Structure and Creativity the 1 - 2 punch for success!

Danny and Pete make the case that the most successful stores aren't run by one great manager — they're run by two people who complement each other's blind spots. They call it the one-two punch: one person leans creative and sales-driven, the other leans structured and efficiency-focused. Think Han Solo and Chewbacca, peanut butter and jelly, or in RTO terms, sales and credit.

The debate gets lively when they disagree on which side of that line each discipline falls on. Pete sees credit as structured — here's the list, make the calls, get the payments. Danny pushes back and argues credit is actually creative, because convincing a past-due customer to pay is essentially a resale. Pete fires back that sales is mostly structured — telemarketing, mailers, tagging, merchandising — with creativity only showing up at the close. Neither is wrong, which is exactly the point. How you see the work depends on your dominant style, and that's why you need both perspectives on the same team.

Danny gives a real example from when he ran a small four-person store. His driver handled operations with more attention to detail than Danny ever would. His credit guy was relentless. His salesperson couldn't close without Danny stepping in, but she kept the paperwork immaculate. Together they grew the store by $13,000 in rental revenues. None of them were his mirror image, and that's what made it work.

The bigger organizational point is about avoiding the echo chamber. When a structured manager hires structured people all the way down, the store gets efficient but stops growing. When a creative manager fills the building with big ideas and no one to execute them, things fall apart. The one-two punch prevents both by design.

The "Who Said What" segment features owners Larry Pivotal and Paul Schaler over lunch. Larry's answer to how you succeed in this business: it comes down to the manager — the person behind the wheel with a can-do attitude defines the store's outcome, regardless of location or circumstance. Paul's take: there's no secret sauce, just keeping your eye on the ball, getting back up when you fall, and never losing sight of why you started.

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 going to talk about creativity versus structure or what we like to call the one-two punch.

Danny Lastra 0:18

One-two punch. One-two punch. One-two punch. Kind of like that uh that song, the one-two steph, you know?

Pete Shau 0:23

You know, it's like the the the left jab, the right hook. And I want to say that every time that we've talked, probably in the last two years, I think we've talked about this one-two punch. And we mention it because we kind of nicknamed it the one-two punch. But what really is a one-two punch? I mean, when we're talking about management, when we're talking about rent-to-own, what is that one-two punch?

Danny Lastra 0:45

Well, I I think it's uh in a nutshell, uh a dynamic duo. That's what I think it is. Um wait, that was a shameless plug right there. But okay, let's think about you know famous characters. You know, you have Starsky and Hutch, you have Holmes and Watson, you have Han Solo and Chewbacca, Riggs and Murton, you have Pinky and the brain. Yeah. And one thing you'll recognize about the duos is that they are opposites, like complete opposite. That sometimes you even wonder how do they even become friends to begin with, because they're so opposite, but they balance each other out. And so when you use this method into the business world, specifically the RTO world, that I think that's how you really become successful.

Pete Shau 1:30

Well, if you're looking at traditional, right, and you look at for new, if you have two people that think the same, you get some really crazy results, right? If everybody agrees on the same thing, then something bad happens, you know, like, hey, I want to I want to rule the world, and everybody goes, Yeah, let's rule the world, and then something happens, and then somebody has to like slap them down, like, no, you can't you can't rule the world, you can't do that, right? And if you look at at certain people, when you have that duo, it's because it covers more area. If I if I have a personality that covers so much, then I can only expect so much from that, right? Because there's gonna be people that feel a different way or look at you a different way or act with you a different way, and I think that's where the other person kicks in. And it also gives you the fight for the idea. The idea that, hey, uh, I think this is better. What? It's crazy. No, it might actually work. What? I don't know about that stuff. And then before you know it, you have, you know, in the 1980s, some guy sold a rock with names and they called it the Pat Rock and he made a million dollars. And it's like, who came up with that idea? I don't know, but if I was that guy, he's smart as hell. He sold a bunch of regular river rocks and made a million dollars, right? So it's like you have those two dynamics, and and I think right now what we're lacking probably in our area and then CPL group is we have to have more of those duos in our stores. Um, we've hired some really great ranged managers, and I think that we don't have their Chewbacca's, we don't have their you know, myrtals, we don't have their Laurel and Hardy's, we have somebody who's running the show, but we don't, it's not necessarily the two to not agree with them, but almost a shine of light on the other side of the aspect of it.

