RTO Legend: Bill Keese of APRO

A budget shortfall, a hostile hearing, and a tax threat big enough to sink an industry—this conversation with APRO legend Bill Keese reveals how Rent-To-Own survived and matured. We open with Bill’s unlikely path from state legislator to executive director and move straight into the fiscal triage that rebuilt APRO’s foundation: cutting costs, rethinking staff, and—crucially—resetting dues so the largest chains paid their share. That quiet, early fix powered a bold advocacy playbook when the IRS and Congress turned up the heat.

Bill walks us through the two-track strategy that changed everything: choosing a dealer with pristine records to fight in tax court while running a coordinated push for legislative clarity. The team hired a firm anchored by the former chief judge of the U.S. Tax Court and mobilized dealers for high-impact, face-to-face meetings on the Hill. The payoff was decisive—a Revenue Procedure confirming lease treatment for tax purposes, preserving cash flow, jobs, and customer access. Alongside policy, we dig into perception: how a single comment about an “image problem” sparked a PR overhaul, national-quality ads for small dealers, and smarter media choices that stopped bad narratives before they spread.

From there, we map the steady climb of state RTO laws, the tension between federal uniformity and local control, and the realities of consolidation—keeping one-store operators and national chains equally invested in the association’s mission. Bill shares candid stories about congressional skirmishes, unlikely allies, and the grassroots stamina that still anchors the industry. He closes with field-tested advice for owners and operators: reinvent every five years, stay visible in your community, and treat advocacy like essential maintenance. Subscribe, share this episode with a colleague, and leave a review with the one lesson you’ll act on this quarter.

Transcript

Opening And Book Giveaway

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi, I'm Peach Cow. You may know me from the Art's Go Show podcast, but today, I'm doing something a little bit different. Apro and Wildbrands 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 Red Zone. After their stories, their impact, and their vision for the future. And now, I get to share those conversations with people. Right from the legends themselves. A new book. The Red Zone Revolution is definitive history, advocacy and historic, written by April Studios called Intimate, and Wild Red Studio Wildcraft. The book explores the grassroots of RTO, the advocacy that is defined, and the future that we're building together. Here's where you come in. We're giving away free copies once the book is released. Just head over to 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. I'm your host, Pete Chow, and today I have the honor of talking to another Rent to Own legend. And I can honestly tell you that this one gets me very excited because this is some tenure shift that you just see in legend, and that's why we have this legend series. I'm here with the legendary Bill Keys, who has done quite a bit in his tenureship with Rent2Own, including the director of April for 27 years. 27 amazing years, from what I understand. What I'm being told by the other legends. Bill, how are you doing today? How's everything going? I'm doing great. Thank you very much for asking.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

It's a pretty day here in Galveston.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

All right. I love Texas. I love Texas. If I wasn't in Florida, I promise you, I would be in Texas.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

There you go.

Introducing Bill Keese And APRO Tenure

SPEAKER_00 2:02

So I gotta know, you you did 27 years as the director, the executive director of APRO. How did you first hear about the rent-to-owned industry and what put you on that path to becoming the executive director?

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Um actually, a high school friend of mine was first hired by uh uh APRO to be their government relations director, named Ron Waters. He and I went to high school together. We also serve in the legislature together, so uh uh kept up all these years. He uh he got the job and he was telling me that that uh uh they wanted to hire an executive director and that he wanted the job. But it came about and I uh saw it in the paper. I applied, and and not too long out of distance, I got a a call to be interviewed by the executive committee. It was uh it's in the uh uh April office. They had a uh office with a common boardroom for everybody. Dick Grow was president. There was Mac Hinnigan, Wayne Chambers, Dave Egan, Ted Wilson, and uh Wayne and Wayne Chambers all present. And it was a very nice interview, very good interview. I felt very relaxed, very comfortable around these guys. I thought this was really something that I could be a part of and enjoy for a long time. The one funny part of it is after they quizzed me, they asked me if I had any questions for them. And I said, sure. Is this a financially stable organization? And uh I should have guessed because they all started looking around at each other. Finally, Ed Wynne said, sure, we have a$1.2 million budget. After I was uh hired, I found out quickly that we had$700,000 revenue coming in. So it was uh that was my first big challenge is put April on a financial uh solid financial footing.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

So I'm glad you got into that because we were going to approach that later on. I actually do have a lot of questions on that because I did find out recently through the other legends that there was some issues that when you came aboard, not anything that you had done, but what you had taken over, because I really want to know some of the approaches that you took. But was this the first time as you go into this board meeting, you read about this job, is this actually the first time you you've heard about rent to own and APRO as a whole?

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Yes, I didn't uh know anything about APRO, didn't know APRO existed. I had uh very little information about rent to own. I remember back as a kid uh hearing some of Chuck Sims' TV and radio ads, and that's about the only exposure I had. So uh it was I was come in blind.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

So you said Ron Waters and yourself had gone to high school together, and that you were in the legislature together? Did I hear that right? Yes, yes.

