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 6: Running your store smarter with the help of AI
Mastering inventory management and optimizing your business operations with the power of AI. Join us as we engage with Daniel Hajduk from Vox Pop uli, who shares his hands-on experience in transforming apparel inventory management using AI. Learn how AI analyzes order patterns, anticipates trends, and optimizes stock levels to streamline processes and boost profitability. By harnessing historical data, businesses can predict seasonal demands and ensure they are prepared for any market shift, enhancing operational efficiency in the process.
Discover how structured planning and effective training play a vital role in maximizing AI's potential in business. We explore the importance of standard operating procedures (SOPs) and how they can streamline task management, improve scheduling, and enhance service delivery. The discussion highlights the use of AI as a task manager, simplifying daily operations, and ensuring essential activities like inventory checks and sales follow-ups are completed timely. We emphasize the balance of leveraging technology for organization while maintaining human interaction for a well-rounded approach to business effectiveness.
Ponder the future as we examine AI's growing significance in personal and professional landscapes. From revolutionizing customer service with predictive analytics to sparking creativity with personalized content generation, AI's impact is undeniable. We reflect on how AI is reshaping cultural norms, encouraging a shift from overwork to prioritizing mental health and efficient work practices. As AI continues to integrate seamlessly into daily life, it promises to transform industries, making technology an indispensable tool for enhancing productivity and fostering personal growth.
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Hello and welcome to the RTO Show. I'm your host, pete Chow. Today we're talking rent-to-own AI again. This is our last part of a six-part series. We've made it through six parts already. Daniel Hajduk from Vox Populi is here to talk to me about how we make it through with AI. We've talked about how and what AI is, how you can use it to talk about who your customers are and how to dial in your AI marketing and all types of different tips. Well, today AI is going to be about you. It's going to be about your day-to-day and how we really affect that. How do we make AI our? We've talked about that. Office secretary.
Speaker 2:How does this truly become?
Speaker 1:How does she do it? Your front office? I say she. I should have said that. How does it do it? You know, I don't want to classify it one way or another, but how does it do it? What is it that I do? That's going to utilize this? We've talked on a general basis of how it can help, but now we're going to dive a little bit deeper in your day-to-day tasks, the day-to-day tasks. I'm going to be here and this is exactly how I'm going to use it. I'm going to make this work for me. So, Daniel, the first thing that I think about is like inventory. Inventory is what I mean. I need it to grow, I need it to sell. It's literally the next big thing to accept to having a store and actual people work for me In the sense of inventory management. How does Vox use inventory management through AI, or could use it through AI to make everything?
Speaker 2:work. So it's something that's growing with the technology and new systems we're getting in. Anyway, we used to really not have anything inventoried or systemized whatever you want to call that but it started, for me at least. What I was working on was our polos, certain clients, company uniforms that we kept on hand, the blank versions of it, because we knew the volume we were getting. But we were kind of blind and again, this is not on the scale that you guys are dealing with with furniture, appliances, technology. I couldn't even begin to imagine how to deal with that. I was just simply trying to make us be more efficient with our polos that we were selling, because we had different colors, we had all these different sizes, and, well, we need to figure out what we need to order because we are ordering them on a daily basis. But how do we know what we need to order without wasting our time and having to go manually into the warehouse and sort through the boxes and see what's on the shelves, how they're organized? Well, simply, we use AI to figure out how much we should keep on hand. So we figured out what are the orders, what are the amount of orders. We're getting in this size every day. So we're not keeping well the red extra small and mins. We maybe go through a box of 24 in a year at most. At most, do we really need to keep three boxes on hand because it looked empty and that's who we used to order? Oh, now we're able to do that Now. That gives us the parameters that we put into our first inventory system that we use for that, and now it would just give the person ordering a ping when it went low, if it went low at the quantity we set, because we figured out what do we know and how can we organize that better? Because we're just looking at this. We've been doing this for four years.
Speaker 2:We got into the apparel business right around covid I don't know about y'all. Inventory was miserable managing. There was so much stuff we bought because, first off, we wanted to deliver our apparel. So he was like well, we can't sell apparel if we don't have it, so we gotta buy it. So we overbought on things because we wanted to make sure we had it. So we knew we could ship it out. Oh, that was it then, because things would go out of stock just for months. Now that's not the case. So now we need to be smarter because we can be. It's time to get our margins back. It's time to make our warehouse look cleaner. It's time to make the people's jobs easier by not having to blindly sort through things. We figured that out all with that, and again it's just shirts, but now it's leading to all the different displays we have and all the different types of paper and everything, and just making life that much clear on a day-to-day basis yeah yeah, which?
Speaker 2:why waste time figuring out what you need to buy?
Speaker 1:we just tell you I need to buy this I know, because you know when we, when we talk about inventory, what we sell is just as important as what's coming up, and inventory management comes in so many different forms. What am I selling, what is the hot item and, more importantly, not only, what the high item is now, what is it going to be? So you have historical data, you have the new items that are coming in and you have what's already selling. So if I was to take AI, my idea is to you know you want to stick it on a spreadsheet and say what have I sold in the last 30 days? What have I sold in the last 60 days? What have I sold in the last 90 days? Look at your trends and look at the trends and then go to the next three months on your last three years and be able to put that in, create a spreadsheet for that so that you can pull back out and go.
Speaker 1:I can expect this is the season that's coming, this is what's coming up Now. I know that we have the regular historical data when we talk I think we talked last episode about you know, like Thanksgiving. I know what's going to be selling on Thanksgiving, but we'd like to say you know what On President's Day, we like to sell mattresses, because everybody else has mattresses. Yeah, is that really what we sell, though? Is it really that important? You don't know that, we don't know, right. And so taking all the taking all that data and going over your inventory and then saying you know what? This is a great idea, also using it for lead times. I order this particular person, I usually get this particular lead time, entering that into ai and saying you know what? I know that we need sofas. I usually order from here and this is the lead time.
