February 3, 2025 • 51 mins
Discover how to revolutionize your rent-to-own business using the cutting-edge power of AI! Join me, Pete Shau, along with AI expert Daniel Hajduk, as we guide you through the latest strategies to supercharge your sales efforts. This episode holds the key to mastering AI-driven sales scripts and overcoming customer objections, empowering even the most novice salespeople to thrive. Learn how AI tools like Synthesia and SundaySky can transform your training materials with lifelike avatars, making your sales team more adaptable and effective than ever before.
You'll also get an inside look at how major brands are navigating the AI frontier. Plus, meet Moxie, Vox's groundbreaking AI-powered mascot, symbolizing a bold new era in marketing. Understand the delicate balance between AI integration and the irreplaceable human touch, ensuring your business stays ahead without losing the personal connection. Whether it's streamlining event planning or optimizing sales schedules, AI is shaping the future, and we’re sharing the secrets to harness its full potential.
Finally, we explore how AI is reshaping the landscape beyond sales, enhancing efficiency in everything from route planning to CRM tasks. Daniel and I reflect on the practical applications in real-time scenarios, offering insights into planning for Q1 of 2025 with AI as a strategic partner. This episode is packed with actionable insights and personal anecdotes, arming you with the knowledge to innovate and excel in the rapidly evolving world of AI-powered business. Don't miss out on the chance to stay ahead in the RTO industry!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Pete Shau (00:00):
Hello and welcome to the RTO Show.
I'm your Pete Shau , and todaywe are covering AI in your life
in RTO World, part 3.
How do we make it easier, howdo we make it easier on us and
what exactly are we going to useAI for?
Well, I have with me DanielHajduk this is Part 3, and we're
going to cover this.
Vox Populi is a platinumsponsor for this show and I
(00:20):
couldn't think of a betterperson to kind of help us out
with that.
This is really what he does.
This is where he dials into it,and we're going to start,
daniel.
How do we use AI to make ourrent-to-own lives easier?
What is exactly that we can?
Now that we've kind of coveredthe introduction and what's
already out there and what wecan do now?
How do we utilize it Now thatwe have these tools in front of
(00:42):
us?
Teach me how to dig with theshovel.
Teach me how to saw with theblade.
What is it that we do to makeour lives better and rent to own
, and how do we make that happen?
Daniel Hajduk (00:51):
Well, it's sales.
It's where we started, honestly, with AI is using it in our
sales.
It's kind of mind-blowing athow much easier it can make it
Because, again, we're not allsales geniuses, but there's no
reason we all can't be or can'tstart somewhere, have a
structure to it.
Oh, I like the sound of that.
I like the sound of that.
Pete Shau (01:11):
So, when you're talking about utilizing AI in
sales, what's your go-to?
Where do you think is a basestart for somebody who wants to
get their AI to take off?
I want to use it in sales, likeyou said.
What do I do first?
Where is an implementationstage that I can use AI to
really kind of kick things off?
Daniel Hajduk (01:28):
Easiest thing to start doing is help you lay out
scripts.
I don't know how common it isfor people to have just winging
it when they have customers comeinto stores for different
situations and it's justdealer's choice of.
I'm going to talk to him likethis and I don't know again, I
don't know how prevalent that is, but it helps you with your
scripts completely.
Now, like we've said in otherepisodes, it can't do everything
(01:51):
for you and I don't want anyonegoing in there and say give me
a script to sell a washer anddryer, because you probably
won't sell many washer anddryers because it's not going to
work.
It's not a one size fits all,but it can help you get started
and anyone that lacks creativitylacks a starting point for an
idea of how to sell something ina different scenario.
That's where we could startusing it.
Pete Shau (02:12):
Well, I don't know if and I know I've had this happen
to me on rent at home, right,it's fortunate and in an
unfortunate situation.
I'm right at my 20th year,right, and I remember when I
first started, I had no idea ofwhat I was doing.
Now, I did start in acollection cycle, so there was a
different way to do it, becausethere are laws and there are
things that I can and can't say.
(02:33):
So I'm already fitting in thisnarrow lane, right, but when it
came to sales, I was extremelynervous because I talked to my
friends.
I didn't talk to people that Ididn't know, I didn't understand
.
Okay, I'm going to tellsomebody.
And my thought, my thought, wasyeah.
I know how to come to work.
I know how to do what you'reasking me to do, right, you tell
me to move the sofa from hereto there.
(02:54):
You tell me to set this up.
You tell me to deliver it.
I can do all that.
But coming it off of my ownmindset and becoming this person
that can sell and be malleable,it took years for that Sales
scripts and sales idea.
I actually learned how to sellover the phone because they
would give me a script and say,listen, this is the scenario.
And then they sit me down andsay, okay, you're gonna call me
(03:16):
when I was completelyembarrassed and you're gonna try
to sell me off for this script.
And it did set me off in a waythat I didn't know it would
change my life.
But the scripts were built, youknow, and they were also built
by somebody who had probablydone it for a long time.
But if I'm new to this, you knowI've said before I would love
to own a rent-to-own company.
Or let's say I'm a new managerand I'm coming in and I'm trying
(03:36):
to get my guys kind of dialedin.
Well, we can't do a blanketstatement, no, so Well, we can't
do a blanket statement no.
So how do you build a salessituation, and what would you
say?
Okay, you have availability tothis chat or you have
availability to build thisthrough AI.
What?
Daniel Hajduk (03:59):
are some of the parameters that you would use to
say this is going to createsomething where you can have
somebody utilize it and getbetter results out of it.
I would start with justinforming it for what you are so
like if you had started yourown, your own store, your own
brand.
Inform.
Inform a chat bot, informwhatever you're going to use on
what you are, what your brand is, the products you're selling,
what your goals are andeverything that's going to help
you start off right.
Pete Shau (04:17):
Okay.
Daniel Hajduk (04:18):
Cause you're going to, it's going to be able
to target and pull what you'relooking for versus well, we
mainly focus on furniture versuswe mainly focus on appliances
or something.
Just a scenario.
Okay, we're going to sell both,but our focus is here.
Or if we're going to try tointegrate something or have
add-ons, tell that.
Whatever your basis for how youoperate is, give it that
(04:39):
information and it can help youstart laying it out.
Pete Shau (04:42):
Some of the things that I might want to enter in is
I want to create a 30 second ador a 60 second ad, based on
whatever this case is.
Or I want to create a salesscript based on Christmas
returning customer.
I mean, how dialed in do youget when you say, hey, let's
create a script, the more dialedin, the better.
Daniel Hajduk (05:02):
Like I said, ai only knows what it's fed.
It's only going to give youwhat you give it.
It's going to pull from what itknows, but it's not going to
give you something.
If you're asking how do I turnleft, it's not going to tell you
how to turn right.
So the better scenario you have, the better is you're going to
get.
So, like you said, if you'redoing something around a certain
time of the year and around acertain type of product and
(05:22):
around a certain type of priceor selling point, and then
everything based off the yes orno is based off that.
Where it can lead on, like Isaid, the add-ons, whatever
you're doing, the more you giveit it's going to help.
So if you want to do aChristmas related script or you
know we have a for Black Fridayweekend we are going to be
pushing X right.
(05:42):
We want our guys to be focusedon this when they are selling it
, to not just go off or talkingabout something else or focus on
the clearance section.
We want to be focused onpushing this washer and dryer
set.
How are we going to do thatcorrectly in the sales cycle to
handle the different things thatcome in when the customer says,
well, I think I'm good rightnow, or I saw this deal there,
(06:04):
I'm just going to do it, look atit later, or something.
How can we?
It's going to be able to helpyou lay that out better.
The more you give it, thebetter it's.
Ai is not good when you gobroad for you.
You can't just say help me sella washer and dryer, but help me
sell on Black Friday weekend,and this is the scenario I'm
dealing with.
These sell on Black Fridayweekend, and this is the
(06:25):
scenario I'm dealing with.
These are the type of customersI'm going to run into.
That's the most important thing, because you have to sell to
everyone a certain way.
Pete Shau (06:30):
So if I'm looking for a sales list, if I'm looking
for a sales sheet that has ascript, the idea would be I
would go in there and I wouldpull up a certain set of
situations and then feed thatinto the chatbot to get
something in return.
