EP. 110 | Establishing Ethical Ways in the Car Wash Industry Through Automation with Cameron Broom

Today's show is sponsored by the Airbnb Kickstart course. My wife and I started our first Airbnb here in the last year and we've come to love the ability to earn more money than we would if we had a long term rental. If you're interested in starting your Airbnb business with little money, scaling your Airbnb business, or just learning tricks about the industry in general, check out our airbnb course@nextlevelincome.com Air BNB. That's Air the Letters BNB and you'll get a 20% discount code. On today's show, we have Cameron Broome. Cameron Broome is the Director of Car wash operations and brings over a decade of operations experience from Tier 1 Automotive, Medical and aerospace manufacturing companies. As a mechanical engineering graduate from Clemson University, Cameron is an expert of mechanical assemblies. His success is rooted in fine tuning electric, mechanical, hydraulic and pneumatic assemblies to achieve precise functions in the most efficient way possible. Cameron's wife Melissa live in Lexington, South Carolina with their two children. Outside of work, Cameron is an avid fisherman and loves being on the water with his wife and kids. It's my pleasure to welcome Cameron to the show today.

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Cameron, welcome to the show.

Hey, thanks Chris.

Thanks for having me. Yeah, man, it's great to see you. Great to see you. Hope you've been enjoying summer with your family here.

Yeah, it's been a little hot, humid and very rainy, but we've certainly enjoyed the summer so far. A couple trips to the beach, looking to get a few more in.

Love it, man. Yeah, for, for the audience. Cameron hails from Columbia, South Carolina and it is, it is definitely hot this time of year but he's got a beautiful family and last time I saw him was, was down, down near the lake. So yeah, Cameron, tell us a little bit more about your background here before you joined Passive investing and the Hurricane car wash team and you know, share a little bit more about that with the audience.

All right, so as Chris mentioned, my name is Cameron Broome. Background is really in engineering. I graduated from Clemson University in 2012 with a Bachelor's in Mechanical engineering. Prior to that, I did achieve a certificate from a two Year college, Midlands Technical College in civil engineering. So that was around 2008, 2009, and my first employer that offered me a position with Michelin North America and offered me a position swinging shifts. And I kind of sat there for a second. I thought, man, I've got a college degree and I'm going into a position where I'm swinging shifts. And it just didn't, it didn't sit well with me. You know, I was expecting a salary position, a day shift position, and I said, what would it take? And they said a four year degree. And just with the state of the economy, I had a good family friend, Mike Longo, that employed me through that. We did a lot of steel erection detailing. And so I had a conversation with him and he said, well, with the state of the economy, like there's no better time to go get a four year degree somewhere. And that was something that, you know, no one in my family had ever done. And so I had no idea how to do it. You know, no one in my family had ever even received a two year. And so he coached me along the way, helped me fill out my applications and I was accepted to Clemson University and graduated in 2012. So it's kind of, I don't tell many people that I have your degree because it's almost like saying I graduated middle school, you know, but I do have a civil background as well as a bachelor's from Clemson. So believe it or not, received, you know, my Bachelor's and in 2012 from Clemson, went straight back to Michelin and said, hey, I've got my four year degree. So here's your daytime, you know, your day shift engineering position that you've been wanting. So I worked for Michelin North America for about six years, six and a half years as a process engineer. So I had a team of eight technicians up under me that oversaw day to day operations of the process. Quality issues, process issues, mechanical failures. They really kept the machines running, you know, throughout the night, seven days a week. So I oversaw that team as the process engineer for the plant. In 2018 when I joined a medical device manufacturer, Zeus Industrial Products.

Right off of 26, right?

Yeah, there's one right off 26. A lot of people are, are very familiar with that one. Their corporate offices out of Orangeburg. So I started there as a continuous improvement coordinator and moved into a research and design engineer. So really working in the research and design department, we would take a conception, right, that maybe a doctor had or another medical clinic had on how to do a procedure more effectively or more efficiently or more safely. And we would take that idea and really not only create the product, but we created the machines and the equipment and the process to create that final product. And we did it all in five days. So really short time span, just get a team of engineers together and what the war room and kind of, you know, discuss, you know, any, any hurdles that we might anticipate. And we tried to overcome those as fast. So my background is all in operations, a lot of Tier 1 Automotive, and about four years in medical manufacturing.