Path To APRO And Political Roots

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Uh uh I've I've had a prior to April, and one of the questions that the executive committee had was, you seem to have bounced around a lot, Bill. Is that something we should be concerned about? After high college, I went to work for the state treasurer's office. After that, I had an opportunity to buy a little restaurant in a small town in central Texas. I moved there with my family, bought this restaurant for the sole purpose of meeting a lot of people in a hurry so I could run for the legislature. My goal had always been to be in politics since I was seven years old. And this was my opportunity. So I bought this little cafe in Somerville, Texas, and after a year I announced I was running for election against the incumbent. And there was a former incumbent in the race also at the time. And of course, nobody gave me a snowball chance to win. But I outcampaigned them. I uh touched the nerve and uh made it in the runoff. And a month later I beat the incumbent and was uh had no opposition in the fall. So I I served three terms in the legislature. Wonderful experience. It was just uh, I mean, I still have great friends from that period of time. Uh and look back with fond memories and the battles and the war scars that we had together, and some fun times too. But uh it was plenty on running for state treasurer uh when my marriage fell apart, and I decided that uh I wanted to be a part of my daughter's life. So we had a legal battle ending up in a five-day jury trial, and I won custody of her. So I couldn't do a whole lot in politics with a four-year-old daughter. But it was great. It was a great honor for me and a great privilege in my life to have a child and raise her as closely as I did. After that, I uh um went to work for Schlosski's uh as the home office. I was vice president of franchising for Schlosski's for five years. Then I um a friend of mine from my legislative days uh was putting in a railroad, luxury passenger railroad from Denver to state Denver Stapleton Airport to Aspen, Colorado. And he contacted me and asked me if I would run the campaign for him. Uh so uh uh as uh time would have it, I decided, you know, living in Aspen might not be too bad. So I uh took the job, moved to Aspen, and had an unlimited expense account. And I was the uh uh the voice and the image of the railroad. It was a six-month battle, and uh we won the right to pull the railroad in. We won an election both county and in city to allow the railroad to come in. Uh, and that was quite an experience, as you can well imagine. After that, uh I went back to work for the Attorney General's office for a little while in the budgeting department and heard about this opportunity, and and uh I explained this to the group, and that's when Wayne Chambers said, Well, you bounced around a lot, and we have concerns about that. And I said, No, I think that gives me great experience to do what you need to have done. They bought my line and you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

That's exactly what I agree with you 100%. I because you not you had the experience in the legal, you know, when you're talking about the legislator and you're talking about the government, and that that's really what APRO does, and that's the role you stepped in. And I think that's that that would say why you did so well for so many years, because you had that experience dealing with it.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

One of the fun things, my first convention was in Washington, D.C., when April was kicking off their uh federal legislative effort. Um, at the main party, I was supposed to be there, but I had a friend who uh was the personnel director of George H.W. Bush's White House. And uh he called me up and said, Well, you're in in town, why don't you come have dinner at the White House? So I had to talk to Dick Grow and see if I could have permission to not be at the most important party of the convention and go over to the White House to have dinner. And of course, he agreed that that was a very important thing for me to do. So uh I missed the party, but I established it.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

Yeah, yes, I completely agree. Well, I tell you what, that's uh that's quite a story. So make it, and I've got to say, just a little bit of a side note, I have daughters myself, and I can appreciate the fact of understanding what needs to come first. The family is something that you cannot replace, the time you cannot replace, the people you cannot replace. And so I definitely understand making the decision to put that first. And I, you know, I I've got to say, from from a fat one father to another, I understand your decision, and I'm glad you made it.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Um, thank you. You know, I a little bit later, and I see a little bit later, I had uh the Speaker of the House, Jim Wright, in Congress, Washington, call me up and asked me if I'd run for Congress from that district. Uh he would uh back me and he'd provide all the financial support for me. But my by that time my daughter was nine years old, and I said being in Congress was a lifelong dream, but no thanks. I have to raise my daughter. And she's 50.

APRO’s Budget Crisis And Fix

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Yeah. And I'm sure she's doing wonderful at this point in time. She is. Great family. Awesome. So now comes 1989. You see the ad, you go in, you get through this interview, which seems like you know, you when you mention these names, you have an amazing set of names in front of you.$1.2 million budget and a$700,000 income. So now you've got this shortfall. You you've got quite a, I mean,$500,000 is quite a difference. You know, some of the other legends had mentioned, I think Kevin Quinn had mentioned at a certain point, there were there was a time when April was in trouble. And there were people either backing away or kind of coming out of the idea that maybe April wasn't the organization that they needed to be a part of. Yet it is a striving organization now. What did you do at that time frame? How did you recognize some of the shortfalls that were happening? And what did you do to overcome what was going on at that point in time?