In other words, today isTuesday.
I usually call my returns onTuesday.
What am I looking to sell?
(06:50):
I'm probably gonna look at my90 day idle first, or something
that I have more of first, orI'm going to probably sell
something for an upcoming event,right?
Like you said, let's talk aboutBlack Friday, right?
So Black Friday is usuallyprice-based.
We're going to have the bestdeals.
We're going to be a little, youknow, limited free time, based
on how much you put down, butmore than likely it's going to
be a lower down payment.
You're going to get these newproducts for free, okay, so I'm
going to go back and I'm goingto say well, you know, I lost a
(07:13):
few customers this year.
I'm going to target customersthat I used to have, based on a
Black Friday sale in this amountof timeframe.
This is what the money is downand this is what we're looking
to get out of it, and then thosethings I would put in there to
get something back as a scriptthat would say okay, if you're
new to rent to own, this wouldbe a great way to apply it.
Daniel Hajduk (07:32):
Yeah.
Pete Shau (07:33):
Right Now we're talking about entering it in.
How would you enter that in IfI'm going to say, okay, I have
these, I have these ideas, I'mgoing to, I'm going to call my
reinstatements they.
I'm going to call myreinstatements.
They're going to be, you know,black Friday for this and this
and that.
How would you enter it in there?
Daniel Hajduk (07:46):
The more organized, the better it's going
to understand and interpretwhat you're trying to do.
The more clear you are, thebetter grammar, punctuation.
But if you break it down intolines, hey, I need to create a
sales script for X.
I'm going to lay out thedetails below so maybe you have
all right product, everythingabout the product, the product
information, the name, whateveryou need to include in a script,
(08:07):
just line item it out theweight, the Almost like in
bullet points.
Bullet point it out for theproduct, then the type of
customers, then what you'rewanting to focus on, what your
goal is.
Bullet point it out and that'llreally help it and it'll give
you back and more of a humanscript form of a yes or no
scenario, kind of what you'relooking for.
Pete Shau (08:28):
Now, generally what we do is we have two or three
right.
You used to have a page.
It usually takes up a third ofthe page because there might be
different scenarios.
Even though I'm facing the samesituation, it might come out a
different way.
What are some of the differentways?
I mean that's possible througha right To to take one scenario
and pitch it three differentways.
I'm I'm talking to somebody whomight've been a vet.
(08:49):
I'm talking to somebody who hasa whole family.
I'm talking to somebody who istransient and they're going to
keep it for a short period oftime and out of those three, it
will, or out of those it willgive me three different ways to
sell that same situation.
Is that correct?
Daniel Hajduk (09:02):
Yeah, because again, it's going to know, from
what it's been fed, everythingthere is to know really, and
it's going to be able to pullfrom what's worked in the world
of.
This is what a person like Petevalues.
This is what a person likeDaniel values.
This is what an older personvalues.
So you're not just sayingwhat's important to you because
that might not be important tothe customer, and it's going to
(09:22):
be able to to you because thatmight not be important to the
customer and it's going to beable to help you lay that out
and not make it a guessing game.
It's again, it's not going tomake you a sales expert, it's
not going to.
It's not going to make you this, but it's going to help you out
a lot.
And that's where I think theimportance of this is.
People need to stop guessingwith it and start using it in
ways just to easily help anyone.
A new person you just hiredthem last week.
(09:44):
All right, we're selling this.
This is how you focused on.
Figure out who's coming in thestore.
This is how you sell to them.
Pete Shau (09:52):
Now would you say it's just as fair to put in
overcoming objections, as youwould say I'm going to create a
sales script and I'm going togive you this idea on what to
say in these given situations.
Would you say that overcomingobjections is something that AI
can also help you with?
Yeah, I mean it can help.
Daniel Hajduk (10:12):
Then you can pull up.
What are some common objectionscustomers have when they're
buying a couch or when they'rebuying a new bed set.
Why wouldn't they?
Why would they say no, allright, this is why they would
say no.
Now use that with your ownknowledge of wow.
What do I usually sell peopleon?
Give it to ai, okay.
Well, if you're saying becausethey don't need it.
(10:33):
But how do I end up selling tosomeone that didn't felt like
they needed at the moment, butreally I discovered that they
did, or I was able to get themin the door because of this.
Give it that back, all right,so let's build it off.
So you said some commonobjections to buying a new bed
set is I don't need one yet,it's too much money, it's not my
(10:53):
style, all right.
Well, how do you usually handlethat, pete Claude?
I usually do that by having areally good deal on it, by
making it personal to them.
I've sold one like this beforeand it worked before.
Can you help me work that intoa script for different scenarios
?
Pete Shau (11:10):
So this is really like having somebody who's in a
position of management butgiving them the bowling alley
and the bumper rails and sayingyou might not understand this,
but to get from point A of mepitching the ball down to the
pins at the end and that wholelong way in between, this is how
I would handle it for somebodywho doesn't have that experience
, for somebody who might be alittle bit newer at it, and
saying you know, I've got toteach these guys how to overcome
(11:32):
objections and I'm not reallygreat at it myself, so let me
take these parameters and put itinto this system and get a lot
of idea and feedback.
Now, of course, you know youalways got to look at it like
I'm probably not going to doevery single thing that it tells
me to do right.
We're going to feed it and we'regoing to get a recipe back, but
I might want to add a littlebit more salt and I'm going to
add a little bit more sugar.
But it's an idea, it's anoverall outline of saying, okay,
(11:55):
you might not know where to go.
Here is a generalistic idea ofwhat you can say to overcome
objections, what you could do tobring up this sales situation,
what you could do and say inthese particular agreements and
you might not want to sayexactly what's being said, you
don't Right, you don't want togo the verbatim but to be able
to say, okay, I have thisguideline based on what I'm
feeding it, to say this is how Ido a sales script, this is how
(12:18):
I overcome an objection, this ishow I have a sales situation
and then be able to put thattogether.
Daniel Hajduk (12:24):
One way I kind of like to look at it now is go
into like a car dealership siteand you can buy the truck, as is
All right, you can do that.
Now you're always going to findsomething.
Well, that could be better inthe car, because I wish I had
this feature.
Well, those are trucks.
(12:45):
You can go and customize yourexact order that they can build
for you.
It's kind of like that whatyour sales scripts and
everything is.
It can give you the base modeltruck, but you need to be able
to take that layout, copy itinto your own document and then
put your own touch on it.
So what, what exactly works foryour store versus pete's store?
What exactly works here inCalifornia versus Ohio?
Pete Shau (13:07):
Right right.
Building out your own truckRight because, I mean,
everybody's gonna look at it alittle bit differently.
Now, if you get, you know,we've talked before about having
one of these accounts that kindof spans over a certain space.
Right, I have a store that'shere, but I might have another
store that's in Texas.
I might have the store that'sin Texas, I might have the store
it's in Ohio.
I might have a store inPennsylvania or New York, where
things would be different.
Yeah, but having these separateaccounts would allow me not
(13:28):
only to be able to see whatthey're doing, but use those
points of interest to help mecreate my own.
Daniel Hajduk (13:35):
Yeah.
Pete Shau (13:36):
And how I come across it with the demographics and
geographics I have over here,whether I have a lot of land, a
little bit of people, or alittle bit of land and a whole
lot of people.
I actually know because I wasgoing online and I was looking
at Synthesiacom and I hope I'msaying that right and
(13:57):
SundaySkycom, where it's one ofthose situations where not only
can AI help you in creatingtraining videos, but it can also
give you somebody as a person,as a bot, as an AI person you
know like and I hate to say this, I'm really out of tune on some
of the things, but you know, asyou do Snapchat, there's an
(14:18):
avatar in there Now theseavatars that you have are very
human-like.
They're not, you know, they'renot as animated, but they are
more you know they're morehuman-like and then you can
create this training video.
So, you know, for people whoare trying to open something new
or people who are trying to gettraining done and they're
trying to be very dialed in, Iknow that these are ways to
utilize AI in creating is yourexpectations and build it out to
(14:42):
a point where I can add thesevideos made and it will be
reiterated in all the trainingvideos that I have.
