May 19, 2025 • 51 mins
What does it take to build a sustainable rental business that thrives for over four decades? Gary Ferman, who recently stepped back after 44 years at the helm of Showplace Rent-to-Own, shares the wisdom earned from growing a single location into a 15-store operation across multiple states.
Gary's journey began in 1982 during economic hardship with interest rates at 18.5%. With remarkable candor, he reveals how determination and financial discipline propelled him forward despite challenging circumstances. "My wife drove a 1964 Mercury Comet station wagon in the 80s for nine years with no air conditioning, no automatic transmission," he recalls, illustrating the sacrifices made to reinvest in the business. This bootstrap mentality laid the foundation for sustainable growth.
The conversation explores Showplace's evolution, including its expansion to 25 locations before Gary made the strategic decision to sell 10 stores to Aaron's in 2003. This pivotal moment highlights one of his most valuable insights: discovering your operational "sweet spot." For Showplace, that meant about 125 employees—a size that allowed Gary to maintain personal relationships while ensuring quality operations. As he puts it, "Big was never as important to me as good."
Perhaps most compelling is Gary's approach to succession planning, as his son Keith now serves as president and majority owner. Rather than forcing a legacy, Gary supported his children's individual passions, creating space for Keith to naturally develop his leadership within the company. Their complementary strengths created a partnership reminiscent of Gary's relationship with his wife Marianne, who managed their cash advance business while he focused on RTO.
For aspiring entrepreneurs, Gary offers actionable advice drawn from Stephen Covey's principles: "Dream big, write it down, bust it into bite-sized pieces, keep the main thing the main thing." This methodical approach to goal-setting and prioritization forms the cornerstone of his success philosophy.
Ready to take your business journey further or just starting out? Subscribe to The RTO Show for more industry insights from pioneers who've shaped the rental landscape.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello and welcome to the RTO Show.
I'm your host, Pete Schauff,and today we have one of my
personal favorites on GaryFerman with Showplace, who has
done just about everything in 44years that you can think of.
I think that Showplace has beenopen for now 44 years, so
you've had Showplace open for areally really long time.
(00:30):
15 locations, correct.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
That's what we have currently.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
yes, oh my God, 15 locations.
Gary, how are you doing today?
How's everything going?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Well, when you ask about doing this, obviously
timing wise, it's right at theend of my career.
I technically retired from dayto day stuff at the end of
February and so here we are inApril.
I've I've had some time outsidesince then so you know I
haven't had a sport coat on in awhile.
(01:03):
There was there was a lot offorces trying to drag me to DC
this year.
I didn't end up going, but havecertainly done that trip a lot
of times.
But yeah, things are good.
I'm still helping Keith, my son, who's running the business a
little bit, and I got somebucket list projects that I'm
(01:25):
working on, some of itsurrounding just just stuff that
you put off when you're workingreally hard through your career
, like gathering up your oldvideos and pictures and getting
those organized.
That's that's a bucket listproject that I I'm about to
start.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
So well, listen, I want you to know.
You look pretty good for a guythat's retired.
You look like you're sharp andready to go to work right now.
No, I hope the memory can staygood.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
You know I hit the big 7-0 this year and I hope the
memory stays good, that's.
It's never been very good, butI always just said it was
because.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I have a.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
I had a 40 gig job on a 20 gig hard drive.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
You know it's really funny.
The other day I actually madethat reference, but it wasn't.
It wasn't quite like that, butyou actually said it a lot
better than I did.
So the reason that I wanted tohave you on, gary, is because
you do have over four decades ofexperience.
And there are people out thereright now.
You know they're looking at theeconomy, they're looking at
what's going on, and I mean evenpeople like myself.
We want to get into thebusiness more, we want to do
(02:28):
more, but there's always thatfear, especially before it's
your first store or you're goinginto your second location.
You're kind of like I don'tknow if I should go into it now,
because there's probably alaundry list of reasons of
because you should.
You come up with the five greatreasons.
Well, I love this and I can doit better than anybody, and I
know that if I had my own storeI can make it happen.
But then there's the other sideof it and people going.
(02:48):
Well, prices of products aregoing to go up, or at least we
don't know if they're going togo up.
There's a possibility thatthey're going to go up.
It's a possibility.
We don't know how long that'sgoing to last, is it a really
good time to open?
We hear that taxes are going toget better.
Then I hear taxes might beworse.
(03:08):
We're not 100% sure.
There's a little bit of turmoilin a lot of things that's going
on.
Not a ton of turmoil, but whenthere's a changeover in the
presidency, one guy wants to doit differently than the other
guy and there's that little bitof upset.
Then guys like me and there'sthat little bit of upset, and
then guys like me guys, that arethe little guys going.
I really want to get into this.
I don't know if it's a greattime.
Gary, running Showplace for somany years, you have 15
(03:32):
locations.
I mean, when is it really agreat time to get in?
Is there a great time?
Is it you jump in with two feetand say, listen, no matter what
happens, I'm going to make thiswork, or is there?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
a little bit of a tip that you can say you know what,
If I knew this 40 years ago, Iprobably would have done this
differently.
Yeah, I think we have, unlikeone of the other businesses I
looked at and started doingoriginally, which was electronic
retail, real low margins,cutting edge stuff.
Guess wrong, go out of business.
The one thing about rent to ownis I think it's a margin
(04:15):
business.
It has a better margin, sothere's more risk and more
reward.
But, for the hardworking,determined, don't need to live
too big while you're young inthe business type person.
I don't really think there's areally bad time to do it.
I don't, you know, if I youtalked about expansion for
(04:36):
starting owners.
I think the time to expandshould start off.
The number one most importantthing is when you have the
people to do it, because I'vedone it both ways.
I've done it when I had enoughstaff, enough quality staff to
go forward, and I've also madethat mistake and did it when I
had finances and I knew what tobuy and I had the facility but I
(04:59):
didn't have anybody to run itand it runs badly for a while
and you build a terriblereputation in a town with a
customer base.
So my biggest thing aboutstarting is how determined are
you and can you live prettycarefully for a while, or do you
(05:21):
need a lot of cash?
Personally, I'd say that's nota good way to start a
rent-to-own business.
You really need to be able to.
I mean, my wife drove a 1964Mercury Comet station wagon in
the 80s for nine years with noair conditioning, no automatic a
station wagon, mind you noautomatic transmission three on
(05:42):
three.
That was the family vehicle in aDodge Maxi van that was at a
hundred thousand miles on itwhen I bought it was the
delivery truck and we justdidn't buy new vehicles.
We didn't, we just hustled anddidn't spend a dime hardly.
And that's kind of how westarted from nothing, you know.
(06:03):
That's kind of how you have tostart, I think, and people come
with a lot higher expectations.
I think it's harder to growquickly, you know, and we grew
pretty quick.
We didn't grow initially.
We did seven years in onelocation and then we started
opening stores and got as highas a couple of dozen at one
point and have been in 29different towns.
(06:24):
Got as high as a couple ofdozen at one point and have been
in 29 different towns.
But we kind of we downsized atone point and got really to the
sweet spot of where we were goodat, which is that maybe 125
employees.
That's a spot we're pretty goodat and I think you've got to
find your sweet spot.
What are you good at?
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Well, hopefully it's better than what I'm doing right
now.
I I hope I'm really good at apodcasting.
We'll see how it goes.
The pay's not so great here,right, you never know.
So there were more locations atShowplace and then you dialed
it back.
How many did you get up to?
You said 26?
.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Well, at one time we had 25 open and running and also
seven cash advance locationsthat my wife ran oh wow, and she
did that business for about 10years, mostly in the late 90s
(07:20):
and early 2000s, and in 2003, Isold 10 stores to Aaron's just
to dial back and get stronger.
And we did.
You know, we took some cash,paid off some debt, kept our
best and Ken Butler and CharlieLoudermilk come up here to
(07:41):
Marion Ohio on a small plane andsat down at my desk and we
picked out the stores that theywere going to take and I found
that to be an honorabletransaction.
I was appreciative of Charlieand you know, just that was a
good deal for both of us, Ithink.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Well, I'm gonna tell you what.
I recently had the opportunityto speak with Ken and let me
tell you I really enjoyed that.
It was an eye-opener, and he'sstill as sharp as ever tell you
exactly what's on his mind.
I love that part, especiallyrunning a podcast.
I want people to be able to saywhat's on their mind and just
go forward and be able to saythis is what I think, this is
what's going on, regardless ofwhether people agree or not.
(08:19):
This is an opinionatedsituation, right.
You get to speak your mind andsay what you got to say and
that's okay.
It's all good in the world ofrent to own this guy's.
Even the mistakes that we makesometimes are learning tools to
be able to go forward and makebetter decisions ahead, and he
gave some great insight.
One of the reasons why I wantedto speak with you because a lot
(08:39):
of you know what I don't know.
If you know this, gary, I'mgoing to pull back the veil,
everybody that.
I talk to mentions your name,believe it or not.
Words of wisdom.
Very nice.
It started with Mike Tissot andI don't think there's a person
(08:59):
that hasn't mentioned your nameas far as people that they
either look up to talk, to pulltheir experience and knowledge
from you, know the things thatyou've done and try to work from
that in the best way that theycan.
And I don't know if you knowthat, but I mean I would like to
be the first to tell you.
If you don't, you've beenaround a long time, I couldn't
imagine.
But if you don't, there arepeople that mention you all the
(09:22):
time.
You know I talk to Chaz Fodzik.
I really appreciate Chad.
He's got that one store stillmentality, but he still runs it
very well.
He's still an entrepreneurialspirit where he gets stuff done
outside a couple of otherbusinesses that he has.
Or whether you're talking toMike Tissot, who's got his own
rent to own, or you're talkingto some other guys who have
multiple people who help themown it, co-ownership or whatever
(09:44):
.
They all mentioned Gary at somepoint, some point in time, you
know, just to let you know that,just to let you know that
they're thinking about you.
