How YOU can stand out from the RTO Crowd!

Danny and Pete dig into what actually separates a memorable local rent-to-own store from the competition — and it starts with personality. Charisma and relatability aren't just nice-to-haves, they're the foundation. People choose to do business with people they like, and no amount of promotion covers for a bland presence.

From there, the conversation gets creative. Beyond standard holiday sales, they suggest leaning into lesser-known observances — National Cookie Day, National Son and Daughter Day, 12 Days of Christmas giveaways — to give customers something unexpected to look forward to. On the promotions side, Pete floats the idea of using odd-number discounts like 57% or 13% off instead of the usual round figures, purely because the weirdness makes people stop, talk about it, and remember it.

Social media ties all of it together. Danny shares a real example of a former employee who came in and bought a sofa specifically because he saw it on the store's Facebook page — but the store manager had no idea, because they weren't asking customers what brought them in. The takeaway: videos and reels outperform static posts, personality has to come through on camera, and every promotion needs to live online. Pete adds the idea of incentivizing employees and customers to create content — offering to pay per like or take dollars off an agreement in exchange for a genuine testimonial reel.

The most developed idea of the episode is a customer loyalty program. Both hosts are struck by how consistently retail stores ask about rewards memberships — candles, watches, clothing — and wonder why rent-to-own hasn't built the same thing. A tiered system (bronze, silver, gold, platinum) with transferable points across locations, bonus status for autopay customers, and even a VIP autopay appreciation event could go a long way toward retaining the customers who quietly pay on time every month and rarely get recognized for it.

Community involvement closes the episode. Sponsoring little league teams, raffling TVs at high school homecoming events, delivering school supplies to underfunded classrooms, handing out turkeys — these aren't just feel-good gestures. Danny shares that three of the turkey deliveries his managers made that Thanksgiving went to customers who had just been diagnosed with cancer. The impact was real and immediate. The point, as Pete puts it, is to let your actions do the standing out — not just your intentions.

Transcript

Danny Lastra 0:07

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

Pete Shau 0:11

And I'm your host, Pete. And today we're talking about how to make your local rent-to-owned company stand out. Your store stand out amongst the masses. And how do we do that, Danny?

Danny Lastra 0:20

Listen, the first thing that comes to my mind, man, is you gotta have a personality, a big, big personality. And what I mean by personality is I mean it's gotta be, you have to be relatable, you have to be funny, you have to be charismatic, you have to put yourself out there. It's kind of like a relationship, you know, you gotta be true to yourself because people are gonna pick up on that and they're gonna want to, they're gonna choose and decide whether or not they want to interact with you. And I think that's a big part of standing out. You want people to want to do business with you and who you are.

Pete Shau 0:52

You know, when I was a kid, right, and I'm not even gonna say that I do it now, but I'm gonna say when I was a kid, we used to play like Fallout, right? And Fallout had like all of these different categories that you can play with, right? There was strength and there was, you know, smarts and science. One of those stats actually was charisma. And I never used to put that in there. And let me tell you, when you're doing when you're going through life and you're looking at the situations as they are, man, charisma is such a huge thing. Charisma is like massively huge. Somebody who has charisma can really take it far in life just based on that trait. That is not a normal trait, that is something that it really has to be worked, not worked on, but it's a natural thing that when used correctly, oh my god, charisma and personality go so far in this business. But when you're standing out like that and you use charisma to stand out, you should also remember there are other things that stand out as well, right? So if you're doing regular holiday promotions, as you should, that's the normal thing. You want to stand out? How about taking on the lesser-no holidays and actually making it something for your customers, making it something valuable, make it something to look forward to? One of those things actually could be all of those crazy days during the year that you never really think about, right? So how about for your customers making sure that they have a cookie on National Cookie Day? Or making sure that you can do a poll and see what kind of cookies they'd be interested for Cookie Day. And that's actually going to be on December 4th in 2023, or get to know your customers' day, where you maybe you maybe you sit down with them and literally just have this small five question or 10 questionnaire where you actually sit down with one of your customers at a table and just kind of ask them questions and get their feedback and then literally write that down so that you can create a personality for that person that maybe you can share with other people or that you can remember or put those notes in your system so that you can say, hey, they like this, they don't like that, or they enjoy these particular things that they normally do. I think that would be awesome. Um, especially like maybe National Sun and Daughter Day. I think you did something for Daughter Day, didn't you? On like your social media.

