Meeting of the Minds - What TRIB is doing to the RTO business

     Pete recaps his trip to the Trib Group's Meeting of the Minds expo in Atlanta, Georgia — Danny held down the fort back home. The show covered products, classes, industry networking, and a mechanical bull at PBR that Pete held on to for a respectable 45 seconds before getting tossed.

On the product side, the PS5 remained the hottest item, with pricing getting more aggressive throughout the show — Pete watched the price drop $5, then $10, then $20 below the hot show price over just a couple of days. A five-in-one convection/air fryer oven also caught attention as a new item to test. A vendor demoed the Woojer haptic vest, which pairs with headphones to let gamers physically feel game audio — explosions, directional sound, bullet impacts. Pete thought it was a cool experience but not something he'd use every time. Danny's immediate thought was to pair it with the upcoming PS5 VR headset, which Pete agreed would make a genuinely compelling bundle.

The classes were a highlight. Chris Kale Jr. ran a session on Sales 2.0 focused on online leads and CRM response speed, reinforcing what Pete and Danny have long argued: a dedicated person handling nothing but web leads across multiple stores would pay for itself. An operator from Missouri shared credit numbers that floored the room — a 3.1% average close rate and one annual charge-off day on December 31st. Pete found it impressive if unconventional. Magic Rentals' HR team presented on employee retention, which sparked the episode's sharpest takeaway: beyond onboarding and exit interviews, the industry needs to be doing existing interviews — structured, regular check-ins with current employees to find out how they're actually feeling about training, compensation, and workload before they decide to leave. Danny suggested pairing it with 90-day evaluations, flipping the table so employees can evaluate the company's onboarding just like the company evaluates them. Magic's data also revealed that the sales position, not delivery drivers, is actually their highest-turnover role.

Transcript

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Danny Lastra 1:21

And welcome to the RTO show with Danny and Pete. I'm your host, Danny.

Pete Shau 1:25

And I'm your host, Pete. And today we're talking about the trip that landed us all the way, well, landed Pete all the way in Atlanta, Georgia, for the trip show uh on the end of February. What a show. Meeting of the minds. Trip show was amazing. You missed out, brother. You missed out.

Danny Lastra 1:41

I know I did, but uh I held it down back at the fort. Well, you did your thing. You represented out there, saw the pictures, saw everybody that you touch base with, Mike Tissett, so many people, Jen Troke from Apro. I mean, so you did your thing. I know you definitely held it down there. You were that you were there with both owners, Paul and Larry. You were there with Keith Miller. So I I know you did a great job out there. So that's what we're here to talk about. I I guess first off, how how was the flight? It was a short flight, right? Like maybe 90 minutes long?

Pete Shau 2:07

No, the flight was actually about an hour. I think it was like 50 or 55 minutes in the air. Now it was longer than 15 minutes taxi taking off, 15 minutes taxi laying down. So it was 19 minutes, but like in the air, it was only like 55. It actually took longer for us to get up and get down than anything else. The sucky part is you couldn't enjoy a movie, man. Every time I get into it, it was time to turn it off. And it was the only flight I've been on in the last, I don't know, couple of years that actually had Delta has these monitors in the back, and these four or five inch monitors that you can pick out of like, I don't know, 50 movies. I finally get into it and it just was bad. So I could only watch the first half leaving and then the first half coming back, or the second half coming back. So did you get to finish a movie? Yeah, I had to finish the movie on the second flight back. What was the movie? I was watching Die Hard. Nice. Bro, it's like a classic. I had to, you know, I just I just wanted to hear him say the lines. You know, I won't say them on here, but it was it was awesome.

Danny Lastra 2:58

So so all right, so real quick, off topic, in your opinion, is Die Hard a Christmas movie?

Pete Shau 3:03

Bro, I have a cup that's commemorated to the fact that Die Hard is a Christmas movie. Listen, in the beginning, you have Run DMC singing a Christmas song. It literally happens when a guy ends up on the elevator with a ho ho ho, and now I have a machine gun. Like, dude, it's a Christmas movie. I don't care how you look at it. Even at the end, when he has a gun strapped to his back right before he shoots Hans with that one shot, it's with Christmas tape. So, like, how is it not a Christmas movie?

Danny Lastra 3:29

So for the longest time I defended that Die Hard was a Christmas movie. I have now recently changed my mind because Bruce Willis himself had made an announcement. I don't know if you heard about that, but he was at some sort of word show and he made a statement. He goes, I want to settle something once and for all. Die Hard is not a Christmas movie. Die Hard is a Bruce Willis movie.