You know it's funny that youmentioned Keith, cause that was
something that I wanted to talkto you about, because something
that I've noticed, and you tellme if I'm wrong um, there are
some people that in yourposition that would that have
(10:04):
done it a long time they reallyappreciate the business, they've
done a long time and they havethe ability to sort of pass it
along, hand down the reins to afamily member or somebody who's,
you know, been there, done that.
They know what you've gonethrough, whether they're being
the family or very close to thefamily.
You know closely, like you know.
For instance, you mentionedCharlie and Ken.
(10:25):
That was like a dynamic duo atone point, right.
So, but in in these, in thesesmaller companies, you know, you
have the ability to kind ofpass it down to somebody who
who's related to you, somebodywho enjoys the business and
feels that same passion as you.
Now Keith is is the currentpresident of Showplace at this
time, right.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yep and majority owner.
Now he's been buying sharesfrom his mother and I for quite
a few years now he's doing theright thing.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
So what I've noticed, though, is that there are less
errors than there used to be.
There was a lot of pass downthroughout these past 40 years.
You know, when we talk aboutTissot coming from his father,
you going down to Keith, when wetalk about John Cleek, to John
Cleek Jr, those were some majorthings that happened, but I'm
(11:15):
starting to see that that'sslowing down.
I don't see as many on that,for lack of a better term.
The third tier it know it'scoming down to the juniors, or
it's coming down to thefirstborns, or whatever the case
is.
You know, I know Carrico hashis daughter involved, but
that's a handful, and I don'tsee as many on the horizon.
Why do you think that is?
(11:37):
Why do you think that there'snot as many as the third
generation, as the firstgeneration?
Speaker 2 (11:47):
generation as the first generation.
Well, I think it's certainly.
I think most successfulbusiness people.
It's not their ideal dream thatone of their children takes
over their business.
Might be some that have thatdream, but I would say, for me,
I wanted to be an advocate formy children.
I wanted them to do what theirdream was.
If it happened to be mine, thatmight be some some good
(12:08):
leverage for them, and I thinkit is for Keith.
You know he learned at the, atthe dinner table, a lot of what
I did and what we do young.
So he's got a leg up.
But if he wanted to be adentist or or, you know, like my
older boys drive a semi as acommercial trucker most of his
(12:30):
life, I'd have been happy forhim, you know.
So I really think that there maybe a group that says, oh, I
just want to pass it down to mykids, but I think there's a
sizable group that says, no, Ijust want my kids to do what
they love.
Because I got to do what I loveand so I happened to keep
falling in love with it.
My daughter did a great job for10 years doing our marketing at
(12:53):
one point right out of collegeand that was a good gig for her.
But Keith really fell in lovewith the industry and he fits it
good and he has a different setof strengths than I do.
But I mean he got a lot of hisstrengths from his mother and
I've got great admiration for mywife and his mother.
(13:15):
I'm so grateful that he gotsome of her skills and some of
her personality traits and soforth and some of her
personality traits and so forthand that kind of made Keith and
I, I think, a partnership thatworked, like Marianne and I's
partnership.
You know I mean we offset eachother with different strengths
and it served Keith and Itogether for Showplace and he's
(13:38):
been here now I don't know 15.
He worked for Marianne in hercash advance business first and
then he come on board as mybuyer because I knew he was a
good negotiator.
I dealt with that when he was achild.
Yeah, so I don't know about theebb and flow of second and
(14:02):
third generations.
I guess I hadn't really thoughtseriously about that Second and
third generations.
I guess I hadn't really thoughtseriously about that.
But I would say you know it.
Probably there was an awful lotof the early guys that I worked
with in this industry that werefirst.
I mean, there was no previousgeneration in this business.
You know the Norm Slattons, theLowry Schraders.
You know Irish traders.
You know David Blevins, harveyWhitehead I wrote a couple of
(14:37):
names down here so I wouldn'tforget some of the people.
You know that I really had a lotof respect for and learned so
much from in the early days, myolder group.
You know Daryl Mike's dad andErnie Llewellyn.
You know that group was a triothat argued vehemently about
details but respected each other, learned from each other.
You know, and I think you knowthat that was then I moved into
(14:59):
to learning from some otherpeople you know, away from the
order into the trip group.
You know learning learning fromDavid Blevins uh, showcase rent
to own out of Huntsville,alabama, and Cynthia Baber
Strunk, who had just lost herhusband um, you know, pre
Shannon, obviously, um and uhSlats and Larry Schrader and and
(15:21):
Jim Sims and a bunch of oldguys that were trip board
members Harvey Harvey Whitehead,harvey's Neighborhood Rentals.
That early 90s Trib Board wasfull of entrepreneurial spirit,
first generation entrepreneurialspirit, and I think what you're
finding in second and thirdgenerations is maybe there's
(15:43):
some of that.
Certainly I see it in some ofthe young folks today.
You know Chris Jr.
You know there's a lot of goodentrepreneurial spirit out there
and I think, Larry Carrico isblessed with a great team,
including his daughter, but Ithink that's part of it is those
original people.
We were kind of plowing somenew ground and I was learning
(16:05):
from some that did their initialplowing.
I kind of feel like I wassemi-second generation,
somewhere between first andsecond RTO generation people.
Again, it's talked about a lot,Pete.
I've heard you talk about it.
I've heard a lot of otherpeople talk about the
camaraderie, the sharing thatour industry has enjoyed for a
(16:28):
long time.
I look at learning that Ilearned that from Lowry and
Slats and David Blevins andCynthia Baberstrom.
Those were the people, andErnie and Daryl too Everybody.
Though we might have bickeredoccasionally about details, we
(16:48):
all were stretching each otherand we were very open to helping
each other and I think that Itried to copy that.
I don't think I invented it, Ithink I tried to copy it.
I tried to be open and honest.
I've had a lot of industryfriends since then that I enjoy
(17:09):
and learned lots from.
Maybe I hope I helped in somesmall way.
If I harnessed something that Ilearned, I was always willing
to share it, Sometimes probablyto a fault.
So they probably say shut up,Gary.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Well, you know, talking about some industry
first and some of the names thatyou mentioned, really, really
great people that have done alot for the industry.
One thing that I've seen soCastle Rental and Pawns is one
of them where they have asituation where they have the
rental side and then they havethe other side and it's a pawn
(17:47):
right, so they're running out ofthe same building, kind of cut
down the middle, and they do twodifferent things.
You mentioned this cashsituation that your wife ran.
Did you ever think that itwould be a good idea to run them
both out of or close to side byside and do that together?
Are there places that you havedone that?
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Yes, yeah, when, when she first started opening
stores, uh the first one sheopened was separate, but along
the way we opened a couple umkiosks in our rent to own
business and tried that for awhile with, with some success I
think the standalones did alittle better for her and we
(18:26):
tried movie tape rentals in theearly days alongside our
rent-to-owns things.
We've ran carpet, we installedcarpet, we sold carpet retail.
The big part of the beginning ofour business was putting up
C-band 10-foot satellite dishes.
That was a huge part of ourhitting critical mass with cash
(18:50):
flow and keeping our debt lowwas selling a new $2,500
satellite dish to customers in83 and 84 and 85 and 86 and
making five or 600 bucks on itand paying for that $600 Zenith
or Sylvania television that Iwas going to rent to somebody
for $16.99 a week or whatever.
(19:11):
You know.
I mean that business reallyhelped us get going.
So putting some things side byside, I think you know, has its
utility and it may be necessaryfor a while.
Ultimately, I do think becomingthe place in your specific thing
to go probably has advantages.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
So, because you know I was, I'm glad you said that
because that was actually mynext question Is the evolution
of rent to own to bring on someof these side things and have
them available, or do you thinknot having them in there and
staying focused true, to justthe rent to own part of it is
where you think it should be.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
It's talent specific.
If you've got an entrepreneurrunning a single location with a
lot of desire and a lot ofplanning skills and knowledge, I
think they can run multiplethings out of one location.
I think that's hard to do as achain.
Things that fit in as a productor service.
That goes with rent to ownreally well, like when we first
(20:18):
got into computers and that wassuch a new thing to rent.
Some of those innovations andproduct changes I think will
always be a valuable part ofrent to own.
But you know, as far ascompletely different industries
trying to run a carpet storealongside a rent to own store, I
don't think you know, that'snot something you're going to do
on a wide scale.
(20:38):
That's something that adetermined entrepreneur,
probably with a very supportivehusband or wife, it can get done
, you know.
But but it's I don't think it'ssomething you're going to see
Rack doing.
I mean, rack's got some sidegigs you know doing, you know
financing and so forth.
That's that's so close to thesame model, just just employing
(21:00):
somebody else to market for you.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Right.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
And I think that's been valuable.
Obviously for them.
The stock market looks kind ofugly today but I got to tell you
I like rack stock at thecurrent price.
I like it.
I don't want to sell it, I wantto buy more.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
And I have bought some more.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
But I think you get these opportunities rare and few
times and and, uh, it's, it'sthe courage to know ebbs and
flows come and go.
Uh, don't get freaked out, youknow.
Keep moving forward.
And back to your one of youroriginal points was is now a
time you could?
I, we opened our first store inspring of 82.
(21:42):
I mean, do you know what theeconomy was like in 80, 81, 82,
79, 80, 81, 82?
I mean I was paying 18.5interest on my house in those
days.
I opened a rent to own store,you know.
So I mean, things were toughand there was layoffs.
I worked at a factory but and Igot.
Things were tough and there wasthere was layoffs.
I worked at a factory, um, butand I got laid off occasionally
(22:05):
and it was pretty much a greatdovetail when they didn't need
me much anymore.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
It's about right when show plates really need full
time, you know so in theexpansion verse, right you, you
open up some more stores.
You, you realize that maybeshelling out some and parting
ways with some of them were agood idea, because of whatever
the case is, they're performingdifferently or they're too far
to really be right on top of andmake sure that they're growing.
(22:31):
Whatever the case is, have youever thought because then I see
some of these, I see somecompanies doing like the
expansion model of a franchiseyou ever thought about doing a
franchise situation and whatwould be the consideration to do
that, saying Showplace has got15, but I'm going to franchise
(22:51):
you because I've got this brand,I've been doing this a long
time and if you have theentrepreneurial spirit, I have
the name.