Dues Overhaul And Member Rebuild

The IRS Threat And Strategy

SPEAKER_01 10:49

Well, the first thing was overcoming the immediate shortfall. I had to take the budget and cut it. It was not a budget that I put together, but one that was I inherited. I had to make the cuts where I thought necessary, rearrange the personnel, brought in some, uh I had a bookkeeper on full staff. I let her go. I brought in uh CPA in the background who would then uh help me hire an accounting student at UT and uh he would fill out some forms for the CPA, and the CPA did it for a third of the cost that the uh staff was charging me. And you know, uh I had I had to review the bills due every day. There were times when I went a week or two after my pay period for me to get my paycheck. Uh I made sure my staff got paid on time, and I made sure that the important bills were paid. But there was a about six, eight months where we had some vendors calling us up and saying, Well, where's our check? And I they jumped to the head of the head of the line, top of the head, uh top of the mountain mountain there, uh, to get paid. But it was kind of touching to go there for a while. The big thing was I noticed you want to review what the membership looks like at first and who's participating, uh, how many stores they had. We had a dues uh budget that was based on um revenue. And uh but it had a cap of$7,700. And I found that Rena Center had gone public by that time. They had uh I think 1,200 stores, and it came out where they were paying about$35,$36 a store, where the one store operators are paying$250 a store. And uh didn't think that was quite fair. So Dave Egan uh with Rena Center as a general counsel, became a good close friend of mine. I went to him and said, Dave, you know, y'all have to pony up. You need to pay a little more dues. He took it to Tom Devlin and they agreed. So they didn't quite pay the same per store as uh the one store operator did, but uh they they knuckled under and paid a lot more money, but they should have. So that got us out of the many financial problems. That was in '89 and '90. About that time in 1990, Ian Chambers had uh been snooping around the industry and in his own books and the federal government. And he uh called me up and said, you know, we have a real tax liability problem uh that could destroy the industry if we don't jump on it and fix it. The IRS uh could have uh taxed us uh for all revenue at one time when we just get a weekly payment in at a time. Uh and that would our members couldn't pay the the dues, the taxes. So I called for a uh a meeting in Atlanta, and uh the board was there and we put out a call to every rental dealer in the country to come to it, and most of them did. And Wayne laid out the situation for everybody and said, you know, we need we need to fix this, and we need to fix this quickly. We started that. We we started a uh a fund, a legal and legislative uh defense fund, and we asked members to contribute to that. And they were very generous. They raised uh we raised a lot of money each year for that. We had a two-year jump on the fact that uh the IRS hadn't seen what Wayne had seen, and we weren't being taxed at the uh at the full price. When that came about, when they uh it first came about when Henry B. Gonzalez, a congressman from uh San Antonio, Texas, and chairman of the House Banking Committee, uh decided that he wanted to have an investigative hearing on the rent owned industry. Well, you can imagine that sent shockwaves through the industry. And we're being investigated by Congress now. So uh uh we had a lobby firm that was representing us, and I didn't think much of them. A guy reached out to me, John Rafielli, who was the lobbyist, um, and a young lobbyist starting out, and I met with him. He flew down to Austin, I met with him, and I just had this feeling that he was the right guy. He was hungry. Uh lobby firm we had were in DC, and and they were the three-piece suit guys, and and they had uh platinum uh clients, and uh we needed somebody to fight for us. So I fired uh the that our first uh uh lobby firm and then hired John. He led us through a lot of battles, and I attribute a lot of our success to John. When Gonzalez had this hearing and got there, I I testified along with Mamie Harkler. And before we got there, I went up to Joseph Kennedy Jr. He was on the uh uh the committee and I'd met him in my met him during my political life several times. So I went up to him and said, Congressman, uh, you know, I hope uh we can explain to you what our our industry is like and uh hope we can get you on our side. He said, Bill, I I um I know the industry, and it's uh it's not the transaction, it's you guys have an image problem. And that led to later things, which I'll get to in a little bit. But that hearing went well. We had enough strength on the committee to block Gonzalez's bill. We had a bill in that committee. Gonzalez blocked our bill. And playing defense like that, you you consider that a win. That went on a long time. Henry was was uh a dog against us, just really wanted to get us, but uh never could get us. Raphaelli helped us navigate those uh terrains real well. Um and we we fought, we uh organized our legislative conference, annual legislative conference. We sent rental dealers up to Washington to go meet with their members. We covered so many of them because we had such a great turnout of our members. And I always knew that grassroots campaigning is the most effective you can have. So they explained what their business was and how important their business was to their communities, how many people they serve, the uh benefit to the customer they provide, that the customer has really no other alternative. And we started gaining a lot of a lot of uh sympathy, a lot of trust, and a lot of support in Congress. About the same time, the IRS sent out a notice that they were looking at our transaction from a tax perspective perspective. This was two years after Wayne brought it to our industry's attention. Ed and I went to Washington, D.C. to interview a law firm to help us. We had a two-part strategy. One, we were going to pick a rental dealer that had great records and challenge this in the uh tax court. And the other uh, but alongside of that, we were going to have a legislative effort where we try to get the legislature, Congress to declare us a lease for tax purposes, not a sale. That was an interesting dichotomy. Dick Grell was the rental dealer that we selected. He at that time had a fairly large, had about 35 stores, and was one of the ones that uh was really highly computerized at the time, way before most of the rental dealers were computerized. And he had uh a couple years worth of uh data for him. So he agreed to um be audited by the IRS, which was a bold move on his part. And we wouldn't have been successful had not he agreed to do that. That went through the courts. When Ed and I went up to Washington, we looked at several law firms to represent us. And the one that I liked Ed and I differed at first on this, but I liked Vincent Elkins. They're a big law firm out of Houston. They have offices in D.C. and around the world now. But Judge William Sterrett uh had just retired as a chief judge of the tax court, the federal tax court. And he was uh uh working for Vincent Elkins in Washington. And uh we had got him to represent us. Who better to represent us than the former Chief Justice? So uh uh You don't get much better than that. That that was uh that was an amazing thing. I think Ed came around and saw that this was the right move to make. He had the political connection and you know, a lot of people, even today, don't understand the importance of political connections. In in anything you do, I used to tell my daughter uh when she was in grade school that everything is political. And you need to sit in front of the teacher's desk and wear the nice clothes the first couple of weeks and set us set a tone for it. But when we had uh Judge Sterrett as our uh representative against the IRS, and then we had a mountain of grassroots support from our members for our legislative effort. Dick Shelby was the senator, was a senator of the Senate Finance uh uh committee. We were working on him a lot, uh good man, and uh we raised a lot of money for him. At one point we had a big uh affair in in Washington, D.C. and gave him some money. We thought it was quite a bit of money, and he said, gosh, folks, uh I was expecting a uh brink trucks to pull up here and unload some more money for me. But uh that didn't happen. But he uh he stuck with us and we solved the problem. Uh we were almost ready to go to tax court uh when uh the IRS commissioner needed$900 million for a new computer system for the IRS. And it just so happens that John Raffielli's wife worked for the commissioner of the IRS. We knew that from the very beginning. So she accompanied, John's wife accompanied the commissioner of the IRS to Senator Shelby's office. And John prepped Senator Shelby on this, and the uh commissioner said, Senator, you know, we're in need of$900 million for the computer system. And Shelby leaned back in his desk and said, uh, well, I'll take that in advisement. Uh what are you gonna do about the rent owned boys? And uh she said, Well thought a minute said, uh we can the IRS can issue a Rev proc uh next week saying that they're uh uh they're a lease for uh a rental for tax purposes. So she got her$900 million and we got a Rev Proc saying that we were a lease. Uh that was that is amazing. That was a great time. That was a great celebration by the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