Danny Lastra 3:01

Well, you know, I've seen it too many times. You get a store, and I'll use this as an example: a store manager, good store manager, very efficient, but that's what they are. They are very efficient-minded, collection-minded, credit-minded, and then they without realizing build a team that it's all collection-minded from the drivers to their chasing and picking up instead of flyering to the account manager that's just on it, and they never grow. Now that store manager can sell, but it's just not on their forefront mind. And then I've seen the opposite side where I've seen stores with dynamic salespeople, the store manager, the assistant, they even have the account managers training to sell every day, but their efficiency sucks. And that's where I'm what we're trying to say is that one, two points, like you need that opposite attraction. You need if you are super sales-minded, your assistant needs to be as passionate about efficiency as you are about sales, or vice versa. That way you balance each other out, and that way you kind of put each other in check, regardless of your position status.

Pete Shau 4:07

You mean like peanut butter and jelly?

Danny Lastra 4:09

Peanut butter jelly time, peanut butter. I'm sorry, okay.

Pete Shau 4:13

And so when we talk about it, we can have a couple different names, right? So we call it the one-two punch, we call it the dynamic duo, but in reality, when you start breaking it down, we call it two different things in the RTO world, and that's usually sales and credit, right? And when we take a look at those two different positions, we're looking at it from two different ways. But the truth is, one is a lot about creativity, stepping outside the box, being the brand new guy, right? Having the different wrapping paper, you know, putting the box inside the box, inside the box, inside the box. And then when you get into the bottom of the box, it's like a key to open up this really big present, right? And then you have the other person that's like, I'm wrapping the box because that's what that's what people do. You wrap a present, they open it up, they get it, right? And credit is like that. Credit's very structured, right? When you look at it, you have a list to call, you call those people, and you have a couple of different, you know, reasons to call. Number one, I need to get something in the door as far as payment. I want to retain you as a customer, or I want to make sure you get off my back end. There, there's there's really there's not a lot to it. There's not a lot of thought process, right? It's you know, you I'm gonna disagree with you. I don't know. I don't know. And I and I see that's what I see. I see credit is so structured. And um again, this is why we're opposite.

Danny Lastra 5:23

I don't see credit as structure, I see credit as creativity. You have to be creative on how to talk to people, how to find people, to skip traces. It's not just going in and then calling your done.

Speaker 1 5:35

No, it's it's the swag. It's how am I gonna get it? That bro, that is listen. No way, that is not. I I I'm telling you, when I call credit, I'm liking to like not me. I I I good I get more creative. My creativity goes like to the lowest level when I call credit. I get so creative when it comes to credit.

Danny Lastra 5:52

Like I love showing account managers how to get that 30 plus customer, how to get that full payment. It's just here, here's the thing about credit and sales it's the exact same thing, but just on a different spectrum of the business. All you're doing is selling again. So if you're a great salesman, you should be a good account manager because all I'm gonna do is resell you the same agreement you already have, and why the value is it to give me that $400 you owe me instead of taking $20 down the road. See, that's where the true salesmanship comes in, is that a really elite account manager. Creativity, my friend.

Pete Shau 6:26

Just so everybody knows, even though I would probably say I'm the more structured in this sentence here, you flip that, and actually I'm I'm more of a salesperson. I like the sales side, right? And and it's true because it's gonna suit everybody differently. When I call credit, to me, I see a list of wonderful people that I need to contact and make an arrangement of some sort now. We need to make an arrangement now. And that's not always bad, but it's not always good. And you have to remember that certain people do certain things better than others, and there's different levels. Am I the best guy calling credit? I'm not gonna say I'm the best guy at calling credit. Can I get can I get calls done? Can I get payments in? Can I get commitments in? Can I set them on the right due date? Sure. That's what credit is. I've been trained that way, I can do it that way. But to say I'm the right guy to be calling credit? No, there's people better than me. I'm gonna be honest with you. Because I don't see it that way. I see it like this is a chore. I gotta do my chores before I can go out of play.

