The RTO Revolution and the Future of Advocacy

What happens when an industry’s past isn’t properly recorded online? It gets rewritten by shallow links, old studies, and algorithms that don’t know better. We sat down with APRO CEO Charles Smitherman and WoW Brands CEO/CTO Ryan Krass to share why we built a definitive, 400-page history of rent-to-own—and why publishing it widely is essential for policy makers, journalists, customers, and the AI systems shaping tomorrow’s answers.

We trace RTO’s lineage from Victorian hire purchase and the Singer sewing machine to modern living rooms and checkout flows, showing how access and use value have always driven demand. Charles opens the archives—APRO minutes, magazines, research—and explains the advocacy playbook that led to 47 state statutes. Ryan breaks down the tech reality: AI is a prediction engine that repeats whatever dominates the dataset. If credible sources don’t exist, weak narratives win. Our fix is simple but hard—collect primary sources, cite everything, and put it everywhere. The legends series becomes the heartbeat, preserving first-person accounts from pioneers who fought regulatory headwinds, scaled stores, and kept communities supplied through good times and crises.

We also challenge myths with data, including high customer satisfaction findings that contradict familiar stigma. This isn’t a profit play; royalties fund APRO scholarships to support families in the industry. By releasing the book online and distributing free copies, we make the record discoverable across search and future AI models. The deeper takeaway is human: RTO is about dignity, flexibility, and the right to return—meeting people where they are so they can sleep, work, and live well.

If you care about consumer access, policy clarity, and how AI learns our story, this conversation will change how you see rent-to-own and the information ecosystem around it. Subscribe, share with a colleague, and tell us what myth you want us to tackle next.

Transcript

Book Announcement & Giveaway;

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hi, I'm Pete Chow. You may know me from the R2 Show podcast, but today I'm doing something a little bit different. April and WoW Brands have launched a special project to bring the story of our industry to life like never before. They've asked me to sit down with some of the true legends of Rent to Own, capturing their stories, their impact, and their vision for the future. And now I get to share those conversations with you straight from the legends themselves. All of this leads to something groundbreaking though. A new book. The Rent to Own Revolution, a definitive history of advocacy and consumer access, written by April's CEO Charles Schutterman and Wild Brand CEO Brian Kraft. The book explores the grassroots of RTO, the advocacy that has defined it, and the future that we're building together. Here's where you come in. We're giving away free copies once the book is released. Just head over to the RTORevolution.com and sign up for a chance to receive a copy in early 2026. Don't miss the chance to be among the first to hold this piece of RTO history. That's rtoorevolution.com. Check it out and become a part of RTO History. Hello and welcome to the RTO show. I'm your host, Pete Chow, and today I've got two CEOs that have a lot to talk about. Now, if you didn't know, we have a book on the way. And Apro and WoW Brands together have made this book. I've got CEO Ryan Krass, I've got CEO Charles Smitherman, both of them here to kind of tell us more about it, where it came from, what's the importance of this book, and more how you're gonna learn about it and why you need to really know about it. So, Charles, Ryan, how you guys doing today? Great. Doing your Pete. That's good. So, you know, I always say this, Charles, and it's always one of those things, guys. You gotta understand this. Charles Smith herman, J D Ph D N C E O. He's it's a it's a list, Ryan. It's a list that we make happen. And then Ryan Krass, who's not short of initials on himself, CEO and CTO of Wild Brands, you know, doing a great job.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Whatever you want to call me, man.

Meet The Co‑Authors & Their Mission;

SPEAKER_02 2:04

But I will say that a lot of times now Wild Brands is coming up in some conversations. I don't know if you agree, Charles, but it's coming up quite a bit lately. A lot of people are using Wild Brands and rightly so. So, guys, I want to talk about the book. Charles, help me out with this long title book and the amazing book that we're gonna have from April and Wild Brands. What's the name of this and where exactly did the idea come from?

Why The Narrative Matters In An AI Era;

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Well, after we finally landed on the RTO revolution, the definitive history of advocacy and consumer access. It's a lot, but I think it kind of gets into really the the the motivation for the book, really why that we wrote this and really going back to the original conversation. I I'll tell you the idea of doing some type of history project's been out there for a while. And understandably, now after we're at at the end of it, I can understand why no one picked it up and wanted to do it yet. Um but with that being said, Ryan reached out to me with the idea. Well, the pitch wasn't just, hey, let's write a history of RTO. It was, hey, there's a lot going on in the world with AI and with the way narrative control influence is being done. And so he pitched me, I think as soon as I saw it, I was like, yep, I'm in, let's do it. Ryan, what you want to talk about it?

SPEAKER_01 3:17

That's absolutely right. So I mean, I'm gonna come at this and give you the nerdiest answer in the world. So let's just start with that. Um for me, this we're in an interesting time, I think, uh in technology and information and all of those things. We're at this uh this weird or unique spot, and I'm gonna compare it maybe to an encyclopedia 30, 40, 50 years ago. So if you're 30, if you're over 30 or 40, you know what an encyclopedia is. You opened up a couple of things.

SPEAKER_02 3:48

He went down to the encyclopedia road.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

I don't know how else to explain it. You opened up an encyclopedia, you had a you wanted to learn about a topic and you would learn about it. If it didn't exist in the encyclopedia, what did you do? No, I mean it. It just didn't exist. It didn't exist. Yeah, it didn't. That's the point. That's the key to all this. If it doesn't exist, the narrative in the story doesn't exist. So why are we talking about this now? Well, if you go online, uh it's one big one big directional bet. First off, I just there's a big assumption on my part that AI is gonna just continue to eat the information in the technology world. So just starting with that. I think we you know we sat here three years ago or two years ago, we talked about this, there was 10% adoption rate. We're talking 50, 60, 70 percent adoption rate today, and it's not gonna stop. The point of this and understanding what AI is, if you are not AI is a prediction machine. It takes the first five words and tells you what the six word is gonna do. In the case of RTO, if there's no story to tell, there's no history, there's no documentation online, there's no narrative online, there's nothing to tell. What ends up happening is you just recycle whatever exists out there. It doesn't matter if it's good, bad, right, or wrong. It doesn't matter if it's a crappy study from 30 years ago. If there's no data out there and there's no story and there's no narrative, that's what's gonna get recycled.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

Well, that's what I want to get into today. That's what I want to get into because I am curious as to where we So, first off, is this the first book that that you have two authored, or Charles, have you written a book already?

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Uh so I did. I did one uh as part of my PhD. It took me three years to write. Uh this was before uh we had a podcast with someone that could go out and help us do interviews. Uh it was before AI could help organize all that those data points. And um uh and so that that was a big project. So yeah, this is you know uh something I had a little bit of a little bit of experience with, uh really much different because that was a good 20 years ago. And uh that that certainly was not a bestseller uh publisher. As soon as I got it published, I got my author copies and I got a letter saying that they had declared bankruptcy.

