The Majik to Creating Sales Leaders

  Pete interviews Joe Luczak, Director of Sales at Majik Rent-to-Own in Pennsylvania — a role specifically focused on sales mechanics, not marketing strategy. Joe came from big-box retail management, connected with owner Dan Fisher, and has been with Magic for nearly eight years, starting as a district manager and proving himself in-store before earning expanded responsibility.

The centerpiece of the conversation is Majik University, a dedicated training facility built inside Magic's Harrisburg location, decorated like an actual university — murals of windows and trees, U-shaped table arrangement, a drop-down projector screen, and walls displaying core values, award winners, and the "Wall of Fame" recognizing million-dollar and multi-million-dollar store managers. The space serves as the hub for all company meetings, new hire orientations, and the progressive certification program.

That program runs in three tiers. The 101 covers basics — how the business works, what your role is. The 201 is where the real development happens, running over about 90 days with one in-person session per month at Magic University and a weekly check-in between sessions. Each session teaches a specific skill — overcoming objections, identifying pain points, changing paradigms — and then puts trainees directly into role play. Joe calls it the "bull in the ring": one person is the salesperson, one is given a random customer personality and scenario on a slip of paper, and the salesperson has to work through it without knowing what's coming. The 203 is the graduation, where trainees demonstrate they've applied what they learned in their actual store and hit the goal they set at the start of the class.

The pain point framework stood out as particularly practical. Joe's example: instead of walking a customer straight to the dryers when they say they need one, ask why. Find out how long the problem's been going on. Ask how that's been working out for them. Get the customer to articulate their own frustration, then tie the purchasing decision to eliminating that frustration. Once the pain is front and center, walking away from a solution becomes harder than solving it.

Joe also highlighted the "upside-down selling" concept from Chris Kale Jr.'s Sales 2.0 session at RTO World: get the customer on the delivery schedule first, write the agreement, take the down payment, then collect the rental order form last. The logic is that once a customer has a date locked in, they stop shopping elsewhere and are more willing to provide the remaining information as a formality.

On the future of sales in rent-to-own: Joe sees more online and contactless interactions ahead, with AI playing a support role — like using ChatGPT to help a Spanish-speaking associate translate her own words more accurately for English-speaking customers — rather than replacing the salesperson. He's skeptical that AI can fully replicate the adaptive, question-driven nature of a live sales conversation, where 80% of the talking should be the customer and 20% the salesperson asking questions.

His advice to someone new: be patient, be open to feedback, and stop saying yes to everything. Delegation and prioritization are the difference between a salesperson who moves quickly on what matters and one who gets buried in tasks that shouldn't be theirs.

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Transcript

Pete Shau 0:02

Hello and welcome everyone. Here at the RTO show, we're proud to have April as our premier podcast sponsor. April's always had its finger on the pulse of America's rent-to-owned industry, including up-to-the-minute news and information, fun and valuable events, and even its legal hotline. April knows what's going on in the rental industry and how to help you navigate it. Don't miss April's best of RTO World webinar coming up on Tuesday, October 10th. Learn more and register today at rtohq.org. That's rtohq.org. And now to the show. Hello and welcome to the RTO show. Today we are here talking to Joseph Lexic, the director of sales from Magic Rentone. Now, that's not the marketing director, that's the director of sales from Magic Rentone. How are you doing today, Joe? What's going on?

Joe Luczak 0:56

Hey, I'm doing great. Just enjoying the uh sun and the 90 degree weather here in PA.

Pete Shau 1:00

You gotta love it, right? It's been a hot, hot summer.

Joe Luczak 1:03

Yes sir.

Pete Shau 1:04

So, just a little bit of backstory. Joe and I met at the R2O World Convention in San Antonio 2023, and in true Rent to own fashion, he shows up with a group full of people, introduces himself, and sits down. And before too long, Joe has got the table like listening in on what's going on at Majik and how they do things. And I knew at that point I had to share that with you guys because he has got amazing information on some of the stuff they do. And uh going into it, Joe, just give us a little bit about yourself and a little bit about your history.

Joe Luczak 1:33

Sure. Um, I I've been with Majik almost eight years now. Uh prior to that, I was a retail manager for some big box retailers, had a decision to just get out of that line of work. It just wasn't for me, didn't quite have the connection that I wanted to have with my team and the customers. So as fate would have it, I ended up meeting up with Dan, and Dan interviewed me. Uh, we hit it off. I really loved his mission statement for the company and what he wanted to accomplish and his vision and uh the rest is history.

Pete Shau 2:06

Let me tell you, Dan is an amazing guy. What you might not know is from the podcast, when Danny and I first started, we didn't have the ability to put him on at the time. So we actually called him and did an interview with him before uh we had that ability, and we kind of talked to him and we took the bullet points and we had the show afterwards, and he was our very, very first interviewee. And let me tell you, he did not disappoint, plethora of knowledge and a commitment to the industry, uh, second to none. And so when you started talking about some some of the things that magic brings to the table, I knew that I wanted to kind of get into that a little bit more and not not just from Dan's perspective, because he does a great job at it, but also from the people underneath him and the guys that make up what magic is. And I know at one point, with actually the first thing was you said that you were the director of sales, and now as I'm sitting next to my director of marketing, what is the difference between the director of sales and a director of marketing?

Joe Luczak 2:58

Okay, so from my perspective, the director of marketing is more about strategy uh when it comes to um advertising or getting the message out there. The director of sales role is more about how to, when it comes to selling techniques, uh getting teammates comfortable with conversations with customers, how to navigate personality types, using disk assessments, predictive index is always a good tool to have. So I would say if you were gonna boil it down, it would be marketing's more on the strategy side of things, whereas the sales director's more on the mechanics of how to do it and get good at it.