Well, look, we actually have a lot of people from the medical industry that listen to this show because, you know, I spent almost two decades as you know, in pharmaceutical and medical device industry. And I don't, I don't think a lot of people really appreciate the fact that you put together, you know, concept to production in five days. Because I mean, shoot, five days. That's usually about how much time you get before, before surgery, like the schedule of surgery, you know, so you're going from, you know, doing these things. And the other thing is, you know, surgeons are demanding. I remember having this conversation one time with somebody and I said, well, of course they're demanding. You know, they're like, surgeons are. So you gotta be demanding in this industry. I was like, you have a patient laying on the table, you know, so that, you know, for somebody like yourself that fully understands, you know, the importance of a technology like that, I gotta think that going from, from that type of thing to car washes is maybe a little bit of, maybe a little bit easier from the stress side. Am I right or am I wrong?

No, it's certainly a little easier, but I still can't, I can't seem to away from the standardization. You know, it's just embedded in me. I feel like that is a part of who I am, is standardized processes and procedures and with optimizing everything to just operate as effectively and efficiently as possible with the most repeatable results, like, that's just who I am. That's what the last 12 years of my career has, has taught me. And so I bring that with me. And one of the biggest things, if it's probably a perfect segue into the car washes is it's really one of the largest gaps that, that I see when I go from site site is, you know, you have employees that work at the site, but they don't understand the equipment. And that was really where I grew as, as a professional in engineering is I had this ability to relate to all of the people that ran the equipment. But I also had the technical knowledge and so that I could engage them and train them. And they're just so much more powerful when you give them just a little bit more information. Right. It's not that they're not intellectual, it's that no one has really trusted them with that information and how to use it. It's amazing. When you take a Washtec that's making $12 an hour and you promote them to 15, you say, with this promotion, we're going to give you a little more responsibility. You start teaching them a little bit about automation and a little bit about, you know, water consumption and energy consumption and customer service. And, you know, they really start to shine. And you're polishing diamonds at that point. And so that's the most rewarding thing I bring with me is that ability to engage the employees to be effective and make decisions that ultimately result in increased revenue for us as a business.

Yeah, no, it's. I'll tell you what, it opened my eyes because I knew about car washes. I looked at buying one with my uncle several years ago, came really close to buying one. I have a coaching client, they own two car washes up in New England area. And it really blew my mind how profitable they can be, but also how challenging some of the different areas were. And when you and I spent a day together at a couple of the sites. And by the way, we'll probably include the video, the walkthrough that we did behind the scenes, you know, the things I learned. Cameron. You know, it's the. You know, obviously you have to. Especially with the express tunnel model that I'll let you talk about here in a little bit. You know, you have the mechanics, but you also have the chemicals. And maybe you can share with the audience some stuff about that. I mean, it's not just the way you. The chemicals you use and the way you mix them, but also things like spray angles matter, right?

Oh, yeah. And, you know, a lot of it goes. It's not just about the chemical and having the right chemical at the right time in the tunnel to exit. You know, a clean car or clean vehicle that you would never think your car could achieve, you know, from the beginning of the tunnel to the end. But it is about spray angles because, you know, there's different orifices that distribute these chemicals. And whether it's water or chemicals, there are different patients of it. And so the application of that chemical. They're expensive. Chemicals are very expensive. Water is very expensive. So optimizing the optimizing and synchronizing the tunnel so that that chemical doesn't start until that car hits, you know, that exact location where the chemical, you know, distribute right onto the hood of the car or the door of the car or the under panel of the car. That's extremely important. It can increase your expense, decrease your expenses by, you know, roughly 30 to 40%. We've walked in tunnels before that we purchased. And chemicals are being distributed prior to the, you know, hitting the arch. So a matter of three or four seconds. And the chemicals only on the car for three or four seconds. So you're doubling the application by not having it synchronized and not having the timing lined up perfectly. We've been able to go in if we talk about water consumption, you know, with the nozzle size, it's an orifice angle and width, but we've been able to go in and reduce our water consumption by 66% on our very first car wash that we purchased.

Two thirds.

