Is Rug Doctor a Witness owned business?

by garybuss 30 Replies latest jw friends

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  outoftheorg

  Anyone remember or know of Mighty Auto parts? It was a jw owned franchisor based in Atlanta Georgia.They were going broke around 1990 and were bought out by a venture capitol group.

  They had almost no one working for them that was not a jw. I bought a franchise and learned that they had no business experience and knew nothing about running a business, inventory control and so on.

  I kept the franchise and made good money for 9 yrs. and then the market place started to change and the automobiles changed enough so that a change from wagon jobber to a store front parts store became obvious for survival.

  Outoftheorg
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  itsallgoodnow

  Yeah, I've heard of mighty. Some of my family went to a congregation with a guy that had a franchise, and he and his family looked down their snotty little noses at everybody else. Make way for the big business man! I'm sure it wasn't you, but you probably knew them. So they are out of business now?
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  outoftheorg

  Hi Allgood.

  No they are not out of business. There were so few people that had business sense that they were going broke. Then they were bought out by a group of venture capitalist.

  The new owners cleaned it up and in the process made it harder on the franchisee.

  Then the market place and automobiles changed enough to make a wagon jobber system hard to maintain.

  To remake the business from wagon jobber to a store front operation would take about $50000.00 more investment in the business and hiring help.

  I chose to close it down and move on, due to several things hapening at that time.

  They lost several franchisee's and now seem to be only operating in large population areas, with fewer outlets but surely moving more product.

  The new owners cleaned house and the last I heard there were only one or two jw's still employed by them.

  Outoftheorg
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  undercover

  Oh yeah, Mighty Auto Parts! I remember them too. In fact some good friends of mine worked for them. One elder I knew made some good money for several years doing that. Sometimes I wondered if it wasn't some kind of quasi-pyramid scheme. The guys driving the trucks and doing all the work didn't make much at all (not that it took a lot of skill to drive around and drop off boxes) but the franchise owners (who didn't seem to ever do a lot) always seemed to be in the money.

  Edited to add: I remember when a NASCAR weekend series race team(local short tracks sanctioned by NASCAR) wanted Mighty to sponser a car or race or something and the franchise guys were going to until the elders stepped and stopped them.
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  outoftheorg

  No there were no pyramid schemes. It was a legitimate business. If the owner had one truck and did all the work, it was very profitable. But one person can only do so much.

  Like all businesses, if you expand and say put on a second truck and pay reasonable wages to some one who will put in a reasonable effort and has the ability to sell, you will see a drop in profits for several months. Then hopefully it will even out. Then you find yourself not making any more money, than you did without the extra man and truck etc.

  To really profit one has to put on at least 3 or 4 trucks to make it worth while.

  The elder you spoke of who made good money? Don't count on it. Many times there were guys making good money, who only "seemed" to. They can be slowly living on their equity and going down hill and not even be aware about it.

  I saw several of them do that. Running a business does not fit well into the jw mindset. That is the reason we saw so many jw business men truely using their employees and so much under the counter stuff.

  Outoftheorg
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  outoftheorg

  Yeah Undercover that idea of not supporting racing was actually a company policy before they were bought out.

  I supported some local racers and was told by the franchiseor to not do that since it put lives at risk.

  Yeah sorta like driving in Los Angeles.

  I was always sorta rebellious so I did my thing and ignored them.

  One of the goofiest things was the original advertizing program. We had to contribute a % to a advertizing fund run by the franchiseor. They sent me a list of the local outlets who would carry an advertizement on the tv.

  Get this, it was a 2 minute ad at 2am in the morning. Now that is a lot of coverage, right?

  There is more. The station they are using goes off the air at 1am in the morning.

  Most of these guys were so goofy it was really disturbing.

  Outoftheorg
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  Evesapple

  Mighty Auto Parts! Yep, almost started dating a young JW who's father owned a franchise in Sun Prairie, WI....I chose the Rug Doctor man instead.....
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  tazmaniac

  I remember quite a few in Connecticut that were Mighty AutoParts franchisee's. It seemed quite profitable. There was also a company that sold bandaids etc...like firstaid cabinets that they kept stocked for you. I remember the original owner was a witness but something about him being caught on his boat with a "worldly" woman and was shortly thereafter disfellowshipped.
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  garybuss

  They hire people from all over but seem to prefer JW because they are so stupid and easily lead about and fooled.

  Rollin on the floor laughing! Hahahahahaha
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  Michael3000

  I remember those commercials:

  "RUG DOCTOR - Steamin' mad at DIRT!"

  Speaking of Dubbie-owned businesses... there were quite a few JW construction contractors where I grew up (Northeast Florida), as well as Sonny's Bar-B-Q restaurants. The Miller family owned a small chain of supermarkets bearing the family name, & one of the sons (Johnny Miller) later bought & ran a couple of Sonny's franchises. I spent one high school summer working the pit at the Palatka, FL location. July Fourth weekend was PURE HELL, since they had a drive-thru window. Every redneck within a 30-mile radius seemed to converge on us that weekend. Ah, memories... :)