Hey everyone. Haven’t posted in a bit but its been hectic. Not only did we go on vacation to beautiful British Columbia, but we also completed another merger in our Second Life land business.
That business is coming along like a lemonade stand on a hot summer’s day, and one reason why is, as obvious as this may sound, we make sure to stay into profit. I have posted before about the ROI of our business and how we are able to use Other People’s Time and Money to generate profits.
The key to our business is taking care of people.
We have two managers who look after the business for us, and a pile of cash came in while we were on vacation. Its a beautiful thing. For instance, the day we were travelling our business brought in aprox $560 in sales and we didn’t do a thing but enjoy our vacation!
But going back to the customer I had to fire. I tell my managers that we need to Train our New Customers and Take Care Of our Old Customers. See, in our Second Life land business we have a large overhead that we have to cover to keep the lights on. And it all comes from the payments that our customers make to use our land.
This one particular customer was renting five islands for us, paying us roughly $1700 USD per month in rent. He had been with us for a couple of months but was having issues paying his rent on time. Most of our customers pay weekly, its just the nature of the business. Well, all of our systems and having our managers in place only works up to a point – that point being whether or not we can train our customers to pay on time! This one – we couldn’t. Not only was he not paying on time, but he was making it hard for our manager to do her job properly as he wouldn’t even tell her when he was going to pay.
Something I learned from my days in the Rent-to-Own business is the next best thing to a Payment is a Commitment. If someone’s rent is due at 5 PM and they are running late, my manager’s job is to get a Commitment from them. In other words, yes I know I was due at 5 PM, but I will be able to pay at 10 PM. This allows the manager to not have to bother the customer again until 10 PM, or not at all if they pay rent first. Well this customer who was paying us $1700 USD per month just didn’t get it. So I had to get personally involved and fire him.
At that point in time he was past due on two of his islands, which we then reclaimed and I told him to make sure to pay on time on his remaining three. He took offense to that and asked for a refund of his remaining rent on the other three, which I gave him.
The happy conclusion was we were able to fill all five islands with customers who pay on time! My managers can go back to doing their jobs, I can spend more time on the golf course, and we are able to keep expanding the business.
Whatever business you run, whatever systems you have in place, keep your ultimate goal in mind.
Yes, we take very good care of our people. We take care of our realtors, our managers, and our residents. We are able to do that because we take care of our business first! By making sure our bills are paid, we are able to continue to profit and provide great service month in and month out.
Take care of your people, and (most of them!) will take care of you.
Have fun, and good luck!
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