Tony Shelton
BS Detector, Esquire
In the 1990's I had a mentor who has now passed on who taught me the value of
entrepreneurship. He marketed a "for sale by owner" car dealership. That concept was
practically unheard of at that time.
I used money I had saved up while selling cars and repossessed computers from
the auction to buy into his vision.
I worked with him part-time first and then full-time from 1993-1997. He taught me
management,marketing, research, development,and a host of other things, but the most
important thing he taught me was the entrepreneural mindset.
In 1997 We moved to Las Vegas for the sole purpose of starting a "for
sale by owner" franchise here. (We had already opened 90 of them across the country
as Bizops and Franchises.)
Local corruption kept me from opening here. The competition was the husband of the mayor
at that time and was the largest car dealer in southern Nevada. They had heard
of our company in 1995 and set up the fee and inspection structure in a way that would
make our type of dealership unprofitable. If anyone would like to know more details
about that email me and I'll tell you about it. It was actually ingenious.
What little money I had saved was tied up in the car dealership franchise so in
desperation I sold cars for six months. I noticed that the car salesmen sometimes
missed sales because they had to pick up clothes at the cleaners. That very thing cost
me $1200 on a Land Cruiser sale because my guy came in 2 hours early and I had to
split the deal.
At that time there were only three dry cleaners in the entire city who delivered.
I figured there must be a market for a "delivery only" business that subcontracted the
drycleaning out.
I paid cash for a 3 year old Ford van with 395,000 miles on it. That is not a misprint.
It was a van traded in from a company that makes 2-4 trips per day bringing blue-hairs
to Las Vegas from surrounding towns in a fleet of 13 Ford Vans. I figured if it had that
many miles on it, it must run well. Also my customers would only see an almost new
van and not the mileage on it. I thought it was important to make a good first impression.
I still remember my first week I grossed $21.00.
I spent a lot of time and all my money on streamlining the operation.
In 6 years we went from:
1) Being the only dedicated DC delivery in the city - to being the largest of 23.
2) One route two days a week - to 8 routes 4 days a week.
3) 1998 average 20 customers/month to 2006 average 840 customers/ month
4) Writing down and hand tagging clothes to - scanning via RF radio tags in clothes
5) Throwing a small bag of the day's clothes into the van - to filling the van(s) with
90 gallon buckets that had to be loaded with a winch.
6) Collecting checks in the bags - to over 700 customers on automatic billing each mo.
NEXT POST - BUSINESS #2
entrepreneurship. He marketed a "for sale by owner" car dealership. That concept was
practically unheard of at that time.
I used money I had saved up while selling cars and repossessed computers from
the auction to buy into his vision.
I worked with him part-time first and then full-time from 1993-1997. He taught me
management,marketing, research, development,and a host of other things, but the most
important thing he taught me was the entrepreneural mindset.
In 1997 We moved to Las Vegas for the sole purpose of starting a "for
sale by owner" franchise here. (We had already opened 90 of them across the country
as Bizops and Franchises.)
Local corruption kept me from opening here. The competition was the husband of the mayor
at that time and was the largest car dealer in southern Nevada. They had heard
of our company in 1995 and set up the fee and inspection structure in a way that would
make our type of dealership unprofitable. If anyone would like to know more details
about that email me and I'll tell you about it. It was actually ingenious.
What little money I had saved was tied up in the car dealership franchise so in
desperation I sold cars for six months. I noticed that the car salesmen sometimes
missed sales because they had to pick up clothes at the cleaners. That very thing cost
me $1200 on a Land Cruiser sale because my guy came in 2 hours early and I had to
split the deal.
At that time there were only three dry cleaners in the entire city who delivered.
I figured there must be a market for a "delivery only" business that subcontracted the
drycleaning out.
I paid cash for a 3 year old Ford van with 395,000 miles on it. That is not a misprint.
It was a van traded in from a company that makes 2-4 trips per day bringing blue-hairs
to Las Vegas from surrounding towns in a fleet of 13 Ford Vans. I figured if it had that
many miles on it, it must run well. Also my customers would only see an almost new
van and not the mileage on it. I thought it was important to make a good first impression.
I still remember my first week I grossed $21.00.
I spent a lot of time and all my money on streamlining the operation.
In 6 years we went from:
1) Being the only dedicated DC delivery in the city - to being the largest of 23.
2) One route two days a week - to 8 routes 4 days a week.
3) 1998 average 20 customers/month to 2006 average 840 customers/ month
4) Writing down and hand tagging clothes to - scanning via RF radio tags in clothes
5) Throwing a small bag of the day's clothes into the van - to filling the van(s) with
90 gallon buckets that had to be loaded with a winch.
6) Collecting checks in the bags - to over 700 customers on automatic billing each mo.
NEXT POST - BUSINESS #2