SPEAKER_02 5:52

And it might have been because they just we're not gonna find that book in uh big lots, guys. That's just the way it goes. So, Ryan, is this the first book you've been a part of as far as creating?

First‑Time Authors And Dividing Roles;

SPEAKER_01 6:00

It is the first book that I have been part of, and probably the last book I will be part of. This is a lot of work. I enjoy the research, but I'm barely literate. So the writing part's not the best.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

He owns it, he owns a tech company, guys. Don't believe that. But what I will say is it's literally built by two different sides. I mean, you guys do have two different viewpoints on this. Now, one is Apro side, Charles, where you come from, where there is a long-standing history on the other side of advocacy when it comes to the RTO industry. And then, Ryan, you're a little bit more of a newcomer where you're more on the tech side and how to get things into people's homes versus where the APRO side comes from. So there's a there's a big dichotomy there, but it works. Now, we've included a lot of RTO pioneers in this, a lot. Uh, and I would know because I had to talk to a whole lot of them, but I would tell you guys that it was some amazing stories and some of the history that went into it. So before we talk about exactly what's in the book, why is this important that this book exists at all? And I think that's what you were touching on, Ryan. Like, what was the you you guys created this? We know that there's a narrative. What exactly is that narrative?

SPEAKER_01 7:05

Hopefully, just accurate reflection of the past. I mean, the hopefully the narrative is us recycling what, and not recycling, but repeating stories that have been told already. And so a lot of this is just about telling the story and telling the message. Uh, when I talk to my customers on a regular basis, I I I've been hitting on this point for the last year. You're going to create the narrative that the world knows about. You're creating your story. And if you don't own that story and you don't tell that story and you don't tell it the way that you want to tell the story, somebody else is going to do it for you. Um, and I think that's the biggest part of AI is just it's going to recycle that which is the predominant narrative. So whatever is getting pushed and whatever is this the cycle or whatever the message is is what's going to get repeated. So that duty is on us, that duty is on every company in general to tell that story because we're going to be sitting here, just envision a couple years out. You're going to be searching and you're already doing it, you're going to get a result back. And unlike the past, where you clicked on 20 results and synthesized the data and tried to come up with an answer, that's not the world. And well, the answer is you're going to get the answer back. The tool is going to tell you the answer. The question is, what's the data that it's going to give you the answer on? So for me, it's just you got to get that story out. You got to get those messages, you got to get the the truth, I think, out, and then let the tool repeat the message.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

Just jumping in on that, because I think that the this was not this was a story that needed to be told. It it was a big story. I mean, it turned into a big book as a result of it.

SPEAKER_02 8:25

This He says that it's 400 pages, Anthony. It's a 400 pages of history. I am so excited.

RTO’s Deep Roots From Pianos To Today;

SPEAKER_00 8:33

No one has ever accused me of being uh not having enough words. Yeah, I well, we see this on the advocacy stuff. Uh whenever we're dealing with um, you know, just the kind of other people trying to talk about rent to own that don't understand it, that don't know, that they've never been in a store, they've never talked to a customer, they've really no idea about the transaction. Um and that's kind of a lot of what's out there right now on the internet that we're trying to uh correct with actual facts rather than just supposition and conjecture is this story. I mean, this this transaction dates back to Victorian England uh with the higher purchase agreement. I mean, think about that. This is not uh a computer gaming device today, uh an e-bike today, a TV ten years ago, a um all the things that are big that have come into the industry. This goes back to pianos because they were too expensive and people liked having it in their homes. It was brought to the U.S. in the form of the singer sewing machine. Again, something just a crucial item to have early again, too expensive. This will create a pathway to access that item too and eventually own it if you paid on it enough. And so, you know, we hear these things from consumer groups that try to characterize this as being something new, as being something that is, you know, trying to take advantage of people or that people don't understand or whatever that may be. And this is like, no, we've got a kind of proud history and one that needs to be told. And so I would say that, you know, the thing about that was great about this book was that Ryan and I kind of came at it in in two different angles, and that we wanted to look and preserve the history to tell the story that needed to be told. We're always so we're looking backwards to the past to bring that forward. Ryan's very much looking towards the future. Okay, how do where does this how does this play? How does the does this go in and be told and be replicated and understood so we can influence that narrative much more than we've I think we've been able to in the past. And so that's what it does. It really hits on so many different levels for that, but which is why I think it's just so exciting.

SPEAKER_02 10:43

The way things work nowadays is, you know, if you let somebody tell that story enough times, it gets watered down, it gets changed, a fish gets a little bigger every time that you catch it, and before you know it, it's not close to the original. And I love the idea of being able to write this down in a specific spot so that there is a reference point to say, this happened at this time, this is who was affected, this is how we got through these problems and past these hurdles and through this legislation and how we got these new ideas and who we got it from so that nobody can take that away. It is now going to be a definitive idea of exactly what happened and when it happened. And I love that idea. I'm glad that you guys did that. I do have a question though, Ryan. Why co-author this book? What made you decide that, you know, two perspectives are better than one when you have an idea, you know that you can put it together, you have the ability and the smarts. What made you decide? I think Charles would be a great person to pull on this idea and see how we can dutifully together put it into work.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

It took one phone call with Charles and said, Hey, I got an idea. What's your thought on this? And just instantly he saw the vision, he understood it, he was like, I've been thinking about doing this myself. Let there's no talking. He was just like, let's go. So I think that's the part one. I mean, the other part of it, there is so much of this book, and there's so much of the history that has to do with the policy side of all of this. There's no world where I'm equipped to talk about that. So let's just start with that. That is Charles' background, is one of the smartest guys I've met. He knows what he's doing, he knows what he's saying. Let the guy that he's got the story, let him tell it, and I will assist where I can.

SPEAKER_02 12:10

Help me out. Walk me through this. He gives you a call, you're like, I knew I was gonna do that. Dude, it's you. How did how did you figure out? Like, was it what did you need him to spark it off? Is that where Ryan came? I needed him to give me a spark, and now I'm just gonna take this and run. Like, where did that where'd it come from that you were gonna do it, and then Ryan's idea with you kind of did that forge something to say, okay, I'm gonna do it with somebody, have a little help? I mean, what made it you decide to do that?

SPEAKER_00 12:33

I mean, it I I guess there are two aspects of it. One, I mean, this was a it was an undertaking. And so I from that standpoint, like this history piece really needed to be told and preserved because it's an incredible story that hasn't really been told in this form yet. So that was really important. I think there was that other side of it, like Ryan, he sold me on the vision of why this was important, why we needed to do this now. And I think from that standpoint, the speed of which we started picked up and just ran with it. He was just instrumental in that because he initially called me was like, okay, well, yeah, we you know, we can work on this over the next couple of years and publish this. And he was like, No, we got to do it tomorrow. What time is it? It should have been done five minutes ago. So I think you kind of get you got two of us that said, Oh, yeah, we could do this, we could do this. And so we c I think we fed off each other because uh looking back, um, it was a lot. It was a lot of late nights, early mornings um to get it done and and a lot of help that we along the way to Well, I can tell you right now, Ryan has sparked in that idea in me or a couple of times or two.