And not only is it a lotsimpler than hiring somebody to
(15:04):
come in and do this video andthen you know, it lives like
this until we redo it.
We have the ability to say youknow what I don't like this part
, and I can go in there andchange it.
And it takes, you know, as muchas it does to upload and
correct that part or subtractthat part and add another part
to do it.
I know those two sites werejust something that I came
across right away, but I meantalking about making your life
(15:26):
easier as far as creatingtraining videos, as far as
creating your things to say insituations that I wouldn't know
what I'm doing.
You're creating these salesscripts for people who are brand
new and they don't understandreally, kind of how to get out
of their own shell.
You know, and they're new.
That's amazing to me.
You know, back in the day therewas no way that's if we wanted a
(15:47):
training video, we were goingto sit in front of a camera.
You're going to sit in front ofa camera and record it, right,
and then you're going to do it acouple of different takes
because, even though you knowwhat you want to say, you've got
to read it from theteleprompter the right way.
You've got to make sure thatyou set it the way you want to
say it.
You don't want to screw it up,but then right now I can type it
.
However, I type it as long asI've got good typing skills,
which I guess I can add to chatthat it's set up right and then
(16:10):
feed it into another system, andthat's kind of something I want
to get making life easier.
You know we did it in the lastpodcast.
We were talking about how do weuse different programs to make
our multitasking easier.
What do we do?
We actually went to the AI andasked for more AI based
situations that make it better.
You can take one AI and feedanother.
Is that something that you do?
(16:32):
Do you do that on a regularbasis?
Have you taken the ideas andrefed it?
Daniel Hajduk (16:36):
That's what you really need to do, because I
don't want to just take from onesource because, again, it's
only given what it's fed anddifferent companies have
different approaches of whatthey're putting in there, what
their focuses are.
So take from different places.
We haven't done that too much,but that's great.
That's why I said balance itoff each other, whether it's all
right, this is my take on it.
(16:57):
What's AI's take on it and whatcan it balance with mine?
All right, not just this AI,but what do they think about it?
Let's ask a question here.
So I'm going to pull up chatGBT and I don't have a paid
version of this, but before wedid, I used it for quite a few
(17:17):
things and it can do a lot.
Pete Shau (17:20):
You know, while you're looking for that, I've
tried to go down the rabbit holeof a lot of different things
that are already out there thatwe can use to make our lives
easier and rent to own, and Icame across scribe how Okay, and
scribe how was basically like,as you're saying, you know
you're going into ChatBee GBTand you're typing this in and
this is how you do it, but Imight not from where I'm sitting
(17:42):
.
You're handling that over there.
I don't see it.
Scribehow would be ability togo in and this is one of many
different places.
So I'm not paid for that.
I don't want anybody to thinkthat I'm getting paid by
ScribeHop, but what I'm sayingis you have these sites out
there that if you want to showsomebody how to do it, it will
take the actions that you do andput it in a format that shows.
(18:02):
I went to this page, I went tothis link, I put in this
information and this is what Igot out of it.
I mean, talk about training.
We're just talking about videos.
Now I want you to go in andtake a payment.
I want you to go in and make arental order.
I want you to be able to typeup an agreement.
This is how you do it and youtake this part of ai.
You go to scribe how or youwould go to a site like that and
(18:24):
go, boom, these are the stepsthat you have to take now.
Mind you, it's easy to go intoa book, right, and you can see.
This is the.
This is the processes.
Some people don't learn thatway.
Or how easy it would be towatch a video on the same screen
that you're trying to figureout how to type up the agreement
.
Oh, you know what, just put ithere and boom, this is how you
do it.
So, you know, I see things likethat all the time and I'm like
(18:45):
how to make it easier?
Is that not the best way?
What are we coming up with?
What do you get?
Daniel Hajduk (18:50):
we're gonna ask google what are the most
important things to considerwhen selling?
Selling what?
What do you want to sell?
Pete Shau (19:04):
uh, we're gonna say a , a living room set like sofa
and love.
Let's, let's make it morespecific.
A sofa and love, I want to sayliving room sex.
I probably wouldn't know what Italking about.
Daniel Hajduk (19:13):
So the first answer it gave me consider
factors like brand condition andage.
A good rule of thumb is toprice your furniture at 50-70%
of its original price, adjustingbased on its condition.
Offering a fair price attractsmore buyers and increases your
chances of a swift sale.
Let's go ask that same exactquestion, though, to Claude, and
this is why I said it's.
It's.
It's like anything in your lifedon't ever just look at it from
(19:36):
one perspective and you're justblind.
The AI.
You got to look at it frommultiple angles and see what the
different things are.
See, this is.
This is where the beauty ofchat a real chatbot comes in.
List it out here.
The factors consider whenselling a sofa and love seat
price factors, and it broke down.
Material quality, frame,construction, brand reputation
and warranty, current marketprice for similar sets, seasonal
(19:57):
timing, customer needs broke itdown.
Technical specifications brokeit down.
Additional features would youlike me to elaborate?
So that's something it can godown to the fine.
Pete Shau (20:10):
Fine.
So that's the differencebetween a chat gpt and a clock.
Daniel Hajduk (20:13):
That was google that was I can't pull, but
that's what it pulled up for me.
So I'm going to ask it.
Like we said, we'll take whatone says and give it to the
other.
So I'm going to give it exactlywhat Google gave me.
So it's very nice.
I'm curious to hear yourperspectives on this.
What factors do you think aremost crucial in selling yourself
a love suite from your, fromyour experience working with
customers, and what have youfound?
(20:33):
So it broke it down and do a?
That's an excellent andpractical approach.
I like how you focus on the key, tangible factors that actual,
actually drivers resale value.
Let me build on your insights.
So, again, I started somewhereand everyone has their own
thoughts and opinions.
It can build onto it.
So you might know well I liketo sub these sell well, because
(20:56):
everyone needs it at this timeof the year.
Well, why figure out the why?
And that's what I can help youdo figure out the why.
That's a great, that's a greatstatement because, again, we're
just well you know, they alwayssell before these, uh, new
things always sell before schoolgoes back in the year.
Well, why?
And then break it down into whymore.
It's kind of goes into thesquare root of everything or
(21:20):
whatever you want to call it.
Pete Shau (21:21):
Well, the why is what we do?
It right, the why is what we do, you know.
Another thing that I noticed iswhen we're going over these
situations where, how does ithelp me better?
It can help me make videos, itcan help me come up with sales
scripts, it can help me figureout what time and what date
would be better to sell whatproduct.
(21:41):
Right, I think that this, youknow, I won't be able to sell
snowmobiles in the middle ofsummer and I won't be able to
sell Christmas trees at the sametime either.
But then vice versa, when isthe best time to sell a
fireplace?
Well, probably not on July 4th,right, it'd probably be, you
know, grills and other things.
But then you can utilize that.
And when we talked about it,you know, off off camera.
We talked about AI being thatoffice manager, almost like that
(22:05):
, that side person that helpthat.
You know that Robin to yourBatman.
Well, you don't have to do allthe heavy lifting, but you'd
have to do something to be here.
So, well, you don't have to doall the heavy lifting, but you'd
have to do something to be here.
So, as we come across it now,we would.
I think we talked about itpreviously.
But you're talking about workschedules.
We can get it to do a workschedule, figure out how to best
utilize 40 hours on aproductive week or 45 hours, or
(22:28):
how do I manipulate a holidayinto that situation.
How do I figure that out?
I mean, when I think about allthe different ways that it could
make it easier, we just have toreally utilize what's out there
and then continually build onthat, either by feeding it what
we've already learned or feedingit from what it's telling us,
but building up on that and kindof giving it those.
(22:51):
This is my experience from thesituation.
Now, when we're talking aboutAI and we're talking about
experience, we're talking aboutyou had mentioned it in a
previous podcast situationswould be based on historic
values.
Normally this happens duringthis time of year.
Normally that happens this timeof year.
That would be more of anintegrated situation where I
(23:13):
would probably have to have amore integrated AI in order to
cover all of the instances andthe counts that I used to have
and things like that.
