For our valued customers in Florida who sell and pawn firearms, the following system settings changes can be made to help you remain compliant with Bill 7026, which Governor Rick Scott signed into law March 9th 2018.
Beyond the Shop: Know Your Customers
Clean Code
At Data Age we always strive to deliver the best product we can. The amount of time dedicated to understanding the needs of the industry, developing our flagship products, and performing Quality Assurance is always monitored and managed. Writing “Clean Code” with unit tests in place assures that we can move forward rapidly with a much lower percentage of error. This means delivering the best products to our customers right out of the gates. Our teams are the best in the business at doing the research up front to make sure all gaps are filled and compliance issues are covered so the pawnbrokers can focus on running their businesses.
Success Is Never Owned
Beyond the Shop: Keep Your Store Clean and Organized
Are You Undervaluing these Coins?
Anyone that owns or manages a pawnshop deals regularly in precious metal bullion products. Whether it’s one ounce of gold or one ounce of silver these items are easy to value, easy to buy and easy to liquidate when it comes time but are you really getting as much for your coins as you could be?
Fraudulent Bullion Becoming More Sophisticated and Harder to Identify
Several years ago I wrote an article for PawnLink.org that highlighted the growing frequency our pawnbroker customers were being exposed to and taken advantage of with fake bullion and replica coins. Many of these defrauded, poured, and extruded Precious Metal investment pieces started out as legitimate bullion products coming from reputable refineries and banks. Scammers would drill out actual Gold or Silver from these pieces and back-fill them with materials like Lead or Tungsten rods. Eventually, we began seeing scammers implementing higher levels of skill to produce replica coins and bullion through minting, electroplating, and even cladding over low value base metal to look like authentic precious metal currencies and investment bullion.
Commission Structure
Commission structure, I think is key to your employee performance and before you can really, in my opinion can have a great commission structure, you have to understand your numbers. So, it comes back to understanding your numbers and your performance in the stores by employee and if you understand what those are, now you can have a commission structure that benefits your business and will make you more profitable. Sadly, what I’ve seen is commission structures that have been around for eight or ten years or longer and they revolve around commissioning sales of an item. Well, if I sell a Rolex that I bought for too much money and I sell it at a loss, but I commission the salesperson to sell it, did I make more money or did I make less money as a business owner? So, you have to understand, that’s just one piece of what I think a commission structure should include. But, what helps you make money? What makes you profitable? What brings customers into your store? What gives you a higher gross profit? All those things should be blended into a commission structure and you have to understand your numbers to create that commission structure, that’s something we help our clients understand and execute on a regular basics.
Preparation
So, the biggest thing we’re trying to do with the pawnbroker is education. So, we’re trying to do a lot of educational videos, explaining to them, “Listen this happened eight years ago. What’s coming in the next eight years?” And, trying to explain to them what that is about and what that looks like for the customer segment. And, then really referring them to referral partners or people in the industry that can help them with their issues. So, I’m not an attorney, if they have a legal issue I’m going to refer them to an attorney that I know that understands the pawn business and can help them out. So, it goes the same with marketing and that kind of thing. So, you have to educate them on what they’re not good at and maybe something that’s not necessary in the scope of what I do, but I have that as a referral partner access. So, you just have to educate them.
Differentiators
What differentiates me from other types of consultants that are out there is that there are a lot of folks that have been in the industry for a long time and they know what used to be great within the industry. We use what still works from that era and was great in the industry and we incorporate it to what’s changed. And in addition to that, we use what we’ve learned in other industries such as retail and high-end jewelry, outside of the pawn world, to help shape our customer interaction within the pawn shop. So, you’re kind of taking the best of what still works within the pawn industry, taking stuff from outside the industry to help that out and make it more successful, and then understanding what’s changing within the industry and implementing that within your business model as well.