SPEAKER_02 13:37

I'll get that phone call and he's gonna he's got hey, we got this, listen to this, listen to this, Anthony, listen to this. It was really good. It was really good. So was there something politically, economically, culturally that that something that hits you, Ryan, besides just the AI? Were you watching like TV one day and said, you know what? I can tell by this new information that this is the right time. This is when I need to call somebody and say, sound the alarm, let's make a book.

Legends Interviews As Primary Sources;

SPEAKER_01 14:01

Yeah, I mean, I I I lived through 2005, 6, 7, the like really the search engine, boom, like seven, you know, getting in 2008, 2009. What I what I learned in that process was I'm gonna call it the flywheel effect. Like once you got ahead in the cycle, and you know, like if you just look at the industry as a whole, if you look at the guys that got ahead very early on in the technology space, it feeds upon itself. So that's part of it. That's part one. Part two is just when you started to Google these things, not Google, but when you start to use like AI tools, you start to understand really how AI works and how the data model works and how things are connected, what's important, what's not, you start to just, you know, I would challenge anybody to just go on Chat GPT or go on Gemini or something and Google your company. And then on the right hand side, click on it and see where it's getting your source data because that tells you where it's finding the information that it is like consumed to output your story or the narrative or whatever you're wanting to do. And if you like as you do that and you look at and you start to analyze where the sources come from, well, a lot of the sources that we're talking about A pro, we're talking about RTO, we're talking about stuff or like just bad. Not only bad, some of it was like spam stuff from five, 10 years. You go to you click on the link and you're like, this isn't a real website, but this is what's dictating the narrative. And then you know, I know enough about it to understand that anything that we publish right now, and on let's say March of 2026 isn't getting into an AI model until the end of this year. Like nothing we're doing is going to matter until 2027 at this point.

SPEAKER_02 15:29

So this is where the speed comes from.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

This this is where you call them and say, we've got to do it now. Like I would be happy just you know, even getting a a a less quality product out the door faster because the speed is of essence. Like it will take six, nine months to render and train the model. So anything we're doing now isn't coming out until you get to, you know, Clod Fire or six or seven or eight or something like that at this point. Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

And I think it kind of to that point with what what you were saying, like the I just read we're we're working on some stuff in Wisconsin right now, and there was some opposition to it. And you read this these stuff coming from these consumer groups, and they're citing stuff that's twenty-five, twenty years old. And using that to characterize us that and you know, the these I don't think most of anyone's really that deep on rent to own, except for people that are in the industry, people that deal with the industry. And so how they're doing their research and how they're pulling this information is through this. Google is not the same way it was six months ago, much less five years ago. Um, and that's not going back or changing. And so h how that people are doing research on us, they're pulling this stuff and then they're using it against us like we're dealing with uh in Wisconsin right now. And so uh, you know, and that's there is an absence and there's a void, and I think that's kind of what this does. This is trying to fill the void from an authoritative position, a well-researched position that is, you know, substantiated, not just conjecture, not just made up things, and certainly not things that are characterizing an industry from 25 years ago or something that happened 45 ago.

SPEAKER_02 17:08

Well, I can tell you right now that the way people search is different too, because what they would do is they would ask a question, then it would feed them an answer, and they would ask a question, feed them an answer. Now they go to AI and they go, I don't want to get all these answers, just figure it out for me. Is this good or bad? And it'll, you know, gather all the data and say if it's good or bad on whatever opinion. And it's like, well, that that's not good if you're not pulling the right data. So I'm glad that you guys are doing this. Flywheel RTO wants you to be covered this tax season, and they have two amazing espresso machines to do just that. They have the DeLongi classic espresso machine with milk frother. Listen, that thing is quite amazing. They also have an espresso venture plus deluxe coffee and espresso machine with the milk frother also attached to it. Listen, you can't get these things gonna be on your counter and they're gonna fly off for this tax season. If you want to know who to reach out to at Flywheel RTO, that's Keith Brock, Flywheel RTO at 865-369-5902, and tell them the RTO show sent you. Let's go back a little bit. Where is the book's information even coming from? So we talked about some of the pioneers that did it. Where are some of the touch points that you guys created and say, hey, this is where we're gonna pull from, this is what we're gonna talk about? I mean, Charles, you're going deep. I mean, you're talking about like, you know, pianos is I that you're getting deep on me. But that's part of the history. So where did you guys go? Where did you go, Charles? Where did you go, Ryan? Where did you guys go to to make those touch points and say this is a piece of the history that we're gonna include in this book?

Marketing Break: Flywheel Espresso Push;

Mining Archives And Building A Dataset;

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Well, I'd say with, you know, I was fortunate just being with Apro. We we're celebrating our 45th and we just celebrated our 45th anniversary. So we were founded in 1980. When Ed Wynne retired last year, one thing he told me was like, hey, I've got 40 boxes over in storage that you need to come pick up. So we had uh this wasn't a matter of uh, you know, uh I was handed like a significant amount of source material and not just kind of, you know, uh just the the actual the actual pieces of history, like the the the meetings that took place here, the notes from it, the research that really Ed being the guy that was in the room in 1980 in Dallas, uh Texas at Dear Love Field at the airport, whenever Apro came into being, uh, and he had that record. I mean, this was just uh an incredible resource that we had there to draw from uh and to pull out of. Um, you know, during that period, APRO produced significant number of publications, you know, the old progressive rental uh magazine uh eventually became RTOHQ, the magazine. All of those resources we've had. We've had very different iterations of the website. So you had all that as like the actual physical primary source material that was really useful. And so, and that included a lot of the you know, reports, the data, the economic reports, all those things from throughout the year. So that certainly inheriting that, and that happened earlier last year. So that helped when Ryan called and said, let's write a book. It's like, okay, well, I've got the library over here we can kind of draw from uh to get going.

SPEAKER_02 20:12

Ryan, were you the uh were you the mastermind behind gathering all this data and actually making some use out of it?

SPEAKER_01 20:18

A little bit. What I would say is I started about a year ago. This is just for like wow brands of marketing purposes was I wanted to consume 100% of the information I can get on the industry. So smart. About a year ago or whatever, however long it goes. I mean, we've transcribed I've transcribed every podcast, every YouTube video, every financial earning, every earning transcript, every A Pro magazine. I mean, I've consumed 100% of the data, put it into kind of a custom AI model that we're using for extracting information, being able to just internally be able to ask questions, understand, like I need the full data set of what's there. And what I realized really quickly was there's no data. Like, I mean, I've got some data, I've got, I've got everything that's available, but it's not a lot of data. Like there's a lot of holes in the story. So it was a hell of a lot of searching and I mean using AI to do research, trying to find this data, trying to figure out where it's at. And listen, I mean, Charles got kind of the crap into the book here. He got all the hard chapters, and I got the easy chapters.

