RTO Legend: Mike Tissot on Darrell Tissot of Rent 2 Own

A rent-to-own business doesn’t last 40 years by accident and it definitely doesn’t start with perfect funding. I’m joined by Mike Tissett to tell the story behind Daryl Tissett’s legacy, from a small-town Ohio beginning to a blueprint that helped shape the rent-to-own industry and a company built on trust, service, and steady growth. If you’ve ever wondered what really creates long-term customers in RTO, this conversation gets specific fast. 

We talk through the real mechanics: early financing challenges, why collections discipline matters when cash is tight, and why Daryl’s “months to recover” metric still influences how Mike thinks about inventory, pricing, and reinvestment. We also dig into leadership principles that scale, especially the idea that the best decisions happen close to the customer. Empowerment at the store level, strong training, and clear standards beat motivational posters every time. 

From there, we zoom out to strategy and innovation: why small towns and county seats can be the perfect fit for rent-to-own, how free delivery and setup create loyalty, and why trying new products early (furniture, computers, gaming) can separate leaders from followers. Mike also shares how technology, CRM, online leads, and even AI are becoming practical tools for modern rent-to-own retail without losing the relationship-based foundation that makes the model work. 

We close with Daryl’s industry impact through APRO, TRIB, Ohio advocacy, and the Midwest Expo, plus a powerful reminder that legacy is people, not trophies. Subscribe for more Legends stories, share this with someone building a customer-first business, and leave a review with the one principle you’re taking into next week.

Transcript

Opening And RTO History Giveaway

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Hi, I'm Pete Chaff. You may know me from the RTO Joe podcast, but today I'm doing something a little bit different. April and Wow Brents 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's own capture stories, their impact, and the original features. And now I get to share those conversations with you. I've got it together to find the future that we're building together. Here's where you come. We're giving away free copies once to book the website. Just head over to 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 Shao. And today, something I kind of want to do, we kind of start from the go back to the beginning and then come back here in a couple of different ways. Uh Mike Tissett on the show again.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

Second time. How about that? That must have done okay the first time, Pete.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Yeah, yeah. So this time it's a little bit different capacity, right? Because we're talking about the Legends series. And the Legends series, you cannot have a Legends series if you're not talking about Daryl Tissett. Like he comes up in every conversation in every way. I think he mentored the mentors almost. You know what I mean? Um, and there's one of those things that he helped pioneer. He helped lead, he helped mentor, he helped grow businesses that weren't his own. He got you in it. I remember I still remember that conversation when he told you it was time. Hey, you got to make that decision.

SPEAKER_02 2:17

It was a hard sell, Pete.

Why Daryl Tissett Is Legendary

SPEAKER_01 2:20

And uh, you know, and then going along with that, you've done a great job, Mike. You have killed it on your own. Um, and what you do and how you do it.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

Listen, it's not on my own. There's 504 people and an amazing team of leaders and my VPs, you know, Mark, and I mean uh Judy and Ben and Rachel, and it's it's far from on my own. I I feel like I'm I'm just the conductor most of the time. You know, I I don't that the the team I have, the managers we have are just they're next level. The amount of care they have is just it's insane.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

I would never say uh that that you don't have a great team because listen, every time that we go with it, man, they are just killing it.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

Yeah, they're killing it.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

But uh you're right though, you're a good conductor.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

What do they say about the conductor? They say the key to the conductor is being willing to turn your back on the crowd, you know. So maybe make better decisions if you're willing to turn your back on the crowd, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Well, I think keeping your eye on the ball has been an amazing thing. And one thing that we wanted to do is we we get a two for one on this one. We get to talk about Daryl Tissuck, who left an amazing legacy here, and to be able to be on the Legends series with Mike, and then Mike gets to pass it along to us, and we kind of get both sides of that story. You know, going back a little bit, and I didn't know this. Uh you guys started out in a small service station somewhere.

A Baseball Field Startup Story

SPEAKER_02 3:43

Yeah, you know, you know, it'll be hard for me to go through this without crying. But I my dad was a crier and I'm a crier, my daughter's a crier, so you might get the bonus tier. Um yeah, you know, my dad started his business um on a baseball field, Pete. You know, he was uh he was my little league baseball coach when I was 14 or 15, 1984-ish. And uh the other guy coaching was um was selling the big honkin satellites, and he was getting stuff in the mail about rent to own, and he asked my dad what he thought of it, and my dad was an entrepreneur. Like he just wanted, he was a he was a builder, you know. So, which means he literally was a builder. Like when I was a kid, little kid, we moved from house to house. He built a house, we moved to the next house. We'd live in that house that he built while he was building the house next door, and then once he built that house, we moved from this house to that house. And then he'd sell the house, we moved out of, and then we'd literally move seven houses down a street because he built the next house. So that building was something he did and you know, helped my mother, who still runs her carpet business. It was always her business. He just helped her. She still runs it today at age 81, six days a week. Like one of where I got my work ethic, it's there. Um, but uh he was a builder, and so he built, he built that this company, um, you know, and as kind of a lifelong entrepreneur, too. You know, he just always wanted to build something new and different. So when his this other coach came to him and said, Hey, what do you think about the strength own thing? He did some research. He said, I don't know, why not try it? And he was always willing to try new things. So 85, he and his partner at that time, and they weren't partners long. Um they just gave it a whirl.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

What were some of the challenges starting that? Because if he knows business as far as like building the buildings next or building the house next to him, that's where he's in. This is a whole different situation. He gets into a small, you know, station, he opens up rent to own. Like, how does that how does that translate as far as the funding and growing that?

