Oldies But Goodies:
Don Schelling's Six Sensible Stores in Spokane

By Kevin J. Kohler
Assistant Editor

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Don Schelling will tell you he's old--just like most of the equipment in his plants. But just like their owner, these plants are full of life.

Chat with Don Schelling for a while, and sooner or later you're going to hear his motto, "My competition is the dry cleaning business, and I'm in the business of dry cleaning." Having been in the banking business for 18 years, the 57-year-old owner of six stores in Spokane, Washington, which operate under the corporate name D.C. Schelling, Inc., started in the industry less than five years ago and considers himself a businessman first and a dry cleaner second.

"The dry cleaning industry still is one of the few that has not been taken over by large corporations. Wit my business background, it seemed the perfect opportunity," Schelling said.

Schelling does a lot of things his competition doesn't that make his stores successful, but his plants share a trait common to many plants across the nation. "A lot of my machines aren't the newest," Schelling said, "but they work well, and I produce some of the finest finished products available."

"I send my own personal garments there," said Richard Kirishian, owner of Richard Kirishian Rugs and Home Décor, which according to Kirishian, offers the only wholesale mail-in rug cleaning and restoration service in the United States The two men met when Schelling ventured into dry cleaning.

"He's the best in town in terms of processing and attention to detail, whether it's wet cleaning shirts or dry cleaning silks and wools," Kirishian said.

The older conditions of his production areas bare no resemblance to this stores' call offices. All of them have been remodeled since he purchased them. And though he has "some of the highest prices in town," his customers are among the happiest and most loyal in Spokane.

Known for going the extra mile for his customers and as he puts it, "putting back into your community exactly what you get out of it," Schelling earned last year's "Spirit of Spokane" Award and received an Industry Positive Recognition Meritorious Service Award from IFI this year.

Schelling says in the last two years across his six stores, business has improved by an average of over 10?%. What separates him from his competition?

"We try to do the extra step," he said. That's just all there is to it."

The Business of Dry Cleaning--Conducted Sensibly

Schelling always wanted to own his own business, but when asked what it was he wanted to go into, he always answered, "I don't know." Originally purchasing five dry cleaning stores, he closed one within six months when its P&L showed it to be a continual money loser. Through another corporation, he purchased two more. He also opened and closed another two.

"I didn't say I did it perfectly. Sometimes you learn hard lessons. At this point, I am content on not growing any more bricks-and-mortar stores," Schelling said. His locations go by several names: Martinizing Cleaners (four), Schelling's Dry Cleaners, and South Country Cleaners.

"I believe Don was the first one to go downtown with an outlet for business people to drop off and pick up garments, which I thought was clever," Kirishian said.

While Schelling considers himself a businessman, he is very involved in the dry cleaning work, referring to himself as "chief, cook, and bottle washer" all in one. Accordingly, plant decisions are made senisbly.

"He can read his financials and interpret them. He knows where the weak and strong points lie. He has a strategy for enveloping and maintaining the business," Kirishian said. "I'm sure a person of that nature would keep the business going even if he weren't the owner of it."

ITAL Manager Lorraine Muir agrees. "His boiler broke down the day before I was to give a stain removal seminar there a couple years back. He spent all night fixing it," Muir said. He's extremely dedicated and an exceptional businessman. I really enjoyed being there."

Schelling's plants' equipment has been around since the late '80s and early '90s with few updates. He has three Vic 405 cleaning machines, all 15 to 20 years old, possibly older, and one Flormatic machines. The Vic machines have been updated to hyrocarbon usage with nitrogen purge systems, which Schelling believes greatly improves the machines' life spans.

Because he's had difficulty finding competent individuals to work on his equipment, Schelling maintains his own machines, using specialty contractors when necessary. "All equipment if it hasn't been abused too badly, is reparable, so I have gone through, piece by piece, and cleaned, repaired, and replaced each item, creating a maintenance log by location and individual piece of equipment.

One thing I have spent a lot of money on is machinery padding. All pads were in terrible shape, and I have been working with a great vendor I trust that comes by every six weeks or so and checks things out," Schelling said. He also recommends using good additives to their soft water systems for the boilers. "Soft water is great, but it doesn't do what the chemicals do in regards to keeping the piping clean and free of buildup."

Other upgrades include re-doing almost all the vacuum piping. "It was all done with ABS plastic piping, and that is no good for long-term work. I have replaced three vacuum units because they just were working too hard and sucking air from all the cracks rather than the machines, like they were suppose to do."

Still another area that was forgotten was air compressor maintenance. "I have eight compressors and some fo them had never had the oil changed," he said. Finally, Schelling says if there is ever steam blowing into the return tank, then there is a bad steam trap somewhere. "I just replaced 14 traps in my shirt laundry! What a job that was, but now I'm not pumping energy out of the roof," Schelling said.

More recently, he purchased four new Unipress presses and a Natco hot water retriever. "I think it's the next thing to sliced bread," Schelling said. "It uses your return condensate line to heat up all your hot water needs. No more gas or electric hot water tanks."