Pete Shau 3:36

So the marketing is to bring them in the door, the sales is to actually close a sale.

Joe Luczak 3:39

Yeah, I would say that would be the if you were gonna put a bullet on it, that would definitely be it.

Pete Shau 3:43

Okay. And that's actually why I wanted to talk about it because you mentioned quite a few things. And uh actually, one of the first things you mentioned was sales 201. Now, it always catches me because you always hear like math 101, you know, language 101. What's sales 201?

Joe Luczak 4:00

Sure. So the sales 201 program we have for all the disciplines in rent-to-own, collections, delivery, operations, sales, and it's an account retention. So basically, when you first start with us, you get your initial certification like you wouldn't most companies. You learn the basics on how the business operates, what your role is, how it functions, and whatnot else. The 201 is building on that. So for sales in particular, when someone enters the 201, they have the basics down when it comes to sales, how it works, what we should be doing. They have a basic premise of the processes. When they get into the 201, it's really about session one is really learning uh a particular discipline. Uh, it could be how to overcome initial objections or how to overcome, I'm just looking. And then we go through actual role play, where I call it the bull in the ring. So we put a sale, we put two salespeople in the middle, one is the salesperson, one is the customer. The person that's the customer will get a preset personality, if you will, on what type of customer is coming in the door and what their statement's going to be. And then the salesperson, using the techniques that we had just gone over, would implement those through a number of repetitions so they get comfortable with basically building a form of muscle memory. So when that thing happens, they're just comfortable with progressing the conversation beyond, I am just looking okay, and they walk away. Because most people that say they're just looking really aren't just looking, they're just looking for someone to help them. They have a need. 100%. So the 201 goes through three separate sessions. Each session talks about a few disciplines, and then we uh apply those during the class. Uh, one might be, just to give you an example, changing paradigms. So we might go over the customer walks in, they're really kind of unsure or they're not very forthcoming with information. We'll talk to them about ways to passively gain information through a conversation with a customer. Well, then they have to apply those, and we might make the scenario back in the in the training center, or we might take the scenario out to the sales floor where it's more of a live demo at that point, and then they go through each of those sessions. And then upon graduation, which would be the 203, they have a goal that they have to set at the beginning. They learn the techniques, they have to apply them, but then they have to also take them back to their store and then use those techniques because those are what's going to get their um get their goal achieved. And we have a report card for it and everything like that that measures those objectives. And once they graduate, they get a certification for that, and it just makes them better. And the good thing is they always have the ability to access their teammates that went through the class with them, plus other people that may have taken the class as well. Um, so there's always resources to follow up on things, and plus they have the presentation they can always fall back on.

Pete Shau 6:53

Now, this is what we call magic university, correct? Correct. Yep. So when you have two people as as a bull in a ring, does the one associate know what grounds you have told the first associate, like, I want you to approach it this way, you're this is your need, this is the kind of standpoint you're coming from, or is that associate not know? And you say, Hey, you're just gonna apply what I just taught you, and you secretly tell the associate who's gonna be engaging them, hey, this is how I want you to do it. This is the direction I want you to come from as a customer.

Joe Luczak 7:23

Yes. So that's exactly it. So we don't want to set up the salesperson to kind of have the quote unquote the cheat sheet. So we'll once we teach a principal about what we want them to apply. We we give like a in well, I'll give you, for instance, my last 2-0 uh one class, I gave them slips and they were just random. There was maybe 25 scenarios. They reached in, they grabbed one, they looked at the customer. What type of disk assessment uh personality type? Are they very direct? Are they more um introverted, whatever the case may be? They may have an interest, but none of that information comes to the salesperson. They have to mine for that information and work through the scenario as if they're working through it with a live customer.

Pete Shau 8:03

Now that's what I'm talking about. That's I believe that going through live training and live scenarios and scenario training when you have two people who don't know uh exactly what they're getting into, and you kind of you kind of show them through, I won't say trial by fire, but putting them in the situation is the best way to gain that experience and you lose that edge. When you go to a customer and they actually walk into the door and you've done it several times, you just don't feel like all eyes are on you. The best way to lose that fear is to do it through repetition and uh repetitiously get it right. And so I I think it's a great idea. Where did the idea of Magic University come from?

Joe Luczak 8:39

So uh we have quarterly leadership meetings where we all get together for two-day offsites. And a number of years ago, we had a uh an off-site where the topic of discussion, the thing we had to uh solve was how do we bring training to life? So it was decided to use our uh Harrisburg location as a central point where we could build a facility within the store that would essentially allow for us to have meetings. It would allow all of our managers to make it within a reasonable distance within the company, and we could all meet together, have manager meetings, have our two-all-one classes, and it would just serve as a place where we have our core values uh on the wall. We do our new hire orientation there. It has uh various awards that employees have won throughout the years, the Wall of Fame, you know, the various million-dollar markers for um store accomplishments, and then award winners, you know, for each of our uh, like our uh company banquet and whatnot else. So it's all there to serve as a kind of the rallying cry for the company. So when you're talking about core values, you're gonna see each of those in that room. And it just serves as one place where everybody knows, hey, when your training's coming, this is where we're gonna meet and this is how we're gonna get it done. So it really serves, I think, uh, you know, it it stands out as this is the place you're gonna go. And when you walk into the Harrisburg store, uh when you look into the back of it, it is decorated like a university. It's it's really, really cool. But I think everybody really enjoys it. And uh, like I said, it brings everyone together and gives them a stable place where they can train and work through some things.