But when we're talking aboutscheduling, we're talking about
calendar events, the thought ofusing we usually do okay, we're
going to do a first quarterreview, a second quarter review,
(23:33):
but now I can probably do a365-day review based on my
experience and what I know, onan entire calendar for every
single holiday that wouldactually affect my store up
front.
The ability to say you know,president's Day is probably a
day that we sell more bedding,you know you had the 4th of July
where you probably sell moregrills.
(23:54):
You have back to school in thistime frame this week, this week
and this week.
Spring break usually happens inthe month of March or April,
early April, whatever.
I guess that depends on whereyou're from.
How do I utilize that to bettermy sales and my staff output?
These are things that I neverreally thought about as time
(24:16):
goes on.
So what is the best way, inyour opinion, that you've
started using this now, and Voxis kind of being led in that
direction?
I know you guys are in one ofthose growth phases where you
need to learn.
You want to learn how to usethese AIs in your everyday on
top of always growing, because Imean, I've heard 100% of the
(24:36):
time in RTO, if you're notgrowing, you're dying.
Daniel Hajduk (24:38):
Right.
Pete Shau (24:39):
If you're not getting somewhere, you're already done.
Yeah.
Daniel Hajduk (24:47):
How do you guys utilize it as far as your office
situations go?
Just basic management, whetheror more on the sales side, of
how we're going to follow up fora certain thing.
That can lay it all out.
Instead of having someone planout, we're using this time to
call here and follow up here forthis event.
We're going to schedule it outall there.
It's going to help usautomatically with our CRM.
It's going to basically justpartner with us and tell us
(25:08):
exactly what we need to do forthis.
Just kind of an event schedule,like you said.
Like hey, we know, the otherday we were planning out our Q1
marketing plan and what we'redoing.
There's different stuff we'retraveling for.
The different stuff we're doingonline, the different stuff
we're doing ourselves and whatour focus is based off, what we
know we can do.
It's overwhelming the amount ofdata that's getting back, which
(25:31):
is something to be careful with.
You're going to get overwhelmedwith the amount of stuff it's
going to give you, because it'snot you, it's not well.
I can only type out a page aday of different sales stuff.
That's going to give youthousands of pages if you wanted
to.
So that's been one thing.
Is our planning for next year orwhenever this podcast is out,
for Q1 of 2025.
(25:53):
We're planning out our marketingfor each month, incorporated
with the different shows andevents we're at.
So, whether it's meeting of theminds that we're going to be at
in February, or another showthat we're going to be at in
Vegas in March, or the events wehave locally, all throughout
those three months helping usplan around that and it was not
just us guessing, because we'reall just going to guess you're
going to miss.
What can I do before meeting ofthe minds to market right, how
(26:17):
long before?
And what should I do before theshow in Vegas?
When should I start sendingemails out?
I'm planning that out andincorporating everything else,
so I'm having to think about itwhen it's oh crap, it's a month
out and now I'm just going toscramble to get something
started.
We're always scrambling forsomething.
Why not use the thing to helpus plan out better?
Now, again, it takes initiativeand you have to give it
(26:38):
something and you have to startdoing it, but it'll help you a
lot there.
Pete Shau (26:42):
I mean execution is always the key right.
It's only going to execute whatyou want to do, to say what
we're going to do or to do whatwe want to do.
Of course, the execution isalways like I have to do it and
I have to utilize it on aregular basis.
But creating these things sofar and I know that I would hear
somebody going, yeah, but I'mnot going to plan that out
because you never know what'sgoing to happen True, right, but
(27:03):
if I'm going for a timeframe,if I'm going for a basis, I'm
looking for the bones, right,I'm looking for the bones of a
timeframe.
I would say, okay, yeah, Imight not want to really get
down and dirty on what's goingto happen on the last two
quarters of the year, but togive me a timeframe, you know
what I?
That's going to end the way itdoes, and that particular month
will probably have a differentrevenue scheme than this and it
(27:23):
would cause me to have moremarketing during that particular
point in time.
And then, the more you get intoit, the more you go down that
rabbit hole.
And talking about AI andutilizing it as the office
manager, right, not necessarilythat it's going to tell you what
to do, but giving it theseoffice tasks that will allow you
to utilize your time more onone-on-one tasks that the things
that the AI can't do, becausewe're constantly talking about
(27:46):
what can AI do?
How can it help it better?
Well, the one thing it can't dois be us.
The one thing it can't do isbuild that relationship.
The one thing that it can't dois give a warm smile and ask the
kids hey, how are you doing?
Do you want a lollipop?
And talking to mom and, oh, I'mhaving a bad day.
Oh, you know how you doing,margaret.
Why don't you tell me what'sgoing on?
Because it doesn't make adifference.
But in the background of that,to be able to say I can work a
(28:08):
calendar from today for the next60 days, I can put in all these
things that I need, and whileI'm telling Ms Jones how
important she is to my businessand trying to build that rapport
so that I can sell somethingthat I just learned off of chat
TPT, that it can tell me, okay,these are the better days.
It's either the days that yousell more or sell less.
These are the days that youprobably want to be overstaffed
(28:29):
and not understaffed.
You think Wednesday is a badday for you.
Well, guess what?
Historically it's not.
You've told me for the last sixweeks you get more sales on
Wednesday than you have everbefore because you have this
paid plan versus it's not paidplan or whatever the case is.
And as you, as you go on, youbuild your, you build your staff
with an extra AI member.
(28:49):
That doesn't really cost youthat much.
Daniel Hajduk (28:52):
Yeah, it's for anyone that's ever wanted a
secretary that it's not smart tohire one at a certain point.
This is where you can startuntil you get to the point in
your business where you trulyneed a person doing that job.
This is everyone's personalassistant with that.
Pete Shau (29:09):
What type of investment?
Daniel Hajduk (29:10):
does it take to have AI at work?
Is it just the computer?
It's an internet connection,like I said, show you here.
You need an internet or data onyour phone.
Like I said, that's even thebeautiful thing.
You don't need internet if youcan do it on your phone, right?
So just have an account, putyour email in and get started.
It takes zero dollars to getstarted.
Like we said, in all thesethings whether it is your sales
(29:31):
or your task management, foranything, and, like you said,
it's not going to do itperfectly and it's not going to
always go to plan, no matter howmuch effort you could spend a
whole day on planning out thismonth's plan for everything
we're going to do within ouroffice, in our store, whether
from the marketing, the sales,the organization days, the admin
days.
We live in an imperfect world.
(29:52):
Things are going to come upevery single day, but giving it
that structure is going to helpyou tremendously and that's what
it can deliver.
Pete Shau (30:00):
You know, I think on one of the other podcasts you
mentioned the FLDC, and that'swhat they can deliver.
You know, I think on one of theother podcasts you mentioned the
FLDC and remind me again whatthat stood for it's the
Franchise Leadership DevelopmentConference.
And so during that conference,you know, and you guys had this
roundtable and you sat down andyou kind of were talking about
some big name people in thatsituation.
What did you take out of it?
What are they doing now?
(30:21):
That's that, with AI, that'skind of really changed them.
Daniel Hajduk (30:26):
And are they really looking to implement it
more?
What's the coolest thing or themost interesting thing?
Not really cool is.
Everyone's got a different ideaon it or at least at that time,
that was October of 2024,everyone's got a different
perspective of it.
There are some that are like I'mnot using it at all, and these
are some guys that are, I wouldthink, that are pretty high up
with making decision of whatthey do, whether they're the
(30:47):
head of franchise sales andthey're like we're not using it
at all, versus some guys thatare like I said, they're using
it on their zoom meetings,they're using it for their
management.
He's using it to write a socialcopy, every single thing, to
plan out all of his marketing,everything versus the guys are
just trying things out.
I'm not really sure.
That's.
What I took away is thatthere's plenty of people.
(31:09):
At any point you're at with AI,whether you're using it to
check your emails or you'reusing it to plan out everything
you do there's someone at apoint you are, so don't be
overwhelmed that you're behind,because there's always someone
else and there's always someoneelse to learn from, from a
starter to an expert, no matterhow much technology you use.
That's one of my biggesttakeaways.
