Photo: incolr Productions

By: Laura Thackston (ClerkHound Development Team)

Pladd Dot Music is a unique case study - they pioneered the development of ClerkHound to be the flagship point of sale for music stores and they saw ClerkHound grow their revenue by more than they ever imagined. Here's Chris' secret for making ClerkHound work for him and his team at Pladd Dot Music!

Full Disclosure - Chris' Team at Pladd Dot Music pioneered the features and form of ClerkHound with myself and Russell Thackston. They included all of the features that are needed by a modern music store to run their daily business. They knew that ClerkHound would allow for the growth of sales and profits, but never imagined how much until the first sales quarter came in.

"We're going to be looking at 40% - 50% sales growth this year." - Chris Mitchell

This is their story.

ClerkHound: So - you've now used ClerkHound for 7 months in your store. How's it going?

Chris: Better than ever! Our sales are up almost $200,000 for the year after only 6 months in!!

ClerkHound: Woah! That's crazy. Did you see that coming?

Chris: Not at all! I thought that sales would be up 30% at the highest. We're going to be looking at a 40% - 50% sales growth this year.

"If your business isn't making CUSTOMER SPECIAL ORDERS EVERY SINGLE WEEK - THE ONLINE BIG BOXES ARE TAKING THAT SALE FROM YOU!" - Chris Mitchell

ClerkHound: What do you attribute to the growth?

Chris: Honestly - it's using the platform as it's intended. By creating orders, repairs, POs, and managing inventory, the software allows us to do what we need to do - any time and any place! I can check what's going on at night and even place orders from home to ensure that we've got the right inventory.

ClerkHound: Can you elaborate on that? Or how about give other ClerkHound users tips on how the software made your shop better?

Chris: Sure thing. As a matter of fact, why don't I just make a list of what I've found to be the best use practices?

ClerkHound: In the words of Chris Stapleton - FIRE AWAY!

"If you don't have a modern point of sale that takes care of your customers, you're losing money. It's that simple." - Chris Mitchell

Chris' Tips on MAKING MONEY with ClerkHound Point of Sale:

Chis: There are really seven key elements to making money with ClerkHound:

1. ClerkHound is Customer Centric. You have to understand that ClerkHound Point of Sale was designed as a Customer Centric point of sale. It allows you to track customer custom orders, repairs, and payments with ease. You don't have to run a series of reports to find out if you need to follow up with customers on owing balances - it's right there on your dashboard! If your business isn't making CUSTOMER SPECIAL ORDERS EVERY SINGLE WEEK - THE ONLINE BIG BOXES ARE TAKING THAT SALE FROM YOU! Your customers WANT TO DO BUSINESS WITH YOU! If you are writing customer orders in a "Special Notebook" that can't follow orders by your supplier, you are waisting time and money. You have to have a system to compete with the big fish in our industry. ClerkHound does that.

2. ClerkHound is not bloated. In many Point of Sale systems, you have to search for things that you do every single day as a shop owner. This can lead to even more waisted time and lost sales revenue. This is LOST MONEY, PEOPLE! ClerkHound puts all the information directly at your fingertips. From recurring billing failures to custom orders, to purchase orders and stock orders - ClerkHound allows you to find what you need - and find it FAST!

3. ClerkHound can be accessed from ANYWHERE! Some Point Of Sale systems block a number of users or only allow "Two seats at time". ClerkHound is SUPER EASY to access from anywhere at any time. It works on the phone, the iPad, and the Desktop! You can have multiple stations set up in your store and also allow as many logins as you need - without restrictions. This allows me to login and work from home. I can also check on sales during the day to make sure the shop is running smoothly while I'm away. Heck, just last week I noticed a $400 mistake that an employee made and I was able to IMMEDIATELY call the parent and take care of the situation. This would not have been possible if I couldn't have logged in from home!

4. Repairs, repairs, REPAIRS! Almost every music store has repairs but there has never really been a point of sale that tackled repairs as powerful as ClerkHound does. Since repairs are a good source of income for a music shop, it's important to have software that allows you to track repairs effectively. Since ClerkHound lets you order products that you need for repairs, you can track repairs down to the smallest detail! It's awesome! It has single handedly changed the way we approach repairs. It's also made them faster and made us more money. Did I say that before? (laughs)

5. Monthly Billing made easy! Before we switched to ClerkHound, we had an old industry standard that was over complicated to use for monthly billing. Like I mentioned before, ClerkHound removed the bloat and made it super easy for us to track when customer payments failed or if there was an issue with a card. Heck it's posted on the dashboard right when you log in! You can see right away when you need to take care of a problem. And since we started out as a music school and rent band instruments, this feature was one of the most important ones to tackle!

6. ClerkHound is Fast! It's important to me that my point of sale is fast to set up, fast to operate, and fast to train employees! I actually train employees on their first lesson by simply letting them create a login and then walking up to the counter as a mock customer and letting them create a sales ticket without ANY prior training - it's THAT EASY TO LEARN!

7. ClerkHound is Fun and intuitive to use! You don't think about this enough, but if your software is hard for your employees to use, you are going to lose sales. Let's face it - there's enough bad design in the world - ESPECIALLY with software! All of my employees love using ClerkHound and as a result, we've seen an increase in sales and profits.

ClerkHound: Fun? Come on! This is point of sale software!

Chris: Heck yeah! When making money is this easy, you're dang right it's fun!!

ClerkHound: Anything else you'd like to tell anyone about ClerkHound?

Chris: Can I summarize?

ClerkHound: Sure.

Chris: If you don't have a modern point of sale that takes care of your customers, you're losing money. It's that simple. ClerkHound is that modern point of sale.

ClerkHound: Thank you for your time!

Chris: Thank You for making kick ass software!