Suds N’ Shine Car Wash

Transcript:

Narrator
Welcome to The Best of LKN, a podcast featuring the best small businesses and the most influential professionals around Lake Norman, North Carolina. Each week, we spotlight those businesses and individuals that are making a positive impact here in the Lake Norman area. Thanks for joining us, enjoy the show.

Jeff
Hey, everyone, welcome back to The Best of LKN podcast. The Best of LKN is your online resource for the best small businesses, people, and places in the Lake Norman area. Before we get stuck into this episode, I just want to add a quick reminder about our email newsletter. Beginning soon, we’ll be sharing exclusive offers from area restaurants with our email newsletter subscribers. The first offer is a very generous one from our friends at Barcelona Burger and Beer Garden in Mooresville. Barcelona was recently recognized as the place for the best burger in North Carolina by Charlotte Business Journal. The link to their amazing offer will be in the August 8th email newsletter, so you must sign up by Saturday, August 7th to get the code. Signing up is easy. Just go to our homepage at www.thebestoflkn.com, scroll down until you see the email newsletter signup form. Enter your first name and preferred email address and that’s it. You’ll be receiving our weekly email newsletter with the latest happenings at The Best of LKN, along with special deals from some of our favorite area restaurants.

Jeff
Okay, now, in this episode, I sit down with Dan and Ben Schiermeyer, the owners of Suds N Shine Car Wash in Cornelius, and Affordable Mini Storage of Statesville. What interests me most about their story is not only that they’re siblings that are now business partners, but that they also started their businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. While many businesses declined in the past 12 months, Dan and Ben have grown their interests from one to two businesses, and something tells me they’re not going to stop there. Listen in as the brothers share how they chose their businesses navigated the funding process and have each brought their own complimentary skill sets to the partnership. It’s a very encouraging Episode 66 of The Best of LKN podcast. Thanks for joining us friends, enjoy getting to know Dan and Ben Schiermeyer.

Jeff
Recording today at The Jay Hurt Hub for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Davidson College. I’m joined by a couple of brothers, siblings in business together in the Lake Norman area, we’re going to talk about opening a business or two during the pandemic, and also what it’s like to do business with your big brother or your little brother. Joining me are Dan and Ben Schiermeyer. Guys, welcome to the podcast.

Dan
Thanks for having us.

Ben
Yeah, thanks for having us.

Jeff
Thanks for joining me, I appreciate it. Before we get into the small businesses that you purchase in the Lake Norman area in the last year, give the listeners a little bit of a background, a little bit of a bio, on your stories, your careers and leading up to becoming business owners. Ben, let’s start with you.

Ben
I’m Ben, we both grew up in Vermont. And at a young age, I was into cars and motorcycles and stuff like that. And I ended up moving out to California at a young age and got into working on hot rods and one thing led to another and then I start working on some ATV stuff and some motorcycle stuff and ended up becoming a professional mechanic for a race team. I did that for probably 15 years, then ended up in North Carolina in 2011 working for Joe Gibbs Racing.

Jeff
I was gonna ask if there was a connection there, when you mentioned motocross mechanic, race mechanic.

Ben
Yeah

Jeff
Yep, that’s cool.

Ben
Yeah, I ended up coming here in March 2011 working for them. And yeah, worked there till, what was it, 2019, and then went off and worked with another rider, and just somebody I had met in the industry. I knew they owned a bunch of car washes. And seeing the car washed by the new shop that I was working at, I was driving by and saw the For Sale sign and it just got us thinking and, you know, pursued looking into it.

Jeff
So, 2019, you got out of the motorcycle industry, the racing business?

Ben
I was still in the racing business, but I left JGR at that time, and then went to work for a rider independently.

Jeff
Yeah. Awesome. We’ll have to talk a little bit later, off recording, about your experience with JGR Motocross. That’s really cool. How many years with them?

Ben
Nine years.

Jeff
Wow, that’s awesome. Excellent. Dan, share with listeners a little bit of your background please.