John Raffielli's name has come up several times, and you know, talking with some of the other legends, I think it was Bill French that said this. Bill was like, you know, it's it's crazy that we went through what we went through with Henry B. Gonzalez because we've had some meetings and we've had some uh conventions in the Henry B. Gonzalez building in Texas. So it's just one of those things. It's ironic. Well, yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

I know at some point uh John, if you if you want a fascinating interview, get John and have have him on podcast.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

We're gonna try to do that. I I'm sure the stories he could tell us. So I got a question. You mentioned Ted Wilson coming on around the same time, and you've mentioned him later on. How did Ted Wilson's arrival coincide with yours? And how did you guys work together? How was that dynamic?

Congressional Battles And Image Problem

SPEAKER_01 21:55

Well, it was interesting. When I was first hired, Dick Grella was a President of APRO. I was hired three weeks before the convention. By the time convention came about, um Ted was uh being asked by several people to run against Dick for president of APRO, and Ted agreed to it. Now I didn't know Ted very well by that time, but I'd had three weeks with Dick Grow. And uh Dick had made some great promises to me about uh my future. And so I was I stayed out of it, of course, but uh I was pulling for the best man to win, and uh Ted Wilson won that year. He was on the search firm that found me. He was secretary, I believe, at the time, or treasury, one of the two. And so he knew about that and he decided to run. And Ted did a remarkable job. Ted and I got together to put a road show together, and the two of us traveled around the country talking about April. April was losing members left and right. There was a battle between April and TRIB, and uh we went down to Trib's meeting with our hat in our hand and said, you know, that we're gonna be different. This is gonna be a different APRO. We need your support. And uh we we went had a dog and pony show we went around the country with. So Ted played a very important role in re-establishing trust and confidence in the association.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

So you mentioned what you did to create a different revenue stream or or how you affected the finances to change the$700,000 versus the$1.2 million you know budget. What were some of the things that you implemented that got people to see April in a different light, that got them to come aboard? And you you got more people to say, you know what, this is not the April that it was. This is a new, this is a new April under these, under this guidance and under this leadership. What were some of the things that you did to say this is this is where we are now?

SPEAKER_01 23:50

Several things. The first thing is my predecessor was not a very personal person, and he stayed in the office and didn't travel very much. I made it a point to travel to every state association meeting, anywhere that rental dealers were meeting, and then I I would be there. I would go to uh corporate headquarters, corporate headquarters, and meet with the the management team about April, and I told them about my background in legislative efforts and and what we accomplish and we can accomplish together. Uh and I told them about uh some of the things I did uh innovative in my uh running this campaign for the railroad, uh for my restaurant that I had. And uh, you know, I I could talk their language and we we we communicated very well. I think they could see in my f in my eyes that I was serious about things and I needed their help. You know, always when you're in trouble, you you have to go out and ask for help. And people will respond, good people will respond if you ask for help. And uh just made a point to show that helping April will help them. That was that was a big part. Uh we also, I know my first uh uh jewelry was coming in uh at that time as a new uh uh rental product, and everybody was hush-hush about it. Dave Egan uh with Rena Center. Dave was absolutely opposed to it. He said that'll bring the industry down. Uh there's no way you can say that poor people need jewelry. And uh we tried to explain to that it's not just poor people, it's anybody that wants some jewelry for just a little while. So my very first April magazine put that as a I had a pros and con of uh jewelry. I had a jewelry vendor uh write write the pro, be interviewed for the pro, and I had Ed win as a con. Because Ed also thought it would be devastating to the industry. And then I the cover of the magazine uh was a green cover with a gold chain wrapped around it uh as a piece of jewelry uh in a question mark. And I think that let everybody know that we're willing to take some risk. You know, rental dealers are notorious for pushing the envelope. And I think prior to that, Apro was kind of not so much there to push the envelope. And I think they found a partner in Rent Own through APRO by pushing the envelope. And you know, it was I had a personal thing. I told the staff anytime a rental dealer calls, put them through to me directly. Don't ask, just put them through to me. If I'm at a not at my desk, find me. I want to talk to them. So I was always available to them. And it's just it's like anything. If you make a personal connection, you're you're way ahead of the game.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

