How to turn slow days into GO days!

Pete hosts this episode solo while Danny vacations in Mexico, bringing on guest Teddy Kirvin — a 12-year rent-to-own veteran who started at Rent-A-Center in Goose Creek, South Carolina in 2010. Since then, the industry has taken Teddy across the country, through Buddy's Home Furnishings on both coasts of Florida and eventually to his current role as Regional Sales Manager for the Southeast at RTO National, where he oversees Georgia, Florida, and Alabama in the shed, carport, and steel structure space. Pete and Teddy go back nearly a decade, having worked together at Buddy's and Rent King before their paths diverged — and today they reunite to talk about one of the most important skills in rent-to-own: how to make a slow day count.

The core message of the episode is simple — there's no such thing as a slow day, only an unproductive one. When foot traffic dies down, the first move is to work your files. That means making the callback calls you've been putting off, checking in with customers 24–48 hours after delivery, and reaching out to references on file. As Teddy puts it, birds of a feather flock together, so don't overlook mom, dad, or a cousin who might need something too.

From there, Pete emphasizes taking a hard look at your showroom. Check your tagging, condition-based pricing, and the state of your pre-loved inventory. Refurbish what you can, put it back on the floor smelling clean and priced right, and move on from anything that's a lost cause — get the clearance items out the door before a customer walks in and judges your store by them. Speaking of movement, rearranging the showroom every 30 days works wonders. Teddy jokes that a couch a customer has walked past 17 times suddenly becomes irresistible when it appears in a new spot. And don't let your 90-day idle items sit quietly — spotlight them, move them to your hottest selling spot, and give your team a small incentive to move them.

Slow days are also the best training days. Walk your team through condition-based pricing, sit with them on reference calls, and let them do the work while you coach. Teddy makes the point that this "next man up" mentality applies to everyone — even a delivery driver can benefit from running through a route or doing inventory alongside you. And since younger employees are already glued to their phones, give them a purpose: put them in front of the camera for a Facebook Live or TikTok, let them showcase what's on sale, and hand them the keys to your social media. They know what's trending, and there's nothing like seeing yourself on camera to get someone engaged.

Pete also encourages using slow periods for business-to-business marketing. Visit nearby restaurants, car washes, or dry cleaners and build referral relationships — getting your name in front of people who would never walk into your store on their own is one of the most underrated growth moves in the business. And whatever you do, think twice before sending your team home early. The dollar saved on payroll rarely outweighs the tasks that pile up and derail a busy Friday or Saturday.

The episode closes with a broader conversation about where rent-to-own is heading. Both Pete and Teddy see technology reshaping the industry — RTO National already offers a self-checkout model where customers can browse inventory online and choose between cash, rent-to-own, or traditional financing. Pete believes rent-to-own will eventually live on an app, reaching a new generation of customers who buy everything from their phones. And as Rent King's 12-month same-as-cash option shows, the customer base is already shifting. Through all of it, though, both agree the most important thing stays the same: customers do business with people, not company names. Build relationships, know your customers, and the numbers will follow.

Transcript

Pete Shau 0:07

All right, welcome to the RTO show with Danny and Pete. Today, Danny is out. He is taking a vacation, so I have a co-host here, Teddy Kervin. Teddy's been part of the Rent to Own world for a while. And today we're going to talk about how to handle a slow day. Today's a perfect day. It's raining outside. There's not a lot going on. So what do I do to be productive at my location to make it happen on a day like this? But first, a little bit about Teddy and uh what he brings to the table. And so, Teddy, when did you start in Rent to Own? What about about what year and about what time and where?

Teddy Kirvin 0:40

Well, Pete, first of all, I'd like to say that this show is amazing. It's just the greatest show that I've ever heard.

Pete Shau 0:48

Thank you, thank you.

Teddy Kirvin 0:49

No, honestly, I've heard a lot of people call me about this show, um, some people in the industry. But I started back in 2010 with Rena Center in Goose Creek, South Carolina, is where I started.

