The RTO Show "Let's talk Rent to Own"
Ever wondered how a $8.5 billion industry keeps millions of Americans lounging in style? Step into "The RTO Show Podcast" – where the mysterious world of Rent to Own furniture finally spills its secrets! Your host Pete Shau isn't just any industry veteran – he's spent 20 years in the trenches, collecting the kind of stories that'll make you laugh, gasp, and maybe even rethink everything you knew about that couch you're sitting on.
From wild customer tales to industry shake-ups that'll knock your rented socks off, Pete brings the seemingly mundane world of furniture financing to vibrant life. Warning: This isn't your typical business podcast – expect real talk, unexpected laughs, and "aha!" moments that'll have you looking at every lease agreement in a whole new light.
Whether you're an RTO pro who knows your depreciation schedules by heart, or you're just curious about how that fancy sectional ended up in your living room, Pete's got the inside scoop you never knew you needed. Tune in and discover why the furniture business is anything but boring!
The RTO Show "Let's talk Rent to Own"
Part 4: “Growing your store with AI Marketing today!”
Master the power of AI marketing strategies and transform your approach to connecting with local communities. Join me, Pete SHau, and my esteemed guest, Daniel Hajduk from Vox Populi, as we navigate the exciting intersection of AI and local business marketing, with a focus on the rent-to-own industry. Together, we promise to unravel how AI can break through traditional marketing barriers, allowing businesses to customize their campaigns in line with local events and unique community needs. We illuminate the path to creating vibrant, community-centric marketing strategies that foster growth and deeper customer connections.
Discover how AI can turn social media into a powerhouse of personalized marketing. Daniel Hajduk and I explore actionable insights for synchronizing your sales strategies with customer milestones like birthdays and anniversaries, ensuring your promotions resonate personally and seasonally. Imagine crafting campaigns months in advance, fueled by AI-driven content creation that keeps your messaging fresh and engaging. We delve into the blend of AI insights and human experience, which together create a more efficient and compelling approach to customer engagement.
Dive into the world of data optimization and learn how it can revolutionize your marketing game. We discuss the benefits of understanding customer behavior through data analysis, from predicting shopping trends to tailoring marketing tactics for different demographics. The conversation also highlights the significance of adapting marketing strategies over time, especially for businesses operating with limited budgets. As we embrace AI's role in shaping the future of marketing, we also explore the potential of organic brand-building methods and the exciting innovations presented at events like CES. Join us for a journey into the incredible potential of AI to redefine the rent-to-own industry's marketing landscape.
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Hey, welcome to the RTO Show. I'm your host, pete Chow, and today we're doing part four of our AI series on how it's going to affect you in rent to own. I've got my guest here, daniel Hajdu from Vox Populi, and listen, guys, this is the fun part. This is the part I want to get into, because this is how to grow your store with AI marketing and really, this is kind of where you shine. This is the part where Vox is like all about the sales, all about the marketing, all about the brand building. Daniel, this is it. This is the fun part of the AI.
Speaker 1:We've gone into like how to get going and where to look at it and what do you do and how do you start off and what even AI means. And now we're getting to the good stuff. How do I utilize my so-called secretary office assistant to really put me the edge on getting something different, new, vibrant and in the now? How do we do?
Speaker 2:that Well, like we've talked about. But everything else is a tool, right. And what's the biggest complaints people have with marketing? It costs too much, they don't have the time and it doesn't work.
Speaker 1:Well, brain fart, you know you try to come up with something. Well, because something that I've noticed in Rent to Own too is we have these ideas, and then next year we're in the same time frame, we're cycling through the same time, and then how many times during football season have you heard oh, we're going to do a kind of like a touchdown sale.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, you and everybody else that's doing that right now is going to do some type of tailgating, some type of touchdown, and sometimes it's okay to be with the flow and sometimes you want to be different. Right, we're going to use that tool to be completely different. I love that idea.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's just like everything else. You can simplify it down to the simplest thing. So, like you mentioned, you're doing the same thing over and over and over again. Well, have it personalized a little more, and that makes it so much easier. You can personalize down each store with hey, let's do some geographical based marketing for October. Instead of doing football, let's do it around each store's area, or at least each region, based on something that would be more relatable to there, because you might have a different theme with something where it's colder in october versus down here in florida, right, so you might want to theme it different.
Speaker 1:You're not going to do hot chocolate, probably down here in october, but you might do that up north I was thinking too, like if I was going to do this based on calendar base, because you always do it based on calendar. You know season this, we have football season, basketball and everybody's doing like. You know, March Madness and everything. But you know, wouldn't it be great to go to like a local school or your local business bureau and grab a calendar of events and go, you know, instead of doing it based on what everybody else is doing, this and what would be great, you know what would be a great sales pitch for these different events and go. Okay, I can get backing into this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you want to be relatable to the community. Absolutely. First off, everyone should be involved with their chamber of commerce. There's so much going on there. We have people tonight at an event with our chamber of commerce in our, in our county. And, for example, one thing we've really focused some of our marketing stuff on in Atlanta is the movie industry, because it's so big and growing constantly.
