When I joined Crowd Factory 4 months ago I took pride in that I was writing a new blog post on a weekly basis. In the last six weeks that has been next to impossible for me to create witty banter that is funny unless that banter looked like this:

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Crowd Factory delivers the best, most scalable and efficient product for social media metrics, ROI and customer retention tools. </div>

While working on the new Crowd Factory website I thought about what people think of this sentence, that image, those pages – these concepts. The goal is to communicate the most information in the shortest amount of time. Of course I sit down at my desk every morning and have 1001 ideas of how to change or add new content to the site. Then I found reason to write again, out of nowhere I found read some inspirational words in a place I never thought I would: a pawn shop owner named Rick Harrison.

The 43-year-old pawn shop owner has achieved a cult following as part of the cast of the History Channel’s reality show, ”Pawn Stars,” which gives viewers a behind-the-scenes peek into his Las Vegas business the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop. Rick just signed a new 80 episode contract, and more or less, he is basically just getting filmed at what he loves doing. So what’s the secret to his success?  The answers seem to resonate with how the folks at Crowd Factory go about their day.  Here are some words of wisdom to think about if you work for a company that is customer facing or even things to think about in your everyday life.

Set yourself apart. As a small business owner with big competition, we had to figure out a way to be different. We saw an opportunity to invite people to sell their rare and unusual items at our shop, in addition to conducting our usual pawn business. Now, when the big corporate pawn shops get an item they don’t recognize, they send the customer to us. ”

Offer something no one else does. In the 90′s, I went on eBay to buy some paddle tires for my four-wheeler ATV and couldn’t find any. When I did find a manufacturer that sold them, I bought 20,000 and had no problem reselling them. So the next time you get mad when you can’t find an item, realize there’s a market waiting to be explored.

Treat every customer well. I tell everyone that works for me not to look down on people. If you’re nice to people and take a minute to talk with them, it’s good for business whether or not they buy anything. Just because they don’t look like they have money doesn’t mean they’re poor/

Once an unkempt, elderly woman came into the pawn shop. She appeared homeless, and she insisted on seeing every piece of expensive jewelry in the store. Just when I was feeling impatient, the woman pointed at the most expensive piece of jewelry and said, “I’ll take that one.” Then she proceeded to pull $4,000 out of her sock to pay for it.

And of course my personal favorite…

Embrace social media

After ”Pawn Stars” became popular, we began selling a lot of T-shirts and swag [promotional items] in the store. A year ago, I decided that rather than having our T-shirts professionally designed, we should hold a competition on Facebook and ask our fans for design ideas. For every design we choose to go on a shirt, the winner receives $250 and a box of swag. As a result, we’re receiving hundreds of design ideas, and have saved over $100,000 on producing t-shirts.”  We also pay someone to do regular Facebook status and Twitter updates. Corey and Chumlee have been getting paid $1,000 a night to appear at different nightclubs. Club owners know that once they start tweeting their location for the night, hundreds of people show up to see them.

Now, how much do you want for that 1958 pinball machine?

Now, here is some real pawn shop education!