Pete Shau (31:31):
As you're sitting at the table right.
You're sitting at the table andyou're saying we got some big
names.
What's a big name?
That's not using it right now.
Daniel Hajduk (31:39):
I want to call them out, but I think
Whataburger is a pretty big namefor not to be using it.
Okay, but want to call them out, but I think whataburger is a
pretty big name for not to beusing it.
Okay so, but they had adifferent perspective on it, um,
and they called out others intheir space of the fast food
space of one big thing.
The most controversial thing wasthe uh ai drive-thru stuff, the
automatic drive-thru.
So you're not even talking to ahuman anymore.
That's messing up your order.
(32:00):
You're talking to a robot right, we talked about that.
Pete Shau (32:02):
we that we talked about it.
Checkers has that.
Daniel Hajduk (32:04):
And I learned a lot of how in the fast food
space, how different everyone'sapproaching it.
You have some taking it oncompletely.
I've seen Wendy's do it a lotand they're doing it pretty well
.
And I also heard thatMcDonald's has canceled some of
their orders.
Again, I don't know how truethat is, but that's what I was
told.
But you hear big name playerslike McDonald's.
They're even struggling with itand you feel like McDonald's
(32:25):
does everything because they'reeverywhere and everyone knows
who McDonald's is.
They're not perfect and someare adapting it better than them
.
Checkers isn't bigger thanMcDonald's, but did you think it
was a good experience?
I thought it was greatno-transcript I want.
Pete Shau (33:07):
I just only thing I want is my order to be right and
you don't overcharge me and youdon't have a lot of talk, extra
talk, that's not necessary.
Daniel Hajduk (33:12):
So that's a good point.
So where are you going to eat?
Right?
And now they used AI to ensurethey can give you you can order
fast and get your food fast.
Now, people aren't using it asmuch in those ways if they can't
figure out how to do that andit's messing that up, so how can
you use AI to deliver what youdeliver or you say that you
(33:35):
deliver?
That's how they're using it.
Pete Shau (33:36):
Yeah, and I think it goes back to the.
You know, you have that officemanager, that office secretary
probably would be a better termfor it, like you said and it's
not to do everything.
So we're giving you ideas onexactly what we think you can
utilize it for, but it doesn'tmean you need utilization in
that area.
If you have it taken care ofand you're good in that area,
(33:57):
then use it for the areas thatyou don't have it.
Use it for an area where you'renot prolific or you don't have
somebody on there that can dothat job very well, or in
yourself.
Right now I might be able to doit, but today I can't because
I'm either short staff somebodycalled out there's something
going on that needs my attention.
I can't solve a car accidentthat happened with my truck and
somebody pulled out in front andit's nobody's fault, it was
(34:19):
just a bad accident.
I've got to go out there.
Well, there are things that Igot to do that I need to catch
up on.
That day might be differentthan other days, so you know the
thought of utilization when yousay Whataburger didn't have it,
but then I'm sure there arereasons why they don't.
Daniel Hajduk (34:33):
So not every store, or they're being very
careful at least they might havea test restaurant for the
drive-thrus, but it's not athing that you're going to run
into, because they're just notthere yet.
Pete Shau (34:48):
And I think that's a huge part of it is being
selective, right?
You don't want to turn overyour whole life to.
I'm coming to work and I'mgoing to have this AI driven
store.
I'm not going to come in and-.
Daniel Hajduk (34:54):
Your customers will notice it Right.
Pete Shau (34:55):
My AI is going to make my sales and my AI is going
to take my payments and AI isgoing to set up my showroom and
all I'm going to do is kind ofzombie through this thing,
because that's not anywhere nearwhat we want to talk about.
Daniel Hajduk (35:05):
No.
Pete Shau (35:06):
But we have to say that that's there.
There is that issue where somepeople have backed off of it,
and it's for good reason,because you don't want to get
stuck in that loop of that echochamber of AI, AI, AI, AI, AI.
And then I come to work one dayand I'm like I really don't
know what to do, unless somebodytells me what to do.
Daniel Hajduk (35:23):
Right and then you're not delivering what you
can Exactly.
Pete Shau (35:32):
But to utilize AI in a way that will help you doesn't
mean it's the same thing everysingle day.
It's not this cookie cutterthing where every single day I
need to do it exactly like thisand it's very possible to say I
have AI that I utilize indifferent ways because of the
needs that I have of that day.
So as I say that I don't wantthe rent-to-own community to be
like, well, you know, you'rejust going to come in and flip
over, switch over and nobody'sgoing to have a rent-to-own
company like that, I 100% agree.
(35:54):
I don't think I'd want one.
But to be able to say I in needor how do I get my guys to
utilize the tools that I haveright now to make the best of a
40-hour week.
Now, very recently I wasspeaking at a buddy's home for
an convention about when theyhad to get together about time
(36:14):
management.
It was something that I hadalso pulled off talking about in
one of the previous conventions.
In Rent to Own, time managementis huge.
It's important why?
Because in time management,rent-to-own has traditionally
been a 48-hour or 45-hourbusiness where they cut back,
and we found out that in mostcases and not all, but in most
cases.
After the issue with whathappened and the pandemic and
(36:38):
everything that happened, a40-hour workweek was not only
conducive to people being ableto be home more and having a
better work-life flow, but mostjobs could be done in that
timeframe.
Again, I'm not going to say all, but so then it pushes the term
.
How do we get the most out ofour 40-hour week?
Ai would make a big difference.
If I can use 1.25 or 1.5 of aperson, right, that one person
(37:03):
plus their helper, their AIhelper, whether it's on their
phone, whether it's scheduling,whether it's being able to say
I'm going to put these 17different addresses in my map
and find out the quickest,fastest way to get there.
That's going to route me notonly around time, distance and
accidents, but what makes sense?
I'm going to go this way, gothis way, go this way.
I'm not going to repeat and goaround the same block three
(37:24):
times.
I'm not going to hit the samezip code all the time.
This is a one-way versus atwo-way versus.
This is a paid highway and allof a sudden, within five minutes
, I have the best way to go.
That's going to save me 40minutes of travel time, and so
(37:45):
you know, and the thought of AI,and how does it make it better?
Well, the idea is you have tofigure out how it's going to
help you and then learn thedifferent ways to make that
happen.
Now, I know in the last show,the APRO show 2024 in Orlando,
there were guys there that hadthis software that I think is
also integratable with VersaRent.
That says you know, it's adrive map software where if you
put in names and address and itcan kind of pull from what you
(38:07):
already have.
I believe you know I'm sayingthis very loosely, but you know
you can enter a name and if it'salready integrated it will have
the add, the current addressand how to get there, and the
more that you enter in you cancheck off for delivery or
service or whatever the case is,and it maps this out for you.
Would I say that I would alwaysutilize that?
No, I would not always utilizethat.
There are days that we're goingout for one TV and I only need
(38:29):
one guy to do that and it'lltake 30 minutes.
But there are days where I havefour deliveries, two services
and a pickup and I've only gotso much time, yeah, and you can
plan that out, and AI just doesthis great job of being able to
do that.
So, on top of just making iteasier, it's a tool, and I think
the best thing that we canalways say about AI is
regardless if you're good at it,regardless if you know where to
(38:55):
utilize it, more or less, it'sa learning tool, just like
anything that you have in frontof you.
The more you use it, thesharper you are at using it, and
I think that there is no way,shape or form that we go in the
next five years of rent to ownand not utilize this tool.
I mean, could you imagine notusing it for Vox in the next
year If we took away all thosetools?
Could you imagine what it wouldbe like to not have those tools
(39:17):
?
Be blind, it's crazy.
You said the horse and thecarriage.
Could you imagine going back topulling?
You know?
Daniel Hajduk (39:24):
that's what people are doing.
It's that's the whole.
Being scared of something is wehave all these inventions and
things for a reason.
There's people that inventthings, not just to make more
money and become richer.
Innovative is to truly makepeople's lives easier.
Why do people do things?
To make it?
Either to solve a problem orbecause they simply just want
something or they love something.
That's why people buy things orcreate things because they
(39:45):
simply want to try something newor because they're in love with
it.
