Yigal Adato: 00:03 Hey everyone! My name is Yigal Adato, and this is the Pawn Leaders Podcast. A podcast to help you make more money, stress less, and live an epic life, all while working at the pawn shop. All right, before you jumped in to the pawn industry, Bob Moulton was a computer programmer and an on-air radio personality. He started the pawn business in 1984 and shortly after opened his first store, National Pawn. Currently National Pawn is 16 stores strong, opening number 17 in 90 days and employs over 130 people. He received both the NPA's pawnbroker of the year and outstanding community relations award along with the local awards for integrity, entrepreneurship, business and marketing. Bob loves to travel, loves boating, watches, and micro cars, and it's my honor to have Bob Moulton on the podcast. Bob, welcome and thank you so much for being on.

Bob Moulton: 01:04 No worries. Thank you for inviting me Yigal.
Yigal Adato: 01:06 So, I've been doing this podcast for a short while. Not too long. We're about seven episodes in and I've heard your name thrown around three times already that you need to come on the podcast. Also I was in the industry, you were around, they consider you like a legend in the pawn industry, so it's my honor to have you and I can't wait to jump in to the information, so thanks for being on. Bob Moulton: 01:28 Thank you sir.
Yigal Adato: 01:29 So tell me, give me some history. You were on air radio personality, computer programming, and what got you into the pawn industry in 1984?

Bob Moulton: 01:39 Well, actually our family, I had two uncles in the pawn business and they both, one of which sold his store and my mother decided to open a store and I moved back to our hometown of Durham and I worked with her while I looked for another job on the radio and found out I really love the pawn business. So that's how we got into it.

Yigal Adato: 02:00 Nice. So you open up your store in 1987?
Bob Moulton: 02:03 Correct?
Yigal Adato: 02:04 Your first shop?
Bob Moulton: 02:05 Yes sir.

Yigal Adato: 02:05 Right. How was that when you opened up your first store?
Bob Moulton: 02:08 It was tough on me. I don't know how you would do it today. I guess I was stupid at the time and didn't realize that it took so much money and so much hard work. And you went, I probably made zero money and received no paycheck for the first two years I would imagine.

Yigal Adato: 02:26 Yeah, I was in the same boat we opened in the first three years. We were in the red, it takes some time, so I feel you there. So you went from opening one store. How long after did you open up a second shop?

Bob Moulton: 02:40 A couple of years. We opened three fairly quickly and then for some reason, waited a few years and open number four and five and took a really long break. Until we got, we purchased store number six and then seven and eight. And we've added a lot of stores recently which being in 30 years in business amazingly put a hammer on our cash flow. We're very profitable, but when you open a lot of the stores at once, it's tough to cashflow those.

Yigal Adato: 03:11 I'm sure. Let's talk about something really quick before we move on. We have 16 different countries listening to the podcast. What are the laws in your area when it comes to interest and hold periods?

Bob Moulton: 03:23 Okay, North Carolina we're a 90 days, so it's 30 days with a 60 day past any due date. North Carolina is a kind of a hybrid state. We're in the south and so we do get a 20 percent fee plus a two percent interest. However, the 20 percent is capped at $100.And so on a big launch, say someone came in with one to $10,000 dollar loan on the rolex, it only generates a $300 fee,which I believe may be the lowest in the country. So anything over $500 you only get two percent more per month.

Yigal Adato: 03:58 Gotcha. So it's tiered depending on.
Bob Moulton: 04:00 Correct to 20% caps out at $100 and it actually drops 100 the first month then 75 at the second month, 75 to third, then it drops to $50 a month, plus the two percent.
Yigal Adato: 04:12 Gotcha. Now you up to 130 employees?
Bob Moulton: 04:15 Yes sir.

Yigal Adato: 04:16 How is that managing that many people? And what is it about your culture that creates such a good, so just such a good vibe in the stores?

Bob Moulton: 04:27 Well, we're all about building a culture and we're all about hiring the best and the brightest and I believe that is what makes us so successful and makes it easier to run. I'm not saying it's easy, but is the span of control. But the people that you have running it are, they're brilliant. And that is the secret to our success. We've managed to attract some incredibly talented people on our team that actually, and I've told him this individually, they act like they own the business. And part of National Pawn's culture is we, everybody gets a piece of the action. So, if you are successful you have bonuses that is tied to the productivity and your profitability. So, everyone is in some sense treated as an owner.

