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Theatrical Concepts Your Home Theater Store has
just celebrated it 16th year in
business right here in Eureka. We are the only
family owned and operated home theater company
in the St. Louis county area. My name is Lee
Kropp and my wife is Donna, when we decided to
go into business it started from a
hobby/passion. I loved movies and I use to love
going to the movies except for the fact that I
was always surrounded by people in the theater
who seemed to like talking more than watching
the movie. With the advent of the home theater
I was quickly hooked, and over the course of
years I would buy the latest and greatest in
equipment. Constantly upgrading, constantly
changing, and constantly reading about what was
on the horizon. I soon found myself knowing
more then those experts that were selling me
equipment. With my frequent visits to
electronic stores around the St. Louis area I
constantly over heard sales people misinforming
their clients if not out right lying to them
just to make as sale.
The
idea to start the business came from the fact
that I was already doing the work for family and
friends, but I just wasn’t getting paid to do
it. I would be invited over for dinner and a
few beers and they would just happen to have a
piece of equipment that needed to be hooked up.
Knowing me they knew that it would only be
minutes before I had the box open the devise out
and hooked up. It grew from family and friends
to friends of friends when I decided to start to
charge for my services. When my wife and I
decided that it was time for me to leave my
corporate job and for me to run the company full
time, we decided to change our business model
from that of the traditional home theater
companies. The model at the time and that is
still used today is for a sale person to sell
the client as much as they could, and they would
sell them only the products that would bring the
largest commissions. Some of the box store
appeared to change their business model by
advertising that they don’t pay their sales
people commissions and they were honest in that
statement. What they don’t tell you in their
ads is that the sales person is now paid a Spif.
You may ask what is a spif and why haven’t I
heard of it? Well a spif is an acronym for Sales
Promotion Incentive Fund
and the reason you haven’t heard of it is
because they want their sales people to continue
to sell you the things that you don’t need. I
tell my clients that if they are to walk into
any electronic store that I could tell them
exactly which TV would be sold to them if they
went. My clients would say that it was
impossible to guess because they carried so
many, but I would proceed to tell them the TV
that they would be sold was the TV that would
make that sales person the most money. So in
our new business model we decided to sell our
clients the products that they desire and not
just what we wanted to sell. When visiting our
show room you will find four theater rooms, with
four theaters. Our store is set up more like a
home than a store. Being a family run company
we feel that our clients are more comfortable in
a home environment than that of an electronic
store. We sit down with each of our clients and
talk about what it is that they want to do, and
we tell them of the things that they can do. We
visit every clients home before the sale to make
sure that the products we pick will work in
their home. Every job is 100% custom, we carry
no inventory, and by not carrying inventory we
don’t have to sell you anything that you do not
want or need. We have access to every major
piece of electronics, and once we have come up
with a plan each piece of equipment is ordered.
Being
a custom home theater company we face two major
hurtles with our potential clients. First is
that since we are custom, everyone thinks that
we are more expensive. This is not the case at
all, our prices have to be competitive, our
prices are the same as the big box store. The
only real difference is that at Theatrical
Concepts you will get professional sales and
service unlike the box stores where the guy
selling you a TV today was selling you a
dishwasher yesterday. When you call our store
someone actually answers the phone. There is
none of the “press 1 for TV, Press 2 for
DVD’s”. You may on occasion get our voice mail,
but I can assure you that we will call back when
we are finished with the client that we are
working with. Then if you happen to make the
jump and become a client of Theatrical Concepts
you will receive my personal cell phone number.
I encourage each and every client to call me if
and when they have a problem with their system.
I know from personal experience that there is
nothing more frustrating than not being able to
work your system, so as the owner I am on call
for you. The second hurtle we face is in the
budget. Almost every client has a budget but
they do not want to share this information for
one reason or another so what I do is put
together a proposal of what I would do if it was
my home. Upon delivery of my proposal I some
times see the sticker shock on my clients
faces. We have lost clients because they have
felt that we were two expensive, but what I try
to convey is that you as the client are the boss
and we are working for you. We want to maximize
every dollar that you are spending, and we will
tailor our proposal to fit your budget. There
are times that our client’s dreams don’t match
their pocket books and that is fine. We will
give the proper advice so that dream system can
be built over the course of time. We had one
client who had $2500.00 and wanted everything,
TV, Speakers, Receiver, DVD, and everything to
make it work. If we would have granted his wish
which we could have done, he would have had
$2500.00 worth of poor quality equipment. What
we did do was to sell him a nicer TV and DVD
player, and he came back a year later for the
rest of the equipment that he needed and he is
much happier because of what we did.
So,
when the time is right, I invite you to stop by
and visit my family and store.
Thank
you for supporting Eureka
Leland S. Kropp Jr.
President of Theatrical Concepts, Your Home
Theater Store.
520 Wallach Dr.
Eureka, MO 63025
636-938-7666
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