Old is new again!
Back in the “old days” most things were bought on cash but if you didn’t have the cash to buy, retailers came up with a system called a lay-a-way plan. The retailer held the goods and you made payment to them. When you were done paying the full price you got your furniture, dishwasher or whatever. Christmas lay-a-way assured gifts for the kids.
Over the years, the plan morphed into giving you the furniture at the point of purchase and making payments. Then someone got the bright idea to charge interest and once that took off credit cards began. Soon, merchants were making more on their financing charges than the sale of goods (GE Capital) and the world of credit was born perhaps to all our chagrin.
History has a way of repeating itself and during this economic downturn the lay-a-way plan has made a comeback in various forms and from unusual sources. Who would have ever thought a Music Festival would be sold that way.
The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California offered a Lay-a-way plan this year for the first time in their ten year history. Customers had the option of buying their tickets over several months by putting 10% down and the balance over two additional months, with the final payment due prior to the event.
The payment plan was adopted because other festivals have had to cancel their events this year due to sluggish sales. The plan has been working. The organizer was quoted as saying, “without the lay-a-way option we wouldn’t have done so well”. Like any good idea it is also already being adopted at other festivals in Tennessee, New Jersey, and Arizona.
The NFL also now uses a similar payment plan for their season tickets. You start paying right after the season and get paid up before the new season begins.
We use a lay-a-way option in our own business. The Ultimate Celebrity Branding Experience™ payments are spread out over 12 months; franchise legal work and business consulting are all extended over at least 12 months instead of charging the full fee or requiring the total to be put on a credit card and the client getting killed by interest. We are convinced it has made a tremendous difference in everything we do and why our business is growing rapidly even in this economy.
We aren’t alone and several of our clients including Orthodontist, Donna Galante and Paul Cater (www.CGBraces.com) have added monthly payment programs to their standard pricing. Clearly others should consider doing the same no matter what your business.
If you adopt a variation of the lay-a-way plan in your practice we encourage you not to add interest. All of us are very serious about our dislike of interest payments right now, and we all would love to avoid paying it when we can. You will make more sales by not charging interest and that alone will increase your bottom line.















When I met Nick and Jack, my business was called Total Census Solutions, which was relevant to the niche I first started in (Senior Housing), but to the rest of the world it was confusing and very forgettable. Just by reviewing my Bio, before we even had much time to speak, Nick and Jack shot back a bunch of ideas about how my business was really centered around getting people the maximum ROI in their advertising, and spun out The ROI Guy brand for me. In the past 2 years since they helped me reinvent my brand, my business has taken off! Now everywhere I go, people call me the ROI Guy, which is fun, however, the most important thing is they also know where to call when they need solutions for tracking their marketing campaigns and getting the greatest ROI! Oh yeah, and they also like to have a bit of fun too!
- Richard Seppala, The ROI Guy, 
“Nick, the weekend in Hollywood was great… your program is terrific and I really appreciate the speakers you brought in.”
-Ben Glass
“I chose Dicks Nanton Agency because they get it. A lot of people provide marketing and PR but I was impressed with their ability to understand what drives a customer to do business with you. That’s pretty rare. I really felt that I needed a fresh vision in my business to help us pull off the extraordinary for our clients. I’m looking to Dicks Nanton Agency to provide fresh insight into Florida Leisure Vacation Homes and to help me take it to the next level,”
When we first met Nick and Jack, we were floundering a little with our training business…we had all of the pieces, but didn’t have a cohesive vision or strategy of where it could take us. Since working with them, we have put more systems into our office, we are looking at the marketing (and the results of that marketing!) in a whole new light, our website actually looks like a professional did it, AND we have an awesome vision for our company that will allow us to retire in just a few short years. Sometimes we get so busy in the day to day “stuff” of our businesses that we forget to stop and look AT our businesses, The Dicks + Nanton Agency has afforded us an impartial outsiders’ view of our own business and the potential that it has.
Andy Tolbert, The Blue Jeans Broker,
“Hi this is Kimberlee Frank “The Real Estate Junkie” and I am writing to let you know how joining America’s PremierExperts® made a difference in my life. First off, I have shared the stage with a lot of people. However, it was always me having to impress my audience. Now, thanks to America’s PremierExperts®, I have a long list of credentials that allows me to get on any stage. The media coverage was out of this world. The friendship with Jack, Nick, and Lindsay is something that can not be replaced, we will always be connected. I have written many courses and wanted to write a book but never seemed to find time. With the help of America’s PremierExperts®, they made it happen and not in years but everything was done in just 12 months. I just wanted to say “Thanks”. I couldn’t have gotten this type of media coverage, book, and
I want to thank Nick and Jack for helping me make my dreams a reality. I came to them seeking advice for growing my business. Other people in the past have told me that my ideas and dreams for my business were unattainable. Jack and Nick teamed up with me to brand myself and have opened doors that, in the past, were closed. They have opened my mind to see all of the different ways to make my business successful and to take it to the next level. Thanks to them, today, I am in a position to achieve my business goals and am creating financial freedom for my family and my business partners.
Ronel Jumpp, CEO, Jumpp Investment Group LLC
