Project Person // Profile #14

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Meet Kevin Jennings // Project Person #14

What project are you currently working on? I'm working with my wife, aunt, and a childhood friend to develop Refresh & Etc. — a full-service garment and linen cleaning company serving the metropolitan Nashville area.

What did it take to get started? It took my wife to share her vision of owning a laundromat. Then, I started doing what I usually do to develop opportunities — talk to people. When we found the right opportunity, we got a loan to fund an investment in our childhood friend's dry cleaner and support the company's acquisition of a laundromat.

What's your most impressive or favorite stat? Over the last three years, our company has served more than 3,000 people. I am incredibly proud of this stat because of what it represents. Our customers live in the communities I grew up in and resemble my family —  working- and middle-class families making the most of their lives with the people they love.

What's something that never would have happened for you without this project? Before this project, I never thought I would have done business as part of a five-person partnership group. However, the more significant thing is my wife and I likely wouldn't be reconnecting with our childhood friend on such a a deep and intimate level. We also wouldn't be able to actively engage our young children in our work/business so early in their lives. When I look back on this season of life, I hope to cherish the memories with my family and friends the most.

What keeps you up at night? The list of things that keep me up at night has dramatically reduced over the last decade. I'm also busy enough with business and life that I collapse at the end of the day. However, as an entrepreneurial and strategic thinker, one of my strengths is problem and opportunity recognition. So, I have the gift and curse of seeing issues everywhere and contemplating issues large and small. Then, it leads me to my big recurring questions, which have now become a prayer: "God, what would you have me do about this? How can I (or how should I) help? Please give me guidance, wisdom, and discernment so I can best use my time, energy, skills, and resources to serve your people."

What are some of your other projects? In addition to building Refresh & Etc., I'm leading and growing my core business, Chief Growth Officer, which offers strategy and support for business growth through one-on-one business development coaching, brand and marketing consulting, and done-with-you implementation services. My other long-term project since 2012 is deejaying weddings and private events with one of my best friends under the moniker of The Hype Men.

(pssst. You can listen to the email below like a podcast! Just click the play button.)

Kevin was late to our interview, but I couldn’t be mad at him. 

For one, Kevin is quite possibly the most likable person I’ve ever met. I think any ill-will towards him is chemically impossible. 

But also, he was late for a highly applicable reason. “Oh, it’s a story you’d appreciate,” he told me when he joined the Zoom, his eyes growing wide. “I was at the laundromat.” 

Said Laundromat is the business Kevin and his wife Leah just bought. 

Said Wife is an award-winning journalist, editor, and ghostwriter, who’s married to Kevin, a marketing and brand strategist who’s worked with Dave Ramsey, Tony Robbins, and Oprah. 

And back to Said Laundromat: a business owned by a 78-year-old widow named Ms. Kim out by the Nashville airport. 

Apparently Leah told Kevin a few years prior that she always wanted to own one. 

“Why was that the dream?” I asked Kevin. 

“With our work, we’ve really just been freelancers,” he said. “But now we’re thinking about our parents and their retirement. We’re thinking about our family. We wanted a business with passive income.” 

“But why a laundromat?” I prodded.  

Kevin smiled, laughed, bounced on his toes a little. “You know, I never asked her why a laundromat. I was just so excited.” 

Excited Kevin told his tax preparer—a woman from his church he calls his Play Aunt—about this dream, and she said one of her clients was actually hoping to retire and sell off her laundromat. How about that! 

Kevin, known for his high energy and his ability to pump up his clients while also dropping piercing words of wisdom—usually while wearing a bowtie—has been running his marketing and brand strategy business for almost 13 years now. 

When I met him, he was actually running this business while also working a full-time job. He has an unbelievably high capacity, and his enthusiasm is infectious. 

I’ve actually never met Leah, but her reputation—from both mutual friends and from Kevin—is one of a saint, a hero, and a legend. 

So surely running a laundromat would be simple. In fact, I could even see Kevin and Leah making it pretty magical.  

I’ll cram the next two years of negotiations and serendipitous meetings—from that first conversation with Play Aunt until now—into this sentence: Kevin and Leah bought into their childhood friend Reggie’s dry cleaning business, and that business bought Ms. Kim’s laundromat. 

On the day after it closed, Kevin and Leah met with Ms. Kim, who handed them a bag of about twenty keys and basically said, “See you around.”  

“But what do these keys go to?!” 

Ms. Kim brought out a banker’s bag with about 200 more and then waved her hand noncommittally at the machines. 

There was literally a different (unmarked) key for every machine and every door. In fact, the front door to the building had three keys to get in and three different keys to get back out. 

It was the most in-the-flesh, acute example of “institutional knowledge” Kevin had ever seen. 

Everything about this business was in Ms. Kim’s head. 

Kevin had spent so much time evaluating the machines and the location, but he hadn’t looked into the leadership. After all, Ms. Kim was retiring! 

But Ms. Kim was also “the systems and processes”. 

She had no customer list, because she just knew who they were and when they'd show up. When a machine wouldn't work, she'd "just jiggle it like this." She had 200 unmarked keys.

She and her late husband, Mr. Kim, kept a futon in the back of the shop. Mr. Kim taught martial arts classes to the community in the retail space next door for over a decade. So, despite owning a home down the street, they'd hang out, eat lunch, or take naps in what was essentially a utility closet, now a makeshift break room.

Since Kevin worked from home with his other business, he decided to just start working from the laundromat instead. He'd get there to open it and would just keep an eye on who came in and how they used the equipment. He'd learn a little.

