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"
Creating Value-Driven Experiences with RNR CEO Adam Sutton
What does it take to grow from a single tire store to a nationwide franchise with over 200 locations? For Adam Sutton, CEO of RNR Tire Express, the secret isn't complicated – it's about creating exceptional experiences for the people who matter most.
After returning to his family's business in 2017, Sutton brought fresh perspectives from his background in digital marketing and event technology. Rather than simply continuing what his father Larry Sutton (known as "The Reverend of RTO") had built, he focused on creating scalable systems while preserving the core values that made the business special.
Central to RNR's success is their "DX3" framework – a simple but powerful approach centered on delivering value-driven experiences across three dimensions: Culture, Customers, and Community. This isn't just corporate speak; it's implemented through dedicated training programs, leadership development, and consistent reinforcement throughout the organization.
"We have the honor and privilege of serving the hardest working, most deserving, and often most underappreciated people in America," Adam explains, expressing his deep commitment to the rent-to-own customer. This mindset drives everything from their innovative store designs to their community outreach initiatives like annual back-to-school backpack giveaways.
One particularly meaningful change Sutton champions is replacing the word "employee" with "team member" – a subtle distinction that reflects a profound shift in mindset. Employees are transactional and replaceable; team members are valued partners in a shared mission. This relationship-based approach has fueled RNR's remarkable growth while maintaining the family-business spirit that customers love.
Whether you're a seasoned RTO professional or just starting your entrepreneurial journey, Sutton's insights on leadership, franchising, and creating exceptional customer experiences offer valuable lessons that translate across any business. Listen now to discover how putting people first can drive extraordinary results.
Sponsored by: APRO, Wow Brands, JLR America, and FlyWheel RTO
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FlyWheel RTO
A premier supplier to the RTO industry, providing high quality brand-name products.
APRO
Association of Progressive Rental Organizations
JLR America
One-stop shopping, offering a myriad of supplies and accessories to the RTO Industry.
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Hello and welcome to the RTO Show podcast. I'm your host, pete Schaul, and today I finally get to sit down with Adam Sutton. It's been a little while, guys, just so you guys know. We've been planning on this for a while, tried to get it done for a while. We have, but you know things happen. You know how the rental world is. One minute you're there. One minute you just got to run and take care of some business. So, adam, so glad to have you on the show. Listen, guys at the R&R Studios. Now, real quick interjection. If you don't know this studio, you probably should, because Adam and team have spent a lot of time making this happen. Is it Tread, tire, tread TV?
Speaker 2:Tread TV, basically a YouTube channel which the handle would be R&R Tires plural, but we call it Trend TV and hundreds of videos up there for that video SEO right. Youtube is the second largest search engine after Google, so that's what it's all about.
Speaker 1:Just so you guys are aware there is a responsibility behind that. So if you're not getting shown on YouTube, you need to get shown on YouTube. You got to do it. Good quality video.
Speaker 2:Quality video. Quality, quality video. It's the Renzo and Indus Relic.
Speaker 1:But I mean honestly, when you take a look at the scope of what we have here at the R&R Studios right now, they have hundreds, hundreds of videos for you guys to take a look at. If you don't know, now you know. Now you know. And one of the reasons that I have Adam here is because not only is he now the CEO of R&R Tires, which is actually expanding exponentially Every time I turn around, I think I see another store on there. What I will say, too, is, as we're trying to get here, there's this article that comes out in RTO HQ Magazine, right? So it's about Tracy Cintron, who's done amazing things for this industry.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's the better article I thought you were talking about the other one. Oh, no, no, no, she's not believing me. She does this great thing. Our franchise director, rock star.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. So we get on this article and then it just so happens that the show is right next to the article and Adam's face is right there. So you guys got to check that out. But you know, having Tracy here, having the legacy being the CEO First off, how are you doing? How are you? I mean, you seem so busy and everything's going on. What's going on?
Speaker 2:with you. How are you doing? Well, first of all, thank you for having me and R&R. Glad you're here, me too and honestly just honored to be on the show we were talking beforehand. I love what you're doing and I hope whoever's listening to this or watching this that you pass this on to people in the rent-to-own industry, because I think it's valuable just truly valuable or invaluable or both. No, just really honored to be here. So, thank you, and doing well. Honored to have recently been promoted and honored to work in the rent-to-own industry, which I grew up in under my father, larry Sutton, aka the Reverend of Arkansas.
Speaker 1:The Reverend God. You know, if you guys listen to the show every time that I make that reference, that's what we're talking about, somebody who's been in this industry a long time and we did talk about generations because I felt like it was slowing down, but with you guys it's spot on. I mean, not only did he start something, you've taken that, that football and just kind of made it happen in your own way.
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah. Well, I mean here's the deal. I think Rentone, anybody that's in the Rentone industry. Now we can all thank those that came before us because they've laid an amazing foundation.
Speaker 2:Right, I mean going back 40 plus years and um, but certainly for me to be able to come into this company, uh, about seven or eight years ago in 2017, um, it was just a great foundation to be able to to, to come back to help what they've started and, just, you know, help kind of bring that um, growth and uh, honor to be here on and play a part Well let's start with that.
Speaker 1:So you're right now. Let's, let's take a snapshot. We're going to go backwards. So right now, you're the CEO of Rent and Roll Tires, which is amazing. Did you say Rent and Roll Tires?
Speaker 2:It's Rent and Roll, right. So we're going to make a disclaimer. I'm glad you did See, I'm glad we're doing it. Let's know we didn't play this, but I'm glad you did it, because Rent and Roll we love it.
Speaker 2:Uh, my father jokes says he always wanted to be a rock and roll star, didn't make it. He got a little R&R with rent and roll and we opened our doors in 2000, which means this year is our 25th anniversary. However, there is, there has been an evolution which we became, uh, 10 years ago maybe, uh, officially, uh, I tried to make it more official when I came back, um, r&r Tire Express. So rent and roll is dead. Uh, technically We've moved on, quote unquote but it's in our hearts, it lives on forever and you know it did really well for us. We can get into that of why we did that branding transition. But you know, yeah, we go by R&R Tire Express. Well, now the marketing works because everybody, even in our hometown or wherever, oh, rent and roll, or we're like we haven't been called rent and roll in 15 years.
Speaker 1:No, it's true. I mean, well, listen, I work for Buddy's Home Furnishings and they say, buddy, Buy Right all the time. And that was you know. We're talking about slat days. Oh, yeah, so we start here. You're at the CEO. Let's back up when you say you first came in a few years ago, you kind of rejo rejoined and then decided, hey, this is what I'm going to do, so you make it to president. Now you're how do you? How do you? Let's go back to that day when you decided to come back or dad was like, hey, you're coming in. Like how did that happen? What was the thought process behind coming? Coming to R&R Tire Express? Yeah, so thank you.
Speaker 2:Self-correction, we got a good slide I'm actually really glad because if anybody's listening to this, hey, it's written rules gone. We love it, good years, but Arnor's here. So it's funny. Specifically how I came back is my father called me in 2017, january 2017, and said, hey, I know you're leaving your industry.
Speaker 2:The company I was with that's kind of the right hand of the CEO and we were selling, and you know how that works. If you stay, you would have been locked into an agreement all this and I loved it. I loved everything I was doing, but it was great for me, it was awful for my family and, you know, I tell people I normally loved my wife and kids, but I liked them and if I had stayed in that industry, I just, you know, it just was hard to to make both, uh, fully successful. So, uh, he knew that and and so he calls me and says, hey, um, can I take you to lunch, which wasn't uncommon. I've always kind of been close to the business and acted. Somewhat're going to be, you know, I think we're at like 88 stores or something. We're going to be hitting a hundred stores and, um, you know, it's going to take a lot of things to get to that next 100. And I'd like for you to think about coming home.