Speaker 2:So there's so much going on, so we've been able to focus things just solely around there, because there's an opportunity. So what's that? It doesn't have to be the movie industry. There's only so many big industries, but what is that industry that kind of has that hey, or what is that area that you can look at and be like, hey, we can do something around this and people are going to get into that?
Speaker 1:That is Tyler Perry. He's got a big studio over there.
Speaker 2:He's one of them.
Speaker 1:There's somebody, there's another actor that has another big area over there now, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Was it Cat?
Speaker 1:Williams. I think Somebody bought land over there for another.
Speaker 2:There's something it's constantly growing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:There's one about 10 minutes from Vox, where this big old Ford GM site used to be, and it's growing like crazy right now, and they have this whole planned development. We had a luncheon with them last month and they just presented everything about it and it's just insane how much impact it really has on everything. Now that I think about it.
Speaker 1:I think Cat Williams bought an old military base.
Speaker 1:Probably I don't remember if that was in Georgia or not, I don't remember, but I think it was going to convert that into some type of Tyler Perry-esque type thing, and Georgia has got a lot of that going on and depending on where you were in the country, it could be different. I mean, the Northeast might be different than the Southeast and the Southwest and the Midwest and everything like that. I mean, I know that this year, in 2025, we're going to have the RT World 2025 in Oklahoma. Right, and as you're doing that, excuse me, omaha, omaha.
Speaker 1:Nebraska I'm sorry, I said that. Omaha, nebraska. You know that stakes and that's one of those states that it's very unique to what it is Right. That's one of those states that it's very unique to what it is Right and having a calendar of events in that area would be so great to start mimicking different things that you do with those events and tie it into the community, because this I mean community-based is exactly what this is about.
Speaker 1:You know, we're not selling across country. Nobody calls us up or nobody does an email to buy from like New York, from Florida. They're doing it from a few streets over or they're doing it from the county right next door. And so when you, when you tie that into your local situation where you either whether it be a football game, a basketball game or you know whatever anybody's good at I mean Georgia's peaches you know you can't you kind of integrate that as well. I mean those are the thoughts that you know every time I see, yeah, you know every time I see, yeah, you know it's football season, everybody's doing this, you know, and touchdown for the sale and I'll come, that's played out. You know the first year is good, the second year is like eh, the third year is like I'm expecting it. Let's do something new and we can put all that information in AI and get a great return.
Speaker 2:Right, you don't have to know everything. That's why you just have to know what questions you want to ask it. So what are you looking for and what do you want to figure out about your community? Ask it what do you know about city X? What might stick out to the residents of this kind of area based off their demographics, what they do, what's involved in a city Because again, you might have a college town by that might be more prevalent than other towns. You might have other things. You might have a different industry that's really big. They're supposed to theme it around something and make it personalized to the people, because they're going to see that. What is someone going to stop when they're scrolling on their phone or when they're getting mail out of their mailbox and be like, oh, this is really cool, versus just another touchdown tailgate direct mail piece. Well, you know it's funny.
Speaker 1:You said that it's an awesome thing to say, because I want to know what gets to people to stop doom scrolling. You know, to just zip, zip, zip, and then I actually input that in AI and I don't quite remember the output, because I did see something and I was like, wow, that was great, and then I completely forgot what it was. But you know, getting people to stop, and being different, not the same and having this environment where not only do I want to capture attention, but I don't want to be the same as the last 10 things that you stopped on. I want to be different, I want to be integrated with the community, I want to be where you're going to be and I want to be present in what's important to you and then back that up to. But I also want you to come and do business with me.
Speaker 1:You know, and and so local advertising is immensely popular and very, very important. But when you're talking about AI and you're and you're, let's say, you're building this sales culture right Cause you want to grow it, ai is going to going to put you on a map. And how do you, how do you make AI work for you? As far as marketing. What were some, what'd be some steps if I wanted to just include AI and say, okay, I want to come up with this marketing plan. Where do you start? Let's say at Vox. Or Daniel says okay, if I'm putting a marketing campaign number one, where do I start Start?
Speaker 2:have an idea of what you want to accomplish. Know what your parameters are. Obviously, you might have certain rules you have to follow, no matter if you're doing this at a store level basis or a regional basis or a whole company wide basis. Know what your parameters are. Know what you can spend. If you are going to spend, you don't have to spend to market. But know all those things and start inputting that into it, into a chatbot, and say, okay, I need to come up with a marketing plan for Q1. And this is my budget. These are the platforms we use. Help me personalize this to town. Why?
Speaker 1:Now, when you say that, is it like okay, I want to move product versus I want to get new customers versus I want a larger?
