Part 3: Growing your store with AI marketing today!

Discover how to revolutionize your rent-to-own business using the cutting-edge power of AI! Join me, Pete Shau, along with AI expert Daniel Hajduk, as we guide you through the latest strategies to supercharge your sales efforts. This episode holds the key to mastering AI-driven sales scripts and overcoming customer objections, empowering even the most novice salespeople to thrive. Learn how AI tools like Synthesia and SundaySky can transform your training materials with lifelike avatars, making your sales team more adaptable and effective than ever before.

You'll also get an inside look at how major brands are navigating the AI frontier. Plus, meet Moxie, Vox's groundbreaking AI-powered mascot, symbolizing a bold new era in marketing. Understand the delicate balance between AI integration and the irreplaceable human touch, ensuring your business stays ahead without losing the personal connection. Whether it's streamlining event planning or optimizing sales schedules, AI is shaping the future, and we’re sharing the secrets to harness its full potential.

Finally, we explore how AI is reshaping the landscape beyond sales, enhancing efficiency in everything from route planning to CRM tasks. Daniel and I reflect on the practical applications in real-time scenarios, offering insights into planning for Q1 of 2025 with AI as a strategic partner. This episode is packed with actionable insights and personal anecdotes, arming you with the knowledge to innovate and excel in the rapidly evolving world of AI-powered business. Don't miss out on the chance to stay ahead in the RTO industry!

APRO ad after the pre registration ended on 1/17/2025.

Chapters

• 0:00 Utilizing AI in Sales Strategies
• 11:04 AI in Overcoming Sales Objections
• 16:13 Driving Sales With AI Insights
• 22:17 Maximizing Sales With AI Enhancement
• 32:49 Implementing AI in Fast Food Industry
• 38:49 Enhancing Efficiency With AI in Rent-to-Own
• 47:07 Evolution of AI in Marketing Mascots

Transcript

Pete Shau: 0:53

Hello and welcome to the RTO Show. I'm your Pete Shau , and today we are covering AI in your life in RTO World, part 3. How do we make it easier, how do we make it easier on us and what exactly are we going to use AI for? Well, I have with me Daniel Hajduk this is Part 3, and we're going to cover this. Vox Populi is a platinum sponsor for this show and I couldn't think of a better person to kind of help us out with that. This is really what he does. This is where he dials into it, and we're going to start, daniel.

Pete Shau: 1:21

How do we use AI to make our rent-to-own lives easier? What is exactly that we can? Now that we've kind of covered the introduction and what's already out there and what we can do now? How do we utilize it Now that we have these tools in front of us? Teach me how to dig with the shovel. Teach me how to saw with the blade. What is it that we do to make our lives better and rent to own, and how do we make that happen?

Daniel Hajduk: 1:44

Well, it's sales. It's where we started, honestly, with AI is using it in our sales. It's kind of mind-blowing at how much easier it can make it Because, again, we're not all sales geniuses, but there's no reason we all can't be or can't start somewhere, have a structure to it. Oh, I like the sound of that. I like the sound of that.

Pete Shau: 2:04

So, when you're talking about utilizing AI in sales, what's your go-to? Where do you think is a base start for somebody who wants to get their AI to take off? I want to use it in sales, like you said. What do I do first? Where is an implementation stage that I can use AI to really kind of kick things off?

Daniel Hajduk: 2:21

Easiest thing to start doing is help you lay out scripts. I don't know how common it is for people to have just winging it when they have customers come into stores for different situations and it's just dealer's choice of. I'm going to talk to him like this and I don't know again, I don't know how prevalent that is, but it helps you with your scripts completely. Now, like we've said in other episodes, it can't do everything for you and I don't want anyone going in there and say give me a script to sell a washer and dryer, because you probably won't sell many washer and dryers because it's not going to work. It's not a one size fits all, but it can help you get started and anyone that lacks creativity lacks a starting point for an idea of how to sell something in a different scenario. That's where we could start using it.

Pete Shau: 3:05

Well, I don't know if and I know I've had this happen to me on rent at home, right, it's fortunate and in an unfortunate situation. I'm right at my 20th year, right, and I remember when I first started, I had no idea of what I was doing. Now, I did start in a collection cycle, so there was a different way to do it, because there are laws and there are things that I can and can't say. So I'm already fitting in this narrow lane, right, but when it came to sales, I was extremely nervous because I talked to my friends. I didn't talk to people that I didn't know, I didn't understand. Okay, I'm going to tell somebody. And my thought, my thought, was yeah.

Pete Shau: 3:43

I know how to come to work. I know how to do what you're asking me to do, right, you tell me to move the sofa from here to there. You tell me to set this up. You tell me to deliver it. I can do all that.

Pete Shau: 3:50

But coming it off of my own mindset and becoming this person that can sell and be malleable, it took years for that Sales scripts and sales idea. I actually learned how to sell over the phone because they would give me a script and say, listen, this is the scenario. And then they sit me down and say, okay, you're gonna call me when I was completely embarrassed and you're gonna try to sell me off for this script. And it did set me off in a way that I didn't know it would change my life. But the scripts were built, you know, and they were also built by somebody who had probably done it for a long time.

Pete Shau: 4:22

But if I'm new to this, you know I've said before I would love to own a rent-to-own company. Or let's say I'm a new manager and I'm coming in and I'm trying to get my guys kind of dialed in. Well, we can't do a blanket statement, no, so Well, we can't do a blanket statement no. So how do you build a sales situation, and what would you say? Okay, you have availability to this chat or you have availability to build this through AI. What?

Daniel Hajduk: 4:52

are some of the parameters that you would use to say this is going to create something where you can have somebody utilize it and get better results out of it. I would start with just informing it for what you are so like if you had started your own, your own store, your own brand. Inform. Inform a chat bot, inform whatever you're going to use on what you are, what your brand is, the products you're selling, what your goals are and everything that's going to help you start off right.

