7 tips to grow your customer base today!

Growing a rent-to-own customer base isn't just about getting people through the door — it's about what happens before, during, and long after that first visit. In this episode, Pete Shau and Danny deliver a practical, no-fluff playbook built from nearly three decades of combined RTO experience that every store manager, account manager, and district manager needs to hear.

The seven tips they cover span the full customer journey — from the culture you build inside your store, to how you show up in your community, to the digital presence that younger customers are judging you on before they ever walk in. Some of these tips will feel like common sense. Others might make you rethink how your team is operating right now.

But here's the one thing Pete and Danny make crystal clear: you can execute the first six tips perfectly and still not grow — if you're dropping the ball on tip number seven.

Whether you're running a single location or overseeing multiple stores, this episode will have you looking at your numbers, your team, and your process differently by the time it's over.

Transcript

Pete Shau 0:04

And welcome to the RTO show with Danny and Pete. I'm your host, Danny. And I'm Pete. And today we are going to cover the seven tips on how to grow your customer base. And what are those seven tips, Pete? Well, I think we're going to start with tip number one. And tip number one should be an obvious one for everybody. That's customer service. Dun dun dun dun. Customer service is first off service with a smile. So you got to understand that the customer service starts before somebody walks in the door. It's a mindset. It's how you look at the day. It's how you're approaching the day. And it's got to be, it's got to be set. I mean, it's got to be, I'm going to give the greatest customer service that there is. Then when they walk in the door, pleasant greeting, hospitality. I mean, does it get any more basic than that?

Danny Lasrta 0:44

No, you have to treat your customers with the almost hospitality when they walk in. They're not just a number, it's not just a retail number, it's not just a sale. It's a rapport. It's a relationship we are building on a daily basis. And I know we talk about this all the time. The number one thing we try to push on our employees is refreshment. Offer them a drink. That's like the most common sense thing when someone comes to your house after you greet them. Hey, how you doing? Been a long time. Haven't seen you. Come on in. Can I get you something to drink?

Pete Shau 1:13

Customer service is really, it's always planted in taking care of a customer's needs. So customer service isn't always just based on the business. Customer service is taking care of a customer needs no matter what that is. If they if they need something taken to the car, you help them. If they have a question about something, you take out the time to stop and answer that question. And if you don't have the answer in front of you, figure out what a way to get that answer. And that's part of the customer service uh mentality is that you have to be ready. When they come in, you have to be ready to take care of them because without that, customer service isn't going to work. And let me tell you, there are people out there that are not given good customer service. And if you're not on top of your game, the guys that are are going to be the one that reap the benefits.

Danny Lasrta 1:49

No, absolutely. And on another note, customer service does not stop once you close a sale. Customer service is an ongoing thing throughout the entire relationship of that customer. Number one thing is the services of loaners. So after you complete that sale and there's an issue with that item, you have to jump on it quickly. 24 hours. You got to address it. Get them a loaner. Take care of them some way. That's part of customer service. Yeah, do it with a smile, do it with a positive attitude, happy, go lucky, and genuinely want to take care of them. But it's also the action that back set up that shows them I'm there in a pinch. Something happens, especially on our merchandise that you're renting. We're there. We're going to take care of you. We don't want this product to go down. We want it to get repaired. We don't want you with a damaged item or constant service issue. It might be a switch out. Those are things you have to evaluate on an agreement case by case. But your service alone is that's a huge, probably the number one complaint I get the most, besides poor customer service to begin with, but it's they feel the customer's feeling they're not getting their needs met.

Pete Shau 2:46

Well, how far does it go if you even know the customer's name right off the bat? Like when they walk in the door and you're just like, hey, Miss Jones, hey, Mr. Jones, hey Paula, how you doing? How's little Jimmy doing? Is he feeling all right? Last time I didn't see him, he didn't get his toy when he came in. Like those are the things that I think 100% make customer service on point. You've got to personalize it to every situation because not everybody has the same needs. And remember, customer service is about a pleasant greeting, it's about hospitality, but it's always about taking care of the customer's needs. That goes back to the service and loaners, that goes back to being in that mindset. You've got to take care of them each and every day. And then when everything is done, you've got to thank them.

