One Thing Missing

By Steve Krupnik | January, 19, 2010

Yesterday morning I had the opportunity to talk to a group of pawnbrokers assembled for their state association meeting. As usual, I tried to make my presentation as informative and helpful as possible. But there was one thing missing from my seminar that I usually use a lot of. Humor. You may benefit in finding out why that is. The topic of my discussion was anything but humorous.

I titled the seminar "preparing your pawn shop business for the unknown economy." Not exactly light subject matter considering what's going on around the world. In the seminar I detailed seven steps any pawnbrokers can take to give you a good strong position to withstand this economic blizzard. Safeguarding yourself as much as possible from the unavoidable fallout from our current economic crisis. Definitely no place to be cracking jokes.

In the seminar I told these fine pawnbrokers it's been my observation during consulting with my pawnbroking clients that those in our industry will basically fall into one of three groups regarding their thinking about their business and the unknown economy.

It may be beneficial for you to find out which group you fall into.

Group number one is scared stiff, scaling down their business, cutting back their pawn lending activities, and hoping to ride out this economic storm until business returns back to "normal." Normal? Yeah, right. If you may be in group number one, let me give you one sage piece of advice. You will never again experience in your business what you currently deem to be normal.

There is no way we can go back to "what was." All we can truly do is prepare ourselves for "what is" and also for "what will be." Waiting around and wishing for normal again is nothing more than a tremendous waste of productivity and profits.

Although scared - the second group is pretty much carrying on business as usual. More productive than the first group, but still not a wise position to take. Trying to operate in the usual manner under such highly unusual circumstances will not produce the results you desire. We are living in extraordinary times. Extraordinary times come with extraordinary conditions.

And if you are not preparing your business for these conditions you will eventually fall victim to their destructive nature.

The third group is also fearful. It would be foolish not to be. But the third group is striving to transform their pawn shop operation into a lean and mean lending machine. They're updating their customer service systems to accommodate the nontraditional customers seeking them out for credit. They're updating their inventory systems to turn and burn excess inventory in a manner the other two groups would consider reckless.

And most importantly - they're updating their thinking about what this unknown economy and global crisis really means to their business. No matter which group you may find yourself in currently - your willingness to make accurate decisions in your business may depend on your vision of what this unknown economy may bring. How accurate is your vision on this?

This is an important question to ask yourself. Because I guarantee you one thing. The seven steps I gave these Alabama pawnbrokers - along with the hundreds of systems and processes contained for you in the Pawn Shop Advisor(tm) coaching program http://www.pawnshopadvisor.com/main.cfm will put your pawn shop business in a much better position to survive the inevitable fallout from our current economic situation.

Extraordinary conditions always produce extraordinary consequences.

The worst thing you can do is ignore what's currently going on, refuse to learn, resist change, and keep searching for something that again resembles normal. Become a member of the Pawn Shop Advisor(tm) coaching program http://www.pawnshopadvisor.com/main.cfm and you will never think about being normal again.

Keep your eye on the target and your mind on the goal,
Stephen Krupnik

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