Let's put that together andgrow the company.
Have you ever thought that thatmight be something in the
future or maybe in the past thatyou've tried, that you didn't
really want to go with?
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Well, I never really seriously considered being a
franchisee of another rent-ownedfirm.
But I have to say, probably inthe mid-90s I wondered if I
could pull off kind of whatTrooper did maybe even
pre-Trooper doing it that I likebuilding systems and processes
(23:30):
and that was probably myfavorite part of the business
was building systems andprocesses, repeatable things
that could help.
You know, we called it make itMcDonald's simple.
You know, do stuff that otherpeople could repeat so that you
could hire average people to doa really good job in this
business.
And so I did give that someconsideration then and then I
(23:53):
think I probably got you know,had a year or two where I got a
dose of humility and thought I'mnot as bright as I think I am.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
I better just take care of my own backyard, 'm not?
Speaker 2 (24:00):
as bright as I think I am.
I better just take care of myown backyard.
It's enough, and I think that'sultimately what I ended up
figuring out that I just lovebeing about 100 to 125 employees
, knowing all of them, knowing alot of their kids, most of
their kids' names.
That was my style and so, no, Ireally big was never as
(24:23):
important or anywhere as near asimportant to me as good.
I like being good first, andthat was a challenge.
All my career was trying to getbetter because we were good.
We really didn't have any bigdown years.
I mean, as far as I don't losemoney any years on P&L.
I got real close when Idownsized.
(24:43):
That's why I sold 10 stores,because we were close to having
a money losing year and Ithought I've overshot myself
here.
My competence level isn't wheremy needs are right now, so
that's why we downsized.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
You know what?
That's a pretty amazingstatement, because I think some
people, regardless of where theyare, want to push for the stars
and either they don't it's justnot their niche, it's not what
they can do, or they have tobring in somebody else to help
them because their skill set isa little bit different than
yours and some people can'tadmit that.
(25:23):
You know, I can do it.
I just got to figure this out.
I've learned a long time agothat my ceiling is only so high.
It might be higher than others,it's lower than some, and some
of the things that I can do aresome of the things that they
can't do, and some of the thingsthat they can do are just some
of the things that I can't do.
And sometimes, you know, yougot to find that right dance
partner to say you know what I,I, the reason that we're
(25:44):
together, is because I need anAbbott to a Costello, I need a,
you know, a Batman to a Robin,and we can't all do the same
things, but together we can doit right, you know, and that's
and that's important and it'syou know them, you know their
families, because didn't youguys just recently have an award
(26:05):
show where I saw so many awardsthat were given out.
I think there was a list ofalmost 12 to 15 awards where
there was like the rookie of theyear and the best operator of
the year and somebody from homeoffice, and it was one of those
things like I really think thatyou know, you, you guys did it
very well.
You had the ability to kind ofsee everybody and talk to
everybody, and there's this,this, this thing, like we're not
(26:28):
giving awards away to everybody, but everybody's going to have
that opportunity to stand up infront of everybody and just hey,
this is something that I canrecognize you for, you're doing
a great job.
It looked like Keith was takingthe brunt of that.
I don't know how much of it.
I saw a little bit of you inthere, but I saw him.
I don't know how that worked,but I mean I know he's doing a
great job, you know kind ofpassing that torch along to him
(26:49):
and having him out there as thefront person.
I mean, of course he'sobviously the president, so I
know he's doing a great job, butI to see that and happening.
But then I did have a question.
So it was, it was show placeand then it was R and R.
Is that, uh?
Are you guys doing thattogether as two companies that
work together, or was it justbecause you know you guys have
(27:12):
closeness?
Is there, is there show placesand an R and R that you guys own
together?
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Well, um, again, I mentioned Slats and Lowry and a
bunch of these guys.
I can't leave out Larry Suttonas one of my mentors from early
on, dear friend the godfather ofRed Zone right.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Is that where he got his name from?
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Yeah, in the really early days of ORDA we'd bring
him in the reverend of RTO andhave him fire up the troops and
just always loved Larry's spirit.
But of course Larry started thefranchise, the R&R franchise,
and you know him and David cameand you know was trying to sell
(27:59):
the idea for us to get into it.
And I just knew at the timethis happened six, seven, eight
years ago I was late enough inmy career that I didn't have the
juice to want to add that extrathing.
That was a whole bunch of newlearning.
I was excited by it.
I wish I was 10 years younger,but I just told Keith, keith was
with us then by then and had avice president level position
(28:22):
here.
I just said, if if we're goingto do this, you need to do it,
you know, and I'll help a bitadvice wise, but you kind of
need to do it because I'm notgoing to learn the details and I
you can't have in my mind, youcan't have an owner without
their hands dirty.
You just it doesn't work verywell very long, and so he needed
(28:46):
to get his hands dirty and hewanted to do it.
So he he bought some franchiserights and has opened a couple
stores and I think he's gotanother one in the pipeline
right now that they're workingon the remodel in limo, ohio.
Um, so, uh, um, it's, it'scoming about, it's, it's coming
about, it's it's.
We do the admin for them, justlike when Marianne run the
(29:08):
Sunset Cash Advances, shedirected the operations, the
store operations, but we alwaysdid the payroll and the HR and
the admin and just charged a feefor it.
You know an intra company feefor it.
You know intra-company fee.
And that's what we're doing forKeith's R&R stores and we just
(29:30):
said it's time for them tobecome a part of our annual
customer appreciation event andthat's why you saw them there
this year and really the lastcouple of years, keith has fully
directed that event.
Him and the HR department havefully directed it.
I mean I was actively engaged init for 20-some years.
(29:53):
I don't know when we starteddoing an actual customer
appreciation day and closing thestores, but it's probably been
20-some years ago.
And I got to say credit to somecurrent peers I learned going
to Mike Tissot's show along theway how creative and sincere a
(30:15):
lot of the appreciations werefrom him and his dad to the
countryside family and I learnedsome things from that that was
very beneficial to me.
I got a lot of current guysthat I look back to Larry and
Slats as heroes and Larry asheroes.
But there's a lot of currentguys that I have as heroes too,
(30:35):
and Mike's certainly a hero ofmine and Chris Bolan and Lynn
Leach and these guys are realclose friends in this business
and I've learned so much fromthose guys.
The camaraderie and sharing ofthis industry that everybody
talks about is real and I justwanted to be a cog in that wheel
(30:56):
.
You know I don't take anypaternity in it.
I think it came from others,but I feel like I tried to be a
cog in that wheel.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Well, I think you have been.
I'm going to tell you that Ithink you have been.
I don't think you've enoughyourself enough credit for that.
I mean to say that you havesomebody who, who under you, you
know your son or whatever thecase is, cause I don't you know.
Sometimes I don't know.
Sometimes we say you know, thisis who they are and we don't
want to put a title on thatbecause I would love to say my
(31:27):
daughter, eventually, is goingto take over whatever I'm doing
and all that.
I just like to call her by whoshe is and let her make that
decision.
But I mean, come on, that's agreat addition to the brand to
say that there's an R&R alsoincluded in that, because it
looks like everybody did a greatjob.
It looks like everybody wasenjoying being there.
It looks like you've built notonly the brand but you've built
(31:49):
that culture and that family ofthose people that enjoy being
there.
That's part of it, that's ahuge part of it and it's great
to see that.
It's great to see that Keith'sbeing able to add on to that and
kind of carry that torch alongand then become his own
entrepreneurial spirit, to kindof expand on his own different
ways and how he wants to do that.
And honestly, I really wouldlove to say that my daughters
(32:10):
are going to do that.
Neither of the older ones reallywant to have anything to wear
and to own.
It's just not in their blood.
Not that it's bad.
My older one tried it for alittle while and she said Dad,
you know, hey, it was a greatexperience, but I don't know how
you do it.
It's just not for me, um, she'sa little bit more of the four
walls and the you know the typeof business where she's just
behind the desk and doing whatshe does, and maybe, maybe
(32:31):
she'll come back a little bitlater, I hope, but we'll see how
that works, um.
So we have those added on, um,and honestly, I think it's a
great move because that's, youknow, we were talking about the
cash.
The R&R is on there.
You're getting everybodytogether, you've added these
stores, but now, at the end ofretirement, I see you wearing a
(32:52):
jacket.
It looks like you're going towork, have you really?
You see you're saying thatyou're taking a step back.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
So after 44, years I got showplace on here, you know.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
There you go.
That's what I'm talking about.
So so here, here's my question.
Is you've been doing this sucha long time you finally decided
to take a step back.
Really two questions.
Is what made you decide thatthis was a good time to finally
go?
I think I've done as much asI'm going to do.
I'm going to take a step back.
And then, what is a step back?
You've done it for 44 years.
What's a step back?
I literally just got finishedfor 44 years.
What's a step back?
I literally just got finishedtalking to Ed Wynn 40 years and
(33:28):
Ed's like I've done it all.
I've done this, I've done that.
I've helped open April, I'vehelped with the RDAs, I've gone
to ledge cons, I've doneeverything and I'm sayonara.
I'm good, I'm okay.
He kind of keeps in touch alittle bit, but he's OK with
being able to step back becauseof what he's done.
How did you come up with thatidea?
And what do you do now?
What is a normal day to day forGary?
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Well, here's honors to Edwin too.
He's helped me a lot throughthe years.
I just think that Keith's hadthe ability to run this company
for some time.
He's bright, he's hardworkingand diligent.
He's, he's bright, he'shardworking and diligent, and I
(34:16):
really kind of feel like themomentum that that we've had
here is strong enough that itdoesn't need me.
As we grew the business, assoon as I could teach somebody
else how to do something andsustain something that I'd been
doing, I tried to look for thenext thing I ought to be doing
and I think that's kind of whatI'm doing now is Keith can do
(34:37):
this, and I've got a couple ofthings that I want to do, some
stuff on our land, some, youknow, um, some some historic
stuff for our family.
