Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world’s first risk free naming serviceÂ
http://moneymizerfranchises.com/
Father-son road trips can be powerful and life-changing. But while most excursions wind up at Cooperstown or the Grand Canyon, Robbie Whitten’s yearlong odyssey with his dad ended with him behind the counter of a pawn shop–and eventually, at the helm of an empire.
In 1979 the billionaire Hunt brothers were working to corner the market on silver, ultimately driving up the price from $11 per ounce to almost $50 per ounce. That was when Robbie, then 18, and his father, Robert, hit the road, setting up booths in hotel lobbies around the South, buying unwanted gold and silver jewelry and selling it to a smelter. It turned out to be a genius business, and by the end of the year they had 30 teams of buyers crisscrossing the country.
But when the market collapsed a year later, the Whittens found themselves with a warehouse full of jewelry in Columbus, Ga. “We ended up with really nice pieces that were too pretty to melt down, so we bought some showcases,” Robbie Whitten remembers. “We decided we didn’t want to be in the retail jewelry business, so we said, ‘Let’s try a pawn shop.’ Thirty-three years later, that original location is still going strong, and we’ve expanded.”
The younger Whitten now has seven Money Mizer franchise locations in Georgia, Florida and Alabama; he’s preparing to open five more this year, and eight to 10 per year after that. He let us behind the counter to learn how he has built his business.
How do you deal with the seedy reputation of the pawn business?
We’ve been fighting negative images for years. Pawn shops can be kind of shady, but the reality TV shows have been a big boost to the industry and its reputation. Now a lot of mom-and-pop shops are cleaning up their stores to take advantage of the interest.
There are a lot of new customers coming in who say they’ve never been in a pawn shop and want to check it out. We don’t want them to feel like they’re in a pawn shop. On one side we want them to think they’re in a fine jewelry store, and in the sporting goods section we want them to think they’re in a Bass Pro shop, with a department store in between.
What sets Money Mizer apart?
Our stores are different from about 95 percent of pawn shops. We’re almost like a retail store, and a lot more customer-friendly–and we’re on the good side of town. Our employees don’t have long hair or tattoos running down their arms. We attract more of a white-collar clientele.
Are the upscale customers buying or pawning?
Our loans have definitely increased to the white-collar side. There are lots of guys, like real-estate agents, who were making six figures that are now living on 40 grand. They can’t borrow $3,000 or $4,000 from the bank anymore–they just don’t make those types of personal loans. The term we like to use in the industry is “underbanked.” But these people have lots of nice tangible assets. They might have a Rolex or a $500 Ping driver they can sell.
But people like to shop here, too. Recently we had a lawyer come in and buy a flawless 2-carat diamond from us. Then he took it to a jeweler and had it put in a mounting. We could have done the exact same thing for less, but he said he didn’t want his fiancée to know the diamond came from a pawn shop!
You’ve started an online business, too. How does that work?
PawnConfidential.com is more for the country-club set who don’t want to be seen going into a pawn shop. They take a picture of their merchandise and send it to us via our website with a brief description and how much they want to sell or pawn it for. Our appraisers look at it, and if they agree to the terms, we transfer the money to [the customer’s] checking account. Once they pay off their loan, we FedEx the merchandise back to them. We’re targeting loans in the $500-plus category; in our brick-and-mortar stores, the average loan is $150.
[Via - Entrepreneur.Com]
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http://www.ohgoodypartyfavors.com/
I started my company, Oh Goody! Party Favors, in March, and I launched the website in April. We sell affordable, quality party favors — about $3 to $8 each — for kids’ birthday parties.
I have an 11-year-old and was surprised at the money parents spend on goody bags for guests, and they’re just filled with junk. For one of my older son’s birthday parties a few years ago, I went online and bought a bunch of unique Beanie Babies from eBay to give out as party favors, and parents just raved about it. That got the wheels turning.