Pete Shau 3:54

Yes, that was that was during his uh roast. It was the roast of Bruce Willis, and that's when he said yes. So that's why he said that. But if you go back, I think the director actually said it was a Christmas movie. That's awesome. So we'll stick to that. That's what I'm thinking. I'm sticking to it.

Danny Lastra 4:07

All right, so so back to the trip. So flight was easy, it was only short-lived, whatever, 50 minutes, 30, probably 45 in the air. So let's first talk about products. What what do you feel was like? Because of course it was the hot show, Sunday night, right? And I know me and you were texting, we were emailing, got the hot show list. What do you feel was probably like the hottest item there? What what sold the fastest? What was the cool new toy? What what was it?

Pete Shau 4:31

What did you see? There was a couple of new things. I don't know if there was exactly a new toy. There was a couple new things on the lineup. I would say, and this is kind of crazy, because one of the biggest things that I saw sell was the PS5. And you would think that it's it's done and over with, but it's not. What we did see a change in, though, was the aggressive pricing. So so we come in Sunday night, the hot show is there, and let me tell you, it's it's not $7.49, but it's quite a bit less, right? And it this price point is just amazing. So we come into the hot show, everybody's ready, we're buying. The next day, we got vendors showing like $5 less than the hot show price. Oh man. So it was like, you know, in the hot show, you you power buy, you know, you get you get the large chunks, right? So we go in $5 less. And it was like, man, that's that's really like that's that's that almost hurts, right? So we go to the vendor, and there's a lot of things, you know, a lot of things being said, you know, make sure they're US versions, make sure that they can be shipped, you know, make sure they're all good, make sure they have the disc, make sure they have the game. Yeah, everything's spot on. Keep on going towards the end of the day, $10 less. Okay. Different vendor, I'm assuming. A different vendor. And you're we're talking about hot show pricing. So it's $10 less than the hot show pricing. We've already got our orders put in, massive order, and we're like, man, that's a you know, ten dollars less at 40 items is $400, right? So it's like, wow, like how do we how do you not, you know, comparison check? So come on.

Danny Lastra 5:56

So did so so did you keep the hot order or did you switch it to the new vendor?

Pete Shau 6:01

Well, you do know I was there with Larry, right?

Danny Lastra 6:03

Yeah.

Pete Shau 6:03

You you do know that I was there with Larry. Bro, like, I love Larry to death. But uh man, he he is cutthroat. He's he's if it's the same product, uh guaranteed the same product, right? If it's apples to apples and not apples to oranges, you know he's gonna go for the better price. Okay. I can always say, you know, he's he's just upright with the vendors and he'll tell him straight up, like, listen, this is this is the better deal, this is what I'm gonna go with. So yeah, there was a change in plans, but but we get back. Yeah, we get back. I'm talking to Josh, uh probably it was either Wednesday or Thursday. Josh Right Rooms? Yes. Okay, and and there was another drop. No, yeah, somebody $20 less than hot show prices. You gotta be kidding me. So of course, now of course the vendors are it's already out. It's a it the order's already in, it's already being done. I mean, it was it was at that point we already had confirmation and and tracking numbers for shipping. But I mean, so I would say the hottest item right now, it really, and it's crazy, we race for the bottom, but it's a PS5. That that really kind of took it. And then there was a uh there was a five-in-one convection, like microwave oven, convection oven that did air frying and all that stuff. We actually have yeah, it was it was different, it was nice. So we're gonna try that out too.

Danny Lastra 7:16

Yeah, nice. Now, I I know that I saw a video of you wearing like this backpack thing. What what was that? Because you kind of explained it to me. Was it like a virtual reality system so that connects to the PS5? What was that?

Pete Shau 7:32

So the guys at Nektova, you got Brian and Dennis at Nike.

Danny Lastra 7:36

Shout out Brian and Dennis.

Pete Shau 7:38

So I'm over there and they're kind of just showing product and stuff. Well, Brian's got a setup with a TV that's got like Call of Duty-ish, you know, it's Call of Duty snippets and pieces. Of course, you're in battle and action, and then they had some music. And so the product was actually the Wood the Woosier, I think I'm saying that right, W-O-O-J-E-R, I think it's the Wosier vest, right? So it comes with headphones that you would put on, and then you put on this vest. And so the vest is, you know, back when I was a younger fellow, and we had car audio, if you didn't have the speaker space, sometimes what they would do is what they were called base shakers. They would shake. It doesn't necessarily mean that it played bass, but help give you that feel. Well, you could almost imagine that in a vest, right? So it's going to give you the feeling of being inside that particular situation. So in Call of Duty, it would be like an explosion or bullets going by or people running from left to right, but you would almost feel like the vibration of it going from one way to the other. And you can turn up the intensity or have it low or you know, loud as it can go. So that was that was a different, it was a different feeling. Definitely an immersive feeling. The only thing I can say to Dennis, Brian, I love you guys death. I just want to be honest. I don't know if I would put on the vest every single time I was listening to something, right? So it is a great experience, but I'm more of a guy like it's it's a quick one and done. If I'm throwing in my headphones, I'm just throwing in my headphones. If I'm watching a movie, I'm just gonna kick on a movie, kick on a sound bar or this the surround sound and be done with it.

