review CLA Basics for beginners

[anonymous]

Well I said I would review the class if I took it so here it goes. I took the CLA Basics for beginners Seminar on Saturday. They covered; How to evaluate your investment; location; existing vs. new; a typical day. The sessions were filled with information.

I have been to many conferences in my main profession (securities) where the conferences are usually more sales pitch than information. Not the case here. No one tried to sell anyone anything. None of the speakers had another agenda.

Overall I was impressed and would highly recommend it. As a new potential owner I learned a lot. They packed a lot of info into the day. The speakers were knowledgeable and most of them had their own laundries.

One thing I would have like to seen addressed a bit more was running a small store unattended. Since that is where I am going to start out. Overall it was well worth the time and money ($280) spent.

[billyb]

i was at the seminar also, and some of your words you took right out of my mouth. there was no aggressive sales pitches at all. like you said, they did emphasize the bigger, attended mat is better approach. i had a chance to eat lunch at the same table as brian wallace, and i felt him, bob and all the other CLA bigshots and staff there were all sincere, honest very knowledgeable and very approachable. although i have learn more in the last few months from this site and the Cla site, but it was still worthwhile to go( and drive 5 hours) and meet and talk to other potential, like me, and new owners of a mat.

i heard Brian say they might be having a seminar in november for multiple store owners and the problems, issues they face.

jeffrey

[Boxer]

if the association was so approachable and sincere with education of new owners why woudn't they take up an invitation to discuss a few things here on Coinwash for the owners id think that would have been goodwill on there part and maybe good for us here and advertising for them. Any way 5 hours to drive isn't too bad but be sure to add in costs of othe things because conferences cost alot more than just the charge to sign up.

[Kitty]

Glad to hear you guys enjoyed the seminar, can you give the members a better outline on what was covered?

Like you mention above, I have met alot of people in this buisness over the years that have become members of the CLA that are very knowledgeable and interested in helping further the education of new and potential owners, many of these people frequent this site and participate. Many have continued their memberships while many have not and some have gone into the higher ranks of the association, there are some good people in this business. Some are single owners, some are multi owners, some are managers and some are retired consultants. All are well educated with years of experience

This business is made up of many different groups of business people that have come from many different back grounds which brings the level of expertise to this buisness.

Its good to have as many options as possible but I like to get the most bang for my buck. If the smartest and the brightest will participate here wouldn't it be much more economical for you to sit in the comforts of your own home and seek the info in Coinwash pages?

Kitty

[Kitty]

Come on guys...inquiring minds want to know...give us the indepth review.

[quartercounter]

does any one have any more info on these classes other than it was good

[billyb]

what do you want to know. it was basically how to work with your distributor to build the biggest bestest money is no object mat. there were lectures on demographics, roi, build new vs buy existing,etc. itwa informtive, lts of statistics and numbers, but it was a general overview. you can learn all you need to know right here on this forum. the most i got out of the seminar was just talking to other potential, like me, and people who are owners for just a few months, and there experiences, how they might have overpaid, or basically not doing enough research before they bought or built..

it's a good overview and first step in learning about the business. but the emphasis was that to be successful you had to build new and big and attended and card and other profit centres. in there world unattended smaller mats are out there, but what's the point - build one big and gross 10k a week.

you go to these seminars with a grain of salt. you get out of them what you want.

[Boxer]

I have been reading a few sites on Laundromats and I have to say this site is the most informative.
I want to thank you all. I get the journal too, but they don’t speak about products that just don’t work well. You guys tell it like it is.
Thank you once again