Danny Lasrta 3:22

Oh, gratitude. You have to show gratitude and appreciation because without them, we wouldn't be open. We wouldn't even have this business. There wouldn't be this industry. And I know sometimes it can get tough, especially when you're dealing with an I-Rate customer or pass-do customer that's constantly falling delinquency. But this is account manager 101. After the tough conversation, after getting them back on track, if you accept that billow payment or you get the full payment, no matter what the situation is, you have to thank them. You know, I have my own little Chick-fil-A slogan that I do here. And after every single interaction, I always say thank you for your payment and I appreciate your business. And I and I try to teach my staff that because I I genuinely mean it. I do thank them for their payment, and I appreciate their business because if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't have a job. So you got to show gratitude. And we have to train and expect that accountability.

Pete Shau 4:12

And that always comes with an actual gratitude. When you say it, you have to be sincere. There has to be sincerity in your voice, there has to be sincerity in your action. There has to be a sincerity coming off of your physical expression, too, because you can't just feel like, oh my God, you know, I'm saying it, I'm going through the motions. You have to really be there. You have to be really present. And when you're saying stuff to them, they have to feel that as well. It's a feeling. And that feeling, you cannot, you can't jimmy that feeling, you can't copy it. You it is genuine feeling that you are actually thanking them for their business. What actually leads us to number two is customer retention.

Danny Lasrta 4:44

Retention. Absolutely. We that's a big step. That's a big step to grow your customer base because you got them.

Pete Shau 4:51

Now how do you keep them? Well, you don't cycle them out. You know, you don't let them, you don't let them pay out or do an early purchase option and walk out the door. The idea is to keep that customer on as long as possible so that as you're growing customers, you're not recycling customers, you're adding to the customer base. Now, talking to uh Dan, I've said Dan, the two million dollar man uh a bunch of times, what they did was to go over it and make sure that they started, they started measuring the metrics of customer attention as far as early purchase options and how they converted those. And when you start realizing how many customers you can lose to that, you want to track that metric because keeping a good percentage of those customers on, with whatever reasons that you come up with, whether it be a one month down, you have a deal, you're gonna give it to the payout customers, you're gonna give them a loyalty program, whatever the case is, you want to do that and make sure that they stay on the book so that the two customers you grew, you just didn't lose with payouts.

Danny Lasrta 5:39

Right. And it's constantly marketing to them as well as and it comes also with good collection practice. And what good collection practice is again upholding the customer service, always thanking the customer for every payment, appreciating their business, staying on top of them of helping them reach ownership. That's the whole point of account manager, which you know really should be called revenue retention manager or whatever. I don't know. I'm always trying to create a different title for those individuals, but I like it. The account managers should already know hey, Pete's coming up to paying out. It's an 18-month contract, been with me 15 months. We're we're entering the last three months. Hey, Pete, I see you're about to pay out. This is your balance, just want to let you know. You still have three months left. Is there anything else you're needing? You have a washer and dryer. Do you want to get a matching fridge now? I know we kind of kept you within a budget, but you know, we for being with us for so long and great payment history and the amount of money you spend, I'm gonna give you a great deal, great down payment assistant deal, probably no money down, one month free possible, but it goes hand in hand with converting your payouts with good collection practices because that can be a bad reputation for you, which nobody wants. You want to retain your customers by always the customer service and converting the payouts. And don't forget customer appreciation that goes hand in hand with the gratitude that we just talked about.

Pete Shau 6:49

Let's go back to converting payouts. You're converting payouts. You want to appreciate those customers, but you also don't want to alienate the customers that have returns for whatever reason. Because this is this can be a short-term business, this can be a changeover business. On average, three to four months is what a would a customer, a rent-town customer lasts, right? So if they're here every three to four months, you've got to convert them four times a year. You've got to make sure that you keep up that conversion rate. Absolutely. So whether they're switching from a bedroom set to a living room set, from a living room set to a washer and dryer, from a washer and dryer to a television set, and then back all the way around. Big big things, I appreciate your business. What else can I get for you? And that could be more items.