It's the same thing there.
Pete Shau (39:52):
I mean, I know that we talk about a lot of outside
retailers already using things.
The reason that I talk about itnow is because I feel like
rent-to-own is always on thatcurve.
We're always on the backside ofthe bell curve, and I don't mean
anything by that.
It's just that rent-to-own hasalways been there, and the
utilization of these tools onour day-to-day would make so
much difference in what we cando and what we can't get done
(40:13):
with the same amount of peoplethat we always have.
And hiring has been difficultin my area.
I don't know how difficult it'sbeen for 2024 in anybody else's
area.
It's been hard here.
So the question is how do I getmy guys to not only be able to
do more but not put so much onthem that they're like, okay,
you know what You're paying mefor 40 hours, but I'm doing 60
hours worth in 40 hours and I'mdone by the time I get home, and
(40:36):
that's not a position that Iwant to be in, all right.
So then, how do I help themutilize AI?
How can I get their littlesections of area that they're
not being 100% productive,because it's not always your
fault.
Sometimes you go to thebathroom, sometimes you got to
answer the phone.
You're not really doinganything but being on the phone,
but that backs up the otherhours that you have, because now
(40:57):
I have to multitask a hugeamount in this particular
timeframe because Ms Jones hadme on the phone for 30 minutes.
Whether it was productive ornot, right, we're still building
the relationship, and so how dowe get those in-betweens to
count for more?
This is the only way I canthink of yeah it's figuring out.
Daniel Hajduk (41:15):
are people again like I've told you, are people
really just busy or are theyactually working really hard?
And that can help you solvethat issue.
We've run into one thing wherewe've had not seasonal pickups
but huge increases of certainareas at Vox where it's like
crap.
Do we need to hire moreemployees to help them with this
or do we need to hire more ofthem?
(41:37):
Do we need more deliverydrivers and more trucks or do we
just need more people helpingload up the van at the end of
the day so the delivery driverisn't loading up the van for an
hour or the truck for an hour.
They're being able to load itup in 15 minutes.
Then they can get out on theirroutes.
Then they're not stuck out lateor stuck in rush hour when they
didn't want to leave.
They're not agitated anymorebecause they were able to get in
(41:58):
the truck, able to deliver, getback, do more deliveries.
It's something like that.
It's helping you figure outwhat you can do.
On that note of hiring, it'sreally good at laying out job
descriptions.
I've done it lately for acouple and again, give it what
you need because you want tomake sure you're including the
legal stuff, whatever yourcompany things are.
(42:19):
But rinse and repeat with jobdescriptions, that's another
thing.
So really figuring out what youneed from an employee and
laying that out in a bolted PDF,it can do that really well.
Pete Shau (42:32):
I mean that's actually a great point, because
I completely didn't even thinkabout that.
But let me tell you, 2024 hasbrought its unique challenges
through and through, and one ofthem is hiring.
It's been difficult for a lotof different reasons, and I'm
not blaming or saying one thingor the next.
We have a very difficultsituation.
(42:53):
People in rent to own do a lot.
It's not that you can't learnit, it's that there's a lot.
One day you might be in sales,one day you might be in
collections, one day you mightbe on the road, one day you
might be in management and oneday you might be doing all of
the above in the same time frame.
You don't know how tocommunicate that right in what
they see, and so being make itsound like you are the president
of the United States.
(43:20):
And just be able to do that Ithink, I think that's, that's
the great part of AI is thatthere's?
No judgment in there.
Daniel Hajduk (43:25):
No, and it could give you.
It's a.
It's a storyteller.
So, again, like it's.
You want to make a deliverydriver job or a collections
manager job sound like the mostimportant thing in the world?
You can.
Or you want to make it soundlike, hey, I want them to sound
like they're the cool guy orwhatever.
Whatever personality you wantto give it, put that into there
(43:46):
and it'll give it.
So it's communicating what youneed to make.
It's covering your bases, whichis the most important thing,
which I feel like hiring AI cangive you that Cover all your
bases.
This is everything I need toinclude in here.
How can I communicate this tostand out?
How can I make this sound fun,even if it's the most boring
stuff in the world?
Pete Shau (44:04):
You know we're talking about all the aspects
that we can change or havesomething non-personal right,
Somebody who's not a person dothe heavy lifting right.
I need to create this.
I know it's something you don'twant to do.
I don't want to knuckle, dragthrough this.
Give it to the chatbot, Give itto the AI, Give it to something
(44:28):
that really doesn't matter ifit's doing it, and tackle the
things that you're going to getthat are going to stimulate the
mind and get you going and beproductive on your day when
you're at Vox.
I know that you guys haverecently got is it Moxie?
That's the new mascot the newmascot.
So Moxie the new mascot issomething that came up.
Where did that come from, andwill Moxie be AI driven now?
Daniel Hajduk (44:52):
There's points of it are, but it's kind of the
best of both worlds what we candevelop with it.
It's just part of building ourbrand more and being more what
our brand is, um, and what theox represents, with everything
that's strong and bold anddaring, whatever um stands for.
A lot of what vox is and beenaround for almost 30 years, and
(45:13):
what we do, um.
You can read our latestcreative position, going into
2025, on our new website, and sowe developed that and now we're
able to take that and we cancome up with the marketing
points just based off that aux,based off what it really means,
breaking it down.
So an aux just isn't an aux.
What does it mean to be?
(45:33):
How does it relate to ourcompany?
And so, yeah, you can developit.
You could develop a mascot forany kind of store.
Again, make it fun.
We have a picture on the backwall in our office area behind
our printer, and it has moxiewith ox behind it or a print
shop.
(45:53):
Now we have a mascot.
We really need that.
Um.
I have another client whothey're doing the same thing and
you would never think of thisclient needing a mascot, but
it's the city we were in andthey're developing their own
mascot that they're going tohave at events and it's making
it personal, it's making it funfor kids, it's giving it some
(46:14):
character to it and you're ableto develop that more with AI and
give it some storytelling to it.
You can tell stories with it.
Pete Shau (46:22):
Did you guys develop your Moxie with AI?
Daniel Hajduk (46:24):
I think, to a certain point.
Obviously, we have some verycreative people at Vox.
Yes, that's, true I think theOx kind of came from it.
But if you're looking to kindof get an idea of what can my
mascot be, it can tell you that,based off what your company
represents, where are youlocated, what do you sell, what
do you do, what are your brandstandards?
Pete Shau (46:46):
It can kind of do that.
I mean, the reason I ask isbecause you know we have these
different times of the year thatcome up right.
So you have St Patrick's Dayand that, of course, is themed a
certain way, and your 4th ofJuly is themed a certain way,
and you know MLK Day is themed acertain way and you know
Veterans Day is themed a certainway.
Utilize that point of interestto get sales or to get clicks or
to get sales scripts out.
I mean, the idea behind it isso big that I think you know we
(47:32):
had mentioned before on adifferent time and I think we
were off the podcast, but ifit's not AI-driven today, it
will be AI-driven tomorrow.
Personally, do you feel likethat's where everything's going?
As much as you've been involvedin AI now and as you've seen
(47:53):
the progression of Vox fromgoing non-using to using it in
your Zoom and using it, you know, clawed to kind of help you?
Is that a tangible statementthere?
Daniel Hajduk (48:05):
It will become like everything else we use on a
daily basis.
That once wasn't a thing, in myopinion.
I don't think it's going to besomething like.
It's going to be a shiny toyevery day in everyone's life.
It's going to become your carin some sort of form.
Whatever that car is to you,it's going to become that.
It's going to become yourelectricity, whether you use the
(48:27):
electricity to plug yourcharger phone or to keep your
fridge on or to watch TVwhatever you use that for, it's
going to be that.
But it's also very powerful andit's not just a yes or no thing.
It can kind of develop on itsown.
So what is it really going todo?
We don't know yet.
Is AI going to become its ownthing and become its own
(48:50):
superior thing to humans?
We don't know that.
So that's where the fun part ofit is is learning what it can
do, but also comes with thecontrols, and there's smart
people out there doing that andlearning how to do it right.