Speaker 2:He called it and uh which is what I kind of say for the rent to own industry, any, any, any friends, or said I can't pay you what those other people are offering you, cause I had five kind of job offers on the table and he goes uh, so I'm not going to pay you that, just so you know which was not abnormal. He taught me very young, since I was a child If you can't take advantage of your family, who can you take advantage?
Speaker 2:of I don't know if that's just a Rentown, but growing up in the 80s in Rentown that certainly was used and infused but learned a lot from it. Wouldn't change a thing. And he goes. But I got something they don't. I said what's that? And he says I have a job in Tampa that'll get you home for dinner. And that was kind of his clue.
Speaker 1:Where do you go from there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and that's honestly. I mean, he knew he's a salesman, he knew what I needed to hear and it was just the right time. I call it a kind of God timing, a God moment, but just perfect timing, perfect scenario for coming back into the family business. And yeah, and then I just held him at gunpoint until he finally made me the CEO, held it down and tried waterboarding and finally he just did it. Ceos held it down and tried waterboarding and finally he just he did it.
Speaker 1:Well, you know it's crazy because for the people who are really intent on the podcast and I love you guys to death that's kind of what happened with Tissot. You know, if you go back and and and and, you just listen to that point. But it was like he had, he had a sit down, sit down with his dad. I want to hear that. It was kind of like he sat down with his dad. He went out to you know after golfing. They went out to you know lunch one day and he was like, hey, this is what I'm laying out and that's what essentially got it back. So listen, guys, if you have anybody around to own that's not coming back, take them to lunch.
Speaker 1:Buy anything, yeah, but, and you know, but it's, it was one of those things like I think in both situations and not that I'm trying to compare, yeah, but like you cannot be compared to that right now. Now, listen, now he's got, he's got a lot to go on with a certain name again. See, you guys, you guys got something going on, but but it's like one of those things where you know, when family really reaches out, yeah, and, and one of the things about rent to own is that it is family related. There's a lot of.
Speaker 2:It's very family industry more so than others, for sure.
Speaker 1:It can be. It can be, and because it's funny that you know you say time, because I've known a lot of guys who go rent to own. That's pretty hard, that's a pretty hard sell for time no-transcript and I like to say that this is a timeframe where it's working for me. Yeah, but you know, as you get that and you come back, where did you come back from? Because you have this hi hiatus and you're doing other things. What were you doing? Then that dad said you know you're, you're, you're out there, you're working, you're, you know you're working your tail off. You probably could be better at home. Let me help you out. What were you doing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, so I won't go all the way back. But long story short um, in 2004 started a creative agency, uh with my wife called red letter studios. Um, in fact, did a lot of work for rent-owned companies buddies included Rent King, which you've been to those and picked up a few REA awards. They don't do those anymore but loves love working in the rent-owned industry with that. Did that for about 10 years in London, did pretty well with it, very blessed, learned a lot.
Speaker 2:I mean you know those first couple of years of owning your own business and I was newly married. I got married in 2004, married my high school sweetheart and um, and with a new business and just I mean I failed so much, uh, but you learn a lot from failure. I prefer to learn from others failures in this time period. Uh, I learned a lot from my own and um, I had a client, uh named Thuzy T-H-U-Z-Y that kept asking me hey, I was doing some consulting for her, I was doing stuff for them and then they would bring me in and do stuff on behalf of them and really unique things digital, like they had developers. They were developing out some digital applications, primarily for social media, which was you know, this is 2010. Many brands weren't even on social media, which was was, you know, this is 2010. Um, many brands weren't even on social media yet, right, which is kind of crazy. Yeah, yeah, we're like, no, you're right out head in the sand and um, and so they were very early on in that and they just kept asking me like, why don't you come on, let me, let's hire you? And I was like I love working for myself. I was in a pretty good spot and can make my own schedule and and um, but I was looking at what I was doing and you know it was design and branding and video production. I loved it was a passion of mine.
Speaker 2:Um, new media at the time, which is really websites and you know all these things.
Speaker 2:Um, I don't think by that time we'd stop probably doing cd-roms for the older, uh, part of people in the crowd. Uh, you know, some of the digital things were just coming about and I was looking at that, you know I, okay, I was watching what was happening on the internet and all of that was becoming more accessible. And, uh, you know, all of these websites to get media and just the, the knowledge you know, with iMovie and these different applications just made data more accessible and thus cheaper uh, you know, less needed, so less uh price, uh skillset. And so I'm watching my industry kind of be like and I'm watching this social media thing and I'm going I don't know if that's going to have a bubble like that's just going to continue to grow. And they were really early in developing some things for social media and so I just thought I should probably, I should probably take, take, take this on and go learn a lot of things there and tap into the social media thing.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, it sounds like you grabbed a lot of that and brought it with you, tried to yeah, a little bit, I mean. So you guys just understand, okay, I've been trying to meet with Adam for a while and I come in here today and I will tell you that R&R has a lot going on no-transcript, or it's going to be so important to us that we're going to make that part of where we are and what we do. It's huge. And so, as you do that, you bring all this in, you come in and now dad's not paying you and you're figuring all this out, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So what changes happen when Adam comes? Right, because I don't want to say nothing about Larry, because Larry is probably one of the biggest names in Ren's own. I can't say anything without saying anything. It's bigger than life, right. But you know, as we do this, the idea is Adam's son's made a name for himself. I don't think this is the same. I don't know about that. But, yeah, I don't know if this is the same R&R that it was, and not necessarily that it was wrong or not right, but I feel like there's something different about it now that you're here and you've put your spin on it and, and you know, dad's kind of been able to say, hey, I mean, he must have trusted you. You're a CEO now. Right, he did.
Speaker 2:So one of the greatest gifts he gave me was because you hear some horror stories. I mean, you know, I think my 20th high school reunion was a couple years after I came back and I was talking to a buddy I hadn't seen since high school. You know, and hey, how's it going? And you know he was in construction or something. It's a tough industry. And I'm like, and I just come back a couple of years and I'm like, oh, how's that going? You know that's awesome. You know he's like, oh, it's terrible.
Speaker 2:He's just he starts listing all these like negative attributes and I already knew I had it pretty good, a with an amazing dad, but B with someone who's who's, you know, not controlling, and not just you know, no, I'd do it my way or that way, not to say we never got into any. You know nice conversations, deeper conversations and elevated voices, but I'm listening to this guy tell this story and I'm like, wow, I have it really, really good. You know, kind of, do my thing and bring in changes. And you know the end of my kind of work story leading up to just filling the gap was I leave to go do this social media thing and basically we were creating these digital apps for mega brands and doing some really unique things. We're giving away the first car on Facebook. I mean giving away 500,000 Bloomin' Onions for Outback, you know, in five days and with that, collecting 500,000 emails and all the Facebook data. You can't get this data anymore, but we got it all back then and then we were learning from it.
Speaker 2:And long story short is, some of our clients were I'll give you two as example Gatorade and Under Armour kept saying, hey, we love what you're doing for us in the digital space. We do all these events. What could you do to tie the two together? And so we actually started inventing technology for event marketing, for that live experience and sharing it with the online friends. So you'd be able to come in and you saw in my office some of the RFID wristbands yes, to be your token and where, historically, you'd go into an event and I'll just use one of the fan favorites we used to always talk about kind of put us on the map but the Oprah tour we land in 2014. There's 12 global sponsors in the fan village right Before you go into the big stadium and get your Oprah on Mrs Winfrey.
Speaker 1:You get a card. You get a card. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:It was fun, yeah. So if it was, you get a light up, yeah, and we're all you know everybody's dancing with these bracelets, but you would have had to go to 12 different global sponsors. So Toyota, oprah, magazine, p&g Brands, and you have to go and register to win that car. As an example to you know, wells Fargo, you had to go register to scan to get whatever you were getting, and so our system kind of centralized all that. But we also created some of that media back and all that fun stuff for, like, we want to entice people to register. So we created all these really unique experiences that would instantly share on Facebook or Twitter or sent to your email, and so we were creating social amplification with events and so, long story short, that took off and did really well. We landed the Super Bowl in 2013, and now that's kind of ran on our platform ever since. If you go to any major sporting league event today, you're going to interact with our technology, which is really cool.