Pete Shau 1:01

Awesome. Now, are you from South Carolina? I'm from Charleston, South Carolina, yes. So then you started there. I know you've been there for a while. It's 2022. That's 12 years ago. You've been other places. Where have you been?

Teddy Kirvin 1:13

Well, Rent Owns brought me a lot of places. Uh, it made me move to uh Florida. I went to the east coast of Florida with Buddies Home Furnishing, then to the West Coast Tampa area with Buddy's Home Furnishing franchise, then on to CPL ranking.

Pete Shau 1:28

So you got three different areas, 12 years of experience. You've been doing this for a little while. What made you stay in rent to own for so long? You got in and then you stayed. What how did that happen?

Teddy Kirvin 1:37

You find something that you're good at and you kind of stick with it, Pete.

Pete Shau 1:40

That's that's true, right? We never get once you're in, you're not out. So you're in something different than the normal rent to own. You're actually working at a different area of rent to own. What's the name of that and and what actually do you do?

Teddy Kirvin 1:52

Well, I think one of in one of your podcasts previously, you said, you know, the relationships that you build in rent to own, and that's important. I have a best friend, Billy, and he was with RTO National, which we do uh sheds and carports, steel structures, and other things too. But an opportunity came up about a year ago, and he put my name in there and we did an interview, and uh now I'm the regional sales manager for the Southeast for RTO National. That's Georgia, Florida, and Alabama.

Pete Shau 2:18

That's sick. That's really awesome. Now, a little bit of backstory about Teddy and I. So we actually started working together uh as different store managers in Buddy's Home Furnishings, and that's actually uh one of the reasons I came back to Rent King was because Teddy was working there. He's like, hey man, I'm here. Come on board, let's make this happen. So we're rocking this out. And then I get to a position where I'm actually a district now, and then Teddy's like, yeah, I gotta go. What's going on, Teddy? What's going on? He's like, hey man, I'm gonna be like a regional, like, I'm out, bro. And how do I mean how do you say no to that? You're in the same type of business. You found a different angle to make it happen, whether it be, you know, sheds or carports, whatever the case is. Billy calls you up and says, dude, let's roll. And then you're out, right? Two weeks later, you make it happen, and you've been doing it for what, a year or so now?

Teddy Kirvin 3:00

It's been a little over a year. We're we've been successful. There's a lot of similarities and and differences too, with what I do. And we're gonna actually get into that today with what do you do on a slow day?

Pete Shau 3:11

What would you tell somebody who's now coming into rent to own? How would you advise them, somebody being somebody that's been here for 12 years now, what would you say? If somebody would have told me this, that would have been great advice, right? And if I wish I kind of heard that within the first two years, but now you're here, right? And you've learned it. So what advice would you give to somebody who's new?

Teddy Kirvin 3:29

The advice that I got when I first started, Pete, and and to be honest with you, I feel like we were pretty successful. My first boss, he told me, he said, Teddy, there's collections and then there's sales. Pick one and be good at it.

Pete Shau 3:42

You know what? It's funny. When Danny and I uh sit down, we actually had this in one of our interview things, and we always ask, are you collections-minded or are you sales-minded? And not that it would disqualify anybody from any position, but it just kind of gives you their thought processes and how they think. Are they calculated? Is it very numbers-driven? Is it very math driven, or is it is it eccentric, like the other end of the spectrum where you can go with the flow, you can make it happen regardless of what's in front of you, and you're overcoming these objections in a different type of way. And how does that make it happen? So I think by far it's awesome to to know where you stand. So on the spectrum, are you credit or are you sales?

Teddy Kirvin 4:17

Oh, you know, Pete, you've worked with me for about 10 10 years out of the 12, to be honest with you. We've known each other for that long. That's crazy when you think about that. Yeah. Um, I was thinking about that the other day when you called me. But yeah, we um we've known each other for 10 years. I think you know I'm uh I'm sales oriented for sure. I think we worked together. You were my boss at one point, and then uh, yeah, you know, you know how we we we roll.