But then on his first day in the shop, a Regular came in asking to have her laundry washed, dried, and folded. Kevin said sure—how hard could that be? “Callie, I’ve never seen so much dog hair in my life. Even after the wash and dry, I spent hours lint rolling every piece of her clothing.” 

The next few weeks were unbelievably intense, as Kevin and Leah traded off time there, trying to learn and operate the business… while also taking care of their other jobs… and their two young kids. 

But he said they learned so much in those first weeks, from customer patterns and equipment quirks to this unbelievably poignant business realization: 

“You know,” he said, “Passive income only becomes passive because someone was once active.”

(Yikes, dreamers. Read that sentence again.) 

But he also had this realization: He did not want to be Ms. Kim. 

Kevin reminded himself that he and Leah were Owners and Investors in this business. They could be actively working IN the business for a season, but only if that was for the purpose of learning it, building systems and processes, and replacing themselves. 

“In our freelance work,” he said, “one person can do it all. But here, I can’t be a busker on the side of the street.” He smiled and shook his head, and I imagined both the thrill and the weight he was feeling. “I have to build an orchestra.” 

Kevin’s superpower is selling intangible things. Services, content, brands. He says he “sells the invisible.” And in a world where there are a thousand laundromats, he knows his ability to transform identities will be helpful one day. “But right now,” he said, “we have to wash and dry some laundry.” 

With knowledge work, Kevin had never really understood the role of operations. But a friend recently explained operations as delivering on the promises, and in this new brick-and-mortar situation, Kevin was beginning to understand. 

When a basketball team dropped off 200 pounds of laundry one evening and he learned it had to be delivered back to them clean the next morning, Kevin (aforementioned Operations) had to jump in to help the team ensure that promise was fulfilled.

Even if that meant being late to our meeting. 😉

Kevin said, "My mind raced with questions like, Why didn't anyone warn me, start the order last night, or ask our team to come in earlier?!"

But then he realized that he "can't use an in-the-business solution to fight an on-the-business problem."

Instead, the question became, "Okay, what is our process for large orders?" And when they realized there wasn't one, Leah added it to her list of processes to draw up.

And then, they'll do what they've done with every process thus far… they will teach it, coach it, use it, replicate it.

"The fastest thing to fix is your leadership," Kevin said. "And it's the cheapest thing to fix!! If you're looking at a bunch of capital investments, the cheapest thing to fix is YOU."

But, it’s also the hardest. 

Kevin and Leah are just 90 days into owning this business. I told him I feel so excited for the opportunity and all they will do with it, but I also feel so tired on their behalf. I can’t imagine the intensity of the past few months! 

I then asked how he’s feeling about it all. 

“Hopeful,” he shrugged. “No matter what happens, I just want to steward it well.”

This business pulls on them more than their other ones do; it was a big investment, a partnership, a brick-and-mortar establishment that customers have come to depend on. It’s forced them to take those poignant business wisdom mic-drops and make them real, both at the laundromat and in their other, non-laundromat lives. 

“You know, ambition makes you say yes,” Kevin said, and I braced myself for whatever genius was about to follow. “But what happens on the other side of that yes? I said yes to marriage, kids, entrepreneurship. But did I ever consider the expense that comes with those yeses?”

(Of course, I think of my own life, of the tensions that pull from every direction.) 

“This is the cost of our ambition,” he continues. “Completely transforming yourself. If you stay the same, your business dies. Your marriage ends. Your kids are crooks.” 

With the laundromat, he says, he has poured gasoline on the fire fueling his development journey. 

Kevin can’t just be the charming coach with the bowtie here. 

He’s got to attend to some dirty laundry. 

But then he reminds himself of his identity. At the laundromat, he’s an Owner/Investor. He does the dirty work so he can learn. (In his other life, this answer is much more complex. Practically, mentally, spiritually: Who is Kevin?)

He leaves me with one final power-punch: “The growth of any business is predicated on (1) how long we can extend the runway of this business so that (2) the leader can learn from his mistakes.” 

Maybe wisdom is attained like that elusive passive-income—you have to be painfully active first. 

And maybe all those wise one-liners are like systems and processes—only effective if they are followed. 

Kevin told me as much. He’s worked with some of the best leadership gurus alive, but he said it’s not knowing how to lead that matters. It’s doing it. 

This is why I, too, am hopeful. I think Kevin and Leah will bring their magic to this business, that it will be the most thoughtful, intentional laundromat there ever was. But I also think they’ll learn loads (had to) in the process, about life and leadership as much as laundry. 

And I think his ultimate goal—”to steward it well”—will be realized. 

Because who is Kevin?!

The ultimate maximizer—of time, opportunities, experiences, potential.

He invests most of this treasure in the growth of others, but now with the pressure of this new business, he has no choice but to invest this in himself.

And that’s an investment with infinite returns, one that can be passed down for generations.

An investment well stewarded.

-Callie

→ Follow Kevin’s journey and gain infinity other words of wisdom on Instagram or LinkedIn.

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Kristi Montague, a NYT best-selling author/illustrator who, along with her husband Brad, is “on a mission to create stories that cultivate empathy and imagination in kids and former kids.” From their children’s books to their show on the Magnolia Network to the Kid President videos you probably remember from a few years back, they consistently churn out THE COOLEST work.

Next time, I’ll share Kevin’s thoughts on self-awareness, along with a tool he put together listing his top 17 favorite personality assessments. Stay tuned!