Yigal Adato: 05:16 And I think that's everyone's every owner's dream, right? To have employees or team members who treat the business like their own.

Bob Moulton: 05:23 That is actually shocking, that we are able to, that attract the people. I'm amazed that they're willing to come onboard and believing on dream and help us to succeed and it's an honor actually to come to work with them every day and a lot of times when I feel kind of discouraged and tired of dealing with the people, I'm tired of the day to day grind and I'll go in and talk to some people and think, wow, these people are so passionate and it reflects on me and makes me want to get up in morning and go. Just work with them and be around them and to learn. I'm learning every day.

Yigal Adato: 06:02 That's amazing. Bob how do you instill that passion into teammembers? I've had conversations before with other pawnbrokers and some pawnbrokers think negatively. They say,I can only hire people who want some money, and then you come out and you say, I've got passionate employees about working at the pawnshop. How do you get to that?

Bob Moulton: 06:22 Well, the number one thing, our mission statement is that we want to have the wealthiest and highest paid team members in the industry culture of trust and accountability and that's thekey thing is now we trust them and they're free to do what they want to do. I will never criticize or talk bad on second guessed anyone's business decision. Sometimes I'll call them why did you do ABC? And if they have a very logical reasoning behind it,fantastic. Okay, that didn't work learned from it and go again.So that's.

Yigal Adato: 07:01 I love that. Trust, in a business where we're surrounded by tens of thousands dollars of cash in the store, hundreds of thousand dollars of jewelry, sometimes millions in inventory. And you're sitting here talking about trusting your employees. When did you decide or what happened that you said, you know what? I need to trust my people so that I can have a successful business.
 

Bob Moulton: 07:25 You have to trust them. I mean if you cannot trust them, you need to get out of business or you had just be your own single man shop.

Yigal Adato: 07:33 And so the security growing stores is having that trust?
Bob Moulton: 07:37 It is having trust, but you have to define the quality of people and be willing to pay them.

Yigal Adato: 07:44 I love that, be willing to pay them. I think that your mission statement says something that I've heard for many years in the industry, but many pawnbrokers don't break down that wall to get through, which is having the wealthiest and the best paid people in the industry. And sometimes in other industries when it comes to retail,

Bob Moulton: 08:06 That's absolutely true. And I talked to pawnbrokers all around the country and probably they make a lot more money than we do and you have one guy or one woman and they run the store and they hire eight $10 an hour and that's all they they make. But unfortunately those eight, $10 an hour people, I'm not saying they're dishonest, but they would be more likely to steal than someone that you are paying a fair wage and giving them their own chance to make their own raise.

Yigal Adato: 08:34 Plus we get into business to have some freedom and if we don't trust the people who are running the shops, how do we in turn have freedom, right?

Bob Moulton: 08:43 Correct.
Yigal Adato: 08:44 Yeah. So, Bob let's talk about some of the mistakes that you've made in some things that you can tell people listening to watch out for what are, two or three of the biggest that you've made while growing into 16 stores currently?

Bob Moulton: 09:01 Growing too quickly could possibly be a mistake if you're under capitalized or mainly under staffed, but you actually have to have the staff trained employees If you want to grow, you can't, in the pawn industry, you just can't hire someone to manage a store and stick them in there. We've done it in the past and it
just does not work. It really takes a couple of years, minimum two, three years working the counter everyday to really understand the nuances of the pawn business because it is, in my opinion, the most fun business I've ever been in because every day is something different and I tell people at the fish market you have fresh daily and we get somebody, one person
comes in and has a piece of junk, you know, $5 drill, that's maybe all they have and then the next person walks in with a $20,000 diamond. So, it's very to me, interesting. Plus I'm a people person and I like to talk to people, but of late some of the few, the biggest mistake we've made lately is trying to grow some big giant building, have big footprint stores. We have one store that I think was just in the right place at the right time that grew and I wish it was a little larger. And so I decided that O'feel the dreams motto, if you build it, they will come. And so we built two other really big footprint stores and they really didn't, they didn't make any money, took a lot more staff to run them and both of actually all three of our really big stores, we've actually shrunk down the showroom and the pawn area of both of them, some of them twice. And so, because I was all impressed with our Brad Ritzman up in Pawn America in Minnesota, he had these big beautiful stores and it's tough to do, It looks good, but we really didn't make any money. Yigal Adato: 10:59 Yeah, I agree with you. I understand. So, what is training for an employee of National Pawn Like? You say that you don't just throw them in the counter, you really, really look at the training and you make them grow as a pawnbroker. What does it look like? So I come in, I'm hired. And what does that look like for me to walk into a store and start working with you guys? Bob Moulton: 11:18 Well, they would come into the store and we've either assign them someone to work with them as a coach, but a lot of times the manager will work with them and they'll start out learning the computer and learning some basic stuff and writing the transactions, interacting with the customers. We do try to hire people that are very energetic people persons and we use that TTS, the thirst and temperament survey to kind of judge whether or not they have the type of personality that we think would work. And other than that is it's just time that they use.We have formalized training. We have some smart camps, four or five of those a year. Every month in the summer we'll have a smart camp which managers and assistant managers and pawnbrokers will come by, invitation only, you know, the people that we see that want to learn and they'll come for two
days of training and it's really nice and hands on. And we just got a new team member on board that does webinars trainings every month. So, every single person in the company gets the exact same message because you know, well, as I do the old telephone game that we would tell the managers and the managers told the assistant managers and and it finally got to the pawnbrokers. It had changed. So, we wanted to get a consistent message.