Um, there's just some projectsthat I kind of want to work on
and I think Keith Keith's gotthis, keith and and and Rick and
Mike, the current group thatkind of runs the, the, the show
(35:00):
here at show place.
Um, they're capable and, uh,they don't need me, um, and and
he's not needy, um, I think, um,you know, he has his own ideas
of what needs to be done, what'simportant.
There's enough of them thatline up that he and I've been
pretty good at getting along asa father son, I mean.
(35:22):
There's.
There's things we debate on, youknow, and it's probably
uncomfortable for other people.
You know we were pretty good atnot doing a lot of that in
front of other people, I think.
But but you know, it's that'snatural?
I don't think that's unnatural.
Most father and son or fatherand daughters or mother and son
or mother and daughtercombinations in business, I
(35:45):
think, have to have somedifferences.
You know, if there's enoughlove and respect, those don't
last long.
You get past them real quick,you know, and maybe you stretch
each other.
That's that's what I alwaysthought about, daryl and Ernie
and I in ORDA is that we debateda lot of things, but
respectfully.
(36:05):
We were never mean to eachother.
We just debated diligently,respectfully and learned from
each other, and I think familiescan do that too.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
So I feel like once I finally get Dan Fisher locked
in, we're going to have the same.
I feel like you guys did youguys have a conversation ago.
I listen to this my last year.
This is it.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Yeah, no, I mean, you know Dan's worthy of mention.
Terry Bevel was a dear friendof mine that worked for Slats.
You know great industry helperglue that helped hold us
together during some tough times.
Think a lot of Carac, caracosand and you know, just there's
(36:50):
just so many people in thisindustry that were so willing to
help each other, so so gratefulto have had this career in this
industry.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
So then back to question number two.
Now that we've decided, nowthat we've made those things and
you feel comfortable about it,what is the normal day-to-day
for Gary?
How do we go from 44 years ofreally the grinding?
I mean, you've got the firstyears of really just kind of
getting your roots growing,growing up to stores, shrinking
stores, opening R&Rs, passingthe torch, making sure that your
(37:21):
culture is there, making surethat you know the name of people
.
I mean, I do see the Showplaceshirt on.
I just want you to know.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
I do see the shirt on but what does a day now look
like that?
You've kind of stepped backfrom it all.
Well, on the Showplace side,I'm still, probably responding
to some peers, some vendors thatdon't know that I'm away yet.
I mean, it's been pretty recentthat I wasn't here all the time
.
So I'm still doing some emailsand some voicemails and, you
(37:53):
know, return calls.
I'm still texting with myfriends that are in the industry
.
We still have regularinteraction, have regular
interaction.
I'd say you know, not a lot oftime goes by that there isn't a
half a dozen people that Iinteract with about some kind of
rent own issue.
Um, I, I'd say that's stillpart of it.
Um, we own some of theproperties that the show place
(38:17):
stores are in.
So we're still managing somereal estate.
Marianne, my wife really helpsa lot with the details on that.
They, mary, and my wife reallyhelps a lot with the details on
that.
So that's related.
We've got, you know, two homes.
We really enjoy some time inTennessee on the lake and I've
I'm still there's a projectstill going on there to make
that what we want, and and we'vegot five acres up here in Ohio
(38:41):
and there's there's always workto do on that land and I really
dearly enjoy that work.
I really like being outside inthe winter in the north.
That's not one of my favoritetimes of the world.
Is is just to have, you know,my chainsaw jeans on you know
they got the holes in them fromnipping them with a chain and
(39:01):
and my log splitter out thereand fire going on two different
levels, burning up old rottenwood, trying to clean up the
woods a little bit, the stuffthat's laid down and you know,
and just being outside all dayin 20 degrees that's.
You know I'm never cold at all.
You know, maybe the first threeminutes but pretty soon you
(39:25):
work up that that that glow andand you're shedding stuff and
you know, it's.
I just love doing that.
And then the summertime I Istill like riding motorcycles
and and uh, boating and uh, herand I bought new bikes this year
, so that's that's going to bepart of every summer.
As long as we're still thewindow's open and we're still
capable of doing it, we'revisiting Yellowstone for some
(39:47):
time this year.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Oh wow, that's going to be nice.
I can tell you right now I havetried the North thing.
When we went up to LedgeConthere were a couple of times it
hit in the 40s.
Let me tell you, my blood hasthinned out since I've been in
Florida.
I've been in Florida for about35 years and let me tell you I
could take the heat all day.
(40:08):
The cold goes through me to mybones.
It's not something that I enjoygoing, seeing and then coming
home.
So I understand the need forwanting to be where you want to
be, where, naturally, you justfeel like you want to go.
But, gary, this legacy that youhave, the things that you've
been able to accomplish and whatyou've done, the people that
look up to you, I just want youto know we appreciate you in the
(40:29):
rental industry.
I appreciate you and I'm gladthat you were able to come today
and kind of just really sitdown and talk to us a little bit
.
One thing that I wanted to getfrom you you do have a mind for
this, whether it's been beateninto you through experience,
whether you have that foresightor whether you have the people
around you, like you'vementioned, that really help
(40:51):
guide your decisions or give youthe information for you to make
educated decisions.
What would you say to somebodywho really wants to take over,
become something on their own?
They want to open up their ownplace, they want to get things?
What is something, or a fewthings, that you would say you
know what this is?
Advice that is just youcouldn't put a label on it and
(41:16):
you couldn't put an amount on it.
This is really that importantin your eyes that you see, you
should know this, try this, dothis or think about this as you
go into this opening up ortrying to get several things, or
becoming a partner.
What would that be?
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Well, I don't know how I would have explained it
before I had Stephen Covey as amentor, but he helped me
articulate it.
You know, I'd call those sevenhabits of highly effective
people one of the biggestimpacts on my life ever Great
book.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Great book.
If you haven't read it, guys,you have to read that book.
An amazing book.
I've done it twice and I stillmiss things.
I've got to listen to it again.
Paul Mativian and I were justtalking about this at LegCon
because I had read it years andyears ago.
And then he read, here-recommended.
I listened again and I stillfeel like I'm missing stuff and
I'm going to have to do a thirdread pretty soon.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
So that.
So that question and thatadvice from from that to
articulate it is if you're thatperson that you're asking me
about, that wants to, wants togo forward, and what's the best
advice I could give them isdream big, write it down, busted
into bite sized pieces, keepthe main thing, the main thing.
(42:35):
So prioritize and plan weekly.
You know, get, get yourself aroutine of planning so that
those bite sized pieces, youknow, do the hard work of of
dreaming and and figuring outwhat it is that you got to get
(42:56):
done, and and then ask yourselfthose coaching questions what
should you do first?
What's the most important thing?
What should you do first?
What's the most important thing?
What should you do next?
And and bust them into thosebite-sized pieces and get, get a
calendar in front of you, care,carry.
You know I don't think youprobably can't see this, maybe
you can see this my Franklinplanner has went on every
(43:18):
motorcycle trip I've ever taken,to Seattle, to Napa, twice on
our bikes.
You know I have to have thatwith me.
It is my hard drive and I spendtime with it, still on Sunday
evenings, planning out whatneeds to get done this week.
(43:39):
And I'd say some peopleprobably have the mental
capacity to do that, you know,without writing it down.
I see that in people that theirrecall and their ability to
prioritize and organize can bedone mentally much better than
(44:00):
me.
I've always needed to write itdown and I knew it and I still
think, even for those that arepretty good mentally, acuity at
doing it without writing it down.
There's a lot of added value indreaming big, writing down that
dream.
You know that is the mission.
That's your personal mission,right?
(44:20):
Have a company mission Ifyou're with a company, whether
you work for somebody else orwhether you're the man that owns
it and the responsibility restshere.
Have a mission and revise itwhen it needs.
You know, think about it Ifit's out of date.
You know and my missionstatement got revised numerous
times over my career I kept apersonal mission statement since
(44:42):
the early 80s and I still gotone.
And we kept a company missionstatement.
We revised it a few times alongthe way.
I mean it's real simple rightnow, at Showplace, and I think
Customer Appreciation Day is abig part of showing what our
mission is and that's to be areally special place to shop and
a really special place to work.
And you know you can't have aspecial place to shop for
(45:05):
customers.
Be their favorite.
You know their cheers bar,their favorite place to go spend
money.
That's what we wanted to be.
We wanted the music to be onand the first name calling as
soon as a customer hit the doorand we wanted to hire people
that got a kick out of doingthat, building those
relationships, and that thatmade this job better than other
(45:27):
jobs, that even paid more moneyfor them.
So we were always looking forthat fit, that perfect fit, to
work in a store that could makeit a cheers bar, and then we
tried to do things to make itspecial for them.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Well, I appreciate it .
I'm going to start lookingforward to that.
I'm glad that somebody elsefinds Stephen Covey as great as
I do.
Talking to Paul about it hasbeen my one thing.
Josh Isecki those are a coupleof guys that I go to for a lot
of things and we talk aboutStephen Covey all the time and
the paradigms and the way yousee things and how things should
be seen from a lot of differentpoint of views.
(46:03):
But I can tell you right now Ihave a little bit more to go.
I haven't quite gotten to whereyou're at yet.
I've only been in the industryfor about 20 years and I'm
looking to do another 20.
So hopefully at that point intime I'll be able to give
somebody the advice that you'vegiven me and pass that on, or at
least say in my youth you cancheck out this podcast and see
what somebody has to say.
But I really appreciate youbeing with me today.
(46:25):
I really appreciate you sharingsome of the knowledge.
I really like what Keith'sdoing.
I'm glad that you were able topass that down and I'm glad that
you guys have that dynamic tobe able to do it together for
the years that you have and tosee where it goes in the future
and see how big it gets and seehow well it goes.
If you ever decide to do thefranchise thing, you let me know
(46:46):
and I want you guys to know.
I appreciate you being with ustoday.
Listen.
Anytime that you guys have aquestion for Gary, please reach
out to the show.
You can reach us at Pete at theRTO show podcastcom.
You can hit up our website.