Danny Lastra 7:25

Okay, so so let's go on the opposite side because I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you how I view sales. The way I view sales is 90% structure and only 10% creativity. What? Because I look at it as a chore. 90% of sales is telemarketing, calling pain and folds, sending out mailers, tagging your choreo, merchandising. It's a routine to obtain a customer. And the only creativity part comes in is when it's time to close the sale. But from steps one through nine before you close a sale, it's just a structured routine. It's just call Miss Jones, let me call Pete, leave a message, try to sell you something. Hey, no money down, you great, awesome customer. And then look, I got all this stuff in the showroom, just take your pig.

Pete Shau 8:06

But the creativity doesn't I just I just want to apologize to everybody right now for the way he's acting. But listen, I would tell all my sales guys right now, I feel your pain when somebody when you have a credit guy and you stick them on the floor and that's how they see it, I feel your pain because that's the other side of the coin, right? So when I call credit, I'm like, oh, I okay, this is what I got to do. I've got a set of rules that I've got to follow. This is what I'm gonna do. Where Danny's seeing it as a completely different opportunity, but they're both opportunities. It's how you approach it. And when you have the one-two punch, you need both approaches because when I come to sales, when I love, I love sales, I love it from the moment you walk in the door to the moment you leave. It's not just the sales opportunity. I'm selling me, I'm selling the company, I'm selling the services, I'm gonna find you, I want to find out who your references are because I'm gonna call those suckers. I want to find your family, I'm gonna call them too. Where do you live? I'm gonna fly or that area. You know what? Your your email, it's awesome. I love go to funk at gmail.com. I'm gonna tag that too. Your your number, I'm gonna text it. I'm gonna, I'm gonna find a way to make you enjoy every part of this for my customer service. I'm gonna have my little parties, I'm gonna have you finding eggs. Oh, I remember the Easter egg commercial. You remember the Easter egg commercial? We're gonna be finding some eggs, and and we're gonna make it an event because to me, that's how we separate ourselves from the competition. How am I gonna enjoy this situation? When I go to pay a bill, let's say, I don't always enjoy that, but if I go somewhere that I know I'm appreciated, I don't mind going there, even if I'm giving them my money. And the way I look at it is if you take care of that bill here, I'm not only gonna give you customer service, but I'm gonna give you an opportunity to find something else, right? When you're on the end of that agreement, when you're, you know, ah, I'm well, I don't know what I'm doing today. What? Bro, I got this e-bike that I don't want to sell. I got PS5s, I've got TV. Like, let's work on that. It is, I love sales. I love sales.

Danny Lastra 9:55

Okay, so as far as that aspect, I do enjoy performing sales. I don't like the steps that lead up to the sales performance. Like when a customer comes in, I'm excited. I'm gonna go, I I will be one of the first people to go approach that customer and try to sell them something. I guess I don't I don't like all the telemarketing and the stuff you have to do to get them into the door. And it's funny because we're very part of the marketing team with Amberly, and I do enjoy the marketing meetings and the videos that we do. That part is fun. Uh to me, what I find boring is the in-store marketing that has to be done. The sitting down at a desk and calling so many pips, so many returns, sending out mailers, sending out thank you cards, which is a necessity in this business, but I find that boring. Like I, you know, that's not fun to me. Performing the sale is super fun. But it's funny how you just mentioned something, and I my my perception is the complete opposite. Customer's paying out. I'm gonna retain that customer. We're probably doing it for two totally different reasons. You're doing it for the sales aspect, I'm doing it for the efficiency aspect because I don't want to lose the revenue.

Pete Shau 11:00

They're both right answers.

Speaker 1 11:02

The question is the question is But it's just funny how we have different opposite perspective of reasoning. Right.