Speaker 2:But I learned a lot in that process from kind of being in startup mode, extended startup mode, meaning you don't have all the money you need, so you're scrappy. Right, right, right, right. Hundreds of events and you know, um trying to figure out how to make all the work and you're solving problem after problem and it was amazing. I mean, all of it was done because of our amazing team and um learned a lot through that. That, when I came back to R&R, um was just trying to to to look at. Okay, we had this great foundation and, honestly, I don't even know for 17 years, I don't know how R&R Tire Express, not Ritten Roll, anybody out there that just heard Ritten Roll when I said R&R, it's R&R, r&r, asterisk, asterisk. I don't know how they accomplished so much that they did. It was on the backs of these amazing people, right, many of which are still here, like everybody was. You've been there like wearing a hat, change the hat, change the hat.
Speaker 2:We used to say wipe more business cards, right, and which can last for a while, but there's at some point you have to say I'm no longer a startup, right, we need a healthy work environment, a for the health of our team members, but B to be able to get it to that next level. And so came in with a great foundation of what they had done. I was able to bring an outside perspective on some things because I wasn't just here and if I had been just here, I wouldn't have been able to bring some of these outside things. I'd learned from others good things and mistakes, right, what not to do in my own as well.
Speaker 2:Um, so I think one of the biggest things, probably to answer your question, would be bringing kind of the scalability and trying to help build towards a scalable model more so and productize certain things and just enhance all the processes of going. Okay, we hit our store 100, actually right down the street from you and I in Sarasota, florida corporate store most first corporate stores in Florida but how do we get to that next 100? How do we get to 200? And I'm proud to say that we just opened up store 200 in December and sitting here today, in July of 2025. Now we're at 207, right, oh, wow, which in marketing what we get to say we're over 200.
Speaker 2:So it doesn't matter if 200 plus we're over 200. And so a lot of it is. I mean, the full credit goes to the team and the franchisees that are doing the putting the money, you know, in the effort of going there. But just we tried to just do a good job of taking that 20 year, that 17th time year history, and kind of productizing it, packaging it up and making it where we could very quickly open up more and help enable our franchisees to get to that finish line a little quicker. And you know a lot of that was just stuff learning it from the software industry and the event marketing industry and you know all of those things. But I wish I could take the credit it's really a point of mirror back to the team and they were able to do it.
Speaker 2:Well, it's a team that taught me that when I was very young. You attract the right people and it's very easy for him and I he literally taught me this when I was young. You just have a simple trick you hire smarter people than you and you let them do what they do, and that's been my secret to success. Now you know. Now you know the secret to success. And look, I'll say something to that too, because if there's any leaders listening to that, if you hear that and you go well, there is nobody smarter than me. You will not ever succeed as much as you can, because that's your ego talking. And uh, you're going to limit yourself by that thought. Right, you need to make yourself not the smartest person in the room, and certainly mentally, not thinking you're the smartest person in the room and surround yourself with good people and get them. Get them on the right people on the bus and the right seats on the bus.
Speaker 1:Right, so I will. I will say all the time uh, one of the guys that I talk to a lot, fox Popular. I talk to Andrew a lot. He's like always show me your five closest friends and I'll show you, I'll paint you a picture, and it can't be much more clear than that. If you're the smartest guy in the room, you're in the wrong room. That's just the way it goes, and so sometimes it's great to feel that rah, rah, rah, and then you need to go somewhere else when you're being challenged all day. So you make these processes that help the scalability, you bring these processes that help kind of the media and everything else, and bring in the right people like Tracy Cintra. Go read her article Right.
Speaker 2:Go read the article RTOHQ. Listen, guys.
Speaker 1:I don't want to tell you. It's a great article and there's probably things about her you didn't know, like I didn't know. She was all that into pets and she travels all over the place and I thought that was awesome. There's also an article with Adam's comments in it. We'll talk about that in a bit Sure. But so now that you come in and you get all that, what's really important because you said there's a difference. You've got the corporate stores and then you've got the franchise stores. How stores? How did the franchise model come out of R&R and how much of a game changer was that? You know, was there a lot like? It's like, hey, man, we were built for the franchise model.
Speaker 2:I know we kind of trudged through that. Well, I won't tell the whole story because I believe you're going to have the Reverend of RTO, my father, larry Sutton, on in a future episode. So I plan on answering that question because it's a great story. But I can tell you for some of the legacy folks that are listening, mike Kent was a big part of that story and so Mike Kent was around when Renton was invented and just a great man, great, great family. The long story, short, is we opened our doors under Renton Roll custom wheels and performance tires, because you know, the longer the name the better, right, right, the better. If you don't know that, just make it as many words as you can. And it's the URL's right too for the website.
Speaker 2:But some people, particularly Mike, heard what we were doing and the 30-second backstory. My father, I said I grew up in the industry. He had a traditional company called Champion Rent to Own and so together with his partner they had about 100 stores. He had about 27 to 30 of them and he had sold those. He retired, did a couple of things, got bored Again. You'll have to ask about this when you do him in the episode and then he kind of came up with the written role thing. So after a year or two, people are hearing about it and it's like man, that's exciting, tire as wheels. So, mike Kent, people are hearing about it and it's like man, that's exciting, tires wheels. What so?
Speaker 2:Mike kent comes down and goes, uh, hey, larry, I want to see what you're doing, and my father's the most giving person on the planet. He'll help anybody. Give you the shirt off his back. Uh, which he has. Um, and mike comes down and at the end of it, mike says hey, I want to do this. And my dad goes do it. And he goes no, no, I want to do exactly this. I want to call it. He's like go for, go for it. He's like no, larry, we got to have an agreement in place. So he calls Ed Wynn and says Ed, you know me, you know Mike, I want to do this. And he goes like okay, I know Mike, can, we can do a license agreement. And so that was our very first license agreement. Wow.
Speaker 1:You know, ed Wynn forgot to mention that. Ed, I'm going to tell you you did not mention that when we had our conversation. If you guys don't know is legal counsel for APO for many, many years. A legend, a legend. He was also a legend that's been on the show. He did recently retire, although I don't think he's out of the game fully. It always says he's not out of the game, you can reach him. So Edwin puts this together and then is born the very first.
Speaker 2:Okay, so that's part one. So part two here in the whole story, my dad same exact thing. I want to do it. Yeah, I got a license. So he calls Edwin. He goes Ed, I need a license agreement. And he goes.
Speaker 2:I know Mike Kent, I don't know that guy. And Larry, you're really, if you're going to be doing this, that's really a franchise agreement. You're going to be a franchisor. My dad goes I don't want to be a franchisor. And when True Story goes, I didn't say you're going to be a good franchisor, but you're going to be a franchisor. And he goes why would you say that? And he goes Larry, I've known you 40 years. You don't know how to say no. And a franchisor has to say no.
Speaker 2:And my father, ultra entrepreneur and just you know didn't want to tell people what to do and he was attracting entrepreneurs and so very early on that's how we became a franchise, by accident, not by desire, and we really in the beginning were very loose. I mean too loose Me and Vince Ficarota, who's been in, and I was my third. I had three jobs at the time. It was my kind of my night job. I'd come late. Vince always worked late, so we'd be doing P and P together. I was doing mostly marketing, but we're inventing stuff. When the tire tech called out I'd be down there slinging tires and I, yeah, towards the end of the day.