SPEAKER_02 21:15

Well, you know what? I think Charles Charles had it all on VHS and like eight-track, that's why that you say that, but we did.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

Uh he's like, no, no, no, that was a real story.

SPEAKER_02 21:29

So how important was it now? Because I know that you know, we used some information from the legends who had actually helped start this industry. How important was it to the both of you to have their recollection of what happened and their time frames going far back as the early 70s? We're gonna say late 60s, early 70s, as they transition all the way up through you know the Henry B. Gonzalez, the IRS situation, you know, April kind of getting everybody together when there was nothing. And like you mentioned earlier, Ed Wynne was kind of there in the Very first meeting, kind of going, hey guys, we we've got to structure this in a way that we are respectable. Like, how important was it to have those interviews also involved in this book?

Advocacy Backbone: 47‑State Framework;

SPEAKER_00 22:11

I I mean I think it was it was crucial. It was one of these things that we, you know, like this project hits on so many levels. Like this video series that that hosted by Pete Shaw, RTO Podcast was just it was something we needed to do anyway. And I know you had you had you had done a little bit of this with some we we had the opportunity here to one preserve it in like that type of a collective format, but two, just having it we still have enough people that were there to tell the story. I think one of the the the downsides of any doing any type of history project is you're always starting a day too late. It's kind of like the and I think we referenced this in the book, the idea of like the best day to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best day is today. And so while that we we have plenty of legends that we were able to interview for this, and we still have more that we need to interview to add to this collection uh as it stands, uh we lost a lot too. Um and so that was uh that you know, and that just if we had started five years ago, we would have been in the same place. We've got had a few more that we could have talked to, but then there were still some that we've we didn't get to. And uh but having them tell those stories because those these people were there, they were in the room, they lived it. Um uh and that part of it, it really is what's the incredible part of the story is the why that what that we've inherited at APRO, what we've inherited as an industry, what we see when we join together at Meeting the Minds or an RTO World or Legislative Conference, and this camaraderie, this togetherness, this was really the fire that it was forged in in the 80s and 90s, whenever we were just consistently trying to define ourselves in headwinds coming from all different directions. And that that formed really lifelong bonds of that the Legend series really we were able to go primary source material right straight to the source of the people that were there that were involved that understood and that knew the knew the story.

SPEAKER_02 24:12

So those firsthand spreadsheets and books and everything that you got, all the stuff that you got outside of the Legend series. How useful is that? I mean, were you able to, were you guys able to like scan and extract, really go back to certain dates that made a difference? Did you did you make like a database and say, okay, these years were hot years and we should go kind of research that? How how did that work out?

SPEAKER_01 24:34

I mean, a lot of it you follow. I mean, it's not the best way, but you try to follow like store growth trends, how many numbers, what's the total number of retailers, what's the total number of RTO stores over time. I mean, a lot of that is trying to trace that down and trying to, and that's I mean, the bet it's best guess. There's no authoritative data. We're making the best of it we can. Charles had some really old A pro like minutes that we were able to use some of the data out of to try to answer those. I would go back. I think that, you know, I think these things solve two different purposes, or I have two the research that we did was very much um, I'm gonna say somewhat independent of what we heard from the legend. What we heard from the legends is the true firsthand account of what actually happened. Um and I I do think that that's probably more the these I would say the legend series is more important than the book itself. The book itself plays the role of let's be the source-based knowledge that we hope that things build off of. But I think the part that people will really find useful is going to be the legend series. It's the stories, it's the narrative, it's the, you know, I I there's nothing new under the sun. Everything you heard in in those stories and those narratives going back 60 years, it's all replaying itself. It just replays itself in a different way, in a different fashion. But the truth is it's all the same, it's the same thing as 60 years ago. It's the same demographic, same customer base. It's just a different narrative and a different way in which we're interacting with them. So I don't know. I I think the Legends was the highlight of the book for me, it was the legends here. Like listening, and not even a transcript. Transcripts were good. It's fundamentally different. I'm I'm listening to them live in the same way that you know everybody else is. These are listening to them live is fun or listening to them audio is fundamentally different than reading the transcript. You can hear the passion in their voice, you can see what they're talking about, you can understand that they they they've been through this grind 60, 50, 40 years. Like to me, that's the best part of it.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

Well, I will tell you guys what they're referencing is the Legends series on the podcast, the RTO show podcast is a legend series that is in working in tandem with WoW Brands and Apro as sponsors of that. And we have done 22 different legends that you guys have the ability to go back. Now, they will be released every week so that that way you have time to consume and digest and enjoy. But I tell you, I it's opened my eyes to so many things because I have heard and talked to people about things I never ever knew. I mean, just crazy things and ideas like, oh, we didn't know that we were gonna do that. We didn't know that this was gonna be special. We had no idea. I mean, I had like five different people tell me, we used to rent video cassettes and VHSs, and I was like, really? And how that kind of spawned into, you know, appliances and furniture and the things that they didn't even have or the ability to get early on versus now. I mean, I can't think of anything we can't get yet in the early beginnings. I mean, there were people like uh rent owned. I don't, I don't know. That's crazy, that's a crazy idea, and how they powered through that and still made it. I mean, you're talking about fundamentally some crazy, crazy situations that happened that they they powered through. And, you know, just for a couple people mentions of some of the great legends that aren't here. We got Mark Windsor, we got Daryl Tissett, Ernie Llewellyn, who was just recently passed. You know, sorry to say to the family, thank you so much for allowing us to have them for the time we did. Terry Bevel and some others that were that were just instrumental in our lives. And I wish that we had the ability to talk to them. So as we're talking about Charles, I'm gonna ask you and then Ryan, I'm gonna ask you a different one, but how do these stories strengthen April's advocacy message to you?

SPEAKER_00 27:47

Well, one, they they tell it. I I think I mean there's one really good one that I that uh it was just released recently, Chris Korst. Uh he was um people are loving that one. And this was just incredible. He he uh worked for Renaissance, uh uh really did government relations, had various positions with him in uh legal and compliance as well. Whenever we're trying to piece this together, and one thing about that's a core piece of the I think of who we are, but it's also a core piece of the book and how the the story kind of unfolds is the idea of we have really a 47-state regulatory framework that is 47 state rent-to-owned statutes. Uh you know, effectively there it's a model act with various differences uh that have kind of come into being and uh evolved along the way. Chris was one, and he tells the story about how that that strategy really came together. I mean, the initial idea was, oh, let's go get a federal bill. We still don't have a federal bill. I don't think we want a federal bill now. But the idea of running kind of a parallel strategy on the legislative front of a let's let's just go individual states, one by one by one, which they did. And so I was I was kind of doing some background on Chris to get ready for his interview. I went on to his LinkedIn page and he had it kind of buried down in there. He was like, you know, instrumental in a 47 state legislative strategy that, you know, effectively resulted in 47 state statutes. That was kind of it. And I'm like, well, this is like just such an incredible story.