Dan
Like Ben said, we grew up in Vermont. Our parents were born and raised in Germany. So, when we were young, we traveled back and forth to Germany and had family here. So that was a kind of cool upbringing. When I graduated high school, I went to college at RIT in Rochester, New York. I went to school for manufacturing engineering. And then once I graduated college, I went to work for Pratt & Whitney. They build aircraft engines. I did a rotation program, so I moved all over for two years. I did Arkansas, Connecticut, Maine, and then Georgia. Then I ended up in Maine for two years. And I kind of got over corporate, left there, took a little sabbatical, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I ended up coming down here to visit Ben, went on a bike ride, met my boss, and I ended up getting a job at JGR as well working for the Cup team.

Jeff
Oh, wow.

Dan
And I still work there today.

Jeff
Wow. That’s awesome. Yeah. Which driver?

Dan
I actually work in the production group, so we make a lot of the car in-house currently, so I’ve worked with those groups, just helping improve data collection and production.

Jeff
Excellent.

Dan
Yep.

Jeff
Yeah, living the dream.

Dan
Yep, t’s a different world.

Jeff
So, when did you guys decide that you wanted to become small business owners, go into business for yourselves? Is that a bug that had always been there? Or is that just something that kind of, how did that happen?

Dan
I when I left my first corporate job, I kind of started a small company, and I think that started my entrepreneurship, selling like an online GoPro product. And then when I moved down here, I bought my first house. And that’s when I started listening to real estate. And I bought a couple houses, so I have three properties. And I have few rentals, and that kind of rubbed off on Ben, and then like he said, he knew somebody that had car wash, he drove by there all the time. So, we called the broker one day and looked at the numbers, and that kind of started it. And we’re like, neither of us can do this alone, we’d have to do it together, so we kind of took the dive in.

Jeff
Yeah. partnered up?

Dan
Yeah.

Jeff
The name of the car wash is Suds N Shine?

Dan
Yep, yeah.

Jeff
And the location is over on 115 in Cornelius?

Ben
Yep, just south of Bailey Road.

Jeff
Just south of Bailey Road. Yep. I pass it literally twice a day, every day.

Dan
Yep, we didn’t change the name, we just changed the logo a little bit.

Jeff
Yeah, that’s super cool. Excellent. So what, the broker, you got with a broker, were you interested in the property before you connected with the broker, or did the broker say, here’s a property that’s available?

Dan
He just had a sign out and that’s how we started the process. We called and asked if it was still available. It was probably April of last year. So, the world was kind of shut down. But that’s when we started analyzing it, looking at it, we actually met the owners had a call with them and just ask about operations and like, what does it actually take to run, because it looks good on paper. And then they met us there and kind of walked us around. And that was like the start of like, I think we could do this and still work our day jobs.

Ben
It was literally a couple months of me driving by there and looking at the sign and telling Dan like, hey, we should do this, we should do this. You know, it seems crazy to do it. But once you sit down and look at it, you can make it happen.

Jeff
Yeah. So, you started looking at it in April 2020. And yeah, the world was coming to an end.

Ben
Yeah.

Jeff
And so right in the thick of the pandemic, you guys purchased a business.

Dan
Yeah.

Jeff
Nice thing about the car wash, it’s a self-serve and it’s also, there’s a touchless drive thru car wash as well?

Dan
Yeah, it’s got five self-service bays, and then one automated touchless and six vacuums.

Jeff
Seems like that would be, for the most part pretty automated, pretty hands-off. It doesn’t require a lot of your time.

Ben
For the most part, you’re just, you know, keeping the place clean. We pride ourselves on having it clean, we don’t have trash overflowing, the bays are clean. Obviously, you can’t prevent that every time, but you know, I try to go by there twice a day and Dan goes by there after work and we have a kid that comes by and helps out with keeping the place clean. So that’s a big thing that I get a lot of compliments on, that it’s always clean and kept up well and everything works when people come there.

Jeff
I love that.

Dan
That’s what I’m gonna say, is just making sure that everything works, like we do get, wash our cars a lot, but you actually test it, make sure every function is still working the way it’s supposed to and that just keeps people happy.