Danny Lastra 2:57

I yeah, I normally always post every National Sun, National Daughters Day. I post pictures of my kids and give a little warm speech to them. You know, they look forward to it every year. But I think you hit I think you hit something there, P. Like that's a great idea. And listen, how about 12 days of Christmas? If you start on the 1st of December and you do a little something for your customers, you know, every day could be something different, like you know, free wrapping paper or free ribbons, or free of the little post, the little name tags that you put on presents. You know, what are those? Like one, two dollars for a pack of you know, a hundred twelve days of Christmas, that's a great idea, along with your, like you said, the national cookie days, stuff like that. Those are those are things that I would say you should be promoting every day on your social media. It is and it's fun and it's interactive, and you'd be surprised the involvement you'd probably get from your community. I think that's a great idea, Pete.

Pete Shau 3:50

Well, I appreciate that. And I think also while you're doing that, sometimes it's it's good to remember everybody sees the same sales all the time, right? 20% off, 25% off, 50% off, or if you do this, you get that. How about making it completely different and like going like 57%, 22%, you know, 14% off? I mean, it's not the fact that you're gonna get less or more of a deal. It's more of how does that stand out in a whole sea of things that are there? How does that stand out to your customers? Will that make them go, what the heck? Or how about a promotion where you say, hey, you know what? Get this today. I'm gonna give you a pack of socks. I'm gonna give you some potato chips. You're like, you're like, what? But tell me that they wouldn't say something to their other friends or relatives or references and be like, you know, I went in the other day and and and they gave me like this pack of t-shirts. I don't even know what it was, what was going on, or they they gave me like a like three bells. I don't even know what to do. But it's one of those things that if if implemented the right way and you have the right customer with the right personality that's coming in and you hit them up with that, how are they not gonna go back and tell everybody? You know, that was an that was just a crazy fun experience on my 13% off day.

Danny Lastra 5:01

Question That's funny. Question, be honest, Pete. Christmas, as a father, as a husband, do you get a pack of socks and underwear for Christmas? Bro, that's like a staple in this household, bro.

Pete Shau 5:12

If I'm gonna get 10 presents, I only think about eight of them because one of them is a pack of t-shirts and one of them is underwear. And the other thing is, it's like I wear white T's with everything. I wear white T's regarding everything I wear. And so it's like every year I know somebody's gonna go, this is Haynes Classic, you know, this is Fruit of the Loom. Like, we're getting you the best, you know, the best stuff. And it's like, are you serious right now? But it's true, it's true. Every year it's a pack, and then they get you the long socks, too. It's like, what am I gonna do with these long socks?

Danny Lastra 5:40

You know what I mean? We're in Florida. I like socks, honestly. Like, I'm a sock guy. I like I like the crazy socks and the long socks with different characters. I'm weird, I don't know, but I I like them. I think it's funny. But but man, listen, you you're hitting it, man. That's great. I you know, as you're saying, I'm thinking to myself, if I saw an ad with an odd number, like a 47, 13, whatever you said, it would intrigue me. Maybe because of my OCD, like I don't care for odd numbers, so I'm like, what I would be like, what the hell is that? That's a weird number. But you know what? It's memorable. It would make me remember. I'd probably talk about it, I'd probably be texting my wife, Melissa, like, did you see that so-and-so has a 33% off? What the hell is that? It would it would cause a discussion. So yes, man, that's pretty good. That's pretty nifty. I like that. But going into that, here's the thing, man. You're hitting some great things as far as the promotions, the holiday promotions, uh, the you know, the 57% off, the free socks. How would you promote that? And I'm gonna be honest, man. I know I'm gonna sound like a broken record here, but I'm gonna say it again. My opinion is what what is it, Pete?

Pete Shau 6:45

It's social media.