Pete Shau 11:08

We we always say that too, guys, and it's it's something that's uh we always say we always have the same destination. It's how we're getting there that's different. And it's okay, your means of why you want to get there, but getting there is the opportunity. And one of the reasons that we wanted to talk about this today was because we were listening to something and I sent it to Danny, and I'm like, listen, this is so important because the truth is, depending on who you are as a manager, or depending on who your manager is, there's a lot of structure to bringing people in the door, right? And sometimes management has a way of bringing in like-minded as opposed to opposite-minded. So if you're a structured person, if you feel a structured way, you will hire structured through the through the bottom end, right? You hire structure into delivery, you hire structure to accounts, you hire structure into sales, and eventually you will have a structured manager. The question is, can they do the opposite? Is that going to affect your day-to-day? Is it effective? And do you want it? And the answer is yes. Because when you start getting to the top, you need to be more creative than structured, because the structure is what gets you there. The creativity is what puts the ideas out there. That's the fuel that drives the engine. And what I wanted to, you know, kind of cover with everybody is so that they can understand if you're creative and you have no structure, it's like it's like building your walls out of jello. It's just not gonna hold up. But if you're not creative enough and you bring somebody in, well, if they're all structured, nobody's gonna have that outside idea. And the way you approach credit is awesome. But I would also want a happier salesperson. Well, right? I want somebody who's gonna attain it that way.

Danny Lastra 12:41

So if we're talking about the GM role, and I'm just talking from personal experience, the actual operations I find it is necessary to be structured. When I mean like all the administrative duties, the inventory, the services and loaners, the tag in the showroom, the bathroom cleanliness, the vehicle maintenance. For that, for me, like I think it's important. The manager has to be structured, paperwork, reports. Like, even though I didn't care for reports, but I did them. But I found myself it was necessary for me to have a routine. I I can tell you right now, if you ask the employees that worked for me back in 2016, 2017, every Tuesday was my inventory day. Do not bother me, do not take notes. I don't care if you leave sticky notes all over my computer, but that's my inventory day, and I'm doing inventory. Wednesday was my services loaners. Now I had a guy, driver, David Brown, shout out, who kind of handled the majority of my services for me, but that was his to-do list on Wednesdays. So as far as the administrative, I think you have to be structured. Now, when it comes to the performance, that's where you need to be creative. You have to be creative with the sales, the filing process, the pre-approving, the marketing, the collection strategies, the flying and locations and cross-marketing and apartment complex cookouts, in-store parties. I think you have to be creative when it comes to the performance, but you have to be structured with the administrative. I mean, do you would you agree with that statement?

Pete Shau 14:03

I completely agree that that is a role that needs to be taken if that's the way you have it.

Speaker 1 14:07

Because I've seen we agree, Pete. We agree.

Pete Shau 14:10

I've I've seen management on the other side. I've seen management that are really goal-oriented in a comp in a completely different area, right? So they're about getting the job done, but they don't do it well as far as the paperwork. Like they leave somebody else to do the paperwork because their thought process is going to running the business, right? And guys, when you're when you're talking about, let's say a couple of different examples, right? One of them is if I had a painter, right? If I was painting something, and you know, being a painter, although I'm I suck at painting, I think is important, right? Art's important in life. But I create art through structure. And you know, it sounds kind of like an oxymoron, but here, somebody invented a canvas that takes colors very well. Somebody invented the brushes that can brush very well, somebody invented this color palette that is amazing and it goes on very smooth. But that's not what creates the art in the sense of the creativity. It just creates paint. And I can take those and swash them on there and nobody's gonna like it, right? It's not not the Mona Lisa. But you take an artist with the structure of the canvas and the brushes and the paint, and they'll create something amazing. And you have to know that when you have those two together, when you have that structured business where this is what the standards are, this is what I want, this is what we're looking at, this is what I'm looking at, this is what I want to happen. And you bring that person in with that drive, that goal, and that mindset, that's where the beautiful things happen. So I would I will, you know, just challenge you guys out there. If you have a store that's stagnating, or if you have questions on how to make it better, find somebody creative or structured. If you like building more than you like selling, get somebody in there. If you like selling more than building, and that when I say building, you know, that fundamentally it could be anything, calling credit or reports, that may be your challenge. And the one-two punch is always a winner. It's I would bet on that every day.