Danny Lasrta 7:24

Absolutely. And speaking of more items, the last step to retention is add-ons. And again, I always push this on the account managers. They have the best opportunity. But anybody has that opportunity. When you're dealing, when you're on the front customer service desk and the customer comes in to make a payment, it's a continuous, are you needing anything else? Everything's good with what you got. We haven't this great deal. This is our hot items, this is our hot deals. It's constantly promoting the merchandise and the sales atmosphere that's going on in your store on a day-to-day basis and trying to get those add-ons and giving them the best bang for their buck.

Pete Shau 7:55

Well, you're trying to save the customer before they're already out the door. So the best time to make sure that you have customer attention is before they're leaving. So you don't want to you don't want to ask about that add-on when they're about to pay out. You want to ask the add-on beforehand because if they're at the end of an 18-month agreement, it they might not want to have uh that choice of I just finished paying out, I just want to go. But if you hit them up at 12 months and they already added on another 18-month agreement, they're still inside the amount of credit that you allowed to have them have, right? So now they got a TV at an 18-month agreement, but they picked up 12 months into it. You've got one more year to work with that customer, whether it be weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly, or monthly, to see them, to enjoy them, to give them those customer appreciation days, to let them know that you care about their business and give them the opportunity to keep on coming in, but you don't want to do it at the end. You want to hold on to that customer because part of customer attention is making sure that you attack it before it's too late.

Danny Lasrta 8:41

And if you do steps one and two, customer service and retention, it will lead you to step number three, which is crucial, and that's building your reputation because reputation is almost anything and everything. I say this all the time people don't do business with business, they do business with people, and you have to have a great reputation ofin your store. Nobody does business with the company name, they go do business with the person that's running in that company. They're gonna come see Danny at Rank King or Pete at Rank King. It's never really the store location, it's who's running it. And a part of building your good reputation is having the correct staff.

Pete Shau 9:15

Having the correct staff and making sure that the correct staff is trained and also that they have longevity. There's nothing like walking into a store that you've been at for a long time, and then let's say the customer walks out and they come back, hey, you're still here. Yes, I am, and I'm here to give you the same great customer service that you had before. People love walking in and knowing that. And then when you invest that time into somebody, teaching them the customer service, teaching them how to retain those customers. It's an investment that you made into that employee who's going to imply it again when somebody else comes in the door. So that reputation, they're gonna feel like you're taking care of them and they don't see people coming in and out and in and out and in and out. Because they're gonna feel like this guy doesn't know me. He doesn't know what I want, he doesn't know what I'm looking for. We have no history. Build that reputation with your community with solidarity, keep them happy because that's gonna keep your customers happy.

Danny Lasrta 9:59

So you have the correct staff, you guys are all performing customer service, you're doing your best to retain the customers you do have. Is that enough to build your reputation? I don't think so because there is one factor we're leaving out. All the salesmanship, all the customer service in the world is not going to save you of a reputation of having a dirty showroom.

Pete Shau 10:19

Whoa, you mean I can't sell that stuff that's all marked up and it kind of smells a little funny and it got caught in the rain?

Danny Lasrta 10:24

You might be the best salesperson in the world and you might be able to push that clearance item and that beat up furniture, but you're also letting your community know that's all you carry is the beat up stuff. And you don't want that reputation. You wanted your community to know we have nice name brand, clean. If it is refurbished, it's refurbished to mint condition to where they're gonna get the most bang for their buck and high quality product of value.

Pete Shau 10:46

Part of your reputation, and it kind of goes back to the service, but you should know your vendors. You should know who to get the parts from, how long it's gonna take to get those parts, have somebody be able to install those parts, and then make sure that you're taking care of those customers no matter what it is that they need. Building that reputation is making sure that they understand what they're gonna get. When they walk in the door, they talk to somebody else in the community, your reputation is talking for you. And you cannot be out there in every conversation. A word of mouth is the biggest compliment that you can get when it comes to the rent-to-home business or any business. And if that word of mouth is bad, you're not gonna get it. It's just not gonna happen.

Danny Lasrta 11:17

Well, you just touched on tip number four, and that is after you build your reputation, you want to build your brand. What's the difference between a reputation and a brand, Pete? That's a good question. So it almost goes hand in hand. They're almost the exact same thing. But the brand is the company, the logo. It's when you think of Nike, you don't necessarily think of an individual, you think of the logo, the Nike swoosh, but you know what you're getting. You're getting a high quality product that's been around for a long time. You know what they're capable of doing. Athletes wear it. So when you're building your reputation as a store manager of that store, you also want to build your brand. We talk about this all the time. You always want to sell yourself, you want to sell your company before you sell the product. So that's what you're doing. You're you're building your reputation, then you're building your brand.