So just look it up, findarticles on what these people
are doing, all these people thatare developing, and there's
some really smart peopleinvolved with this, and I've
created things that 10 years agoyou probably said you're crazy
(49:12):
for some of these things comingout so absolutely it's.
It's just it's going to become apart of your everyday life,
just as much as your phone has.
And your phone's alreadychanging.
You can already see how muchdifferent phone you're.
Like I said, you go on Googleand you notice how it's already
different.
It's there.
Don't hide from it, becauseyou're gonna, you're gonna have
to use it Now I'm not sayingit's going to become your eyes,
(49:36):
ears, mouth, nose, but make ityour glasses to help you see.
Pete Shau (49:42):
Well, I think that it's a tool that we're going to
continue to talk about, a toolthat we're going to continue to
use.
Guys, we appreciate you beingon the show.
I wanted you guys to know againmake sure that you get the red
shirts for your company.
They are just doing everythingthey can to give back to our
military, especially ondeployment.
So you can get your red shirtat voxpopulicom.
(50:03):
If you want to follow the RTOshow and get series like this,
absolutely find out about us.
You can go to Facebook,instagram and LinkedIn, find us
on YouTube and you can alwayshit me up at the show, at Pete,
at the RTO show podcastcom.
Don't be afraid to hit me up.
If you have any questions forDaniel, you can always hit me up
there, or you can reach out tohim directly at voxpopulatecom
and ask the questions that youreally want to know.
(50:25):
If we get enough of those, wecan actually come back and
readdress them again and Ilisten.
This is.
This is a great thing.
We are on part three.
Look out for part four comingto you soon and I will tell
Hello and welcome to the RTO Show.
I'm your Pete Shau , and todaywe are covering AI in your life
in RTO World, part 3.
How do we make it easier, howdo we make it easier on us and
what exactly are we going to useAI for?
Well, I have with me DanielHajduk this is Part 3, and we're
going to cover this.
Vox Populi is a platinumsponsor for this show and I
(00:20):
couldn't think of a betterperson to kind of help us out
with that.
This is really what he does.
This is where he dials into it,and we're going to start,
daniel.
How do we use AI to make ourrent-to-own lives easier?
What is exactly that we can?
Now that we've kind of coveredthe introduction and what's
already out there and what wecan do now?
How do we utilize it Now thatwe have these tools in front of
(00:42):
us?
Teach me how to dig with theshovel.
Teach me how to saw with theblade.
What is it that we do to makeour lives better and rent to own
, and how do we make that happen?
Daniel Hajduk (00:51):
Well, it's sales.
It's where we started, honestly, with AI is using it in our
sales.
It's kind of mind-blowing athow much easier it can make it
Because, again, we're not allsales geniuses, but there's no
reason we all can't be or can'tstart somewhere, have a
structure to it.
Oh, I like the sound of that.
I like the sound of that.
Pete Shau (01:11):
So, when you're talking about utilizing AI in
sales, what's your go-to?
Where do you think is a basestart for somebody who wants to
get their AI to take off?
I want to use it in sales, likeyou said.
What do I do first?
Where is an implementationstage that I can use AI to
really kind of kick things off?
Daniel Hajduk (01:28):
Easiest thing to start doing is help you lay out
scripts.
I don't know how common it isfor people to have just winging
it when they have customers comeinto stores for different
situations and it's justdealer's choice of.
I'm going to talk to him likethis and I don't know again, I
don't know how prevalent that is, but it helps you with your
scripts completely.
Now, like we've said in otherepisodes, it can't do everything
(01:51):
for you and I don't want anyonegoing in there and say give me
a script to sell a washer anddryer, because you probably
won't sell many washer anddryers because it's not going to
work.
It's not a one size fits all,but it can help you get started
and anyone that lacks creativitylacks a starting point for an
idea of how to sell something ina different scenario.
That's where we could startusing it.
Pete Shau (02:12):
Well, I don't know if and I know I've had this happen
to me on rent at home, right,it's fortunate and in an
unfortunate situation.
I'm right at my 20th year,right, and I remember when I
first started, I had no idea ofwhat I was doing.
Now, I did start in acollection cycle, so there was a
different way to do it, becausethere are laws and there are
things that I can and can't say.
(02:33):
So I'm already fitting in thisnarrow lane, right, but when it
came to sales, I was extremelynervous because I talked to my
friends.
I didn't talk to people that Ididn't know, I didn't understand
.
Okay, I'm going to tellsomebody.
And my thought, my thought, wasyeah.
I know how to come to work.
I know how to do what you'reasking me to do, right, you tell
me to move the sofa from hereto there.
(02:54):
You tell me to set this up.
You tell me to deliver it.
I can do all that.
But coming it off of my ownmindset and becoming this person
that can sell and be malleable,it took years for that Sales
scripts and sales idea.
I actually learned how to sellover the phone because they
would give me a script and say,listen, this is the scenario.
And then they sit me down andsay, okay, you're gonna call me
(03:16):
when I was completelyembarrassed and you're gonna try
to sell me off for this script.
And it did set me off in a waythat I didn't know it would
change my life.
But the scripts were built, youknow, and they were also built
by somebody who had probablydone it for a long time.
But if I'm new to this, you knowI've said before I would love
to own a rent-to-own company.
Or let's say I'm a new managerand I'm coming in and I'm trying
(03:36):
to get my guys kind of dialedin.
Well, we can't do a blanketstatement, no, so Well, we can't
do a blanket statement no.
So how do you build a salessituation, and what would you
say?
Okay, you have availability tothis chat or you have
availability to build thisthrough AI.
What?
Daniel Hajduk (03:59):
are some of the parameters that you would use to
say this is going to createsomething where you can have
somebody utilize it and getbetter results out of it.
I would start with justinforming it for what you are so
like if you had started yourown, your own store, your own
brand.
Inform.
Inform a chat bot, informwhatever you're going to use on
what you are, what your brand is, the products you're selling,
what your goals are andeverything that's going to help
you start off right.
Pete Shau (04:17):
Okay.
Daniel Hajduk (04:18):
Cause you're going to, it's going to be able
to target and pull what you'relooking for versus well, we
mainly focus on furniture versuswe mainly focus on appliances
or something.
Just a scenario.
Okay, we're going to sell both,but our focus is here.
Or if we're going to try tointegrate something or have
add-ons, tell that.
Whatever your basis for how youoperate is, give it that
(04:39):
information and it can help youstart laying it out.
Pete Shau (04:42):
Some of the things that I might want to enter in is
I want to create a 30 second ador a 60 second ad, based on
whatever this case is.
Or I want to create a salesscript based on Christmas
returning customer.
I mean, how dialed in do youget when you say, hey, let's
create a script, the more dialedin, the better.
Daniel Hajduk (05:02):
Like I said, ai only knows what it's fed.
It's only going to give youwhat you give it.
It's going to pull from what itknows, but it's not going to
give you something.
If you're asking how do I turnleft, it's not going to tell you
how to turn right.
So the better scenario you have, the better is you're going to
get.
So, like you said, if you'redoing something around a certain
time of the year and around acertain type of product and
(05:22):
around a certain type of priceor selling point, and then
everything based off the yes orno is based off that.
Where it can lead on, like Isaid, the add-ons, whatever
you're doing, the more you giveit it's going to help.
So if you want to do aChristmas related script or you
know we have a for Black Fridayweekend we are going to be
pushing X right.
(05:42):
We want our guys to be focusedon this when they are selling it
, to not just go off or talkingabout something else or focus on
the clearance section.
We want to be focused onpushing this washer and dryer
set.
How are we going to do thatcorrectly in the sales cycle to
handle the different things thatcome in when the customer says,
well, I think I'm good rightnow, or I saw this deal there,
(06:04):
I'm just going to do it, look atit later, or something.
How can we?
It's going to be able to helpyou lay that out better.
The more you give it, thebetter it's.
Ai is not good when you gobroad for you.
You can't just say help me sella washer and dryer, but help me
sell on Black Friday weekend,and this is the scenario I'm
dealing with.
These sell on Black Fridayweekend, and this is the
(06:25):
scenario I'm dealing with.
These are the type of customersI'm going to run into.
That's the most important thing, because you have to sell to
everyone a certain way.