Danny Lastra 16:00

You know, I I was never blessed to have a true one-two punch when I was running my stores, but I had solid thirds in my store. And what I mean by that is so I ran a very small staff. It was only four of us to begin with for a whole year. Now, granted, we grew 13,000 in uh rental revenues, efficiency got super efficient, increased profit, all that. But I only had three employees underneath me. I had one driver who was took care of all my services and loaners, and he took care of stuff that sometimes I would even forget as a GM. Like he was on it with when it comes to dryer cords, ventilation hoses, like he did his own little inventory, tools, building, touching up paint in the st in the store, things we take for granted. Like that was I almost called him my operation guy. Like he made sure my vehicles were on point, etc. And my credit guy. And my credit guy was like a pit bull. I had to be involved with it. Of course, it's just me and him, but he he brought in majority of the money. I just handled all the problems, you know, the services, the the complaints, uh, how do we resolve this? Oh, he's not gonna take the short payment. Well, he's right. Let me explain why he's not accepting the short payment, but I will accept it if we can agree on the right amount next week, etc. etc. And then I had my salesperson. Now I'll be honest with her, she wasn't a dynamic salesperson. In fact, she probably couldn't close a sale. Maybe one out of ten, she probably closed on her own. All the other ones I had to close for her. She she was almost too structured with the process, like she couldn't get it out of her mind of I need a month down with the agreement fee, and I'm not gonna accept anything less than that, or you're not gonna get this up. And a lot of times, you know how I would close the sale because she would do majority of the work, spend 30 minutes with a customer, great customer service. And she would come back and she'd be like, Danny, it's $130 down, that's what the agreement fee. And they say they can't do that. I'm like, How much can they do? They have $100. I'm like, take it. Like, she couldn't get it out of her mind. But she was very structured with telemarketing, with web leads, with filing paperwork. She she even, you know, kept my paperwork in line for me, like reports, you know, the things that you have to turn to home office. So I had a bunch of solid nerds around me, and I kept them in their department. And as a team, we fulfilled our duties and were successful. But you see, like you have to surround yourself with opposite people, like David Brown, we're totally opposite people. I don't think you probably have more common with him than I do when it comes to fixing stuff, repairs, the vehicles, you know, like thinking like it's a necessity to our business. The credit guy probably related a little more to that time, an efficiency guy, and then my salesperson was super structured with the paperwork that I hated doing, but together we were a unit and it worked. So again, I think when it comes to the one-two punch, ideally you want that second person in charge to be completely opposite of you to balance you out.

Pete Shau 18:53

Well, I don't think there's another way to do it. Now, you will probably get some uh some emails and some calls or whatever and say, hey, I can do it this way or I can do that. And it's not to say that you can't, right? It's not to say that it's impossible. What I'm gonna tell you is the yellow brick road was was paved with a lot of different ideas. But I'm gonna tell you right now from from the RTO show will recommend the one-two punch, and I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you why. Every time that you find that creative person, there is always gonna be the opposite. The opposite always affects you in the correct way, in an opposite form. And what I do believe is that even though a store can run a certain way, my question is the more area that I can cover, the better it might be. There are just some people that are really that kind of minded, that creativity-minded, that they like that, they like that gimmicky thy kind of side. They like that that person who's always uh in a certain way, right? And I think the more people you have the same way, the more the echo chamber is. And that's what I'm afraid of is the echo chamber. I don't want to say, this is right, this is right, this is right, this is right, and nobody goes, uh no. Or what about this? Or did we try that and we don't try it and we just we just beat an idea to the ground before we go somewhere else? I like the idea of somebody going, that sounds cool, but I'd like to do this. Or how about you try that and I'll try this? Or how about you're having a problem with that phone call? You know, whether it be credit or sales, hey, put them on hold. Let me try it out. How does that affect the day-to-day? How does that affect the morale in the store? And not to say that it's always the best, but every time that I've done it, it's the best. It's the way I like it. I want to run the market that way. I want to get my different people, I want to get the one-two punch out there. And when you have that one-two punch, when you have the creativity, when you have the structure, I think it prevents you from getting stuck in a rut. I think there's nothing wrong with routines, but sometimes you need to shake things up and push yourself out of your comfort zone. And doing so will will expose, I mean, you and them to fresh ideas and new perspectives.