Jeff
Yeah, yeah. A tidy workplace and the equipment working all the time, that’s so important, right?

Ben
Yep.

Jeff
One of my first businesses I started about 10 years ago is an auto-detailing business, kind of a high-end valet detailing business, and we have a saying in the detailing business, if you want to detail Ferraris you start a detailing business, if you want to own a Ferrari you buy a car wash.

Dan
I haven’t heard that one, that’s a good one.

Jeff
Very cool. Now that’s not the only business you guys are in, you purchased another business this year in 2021. Still though, in the pandemic situation, what’s the other business?

Dan
So, we bought a Mini Self-Storage facility in Statesville, which, this one was brought to us by the broker that we went to the car wash with. He brought it to us right after we bought the car wash, and we’re like, underwater right now, trying to figure out how to run everything. And then just through some real estate podcasts and books, I knew that the self-storage industry had survived any crashes or anything, because people always need a place to put their stuff.

Ben
They’ve actually grown. They actually grew through the pandemic.

Dan
But yeah, then we started asking questions on that one, same thing, looking at numbers, and we’re like, wow, we could make this one happen as well. That one was, took about seven months from when we first started looking at it to closing. So, that one was a bit of a process.

Jeff
Yeah, I’ve rented, I can’t tell you how many self-storage units over the last 10 years switching, you know, moving my business locations around, you need temporary storage space, and also remodeling the house. And I mean, it’s usually the places are pretty full. You know, getting the exact space that you need can be a challenge sometimes, there seems to be new spaces coming up all the time.

Ben
That’s a good problem for us.

Jeff
Yeah, it seems like a pretty, you know, I guess kind of a recession-proof business. As Americans, we’re always collecting. We don’t want to throw anything out. We just add more junk to our lives.

Ben
Exactly. You got to save that dresser from when I was a kid.

Dan
It is surprising though, we have a couple businesses, and they just use it for inventory, just a place to keep their stuff

Jeff
Yeah, yeah, there’s that too.

Dan
They come up every day and grab what they need for the day, and then they’re off.

Jeff
Yeah, yeah, it makes sense. I didn’t prep you for this question, but how did you raise the money? How complex was it to raise the money? Did you go into a lot of your savings? Did you get outside investors, loans? How does that work?

Dan
So, we inherited our mom’s house in Vermont, which was completely paid off. So, we’ve been Airbnb-ing that for the last few years, and it pays for itself. It’s a pretty popular tourist area. So, since it was paid off, when Ben asked about the car wash, I was like, the only way we could do it is we’d have to do a cash-out refi on the house. We didn’t have to take all of the money out but just enough for the down payment, that’s how we got into the car wash. And then through some SBA deals with loans, their first six months of principal and interest payments were covered on the car wash. So, we had to have a lot of reserves from the lender just to buy the car wash because there’s so much equipment. And then after we started running it, we’re like, you have a way better idea, the equipment, what’s gonna break how much it’s gonna cost. So, we had a fair amount of money, and we already kind of put the money away for repairs. So, we were able to take that and then some of our own savings to do the storage.

Jeff
So, kind of assembled it from a lot of different sources.

Dan
Yeah.

Jeff
Where in Vermont?

Dan
Do you know where Bennington is?

Jeff
No.

Dan
Southern Vermont, the bottom left corner, so, the border of Vermont and Massachusetts, and like five minutes from New York.

Jeff
I worked in Boston. I lived outside of Boston for several years back in the 90s and used to go skiing in New Hampshire.

Dan
Okay.

Jeff
Did a lot of sightseeing up in Maine and New Hampshire and a few drives. The only experience I had with Vermont was driving through from Boston to Montreal, so yeah, it’s really, really, it’s beautiful up there. Really pretty place.

Ben
Especially this time of year.

Jeff
Oh, yeah.

Ben
We were just up there a couple weeks ago.

Jeff
And it’s like 75 degrees.

Ben
Yeah, it’s perfect.

Jeff
Yeah, I wouldn’t mind chasing some 70-degree weather right now, it’s brutal around here.

Dan
I know, the humidity.

