7: Interview with President of the NPA Tim Collier from Pacer Limited
Yigal Adato: 00:02 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 while working at the pawn shop.
Yigal Adato: 00:23 Hey pawnbrokers! Welcome back to another episode of the Pawn Leaders podcast. Thank you so much for listening in and taking the time today with me I Have Tony Gallo who specializes in security and loss prevention for high risk businesses. He has more than 30 years experience in the security, audits, safety and emergency management fields. Tony has a bachelor of security degree in criminal justice from New Jersey City University. Tony is also licensed security consultant and a published author and retail,financial,loan services and cannabis security. Tony, welcome to the podcast.
Tony Gallo: 00:57 Thank you! I'm glad to be here.
Yigal Adato: 00:58 Man, I'm so happy that you're here. I think it's perfect timing for you to be here. Before we get into kind of the security stuff, give me some history about your, your, how you got into the pawn industry, how you started security. Tell us your journey here.
Tony Gallo: 01:15 Sure. So I've been in the pawn industry over 20 years. Started with a company called Easy Corp, which is a publicly traded pawnshop chain, has a, had at one time over 1300 pawn shops in the United States, Canada and Mexico. I was their director of risk management, security audit, emergency procedures and spent 17 years as their director, watched the company grow from when I first started 250 stores up to 1300 a financial loan in services. And in that time I was able to understand security from the pawn industry. Haven't been in retail prior to that. I've been in the retail industry for over 30 years.I was able to see patterns when it comes to best practices for pawnbrokers, how to keep them more secure, how to keep their customers protected and also how to maximize their profitability. That's a big miss I think that a lot of times when it comes to pawnbrokers is, you know, how, how are they going to make money and how are they going to keep the money, and, and that they, that they've earned so much. And then, after that, when I left the Easy Corp, started my own company Sapphire Risk Advisory Group. We've grown now on nationwide where we work with pawn brokers, crushed United States, have clients from California to Florida all the way up to New Jersey actually.So, and the one thing that I see that helps a lot is I'm able to relate to the pawnbroker having been in the pawn industry for 20 years, but also having the see what a pawnbroker does in California compared to say a pawnbroker will do in Florida and able to bring best practices to my clients when it comes to properly secure your facility.
Yigal Adato: 03:08 I think it's super important. And thank you for mentioning, I had no idea you were in the pawn industry before. We met a couple of time here at conventions here and there and said hello. So you have that pawnshop experience because you were with for so long, you know, what needs to happen, you know, the ins and outs of a pawn shop. And I think that the security is something that's overlooked a lot when it comes to pawnbrokers, correct?
Tony Gallo: 03:29 I would say so in our, working with a lot of a pawnbrokers, you know, as you know, there are a very progressive pawnbrokers out there. There are innovators out there, there are people that are, you know, old school and none of that is bad or good either way. But one of the things that I see a lot with pawnbrokers is and I see it in the jewelry industry and other similar industries is it'll never happen to me and,I kind of say, well, when it does happen to you, give me a call. And a lot of times that lt'll occur where, you know, it's sometimes difficult for them to be proactive and they're, you know, and they react. And one of my goals always is to be proactive. My goal was never to catch a robber. My goal is to prevent a robbery from occurring. Same thing with theft.
Yigal Adato: 04:22 Why? Why do you think that happens? I mean, we've done a couple of these podcast sorority and the same thing keeps coming up, which is pawnbrokers are reactive and not proactive.
Tony Gallo: 04:33 I think a lot has to do with the business line themselves. I think that they are out there and they're so busy doing loans are so busy doing sales that they missed the actual part of the managing of the total business to complete business when it comes to that. If you have an insurance person from the pawn industry, you're gonna hear the same thing from them. You know, that they, they really are focused on the loan, loaning the loan in business to focus on the sales end of the business. And sometimes the actual running of the business kind of gets pushed to the side and you know, you'll see, a pawnbrokers that are very progressive in the changing of their POS systems and some that are still using that matrix systems.