Danny Lastra 6:47

I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna let off on this, guys. This might be on every episode, I'm gonna be honest, because I I think some people just aren't getting it. This is a digital era, okay? You're not going to pass out flyers. You're I mean, you have you do, but it's not the same way. The flyer is a social media. True story. Last week, ex-employee friend of mine contacted me because they went to one of my locations and purchased a sofa chase sleeper. And he just does that from time to time. He knows I'm a district and I don't run a store anymore. But he'll call me and say, Hey, I went to the store and got this, I got an agreement. Cool, no problem. And he told me, I didn't even ask, but he told me, he's like, Yeah, I just wanted to let you know because I saw it on Facebook, and that's what made me went to the store to get it. So, what do you think I immediately did? I called the store, talked to the store manager, hey, so-and-so got that self-a chase. He's like, Yeah. I'm like, Do you know what brought him in? Uh well, he's just an active customer. No. So you guys aren't asking the right questions. He got it because he saw it on your Facebook. So that's twofold. One, social media works. You might think active customers are coming in just to come in. No, there has to be something that drives him to come in to want to get something or to see you again. And the social media is where it's at. Two, they're not doing the proper thing of following up to find out what marketing is and isn't working. But I'm telling you, social media is where it's at. Everything has to be documented nowadays. That's the only way you're really gonna get recognized and the the traffic you're needing. In addition to your big personality, big personality is not gonna help if you don't have an audience. And the audience are gonna be your followers, your listeners, your viewers. And lastly, when you're when I'm talking about social media, I'm not talking about memes and hump day, and here's a picture of a product. You gotta make videos. That's what people will watch, and you have to be relatable, you gotta have that personality, you have to display it. That's just what's gonna stand you out from everybody else.

Pete Shau 8:41

Well, you gotta think, right? If you're going to any social media, right, and you're going to let's say birdsare of a feather dot com, right? And they have a social media presence, and you're going on there, and they tell you, hey, we had this great event. It was awesome. We had all kinds of people come and all kinds of birds are flying around, and we were feeding these huge pelicans, fish flying through the air, and it's just writing. I mean, that that would be the shortest, that would be the shortest online source of let's let's get to that place that there is. What there's no pictures, no video, no real essence of what happened that day. And if you don't have that on there, you're gonna lose. Right now, you have to understand that when people see something, we are we have become so visual in our storytelling that they're not just looking for the read, they're looking for the the description of what's happening as it's happening, right? They're looking for the twofold, they're looking for the pelican flying through the hand and holding the fish, or they're talking about the owl standing on somebody's head. You have to see that. You can't not see that, right? So when you're talking about social media, you have to have that presence of pictures, visuals. You have to have good storytelling, but way better pictures. If you have somebody with a camera who's better at you than storytelling, you're okay. Especially in social media, you're okay. Take the pictures, put them in that position where they're like, I want to be the guy with the owl on my head, I want that. You know what I mean? That's what creates the drive in them frowning to come in. And then once you get the owl on the head, right, and you get everybody involved, then you know you've gotten it. But another way to make yourself stand out, your business stand out, your store stand out, is as you're posting those pictures and stuff, remember it's also a good thing to throw a little spice in there, right? And some of that spice could be in the way of, let's say, a contest, right? So you could have a crazy contest. Hey, let's say if we are birds of a feather, let's say that I'm local rent-to-owned shop 101, right? And I have finally sold the sofa that, you know, the MAC Daddy sofa. And maybe while we're in a contest, all right, show me your craziest pose on your living room sofa. And it could be, you know, somebody laying down with their hand under their chin, or it could be somebody in a crazy hat, or somebody could be sitting upside down. But create that contest that has them coming back to you all the time, showing, and then interact with those posts because it keeps them coming back to your website, it keeps them thinking about you when they're looking for something fresh and something to do. Everything is about activity now, right? Especially in TikTok, it's about a trend. You know, do something that somebody else is doing in your own way. Well, how about having those kind of contests where you can have somebody sitting on a sofa, you can have crazy shirt day, or you can have, you know, how do you set up your living room with so much space? Do you have lamps? Do you not have lamps? You know, what what's the craziest lamp you have in your house and you have the contest? But those keep people coming back time and time and time again. And another thing while you're while you're doing that and you have that traffic there and everybody's having fun is to make sure that you post your story. What got you there? What got you to the point where you have opened your business? You have people coming back all the time, you have these different crazy contests, people are showing up on your on your story just to see what craziness you got going on, what kind of contests you have, but then remind them who you are and where you came from. And most of the time, when you're a local business, it really helps you stand out. And when you when you're there and you say, hey, I used to live on, you know, maybe close to this area, you know, for New York as it could be. I used to live by Central Park, I used to live in Manhattan, I used to live in the Bronx. When you're talking about Tampa, you know, I could live in South Tampa, I could live in West Tampa, or I lived in West Chase, or I, you know, wherever the case is. And it gets those people to say, wow, I I know that place. I know exactly where that is. This guy came from there. He he's he's one of us and he's created this local business that I want to go to and tell them your story with that really direct and and straight, honest piece of this is who I am, this is what I represent, this is what I want to bring to my community, and this is what I thought about opening my business in this area and how it could benefit the people around me. And I think that's a very great touch point for people who are trying to kind of really just stand out.