Speaker 2:And we used to get in arguments with my dad like that You're going to be all about my dad's. Like, oh, forget that, I would just let them do what they want. And reality is we were both wrong. Right, he was too loose and me and Vince were like going too far. We finally found our sweet spot, um, and and I wouldn't hear they get credit for this, but you know if, being that that balance of having the guardrails, you've got to have branding and protection around your brand and your customer experience. But we still have some of that flexibility and I think I know some of our best ideas came from franchisees, right?
Speaker 1:And so that goes back to surrounding yourself with the smart people. Absolutely. Now we say we award them right.
Speaker 2:Because you just, yeah, you want this, you got that. So now we don't do that. You're right, pro tip, if you want to get into franchising, don't give it away. And it's harder in the beginning because you don't have much. You're like, okay, sign away. But now we really look at it, for what is the DNA that we're allowing into the system? We want somebody that's going to fit into the system and the culture and our values, and so we award them and we've turned people down, you know, because we don't feel like they fit the rent-to-own culture and you know that relationship-driven business, but also our own kind of family-owned business that we want to permeate across the 30-plus states we're in now.
Speaker 1:So in sudden value, somebody wants to go into a franchise.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Let's, let's. Let's say it's not on our tire express. Let's just say it's franchising. Sure, Right, and I got this brand and I want to start franchising. Don't do it, Don't do it. No, no, that's great. So what? What is a small bit of advice that you'd say, if this is your goal, if be a franchisor, you think you've got this brand that works, and somebody comes to you and says, hey, this is something I like doing, and your mindset goes okay. What is a piece of advice that you'd say this is a must. Before you go and walk down that road, you should know this or try that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is probably its own podcast. There's probably smarter people, not probably. We can do that. I'm just saying we can do that. No, no, no.
Speaker 2:So let me try to summarize in short, being short, I would say be careful. What you wish for. I will say I love being a franchisor and a big part of that is because we have amazing franchisees. But I talk to a lot of franchisors and the bigger you get, the harder it is to maintain that. Right, and I think Edwin gave this advice to Larry around that same time.
Speaker 2:He gave an old April. It's attributed to Abraham Lincoln. I don't know if that's actually true, but he says look, franchising is very simple. It could have been somebody else, but, ed, I'm going to give you the credit. The quote is and I'm sure you've heard it you can please some of the people all the time, all the people some of the time, but never all the people all the time. Right, that's franchising on a paper napkin. And so you, just you got to be able to say no to Edwin's point, and we didn't for a while. That bit us in the butt Right In 2008,.
Speaker 2:We had a lot of closures because we let some people in that, you know shouldn't happen and also we weren't giving enough support, I think, than what we should have been doing. So you got to be able to say no. You got to be able to strike that balance between being supportive and being firm, and you got to. You know we talked about productizing things. You really have to know the amount of time, effort, energy and money it's going to take in the people to make a franchise sustainable. I mean, everybody thinks you could go to any franchise rep company now and oh here's 50 grand.
Speaker 2:Make me a franchise, correct. That is the easiest part. By the way, there's a lot of risk in that. I don't suggest that I'm not saying there's not good ones out there, but, like your rinse-repeat model, you're paying and giving up all this liability risk and all that. So I would say, have good franchise lawyers, that risk and all that. So I would say, have good franchise lawyers. That'd probably be another tip, but that's not the hard part.
Speaker 2:Right, you got to have a product or something that somebody wants to buy, so you got to find them. That is hard, but the support is the long tail end of that, right. If you're looking at the graph, it's like and then support, right, and that's the longest thing. And so you just got to be willing and ready to commit and to support that, because they are going to have they being the franchisees your name. You know they're going to own your customer experience. You're never going to meet their customers, but they're going to own it. And why do I say yours? We live in an online world, baby, right? So what you say is now on not just Better Business Bureau, but it's on Google and it's on, it's everywhere. And now, with this video film culture and the PR. Oh, absolutely. You know, something that gets done out there could be a high PR risk for everybody. So a lot of negatives, but I mean more. So I'd say there's more positives than good. You just got to know what you're asking and make sure you're ready to commit to it.
Speaker 1:You have this face, the way we mentioned for franchising, you're like it's the greatest nightmare. But I think that when you have people that are in this business, the rent-to-own industry you have some serious entrepreneurs, you have some serious pioneers that they're thinking. I don't know the end result, but I know that I want to get started. I know that this is what I want to do and, again, one of the things I love about Adam is because I feel like we both feel the same way. We're passionate about what we do.
Speaker 1:I don't know if he's that passionate about podcasting, but I know that R&R Tire and Express is. You know, we started talking within a couple minutes. Adam's like you know this, this and this, because it's something that is innately built into you. I want to do this and I want to do it well. I am concerned about not only the customer value but what we're providing to the owners who come in and want to say, hey, I want to be a part of the R&R family. How do I do? What we're both passionate about is the rent-to-own industry Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Right, and you can feel that from listening to your podcast, just from meeting you for a minute, and you bring that to what you do in the podcasting. But it's a lot of the same value.
Speaker 1:Well, we're trying Now flipping that on its ear. Being able to do that is being able to create leaders, people in the industry who not only have the passion to do what they do, but guys. This is almost just as, if not more, important. You can't do it all by yourself. You've got to create people within the industry that can also do what you can do, whether it be because yeah, because whether they bring it in, or whether you teach them that leadership value is so important to growth and making sure that it's scalable. Yeah, you have to be able to teach other people who can teach other people. That's good.
Speaker 1:So, going back to and you got to be able to trust them to do it. Well, trust is yeah, absolutely right. So, going back to what we said in the beginning, there's a room not very far from here that's dedicated to helping those people become leaders and kind of leading others to success. How did that come about? Whose idea was it to say, you know what? Not only do we believe in this so much, but we need to carve a niche out in home office and say this is dedicated solely to creating better employees that can serve. Not only can they grow in what they're doing. Grow professionally, but also grow the business. Where did that idea come from?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, I wish I could take credit for that. I mean, part of it was just out of necessity, right? Because, like you mentioned earlier, we were renting hotel rooms. Again, there's nothing wrong with that, you know. It's been done for and will be done for 50 years On and on. No-transcript is really valuable, um, but making it scalable, you have to be able to duplicate those leaders, and so for us, um, you know, I know, I think one of the topics you want to hit in this section was kind of that, the core values and what we subscribe to. So you want to go into that now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean absolutely, because because, through the leadership, they have to know what flag they're carrying, right, that's. That's another, another brand, you know. And I'd love to say, guys, just so you guys know, we support armed services. I don't have my red shirt on today, but if you guys support, please go to Vox Populi and get one of. Their shirts are red. It does support for the deployed members of the military and, god, I'm so glad that they're available. But you know, talking about the flag, you've got to know what you're doing. You got to stand for something or you'll fall for anything, right? So, and I believe the statement that you were making about the people who you can and cannot, I believe it was PT Barnum actually yeah, huge fan of PT Barnum, but I mean that culture has got to be just as or I don't want to say always more important, but it's got to be there, because if I don't know how to lead, I at least need to know how to act.
Speaker 2:How do I fall back in? I love Walt Disney, I'm a fan of Walt Disney, I was in the event marketing technology space, but a lot of that's the entertainment space and it's called experiential marketing, right, but all that comes down to the experience and our main goal is to ultimately provide a value-driven experience and that's going to be with our team members and we use the word team members. On employees, I'll come back Absolutely, and if you don't do it there, then you're not going to do it where it really counts, which is down to the people and I hate to use the word down, but over to the people who can fire anybody in the company and everybody in the company up to CEO, which is the customer, right, because they're the ones paying. Ah yes, so create that value-driven experience. And so, going back to kind of, how do we make it scalable and duplicatable and how do you make it important for your leaders?
