For about 72 years, Janet Davis Cleaners has been a steady staple in Michigan. Originally it was launched in 1938 by
Janet Davis and her father, Frank, in Highland Park.
These days, the business is owned by Dave and Kyle Matthews, a father and son
who represent the third and fourth generation of the family line to run the
plant.
Perhaps the word “line” is not the best word to describe it. It’s more of a zigzag.
“My father’s mother is cousin to Janet Davis’s son,” Kyle noted. “They didn’t do shirts in-house until the current location was started in the 1950s. They
extended to four stores in the 1970s; each was a separate plant. Of all those,
we still have the Berkley and Bloomfield stores.”
Dave’s father, William, has been in drycleaning since he left the Navy and married
into the drycleaning family.
“My grandfather worked at Janet Davis Cleaners as a general manager at Berkley
for a number of years, then he wanted to run his own cleaners so he bought
Pioneer with a partner,” Kyle said. “After a couple of years, they finally bought the Janet Davis of Dearborn.”
The Janet Davis plant in Dearborn was later sold and renamed in 1996. Meanwhile,
Dave — who was born and raised around drycleaning plants — has been an industry lifer. He started working full time for his father as a
cleaner in 1977 after he attended Western Michigan University.
“I think, whether it was verbalized or not, it was kind of the plan for him to
take over someday,” Kyle said.
Not long after the Dearborn plant was sold, Dave bought the Berkley location,
which currently serves as the headquarters for Janet Davis.
Over the years, there has been a lot of shuffling of plants, but some details
have stayed consistent. For example, the plant still maintains some of the
cleaning practices and principles that were originally incorporated over 50
years ago.
“Part of our training manual is the same as the original one that was written,” Kyle noted. “We’ve updated the language a bit, but we’re looking for the same things in the garments.”
No matter what name was on the front door or which location he worked at,
William Matthews believed that quality was the secret to success in
drycleaning.
“His biggest thing was always about the production, making the clothes look the
best,” Kyle explained. “He was good at running the whole back room. That was his strength… how to work with people to get them to do their best. He was a great
cleaner/spotter. He wasn’t necessarily all about speed, but he definitely was about high quality.”
Those same ideals were handed down to Dave who has always practiced them with
unbridled enthusiasm.
“He’s fully committed to the business,” Kyle said. “It’s not a part-time thing for him. It’s not a hobby. It’s a passion. It’s the second thing he thinks of in the morning and it’s the second-to-last thing he thinks about at night, behind his family. He’s here every day. The dedication he has towards the business is absolutely his
greatest strength because he just thinks about it all of the time and he thinks
about it with everything he does.”
Though Kyle grew up around drycleaning plants and chipped in growing up, he had
originally opted to go another direction. After graduating with a degree in
Finance in 2006 from Michigan State University, he worked for about seven
months as a mortgage banker for Quicken Loans.
Unfortunately, his timing could have been better. The real estate market
recession was just on the horizon. Luckily, Kyle got out just in time.
“I liked it, but the problem was that the mortgage industry was changing and, at
the same time, my parents decided to do something a little bit different with
the company,” he said. “They wanted me to put more of a focus on the marketing. So, it was just the
perfect time. They made me an offer. That was right at the point when mortgages
were just about to head south.”
Throughout its substantial history, Janet Davis Cleaners had, for the most part,
relied mostly on word-of-mouth advertising and in-store specials to drum up
more business. When Kyle joined the company, the idea was to explore new ways
to do things. In fact, that was one of the strengths he brought to the table.
“I’m always looking for a better way to do things,” he said. “I’m always thinking about: This is how we do it now. Is there a better way to do
it to get a better result or get the same result, but do it easier? Honestly,
this is about the biggest thing I do with everything. I’m always questioning the status quo.”
One of the first changes Janet Davis made was adding a web site. At first, it
was just a bare bones template — “a brochure on the Internet, I guess you could call it,” Kyle noted.
These days, it has a designated press room, video footage and even links to the
company’s Facebook and Twitter pages as well as Kyle’s blog on drycleaning.
“I started the blog about a year after I started the web site,” he recalled. “What I was looking for was what’s going to be the medium that is going to get us the most bang for our buck.
What’s kind of emerged over the past few years is social media marketing. The reason
we found that it works is it’s kind of a two-way conversation. It’s not us kind of on top of the rooftop yelling about what we can do. It’s more like looking for people who are looking for a cleaners and telling them
what we can do.”
When Kyle started the blog for Janet Davis Cleaners, he didn’t know of any other cleaners blogging at the time. Now, there are some out
there, but they are few and far between.
“Recently, I read a quote from Seth Godin and he said, ‘By the time they do a case study of somebody in your industry on social media,
it’s too late for you.’ By the time everyone’s got a Facebook page or a blog, then you’ve kind of lost your advantage,” Kyle explained.
So far, he’s written over three dozen blogs. Janet Davis has over 250 followers on Twitter
and 100 fans on Facebook. The hardest part is coming up with fresh and
compelling content to keep customers and potential customers interested.
“The biggest response we have gotten is the before and after wedding gowns,” Kyle added. “Those are people’s favorites because they can look at it right away and see the difference. We
also have tips on things to look for, such as ‘Six Reasons to Preserve Your Wedding Gowns.’ We gave people reasons why it’s so important to preserve your gown.”
The blog’s topics are quite diverse. One week Kyle will focus on a 1940s dress, the next
he’ll discuss acetates, water-based stains or moth damage.
“I have found that if you do too many of the same kind in a row, the viewership
drops a little bit. I mix it up on different things,” he noted. “The biggest thing I can say is to try different things and see how people
respond. If you do a killer blog post or something like that, you’ll see the traffic go a lot higher. So, figure out what you did and replicate
it.”
The social media marketing efforts have helped, to be sure, but the past few
years have been a tough time for all cleaners, especially those located in
Michigan. During the recession, it has often held the highest or second highest
unemployment rate among all 50 states.
“At first it was just around the Ford plants that closed in Flint and downtown
Detroit and what-not,” Kyle recalled. “But since then it’s kind of hit everywhere.”
In order to help the many people in the state who are unemployed and struggling,
Janet Davis decided to launch a new program a year ago.
“One of the things we’ve started is we will clean your interview suit for free,” Kyle said, who added that they rely on the honor system when it comes to
helping people in the program. “We kind of thought people might be embarrassed if they had to show something or
bring something in.”
Another community program that Janet Davis kicked off about two years ago is
Project Prom Princess which gathers new and used designer dresses for teens in
the area who otherwise might not be able to afford to attend their high school
prom.
For the most part, many of Janet Davis’s demographic has been less affected by the economy than most, but business has
still hit a downward slide that steadied out about two years ago. Fortunately,
the company has its high quality standards to keep people coming in, regardless
of their financial situation.
“I think the best analogy I heard is that we’re kind of like an expensive steakhouse,” he said. “There are certain people who will only eat at a steakhouse and there are certain
people who only go for weddings, funerals and anniversaries. So, we cater to
the people who eat here all the time, but we also help the people who only come
on special occasions.”
Maintaining that level of excellence is a challenge, but that doesn’t stop the Matthews from continuing to search for a better way to do things.
“We’re trying to get a bigger piece of a smaller pie and the only way we saw to do
that was to increase quality,” Kyle emphasized. “We do a lot of employee training. It’s a constant learning thing that we’re always trying to do. We’re doing everything that we have to do to stay ahead of the trends so that we
can have the best garment care possible.”