Jeff
So, another topic I wanted to talk to you guys about, you probably didn’t do a lot of business together prior to going into these businesses.

Dan
No, not really. Probably about zero.

Jeff
So, what’s this past year and a half been like him, you know, going into business together, investing together? You’re not really creating concepts, like you’re purchasing existing businesses. So, there’s not a lot of creative dilemmas going on between you two. But what are some challenges, is what I really would like to know, what are the challenges of doing business with family?

Dan
I mean, I feel like it was kind of easy because we know each other so like, we know how we get along. Ben’s definitely a little more on the operations day-to-day to fix anything and I’m a little more on the back end like accounting and doing some of the books and making sure we’re doing all of that stuff. But we both try to do the day-to-day, kind of working around each other schedules is the tough part because I still work full time. I don’t think there’s any real issues, but I would say me and Ben talk way more because we’re constantly texting about something.

Ben
Yeah, we’re either texting or on the phone or we’ll be at the Knight’s game in Charlotte, and we’ll be talking about what we can do for the car wash or storage. So, it’s kind of, the negative I guess would be maybe it never turns off, but that’s also not really that much of a negative.

Jeff
Yeah, that’s kind of cool. It gives you another reason to communicate on a more regular basis, right?

Dan
Yeah.

Jeff
So, in a lot of ways, it’s probably brought you closer than you were.

Dan
Yeah, it’s definitely fun, too. Because we get to grow together. It’s not like I’m doing it like, hey, look at me. It’s like, hey, we can put our eggs in one basket and work together, and we can both grow something.

Jeff
Yeah, that’s awesome, I love that. Ben, Dan seems like the numbers guy to me, would that be correct?

Ben
Yeah, for sure. I could probably open QuickBooks right now, if I had to and figure out something, but it would take me a while.

Jeff
Well, you know, complimentary skill sets. We talk a lot about that on the podcast. Entrepreneurs and small business owners, having a partner with complimentary skill sets is so, so helpful. Yeah, a little bit of an aside, we were connected through Ben, your wife is acquainted with my partner in the podcast production and his wife. And I talk about that all the time, how much more successful these productions have become, because I have his partnership and his, those skill sets to lean on that I don’t have, you know, like, all the web design and graphic design and things like that, things that I just don’t know anything about. So, and then I can do a lot of the things that he really doesn’t want to do too. It just happens to be some of these things are things that I’m kind of good at.

Ben
We can both do it on our own if we had to, but it’s easier doing it together.

Jeff
Absolutely.

Dan
Yeah, for sure.

Ben
You complement, you know, I do this, he does this, and we can crisscross if we need to. But you know, everyone has their strong suit.

Jeff
Yeah, definitely. The self-storage place is called Affordable Mini Storage in Statesville?

Dan
Yep.

Jeff
And you guys just purchased that in September of ’21? No, I’m sorry, May of ’21?

Dan
Yeah

Jeff
We’re not in September of ’21 yet, almost. Yeah, cool, May of ’21. So, two businesses in less than a year. That’s awesome. Yeah, that’s really cool.

Dan
It’s been a lot, but it’s been good.

Jeff
Yeah. Something that I love to talk to my guests about, I like to bring up in every conversation is some shout outs to local businesses. We focus really a lot on local Lake Norman, independent businesses, restaurants, boutiques, and craft breweries. Of course, it just gives me a great excuse to go get a beer. But I love for my guests to kind of, you know, throw a few shout outs out there for local businesses that you’d like to recognize. Dan, how about you?

Dan
One of our good friends owns Luxury Auto Company in downtown Cornelius. They sell used cars, and they do a lot of service work. They’re really awesome. If you’re trying to find a certain car, you can go reach out to them, and they’ll help you find it and source it. So, they’re just a good resource. Lots of knowledge there in the car industry.

Jeff
I pass them quite a bit when I go from Bailey Road up to Davidson or downtown Cornelius, and they always have really, pretty cool selection of cars. It’s usually like pretty diverse, but some nice stuff. Like higher-end cars for sure.

Dan
It’s a good spot.