After I had my second son two years ago, I started looking for a career change. I’d had a Web design company before, but that business is so much about building relationships, and I don’t have that much time anymore.
I kept coming back to this idea of party favors. I spent the last couple of years writing the business plan and doing the market research, and then I realized that at some point you just have to go for it. My son was sleeping through the night and I had more time and energy to devote to a new business.
I bought my initial inventory and built the website. My startup costs totaled about $3,000. It’s been a very slow start, but I’m hopeful that will change after I invest some time and money into marketing.
[Via - CNNMoney.com]
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The Frugal Startups - 29 Bootstrapping Resources That Will Save Your Startup A Ton Of Cash
Just launched a startup? Chances are you are on a very tight budget, counting every penny, bootstrapping anything and everthing you can and reading every ‘frugal’ column and blog post you can find. Here’s a big list of bootstrapping resources that can save a ton of cash for pretty much any startup.
1. Bitrix24.com - Free CRM, planner, project manager, document sharing (limited to 12 employees)
2. PickyDomains.com - Pay per result naming service, $50 for domain/name/product line, slogan.
3. Reddit/Freebies - Community moderated daily updated freebies list.
4. AppSumo.com - Groupon clone for buying enterprise software.
5. JetRadar.com - Low airfare meta searchengine (searches through 700+ airlines to find best deals normally available through direct purchase on airline sites only).
6. SideJobTrack.com - Free invoicing.
7. MoneyBookers.Com (Skrill) - PayPal alternative, cheap way to accept online payments/credit cards (25 cents + 3%, please refer to site for exact details)
8. Kodesk.com - Office sharing. You can both buy and sell extra office space, including by the hour.
9. PRLog.com - Free press-release distribution.
10. InternMatch.com - Own slaves legally.
11. RetailMeNot.Com - Discount coupons, business section available.
12. OpenOffice.Org - Free MS Office alternative.
13. WaveAccounting.com - Free online accounting SaaS
14. SysAid.com - Free helpdesk software. ZenDesk.com is worth paying for.
15. CouchSurfing.com - Yes, I do want to let complete stranges sleep in my house for free (so I can do the same when I travel).
16. SubmitYourStartup.Com - Partly outdated list of sites that accept startup submissions.
17. Vator.Tv - Social network for startups
18. LowerMyBills.com - Loan/Insurance/Internet Provider/Phone Carries comparison service.
19. Score.Org - Free consulting from retired entrepreneurs (available in certain areas only).
20. Logaster.com - Free logos. Bad English gratis.
21. 99Designs.com - Cheaper alternative for design work. Designers hate the site, so it must be good.
22. MinuteBox.com - Hire doctor/lawyer/coffee enema expert - pay by the minute. Lots of experts, typical pay is around $2.50 a minute. Not sure, but there’s probably some sort of minimum required.
23. HelpAReporter.Com - Free publicity (pitch your business directly to journos working on certain stories).
24. AVG - Free antivirus.
25. Weebly.Com - Free website creator.
26. GotFreeFax.com - Send free fax online. Limited to 3 pages, US and Canada only.
27. RememberTheMilk.com - Free To-Do list, iPhone and Android support.
28. Zamzar.com - Free online file converter. Let’s pass a law that mandates that only one extension (how does .file sound) is allowed!
29. Join.Me - Free webcast/webconference SaaS.
P.S. I have not included eBay, Skype, etc. since everybody knows about those. Did I miss something? Send me a message.
[Via - NicheGeek.com]
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Commuting on Florida’s highways often feels like bumper cars with Ferrari engines. So what would happen if those heavy-footed douches no longer faced the specter of speeding tickets?
Thanks to a couple of enterprising young entrepreneurs, we might just find out.
Indian River County’s Ian Sidles, age 25, and Dustin Boring, 30, incorporated Pre-Paid Auto Club in August. The company provides “speeding insurance.” Pay dues starting at $9.99 a month, and when you receive a moving violation, the club takes care of associated fines, traffic school costs, and legal fees.