Funding Struggles And Collections Discipline

SPEAKER_02 5:42

Well, I mean, listen, the challenge for every new business owner is funding. And he had the 18% loans from Borg Warner and he borrowed from everybody he could, or was told no from every bank in the town he lived in, and except for one who's still our bank today. Um and you know, he went to see bankers and they'd say, Well, so let me get this straight. Are collateral is going to be spread all across the county? So how's that work? Um, and so that was a huge challenge and forced him to be very good at collections because you know, the nature of this business, you know, we want to try to make money on the stuff we buy, and you know, deciding how long to wait and how not to wait is is easier when you don't have money to go buy another VCR. And like so many that started in 80 in the 80s, it was it was VCRs. And and and dad dad did a few things early on. He he had bigger stores, bigger square footage stores. And and it was bigger than the norm because he really believed in the furniture business. He believed that the furniture business would be a big part of our business, and it wasn't in the early 80s. It was a it was electronics and appliances, it was TVs, console TVs, and appliances. So that that really helped kind of take the business take off was his commitment to furniture. He went to the Tupelo furniture market, would buy big truckloads of stuff, even though he probably couldn't afford it, didn't know what he was going to do with it. But he kind of believed in stack it high and watching by, you know, like let's just bring in loads of stuff, kind of a Sam Walton theory. Let's just bring in loads of stuff and I bet people will buy it. And so that was that was some of the things he started early on. And, you know, I'd say the other thing was hard is just people understanding his leadership style, which was which was so much about giving people freedom to make choices and make decisions and a lot of rope. Um, he was always like that. And we still have that today. All the so many decisions in our company are made at the store level, and that's all him. You know, we don't want nobody can make the decision from the home office. They need to make it at the store level close to the customer. The best decisions get made close to the customer. And so he always believed in that. And so finding people that like Diane Smalley, who still works with us today, who are willing to do that, that was hard because a lot of times folks want, like if you if A happens and B happens to do C, and and we operate in so much gray area in this business, as you know, we just want to take care of customers and we want them to come back and we want them to be customers for life, and we want them to tell their friends. And gosh, we've been around for 40 years. We got like three and four generation customers, and that's that's huge. And that's probably because of a lot of the things that he allowed employees to do early on, just taking care of customers.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

So, what did the first store look like? Because I've seen some of your stores, I've seen some of the videos, I've seen some of the pictures. I remember at one point in time we were doing that challenge where you took, and I loved it. You had a great idea. You wanted to show your store and what it looked like, and we did that challenge. Uh, and it was great. So, what describe to me what the first store looked like.

Betting On Furniture Before It Worked

SPEAKER_02 8:31

Uh, the first store was in a service station south of Hillsborough, Ohio, and it was it was concrete floors and four or five couches and three or four living room suits and a stack of ECRs. I mean, there wasn't a lot of money spent on the frills. I mean, the first store I opened in 1997, like I physically built the countertops, did the drywall, painted the store. Like, that's the store was all we just put it together our own ourselves. You know, the drywall in the in the Servable store, which is the first store I opened in '97, is pretty bad. You know, I'm I'm not a very good drywaller. I'm not bad at renting TVs, but you don't want me doing your drywall, let me tell you. But we did all that stuff. That we did it all. And and that's what the store looked like. It looked like we built the counters, it looked like we laid the carpet, it looked like we painted the paint job, and we put as much stuff in there as dad put as much stuff in there as he could afford to buy. And and when people rented it, we if he had enough money left on the credit line, we bought more stuff.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

You know, I was reading something that your dad tracked, Beryl Tissett was the one to track months to recover costs, and that's something that you still do today.

SPEAKER_02 9:39

Old numbers, not a lot of people do that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

But but you carry it through now?

SPEAKER_02 9:45

I still do it, yes, absolutely. We track so many, we track, I track too many numbers. Data, data is is my obsession. And uh yeah, he would track months to recovery to how quick he would get his money back because that's when he would have enough money to go buy something else. And um he is always a big lotus one, two, three on those like five and a quarter floppy inch discs that he'd put into that PC, you know, and uh yeah, we still track, we still track that today. We don't recover our money nearly as fast as he used to.

Months To Recovery And Data Obsession

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Well, that's true. But I mean everything costs are the costs are changing every day. You know, it's crazy. But you know, going back like those months to recover, something that you pulled with you. I see some principles here that he kind of had the foundation of what he did is how he grew things. One of the pr one of the principles were if you take care of the people who take care of the customers, the customers get the best care. Describe that to me and how you feel like that is today.

Empower The Store To Serve

SPEAKER_02 10:41

As the as the owner of my company, I know I have two jobs. You know, the first job is to make it a great place to work. And and I would say 90% of the everything I do, I try to figure out how to make it a better place to work. You know, how do we make the benefits a little bit better? How do we make um the compensation better? How do we make the empowerment that we provide for employees better? How do we make the training a little bit better? Always trying to find ways to make it a better place to work. Um, and then also trying to find places, ways to make it a better place to shop. And and I probably stole that from my mentor, Gary Fairman. He always talked about making it a great place to shop. And um, and and I think that's every owner's job. If you if we can make it a great, I mean, our folks are only going to treat our customers. I don't, I don't, I don't get to interact with customers very much. I have customers I love. I have customers like Anna Fent from Hillsboro, Ohio, that came in every Friday between 4 and 4:30 to make her payment. And she'd rent about three or four things until Christmas time, and then she'd use us to have access to three or four more things that she'd buy for presents for her kids, and then she'd pay them off the first of the year. And and I have relationships with with Brenda Shook in Lancaster, who every year says, Hey, can you buy me some Halloween decorations? And we say, Sure, Brenda, because you've been around a long time. And then she'll bring me cookies and and a flannel shirt. And I've met her 20 years ago. You know, so I have a relationship with some folks, but I don't as much anymore. Um, and so making sure our folks at the front lines have the authority, uh, the willingness, the security to take care of customers makes the difference. It makes all the difference. And and you know, and we don't have a regional manager team, which is amazing. You know, Rachel and Ben lead an amazing team of regional managers, and some of them have been doing that a long, long time. Um, I would be remiss to say that Jeff Borders is not a dinosaur, he's just the oldest regional manager. He reminds me of that. Um, and and their job is not to log in and do stuff, their job is to direct and coach and help people make good decisions in stores. So if if there's one philosophy, if there's two philosophies that have flown through my dad to me, it's hey, keep trying new products because it was furniture before furniture was cool, and then it was laptops before laptops was cool, and then it was all in on gaming before gaming was a big deal, and then our entire business is next level, and people have started and stopped and not even tried it. Um, and then you know, and then allowing folks to make decisions for our customers, those are two things that that drive the success of our business 40 years later. I got 40 years on the side of my app. 40 years. We've been in a business 40 years, so and that tells a tale.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