Speaker 2:One of my favorite quotes I brought up Walt Disney, because there's a great Roy Disney quote which, if you're unfamiliar with Walt and Roy, there's just amazing stories there. But I love to tell people you would have never heard this is a sidebar you would have never heard of Walt Disney without Roy Disney? That's right. I say that because leaders come in different shapes and sizes. Right? Walt was this, you know, very much like my father, this amazing, just bigger than life person, and you know, and we've had several of those in the industry, but there's also some amazing people in the industry that are more of the numbers and analytical, and that was Roy Disney. And you would have never heard of Walt because he would have not made any money, because he would have spent it all if Roy wasn't.
Speaker 1:I read on that because he was like, so like, let's just get it done. I was like whoa, whoa.
Speaker 2:You know an EOS entrepreneur operating system. If anybody's familiar with that, they would call that the visionary and the integrator, not is integrator. Great system too. If you're looking for a good eos, uh traction book, uh, gene whitman. But the quote from from roy is um, decisions aren't hard when you know what your values are right, and so when you've defined and created those values, uh, they're not hard and so. So, knowing that, I mean that's age-old, you know wisdom, nothing new there. But, um, when we were looking at the landscape of like, okay, how do we? We're, we're going to be a hundred stores soon. What's that next 100, which we just hit.
Speaker 2:You know a good, good culture, but be, replicate that a hundred times, a hundred times, a hundred times in a franchise system where you can't always control it, right. Uh, and I do want to say this this is a disclaimer I love our franchisees. I don't want anybody coming off this going, oh, he hates franchising. I love franchising, I love being a franchisor, um, and a big part of that is because of the amazing franchisees we have. But I just was trying to stress it is a very hard thing to take on, so just be careful. It's a scale, it's hard to scale and it's hard to scale. But back to this, it's hard to replicate that family-owned mindset. Right, we have a lot of family ownership groups in our thing. But now, especially now, we got a lot of the people out of the rent-owned industry, we've got a lot of just finance people coming in and okay, well, how do we take that finance guy or gal and make sure we replicate this culture? So, four or five things is kind of what I identified which is probably in a thousand books.
Speaker 2:I didn't come up with this, but when looking at creating a value-driven experience, I was just kind of sitting back and going well, how are we going to do that and how do we productize it? I like to use that word to say package it up and make it easy for someone to understand and align with Two of my. Well, I'll start with this Two brands I admire we mentioned. One is Disney, the other is Chick-fil-A. Oh God, yes, I challenge you, I challenge you, I challenge you, challenge People are going to send in tapes, they're going to send in links.
Speaker 2:Here I did have a bad experience. I challenge you to go to one of those places and not have an exceptional experience, right, a value-driven experience, and so they happened to be two of my former clients in my former life, right, and really enjoyed working with them backstage, as Disney calls it, and so I kind of really was looking at that going. How did they do that, right? Um, is Chick-fil-A importing millennials with manners from some planet? Right? They're not right, and I can say that because I'm a millennial. I do younger millennials out there, you can't be mad, I'm a millennial, um, but they're duplicating this replicatable experience, and it's always this really great thing is you know you replicatable experience, and it's always this really great thing is you know you don't leave Chick-fil-A and check your bag You're going to get the right food right and you don't go to Disney and not have a great time.
Speaker 2:So I think it's four or five things. One, what they did, if you pull back and look at it. One is they identified those core values. They identified what they're looking to replicate and who they are. Then they kind of productize and they brand them and they make it known. Right, it's not a hidden thing that's kept behind this wall, it's out there. Disney has it in the five keys of success, right before you walk on stage you'll see. Here's a reminder. This is what we want, right. Number three they hire people to that. Hire smiling people. Right? It's much easier to help teach people rent-a-hood or automotive or furniture than it is to teach them how to be happy or treat people with respect.
Speaker 2:Yes, we know that right. The next one is you've got to train those people to all of those values and make it very plain and simple and break it down in a way they're going to understand. And the last one is you've got to hold them accountable to it. And that's one of the hardest things, especially for people, driven people. Right, you and I are, I think, probably both people. That's probably a weakness of ours that we've always had to work on, you know. And there's a pendulum, there's a balance of like all things, that's, you can be hey, at those five things, we kind of said what does that look like for us? Who are we, who do we want to be and how do we replicate it? And I brought some visuals. Can we bring some visuals? We've got some visuals, guys, everybody watch the video on YouTube.
Speaker 1:I didn't have to ask because he was so excited about showing me that within the first few minutes I knew about it. That's how you know that somebody is very interested and passionate about what they're doing, because you bring it to the forefront and say, just like the leadership thing. I think within two minutes he was like this is our room and we're going to make it bigger, we're going to tear it down. And then, you know, as we're going through, he's like, hey, let me show you this, because that's important. That's how you get that process down to the franchisees, down from the franchisor and listen, if you're not looking to do that, to your other companies, your other store brands that are just you're saying, hey, you know what, this is how you get from here to there and I'm going to let you explain that. But absolutely, this is going to be the first time I think we got props on this show. Here we go.
Speaker 2:I love this Slides and props. So no slides today, but I'll explain it for anybody listening as well. But if you've noticed, on my shirt, I've got a logo here that says DX3, the letter D, the letter X, the number three and the visual here I'm holding up. This is just one of our mouse pads that we put out there because you got to put it in front of people, you got to remind them about it. This is it. Yeah, in the middle here is DX3. And what that is is the D stands for driven right, because there's you can be motivated by something, but motivation fades right when you're driven by something. It's those values that you multiply and make each one better. And so here it is.
Speaker 2:The visual I'm holding up is a circle, and the first one on the left of the circle is culture. That's our first core value. Our second one is customers and our third one is community. So we want to be driven by creating these value driven experiences for our culture, our customers and ultimately impact our community. Now here's the beauty. This is in a circle.
Speaker 2:For the audience at home, this is in a circle, so it starts with culture, then it has an arrow going over to customers, because you're not ever, ever, ever going to be able to replicate a great customer experience. If you aren't treating your team members great, If you're not building a value-driven experience for your team members, you're probably I mean, you'll have occasionally that good team member. He or she will just be that smiling person and woke up happy and you know who you are. We love you, I love you. But guess what? If you don't create a value-driven experience, they're not going to stay because they're going to go somewhere where they're appreciated or worse, they're going to stay, and they're and you're going to. You're just going to squeeze that out of them, because people don't, you know, naturally grow up. They go down. That's easier, it's harder to go up, and so you've got to create a value driven culture which will then help influence that and create a value driven customer experience.
Speaker 2:Right, and quick note on that. I said come back to team member versus employee. Um, true, cathy, founder of Chick-fil-A, you know I love this story. I think it took him nine years to get it's my pleasure across everybody's lips, right? So that gives me a little bit of pause.
Speaker 2:And what I'm about to tell you, which is this I'm trying to eradicate the word employee in our organization. Right, and I'm trying to replace it with team member Very hard to do in the HR department too. They, right, and I'm trying to replace it with team member Very hard to do in the HR department too. They hate me for it. I'm like remove the word employee. I'm like Adam, we've got to say what they are and I'm like okay, okay, okay, but wherever else we can, I want to use team member of employee. And why is that? It's this and this is kind of the mindset behind the leadership style we want and we believe in, right, and that we want to replicate.
Speaker 2:An employee is transactional, an employee is just a number and they're replaceable, right? A team member? There's two things. One, they're on your team, and that comes with some responsibilities. They need to do what you need them to do, because that's why you pay them, right. But the flip side of that is we are on their team, yes, and that's a mindset shift. That's something I learned from my father very on. I think it's something really unique in the rent-to-own industry which is why we have such longevity with so many people is that team mindset, that upside down kind of pyramid, and when you show that and when they feel that it helps create this visual, the culture with that right, and so the ultimate goal is we want to create a value-driven culture, and when you're doing that and you look at them as team members, aren't just employees, what's that going to do? That's going to create a value-driven customer experience.
