My new 2nd store pics

[callthatgirl]

If you have been here awhile, you may remember last year I opened 2nd location, but unfortunately that location didn't work out. I worked out of my house for a few months, working on the 3rd store (in a town 40 miles away)and trying to secure a new location for the 2nd store. I found it and it's wonderful. It's just on a corner with tons of traffic and after you see the pics....you will see just what I liked about it LOL. It sits nestled on the VFW parking lot.

We have a few final touchs, some vinyl letters to go on the top black trim (like the old diner words, "hamburger, shakes, fries") instead, ours will say "Data recovery, virus removals, etc". We have some blinkie lights to put up too.

Here is what the building used to look like (taken from Google images)

Here is a pic of the 3rd store we opened in July.

 

[maclaptech]

Looks great... you are on your way to grow more and more...

 

[thecomputerguy]

Computer shop by day .... Night club by night!

Congrats!

 

[Encrypted Existence]

Looks great. Just an idea but maybe you could incorporate a drive-thru at one of your locations.

 

[callthatgirl]

Thanks guys! It was a drive-in, during the 1950's. So I am trying to incorporate the look and feel of it. The city is trying to buy the block for redevelopment, but the VFW will not have it. Gotta love die hard. I guess I am trying to give that building one last shot at something good. The nice thing is that they are building 6 dorms right around me in the next year or two and building a grocery store across the street. Should be very lively soon. The corner it's on now has just tons of traffic as I am just four blocks from the big hospital on on the way to the main parking lots. I'll be open at 6:30 am just for that reason.

 

[joydivision]

Do you have issues with people in getting the wrong idea? Well done for expanding so much though.

 

[callthatgirl]

Not so far.

Now that I got 2 done this year, I put 2 more on the plate for next year. One is in a town 40 miles away that only has 1 repair shop for 24,000 people. Should be like the 2nd store, I need to find an old vacated building for that one. The other store is in a town like the size of this one, 100,000, will be harder to do, more challenging for me I guess. I landed a large contract this summer to do computer servicing to 22 retail stores in a 4 state range and we are allowed to cross market with stickers and desktop images. The 5th store idea is located at their 3rd largest store, so I am going to use the cross marketing to help us grow in that town.

 

[Steve202]

I caught this on Twitter the other day and I have to say its looks pretty awesome.

Best of luck with it

 

[Knightsman]

Good job, looking forward to seeing it once you have your lettering up!!!

 

[yankeez]

Windows Graphics

I can't see spending $800 on very nice window graphics, then taping paper on the windows like it's a glorified bulletin board. But, that's just me. Good luck with it.

 

[NWPhotog]

Pretty much every restaurant I see does that. Overall I think it works very well.

 

[callthatgirl]

Interestingly, today I got page 2 of the city paper, awesome press!!! Here is the online story. Not bad for a town of 100,000. FTW!

Rochester Post Bulletin

Thank you for all the positive comments everyone, I am having just a lot of fun with this business. That's what its all about too.

 

[mortaltech]

Congrats Lisa, you are a great inspiration to us all.

 

[yankeez]

Pretty much every restaurant I see does that. Overall I think it works very well.

Hmmm... This is a restaurant forum?

 

[dgast]

Walk-ins

Nice job Lisa, How's the walk in traffic been at your retail locations or is most of your work still derived from search and phone.

 

[NWPhotog]

Hmmm... This is a restaurant forum?

Not sure about you Patrick but I use restaurants, cell phone stores, and other retail outlets for inspiration. I don't want to copy other computer repair stores but innovate and make a helluva lot more money than they do! Seems that is exactly what CTG is doing.

 

[TopLevelComp]

Congrats Lisa! If you don't mind me asking, what was the total cost, from start to finish, to get the building ready?

 

[callthatgirl]

Nice job Lisa, How's the walk in traffic been at your retail locations or is most of your work still derived from search and phone.

the Winona store has been awesome, we brought on a FT guy within 2 months I think? Our foot traffic is crazy, but it's a "walking town", every is on foot or bike. They see our displays and our street signs. We also added on an aggressive ad campaign on radio and the paper, so that boosted our sales by double when those came out. We'll keep doing them too


Not sure about you Patrick but I use restaurants, cell phone stores, and other retail outlets for inspiration.

I use anything for inspiration if I see it working for us. Even a 50's diner lol

Congrats Lisa! If you don't mind me asking, what was the total cost, from start to finish, to get the building ready?

New building
Banners $375
Vinyls for trim $185
Open sign $85
Sign rental $15

That's about it. The other store was about $640 to get opened, the displays were only $240, $400 in floor supplies.

Paper taped to the window is great for having a quick special up for walk-ins to see or showing off a new service or the special of the week. We have one with a QR code that we change often, so it's silly to print up on vinyls. Also we had hours that were not stable in the beginning, so how it's in production mode for the door.

 

[TopLevelComp]

Wow, that was A LOT less than I expected. Thank you!

 

[GoHighVoltage]

WOW! looks great! Congrats on the success. I wish you the very best!