Danny Lastra 12:44

You know, speaking about telling your story, a couple things come to my mind when you're saying that. The first thing is testimonial stuff and getting customers, maybe in fact, to either write something about your business. Uh, of course, we always talk about five-star Google review. That's a big thing. That's you know, almost like a referral, that's a testimony right there. But get them involved, get some of your customers that are camera friendly and maybe interview them and let them indulge and say, hey, this, you know, Pete is a great guy. He took care of me when I was down on the dumps and he worked with me when I went through financial hardships, etc. etc. That would be a great thing of telling your story and building your brand. And of course, you know, staying on the social media topic, you know, what an idea what you could do to help promote your brand and telling your story is by actually creating reels and stories on social media. You know, one of the things you could do is every day or at least a couple times a week is have the manager or your or an employee, you know, take over the Instagram and Facebook and share stories and Instagram reels on what their shift looks like, you know, get to know the employees. We've been talking about this, about how maybe we start going around and interviewing our regular hourly employees, a quick little five-minute interview. Hey, how you long have you been with us? What's your position here? How do you like it? What what pros and cons? And you know, what's your plan for the future? What do you like to do in your spare time? It makes you relatable, and it's more about than just the business. Again, it's kind of what you're saying, it's about the community involvement as a local business.

Pete Shau 14:16

You know what I was thinking is if you have your Instagram reel or you have a customer on there, how great would it be to tell them, okay, Miss Jones or Bobby who's delivering the truck, if I get so many views or so many likes, I'll pay you a dollar for a like or a view up to a certain amount. You want to make $100, Bobby? You put an Instagram reel and you show everybody what you're doing during the day. You show them loading the trucks and cleaning out the back. And I'll give you up to, you know, you get 20 likes, I'll give you 20 bucks. Like 50 likes, I give you 50 bucks. But the whole point is those views are worth what you're paying for. Not only is he benefiting, but you're benefiting. Just like the customer, if you're telling them, hey, you had a great experience, I want to put you on camera, and they're like, okay, sounds great. I tell you what, uh, up to $50, you get 50 likes or 50 views on this, I will take that off of your agreement. Or I'll just pay it to your cash, whatever the case is, and get them involved in those reels. That's some great ideas, Danny.

Danny Lastra 15:08

Well, you know, and then like bottom line, you know, we're talking about standing out. How are you gonna stand out to your customers, to your community, to your competitors? And you know, we all have those recurring customers that stick around with us, whether they they pay everything off or whether it's just a rotation cycle of continuously renting something. But you gotta ask yourself this like why do they stay loyal to you? And if they do stay loyal to you, what is their incentive? Even I would even use the word compensation, like, why not think about a customer loyalty program? You know, we've talked about this, we've talked about so big, it's right. So big you know, it is you know, every almost everybody does it. Like, there's a point system that a lot of companies do, like for X amount of dollars you spend, you get a certain amount of points, and then you can use those points to get your own gift cards, or you know, something that we talked about here is about using like a customer card and have different brackets, like you know, bronze, silver, gold, platinum, and depending on your card status will determine the better deals you can get. You know, it's like you know, but again, it's connecting to them, and it's something to incentivize specifically your rear current customers to stay with you, to stay want to stay with you because there's a benefit to it.