Pete Shau 4:39

We get those in crazy times, man. So, right now, we wanted to cover how to handle a slow day. And listen, guys, slow days doesn't exactly mean that nothing's happening. What slow days mean is that you don't have any traffic walking in the door, and it's a little bit gloomy outside or it's a little bit quiet outside. And what are you gonna do to make today a productive day? And I think the best thing to remember is that there's never a slow day. There's only a day where you're not being productive. And if you're productive every day, every day is a fast-paced, quick day. So how do you do that, right? The first thing I would say is take a look at everything that you have going in your store because you're gonna have a million things that are left unsaid, undone. And then you start tackling those one at a time and you make those a priority so that when you're doing them, they also affect the day after and the day after and the day after, like handling the sales calls that you haven't been able to get to, right? Or tackling those files that, you know, you do those callback files, like everybody says, Yeah, I do the callback files, and they don't do the callback files, right? You make a sale and then you call back in the next, you know, 48 hours, 24 hours, and say, hey, was the delivery on time? Did they make it there? Did they give you all the accessories? And then have that banter back and forth with the customer and really make something out of it. Now you're doing it as a GM, now you're doing it as a sales manager, and you have the right people calling back at the right situation to make the right calls. That that can generate business on its own.

Teddy Kirvin 5:56

Well, you talk about the the callback on the file. Are we still calling the references that are on the file? Birds of a feather flock together. So call mom, call dad, call cousin, see if they need anything. Remember, you can offer them anything you want to.

Pete Shau 6:11

Great idea. The next thing I say I would say is look at your showroom, right? Everybody wants to think that they have a great showroom, and they and you do, but now's a great time to really take a look at your tags, not just tagging, but do your package tagging. Take a look at the items. Are they tagged correctly? Do they have the right term? Do they're are they set up at the right same as cash? And when I say that, this is a great time to show your assistant, to show your salesperson condition-based pricing, right? Condition-based pricing based on how does this look and what would what do you would you pay for it, or can you get out of it what we're looking for? It's a great time to do refurbishment on that item so that you can raise the value of whatever you're selling, because everything is pre-loved, right? You usually want it like a 60-40. You have 60 pre-loved and you have 40% brand new. I mean, what would you do? I think that I think that making sure that I refurbish first, making sure that I get all the parts for it, and then putting it on the floor and tagging it, uh, you know, of course, making it smell good and and everything like that, would of course increase the the profitability by making it worth more to somebody else.

Teddy Kirvin 7:06

You're you're right on that, Pete. You you have about a 24, what, 48 hour window that you need to see what you can get out of it. If it's a dog, it's a dog, though. I mean, let's get rid of it, let's put it on clearance. We've seen some dogs, right? Yeah, put it on clearance, get it out there because you don't want uh a customer to come into your store and see that. Then there that's a reflection on you and your business. And you and you really don't want that. If it's if it's a clearance item, let's get it out of the door. Let's price it appropriately, like condition-based pricing, get it out of the door.

Pete Shau 7:34

Another thing that you can do is review the reports. I know a lot of guys are like, yeah, I review reports every day. No, take some time to really look at it. Go through and what see what your hot sellers are. That'd be a great time to see what's selling. Your PS5s, your furniture. Is it a hot time for bedroom sets? What do you have on rent? Take a look at your free time, take a look at your money, making sure that they're on point. Some people love doing that. Danny would never do that with you.

Teddy Kirvin 7:56

I would never do that with you, also, Pete. Everybody does their own thing.