Well, I can tell you right now, I think Charles takes after you. Uh Charles is in every RDA, I think in every gathering that I can think of now. You know, we we sometimes make a joke of it, you know, like where's Waldo? Where's Charles at today? Yeah, I've literally seen him go to an event, go have to go to another event, and then come back to finish the event that he's at, because I think he's taken a uh a bit of it from you that you have to be where it's at in the RDAs and the meetings, and uh, you know, being being a part of the rent-owned industry doesn't mean being one part of it. It's it's being one part of it with an association with the other as a whole, and it's how each part can be a partnership to the whole.

Winning Tax Clarity With Rev Proc

SPEAKER_01 27:19

And I have to say, I'm very impressed with Charles from a distance. Even one of the one of his board members called me up and said, Charles reminds me of you, Bill, when you were young. So uh I took that as a big compliment. And uh Charles is doing a hell of a fine job.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

So adding these members in was a part of going to Trib, laying, laying down these lines of hey, we're not we're not here to compete in the sense that we are against you, you're against us, we are competing football teams, but we are in this together to make things happen. And in the best interest of Rent to Own, let's work together and make this happen. So then APRO starts growing again. Trib is doing what it's doing. And then as you're going along, what were some of the, you know, some of the big battles besides Henry B. Gonzalez uh and and the IRS? Obviously, one of the biggest battles because uh you're not the only one who's mentioned the IRS is one of the trials and tribulations of what happened during those years. But what were some other legal battles, legislative battles that we were able to kind of say and look back on? Bill Keys feels good about this because we did this in the legislature.

Rebuilding Trust And Industry Outreach

SPEAKER_01 28:35

Well, we had a program of going and organizing state associations to get state laws passed. And that was a team effort. Ron Waters was my government affairs director, he would do a lot of the traveling. Chris Kors with the Renaissance Renaissance was very generous in allowing Chris a flexibility to go everywhere he's needed. And I would try to rally the troops behind it. So it was a three-way head on there, and you know, we were very successful. I believe that there were 13 state laws in 1989, could be off a little bit, and I think we got up to uh 38 or 39 when I left. And state associations. Well, I I formed a state association committee on the board. I had a staff person devoted strictly to the state associations to help them do their programming, their whatever they needed. And we had a lot of legal battles. We had we had a battle in Pennsylvania. It was a big one. Ernie Priate was the attorney general in Pennsylvania at the time, and he wanted to put the rental own business out of business out of business. And we finally managed that, but we had a bill that could have passed, but it didn't, to f be favored to the industry. But we fought him for many years. But when he did that, I got a call from it was uh uh gosh, it was uh a nationally recognized uh news show. He was on CNN a lot, and he wanted to have a debate, me and on the on national TV debating Ernie Preate. And of course, I was certainly willing to do that and uh certainly prepared to do it, but uh we decided we needed a PR firm. We hired a PR firm out of Washington, and they one of the first things they did, they called up CNN and said, you know, this is not a story, that this is not that big of a story. You don't want to uh air this. So they talked this interview from happening, which was a win for us. When you go up against uh attorney general saying very bad things about you know nationwide, you just don't want that. So we were able to stop it before it took place. That was one. Our PR firm helped out many times back when when the business started slowing down a little bit in the rent-to-owned industry, we still were gathering money for marketing and legislative efforts. And we came up with a uh program, a PR program for the dealers, for the small dealers. The big guys didn't need it, but small dealers needed it. And Ernie Llewellyn took the lead on this, it was his committee, and we created national uh commercials that we gave away free to our members. And Richard May, on my staff, had a childhood friend who was an was a um um illustrator, uh stop motion animation illustrator for Disney. And we got him on the fly to work, and we created this uh dog because the dog is friendly and everybody likes dogs, to create this friendly looking dog, and we made commercials using stop motion animation, which was really difficult. Ernie and and Richard and I flew to uh uh San Francisco where the studio was, and we watched him make the commercials, exposed that commercial to our membership, and gave it away free to the small dealers. And that was one of the things that helped them out get a better image. At that time, some of our rental dealers were running TV ads that uh showed uh uh at a junkyard with a claw grabbing a a uh uh sofa and raising it up a hundred feet in the air and dropping it. And they say, see, our sofas are made to last. Well, that's not the kind of image we wanted. And going back to Joe Kennedy when he said, You guys have an image problem that haunted all of us, but uh we took action on that and uh at the April office, and we worked very hard to explain to everybody our image is so very critical and so very important. The PR uh effort, the commercials was one phase of that effort.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