Speaker 2:down payment during this. It can help you on the focus. If you're just trying to get attention or you're trying to drive sales. It can help kind of gear an ad or a basis of an ad to that. Now it's like okay, whatever, whatever that is, that might gear someone towards one or the other. Or just if you're trying to get eyeballs or you're trying to just trying to get a high value sale, if it's the dollar value versus the eyeballs, then do that, look at that there and you can, you can personalize it out of that.
Speaker 1:It's I mean it's, it seems so dialed in and every time that, you know, sometimes we sit down and we all try to come up with the next idea and then there's a stagnancy moment. Everybody's like, yes, I want to do this, I want to do this, but I don't know how. And to be able to pull up the AI, to be able to involve us into this sales culture where it's like, okay, this is what I want to accomplish, what am I going to get out of it? Boom, I'm going to get this out of it. Is is is kind of weary. It's kind of like, wow, it is that easy. But you know, sometimes we talk about content creation. That involves ads or, let's say, special day reminders, birthdays, stuff like that. We can. How would you do that? Would you print up a list of like birthdays or do you say, okay, for the birthdays of this month, this is what I want to accomplish?
Speaker 2:Are you more of just like hey, a plan of it doing your repetitive thing, or, if you want to do something different per month, is that what you're looking for?
Speaker 1:Well, more like you know what do I say? That's going to get people on their birthdays and wanting to come in and something for this month, right? So this month is December. Any December birthday months. You know how would I go about that? What would you say Okay, you know how would I go about that. What would you say Okay, december birthday month. I want to do something different. How would you tackle that on, let's say, on a list of to-dos?
Speaker 2:I would just include that in your overall plan. If birthday marketing is in your plan at all, but you're looking to personalize it down to each month, so a summer birthday is different from a birthday this month, then you can do that because it's probably going to theme it around something that people might buy more around Christmas time versus the middle of summer, right? So personalize it down to that and just have that in your plan. So you know that.
Speaker 2:I know from our knowledge that you always send birthday stuff out at the beginning of the month, because it's always better to be earlier than late at the beginning of the month, in the first day or so, and you do your birthday stuff, have the plan out for on the second. We send out, know, even direct messaging people if you have that information, sending out the mail piece, obviously, or whatever you actually hit them with. Send them that, uh, that text or whatever you have from them, but personalize it down to that month and that's that's a great idea, honestly, because again you're going to send them something for december. They might trigger different than they do because they're thinking about what's on their christmas list. So why not?
Speaker 1:well, you know, and I'm also, you know, also think, because we had mentioned in a previous you know, you have the ability with AI to not only come up with the next quarter, the next six months, you can come up with the next calendar year, right?
Speaker 1:So something that you want to accomplish in September, you wouldn't do it in September, you would do it in August, or you would do it in the end of July and go, ok, I'm pre-planning for these months, this is what I want to come up with and have those strategies ready so that between day one and day five, that's being mailed out, or, you know, let's say, day 25 to the 31st, you're mailing it out already for the previous or for the next month, coming up and giving those ideas and I think also it's going to be able to find out okay, what months do?
Speaker 1:No-transcript, different, tailored towards you know when, your COD is this you can maybe add on a gift or a free, you know, stocking stuff or whatever the case is, because I already know that you're going to already know that you're going to want to put this down, but for what you're normally going to do, I will give you some extra and I think the idea of it is just taking what you know and your knowledge and your experience and then finding that pathway to make it so much easier and so much better.
Speaker 1:But I think the point that I really want to know is you have birthdays, anniversaries, you have your anniversary, as in your work anniversary, your home anniversary, maybe there's an anniversary that means something to you. Now, of course, you have to be a little bit more dialed in. I don't know how you'd be able to incorporate that unless you have some personal knowledge. So we'll just stick with work anniversaries. But as that stuff comes around, when you're doing what you do and Vox has these great big plans and stuff like that how do these sales tips help you get everything out to the masses faster and easier? Does it really give you content creation ideas?
Speaker 2:It gives you ideas Again you have to balance it with what you know and what works. But it can start somewhere like hey, I don't know what I want to do on the 7th of this month, so just plug in something. Or I want to do it around, like for us, around engraving on this day and print this day and apparel this day, but I don't know how to make it different three times in a month. So give me an idea how to do a different apparel post on Facebook. That's going to be relevant, and I'm not just posting a video of the embroidery machine three times in a row and it's like, okay, relevant. I'm not just posting a video of the embroidery machine three times in a row and it's like okay what's cool about that?
Speaker 2:How can I make it more personalized to someone to make, oh, that's cool, or get them get eyeballs on it?
Speaker 1:which is what we're usually going for on social media. So when you, when you talk to it I'm saying that, I'm saying that kind of like in a hard way when you, when you integrate yourself and you're typing to the to the chat bot, right Is, and you're typing to the chat bot, right, is there different ways to go? I want to make sure I say it right, because each individual social media platform almost has a different feel to it. Obvious reasons, right? You know, mcdonald's is one way, wendy's is another, burger King is another. It's all fast food, but it's not the same.
