What makes NTY one of the 50 fastest-growing private companies in the Twin Cities area? Find out in this excerpt from an article by the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal:
We Asked Chief Operating Officer Chad Olson:
What’s one business decision you made in the past three years that’s been critical to your firm’s growth?
Putting as much information onto our franchise development website as possible. In the past this was taboo, it was normal to hold your cards close. In today’s world information is king. If you want to sell franchises you need to have your information front and center.
Photo by Nancy Kuehn and courtesy MSPBJ; Chad Olson (left) and Ron Olson (right).
Learn more about the Fast 50 list in this excerpt from a note about the project by editor Kim Johnson:
Fast 50 2016 Editor’s Note
It isn’t the easiest task to get revenue figures from private companies. Our reporters are frequently told, “We’re a private company. We do not share revenue information.”
It’s even more of a stretch to ask them for actual financial statements.
However, each summer the Business Journal doggedly searches the Twin Cities 24-county metro area to find the region’s fastest-growing private companies. We look for independently owned, privately held, for-profit businesses that are headquartered here. We look for year-over-year revenue growth from the three most recent fiscal years. We look for companies with at least $1 million in revenue from the first of those three years.
And then we require them to send in three years of financial statements that have been audited or reviewed by an independent accountant.
And those documents go to our own accounting partner for further verification and number crunching.
It’s a lot to ask of private companies used to keeping their revenue numbers close to the vest. But it’s imperative we ask this of each company submitting a nomination for our annual Fast 50 awards. Everyone is held to the same standards to ensure the integrity of this list, which showcases some of the state’s best-in-class enterprises.
These companies aren’t just growing their bottom lines. They are creating jobs at extraordinary rates. They are providing growth opportunities for the businesses that serve them. They are boosting Minnesota’s economy.
So thank you to all the companies that submit nominations for this project — not just for the above, but for being willing to jump through the hoops we ask you to in order to produce this awards publication.
Fashion of Philly blogger finds amazing outfits for a fraction of the original retail cost at upscale resale store Clothes Mentor Springfield. Check out one ensemble from her haul below, then read the full blog post at fashionofphilly.com to see more.
When it comes to Fall Fashion, what is your favorite item to stock up on? Are you obsessed with oversized sweaters, knee high boots and comfy leggings? Well I have good news, I found the cure for your fall shopping fever! Clothes Mentor is an amazing consignment shop featuring some of your favorite designers at price points you wouldn’t believe! The Clothes Mentor store in Springfield, PA invited me to come and check out their huge selection of clothing, jewelry, accessories, and shoes. The staff there was so nice and ready to help in any way, whether it be selling your “gently used” clothing or some styling advice…
The following excerpt was taken from the article “Creative Narrative, Original Messaging Offer Powerful Marketing for Unique Franchises” in the January 2016 issue of Franchising World:
NTY Franchise Company is the parent company of five unique re-sale based brands that focus on women’s designer fashion, children’s apparel and accessories, furniture/household goods, electronic sales and repair, and clothing for teens and young adults. Its franchise model is designed to sell gently used goods at 70 percent off the new retail price. NTY Franchise brands are attractive, as they save customers money and pay sellers cash on the spot for items they are no longer using.
NTY Franchise Company is Number 28 on the Fast 50! Take a look at this interview with Chad Olson. Source: bizjournals.com
We asked Chief Operating Officer Chad Olson:
What was a key accomplishment for your company in 2014? Our largest brand, Clothes Mentor, had a record year for new store openings — 34 in 2014.
Chad Olson (left) and Ronald Olson of NTY Franchise Company.
What was the most difficult challenge of 2014, and what did you learn from it?Keeping the lead funnel full for selling new franchises. We learned we needed to focus our online strategy for generating leads and we needed our people to be in the right positions to qualify the leads and sell the prospects on our franchises.
Where do you see your company in five years? Crossing the 500-store mark and well on our way to seeing our longer-term goal of over 1,000 stores across America coming into view.
How does it feel to be one of the Twin Cities’ fastest-growing private companies? We are excited to be one of the Twin Cities fastest-growing companies. But the reality is, we have a lot more to accomplish and a lot of room to keep growing.
NTY Franchise Company, a pioneering force in the rapidly growing $13 billion resale/retail industry, continues its aggressive growth plan with the acquisition of Children’s Orchard, a chain of top quality, gently used children’s merchandise. NTY, “New To You,” based in Minnetonka, Minn., purchased Children’s Orchard to expand its footprint nationwide as a leader in the resale-retail sector. Source: PRWeb
NTY is the umbrella company overseeing five resale/retail brands including Clothes Mentor, New Uses, Device Pit Stop, NTY Clothing Exchange and NTY Kids. To enhance its NTY Kids brand, the company bought the chain of 32 Children’s Orchard stores, boutiques of top quality, gently used children’s clothing, toys, furniture, equipment, books and accessories. The company will combine the two brands, under the Children’s Orchard name, to enhance the customer experience at the store level with a robust point of sale and management system, centralized analytics and an attractive customer loyalty program.
The Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal released their list of the Fast 50, a list of Minnesota’s top entrepreneurs for the year. The list takes an in-depth look some of the fastest-growing companies in the state, and Ron and Chad Olson were featured as part of this list.
The article looks at the humble beginnings of the company, as well as how Ron and Chad were able to take the Clothes Mentor store and turn it into an empire. The full article can be accessed from the Fast 50 List on the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Magazine Website.
Ron Olson and his son Chad were recently featured by Franchise Times in a “Where Are They Now?” article. The article takes a quick look at the past, present, and future of franchise owner Ron Olson, speaking about his role as an “entrepreneur’s entrepreneur”, and the new franchise concepts for NTY. The full article can be seen below. Sourced from: Franchise Times
Where are they now: Recycling kings at it again
BY NANCY WEINGARTNER
A serial entrepreneur is playing it again—but not in used sports equipment this time. Today it’s clothing for women, teens and even men. The secret is to be upscale and not segregate the plus sizes.
Ron Olson so believes in the power of recycled goods that he’s recycling his career. The Minnesota-based businessman made it big with his original multi-concept company, Grow Biz, which is now Winmark.
Ron Olson, right, and his son Chad have teamed up again at NTY Franchise Company with plans to develop three brands in the popular sell-it-again genre.
After selling the company in 2000—which included Play it Again Sports, Once Upon a Child and Plato’s Closet—Olson retired. Five years later he discovered something AARP never tells seniors: “Retirement is very boring.”
“I was looking for other opportunities as every entrepreneur does,” he says. He found it in Columbus, Ohio, where he was having dinner with Dennis and Lynn Blum, who wanted to show him their new concept, Clothes Mentor. The resale store for women had good bones, but needed fleshing out. His specialty.
Olson is an entrepreneur’s entrepreneur. His forte is investing in others’ concepts and helping grow their business. Almost anything can be recycled into a business, he says, except perhaps tools. “No one wanted to sell their (used) tools,” he says about the one concept he couldn’t hammer out—Re-Tool.
The beauty of a concept like Clothes Mentor is the customers never age out. “Women change sizes, they change professions and they don’t wear clothes that long,” he says. Most of the clothes he teaches franchisees to buy are two years old and hardly worn.
“There’s a lot of work that goes into pricing,” he says. “Our secret sauce is the pricing” and which brands to buy.
The beauty of a second time around is you’ve already made the mistakes. His son Chad, who joined him at his original company right out of college, is COO of the new company, NTY Franchise Co. Clothing Mentor has more than 100 stores, with 67 in the pipeline, Olson says.
Coming online are two other concepts: NTY Clothing for teens and 20-somethings and New Uses for household items. “It’s a totally recession-proof business,” Chad Olson says.
The Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal released their list of the Fast 50, a list of Minnesota’s top entrepreneurs for the year. The list takes an in-depth look at some of the fastest-growing companies in the state, and Ron and Chad Olson were featured as part of this list.
The article looks at the humble beginnings of the company, as well as how Ron and Chad were able to take the Clothes Mentor store and turn it into an empire. The full article can be accessed from the Fast 50 List on the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Magazine Website.
NTY Clothing Exchange in Minnetonka sells used teen clothing in an environment that feels like a new-merchandise store
As Sarah Buzzell perused items at the new NTY Clothing Exchange in Minnetonka, she couldn’t help but notice the pristine quality of the used merchandise, rock-bottom prices — and that lulling fragrance.
“This place smells amazing,” said the Ramsey resident, as the aroma of coconut lime verbena wafted from the store’s ScentAir machine. “The stuff looks new, and the store is nice and clean.”
Ron Olson, president of NTY Franchise Co., says it’s his meticulous attention to detail that has made him a resounding success in the resale business. Sure, updated signage and fixtures are important, but so is preventing secondhand shops from smelling like attics. “NTY is about looking and smelling like a store that sells new merchandise,” Olson said.
The NTY (New to You) Clothing Exchange, which buys and sells used clothing for teens and young adults, builds on five other resale concepts Olson oversees through his franchise company. His latest, NTY Kids, also recently opened in Minnetonka and will start selling clothes in September. Other NTY entities include New Uses, which sells used furniture, Way to Go Sports, Clothes Mentor and Device Pitstop, which specializes in secondhand electronics.
Olson has been a resale pioneer, making a name for himself at Grow Biz, a company that sold franchises for secondhand stores and was later renamed Winmark under new ownership. The company launched well-known resale names such as Play It Again Sports, Once Upon a Child and Plato’s Closet, which sells teen merchandise.
Olson left the company in 2000 and retired, but returned to the resale business in 2006, buying three Clothes Mentor stores and the naming rights in 2007. He has grown the business to more than 100 stores.
Now at 73, he’s still selling franchises that buy and sell used goods. And his timing couldn’t be better. Nationally, the number of used-goods stores has grown 7 percent each year since 2010, making it a $13 billion industry in 2012, reports the National Association of Resale and Thrift Shops. Franchising is also heating up, with the number of U.S. franchises expected to grow 1.7 percent this year, the highest growth rate since before the recession.