That tells a tale.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

You know, I think that it tells the tale it tells is our business is a valuable transaction for a lot of people. If if a small town entrepreneur that was laying carpet and building houses could get with another guy that he was coaching a baseball team with and open a business, and it's still here 40 years later, that means we're doing something pretty incredible for customers, right? We're providing access to products that they didn't have access to. My dad told this story and it brought tears to his eyes when he told it. He told about the story from Lynchburg, this guy from Lynchburg, Ohio, that he thinks was one of the first people that paid out a washer and dryer. And they said, Mr. Tissett, thank you so much for opening this door. We would have never had a chance to own our own washer and dryer. We've been going to laundry map for 20 years. We would have never had a chance to own our washer and dryer, and it saved us so much time, it saved us so much money. We thank you so much for opening this store. Like that's what we do here, and it's super cool.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

Looking at some of the things that he brought forth, the way he was able to do it, the people he was able to touch on both sides of the coin. Because, you know, it's not just the customers. He's touched a lot of employers, a lot of employees, a lot of owners, a lot of entrepreneurs, uh, in a ways that they just they're thankful for, you know, over the years, they're really and he became very um, very I mean though he was a very jolly man, you know, he was probably realized Santa Claus, honestly.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

Um, but he uh he became very loyal to the industry very quickly because he believed that that the people he met in the industry helped him uh thrive, survive, um, and his became confidants, you know. Um, and he was he was so willing to give back. And I had a full circle moment about a month ago, and you had Ben Leach on here, and uh Ben came out to visit me for a couple days, and it was like, oh wow, this business, it's not fourth generation, but like my dad was kind of a mentor to Ben's dad, and Ben's dad, Lynn, was absolutely a huge mentor to me, and now I have a chance to be a mentor to Ben, and like, whoa, like that's that's cool. Like, I literally was like, I think my dad would be proud of me for helping Ben out, you know? I think so. Because is there anything else we want in life than our dads to be proud of us? Really?

SPEAKER_01 15:36

I mean honestly, you know, we were talking about that uh not that long ago, about the basic necessities of what we need. And I and that was one of the top three. We want approval from our parents. You're you know, you're a guy, you want approval from your dads because you just want to do right. Which leads me to the second principle. Small towns and small counties seat, or well, small towns and counties seat strategy. Can you explain that to me?

Small Town Strategy And Customer Trust

SPEAKER_02 16:00

I grew up in a small town, Hillsboro, Ohio. It was about 40 minutes um east of Cincinnati, and we're lucky Ohio is pretty densely populated. Um, so these small towns are they're Walmart towns, they're you know, that there's 6,000 square 6,000 people living in the town and about 35 or 30 in the county, and the county's probably the shopping area. And he believed that like these small towns needed access, these customers needed access to furniture and appliances than anything else we could provide. And he was right. You know, he was right. There, there was, you know, there probably weren't Walmarts back then, and uh there definitely isn't Best Buys, or there isn't, you know, a ton of you know mom and pop furniture stores. And and so when we opened in Hillsborough and Washington Courthouse and Maysville, Kentucky, and Waverly, Ohio, and Jackson, they're all 6,000, 7,000 uh population towns with 30 to 40,000 in the county, and and we were well received. And we could we could really provide an amazing service to folks in those counties that did they didn't want to drive an hour and a half to work with somebody they didn't know. I mean, in those communities, people are most more likely willing to do business with somebody they know, and you also word of mouth travels faster and probably more richly. That when we provided the level of service, the the I mean the level of service that we provide are rent to own, like I think it gets lip service because we all in in this business know about it. But we deliver for free, like for free, like uh like some of the sectionals we're delivering for free now, Pete, like we shouldn't be like it's like 18 pieces, and there's so much trash that goes back in the truck, and we set that washer and dryer up for free. We provide those hoses for free. Like Lowe's doesn't do that. Like, no, there are so many customers because we do it for free. And and I think the other thing today, as we evolve into 2025, it's like that the relationships we have are so strong because we've we have done so much for our customers and their their mothers and their fathers and their grandfathers that that we're okay in today's virtual transaction because there's they trust us enough to say, hey, what's the best washer and dryer you have? And we say, Oh, we got this new Samsung 8000 series. Okay, bring that to me tomorrow. Okay. Like we have built that level of trust that that just tends to flow in a small town. And so it's definitely our people that our people connect with people in small towns, and most of our people are from small towns, and a lot of our a lot of our employees were once customers, or I looked up once before and shoot 20.14 percent of our employees were related to somebody else that worked for us, you know. So it's a rich, thick culture we've created. Um, but the small towns, it's just who we are. Um and and it's it's our our our story plays better there. Um I think because the level of service is more appreciated, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

You know, I was thinking the same thing. I think that in the smaller towns it's more appreciated because not only the the variety of what we carry, it's almost like a one-stop shop where you can go and get you know all kinds of things. It's the fact that you're in a small town, people appreciate it more. I don't have to go all the way out to this big city to get this service.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

And we're lucky that that we have a lot of managers that have been managing their stores for a long time. You know, I have a you know, manager in Maysville, Kentucky that's been a manager there for 28 years, Mike Highfield. And and so they just call Mike. It's not you know, I you know, I got an idea from from Richard Rose, God rest his soul, and Ron and John. And uh he had, I feel like I could make a list of uh one or two ideas from I've gotten from every rent zone dealer in America. Um, but they had their their manager's name on the front door, you know, like manager Mike Highfield and the store hours is part of that. And and we did that. And then we had had each manager give us their quote. So I don't remember whether they did that or not, but we do that. So they have to come up with their quote, their like personal mantra. Oh, I love it. Um, but having managers have been there for 10 years or 12 years or four, we don't have a lot of manager turnover at all. Um, and that really helps with customers just trusting us. And you don't get that at retail stores. And that level of trust um I think magnifies the rent-owned transaction, the free delivery, the the no no credit check. It it mat you know, that we are so willing to give customers chances after chances and and and access to products that they just don't typically get because in those small towns with managers have been around a long time, it's literally business on a handshake. And it's just not possible in a lot of places.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

We're talking about you know, some of the products that we don't have access to in the Samsung 8,000s, principle three.

SPEAKER_02 20:58

I just for the record, I made that model number up. I learned a long time ago. If you say things with conviction, I have no idea whether they have an 8,000 model.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

Well, I'll tell you what, uh, I don't either, but I will tell you that I know Samsung's has some great products out there. And you know, sometimes it is a little bit out of reach, and we do bridge that gap very well, especially if you really want to take care of your community. So, you know, dad was talking about thinking bigger. He said principle number three was think bigger. Products area, what we do, how we do it. Can you describe that a little bit?