Schelling receives a check back for about 30% of his utility purchase and installation costs via a local utility incentive/rebate program. Total payback will be in about two-and-a-half years. He instituted an energy surcharge in the fall of 2001, placing a flyer on the front door explaining the massive increases brought on by utilities.

"Your clients will understand because they have had those same increases. I got four complaints out of several thousand clients, and all but one understood. That person is still a client, though."

Because You're Worth it

While all that might lead you to believe Schelling's focus in on production, you'd be wrong. "The business of dry cleaning is a more whole approach where you have to deal with customer service, cleanliness issues, property lighting, keeping the parking lot clean, presentation of the garment...Production is just one small part [of what I do]. If that wasn't the case, I could have a big factor making widgets. That just isn't me," Schelling said.

Or as Kirishian puts it, "He works at his business rather than in his business. And there's a huge difference."

"I know that company is stronger now than when it was owned out of state," Kirishian continued. "Another thing I like is the idea that when he bought that operation, the first thing he did was house clean. New painting, new carpet, new frontage, new colors,...interior and exterior of both locations."

According to Schelling, when he originally purchased his stores they were "very tired looking." Fortunately, like Don Fawcett's Dependable Cleaners (see "Time For a Face Life" in October 2003's Fabricate, Schelling's stores have benefited from a woman's touch. "My wife and best friend is an interior decorator and has a great eye for mixing and matching colors," Schelling said.

Each store has a different motif, such as Tuscan, but most feature low-voltage, high-output lights, replacing fluorescent light sin the lobbies. "These spots or floods give the areas the yellow light spectrum that clothes need to bring out their true colors," he said. The stores are accented with beautiful art work and table or stand lighting to enhance the overall atmosphere and produce a calming and homey feeling.

He has little tolerance for things that distract from the point of the business--dry cleaning. You won't find gumball machines or 24-hour fitness club brochure stands at his stores. "It's like driving up to a drive-through window, and the place is filthy on the inside and out. Flies, dirt, the help chewing gum. Obviously, the owners think their job is cooking hamburgers and don't understand that part of their job is cleaning. Perception is 99% of reality."

Whenever he does renovations, Schelling places a sign on the entrance doors that says, "Because You're Worth It." Of course, the appearance of the stores is only the beginning of his customers' royal treatment. Customers also get lots of extras, whether it's added services or special salutations.

Based on his banking background Schelling strongly believes in cross-selling his customers. Each store offers shoe service, one store houses a shore repair shop under subcontract. Schelling also sells 100% silk ties designed and manufactured in New York under contract. I sell them for $14.50 and have had one client buy 12, six for him and six for his son," Schelling said.

To top it off, each store also sells "Linen Mist," a on-alcohol aromatic spray for pillows, bed linens, and automobiles, which they purchase in bulk and bottle themselves. "It sells out in only a few hours and is quite popular with the women customers because of its aroma therapy nature."

One lady comes in regularly with her two- or three-year-old son Nathan. She was disappointed don Saturday when Schelling's daughter Brittany, wasn't around. You see, Brittany knows Nathan likes to get his father's shirts, so she always takes him back to where they are hung and lets him help carry them to the front.

During last year's holiday season, his top customers received French champagne and fine chocolates in a wood-and-leather box. The next group on the holiday list were given packages of chocolates, stacked four hight, tier-style. Loyalty is rewarded, too. One client who spent $255 recently will be receiving a bottle of wine--which Schelling knows is one of his customer's passions.

Schelling also met with a local coffee roasting company and purchase numerous gift cards to give out for any reason. "Sometimes if we did do something wrong, I give them a card, and it really does help. Other times I give one out just because the client looks like they might need a lift or just to say thank you for being a loyal patron."

More Than the Sum of its Parts

"By looking at other companies' financials and their operations, Schelling's all too familiar with where he is on the milepost in life. I think his banking background helped him immensely to interpret numbers and work with industry statistics to compare his operations against others," Kirishian said.

But clearly, Schelling believes a dray cleaning store should be more than a plant and a counter person. His staff wears dry cleaned polo shirts--and cares for the customer, as well as the clothes. "My competition thinks their job is cleaning clothes. That's just one fraction of it," Schelling said.
"I get furious when I'm standing around the lobby and a customer comes to the door and all I hear is, 'Phone number, please.' I don't ever want to do business that way," he said.

The way customers are treated carries over into the community. Part of the area's Rotary for 28 years, Schelling has spent literally thousands of hours giving back to Spokane what he has received from it--a fundamental tent for the man whose Coats 4 Kids program has cleaned 65,000 coats over the past four years.

With a sensible and stately approach one can bank on--"I revere them [my customers]. They are the owners of the company. I'm just the caretaker."--Schelling may be called old-fashioned, but never old.

Fabricare
Vol. 37, No. 8, p 18.
September 2005

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