Yeah, they were, that's incredible, about 74 to 75 gallons per car. And we identified that through our due diligence analysis. And it wasn't a decision at that point that we had to make on whether we were purchasing the car wash or it was just that much more upside. Like we were that much more eager to get in there and make these modifications and make these changes. And really upon opening, the day we opened that site, we were able to have those levers on hand, implement them immediately. In our first month, we were at about 22 to 23 gallons car. So we went from 74 gallons to 23 gallons, and nothing changed with the wash quality of that vehicle. It was simply synchronizing and timing that tunnel so that we weren't wasting water. Right?

Yeah. It's like, I mean, I've walked through these tunnels. When you and I went to the car wash show in Nashville, and you like walk through one of these tunnels and it's like. It's like being inside of a symphony. And I grew up playing instruments, but it really is. It's like if you, you hit the drum at the wrong time, if you play the violin at the wrong time, it just, it doesn't. It's not as. It's just a mess. Right. And in this case, you're, you're just. It's a mess in terms of profitability. The problem is there's. There's a lot of money to be made for a small operator. And I'd love to talk a little bit more about kind of the state of the industry here. But you said something. So you're, you're using say 25, 30 gallons per car wash. A lot of people say, like, hey, Chris, aren't these car washes going to get shut down by the epa? Like you're using all these chemicals. Shouldn't you just wash your car at home? What's the industry say about that?

Through our research, and there's a lot of research that we can all do on the Internet, but it's actually more environmentally friendly to wash your, your car at an automatic car wash, at an automatic tunnel than it is to wash your car at home. You're using less chemicals. There's a less concentration of the chemical because we have the ability to dilute it to the perfect dilution rate through the use of tips, different tips or what they call versa dials that allow us to, to manually or automatically. I would say it's a manual control that automatically meters the flow of the chemical. We have the ability to really fine tune that dilution rate in some cases 2500, 3500 parts to 1. So when we think about the environment, the impact on the environment, we're able, we have a lesser impact because per car we're applying less chemicals, the chemical is diluted in a different manner. Then we also have reclaim systems and reclaim tanks and separation systems in place where those, the chemicals that are part of the reclaim system, those are all getting cycled back through one system. And there's an oil separator. So your solid sink, your oils float, those oils get separated into a separate tank. And then on a bi yearly basis, or as needed, based on the volume of the wash, will bring in a sewage company that will come out those chemicals. Right. And then like a restaurant does, right? Yeah. What's up?

Like a restaurant does when they separate out the grease and everything.

Yeah, exactly. So using less water, we're using less chemicals. And then we're also capturing, you know, any substance that should not go back into city water, city sewage and disposing of that, just like a sewage, sewage system is.

Yeah, see, that's, that's surprising. But at the same time, you know, I remember the first time I learned that it's, it's more efficient, it's less costly with water and everything to put your dishes in a dishwasher. And when you think about it, you're like, well, of course it is, because you're not letting the water run, you know, and all this stuff, it's, it's, it's crazy. It's like, well, yeah, it's the same, it's the same concept. You know, you're doing it in mass. You're obviously, you're utilizing much better technology and those sorts of things. So yeah, I mean it is, I just washed my car kind of symbolically right before and I can't wait till we have a location out here. But I just washed my car symbolically a couple hours here before we did the show here today. So you spent time talking about operations, Cameron. I mean, I know we can go on and on with that, with the efficiencies that can be had, but you know, how do you actually make money? So I think, you know, it's probably important to talk about before we go into that. What are the, what are the different types of car washes out there? What, what does hurricane specialize in? Because I, I've been to ones where, you know, people are actually washing their car. I've been to ones where I wash my own car. What are the types are out there out there and what, what are the preferred models that you look for or preferred types that you look for?

Yeah, so for the, that we're in the industry, the more we learn about the different models, but there's really three main, main types. There's a self service car wash, that one that has, you know, large open bays. You might see anywhere from three bays to 10 bays.

You just tore one down here in West Asheville, as a matter of fact.

Yeah, you just walk up, you drop your, your quarters in. Some of them actually have a credit card reader now where you can swipe your card and you know it'll charge you $10 minimum for five minutes. But it's a very manual process. You have a selector switch where you can select. I want a high pressure rinse, high pressure foam soap or maybe a wax or sealant or detergent. But it's a manual process. Right. The customer gets out, they have to select which chemical they want. They're actually doing the manual labor of the, you know, the elbow grease and cleaning the car.