Pete Shau 10:17

I love the idea. Now, when somebody's going through 101 uh and then 201 to get to the 203, in the state of the 201, is that a one-day course, or is there several courses that take over some time frame, like a week, or is that something that somebody can learn from, you know, like a nine to six or something like that?

Joe Luczak 10:35

Yeah, so the the way the 201s are set up, the 101 is is typically going to be what happens within your first 90 days, maybe your first six months, depends on the the team member. The 201 takes place over a course of 90 days approximately. It's about three months. And you'll you meet in the training center once per month, where it's an on-site where we're all together, and then we have a weekly check-in every week from the first class all the way through graduation. So it gives them an opportunity, number one, to be together, network together. They have to report on their results, what worked, what didn't work, and the things that didn't work, what are we going to change, how are we going to adjust the plan? And then those weekly check-ins are what waypoints did you set in from this class to the next one to the one after? Did you achieve your goal? And if you did, what worked and what can you replicate? If something didn't work, was it a process problem or was it a people problem that we just didn't maybe plan or organize for it? So it gives us a check-in every single week throughout the entirety of the class, plus visits from the district manager, visits from myself, uh, phone calls, Zoom calls. There's a lot of uh check-ins in between just to make sure people are able to stay on track and also give them resources to follow up on throughout. Because the last thing we want to do is have them take a class. And if we don't meet with them for two or three weeks, there's a lot of opportunity there where maybe a mistake happens or they don't know which way to go, where we can lose a lot of ground, and we want to really keep our thumb on the pulse of the training so that it's constantly being checked on to make sure they're staying on track.

Pete Shau 12:12

I I really like this idea, the constant follow-up and keeping them engaged not only through the class, but onwards and afterwards. So the progression of somebody who's never been at Rent to Own before, they would come in and they would essentially take the 101 class to kind of get them acclimated and say, this is what rent to own is, this is how you do it, and this is the gist of it. And then a 201 class is to sharpen that, sharpen those tools and make sure that they're using them correctly, or if they don't understand them how to use them correctly and come up with the new ideas, and then the 203 is your name on the wall?

Joe Luczak 12:42

Pretty much. So, well, your name gets on the wall for winning awards, but I would tell you that we have a lot of people that have taken the any one of the three or four 201 courses that we have available that go on to when they really take the training serious and apply it, you can see the results, and more than likely either their store or them personally will get some type of award or accolade. I wouldn't say necessarily it's you know, not to sound vain or anything like that. I wouldn't say it's directly related, but a person that gets into an advanced class and they really take it serious and they want to be successful will apply those techniques and you'll see it in the results, and they tend to stand above their peer group in performance because they're applying those techniques and going with it. So, yeah, the 201, the 202, and the 203 are just building blocks, but they're all in its entirety one course to just take their skill set from basic understanding and application to how to really apply it on a day-to-day to get the most out of the results that you're looking for through practice.

Pete Shau 13:44

This sounds really amazing. I really like the idea of this, and the execution sounds spectacular. Can you give me like a walkthrough of what the university visually looks like? Because you know, when people think of universities, they're thinking of one guy sitting down at the center in a lecture, he's got a mic, and then you've got several uh seats that go up into the sky. I can't imagine that that would be the way it looks like in a store. So, what what does it look like when you walk in and what can what could someone expect going into the magic university?

Joe Luczak 14:12

Sure. So um just to speak on the exterior of it, so we have some decals, big decals on the wall of some large windows with some trees outside. What you would see if you were typically looking on a spring day outside of a university window. But once you come inside, we have tables set up in a U shape so that when everybody sits down at him, everybody can see each other and everyone can see the front of the room. We have a drop-down uh large screen set up there with a projector so that anybody that's presenting in there can plug their laptop in, put their PowerPoint up, or whatever the case may be. Um, there's no podium. A lot of our training is really us just walking around talking to people. We want to, we don't talk at people when we do our training. We try to engage them and we ask a lot of questions and we require a lot of feedback and interaction. That way it's not when you lecture people, it's not for everybody. Somebody might respond well to a lecture, write a lot of notes, but not everybody learns that way. So we like to do things that are engaging to get their brains flowing and have that back and forth conversation. But what you'd also see is on our walls, so on our as you walk into the Magic University on the right, we have two panels up that really have our company meeting. Uh, this year we had our company meeting on there. We also had our um like the banquet. We would maybe have the rodeo on there. So we have a delivery specialist rodeo where it's a day about training for the delivery specialists and celebrating them for an entire day. They get to come out of the store and have some fun. But we have would have pictures up on the wall so people can see the culture of the company and some of the things that we would do. On our back wall, you would see our everyday and our core values. They are all on the walls on the back, along with our company mission statement. Uh, what you would see on the left wall uh as you come in would really be more or less our uh award winners for each year. So when we have our company banquet, anybody that would win an award, they would have their name on the wall for that period of time until the next banquet. And then on the same wall as the uh screen for the projector is where we have our wall of fame. That would be our million dollar managers or two million dollar man, or $1.5 million managers, two, and so on and so forth uh would be there. Plus, our employee of the year is stuck on there. So, really, when you're in the university, it shows that you know hard work pays off and recognition is abound in the company. And I think it inspires people to see that these are folks that they're working with on a day-to-day basis and they can see the awards. It's not just managers winning, it's everybody has an opportunity to be recognized for uh effort. So it's it's cool. It's cool to see. I would tell you, most people that come in really enjoy the aesthetic of it, but really the meaning behind it is what's the most important thing.

Pete Shau 17:01

How many people are in a class? When you're talking about classes and you're talking about the different ways that they're doing you have a rodeo versus the sales classes, how many people could I say is an average class?