Speaker 1:You have Facebook, which is a little bit different than Instagram, even though they own it. You know there's a Snapchat that has a completely different situation and a different way to go at it than TikTok. As you're doing, you're integrating with the AI and you're talking about all these sales. But let's say, you have an idea that you want to come up with. Does it? Is it different for each individual social media platform? Is there that tweaking that happens when you say, okay, I want to do this ad, but I want to. I want to set up this ad for TikTok versus I want to set up this ad for Facebook.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it gets you down to that again, because you're not just going to want to. If you're on TikTok and Instagram and Facebook, you're not going to want to post an image that you post on Facebook on TikTok. Probably it's not going to do much on a video-based platform, so, yeah, it'll give you that. Okay, how can I incorporate this picture of a couch that we have into a video on TikTok? Tiktok is all about having something that makes people watch the full video, because the attention spans are so short. Now, how can you keep you from scrolling 37 seconds in? You know what?
Speaker 1:I mean, I know one minute video. How do I keep you at least past the one? You know the 32nd mark and you know it's. It's translated to something so different because nowadays there's so many different ways to go by advertising, and now it's it's come down to how can I keep your attention for just long enough? If I have a YouTube video, how do I keep you on there for the first five seconds before that skip button comes and I'm jamming on it to just get past whatever you're trying to say? And when you're talking about AI generation, does it take into account those primary seconds? Like you know, the first five seconds. I've got to get your, I've got to get you to understand what it is you're going to look at for the next 15 seconds, so that I can sell you something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean you could fill up if you want to say hey, I want all the focus to be on the first five seconds of a video. How can I make that most impactful for I'm spending the most money, getting the most out of it? It'll do that because it's pulling from everything else that's been put out there into the world, so it's pulling from what's worked and what hasn't worked. So, again, it's not going to just give you exactly. It'll give you not exactly but closer to what you're looking for, based on your goals. If you're just looking for an informative video, a tutorial video, it'll give you that, versus a flash five. Second thing, where the first five seconds where all the content is everything else just fluff. So if someone does stay on, it's just informative, or?
Speaker 1:whatever. So what I've noticed is so we talk about this content creation and how it comes about and how do we make that, how do we utilize AI into that. But then the other side of it is part of growing and part of using AI in your marketing is being able to get very dialed into who you want, right. So you have the ability to and I would really hope at some point that Rent-O-Win has the ability to kind of like, have that information integration right To be able to go back and say I'm looking for an ad right To incorporate to somebody who's 40 plus, somebody who is maybe single or, you know, dating but not married, lives in an apartment and probably makes between $35,000, $50,000, right, lives in an apartment and probably makes between $35,000, $50,000, right.
Speaker 1:And then that ad utilization, that thought process will be completely different than maybe my Saturday ad, where I'm looking for more families. I'm looking for anywhere, family between four and six people that have a combined income of, let's say, $75,000, $80,000 for five people. And there's a different dynamic between the people who are looking at the family versus the single guy who might be in a relationship and what he's looking for. He might be looking for the 85-inch TV where the family would be looking for the washer and dryer or whatever the case is, to sustain the family much better. And I might be only looking for a 55 because I got to put a 55 in this room. I got to put a 55 in this room versus the 185 that everybody would have to watch and everybody would be beating on each other because they don't like each other. And those add the difference in ads. How dialed in do you get when you're creating those ads? How dialed in do you really get to your customer If you?
Speaker 2:have a goal for. If you're trying to get a certain type of person on a product or something, you can. So let's say you're selling the same product to everyone. You're selling a TV, but a 25-year-old is probably going to look for something different and value something different with the net TV versus the elderly couple, right? So let's say the 25-year-old is probably going to want to watch sports or play video games on it, while the older couple is probably not going to care about its video game capabilities. What are they going to care about the refresh rate? Right, that the remote is not too complicated, or something like that, so target that ad within that.
Speaker 2:And if you're doing it, where you're posting different things on Facebook and you're putting, hey, I want this ad to go to these demographics, it can plan all that out within the same ad so you can get very dialed in within the same ad the same product, down to this person and this person.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's scary and the thought process is, if we finally get AI integration to be able to take years of data, because a lot of this is a discussion of how do you do it right here and right now with the thought process I have right now and the experience that I have, but it would be great to have AI to go, be able to go back for the last you know, let's just say five years. You know, three years, five years, whatever you have the capability of doing, Because we have some people that have opened a store recently and some people that haven't.
Speaker 1:You know, I've got hometown rentals that have opened their stores within the last few years and that have opened their stores within the last few years, and then I've got people who have been open for 20 years, right, and so you're going to be pulling for different data but let's say, three years, whatever, to be safe, to show those cycles, to show who buys what and when, is a great AI tool to be able to say, okay, in this particular month, yes, you're probably going to be seeing purchase options or agreements. All the way to about the 24th, maybe 23rd, you'll see a little bit of activity. The 24th, the 25th, of course, will close, and then the 26th through the 30th, you're going to see a complete drop-off of 80%. Your returns are going to rise up, and this is what I'm going to do.