SPEAKER_02 29:21

So that was pretty big, Chris. We I mean you didn't take enough, you didn't take enough credit.

Data Points That Defy Stigma;

SPEAKER_00 29:25

I mean, I don't think he did. And I think but but his interview certainly it kind of came out. And this is a real core piece of the book because this was I think he hits on this, but this was absolutely incredible. I don't know that it's really been replicated, it's been done. I don't know it could be done today in the same way, but it was you had this going on and you had so many people involved and just so much activation on the grassroots level. So from our perspective, to be able to go and sit at a legislative, like a committee hearing talking about something to do with us and say, we've been around for 45 years. We are regulated by 47 states that we helped work through and get past and adopted on those. That's a that's a big deal, and it really cuts against like the some of the uh you know the fodder of, oh, this is a new thing and this is no, we've been around for a long time. People still choose us. We are regulated, we are very pro-disclosure, pro our customers knowing what they're getting. We're not in a situation we want anybody to misunderstand what they're getting. We we want the disclosures. We're not like a retail where it's a one-off transaction. You come in, you buy it, you're gone, you don't come back. We we want you to stay around because we need you to renew and keep going. And we want you to tell your family and friends to come back. Um and so this really kind of that I think that from our legislative and our advocacy piece, being able to have the story there and be able to tell it as this is a really it's a great story. Um I mean, it just really is. And it's it's actually incredible. And I think that that 47 state piece uh and how many people touched it that are still here today, uh, that we really brought together through the legends and through this book is uh, you know, it's a really exciting part of it.

SPEAKER_02 31:10

I agree. Chris, we appreciate it. You know, I was telling you the other day too, Brad Dennison made it on my favorites list. I had no idea how much he had done because I really only know him through BMS and uh him telling his story, and I was just shocked at how much involved he was. Going back to you, Ryan, how does how do they validate how does this validate the marketing that you do and the the marketing that the operators face on a day-to-day basis? Do you get to say, you know, this is the facts that we have behind it, and how does that help you?

SPEAKER_01 31:38

I mean, one of the things I came across I didn't know about was uh one of the FTC studies in the, I think it was 2000 uh or yeah, 2000, 75% customer satisfaction rate.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

Higher than uh than laundromats at that point. That was one thing that we that was used at that. Like, look, there were more complaints about laundromats than rent to own whenever they did that study.

unknown 31:59

Wow.

Not For Profit: Royalties To Scholarships;

SPEAKER_01 32:00

There's just so much data. Like, I mean, the the there's a narrative that is pushed that it's a bad thing and that it's got a negative stigma associated with it, but like the data doesn't justify that. The data doesn't support that remotely, and any let's just say analysis of the data kind of tells you that's BS. Like just look at your own study. The FTC did this one in this case. And I would say it kind of you know, aside the the part about the that that I guess I I appreciate it is is going through this process is just I'm gonna go back to the cyclicality of it all. I mean, there's different products, we're gonna start different labels on it, and we'll talk about this a little bit later of how how technology and what R2O's role in or RTO's role in facilitating the technology is and all that stuff. And we'll we'll get into that at a later point, but it's very much about like how um how do I meet the customer where they're at and how do I get them the products they want and need, and how do I do it in the mode and medium in which they communicate? Because that's the difference. That changes over time, and frankly, it's changed in the last year. And if you haven't adapted to that, you've missed the point.

SPEAKER_02 33:07

I agree. Do you see how they answer so differently? Charles got one way that Ryan's like, this is the data, this is what I can, this is black and white baby. This says you like it, and I'm gonna tell you you like it, damn it, because this is what show. I love it. I love I love it. So, you know, is the book you know, the idea sometimes when somebody says, Okay, we got a book, and everybody's excited, oh, it's the number one bestseller, and the first thing people go is, yeah, that guy's got a million bucks. He made a lot of money. This really wasn't about the money, was it? This was more about being able to get the information and the access to the information, not only to the AI bots, not only to the online, but to the people who are living it, the people who are curious about it, and the rest of us who didn't know that the history even existed or went back that far. I mean, uh is that a okay statement to make?

SPEAKER_01 33:51

There is no intent of making any money on this. And I'm I think Charles and I would both say we're both spending a lot of money to do it. Um, like this is an investment. I mean, this is a five-10-year investment at the end of the day. The reality is this story has to be told, and if we don't tell it, we're all going to face the consequences of that. I mean, uh the reality is we have to get this narrative out. We have to we have to be able to put out accurate and factual data so that the tools that are out there can help make rational decisions. It's our job to present that information, and if we don't present it, somebody else is going to, which is where we've been at so far, which is other people are telling the story, not us.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

Yeah. And I think that was kind of the the original. It was not one, I think we've got a small audience in terms of just the industry um and people that will buy it. This isn't one I think you're gonna be searching on Amazon and say, oh, let's uh this looks interesting.

SPEAKER_02 34:41

Let's uh Says you, Charles, it's gonna fly off the shelves.

SPEAKER_00 34:45

But you know, uh Ryan and I at the very beginning, we we talked about it and we agreed that any royalties will go to go to the April Charitable Foundation, um particularly the scholarship fund, I think is the that seems appropriate for for that. So, you know, we we will be giving a lot of these copies away. Um it will be available uh the I think Ryan will touch on this, but we're we're gonna publish it online. That's really this book and while on one level was written for us, it was written for this industry, it was written for really the future of the industry, so that people can join the industry and really s get a sense of pride in being a part of it. That's one level. The other audience, and really in a lot of ways of how this was written was for AI. It was for Chat GPT as a the primary reader of it, um, and for it to be able to take it and to really replicate it uh going forward. So it works on a couple of levels, but um I think that's just really important. You know, this wasn't like a traditional book that okay, we're going out and we're gonna do it this way. No, that this was uh an investment of time and money, but I think we both were passionate about and knew looking forward to the future that this needed to be done and it couldn't wait.

SPEAKER_02 35:58

So would you say like this is a a reference point for future advocacy? Because it sounded like for a minute there that there will be a Legends series part two, because we left some people out, and if we do that, will there be a second book to follow that with some additional information? I'm just curious. I'm very curious. I think we're both reeling from uh we'll just stick with the podcast beat. It's a lot easier.