Pete Shau: 5:10

Okay.

Daniel Hajduk: 5:11

Cause you're going to, it's going to be able to target and pull what you're looking for versus well, we mainly focus on furniture versus we mainly focus on appliances or something. Just a scenario. Okay, we're going to sell both, but our focus is here. Or if we're going to try to integrate something or have add-ons, tell that. Whatever your basis for how you operate is, give it that information and it can help you start laying it out.

Pete Shau: 5:34

Some of the things that I might want to enter in is I want to create a 30 second ad or a 60 second ad, based on whatever this case is. Or I want to create a sales script based on Christmas returning customer. I mean, how dialed in do you get when you say, hey, let's create a script, the more dialed in, the better.

Daniel Hajduk: 5:54

Like I said, ai only knows what it's fed. It's only going to give you what you give it. It's going to pull from what it knows, but it's not going to give you something. If you're asking how do I turn left, it's not going to tell you how to turn right. So the better scenario you have, the better is you're going to get.

Daniel Hajduk: 6:09

So, like you said, if you're doing something around a certain time of the year and around a certain type of product and around a certain type of price or selling point, and then everything based off the yes or no is based off that. Where it can lead on, like I said, the add-ons, whatever you're doing, the more you give it it's going to help. So if you want to do a Christmas related script or you know we have a for Black Friday weekend we are going to be pushing X right. We want our guys to be focused on this when they are selling it, to not just go off or talking about something else or focus on the clearance section. We want to be focused on pushing this washer and dryer set. How are we going to do that correctly in the sales cycle to handle the different things that come in when the customer says, well, I think I'm good right now, or I saw this deal there, I'm just going to do it, look at it later, or something.

Daniel Hajduk: 6:59

How can we? It's going to be able to help you lay that out better. The more you give it, the better it's. Ai is not good when you go broad for you. You can't just say help me sell a washer and dryer, but help me sell on Black Friday weekend, and this is the scenario I'm dealing with. These sell on Black Friday weekend, and this is the scenario I'm dealing with. These are the type of customers I'm going to run into. That's the most important thing, because you have to sell to everyone a certain way.

Pete Shau: 7:23

So if I'm looking for a sales list, if I'm looking for a sales sheet that has a script, the idea would be I would go in there and I would pull up a certain set of situations and then feed that into the chatbot to get something in return. In other words, today is Tuesday. I usually call my returns on Tuesday. What am I looking to sell? I'm probably gonna look at my 90 day idle first, or something that I have more of first, or I'm going to probably sell something for an upcoming event, right? Like you said, let's talk about Black Friday, right?

Pete Shau: 7:51

So Black Friday is usually price-based. We're going to have the best deals. We're going to be a little, you know, limited free time, based on how much you put down, but more than likely it's going to be a lower down payment. You're going to get these new products for free, okay, so I'm going to go back and I'm going to say well, you know, I lost a few customers this year. I'm going to target customers that I used to have, based on a Black Friday sale in this amount of timeframe. This is what the money is down and this is what we're looking to get out of it, and then those things I would put in there to get something back as a script that would say okay, if you're new to rent to own, this would be a great way to apply it.

Daniel Hajduk: 8:25

Yeah.

Pete Shau: 8:25

Right Now we're talking about entering it in. How would you enter that in If I'm going to say, okay, I have these, I have these ideas, I'm going to, I'm going to call my reinstatements they. I'm going to call my reinstatements. They're going to be, you know, black Friday for this and this and that. How would you enter it in there?

Daniel Hajduk: 8:38

The more organized, the better it's going to understand and interpret what you're trying to do. The more clear you are, the better grammar, punctuation. But if you break it down into lines, hey, I need to create a sales script for X. I'm going to lay out the details below so maybe you have all right product, everything about the product, the product information, the name, whatever you need to include in a script, just line item it out the weight, the Almost like in bullet points. Bullet point it out for the product, then the type of customers, then what you're wanting to focus on, what your goal is. Bullet point it out and that'll really help it and it'll give you back and more of a human script form of a yes or no scenario, kind of what you're looking for.

Pete Shau: 9:20

Now, generally what we do is we have two or three right. You used to have a page. It usually takes up a third of the page because there might be different scenarios. Even though I'm facing the same situation, it might come out a different way. What are some of the different ways? I mean that's possible through a right To to take one scenario and pitch it three different ways. I'm I'm talking to somebody who might've been a vet. I'm talking to somebody who has a whole family. I'm talking to somebody who is transient and they're going to keep it for a short period of time and out of those three, it will, or out of those it will give me three different ways to sell that same situation. Is that correct?

Daniel Hajduk: 9:54

Yeah, because again, it's going to know, from what it's been fed, everything there is to know really, and it's going to be able to pull from what's worked in the world of. This is what a person like Pete values. This is what a person like Daniel values. This is what an older person values. So you're not just saying what's important to you because that might not be important to the customer, and it's going to be able to to you because that might not be important to the customer and it's going to be able to help you lay that out and not make it a guessing game.

Daniel Hajduk: 10:21

It's again, it's not going to make you a sales expert, it's not going to. It's not going to make you this, but it's going to help you out a lot. And that's where I think the importance of this is. People need to stop guessing with it and start using it in ways just to easily help anyone. A new person you just hired them last week. All right, we're selling this. This is how you focused on. Figure out who's coming in the store. This is how you sell to them.

Pete Shau: 10:45

Now would you say it's just as fair to put in overcoming objections, as you would say I'm going to create a sales script and I'm going to give you this idea on what to say in these given situations. Would you say that overcoming objections is something that AI can also help you with? Yeah, I mean it can help.