Pete Shau 8:00

So I would do that. Uh, I think I'd be probably alone on that one. You can also take this time, and and this is probably the best time to do it is training. When you have a minute, it is slow. Grab whoever you're doing with, do the condition-based pricing with that person. Do the files with somebody, call references with somebody and get them to chime in and then do it themselves and follow up on them. Okay, I'm gonna do it. Now we're gonna do it together. Now you're gonna do it, and I'm gonna sit with you, and I'm we're I'm gonna critique you to a point where not that I'm gonna kill you for it, but I want you to be the best at it. Because at that point in time, you're giving value to somebody else so that they can give value to the business.

Teddy Kirvin 8:38

Absolutely. I agree with that 100%, Pete. That's the best training time, is when you don't have much going on. You have plenty of time to train that next man up mentality, even if it's a a delivery guy and you and you need to train them on maybe calling through a route. If it's an account manager, have them do some inventory with you. There's all kinds of things you can do when it's slow like that.

Pete Shau 8:57

One of the best things that we can do now, because some people are really addicted to their phones, right? Give them a purpose to be on their phone. You want to be on it? That's great. Take them to the showroom, click on that, you know, that Facebook Live or that TikTok. Let's make a video, let's let's have fun with a slow day, and let's showcase the product. Let's show them what we have on sale, let's show them what this monthly sale is and get them involved. Get them in it. There's nothing like seeing yourself on camera. I know these guys, especially these young people, they love to see themselves on camera, right? And you're selling stuff. Make them a part of that. Make maybe putting them in charge of the social media because they are younger, or if they're younger, you know, those guys and gals have a knack of kind of doing it. They know what's in style, they know what's trending, but make them part of it and get them out there and then train them to be in front of that camera and say the things that need to be said and have a good time doing it. You know what I mean? That's that's what it's all about.

Teddy Kirvin 9:46

Well, I will say that in the past year, I've seen you guys and and you know, all my uh following all the Rent Kings, and I see Danny and Pete, I see uh everybody going live, and I think that's a neat idea. A few years ago, I think uh me and my assistant at the time, we we started it, but we never we didn't get it polished. And now, now with the Facebook Live and what you guys are doing, it's it's through the roof. I mean, I see it all the time. Every time I get on Facebook, I see you guys, your smiling faces.

Pete Shau 10:14

Let's let's be trendy, right? Another thing that we can do is when you're looking at your inventory, take a look at your 90-day idols. I think that's big all the way across the board from Rent A Center to Buddies to Ranking to Rent to Own to anything, you know, Magic Rentals. You don't want to have a high 90-day idol list, right? The meat and potatoes. So when we're talking about uh the sofas and the bedrooms and the you know and the mattresses, you're really gonna want to take a look at those and you can say, is this something that I want sitting here, right? This this is a good time to do, not only do you mark them, but you take a look at them and say, okay, this guy's been here for a while. Why has he been there? Well, it looks good. I've conditioned based price and I think that's good. Maybe I need to move it. Maybe I need to move it from point A to point B and put it in my hot selling spot and kind of give it a little love, put some balloons on it, you know, mark the first week free, whatever the case is, whatever, whatever floats your boat, and make that move and then get your team involved. What do they get? Me, hey, maybe uh if I get little John to sell this bedroom set, maybe I'll buy him his lunch, you know, five, ten bucks, whatever the case is. Get them involved in that. And so I guarantee you do it enough times and they're gonna be looking for that item when he's you know he's he's a little down and now he's like, hey man, I could use a Big Mac. If I move if I sell this today, am I gonna, you know, can I get something out of it? No, you don't.

Teddy Kirvin 11:19

Absolutely. Switching switching your showroom around is important. You have to do that. I I think I did that every 30 days, just to the a customer came in and passed by this couch 17 times. Move it to the other side, and then that's when they buy it. It's it's crazy. It's just like restocking milk at the grocery store. It's like Christmas all over again, right? All of a sudden, yeah.