Yigal Adato: 05:22 Yeah, I agree. I speak with some of them and I say, you know, some of these consultants like yourself. Some of these changes that you need to make is as easy as selling. Another diamond.
Tony Gallo: 05:33 Right, exactly. And sometimes, you know, the, the cost to being proactive is way, way less than having to be reactive. You know, again, I deal with security a lot, lot of the problems that, a pawnbroker has is just like any other retailer. It's internal. A lot of people don't want to believe that they have an internal problem until they do have that problem. And when you look at the external, you know, one of my goals always is prevention. You know, I, I stress prevention and when I talked to pawnbrokers, sometimes they're thinking, well, how do I catch the bad guy? And not to put down reactive devices in the pawn industry. But really that's not your goal. You shouldn't be having to catch people. They should just not be in your store or feel not comfortable being in the store and goes down the line. When I worked for Easy Corp and Easy Pawn, you know, jokingly my, my goal always been not for them not to rob, Easy Pawn, but they didn't go rob Cash America down the block.
Yigal Adato: 06:35 Yeah, because they know that you've got your stores covered.Tony Gallo: 06:39 Well, it, you know, again, there are proven procedures on from on you know, from an external point of view, this proven procedures that can drastically reduce your exposure to shoplifters and potential robbers and people who want to break into your store. There are proven procedures in the pawn industry that can help reduce employees who want to steal or may not even have thought about stealing until there is an opportunity that allows them to steal policies and procedures in place. You know, proven methods that, that are out there and all of those put together is where are you, what's going to save their margins and really going to make them very profitable. And that's kind of what we preach when we go and visit. We do a lot of onsite visit going out to visit clients. And that's really a lot of what we try and communicate.
Yigal Adato: 07:26 Tony, give us some value, man, give us a couple of those things that you just spoke about that can either deter theft internally or externally that you know if a pawnbroker was to put into place tomorrow, might help. Obviously not giving away the secret sauce, right? We want people to call you when you need the service, but give us a couple of those things that they could do to help them reduce that risk.
Tony Gallo: 07:50 Alright, so let's take opening and closing procedures. A lot of times I'll talk to pawnbrokers and they'll actually spend money in hire a guard agency to come at closing or add opening and help the employee come into the store. A lot of times that their concern is that there they read about someone being approached at the time they're locked in to leave or be an approach when they're trying to enter the store and how they couch, they go about that. Do they use alarm systems? They use their phone, what then do they do? And they rarely didn't quite kind of step back and take a look at what they could do. So my recommendation is whether it's at opening or at closing, let's take opening, add opening. You have two employees that should be entering the pawn shop. I highly recommend that atleast two employees enter at a pawn shop. I'm not very keen on just one person. I think there's an exposure here. So one employee stays in the car, in his car, while the other employee goes to the door, unlocks the door, walks in, make sure that no one has broken in and waited for them, which has, has happened. Turns off the alarm comes back out the door, gives you all clear and the second employee comes in. At closing, just before closing, if you have 10 employees or whatever, you have one employee goes out, sits in their car while the rest of them leave the building and lock the doors and everything is good. That would drastically reduce your exposure because a bad guy seeing that knows that they can isolate all the employees. You know, if 10 employees walk out at the same time, if 10 employees in an arm guard walk out, same time, if I can get the jump on them, I'm just bringing all 10 back into the store. So it's those little things didn't cost anything that, that I recommended actually saved because you don't have to hire an alarm company or a guard coming in, monitor you at, but it's those little things that we offer to our clients that make them go, Aha, I never thought of that.