Pete Shau 11:57

You're you've got to back up the company you're working for. I think the reputation is going to be the people at your business. The brand is your actual business. Correct. So I think that you, you know, you have to have both on point. You can have a reputation that is preceding who you are, right? But if they come in and they don't like the actual business that you have, you've got to promote what you have, how you do it, how much you do it. And it's also got to look right.

Danny Lasrta 12:18

Well, and more importantly, so if you're doing the customer service, the retaining, and you're building, you have a great reputation, clean showroom. But the next step is to building your brand, it's what makes you different from everybody else. Because you can have a bunch of different companies that have great customer service and a great reputation. So what's your niche? And that's what every company kind of needs to think about. Like we we talked about this about a loyalty program. Some companies do it, some don't. Some of them are a little different. They offer different things. Maybe you get a little gold VIP business card for being a customer, or you just earn points. That's something else we talked about in this day and age, like earning points or whatever your on-time payment. You have to think outside the box, then what makes you different from the other companies out there?

Pete Shau 12:57

Well, part of building your brand is the community involvement. So important. Community involvement is one of those things where they might not remember you were in the community, but if they drove by, they see the truck. They know that they see your sign on the YMCA or the Boys and Girls Club. They know that you're sponsoring the Kids Little League. They know that you're taking care of some of the some of the employees or that are in some of these different businesses. Hey, I give you an employee discount. Or you go out and you put yourself in the community in a sense where you're a pillar of the community and it's not just you, it is your brand. It is your company, and that brand is gonna stand that test of time because of that community involvement. Nobody wants to go and do business with somebody who really doesn't want to get back to the community. So it might be happening, but if they know the difference, they're gonna go to you. Right.

Danny Lasrta 13:36

And then the last step of building your brand is making sure your core values are exactly that of value. Make sure your employees have the characteristic of your company's core values. You're disciplined about it, you talk about it, you represent and display yourself always in those core values. Whatever those core values may be, it's important to set them from the start when you're interviewing, when you're hiring. That's how you make sure you have a good staff. And then we're talking about on a consistent basis and honesty, integrity, community involvement. Those are just part of core values that I know at our company ranking has. And we display them. We display them all around our store so our customers can know what we value as to our core to make sure we're providing the proper service to you.

Pete Shau 14:16

There's nothing like making sure that you're doing the right thing with the right set of tools. And sometimes laying out those tools in a set of core values, putting out exactly what you expect from your people, what you expect to pre-presented to your employees, be presented to your customers, it's invaluable. I mean, you just can't put a dollar amount on it. Honesty, integrity, making sure that you are a part of the community. Take a look at that and put that together for your team and see how far that gets you. It's just a clear-cut way to say, this is what we stand for, this is what we want, and this is what we're gonna do.

Danny Lasrta 14:46

And that leads us to tip number five, and that is promoting and market. And number three and four is relies on this step because building a reputation in your brand involves you promoting it constantly. Word of mouth, that is whether you like agree or not, word of mouth is promoting referrals. But customers are only gonna give you referrals if you are building that reputation in that brand. But you have to promote it. And one of the things we're constantly talking about now in this day and age is digital or grassroots.

Pete Shau 15:16

And we I think we've talked about this several times in the sense that I don't think you can get away from one or the other. Digital marketing is the way to go right now, but you can't deny that shaking somebody's hand and being in their face is also another way to get their attention. A lot of people forget that, yes, the beginning half of the age groups when you're talking about 30 and down, 30, 35 and down, you're talking about millennials, you're talking about Gen Z, but you can't forget about Gen X and the baby boomers. They're more in your face, they're more shake your hand, they're more word of mouth, where you have a younger population that is very, very set on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. These things you can't get away from. And if you want to alienate half of your customers, don't do it. But let me tell you right now, if you do that, you're gonna suffer and you're gonna suffer big time. You have to reach out where they are, and where they are are on the social media platforms, but then that leaves you with grassroots.