Speaker 1:Well then, how do I incorporate that? Well, let's take a look at the data from the last three years of who you actually sold to in that last week and then create an ad at the end of November so that you're ready to launch that on the 20th or the 21st for the people who probably will be shopping the week after, and now they're more inclined to get it. That's where I think the AI tool is so important and I think we've really got to push for that in the rental home industry at some point some way. Somehow, if you figure out a way to create that, I can kind of figure that out now.
Speaker 2:If hey, go sort through my data and tell me what the fine tune, exactly what happened in this week, so I can get the most out of even the quiet times, or even the busy times, of what I want to accomplish during those times. You can put that data in there, and so you know. People are people are creatures of habits, so why wouldn't you target the same person again for something that they're going to do multiple times?
Speaker 1:Well then, help me with that. How would you put that in there? So let's say I'm using a chatbot. It's not integrated in what I do, but it is part of what I do. How do I get that information in there? Would I print that out on some type of spreadsheet and then copy and paste a spreadsheet?
Speaker 2:So I would. Now, it has its limits with how much you can put in there. I've had some big spreadsheets that have hundreds of lines this way and that way, so it can be a lot of data. But, yes, simply copy and paste some data into there and have it go through what you're sorting through. So, if you can, you have a two week period of sales with whatever customer information, product information, dates, times, whatever you have in there, and if you're looking for what's something you would want to look for in that, Probably the most sellable item, like, let's say, the top five most sellable items the week after Christmas, the demographics of who is probably returning at that point in timeframe, right?
Speaker 1:So I would love to say that there's a type of person probably. I don't know.
Speaker 1:In my experience I couldn't tell you that there's one person or the other but if I said OK, you know, let's take a look at the demographics I have these birthdays of these people who have returned on this date, well, more than likely you know I'm looking for they'll probably be under the age of 30. That's going to have the most returns, ok, so if I'm going to have the younger people, the what do younger people want, as they're returning these things, that maybe I can turn them around and resell or not lose a customer, right If they come in, if they only got one item and they come in the week later and they're like yeah, I don't really like it. What is an item that I could be pitching towards a young person if they're going to be most likely to return than otherwise? Or I might find out it's the other way around I got it from my kids, but they already got it, or I got it for my kids and they didn't like it. So this is why I'm returning it and go okay.
Speaker 1:Well, the class of person that I'm realizing is returning now is over 40 or over 50. So, you know, is it time to go? Okay, well, they're returning it because the person that got it for it doesn't want it. But what do they need? How do I incorporate that? And I think that's huge. I didn't really realize that you can do that.
Speaker 2:So, again, I would do more than just one year. So don't just take, if you can take, more years. Don't just take 2023s, that two week or week period, and put it in there, because that could. There are going to be anomalies and there are going to be things that change year to year, depending on whatever's going on in the world and what people do, what products are hot, elections, right, so that changes everything, and there might be a certain product that came out that was more, that had a bigger impact on the market one year than the other. There might be a new phone or new piece of technology that comes out.
Speaker 1:Generally, I would love to say five. I mean, is that too long? The more the better.
Speaker 2:I mean I said three, but I would love to say five. I was going to say three because I would think that's pretty more easy for everyone to have. The more the better, because from different parts I mean with it being 2024 and we've had four normal winters now, including this one since COVID people look at things like before COVID, after COVID. So things are completely different. We live in a different world since then yeah, pre and post right. You can't really. People have a tough time incorporating 2020 with anything in their data.
Speaker 2:So with marketing, people are probably buying a lot different than they were now. So again in this case, take the past three years. Have it. Sort through what you're looking for. If you're looking for, what's that point? That's grabbing people and getting people in here and getting people to buy something. What has happened? What is the overlap between the last three years? Build around that. Keep it simple. You don't need to reinvent the wheel with what you're selling. You don't have to come up with some new offer. If you find any kind of thing that bit this year, what can you do again next year?
Speaker 1:You know, I was thinking, if there is a non-paid for version, right that you're using, you have this. You have these limitations as far as data input, right, cause you can't, you can't, put, you know, you can't go online and put five years of data in there, right? So let's say you do a three-year span, you're coming up with one month's worth of data on just sales or just returns.
Speaker 2:It'd probably be a lot easier in bite-sized chunks, right, you can do a decent amount of data Again, depending on the server you're on or whatever you're using.
Speaker 1:Is it a better idea to have a paid for subscription?
Speaker 2:if I'm going to do that, I guess, because you're going to be able to save your stuff easier and just be able to. It's going to be more relevant, so it's going to be able to take more like we said yesterday more recent information. It can balance with what you're looking for and it usually has more storage capability. So, yes, but you don't have to, Don't make that an excuse that you don't want to pay for it to start it. But the bite-sized chunks does help. I was sorting through something a couple of days ago and I can't remember what it was, but again, it was a long spreadsheet of things and I was only able to go through it. Kind of fires it almost if you do 600 lines of data at once, because it's just a lot to input into anything.