Yigal Adato: 09:48 That's a great, great tip. We did that for years with Moris' Cashco. We would have, you know, two or three people closing or opening whatever the number was and somebody would stand outside or in their car and make sure that they had a watch and they would get on the phone with each other. Hey, is everything clean? Everything's clear, turn off the alarm, put the alarm on and then going around. So love that. Any, any other, typically you can give the pawnbrokers something that you've seen that, that just doesn't make sense to you that you would think that would be the obvious to some pawnbrokers isn't as obvious.
Tony Gallo: 10:18 So an easy fix if you look at the, at your back door, so not the front entrance, but where you might take the trash out or where, where someone might have to go out. If you look at these backdoors, they're very usually they're made out of metal. They're pretty good security in the back door. There's an alarm on that, but as a solid back door. So if you hear a noise in the back, screaming, yelling, fighting, anything, you have two options. You can open the back door which then would exposure you to the problem or you can go and try and figure out what's going on. Why not just put a little peephole? Put a little $10 home depot peephole in that back metal door so that you can look outside and see is it something that you'd have to call the police or is it just a couple having an argument behind your store?
Yigal Adato: 11:09 Love it. We actually found and I'm going to try to find the link to it and put it in the link. It's a much bigger peephole that gives you, I'm sure you know that it gives you a 180 degree view of the outside. You don't have to put your eye up to it. You can just kind of look at it. So that's pretty cool.
Tony Gallo: 11:25 Yeah. So some, some locations and we recommend that exact peephole, some locations will say we'll take a little nine inch monitor. So let's take the front in the store. If you're leaving at the end of the night, but you, you're on a corner where there's a where someone could hide on both sides of the building and rush you how do you know that someone's not on the side of the building. What are you changed stuff? A little nine inch monitor doesn't cost you very much money and you take that feed from the camera that just watching this side of the building. That monitors stay on during the daytime so that bad people say, oh look, they're going to be able to see me if I'm hiding on the side of the building.
Yigal Adato: 12:02 Love it. I love that. Love that tip Tony. What do you think are the three or
what do you know are the three biggest mistakes you've traveled around the United States, maybe internationally doing what you do, going to pawn shop after pawn shop. What are the three biggest mistakes that pawnbrokers are making when it comes to security?
Tony Gallo: 12:19 You know, we've worked with a pawn clients and Canada, United States, and worked for pawn clients in Mexico and interesting, it's very similar. The biggest, biggest mistake that pawnbrokers make is what I call misplaced trust. And that is that you're putting trust into employees in your store and there's no checks and balances. That's the same employee opens and counts the jewelry in the morning closes and counts jewelry at night. The employee who's doing loans that no one's verifying whether they're good loans or not. The employee who's taking the money to the bank every single time or counting the cash. And a lot of times I'll come, I'll talk to pawnbrokers and I'll have that misplaced trust. They'll say, you know, I really didn't think that this person who's been friends of mine for x amount of years or whatever would do something like that. And those are the most substantial losses that'll occur. So number one is the misplaced trust and not having a verification. I called trust, but verify. It doesn't mean that you're not trusting them, but you need to verify that what they're doing is proper. You know, one of the procedures that we put in places, we always want to tell the employees and procedural manual what they should and shouldn't be able to do. You know, we've had situations where employees knew that no one would ever checked their packages or their bags when they left at night and they would steal thousands of dollars. And until somehow that became apparent. We'll put that in your procedure. You have the right to check. Maybe once a year, if, if not every so often just show up in the night at closing. If you're the owner and say, I want to check everyone's bag. You just have to do it once. Everyone's gonna know what to do and everyone's gonna know about. The second thing that don't, I see that's a big, big issue is, and a lot of pawnbrokers preached this, but I don't see that the level that it should be is good customer service. You have people that are coming in your store and your, your tie down at the loan counter and you're not responding to those people from a customer service point of view, whether it's because of manpower, or because of the business so much. And