Think Bigger With People And Tech

SPEAKER_02 21:33

Yeah, I I think it's uh I everything I give you, Pete, has been stolen from somebody. I I I read a lot. Uh I think started reading a lot more a decade or so ago, and and I listen to a lot of podcasts, you know. But uh I think it comes back to, you know, maybe I'll give Cam Kiger and one of our regionals some credit for for really pushing this. It's the people in the process and the products and figuring out ways to continue to drive those three Ps. Um, if we can continue to educate, keep our people curious and keep them teachable and keep you know training them on leadership skills as well as on product knowledge, we're gonna get better. Um, if we can keep testing and trying new products. And then one of the things I talk about a lot, Pete, is is we again, it's stolen from somebody. So I apologize to whoever I got this from. That focus on your strength and address your weaknesses. And I think it's easy to look at your weaknesses. And we look at weaknesses in store X is not renting enough of this. Um but I think what we what we do a better job of now in our company is is focusing on our strengths, which is, you know, the Salem, Ohio store rents desktop gaming really well. How do you pour gas on that? Like, how do you take a product that's doing really well and pour gas on it? And that means more product, that means better merchandising, that means better marketing, that means better education, that means, you know, you know, get maybe an incentive program to sell more, whatever it is. But um, those are the envelopes that we tend to push is uh with with really trying to pour gas on some things. And then the processes would be technology. I mean, I'm so lucky to have a to have a partner in WoW brands that can help me push technology in so many different directions, whether it's the CRM we work together to create, whether it's online leads that we get a high level of, whether it's paid leads or non-paid leads, um, whether it's a new special order platform that they built for me, like that's a how we're gonna use AI this year and next year to not just help us Google better, but also be our thought partner. Um, so those are, I mean, that's definitely technology is a huge place for us to accelerate our business.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Well, you know, you said something that really stood out to me that, you know, you said your ideas are unoriginal, you read a lot, you do a lot of podcasts. Listen, it takes somebody important and and it's a difficult thing to do, but to be able to do it. I was doing an interview with Will Jackson, and he said the same thing. You know, he's like, hey, I, you know, we read a lot, we kind of regurgitate in a different way, but it's all done. And uh he was told, and I love this, I will use this to this day, it makes you an information broker. There are people that haven't heard it, they haven't read it, and they don't know what you're about to say. And when you sit with your spin and how you do it, that was the first time they heard it, and that makes it special to them.

SPEAKER_02 24:23

And I feel like the I feel like a book, you know, or podcast, your podcast, uh, my friend Ryan Hawk has an amazing podcast I listen to all the time. And I told him the other day, I said, I feel like you just introduced me to people. You know, you would introduce me to ideas and books, and it's my it's my job to pursue those and to try to dig deeper.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

Well, you know, I have this rule, and I've said it before, and I'll say it a couple of times now is that every time somebody recommends a book, I will try to pick one book out of their recommendation and read it. So every time you go down your book list, you have like eight books. So I'm gonna have to figure out one from you to just get down. I literally just uh emailed Michael Bennett a couple days ago and I was like, hey, listen, we we talked, you had mentioned a lot of good books, and I think that I want to read one, and he kind of nailed it down to a couple of you know, like four or five. Um, and I'm really gonna read into it and go into it, and I really appreciate him doing that. Um but getting back to it, getting back to it. You know, dad had a famous quote not growing, same store sales, and you're not doing business adding, do you have no business adding stores? And I've heard you say that before.

SPEAKER_02 25:25

Yeah, I I I've been around this business for a long time now, you know, and I've seen a lot of companies come and go and thrive and then not thrive. Um, and I think it's you know, store counts something. You know, it's absolutely a thing, and it's one way to maximize your your your revenue. Um, but if you're not growing your stores you have, then there's a there's a there's a problem inside the stores that you have to address before you make more of them. And and I, you know, we're blessed to have grown same store sales every year. Um, and we keep opening stores. We have a we have a new one we're gonna open in the first quarter. And um very, very slow, very strategic. You know, we gotta have a good lease, we gotta have somebody to run it. It's gotta be geographically connected to our one of our other stores. Um, you know, our you know, you're not gonna you're not gonna find any of our stores that are in an outlying area way too far away from another store. It just doesn't work for me that way. Um, but uh, but we're if we are not growing same stuff, you know, dad had a lot of quotes, right? He had, if you're not growing same store sales, you had no business opening stores. Um, you know, one of the things I tend to reference a lot is, you know, talking about, you know, team members that may be underperforming, where we have high expectations. And and he would say either they don't know or they don't care, either of which I have a little problem with. You know, if they don't know, we can help teach them. If they don't care, that's a whole nother deal. And so, you know, we we know that the success of countryside rentals rents own has everything to do with the massive amount of people that care an awful lot.

Same Store Sales Before Expansion

SPEAKER_01 26:59

You know, talking about the growth in the same store sales, usually those quotes and sayings came from something that happened that you go, I learned my lesson. Is there something that happened back in the, you know, back in the beginnings where you know you and Daryl were like, hey, this this is something that kind of came back and bit us, and I need to make sure I work this out before I move on.

SPEAKER_02 27:19

No, I don't we've not had any major business snafuos. Um, you know, I he I made a few mistakes when I came. I worked for dad when I was in college in the summers, and then was able to just go back to school. And uh, you know, we opened a store to get ready to used merchandise, and that was all it was gonna do, and that was stupid. But he let me make that mistake. He was really good at letting people make their mistakes and learning from them, you know, maybe a lot better than I am. Um, but not nothing nothing major. I think it was always he was very frugal, you know, and the cost of money uh when he started was was high, and it was a struggle, right? I mean, the the founder of every rental boat owned business in that you talk to, it was a struggle. And and I wasn't a part of the struggle. I was a kid, but I'm aware of the struggle, and um, and so I think that ultimately was what it is. Like don't overextend yourself because it could get hard again, you know, and we were lucky that we grew same store sales and we, you know, got out of debt and and were able to kind of move forward, but you know, I don't think he ever wanted to be beholden to Borg Warner again because it was hard.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

I there is something that I noticed when we're going through all this. He didn't like goal numbers on the war on the walls of the store, right? There was no reminders in that in that type of way. And I remember that a lot of people do that. They have like, you want 30 deliveries and they'll post it in the bathroom and they post it in the employer room and stuff like that. What made his decision to not go that way?