Speaker 2:Well, then you should order it now or or two weeks from now, not just the sorting part, it like we're talking about to look at what has happened. It can look at what has happened and pull from all of its sources and predict. So, like you're saying for lead time, well, I know that we sold 50 of these at this time last year and well, it took me this long to get it out because we only get so many in from our vendor, which how can I pre-plan for that better, so you know that you can deliver that. So again then you're going back all the way to last episode. We're improving the customer experience because we planned out, we didn't just guess. We use data, we use AI to not just sort but to predict.
Speaker 1:And I think there's so much there. Utilizing this tool, it's almost like it's the basic, most easiest organizer to use. I'm going to give it information, it's going to organize it, it's going to tell me what's good, bad or indifferent. It's going to give me the green light or the yellow light or the red light and just kind of feed it back to me in a way that I can understand. Because we mentioned another thing would be like scheduling. We've mentioned it. But to be able to say, okay, I have five different employees, 40 hours a piece, they work this many days, I have to give them an hour lunch and it has to be between 10 and seven. So easy with that. And then, how does it not overlap or overlap or whatever the case is? I need to fit these hours in this timeframe. I do a Monday morning meeting that starts at 9.30 versus 10 o'clock, a Friday meeting that starts at 9.30 versus 10 o'clock, but I still got to have 40 hours. Stop stressing about it, right, and put that in there.
Speaker 2:And just like I can do this one time, because you know what it's going to do. It's not going to be stressed, it's going to say okay, I'll gladly sort through this for you and lay it out exactly how you want.
Speaker 2:A lot of the tools will give you illustrations too. So if you're a more visual person, then just looking at the words and looking at numbers, it can do that for you too. Stop stressing about well, this variant makes this variant, so I can't schedule this, so I'm just going to overschedule or I'm just going to put my time in the store and be in the store. Then I don't really need to be in there because I could be doing this. My time could be better spent here, let it help you with that.
Speaker 2:I know, people's time is just so valuable.
Speaker 1:Well, the thought is, too, is you can go into Word and type out the basic generic schedule and then copy and paste that and then you add in the differences of what might be there this particular guy has PTO on this particular day. So week two I have PTO of this. Or you can just put in dates and this date of you know this is May 2nd to May 15th, or let me say 17th, because that's two weeks worth, and then this particular person has PTO on that day. So I do a copy and paste and then add you know what Daniel has PTO on the next Wednesday Work that in Eight hours. Still want to give a 48-hour work week and you can put in vacations PTO, you can add sick times to it or whatever the case is. Build out your two-week schedule easy. Build it out with holidays for the next month, you don't need some crazy software product.
Speaker 2:You don't need that. I mean sure maybe if you're doing it from an overall huge corporate perspective, sure we can manage everything from there, but if you're just trying to schedule your own store, it can do that for you with the cost of nothing, with the cost of Google.
Speaker 1:Right right, and putting it in there and saying you know, this particular person does this or that. Yeah, sales collections.
Speaker 2:The little things are like well, this is something because of this I can't plan out. I'm going to get frustrated and not plan it out.
Speaker 1:There's no point to do that, and you know it's crazy because I take that information and put it in there and see what comes out, and then being able to go back to it and say, you know what, that doesn't work for me and I can change that. And again, we're not hurting anybody's feelings, we're just telling them hey, that doesn't work, I need something different. And then give me a different scenario to come back out with. You know, scheduling is something that it doesn't seem important until hours and you're going to oh my God, I got to let this guy go early, or I've got to be willing to pay overtime, or I've got to make sure that they took all their breaks, and that's that's one thing we're doing to different bases of how we handle things.
Speaker 2:But we're like, hey, we're getting really busy here. Well, what is the next? How can we figure out how we can manage their time better? So what does that really mean? Do we need to hire someone else're not just saying, well, let's just put, let's just, let's just copy and paste. No, let's really look at it and and figure out where we can match. It's playing Tetris. It's really good at the game too.
Speaker 1:You know, we, we talked. I mean, cause this this kind of like recap of everything that we already have talked about? When you're talking, I mean we kind of diving a little bit more into it? But the scheduling aspect of being able to take those times and those parameters and everything that happens, and putting into an AI and getting something back is easy. It's accessible.
Speaker 2:And it's something that you can do every single week.
Speaker 1:Inventory scheduling as far as what's coming in, what's going out and what you have that's hot right now is also something like that. If you want to also take a look, take a look at some of the things that you have sitting there. How long have they been sitting there? And you can kind of go in your AI and tell you hey man, you don't really sell this. You have a lot of this, but you don't sell it. Don't order it again.
Speaker 1:You know it looks good because you like it, and I think that's the eye test right, you like it, but it doesn't mean that that's what's going to sell in your store. You know what I mean. The pink pom-poms sell the most. You don't like those, but that's really what the hot item is and so getting past that is like one of those. God, I didn't know that. You know utilizing it for your scheduling, utilizing it for and I think we mentioned this a couple of episodes ago too but your collection routing, you know adding that and saying, okay, I have a service here, I have a delivery here, I have a pickup here, in order of importance, and the two-hour timeframes that I've said, three-hour timeframes, whatever people say, and how do you route that out the best? I think it's just these everyday items that we have, that we could use AI and, of course, as you get better, you get faster. You know what to say, you know what to input, you know what to look for.
