WHAT IS YOUR TRICK PONY?
Having been in business for quite some time and around the block a couple of times, you get to think you have heard or seen just about everything, but the other day, a very successful multi-store operator threw me a curveball. We were talking about a business that he was thinking about acquiring, and right out of nowhere, he looked at me and said: Well, what is their trick pony? I had no idea what he was talking about, so I asked him. What is a trick pony? He said a trick pony is something used to enhance the sales of a business. Now I knew what he was talking about. In marketing, we call it USP, which means what is your unique selling proposition, or in more simple terms: What is your hook? Most successful businesses have a trick pony, a hook, or a USP — whatever you want to call it. For example, one of the most well-known of those was Domino’s Pizza. When Domino’s Pizza first started in
Ypsilanti, Michigan, in 1960, they were just another couple of guys with a pizza place in another college town. To make their pizza place stand out and increase sales, they came up with a USP/hook to set them apart from their competition. Their USP/hook was they’d deliver your pizza hot and fresh in 30 minutes or less, or it would be free. You know the rest of the story because Tom Monaghan went on to sell Domino’s for a billion dollars, and now Domino’s Pizza is probably one of the most recognizable brands in the US. Then there was Federal Express. Fred Smith, the creator of Federal Express, knew he had a great idea with overnight delivery, but again, he needed something to gain market attention in the business community. He, therefore, came up with the “When something absolutely must be there the next day” slogan. These are only a few of the many different USP/hooks that have been used to break through the clutter of customers’ minds and grab their attention. How about you and your store or stores? What is your trick pony? I have seen some convenience stores use soda as a hook: “Any size of soda 59 cents.” Some will use coffee, and some even use bananas. But the point is that every store should have some kind of trick pony; otherwise, what is going to set you apart from the next guy?
Through my travels and meetings with many convenience store owners across the country, I have seen many different stores with fresh eyes.
You may want to take a walk out into your parking lot and look at your store from that angle, as a customer, and actually walk through the sequence of events a customer would and see what they see and try to think what they think. Remember, the customer who frequents your store in the morning is different than the customer who visits your store at noon, as is the customer who visits your store at night, so you really have three different types of customers. The same trick pony may not work for all three of them. Nobody said this was going to be easy, but it will be more profitable for you.
I bet Tom Monaghan of Domino’s and Fred Smith of Federal Express are glad they came up with their trick pony.
–Terry Monroe
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completely reviewed the financials and are assured we have the correct financial information.
through the middle of one of the stores, which was jeopardizing the sale of the entire 35-store package. Fortunately, we were able to get it resolved, but only because the attorney who was representing the seller of the 35 stores happened to be the city attorney for the town. They called a special meeting to address the issue, and the closing occurred on time.
In December 2023, we successfully closed two exceptional packages of convenience stores and wholesale fuel businesses. What nobody knew was that we worked most of 2022 cleaning up the books and records of each business because they could not be taken to the market due to their poor bookkeeping. This is not unusual, which is why a business owner should do financial due diligence on themselves before anything else. Ask themselves, "Would I buy a business where the books and records
Financial due diligence is usually the one item that will kill a deal, which is why we won’t take a business to the market until we have
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