December 2009
ok ok been a week but it’s been productive….christmas was great got a new leatherman (very cool) and spent some time with family. Pawn shop is doing well don’t really have anything to compare it against but we are purchasing 800-2000 per day from the street. We really don’t have a lot of pawn yet but we are getting 3-5 people a day in off the street.
Put an ad in craigslist for an apprentice that got a few responses. You will notice the ad is very specific as to how to get an application. The phone calls for the ad are very funny because I just basically berate them for being stupid and then I send them to another pawn shop across town. I know that might be mean but that pawn shop deserves it. I went in about 3 weeks ago looking for merchandise and was told to F*^* off, so there you go.
Eric is working out well and learning new stuff everyday, not bad for a brother in-law. I think he likes it also.
Iron doors installed tomorrow and hopefully the debit machines start to work soon.
posterous.com is awesome post to facebook, twitter a
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Man what a huge first Saturday. Eric and I were in a panic until about noon we were afraid we were going to blank for the day. Then it was like someone left the gate open at the old folks home. We had four walk-ins, six CL buys for over 1100.00 and my family came by to see the progress avery great day!. This blog is also attracting some real characters who are emailnig me and now we have two subscribers. It takes all kinds I guess. Saturday we bought…….
- tools
- a Trikke
- camera
- game boys (2)
- PS2
The guns are in and I will post some pics Monday later I have a funeral :< my great uncle died and I am a pall bearer so until then look out world….
Wow, that was a fast week, bought about $4,000 off the street,
ugly bike and a Trikke
ipods, lcd tv, computer, zunes, game boys, 25dvd’s
guns from Lipsey’s
even a hopped-up Yamaha Zuma!
and had our first real sale! Yes it was the Epiphone mandolin. everyone thought I was crazy for ordering new mandolins for the shop but I was vindicated.
I made exactly $50 bucks profit…..I’m rich! It was good we had a lot of walk in traffic looking for stuff we obviously don’t have yet. I also made a buy over at my friends at International Diamond and my good friend Ken Duval at The Watch Studio. Great people. Now for a Saturday, what to expect……We also paid for an ad to run the first week in Jan.20k viewers it is a sticky note that goes on the front page that looks like a to do list kinda funny I’ll keep you up on the ROI.
Tim
Today we paid Pawnmaster to come by and give us an 8 hour tour of the software in the shop. Holy cow, I guess if you improve on something, the same thing , for 22 years it gets good. This software has almost every imaginable option and situtaion covered.
On the business side we had a gold customer, a guy looking for an AK, we bought a vintage schwinn bike and some guy came in with a huge cordless hammer drill, but he could not demo it because it was dead. Good day for not marketing. The people at Pawnmaster were awesome and Eric and I feel real good about being on our own.
Big day tomorrow we are going to have a regular day and see how it goes. Sink or swim, we shall see.
Well we started the marketing plan today even though Pawnmaster was not functioning properly yet. I bought a ipod and some dvd’s grand total 180.00 retail maybe 300.00.
30 days from now we will do an update and see how we did. 4 walk ins and 1 guy who literally threw the door open and screamed “do you buy paint sprayers” and then ran off. You couldn’t make this stuff up.
We only had an hour to really attack the plan but we generated a lot of action. Still nothing, and I mean nothing but some guitars in the store.
We did have one nice old lady come in present us an old 14k ring with some small diamonds oone missing. Because the scale was not working I sent her to the “we buy gold” guy around the corner. I told her that the going reate was around 12-15/gram and to make sure and see the scale.
In a matter of minutes she is back and tells me that he offered her 60 dollars and “said” the ring weighed about 4 grams but she couldn’t see it…….hmmm. Wel a least I know how much the gold guy pays.
All in all a great start.
Well my day was interesting. First we start with an 830 meeting to manage and try and buy a competitors business. In my actual money making business life I own a large PEO(employee leasing company). We have 1500 employees in the state of Florida hoping to add more with this aquistion. That went great looks like it is something that is going to happen in the next 10 days….yea! Get to the pawn shop by 10am to start training for the software Pawnmaster oh the meeting was at 9am dammit. Ok no problem lets start now. Nope the server is not responding and they have to reshedule till tomorrow and take away the server. Ok lets clean this place up.
Take a look:
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| Big Tim’s Pawn www.bigtimspawn.com |
about 11am the IT guy comes back with my server…….sweet now its really on for training on friday.
more cleaning then ……I get a couple of characters that come in with fake watches thinking I just fell off the truck.
great first customers are con artists this is whee the dark music would start in the movie…..get out of the pawn shop, just get out now.
then pawnmaster calls to check on the new server it’s locked up tighter than my first girlfriend on prom night ….6pm Im going home. Pawnbroker great idea ;/