Speaker 1:Well, you know it's funny. You say that because the owner of Virgin Atlantic, who also believes the exact same thing, said you want a better customer experience. Take care of your employees 100%. Take care of your employees because they're the ones that take care of your customers 100%. And if they feel that culture, like hey, I have somebody who has my back, they're going to train me, they're going to show me the best way, and if I have to say the words no, it's for the right reasons, and not that we ever want to say no to our customers. But you have to understand that when they feel the culture, when they believe what they're doing and they're like this is all of us, we're all in a team together, how can I best serve you? That's when the customer experience starts going through the roof, 100% 100%.
Speaker 2:The customer is the only person that can fire everybody in the company, including the CEO. Fired, they just stop paying it. Fired, they stop coming. That's it Right. And so a hundred percent the goal. And again, none of these things I'm about to share are brand new. But going back to Disney and Chick-fil-A, how do we productize that? How do we design some easily understandable and recognizable things of who we want to be? Right? And because once people know their values, it's not hard to make decisions Exactly. So you start with the culture and create a value-driven culture that ultimately creates a value-driven customer experience. Right.
Speaker 2:We believe that will impact the community on its own. I think rent-to-own is one of the biggest industries that as far as biggest percentage-wise for customer referrals. They're going to tell their family and their friends, by the way, they're going to tell them either way, if they have a good experience or a bad experience, so you might as well make it a good experience. Don't even allow them to tell the people that they know yeah, yeah, and that used to live at the water cooler and now, for 15 years plus, it's lived online. You know, it's not just the BBB, it's Google reviews, it's all of these other platforms and places, including their own social media, oftentimes even video. Oh, you're talking to me like that. So we've never had more pressure than ever to deliver a good experience. But I'll also tell you gosh, that's going to be true one day. It's been true for years, Younger generations, millennial, which I am I'm on the outer edge of a millennialism. On down value, experience over price.
Speaker 2:The first time in history, yes, right, which is pretty wild to think about. So I hope you're going to deliver that because you want to. But if you're sitting there going like I don't give a crap about it Well, going like I don't give a crap about it Well, you need to because there's a tipping point here where these older customers are aging out, and we've talked about there, you've talked about that in your show Absolutely Shows ago, I believe where it's like that buying experience, that shopping experience, that mindset is evolving and you not only got to be where these people are now and they're shopping, but you got to treat them the way that they feel A they deserve right. And let me, let me pause on that Cause I want to share what I tell my team and I believe everybody listening to this or will agree with this a hundred percent. But when I'm talking to somebody that doesn't understand rent, own and they're like, well, you're, you have a product that you're, you're, you're charging more for it, you know you're taking advantage of the customer.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of everybody at Rentone is perfect, they're not right, but they should be treating every customer amazing and it should be value-driven. But I look at it and I like to tell our people that we have the honor and privilege of serving the hardest working, most deserving and oftentimes most underappreciated people in America. Yes, right, I mean they're doing blue collar jobs on down that most people don't even realize how hard that is and they're not feeling appreciated, they're not feeling valued and they're oftentimes not credit worthy, so they're getting taken advantage of wherever they go. We have the solution for that right. Come in here. We're going to treat you the way you deserve, we're going to give you what you want and we're going to be with you forever. That's the recipe for success in Rentone, in a nutshell, that is.
Speaker 1:It is the right thing to do and they deserve it. And the thing is, too, is that when you take care of them, these are essential situations. A lot of times we think, all right, it is what they decided to do and that's okay, they can do it. Yeah, okay, if you're getting your eggs in the morning, that's something. If you're driving on good roads, that's something. When you call because something is backed up in the bathroom, that's something. Those are all important and essential. It's nice to say that my day never changes, but it does, and those essential people that take care of us deserve to be taken care of. Now, talking about the community, because we've got community, we've got culture, we've got customers we're going to start with the culture, which leads to the customers, which leads to the community, and we're talking about customers and community. We have a stack. We have a stack of bags over there, talking about giving back to the community and what that means to you and R&R, tire and Express. What's going on with the bags? I'll let you explain that the bags.
Speaker 2:Right, then we'll come back to community on the visual. So we're in our back warehouse here where our studio is, and Pete's referencing a few thousand backpacks which every year yesterday actually one of my favorite days of the year we get to pack as a corporate team these backpacks with a fully loaded back-to-school kind of kit, so the notebook and the paper and the pens and everything's in one. We put them in the bag, we've got this nice little note and these other things, zip it up. All of those go to our stores and we give those out for free to a customer or a non-customer and they love it. I mean, one of my favorite things is yesterday when we stuff it as just a community. My daughter was here and just you know the camaraderie of that but also getting photos from our team members, from the kids, where the backpack and the stuff, oh, that's awesome, it is really cool, yeah. So so back to the graphic. So if you're watching the YouTube, uh, I'll show you. If not, I'll explain it.
Speaker 2:So Pete just mentioned it starts with culture. There's an arrow going to customers and then an arrow going to community. So all the things we just talked about when you treat the customer, right, you're going to have an impact on your community, which is going to have an impact on your business, right? Absolutely. But we believe, on top of that, we should be giving back to the community with our time, talent and treasure, right, we believe we don't want to just take, we also want to give, because we think that's the right thing to do. But here's the good news when you do that just from a simple I mean there's a reaping and sowing concept there, but also from a PR perspective, that's actually the arrow from community goes back to culture and that's going to impact your culture and people are going to feel a part of something bigger and that's going to pay dividends. And that's kind of it for DX3, driven by our three core values. Each one's a multiplier on itself and you can't talk about it enough, and I'll show you one more graphic here.
Speaker 2:We created what we call a field guide. I talked about this a little bit at my talk in April a year or two ago, and in this field guide it's a fun, designed breakdown of who we are and what we're about in our three core values, right? How? What does culture look like? What does a value-driven customer experience look like and how do we impact our community. So this is a breakdown of that. And then last year we talked about we created a leader's guide, right? So we focused on how do we create value-driven leaders, because the ultimate question is, how do you become a value-driven company? And the answer is by creating a value-driven culture. That will never, ever, ever happen by accident, right, right, how do you do it? You create and build value-driven leaders. Back to your original question, right, I'll close the loop right here. So what does a value-driven leader look like?
Speaker 2:We created some things, three things that they're driven by and again, a nice fun visual graphic putting it in front of them. There's some supplemental stuff like that with our purpose statement. Our purpose statement is we are here to serve our customers, not just provide service. And we even shorten that, right, just the branding guy that lives in the same and goes. Got to make it quick, got to make it rather go. So we call it serve, not service. So that's kind of under the DX3 thing with our purpose statement. And we have that taken another line from Disney when it's printed vinyl graphic goes to all of our stores above the door when you walk out of your office or when you walk out of the shop into the showroom, they see, hey, serve, not service. It's that subtle reminder. Here's what we're about, right.
Speaker 2:And then our vision statement is changed lives, changing lives, and that kind of goes back to community Like that's our ultimate goal.
Speaker 2:We're not just about changing tires, right. Our three main things that we do is tires, wheels, alignments, with flexible payment options, obviously. But we're really about changing lives and I think that's a huge testament to the rental industry in general. It's certainly a testament to my father's legacy that I have the honor of just kind of helping try to carry on and multiply, and I hope everybody listens to this podcast. That's just what they and I believe they already are latching onto and helping replicate across the country, because that's one of the greatest gifts we can give to people is empowering them, showing them what a good leader looks like by our actions, teaching them how to be a good leader with materials like this and you know all the other materials that are available John Maxwell, simon Sinek, you know you name it and then having some grace with accountability and helping them get there so that they can go duplicate that and use their changed life to change more lives.
Speaker 1:Well, if you guys talk about Simon Sinek, I'm going to love you. I love Simon Sinek. Leaders Eat Last and my favorite book was Find your why. The why is huge. If you don't know that one, look up that YouTube video. It's huge. It's so important. But going through all this, you created this culture, We've created this mindset, We've created the franchise that we now go 200 plus. When you're talking about the leadership, talk to me about Will Jackson.