Pete Shau 16:20

Well, I went with the missus, right? And we go shopping, and I'm not gonna mention the actual name of the stores, but I tell you, the first place we go to, they sell these amazing scented candles, right? And these three-wick candles are on sale, and we go up, and the first thing they ask is, how was everything? The second question is, are you a rewards member? So they want to make sure we're okay. And the second thing is, are you a rewards member? Oh, not? Well, you could possibly save, you know, 2% or 3%, or uh whatever the case is if you give me your name, your phone number, and your email. Okay, we left that place. We immediately went to a place next door where they sell watches. Great, nice looking watches. I wanted to get one, and sure enough, as we're at the counter, what happens? They ask the same thing. Are you part of the loyalty program? Uh no. Well then let me let me give you the reasons why. Okay, we leave there. Third place is a is like a clothing place. You know, they have it for a lot of ladies. We go in and at the counter, three for three, they ask me, Are you part of our reward program? And you know, they all call it something different, but it's the same, right? And they want to get your name, they number, because they want to track how many sales you make or they're making with you, even if it's to different stores, like let's say in different malls, but it's the same location. They want to track that. They want to know where you're going, they want to know what you're buying, and they want to reward you for that to keep on coming back to them. Bro, that's that's great. Why aren't we doing that and rent to own? We should have that. If you want to go to this city, I have a store over there. Your rewards will transfer over there so that you can be treated just like you are here in another city. Oh, that that would be killer.

Danny Lastra 17:52

That's huge. That's that's a great idea. I'm writing that down actually as we speak because it happens. Sometimes great customers do move, and you know, it's always by a store-by-store scenario. I mean, even though we'll do our due diligence and contact that other store and say, Oh, yeah, how were they? and the manager involved. But then it gets like, so like this. So, like, hypothetically, what if a customer that we had back in 2017 moved out of state? Now they're coming back in state, but they moved to a different area, and they tell that manager, hey, I used to be a customer, but I was at the Temple Terra store under Danny, but Danny is not running that store anymore. So they call that store and now it's Pedro. Pedro doesn't know this customer. Maybe the system doesn't have all the information, maybe it has some information. I don't know, depending on your OS, you know. But, you know, if if you have some sort of loyalty reward program and that carries through, you know, there should be some sort of data that shows, hey, this is a great customer. Or, like I said, like that platinum car, like you can't make that up. They if they present that to you, regardless of the tenure ship, you'll know at one point they were a great customer. I, you know, I think that's a great idea. I didn't even think about that.

Pete Shau 19:00

I mean, how many customers do they do we have that sometimes go into the radar because a lot of times when we're looking at things, we're looking at the wrong things. And sometimes you can know, I've always heard you can always go in to ask a great manager, name 20 people that you probably, you know, you probably don't want to do business with right now. Okay, name me 10 great customers. And usually it takes a little bit longer because those people they come in, they pay, they leave, they know what they want when they come in. They don't make, I want to say difficult shopping, but they you don't need to go over there and show them everything. They know exactly what they want. But they kind of go into the radar and we need to put them on the pedestal. We need to get them elevated.

Danny Lastra 19:36

You know what? You just kind of hit something there and made me think, can you name me 10 auto pay customers?

Pete Shau 19:42

And you know what? That's our crutch. That's our Achilles heel. Because we don't look at them. And we should, we should be pulling those lists and looking at them and going, if I had a loyalty program, these guys are the ones I'm gonna start with because they're the core of the business. And not any, not that any customer is not as important as another, but when you have that one that's systematically taking care of that bill without any calls, without any references, don't forget them because they are the core of the business and you want to involve them in that loyalty program, which would make things tremendously better.

Danny Lastra 20:11

You know, speaking about, you know, local business and being part of the community, you know, just I'm shooting out ideas now. You know, we think a lot of companies and we do customer appreciation day. Why not get a specific and have an auto pay customer appreciation day? So, like make it a special VIP event that only autopays can attend. It forces the stores to really look at them and reach out to them and give them something back because we don't have that normal week-to-week, month-to-month rapport because they're just an auto pay and the money's coming in, they have the product, and you know, but this business is more than just a transaction.