Jeff
Yeah. Ben, how about you?

Ben
I guess I’d give a shout out to all the local bike shops that have survived through the pandemic. You know, there’s a lot of them, but the ones that I’d say we frequent would be Spirited Cyclist in Davidson and Huntersville, which we’re actually sponsoring their Gran Fondo they’re having Lake Norman coming up. The Cycle Path in Davidson. And then another buddy of ours, Live It Xtreme up in Mooresville.

Jeff
I’m actually just finishing up a long-form blog article for the podcast, for the website, thebestoflkn.com, we love our long-form written blog articles.

Ben
Yeah, I was checking them out yesterday.

Jeff
Yeah, most of them are food and beverage, we’re definitely foodies, but I’m just finishing up one about the best bike shops around Lake Norman area.

Ben
Oh, that’s cool.

Jeff
Yeah, and Spirited Cyclist and the Cycle Path are definitely on that list.

Ben
Yeah.

Jeff
Love to shop in Davidson. I’ve had one or two friends over the years that worked there at the Davidson shop, for Spirited Cyclist. And Cycle Path has, I know they’ve been recognized as like, best bike shop. I think Lake Norman publications last year gave them, they call it the Normy Awards, so they got that. Cool place. What was the name of the place in Mooresville?

Ben
Live It Xtreme, cycles.

Jeff
Okay, I wasn’t familiar with them, so I’m going to get some more information from you, after we close, and I definitely want to include them in that article.

Ben
They used to be where The Racing Hall of Fame is right there by the shooting range off 150, but they moved down closer to, is it Bad Dad, no Big Daddy’s?

Dan
Big Daddies, yeah.

Ben
You know, where they have the cars on the roof.

Jeff
Yeah, still down though off 150, in Mooresville.

Ben
Yeah, still off 150.

Jeff
Are they mountain bikes, road bikes, a little bit of everything?

Ben
Mountain bikes, road bikes, everything you need.

Jeff
Okay, cool. I’m glad we connected before I publish that article. So, I’ll get with you and get some more information on that and make sure that I get them in the article as well.

Ben
Yeah, cool, awesome.

Jeff
And get some photos of their place.

Ben
Yeah, that’d be cool.

Jeff
How about any other, any other shoutouts? I know, we talked a lot about food and beverage, restaurants, hospitality.

Dan
I mean, all the all the restaurants in Lake Norman have been awesome. They did a great job during the pandemic just doing to-go food, the breweries as well. There’s so many I can say here. We definitely go visit a lot of them.

Jeff
Yeah, we’ve had a lot on the podcast, a lot of them have been guests. And I just had this conversation the other day with another guest, when we weren’t recording, how, really, I don’t think the general public really appreciates how complex that pivot was, to adapt and to take a 95% dine-in concept and turn it into a to-go concept so quickly. And then halfway through, make it a half to-go, half dine-in. You know, extremely complicated, and, yeah, not something anybody was ready for, you know, so, I give a lot of credit to the restaurant owners, the small businesses, restaurants, and craft breweries that made it through and still have the lights on and took such good care of their customers over the last year.

Dan
Yeah.

Ben
They for sure did, everybody that was open.

Jeff
What about reading recommendations? In my experience, leaders are readers but not every leader is a reader. Any reading recommendations, and I’ll also leave it open to podcasts. Podcasts, online resources, YouTube channels. I’ve actually gotten a lot of insight and advice on some pretty cool YouTube channels around the topic of blogging and podcasting.

Dan
I listen to tons of books and podcasts, a couple of books I put down, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I think kind of changed my mindset, that’s a pretty common one. I just finished reading Who Not How, which is by Dan Sullivan. It teaches you how to grow and who you need to grow, not just how to do it. And then another one is Beyond Wealth by Alexander Green. It’s kind of looking at more than just money. But like, what makes a wealthy lifestyle, it’s not just having a lot of money, it’s having enjoyment and things like that. Yeah, and just a bunch of real estate podcast, basically, Bigger Pockets is where I started for that.