The same thing atwwwthertoshowpodcastcom.
We're on Facebook, instagram,linkedin, now on YouTube.
Make sure you subscribe and ifthere's anything that I can do,
let me know.
Gary, I really appreciate youbeing with us today.
(47:07):
I appreciate your insights andmore.
I want you to know I'm going tomiss you when I stop seeing you
.
I missed you at LedgeCon.
I'm going to miss you, but I'mso glad that you're available
and I plan on calling you soonon probably something that I
have I'm stumped on.
Everybody says, but Gary saidso I'm going to call you every
once in a while.
I just want you to know.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
Anybody in this industry is always welcome.
I.
I value my relationships in theindustry that'll never end and
and what you do here to helpothers.
Pete, is very valuable and Ithink a lot of people appreciate
it.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
Well, I thank you and I appreciate it.
Guys, thank you for being withus and I will tell you, as
always, get your collections lowto get your sales high.
Hello and welcome to the RTO Show.
I'm your host, Pete Schauff,and today we have one of my
personal favorites on GaryFerman with Showplace, who has
done just about everything in 44years that you can think of.
I think that Showplace has beenopen for now 44 years, so
you've had Showplace open for areally really long time.
(00:30):
15 locations, correct.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
That's what we have currently.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
yes, oh my God, 15 locations.
Gary, how are you doing today?
How's everything going?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Well, when you ask about doing this, obviously
timing wise, it's right at theend of my career.
I technically retired from dayto day stuff at the end of
February and so here we are inApril.
I've I've had some time outsidesince then so you know I
haven't had a sport coat on in awhile.
(01:03):
There was there was a lot offorces trying to drag me to DC
this year.
I didn't end up going, but havecertainly done that trip a lot
of times.
But yeah, things are good.
I'm still helping Keith, my son, who's running the business a
little bit, and I got somebucket list projects that I'm
(01:25):
working on, some of itsurrounding just just stuff that
you put off when you're workingreally hard through your career
, like gathering up your oldvideos and pictures and getting
those organized.
That's that's a bucket listproject that I I'm about to
start.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
So well, listen, I want you to know.
You look pretty good for a guythat's retired.
You look like you're sharp andready to go to work right now.
No, I hope the memory can staygood.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
You know I hit the big 7-0 this year and I hope the
memory stays good, that's.
It's never been very good, butI always just said it was
because.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I have a.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
I had a 40 gig job on a 20 gig hard drive.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
You know it's really funny.
The other day I actually madethat reference, but it wasn't.
It wasn't quite like that, butyou actually said it a lot
better than I did.
So the reason that I wanted tohave you on, gary, is because
you do have over four decades ofexperience.
And there are people out thereright now.
You know they're looking at theeconomy, they're looking at
what's going on, and I mean evenpeople like myself.
We want to get into thebusiness more, we want to do
(02:28):
more, but there's always thatfear, especially before it's
your first store or you're goinginto your second location.
You're kind of like I don'tknow if I should go into it now,
because there's probably alaundry list of reasons of
because you should.
You come up with the five greatreasons.
Well, I love this and I can doit better than anybody, and I
know that if I had my own storeI can make it happen.
But then there's the other sideof it and people going.
(02:48):
Well, prices of products aregoing to go up, or at least we
don't know if they're going togo up.
There's a possibility thatthey're going to go up.
It's a possibility.
We don't know how long that'sgoing to last, is it a really
good time to open?
We hear that taxes are going toget better.
Then I hear taxes might beworse.
(03:08):
We're not 100% sure.
There's a little bit of turmoilin a lot of things that's going
on.
Not a ton of turmoil, but whenthere's a changeover in the
presidency, one guy wants to doit differently than the other
guy and there's that little bitof upset.
Then guys like me and there'sthat little bit of upset, and
then guys like me guys, that arethe little guys going.
I really want to get into this.
I don't know if it's a greattime.
Gary, running Showplace for somany years, you have 15
(03:32):
locations.
I mean, when is it really agreat time to get in?
Is there a great time?
Is it you jump in with two feetand say, listen, no matter what
happens, I'm going to make thiswork, or is there?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
a little bit of a tip that you can say you know what,
If I knew this 40 years ago, Iprobably would have done this
differently.
Yeah, I think we have, unlikeone of the other businesses I
looked at and started doingoriginally, which was electronic
retail, real low margins,cutting edge stuff.
Guess wrong, go out of business.
The one thing about rent to ownis I think it's a margin
(04:15):
business.
It has a better margin, sothere's more risk and more
reward.
But, for the hardworking,determined, don't need to live
too big while you're young inthe business type person.
I don't really think there's areally bad time to do it.
I don't, you know, if I youtalked about expansion for
(04:36):
starting owners.
I think the time to expandshould start off.
The number one most importantthing is when you have the
people to do it, because I'vedone it both ways.
I've done it when I had enoughstaff, enough quality staff to
go forward, and I've also madethat mistake and did it when I
had finances and I knew what tobuy and I had the facility but I
(04:59):
didn't have anybody to run itand it runs badly for a while
and you build a terriblereputation in a town with a
customer base.
So my biggest thing aboutstarting is how determined are
you and can you live prettycarefully for a while, or do you
(05:21):
need a lot of cash?
Personally, I'd say that's nota good way to start a
rent-to-own business.
You really need to be able to.
I mean, my wife drove a 1964Mercury Comet station wagon in
the 80s for nine years with noair conditioning, no automatic a
station wagon, mind you noautomatic transmission three on
(05:42):
three.
That was the family vehicle in aDodge Maxi van that was at a
hundred thousand miles on itwhen I bought it was the
delivery truck and we justdidn't buy new vehicles.
We didn't, we just hustled anddidn't spend a dime hardly.
And that's kind of how westarted from nothing, you know.
(06:03):
That's kind of how you have tostart, I think, and people come
with a lot higher expectations.
I think it's harder to growquickly, you know, and we grew
pretty quick.
We didn't grow initially.
We did seven years in onelocation and then we started
opening stores and got as highas a couple of dozen at one
point and have been in 29different towns.
(06:24):
Got as high as a couple ofdozen at one point and have been
in 29 different towns.
But we kind of we downsized atone point and got really to the
sweet spot of where we were goodat, which is that maybe 125
employees.
That's a spot we're pretty goodat and I think you've got to
find your sweet spot.
What are you good at?
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Well, hopefully it's better than what I'm doing right
now.
I I hope I'm really good at apodcasting.
We'll see how it goes.
The pay's not so great here,right, you never know.
So there were more locations atShowplace and then you dialed
it back.
How many did you get up to?
You said 26?
.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Well, at one time we had 25 open and running and also
seven cash advance locationsthat my wife ran oh wow, and she
did that business for about 10years, mostly in the late 90s
(07:20):
and early 2000s, and in 2003, Isold 10 stores to Aaron's just
to dial back and get stronger.
And we did.
You know, we took some cash,paid off some debt, kept our
best and Ken Butler and CharlieLoudermilk come up here to
(07:41):
Marion Ohio on a small plane andsat down at my desk and we
picked out the stores that theywere going to take and I found
that to be an honorabletransaction.
I was appreciative of Charlieand you know, just that was a
good deal for both of us, Ithink.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Well, I'm gonna tell you what.
I recently had the opportunityto speak with Ken and let me
tell you I really enjoyed that.
It was an eye-opener, and he'sstill as sharp as ever tell you
exactly what's on his mind.
I love that part, especiallyrunning a podcast.
I want people to be able to saywhat's on their mind and just
go forward and be able to saythis is what I think, this is
what's going on, regardless ofwhether people agree or not.
(08:19):
This is an opinionatedsituation, right.
You get to speak your mind andsay what you got to say and
that's okay.
It's all good in the world ofrent to own this guy's.
Even the mistakes that we makesometimes are learning tools to
be able to go forward and makebetter decisions ahead, and he
gave some great insight.
One of the reasons why I wantedto speak with you because a lot
(08:39):
of you know what I don't know.
If you know this, gary, I'mgoing to pull back the veil,
everybody that.
I talk to mentions your name,believe it or not.
Words of wisdom.
Very nice.
It started with Mike Tissot andI don't think there's a person
(08:59):
that hasn't mentioned your nameas far as people that they
either look up to talk, to pulltheir experience and knowledge
from you, know the things thatyou've done and try to work from
that in the best way that theycan.
And I don't know if you knowthat, but I mean I would like to
be the first to tell you.
If you don't, you've beenaround a long time, I couldn't
imagine.
But if you don't, there arepeople that mention you all the
(09:22):
time.
You know I talk to Chaz Fodzik.
I really appreciate Chad.
He's got that one store stillmentality, but he still runs it
very well.
He's still an entrepreneurialspirit where he gets stuff done
outside a couple of otherbusinesses that he has.
Or whether you're talking toMike Tissot, who's got his own
rent to own, or you're talkingto some other guys who have
multiple people who help themown it, co-ownership or whatever
(09:44):
.
They all mentioned Gary at somepoint, some point in time, you
know, just to let you know that,just to let you know that
they're thinking about you.
You know it's funny that youmentioned Keith, cause that was
something that I wanted to talkto you about, because something
that I've noticed, and you tellme if I'm wrong um, there are
some people that in yourposition that would that have
(10:04):
done it a long time they reallyappreciate the business, they've
done a long time and they havethe ability to sort of pass it
along, hand down the reins to afamily member or somebody who's,
you know, been there, done that.
They know what you've gonethrough, whether they're being
the family or very close to thefamily.
You know closely, like you know.
For instance, you mentionedCharlie and Ken.
(10:25):
That was like a dynamic duo atone point, right.
So, but in in these, in thesesmaller companies, you know, you
have the ability to kind ofpass it down to somebody who
who's related to you, somebodywho enjoys the business and
feels that same passion as you.
Now Keith is is the currentpresident of Showplace at this
time, right.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yep and majority owner.
Now he's been buying sharesfrom his mother and I for quite
a few years now he's doing theright thing.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
So what I've noticed, though, is that there are less
errors than there used to be.