Joe Luczak 17:12

Um I would say a large class would be about six people. Typically, you're looking at anywhere between like the sales class in particular. I want to say like the smallest class I ever had was three people, the largest was probably six. We like to keep it somewhere in there, um, just from a standpoint of the type of things that we're doing require a lot of follow-up, and you also have to have a firm grasp on the basics in order to enter in that class. So if you're a manager in training and you're moving towards leading a store, you would eventually have to take all of the 201s, specifically account retention operations and uh sales. But if you're a sales specialist and maybe you're looking to take on more responsibility at work and you want to see your career start to progress, at some point the 201 would be one of those tiers that you would get into because it's more advanced techniques. And if you're gonna take on more responsibility and be a leader and potentially have to train or at least model an ideal uh sales specialist behavior, you would have to take that class in order to learn those things and then be able to execute on them.

Pete Shau 18:19

So we talked about the size of the class, and I can see why the one-on-ones would be most effective in that size case because you don't have a lot of people, you know, you're using two, you know, could be up to 20% of the class when you use one person and two people is a decent amount, and everybody can be kind of engaged in that. What are some of the exact things that go through those classes? You mentioned role-playing and scenarios. What else would take place in those classes?

Joe Luczak 18:45

Sure. Uh, so on top of the role playing, we go over a lot of principles. So we might talk about how to upsell. That might be a thing, how to get an add-on, how to build a package. When you're talking to a customer, we talk about pain points a lot. So a pain point for a customer would be the thing that really we're trying to solve. The example we use, and I'll give you this, it comes right out of the class. The question we ask the class is how many people go to the dentist, doctor, or mechanic before there's a problem? Most people don't raise their hand. Maybe one out of 25 people might say, Oh, I do. But for the vast majority of people, they just don't do it. So when is a customer going to buy a new dryer, a washer, or refrigerator? It's gonna be when things are starting to fail. The thing is, we're not compelled to take action until something happens that pushes us into that zone where we don't really have an option. So when a customer walks in the store and they say, Hey, um, I'm looking for a dryer, it's like, okay, your first instinct is to say, Well, let's go over, walk over to the dryers. But we tend to teach to ask a few questions. Well, why do we need it? Why do you need a dryer? What's the issue? The customer might say, Well, mine's starting to act up where it's taking a lot longer to dry clothes. Okay, cool. How long has that been going on? Again, our compulsion is let's go over to the dryers quick. But if I ask them, well, how long has that been going on? And they say, Well, it's been a few weeks, and how's that been working out for you? I hate it. It's taken a long time and it's just very miserable. What you've done effectively is you've brought that pain point into the same frame of reference as making a decision. Because a lot of times people will say to you, Well, I can get by for now. I'll put it down the road a little bit until it really gets bad. But if you bring a customer's pain point into the same frame of reference as them making a decision, they're more than likely going to make the decision to say, you know what, if I say no to this, if I if I walk away from this opportunity, what I'm walking back into is unhappiness, which is what we don't want to do. So that would be a specific training that we would do, and then push those scenarios to say they've got to find out what the pain point is, not just run immediately to let's just start showing product right away, because we don't have enough information to really seat them into something that's going to be perfect for them. It's going to solve a problem, but it alleviates that pain. So pain points would be one thing in particular that we go over in the 201s.

Pete Shau 21:16

That's a very unique way to look at. I actually really like the difference in that scenario and giving somebody that idea that listen, this is going to solve the problem to where you're not going back to the same old and getting things taken care of. That's a great uh sales point and a great way to look at it. So coming into this, you've got the 201s, you've got the 101s, you're now a director of sales. How much from your previous work experience have you been able to bring back or bring with you to this position and with magic?

Joe Luczak 21:48

Interestingly enough, I think for me, coming from a big box retailer, uh you when you're a manager for big box, you uh you feel a lot of uh upset customers. So I would say diffusing techniques is probably one of the things that I brought in from my previous work history. But um I would say working for magic has really opened my eyes to it's pushed me a lot further um in a much shorter span of time to to open my eyes to a lot of things about myself and push me to get better at what I do. So yeah.

Pete Shau 22:19

Now being a director of sales, have you gone through all of the positions as well?

Joe Luczak 22:24

So when I came on board, I started off the company as a district manager. Um the cool thing that I really liked about it is when Dan uh first brought me on board, he put me in a store more or less to, you know, you gotta prove your medal. Go in this store. He didn't immediately say, hey, here's a district, go run it. He said, I want you to run this store, and then I was working remotely with another store with a new manager, and uh more or less had a prove that I can do the things that I say I can do, and what's on the resume is is legit. And I think I I appreciated Dan a lot more for that because he didn't just take my word for it in a sense, he's like, Well, this is what's on paper, let's go out there and let's go get it. And if you can if you can accomplish these things, then we'll continue to give you more and more responsibility, which is how my career progressed. So, yeah, I would say that from that point, moving on from a district, and then we had talked about the sales director role. Really, it's like a I guess the best way to put it is when you think about a district manager and what they're in charge of doing, sales is one of those things that if you can have someone that has an affinity for it, and I love doing it, that I can really focus my time and attention on those processes, it really opens up the doorway for the other DMs to work on the operations of the store, be it inventory, account retention, or the various other things, people issues, stuff like that, you know.

Pete Shau 23:47

You talk about Dan a lot. Is he was he one of the key figures and getting you to where you were? And I don't mean just as an employee uh employer situation where he put you there, but like as far as mentorship, as far as somebody who was leading the way and you kind of was able to grasp what they were saying and put it to good use, was he that person, or did you have somebody else that also played a role in you getting to where you are today?