Yigal Adato: 12:37 I love that. So, your pawnbrokers are consistently being trained. There's consistently having training bootcamps, webinars, so there's always something for them to look forward to learning more.
Bob Moulton: 12:49 Correct.
Yigal Adato: 12:50 And growing.
Bob Moulton: 12:50 And the people love it. And when peer to peer training we found is really good too. Everybody has their superstars and we have some superstars and the superstars actually love given the opportunity to share their knowledge and best practices with some then it'd be.

Yigal Adato: 13:09 Let's talk about those superstars really quick because the podcast isn't just listened to by owners. We have managers and we have team members who are listening. What makes a superstar pawnbroker?

Bob Moulton: 13:22 That's someone that, well one, they have to produce, but they have to have our company values and they have to just present what we see as the face of National Pawn. I think that is something that we have been successful and been recognized for and this line that I come up with and we say we're changing the perception of the pawn business one customer at a time and we did a bunch of advertising years ago and I actually hired a focus group because I said I want to go after the non- traditional pawn customers I think you guys and in California years and years ago did some study that only six or seven percent of the population had ever even been in a pawnshop or ever did business with a pawnshop. So I'm thinking if I can get five or six percent of the population more on double my customer base, I said wow. And so we hired a focus group of non traditional pawn customers and ask them their pros, what they know preconceived notions of the pawn business and various other things. And unfortunately, as well a better, not that your family has been in the pawn business for years, that it is so wrong, the stereotypes are horrible. And it was that some big fat, bald head guy standing behind a cage ripping people off all day and there's nothing further from the truth. And so we have redesigned our stores, had these more retail based environment. And we, I mean, I didn't dressed up for your podcast. I wear a shirt and tie every day, all the men in our stores had to wear a white shirt and a tie black pants or a suit and the women have to wear a black skirt or black pants and a white shirt. And it makes us look more like the People's bank. And so we treat our customers right. So

Yigal Adato: 15:14 Nice. So, the superstar pawnbrokers know to go along with that value system and that mission of changing the conception of the pawn industry one customer at a time.

Bob Moulton: 15:25 Yeah. What we did, and we get. Another thing of our mission statement is to give world class customer service. And I noticed that one day when I was at the bank, here I am at the bank and I was asked to myself and actually the next time we had a meeting, I congratulated the people that work for us. I said we give better service to the guy wanted to get a loan on this $10 drill than they gave me at the bank. So that what is all about.And that's actually what we feel there's a way to combat a lot of the online and other competition that we have is customer service. Amazon, they can give customer service, but a lot of stuff, it's just a faceless. So when you can thank people for doing business with you amazingly just a thank you goes a long way.

Yigal Adato: 16:17 Yeah. It's incredible to me to see how so many retail establishments today, not just in the pawn business, have such horrible customer service and don't train or don't mention it to their employees or don't hire the right team members like you do with the mission statement because that's our blood line,right? If you want somebody to come back, they have to feel so welcome and so appreciated that they're going to want to come back and even just refer your business to somebody else.

Bob Moulton: 16:46 You're absolutely right.
Yigal Adato: 16:47 So, I want to touch up on something else. I think you're extremely masterful at and not just because of the awards that you have in entrepreneurship and business and marketing, but what I've seen over the years when it comes to the PR coming out of the National Pawn, which is community, you give back to the community in a way that most pawnbrokers don't realize its important to do.

