Jamie Sieverding had been in the RTO business for 10 years, beginning as a
delivery driver for Rent-A-Center. He was an assistant manager in Dubuque, IA
when “one day out of the blue” his brother-in-law, Jim Schebler, called and
asked him to manager his new Premier Home Furnishings store in Clinton, Iowa.
That was three years ago. For the past six months Jamie has talked about buying
the store and in October, along with his brothers, purchased the store from his
brother-in-law.
“It’s nice to be your own boss eventually,” says 29-year-old Jamie
whose “eventually” happened sooner than it might have. “It would have been a lot
to do it by myself,” he adds referring to the importance of his on-the-job
experience in managing the store and learning all that business ownership
entails. He felt Premier Home Furnishings played a big role in his learning curve
and in supporting what both he and Jim wanted to bring to the home furnishings
market.
“Premier has been very helpful. They make it easy for individuals to
open up and operate and offer good advice. I’m real happy with whole Premier
group,” he says. According to Jamie, Premier has continued to help them long
after their opening.
Jamie and Jim, a former RAC market manager, enjoyed immediate
success with the Clinton store, and Jim opened his second store in Maquoketa, IA
earlier this year. Last year Jim became president and CEO of Premier Home
Furnishings, helping Premier to step out from traditional RTO and open up a new
market for them.
Jamie explains some differences between RTO and Home Furnishings.
“Home furnishings stores jump from the typical RTO
3,000 square foot showroom to 10,000 feet. There is more merchandise on the
floor for customers to choose from, and because of the way we do business we
bring in retail customers. The payment plan is a big difference too. We offer
customers six months same as cash rather than the standard 90 days. We are like
RTO in that we try to build a relationship with customers and pass along
benefits. With Premier we can do that because we have the flexibility to, rather
than having to work through a larger corporation that has to do things by the
book. This flexibility for the owner/operator means we can be hands on with the
customer and do what we need to do.”
As Jim happily watches Premier Home Furnishings grow
overall, he also is pleased with the way it has worked out for him and for
Jamie. “At Premier we have developed a model and program in which we’ve given as
many people as possible the opportunity to be successful. Jamie did a great job
managing and taking his role up to ownership. We are very excited about that.”
The national office of Premier Home Furnishings is
located in Williamsburg, Virginia. All Premier stores are independently owned
and operated. Visit Premier’s website at
www.premierhomefurnishings.net or call (800) 2-Premier and ask for Jim
Schebler.