Danny Lastra 9:02

So what system what system was it compatible with?

Pete Shau 9:05

It's actually Bluetooth, so it's compatible with all systems. You could you can connect it to your iPhone or you can connect it to whatever.

Danny Lastra 9:11

So did you see the the PS5 VR system? I know it's not released yet, but did somebody have like a pre-order sample there?

Pete Shau 9:20

Actually, yes. Uh, I will say one of the vendors did. I before I get in trouble, I believe it was dialectic. But guys, if I'm in the wrong vendor, don't shoot me. I'm sorry. There was a lot of vendors going on. But there were boxes that they had on display, they did not have a system on display.

Danny Lastra 9:37

Okay.

Pete Shau 9:38

Yeah, so it was like, you know, you could see the PS5s and you've seen a couple of VR systems, and they're saying that when, you know, when we get them, they'll be ready for ship or whatever. I didn't see any.

Danny Lastra 9:45

But now here's my here's my thought process. Of course, I wasn't there. I know it sucks, but with that that vest of for the Call of Duty, I think if you sync that with the VR system, that might be something really cool. I think I think people would want to wear it if they're going into a VR simulation, and now you can also feel the vibrations of the action moving forward. Now, did you ask that question? Do you know is it if it's compatible with the system and then you're playing the VR? That would be pretty tight.

Pete Shau 10:15

We're just trying to tell you guys right now, Brian and Dennis, you might you might miss the boat on this one, so that might be a good idea to try to package those together. Any vendors out there who's listening, any RTO places, um, any companies, listen, that's actually a the greatest idea I've heard for that Woodier vest yet. I would not because I'm not I'm I'm not very great on VR, bro. I'm just being honest with you, I'm not great at VR because I get dizzy. I have uh vertigo, so I can't wear it for a long time. Yeah. But if you are gonna take the time to put the handles in your hands and you're gonna take the time to set up the VR, now that to me would be the setup time where I would put on a vest. Yeah, get the full effect. Now, when somebody taps you on your shoulder, somebody might get punched in the face. Like, don't touch me, don't touch me. It's really, really crazy. But I think that's that's probably the best idea I've heard because if you're really gonna go submersit into whatever environment you're in, could you imagine playing like a like a scary movie and you literally feel something behind you like silent like Silent Hell Resident Evil or something like that?

Danny Lastra 11:13

Yes, and then you're in the VR system. Yeah, see, that's what I thought when I saw the video, that's where my mind went to. Like, and I know we talked about it, and of course the concern is uh, you know, it might be a one and done, two and done situation because who wants to put it on every time I'm just sitting down trying to play Madden or you know, Call of Duty? Correct. But my thought process was hmm, VR is gonna be huge this year. I'm telling you, it's good, especially when that PS5 VR system. Watch, it's gonna be huge. The Oculus, they're upgrading, I believe, their system. That's gonna be huge. So you put on a vest and you can feel everything that you're visualizing seeing, man. I don't know. That's gonna be a great bundle package. I mean, I could be wrong, but that's where I kind of see it going if it's gonna be a hit.

Pete Shau 11:55

But well, check it. My man Ricky, uh, we met him last time in Indiana. So we're in Adam's show, right? Not or we're in Adam's class, uh, Gaming for Gamers, I believe is the name for it. And we're we're all talking, and man, he's just he's just like leading the way. I mean, this guy knows his stuff. He's he's he's taking a look at the whole process and kind of how he can apply it to rent to own and make his deal of it, right? So we're talking about video cards, we're talking about CPUs, GPUs, we're talking about what kind of you know, the size of monitors that you know gamers are really looking for and all that stuff. And that would have probably been a great come-up for that conversation right there to put in that class. I actually wasn't, but the Woosher Vest with the PlayStation VR or the Noculus, man, that would be that would be something. That that actually would be something. I mean, you could probably have a booth with just that, and they're probably as a matter of fact, if they would have stuck an Oculus on that while they were introducing the Woods, I probably would have freaked out and bought one right then. You probably would have to do it. Now that I probably would have you probably would have brought a couple per store, honestly. Dude, yes. Actually, yes. Now that I think about it, that would be a great idea. So now that you got me thinking about that, Dennis, Brian, I might I might be giving you guys a call.