Yigal Adato: 17:13 Well we don't do it for the PR, although the PR is fantastic and it does help us defeat that stereotype. But our main thing that we've been doing is the musical instrument donations, that's the number one, but we give away tens of thousands of high school scholarships. We had mother's Day contest and gave school supplies to the schools and we've done a lot. But that thing and a lot of people are trying to replicate it and that's fine. They're welcome to do the musical instrument donation because trust me, the kids really need it. But what makes that so powerful is because it comes from a place that happened to me personally as a kid. I grew up, and my family didn't have a whole lot of money. I mean we weren't dirt poor. We had a roof over our head and food. But both of my parents worked and it was a struggle for my two sisters and myself and my parents and I wanted to play in the band in seventh grade and $25 back in the seventies was a lot of money for my parents to put fit in their budget and most of our $25 and in the mid seventies for very lowest rung of middle class, that was tough. And so that is why I give the instruments back because I'm in a position to do that and I know what it was like to come from a place that you didn't have instrument. So that to me is what makes that so powerful. So anybody that asked me, I advised him to take something in their past, you may have been adopted or in an orphanage or played baseball as a kid and couldn't afford a uniform or whatever it is, but find that personal message to you and then you give back to the community you will find is very meaningful for yourself. But you'll find a lot more community acceptance as well. And if you don't have any experiences, animals are. I've never done it. But my buddy Alan Shepard a pawnbroker in Asheville said he does a lot of charity and actually he's the one that got me doing a lot of charities and he said that he did something for some animals one time and said I got a lot of publicity for it. And a lot of positive

Yigal Adato: 19:28 Yeah. And I love that you connected it to a story from your past and therefore it's from the heart as opposed to thinking how can I give back just to give PR or just to get PR.

Bob Moulton: 19:39 But if you want to get i mean get trust and give back, give back. Because it all goes to help us combat the image of this pawnbroker out there taking advantage of people. We're not taking advantage of people were actually a vital cog in the economy because we are the lender of last resort. I mean that in itself doesn't sound that great, but that's where it is. The bank, you can't borrow any money from the bank and your family may not want to lend you anymore money, so you need to keep the power turned on, so you need to go take your television down there and borrow $100 to keep the power turned on. We are valuable, we service a valuable need that no one else was servicing.

Yigal Adato: 20:16 It's one of the reasons why I started the podcast, Bob, was I want the pawnbrokers to realize that they need to become leaders in their community in order to grow their operation. I think it's super important as well as to grow as a person because when you give back, I saw the picture of you handing out. I think it was like 100 instruments or something like that to the local school and the smile on your face said it all.

Bob Moulton: 20:41 But when you see those kids hold those instruments and that is what makes it for me. Actually this year we did that in eight separate school districts. We gave out over 100 instruments per school district. We gave out 800 and it was around 125, so about a thousand instruments just this year. And every school district also got a check for 2000. So, it was $16,000. It's not cheap to do that and that comes straight off the bottom line, but you know what? I don't care because it is important to me to give back to the community and it makes National Pawn perceived as being a valuable community leader versus a lot of people in these smaller towns and even big towns. You go to open a store and no one wants to pawnbroker there and they're fighting you and zoning and the neighbors hate you because you're perceived to be a negative influence on the community. That does not happen to National Pawn because we go in there, oh, you guys are great and we bring them into the store. If I have a problem, show them what a pawn is like. It's not when, tell them it's not like you see in the movies.

Yigal Adato: 21:51 Yeah. Yeah. So if you're a pawnbroker listening to this and you're thinking, wow, Bob Moulton, National Pawn, 17 stores, they have the money to do it. You can also start by giving something. Maybe you have five guitars lying around your store that you can donate. Right? You can donate something to the school, something to somebody that's in your heart that you want to give back to the community. Do that. So, that we can change the industry, like you said, the image of the industry one person at a time. And I love that. And I agree. In our time at CashCo Pawn we had something called CashCo Kids and we gave backpacks away for schools and we donated to schools. And when a customer walk in and say they had no money to bury their brother, we raised funds for funerals and that's what allowed us to be so prominent in the community. And the craziest part, Bob, was that we had a pawn shop down the road on the left side get robbed. We had a pawn shop down the road on the right side, get robbed. But thank God, you know, knock on wood, we've never had anything happen to us because we
gave back.
 