Speaker 2:I mean, think about what your computer can put in at once. That's what it is. So, yes, if you can take, well, let's just take a few days and let's look at that. Hey, this is 2021. This is 2022. Don't take all that at once. Say, hey, I am uploading my past three years, last week of the year's sales data. Tell me what I need. Say, hey, I'm going to do this, I want to look for this. I'm going to upload it chunks at a time, and it's usually going to give you a better result because it's going to be able to look at each thing and then go back and combine it all.
Speaker 1:So would a good idea be to say, okay, I'm going to take this year's data, I'm going to input it, I'm going to take those answers, stick them to the side Do 22, do 23, do 21,? Right, I take all that data, I stick it to the side and then, when I have three different pages for the three different years that have already been sorted through, put the three of them in there, and now I've got three dates that have already been kind of pre-ran through. Now put those in and get a condensed version of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And still and I think we've kind of talked about that in the other episode is where you kind of take what you found and compound it, and not necessarily it's all one time and one shot, but give it bite-sized chunks take that out, take it back out and put it into a spreadsheet and refeed it right, right, and then you can take it back.
Speaker 2:That's what I do, whether it's just yesterday, we're talking about the, looking at it. When you're typing out a professional email, take it back, all right. Well, I actually want to. Don't just take what ai says, because you're going to sound like ai not right now. Put pete stuff into there and if you want to tweak it again for this person, do it there. Same thing with your data Take it out, all right, put your touch on it and then go back and forth, but it's going to save you a lot of time, which is the most important thing when it comes to your marketing.
Speaker 1:It's having the time to do it. Data sorting is really extensively time driven.
Speaker 2:There is no need for it now yeah, there's really to at least get started to have that spreadsheet built out or whatever it is. There's no need for it to take an hour just to get started.
Speaker 1:I mean, you know what's what's funny, you know talking about data and everything that's driven and the AIs I was thinking about a couple of months ago, Gerard Norman, Gerard Norman Marketing.
Speaker 1:He hit me up and he was like, hey, you know, I wanted to check this, this chat bot, out, and and so he was sending me some information. And he's like you know, this is a trial beta series, you know, so just try it out, Tell me what you think. And he had been working with it, and so the idea was behind this situation was to not sound so much like a bot, right, Right, the P's and the Q's are all. You are all highlighted and cross the T's and dot your I's and it sounds like you're literally talking to an algorithm. But as I was going through, it was making these recommendations about a sofa that I had said I wanted and the timeframe, and it actually sounded very sincere Because it was put together well, Right, Because he had sat there and gone over. What are the ideas that I would say back? Oh no, that sounds too robotic, that sounds too generic.
Speaker 1:That sounds uninteresting and it doesn't sound like you're very interested in getting my sale. It looks like you're just sitting there taking the inputted information and so, out of the few interactions I had with him, I was actually really surprised. Now, of course, at that time it was a beta level. I think he's already got something a little bit more in use that's already being used at some of the RTO locations. But it was like you know, I sometimes forget your first iteration or your second iteration doesn't have to be your final cut. It's how you mold the information that you get back. So if you're looking for a particular person or you're looking for a particular demographic set in a geographic location for a specific item, just keep on working with it. I mean, how many times do you put back in information All the time?
Speaker 2:All the time. Take it. I mean, keep as you learn something. All right, like you said, okay, we did our November marketing plan. We laid it out with AI, we timed it out, we got our dates, we got our overall topics. So now we can go with our graphic design team or whatever team you use for all your different marketing, your digital print, your stuff in-house, whatever it is. We did it All right. This is what I mean.
Speaker 2:You're not going to know exactly the next month what worked and what didn't work, because marketing takes time. You're not going to. You're not always marketing the person to come in the next day. You're doing it to have brand awareness, right. So you're not going to always know. But hey, what worked, what was capable, what were you able to actually take care of and actually do? You don't want to do something your team can't do. Make a commitment to it, but don't over commit to a point where it's not something that you can sustain, something you can't pay for, something you can't have the time to do. Do something you're actually going to do. Go back in there and tell it what worked and what didn't work, what people got. It's only going to get smarter with you and help you out more and become your right-hand man when it comes to your planning.
Speaker 1:When we're talking about advertising. Let's say I'm a new store and I want to do advertising. What do you think is the best way to go about that? I don't have a huge marketing budget because I don't have a lot of revenue dollars coming in. My cash flow is low because I'm just starting out. I'm using AI to kind of figure out what I need to do. But, in your opinion, like, what is the best way to go about getting the most bang for your advertising dollar without you know buying everything?