Pete Shau 11:41

The best the best thing to do, I think, is move around the show. And when you when you're having one of those slow months, especially in your summer months, uh and summer months, and I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Summer months in Florida sucked. It's so slow. What do you do? Move it around a little bit. Give it a little life, a little flair. Maybe you move your bedroom sets over a little bit and you introduce a living room set, maybe you put a dining room set in a different spot, maybe you put the stereos in a different way. And, you know, you make it happen. It's it's sights, smells, and sounds in a showroom that just make it pop, and that's what's that's what's really important to just make sure that you don't have the same redundancy over and over and over again. One of the things that I always say is don't always be so quick to send people home on a slow day. Because, you know, I I know some managers, I'm not saying that we shouldn't do it. I know payroll is always important, but what really can we get accomplished in that time frame? They're expecting to be there, right? We're cutting a 40-hour check. So let's make them, let's put them to use. And when I say that, whether it's training, whether it's learning, whether it's something repetitive, whether it's something that needs to be cleaned, there's always reason to have somebody there. So if you're on your A game, which I'll I'll salute any of the Mandaries who's got their A game going and they can let guys go home all the time, really take a look at it and go, what do I really need done? And I mean, sometimes it it almost helps us define a sharper eye for ourselves. Did we really clean the showroom like we should? Is everything wiped down? Is everything vacuumed? Have we, you know, is is everything and the tag? Is it on the left side of the sofa, is on the left side of the screen, or however you know your company does it? Maybe it's the right side or whatever. Have we done all the social media posts? Have we thrown out all the trash? Have we taken care of the back room? Have we, you know, inspected the vehicles? Do they look good? Do they not look good, right?

Teddy Kirvin 13:12

How many times we got to go in there, right? Yeah. The other thing too, Pete, you you don't want to just mess somebody's hours up just to mess them up. I mean, yeah, walking over dollars to make nickels, you know, they're only going to be there two more hours. Let them stay, let them learn something, let them do something. There's always something to do. I mean, I've been doing this for a while. I've never had a day where I didn't have anything to do. There's always something to do.

Pete Shau 13:33

Absolutely. And then here's the thing: no matter what you're paying them, and we we can go on the high end and say everybody's making $25 an hour, right? Is the $25 that you just saved for that hour worth what you didn't get done? Because now everybody's on the hustle on a Friday or a Saturday, and that one thing that you didn't get done is gonna set you back. It's gonna put back three deliveries that you, you know, you're hot and mighty, you get you going on out, and then you have to do it yourself, or somebody's got to stop what they're doing in the middle of a busy day to get it done. Try to remember those things when it's slow because that whatever you saved on that dollar is probably not worth what you can invest in somebody to get it done through somebody else.

Teddy Kirvin 14:08

It is a direct reflection of what the work that you put in the week before and the month before. And so let's correct that. Let's not have a slow day anymore. Even though you might have a the work that you're gonna put in the on that slow day is not gonna get you a it might not get you a sale that day, but it will get you a sale the next day and the next day. You just have to continue on. Somebody told me one time, he says, Teddy, how do I know this is your store? You're gonna have to have three convictions, and those are the convictions that you have to have throughout your career. Mine personally was I'm gonna be sales oriented. That's number one. You're gonna know that it's my store because we're gonna sell. Number two, we're gonna have a clean showroom. That was my conviction. You so you knew when you came to my store you're gonna have a clean showroom. And number three of mine was we're gonna have a good time. We're gonna laugh, we're gonna have a good time because you're at the store for well, as a GM, you're there for 60, 70 hours some weeks. It really depends. But you're you're around your employees, you're around your coworkers more than you are your family. And it's very important that you have a good time. Now, Pete, you can chime in if you want to. You know, uh, you know, some things we we kind of let go under, you know, maybe the files weren't perfect.

Pete Shau 15:21

I can tell you that it's not always perfect, but the culture is super huge. I've noticed a lot lately when you're talking about these generations that are coming up and they're entering the workforce, they are so much more in tune to the work culture than they are of just making a dollar. And you have to make it worthwhile for them. You have to be able to laugh, you have to be able to get along. There's nothing saying that you can't hold somebody accountable, but you still want to have a great culture because, like you said, I'm gonna work with you tomorrow and the next day and the next day. And it there's that animosity is just not gonna work. It's it's not gonna get anybody to be productive.