Danny Lasrta 16:00

Well, you know, one of the things we talk about is if it's not notated, it didn't happen, right? We talk about that a lot. Well, that's how your community involvement is. If you're involved in your community, but you're not posting it on social media, you might as well not have happened. Who's gonna see it exactly? So you have to promote it, you have to be more on digital in this day and age, but you can't forget the older generation, you can't forget your long-term customers. That's why you have to still practice the business of business. You have to go to your apartment complex and try to create a relationship to where they'll put your flyer in their welcome home packets, go knock on some doors sometimes, go in person to some paid-outs, get them a treat, a gift, a gift card, whatever it may be, as a thank you, as a gratitude that we miss you. But then on the flip side, you have to be posting constantly that this is what we're doing. We're giving back. We're in your community, we're flyering, we're spreading the word. That's a double-edged sword right there. You are doing grassroots and digital combined, and you are then without realizing it, building your reputation and your brand.

Pete Shau 16:56

The best thing that you can do, guys, is research how to reach your customers. Look at your customer base, take a look at the demographics that you have going on. Just take some time to sit down with whomever you have, or your marketing director, or yourself, or your staff, and go, what does it look like? What am I missing? Do I need more on a higher end? Do I only have 30 and under? Do I need 30 and over? Those people who need things that the younger generation wouldn't need, right? So sometimes the older generation, they don't care about the TVs and all that stuff. They have all that. They might need to, they're more worried about do they have a comfortable bed to sleep on and a couch to sit on? Or you have some of the younger generations where they're interested in the best TV and the best game system. But you have you need to find out what you have and how to market that. And that's always going to be the best way to push and promote. You want to make sure that you're not too much on one and not enough on the other. Your guys have to get out and knock on doors, but you also have to post it on social media. You have to have that presence. It goes 50-50, and there's no way you can get away from it. The business to business is an awesome way to do it, but so is apartment complexes.

Danny Lasrta 17:54

Right. And while you're doing your research, that will lead to tip number six. Is your website fresh with hot content? And that goes back into the research. What do your customers looking for?

Pete Shau 18:05

Not a sleepy website. I'm gonna tell you right now, guys, if you guys have a sleepy website, don't even push them over there.

Danny Lasrta 18:11

Well, I think the number one request or the number one concern I receive a lot is availability. What are you putting on the website? Is it available now? Maybe it needs to be more specific of this is a special order item or this is available in certain locations, or this is available now for an online order. But people like to know that, and especially with e-commerce, it's very important that they want to know can I get in now? I mean, we've always done same-day delivery. That's been our rent-to-owned stitch since the beginning of time. But now we're entering a digital era where people are shopping online, is the same scenario. They want to know, can I get in now, or at least by tomorrow, what is available?

Pete Shau 18:47

Well, you got to remember there are four seasons in the year, and if you are only changing your website to match the four seasons, you are way behind on the curve. It's at least six to eight week span, and then you're changing it up. You've got to make sure that you've reach all your customers, they've seen what you got, and then you change it up. You've got to really take out your time because it's not easy. All right. So when you when you're talking about keeping a fresh website, you have to scour everywhere and find out what is everybody looking at? What are the trends? What will be the trends? What I mean, what are you going to go into? Are you going into the fourth quarter? Are you going into the first quarter? You're going into the second quarter? How long have you been promoting this particular item? Uh, what is the weight on that item? I mean, I just is it selling? Is it not selling?

Danny Lasrta 19:23

What does your competitor look like? What are they posting online every week or every month? I mean, especially your neighbor, you need to know this stuff. If they're beating your price by $5, that's gonna be an issue for you.

Pete Shau 19:33

Guys, the websites are free. Go take a look at what your neighbor's doing because he could really, really, really be beating you down on the pricing and the savings. I mean, right now, we've got some places going out as far as two and a half years on items. I've even heard some business going on for 36 months. That doesn't mean that it's a bad deal. It means that they're probably watching what they're putting on a 36-month item. But if you have a lawnmower or let's say a zero turn that now is about a four or five thousand dollar item, it might be more beneficial to put on a three-year term because you got service and loaners on part of it. And, you know, it depends on what it is, but you want to make sure that you're matching what's out there or beating it. You don't want to be left in the dust, you don't want to be the last guy to the party.