Speaker 1:You learn it and you know how to digest the answers that it's giving you because it's a two-way street. You use it better and it will respond to you better. Because you're responding to it better, you know, almost like putting better gas in the engine right and then turning around and now it's a little bit faster, and it's a little bit faster and I'm tuning it up, and you know, seeing that and seeing the smarter, not harder idea is always like how do I I used to say this a lot as a GM is I always want to take out the next five minutes to plan out the next five hours. I don't want to go into it blindly and going, okay, I'm going to shoot from the hips, because every time I do that, something in there goes wrong and it's either I forgot something or something comes up and I didn't prepare for it.
Speaker 1:You could handle it so much better oh yeah, and, and you know, and, and, like we said, I'm not looking for the detail plan where it can tell me the brushstrokes, I just need something to give me the bones, the frame, right, uh, and I always think of it like one of those pictures that has the numbers and all those little spots where you can take the color and put it there, you know, like number five is blue and I painted it. You can do that, or I can change whatever five is. I can change the frame of it, but I have a bones of an idea of okay, this is what it should look like at the end. So my scheduling is better and my inventory is better and my service is better when I can get there on time and kind of put this in and say you know what, between these hours there's a rush hour timeframe and you know this is lunch hour and whatever the case is. So you know what. I set somebody up for Tampa all the way on the other side between five and seven. Yeah, it's going to take them an hour to get there, an hour to get back. That's one thing I was just going to bring up. Yeah, you know. So it's that time frame. It's like. It takes you a while to get there, but it's going to also take a while to get back, not going to be able to do that.
Speaker 1:Those simple tools are these every days that are super important the training that really goes into what we do every day and how you can figure out how to use that and how to cover making the training videos that we kind of talked about and I think it was our first or second episode where I can make training videos. I can kind of figure out how to do the what-tos. But also you mentioned on the last one, the SOP, the standard operating procedures of what I need to do and be able to get that out in a good timeframe and be able to update it as quickly as possible with some of the things that I need to do. Getting all that information back so vitally important with the speed, crazily enough, the accuracy that it can give you, even if it's not what you're looking for, it can give you that directional piece. I seldom take a look at the operations manual and is it outdated? You know what I mean. You don't really look at it, but being able to create, generate, fix and replace fast is so much better. You know, I don't know if we've always tackled.
Speaker 1:You know, the online idea is something that I've seen in a couple of different companies and again, I'm not saying this to everybody, but there isn't a place in there for the online procedures. It just hasn't been there. It's vital. It's here. You know, we tell people this is what you should do, but we're not teaching that from the get-go. I don't have any sales training videos for how you should handle an online lead. We just say it, we train it, but to create those now? It's so important, yeah, it's super important, and it's stupid not to have it.
Speaker 2:In my opinion, it's stupid not to have it because one thing's going to go wrong. And then you Things are going to go wrong if you're not going to be able to have someone do it, because it's not a difficult task, right? But just like using AI, the whole point of a SOP is to be able to have a new person come in. This is what they taught us when I learned about really using SOPs in the Navy, which is one of the things they do best is SOPs Right.
Speaker 2:Is hey, new guy from school just came in. He needs to be able to shut down the server, rack baby steps. Sure enough that was done, something that was you had to be certified to do. But heck, there was a stop that if someone could just walk into the shop had to do something they could. What are those things you can start laying out. They're're just easy things. You can start creating chapters and make your life so much easier. It makes it easier to train because you know what to train off of. So now you can create those training videos based off these different chapters of SOPS that you created in your store. Is that much better? I mean, we need them everywhere.
Speaker 1:You know you almost need them in about. This is how you clean the bathroom, this is how you vacuum the floor. But I mean getting getting past that. You know you almost need them in about. This is how you clean a bathroom. This is how you vacuum the floor. But I mean getting past that. You know, one thing that I've seen with some new managers is like they come in and are like how do I do all of this?
Speaker 1:I have a new manager right now and she's saying the same thing, like sometimes she forgets or it's a new thing, and it's like, okay, the greatest thing that I think an AI can do is be the task manager, and you can build that into whether you want to talk on your phone and say I have to do this by five, I have to do this by six, I want this done. And hey, Siri, or whatever the case is. And you say, hey, I need a reminder by five o'clock that I need to get my inventory done. I can set up a reminder at 430 that it has to be done by five, whatever the case is. Or you can go in and create this generalistic list right In any particular week I need to do my inventory by this day. I need to do my return sales calls every single day, right, so it went out yesterday, so today I've got to call and find out how those sales went, or my sales callbacks, however they're put, my collections and saying, okay, this week I'm going to work out these different things between 10 to 7. I've got all these different things to do. I need to do this on different days and let it build you a task management schedule, not a schedule where somebody comes in at 10 and they have breakfast or they have lunch at 12 and they leave at 7, but more like you know what.
Speaker 1:On Tuesdays, you have to have your inventory done by 2. On Wednesdays, you should have your callbacks done by 10. You should have a call-through done by. You know at this particular time you should be starting your call-through. Your runs should be done at this time and the more information you feed it, the better. It will get back to you when saying does that mean that your week will actually go that way? God, no, I'm a rent-to-own. It never goes the way. But you can go back to the bones and say you know what. It's 10 o'clock, I am, 7 o'clock, 2 o'clock. I'm totally lost in my day. I forgot where I was. Oh yeah, according to my schedule that I printed out on Monday, this is exactly what I need to be getting done, and that task management ability to either do it on your phone or do it on you know a chat, gpt or Claude, it's all there, you know, I think you can even talk to Alexa and tell her to remind you stuff.
Speaker 2:You know if you want to put that, it's all the same. It's there, it's all integrated with it and it's all doing its own thing. So, yes, use it. Hey, just set it when you can, because it'll help you. Tell Alexa, tell Siri, set this reminder.