Daniel Hajduk: 11:04

Then you can pull up. What are some common objections customers have when they're buying a couch or when they're buying a new bed set. Why wouldn't they? Why would they say no, all right, this is why they would say no. Now use that with your own knowledge of wow. What do I usually sell people on? Give it to ai, okay. Well, if you're saying because they don't need it. But how do I end up selling to someone that didn't felt like they needed at the moment, but really I discovered that they did, or I was able to get them in the door because of this. Give it that back, all right, so let's build it off. So you said some common objections to buying a new bed set is I don't need one yet, it's too much money, it's not my style, all right. Well, how do you usually handle that, pete Claude? I usually do that by having a really good deal on it, by making it personal to them. I've sold one like this before and it worked before. Can you help me work that into a script for different scenarios?

Pete Shau: 12:03

So this is really like having somebody who's in a position of management but giving them the bowling alley and the bumper rails and saying you might not understand this, but to get from point A of me pitching the ball down to the pins at the end and that whole long way in between, this is how I would handle it for somebody who doesn't have that experience, for somebody who might be a little bit newer at it, and saying you know, I've got to teach these guys how to overcome objections and I'm not really great at it myself, so let me take these parameters and put it into this system and get a lot of idea and feedback. Now, of course, you know you always got to look at it like I'm probably not going to do every single thing that it tells me to do right.

Pete Shau: 12:38

We're going to feed it and we're going to get a recipe back, but I might want to add a little bit more salt and I'm going to add a little bit more sugar. But it's an idea, it's an overall outline of saying, okay, you might not know where to go. Here is a generalistic idea of what you can say to overcome objections, what you could do to bring up this sales situation, what you could do and say in these particular agreements and you might not want to say exactly what's being said, you don't Right, you don't want to go the verbatim but to be able to say, okay, I have this guideline based on what I'm feeding it, to say this is how I do a sales script, this is how I overcome an objection, this is how I have a sales situation and then be able to put that together.

Daniel Hajduk: 13:17

One way I kind of like to look at it now is go into like a car dealership site and you can buy the truck, as is All right, you can do that. Now you're always going to find something. Well, that could be better in the car, because I wish I had this feature. Well, those are trucks. You can go and customize your exact order that they can build for you. It's kind of like that what your sales scripts and everything is. It can give you the base model truck, but you need to be able to take that layout, copy it into your own document and then put your own touch on it. So what, what exactly works for your store versus pete's store? What exactly works here in California versus Ohio?

Pete Shau: 14:00

Right right.

Pete Shau: 14:01

Building out your own truck Right because, I mean, everybody's gonna look at it a little bit differently. Now, if you get, you know, we've talked before about having one of these accounts that kind of spans over a certain space. Right, I have a store that's here, but I might have another store that's in Texas. I might have the store that's in Texas, I might have the store it's in Ohio. I might have a store in Pennsylvania or New York, where things would be different. Yeah, but having these separate accounts would allow me not only to be able to see what they're doing, but use those points of interest to help me create my own.

Daniel Hajduk: 14:28

Yeah.

Pete Shau: 14:28

And how I come across it with the demographics and geographics I have over here, whether I have a lot of land, a little bit of people, or a little bit of land and a whole lot of people. I actually know because I was going online and I was looking at Synthesiacom and I hope I'm saying that right and SundaySkycom, where it's one of those situations where not only can AI help you in creating training videos, but it can also give you somebody as a person, as a bot, as an AI person you know like and I hate to say this, I'm really out of tune on some of the things, but you know, as you do Snapchat, there's an avatar in there Now these avatars that you have are very human-like.

Pete Shau: 15:15

They're not, you know, they're not as animated, but they are more you know they're more human-like and then you can create this training video. So, you know, for people who are trying to open something new or people who are trying to get training done and they're trying to be very dialed in, I know that these are ways to utilize AI in creating is your expectations and build it out to a point where I can add these videos made and it will be reiterated in all the training videos that I have. And not only is it a lot simpler than hiring somebody to come in and do this video and then you know, it lives like this until we redo it. We have the ability to say you know what I don't like this part, and I can go in there and change it. And it takes, you know, as much as it does to upload and correct that part or subtract that part and add another part to do it. I know those two sites were just something that I came across right away, but I mean talking about making your life easier as far as creating training videos, as far as creating your things to say in situations that I wouldn't know what I'm doing. You're creating these sales scripts for people who are brand new and they don't understand really, kind of how to get out of their own shell. You know, and they're new. That's amazing to me.

Pete Shau: 16:37

You know, back in the day there was no way that's if we wanted a training video, we were going to sit in front of a camera. You're going to sit in front of a camera and record it, right, and then you're going to do it a couple of different takes because, even though you know what you want to say, you've got to read it from the teleprompter the right way. You've got to make sure that you set it the way you want to say it. You don't want to screw it up, but then right now I can type it. However, I type it as long as I've got good typing skills, which I guess I can add to chat that it's set up right and then feed it into another system, and that's kind of something I want to get making life easier.

Pete Shau: 17:10

You know we did it in the last podcast. We were talking about how do we use different programs to make our multitasking easier. What do we do? We actually went to the AI and asked for more AI based situations that make it better. You can take one AI and feed another. Is that something that you do? Do you do that on a regular basis? Have you taken the ideas and refed it?

Daniel Hajduk: 17:29

That's what you really need to do, because I don't want to just take from one source because, again, it's only given what it's fed and different companies have different approaches of what they're putting in there, what their focuses are. So take from different places. We haven't done that too much, but that's great. That's why I said balance it off each other, whether it's all right, this is my take on it. What's AI's take on it and what can it balance with mine? All right, not just this AI, but what do they think about it? Let's ask a question here. So I'm going to pull up chat GBT and I don't have a paid version of this, but before we did, I used it for quite a few things and it can do a lot.