Jeff
There are so many great podcasts on specific subjects, a great place to get some, in fact, that’s what inspired me to produce my own podcast and start producing them a couple years ago was all the podcasts I’ve been consuming to get advice on marketing, you know, small business growth and that sort of thing over the years. So, you just type into the search in Spotify, or Google podcasts, or Apple podcasts and find a topic.

Dan
Yeah, now I listen to a car wash podcast and a self-storage podcast, everything’s out there.

Jeff
There’s a podcast for everything. Yeah, for sure. Ben, how about you, anything?

Ben
I’m not much of a reader, and Dan just sends me what I should listen to. I just go with that and listen to what he sends me.

Jeff
Yeah, I actually love my Audible subscription, I listen to all my books now.

Dan
Same.

Jeff
I’ve gotten into a couple of paperbacks and hardcovers over the last year and I end up just buying the Audible version.

Dan
Yeah, same.

Jeff
And I’ll just listen to it during that found time driving, you know, wrenching or something like that. You know when you just you have your ears free. So, I totally get that. Dan Sullivan, Who Not How, that’s a great title. And Dan Sullivan, I was listening to an interview with him on a podcast recently, and the dude’s like, how old is he? Like 80?

Dan
I’m not sure, yeah. I just listened to it. But I know the version I listened to was cool because they read the chapter, then the person that talked about it had a conversation with him about the chapter, which was pretty cool.

Jeff
Yeah, punch his name into the podcast directory search bar and he’s done, like recent interviews, and I forget how old it is 75, 80. He has no plans to retire. He’s like, why would I retire? I love what I do. I run to work every day. And you know, it’s, so I love that mindset.

Dan
My definition of retirement is when you work for yourself.

Jeff
Absolutely.

Dan
When you love what you do, it’s not called work.

Jeff
Yeah, that’s right, never work a day in your life. Right? Yeah, absolutely. Cliche, but true.

Dan
Yep.

Jeff
Another question I wanted to ask you guys, I’ve been asking this more recently, I haven’t asked this a lot over the last year. But since getting into small business ownership is so fresh in your minds. The last 12 months, I’m sure have been kind of a whirlwind for you. What advice would you have for anyone who’s considering starting their own small business, purchasing a small business, or getting into entrepreneurship? Anyone who aspires to basically work for themselves, what advice would you have? Dan, let me start with you.

Dan
I mean, like you said, you can punch any topic into podcasts. I’d start there, listen to stuff and see if it interests you. Next thing would be is, try to find somebody that’s done what you want to do and go reach out. I mean, most small business owners love doing it, so they’re willing to talk about it. Even if they just answer a few questions, they might be able to direct you somewhere to help you learn even more. And then after that, once you’ve got a good knowledge base, it’s kind of taking action and trying to do something. You can learn as much as you want but if you never take action, you never get anywhere.

Jeff
Yeah, that’s right. Perfection is procrastination in disguise. Think about it, just keep thinking about it, but you got to take action, you got to get started for sure. Ben, what do you think?

Ben
Yeah, I’d say the same thing. Just like, do your research. Know what you want. Talk to people, like I run into people all the time at the car wash that are like, hey, I want to open a car wash. What do you think? And I’m like, yeah, it’s good. Yeah, just, you know. The biggest thing is taking action, like Dan said, do it.

Jeff
Yeah. Overcoming that fear, right?

Ben
Yeah, I mean, it was obviously, when you see what your mortgage is going to be when you sign that first loan. Like, it’s scary, like, are we gonna be able to cover this, but then, buying the self-storage place we’re like, oh yeah, we got it and it’s not a big deal anymore. Yeah.

Dan
It’s a lot less scary the second time.

Jeff
Less scary the second time, for sure. That’s funny. That’s awesome. No, I love that. I totally agree. I think that starting with podcasts, jump on there and do a search for episodes or interviews on the topic that interests you, like that industry, and listen to stories. I love How I Built This by Guy Raz.

Dan
Yep, that’s a good one.

Jeff
Yeah, listen to how these brands started and see if, you know, just get some inspiration.