Speaker 1:You think? What do you? What do you think would be? Would it be uh crazy to have one of those things at the counter and just be like hey, just remind me, at two o'clock we got to do this delivery. Hey, remind me that I have to order this part. You know, it's not crazy if it works. I never thought about that. So just right now, like how crazy would it be to have an alexa sitting at the counter?
Speaker 2:just you know it's your office manager yelling at you. Do this. Who, who's that? Oh, it's Alexa. Oh gosh.
Speaker 1:She's going to get mad at us because we need to do this hey, Alexa, remind me that we have this service part that needs to be ordered.
Speaker 2:But she can also play music.
Speaker 1:Hey, Alexa, in between, make sure that you play this music. She's a multitasker Every time that we talk about something.
Speaker 1:It's just something new. Yeah, and I'm not saying that we would want to do that, because I know there's a lot of reasons we probably wouldn't want to do that, but the thought is that you have this AI manager right next to you to do these things, and when I think of task management I don't necessarily think of I should build out a week every single week, maybe the first couple of weeks, just to get my mind into it, and then I'll probably be able to remember that Set up some windows. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's what I've really. We've taken initiative of trying to do that. You know, we can never plan out our day, because we know there's always going to be something coming up.
Speaker 2:Right, but I know from 10 to 2 or 10 to 12, I'm going to work on these type of projects or work on this type of task these days of the week. I don't know there's going to be something that comes up, but we leave this window for that. Just lay it out, get an idea, because then you're going to train your own mind to understand it and it's going to become second nature.
Speaker 1:Now my mind is like reeling with this idea.
Speaker 2:I can't plan out that. I know I'm going to work on this exact thing or deal with this exact customer every day of the week at this time of the day, but I know that this is going to come up and I can have this window for it. We'll create those windows so you can at least go into your day and you can look at your calendar. All right, I got this set. I know I have an idea of how my day is going to go. So, no matter what firestorms happen, you have a direction of where you're flying.
Speaker 1:I mean we've kind of talked about the invancy in AI, as far as I don't know what it is, what is it? How does it affect your day? How can we get it to affect your customers? How can we get it to now. I mean, we're talking about how we can literally make our day easier with AI.
Speaker 1:The overall aspect of this, and the goal of the entire podcast, was to really kind of break it down and say these are the different ways that you can currently use AI without putting a bot into your OS software at every single store, and say you know what. You can use your phone, you can use a chat, gpt. You have the ability to take these, basically even these two, and utilize it to make your day better with all of these. At the end of this, do you feel like, because you've used it more, do you feel like AI has really fixed a lot of I wouldn't say fixed, but helped you get to where you want to be faster, easier, and what are the, what are the hypes and what are the problems that you might see somebody new you know using it saying you know what? I don't know if I really want to go that route, cause I can see people in my head going right now I'm going to stay away from AI.
Speaker 1:This has not convinced me. I listen to it, I like it, but it's not convinced me. It's not me. What was that first question? Again, sorry, I had a great answer.
Speaker 2:I want to make sure I'm answering it right. What do you?
Speaker 1:say for those people that have said I've tried it, I don't want to try it, I want to get out of it.
Speaker 2:I don't think it's good. I have, now that it's in and I think well, the first question is you know, has it?
Speaker 1:have you seen it? Has it sped up your life? Have you gotten out of it? What you, what you thought you would get out of?
Speaker 2:it. It's a great feeling when you realize that it can do something that you couldn't do before. In a certain way, when a light bulb goes off in your head, it's a great feeling because you didn't have to re-invite the wheel or something, but you either saved some time, you either again laid out something that you couldn't lay out the way it did, and it's just kind of, when that light bulb goes off, that's yes. So yes because, like I said before, we had apparel t-shirts. We were kind of just selling, based off what we knew, the couple items that people bought. Now we have it broken down into four categories and it makes life so much easier. And now it's literally on an eight by 11 piece of paper, so it's kind of just waking up to it and, where it can be, assistance in your pocket.
Speaker 1:What was your wake up moment At the end of? You know, in the sixth episode we've gone through all of it. How do you use it? How does it make it better in the different ways that you can look forward backward and analyze your data? What was your breakthrough moment to say? You know what I want to do this.
Speaker 2:So I remember when people started talking about the news and when OpenAI first came out with ChatsGBT, because that was like the ball drop of ai. In my opinion, that's where everything on cnbc was talking about well, ai companies, this and now everything. Now they're going to come out with this and their stock's going to go up and it's like whatever. Again, it was more of just a back thought thing that no one like. It doesn't affect the everyday guy. It's going to be some software that some guy uses. Then time went on and you start seeing it everywhere and I think when we were at a training workshop and they were talking about I think it was really the personas and breaking down how to personalize stuff to your customer was kind of like the wow.
Speaker 1:How you really make it work for you.
Speaker 2:It makes me look. I just it's not writing me the perfect essay, holy crap. It laid out something for me with a barely noticeable tweak, but something that can give you a completely different result with a customer. Sorry if that doesn't make sense, but it was like it was able to take the same three paragraph essay and it's writing to two different types of people and most 95% of it's not different. But it made that 5% get that extra applause from each crowd for their own reasons.
Speaker 1:I mean, does it dress it up when the way you use it? Is it the way it dresses it up, or is it the approach, or what?
Speaker 2:Sometimes I like it better than others, but being able to give that you can make anything sound fancy. I don't know if you've ever seen this. There's a guy I guess it's a TikTok but you know what he uses AI for To write the most random songs that you can imagine.
Speaker 1:I thought you were going to say an obituary, you know what that's?
Speaker 2:the sad thing is, you could write everything with it.