Clothes Mentor, in particular, has revolutionized the resale industry. The women’s clothing retailer one-upped the consignment concept by paying cash up front, no waiting, demanding current styles in near perfect condition. “Twenty years ago there were only consignment stores,” Olson said. “We brought in a more commercially accepted brand that looked like stores that sold new retail.”
Clothes Mentor has 110 locations nationally, including eight in the Twin Cities area, with more than 60 to open soon. Winmark, now Olson’s competitor, is copying the success of Clothes Mentor by opening similar stores called Style Encore that cater to the same demographic — women in their late 20s to mid-50s. Locations in Eagan and Maple Grove opened recently.
Olson’s advantage is his history of experience in the resale franchise business, said Gaylen Knack, a franchise attorney at Gray Plant Mooty in Minneapolis. “Others have come in and had average to medium success, but Ron stays on top of trends and can offer plenty of guidance to franchisees who may not have a retail background,” he said.
Olson and NTY have also branched out into areas untested by competitors. New Uses, which has 10 locations, including one in Minnetonka and one in Maple Grove, sells used household goods and furniture. The growth in New Uses stores has been slower than at Clothes Mentor. “It’s more challenging than selling clothes,” Olson said. “We’ve got plenty of customers who want to buy. Our same-store sales were up 18 percent last year, but it’s harder to get people to bring in their furniture to sell.”
Earlier this year, the company opened Device Pitstop in Minnetonka, a store that buys, sells and services used laptops, tablets and cellphones. Olson projects 300 more stores within five years. With seven stores open nationwide, the average store had revenues of $800,000 last year on a 60 percent margin, Olson said.
While the resale market seems to have unlimited potential as consumers seek value, not everything has worked for Olson. Categories such as ReTool had a wrench thrown at them when men didn’t want to sell their used tools. “We could never get enough used product to sell,” Olson said. “It’s the same thing with adult men and their clothes. After their 20s, they wear them out to a point that they’re not re-sellable. But in their teens and 20s, they grow out of them before they can wear them out.”
But those are but two rough spots in a sea of unwanted merchandise consumers want to recycle for cash. “The demand is there. We’ve become the supply,” Olson said.
NTY Clothing Exchange in Minnetonka sells used teen clothing in an environment that feels like a new-merchandise store
New-to-You franchises
Clothes Mentor (used clothing and accessories for women): 110 stores, eight in the Twin Cities area.
New Uses (used furniture and home goods): 10 stores including Maple Grove and Minnetonka, and one opening soon in Woodbury.
Way to Go Sports (used sporting equipment): Two stores in Minnetonka and Golden Valley
Device Pitstop (used personal electronics ): Seven stores including Minnetonka, and a dozen more planned for the Twin Cities area. Agreements for stores in Maple Grove, Eden Prairie, Richfield, Woodbury, Maplewood, Burnsville and Duluth have been signed.
NTY Clothing Exchange (used clothing and accessories for teens and young adults): One store open in Minnetonka.
Michelle Vaudrin is the Senior Director of Operations for Children’s Orchard and Clothes Mentor. Before joining Children’s Orchard in 2016, she worked in leadership roles for Burlington, American Eagle, and Macy’s.
Michelle attended the University of Wisconsin-Stout with a Retail Merchandising and Business Administration degree. She brings an extensive background in training in strategies, merchandising, customer service, and multi-unit store operations to the team.
Jenny Mann
Vice President of Operations | Executive Director of IT
Jenny Mann is the Vice President of Operations for Clothes Mentor and Children’s Orchard. In January of 2020, Jenny also took on the role of Executive Director of IT, overseeing BST, our Point of Sale system, and the e-commerce platforms for both brands. Prior to this, Jenny was the Director of Marketing for NTY Franchise Company since January 2013. Jenny started with the NTY Franchise Company in 2008 with Clothes Mentor and has held many roles, including; Store Manager, New Store Opener, and Regional Operations Manager. Before joining NTY Franchise Company, Jenny worked for Old Navy (Gap, Inc.) and Target in management roles.
Chad Olson
Chief Operations Officer
Chad Olson has been Chief Operations Officer of NTY Franchise Company since January 2007. From May 1994 to December 2006, he held various positions for Winmark Corporation (f/k/a Grow Biz International, Inc.), including Field Operations Manager for the Once Upon a Child concept from 1999 to 2002, and Regional Operations Manager for the Plato’s Closet concept from 2002 to 2006.
Sean Marrs
IT/Tech Administrator
IT/Tech Administrator
Marissa Stacy
Jr. Graphic Designer
Jr. Graphic Designer
Ashlyn Aarness
Social Media Specialist
Social Media Specialist
Ashley Huebner
Director of Marketing
Ashley Huebner oversees Children’s Orchard’s marketing and advertising efforts to drive sales, build brand awareness, and lead the planning on how to market the brand effectively. She leads creative initiatives by driving the brands’ vision in aesthetics, tone, and trends to elevate our brand position as a leader in the resale category.
Ashley joined the Children’s Orchard team in 2015. Ashley has 10+ years of Graphic Design experience. Ashley holds a strong background in design, user experience, and a passion for creativity. She holds a BA degree in Advertising and Art.