Joe Luczak 24:10

I would say, I don't know if you had a chance to meet him, but uh Mike asked, Mike Simon C, he's our COO. And um, when I first came on board with the company, he was a district manager at the time. He had come on board with the company about a year before I did. And um Dan had me linked up with him. He was mentoring me along the way. I think Dan serves more as the vision of what he wants the company to be, but he's also very active with the entire team, not just the leadership team, I mean the entire team of magic. He or he would travel around with Trish and they're dropping off long johns, they're doing store visits. He's a very easily engageable person. Um, and I think a lot of teammates really uh value that because in some larger companies, that's just not always the case. But Dan provides, I think, a vision for what I believe an ideal owner would do. Like he takes care of his people, and he's not the kind of guy that puts it out there, like, oh, here's what I did. He does a lot of things behind the scenes that nobody ever hears about, not to mention the things that he does as far as benefits for the team, uh, for all employees and and various things that he does. But Mike S would serve more so as the he kind of pushed my leadership a lot. He challenged me a lot, continues to do so. Um, you know, we've been able to build a relationship like a bond just from kind of being in the trenches together and learning as we go and kind of pushing each other. Uh, but yeah, I would say he between him and Dan, really, when I started with the company, would be the two people I would cite most as far as really pushing me to be better and hold me accountable to things and be open and honest about feedback, which is important because we don't want to, we tend to not want to hurt people's feelings per se. But if you're telling someone the truth and it's gonna make them better, then that's the best thing you can do. And that's one thing I can note for those guys that they're gonna be honest with you. What you do with that information is what challenges your leadership.

Pete Shau 26:09

Now, developing in sales leaders, you're developing sales leaders, is there any traits or anything that you can say probably is put somebody more in the driver's seat of being a better salesperson? Or is it you know just the desire to be that type of person?

Joe Luczak 26:24

Um, I think traits would be you have to have the ability to pivot or adapt in a situation quickly. Because when you're having a sales conversation, I tend to think of it like a raging river. You just don't know what direction it's gonna go and what obstacles it's gonna put in your way. But if you're very good at being able to maneuver in that stream, you can keep a conversation on point and you can move towards what your ultimate goal is, which is to help the customer. Um, I would say that the the adaptability would be number one. Uh, number two, I think it sounds kind of cliche, but you gotta be humble. You can't be the type of person that just comes out and you know, you just think that you've learned it all, you know it all. There's no other skills that you need because there's always a new skill to learn. Absolutely. Um, no matter how good you are at it. And you got to be willing to seek advice or at least hear counsel from other people, especially in sales, because I know it can sometimes be an I don't want to say an ego-driven profession, but sometimes you're that part of yourself that wants to be acknowledged, you want to win, you want other people to know it. Because most times extroverts are the ones that get into the role. But you have to be able to be open to hear something from someone that maybe has less experience than you do in the sales aspect of things, but they say something that really inspires you to think differently, and then you can apply that to what you already know and just make yourself that much better. So I would say those would be probably the best thing. And you gotta love people, you gotta love helping people. You know, some people can be really successful at sales just from driving a number. But I think if you truly want to just help people solve problems and make their lives better, you're gonna be a lot more successful at it because what you're doing is genuine, and I think people respond to that a lot better than someone just punching a ticket, writing you an agreement, and sending you out the door without really digging in a little bit to help you out.

Pete Shau 28:26

And now a word from our sponsor. Boxpop Uli is the best graphics production agency in Rent2Own offering turnkey service from design production to fulfillment. They offer printing and production, catalogs, and a ton of creative services. Andrew and City Hagic had the knowledge and experience of working with Rent2Own for years, and they make it easy to get your brand recognized and utilized. You can contact them at 770-476-5112, or visit them online at box-bop-uli.com. And now, back to the show. Well, I think that the sales platform that you have going on as far as university over at Magic in Pennsylvania is just I love the idea. I love the fact that you know there are different classes and different class types, and you can graduate from one to the other, the follow-up, and then developing your sales leaders in different ways and making sure that you get back to them and understand what they're going through and have these class sizes that make it easy to digest what's going on. Now, with all that being said, uh recently, and we've actually talked about it on the show, Magic was listed as one of the best places in Pennsylvania to work in the entirety of the state. What does that mean to the employees of Magic and what does that mean to you?

Joe Luczak 29:45

Um, to me, it means it's it's like it's a badge of honor. Dan talks about that. Like when you wear the Magic Rent to Own logo on our shirts and jackets and whatever we have, it's it's a badge of honor because we know that we're doing things the right way. And I think to the teams, they the great thing is when we go to a show or whenever we're in a place, whether it's a local meeting or we're meeting with representatives, whatever we're doing, um, the company is known for we try to be the tip of the spear, try to always be changing, uh, using the latest techniques or whatever that looks like, always looking to get information from uh fellow rent-owned people. I think it's a badge of honor to know that when you when the team from Magic, no matter who it is, shows up, there's a certain thing people should expect when they see us. We're gonna be cooperative, we're gonna want to help, we want to try to learn, and we want to try to push the industry forward. Um, so I know a lot of people that really appreciate the fact that we were able to do that. And the beauty of it is it's not an easy thing to do. It really is rated on the feedback that we're getting from our teammates and how they feel about the company. So it's not something that we uh heavily advertise, like, hey, if we don't get this, then this is what this means. It's here's how it works. We just want to get your feedback and work on that. And it turns out that everybody gave us feedback enough that we were obviously given that title. So it was pretty exciting.

Pete Shau 31:17

I'm gonna tell you right now, I know Rent to Own, and there's so many aspects of it now that I'm doing the podcast, and I can tell you that there's so many things that I did not know or I'm I'm being privy to now that I wasn't before. But I can tell you that any company getting that is not an easy feat, let alone a RTO company. So Magic Reynolds is doing something right, and I I gotta say, hats off to you guys for being able to do that. I really think it's it's a great accomplishment on top of what you guys are already doing. Now, here's a question: where do you see the sales evolution uh in Rent to Own going, let's say, within the next three to five years?