Speaker 1:You can write your obituary with it. Obituary I was like oh my.
Speaker 2:God. But he makes like let's AI made a country song about microphones dancing on a desk and it'll write a country song sounding like you're at a country concert in the summer. That's cool and it was just kind of like it's stupid. But it's not, because it shows you that it can just do whatever and it can make anything. It can build out anything.
Speaker 1:What do you see for ai in the future? Right, so we're saying the future is ai. That's a very big term, right? That's? You know it's artificial intelligence. You know you've got quantum computing, you've got all kinds of things that are coming down the pipe. What do you see? You know, as ai starts getting more daily, right in our daily lives we're already seeing it when we order on Amazon.
Speaker 1:We're seeing it when we go on Facebook. We're seeing it when we talk about you know we've talked about on Google as you do it, as I'm looking up the questions that I would normally ask it how tall is the? You know, the Eiffel Tower in France, like it really even matters, but it will now, on my phone, take two seconds. It now on my phone, take two seconds. It used to be like it used to give me that little thing. It's done in 0.25 seconds. It gives me that answer in 0.35 seconds. Now it doesn't do that. Now it goes, it's thinking and then it gives me this, almost like somebody's telling me this paragraph of not not only how, how tall it is when it was made, who made it? What countries?
Speaker 2:Wow, and then it'll ask you do you want more details?
Speaker 1:Right. And then it asks you more details.
Speaker 2:You want me to describe it in a different way. Where do you see it going from here, I think I don't think it's going to be this talked about forever. If it's done the right way, it's not going to be the hot, the brand new, the new puppy as it is right now. It's the new puppy that just your parents bought for Christmas. It's going to become just another thing that people use on an everyday basis. I say that because it's hopefully we have the right people in power of it and creating these things and using it for the help humanity and power of it and creating these things and using it for the help humanity. There are things that it's doing that are great things within the medical industry and all these things it's speeding up and able to do. It's changing the world. So, as long as we have the right people in charge with it, as long as they're doing the right things and doing it for the better, we're going to be okay and it's going to become just another thing. It's going to become another form of gasoline.
Speaker 1:Do you to become?
Speaker 2:another form of gasoline. Do you see it as a seamless, daily integration? Yeah, because it already. It's already there in so many ways that aren't really daily integrations, but like it's integrated into how you search on google now already. So where else is it going to be? It's going to be in technology you guys could be selling in stores, even. It's going to be more in in different appliances. There's going to be ai embedded fridges and stuff there already is, and there's going to be fridges that probably talk to you and tell you well, you should make this recipe or something. I don't know, maybe I just invented a new product or copyrighted someone else's, but I think people need to be educated. The best thing you can do to not be scared of it is to be educated Because, just like everything else in life, it's not really that scary once you learn about it. People are scared of things if they don't know about it.
Speaker 1:The best thing people can do is learn. You know, last season I had Casper Fopp on the show and he was telling us about, you know, the wonder sign and what we used to be and what is now, and part of the new integration that they had is getting these search terms and definitions changed to what somebody uses in every day. In other words, we would look for certain terms and now it's more like just give me a description right Brown, sofa, decently long, sectional, whatever Left side, right side and integrating this part of what Wondersign will do is integrating that so that you can search on very basic terms. Now I on TV. You know, as we sum up this AI situation and how you can utilize it to not only make your day faster, easier and more effective. You know, you mentioned it on one of the previous podcasts.
Speaker 1:You can talk to your phone now and, as this conversation happens I don't know if it's specific to Google, because they have it was a Google commercial. Yeah, it's what their, it's what their, whatever the pixel nine? I think it is, and you know they're having this conversation. It's not. You know how do I? You know how do I make yogurt, or you know this is how you make yogurt.
Speaker 1:It's. It's more like I've had this type of day, you know, and it's had this conversation with you. It's kind of crazy. It's crazy where it's going. But I think that being able to integrate it into the rent-to-own space something that I think we've trailed just a little bit, I really do that's okay and I think that, with the utilization of this, this can really kind of leapfrog us a little bit to where we are way more competitive in a market that we weren't before.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Especially with stores, because, again, rent-to-own is made of a lot of small dealers. Now, I'm not going to say there aren't big dealers. You have the rent-a-centers, you have the errands, you have the buddies, you have a lot of different areas where there's a lot, but those are three versus the many, and not only that in rent-to-own there's a lot of independent dealers. It's not like you're going to a shopping plaza and in that plaza you see five name brands, like at the mall, right, you see a lot of name brand stores that you can see in one state and another state, same place, right, and it's the same product, same stuff, just in a different area.
Speaker 1:But in the rental mindset, in the aspect, there are a lot of different dealers. And those different dealers might not have the ability to put this quantum computer in their back room, but to be able to have a conversation with Claude, or have a conversation with ChatGPT, or have a conversation with Siri, or have a conversation with Alexa and tell you that, hey, I need you to schedule this for me. God, if we started integrating that ASAP, where could we be? Where could Rantone be in a year? Let's ask AI. Let's ask.
Speaker 2:AI let's ask AI. I think we can tweak this question and make it what do we see AI in the rent-to-own industry and how rent-to-own dealers can use you? Let's ask someone.
Speaker 1:Sure, let's see what it comes up with, and I think the idea is, you know, compounding on what we're doing and compounding on what we're saying we want everybody to understand AI is not going to solve all your problems and we're not going to come in today and AI is going to be running your store and it's going to tell you how to do everything, from the sales aspect to the collection aspect, to the ordering aspect, to how to take care of your showroom and your employees. But the idea is, this is a tool that I think is being underutilized right now and we want you to understand how to use it, when you can use it and what you can use it for. Now we're asking it an actual crazy question. Let's see what comes up.