Danny Lastra 13:57

So, all right, so you kind of went into my next question. Uh, you were talking about classes. So, what what was your favorite class? How many did you attend and what was which one was your favorite?

Pete Shau 14:07

You know, it's kind of crazy because actually the gaming one was something that I did take a few snippets out of. But, you know, Mike Tissett had one about you know what's what's the new what's the new deals, what's gonna bring in the cash, what's what's the new items that are working out for people. Um, Chris Kale Jr. had uh sales 2.0, and it was basically like you know, your CRMs and how you're bringing things in and how to jump on that customer who's online, right? To how to jump on it and what do you need to do and the possibility of maybe even having somebody who does the outside job of handling a couple of these things very quickly, or at least hiring somebody specific to that because it is a different type of salesperson. What have we been saying, Peter? I know it man, we've been saying listen for any for anybody who's in rent to own listening, Danny and I have discussed having an external or an internal person solely for that job for a while. And I think one person can easily handle three stores, but I think the response rate is what you're trying to kill. And I'm telling you guys right now, when you have that person, you pay them well, you sit them up, you set them up in a good office, you let them do their job, and I guarantee you you're gonna kill the response rate. You're gonna kill your online leads, and you are gonna grow your locations based on that solely alone. I believe that wholeheartedly. I'm never gonna get off that. But you know, Adam did the game the game of gaming, and then there was there was a couple in there that really kind of threw me for a loop. There was uh how to collect like my daddy. Real, real odd name, but there was somebody in I I I think it was Ohio or Missouri, Missouri, I think it was, that their average closes on any particular Saturday for the entire year was like 3.1%. Total closes. Total closes. He was mentioning numbers that I'm gonna tell you right now, I don't know. I more hat more power to them. Great job. But uh he was mentioning some numbers that to me would that were just astronomically amazing. Um, and I want to be like that when I grow up, but until then, I'm in Tampa. I don't know if I if I can get there, but we definitely we can definitely do better in credit, but man, that was like 3.1% with total close, and they charge off one time a year. One time a year. What? On 1231, on 1231 of that year, they will do all the charge offs for that year. So in other words, if you sell somebody on January 1st and that person is just not good, they are not gonna pay, they will ride your credit over 364 days. Wow. Yeah. So uh you know, when you have an average of 3.1% closes, or 3.2, he might have said, and you go an entire year, that's including everybody you're dragging along with you.

Danny Lastra 16:48

So that's you know that's amazing, that's impressive.

Pete Shau 16:52

That's that's crazy numbers. I would love to say that you know everybody could do it. Although the entire room gasp, everybody had questions like what the you know, how and how. Yeah. And uh so there was a lot of talk about pickups, there was a lot of talk about returning to customers. Um, he even mentioned himself that uh at times before a payout, you can see a customer has had an item returned to them seven or eight times. Uh you know, whatever works for whatever and and and whomever and whatever state, I don't know if that's really the direction I would want to take, but I will say if it's working for him and they are profitable, you know, you you you can't knock it till you try it, right? So kudos. Yeah. Kudos to that. And then there was uh, I believe it was the Magic Guys, uh, Magic's HR, who was putting on he put on a show, well, they put a meeting of the minds together about employee retention. That was something that I really wanted to kind of understand and learn. And I want to have a show about this, and I'm gonna say this out loud now. I want to do a customer retention, but I also want to do an employee retention. And they kind of gave me some ideas. It was something that I was already thinking about, but you know, to make a long story short, when we have employees, we have to judge them uh based on what they know, based on what they see, not just what we see, right? Because sometimes we forget to put ourselves in their shoes. And we talked about this. One of the biggest things is the onboarding. The onboarding is extremely important, and we've we've talked about those stats.

Danny Lastra 18:23

We we have talked about it. It's so important that first week, that first two weeks.

Pete Shau 18:27

Yeah, it's it's super important. So the onboarding program needs to be rock solid, and I'm talking about rock solid, like you you can't just do it for one and not for another. You can't do it for 95% or 99%. This has to be a 100% rock solid event that you take all your brand new employees on day in and day out. The second thing was, which is what I wanted to talk about, because I would actually have a lot of notes on this, and I wanted to have a complete show on this, but you know, everybody has some form of exit interviews, and I think that's something we can do better ourselves. I think that's something I can do better. Yeah, do exit interviews and see where it is that you made a failed or what might have cost somebody to go somewhere else, right? But that's not new. I mean, people do have exit interviews. We've done them, I've done them. What I've really realized that we need to do is existing interviews. One of the problems that we've forgot is that we believe that once we get them on, they're in the system. And then once they're in the system, they either leave or they get promoted. But we kind of miss the middle. And I think we need to judge uh employee satisfaction. How do you feel like you being trained? Do you understand the training that was given to you? Maybe we're training you, but you just don't understand it. Maybe you feel like somebody was hired or or brought in at a special rate, but you've been here for a couple years. Why why are you bringing that guy in the same rate you're bringing me at? When I've worked here two years for you, I didn't get that rate. Right? It's not just because we talked about this last year, but the question wasn't just can we deal with it, do we have to do it? The question is how do we get to judge, and when I say judge, I don't mean judging people, I mean judge a scenario to make it better for all employees. So we need to talk to those employees and find out, hey, how do you feel about it? What do you think?