Joe Luczak 31:54

Um, I think what we're seeing, the trends at least, is gonna be more online. I think we're gonna deal with a lot more people through the online space, uh, be it through web chats or a lot of contact, less um sales. I think you can achieve the same thing uh without seeing someone. That's gonna be the hardest change, I think, in the rent-to-own industry in general, because there's still a lot of people that want to be able to shake your hand, look you in the eyes, and say, hey, this is a deal we have going on, and you're gonna work with me. But I think in the spaces that people operate now, especially over the last few years, you can build that same rapport with a person without ever really speaking to them because the language has changed in the sense of people are gonna people can have emotional conversations through text. It's been seen over and over and over again. I'm sure at some point someone sent you a text message and you read it and you had an emotional response to the things they said, depending on who knows what type of emoji they sent. Did they capitalize it, did they underline something, whatever that looks like. And I think the sales evolution is gonna be less people in store and more people that we're able to interact with across the internet. So I that's where I would probably see things going. I think we're also gonna see an age of AI's a thing. I would tell you just recently looking at like Chat GPT, I was in a store where there's, in my opinion, this is kind of part of the evolution of things. So we had an um a teammate that speaks Spanish, but her English translation when she's trying to communicate to customers isn't quite there. Some of the words are rearranged. Um, so what we did is showed her how to use Chat GPT to type her statement into, and she's in sales, type her statement into the chat and then ask the chat to translate it in English and then copy and paste it and send it to the customer through podium. Well, what that offered was she could be herself and genuine about what she wants to say and the way she wants to say it, allowed AI to just translate that, and because it's different than Google, it seems to be a little bit more accurate to the tone. She was able to then communicate that to customers that previously might not have quite understood what she was trying to convey to them when she's dealing with them for a web lead. So I think that as we start to embrace some of this technology, not from the standpoint that it's going to replace a salesperson, I think you can use it to help overcome challenges that you might have. Or even say someone doesn't speak a particular language, and we've been pressure testing this. Someone comes in, they could write down whatever, or they can type it in, or whatever it looks like, and you can have a conversation back and forth with a person. If they send you a message that's written in another language, you copy and paste it and translate it, and then you formulate a response, translate that and send it back to them, you're good to go. You can you can easily bridge that gap, and it doesn't put as much pressure on um having to maybe call another store if there isn't someone available to translate. It just helps you with your speed to response and helping customers. So that's where I'd say see things going in the future for sure.

Pete Shau 35:12

I definitely see the walls coming down as far as uh barriers between cultures and language barriers because the way that works is so phenomenal. It's a little scary how quick and easy it comes up with something that might take us a little bit longer. But the transition between one and the other, the time frame is coming down to where you can almost have a a quite seamless conversation between two people who wouldn't otherwise be able to communicate. I have to definitely agree with you there. Now, talking about innovation, and this isn't exactly in the side of sales, PayDit did an automated collection platform that they released in our TO World of 2023. Do you see a counterpart to that maybe coming up sometime soon, or it's a sales automated platform?

Joe Luczak 35:55

Um, I it's possible. It's within the realm of possibility. I think the technology sounds good. So for instance, you can come up with, you can allow like chat or whatever it is to come up with statements that sound like good sales statements. I think there's a lot of nuance to a sales conversation, in my opinion, um, that you have to be working on the fly. So there'd have to be, in my opinion, a much larger like database of information that when someone says this, it prompts that. But I think the key to that is when it comes to like collections, those conversations, they are nuanced, but when you're talking about sales, you're really mining for information. Like we in our training class, we talk about 8020. When you're having a sales conversation with a customer, 80% of the time the customer should be talking, 20% of the time you should be talking, and that 20% is really you asking questions, as opposed to just dumping information on them, because that's not necessarily very effective. So with an AI platform of some sort, I think it would be a little bit more challenging because you have to take the customer's personality into question when you're having that conversation, because it will dramatically change the type of information you give them, um, whether or not you push them for a decision, if you're working quickly, or if you have to slow the pace down, if you have to give them time to soak in the information. So it's possible, but I think when it comes to a sales perspective, there's still a lot of adaptation that has to happen in the moment, but it's possible.

Pete Shau 37:34

So going back to 2023, uh the RTO world, and I agree with you wholeheartedly on that statement. I do think that sales requires a lot more intellect than is capable right now, not that it will never be capable. I think it will be able to do straightforward CSR sales, like I this is what I want, this is what you can get, and uh, these are your options, boom, you do that. I mean, we almost have that online, anyways, to just kind of select, shoot, and and have delivered. But what were the other takeaways coming out of, you know, let's say RTO World 2023? You mentioned uh something when we first got on the phone. What were you talking about?