Speaker 2:So we asked it how do you see AI integrating into the future? Oh, into the RTO future, sorry, all right. All right, it's understanding that we're talking about the rent-to-own industry. The rent-to-own industry, all right. Now it's thinking because it wants to give us the right answer.
Speaker 1:You know, coming to the studio and sitting down and having these conversations, one of the best things that I could say is all this talk has led me to think of more things. How can I use it more? And I think it's one of those. You know, you always hear about it, but are we utilizing it right? And I think, like you said, it's going to be more of that seamless integration from day to day. Right now, I see it as the redheaded stepchild. I don't use it that much. I'm a Gen X. I really don't. I usually have an option and I just don't use it. It's just another thing to you right now, Right, but as I'm going over, now, I'm going. How many different ways can I really use this? How many different ways can I put this in my life and get something out of it? What does it say?
Speaker 2:All right, so it broke it down into a couple different points. So it gave us overall categories. So customer service and sales chatbots, predictive analytics to identify which customers are most likely to complete their contracts, like we were talking about.
Speaker 1:We were just talking about that.
Speaker 2:Figuring out what your customers are, what they do, just predicting it. It can predict all that, so put your stuff in there. We all have the data you have the data somewhere. But you don't have all the, you just have the data, but it's not telling you anything.
Speaker 1:Ask it what you're looking for. Yeah Well, the getting the breadcrumbs to figure out. What does it take to get somebody to increase their point of value so that they can they can go to ownership better?
Speaker 2:Another thing based on that, recommendation systems for suggesting appropriate merchandise based on customer history and income. Again, so we know what, we know more about our product and what it does. Now we know more about our customers and what they do, even payment management. Wow, predicting that Again. Predicting late payments Again. Another thing we mentioned automation. Things like payment reminders, things like that. More and more automation to things that can just go into systems that you use. Again, some things might not be attainable for certain people and that's fine, but there's certain things we can use on our end and certain softwares we can use on the customer facing end. Probably they're going to automate more and make it easier, make it less excusable for things to go wrong, because technology was there to assist. More tracking operations, route optimization for deliveries and pickups.
Speaker 1:There's no reason not to. I feel like this thing was listening to us.
Speaker 2:There is no, probably there is no reason not to lay things out the right way. Stop going blindly. At least know which route you're going to take. Right Scheduling and the maintenance prediction for rental items, so knowing what needs more maintenance than others.
Speaker 1:I think not only was it listening to us, I think maybe we taught it something it has.
Speaker 2:For RTO dealers. Last thing are RTO dealers and managers the best leverage this? Start with payment management. This directly impacts your bottom line and customer relationship. Focus on customer data. Build comprehensive profiles to better understand payment patterns and preferences. Implement inventory tracking. Use AI to optimize your product mix and reduce losses. Train your team. Ensure staff can effectively use the tools, while maintaining personal relationship with the customer, and I think that's the most important one. Again, I'm not saying that's right, but that's just some things it told us and we can take what we need. We can take what's right and balance it out.
Speaker 1:What's crazy is that we didn't even say that. We said all that without asking it, so we didn't say it as the question it's giving us, it's giving us the answer and, as we are digesting it and putting it out for our listeners, yeah, it literally saying what you should be doing is what we're saying it should be doing. At least we have the bones on the other end of it to say you know that's probably a good idea, so it knows something right.
Speaker 2:it's not something we had to go train for years and years and give all this information to Just starting right there. We've only put a couple things into here while we're talking on these episodes and again, like you said, it gave us to-dos for everyone to do after this.
Speaker 1:So, just so you guys are aware, there was prep time and things that we talked about going into this and we put it in AI and within five minutes it came up with the exact same thing that we came up with, and it only took you to dial it in. Say what you needed to say, and here we are, and not that we're saying that you want to cut out the human interaction or the thought processes because you really want to be smart about what you're doing, but at the same time, look at that.
Speaker 2:How can you allow more time for yourself to be smarter and to use your best talents? Don't replace you, but allow yourself to be at your full potential.
Speaker 1:Well, the last time that I talked about time management, I think I should have included AI. That's a whole topic that I did not add in there. But now that I'm thinking about it and as we've gone over it and we've talked about it we've been on calls, we make calls, we have conversations, we come up with the topics that we probably want to talk about and scratch the surface on, and here we are and there's an idea where it says you know what? These are some great ideas and some topics we should talk about right off the bat, and not that we did anything wrong, but again, it's a tool to make your life faster and easier and more organized with the time that you have.
Speaker 1:So what do you do with the rest of the time that you have? Make some sales, make some sales calls, do the things that you're complaining about not getting done, right the collections and making sure that, at the end of the day, you've gotten every bit out of your day. I think that's the biggest thing is because I know that time is more valuable than it used to be, and I'm not saying that it was ever less important to be with your family or ever less important to think about your future. But it was just a cultural norm that you know what it's going to take, longer, you don't mind. You mind working 60 hours. But you knew it was going to happen. And nowadays it's like but if I don't have to, why would I? Or if I want to work, that time.
Speaker 2:How much more can I get done?
Speaker 1:How much more can I get?
Speaker 2:done. I'm not just getting done what I have to. I'm able to give myself time back to invest into learning, training, trying new things and just being involved in it, and it makes you happier.
Speaker 1:You know, I used to listen to these guys on YouTube and I'm not going to say the name of the guy who said it, but he was like you know, I used to basically like for four days of the week I used to live at work and I worked like 20 hour days, you know, I would basically just be there all the time and I work all the time and you know, and he was like that's what built character and that's what built who I was. And the first person that was watching that with me was like well, why would you do that? Why would you not want to just be better at what you're doing? And then you have to let off some steam. You have to breathe, you have to eat, you have to be human, right, and you know, part of being human is a social interaction.