Danny Lasrta 20:11

Absolutely not. And while you're changing up the website, keeping it fresh in content on the flip side is always keep your core values on the line, on the site, relative, with the best deal possible. Everyone's always looking for that budget wash and dryer. They're always looking for the TV, they're always looking for a living room or bedroom. So you want to keep your core items constantly available with the best price, with the best materials, and the best deal out there. Because everybody else is posting the same thing.

Pete Shau 20:43

Well, on top of changing just the items that are in it, sometimes you're gonna have to take out the time to redo the entire website. And I know it sounds crazy, but every five to seven years, you see a McDonald's getting changed over. They're not the same. And they go from the bottom to the top. It's new walls and new ceilings, and they kind of break it down, and the sign looks a little bit different, and where you stand is a little bit different. Now you've got self-ordering machines now, and we're all gonna be jobless. And then, you know, because they they understand that people get tired of seeing the same thing. And after a while, guys, if you had that same stagnant website for two or three years and you think it's doing good, it has all the stuff on it, liven it up, take a good look. Maybe it's a rebranding, maybe it's a new paint job, maybe whatever it is on your on your website might need it. But you gotta keep it fresh because, guys, if you think that people aren't looking at your website, you're wrong. It shows that the younger generations now, starting from millennials and going all the way down, are probably checking you on your website first before they go into your store, versus the older generations that it might actually do it in reverse. And if you've got half your customer base looking at you online and it's stagnant, it doesn't look good, it's not inviting, you're probably not going to see them coming to the door.

Danny Lasrta 21:45

So we talked about customer service, we talked about retention, we talked about reputation and brand building, we talked about marketing and the website. Six tips so far. The last tip is the most important one. Because you can do all the marketing in the world, and it's not going to matter if you don't do this tip number seven, which is what? Close the damn sale. Close the damn sale. Say it with me. Close the damn sale. Your close ratio, guys, that's the most important thing. You can get 20 customers in your building today. That means your marketing is on point. Great. But if you're only closing two, you're not going to grow.

Pete Shau 22:25

Now, how crazy is it? Somebody walks in, you give them great customer service, right? And then you have a reputation that brought them in the door. They see the brand. They're happy, right? They saw the marketing. It worked. It was fresh and great. But you can't retain them and you can't get them to uh buy anything because you can't close a damn sale.

Danny Lasrta 22:45

Which that's probably, yeah, I don't know. That boggles my mind so much. Like, how it guys, it's so easy to close a sale in this industry. Like, it's so easy. I don't know. Like, go talk to a car dealership, however, hard it is to close a car sale or a stockbroker or a realtor. Those are hard items to sell. That's hard to close. You can't you can't get a living room into a customer's house for $20 down on one month free.

Pete Shau 23:09

We are meeting needs. I mean, nowadays, more often than not, the ratio of people coming in because they actually have a need versus just shopping is astronomical. Now they'll tell you that they're just shopping, but again, remember the websites. They've probably shopped you already. They've probably shopped your competition already. If they're walking in the door, it's probably because they saw something that they liked. And if they're in the door and you can't close the sale, you might as well put everything to sleep. So salesmanship and watching that close ratio is going to be a stout number seven. You have to close the sale. And there's a lot of ways to do it. Uh, one of them is most, if not all, rent-owned companies don't require credit.

Danny Lasrta 23:44

Right. So, my my first suggestion with this is start keeping stats. This is something we used to do. I know you've done it, I've done it. Store managers, I I please strongly advise you to do this. Start one week, keep a notepad, and keep track of every customer that walks in and how many walk out the door that you don't close. Maybe you close them tomorrow, okay. But I'm talking about how many are walking out your door today that you're not closing. Is it two out of five, three out of five, one out of five? But I bet you if you put these stats on a paper and by the end of the week you realize how many customers walked out, you'll probably wonder, you'll probably know your answer why you're not growing.

Pete Shau 24:24

There's at least three minimum attempts to close before somebody walks out the door. Four if you're really on your game. And to be honest with you, no matter which clothes you decide to go with, you have to ask for the clothes. So many people fail to just ask for the business. You know, they'll say, So uh, what are you thinking? No, no, no, no, no. I don't know. It's not about what you're thinking. When am I gonna get that to your home tonight? What else do you want me to add to that order? Correct. What time do you want that delivered? Correct. I mean, it just falls into the are we really trying? Are we really putting some salesmanship into that? Or are we really just kind of being order takers? Don't be an order taker, don't do that.