SPEAKER_02 28:54

Um there were goals. There were they were maybe they were silent, maybe they were secret, maybe they're written on a napkin somewhere. Right, right. Um there were there were goals. I I think there's a difference between goals and standards, though. And I think that the 40 years later, I think we've we've remembered we have been reminded of that at our company. You know, you can set a goal, but but there's a big difference between setting a goal and establishing standards. Like we have we have standards at rent to own, you know, that we're always gonna deliver this much and we're always gonna close here and we're always gonna, you know, collect this way, and we're always gonna have our inventory in this shape. And and we know when we do those things, we run great stores. And so I I think that he was also of the belief if you had if you maintain good standards, uh, whatever your standards happen to be, that you know, people want to work there and people want to shop there. And again, uh, you know, that's what we're trying to do. That's you know, uh to steal Simon Sinek, I mean, who Chris Kale, thank you, Chris, accuses me of just quoting Simon all the time. You know, the infinite game is real. Like there's no finish line. Like we have a we have hit so many goals in our business. And every time I hit one, it's like, wow, that wasn't nearly as exciting as I thought it would be, right? It's the journey, you know, and it's the journey you get to have with your friends that work for you, and that's the journey you get to have in this business with all your mentors and all your colleagues and with Angie and her family at Mike's Rent to Own and Lynn and Gary, and like we get to bounce everything off everybody, you know. And I've been lucky to be involved in all that stuff, um, as I've been a part of the industry. Um, but we have we have goals, we have we have big goals, and there's usually a bonus time to it too, Pete.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

Well, you know, uh the goals are great, goals are always helped push you to the next level. I would imagine that as soon as the first rent-to-one store opened, the goal was open two and three and four. And I know now it's probably a little bit different than opening those first few because I mean when you have 40-something stores, you have a basis, you have people already in place. You only want to grow when you can. But when you only have one or two stores, you have to grow because you have needs, you have wants, you you want to get out there more. How hard was it to grow then versus now?

SPEAKER_02 31:08

Yeah, I mean, I obviously I'm aware of the struggle and I've heard the stories. When I came in, we had 10 stores, and dad was trying this hocus pocus idea of like, I'm gonna give a manager 49% ownership of a store, and I'll own 51, kind of his pseudo-franchising. I don't even know what it was, but it was a mess. Um, and we abandoned that pretty quickly. Um, I I again I think it's it's it's it's absolutely surrounding access to cash early on. You know, early on, it's how do I buy more VCRs? And and if you you know, in all of your conversations with all the legends, like there's talk of debt everywhere. And and debt is debt can be powerful to to lift a business up and it can be a powerful weight to pull a business down. And and so I think every business's goal early on is to is to get out of debt. And so and I think once once that happens, and you can be more um you know, not beholden to a banker or not beholden to other other stockholders that want a dividend, and you can now behold be only be beholden to your customers and your employees, then it's powerful. If you're if you're if your shareholders are literally just your employees and your customers, you you've eliminated a third of what every business has to deal with. And and and my goodness, you can make better decisions. So I think that's what inevitably happens over time for successful businesses, or can happen.

SPEAKER_01 32:37

Hey everyone, it's Pete Chow here from the Arts Go Show Podcast, and I want to tell you about a company that's making a real difference in the rent-owned space. WoW Brands. I've seen the first hand how they approach marketing. Let me tell you, it's not just about ads. WoW brands build complete digital ecosystems designed specifically for the rent-owned market. Their e-commerce and generation companies are built to bring qualified people. And I mentioned they are actively working with the rent owner while also being members of April and Crip. These folks are actually a problem topic. They don't just slap something together. They design, build, and scale the kind of digital retail tools your business needs. Your customers actually want. So if you're serious about growing, reach out to Wild Brands at WildBrands.com. I trust it, and I think you will too. Well, as uh as Mrs. Windsor would call it OPM or other people's money. She did not want to owe it, and neither did her husband. It was a great conversation. Talking about some of the things that he's done in the past, your dad had a lot, an accolade of all kinds of things, all kinds of accolades. So he was the April board directors from 1991 to 1999, uh, with eight years of service, which was you were around for that. Yeah, yeah. I was around for that.

Sponsor Message: WoW Brands

APRO, TRIB, And Industry Unity

SPEAKER_02 33:52

Um, I like I said earlier, he was so he was such a giver. Um, and he knew that that the industry gave him so much that he all and even if they didn't, he would give back because it was just the human he was. Um, and so he was president of both April and Trib. Um and and loved every minute of it. Uh, you know, he was president of Trib for two years. I think he was around the Ape, I mean president of April for a couple years, and uh and on the board. There's some great pictures of him and Tiger and and Shannon and Ernie and all those guys that year, and had some great friends, him and Kevin Quinn and and uh and and Ted Wilson and used to play golf and Dick Eichlin would play golf together and they would share ideas, and it was it was a fantastic, I think, friendship and camaraderie he had. Um but let me tell you, he believed in the trim buying group like nothing else. And uh he believed in what we can do to get together and have strength through unity and buy from the same vendors because it was hard to get vendors to want to buy from us in the early 80s. And if we all get together and we all buy from the same vendors, then we'll mean more to them and it'll be better for all of us. And so, I mean, he pushed a lot when he was involved in the board and on the on the as the president to like really, really wanting to force people to buy from trib. And people didn't like that because they run their own company. But like he and slats and and John Blair was the president, was the EC executive director at the time, were like they wanted people to report what percentage of your purchases came from the trib dealer. Like, you need to be honest and tell us what you're not buying from Trip, because you need to buy from TRIP. And he so he and he waved that trib flag probably until the day he couldn't wave a flag anymore.

SPEAKER_01 35:41

Well, I I mean he's done a lot more. President's award of excellence in 2000. He had the Ernie Tally Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004. I mean, what did these awards mean to him? You know, kind of through your lens, what did it mean that for him to be able to re-recognize Brawley's peers and all this?

SPEAKER_02 35:58

Um this is the part you're gonna make me cry, Pete. Um, they didn't mean anything to him. That's not why he did it. You know, they didn't mean anything to him. And they they didn't until the day he died on June 26th, they didn't mean anything to him. You know, it what meant something to him was the lives he was able to touch of the people who worked at Rent to Own, of the people he was able to touch that worked in the rent to own business, of the friendships he made. My goodness. Like, I mean, he he called his buddy Ted Wilson and asked Ted to come work for us, work with us for a week and figure out if he needed to keep working at Rent to Own or he could retire, if I was okay to run it. Like it just that's what meant something to him. Like it was just that. It was sitting at the picnic table with young Lynn Leach and telling him what he knew about rent to own. Like the words didn't mean anything to him. And that may not be what you want to hear, but that's the truth.