I mean, I think it definitely worked because you know, I I do remember those days when it was very, very difficult to shake that moniker of, hey, you know, this it's not what you think. And there are so many beneficial sides to having rent to own in any community, and it was just always that you know, that idea, like, oh, you know, you guys are loan sharking, you guys are predator lending. And to be able to explain that on any level is huge. You know, I have to agree with you, going back just a hair, uh, with all the state laws that ended up being passed, and I agree with you, with those 20-something that came along as you were uh the executive director in APRO, I you know, I talked to Edwin uh a couple of times, and in Ed's minds, those were the wins that really made the difference because maybe not so much having something on a federal level. He he doesn't think that that's an actual win, but having it on the state level in as many states as we do, the way it was done, that was really the win for APRO as far as legality, getting it passed in as many states as you had, especially at that time and then going forward, because those laws allowed each an individual state, because you know, states are like people, they're all the same, but they're different. And so, you know, you have the ability to tweak it to what your constituents need, what the people in your state really want, but still be able to present it as a win for the rent-owned industry. Do you feel like the state wins was a better win than maybe getting a federal law passed?

SPEAKER_01 33:57

Well, I agree that they were they were crucial for us getting a legal operating environment for us. But uh you have to realize there's the large companies. And around this time, there started there started a large uh consolidation effort by uh certain people. At one point, we had, I think, seven publicly traded companies and fewer and fewer companies with more and more stores. They're buying up rural deals all over the place. And they were multi-state. Well, it's costly and sometimes very, very difficult to train your people into 18 different laws they have to follow if you have stores in 18 different states. So the idea of trying to get a federal bill was this overreaching thing that said maybe we can consolidate the laws and so that it might make it easier for the large companies to uh to function and make it easier for everybody. But as it turns out, we've never made we were able to get a federal bill passed in the House, one Congress, but not in the Senate. We get it the next time we get it passed in the Senate, but not in the House. Uh so it was uh when I left, it was a 20-year effort that was not very successful, but it spun off a lot of success.

State Laws, PR Push, And Small Dealer Support

SPEAKER_00 35:07

Well, I think that I think that's the way you got to look at it, right? Not all losses are losses. Losses are teachers and implementations on how to do things differently and how to get it right another way. And uh I agree that you know seeing it from a fragmentative point of a lot of states versus a one large company could be difficult. I think that I think there's something to be said on both sides of that, but I do understand what you're saying about having one large company having several different ways to interact, teach, train, and uh implement their processes through through the you know state lines. So I I definitely get that.

SPEAKER_01 35:47

After consolidation, one of the things I noticed uh in the association world, a lot of industries will come about, and when uh consolidation starts taking place, the bigger companies come to a point where they don't think that the trade association is that valuable to them. So we had to make sure that we were helping out our one-store operators and giving them value, but also giving Runner Center and Aaron's the value that they were looking for to stay in the association. Because April couldn't exist, and a lot of associations have gone under because they lose the big guys once they get to a certain point, and they don't think this the association is valuable anymore. So that was always the back of my mind. I have to keep everybody. I completely agree.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

Now, so the federal bill, whether it went through or not, that was one of the biggest, you know, that was that was a that was on the biggest stage. And it could have fundamentally changed the way rent to own went, left, right, north, south. It would have made a change, whether it did or it did. What were some other huge things that could have changed the way RTO was implemented? And, you know, we either got passed or we didn't get passed, but there was was there anything else in your time frame that would have made a huge difference in the way RTO interacted as a whole? Or there was something that got passed?

SPEAKER_01 37:09

Federally, there's uh you know the two big issues that affect everybody was the regulatory issue and the tax issue. And we got that behind us in the early 90s, basically. So after that, there were some areas that we wanted to tweak when uh the consumer financial consumer financial protection agency was being created. It turns out that Elizabeth Warren was had gotten elected to uh the Senate and she was pushing this. Well, she used to be Ed Wynn's next door neighbor. The consequences the ironies about this thing is just incredible. But we the we had more insight to Elizabeth Warren when we were doing that. So we had to gear up to make sure that once that entity was created, that they wouldn't turn the power of that federal agency against us. And we kept a very close eye in Washington legislatively on keeping that intact, keeping them at arm's length from us.

SPEAKER_00 38:08

Well, that didn't, I mean, that didn't end. I don't think it ended then either. I remember not this past year, but the year before. Maybe it was this past year, but it was the year before. I remember being at LedgeCon, and one of the messages that we wanted to pass through our, you know, our bodies, our legislative bodies in DC, was that, you know what, we we kind of want to stay away from the CFPB and remind them that we are not credit. It's not a credit situation, and we'd like to leave it the way it's it's been set up state by state. You know, this is not a credit transaction, and if you change it that way, there are businesses, there are people, there are lives, there are careers, there are owners, taxpayers, and there are community members, our clients, that will be affected by that. And we we didn't want to have that issue. So, you know, I I I think it's I think it's always come up one way or another over these years. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 38:58

You know, no matter whether you get a law or not, the law can always be changed. So you have to have eternal vigilance in the governmental bodies that regulate you. So, you know, I'm very happy to see a went on the website today and see photos from the uh last legislative conference and the legislative conference scheduled for next year. That's we should never let that go. When we do that, that'll start the end of our industry. But that's not going that's an ongoing battle and it should be fought every year. Absolutely.