There was a lot of pass downthroughout these past 40 years.
You know, when we talk aboutTissot coming from his father,
you going down to Keith, when wetalk about John Cleek, to John
Cleek Jr, those were some majorthings that happened, but I'm
(11:15):
starting to see that that'sslowing down.
I don't see as many on that,for lack of a better term.
The third tier it know it'scoming down to the juniors, or
it's coming down to thefirstborns, or whatever the case
is.
You know, I know Carrico hashis daughter involved, but
that's a handful, and I don'tsee as many on the horizon.
Why do you think that is?
(11:37):
Why do you think that there'snot as many as the third
generation, as the firstgeneration?
Speaker 2 (11:47):
generation as the first generation.
Well, I think it's certainly.
I think most successfulbusiness people.
It's not their ideal dream thatone of their children takes
over their business.
Might be some that have thatdream, but I would say, for me,
I wanted to be an advocate formy children.
I wanted them to do what theirdream was.
If it happened to be mine, thatmight be some some good
(12:08):
leverage for them, and I thinkit is for Keith.
You know he learned at the, atthe dinner table, a lot of what
I did and what we do young.
So he's got a leg up.
But if he wanted to be adentist or or, you know, like my
older boys drive a semi as acommercial trucker most of his
(12:30):
life, I'd have been happy forhim, you know.
So I really think that there maybe a group that says, oh, I
just want to pass it down to mykids, but I think there's a
sizable group that says, no, Ijust want my kids to do what
they love.
Because I got to do what I loveand so I happened to keep
falling in love with it.
My daughter did a great job for10 years doing our marketing at
(12:53):
one point right out of collegeand that was a good gig for her.
But Keith really fell in lovewith the industry and he fits it
good and he has a different setof strengths than I do.
But I mean he got a lot of hisstrengths from his mother and
I've got great admiration for mywife and his mother.
(13:15):
I'm so grateful that he gotsome of her skills and some of
her personality traits and soforth and some of her
personality traits and so forthand that kind of made Keith and
I, I think, a partnership thatworked, like Marianne and I's
partnership.
You know I mean we offset eachother with different strengths
and it served Keith and Itogether for Showplace and he's
(13:38):
been here now I don't know 15.
He worked for Marianne in hercash advance business first and
then he come on board as mybuyer because I knew he was a
good negotiator.
I dealt with that when he was achild.
Yeah, so I don't know about theebb and flow of second and
(14:02):
third generations.
I guess I hadn't really thoughtseriously about that Second and
third generations.
I guess I hadn't really thoughtseriously about that.
But I would say you know it.
Probably there was an awful lotof the early guys that I worked
with in this industry that werefirst.
I mean, there was no previousgeneration in this business.
You know the Norm Slattons, theLowry Schraders.
You know Irish traders.
You know David Blevins, harveyWhitehead I wrote a couple of
(14:37):
names down here so I wouldn'tforget some of the people.
You know that I really had a lotof respect for and learned so
much from in the early days, myolder group.
You know Daryl Mike's dad andErnie Llewellyn.
You know that group was a triothat argued vehemently about
details but respected each other, learned from each other.
You know, and I think you knowthat that was then I moved into
(14:59):
to learning from some otherpeople you know, away from the
order into the trip group.
You know learning learning fromDavid Blevins uh, showcase rent
to own out of Huntsville,alabama, and Cynthia Baber
Strunk, who had just lost herhusband um, you know, pre
Shannon, obviously, um and uhSlats and Larry Schrader and and
(15:21):
Jim Sims and a bunch of oldguys that were trip board
members Harvey Harvey Whitehead,harvey's Neighborhood Rentals.
That early 90s Trib Board wasfull of entrepreneurial spirit,
first generation entrepreneurialspirit, and I think what you're
finding in second and thirdgenerations is maybe there's
(15:43):
some of that.
Certainly I see it in some ofthe young folks today.
You know Chris Jr.
You know there's a lot of goodentrepreneurial spirit out there
and I think, Larry Carrico isblessed with a great team,
including his daughter, but Ithink that's part of it is those
original people.
We were kind of plowing somenew ground and I was learning
(16:05):
from some that did their initialplowing.
I kind of feel like I wassemi-second generation,
somewhere between first andsecond RTO generation people.
Again, it's talked about a lot,Pete.
I've heard you talk about it.
I've heard a lot of otherpeople talk about the
camaraderie, the sharing thatour industry has enjoyed for a
(16:28):
long time.
I look at learning that Ilearned that from Lowry and
Slats and David Blevins andCynthia Baberstrom.
Those were the people, andErnie and Daryl too Everybody.
Though we might have bickeredoccasionally about details, we
(16:48):
all were stretching each otherand we were very open to helping
each other and I think that Itried to copy that.
I don't think I invented it, Ithink I tried to copy it.
I tried to be open and honest.
I've had a lot of industryfriends since then that I enjoy
(17:09):
and learned lots from.
Maybe I hope I helped in somesmall way.
If I harnessed something that Ilearned, I was always willing
to share it, Sometimes probablyto a fault.
So they probably say shut up,Gary.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Well, you know, talking about some industry
first and some of the names thatyou mentioned, really, really
great people that have done alot for the industry.
One thing that I've seen soCastle Rental and Pawns is one
of them where they have asituation where they have the
rental side and then they havethe other side and it's a pawn
(17:47):
right, so they're running out ofthe same building, kind of cut
down the middle, and they do twodifferent things.
You mentioned this cashsituation that your wife ran.
Did you ever think that itwould be a good idea to run them
both out of or close to side byside and do that together?
Are there places that you havedone that?
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Yes, yeah, when, when she first started opening
stores, uh the first one sheopened was separate, but along
the way we opened a couple umkiosks in our rent to own
business and tried that for awhile with, with some success I
think the standalones did alittle better for her and we
(18:26):
tried movie tape rentals in theearly days alongside our
rent-to-owns things.
We've ran carpet, we installedcarpet, we sold carpet retail.
The big part of the beginning ofour business was putting up
C-band 10-foot satellite dishes.
That was a huge part of ourhitting critical mass with cash
(18:50):
flow and keeping our debt lowwas selling a new $2,500
satellite dish to customers in83 and 84 and 85 and 86 and
making five or 600 bucks on itand paying for that $600 Zenith
or Sylvania television that Iwas going to rent to somebody
for $16.99 a week or whatever.
(19:11):
You know.
I mean that business reallyhelped us get going.
So putting some things side byside, I think you know, has its
utility and it may be necessaryfor a while.
Ultimately, I do think becomingthe place in your specific thing
to go probably has advantages.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
So, because you know I was, I'm glad you said that
because that was actually mynext question Is the evolution
of rent to own to bring on someof these side things and have
them available, or do you thinknot having them in there and
staying focused true, to justthe rent to own part of it is
where you think it should be.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
It's talent specific.
If you've got an entrepreneurrunning a single location with a
lot of desire and a lot ofplanning skills and knowledge, I
think they can run multiplethings out of one location.
I think that's hard to do as achain.
Things that fit in as a productor service.
That goes with rent to ownreally well, like when we first
(20:18):
got into computers and that wassuch a new thing to rent.
Some of those innovations andproduct changes I think will
always be a valuable part ofrent to own.
But you know, as far ascompletely different industries
trying to run a carpet storealongside a rent to own store, I
don't think you know, that'snot something you're going to do
on a wide scale.
(20:38):
That's something that adetermined entrepreneur,
probably with a very supportivehusband or wife, it can get done
, you know.
But but it's I don't think it'ssomething you're going to see
Rack doing.
I mean, rack's got some sidegigs you know doing, you know
financing and so forth.
That's that's so close to thesame model, just just employing
(21:00):
somebody else to market for you.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Right.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
And I think that's been valuable.
Obviously for them.
The stock market looks kind ofugly today but I got to tell you
I like rack stock at thecurrent price.
I like it.
I don't want to sell it, I wantto buy more.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
And I have bought some more.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
But I think you get these opportunities rare and few
times and and, uh, it's, it'sthe courage to know ebbs and
flows come and go.
Uh, don't get freaked out, youknow.
Keep moving forward.
And back to your one of youroriginal points was is now a
time you could?
I, we opened our first store inspring of 82.
(21:42):
I mean, do you know what theeconomy was like in 80, 81, 82,
79, 80, 81, 82?
I mean I was paying 18.5interest on my house in those
days.
I opened a rent to own store,you know.
So I mean, things were toughand there was layoffs.
I worked at a factory but and Igot.
Things were tough and there wasthere was layoffs.
I worked at a factory, um, butand I got laid off occasionally
(22:05):
and it was pretty much a greatdovetail when they didn't need
me much anymore.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
It's about right when show plates really need full
time, you know so in theexpansion verse, right you, you
open up some more stores.
You, you realize that maybeshelling out some and parting
ways with some of them were agood idea, because of whatever
the case is, they're performingdifferently or they're too far
to really be right on top of andmake sure that they're growing.
(22:31):
Whatever the case is, have youever thought because then I see
some of these, I see somecompanies doing like the
expansion model of a franchiseyou ever thought about doing a
franchise situation and whatwould be the consideration to do
that, saying Showplace has got15, but I'm going to franchise
(22:51):
you because I've got this brand,I've been doing this a long
time and if you have theentrepreneurial spirit, I have
the name.
Let's put that together andgrow the company.
Have you ever thought that thatmight be something in the
future or maybe in the past thatyou've tried, that you didn't
really want to go with?
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Well, I never really seriously considered being a
franchisee of another rent-ownedfirm.
But I have to say, probably inthe mid-90s I wondered if I
could pull off kind of whatTrooper did maybe even
pre-Trooper doing it that I likebuilding systems and processes
(23:30):
and that was probably myfavorite part of the business
was building systems andprocesses, repeatable things
that could help.
You know, we called it make itMcDonald's simple.
You know, do stuff that otherpeople could repeat so that you
could hire average people to doa really good job in this
business.
And so I did give that someconsideration then and then I
(23:53):
think I probably got you know,had a year or two where I got a
dose of humility and thought I'mnot as bright as I think I am.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
I better just take care of my own backyard, 'm not?