Dan
Yeah, just listening to anything entrepreneurship, but like, how Guy Raz, some of those stories, it’s like a lot of those people just kind of fell into luck, because they took action. Like they started in their garage or whatever, and it took off.

Ben
They had no idea what they were doing, they just made it happen.

Jeff
It’s so true. Herb Kelleher, the founder of Southwest Airlines, or the co-founder, that’s one of my favorite stories, he was, the guy who wanted to start the airline went to him, Herb was his divorce lawyer. But Herb was like, the personality behind the brand, you know, the creator of the company culture. And the other partner was the, you know, the money, the numbers behind starting the company, but what an awesome story. But so many other stories on that podcast, in particular, How I Built This. Definitely, highly recommend that. It’s really cool. It’s really inspiring to hear how these brands started, like Ben said, with, I mean, they had no idea what they’re doing. Like they had no business acumen and really no business starting a business. But they just had this idea, like, this is what I love to do, and I just want to do this.

Ben
You just figure it out along the way.

Jeff
Yeah, yeah, totally.

Ben
It’s like coming from the racing background. Like, the race is every Saturday at this time, and there isn’t, you can’t not make it, you have to get it done. So, coming from that mentality, for me anyway, makes this seem easy.

Jeff
Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah, because you’re on a deadline every week. Right? And it has to be, it has to be perfect. Whereas starting your own business, you can make a lot of mistakes. You can pivot, you can make adjustments, you know?

Ben
Yeah, for sure.

Jeff
Because that’s another thing we always mention on the podcast, a lot of small business owners and entrepreneurs that I talk to, they’re like, yeah, I mean, you can’t wait till you’re 100% ready. When you’re around 75-80%, launch it, you’ll figure out the rest. You’ll figure out what’s broken after the launch.

Dan
Yes. Something I just heard, it was ready, shoot, aim.

Jeff
Yeah, ready, shoot, aim. Exactly. Can’t do that so much in the racing industry. You got to be perfect when you start.

Ben
Yeah, for sure.

Jeff
Well, excellent. Very, very cool. This has been awesome. I’m glad we were able to connect. Yeah, this has been really great. How can listeners learn more about Suds N Shine and Affordable Mini Storage?

Dan
Suds N Shine is on all the social channels, Google My Business. It’s sudsnshine115 is our handle for Instagram and Facebook. If you just type it into Google, you’ll see the Google Ad pop up, phone number’s there so you can reach us. Email is sudsnshine115@gmail.com. And then the storage is amstoragenc.com. And that’s our social handle as well.

Jeff
Okay, cool. I will definitely have links in the show notes. And also links to, or the titles that you mentioned in the podcast that we talked about. Guys, this has been really great, thanks so much for joining us, Dan and Ben Schiermeyer, owners of Suds N Shine in Cornelius and Affordable Mini Storage in Statesville. Guys, thanks a lot for joining the podcast.

Dan
Thanks for having us.

Ben
Yeah, thanks for having us.

Jeff
Big thanks to Dan and Ben for joining the podcast. Listeners, you can find Suds N Shine Car Wash at 18341 Old Statesville Road in Cornelius. I’ll have a link to the website in the show notes. You can also follow Suds N Shine on Facebook and Instagram. Affordable Mini Storage is located at 129 Marble Road in Statesville. I’ll have links for that business in the show notes as well. As always, the complete show notes and full transcripts for our episodes can be found at the home for Lake Norman’s number one small business podcast, www.thebestoflkn.com. We’re also publishing new blog articles on a regular basis that showcase our favorite businesses in the Lake Norman area. Have a look and see if we’ve covered some of your favorites. Well, that’ll do it for Episode 66. I want to thank you for following along on our journey. And many thanks for supporting the small businesses we feature here at The Best of LKN. We have another episode for you right around the corner. So, until then, cheers Lake Norman. Bye for now.

Narrator
We hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of The Best of LKN. For more information about this podcast, show notes, video episodes, and links to our featured businesses, please visit www.thebestoflkn.com. We publish episodes weekly, so be sure to subscribe and stay up to date. Until next time, cheers Lake Norman.