A Las Vegas Loan Center Blog

Here is an odd bit of trivia for you. Did you know that Tiffany once marketed Rolex with their name on the face?

It seems that Cartier did this as well and surprisingly, Domino’s Pizza gave managers that beat certain quotas Rolex Air King watches that had face plates with the Domino’s name on them.

I couldn’t locate any pictures of the Cartier Rolex except fakes, but here is a Domino’s face from Essential Watches.

A Tiffany branded Rolex Submariner.

Here is a Tiffany branded Rolex from the European Watch Co. in Boston.

Here is a 1959 Rolex Air King marketed by Tiffany & Co. being offered by Princeton Watches complete with original stretch and twist band.

Nevada’s unemployment rate now stands at 13.1%, a number that does not reflect people who’s benefits have run out, or others who have had to settle part time work until things get better.

Bill Anderson, chief economist for the state Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation, said the job loss figures cast “further doubt on the likelihood for a near-term economic recovery in Nevada.” He also said: “The much anticipated opening of City Center in Las Vegas failed to be the immediate catalyst the leisure and hospitality industry needed to stop the evaporation of jobs.”

In the early 1980s we had a downturn that lasted about a year and a half. This one is over two years old, going strong and, according to Bill Anderson: “Despite the length and depth of the downturn, Nevada’s job market will likely worsen in the months ahead.”

When I read that the “experts” were surprised that the opening of City Center didn’t revitalize the hotel and entertainment industries I’m the one who looks surprised. –Why in God’s name would they think that it would? We have an over abundance of rooms and the City Center project was aimed at well heeled tourists with plenty of loose cash. –An increasingly illusive target.

The problem is; when “they” were touting all these new jobs City Center would create, they just sort of skimmed over the 12,000 or so construction workers who were about to become unemployed. They also failed to tell us where all the tourists that would be required to keep everyone employed were going to come from.

Unless it’s a project that will miraculously put money in the potential tourist’s pocket, most people don’t care about yet another joint opening in Las Vegas. They are far to preoccupied with trivial things; like finding work, paying the rent, and feeding their families.

Our entire economy is built on separating a fool and his money. Well, I’m afraid the money lenders, with their friends “on the hill” and in the SEC, have not only beat us to the punch, they’ve shown us just what rank amateurs we are.

As a business there is nothing we can do about a failing economy. –All we can do is to stay conservative, try even harder to hustle the other guy’s business and figure out how to survive the inevitable increase in the forfeiture rate.

One sign that the economy will never be what it was before the bubble burs, is an increasing number of businesses relying on permanent part time employees or independent contractors.

The primary advantage for the company is not having to pay into insurance plans or other benefits.

While the advantage to the employee is a some form of income in an economy where employment can be difficult to find.

This is one time the employment situation can benefit retired individuals. These people are experienced, with few requirements beyond a flexible schedule and small income.

In fact, most of these potential employees don’t want a lot of hours, because, in many cases, too much additional income can adversely affect their retirement income.

Outsourcing to a private contractor is good for solving specific problems, eg. network trouble, or handling the end of month bookkeeping. The disadvantage to hiring outside help is that many times, a company goes with the low-bidder, and then has to pay someone to fix the mess they paid just someone to create.

However, speaking as a former private contractor in the field of computer networking, it can be a tough row to hoe. You not only have to compete with less qualified contractors, who work too cheap. Many times you have to be in a position to wait for 30 to 90 days for payment.

For the politicians on the other hand, this permanent part time /contractor thing is a winning situation, because all of these people, no matter how little they make, are off the unemployment rolls –making the economic situation look better than it is.

I was called in to work Wednesday because we had a video server that was calling a city in central China. –This is not only upsetting, it chews up bandwidth like you would not believe, and if there is one thing we don’t need, it’s for the network to slow down.

The trojan hadn’t infected any of our other machines, and no data was compromised, but it showed the price of carelessness. Not only did the company have to pay ot, we had to crisscross the valley to reach each of our locations in order to physically scan all of our workstations and servers. -Our outlying locations open at 9am close at 6pm, we were waiting by the door of our initial problem when it opened, and by 5pm had successfully checked four out of the five offices.

The flaw in the system that caused the problem was two fold: First, because it served nothing but surveillance video we hadn’t gotten around to putting anti-virus on the box. –This is an unforgivable oversight, because it facilitated the downloading of the trojan.

The second was that we hadn’t locked down the machine to prevent other internet access. The machine sits behind a firewall, meaning that the only way it could have become infected is if someone used it to access an infected website, open an infected email, or inserted a flash drive they brought from home.