Teddy Kirvin 15:53

Yeah, and I'm not saying you have to be friends with everybody, but we have to have a good time while we're there. If that makes sense.

Pete Shau 15:58

Teddy likes having a good time. Daddy, I have a good time.

Teddy Kirvin 16:00

Yeah, we we have to have a good time. We gotta turn that music up loud and blast it and see what happens. And you know, you can a customer can hear you smile over the phone, they can see you smile. That goes a long way. It doesn't matter. To me, it's never mattered. I've been at three now, four rent-to-owned companies. It doesn't matter the name on the on the door. I think you guys said that on one of your podcasts before. That that doesn't it, and that is so true. That that's the truest statement. We've been successful in every single location that we've ever been to. And it's doesn't they don't do business with a CPO, they don't do business with a rent king or a rent a center or a buddies or magic.

Pete Shau 16:36

Magic rentals is in Pennsylvania. Errens, yep.

Teddy Kirvin 16:39

Errens, and there's there's so many of them. They don't do business, they do business with Teddy, they do business with Pete, they do business with a Danny, they do business with those because the cut it's still a customer business.

Pete Shau 16:50

You know, one of the craziest things that I had to learn it was early in my career, I was working in Wachula Renaissance at that time, and I had a customer who came in. She was great. Her name was Pat. We used to call her Miss Pat because you know, in the country they were a little older and Miss Pat. And so I was, I actually had been working in C ring. I just got over to Watchula, and it was it wasn't a lot more city, but it was a little bit more city, and I was thinking, you know, I was just I was just gun-ho. I was collection minded back then. I was you was gonna pay me, it was gonna happen. And Miss Pat came in, and you know, she was she came in on a Monday, and I came out, you know, all swinging, like, hey man, you're gonna pay them fees. And so make a long story short, Mr. Pat said, uh, no, I don't like your attitude. You need an attitude adjustment. Now, long story short, after she set me correct, uh, she was actually a friend of the family for many years. And before she passed away, I actually would like to say that she was almost like a second mother to me. And she had to come in and remind me that we're doing business with people. It's not just a number, right? We're not just a closed number or an open number or the fees or the rental revs or the reoccurring revs. You're doing business with people. And if you remember that, all those things that I just mentioned, they fall in line.

Teddy Kirvin 17:58

They do, Pete. If you remember that they're people and not a number, they will everything else will work itself out. Where I remember taking over the last store that I was at, and it was it was dying. You know that it was a it was a dying store. We're not gonna mention the the name of that store, but it was dying, and they go, Well, what do you do different? I I don't do anything different, I just want to be there. If you want to be there, you're you're gonna be successful. And if you want to be there, you're gonna treat your people like they're people. And if you do that and ask them, hey, what else do you want? Just something simple. What else do you want? And and you're friendly, you're gonna grow your business. And in these slow days, there's somebody coming in to make a payment, Pete. Somebody's coming in. And I will say that I have never in 11 years of running a location, a brick and mortar. I think three times in my career that we had a goose egg. Three times, and one was when COVID first started. You remember that, and we had uh lock the doors and taking payments and running them back. It that was a strange time. That was one of my crazy experiences, to be honest with you. We we made the showroom in front of the windows, if I'm not mistaken. But yeah, maybe, maybe that and a hurricane, maybe. I remember you telling me that that one store that you were at and ran a rent center right through uh a trailer.

Pete Shau 19:08

It was a it was an office trailer in Wachula, which I tell you that was that's a crazy story. But so you've been doing this a while, you know really how to be successful because you've done it quite a few times. What do you see in the future rent-to-home? What do you see coming down the pipeline?