Danny Lastra 20:09

I I think the existing interview is a good idea. My only concern is will they be completely vulnerably honest?

Pete Shau 20:19

So, you know, I was talking to them about it, and something that Mike Tissett had brought up in one of his talks is that every Saturday he sends out to his GMs uh a list of five questions. Right and they change every single week, and he's looking to get responses and feedback. I think between both of those situations, between Mike's and the HR crew at Magic, I think the one thing that I took out of it was you have to be consistent.

Danny Lastra 20:46

I'm sorry, you said Mike, Mike Tissett, he's not with Magic.

Pete Shau 20:49

No, Mike Tissett and the Magic guys.

Danny Lastra 20:51

Oh, Mike and Magic and Mike.

Pete Shau 20:52

It was two different situations. So what they both said was a consistency. You can't just say, all right, for the existing interviews, you can't just say, I'm gonna ask you guys this one time, I'm never gonna revisit it. It's like you have to make it on a regular basis because sometimes, you know, it's almost like when you walk up to somebody that you haven't seen in a long time, right? You're like, hey bro, what's going on? You're like, hey man, what's going on? How's the kids? Everybody's good, yeah, it works good. Oh, yeah, you know how it goes. All right, man, I'll catch up with you later. That's not a real conversation. That's just No.

Danny Lastra 21:20

That's a catch-up.

Pete Shau 21:22

So, what happens if we did it two or three times in the same day? We're not gonna say the same conversation, right? We're not gonna be like, yo, bro, how you doing? Oh, the kids are great. Yeah, I got it. No, it's gonna be different because we've already kind of covered that topic. So I think it has to be consistent. So consistent, and I don't mean like every single day or every week, but maybe like every month.

Danny Lastra 21:40

Well, you know what I you have me thinking, my brain is now spinning. We should do, just like we do 90-day evals, we should do 90-day existing interviews, get especially new employees, and then we can ask those questions like how was your onboarding? How was your first 90 days? You got evaluated. This is how this is your evaluation that you already received from your GM. But now I want you to evaluate us. How do you think we did in training you? How do you think we did with the onboarding? How do you think the daily tasks provided to you? Are they high expectations that can't be reached? Do you think they're good standards that can be met? And I think that would be good feedback.

Pete Shau 22:16

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Danny Lastra 24:22

So when the pandemic hit, the biggest employee onboarding process and retention problem as a nation we had was the pay rate because overtime got eliminated, pay rate went up drastically, and I mean we survived, we made it work, absolutely. But now what I'm coming across is the work schedule. Did that come up at all at at the meeting of the minds as far as employer retention? Did anybody mention about work schedule being an issue?

Pete Shau 24:54

So it's funny, the one place that I actually came up with there where I found some answers was the collections one. And it's not exactly where I thought it would come up from. I thought it would be in a completely different area. And so, you know, I I have to get his name and I forgot his name, and I do apologize. But he was saying that as long as your collections were in line, GMs would actually get the Saturday off. And if collections were online and they were growing, and I believe the I believe the thing was as long as they were growing or even on customers, that the assistant would be off on Monday. Okay. So the so the GM would be off on Saturday, he'd be working on Monday through Friday schedule, and then the assistant would do a Tuesday through Saturday schedule as long as everything was in line. Now, when you have credit at 3.1 or 3.2% as an average, I believe you probably get more of those days off than not. So, you know, I won't I won't I won't knock that either, and I'm sure that really helps his guys out as far as uh how things work over there and and their scheduling. But that was really the only time that I heard anything come up. That's not to say that it didn't come up in other classes for other people. Um that's the only thing that I heard. And to be honest with you, I I don't disagree with it. I think that now um it's one of the things that we have left on the table that we really need to kind of take a look at as a as an industry and as a whole, uh sometimes we don't have the best hours. Now, mind you, we do work a little bit later, so there is that too. But I think we've got to start coming up with creative ways to make it work a little easier for some of our people. I really do.

Danny Lastra 26:18

So the existing interviews, you would say that's probably the one thing you took the most out of that you probably would want to implement everyone.