I don’t care how cute your youngest child is or how neat a program is. DO NOT bring anything from home and plug it into your work computer, including flash drives and DVDs. –This is one of the primary ways infections spread.

The bottom line is that business class anti-virus software costs money that many small businesses don’t have, or don’t want to spend, and any anti-virus software requires a certain amount of maintenance. But it will go a long ways towards preventing drive-by downloads. Which in turn will help keep your data safe from prying eyes. –Providing of course you can keep people from clicking yes instead of no when that pop-up appears, or opening every email just because they are curious –or so incredibly naive that they think that an anti-virus program is going to protect them from themselves–.

You need to be vigilant in protecting your company’s and customer’s information, because sooner or later someone, even you, is going to screw up. You will notice that I said going to, not likely to, screw up.

Scan your machines daily and keep backups of all your important data and software. —You also need to keep multiple backups from different times because of the possibility of data corruption or infected files.

If you but a good acoustic guitar you need to buy a good Hard Case if it doesn’t come with one.

A gig bag will do an adequate job of protecting most solid body guitars, but they don’t give an acoustic with it’s relatively thin body much protection from anything but minor bumps. –Fortunately Martins, Guilds, Taylors and the like come with their own brand name cases.

The other thing you need to be aware of is our summer heat. We took in a Martin with the pick-guard peeling away from the body. This was caused by leaving the guitar in the case but leaving the case in the direct sun. –Guitar cases aren’t as a general rule insulated so the heat build up caused the plastic to warp.

Another investment that is necessary out here in the desert is a Guitar Humidifier.

Below is a picture of a Guild FR-50 we currently have in stock. The crack running from the tail to the bridge, wasn’t visible when we took it in. Now, because of our dry air, the seam has opened up. –This repair will be an added expense for whoever buys this instrument and will have to be taken into account when we sell it.

Click on the image for a larger version.

A good guitar should outlive you and your children. —But only if you take care of it.

Because a new year is as good a point as any for a fresh start, I spent two hours or so New Years day making a list of what on our websites, including those not visible to the public, needed to be fixed, changed or dropped. —These are things that, for the most part, I can implement without asking permission or jumping through hoops.

I made another list of internal policies, procedures and computer interfaces that I feel need to be fixed, changed, clarified or dropped.
-These things I can only present as suggestions to the appropriate parties.

The trick with either of these two lists is knowing what I can take control of without special permission or meetings, and which I need to forward to someone else. Because even in an organization small enough for anybody working there to be on a first name basis with all the other employees there are specific areas of responsibility and authority that need to considered when making even minor changes. There also the complications that arise from office politics and turf, because doing anything without consulting the person that feels they are entitled to some sort of input, can lead to hurt feelings, retaliatory back-stabbing and some world class hissy-fits. –Such is life.

This morning, before leaving for work, I drank my last two cups of coffee and re-read my lists, revised them, scrapped many of the ideas that had seemed important, edited both lists to include only things that are practical, and sent them on for approval and further revision to those people who’s job it is to make the final decision.

In the mean time I’ve started work those things I can change without consultation.

Beginning anew at the first of the year gives me a fresh mental outlook and a renewed sense of enthusiasm. –This will wear off as the mundane realities of day to day business take precedence over anything that lacks urgency, but for today at least, I’ve got a running start on the first of these projects.

The reason I’m writing this is that, every so often, someone in business will ask me how many people read our website and how much money we make off it.

These otherwise intelligent business owners have been trained for years that an ad in the yellow pages, a sign over the door and the occasional sale banner are “what works.”

Trying to explain to them that our company websites are not designed to sell a product so much as to present an increasingly important online presence, is all but impossible…… Why? Because they think of the internet is another physical, static place, a shopping mall, if you will. A place where you lease space and put a sign on the pylon, instead of an ongoing experience.

In fact an easy 80% of the people who ask me about websites and the net don’t check their email, assuming for the moment that they have email, or that they can remember their password, and if they do check email it’s; “that reminds me. I haven’t checked my email in at least a month.”

It’s difficult to explain the instant communication and resulting opportunity for world wide interaction presented by this new media to someone who wants to know how much it costs to send an email to Greece. –I did not make that up.

Given the fluid nature of the net, keeping up with the competition requires constant attention. Leading to the invariable excuse “I’m too busy.”
–Translation: It’s different and I don’t like change, I don’t understand this whole internet thing, I’m a little intimidated, it doesn’t generate any type of instant gratification, and I’m in a nice comfortable rut… Now go away.

However, this “inconvenience” is an advantage if you think of marketing as a continual, fluid, multifaceted process instead of a once or twice a year event.