I'd use quarters. I used to use those all the time in college because I do a mountain bike ride and I'd pull into there and I'd hose my mountain bike off, do my car. But you'd have to like feed it quarters. It was such a pain in the butt.

Yeah. And it keeps beeping at you. It's like. So that's your, that's your self serve model. Still useful, right? Just really a different, a smaller demographic will use that, that self serve bay. Maybe it's someone that has a mountain bike on the back or kayaks or someone that's in more of a work vehicle where they have to really focus on just the sides and not get their equipment in the back of their bed wet. Right. So there's still certain uses, you know, usage, usages of a self serve model. The next model up from that is an in bay automatic. It's more of an automatic style tunnel, but it's not a conveyorized tunnel. So the customer has to pull up into a set of wedged anchors on the concrete. Their tire kind of sits in that. And then this automatic machine kind of goes back and forth. That's called an A or an MBA automatic. Those are more low volume. They can't output the volume that you can the next version, which is an express model. So the express model is an RBA is typically going to be 30ft, maybe 40ft and enough for that automatic in bay machine to move back and forth or traverse the length of your vehicle. But then you have the model that we really look for, profitable model has, has the capability of outputting the highest volume. And that is the full service model. I'm sorry, the express model. So that express model is typically. You're going to see a conveyor anywhere from 100ft to 160ft. One of our sites in North Carolina has a 160 foot conveyor. It is, they're currently doing a news article on it right now because it's the longest conveyor in the southeast. So 160ft, very long tunnel, very efficient. There's a lot of side wraps, so you get a lot of free through that tunnel. But in the express model, a vehicle is loaded onto a conveyor by a loader. We call them wash tucks. And that's part of their job responsibility is to load the vehicle. But they're standing at the front of the tunnel and they're actually in control of the vehicle without being in eye contact with the customer guiding them on. They may tell them left or right to make sure that their tires are in the right position and then stop the vehicle when they're loaded in the right position. We do the prep work. We will brush the fronts of the bumpers, brush the mirrors, you know, the backside of the vehicle, maybe where our wraps won't get, and then fire the roller, which, you know, advances that car through the tunnel at a very set speed. And as that car advances through the tunnel, there are different sensors and detectors that say, hey, I noticed a car is approaching. Go ahead and turn this wrap on or fire this chemical or fire this. Rinse bar, rain bar or apply rain X or tire shine or. So that's your express model. There is other variations or combinations of each of those. You've got a full service, which I accidentally mentioned earlier. Full service, that's one where a customer pulls up. It's the same style, but they get out. An employee of the car wash will vacuum their car and then drive their car through the tunnel. And that typically appeals to an older generation. Right. Maybe what we see, we have one full service site that we are contemplating converting right now. So we're on Two Notch Road in Columbia. But we see a lot of people in their late 50s, 60s, 70s that are using that because they've been there and done that. They've washed your car enough. They don't want to back out and do that. They'd rather pay someone to do it for them. Right. So there's a smaller group that uses the full service, but there still appeal to a very specific demographic.

Yeah, no, that makes sense. Yeah. I mean I use the one we go to is, is the express tunnel. And I remember I used to, you know, I used to go and I'd be like, all right, I'm going to pay 20 bucks or 30 bucks for, for a wash. And then I ended up just doing, you know, now I make my wife go every week because it's really her car she has, you know, because I got stuff on my car. I got like a roof rack and I got, you know, bike rack on there. So I can't, I can't run mine through. But it's, it was cheaper. It was like 30 bucks for a month. And it's like all you can wash. So I gotta imagine like that's, that's gotta be. The model is getting people to move from, you know, buying a single wash to a membership model. Is that right?

Yeah, I mean, and that's the model, you know, that we're moving forward. That's part of who we are, is really building up that membership base. You know, just an example of how motivated to build our membership base. When we acquired the sites that we have in North Carolina, they had about 750. And it's funny that we're on this call. Just did an analysis this morning for someone else. We had about 750 members and they were bringing in on average 115 memberships per month.

Okay.