SPEAKER_01 36:57

Everybody's different, you know. It's one of those things that I think he sounds like somebody who would have just been humble enough to be around the people that he helped get to where they were and helped him get to where he was, and that was enough. It was the accolades along the way, dude. It does mean a thing, though. I would mean something to me, you know. Hey, this guy's really doing a good job. He couldn't tell you where the trophies are. So talk to me about the Ohio Rental Dealers Association because we've talked about April, we talked about Tribb, we talked about his accolades in there. Was that something that he was in as much as you are? Absolutely.

Advocacy, Regulation, And Quiet Enjoyment

SPEAKER_02 37:31

You know, we're we are lucky in the state of Ohio. We've always had like a good nucleus of rent-owned dealers who would do whatever needed to be done, you know, to to fight if we needed to fight, or or go somewhere if we needed to go somewhere. And it was it was dad and Ernie and Gary for years. I mean, they they those three guys, whatever needed to happen, getting the bill passed or going to DC, that was dad and Gary and Ernie, and it was like the three amigos, you know. They they they had a nice frenemyship for a long time, you know, and and they got along great and did what we needed to do in Ohio. And then and today it's it's not that different, you know. Ernie's, you know, still got stores in Ohio, and and Keith Fairman is running that company, and Joe Fisher uh and and Randy have Eagle Rent to Own. And we just had a good little nucleus of four or five rent-to-own guys and and and gals that that run good businesses in Ohio. And so we've done our dead level best to make sure we're protected and and make sure we have uh good friends in DC and in Columbus. Um, you know, I'm lucky that I've been able to establish relationships with some folks in DC and in Columbus. And my dad encouraged me to do that. You know, we would go to DC when he was involved. Um and maybe the maybe the nine-hour car drives to DC were the best part, you know, in hindsight. Maybe it was the drive, maybe it was the ride, not the visits. Um, I remember going to Monticello for an event, you know, probably 898 or so, which was fan, which was really super cool. Um, but he taught me, he had a relationship with with Mike, with uh Mike DeWine, who's the now governor, who was a senator at the time, that how having those relationships are important. And so I have continued to forge those. Uh a senator from Ohio um it you know is a is a good friend and has been into our rent-to-own stores and knows exactly what we do for customers. Um, there was a gentleman, Zach Space, who was a Democrat from uh middle of Ohio, and we we collectively, about 10 of us, went and helped do calls for him back, I don't know, set 10 years ago probably. Um he was a great friend. Uh Steve Stivers um from Columbus came and spoke at an APRO event in DC. He was a great friend. And I think it's just it's I think it's important for people to understand what we do for customers and and how our transaction really works. And so I've always been because my dad taught me, let's invite congressmen, senators, state, local into our stores and let them meet some customers and see exactly what we do. And we've done that forever.

SPEAKER_01 40:08

What was one of the things that stood out? He he he did so much. He did a lot in April, he did a lot in Trip. But when you're talking about the RDA, that's the legal stuff. That's the stuff that can really shut us down. What's something that you could remember that dad was a part of that you can be like, I'm I'm so glad that I had a part in that, or I saw it, or I heard about it.

SPEAKER_02 40:27

Well, I you know, he was he was around during the Henry Begonzales days. You've heard about that. And so, you know, being classified as uh, you know, as a lease of Federal Credit Sale is is bigger than anybody in this industry really realizes it's not been around a long time. So he was part of that group with Wayne Chambers and and Ted Wilson, whoever else was there in the in the late 90s, early, mid-90s, um, to make sure that we were protected in that way. And and while, you know, it it still gets talked about at times, it's it's important to talk about. And I think the way that, you know, our our our state law in Ohio, it was part of that being built where we have price controls, we have certain things that we you know are regulated to do and to not do, and and and we do everything by the book. And so putting that in place, him and Gary and Ernie, getting that in place in the early 80s, you know, provided this ability for us all to do business peacefully, you know. And every lease you sign, there's a clause that says quiet enjoyment, and that's what we all want, is just quiet enjoyment, where you know we can provide great products to our customers that don't typically have access to them and in a in a way that keeps them coming back and wants them to tell their friends, and uh and we keep doing it and try to do it for 40 years, right? Just keep going. That's the goal of business, is to stay in business.

SPEAKER_01 41:51

The infinite game, Pete. Talking about going, talking about all these people that were involved, where did the Midwest Expo come from?

SPEAKER_02 42:00

That's already Lwelling, too, man. I mean, he decided we should do it. And so uh again, there's there's this faction of Ohio dealers with UHR and Showplace and I, and now Eagle that, you know, if we all decide we're gonna do something, we can pull it off. Because everybody, everybody we may disagree and commit, but we commit. And so the expo over the last, I don't know, 15 years has become like the third largest rent-to-owned event in the country. And there's there's 200 people that show up every year. Showed up again last year. Keith took over as the president of Ohio Rental Dealers and did an amazing job, uh, found a new venue and has great training. And our vendors, my gosh, Peter, vendors step up to show up and do training. You know, we have a there's a work um distribution center in Columbus and they show up all the time. Almo distribution shows up all the time, Ashley shows up, um, Simple Mattress used to show up, and now, you know, now the other group shows up. So it's you know, we're so lucky we have vendors that are willing to support that. But it was always about training, and I think because it was designed like that, that we we want to we do it in October, September. Um, and it was always about let's train our folks, our people that sell the stuff, how to sell more stuff. And uh, and it it had a good purpose, and we had enough people committed to it that it just it just it survived and it continues to it continues to to just do it does well. People show up and and every time they leave their vendors or dealers are like, wow, that was cool. And I guess if you get that, you're doing a good job.

SPEAKER_01 43:34

Well, your dad's part of a very uh select few that I mean it's just the legacy is amazing. What do you what do you think makes him the best mentor? Made him a great mentor, made him somebody that everybody went to.

