President's Message
by Dave Beatty
Hi - To All the Members of PDCA.
My name is Dave Beatty and I was fortunate enough to be elected the new president of PDCA for 2010 -2011. I also have been active on the DLI board as district 2 DCM. I have been a fellow dry cleaner for 24 years and volunteer my time to make a difference and improve the cleaning business for all our members. I don’t know if many of you realize that myself and the rest of the PDCA board volunteers have donated hundreds of hours of their time and thousands of their own dollars in travel expenses and replacement help while they are away from their cleaners. Why do we do this? I guess the simple answer is, that we care about our future and want to improve the cleaning industry we are in.
I believe we are in a great business that can expand and grow for the future. Yes, I did say grow for the future. Look at the rest of what’s going on in your neighborhood with all of the pickup trucks running around with a small trailer and a few mowers on them. Twenty years ago, few people had someone mow their grass for them. Now this is a very common sight and will only continue to grow. Many of these customers could mow their own grass but choose to let someone else do it because it is not a fun thing to do with their spare time. We provide a similar service since nobody looks forward to going home and cleaning their clothes and ironing shirts. We need to work on people’s perceptions of us as an industry who is there to help them have more time to spend doing the things they enjoy in life.
I see that many times we are our own enemy and create some of the problems our industry faces. When we try to save money and do things cheaply instead of doing them the best possible way, we lose value to our customers. We need to look at our business through the customers eyes and provide the best possible experience when they come in. We also need to generate a fair profit so we can invest in the best new advances in equipment and supplies and reward and retain the best possible people. Our customers want us to be current and knowledgeable in what we do. To send our people for training so they have confidence and can do top quality work. This is what will grow our industry for the future.
An organization like PDCA or DLI cannot and will not run your store for you, that is up to you. They can work with you on training yourself and your staff and keep you up to date on all the new things happening in the dry cleaning and laundry worlds. From the latest problem garments hitting your counters to representing us whenever the government chooses new legislation that could drastically change how we do business. They are there for us whenever we need them, ready and able to help us in many ways, we just have to ask.
Is it easy? No the easy way is to do nothing any different then what you have done for years. People naturally resist change and will have a multitude of excuses why they don’t need to change. If you are happy with your sales trend and the direction you are headed, then don’t change. But if you think things could be better for all of us then let’s work together to make it happen. Please send me an e-mail with any ideas or suggestions that you have. My e-mail is info@murrysvillecleaners.com I need your input on what type of programs you would like us to pursue on your behalf. If it is something you need help with, probably many other cleaners could use help with it also.
Now is the time for us to help each other and make you, our members, the strongest, most profitable leaders in the cleaning industry. I promise I will work to make your membership as valuable as I can while I am president of PDCA for the next 2 years and that it would be a mistake to give up your membership now.