Keeping up with the competition gives you a chance to keep things fresh and to adapt to industry changes. –Remember that the yellow pages lock you in to a static page for a year at a time; the internet locks you in for seconds at a time. And given the increasing number of household with internet connections the opportunity is there to reach a larger audience in more ways than ever before.
–If you don’t use it, your competition certainly will.

Now the game is about marketing, image and brand building, not just static advertisements.

This is why I try to get people to read blogs like Seth Godin’s. He talks about marketing using simple terms and straight forward examples.

While the specific ideas he presents may not apply to your organization, the overall attitude should. —It’s not so much about the how’s and why’s of marketing, as a mind set.

From Represent:
“The great brands of our time are not about what they are. They are about what they represent.”

We are occasionally offered black powder replicas in pawn.

My first instinct is that they are the old late 70’s CVA / Jukar kits or their equivalent and have no great value. As a general rule I’m right, but sometimes this is a mistake.

Case in point:

Royal Navy Sea Service Pistol - Long Version

Rifles generally go for even more, with some brands running over $1000.

Most of the owners of these weapons honestly believe that they are true antiques. Disproving this can be difficult, but with the use of the markings on the weapon, and the internet, many times you can (gently)explain to the customer that they are replicas.

On the other hand you sometimes are offered a genuine antique pistol or rifle and then you get to jump through hoops to try and determine the value.

Looking at Google Analytics I see that Pioneerloan.com, a site that serves primarily as our portal, got 1,336 hits from 1,228 unique visitors.

Of those 1,186 came from the US, with 371 from Nevada.
This tells me that people are searching more for online loans than for local loan sources.

Loansbypioneer.com, our title loan site, received 309 visits from 292 unique visitors. Of those 293 came from the US, and of those 174 came from Nevada. The problem is that we do title loans only in the Las Vegas Valley, and we require Nevada registration and insurance, so those visitors from out of state are not likely to generate much business.

Pioneerpawn.com, our pawnshop site, received 661 hits from 645 unique visitors. Of those 530 came from the US.

I don’t worry about the source of the hits on Pioneerpawn.com because we can always ship whatever they might want, as long as they are willing to pay the cost.

What all these numbers mean is that the general public has accepted the “net” as a normal way of doing business.

All I need to do now is figure out how to monetize this mess in a manner that doesn’t require a lot of babysitting.

—And before someone asks: No, I do not want to use your services or sell your product. When I finally get this project up and running I will probably use Amazon’s cloud servers and our own products.

The pawnshop is straight forward, it’s just a matter of getting the right product, but because of the nature of the title loan business, monetizing the other sites is not going to be so straight forward.

Like it or not we need to join the 21st century and bring more of our business online. This will be done slowly, with security being our first priority, and with a great deal of nay-saying, kicking, screaming and holding-my-breath-until-I-turn-blue on my part, but it will be done.

Whether you realize it or not, as long as you sell a product or provide a service, whether for your own business or on the behalf of an employer, you are directly involved in forming your company’s image, and that image is central to a company’s marketability.

To your clients you are the face of the company. When speaking to clients or potential clients, if you make a snide remark about your supervisor or bad-mouth a company policy, it reflects on the overall view of the company. –The client will think that because you work there you must know what you’re talking about, and will conclude that it’s a badly run company. And who wants to do business with a badly run company?

If you don’t engage the client and answer their questions by rote, while sounding like a robot reading a teleprompter when telling them what you require, they will come away with the impression that the company is nothing special. —Maybe they can get a better deal somewhere else.

On the other hand if you engage the client and make them not only feel like you appreciate their business, but that you will go our of your way to help with any issues that might come up. They will not only become repeat customers, but will recommend your company to anyone else who might be in the market for your services.

If you think you are too far down the food chain for any of this to matter you should think of it this way:
If the brand prospers, you prosper, or at least get to keep your paycheck. –But if the brand fails, you get the privilege of searching for a new job along with a few million other people.

In business image may not be everything, but it’s at least as important as the product.

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On a personal note:
People ask what it is I do around here.

My job is computer security. –Also referred to as “running in tight little circles pretending I’m getting somewhere.”

My job is keeping our websites on the first page of Google for our chosen key phrases.

My job is dealing with customers.

My job is research.

My job is dealing with employees/employers that occasionally refuse to deal with our other IT guy.

My job is fixing whatever someone who swears they-never-touched-it, broke this time.

My job is keeping this blog alive. –Because I know that as the internet becomes more critical to our business, this blog will progress beyond it’s current status to become an important company asset.

And lastly, because nobody else is sure what my job is, my job is whatever I think is most important at the moment.