Since closing on March 17, we brought in an average of 496 precisely members. So we've really quadruple Drupal you know, their membership volume, their monthly membership volume in the strategies of staffing the pay stations, making the customers aware that it's actually a little bit cheaper to purchase this membership because going to wash your per wash cost is cheaper. You can visit as much as you want. And there's a couple of upsides of that, right? On a rainy day, you wait and bam, $5,000 is already in the town and you didn't wash your car and you had no overhead, you had no chemicals, you had nothing. So that's a plus side that a lot of people look at. I think what's more valuable than the rainy day mailbox money, if you will, is the state of the economy, right? You build your membership base, you have them create a habit of visiting that car wash on a regular basis. And for most people, their vehicle is, if it's not their most valuable asset, is their second most valuable asset, right? House, car. And people are just getting in the habit and they have been for several years of keeping their vehicles clean. You don't see people washing their cars at home unless they have racks and things like that like you do, Chris. Yeah, but they've created that habit and they're used to washing their car and they're used to spending that 30 hours every single month, 30 or 40 or $50, depending on the package, to get their vehicle washed. So depending on the state of the economy, there is data that shows that those memberships, even during a recession, you maintain a lot of that, you lose a little bit to a churn. But maintaining that MRR is what we call a monthly recurring revenue is really what is appealing to the car wash industry because we believe that's what makes it recession resistant, if you will.

One of the stats, I think that backs that up, and correct me if I'm wrong, but the older your car, the more you wash it. Is that right?

That's exactly right. It's odd.

Yeah. I was like, this is one of these things. It's like freakonomics, right? You hear this and it's like, well, wait a minute. If I'm less likely to buy a new car because cars are more expensive and interest rates are more expensive or higher, so payments more expensive. I'm probably going to keep my car longer, so I'm probably going to wash it more.

They want to take better care of it because they know that taking better care of their vehicle will make their vehicle last longer. So what they're doing is instead of going out and buying a new vehicle is they're maintaining the one that they have better. And it doesn't just. It's not just washing their vehicle at a car wash. They're changing their oil more regularly. They're executing routine maintenance on the vehicle because they've either been there and done that, and they know that, hey, if I don't change my oil by the time I hit 10,000 miles in my 95 accord, you know, I'm going to blow the engine. And so not only are they maintaining the mechanical drivetrain of their vehicle, they're maintaining, you know, the exterior and the interior of their vehicle. They're going to be in it longer. They expect to be in it longer. Yeah, exactly.

Right. I had a 94 Accord. I love that car. Not 95. It was a 94. Love that thing. Yeah. My first real car, man. And then. All right, so people are more likely. This is. Again, I love that statistic because I get a lot of questions where people say, yeah, this is a luxury item. Right, Chris? People aren't going to wash their cards when the economy turns down. And when you put it the way you just did, Cameron, it makes you think a little bit and say, well, maybe this isn't true. And then, you know, I think the other thing is, I remember this from a presentation I saw. Quality is only fourth on the list of why people wash their car.

Quality is only fourth on the list. So I haven't seen that specifically, but I can speak to that. I can certainly speak to that.

Yeah, I guess why do people wash their. Their cars is the kind of what we're getting to. Yeah, it's not how can you affect their. They're. And how do you.

Let me.

Let me rephrase the question. You know, why do people wash their car and what do you do with hurricane to give them a better experience to meet that need, I guess, is my question.

So, yeah, people, you know, quality. You get a handful of customers that come in and they really want their tire. They don't care if a brush touches their vehicle. They want their tire shine or they want the buff and shine which dries their vehicle off. Right. And that's a handful of customers. The majority of customers that are coming through are coming through for the experience. It's just. It's part of their family outing. They're going to the grocery store. They've been out shopping. They're out riding around with their kids. They went and got ice cream. It's an experience. It's a family outing now more than it is, you know, just washing your vehicle.

I've always loved the red lava, like the lava like type stuff that comes down. Like can you open the, open the roof so we can see it through the window?

Yeah, there's all kinds of cool like fun, you know, accessories that can be installed at the car wash to really make experience that elevate that experience. Right. That customer experience. LED lighting is one of them.

Yeah.

