. Yeah.
Ally:Absolutely. I often walk in my house and wanna turn right back around.
Dane Shoemaker:That's great. No. That's that's that's genius. So less mess express. You have the laundry service and then the homework, reorganization.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. Yep. You got it. That's awesome. Yep.
Dane Shoemaker:Okay. That's what we need. Any other services you think you're toying with down the road or No.
Ally:That's keeping us plenty because, yeah, I think we're good
Mary Catherine:for right now. Yeah.
Ally:We have like some other things that we kind of, you know, bebop around, but want to do and nothing to
Mary Catherine:write home about just yet.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. Yeah. Cool. I like your logo. Where what's the story behind that?
Dane Shoemaker:The,
Mary Catherine:So the story is Allie made the logo and I made the name.
Dane Shoemaker:Okay.
Ally:She came up with the name.
Mary Catherine:Yeah. I came up with the name and Allie came up with the name.
Ally:Everybody loves our name.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. I know.
Ally:Everybody loves the trademark too because everybody loves it.
Dane Shoemaker:Oh, good job. Yeah. We
Ally:got nervous. That every week had way too many compliments on it.
Dane Shoemaker:I mean, it's good. It's a great name, less than the loads. It's like loads of, you know, lots of laundry. And then, but also like your, your, mental big, big pain point for people
Mary Catherine:like, you
Dane Shoemaker:know, during the week.
Ally:I mean, honestly like that is the reason we started the service. The the service was started because I could feel that mental load in my head. Like, I felt that mom guilt, which I'm sure so many people can relate to about, like, spending time with your kids versus, you know, getting all your household stuff done. Honestly, lesson loads, we just wanna help people. That that is what it comes down to.
Mary Catherine:Make a difference. Yep.
Ally:Yep. We we say all the time, like, we quit our corporate jobs to do other people's laundry. Like, it sounds That's great. We left 6 figure jobs to do other people's laundry. It sounds crazy.
Ally:People think we're nuts. They they they do.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Ally:But, truly, we believe so much in what we're doing here and the impact that we're making and, you know, the client testimonials, I know we're in the right place and doing the right thing.
Mary Catherine:Yeah. And I would also say the beauty of, of owning a business is also being able to give to others in times of when, you know, they are struggling. That's, that's something we didn't even talk about is our gifted services that we offer. So that's something that Allie and I have, you know, obviously we're passionate about our business and our team and, you know, our services, but we're also immensely passionate about our gifted services and providing, you know, a month of laundry service for someone who's going through a really rough time. So whether they've, you know, just lost their spouse or have a child going through chemo or, you know, anything under the sun that you can think of, they've, they had a fire in their home, and they, you know, have
Ally:been really terrible scenarios.
Mary Catherine:Yeah. But that's such I mean, that's that's what it's all about. Right? At the end of the day is we're able to do stuff like that. And just knowing that you're, you're truly taking a burden off of someone when it comes to.
Ally:And I was going to say like, when we set out to start the business before we even could financially afford to gift services, we did. So right? Like, me and MC were both still working full time jobs. Like, it it it was more important for us to gift services to those who needed it
Dane Shoemaker:Mhmm.
Ally:Than to to, like, give ourselves that money.
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah.
Ally:Yeah. Which, again, was not something our accountant would have recommended or anything like that. But what that's what I'm saying, though. Like, we feel so passionate about what we're doing and what we're bringing. It's so important that and people are like, oh, it's just laundry.
Ally:Yeah. But for somebody who's traveling to CHOP every day to see their kid who's going through chemo, they need clean clothes. Right? Like, to take that burden off of them.
Dane Shoemaker:Sure.
Ally:Man, that feels good.
Dane Shoemaker:That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's great. I yeah.
Dane Shoemaker:I mean, I I I do think that it's a good business practice. Right? I mean, I think it I believe in some of that woo woo stuff, and you put good stuff out there.
Mary Catherine:For sure.
Dane Shoemaker:Because so good
Mary Catherine:stuff comes out.
Dane Shoemaker:And, like
Ally:Oh, yeah.
Dane Shoemaker:A lot of the free work that we've done made videos for nonprofits and stuff like that. That has come back tenfold in terms of business. So That's that
Mary Catherine:was we were talking about this the other day. We've gotten so much business from our gifted services. It was not in the plan.
Ally:It was never the intention, and it's not why we did it ever. It's where the world works.
Mary Catherine:So Right.
Dane Shoemaker:But yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. So what's how how how can people find you? What's your website and what are your socials?
Mary Catherine:Less than the loads.com. Okay. And our socials are just Less Than the loads. So you can find a set I think, Instagram's lesson dot the dot loads, but I'm sure if you just punch in less, the loads will pop right up.
Dane Shoemaker:And the
Mary Catherine:logos, you know
Dane Shoemaker:Yeah. Wash it with a heart.
Ally:Yep.
Dane Shoemaker:Nice. And, pricings is all up on the website.
Ally:Everything's there. Everything's there.
Dane Shoemaker:People to feel out warm. Yeah. They wanna get started. Yeah. Yep.
Dane Shoemaker:Awesome. Well, I'll leave her a cabin.
Ally:So nice to meet you.
Dane Shoemaker:Appreciate it. Good luck with everything with your business.
Ally:Thank you.
Dane Shoemaker:Thanks for listening today. Shoemaker Lab is an original production by Shoemaker Films, LLC. If you enjoyed today's content, please consider subscribing on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your content. Follow us on Instagram at shoemaker.films. If you're a business that's either interested in our video production services or would like to be a guest on the show, get in touch by using the contact form on our website, shoemakerfilms.com.