It’s like the Hair Club for Men. Sidles and Boring are not only presidents of the firm, but they’d also make good clients. Sidles says epiphany struck when he was nailed for speeding twice in a week. He says he was wrongly accused of blasting his Dodge Charger past a police radar gun at 90 mph in a 70 mph zone. (Besides two speeding tickets in Vero Beach, Sidles’s driving record also includes operating a vehicle without a valid registration and not wearing a seat belt.) “I told Dustin: ‘Dude, there should be insurance for this kind of thing,’” says Sidles, an IT guy who declined to name his regular employer because they don’t know about his new business.
His partner, Boring, is also the founder of iLoveDrinks.com, LLC, according to state corporation records.
Their speeding-insurance business model works like this: “Basic” members are allowed to submit claims every 60 days, there’s no limit for “premium” members, and the company won’t reimburse tickets for zooming more than 19 mph over the limit or violations in a school zone. “We don’t want to encourage bad driving,” Sidles explains. “But people make mistakes. We just want to take some of the burden off of drivers.”
When we talked to Sidles last week, he told us the firm only recently began operating and has just two members. But the novel concept has many more fans — 1,774 on Facebook, to be exact.
Don’t count former Florida Highway Patrol spokesman and trooper Pat Santangelo among them. One thing the Pre-Paid Auto Club can’t do anything about: expensive points on a driver’s record. “Unless they’re taking care of those points, you’re wasting your money,” Santangelo, who’s now a spokesman for Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado, grumbles when told of the concept. “Nice try, though.”
[Via - MiamiNewTimes.com]
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Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world’s first risk free naming agency
http://mailigen.com
Regardless of size, shape or form, whether that’s a mom-and-pop shop you’re running or a conglomerate, marketing is an integral part of any business. One marketing strategy that works, if properly implemented, is e-mail marketing. If that got you furrowing your eyebrows in protest, and since I’m a betting man, I’d bet that you’re one of the many people who think spam has killed the effectiveness of e-mail campaigns. Viagra, Bangkok pills … I’m sure you’ve got your fair share already.
The very purpose of e-mail marketing can be broken down in four: maximize your ROI (return on investment), build a trustworthy brand, drive sales and boost social interaction. Inasmuch as a good percentage of the global population is equipped with a working e-mail address, e-mail marketing is one of the simplest and most cost-effective marketing methods. But remember, it has to be done properly and a trustworthy e-mail marketing software definitely helps.
A web-based online marketing application, Mailigen helps you create (surveys, newsletters, sign-up forms) and analyze (through real-time reporting tools and Google Analytics integration) your e-mail marketing campaigns. It provides a wide range of templates to choose from and an option to create your own. Other features include:
- easy-to-navigate design editor powered by drag-and-drop technology, eliminating the need for coding and other design skills
- auto-responder
- API (application programming interface) integration for managing lists, sending out campaigns and gathering data
- targeted e-mail campaigns, meaning, you send out certain newsletters to certain groups depending on their interests
- setup wizard for creating lists and campaigns
- social media sharing buttons
- high deliverability rate stemming from trusted ISP relationships
- customer-centric support team
Depending on the number of subscribers you have, Mailigen pricing starts at $10 monthly. You also have an option to test drive the software for 30 days absolutely free. You can choose to pay monthly or as you go. For longer-term sign-ups, discount rates are offered, too – 10% for 6 months and 20% for 12 months. SMS/text messaging can, as well, be included in the subscription. Message rates, of course, vary by country and provider.
If you’re too busy to personally manage your e-mail marketing campaigns, Mailigen offers pro services like campaign management, e-mail marketing audit, e-mail template design, segmentation and list management, dedicated IP and IP certification. You can even subscribe to its standard features for free forever by creating a 5000 Epic Free Account.
[Via - NicheGeek.com]