Joe Luczak 38:06

Oh, uh the upside-down sales, it was uh sales 2.0. I believe it was Chris Cale. He uh he was running that. And it was an interesting concept because in Rent to Own, we typically go, well, customer comes in, we get the rental order form or the rental application. We call them order forms because we go on the presupposition that the customer's already approved. We they don't have to apply per se. So we get the rental order form, then we do the verification, then we set them up on or write the rental agreement and set them up on delivery, or in some cases set them up on delivery and write the rental agreement. But that's kind of a backwards way, at least the way that I was taught it at R2O World. I think it was so cool because the new concept is upside-down selling, meaning customer comes in, they inquire about an item, put them on the schedule, get the date locked up, write the rental agreement, get the customer to put the down payment on, sell the product, set the delivery, it's all good to go. Then get the rental order form and then verify it before delivery. Same four steps, but the beauty of it is, and it was interesting because Mike S and I were in a store. I think I was talking to you right at the beginning. We were in a store the other day, just applying it uh with just customers that came in, and people are just so much happier because once you put them on the schedule, that's their time. They're already set, they know they're gonna get their product. Then they get the rental agreement, makes it official. Now you get the rental order form, like, hey, we just need a couple bits of information. We try to make it streamlined. So typically I would say, I just need to know who you are, where it's going, how you're gonna pay for it. By saying it in those bullet point fashions, it really eases the tension that they don't think, well, I have to give 46 references and I have to give my last 12 addresses and all this other stuff. It's simple. And then as long as you can verify your information before delivery, you're good to go. And let's be honest, um, 99% of the people or 99.5% of the people that come in, more than likely we're going to give them the rental unless something really stands out that we wouldn't do that. So then why wouldn't we? We take them off the market. They're not shopping anymore because the date's already set when they're going to get delivered, and they're more apt to give you the information you're asking for because it's more of a formality as far as they're concerned, because everything's already done.

Pete Shau 40:31

I think that way of forward thinking and and kind of taking and dissecting what we normally do every day and making it better, that type of innovation is what we need to be ahead. That's what we need to worry about within the next five years. How can we make this process that's now a lot older than it used to be work for us in a lot of different ways to fit this new environment, to fit these new customers? And I think you guys are doing a great job.

Joe Luczak 40:56

Yeah, I mean, we use tools like Data True. So if you think about our normal rental order form or rental application, however you look at it, from the customer side of things, we dramatically reduce the size of our old rental order form or rental application from what it used to be to keep it simple so that when people look at it, and if you look at some of our competition out there, they keep it very simple and streamlined because the longer you have to fill something out, the higher the likelihood that you're gonna disengage with it. And we've seen it before happen where someone will start filling out one of the old forms. Once they get so far, they're out. If they can't get it done in two minutes, they're probably gonna check out because someone else out there is gonna require less information and still take care of them.

Pete Shau 41:40

So I do agree. Uh we have to keep them engaged from the moment they walk into the door to the to the signing of the agreement and a down payment, make sure that they understand this is a seamless process, but still be able to get the information that we need. And it does change. That face changes quite a bit, and especially in these last few years, as far as uh the way the innovation has been taking place is online and paying over the phone and contactless sales and making sure that you know everybody is on the same page can be difficult when everything changes so fast. So it's it's a good idea to make sure that you're staying up with the times and pushing it forward. What would you say to, let's say, a younger version of Joe, just starting out in the RTO world, what's a bit of advice that you would give that not at the time sales director advice and say, this is something that would really kind of help speed along the situation?

Joe Luczak 42:30

Uh don't say yes to everything. That's what I would tell an earlier version of myself, because sometimes we we want to please, we want to take care of people, and we want to say yes to everything. Sometimes it's about setting your priorities on what you need to get accomplished, and sometimes you got to be able to give some of that up to someone else that's maybe a little closer to the solution to take care of it. For me, I was a I was a guy that always said, sure, whatever you need, whatever you need, I'll get it. But sometimes you have to slow your role a little bit and prioritize those things because getting things accomplished in a timely manner is ultra important, especially in sales. If you if you take on too many tasks that maybe aren't necessarily directly related to taking care of this one thing, it could slow you down and speed kills in sales. So if you're really, if you're tied up with a bunch of other things that you probably could have delegated out and you didn't do that, that could potentially cost you when you have to follow up on a sale, follow up on a customer request or whatever the case may be. And uh that is definitely not that's a detriment to you all day, every day. So an earlier version of me would not um try to take on everything because you don't want to say no, because it always puts you in a bad situation where something's gonna get left on the on the back burner or it's not gonna get addressed in the time that you uh should really. You'd be uh dealing with it, and that's going to cost you. So that's what I would say to a younger version of myself.

Pete Shau 44:05

I have a few managers that need to listen to that exact statement. And if they didn't get it, rewind it and play it again because that is so true. Sometimes we we take on way more than we need to.

Joe Luczak 44:16

Yes. There have been plenty of meetings where I've been uh check-ins or we were doing reviews, and I would get the quite this is again where that mentorship came in really, really handy. Hey, uh, did you follow up on this? My response would be I'm gonna okay, I'm yep, I'm doing it right now. But that's not that's not forward thinking. That's being in the moment and kind of trying to cover your rear end a little bit because you maybe were a little more disorganized. And having someone call you on the carpet on that, it's not a comfortable place to be, but I'll tell you, it it drives you and makes you better. It gives it makes you make a choice. Do you want to pick up your ball and go home? Or do you want to stay in the pocket and learn from it and push yourself forward? And I was fortunate enough to have people in my corner to be there to give me the honest feedback I needed so I could get better.

Pete Shau 45:02

So I think it's I think it's great advice. I want everybody to know it's been uh a long time since we've had real direct sales talk. We love having direct sales talk on the channel because there's a lot of things to it. Anything from figuring out the fundamentals, whether it be role-playing, whether you're getting the certificate, feedback the right way, you know, if somebody gives that to you and you take it for what it is and not necessarily what you think they're trying to say, but exactly what they're saying, like, hey, you could do better on this, and I'm not trying to say that because I don't like you or I don't think you're doing a good job, but I think this is going to make you better. Being able to eyeball that and go, you know what, you're right, maybe that is me. Streamlining your decisions and uh making sure that you're doing the priorities first and handling that. Now I do know that the Harrisburg location is one of the bigger locations, right? This is actually what not if not the biggest location, correct?