Pete Shau: 18:12

You know, while you're looking for that, I've tried to go down the rabbit hole of a lot of different things that are already out there that we can use to make our lives easier and rent to own, and I came across scribe how Okay, and scribe how was basically like, as you're saying, you know you're going into ChatBee GBT and you're typing this in and this is how you do it, but I might not from where I'm sitting. You're handling that over there. I don't see it. Scribehow would be ability to go in and this is one of many different places. So I'm not paid for that. I don't want anybody to think that I'm getting paid by ScribeHop, but what I'm saying is you have these sites out there that if you want to show somebody how to do it, it will take the actions that you do and put it in a format that shows.

Pete Shau: 18:54

I went to this page, I went to this link, I put in this information and this is what I got out of it. I mean, talk about training. We're just talking about videos. Now I want you to go in and take a payment. I want you to go in and make a rental order. I want you to be able to type up an agreement. This is how you do it and you take this part of ai. You go to scribe how or you would go to a site like that and go, boom, these are the steps that you have to take now. Mind you, it's easy to go into a book, right, and you can see. This is the. This is the processes. Some people don't learn that way. Or how easy it would be to watch a video on the same screen that you're trying to figure out how to type up the agreement. Oh, you know what, just put it here and boom, this is how you do it.

Pete Shau: 19:35

So, you know, I see things like that all the time and I'm like how to make it easier? Is that not the best way? What are we coming up with? What do you get?

Daniel Hajduk: 19:43

we're gonna ask google what are the most important things to consider when selling? Selling what? What do you want to sell?

Pete Shau: 19:57

uh, we're gonna say a, a living room set like sofa and love. Let's, let's make it more specific. A sofa and love, I want to say living room sex. I probably wouldn't know what I talking about.

Daniel Hajduk: 20:06

So the first answer it gave me consider factors like brand condition and age. A good rule of thumb is to price your furniture at 50-70% of its original price, adjusting based on its condition. Offering a fair price attracts more buyers and increases your chances of a swift sale. Let's go ask that same exact question, though, to Claude, and this is why I said it's. It's. It's like anything in your life don't ever just look at it from one perspective and you're just blind. The AI. You got to look at it from multiple angles and see what the different things are. See, this is. This is where the beauty of chat a real chatbot comes in. List it out here. The factors consider when selling a sofa and love seat price factors, and it broke down. Material quality, frame, construction, brand reputation and warranty, current market price for similar sets, seasonal timing, customer needs broke it down. Technical specifications broke it down. Additional features would you like me to elaborate? So that's something it can go down to the fine.

Pete Shau: 21:02

Fine. So that's the difference between a chat gpt and a clock.

Daniel Hajduk: 21:06

That was google that was I can't pull, but that's what it pulled up for me. So I'm going to ask it. Like we said, we'll take what one says and give it to the other. So I'm going to give it exactly what Google gave me. So it's very nice. I'm curious to hear your perspectives on this. What factors do you think are most crucial in selling yourself a love suite from your, from your experience working with customers, and what have you found? So it broke it down and do a? That's an excellent and practical approach. I like how you focus on the key, tangible factors that actual, actually drivers resale value. Let me build on your insights. So, again, I started somewhere and everyone has their own thoughts and opinions. It can build onto it. So you might know well I like to sub these sell well, because everyone needs it at this time of the year. Well, why figure out the why? And that's what I can help you do figure out the why.

Daniel Hajduk: 21:55

That's a great, that's a great statement because, again, we're just well you know, they always sell before these, uh, new things always sell before school goes back in the year. Well, why? And then break it down into why more. It's kind of goes into the square root of everything or whatever you want to call it.

Pete Shau: 22:14

Well, the why is what we do? It right, the why is what we do, you know. Another thing that I noticed is when we're going over these situations where, how does it help me better? It can help me make videos, it can help me come up with sales scripts, it can help me figure out what time and what date would be better to sell what product. Right, I think that this, you know, I won't be able to sell snowmobiles in the middle of summer and I won't be able to sell Christmas trees at the same time either. But then vice versa, when is the best time to sell a fireplace? Well, probably not on July 4th, right, it'd probably be, you know, grills and other things. But then you can utilize that. And when we talked about it, you know, off off camera.

Pete Shau: 22:54

We talked about AI being that office manager, almost like that, that side person that help that. You know that Robin to your Batman. Well, you don't have to do all the heavy lifting, but you'd have to do something to be here. So, well, you don't have to do all the heavy lifting, but you'd have to do something to be here. So, as we come across it now, we would. I think we talked about it previously. But you're talking about work schedules. We can get it to do a work schedule, figure out how to best utilize 40 hours on a productive week or 45 hours, or how do I manipulate a holiday into that situation. How do I figure that out? I mean, when I think about all the different ways that it could make it easier, we just have to really utilize what's out there and then continually build on that, either by feeding it what we've already learned or feeding it from what it's telling us, but building up on that and kind of giving it those.

Pete Shau: 23:44

This is my experience from the situation. Now, when we're talking about AI and we're talking about experience, we're talking about you had mentioned it in a previous podcast situations would be based on historic values. Normally this happens during this time of year. Normally that happens this time of year. That would be more of an integrated situation where I would probably have to have a more integrated AI in order to cover all of the instances and the counts that I used to have and things like that. But when we're talking about scheduling, we're talking about calendar events, the thought of using we usually do okay, we're going to do a first quarter review, a second quarter review, but now I can probably do a 365-day review based on my experience and what I know, on an entire calendar for every single holiday that would actually affect my store up front.

