When I work at the home office, I like to spread out. My wife calls it messy. I call it orderly confusion.
Our old house had an office in the entryway. So my mess was right there for all to see.
When house shopping, a requirement for her was to find one with an office out of sight.
Now the office is tucked into one corner upstairs.
But I like to lounge around when I work on stuff. In fact, I’ll bring it out to the living room and spread it all over the couch. That’s the cool part of wireless technology right? You can work anywhere.
Karen said, “I’m going to find you a nice chair for your office so you’ll keep your mess in there.”
Fine. So off we go to one of the big three furniture stores in town, Evans.
I’ve always wondered how this store stayed in business because it’s a real trick to get to. You can see it from the street, but you’d have to be looking for it. To get there, you have to wind around, cross the railroad tracks and check the locks on your doors as you drive past this seedy housing project. Not an area you’d want your wife to go by herself. Then you drive up to the place and the front is on the side of the building, facing away from the street.
It must be under new ownership because they changed the name to Evans Rooms Today. They also moved the entrance to the street side of the building.
When you walk in, you land in a small area with a small display area and escalators. At the top of the escalators a salesman was lurking, waiting for his next mark. The people in front of us must have given him the brush off because he let them by and pounced on us like a slobbering, overly friendly puppy dog.
We told him what we were looking for and he pointed us in the right direction. Then he went to hover around another couple and slobber on them for a bit. Guess he was trying to bag two at once.
I don’t blame him. We were just buying one chair. And we weren’t dressed the best either.
I was unshaven and wearing a T-shirt and yesterday’s jeans. My hair had that “slept too long on one side” look.
My wife always looks great, but she was dressed casually as well.
It’s always interesting to see how salesmen treat you when you don’t look like you can afford much.
I’m not crazy about a hovering salesman anyway. Every few minutes, he would flit over and take our buying pulse.
We found a chair we liked but as I sat down to test it, this lady pushing a stroller was watching my reaction a little too close.
She said her husband liked that chair too. I wondered if she was a plant working for the store. Nope, the baby was real enough. Just to be sure, we moved to another part of the store.
Pressed for time, we got the salesman’s card and left. Since I’ve been on commission most of my working life, I try to make sure the right guy gets his commission.
Later we just decided to call the salesman and see if they had it in stock. He called back and said it was at his other warehouse. We would have to drive back into town, make the purchase and wait for a few days for it to be brought from this mystery warehouse.
OK, we’ll just look around a bit. No need to go through all that, I thought.
Knock Yourself Off
We drove out to the biggest store in town, Mathis Brothers. I grew up in Oklahoma City and watched these guys get bigger and bigger through the years.
When we moved to Tulsa, it was no surprise when they moved into this market.
What caught me off guard was the fact they had the exact same chair with the exact same price. That alone wouldn’t be unusual, but there was one more thing that gave them away. The price tags were computer generated and had lots of information on them. It was these tags that gave them away. Number one furniture store bought number two and knocked themselves off.
Turns out “the other warehouse” was number one store, Mathis Brothers, because they had it in stock. Too much coincidence.
Why would they buy the competition and not change to their own name? This formula is followed by many large companies.
Years ago Proctor & Gamble watched the behaviors of the ladies who bought their laundry detergent. They were loyal right up to the seventh purchase when they would buy brand x. Why? Seems they were just bored and wanted a change. Live dangerously and try a different soap. What would P&G do about this?
Simple. Repackage soap and call it brand X. When she’s bored they still get her business.
Mathis Brothers follows this formula too. When they came to town they tested small by leasing a building in a subprime location.
They recently built a new building in a very good, obvious location. But when they moved out of the old, they just renamed it and stocked it with some of the same stuff and some cheaper stuff too. This way they cover the whole market. The new (old) store caters to a less discerning customer. No premium, high priced stuff in there. For that, you’d have to go to their new, better decorated store.
Looks like these guys now have 80 percent of the market in Tulsa for furniture.
I told you about one of my employees once suggesting this to me. Create another company and offer cheap and dirty dent repair.
At the time, I would never consider doing less than perfect work. Still wouldn’t, but it’s a great idea. If you have a mobile rig, call it by another company name. Then when people come to your permanent location, you can send them to your other company for a second opinion.
One of my peeves about commercial locations is the way cities tend to cluster light industrial buildings all together. Makes it easy for people to get fifty repair estimates.
One body shop here was bought by a kid from outside the business. He has a marketing background and is fun to watch. Four doors down from his shop was a competitor shop. He knew any advertising he did might also send traffic to his shop neighbor.
So within a year, he bought that shop too. Kept the old name and now his customers are getting another estimate from the same company without knowing it.
There are times when buying out the competition makes sense.
Quietly competing with yourself has other advantages.
There will always be a certain number of people who won’t make a buying decision until they’ve shopped around a bit.
Also it allows you to have marketplace dominance, without a Microsoft size anti trust suit.
It is so powerful a strategy, that many companies fold it into their plans way before product launch.
Hail Seed Cowboys?
Enclosed is an article reprinted from The Chicago Tribune about seeding hail clouds.
They tried this here in Oklahoma in the last few years. Spent a million bucks on a test. When I first heard about it, I considered installing anti-aircraft artillery in my yard.
Now I see it’s no real threat.
Prevention’s a tough sell. Especially when you can’t prove it works.
Besides, everybody wants a cure. Tis’ why prescription drugs outsell vitamins.
This area of Argentina might be a good place to open shop for dent repair. Here in the US the hail capital is Denver, Colorado.
If you don’t live in a hail region, sell big dent repair. I find it amusing that Dent Wizard is now retraining their techs to take out dents the size of basketballs.
The Paintless Mentor System showed you this right up front.
Find a need and fill it.
People who are motivated to give you business are the best kind to find. Think about all the repairs you can do by staying under deductibles. You own the under 500 dollar business in sheet metal dents.
Insurance agents are the ones to go to. They are motivated by their clients not filing claims on small damage.
“Call me first if you get in an accident,” they say.
Sounds like good service, right? Really they just want to prevent you from filing if they can. Once you call claims, not much they can do.
I learned this from my agent after a tornado in 1993. I asked how he faired in that storm.
“Cost me a trip to Hawaii,” he replied.
Huh?
Turns out they are rewarded for having a high sales to low claims ratio. Tornado caused lots of claims so he lost his vacation.
Knowing this will tell you how to sell them. What’s in it for them? Fewer claims and happy clients.
Can you make money without hail?
Student in Florida sells $30,000.00 a month in dings and minor dents, all retail. So many cars, so little time.
Bowtie Dent?
This month’s DVD is all about dents that are split by a brace. Also the upper part has a crease in it so you can see how I attack them.
Finding time to watch these can be a challenge. Try just taking a quick look with your finger on the next chapter button. I always divide them up so you can take it in small doses. Later you can watch it in full when you have more time. It’s actually a good learning technique.