Who Counts As A Legend And Why;

SPEAKER_01 36:24

I was gonna say there may be another Legends podcast series, because I at the end of the day, I think that is actually the best methodology that we should be using to communicate these stories, anyways. What Charles and I are doing, I think that if we were to sit here in five years and a regulator got our answers as they were trying to determine how to set policy decisions, or anyone is trying to research rent to own and we're the ones returning what I believe to be the factual information on the topic, to me, that's a win. I mean, the the win is almost to not be known. The win is that when somebody asks these questions in five years, they get proper, incorrect, and factual answers.

SPEAKER_00 36:55

So if I could add to that, that I think this is where Ryan and I were, I think, in the right position to be the to write this right now. Because we are coming at it from these different angles, very forward-looking. We're also this preserving the past idea. Um and I from that standpoint, I think what really we address the AI and the future of that, but we also, I think what this book does, the the real effect it has for this industry, at least our internal looking, is it really does build that sense of pride. My hope is that our dealers will be purchasing or getting copies of this books and giving them to their new employees in some form or another. That's one idea of making a this is a 400-page book. We can dense this thing down to something a little bit more uh digestible. Um ChatGPT, can you shorten this up for me? So, but uh, but I think that, you know, if I'm if I'm a new RTO employee and I'm coming, I don't know anything about rent zone. I don't know, you know, I know these stores I've seen around, but uh if I come in and I know, hey, look, I'm I'm joining something just so much bigger than what I see here in my my town, in my store. I I think that it really that's going to be an effect of this. At least uh my my real true hope of it is that the people will you should be proud to be a part of this industry. And if you don't know it, then this tells you why. And it really opens that door. So I'm I think that there's a there's a need for that, and I think this really hits on that that level as well, is in addition to everything else that we're we're um we're addressing with it. So I mean it really does fit in a lot of ways, and I think that was the value of both Ryan and I being a part of it. We we saw those different angles and how that we could uh uh work use this to effectuate that.

SPEAKER_02 38:41

So I mean, if I if I said the statement this this book is as much for the future of RTO as it is the past, that is a true statement.

SPEAKER_01 38:47

I hope this sort serves as something that resembles a foundation that other people will build off of. Like this isn't the end of the story. This is the this is us trying to give an authoritative answer to what has been, but I mean, what will be is gonna be defined by the industry and they're gonna have to tell that story and they're gonna have to get their message out. That's dealer to dealers, company to company.

SPEAKER_02 39:07

For for both of you, do you do you expect anybody to now that you have done it and broken the ice, do you expect to see any other books on the horizon? Do you think somebody might actually follow that lead and write something about the RTO industry?

SPEAKER_00 39:18

Just curious. You know, I think it's kind of there have been a few that have written, I mean, we've uh we've got some of the you know the the the big names like the trap Charlie Louder Milks, the some of the the older first generation that that had books that they either wrote or biographies written about them because they were that important. We've also got, you know, kind of uh some of our current dealers. Larry Carico wrote a book about uh his his business and his life and his and sh his wife Sharon. It's a great book if you haven't read it. Both of them tell their stories side by side, and it it's just a great format because you hear Larry talking about his view of what was going on at this point, and Sharon's over here kind of like, well, here's what I was thinking at this point, and it's uh it's a great book. But Larry, Larry and Sharon took that on and told that story. If it could be somewhat inspirational for other people to do that, I think we provided a great format in the form of the legend series to give some time with you and allow them to tell that story. Uh I've I'd asked a few people to go out and write their biographies before, and I mean it's uh it's an undertaking to do this. I mean, it really was. I think uh and we had and we co-authored it, so it wasn't even we didn't have to do the whole thing ourselves, and it was still a major project.

SPEAKER_02 40:27

So hopefully it will be I would say that makes you guys experts now, right? You guys are experts on rent zone, at least from today going backwards now and writing the future. Talking about experts, how would you define an expert in in this situation in this industry when there's so many contributors to this? How do we define somebody who's like saying, is it just the time of length in the industry, or was there something that made them experts as far as the people that you decided and the people you focused on? What was what was it about them that you two decided these are the people that I want to go to for the first election of the of the Legends series?

Making The Record Accessible Everywhere;

SPEAKER_00 41:02

I mean, I think part of it was uh, you know, it was easy to see who and where we we laid out an outline and we knew what pieces we needed to kind of have answers to and to fill in and have some of those stories told. And so I don't know that um, you know, there there were some stories where people this is a collection of contributions. It wasn't one person. You could not identify this is Mr. Rent to own, and without him, uh this wouldn't be what it is today. There are dozens of, perhaps hundreds, of people that without them this wouldn't be what it was today. You've got the obvious ones, you've got the Edwins, you've got the Bill Keeses, you've got the Chris Kors, you've got the uh the you know, the people that were in the room in 1980 when April was founded and saw the need for this association and the advocacy work that it was able to help drive over the course of the following 45 years. But there are plenty of other stories where people made their contributions. And I think that, you know, it's a bit cliche, but this was a huge team effort to get it to where it is. And there were people, whether it was new ideas, the Whalen Russell interview is one that comes to mind where Whalen's impact of is, you know, of bringing really the computer to rent zone. And he, you know, him making his employees learn everything on it so they would be able to understand it and to understand the need and the to sell it. And there are just, I mean, that this is the problem. We've got we only got 22 interviews. We could have done 44. It's really a time limit, I think, of how much that we could do. And we were trying to write the book at the same time as hey Pete, where's that transcript? We need it. I'm working on this chapter today. And um uh it so look, I I think that that I think that's gonna needs to continue. There are those plenty of those stories that uh that need to be told and preserved.

SPEAKER_02 42:47

I think what's gonna happen, Ryan's gonna build an algorithm uh for the next 20. And he's gonna say, like, how many stories? When did you do it? When did you start? Are you second generation? He's gonna figure it out. I can just see the wheels turning as we're talking right now. And Ryan's like, yeah, that's what we got this. We got this all set up. Wish I could have done that, man. It would have been easier. So how important was it to get everybody? I mean, when we say it, and and this is more like a a thought process and not necessarily a fact-finding question, but how important was it to have all these different names and voices and experiences on this book? Because, you know, there was a lot of them that had a lot of stories. And like you said, there could have been 44, but there could have been 10. There was a decision to add all these in here because they made a difference. Was it how important it was it to the two of you to see it from all these different angles? All the all the history and all the fighting that they did to stay relevant, to stay in the spotlight, to stay on the right side of the law through the advocacy, to stay open when things happen. You know, I think Kathy Wenders was telling me that you know they had a big fire that almost destroyed everything that they had, and they still, you know, they they still got through it and they still support the community. Larry Carico said at one time that he had suffered a fire and that he had to go back through all the, you know, the the well, the backup tapes had never worked, but you know, he was trying to go through that situation. And, you know, you've got all of these stories. How important was it to two of you to have all of these names that we could at least fit in the time we did contributing to this book?