Teddy Kirvin 19:21

Well, what we have done at RTO National is we've moved to technology. I'm gonna be honest with you. Technology is where it's at right now. We integrate with different companies and we could do a whole self-checkout. They can pick a shed if the dealer, we have dealers and and if they have a website, let's say any type of website, you could put your inventory right online. The customer can go, click it from there. They can choose to do a cash payment, a rent to own, or a finance. We do traditional finance as well. I think that that's where we're moving to, to be honest with you, Pete, is more tech savvy. I mean, the customers now are are our age or even younger. And have you ever gone a day without looking at your cell phone?

Pete Shau 20:00

Oh, let me tell you. I I hate to say it, but I think me and everybody else in America is like pinned to our phones.

Teddy Kirvin 20:05

Yeah, today I bought my groceries from Instacart. An app, right? An app. It's an app. Uh so my groceries came to me. Now I everything I buy now is online, to be honest with you.

Pete Shau 20:17

I have to agree. I think I think rent to own is always gonna have that traditional mindset because of the way it was formed and and and made. But I will say that I believe at somewhere down the pipeline, rent to own will be an app.

Teddy Kirvin 20:29

I do believe that as well, Pete. It's a different client base. You're still gonna need the brick and mortar stores for your clients into those areas that you're in, but there's different people out there that use rent to own. I think I saw you guys are doing uh 12 month same as cash now.

Pete Shau 20:44

We have 12 months same as cash on select sets.

Teddy Kirvin 20:46

Yeah, 12 months that that's unheard of. I've never even heard of that. And I was just like, wow, that's amazing. But 12 months same as cash speaks to a different person than a traditional rent, the old school rent-to-own customer with a 90-day same as cash or just give me the lowest payment that I can get. You're talking 12 months same as cash. Imagine that. You're not you're not putting that on your credit. What if there's somebody's gonna buy a house? I mean, those those things happen all the time, Pete. You're talking people making just not our traditional clients. They are they're they're different clients.

Pete Shau 21:17

Well, when you talk about a slow day, right? And and and we also want to remember that the interactions with customers can also benefit from a slow day. So when you're sitting down, let's say you finally get somebody in the door, somebody on the phone, make sure that you use that even to sharpen your own, to hone your own blade, to hone your own skills. Go over that agreement 100% and make sure that you fill in all the blanks and you let them know everybody has this stigma of rent to own. We're gonna tell you exactly how much you're gonna pay, exactly what time frame you have to pay. And then when you take care of it, there's a time frame where it just ends. You make these payments, it stops. Now, a traditional credit card, you get that, right? And that could last for 10 years. You make the minimum payments, it actually lasts 15 or 20, right? And they're not gonna tell you that. When you buy a car for $30,000. They say, hey, it's a $30,000 sale, and this is how much you pay a month for five years. Go ahead and take those payments and add it up over five years. It's not $30,000. It's going to be a lot more than you think, right? So let's be up front and discuss this with you. Give you what we're going to do and what we expect from you. Because we know that you're going to expect something from us. So let's go over that with you and make that slow day a training day for the customer, for yourself, for your employees. Talking about rent home going to an app, right now there's somebody that we use for our marketing, and they are tech savvy, and that's Unlimited Marketing Solutions. Unlimited Marketing Solutions is a social media marketing company that can market directly to your specific customer base and provide solid and trackable results. Unlimited Marketing Solutions are also extremely flexible to meet your unique needs and budget and are currently running a promotion for 10% discount off your first six months of marketing. When you mention the code RTO show, that's R T O S H O W when you call them at 352-553-3245. You can also email them at unlimited marketing solutions LLC at gmail.com. I mean, how great is it to be able to hit a button, sell somebody something, and boom, not only do they get what they need, you haven't been able to you don't have to do anything.

Teddy Kirvin 23:10

You don't have to do anything. We're just talking here. I do believe that the the order form is going to have to change with that, though. That's just going to be the future. You're going to have to change it. The four references, maybe that's a little much. Maybe you you move it down to two.