Federal vs State Strategy And Consolidation

SPEAKER_00 39:29

I you know, I was gonna say, oh, they started this fellows program where they have certain companies and entities trying to bring new and fresh people to the legislative conference in DC to get them to see what it is like to advocate for their industry. Actually, I'm going to do my best, and I haven't worked it out with April fully yet, but I want the uh the podcast, whether it becomes part of the fellows program or whether I do it on the side, my goal is to also bring somebody from the rent-one industry along with me as I do that. So I want to join the fellows program and bring somebody along because that's how much I believe in making sure that they see how important it is to advocate. Not and I love the idea because, and I've said it before, and I'll probably say it a hundred times. Again, it's different when you have all of these companies come together under one flag to advocate for their business in their state and say that, you know, we are doing the right thing by our people, by our communities, and we want to stay doing what we're doing, and we'd we'd love your support to do that. I think it's one of the best things that I've ever seen in any industry do over these time frames. And, you know, something you mentioned, talking about different people and different things, you mentioned that there were other groups, other agencies, other organizations that didn't make it. What were some of the organizations that that April partnered with along the years that helped achieve some of the goals that we were trying to do? And who were the ones that didn't make it?

SPEAKER_01 40:54

I think in general, uh, you know, anytime a new product is introduced, you really have to get to know the product and the association that represents that product. I remember Julia mentioned Julie earlier, came on, it was very big in the industry for a while. It's not so big anymore if they even exist. But furniture, when I first came aboard, nobody had furniture in the stores. You know, that that was a revolutionary idea back in my day to bring furniture in. We can't do it because our stores aren't big enough for it. You know, it's too cumbersome. How can we store enough to be able to deliver on time? And you work with the uh the industry's the furniture industry's uh representatives to help them help you figure out how to do it in your association, in your membership. So nothing is in a vacuum. You have to realize I think that everything in life is how you connect with people, how you connect with organizations and find commonality and find common ground. And that's what EggPo is all about, and always has been.

SPEAKER_00 42:01

I can tell you I've only been doing this for now, it will be coming up 21 years. I still don't have, even though you've been out of it for a while, I still haven't gotten to your point, your level of experience in this and some of the things that you mentioned. I love, I love being able to kind of go over these things and kind of talk about it. Um going back a little bit, because we did talk about the IRS and and their ability to kind of put a really big damper on things and how we eventually overcame that. Was there how damaging was that? I mean, with the IRS situation and it looming, would we have lost the industry at that point in time? The industry would have changed.

SPEAKER_01 42:41

You know, uh when I was testifying for uh Congress before Henry B. Gonzalez, and I was rehearsing with uh Dave and Chris Corst and all those people and Ed, I told him, you know what I want to say is guys, hit us with your best shot because we can always come back. Because we're a very uh energetic, we're a very uh flexible industry. And we're not we're not concerned, we're not worried about you. And I'd say that's that's that's part of it, is that uh, you know, we had we not had the IRS said that we were a sale, that would have meant that they would we would have had to collect taxes on the entire price of the item, even though we're only getting a weekly or monthly payment of it. So it would the cash flow would have been totally upside down for all the real dealers, and and and that would have sent many of them out of business. And I I don't think it could have been a profitable business for anybody if it was.

SPEAKER_00 43:34

I can only imagine what a different landscape would look at rent to own.

CFPB Vigilance And Ongoing Advocacy

SPEAKER_01 43:40

Yeah. But I'm sure that the people you know, going back to Chuck Sims and Barry Gambini and Bud Holiday, they taught the industry, they founded this industry, and one of the most important messages they gave the industry is to be flexible and be nimble and overcome obstacles and don't let anything cut you down. And I had total faith that this industry would survive no matter what.

SPEAKER_00 44:03

Well, I can tell you right now, there's a lot of pioneers, a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of people that have a lot of grit. And I've learned to use that word sparingly because it means a lot more to me now than it did earlier in my life, that they have the grit to keep on and being uh, you know, to persevere in these times. You know what's funny, you mentioned furniture. I've only been doing it 21 years, and I we had furniture the day one that I started. I could not imagine this industry without furniture, you know, and it's it's crazy you say that. So, you know, looking backward also allows us to look forward. You've gone through a lot of, you know, you you were in it in four different decades in the 80s, the 90s, the 2000s, and the 2010s. You have seen a lot. Bill Cleese, you've done a lot. Let me ask you a question, Bill. If you were to take a snapshot today, and this is your opinion, looking forward, what is something that you can see in the future of rent to own, or maybe even in the future of April?

SPEAKER_01 45:00

First of all, the future's bright. There it will always be a demand for the rent own concept. It may be called something else. Throughout the years, we tried different names, rental purchase, uh, lease purchase, whatever, to try to avoid the stigma of rent owned. We finally agreed that you know, let's just face up to it, call it rent owned, be proud of it. But the people behind it uh in this industry, and you know, I've seen three generations come in this industry. Every every generation passes that grit, passes that innovation, passes that uh desire to uh improvise, passes that creativity to the next generation. And that is something that I think we can attribute to uh uh Chuck Sims, Barry Gambini, and and Bud Holiday. They taught us, they gave us that that uh that DNA. And you know, my 27 years, it was interesting. I saw a lot of uh valleys and mountaintops in the industry. And so that confirms my thinking that this industry will go on as long as uh people want to do it. Leaders want to be there as long as there are customers for it.