Pete Shau 26:26

Well, I mean, when we talk about now, probably getting employees on the books is probably one of the hardest things we have going on right now. So holding on to them is also very important in my mind because if we can hold on to a staff, get them trained, and then get them educated, get them out in the workforce and our workforce, right? And and some of these stores can stop being understaffed, and our GM and our management's getting a little stressed off from working a little bit more, kind of filling all the holes in instead of just doing the management role, I think that would have the biggest effect going down the line. I think it's gonna help our customer retention, I think it's gonna help our collections, I think it's gonna help our employer retention, and I think it's gonna help the overall morale of the company when you don't have such a high turnover rate. I mean, some of our some of our actual people, uh, some of the stores and companies that were at that that HR meeting, they had a hundred percent turnover rate. Some of them a hundred and twenty percent turnover rate. Not meaning that you know every every position was turned over, but if they had a total of 30 employees, 30 employees were hired and terminated within one year.

Danny Lastra 27:31

Oh wow.

Pete Shau 27:33

That that's a lot. But you know, then I started thinking, well, you know what? That's a metric that I didn't really kind of recover. I didn't I didn't go over, but I should. Because I thought it was a lot closer to about 40 to 50 percent. And now that I'm thinking about it, if if I'm looking at it that way, no, I might actually be higher. A lot higher. When you're talking about account managers and drivers, yeah, we're we're we are going through them.

Danny Lastra 27:55

Was the was the specific position brought up about which one's the hardest to hire or retain? Is it still delivery drivers?

Pete Shau 28:02

You know what? I I would have bet a check on delivery drivers, and the guys at Magic actually showed that their position that's hardest to keep and has most turnover is the sales position.

Danny Lastra 28:16

I can't remember.

Pete Shau 28:17

And then I thought about it, and I'm like, you know what? I I can't believe it. I can't believe it. Because uh, you know, in the driver position, you at least have two drivers, the sales position you have one, you lose that person. Uh yeah, it it can be daunting, and and not only that, the training schedule, learning, there's a lot to learn in that, you know, because you're learning price tag, you're learning uh merchandise, you're learning how to talk to people on and off the computer, you're learning tagging in terms, you're learning like who can I get what from and at what speeds, right? So PlayStation might come in quickly, or something might come in later, or can I get that from online? And how am I supposed to tag and price this? You know, refurbishment, um, man, how do I make sales? Uh, talking to past customers, talking to new customers. Yeah, that's a that's a pretty heavy-hitting role. And I think that uh the turnover rate on that kind of was really spot on.

Danny Lastra 29:05

Interesting. Um, I I would have to somewhat agree. I think the sales is another difficult position to retain. I think it's somewhat easy, not necessarily easy to hire, but easy to receive applicants, but then the onboard and then to retain it is somewhat difficult.

Pete Shau 29:22

You know, it was really nice to see that other people are kind of going, and I don't mean that I want everybody to have a hard time, but it was nice to see that we weren't the only one going through some of these. As a matter of fact, you know, talking to some of these guys who have been a long time around, it was great to see some of the old friends that we have out there. Uh they were all asking about you. I told them that you all suck because you didn't make it to the to the show, but you know, they were all asking about you. You know, Felix, uh, Felix from O'Rourke was, you know, was there as usual, man. He's like a staple, he's been there forever and ever and ever, uh, trying to do the best he can for us, making us the deals. You know, I saw Nicole at L2. Uh they had some great uh gaming rigs that were just a great deal. Greg Skinner from Leopard Mobility. Listen, that that guy had a treat bag that was like Christmas all over again. You know, he had a lot of things to take care of us. It was great. Greg been in the business. Greg Skinner's been in the business for years. Uh we, you know, we we were going back. You know, I don't want to go back to 2000. He went back a little bit further than that, but man, we we had some stories to share. That was uh amazing. Jen and Eddie were at the uh April booth, Ask Us Anything. So, you know, it was kind of I I don't know what to ask because every time I ask something, Jen's really on it and she just she just took care of us. But um, you know, just great, great to see them there. Uh Eddie kind of like a new face, but they have a meeting, this legislative uh meeting uh that they want to take uh different people to in I think it was the end of March. So you sign up for it, and if you're an April member, it's free. The only thing you have to pay for is your own transportation and your own lodging. But you get to meet up with uh some some legislative people in your state, and you can talk to them about rent to own as a group. I think that's a great idea. If anybody's interested in really, really getting down to the nitty-gritty of rent to own, start with your legislative body. You need to talk to them and let them know we are not the bad guys. There's a lot of legislation out there that you know is not for us that they're trying to pass, and we we really got to let them understand, like, listen, we are for the people, we are community-based, but without letting them know how we feel and how we work, they might not know that. And all they're gonna hear is from the lobbyists who are trying to take us out of the game. So that's something that was great that was coming up. Um, of course, the Ashley guys, right? I mean, they're always there. There was some new vendors there, you know. Crown Mark was there for the first time, CNL Supply was there for the first time. Um, containers are real big now. Like, I don't remember ever hearing about them as much before, and now it's just like everybody's got like a container somewhere in uh offshore, just ready to get shipped out, but you know, you have to have so much that you want to order of that particular piece or fill it. But that's keep that seems like a big thing now. Everybody wants you to buy a container of something. So, you know, I think that's that's gonna be new. And uh I say new, new to me. I mean, there might be owners already that are doing that, but I'm starting to see it more now. I think that's gonna be a big thing in rent to own that we didn't have before. You know, going down and seeing everybody. I saw, you know, uh, I think it was Dan at Data True. We saw, you know, I'm talking about everybody. Everybody was there. It was great to see the Kales, senior and junior. You know, Mike Tissett actually was voted to now. He he went from vice president to president of Trib. Oh no. So Kale Jr. did not go up for re-election. Uh they had some election there, and Mike got put in the presidential role. So I got to we have changed his official title though to czar. He is a czar rent own. Bro, he does everything, right? He's like he's like an every board, he's like at everything that they do, he's like at everywhere. So I call him the czar. We actually, it's real funny, we actually were talking about this. I might do this next time. We're gonna do it with with you there, but I just got so busy. But we're thinking about getting on the elevator and just riding the elevator, and as people come in and go up and get down, we're gonna be the one-minute RTO interviews, right? Oh, I love it. We're just gonna jam a mic in their face and say, hey, you're from you know Kansas or whatever or Idaho, you know, talk to us about rent to own.