Pete Shau: 24:40

The ability to say you know, president's Day is probably a day that we sell more bedding, you know you had the 4th of July where you probably sell more grills. You have back to school in this time frame this week, this week and this week. Spring break usually happens in the month of March or April, early April, whatever. I guess that depends on where you're from. How do I utilize that to better my sales and my staff output? These are things that I never really thought about as time goes on. So what is the best way, in your opinion, that you've started using this now, and Vox is kind of being led in that direction? I know you guys are in one of those growth phases where you need to learn. You want to learn how to use these AIs in your everyday on top of always growing, because I mean, I've heard 100% of the time in RTO, if you're not growing, you're dying.

Daniel Hajduk: 25:31

Right.

Pete Shau: 25:32

If you're not getting somewhere, you're already done. Yeah.

Daniel Hajduk: 25:39

How do you guys utilize it as far as your office situations go? Just basic management, whether or more on the sales side, of how we're going to follow up for a certain thing. That can lay it all out. Instead of having someone plan out, we're using this time to call here and follow up here for this event. We're going to schedule it out all there. It's going to help us automatically with our CRM. It's going to basically just partner with us and tell us exactly what we need to do for this. Just kind of an event schedule, like you said. Like hey, we know, the other day we were planning out our Q1 marketing plan and what we're doing. There's different stuff we're traveling for. The different stuff we're doing online, the different stuff we're doing ourselves and what our focus is based off, what we know we can do. It's overwhelming the amount of data that's getting back, which is something to be careful with. You're going to get overwhelmed with the amount of stuff it's going to give you, because it's not you, it's not well. I can only type out a page a day of different sales stuff. That's going to give you thousands of pages if you wanted to. So that's been one thing.

Daniel Hajduk: 26:40

Is our planning for next year or whenever this podcast is out, for Q1 of 2025.

Daniel Hajduk: 26:46

We're planning out our marketing for each month, incorporated with the different shows and events we're at. So, whether it's meeting of the minds that we're going to be at in February, or another show that we're going to be at in Vegas in March, or the events we have locally, all throughout those three months helping us plan around that and it was not just us guessing, because we're all just going to guess you're going to miss. What can I do before meeting of the minds to market right, how long before? And what should I do before the show in Vegas? When should I start sending emails out? I'm planning that out and incorporating everything else, so I'm having to think about it when it's oh crap, it's a month out and now I'm just going to scramble to get something started. We're always scrambling for something. Why not use the thing to help us plan out better? Now, again, it takes initiative and you have to give it something and you have to start doing it, but it'll help you a lot there.

Pete Shau: 29:12

I mean execution is always the key right.

Pete Shau: 29:16

It's only going to execute what you want to do, to say what we're going to do or to do what we want to do. Of course, the execution is always like I have to do it and I have to utilize it on a regular basis. But creating these things so far and I know that I would hear somebody going, yeah, but I'm not going to plan that out because you never know what's going to happen True, right, but if I'm going for a timeframe, if I'm going for a basis, I'm looking for the bones, right, I'm looking for the bones of a timeframe. I would say, okay, yeah, I might not want to really get down and dirty on what's going to happen on the last two quarters of the year, but to give me a timeframe, you know what I? That's going to end the way it does, and that particular month will probably have a different revenue scheme than this and it would cause me to have more marketing during that particular point in time. And then, the more you get into it, the more you go down that rabbit hole. And talking about AI and utilizing it as the office manager, right, not necessarily that it's going to tell you what to do, but giving it these office tasks that will allow you to utilize your time more on one-on-one tasks that the things that the AI can't do, because we're constantly talking about what can AI do? How can it help it better? Well, the one thing it can't do is be us. The one thing it can't do is build that relationship. The one thing that it can't do is give a warm smile and ask the kids hey, how are you doing? Do you want a lollipop? And talking to mom and, oh, I'm having a bad day. Oh, you know how you doing, margaret. Why don't you tell me what's going on? Because it doesn't make a difference.

Pete Shau: 30:35

But in the background of that, to be able to say I can work a calendar from today for the next 60 days, I can put in all these things that I need, and while I'm telling Ms Jones how important she is to my business and trying to build that rapport so that I can sell something that I just learned off of chat TPT, that it can tell me, okay, these are the better days. It's either the days that you sell more or sell less. These are the days that you probably want to be overstaffed and not understaffed. You think Wednesday is a bad day for you. Well, guess what? Historically it's not. You've told me for the last six weeks you get more sales on Wednesday than you have ever before because you have this paid plan versus it's not paid plan or whatever the case is. And as you, as you go on, you build your, you build your staff with an extra AI member. That doesn't really cost you that much.

Daniel Hajduk: 31:22

Yeah, it's for anyone that's ever wanted a secretary that it's not smart to hire one at a certain point. This is where you can start until you get to the point in your business where you truly need a person doing that job. This is everyone's personal assistant with that.

Pete Shau: 31:39

What type of investment?

Daniel Hajduk: 31:41

does it take to have AI at work? Is it just the computer?

Daniel Hajduk: 31:43

It's an internet connection, like I said, show you here. You need an internet or data on your phone. Like I said, that's even the beautiful thing. You don't need internet if you can do it on your phone, right? So just have an account, put your email in and get started. It takes zero dollars to get started. Like we said, in all these things whether it is your sales or your task management, for anything, and, like you said, it's not going to do it perfectly and it's not going to always go to plan, no matter how much effort you could spend a whole day on planning out this month's plan for everything we're going to do within our office, in our store, whether from the marketing, the sales, the organization days, the admin days. We live in an imperfect world. Things are going to come up every single day, but giving it that structure is going to help you tremendously and that's what it can deliver.

Pete Shau: 32:30

You know, I think on one of the other podcasts you mentioned the FLDC, and that's what they can deliver.