Speaker 1:Whether you like it or not, is talking to human beings and being alive and not doing something that's this regimented kind of. I need to get this done, I need to get something, but you have to let off some steam. Yeah, I mean, you kind of just go crazy. And something that has also been at the forefront the last probably decade or so is mental health. Mental health is a serious thing. Now we have to be able to unwind, we have to be able to get away and put that away and go. You know what I need to breathe? I need to think, I need to be, and it's not bad. So then, on the flip side of that is well, I'm not working as much then work smarter right.
Speaker 2:How can you make it more enjoyable and make it exactly?
Speaker 1:so you're not dreading doing tasks.
Speaker 2:That efficiency. Efficiency is the why I mean it's. It's mind-boggling to me. Yeah, why no one, someone, would not want to do something to make your life easier when it's available, and it is available and it's I think it's everywhere that that seamless integration is going to start coming to your blender pretty soon.
Speaker 1:I've seen it on. You know, not necessarily the AI part of it, and you can probably access AI through some of the smarter ones, but I've seen it in your refrigerator.
Speaker 2:I'm saying there's going to be all these new products that we're going to have to learn how to sell yeah you know, it'll tell you.
Speaker 1:Oh, you know what? You took out your milk for the last time. You didn't replace it. Now you have to add, and then it adds milk to your shopping list. Or you can do a shopping list from your refrigerator. I've even seen that you can order food from your refrigerator. That's like what I mean really. But then the thought is, it's becoming so seamless and you can't. You can fight it if you want to, but you're not going to get anywhere. Right it's, it's one against the masses.
Speaker 2:If you, you're not going to control the way the world goes, so why not try to succeed in what it's giving you?
Speaker 1:Well, you you have to use the tools that are given right and you know I think we've we've mentioned it several times before but when the car came out, there were people that held onto the horses. You know, talking about one of the situations that came up, I was talking to one of the vendors today. I was talking to Brian Rosen and he was talking to me about a conversation that he had with. I think it was last year or the year before, but they were talking I think it was at Meeting of the Minds about the new technologies that had come up, and Chip Guy was talking about AI and he made a reference to the horse and buggy versus the car. And there was people that did hold on to their horse and buggy and eventually they were bought out by the people who went with the tractor and the car because they can produce more in a shorter period of time. And guess what? That one lot that they had versus the lot next to them produced more food, they got more things taken care of in a timely manner and they weren't burnt out so much at the end of the day, so they were able to do a lot more Well, eventually, you just can't do it that way, the way it was done, and so it's like that wheel that just keeps on turning and eventually it's going to turn with or without you.
Speaker 1:So holding on to it with two hands is probably the, you know, make it happen. And I just remember a time frame and I say this again, I'm showing my age, but I remember a time frame when nobody had cell phones. I couldn't imagine a day now without a cell phone.
Speaker 1:Right, and I hate to say that because I think it's a simpler life without it, but I don't use it just for that. I remember when the cell phones were literally just for phones and then, but it's a tool now it's an entertainment device it.
Speaker 1:You use it for entertainment, I use it for knowledge, I use it for application. As far as adding subtracting, I use. I use that thing probably most for the time I should get probably get a tip calculator, but I use it for the tips. When I'm going out I want to make sure I give somebody the right amount of money and I go into my banking with it. I couldn't imagine life without it. Now I think that AI is going to be there. I think AI is going to come down the road and it's going to say what kind of life would you have without it?
Speaker 2:But think about the phone. Think about how revolutionary the iphone was. Now all these new things they do with it. It's just these tweaks. Now the phone's the phone. You only had an iphone if you were wealthy or you were cool enough or whatever. And now that's like that's the first phone kids get. You don't get an iphone. You can't not get an iphone really, or a galaxy or whatever it is smartphone you have, you get a.
Speaker 2:You get a computer when you get a phone, there's no, I just keep saying a text nowadays, ai is going to be just like that. It's not just going to be oh, I have these fancy tools that predict analysis and all this stuff. No, you're just going to have ai. Right? I mean, look at those those. Have you seen those robots that tesla's come out with? Yes, that stuff's coming. Whether you like it or not, it's going. Someone's going to try it, someone's going to invent it, because there are people who want to try things.
Speaker 1:Well, it's crazy. It's crazy now because the you know it's funny mentioning Elon because God only knows he's a part of everything. But you know they have passed certain tests where the thought processes, the impulses from the brain or whatever, are being used to select things or change a page or go beyond the normal face of the homepage. Right Now, I'm selecting items, I'm going, I'm selecting particular patterns and colors and they're dialing it in. It's getting there. Pretty soon it's going to be voice and after voice, you're probably going to, you know, stick a sticker on your head. You're going to be able to talk to your phone regardless of the fact. But it's coming.
Speaker 1:And you know, in the rent-to-own space because I don't want to get too far into the weeds on this, but in the rent-to-own space, I think it would be so much easier when we start using AI, the utilization of it. Everybody that I've talked to in the past season, they've all said the number one thing that's coming down the pipe is AI. Now, in 2025, it's here. And again, I was talking to somebody about the CES. I think that you're going to see that all over CES this year. I think that you're going to see that in the integration in cars. I think you're going to see a lot more of voice integration with your phones and I think that, in this essence, shopping is going to be changed and completely thrown on its ear. I really do, and I want to see Rentone at the top of that.
Speaker 2:I do too.
Speaker 1:And I think it's going to be great. I think it's going to be this great idea that, if it will, and again, if we don't utilize it, the horse and buggy, who utilizes it first? I think the best and the different options that we have available with rent to own is who's going to use it first? Who's going to show us how to do it? Who's going to come up with a cool project that they created based off AI? You know it's funny.