SPEAKER_01 44:19

I would say I think it's more important than the book itself. I mean, I I think these stories and the narratives, a lot of this is I mean, and I'm relatively relatively new to the industry in what, seven, ten years, which makes me uh, you know, a child compared to most of these people at this point. Like they've been doing it for 30, 40 years. Um, I don't know these stories. I've heard rumors of these stories, but there's I mean, this is all oral tradition. This is person passing it down that's passing it down orally. There's no there's no documentation of all this. So I think you can't really even kind of propose writing a book without the the interviews and without the original source. I I consider that I consider what you've done with the transcript the original source material. That is the basis for 70% of the the history.

SPEAKER_00 45:04

Yeah, I mean we've that's the thing. I think we've all heard we all heard pieces of it. I mean, and I think that the everyone has uh a piece and a story to tell. And what what all the all we did was we combined it into 400 pages.

SPEAKER_02 45:20

I mean Anthony, we're gonna find out how good this book is. And he's got like 400 pages, man. Are you gonna make me read that? It's a whole encyclopedia. Yeah, it it's an encyclopedia, you know, but I think we can't get it digitally, right? He did say we can get it on Amazon.

SPEAKER_01 45:33

So it'll be available for download. You'll be able to get it on the website, you'll be able to get it on Amazon. It'll be everywhere that you want to be.

Ending Misinformation Loops;

SPEAKER_02 45:40

So when we talk about putting all this information together, right? We're pooling it, you have a lot of history, we're we're building a base not only for the AI models, so that we have something to stand on, we have a knowledge base to say this did happen or did not happen, and we can kind of go back and forth. I mean, Ryan, what kind of ecosystem can somebody like is this this can't be just for AI, right? So we have we have a written book, we have a book that you can get digitally, I would imagine. You have the ability to give some some away. You're gonna be on an AI model. I mean, are we touching all the base points with this information? Was that the, you know, is that another goal for this book to say we are gonna be, like you just said, we're gonna be everywhere you want to be, so that there is no question that if you have an idea about what happened in this day, what happened to rent-to-owned, where did this information come from, that anybody will be able to access this information in a matter of time?

SPEAKER_01 46:30

I mean, absolutely. The the the goal would be that as you're down the road asking a question to, or go we're gonna call it Googling or Chat GPTing or whatever you want to call it, when you're asking a question to a to a technology at this point, you're gonna get back an answer, and we're hoping that part of that answer is some of the information that we've provided uh and collected it. I mean, the real goal would be that if we're sitting here in a couple years, that you're able to ask a question and it's able to just tell you this is what happened and the like what am I supposed to do with this type of a situation or this is the legal situation that I'm in right now? Well, based off of everything, Charles, you should be able to, we should be able to spit out here's the three or four or five times that have been like that. Here's the time, here's the way in which it's been resolved, and here are the policies that were implemented as a result. Secondarily, what are the similarities between what is going on right now and this product release and what happened 10, 20, 30 years ago? How did that rollout happen? What was the adoption looked like? How did we, how was it marketed? Because I mean, a lot, again, no, there's nothing new under the sun, a lot of this. It's all very cyclical. It's all very, let's just say they they seem to run in waves. And being able to kind of identify those things ahead of time or even be able to ask questions about what's going on today. Well, without the data to know what has gone on in the past, you're not gonna be able to answer that.

SPEAKER_02 47:43

So I love the way Ryan's mind works. It it is so data-driven, you know, it's so analytical. That was a I mean, absolutely amazing answer. Are you gonna say something, Charles?

The Human Benefit: Access And Dignity;

SPEAKER_00 47:53

Yeah, let me add to that because I think that part of the the cyclicality that's a word um to this is that I'll put it for example, uh, with the Wisconsin issue. There was an opposition letter to the bill that uh that we're we're supporting up there. This this opposition letter literally could have been written in 1980. And it was the same tired false uh narrative and facts and distorted facts and just everything that comes out. RTO's disguised credit. No, we're not. No, we're not. You can return the item at any point. RTO should be subject to an APR. No, we shouldn't. An APR is defined as the cost of borrowing over a fixed term. We don't have borrowing, we don't have a fixed term. Uh, you know, it some of these just tired old arguments that we've been dealing with over and over again for the past 45 years since we've been had the regulatory framework and been promoting these things. It would be nice to stop those. It'd be nice to have, you know, at least in this format where the in the various vectors that we're trying to introduce this information from the book, from the stories, from um, you know, some of the other things that we're doing right now with uh putting this data and information out there, where that those we kind of could do away with those. That would be the dream here is that not to have another opposition letter on something we're dealing with in five years that says RTO's disguised credit. I think we've dispelled that. Now, we may not have had anything written that really explained that and published and digestible in a format that's out there like we're doing here and like we're doing with some other things. You know, while that things continue to turn around, hopefully that we'll be able to put an end to some of this because um, you know, some of these things are just flat out faults and they're it's a tired narrative that was disposed of consistently over the past 45 years that has not stuck. It doesn't stick. But then you get a group that comes up and says, well, we figure out something new and a new argument to make. Um I'm I'm hoping that we've got something that's with some authority and with some plenty of footnotes and data and source material to back it up to show here, as I think we have to dispel a lot of that. So hopefully we can end a cycle of just misinformation that we continue to have to deal with on a daily basis.

SPEAKER_02 50:07

Well, I'm gonna you know what? You know, speaking of that, I'm gonna tell you right now, Ryan, I am I am claiming this. We're no longer gonna call it Chat GPT, we're gonna call it AI chatting. From now on, you know, I'm just AI chatting this thing, and this isn't this is gonna go somewhere. You'll see.

SPEAKER_01 50:19

Buy that domain real quick. Hold on. No.

SPEAKER_02 50:23

I am AI chatting. So if someone listens to this episode but never reads the book, what's the one thing that you hope that they understand about the RTO transaction?