Pete Shau: 32:34

You know, I think on one of the other podcasts you mentioned the FLDC and remind me again what that stood for it's the Franchise Leadership Development Conference. And so during that conference, you know, and you guys had this roundtable and you sat down and you kind of were talking about some big name people in that situation. What did you take out of it? What are they doing now? That's that, with AI, that's kind of really changed them.

Daniel Hajduk: 32:56

And are they really looking to implement it more? What's the coolest thing or the most interesting thing? Not really cool is.

Daniel Hajduk: 33:00

Everyone's got a different idea on it or at least at that time, that was October of 2024, everyone's got a different perspective of it.

Daniel Hajduk: 33:11

There are some that are like I'm not using it at all, and these are some guys that are, I would think, that are pretty high up with making decision of what they do, whether they're the head of franchise sales and they're like we're not using it at all, versus some guys that are like I said, they're using it on their zoom meetings, they're using it for their management. He's using it to write a social copy, every single thing, to plan out all of his marketing, everything versus the guys are just trying things out. I'm not really sure. That's. What I took away is that there's plenty of people. At any point you're at with AI, whether you're using it to check your emails or you're using it to plan out everything you do there's someone at a point you are, so don't be overwhelmed that you're behind, because there's always someone else and there's always someone else to learn from, from a starter to an expert, no matter how much technology you use. That's one of my biggest takeaways.

Pete Shau: 34:02

As you're sitting at the table right. You're sitting at the table and you're saying we got some big names. What's a big name? That's not using it right now.

Daniel Hajduk: 34:10

I want to call them out, but I think Whataburger is a pretty big name for not to be using it. Okay, but want to call them out, but I think whataburger is a pretty big name for not to be using it. Okay so, but they had a different perspective on it, um, and they called out others in their space of the fast food space of one big thing.

Daniel Hajduk: 34:21

The most controversial thing was the uh ai drive-thru stuff, the automatic drive-thru. So you're not even talking to a human anymore. That's messing up your order. You're talking to a robot right, we talked about that.

Pete Shau: 34:32

we that we talked about it. Checkers has that.

Daniel Hajduk: 34:34

And I learned a lot of how in the fast food space, how different everyone's approaching it. You have some taking it on completely. I've seen Wendy's do it a lot and they're doing it pretty well. And I also heard that McDonald's has canceled some of their orders. Again, I don't know how true that is, but that's what I was told. But you hear big name players like McDonald's. They're even struggling with it and you feel like McDonald's does everything because they're everywhere and everyone knows who McDonald's is. They're not perfect and some are adapting it better than them. Checkers isn't bigger than McDonald's, but did you think it was a good experience? I thought it was great no-transcript I want.

Pete Shau: 35:37

I just only thing I want is my order to be right and you don't overcharge me and you don't have a lot of talk, extra talk, that's not necessary.

Daniel Hajduk: 35:43

So that's a good point. So where are you going to eat? Right? And now they used AI to ensure they can give you you can order fast and get your food fast. Now, people aren't using it as much in those ways if they can't figure out how to do that and it's messing that up, so how can you use AI to deliver what you deliver or you say that you deliver? That's how they're using it.

Pete Shau: 36:07

Yeah, and I think it goes back to the. You know, you have that office manager, that office secretary probably would be a better term for it, like you said and it's not to do everything. So we're giving you ideas on exactly what we think you can utilize it for, but it doesn't mean you need utilization in that area. If you have it taken care of and you're good in that area, then use it for the areas that you don't have it. Use it for an area where you're not prolific or you don't have somebody on there that can do that job very well, or in yourself.

Pete Shau: 36:36

Right now I might be able to do it, but today I can't because I'm either short staff somebody called out there's something going on that needs my attention. I can't solve a car accident that happened with my truck and somebody pulled out in front and it's nobody's fault, it was just a bad accident. I've got to go out there. Well, there are things that I got to do that I need to catch up on. That day might be different than other days, so you know the thought of utilization when you say Whataburger didn't have it, but then I'm sure there are reasons why they don't.

Daniel Hajduk: 37:04

So not every store, or they're being very careful at least they might have a test restaurant for the drive-thrus, but it's not a thing that you're going to run into, because they're just not there yet.

Pete Shau: 37:18

And I think that's a huge part of it is being selective, right? You don't want to turn over your whole life to. I'm coming to work and I'm going to have this AI driven store. I'm not going to come in and-.

Daniel Hajduk: 37:24

Your customers will notice it Right.

Pete Shau: 37:25

My AI is going to make my sales and my AI is going to take my payments and AI is going to set up my showroom and all I'm going to do is kind of zombie through this thing, because that's not anywhere near what we want to talk about.

Daniel Hajduk: 37:35

No.

Pete Shau: 37:36

But we have to say that that's there. There is that issue where some people have backed off of it, and it's for good reason, because you don't want to get stuck in that loop of that echo chamber of AI, AI, AI, AI, AI. And then I come to work one day and I'm like I really don't know what to do, unless somebody tells me what to do.

Daniel Hajduk: 37:53

Right and then you're not delivering what you can Exactly.

Pete Shau: 38:03

But to utilize AI in a way that will help you doesn't mean it's the same thing every single day. It's not this cookie cutter thing where every single day I need to do it exactly like this and it's very possible to say I have AI that I utilize in different ways because of the needs that I have of that day. So as I say that I don't want the rent-to-own community to be like, well, you know, you're just going to come in and flip over, switch over and nobody's going to have a rent-to-own company like that, I 100% agree. I don't think I'd want one. But to be able to say I in need or how do I get my guys to utilize the tools that I have right now to make the best of a 40-hour week.