You go into some car washes and that's something that we, when we're purchasing a car wash that's part of our due diligence and it's not a make or break, it's is there upside down because we know there's upside in installing that, that G lighting. There's several different brands out there, but this specific one that we're moving forward with just because of and I'll talk a little bit about that, maybe off topic, they have a track record, right. And they have lights in a tunnel and so sure there's a lot of vendors out there that can put light tunnel but we're moving forward with the one that has the track record that has already. They've already evolved. They're not getting water in their lights. We're not having, you know, excessive warranty claims and stuff. They have that data. They know how you know, they know their reliability versus their competitors. Going with a very reputable brand and installing that LED lighting just as you mentioned, because there's a lot of customers that love it. That's one of the things that we're doing as Hurricane Express Wash, but we're also staffing our properties properly. We don't have just one person on site. We're under these deals and making sure that the numbers make sense prior to closing on the deal where we can staff this site with two or three people at all times and sometimes up to six based on the wash volume. People care about the prep experience. Right. You get in the tunnel, you stop on the track and this is before they fire, the roller starts moving your car. They've just paid 25 or $30 for a car wash and they know that that tunnel is not going to wash everything. And so they really care about someone out there maybe with a foam brush doing a little bit of manual labor on their car. Right. Like haha, I didn't have to do that because I paid my $30. So we're stopping two people at the prep area. There's one on each side of the vehicle. That vehicle enters the tunnel and they're getting prepped by, you know, two individuals or two team members feeding them at the pay station. Think about Your Chick Fil A. Right? You pull up a Chick fil A, and 90% of the time, yeah, 90% of the time, you never make it to, you know, the menu board and the microphone because you have an employee that has greeted you with an iPad. And they're like, welcome to like, what can I do for you today? Right? You already know that you want a number one or number two. You know exactly what you want. You don't even need a menu. I think half of the Chickfila don't even carry the menus anymore.

Right.

Because they've built a brand. They've built a reputable brand. People know what to expect. They know what they want. It's consistent whether they go to Chick Fil A in Fort Myers, Florida, or Chick Fil A in Edgewood, Maryland. Every single one is the exact same. And that's what we're doing in building our model and building our volume in our training procedures so that our employees staff the pay station during our peak hours just as Chick Fil A does. You go at 8am when they open, there's. They're probably not staffed there yet, at least not on a Monday morning. But staffing those pay stations during peak hours and just providing that extra level of customer service, we're putting microfiber towels in the lots where they vacuum out their vehicles. That is all. They don't pay for that. Right. That's not an additional charge. That is a complimentary service that we're providing to our customers because we're running a car wash and part of washing car is trying new car. So we offer that service. We get. We're under contract with a service provider that drops off 2000 microfiber per week per location. They drop those off. We have clean towels every week. Those are used and, you know, fresh ones are dropped off. We have compressed air. Right. There's a lot of times you get dirt and crumbs and french fries down between your seats that you can't necessarily get out with the vacuum.

So we got to get you out here to Asheville, man. You gotta, you gotta turn one of these car washes around out here.

Yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna, We' gonna make a visit out there soon. But there's, there's just things like that that we're doing at our car wash to make it better than the, you know, the next guy down the road. Yeah, the microfiber towels. The customer service, pressed air, free air fresheners. Right. Pick your choice. You've got, you know, five different Air fresheners. You can even have your own.

Oh this guy's living it right here. Look at that.

Right. So it just happens to be on the desk at the moment because there's things that we're doing that is important to the customer. Right. Like what kid has a dog that doesn't want a dog Air freshener. Right. So let's just provide that stuff. If you enough of them, they're cheap enough, they're 10.12 apiece. A little additional cost on the wash but it keeps those customers coming back. They feel like they're part of something more than just a retail service. It is, it's an experience. They know what to expect. They're part of the club. Right. So that's, that's kind of a little more color on like who we are and our model.

No, I love it. And, and, and I also love how you're building a national brand, Cameron. So I know you've really, you know all the things you do. I think the consistency, the ability to go to different locations like you said, whether you're in Fort Myers or actually Edgewood which is where my great grandparents had their farm as a matter of fact up by there. But so what's the, you know, aside from that, let's end on this. Like what other, what other value is it, you know from a. And I'm trying, I'm going to kind of turn the page here because looking at this from an investment perspective, you know I think somewhere around 85% of these car washes are owned by people like my coaching clients, you know that have 1, 2, 3, maybe 5. But there's not a lot of big players in the industry.