Joe Luczak 45:52

Oh yeah, that that's a that's a huge store.

Pete Shau 45:55

Does anybody have a chance to come visit outside of Magic?

Joe Luczak 45:59

Uh yes. Uh we tend to get visitors, I think it was last week uh someone had come down to visit. Him and uh I think Mike was was working with them. And then plus we've had we've had guests come down plenty of times just to see the operation, spend some time with Dan, visit some locations, uh, which is always cool. I think that's really nice because us being able to share anything that we're doing that's gonna help somebody else, or being a little more selfish, uh hearing what they're doing that's working really well, and taking some of those ideas and incorporating them what we're already doing is is just a win all the way around.

Pete Shau 46:36

Yeah, I totally agree. Find out what's working and make it better. So, and a final word of thought, what would you say to somebody who's starting out, they don't really know about rent to own, and sales is probably their direction because let's say they came from a big box retailer. What advice would you give to a person that's not Joe entering in the workspace as a salesperson?

Joe Luczak 46:56

Um, I would tell them first and foremost, be patient. Be patient with learning how the business works. It will require a little bit of a paradigm shift because it is a lot different than retail from everything from pricing to the way that we approach selling, the relationship-based business. I would say be open to feedback because you're going to need a lot of it if you're gonna hone your skills. It's not something you're gonna see a lot of failure in the sense of sometimes you're gonna have a conversation and it's not gonna go the way you want it to go. Sometimes you're not gonna get the sale when you think you should have gotten it because maybe there was a misstep in the conversation, maybe you missed a cue somewhere. But I would say above anything else, be patient, be open to feedback, and um surround yourself with people that are driven. You've got to be, you've got to be able to set goals for yourself, and you've got to do what you have to do to reach those goals. Meaning, you know, sometimes it's not fun to make a lot of calls when you're following up with customers that have paid off, or potentially customers that did business with you a year or two years ago. But if you're driven to say, you know what, these are all folks that are out there that can potentially use our help, it's gotta be your mission to want to help them. If you really believe your business is the one in your community and you're gonna do it better than your competition, then you're doing them a disservice by not selling them. And you gotta have a mindset of I want to help these people because I know if they're doing business with me, they're gonna get the best service possible, and they're never gonna regret their decision. So that would be my advice to someone for that. But definitely above all the all that other stuff, be patient. It takes time and repetition. Sales is one of those roles that you only get better at it from doing it. You can't read a book and just get better at selling. You've got to be in conversations constantly in order to develop those skills and really sharpen the saw, as it were.

Pete Shau 48:52

Words of wisdom from Joseph Lutzick, director of sales at Magic Rent to Own in Pennsylvania. Joseph, it's been great to have you on. It's been great to get some of your ideas and your standpoints, hear about the Magic University, which I didn't know there was multiple classes actually. So I'm glad that, you know, just hearing that is giving me ideas on what I can do to maybe better train the guys that I have here and kind of you know put them in those hot seats for a little while in an isolated area and give them constant training to see if they can really ascertain what's going on and gain the knowledge to become better salespeople. That's really that's really what it's about. I love the idea of upside upside down selling. I didn't know that that was uh something that Kail was talking about, so I will have to reach out to him and kind of get an idea about that. And you know, say a no, I'm gonna tell you that's that really does stand out. I have some guys that are really just taking on way too much, and I think that they're not prioritizing what they need to do or fitting it in the time frame that they have and kind of letting it get ahead of them, and there's too many fires to put out, and I think they just need to get to back to the meat and potatoes of what's going on. Definitely some great advice. We do appreciate having you on the show. It's been amazing. We've got to do this again. All magic people are gonna want to listen to this. I just want you to know if they're involved in sales, they're gonna want to hear what you got to say, Joe, because you do you put it very eloquently and in a way that people can really kind of bite down on it and understand it. And that's that's a gift. So we do appreciate your time. We appreciate you being on the show.

Joe Luczak 50:15

Oh, absolutely. I really appreciate it and uh anytime.

Pete Shau 50:18

Absolutely. Listen, tell Dan and everybody we said hello, and we will reach out to them very soon. If you guys want to talk to Joe or you have a question for Joe, reach out to the podcast at Pete at the RTO Show Podcast.com. That's my email. You can title it, Joe, and then you can ask some questions to about the Magic University, about what his thoughts are on things. And if you have any questions, send them to me, and I'll make sure that they'll get answered, maybe even on a second podcast, where we invite Joe back to answer some questions. If you have any other things, feel free to visit Magic online.com. I love that name, Go Magic. All right, and if you guys want to see the wet the website for the RTO show, go to www.therto showpodcast.com, follow us on Facebook and social media, and drop a like, subscribe so you don't miss anything else. Thank you, Joe, so much. I really appreciate you being here, and I really appreciate you taking out your time. A lot of words of wisdom on here to spread out. I'm really glad that you took time to give us a call.

Joe Luczak 51:09

Appreciate it. It was a great experience. Thanks.

Pete Shau 51:11

Thanks, Joe. Have a great one.

Joe Luczak 51:13

You too.

Pete Shau 51:14

As always, the RTO show is proud to be sponsored by the Association of Progressive Rental Organizations. April is consistently participating, educating, and watching candidly over the RTO industry, and has been doing so since 1980. Keep track of the current and future events, meetings, and legislative gatherings by going to the website at rtohq.com. And while you're there, don't forget to subscribe to the RTOHQ magazine and newsletter. Also, if you're not a member, find out how to become one online at rtoh.com. And that's it for the interview with Joe Luxic. It's been great having you guys with us. And as always, keep your collections low so you can get your sales high. Thank you so much, and we'll talk to you next time.