a lot of times that's what a robber wants to see. They want to see that you're not identifying. If I walk in and I want to be able to walk in and say and have someone say to me hello Mr. Gallo, that's a nice white shirt you have on. Well, I know you've identified me or hello sir, that's a nice white shirt you have on today or something like that. I know you've identified. If I'm a shoplifter, if I'm a robber, I'm going to want to leave. I'm not going to want to be there anymore to see what's going on. I'm not going to have called down the block. It's just, you know, that's the beauty of the pawn industry. If I don't like what's seeing here, it's not like I have to rob you, I have to be bad to you. I just thought on the block and do it to somebody else and you know, and that's, that's really some of the key points when you look at, you know, verifying, you know, dealing with your employees, the good customer service ability. And then the last thing is what kind of message you're sending. You know, I, I'll go to pawn shops and, and, and, and I love it that they have 50 cameras in the store, but no one looks at the cam. I call them very expensive boat anchors. You know, or I'll go to a location and they'll have cameras and they're not connected and everyone knows they're not going to connected because the cables hanging off, you know, or, or that the camera is now turned. Someone turned it facing the wall, you know, or they're not using the proper safe for the proper. And what, what that does is it sends, it, communicates, you know, how do you stop a drive ins, you know, a lot of the, you know, that's that's been a big problem in the pawn industry for years. Someone driving your car in well, you put some bounds on the front of big metal poles where he put some big flower pots in the front, which all that's doing is not preventing the person from doing it. It's just sending a message for them to go somewhere else and do it because now I got some flower pots or I gotta go through a big metal pole. So a lot of times when I'm looking at this pawn industry, I'm looking at misplaced trust, poor customer service, and then not sending the proper message that this isn't a place that you want to do something bad at.
Yigal Adato: 16:41 So the last point, basically you're saying whatever you can do to the kind of give the fee for speed bump or a, the question saying, listen, I can go to the pawnshop down the block who has no security, where I can check the, the bollards in the front,another one with no security.
Tony Gallo: 17:00 Exactly. And you know, and, and that's exactly what I'm trying to say, you know, in a lot of times, and I am on, you know, social media a lot. I'm on some, some pages where they will have interaction about what's going on and I'll see conversations that deal with had to catch the bad guy. You know, let's talk about robbery, know, I'm going to have a dye packs or, or, or smart water, which is water to come down or fog machines. Not saying that these aren't good products, but what you're saying is you got to do something bad for this to react and what I'm saying is if you're going to spend the money, think of maybe, a public few monitor as the front of your location. So when I walk in, you immediately know I'm on camera, you know, some pawnbrokers, trying to hide your cameras and I'm like, why you want to catch the shoplifters because you're not what you do for a living. You're a pawnbroker. You don't, you're not supposed to be catching the bad guys. Let them go, rob go somewhere else. So a lot of that. How do you communicate to your employees what is expected of your employees? You know? We do policies and procedure manuals for, for our clients. One of the things that I see as a blain issue is you catch an employee stealing. And his answer is, I was just borrowing it. You're going to be hard pressed getting the police, the prosecutor. Because if you don't have a procedure that says you can't borrow and you're a loaning institution, they're going to say, well, maybe he was just borrowing it, so I've seen that happen. I've actually seen where we've, unemployment has been lost because there wasn't proper procedures in place, written procedures that employees understand that you cannot do certain things.
Yigal Adato: 18:45 Got you. Now something just came to my mind, I wasn't even planning about talking about this, but I remember working in the pawnshop day in and day out, there was tens of thousands of dollars in the tail. There was lots of jewelry merchandise in the showcases, gold and diamonds and you know, hard goods,whatever those things are. Do you feel that pawnbrokers become desensitized to the amount of money goods that they have to actually protect?
Tony Gallo: 19:15 I do. I believe because of them, I suppose so, like you said, all of these assets out there and not actually thinking it through. I've, I've had numerous robberies were at the end of the night, they were counting the money on the loan counter and a guy looked in the window and broke the door and came in and robbed them.
Yigal Adato: 19:36 No.