Danny Lastra 33:10

Well, you know, we have FRDA coming up in July and then RTO World in August. So, you know, I'm definitely gonna be attending those two. So, yeah, we can definitely get something set up to get some interviews going.

Pete Shau 33:21

I I am definitely on that. Uh, I didn't I had the mic with me, I just didn't have it ready, and I was like, man, I've telling you, LP had me rushing, man. We were going back and forth, you know. Uh Larry, Paul, and we went downstairs.

Danny Lastra 33:33

It still works. It's a good well, I saw a video of you, man. I want you to talk to me about it. What did you do for extracurricular activity over there?

Pete Shau 33:44

So, you know, they put us uh at the battery. The battery was uh like this bar down the way, and the I believe the battery was connected to PBR. I don't know how. It was upstairs, you go around the corner and it was all connected or whatever. But the battery is where we did the hot show and everybody had drinks, and then we go up, and of course, PBR in Atlanta, you you can't say it more than that, right? So we get up there, and there is this contraption of a bull, right? It's a mechanical bull, and this thing is like, you know, it's got it's got the cow colors, it's got the white and brown and black, and uh yeah, man, somebody had to try that out. You know, I could you know I you know me, bro. I couldn't I couldn't let it go. You didn't do too bad. How long did you hold on for? Dude, I was like 45 seconds. Dude, that's pretty good. That's you know what? I I did better than I thought I would. I did hang on. Of course, it did fling me off, right? So I did, I did get, I did get, I got tossed like last week's underwear, but uh so it was it was crazy. It was up and down, it was amazing, it was a good time. Uh a lot of the guys went on that, a lot of the guys from different areas and you know, it was great. There's a I believe that Benefit Marketing Solutions has pictures, which I gotta get back a hold of Robin because I think I talked to her about it, but I haven't received the pictures yet, so I gotta talk to her about it. But they took pictures of it as well. But it was it was free for us. So man, you just you know, you just signed the waiver that says if you break your neck, you're good. And then we just you know, you just take off. It was fun, it was a good time, man. Um, drinks all around, it was amazing. They had a lot of a lot of dancing, and I tell you what, uh, these RTO guys, they're made for the business. Some of them can put it back and and still wake up at 8 o'clock, 7 30 in the morning. I am not one of them, but I was there up every morning. I was there at eight. Whether it was good or bad, I was there at eight. We were eating breakfast and making it happen. So, and I tell you guys, it's a long day. If you really, if you really go at it, it's a long day. You know, it's from like eight to six. Yeah. You know, when you're going, going, going, you know, have lunch, and you're going, going, going, you're going to classes, you're going to see what everybody's doing, you're going to the hot show, you're going to meetings, you're going to vote, you're going to trade things. Yeah, you're going to the trade show. It is very dumb. Man, I put in like 20,000 steps both days, bro. Like it was I would like I walked by I walked miles and miles in those shoes, bro. So tired. But it was so good. It was so good to see everybody and kind of participate. And um, you know, it was it was good to see a lot of old friends that you don't see all the time, but it's nice to know that everybody's on the same page, you know? So everybody who who supports the RTO show, I really appreciate it. I will tell you this. So the first night I'm there, we're all there. I had just actually changed out of the RTO show shirt, go downstairs. Junior, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell on you. But so Chris Kale's down there. I'm with Adam, I'm with, I'm with uh Chris Kale Jr. And he shows me his shirt and under a button up, he has the RTO show shirt on. No, he does it for real. Yeah, he did, yeah, he did. I'm talking about straight representing. So, like the first half of the next day. Yeah, so I'm walking around and I've got my RTO show shirt under my shirt, and I'm I'm just letting it show. Of course, Larry calls me out for having my little uh my little card taped at the bottom.