Danny Lastra 21:00

No, I completely agree because I mean this business is a day-to-day business, anyways, and as much as I like to plan, you know this, uh, plans get registered all the time. So, like sports analogy coming up, like a quarterback, you have to be able to call the audibles. Yes. And but it's easier to call audibles when you have the right people in place and you have again, if you're a structure and you have the creative person there, or if you're the creative person, you have the structure there, it will help you call the audible because again, it's that opposite mentality to help you see something that maybe you didn't see, whether they're the structure one or the creativity one, that way you balance each other out.

Pete Shau 21:37

Well, I think together, what you're looking for is to solve problems, right? Correct. Yep. You and your employees can see the bigger picture and focus on things that have an impact on the company when creative thinking is something that you do. And when these employees apply these things to the bigger picture problems, rather than just doing the same work every single day, they are more productive because they're thinking about how to drive. And thrive the business. And that's something that's a little bit different. Where you have employees that are be encouraged to be creative, their workplaces will be better, their ideas will be better. And then motivation comes from allowing people to make tangible differences in their workplace. That's that's what it is.

Danny Lastra 22:31

It's it's bringing them into the circle and getting their ideas and talking about it. And then again, ultimately just getting them emotionally invested to say, hey, I I am part of this team. My boss listens to me. The entire team listens to me and my ideas. Yeah, we don't do everything, but we tried some things out, some failed, some worked out great. And that's how you learn and that's how you grow and develop.

Pete Shau 22:52

Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, by promoting creativity, I mean, when you look at it as a whole, failure is to become less likely when everybody's has the freedom to say, hey, what's going on? Create that environment where everybody has the ability to say something and it not just sound like kooky and crazy, but really look at it because creative environments that fear the failure of what you're doing also cripple ideas, right? You have to be, I mean, every once in a while you got to say, okay, we're not gonna do, we're not gonna jump out of an airplane with something on our don't look at me like that, because we're not gonna do that. But you know, you jump out of an airplane with a sign that says, hey, come see me at wherever. But there are other ideas like, you know what, that's not my cup of tea, but let's try that. What is it gonna take? What is it gonna take for you to foster this idea so that we can see the results and and and see what happens? Because sometimes every once in a while, we've got to go outside the norm, right? And if we don't go outside the norm, we don't get to see new and effective ways of doing something. How to make the process better, how we can tweak it, how we can make things faster or you know, cut something out. But creating new ways to introduce new things and a creative mindset on creating new things and creating those new products, creating those new lines is important because you cannot, even McDonald's has new things on their menu and they've been around for 50 years, right? They have those core items, but they have the things that they do differently, and every once in a while they they stick out the McRib in your face, right? It's because you need the creativity, you need something different, you need something that you can work on, something that changes, changes it and mixes it up, but they keep to the core as well.

Danny Lastra 24:26

Absolutely. And guys, real quick, if you haven't followed us, please follow our social media at the RTO show. We're on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Our TikTok account just hit a thousand followers, Pete.

Pete Shau 24:39

Can you believe that? That's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm talking about. Well, now you're gonna start seeing some crazy stuff on there, but I want to say thank you to our sponsor. They've been they've been great, they've helped us out, and uh this is gonna be a different year for us, and we we definitely want to push the boundaries of what the RTO show has and what's going on. And now a word from our sponsor. 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. Now back to the show with Danny and Pete.

Danny Lastra 25:33

We are actually at 1,124.