Speaker 2:The best way to get the best bang for your buck is to start marketing, where you can just start posting stuff and building the brand, especially with a new brand. You have to have people fall in love with brands, even if it's not the best product, even if it's not the best service, but it's the brand. Why do people like Yeti so much? It's the same as a lot of other things. It's made in the same factories. All of the tumblers we buy in a grave, they're all made in the same place. One costs twice as much as the other one. That's not us marking up the price. That's the brand. Right, because they know people will buy it, because people want the Yeti brand.
Speaker 2:I have clients who won't send tumblers or buy tumblers from us and send them to clients or customers because they want the Yeti brand. So, building the brand, start there. Figure out what your brand is, why you're different, what makes you special. But start posting for free and there's no reason not to do it. And again, if you're struggling with, I don't have ideas, I didn't go to school for marketing or I don't do this, so did a lot of other people not Just start Lay it out? All right, I need an organic Facebook plan. I just want to post some stories and some Facebook Lives and start trying to get connections on my Facebook so people start seeing what we're doing inside my store. Just start there, you don't have to pay for anything. You don't need to pay for anything, in my opinion, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean because you know, I'm just trying to think of the different ways that it comes, and every time that I sit down and think about it, my mind goes crazy with all the things that I see. You know, especially for a new store or a store that maybe has been around, or a store that you know, as time goes on, your showroom changes. It's a living deal, right? Sometimes you might be heavy on one thing and then heavy on another. I know that there are times of the years where we sell, like Thanksgiving for instance. You're going to sell a lot of ranges, you're going to sell a lot of tables, you're going to sell a lot of. When I say this, bedrooms is not necessarily what it sells, but either the bedroom or a bed, usually because they do any extra bed or the extra bedroom, right, and you got the ranges and the tables. Obviously, you got stand-up freezers or deep freezers, and then change some situations and now this time of the year it's more sofas and it's more driven. So your showroom changes and it changes in the sense that you always want to have what's available to the market that they want, right? So it's like I know that I'm in this timeframe I'm going to sell more of the living rooms. I'm going to sell more of the coffee and tables, lamps, you know decorative items. Let me have that. Oh, you know what in this season I'm going to do that and to be able to see those cycles come in and do it through AI.
Speaker 1:But then there's also the other way. I'm a new company. I don't have everything. I don't have everything that I don't know the cycles yet I don't have everything, but let me find out how to sell what I do have. Okay, well, let me put that into the AI and go after the people who are might be most interested in a sofa love group, cause I have 10 of those that landed in my bedroom sets Haven't gotten here yet. I don't have my bedding in yet.
Speaker 1:So, you know what? Let me focus on this particular product and be able to go to AI and go okay, what type of people in this timeframe are looking for or are usually purchasing, compared to cycles of the same time last year or anything, whether it be Forbes or anything that's just telling you okay, this is what happened, this is what's being sold, and so to be able to pull that market down and say, okay, usually at this time. This is the type of people that you would be looking for that's interested in buying sofa loves. All right, you know, oh, you know what. Now we're in the later in the year.
Speaker 1:These are the people that you might be going to be dialed into for your bedroom sets, because you sold all your sofa loves and now you got you know, now they're on their way and you're able to go. Okay, I can really dial in my marketing because I know what I have versus what I don't have, and I'm not trying to pull somebody in to sell something that I don't have. Let me just really dialed in to what I do have to sell that, and I think it just makes us more effective and more efficient. I guess, in essence, that's what AI is for to make us faster, to make things easier and more efficient, like.
Speaker 2:I said yesterday, it's the x-ray machine to your eyes, right, right, it's the x-ray machine to your eyes Right right, it's the x-ray machine to make it that much more efficient.
Speaker 2:Otherwise, figuring out if your arm's broken or not it's a lot harder. Figuring out how to mark it is a lot easier when you can have someone help you with it. But you said something interesting there. With the whole not knowing If you have an idea, even if you don't know how to fully support it yet, come up with a plan and start doing it. If you think you have a good idea, market it. Figure out what's special about it. You might not have all the product information and knowing you're going to have all the inventory, but start marketing it Because whether it hits or not, it might take a while, but you have it out there, but then it's going to be right timing. Just start putting it out there. Just start somewhere.
Speaker 1:Now, in these situations, let's say I come up with something and I think that it's a good idea. What would be the advantage of using Vox to help me with that marketing?
Speaker 2:We've seen things all at a different approach, from all different types of companies Big, small business to business, business to customer. And, as we say, we like to be bold. So the most important thing, especially when you're starting, you have to be bold, you have to stand out, otherwise people are not going to know who you are. You have to do it and you have to do it right. That's what we can deliver. How long has Vox been working with rent-owned companies? Since pretty much day one. We were with Aaron's, I believe, even well before even I was around involved in anything at all Aaron's way back in the day, but it's been for quite a while.
Speaker 1:Ken butler, errands yeah, yeah, that's that's. That's, that's a lot, and you guys are working with quite a few rental companies right now we work with everyone almost across the board in some shape or form.