Speaker 1:The other day, I was reading this article about Tesla and what Elon did. When Tesla first came out, they had a lot of these patents and integrations and he gave it all for free and a lot of people thought why would he do that? The flip side of it is now a lot of what was done, a lot of what was picked up on, was technology that he had put out there. Now they're basing it on the technology that was there. They didn't have to go reinvent the wheel. They used what they found. Well, guess what? He was already utilizing that. So now everybody's using these charging stations that he invented. So he didn't have to change what they did. They had to change what they did. He's creating these pinnacle things and while they're catching up, he's on the next thing. I see the same thing for rent to own. Whoever comes up with this idea?
Speaker 2:the way to utilize it. It's going to get ahead. They're going to get it Because then other people are going to copy, but you're already going to be mastered at that Exactly You'll be on the next thing that's going to increase.
Speaker 1:Whatever it is you're looking's what it's going to be.
Speaker 2:We need to have another episode on it too.
Speaker 1:I think that we have it built out and we have this store, whether it be the RTO Smart Store, whatever it is that utilizes AI to its fullest. That's going to be the next door in RTO, because I think that we've and the rental home industry has hit a point where we have meeting of the minds. We have the APRO situation, where you have R of the minds, right. We have the A-pro situation where you have RTO world 2022, 2023, 2024. We travel cities, everybody's talking to each other, but that's just it. Where are the new ideas coming from? And I'm not saying that there aren't new ideas introduced. What I do see, though, is somebody's talking to somebody else, and they've kind of already done it, and they might've tweaked it out a little bit, but where are the brand new ideas? Those are what everybody's looking for the gold at the end of the machine, the gold at the end of the mine, right, and I'm looking for something like metal detecting on the beach. We're all looking, we're all doing it, but we're all looking for the one idea that hits that one watch that somebody lost, that happens to be, you know, worth $10,000, right? So now everybody's looking for that magic gem, and I think the store or the rental-owned company that puts it out first is going to really change things.
Speaker 1:I know that Aaron's is going to one of those smart stores that they say they're a lot smaller in footprint but they're a lot smarter. I think they are on the lead right now to get that. I think Rent-A-Center is right behind them. But I will say is if there's a way to integrate it and I know what everybody's going to say the hardest part of that is because we have used furniture right. We have furniture that can come back, that's already pre-leased. It's not like I'm selling a brand new because I can sell a brand new car on a let's say, I can sell it on a website, I can sell it on the showroom and you don't have to touch it and feel it as much because you know it's brand new. Yeah, you know that least pre-leased or pre-loved items are a little bit different. I think we can find a way around that there's a way around it.
Speaker 2:There's, it's. There's more complicated things, you know, than that.
Speaker 1:The only thing ai can't do is the smell test. Yeah, and I would say that that's a kid, but I I also believe that it we're right around the corner I do too.
Speaker 2:We are right. There's going to be something that comes out that we're going to be like oh my gosh, this was it.
Speaker 1:There's going to be a bot behind the counter going, but I see it. I see it. So in the beginning of season four last year maybe the end of season three I was talking to Joseph. It was somebody that this guy is an amazing guy. He was one of the keynote speakers at RTL World in San Antonio and we had met up and we talked a little bit and he actually told me that he learned a lot about rental home through the podcast and we talked and we actually did a podcast. I got his book and it was talking about being on.
Speaker 1:There's that bell curve, there's that edge, and where you are can determine where you are in life. If you're on the front side, you're innovating. If you're on the backside, you're reacting. And I think a lot of what we're doing is reacting and right now, I think, with the integration of AI, with the ideas of what we're talking about and how we can utilize that and coming up with this missing link, I think we can catapult ourselves to what we're missing, because I do feel like there's this missing link in rent-to-own that it's coming. It's coming and I'm not saying that we're riding the horse and there's the buggy, but I am going to say that I feel like we haven't caught up to all the technology yet and when we do, if somebody can put that together and I am working my butt off to find out who that is, how that is, and even doing it myself but I think once we find that miscellany, that rent-to-own is going to be a force to be reckoned with if we get there.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I appreciate you coming in, man, I appreciate you coming in and doing this with me. Six episodes we made it through how to utilize AI, how it makes it better, how you can make it better, how you can use that to understand your inventory, your data, your organization, how it makes your day better, how it can get you to understand not only how to make new marketing, but understand the marketing that you already have, the people that you're selling to, the customers that you have. How do you utilize that to overcome objections and make better sales? I mean, I don't think there's anything that we haven't covered, but if there is, let us know. Let us know.
Speaker 1:So you got to hit us up at the show and let us know If there's anything that we miss in this series. We are absolutely willing to come back and talk about this, because I don't think AI is dead.
Speaker 2:There's only going to be another six-part series on something because there's going to be a whole new line after someone invents that new thing and we're going to talk about it in six parts.
Speaker 1:But again, hit us up. You're always welcome to go on the website at therotoshowpodcastcom. Take a look on there. You can see the episodes, you can see the pictures, you can see a little bit about us and how to sponsor the show. We don't make any money here. This is a free show but we do live off of our sponsors. Vox Populi is a great sponsor, the platinum sponsor of the show and the reason why we're able to do some of the things that we can do. If you have a question for me or Daniel, you can send it to the info at therotoshowpodcastcom or send it to me about to talk about it. Maybe we'll have it on our next series on ai. If you want to hit us up, please do so. You can also do it on facebook, instagram, linkedin and now on youtube. Make sure you subscribe and I will tell you. Guys, as always, get your collections low to get your sales high. Have a great one.