Speaker 2 (24:00):
as bright as I think I am.
I better just take care of myown backyard.
It's enough, and I think that'sultimately what I ended up
figuring out that I just lovebeing about 100 to 125 employees
, knowing all of them, knowing alot of their kids, most of
their kids' names.
That was my style and so, no, Ireally big was never as
(24:23):
important or anywhere as near asimportant to me as good.
I like being good first, andthat was a challenge.
All my career was trying to getbetter because we were good.
We really didn't have any bigdown years.
I mean, as far as I don't losemoney any years on P&L.
I got real close when Idownsized.
(24:43):
That's why I sold 10 stores,because we were close to having
a money losing year and Ithought I've overshot myself
here.
My competence level isn't wheremy needs are right now, so
that's why we downsized.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
You know what?
That's a pretty amazingstatement, because I think some
people, regardless of where theyare, want to push for the stars
and either they don't it's justnot their niche, it's not what
they can do, or they have tobring in somebody else to help
them because their skill set isa little bit different than
yours and some people can'tadmit that.
(25:23):
You know, I can do it.
I just got to figure this out.
I've learned a long time agothat my ceiling is only so high.
It might be higher than others,it's lower than some, and some
of the things that I can do aresome of the things that they
can't do, and some of the thingsthat they can do are just some
of the things that I can't do.
And sometimes, you know, yougot to find that right dance
partner to say you know what I,I, the reason that we're
(25:44):
together, is because I need anAbbott to a Costello, I need a,
you know, a Batman to a Robin,and we can't all do the same
things, but together we can doit right, you know, and that's
and that's important and it'syou know them, you know their
families, because didn't youguys just recently have an award
(26:05):
show where I saw so many awardsthat were given out.
I think there was a list ofalmost 12 to 15 awards where
there was like the rookie of theyear and the best operator of
the year and somebody from homeoffice, and it was one of those
things like I really think thatyou know, you, you guys did it
very well.
You had the ability to kind ofsee everybody and talk to
everybody, and there's this,this, this thing, like we're not
(26:28):
giving awards away to everybody, but everybody's going to have
that opportunity to stand up infront of everybody and just hey,
this is something that I canrecognize you for, you're doing
a great job.
It looked like Keith was takingthe brunt of that.
I don't know how much of it.
I saw a little bit of you inthere, but I saw him.
I don't know how that worked,but I mean I know he's doing a
great job, you know kind ofpassing that torch along to him
(26:49):
and having him out there as thefront person.
I mean, of course he'sobviously the president, so I
know he's doing a great job, butI to see that and happening.
But then I did have a question.
So it was, it was show placeand then it was R and R.
Is that, uh?
Are you guys doing thattogether as two companies that
work together, or was it justbecause you know you guys have
(27:12):
closeness?
Is there, is there show placesand an R and R that you guys own
together?
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Well, um, again, I mentioned Slats and Lowry and a
bunch of these guys.
I can't leave out Larry Suttonas one of my mentors from early
on, dear friend the godfather ofRed Zone right.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Is that where he got his name from?
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Yeah, in the really early days of ORDA we'd bring
him in the reverend of RTO andhave him fire up the troops and
just always loved Larry's spirit.
But of course Larry started thefranchise, the R&R franchise,
and you know him and David cameand you know was trying to sell
(27:59):
the idea for us to get into it.
And I just knew at the timethis happened six, seven, eight
years ago I was late enough inmy career that I didn't have the
juice to want to add that extrathing.
That was a whole bunch of newlearning.
I was excited by it.
I wish I was 10 years younger,but I just told Keith, keith was
with us then by then and had avice president level position
(28:22):
here.
I just said, if if we're goingto do this, you need to do it,
you know, and I'll help a bitadvice wise, but you kind of
need to do it because I'm notgoing to learn the details and I
you can't have in my mind, youcan't have an owner without
their hands dirty.
You just it doesn't work verywell very long, and so he needed
(28:46):
to get his hands dirty and hewanted to do it.
So he he bought some franchiserights and has opened a couple
stores and I think he's gotanother one in the pipeline
right now that they're workingon the remodel in limo, ohio.
Um, so, uh, um, it's, it'scoming about, it's, it's coming
about, it's it's.
We do the admin for them, justlike when Marianne run the
(29:08):
Sunset Cash Advances, shedirected the operations, the
store operations, but we alwaysdid the payroll and the HR and
the admin and just charged a feefor it.
You know an intra company feefor it.
You know intra-company fee.
And that's what we're doing forKeith's R&R stores and we just
(29:30):
said it's time for them tobecome a part of our annual
customer appreciation event andthat's why you saw them there
this year and really the lastcouple of years, keith has fully
directed that event.
Him and the HR department havefully directed it.
I mean I was actively engaged init for 20-some years.
(29:53):
I don't know when we starteddoing an actual customer
appreciation day and closing thestores, but it's probably been
20-some years ago.
And I got to say credit to somecurrent peers I learned going
to Mike Tissot's show along theway how creative and sincere a
(30:15):
lot of the appreciations werefrom him and his dad to the
countryside family and I learnedsome things from that that was
very beneficial to me.
I got a lot of current guysthat I look back to Larry and
Slats as heroes and Larry asheroes.
But there's a lot of currentguys that I have as heroes too,
(30:35):
and Mike's certainly a hero ofmine and Chris Bolan and Lynn
Leach and these guys are realclose friends in this business
and I've learned so much fromthose guys.
The camaraderie and sharing ofthis industry that everybody
talks about is real and I justwanted to be a cog in that wheel
(30:56):
.
You know I don't take anypaternity in it.
I think it came from others,but I feel like I tried to be a
cog in that wheel.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Well, I think you have been.
I'm going to tell you that Ithink you have been.
I don't think you've enoughyourself enough credit for that.
I mean to say that you havesomebody who, who under you, you
know your son or whatever thecase is, cause I don't you know.
Sometimes I don't know.
Sometimes we say you know, thisis who they are and we don't
want to put a title on thatbecause I would love to say my
(31:27):
daughter, eventually, is goingto take over whatever I'm doing
and all that.
I just like to call her by whoshe is and let her make that
decision.
But I mean, come on, that's agreat addition to the brand to
say that there's an R&R alsoincluded in that, because it
looks like everybody did a greatjob.
It looks like everybody wasenjoying being there.
It looks like you've built notonly the brand but you've built
(31:49):
that culture and that family ofthose people that enjoy being
there.
That's part of it, that's ahuge part of it and it's great
to see that.
It's great to see that Keith'sbeing able to add on to that and
kind of carry that torch alongand then become his own
entrepreneurial spirit, to kindof expand on his own different
ways and how he wants to do that.
And honestly, I really wouldlove to say that my daughters
(32:10):
are going to do that.
Neither of the older ones reallywant to have anything to wear
and to own.
It's just not in their blood.
Not that it's bad.
My older one tried it for alittle while and she said Dad,
you know, hey, it was a greatexperience, but I don't know how
you do it.
It's just not for me, um, she'sa little bit more of the four
walls and the you know the typeof business where she's just
behind the desk and doing whatshe does, and maybe, maybe
(32:31):
she'll come back a little bitlater, I hope, but we'll see how
that works, um.
So we have those added on, um,and honestly, I think it's a
great move because that's, youknow, we were talking about the
cash.
The R&R is on there.
You're getting everybodytogether, you've added these
stores, but now, at the end ofretirement, I see you wearing a
(32:52):
jacket.
It looks like you're going towork, have you really?
You see you're saying thatyou're taking a step back.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
So after 44, years I got showplace on here, you know.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
There you go.
That's what I'm talking about.
So so here, here's my question.
Is you've been doing this sucha long time you finally decided
to take a step back.
Really two questions.
Is what made you decide thatthis was a good time to finally
go?
I think I've done as much asI'm going to do.
I'm going to take a step back.
And then, what is a step back?
You've done it for 44 years.
What's a step back?
I literally just got finishedfor 44 years.
What's a step back?
I literally just got finishedtalking to Ed Wynn 40 years and
(33:28):
Ed's like I've done it all.
I've done this, I've done that.
I've helped open April, I'vehelped with the RDAs, I've gone
to ledge cons, I've doneeverything and I'm sayonara.
I'm good, I'm okay.
He kind of keeps in touch alittle bit, but he's OK with
being able to step back becauseof what he's done.
How did you come up with thatidea?
And what do you do now?
What is a normal day to day forGary?
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Well, here's honors to Edwin too.
He's helped me a lot throughthe years.
I just think that Keith's hadthe ability to run this company
for some time.
He's bright, he's hardworkingand diligent.
He's, he's bright, he'shardworking and diligent, and I
(34:16):
really kind of feel like themomentum that that we've had
here is strong enough that itdoesn't need me.
As we grew the business, assoon as I could teach somebody
else how to do something andsustain something that I'd been
doing, I tried to look for thenext thing I ought to be doing
and I think that's kind of whatI'm doing now is Keith can do
(34:37):
this, and I've got a couple ofthings that I want to do, some
stuff on our land, some, youknow, um, some some historic
stuff for our family.
Um, there's just some projectsthat I kind of want to work on
and I think Keith Keith's gotthis, keith and and and Rick and
Mike, the current group thatkind of runs the, the, the show
(35:00):
here at show place.
Um, they're capable and, uh,they don't need me, um, and and
he's not needy, um, I think, um,you know, he has his own ideas
of what needs to be done, what'simportant.
There's enough of them thatline up that he and I've been
pretty good at getting along asa father son, I mean.
(35:22):
There's.
There's things we debate on, youknow, and it's probably
uncomfortable for other people.
You know we were pretty good atnot doing a lot of that in
front of other people, I think.
But but you know, it's that'snatural?
I don't think that's unnatural.
Most father and son or fatherand daughters or mother and son
or mother and daughtercombinations in business, I
(35:45):
think, have to have somedifferences.
You know, if there's enoughlove and respect, those don't
last long.
You get past them real quick,you know, and maybe you stretch
each other.