Danny Lasrta 25:03

Assume the sale. Assume the sale. But that goes to training. So we talk about this all the time. It's training, training, is role-playing, is doing what Pete just did right now, giving you scenarios, but get your salespeople on the sales floor and put them through the scenarios. Give them obstacles, train them how to overcome it. A lot of people get so stuck with the technicalities of the product and the benefits and features of it. You know, those are good information to know, and that's a very knowledgeable piece that will help you close the sale, but you don't need to know every little thing that about this washing machine to close it. All it takes is that salesmanship, and the salesmanship really is just assuming the sale. If a customer is coming in to look at the washing machine, you shouldn't have to second guess if they're gonna walk out with it. It's just you're here. Hey, here's the order form. Let's get your pre-approved. Only takes five, 10 minutes. This is the down payment we need. What time are we delivering tomorrow? It's assuming the sale right from the jump. And but it comes with the training. And then after keeping stats, you want to track where they heard your ad from because that can help create more traffic, whether it's web bleed traffic, foot traffic, or even phone sales traffic.

Pete Shau 26:08

If you guys haven't noticed, these seven tips kind of fall in on each other because they're crucial to growing your customer base. And when you're doing it, you've got to remember that there's there's different types of sales tactics and there's different types of sales people. But what's most important is take the rental order and put it in front of your customer. Seven out of ten customers are more likely to rent from you if they already started the sales process than if you're just asking questions. Get that rental order in front of your customer. Don't be afraid to fill it out for them. Don't just hand it off with a pen. Don't be afraid to fill it out for them. Get their name, their number, their email. That's the best way to reach back to them. And then make sure that all the easy stuff in conversation you can fill out. If you've already asked where they work at, get that down. If you've already talked about, you know, do they have a cosigner and do they not, get that down. It just makes it easier through the whole process. Get them in front of a rental order and your close ratios are going to be better. But if you're not doing it, I'm telling you right now, walking out, you're gonna see your clothes ratios fall, you're gonna see that you're not getting it, and you're not gonna grow a customer base.

Danny Lasrta 27:05

And the last step to your close ratio. So let's say you have a great close ratio. Five customers come in, you're closing five customers. Two customers come in, you're closing two customers. But Danny, Pete, I'm still not growing. My close ratio is on point. Let me ask you guys a question. Are you including your web leads as part of your close ratio? Because foot traffic has died down a lot, and web leads have increased tremendously. So for every foot traffic person that walks in, you probably got two or three web leads already. Are we putting the same emphasis, the same urgency to one, greet those web leads as soon as they come in and in the same dedication urgency to close them over the email immediately?

Pete Shau 27:46

You are also about 82% more likely to close a sale if you can get back to that customer within the first two and a half to four minutes of them giving you a web lead.

Danny Lasrta 27:56

And so, same emphasis, I was talking about this with my staff the other day. If if you as a store manager are dealing with a customer doing a sale, second customer comes in, your assistant or salesperson, they they approach that second customer and start approaching the sale. A third customer comes in, what do you do? You don't really leave the customer you're with, right? Let's say you're full stack. You're telling me you don't pull that account manager or maybe that driver to at least greet that customer, you might not expect them to close it. What you're doing is buy me two to four and a half minutes to wrap up with my customer so I can go and take care and close that sale. Why aren't we doing that with the web leads? Why isn't somebody constantly responding and just holding a conversation, getting the basic information? Hey, how you doing? What's your name? What brought you in? What are you looking for? What's your price budget? All right. Hey, go ahead, take a look around, and I will help you in the next couple minutes.

Pete Shau 28:48

That's how you do it, guys. That's how you use these seven ways to grow your customer base. Danny went over the customer service, customer attention, build the brand, build your reputation, promote and market, website with fresh content, and close the damn sale. You're damn right.

Danny Lasrta 29:05

Guys, thank you so much for listening. We look forward to the next one. Without further ado, this is Danny and Pete with RTO show.