Pete Shau: 38:38

Now, very recently I was speaking at a buddy's home for an convention about when they had to get together about time management. It was something that I had also pulled off talking about in one of the previous conventions. In Rent to Own, time management is huge. It's important why? Because in time management, rent-to-own has traditionally been a 48-hour or 45-hour business where they cut back, and we found out that in most cases and not all, but in most cases. After the issue with what happened and the pandemic and everything that happened, a 40-hour workweek was not only conducive to people being able to be home more and having a better work-life flow, but most jobs could be done in that timeframe. Again, I'm not going to say all, but so then it pushes the term. How do we get the most out of our 40-hour week?

Pete Shau: 39:27

Ai would make a big difference. If I can use 1.25 or 1.5 of a person, right, that one person plus their helper, their AI helper, whether it's on their phone, whether it's scheduling, whether it's being able to say I'm going to put these 17 different addresses in my map and find out the quickest, fastest way to get there. That's going to route me not only around time, distance and accidents, but what makes sense? I'm going to go this way, go this way, go this way. I'm not going to repeat and go around the same block three times. I'm not going to hit the same zip code all the time. This is a one-way versus a two-way versus. This is a paid highway and all of a sudden, within five minutes, I have the best way to go. That's going to save me 40 minutes of travel time, and so you know, and the thought of AI, and how does it make it better?

Pete Shau: 40:18

Well, the idea is you have to figure out how it's going to help you and then learn the different ways to make that happen. Now, I know in the last show, the APRO show 2024 in Orlando, there were guys there that had this software that I think is also integratable with VersaRent. That says you know, it's a drive map software where if you put in names and address and it can kind of pull from what you already have. I believe you know I'm saying this very loosely, but you know you can enter a name and if it's already integrated it will have the add, the current address and how to get there, and the more that you enter in you can check off for delivery or service or whatever the case is, and it maps this out for you. Would I say that I would always utilize that? No, I would not always utilize that. There are days that we're going out for one TV and I only need one guy to do that and it'll take 30 minutes.

Pete Shau: 41:01

But there are days where I have four deliveries, two services and a pickup and I've only got so much time, yeah, and you can plan that out, and AI just does this great job of being able to do that. So, on top of just making it easier, it's a tool, and I think the best thing that we can always say about AI is regardless if you're good at it, regardless if you know where to utilize it, more or less, it's a learning tool, just like anything that you have in front of you. The more you use it, the sharper you are at using it, and I think that there is no way, shape or form that we go in the next five years of rent to own and not utilize this tool. I mean, could you imagine not using it for Vox in the next year If we took away all those tools? Could you imagine what it would be like to not have those tools? Be blind, it's crazy. You said the horse and the carriage. Could you imagine going back to pulling? You know?

Daniel Hajduk: 41:54

that's what people are doing. It's that's the whole. Being scared of something is we have all these inventions and things for a reason. There's people that invent things, not just to make more money and become richer. Innovative is to truly make people's lives easier. Why do people do things? To make it? Either to solve a problem or because they simply just want something or they love something. That's why people buy things or create things because they simply want to try something new or because they're in love with it. It's the same thing there.

Pete Shau: 42:23

I mean, I know that we talk about a lot of outside retailers already using things. The reason that I talk about it now is because I feel like rent-to-own is always on that curve.

Pete Shau: 42:31

We're always on the backside of the bell curve, and I don't mean anything by that. It's just that rent-to-own has always been there, and the utilization of these tools on our day-to-day would make so much difference in what we can do and what we can't get done with the same amount of people that we always have. And hiring has been difficult in my area. I don't know how difficult it's been for 2024 in anybody else's area. It's been hard here.

Pete Shau: 42:54

So the question is how do I get my guys to not only be able to do more but not put so much on them that they're like, okay, you know what You're paying me for 40 hours, but I'm doing 60 hours worth in 40 hours and I'm done by the time I get home, and that's not a position that I want to be in, all right. So then, how do I help them utilize AI? How can I get their little sections of area that they're not being 100% productive, because it's not always your fault. Sometimes you go to the bathroom, sometimes you got to answer the phone. You're not really doing anything but being on the phone, but that backs up the other hours that you have, because now I have to multitask a huge amount in this particular timeframe because Ms Jones had me on the phone for 30 minutes. Whether it was productive or not, right, we're still building the relationship, and so how do we get those in-betweens to count for more? This is the only way I can think of yeah it's figuring out.

Daniel Hajduk: 43:45

are people again like I've told you, are people really just busy or are they actually working really hard? And that can help you solve that issue. We've run into one thing where we've had not seasonal pickups but huge increases of certain areas at Vox where it's like crap. Do we need to hire more employees to help them with this or do we need to hire more of them? Do we need more delivery drivers and more trucks or do we just need more people helping load up the van at the end of the day so the delivery driver isn't loading up the van for an hour or the truck for an hour. They're being able to load it up in 15 minutes. Then they can get out on their routes. Then they're not stuck out late or stuck in rush hour when they didn't want to leave. They're not agitated anymore because they were able to get in the truck, able to deliver, get back, do more deliveries.

Daniel Hajduk: 44:31

It's something like that. It's helping you figure out what you can do. On that note of hiring, it's really good at laying out job descriptions. I've done it lately for a couple and again, give it what you need because you want to make sure you're including the legal stuff, whatever your company things are. But rinse and repeat with job descriptions, that's another thing. So really figuring out what you need from an employee and laying that out in a bolted PDF, it can do that really well.

Pete Shau: 45:02

I mean that's actually a great point, because I completely didn't even think about that. But let me tell you, 2024 has brought its unique challenges through and through, and one of them is hiring. It's been difficult for a lot of different reasons, and I'm not blaming or saying one thing or the next. We have a very difficult situation. People in rent to own do a lot. It's not that you can't learn it, it's that there's a lot. One day you might be in sales, one day you might be in collections, one day you might be on the road, one day you might be in management and one day you might be doing all of the above in the same time frame. You don't know how to communicate that right in what they see, and so being make it sound like you are the president of the United States.