Pete Shau 25:37

That's what I'm talking about. That sounds amazing. And now every 1,000 of you guys are gonna see some stuff coming up. We got some videos that we're gonna put out very soon, and I think it's time for you guys to really see what we look like uh without our makeup on. So that you can take a good look and realize that um we're just like you guys. We have hard times. You know, Larry's been on my butt, he's gonna tell me, hey man, you know, we had evaluations uh not that long ago, and uh, you know, Larry got to remind me, man, I'm not perfect. I got a lot of things going on, there's a lot of things I can work on. And you know what? That's part of that structure. You know, I want to bring creativity to the table and see how it works, and then you got somebody that reels you in and says, Hey, you did this well, but you didn't do that well. Let's fix it by doing something different. And that's how you create, uh, that's how you foster creativity to solve structured problems.

Danny Lastra 26:22

Again, if you haven't gone to our website, www.rto showpodcast.com. Pete has updated the website. It's it's looking better and better every time you update it. You put a couple of shout-out videos in my name. The montage, the montage page is up.

Pete Shau 26:39

The montage page is uh is up. Those the the voice pages, the boy guys that tell you the oh man, this is how you do it. Rocky, you got you got inspiration. You're not a punk.

Danny Lastra 26:48

Yeah, it's on there, baby. It's on there. We do have a new video that will be released on February 1st. So check that out.

Pete Shau 26:57

It'll be the max effect.

Danny Lastra 27:00

I can't say anything else. I can't say anything else. And and of course, if you'd like to reach out to us, please reach out to us. You can email us Pete at the RTO Showpodcast.com, or you can reach out to me, Danny at the rto showpodcast.com. We are accepting sponsorships. If you'd be interested to sponsor the show, please give us an email. We can give you the details via email back. And we just love the support that we've been receiving. We're we're excited about going to the couple shows this year and interacting, networking. We got listeners from Ohio, Texas, Germany. Uh, love to meet the listener in Germany. So I want to know who that individual is.

Pete Shau 27:36

I would love to have them on the show just to see that different idea. I would love it.

Danny Lastra 27:40

But but any feedback or comments or requests, please reach out to us and we would love to schedule and pencil you in.

Pete Shau 27:47

Last but not least, this week's Who Said What What? So we go out to lunch. We are at the owner's mercy. We're right, we're we're going on lunch, and we have to put Larry Pivotal and Paul Schaler. We got to ask them for the week who said what some questions that we're gonna put on the RTO show.

Danny Lastra 28:05

I asked Larry, because I always ask him this, and he always has the same answer. I said, in your opinion, how do you be successful in this business? And his answer is always this it comes down to the manager. The guy or girl that is steering that shit will define the success of that store. It's not about location, it's not about obstacles, it's not about this or that. It's the person behind the wheel that's saying with a can-do attitude, we will be successful. There's other things in place, like we're talking about like a second punch that's gonna help you be successful or even more successful. I know that's definitely what he said about the success of this business.

Pete Shau 28:44

And then Paul followed it up with you know, we're asking him, you guys have been in this in a long time, right? You have a company, you have actually several companies, you're doing fairly well. How what's the secret sauce? And, you know, Paul was like, there is no secret sauce. What it is is keeping your eye on the ball, making sure that you're steadfast. When you have, you know, those those times where you feel like you fall down, you get back on your two feet and keep on walking. You keep your eye on the goal. Don't look to the left, don't look to the right. Keep your eye focused on what that main drive is. What did you do this for? Did you do this for success? Did you do this for, you know, do you want to have a bigger company, whatever the case is? And you keep your focus on there. And they're gonna be things that are they're gonna knock you down. There are gonna be things that are getting your way, but you don't focus on those things. You focus on how to get past those things. And then when and if you have to change it, you change it a little bit, but you never take your eye off the ball and you keep on going straight forward. So those are a couple of things for who said what this week. You know, Larry's got a lot more tips that he's gonna give, but we want to save a little bit of those for the interview that we have him pretty soon. We actually have two or three more interviews lined up, hopefully very soon. Don't want to give any spoilers away on who that is because I've got I've got to call Leroy right now and make sure that we're still we're still on. And we wanted to tell you guys we really appreciate all the love. Come see the website, see us on TikTok, go to the social media websites, hit us up on an email, and then when it's all said and done, look at Danny's page on the website at www.therto showpodcast.com.

Danny Lastra 30:06

So with that being said, thank you so much. And without further ado, this is the RTO show with Danny and P