That's that's what I alwaysthought about, daryl and Ernie
and I in ORDA is that we debateda lot of things, but
respectfully.
(36:05):
We were never mean to eachother.
We just debated diligently,respectfully and learned from
each other, and I think familiescan do that too.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
So I feel like once I finally get Dan Fisher locked
in, we're going to have the same.
I feel like you guys did youguys have a conversation ago.
I listen to this my last year.
This is it.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Yeah, no, I mean, you know Dan's worthy of mention.
Terry Bevel was a dear friendof mine that worked for Slats.
You know great industry helperglue that helped hold us
together during some tough times.
Think a lot of Carac, caracosand and you know, just there's
(36:50):
just so many people in thisindustry that were so willing to
help each other, so so gratefulto have had this career in this
industry.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
So then back to question number two.
Now that we've decided, nowthat we've made those things and
you feel comfortable about it,what is the normal day-to-day
for Gary?
How do we go from 44 years ofreally the grinding?
I mean, you've got the firstyears of really just kind of
getting your roots growing,growing up to stores, shrinking
stores, opening R&Rs, passingthe torch, making sure that your
(37:21):
culture is there, making surethat you know the name of people
.
I mean, I do see the Showplaceshirt on.
I just want you to know.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
I do see the shirt on but what does a day now look
like that?
You've kind of stepped backfrom it all.
Well, on the Showplace side,I'm still, probably responding
to some peers, some vendors thatdon't know that I'm away yet.
I mean, it's been pretty recentthat I wasn't here all the time
.
So I'm still doing some emailsand some voicemails and, you
(37:53):
know, return calls.
I'm still texting with myfriends that are in the industry
.
We still have regularinteraction, have regular
interaction.
I'd say you know, not a lot oftime goes by that there isn't a
half a dozen people that Iinteract with about some kind of
rent own issue.
Um, I, I'd say that's stillpart of it.
Um, we own some of theproperties that the show place
(38:17):
stores are in.
So we're still managing somereal estate.
Marianne, my wife really helpsa lot with the details on that.
They, mary, and my wife reallyhelps a lot with the details on
that.
So that's related.
We've got, you know, two homes.
We really enjoy some time inTennessee on the lake and I've
I'm still there's a projectstill going on there to make
that what we want, and and we'vegot five acres up here in Ohio
(38:41):
and there's there's always workto do on that land and I really
dearly enjoy that work.
I really like being outside inthe winter in the north.
That's not one of my favoritetimes of the world.
Is is just to have, you know,my chainsaw jeans on you know
they got the holes in them fromnipping them with a chain and
(39:01):
and my log splitter out thereand fire going on two different
levels, burning up old rottenwood, trying to clean up the
woods a little bit, the stuffthat's laid down and you know,
and just being outside all dayin 20 degrees that's.
You know I'm never cold at all.
You know, maybe the first threeminutes but pretty soon you
(39:25):
work up that that that glow andand you're shedding stuff and
you know, it's.
I just love doing that.
And then the summertime I Istill like riding motorcycles
and and uh, boating and uh, herand I bought new bikes this year
, so that's that's going to bepart of every summer.
As long as we're still thewindow's open and we're still
capable of doing it, we'revisiting Yellowstone for some
(39:47):
time this year.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Oh wow, that's going to be nice.
I can tell you right now I havetried the North thing.
When we went up to LedgeConthere were a couple of times it
hit in the 40s.
Let me tell you, my blood hasthinned out since I've been in
Florida.
I've been in Florida for about35 years and let me tell you I
could take the heat all day.
(40:08):
The cold goes through me to mybones.
It's not something that I enjoygoing, seeing and then coming
home.
So I understand the need forwanting to be where you want to
be, where, naturally, you justfeel like you want to go.
But, gary, this legacy that youhave, the things that you've
been able to accomplish and whatyou've done, the people that
look up to you, I just want youto know we appreciate you in the
(40:29):
rental industry.
I appreciate you and I'm gladthat you were able to come today
and kind of just really sitdown and talk to us a little bit
.
One thing that I wanted to getfrom you you do have a mind for
this, whether it's been beateninto you through experience,
whether you have that foresightor whether you have the people
around you, like you'vementioned, that really help
(40:51):
guide your decisions or give youthe information for you to make
educated decisions.
What would you say to somebodywho really wants to take over,
become something on their own?
They want to open up their ownplace, they want to get things?
What is something, or a fewthings, that you would say you
know what this is?
Advice that is just youcouldn't put a label on it and
(41:16):
you couldn't put an amount on it.
This is really that importantin your eyes that you see, you
should know this, try this, dothis or think about this as you
go into this opening up ortrying to get several things, or
becoming a partner.
What would that be?
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Well, I don't know how I would have explained it
before I had Stephen Covey as amentor, but he helped me
articulate it.
You know, I'd call those sevenhabits of highly effective
people one of the biggestimpacts on my life ever Great
book.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Great book.
If you haven't read it, guys,you have to read that book.
An amazing book.
I've done it twice and I stillmiss things.
I've got to listen to it again.
Paul Mativian and I were justtalking about this at LegCon
because I had read it years andyears ago.
And then he read, here-recommended.
I listened again and I stillfeel like I'm missing stuff and
I'm going to have to do a thirdread pretty soon.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
So that.
So that question and thatadvice from from that to
articulate it is if you're thatperson that you're asking me
about, that wants to, wants togo forward, and what's the best
advice I could give them isdream big, write it down, busted
into bite sized pieces, keepthe main thing, the main thing.
(42:35):
So prioritize and plan weekly.
You know, get, get yourself aroutine of planning so that
those bite sized pieces, youknow, do the hard work of of
dreaming and and figuring outwhat it is that you got to get
(42:56):
done, and and then ask yourselfthose coaching questions what
should you do first?
What's the most important thing?
What should you do first?
What's the most important thing?
What should you do next?
And and bust them into thosebite-sized pieces and get, get a
calendar in front of you, care,carry.
You know I don't think youprobably can't see this, maybe
you can see this my Franklinplanner has went on every
(43:18):
motorcycle trip I've ever taken,to Seattle, to Napa, twice on
our bikes.
You know I have to have thatwith me.
It is my hard drive and I spendtime with it, still on Sunday
evenings, planning out whatneeds to get done this week.
(43:39):
And I'd say some peopleprobably have the mental
capacity to do that, you know,without writing it down.
I see that in people that theirrecall and their ability to
prioritize and organize can bedone mentally much better than
(44:00):
me.
I've always needed to write itdown and I knew it and I still
think, even for those that arepretty good mentally, acuity at
doing it without writing it down.
There's a lot of added value indreaming big, writing down that
dream.
You know that is the mission.
That's your personal mission,right?
(44:20):
Have a company mission Ifyou're with a company, whether
you work for somebody else orwhether you're the man that owns
it and the responsibility restshere.
Have a mission and revise itwhen it needs.
You know, think about it Ifit's out of date.
You know and my missionstatement got revised numerous
times over my career I kept apersonal mission statement since
(44:42):
the early 80s and I still gotone.
And we kept a company missionstatement.
We revised it a few times alongthe way.
I mean it's real simple rightnow, at Showplace, and I think
Customer Appreciation Day is abig part of showing what our
mission is and that's to be areally special place to shop and
a really special place to work.
And you know you can't have aspecial place to shop for
(45:05):
customers.
Be their favorite.
You know their cheers bar,their favorite place to go spend
money.
That's what we wanted to be.
We wanted the music to be onand the first name calling as
soon as a customer hit the doorand we wanted to hire people
that got a kick out of doingthat, building those
relationships, and that thatmade this job better than other
(45:27):
jobs, that even paid more moneyfor them.
So we were always looking forthat fit, that perfect fit, to
work in a store that could makeit a cheers bar, and then we
tried to do things to make itspecial for them.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Well, I appreciate it .
I'm going to start lookingforward to that.
I'm glad that somebody elsefinds Stephen Covey as great as
I do.
Talking to Paul about it hasbeen my one thing.
Josh Isecki those are a coupleof guys that I go to for a lot
of things and we talk aboutStephen Covey all the time and
the paradigms and the way yousee things and how things should
be seen from a lot of differentpoint of views.
(46:03):
But I can tell you right now Ihave a little bit more to go.
I haven't quite gotten to whereyou're at yet.
I've only been in the industryfor about 20 years and I'm
looking to do another 20.
So hopefully at that point intime I'll be able to give
somebody the advice that you'vegiven me and pass that on, or at
least say in my youth you cancheck out this podcast and see
what somebody has to say.
But I really appreciate youbeing with me today.
(46:25):
I really appreciate you sharingsome of the knowledge.
I really like what Keith'sdoing.
I'm glad that you were able topass that down and I'm glad that
you guys have that dynamic tobe able to do it together for
the years that you have and tosee where it goes in the future
and see how big it gets and seehow well it goes.
If you ever decide to do thefranchise thing, you let me know
(46:46):
and I want you guys to know.
I appreciate you being with ustoday.
Listen.
Anytime that you guys have aquestion for Gary, please reach
out to the show.
You can reach us at Pete at theRTO show podcastcom.
You can hit up our website.
The same thing atwwwthertoshowpodcastcom.
We're on Facebook, instagram,linkedin, now on YouTube.
Make sure you subscribe and ifthere's anything that I can do,
let me know.
Gary, I really appreciate youbeing with us today.
(47:07):
I appreciate your insights andmore.
I want you to know I'm going tomiss you when I stop seeing you
.
I missed you at LedgeCon.
I'm going to miss you, but I'mso glad that you're available
and I plan on calling you soonon probably something that I
have I'm stumped on.
Everybody says, but Gary saidso I'm going to call you every
once in a while.
I just want you to know.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
Anybody in this industry is always welcome.
I.
I value my relationships in theindustry that'll never end and
and what you do here to helpothers.
Pete, is very valuable and Ithink a lot of people appreciate
it.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
Well, I thank you and I appreciate it.
Guys, thank you for being withus and I will tell you, as
always, get your collections lowto get your sales high.
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