Speaker 2:Will Jackson, he's a beast.
Speaker 1:Okay. So just so you guys are aware, I do plan on having Will Jackson on the show, but Adam is actually the first tire RTO situation that we've had on the show. Because, listen, we're all in the same world, it doesn't matter what you have. The relationships are important, the leadership is important and how we got here is important. And I saw something at FRDA. Will Jackson talked a little about Cleaps Clipboard, yeah, and he said I was like I love it, I love it. So it's not just that we're teaching that leadership value, we've actually dedicated somebody to really dial in on that. How much has that changed the game to have somebody very much diving in and say this is what I do. I'm not a manager who does leadership, this guy just does it. How well does it? Because he's the guy that gives away the cars, right? Yeah, you guys see the videos and everything you can see it on our video.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll tell you the brief story on how we got there, but I mean, I got to tell you he's phenomenal, one of the things that's come out of this that we've. You know, going back to, you got to put your money where your mouth is. You can't just delegate culture to a wall. You know, I heard somebody say that and it's like it can't just be the poster on the wall. You have to be able to A live it but B you know, instill it in the people and show people what that looks like.
Speaker 2:And so one of the things we came up with is what we call DX3 Live, and it's a two day. The version right now we're doing is a two-day leadership course. We've done five or six of them all across the country. I fly out in a couple days to North and South Carolina to do another one with Will, and it's just. Those two days are all about leadership and we bring in our managers, operators, I mean even owners. We're getting good feedback and Will just does a phenomenal job. We're talking about ego. We're talking about you saw clips to clip, about you saw Clips to Clip, clip Cleats to Clipboard, which is hey, how do I go from a player mindset A lot of people.
Speaker 2:I got promoted as that top sales guy or gal, right, yes, and and you, you, that's great, that's made you what you are. But when you to empower others and try to do it and he just kills the sessions on that. And we've seen some great honest feedback. We create some table time after each session where the group like we tell them you got to get raw and honest with each other. And just one of my favorite parts is just listening to the feedback of some of these guys are 15 year old veterans of rent-a-home or automotive. Some of them are two years in right and they've never. One of my favorite things about this material we're doing and these DX3 lives and other things we've got going on is we have to remember, like for me in my case, I always got to remember like I've had a lot of privilege in my life, certainly in the respect of growing up under the Reverend of.
Speaker 1:RTO.
Speaker 2:And I grew up in the halls of APRO, literally, and I would watch my father on stage talking about his talk he used to have in the 80s RTO, which stood for Relationship to Opportunity, and I'm just, you know, in awe watching this guy going. That's my dad. But also just not only what he did on stage, but what he did and how he treated his people in the store. When I travel with him on the weekends or in the summers, you know, um, uh, in the store when I travel with him on the weekends or in the summers, you know, and, and that that some of that comes a little bit naturally. A lot of that was from his mentors and a lot of that's just him. How do you take that and replicate it? You, you gotta go around the country and you gotta do these things, um, and real quick on Will. Just, you know he's one of those. I follow this in the category when you, when you have somebody like this talented, you just got to hire him, I don't care what you put him in, you just got to hire him and and, and, you know, get better people around you, right, uh, he was, I've known him for a long time and, uh, we used to do a lot of stuff actually in the church. We go to this mega church and, uh, I was funny enough, I used to work at it 25 years ago. He did too. And uh, you know, just, we've known each other for a while.
Speaker 2:We kind of, when I came back and we were building the studio and like, okay, we're in this video deficit. You know, video is a passion of mine. I'm like we got you met Michelle, who's an amazing national content manager, who made all this happen. We're like we just got to go create videos. I'm like we kind of need a spokesperson, and my father is an amazing spokesperson. He did all the Champion, the champion went to own commercials. But I wanted some of that younger you know kind of thing, whatever. No offense to my dad, he's young at heart. If you know him, he's, you know, 35 at heart. We won't say his real age and I'm like I got a guy. I got a guy that would be so good. He's not an actor, but he's just great on stage and so we started using him in that role as our talent. And then eventually I was like dude, let's just get you on and let's go do this. And so it's been fun, it's been great, and again you've got to put your money where your mouth is.
Speaker 1:You can't expect your people to accomplish great things if you're not, you know, helping them get there, showing them the goals and the targets and then equipping them to actually get there successfully. Well, just so you guys are aware, you know I didn't just happen to want to be a podcaster. It was the passion of bringing all this information from people like adam and the sudden family out to you guys and kind of just being able to see that. But you know I've also been told I got a face for radio. So but if you guys don't even know, will, has this voice I wish I had a magazine.
Speaker 2:He looks great. I want to tell you, though, will has this voice like he wish I had the April magazine, but he looks great.
Speaker 1:I want to tell you, though, will has this voice, like he could host the Price is Right. He has this voice, that just he has that voice where he can do all kinds of stuff. Not only does he represent a realm I'm not on the face or voice of our.
Speaker 2:By the way, can you make sure you add the manly filter to this? We just got to drop it down here.
Speaker 1:It's usually a higher version, I'm going to say, but the truth is is that he does it and he embodies it very well. And that goes to say, when you're investing in your people and you take the time and I will say it on the other side of that too, is, if you guys ever want to make an investment, the biggest investment you can make is in yourself 100%, 100%, 100%. Figure out where you want to be and what you want to do and how you can get there.
Speaker 2:Can I add?
Speaker 1:something Absolutely Today the year of our Lord, 2025,.
Speaker 2:There is zero excuse. You know YouTube was invented. I'm probably a little bit older than you, but YouTube is. I'm guessing YouTube was invented in our era. We didn't have it. Yeah, right, no, right, no. Our kids, anybody in their 20s and 30s. You have zero excuse because you have YouTube University. We say that all the time. Every time I'm in a video, every John Maxwell video, pick your person and in all the available, even for low-cost material, if you're not pouring in yourself, like that's one of the greatest gifts, I think my father taught me very young, when I'm driving around, he's listening to Zig Ziglar tapes, and so I just thought that was normal. So that's what I started doing as a teenager, right, and I'm listening to Zig Ziglar and some of these early people via a tape, by the way, Right, he's brought up CD-ROM.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm taped. I just want too. So I'm not, I'm an old soul. I'm not too, too old. And, by the way, if anybody's over 42, I'm starting to alienate half the audience. That's not old, you know 90s. If you're in your 90s, that's a little bit old. But no, you have to have that growth mindset and pouring into yourself first I'm so glad you said that and then you have to take the next step and pour into your people. I go back to you can't expect these great things if you're not helping your people become no. And, and you know, if you're not hiring people that can get there too. Right Back to that. You got to hire smiling people, naturally happy people, what goes a long way? Then you can teach them the rest.
Speaker 1:You just got to think like Disney and Chick-fil-A, that's right. So, after all this is done, you open this business, you get it going, says hey, I think I think we can get you home, I think this is important. Yeah, you come on home. You really kind of dig in, we build. We really build the culture based on how we treat the customers, on how and they react in the community.
Speaker 2:I can't take credit for that. It was yeah, it was just naming it and and claiming it and making it replicated we made it shiny, made it shiny.
Speaker 1:There you go, but you know, and coming full steam, getting to understand that dad was a big part of the business. Huge, being able to kind of trailblaze your own kind of way. Yeah, being on April's committee of trying to get more people involved in April, just so you guys know we're both on that committee. If you're not part of April, you need to be, because there's a lot going on. Let me say this If you're not an April member.
Speaker 2:I love you, but you're crazy, yeah. I mean there is no good reason. It's not expensive, right? So it's like, oh, the P&L, just to have it and to be able to put money in the organization for the risk aversion alone, like, look at them as an insurance policy. The work that's done in Washington alone is worth it, but the additional material, the additional training, if you're not a member you got to be a member?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. Just take a look at New York and I can tell you it's important what they do, what we're a part of, it's super important. So, coming out of all this, what's something that you want to leave them with and say, you know what, out of everything you take and talk like Will Jackson, no, but what, what, what is it? What is it? You can say that you know this is something that I've learned, that I will always take with me, and I think that if you embodied a little bit of this, it will help you on your RTO journey.