Pete Shau 20:47

Well, maybe we can, and you know, maybe even under a loyalty program, maybe we can give them more points for being an auto pay customer. Oh, I like that. That's a great idea. Great idea. You know, and it'll help them reach a higher status faster. Um, and I think everything that is incorporated in that, of course, you're gonna have to take it out for your local RTO and you know, figure out how that works with your customers and with your management. And if you are management, how that's gonna work with you know how you do things and your operating software. But those are ideas to keep your customers with you, keep on coming back. And again, it's about customer retention. And customer attention is about making sure that they come back again and again. I I think if you want to make your local rent-to-owned business stand out, okay? Now, this is for the guys who are not in big box right now. And when I say that, big box and rent-to-owned is the racks, you have uh errands that are really, really huge. But how about if you have that local business, like let's say CPO group ranking? We have 19 locations. We don't have 105, we don't have 200. We have 19 locations, and they're all in Florida, and they cover probably the middle central Florida, right? So when you're doing that about great rooms, happy great rooms, happies, you know, five star. You have you have guys that there that are really trying their best with what they have, right? The best way to do that, and I'm not saying big box can't get into this, but it's usually a little bit different when you have the local stores engaging in the community, either through sponsorships, when you do it for for little leagues, when you do it for let's say little football or peewee. That used to be peewee when I was growing up. I don't know if that's still peewee now, but schools. Yes, schools or soccer events. We recently just did a promotion with a high school, King High School, where we were going to their homecoming event and we had a raffle. And we raffled off the TV to somebody who is in the community. And they were right there. They can go to the game, put their name in, and then they got recognized. That's what we're here to do. Um, you know, you can volunteer or get some of your guys to volunteer at a local organization and show the customer that we're there. We're we're not just there to make money and we're not there to sell. We're also there to give back. It's not just about profits, it's about giving back to the community that supports us when we're doing what we're doing. We want to support you what you're doing and your family. Maybe giving out turkeys like we talked about, maybe being at the local events, maybe when they have a parade, we're not just in the parade, maybe we can support something for the parade. Or when we have, let's say, every year when we're going back to school, ranking or other places, we do backpacks. You know, you get the backpacks for the kids that have the school supplies. I can't tell you how many times with three girls I've had teachers say, Hey, we we don't get the same amount of funding that we used to get. Well, you know what? Here's 10 backpacks with packs of papers and pencils, and give me a list of what it is that you need or require. Let's throw that in there and get that to the community. I mean, speaking of the community though, make sure that you guys are under not overstating the fact that you're local. Local businesses have support. A lot of people say buy American. Well, buy local. Local is just the same thing as saying anything else. Not that, again, not that big box retailers are bad, not that the big guys are bad. We're not saying that we're all one or into one family, whether you're big or whether you're small. But when you mention that you're local and you give back, you've got a lot of people who are interested in your brand and they want to help you give back to that community because you're local and you're from area. That is a gimme as far as how you can get those people involved and stand out amongst a crowd of people, give back to the person that's giving to you. I think that's one of the best ways to stand out and make it happen.

Danny Lastra 24:16

You know, it's last week was Thanksgiving. Was it last week or the week before? I don't know. But we I had some stores, you had some stores, Pete, that we had our managers hand deliver some turkeys to a couple customers, families in need, maybe a great paying customer, and maybe a customer that was just going through a financial hardship. And the testimonies I heard from the managers, I had about three managers call me to tell me that three of the customers that they delivered the turkeys to had just been diagnosed with cancer, and that each one like broke down in tears. Crying.

Pete Shau 24:51

Did you say three? Did you say three?

Danny Lastra 24:54

Three, three. Oh, I mean three three different locations, but three customers. It it was I think it was a big coincidence that they just happened to randomly choose them. One I no, I take it back. One of them, the the manager actually told me that they knew they had just been diagnosed. But the other two, right there on the spot, as they delivered the turkey, they broke down crying and they explained that they had just found out. So it's a big coincidence, but it's a little it's the stuff like that. And like, listen, that that's nothing that big to do for your community to get involved and to show that you're a local company. And look at the testimony you they got from it. But you can also do little stuff in the stores every day, little stuff like we talk about this when it comes to hospitality. Like, do you have coffee every morning for your customers? You know, do you have a little snack for the kids? You know, I was just thinking I wrote this down earlier today, now that it's Christmas time, you know, switch it up, have some hot cocoa, have some hot cocoa in your store ready to get to the kids. I bet kids love hot cocoa with marshmallows, you know, ask the parents' permission, make sure, you know, that they're allowed to drink it, the sugar and all that stuff. But you know, it's the little stuff like that. And I I've talked about this before in a couple lectures that we've done, Pete, but there's a great book out there.