Midwest Expo And Training Culture

SPEAKER_02 43:46

Uh I think he cared. I I think he cared, you know. Um I you know, my dad, my dad passed away from Alzheimer's this year, and you know, before he got sick, you know, the last Last four to five years before he got sick. Um every time I would go see my dad, he would uh he would I'd get ready to leave and he'd be like, You should ready to leave? You should leave. Like he my dad loved me, you know, and uh he would literally put his hands on my shoulders and he'd get about six inches from my face, and he would say, You know how proud I am of you, don't you? Wow. Yeah, like every time, Pete. And so I I just I think that that you know to be a mentor, to be a you know, uh legend in this industry or any other, I mean, you have to be selfless and you have to be humble, and and that's that's just who he was, man. You know, and he was he was always willing to give credit, you know. It wasn't he didn't need any credit, he didn't want those awards. He, you know, one of the reasons he wanted to be in the rent-to-own business, Pete, is because so other people could be the front man, so other people could get the credit, you know? He didn't want to be the, you know, he wanted you to come rent from the circle belt rent to own to rent from Amy, not from Daryl Tissett. He was just the owner. He he wasn't gonna be the face of anything, you know. Whereas my my poor mother who runs Tissett's home center is the face of everything.

What Great Mentors Actually Do

SPEAKER_01 45:16

Did he have a specific tactic that he used as a mentor? Was there something different than the way he approached it versus other people that everybody seems to mention his name? And I know you said caring, but was there was there a certain way that he did it? Was he like blatantly straightforward? Was he nurturing?

SPEAKER_02 45:32

Like what I would say, I would absolutely say very nurturing and and but also extremely objective. I mean, he was, you know, go back to like the month to recover cost. Like, you know, he was very nurturing. Uh, he was very, he was a great listener, which we could all of us can do a better job of. And he was also very objective. So it would be like, okay, here's where you are now. And if you deliver this much and you pick up this much and you pay out this much, you can grow this much. And if your APA goes from here to here, you can do this. And like, it wasn't just pie in the sky. It was, it was back and math. And so I think the combination of like caring and love and appreciation and like objectively, this is what's possible. Let me show you how to get there. Um, was the magical combination, really?

SPEAKER_01 46:20

How do you see his legacy and his mentorship living on past his years today?

SPEAKER_02 46:26

It's a lot of pressure. I think it's you know, it's I think it's my responsibility, right? And I'm blessed that you allow me to do this and talk about my dad a lot, but um uh it it just will. It just will because you know, I I've listened to the podcast and I've heard, you know, him mentioned by Lynn and you know, and and and John Blair, and you know, just uh it's just he used rent to own as his platform. You know, you hear people this sounds this is gonna sound crazy. I've never said that they said this piece, Pete, but you hear some of our some of our athletes that we covet and look at and uh you know put on these pedestals and we talk to them. And but some of the ones that are humble, the Tim T bows of the world, you know, like him or hate him. I mean, he's a pretty interesting guy, right? You know, he says football football was his platform, you know, and so I I think Rentone was ended up being part of my dad's platform. You know, it was the journey he was meant to go on, and it became part of his platform. And so, you know, he leveraged that platform to help as many people as he could come in contact with. I, you know, one of my favorite quotes ever, and I have a bracelet that I wear, it says table, you know, and it it's and the quote is if you're more fortunate than others, you should build a bigger table, not a bigger fence. And and that's my dad. You know, he just kept building a bigger table. That's the thing. He just like he carried around leaves. He's like, let me put another leaf on the table, then sit down. Let me put another leaf on the table, you know. Tiger, sit down. Let me put another leaf on the table. Like, that's just what he did.

SPEAKER_01 48:02

If you were to ask everybody in your mind, this is a mental question, and you think you took a tally of everybody, what do you think everyone, including yourself, would say his biggest uh impact on the industry was? What do you think his greatest impact on the industry would be?

SPEAKER_02 48:18

I think his greatest impact on the industry is he showed a lot of people what was possible. I think that he he forged a path that said, look at what you could do. Like he he it's possible to have stores of this volume, it's possible to give more away and bonus. It's possible to be successful renting these types of products. Like it's it's possible. You know, I I heard I heard Ben say it, you know, he was a big what if it works, you know, type of guy too. Like we were always supposed to try new stuff. And and I think that's maybe one of the legacies that he'll have and like lives in me is like we can do better, we can do more, we can do better. We're always becoming, we've never arrived. And I think he always believed that we could always continue to grow. Not just grow B O R potential or whatever, but grow.

SPEAKER_01 49:11

Yeah, right. I mean well, you have one of these unique views. What was it like working alongside your father all these years? I mean, this is a unique individual, he's a pioneer, he's a mentor, he gets the accolades. Does it does it even mean anything? Because he is so about the industry, he's about family, he's about showing others. What was it like working alongside of him? I didn't get to do it very long, Pete.

SPEAKER_02 49:33

Um, so I I got to do it when I was a kid. And I when I came back in 1997, we really only worked together for two years um because he wanted to retire. He was there's a lot of folks I think to struggle with retire, and he did not, he was excited to do it. He had a long honeydo list that never shrunk, and he was wanting to take up his golf habit and did an amazing job. He was a great retiree. Um, so interestingly, um it wasn't all Ben Rose was working with him because what he thought was important and what I thought important was different at times. We had we got in the biggest argument over a fire safe, a fire safe file cabinet. Like that was the largest. Why would you buy a file cabinet that's not fire safe? Like it was like a big deal, Pete. And so I I think that Angie and Michael are so lucky they get to work with their dad. And I think Gary and Keith are lucky they get to work with each other, and Lynn and and Ben are so lucky they get to work with each other, and and and John was so lucky he got to work with his dad. And so I got to work with my dad a couple years, but it it that was the way it worked for us. You know, it was it is he he was done and he wanted me to work, and he gave me a couple years to to work out some kinks, and then he rode off into the sunset, and then he forgot how many he didn't even know how many stores we had, Pete. That was before he had Alzheimer's. He'd be like, How many got now? Like he just didn't care after that. He was done. I told you he was a builder, so he built it, and then he was like, I'll let somebody else run it. I don't I don't want to really run it, I just want to build it.

SPEAKER_01 51:05

How did you manage continuing his legacy and blazing your own path in that situation in that time frame where you're coming off and kind of starting off on your own? How did you manage that?