Tony Gallo: 19:36 You know, and, and you say, well, should you know, maybe if you had been in the back room, he would have just walked right by, you know, and a lot of times even when it comes to diamonds, you know, or, or jewelry, you know, the jewelry cases not being secured. I think that, that is an exposure. I think sometimes the day to day processes you forget that people are watching you and, and you leave a loan out on the counter, you leave money, you know, out on the counter and that exposes you to losses like that.
Yigal Adato: 20:05 Yeah. And, and, and pawnbrokers listening, remember you have, I mean there's a lot of, it's a big dollar amount that you're sitting on where even if you have a $40,000 loan balance, right? It doesn't matter where you're from and what your loan balances. You've got merchandise sitting out there and retail gold, diamond, rolexes, jewelry, cash. You got to take care of it. Tony Gallo: 20:25 Yeah,I mean that's exactly right. And, and, and again, it, it, there's, there's certain policies, proven policies and procedures. It's not like this is our, well, it's never been tried, never, you know, one of the fortunate things that I've had on fortunately, and this I made every mistake in the book when it comes to pawn security, so you know, I had the luxury of having pawn shops in Los Angeles and Houston and Chicago and New York and Miami and you know, and, and I know that if these procedures don't work, they're going to tell me. They're either gonna cut into my safe, they're going to rob my employees or the employees are going to be doing over loaning, under loaning, so forth and so on. So it's not like you have to reinvent the wheel, it's just that you have to follow that procedure and that sometimes is a challenge.
Yigal Adato: 21:14 Got It. Now, the last couple of weeks I follow you on Facebook and I've seen that you've posted, forwarded some unfortunate news about pawn shops being broken into, people being shot like highland pawn brokers here in California, what can you say to the pawnbrokers who are listening today who, who read those and at first kind of get afraid, right?They're like, oh, I gotta do something, and then it kind of falls by the wayside. What can you tell them to really take action?
Tony Gallo: 21:44 You know when you, when you look at the pawn industry, like any other retail industry, a lot of times, events overcome itself. You know, I, I called a squirrel mentality. Something that you're very focused on and then all of a sudden a squirrel runs by and they're chasing that squirrel and you forget about it. You know, you have to be diligent, you know and do all of your security day in and day out when it comes to running any retail business, including the pawn industry. And when you look at, you know, robberies, you know again, I analyzed every pawn robbery that, that comes across my desk in the United States, you know, and the level of violence in the last 20 years has drastically increased. Because society has changed a lot too. And that level has some violence, I mean 20 years ago you would have never heard of school shootings. Now you hear shootings all the time. It's just the way society is. And the same thing with the pawn industry, the level of violence continues to increase. And, and again, going back to the prevention, how do you, how do you, how do you reduce the level of violence in your location? You prevent it from occurring. You don't actually address it as it occurs and a lot of times that's something that a pawn broker needs to look at is how are they going to address this concern? I mean, you know, they have a large amount of cash and a very desirable piece of merchandise. So they are exposed, they have a sign on the front of the door, says we loan up to 10, 15, $20,000. People know they have that, have signs of diamonds, you know, you know, I always said, you know, you're selling gold, you're selling jewelry, you're selling dimes, a lot of cash, sell guns in the store. It really pretty much have everything that anyone outside world wants. Maybe other than the cannabis, you know, but if you look at the same thing, a firearm businesses, liquor stores, tobacco's legalized medical marijuana industry, you know, in the pawn industry, a lot of that is very similar in the way that they're going to back, going back to protect themselves. Now in the 2,000 arm robbing investigations I've done in my career in the pawn industry, you know, the majority of the violent ones for very, very small, I mean, extremely small. I can think of maybe a dozen of the 2000 that were actually violent and does, does, doesn't that were violent. The majority of those happen because something happened that provoked the bad guy. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that this bad guy doesn't deserve, but if I'm a person, the key word that I use when it comes to robbery prevention is cooperating. Not a lot of people like that. But if I'm walking down the block and someone comes to me and says and points a gun at me and says, give me the money in your pocket, I'm going to give them the money in my pocket. I'm not going to give them the keys in my pocket because he didn't ask for that. Not going to give him my watch. I may not give him the credit cards that are in my back pocket or in my jacket, but I'm going to give him the money because that's what it is. We teach that, that's what we teach cooperation. Now that's a hard thing to say, but here's my, here's what I always tell people. At the end of the day, my goal is for you to go home and have dinner, with your family. Enjoy your Christmas, enjoy your Thanksgiving, enjoy your holidays with your family, money and merchandise can always be replaced, a human life can't. And you know, if you cooperate, keeping in mind what a robber's intention, he's there to rob you, whether it's going to drop you in a gas station as you're pumping gas or whether he's going to rob you in your pawn shop, his goal was to get, take something from you not to hurt you. That wasn't his intention is to come in, because he would have hurt you then. There would have a whole different atmosphere. So you have to gauge that on what's the advantages of helping of, or trying to catch the bad guy or just let that I call a transaction, let that transaction go and that's hard for pawnbrokers to, you know they want to, they want to protect their assets, they don't want this to go on. But again, my, my, my goal always is listen, well, you know, that's why you have insurance. Let it happen. Get them in. Get them out as quick as possible. Don't lock them in the store or don't try and do a, that's going to hurt you. And, and, and then move on from there. And then maybe look at your security procedures and say, well, why did this occur? You know, I turn all the lights off at night, or I did this or I did that. And how do you prevent it from happening again?
Yigal Adato:26:14 Now it's not just about getting security procedures put into place. It's about ctually training with them, learning them, knowing them in case something happens, right? Because a lot of pawnbrokers, including myself, might pay a consultant like yourself to come in, teach them something and we'll have our binder we'll put it in the corner and we don't follow through.
Tony Gallo: 26:35 And that's exactly right. So if you look at society the way it is, you brought, you brought us up right to the beginning of the conversation, we're a very Social media were very iPhone, android, you know. So what's the best way to communicate to most employees that are in the pawn industry? Used to be pen and paper, used to read through a manual that at one time it was videotapes, but now really, if you look at it, it's the online industry, online training, you know, we do a, we do a robbery awareness online training course where we actually communicate to the employees how they should act or on a robbery situation and whether you use our course, or you design another, you know, people are very visual, you know, less and less people read books, but you know, they can watch movies, they can go on YouTube much more. So you have to be able to find a way that they're going to look more at something.
Yigal Adato: 27:35 Got it, love it. Tony, this has been incredible man from, from an ex pawnbroker and my father in law who was a security expert. He always told me things that I just didn't believe. Like, it's just way too much. Like I can't do all this. I don't want to do all this. Nothing's going to happen to me. But with all the news that's been happening lately, I understand why security experts are important. Why having a security consultant come into the store and see our procedures so that we're safe. Forget the merchandise like you said, so I can come home to my wife and my kid and, and have dinner. That's what's, that's what it's about.
Tony Gallo: 28:12 And again, you know, you could spend the money now or you can spend the money later and, and always to money and a proactive approach, no matter what you do, is always much cheaper than a reactive approach and on that. And that's what we, that's what we preach. We preach being proactive loss prevention, not apprehension, preventing these problems on the having. That's why everything we do is geared to, you never having the problem. Then actually catching someone in the, in the course of the problem.
Yigal Adato: 28:42 Yeah, love it. So if you're a pawn broker who wants to be proactive and once it makes sure that your story isn't one that's targeted by the thieves and the, you know, the criminals give Tony a call and we'll, we'll, I'll have you tell everybody how they can reach you right now. But just, I think it's remember Safety First, right? We learned it in school. It was all about safety first. We know that the money's important. The Rolexes are important, the loan balance is important, but a year say we care about you guys. We want you to be safe and that's what's important.