Speaker 2:Um, I mean, look a few words and it's simple Love your people, they'll love your customer. That's it. I had the honor and privilege of growing up I didn't go to college, but I tell people I went to LSU, which is Larry Sutton University that actually, when I came back here in 2017, I said I'm coming back for my masterclass, right, and I just I truly had the privilege of my first mentor, my father, watching him just love on people and watching him listen to people. He didn't talk at anybody, he talked with them and if you don't have a good mentor, I mean that'd be a tip I'd say. On top of the growth mindset, the biggest thing you do for growth mindset is find somebody, an older person that has been successful or been in your shoes, that can pour into you, that you can be honest with and also can help keep you accountable. I just watched A how much of the right thing to do. That was right Just love people because they're working so hard and they're working their butts off.
Speaker 2:Renton industry is not an easy industry. I mean, there's blood, sweat and tears. There is, there is literally yeah, and I think it's the greatest industry in the world, but it can be hard and what our guys do in the shops I mean these hot shops or the tires, but the account management I mean the most under. I could put some of my tombstone love, love people. If you do that in your case of your team members, they're going to.
Speaker 2:If you do that in your home office I'm talking to the owners they're going to do that for your directors and managers. And if the directors manage to do that for the team members, the frontline workers, they are going to pass that on to the people that deserve it the most, which is that rent to own that least purchased customer. And you know again, sometimes we have to remember that we can get store blind, we can get comfortable, we can get complacent or just busy. We have to remind ourselves and our people like this is a privilege we get to serve the hardest working people in America and beyond. And you know that's, that's gotta be, I think, at the, at the baseline of your core value. And when you know what your values are, it's not hard to make decisions by.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean listen words to live by, make sure that you love everybody and make sure you have the growth mindset. Find a good mentor. You know, I think in the end, the idea has to be how do I get better at what do I do? How do I get better? I did not conquer this. It is always a hill to be climbed and there are going to be times where you hit a tier and you're like finally it's behind me. Now I've got another tier to climb. You beat your chest and you put it back on the shelf and you put the trophy away and okay, what else do I need to learn? Because we're always learning, like you said earlier, whether you're learning from the franchisors, whether you're learning from the guy who's in the bay, whether you're learning from your GMs, or whether you're one of the guys learning from them and you have an idea to share. Don't stop sharing. We are all in this together. Listen, no one person is smarter than the entire group.
Speaker 2:Share what you know.
Speaker 1:Get it all together, get it all out, experience it. Now. We're going to be going into our world very soon where we're going to be able to do that. You're actually going to be able to see him talk to people, right? So you're going to be able to see it firsthand. So you know we have the culture, the customers, the community. Guys, it doesn't get any better than this At the end, do what you do best, lean on your others, learn, do what you do best.
Speaker 1:Lean on your others. Yeah, learn, learn from things like this, from either the YouTube situation or however that we look at it.
Speaker 2:Learn, grow and be who you can be. Yeah, and I would say find a good mentor. And eventually I'll add to that, going back to giving back Be a good mentor. Be a good mentor, give, give back. Find ways, not just in your company but in your community. You know, when you go to serve and you start giving back some people, that's going to excite them. Oh, I love doing that. And some people are like ah, I'm talking to everybody.
Speaker 2:You go, do that, you start serving others and you're going to get better. And I love what you said. From anybody and everybody, one of the best pieces of advice I learned from a janitor at one of my first jobs as a teenager. I was a janitor and it was the concept of work smarter, not harder, that was sweeping the floor right. She came over and she taught me hey, adam you know, let me show you this.
Speaker 2:And I've carried that with me my entire life, applied it to every single thing I've done. Are we okay if I share one more quick thing, One of the most beneficial things that has helped me? I learned when I was 15 years old and right before I learned that note from the janitor, and it was the story of Hamburg. I read this from somebody I followed, this famous person that talked about how they, how he, became famous and very successful and he says it had helped him. So I love sharing this, particularly for young leaders. Hamburg, Germany, okay. Post-world War II there was this little band called the Beatles and their manager—.
Speaker 1:Little band, Little band. Well, at the time they were little right, Nobody had heard of them. Right, right, right.
Speaker 2:And their manager had secured this year-long gig at this pub when they were nobody they were teenagers, right, okay, and basically they hated it Like it was awful People are throwing beer, fruit, like, people are drunk, like they didn't sound that great, right? If you asked them at the time any of the Beatles, they would have said this is awful, I hate it. I don't even know if I want to be a musician anymore, right. But if you ask them later, they say it was in Hamburg that we became the Beatles. It was in Hamburg that we got better at our instruments, that we found our sound, we got our haircuts and matching outfits right, which is a big deal back then. That was kind of a unique thing it was. It was they found their drummer, that crafting and that molding. Through all that hard stuff, through repetition and through continuing to try and not giving up, they became what the world soon after heard and found out about and now beloved, right, which was the Beatles.
Speaker 2:And so I read this story and this famous gentleman was telling you how he just applied that to everything he did. And so I've had that mindset, which now is probably called a growth mindset, since I was 15 years old is what I'm doing now is probably not what I'm going to be doing forever. So what can I learn and get better at? And when I've my flesh is tempted to want to complain about it and be negative, I go no. No, that's hardening me and it's stretching me. And as I look back on my career, you know I started the janitor job. I started some things at the church.
Speaker 2:I learned things there that ultimately helped me create Red Letter Studios with my wife and for that 10 years learned what not to do by doing all the wrong things for a long time and learned how to work with clients and customers and that prepared me for Thuzy and I couldn't be doing what I'm doing now if that six years at Thuzy you know all the fire and the iron sharpens iron inside of that and learning from others with different mindsets, all the developers, completely different train of thought, right Analytical thinker people, and even now I go and I'm not going anywhere, by the way but what can I be learning now and what Hamburg am I in that's preparing us to do what we're doing even better. And anyway, I love sharing that story. I thank you for letting me share it because, as a young leader, that just gave me a little bit of pause, patience and hope. That has kind of carried me through to today.
Speaker 1:Well, I will say you know one of the bands that I like. They said God bless the broken road, right, yeah, yeah, so you know, it's the things that got us here, that helped to build who we are. Yeah, and that's what it's all about.
Speaker 2:That's right Just.
Speaker 1:It's just figuring out who you are, where you want to go and how to get there. Love it, that's how we do it. So, listen, if you guys have any questions for Adam, you definitely want to check us out on the show Now. You can send me an email at pete, at the rtoshowpodcastcom, but that's not the only way. You can also send me a DM to Facebook, linkedin, instagram. You can go on to YouTube, all the things. It's everywhere, right? Because you've got to be searchable on YouTube. That's right. Make sure that you reach out to us. If we have anything that comes up, we'll definitely ask Adam and if he wants to be on a second time, we can also do that. No-transcript.
Speaker 2:And let your team members know that right Absolutely, and they will see you doing that. That's going back to the community impact. We'll impact your culture.
Speaker 1:We actually have a link on the website at the rtoshowpod podcastcom, but you can go to rtohqcom and also, or is it org, org, org. I'm sorry, rtohqorg, you can also go on there and donate to either way you guys fact check on all those channels, I know right we fact check both of us. Make sure you send me a message if that wasn't right, but do that. You can also go buy some swag on the show, because not only does it help us, but it makes you look really good out there in the world, just like this studio for R&R Elevates you up, baby, amazing right.
Speaker 1:So we appreciate you guys being on the show. Adam, I really appreciate you being here. It's been a blast.
Speaker 2:It's been an honor. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 1:We're going to have to do this again, and if you guys don't know,