Pete Shau 23:24

That's that that's just how many references do you guys use? One. One reference, really.

Teddy Kirvin 23:28

One reference, no ID. They just they don't even have to be the land, the the landowner. It's a different, but it is also, remember, it's there is a huge difference between a shed and a and a TV and something. It is a huge difference. Yeah. Well, you maybe surprised. I don't know. Maybe, maybe, maybe they can. I don't know, but it that does happen. The shed is normally in the yard and it's kind of hard to move. It's possible, but I don't want to give anybody anybody any ideas.

Pete Shau 23:55

But I mean, you usually strap it down. Isn't it like strapped down for like hurricane winds? Isn't that how it works?

Teddy Kirvin 24:00

In Florida. So you do you have different codes that you have to go by. Florida is a little different than Georgia. Georgia is a little different than Alabama. But yes, in Florida, they need to be strapped down.

Pete Shau 24:10

Well, on a slow day, don't go looking for you know sheds in the yards, right?

Teddy Kirvin 24:15

Don't go looking for sheds.

Pete Shau 24:16

But you know, just to recap on what we've done, Teddy, I and I know I really appreciate the advice that you've been able to give. But listen, guys, whether it's my advice, whether it's Teddy's advice, take a look at these. Make sure that you do a look at your files. Make sure you do callbacks from previous deliveries. Make sure you take the check, the the tagging and the packaging, make sure that you follow your paperwork. Make sure that you don't send anybody home inadvertently when you could be training them or using them.

Teddy Kirvin 24:42

Uh as Teddy said, Don't walk over a dollar to make a nickel.

Pete Shau 24:45

There you go, man. Don't walk over dollars to make nickels. You know, get your sales calls in. Pete would check his reports. Teddy wouldn't do that. Danny probably wouldn't either. But, you know, move your 90-day, check on your 90-day, refurbish. You know, another thing that that I wanted to say that I didn't add to it, but this would be a good day if you have somebody in a store to do that business-to-business marketing, right? You go to somebody else who has something different than what you have, right? We do furniture and appliances and things like that. What if you go to an eatery? What if you go to a car cleaning place? What if you go to a dry cleaning place and you get with them and maybe they can offer your customers something that you don't offer, and you can offer their customer something that they don't offer and in return benefit from both. And if you create that network of people in your area, how much better is it to not only have your guys working all the time to sell, but having the other business in the area helping you because you're helping them? And on top of that, it gets your name out there, right? So if they're going someplace that they would never see you, but now they see your name, how great is that?

Teddy Kirvin 25:44

Pete, I'll be honest with you, I'm a little disappointed. Danny's not here. Where is Danny?

Pete Shau 25:49

Right now, he's on the boat. Danny is on the boat singing the cha-cha-cha. He actually FaceTimed me from the shore of Mexico to talk-ish about him being there and me not. Oh, yeah. He was about eight deep into margaritas, and he just wanted to make sure that uh I knew he was having a lot of time.

Teddy Kirvin 26:06

I don't blame him for going there.

Pete Shau 26:08

You know, listen, I except for the fact that there's actually a hurricane out there and he's got to deal with that. I hope that he's uh having a great time and I hope that you know he comes back safely. But coming into how to handle a slow day, we've got a lot of tips. Listen, guys, if you guys have anything that you want to talk about, or if you want to add to our our list of things that we would talk about here, including how to handle a slow day, hit us up. Uh, you can go to our website at the rto showpodcast.com. That's the rto show podcast.com, and you can scroll down and see what we have there. We do have the shirts up for the merchandises up now. You can go to our emails at Pete at the RTO Showpodcast.com or Danny at the rto showpodcast.com. We both have different opinions about the same thing. That if you haven't seen that lately, let me tell you, we have different opinions about the same thing. And I think that's what makes this work. Please like and share us on social media or go to your favorite uh podcast listening spot, whether you Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon, and click that subscribe button. Hit us up, and that is today's episode for the RTO show with Danny and Pete.