Right, right. So I don't know the exact statistic but less. There is no majority ownership in car washes. They're all ran very fragmented. Yeah, they're very fragmented ran by you know, small town operators that they're in the industry because their father, grandfather was in the industry a long time ago and they happen to inherit a piece of property with maybe a self serve wash on it that they've converted and put an IBA in place or maybe they have the acreage to you know, knock it down in the funds to knock down and put a small tunnel in place. Right. So they in the car wash industry because someone else was in the industry and their family and maybe Dan here did it. But they're running one, two, maybe three sites. We see very. That even owns five sites. We were very fortunate to knock down seven site portfolio in Columbia. But don't expect that to happen again in the near future. We hope it does because, you know that the acquisition part is just as much work. But you know, you get a lot more sites for that amount of work. But they're really, like you said, fragmented, ran by mom and pop operators. They're generating revenue and the operators are living comfortably, but they don't really have the knowledge or the experience and operation or even people or marketing to really grow brand and make it, you know, double their volume, double their revenue. Right. They don't have that experience and to be quite honest, they don't really care to because generating so much revenue right now for them, they're living very comfortably. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, another great. What is it? Just out of curiosity, what is, what's the cost for an express tunnel if you're going to build one? Not even including the land?

Yeah, not including the land. Looking at about 3 million, 3 to 4 million.

That's a lot for a, you know, an individual or a couple.

That is bare minimum. That's, that is not even to, you know, be the big guy on the block. That is a bare minimum foot tunnel with 12 to 15 vacuum spots. Nothing extravagant. Probably no covered, you know, back areas with awnings or anything. No lighting down the length of the tunnel. It's just an express tunnel, brick and mortar with a couple of vacuum bays. You're looking, you're looking probably 5 to 6 million to really build a state of the art with modern technology in the economy.

So 5, maybe even as high as 10 million with the land and everything in a certain location.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, they say location, location, location.

Oh, yeah.

And for those of us that are in business, we don't forget those golden rules. Right. And so it's more valuable to pay for that land that's in the right location and then put the right technology, the right equipment, the right asset on that piece of property. We would much rather spend a little extra money for the right location than to cut that cost and think we're getting out a million cheaper and not have the right location. And therefore we don't see the revenue that we.

Yeah, well, Cameron, we got a soft spot in our hearts here for engineers. You can, can't quite see my diploma as well as I can see yours. Plus you got a cool, you got a tiger. Virginia Tech. You know, I'm not going to put a turkey on my hooky bird on my, on my wall, man, but the tiger eyes, I love that, man.

You know what's really cool about this is I Told you kind of my. And this has just dawned on me. I've never told this before to anyone. It just dawned on me, the same guy that coached me into going to Clemson during, you know, 2008, 2009 recession. When Michelin offered me a job, my employer, old time family friend Mike Luongo, he helped me get into Clemson University, set up all my loans, financial aid, and I did not, I didn't talk to him almost the entire time I was at Clemson. He said, you go up there and you focus on your academics and I'll talk to you when you graduate. And it was time for graduation. He said, what is your address? He sent me a message because he was family, you know, friends with my dad. And he sent me a message and said, cameron, what is your address? And so he sent me this custom frame with the tire in it for diploma. So I don't know, it's funny, I've never, I've never even thought about that story. So this time with you has been even more meaningful. But very important that I have that on the wall because it means a lot to me just to be sitting where I am today.

Dude, that's super cool. And I just, I bought this book to actually audiobook to listen with my son. It's called the Tiger. So if you're listening, the Tiger is the name of the book and it's, it's about a man eating tiger and the hunt in Russia to track this man eating tiger down. It's fascinating, fascinating read. Got a lot of history in it. Cameron, this has been wonderful. I found this very fascinating as well with the car washes and hey, look for a hurricane car wash. And Cameron, coming soon to your town.

Yes, absolutely. Thank you, Chris.

My pleasure. Hey Chris, here again. I hope you found this episode valuable. Now I have one more thing to gift you. We have a page for my coaching clients where you can get a free copy of my book as well as much more from previous guests on the show. Just check out nextlevelincome.com coaching to get a free copy of my book, audiobook and much more. I'll send you a copy of my book and cover all the shipping costs as a thank you for listening to to the podcast. Also please like share and take just 90 seconds to give us a rating on Apple podcasts.