SPEAKER_00 46:15

And I can't see there'd be a time without that. So you left in 2015 as the executive director of April. What are you doing now, Bill? What is what has been captivating you for the last 10 years? Well, I left in 2016. 2016, I'm sorry, 2016.

What If IRS Had Won

SPEAKER_01 46:34

My wife is an architect, and uh the house we had in Austin spent 28 months re remodeling it to be something spectacular, and uh that took the year uh actually two years, my last year at Apro and and the year that I was retired to finish that project. And today an actor by the name of Glenn Powell lives in that house. He bought the house uh million dollars. Yeah, he bought the house for uh four and a half million dollars. We didn't no kidding, he didn't buy it for but uh Glenn Powell bought that house. And but uh you know I wanted to I traveled so much in those 27 years being on a plane all the time, uh being on the phone when I'm not on a plane. I get calls, you know, at 8 o'clock, nine o'clock, 10 o'clock at night uh a lot of times. And I, you know, I had to decompress. So we moved to Galveston, um bought a 1903 Victorian house, and um uh that was uh in uh 2018 and we've been uh 2017 and we've been uh working on ever since then. So I do a lot of tinkering around the house. Old houses need a lot of uh fixing up. So I I become a master carpenter, master plumber. Uh and it's it's uh it's good because I you know one thing in my life that with April is hard to see the end of a project. I never did see the end of of the federal effort. I did see the end of the tax problem and and stuff rarely can you see the end of uh of a project when you're in as executive director of an association because there's always things moving around. Uh so I wanted to see something, do something that I could see the beginning and the end of it, and the middle wasn't that large. My first year back in in Galliston, I decided that uh the uh Gallison needed new leadership, so I ran for mayor of Galliston. People thought I was crazy. I've had some help from some rural dealers, but mostly self-funded, and I didn't win, but I established a name in here in Galliston. I can still, you know, go to the grocery store and people come up to me, I don't know, and ask and say, Are you Bill Keys? So that uh that allowed us to integrate very quickly into the life of Galliston Island. When you run for mayor, you and it was a long campaign because of the uh the pandemic. But uh I I keep busy. I'm a member of a couple clubs. I was president of the rotary uh the rotary club here in Galliston last year. I have been a member of the Chamber of Commerce. Uh I was on the Legislative Advocacy Committee. I have uh uh have a couple coffee clubs, a member of we sit as old men, we sit with a lot of experience, we sit there and solve all the problems of the world. We don't have to make a mistake because what we say doesn't mean anything, but it it is fun for us old guys.

SPEAKER_00 49:31

You know, Bill, I gotta say, you have lived a life. I am in awe of some of the things that you've been able to accomplish both young and at your age now. I mean, that's it's amazing to say. Um, you know, coming to a close, with all the acknowledged, you know, all the knowledge, all the experience, all the time that you spent doing the things that you've done, looking back, what is some advice you would give some young rent-to-owned entrepreneurs as they're coming up through the ranks these days and looking forward to grow, putting their roots down and kind of growing into this in this industry. What would the great Bill Key say is, you know, if I could give you a little bit of knowledge, just a little chunk of knowledge here, what would that be?

SPEAKER_01 50:16

I'm gonna say what I practiced when I was executive director. I made a point of reinventing myself every five years. I think that's why I lasted 27 years. I took a different outlook. I purposely would scrub my mind and think of something different to do with Aid Pro every five years. I say for any entrepreneur, have the same kind of uh system. Oh, don't be afraid of change. Look toward reinventing yourself, your companies, your products, the way you do business, never be stagnant. And I I got that from my father. He was a man of who embraced change, and he instilled me with that. And I'd say, embrace change and don't get stuck in the past.

SPEAKER_00 51:00

I gotta say, great words from the great Bill Keys. Thank you so much for being on the show. I I could just only imagine what it would have been like for the 27 years as executive director for APRO and all the things that you've done and all the things that you have been able to accomplish in that time frame. Thank you so much from myself in the RTO industry. And I will tell you guys thank you so much for visiting the RTO show and being a part of our story today and listening to what Bill has to say. If you want more, feel free to hit us up. You can hit me up on my email at pet at the rtoshowpodcast.com, or you can go online and see some of the things that I've been able to get into and what's going on at www.therto showpodcast.com. You can also hit us up on social media. We have Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn and YouTube where you're gonna see this. So make sure you stop by and subscribe. Make sure you go to the website, buy some swag. Bill, I really appreciate you being in here today. You've got it's just been an amazing conversation. Uh, thank you so much. And I will tell you guys as always, I appreciate you. Make sure you get your collections low to get your sales high. Have a great one. Hey everyone, it's Pete Chow here from the R2 Show Podcast, and I want to tell you about a company that's making a real difference in the rent-town space. WoW Brands. I've seen firsthand 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-to-whone industry. Their e-commerce and lead generation strategies are built to bring qualified leaders. And did I mention that they are actively working with the rent-owned industry while also being members of April and Trip? These folks are passionate problem solvers. They don't just slap something together. They design, build, and scale the kind of digital retail tools your business need that your customers actually want. So if you're serious about growing, reach out to WoWBrands at WildBrands.com. I trust it, and I think you will too.