SPEAKER_02 51:16

You know, managed it through a bunch of people that care an awful lot. I managed it through, you know, Ben Davis and a management through Diane Smalley, and I managed it through my relationships with my mentors, and that's that's how we all did it. That's how any business owner does it. I don't think it's uh is it rent-to-owned specific? Sure, because guess what? There's not a lot of industries that everybody talks about everything. Like there's not I I could have a text group of seven or eight rent-to-owned operators that you know it gets hit once a week. I got great friends that work at Rena Center and great friends that work at Errands and great friends that like, you know, it's fantastic to have all these colleagues that we can share ideas with. Um, but I I think I was taught by my dad to just be willing to try new things. And so uh we were lucky enough to be on the forefront of of of computer rentals, and it really took off for us. We were lucky enough to be on the forefront of the gaming business, just console business, really all in on the console business. Um, you know, so we we've always been a pioneer on trying new things, and and I got that from my dad for sure. He because he would he would always be willing to try it. And I think that a lot of times the new things are home runs, and a lot of times they're singles or doubles or triples, and they all add up, you know, and they add up as either a home run sometimes, like doing tires in a rent-to-home store or renting laptops in '99 or 2000, or they add up as a single, or they add up as an experience that we learn from because we've made our share of mistakes for sure. And it's not just products. It's, you know, I don't I've not made a mistake, you know, like you asked if you made a major staff. Like, well, no, we're lucky enough we haven't. We closed one store that we didn't love, that we ended up buying a couple Renaissance stores, and you know, they bought that store. And so we didn't didn't hurt us, but um, we've not made any major mistakes, but we just keep trying trying other things. I read somewhere once, Pete, that they somebody said if you had more than three or four stores, one of them should be a laboratory. And and I I think that we continue to try to put stuff in the laboratory all the time.

SPEAKER_01 53:20

Yeah, I like that idea. I love that idea. You know, coming to the end of this amazing story that you've had about your dad and everything, something that's unique to you and something that you've done was the 40th anniversary you did the 40 days of kindness. Talk to me about that.

40 Days Of Kindness Giving Back

SPEAKER_02 53:35

Well, I mean, that's my dad. Um, and uh, you know, my dad would would say that uh his rent-to-owned business took off when he started giving 10% to the church. Um and and I think the rent-to-owned stores in small towns um can become uh a community, a great community partner. And and we either choose to or we don't. I've been lucky enough to get involved with a lot of schools. Um somehow, some way we ended up getting some football uniforms for our local school, but there's not a lot of business around it. And then three or four other football teams heard we did it, and so they all wanted us to get them football uniforms, so we did it. But like, I don't know. 40 years to me is a is a long time. And I know a lot of the legends you've interviewed have been around for 40 years. Um, but a lot of things have to go right to make it 40 years, and so it just felt like a really good way to give back and celebrate that by identifying uh a charity in each of our 40 stores that we could give back to. Uh, and whether it was, you know, a food pantry that we support in Bainbridge, Ohio called J216 Ministries, which is an amazing organization that Judy May, who works for me, is now on their board. Or whether it's Camp Dovetail that my dad had supported for decades, um, it's a camp for developmentally disabled people, um, adults, uh, humans, superstars. Um, but we wanted to we wanted to take that further into all of our markets. And some stores didn't do it as well as we want, but um we're trying harder to be a better corporate citizen. Um and as we get bigger, it's harder to do because you don't hear. You know, I know in Hillsborough, Ohio, or in or in Loveland, Ohio, or Bainbridge, Ohio, where we can help people. And and I want, I think with that, we've done a better job of being able to hear, you know, where we can help people a little bit more. You know, an interesting story, and I think we should bring it back, Pete. We used to do an employee of the year at April. And in 2008, um, one of our customers won the Employee of the Year. And her name is Kim Royal. Uh Ken Royal uh works for a um kind of a rehabilitation center in Lawrence County, Ohio. And she came to us as a customer. She's a great customer, she's been a customer for a long time. Ask us, hey, can you help me provide some of these basic needs for some of these folks in this halfway house? And so we would support them at Christmas time and all throughout the year, really, for like toiletries and towels and things like socks and underwear, stuff like that. Um, but she was named April Customer of the Year in 2008. And it was super cool to see that happen, to see how we um A, can transform lives by providing products that customers don't have access to. Um, but B, that transforms itself into being a better community, you know, better member of the community. So I I guess I would challenge every uh rent-to-owned operator to you know find ways to listen to our customers a little bit more and find ways where we could do 40 days of giving or three days of giving or maybe maybe a couple times a year. So we were looking for more opportunities to do it and celebrating the 40 years of operation, it just seemed very logical to do that. And I think dad would have put his arms on my shoulder and said he was proud of me for doing that.

SPEAKER_01 57:01

I agree. I gotta say, Mike, it's been a pleasure having you on. I I love the idea of the 40 days, I love seeing your success. I love seeing your passion for the business. It seems like your father had helped you gain that, pass that along to you. You guys have a love for this business that I haven't seen ever. You know, I gotta say, I wanted to uh tell you I was talking to the strong, Mike Strong and the family, and said, I gotta thank you. You were one of the very first people that came on the podcast when I didn't know what direction I was gonna go in.

SPEAKER_02 57:30

I remember you really helped Apro, and you were like speaking for the first time.

SPEAKER_01 57:34

You're like, Yeah, I was I was I was out of my mind, I was scared, I was out of my mind. But you know what? You did you did exactly what your father did, and you kind of helped me through that. You kind of give me some pointers and you embraced me a little bit with that with the direction. And I really appreciate that. I wanted you to know that, and I want you guys to know that we appreciate you listening and being a part of the Legends series with us. If you want to hear more stories like Mike Tissett, Daryl Tissett, and their family on what's going on, you've got to dial in. Make sure you subscribe. You can go on to uh the podcast at www.thertoshopodcast.com. You can hit me up directly at pete at the rshopodcast.com. Email, let me know what's going on. You can also go on there and get some swag. Uh you know, it helps out the show. And then we're on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube where you can subscribe, where you're gonna see this. Mike, it's always a pleasure. Hopefully, we see you very, very soon. You guys are doing wonderful things out there in Ohio, and I really, really want to tell you, I wish for your successes. I I love it. I appreciate all you do with the business. Thanks, Pete. Appreciate you having me back on. Absolutely. And I'm gonna tell you guys, as always, make sure you get your collections low, get your sales high. Have a great one.