Pete Shau: 45:50

And just be able to do that I think, I think that's, that's the great part of AI is that there's? No judgment in there.

Daniel Hajduk: 45:55

No, and it could give you. It's a. It's a storyteller. So, again, like it's. You want to make a delivery driver job or a collections manager job sound like the most important thing in the world? You can. Or you want to make it sound like, hey, I want them to sound like they're the cool guy or whatever. Whatever personality you want to give it, put that into there and it'll give it. So it's communicating what you need to make. It's covering your bases, which is the most important thing, which I feel like hiring AI can give you that Cover all your bases. This is everything I need to include in here. How can I communicate this to stand out? How can I make this sound fun, even if it's the most boring stuff in the world?

Pete Shau: 46:34

You know we're talking about all the aspects that we can change or have something non-personal right, Somebody who's not a person do the heavy lifting right. I need to create this. I know it's something you don't want to do. I don't want to knuckle, drag through this. Give it to the chatbot, Give it to the AI, Give it to something that really doesn't matter if it's doing it, and tackle the things that you're going to get that are going to stimulate the mind and get you going and be productive on your day when you're at Vox. I know that you guys have recently got is it Moxie?

Pete Shau: 47:13

That's the new mascot the new mascot. So Moxie the new mascot is something that came up. Where did that come from, and will Moxie be AI driven now?

Daniel Hajduk: 47:23

There's points of it are, but it's kind of the best of both worlds what we can develop with it. It's just part of building our brand more and being more what our brand is, um, and what the ox represents, with everything that's strong and bold and daring, whatever um stands for. A lot of what vox is and been around for almost 30 years, and what we do, um. You can read our latest creative position, going into 2025, on our new website, and so we developed that and now we're able to take that and we can come up with the marketing points just based off that aux, based off what it really means, breaking it down. So an aux just isn't an aux. What does it mean to be? How does it relate to our company? And so, yeah, you can develop it.

Daniel Hajduk: 48:07

You could develop a mascot for any kind of store. Again, make it fun. We have a picture on the back wall in our office area behind our printer, and it has moxie with ox behind it or a print shop. Now we have a mascot. We really need that. Um. I have another client who they're doing the same thing and you would never think of this client needing a mascot, but it's the city we were in and they're developing their own mascot that they're going to have at events and it's making it personal, it's making it fun for kids, it's giving it some character to it and you're able to develop that more with AI and give it some storytelling to it. You can tell stories with it.

Pete Shau: 48:52

Did you guys develop your Moxie with AI?

Daniel Hajduk: 48:55

I think, to a certain point. Obviously, we have some very creative people at Vox. Yes, that's, true I think the Ox kind of came from it. But if you're looking to kind of get an idea of what can my mascot be, it can tell you that, based off what your company represents, where are you located, what do you sell, what do you do, what are your brand standards?

Pete Shau: 49:16

It can kind of do that. I mean, the reason I ask is because you know we have these different times of the year that come up right. So you have St Patrick's Day and that, of course, is themed a certain way, and your 4th of July is themed a certain way, and you know MLK Day is themed a certain way and you know Veterans Day is themed a certain way. Utilize that point of interest to get sales or to get clicks or to get sales scripts out. I mean, the idea behind it is so big that I think you know we had mentioned before on a different time and I think we were off the podcast, but if it's not AI-driven today, it will be AI-driven tomorrow. Personally, do you feel like that's where everything's going? As much as you've been involved in AI now and as you've seen the progression of Vox from going non-using to using it in your Zoom and using it, you know, clawed to kind of help you? Is that a tangible statement there?

Daniel Hajduk: 50:35

It will become like everything else we use on a daily basis. That once wasn't a thing, in my opinion. I don't think it's going to be something like. It's going to be a shiny toy every day in everyone's life. It's going to become your car in some sort of form. Whatever that car is to you, it's going to become that. It's going to become your electricity, whether you use the electricity to plug your charger phone or to keep your fridge on or to watch TV whatever you use that for, it's going to be that.

Daniel Hajduk: 51:08

But it's also very powerful and it's not just a yes or no thing. It can kind of develop on its own. So what is it really going to do? We don't know yet. Is AI going to become its own thing and become its own superior thing to humans? We don't know that. So that's where the fun part of it is is learning what it can do, but also comes with the controls, and there's smart people out there doing that and learning how to do it right. So just look it up, find articles on what these people are doing, all these people that are developing, and there's some really smart people involved with this, and I've created things that 10 years ago you probably said you're crazy for some of these things coming out so absolutely it's.

Daniel Hajduk: 51:46

It's just it's going to become a part of your everyday life, just as much as your phone has. And your phone's already changing. You can already see how much different phone you're. Like I said, you go on Google and you notice how it's already different. It's there. Don't hide from it, because you're gonna, you're gonna have to use it Now I'm not saying it's going to become your eyes, ears, mouth, nose, but make it your glasses to help you see.

Pete Shau: 52:13

Well, I think that it's a tool that we're going to continue to talk about, a tool that we're going to continue to use. Guys, we appreciate you being on the show. I wanted you guys to know again make sure that you get the red shirts for your company. They are just doing everything they can to give back to our military, especially on deployment. So you can get your red shirt at voxpopulicom.

Pete Shau: 52:33

If you want to follow the RTO show and get series like this, absolutely find out about us. You can go to Facebook, instagram and LinkedIn, find us on YouTube and you can always hit me up at the show, at Pete, at the RTO show podcastcom. Don't be afraid to hit me up. If you have any questions for Daniel, you can always hit me up there, or you can reach out to him directly at voxpopulatecom and ask the questions that you really want to know. If we get enough of those, we can actually come back and readdress them again and I listen. This is. This is a great thing. We are on part three. Look out for part four coming to you soon and I will tell