“One thing I’ve learned after 21 years, you never know what is gonna come through that door.”
That’s what pawn shop owner Rick Harrison says at the opening of each episode of Pawn Stars, the popular History Channel reality show. If you’ve worked at a pawn shop for even a short length of time, no doubt you can relate to Rick. When it comes to running a pawn shop, expecting the unexpected is part of the job.
The FlashNews website once reported that Borro, a pawn broker in the UK, had to turn away a farmer who came in to pawn his livestock. According to The Florida Times-Union, employees at Value Pawn and Jewelry in Jacksonville, FL, have seen sellers come in with everything from artificial limbs and gold teeth to a used toilet and Chuck E. Cheese tokens.
Like other pawn shop owners, you probably consider most of the unexpected things that occur from day to day to be well and good. They keep things interesting, and sometimes result in valuable, unexpected acquisitions.
There is, however, at least one time in every pawn shop owner’s life when it’s better to get fewer surprises. When you’re ready to sell your business, the only surprise you really want to get is a higher bid than you’d anticipated.
It is not uncommon for pawn shop owners who are ready to sell to simply call the major pawn companies and ask what price each company would pay for their shop or shops. Usually, they have an idea of what they might be able to get, but they don’t know the true value of what they’re selling. As a result, they accept the best offer without knowing whether they could have gotten thousands, hundreds of thousands—or even millions—more.
Whether you want to sell your shop in order to deploy capital into new start-up stores, buy real estate for new locations, reorganize your capital structure, or prepare for retirement, doesn’t it make sense to determine independently what you might be able to get from your shop’s sale versus allowing a big corporation to determine it for you? Doesn’t it make sense to get the most out of the sale of your shop no matter what your reasons for selling?
If you’re thinking of selling your pawn shop, contact Stallcup Group. Having an accurate company profile can help you determine whether or not it’s time to sell and what kind of sale price you might be able to achieve. If you’re serious about selling, we’ll do an initial analysis of your business for free!
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