Tony Gallo: 29:13 That's exactly, that's exactly wants you to stay in business. We want you to grow, we want you to be profitable and we want you to go home.
Yigal Adato: 29:20 Awesome. So Tony, how can a pawn brokers listening find you?
Tony Gallo: 29:24 So, our, so our web page is www.sapphirerisk.com, and you can reach us at two one, four, eight, four, five, six, eight, three, eight. There's like a contact on the web page. Also, if you want to send us a question and we'd be more than willing to talk to you. And I looked for you on social media all the time and you know, I'm always willing to answer any questions you have.
Yigal Adato: 29:50 Perfect. And we'll put those links in the show notes so people can go back and find them. Once again, pawnbrokers, thank you so much for listening to the pawn leaders podcast. If you want to continue the conversation with Tony, I'm going to put him into the pawn leaders podcast community where you guys can ask him any questions about this episode or anything about security and reach out to him there on Facebook. Also, if you want to learn more about being a better leader, go to pawnleaders.com to get more information to join a mastermind of pawnbrokers who are out to get more power, more profit, and more peace of mind. Thanks for listening and remember, download the episodes. Give us a five star, review share with other pawnbroker friends. Tony, once again, thanks for being here.
Tony Gallo: 30:31 Thank you for having me.
Highlights
Tim is the co-owner and managing partner of Pacer Limited. He is the president of the Arkansas Pawnbrokers Association, past GRC chair of the National Pawnbrokers Association (NPA) and the current president of the NPA. Tim has been married to his wife Lisa for 33 years, with 3 sons. Listen in as Tim shares his experience as a pawnbroker and as president of the NPA.
[00:32] Tim founded his pawnshop in 1990 after a 10 year career in retail jewelry
[01:59] He started working in a jewelry store during Junior high school. He then went on to working at a jewelry store during college.
[02:49] An independent had an idea for a jewelry only pawnshop specializing in fine jewelry. They partnered and started the pawn store.
[03:36] There is no retail pawnshop or storefront. Items that are not redeemed are wholesaled.
[06:59] “Whether I was in retail jewelry or whether I was in pawn, it was very awkward for me to tell a customer on one hand ‘Your ring is worth $200’ and yet on the other hand they come back and that same ring is out in the showcase and it’s marked at $799”
[09:06] Anyone who wants a job can get a job, as there are jobs available for everyone.
[10:01] Tim speaks about the difference in pawning since employment is now on the rise. Persons don’t need to pawn as much as before.
[10:29] The prices of gold decreasing has caused receivables to drop from anywhere between 20% to 30%.
[12:55] Having a specialized store, it can be difficult to get staff that are trained to know what is real and what is a replica.
[16:13] There is still a stigma attached to pawn stores that Tim is working hard to overcome.
[18:01] First appearance of your store is important to help break the negative stigma of pawnshops.
[18:51] “It’s important to make the customers feel comfortable when they come in.”
[19:18] “A pawnshop is nothing more than a retail store that sells money”
[21:32] “I have an ongoing struggle, day-by-day, in dealing with pawn customers who are in need and they just don’t have the resources to be able to get the amount of money that they need.”
[22:55] “Collect the account and save the customer.”
[25:00] The National Pawnbrokers Association assists with branding; as you get NPA stickers to display at your store. This shows that you are a part of a group that is committed and compliant.
[29:12] The NPA is currently working to find new revenue streams, benefits and absorb some of the cost burdens associated with shows and conferences.
[31:11] “Pawnbrokers are very caring people and sharing people. And they are willing to open up and share information about how the business is run and what they can do.”
[32:28] Visit www.Dixeconvention.com to see information on registration for upcoming events. There will be a 4 state show (Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi) which is rotated to different locations. This year it will be in Little Rock.
Yigal Adato
Yigal is a 3rd generation pawn broker, and is now a mentor, coach and educator with the pawnbroking industry.
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