Bob Moulton: 23:00 Correct.

Yigal Adato: 23:00 So, it's super important. I agree and I love that. So how does one doing what you do in the awards that you've gotten? You've got marketing awards, entrepreneurship awards. How does one go about in the pawn broking industry to grow in those sectors marketing, entrepreneurship, what do they need to do to grow as a business owner?

Bob Moulton: 23:21 Well, I guess the marketing. I actually have a little background with marketing because of my time in the radio. And actually we won that marketing award we won was actually at a very prestigious international award and it was just an idea. I actually, I came up with as a joke, it was back when the Mayan calendar and everyone thought the world was going to end in 2012 or 13 to 14, whatever, and I came up with this idea and we took out a big ad in the newspaper saying that if the world ended we were going to give that guarantee of all guarantees. We were going to refund everybody, every penny they had ever spent in National Pawn, which was funny, because the world ended they wouldn't be around to collect it. The guy that I was working with submitted that and we won like 6,000 international entries and we won silver and it came with this like 30 pound gigantic crystal award. That's pretty cool. But that actually was according to my advertising buddy, a really big deal.
Yigal Adato: 24:23 That's amazing.
Bob Moulton: 24:24 But marketing is not going after what you are. You have to look at what your customer base is or who you want to attract and you market to them. The marketing today is not what it was before because I'll be honest with your television, maybe radio, but television is very expensive. Millennials and the younger people that are our customers now don't watch television. They watch streaming and they're on their phones and there's all this digital marketing and it's trackable, but I have yet honestly to figure it out on that. We have a lot of people come in and try to sell us on it, but we haven't found a whole lot that's very powerful yet that works so it. The marketing is tough. Why word of mouth is still your best thing. We're about location, location, location. Our stores. We will only put stores and certain criteria such as standalone stores on a busy street because I want people to see that we're there and hopefully don't have to market as much, how rabat, rabat and just stop in. And that work and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
 

Yigal Adato: 25:31 Plus the what you have in the community, the leadership that you guys have built there, I think allows for you to put up a store and people will say, let me walk in and help support National because they're supporting the community.
Bob Moulton: 25:43 Well I do, but our stores are totally different. We do not put bars on the windows. All of our new stores, we don't carry guns. I know a lot of guys are really into guns. I've found that the guns to paperwork it is to me is not worth that I'm not anti gun and pro gun. It's just their pain and you don't really make a whole
lot of money. I know in the past the gun business was really big and we'd lost a lot of money by not being more in the gun business, but all of our new stores, they do not have gun. We don't have the break ins without guns. We don't have the break ins we used to have, but we'd have to put bars and stuff up. But we have rolled down security gates at most of them.
Yigal Adato: 26:21 Yeah. Nice. So, what's the leadership development look like at National Pawn And you said you got some superstars. Do you train your management is a certain way. Do you give them something else that makes them, they're the best in the industry.

Bob Moulton: 26:35 We do have a formal training program that has steps and they check off that they've learned certain tasks. We've tried hiring people from outside the industry. Some of those works, some of those really may not because we thought that we just need to pay more. So a couple of years ago we were hiring and paying a lot of money to these big bucks managers of grocery stores and read big retail places that are used to dealing with a lot of people, but we've found that they, by and large, they just come from with a different set of skill sets fantastic, people are fantastic at what they do. But really to be a good pawn store manager, you need to have an entrepreneurial spirit because you are, their in charge of buying your inventory. You don't unload the truck and sell what someone else send you and that's where we find some of these people struggle because it is tough. They're great at selling and retailing and setting up the store, but they're struggling on taking the stuff in and that's where the art of pawnbroking is anyway at the pawn counter when you take it in.

Yigal Adato: 27:45 Nice. And are you a hands on owner? Do you go to your stores, walk around, see what's happening? Are you more of a operations guy sitting in an office making sure that everything's running properly?

Bob Moulton: 27:57 I hate to sit in an office, but unfortunately I seem to be doing that a lot more. I like to go into the store and say hello to people and tell them they did a good job and I actually watched the numbers every day and so I can go in and now you know, Susan, great job selling that bracelet yesterday or what little individual things as people like to be recognized and appreciated.

Yigal Adato: 28:19 Okay, great Bob. Well thank you so much for being on. One more last question. What do you do for fun?