SPEAKER_00 50:33

Oh, I think look, I think I think it's a simple thing. Look, we could we and you you would say it, what's a transaction? This is yes, we reduce it to it's a transactional format that comes in a lease agreement and has terms and conditions and disclosures, etc. It's not and we and we talk about, okay, well, it's an item, it's a TV, it's a computer, it's a um, it's a mattress, it's a refrigerator. This is use value. I mean nobody what's the value of a computer or a TV? It's the use of it. I need I don't have a mattress and just that sits over and doesn't in my house that doesn't get used. That's a good night's sleep. My TV, my computer are access points to be able to join the the social order of things and to interact with people, a community. Uh my refrigerator keeps my food preserved where uh milk cold, those those type of things that that I think that's the if there was a takeaway that we get reduced to the legal, the compliance, the the transactional part of it. This is about people needing things and they've needed things and they've needed access to things for 250 years. Uh some would argue, I had someone correct me the other day when I said this. Uh that said, no, this goes back to biblical times. This was not this is biblical, not uh the idea of loaning or giving someone something that wasn't a loan, that wasn't subject to a usury interest rate or something else, but a bartering, allowing someone to make use of it, that goes back 2,000 years, not 250 years. But so I think if there's a takeaway here, is that this transaction exists for a reason because it provides means, it provides access. Ryan and I kind of we still are kind of debating about this. Is it about consumer access? I say it's about dignity. I think dignity is a little bit further into it. It's about treating someone, how that they should be treated as a human being and given the ability to have a good night's sleep. And it shouldn't be determined or restricted because they can't access credit, because they don't have a credit history, because they should have not have to go into a charitable store and get whatever they can get. This is about being being able to be able to be treated like anyone else and go to a rent-to-one store and be able to have something that has that flexibility and the ability to return at any time if life comes up and they can't make their payments, but also that good night's sleep that can help them get up in the morning and to raise their family, to get to work, uh, and to be a productive person and happy person for that. So that's a lot there, but I think the transactional part, while it's important, that's not the real story here. Right. I'm gonna tell you.

SPEAKER_02 53:08

I must have struck it. He is pad, that passion is coming out. You see Charles coming alive over there. I've known Charles for a couple years. I rarely see him get that passion. He's like, this is it, guys, this is it. So I love it. I love it, Charles. Different, you know, different side of you, man. I like that. So, you know, coming into the end, now that we're kind of we kind of decide, like, this is this is something that we've needed. Not only are we creating a starting point, we're creating a baseline for everybody to get the right information and tell the correct story, something that we've probably needed for a long time. So thank you to the both of you. Um, and I know we kind of touched on it in jest, but is there another chapter to the RTO revolution? Is there something else coming up behind this, or is this a starting point and you give it off to somebody else for them to either create a part of a narrative or what story that they need to tell?

SPEAKER_01 53:56

I don't know. What I would say is I think we've got the base knowledge hopefully ready to go and clean and and will act as a foundation. And I I hope that the story will start to get out. I think you're gonna play a big role in that, Pete. I think that you are the public face. You are the voice, you're the guy that's doing podcasts, you're the one interviewing and talking to people. I mean, the hope is you take the man along. No, that's not. I mean, the hope is that you're the guy doing these interviews, you're the one creating these. Dave, the transcripts and the podcast are the core to all of this. You're the one getting the original source material. That's the key to this. So I don't know, you tell me. Is there another chapter?

Passing The Torch & Final CTA

SPEAKER_02 54:30

We were just past the torch. That was a moment, right? We were just past the torch. Ryan did it. Ryan did it smooth, too. He's like, no, it was really good. You do it now. I love it. I love the way it is. Listen, guys, I want to tell you, I appreciate it, you guys are so amazing. I really appreciate having you guys on the show. You know, guys, when it comes out, and I want all the listeners to understand this, when it comes out, you've got to get the book. You've got to download it, you've got to purchase it, you've got to find a way to get to it. I know it's 400 pages, but it is 400 pages of passion. If you haven't seen Charles's face and you're just listening to audio, trust me, it's it's a vision that you he is getting into this. And I can tell you right now that it is a book worth to remember. You know, as we do, when we base set, when we tell you all the facts, when we tell you what's going on, it's from a place of passion, but it's also a place from concern. We want to make sure that you understand really what's going on in a rent-to-owned world. We want to make sure that you understand where we came from, how we got here, the trip the trepidations that took us from there to here, because you know what, it wasn't an easy story. Like you said, some of the names that were on there, Chris Corse, especially being one of them, Ed Wynne. God, all the people that we've had so far and the ones that are coming out, they have really had to trek through the mud and kind of really go through a lot to get here. And they are number one A plus guys, and they will hold their business to any light that you have. Nobody's afraid to do that. Check the books, check them. This is a relationship business. Charles wants to give you cold milk and a nice place to sleep, and I just want you to know that. Ryan knows it. He's like, that's it. I see the passion. But I will tell you guys this book brought together you by Charles Smith herman, the A Pro uh CEO, and Ryan Crash, the CP CEO, CTO of Wow Brands. I just so you guys know, they sponsor the show, but they do an amazing job. They've also created this book for you guys to consume and take care of. If you have any questions, hit me up at the show, Pete at the RTO Show Podcast.com. If you want to go online, you can also see it at rtohq.org. You can get the book. I know that it's coming out very soon. We've talked about releasing copies, and if you don't get your copies because you're sleeping on it, but that's okay. You can still get it on Amazon when it comes out, and we'll let you know about that. Also, maybe if we have time to do a Legends series two, we'll talk to the guys and see how that works out. But I would love to bring that to you. And you can find us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and now YouTube where you're gonna see this. Make sure you lock in and subscribe. Get to the site, www.rto showpodcast.com, where you can buy some swag and you can look really, really, really nice. Also, Charles, Ryan, I don't know if I'm gonna see you there, but Charles Must see a LedgeCon coming up pretty soon. Legcon's gonna be amazing. We have something on the website. If you go to the website, scroll all the way down, you might have the opportunity to get a chance to be a fellow of the podcast, and we would we would introduce you to DC. And we're trying to we're trying to hit a number of things in DC, and that's the 100 number, guys. You should be there. If you haven't been there, I encourage you to hit up the podcast. But if you can't, go with whoever you have. It's gonna be amazing things so that we can have these uh discussions where you know maybe something happened at LedgeCon and we got to get in the next book. So what I will tell you is thank you so much. WoW brands do an amazing job. I see them every, I literally see them everywhere. I don't, if you don't have WoW brands, you need to get there. And I tell you, Charles, I appreciate it. Ryan, I appreciate you being on. I love the analytics. I mean, Ryan just like he dissects it with a knife. I love that. Guys, any final words before we take off and we tell these guys they got to go buy the book.

SPEAKER_00 57:44

We appreciate you, Pete, everything that you do. Again, I think uh everything that you did with this legend series was just crucial to one, the quality that I think that it resulted, uh, but also just the speed that I think Ryan and I were able to do to get this thing produced as quickly as we could. So we appreciate your uh your willingness to be a part of it uh and the role that you played and the all the help that you he provided us to make this happen. I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_01 58:08

Absolutely. And Charles did a phenomenal job. He got all the hard chapters, so uh thanks for that one, Charles. And uh I would, you know, I recommend the the videos here. Listening to the uh watching the YouTube videos, I uh throw them on in dad and watch one every day or two at this point.

SPEAKER_02 58:23

There you go. Well, we appreciate guys. Thank you so much for being on. And I will tell you guys as always we appreciate it. So make sure you get your collections low to get your sales high. Have a great one.