Pete Shau 26:01

The simple troops of service.

Danny Lastra 26:02

Yes, that one with Johnny the Bagger. If you haven't heard the story, go read that book. The Simple Truths of Acts of Service. Real quick, Johnny the Bagger was working at a grocery store. Long story short, he would leave little personalized notes in each grocery bag that he would that he would bag for the customers. The reputation got so big that the line for his line would go into the aisles. Managers would come to the customers and say, Hey, there's other registers open. And the customer would say, No, we're waiting for Johnny.

Pete Shau 26:37

It's a good day affirmation. Hey, I hope you have a great day. Hey, you know, let me tell you something great about yourself. Or chin up, you're doing wonderful. And those things can go a long, long way. Don't understate the things that you think are obvious and just this out there in the open. Having a real heartfelt conversation and looking somebody and saying, I appreciate you and I appreciate everything you do. You know what? Let me give you, and it's not always about giving something, it could be as simple as advice or it could be a bag of socks. But what it could be is somebody's day. And when you make somebody's day, you can't put a price on that. That is priceless. And coming from a local RTO store, helping people make their day, that's what'll make you stand out in this crazy world of everything that's going on. Stand out in the right way. Talking about standing out, uh, right now I want to hit you up with our local sponsor that's taking care of us. Unlimited Marketing Solutions is a social media marketing company that can market directly to your specific customer base and provide solid and trackable results. Unlimited Marketing Solutions are also extremely flexible to meet your unique needs and budget and are currently running a promotion for 10% discount off your first six months of marketing. When you mention the code RTO show, that's R T O S H O W. When you call them at 352-553-3245, you can also email them at unlimited marketing solutions LLC at gmail.com. And those are the ways that I think that we can stand out and really just make things happen. I really believe that when you go into a situation with the intent of standing out, but not standing out isn't I'm gonna go and stand out. I'm gonna go and do something and I'm gonna let my actions show whoever I'm doing it with and for that I am a little different than the guy down the street.

Danny Lastra 28:20

We'd love to hear some feedback. If you have anything to add on how to stand out, please email us at Pete at the RTO Show Podcast.com. You can email Danny at danny at the rto showpodcast.com. Please visit our website, the rto showpodcast.com. You can also hit us up on Facebook and Instagram at the RTO show. Send us a message, send us a link, give us some ideas, tell us if you learned anything from this episode, if you implemented anything. That's an important thing. Also, guys, we talk about this in meetings. We can talk about it, we can brainstorm, we can come up with these great ideas, but they're not going to be nothing if you don't implement something. And you don't have to do it all. Pick out the top three subjects that we covered that you really that really touched you and moved you, and just implement it and see if you get different results and different feelings from your customers.

Pete Shau 29:08

We love the involvement, guys. We love getting hit up, we love getting messages. Um, we are messaging back people as they hit us up. Sometimes it takes a little bit longer than other guys. We do have a day job, unfortunately. So we have to make sure that that's taken care of. And going into the fourth quarter, if anybody knows, rental own is crazy into the wall between October and December. So we are getting back to everybody that we said we were going to, and we're going to talk to a lot more people. We have some interviews coming up soon that we're trying to set up and line up and make sure that we have it all going for you guys. So there's a lot on the pipeline. Just stay tuned. Make sure that you subscribe, uh, hit us up. And uh, if you need to hear where we're coming from, there's Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon, anywhere that you can possibly get a podcast, we're trying to get there. And if we're not on one of those platforms, please hit us up at our email or our social media pages and let us know hey, I I went here and I didn't see you guys. Let us know. We'll bombard them. We'll make sure we're everywhere that you want to be.

Danny Lastra 30:00

We like to wish everyone a happy holidays. And without further ado, this is the RTO show with Danny and Pete.