Bob Moulton: 28:26 I like to travel and that's my my thing, my wife and I love to travel and we're, I'm old but I'm not too old and so we're trying to travel now while we're in really good shape and able to do it
as we go on trips of the country and we see some older people, younger seventies or so and they said, I wish I would've done that when I was younger and it makes me feel good. They say I'm young, but they're absolutely right. I hear all these stories of people that save all their money and they retire at 65 and all of a sudden they have a health problem with their, knee bad knee and they can't do the things that they dreamed their whole life doing. So I'm just going to do it now. You're not promised tomorrow.

Yigal Adato: 29:04 Well, I always bring up my father, my father is a pawnbroker. Had 12 stores, 100 plus employees at the age of 58, got Parkinson's and dementia and now he's got caregivers and can't travel. He can't do what he always wanted to do. So I love what you said there, Bob, you love to travel and do it now while you're healthy. So if you're listening to this, we opened our pawn shops to have freedom and to make money and to enjoy life. If you're working seven days a week, 14 hours a day, at some point you're going to break, something is going to happen.So enjoy life. I think that's super important, to travel, enjoy life,and do what you love do while still making money in the pawn industry. Bob, thank you. It's been a pleasure and honor to have you on.

Bob Moulton: 29:50 Thank you so much Yigal.
Yigal Adato: 29:50 Thank you so much. And to the listeners, don't forget, we've got the Facebook group, the Pawn Leaders Podcast Community, check it out and for more information on how to be a better leader in the pawn industry, go to pawnleaders.com Check that out and please, if you enjoy the show, leave a review. It helps me out. It helps to show out so more pawnbrokers can listen to it. Thanks a lot, have an incredible day. And Bob, once again, I appreciate you being on.
Bob Moulton: 30:15 Thank you, sir.

Highlights

Bob Moulton started as a computer programmer and an on-air radio personality. He went into the pawn industry in 1984 where he opened National Pawn three years later. There are currently 16 National Pawn stores, with the 17th opening in about 3 months, and over 130 persons are employed there. Bob received the NPA’s Pawn Broker of the Year and Outstanding Community Relations award, along with local awards for integrity, entrepreneurship, business and marketing. His hobbies include traveling, boating, collecting watches and motor cars.

[01:39] Bob was exposed and gained an interest in the pawn business after his uncles and mother worked in the industry.

[02:13] Opening his first pawn store in 1987 made him realize how much hard work and money it took to start and run the business.

[02:41] Bob opened 3 stores in a short space of time and waited some years before opening the 4th and 5th; then took a long break before opening the 6th.

[03:23] What are the laws in your area as it relates to interest and holding periods? There’s a 90 day period in North Carolina (30 days and 60 days past any due date). 20% fee + 2% interest. However, the 20% is capped at $100. Therefore if someone wanted a $10,000 loan on a Rolex, it would only generate a $300 fee. Anything over $500, you only get 2% more per month.

[04:01] 20% caps out at $100 and it drops where there’s $100 the 1st month, $75 the 2nd and then $50 at 2%.

[04:27] “We’re all about building a culture and we’re all about hiring the best and the brightest and I believe that is what makes us so successful and makes it easier to run.”

[05:04] Bob gives his staff bonuses if they are successful and therefore treat them as owners

[06:23] How do you instill passion into your team members? “Our mission statement is that ‘We want to have the wealthiest and highest paid team members in the industry with a culture of trust and accountability’”

[07:25] It is important to trust your employees

[09:01] What are some of the biggest mistakes you’ve made?

• Growing too quickly (if understaffed and under-capitalized)
• Trying to operate big stores

[11:18] Training persons for National Pawn includes:

• Assigning managers to work with new members as a coach
• • Learn about writing transactions
  • Interacting with customers
• Hire energetic persons
• Smart camps (4 to 5 a year)
• Peer-to-peer training

[13:21] What makes a Superstar Pawnbroker? Someone that produces, believes in the company’s values and presents the face of the business

[14:15] A focus group, of non-traditional pawn customers, was hired and asked about their perceptions of other pawnbrokers and the stereotypes were horrible

[14:55] Team members dress in black and white and this gives the business a professional look

[17:23] National Pawn donates musical instruments, school supplies and gives high school scholarships

[19:51] “We are the lender of last resort”

[25:05] How can one grow as a business owner? Word of mouth is a big factor and so is location

[28:01] Bob likes to go in to the stores and interact with people, while encouraging and recognizing staff

Visit National Pawn on Facebook for more information about the business.