Danny Lastra 36:53

I saw that because you didn't get like no credentials or nothing like that.

Pete Shau 36:57

So you know what? I'm gonna make one. I'm gonna make one of my own. So I go to the front desk and I'm like, hey, you guys got tape? And they're like, yeah. So they look around, I get some tape, and I taped it on there. So I want everybody to know, listen, first and foremost, it's a job, right? So I've got to do what I got to do. When I'm there, I I'm working, I'm taking out the shows, I'm checking out for my guys, we're doing some ordering. Then afterwards, that's when the RTO show kicks in. But it is a work event and uh it's not always play. There's a lot of working going on, and then behind the scenes, there's a lot of things that go on. But I'll tell you guys right now, it's it was a great event, absolutely fun. Um, from the bull riding all the way to talking about doing the legislative visit in March, whether that can happen or I can't make it to it. I want you guys to do your best to remember that RTO is a livelihood for a lot of people, and when you guys do these things and you guys go to see these legislative branches for April, man, it helps out everybody. It's really amazing. Then and then I got to see old friends, you know. I I saw Benny Cheeks and Dan Allen's from uh Best Way. I, you know, I saw the guys, Mike uh Skehan and his guys from Buddies, you know. I see everybody, you know, some old guys from Aaron's that we see every year, you know, much respect to them. The guys are happies, you know, it's always fun to hang out with Jimmy and Adam and the guys. Um, Rick Kale, we will leave the story about Rick Kale on the floor and not say anything else. We're not gonna say anything else about it except wow.

Danny Lastra 38:20

It was it was a night. You're gonna have to tell me off air. You're gonna have to tell me that one off air.

Pete Shau 38:24

I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you off off radio, bro, off podcast. Um, but it was a night. It was absolutely crazy. We did uh have a lot of liquid courage going on, but it was a lot of fun. And uh I would tell you though, the meetings of the minds, absolutely worth it. Tribb, we appreciate everything that you guys have done. Can't wait to uh be a part of the uh FRDA and just see you guys again. But that was uh it was a good show, man. I really wish you were there.

Danny Lastra 38:47

Well, I I'm sorry I missed it, um, but I had personal issues going on. You know what was going on, and um, but I'll definitely be at FRDA and RTO World this year. And listen, everybody, if you're not following us, please follow us at the RTO show. We're on Facebook and Instagram. Uh Pete already posted some pictures of the event, and I think he still got a video, man. I would love for you to post that video on our website. Uh visit our website at www.therto showpodcast.com. You'll see our latest videos that we've already created. Uh, he might post that bull. I'm gonna try to talk him into it, you know, for some funds and laughs. Uh please give us a shout out. Uh email us. You can email us at Pete at the RTO Show Podcast.com. You can email me directly at Danny at the rto show podcast.com. Give us some information. Let us know what you would like for us to talk about. If you'd like to be a guest, if you'd like to sponsor the show, uh we'd we'd love any sponsorship, we would love any feedback, any support whatsoever. Uh, we we do this for you guys. And you know, I can't wait to be at the next show, Pete. Thanks for holding it down.

Pete Shau 39:48

You know, absolutely absolutely listen, guys. Last but not least, if you want to be out there and you want to support the RTO show, wear your shirts. Give us a give us a uh a holler, email us, order a shirt, we'll get it out to you as soon as we possibly can. Be out there and support your local RTO company, your your RTO community. It's not just for the RTO show, it's support of RTO in general. There's a lot of people who have a bad stigma about us, and listen, this is a great way to get people to see hey, we are not the bad guys. We are out there trying to do the best for our community, and the best way to do that is to get a shirt. So contact us at our emails or go to the website at www.therto showpodcast.com and show us some love. Get a shirt.

Danny Lastra 40:30

All right, guys. So without further ado, this is the RTO show with Danny and Pete.