Speaker 2:With all kinds of different things, especially with all the different things we do. We have needs we can fulfill to certain types of companies with within their internal space better than others. So there's some things we do a lot of with. There's some things we do one certain thing with that we don't even really do with other people. So it's all kinds of things and we can help make it right and we use our tools available to us to make sure we're delivering the best product to our customers.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, it's so different because I don't have that marketing background. The only marketing I've ever done is for the stores, literally at an operational level, when I'm trying to grow a store or region. And how important now has social media become? Because I know social media was great and it was big and then it almost became a pay for play kind of thing, whoever is spending the most money to get the first scroll, first area, first look, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean you have to do it. You have to do it just as much as you do everything else that Vox provides directly. You have to do it all, and that's the hard thing about nowadays. We talked about attention spans earlier. That's why you have to do it. That's why you can't just do a mail piece, because you're going to miss so many people that never care to look at their mailbox. That's why you can't just do a social media post, because probably majority of your customers probably will never look at your Facebook. You can't do anything about that. No matter how much you incentivize certain people, they're just not going to do certain things. People are creatures of habit, like I said. That's why you have to do it. That's why you have to go wrap your trucks so people can see that truck and then when they get home and they're scrolling on Facebook, they see your ad there. You got to balance it all out. It's about being omnipresent, it's about being bold and it's about doing it.
Speaker 1:That's it, and I think this has really opened my eyes to a lot of different things that I don't know if I would have really tried beforehand.
Speaker 2:Just try it.
Speaker 1:It's, like you know, really thinking about a different way to incorporate what I haven't been doing. And you know, I think I think the thing with rent to own is that we always talk about how do you, what's the next best thing? Right, you always want to find the next best thing. I want to be the first guy to rent the next best thing because I want to be on that train first. Not necessarily that the next best thing isn't already out there, it's just, you know, we do trail behind a little bit. You know. I mean, it's one thing to say that, uh, it's one thing to say that. You know, when OLEDs first came out, we probably carried a couple, but nobody was buying them the same way, because rent to own doesn't work to like retail, right, yeah. And after a while it came on and QLEDs, and and and LEDs and I think it's an LED. I forgot what it was. I mean, lg has a version and Samsung has a version and Sony has a version.
Speaker 2:You know, they're all some type of chatbots.
Speaker 1:They're all different chatbots.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so there's all these different versions.
Speaker 1:But you know, now you almost like you're almost seeing that the QLED version or whatever it is, the OLED version, is now a big part of the sales aspect versus. It used to be like the TV, that was top line, and now it's almost like well, we have different versions of those. Now you have a great, I think there's a nanotech, lg, and they have the QLEDs, and now they have these quantum mini LEDs which, in the same space of a normal LED, now there's four and you have all these different levels, and so we're always trying to think, okay, well, how do I get to there first? How do I figure that out first? And I think the introduction of AI is how do I get to there first? How do I figure that out first? And I think the introduction of AI is how do I get to that marking piece first? How do I get to your doorstep first? How do I get you to look at me first? How do I get my one RTO store to stand out more than everything else? And I think the AI piece is really, really important to get there, and I think it's super important for everybody to understand that it's not going to solve all your problems? Nope, and I think it's super important for everybody to understand that it's not going to solve all your problems, nope, it is a tool to help utilize to get to the next step, and I'm really looking forward to how this year is going to be affected by the AI, because I think it's coming everywhere.
Speaker 1:Ces is coming up that's going to be AI driven. I cannot believe that it wouldn't be To see that, and they always do it at the beginning of the year, right? So, as the beginning of the year, as the beginning of the year, you're going to see a lot of things that might or might not already be in production, because they're doing now and in the future, not necessarily what was six months ago, and I have a great big feeling that CES is going to be loaded with a lot of AI tech, including what I believe is going to be maybe meta and the meta glasses that they have. There's going to be a lot of integration there as well, and I would love to see somebody be able to shop to those things. You know, go to the local RTO dealer and, just, you know, kind of get a better. Look at that sofa, almost like a 3D, you know, look in the meta glasses or whatever you want to call it, the Oculus or whatever it is.
Speaker 1:I think that's a step that I can't wait to come in. I don't think we talked about that before yesterday, but I love the idea that it's coming and I want to be the first person to get there. So I think all we have to do is really utilize what's right next to us and now that we have a way to integrate that information and put it there, pull it out and recycle it to get really dialed in. I think there's no excuses why you can't make sales. So you're going to use AI to grow your marketing and that's how you want to do it.
Speaker 1:Please reach out to the show if you guys have any questions. Pete, at the RTO Show Podcast, we definitely want to hear from you, especially on this particular subject, because I want to know how you do it and what do you think is capable of us doing, and we can try that together. If you have any questions, I'll let Daniel know and we can reach out to you. You can reach us on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn. Now on YouTube, don't forget to subscribe and I will tell you guys. As always, keep your collections low to get your sales high. Thank you.