Pete Shau (06:30):
So if I'm looking for a sales list, if I'm looking
for a sales sheet that has ascript, the idea would be I
would go in there and I wouldpull up a certain set of
situations and then feed thatinto the chatbot to get
something in return.
In other words, today isTuesday.
I usually call my returns onTuesday.
What am I looking to sell?
(06:50):
I'm probably gonna look at my90 day idle first, or something
that I have more of first, orI'm going to probably sell
something for an upcoming event,right?
Like you said, let's talk aboutBlack Friday, right?
So Black Friday is usuallyprice-based.
We're going to have the bestdeals.
We're going to be a little, youknow, limited free time, based
on how much you put down, butmore than likely it's going to
be a lower down payment.
You're going to get these newproducts for free, okay, so I'm
going to go back and I'm goingto say well, you know, I lost a
(07:13):
few customers this year.
I'm going to target customersthat I used to have, based on a
Black Friday sale in this amountof timeframe.
This is what the money is downand this is what we're looking
to get out of it, and then thosethings I would put in there to
get something back as a scriptthat would say okay, if you're
new to rent to own, this wouldbe a great way to apply it.
Daniel Hajduk (07:32):
Yeah.
Pete Shau (07:33):
Right Now we're talking about entering it in.
How would you enter that in IfI'm going to say, okay, I have
these, I have these ideas, I'mgoing to, I'm going to call my
reinstatements they.
I'm going to call myreinstatements.
They're going to be, you know,black Friday for this and this
and that.
How would you enter it in there?
Daniel Hajduk (07:46):
The more organized, the better it's going
to understand and interpretwhat you're trying to do.
The more clear you are, thebetter grammar, punctuation.
But if you break it down intolines, hey, I need to create a
sales script for X.
I'm going to lay out thedetails below so maybe you have
all right product, everythingabout the product, the product
information, the name, whateveryou need to include in a script,
(08:07):
just line item it out theweight, the Almost like in
bullet points.
Bullet point it out for theproduct, then the type of
customers, then what you'rewanting to focus on, what your
goal is.
Bullet point it out and that'llreally help it and it'll give
you back and more of a humanscript form of a yes or no
scenario, kind of what you'relooking for.
Pete Shau (08:28):
Now, generally what we do is we have two or three
right.
You used to have a page.
It usually takes up a third ofthe page because there might be
different scenarios.
Even though I'm facing the samesituation, it might come out a
different way.
What are some of the differentways?
I mean that's possible througha right To to take one scenario
and pitch it three differentways.
I'm I'm talking to somebody whomight've been a vet.
(08:49):
I'm talking to somebody who hasa whole family.
I'm talking to somebody who istransient and they're going to
keep it for a short period oftime and out of those three, it
will, or out of those it willgive me three different ways to
sell that same situation.
Is that correct?
Daniel Hajduk (09:02):
Yeah, because again, it's going to know, from
what it's been fed, everythingthere is to know really, and
it's going to be able to pullfrom what's worked in the world
of.
This is what a person like Petevalues.
This is what a person likeDaniel values.
This is what an older personvalues.
So you're not just sayingwhat's important to you because
that might not be important tothe customer, and it's going to
(09:22):
be able to to you because thatmight not be important to the
customer and it's going to beable to help you lay that out
and not make it a guessing game.
It's again, it's not going tomake you a sales expert, it's
not going to.
It's not going to make you this, but it's going to help you out
a lot.
And that's where I think theimportance of this is.
People need to stop guessingwith it and start using it in
ways just to easily help anyone.
A new person you just hiredthem last week.
(09:44):
All right, we're selling this.
This is how you focused on.
Figure out who's coming in thestore.
This is how you sell to them.
Pete Shau (09:52):
Now would you say it's just as fair to put in
overcoming objections, as youwould say I'm going to create a
sales script and I'm going togive you this idea on what to
say in these given situations.
Would you say that overcomingobjections is something that AI
can also help you with?
Yeah, I mean it can help.
Daniel Hajduk (10:12):
Then you can pull up.
What are some common objectionscustomers have when they're
buying a couch or when they'rebuying a new bed set.
Why wouldn't they?
Why would they say no, allright, this is why they would
say no.
Now use that with your ownknowledge of wow.
What do I usually sell peopleon?
Give it to ai, okay.
Well, if you're saying becausethey don't need it.
(10:33):
But how do I end up selling tosomeone that didn't felt like
they needed at the moment, butreally I discovered that they
did, or I was able to get themin the door because of this.
Give it that back, all right,so let's build it off.
So you said some commonobjections to buying a new bed
set is I don't need one yet,it's too much money, it's not my
(10:53):
style, all right.
Well, how do you usually handlethat, pete Claude?
I usually do that by having areally good deal on it, by
making it personal to them.
I've sold one like this beforeand it worked before.
Can you help me work that intoa script for different scenarios
?
Pete Shau (11:10):
So this is really like having somebody who's in a
position of management butgiving them the bowling alley
and the bumper rails and sayingyou might not understand this,
but to get from point A of mepitching the ball down to the
pins at the end and that wholelong way in between, this is how
I would handle it for somebodywho doesn't have that experience
, for somebody who might be alittle bit newer at it, and
saying you know, I've got toteach these guys how to overcome
(11:32):
objections and I'm not reallygreat at it myself, so let me
take these parameters and put itinto this system and get a lot
of idea and feedback.
Now, of course, you know youalways got to look at it like
I'm probably not going to doevery single thing that it tells
me to do right.
We're going to feed it and we'regoing to get a recipe back, but
I might want to add a littlebit more salt and I'm going to
add a little bit more sugar.
But it's an idea, it's anoverall outline of saying, okay,
(11:55):
you might not know where to go.
Here is a generalistic idea ofwhat you can say to overcome
objections, what you could do tobring up this sales situation,
what you could do and say inthese particular agreements and
you might not want to sayexactly what's being said, you
don't Right, you don't want togo the verbatim but to be able
to say, okay, I have thisguideline based on what I'm
feeding it, to say this is how Ido a sales script, this is how
(12:18):
I overcome an objection, this ishow I have a sales situation
and then be able to put thattogether.
Daniel Hajduk (12:24):
One way I kind of like to look at it now is go
into like a car dealership siteand you can buy the truck, as is
All right, you can do that.
Now you're always going to findsomething.
Well, that could be better inthe car, because I wish I had
this feature.
Well, those are trucks.
(12:45):
You can go and customize yourexact order that they can build
for you.
It's kind of like that whatyour sales scripts and
everything is.
It can give you the base modeltruck, but you need to be able
to take that layout, copy itinto your own document and then
put your own touch on it.
So what, what exactly works foryour store versus pete's store?
What exactly works here inCalifornia versus Ohio?
Pete Shau (13:07):
Right right.
Building out your own truckRight because, I mean,
everybody's gonna look at it alittle bit differently.
Now, if you get, you know,we've talked before about having
one of these accounts that kindof spans over a certain space.
Right, I have a store that'shere, but I might have another
store that's in Texas.
I might have the store that'sin Texas, I might have the store
it's in Ohio.
I might have a store inPennsylvania or New York, where
things would be different.
Yeah, but having these separateaccounts would allow me not
(13:28):
only to be able to see whatthey're doing, but use those
points of interest to help mecreate my own.
Daniel Hajduk (13:35):
Yeah.
Pete Shau (13:36):
And how I come across it with the demographics and
geographics I have over here,whether I have a lot of land, a
little bit of people, or alittle bit of land and a whole
lot of people.
I actually know because I wasgoing online and I was looking
at Synthesiacom and I hope I'msaying that right and
(13:57):
SundaySkycom, where it's one ofthose situations where not only
can AI help you in creatingtraining videos, but it can also
give you somebody as a person,as a bot, as an AI person you
know like and I hate to say this, I'm really out of tune on some
of the things, but you know, asyou do Snapchat, there's an
(14:18):
avatar in there Now theseavatars that you have are very
human-like.
They're not, you know, they'renot as animated, but they are
more you know they're morehuman-like and then you can
create this training video.
So, you know, for people whoare trying to open something new
or people who are trying to gettraining done and they're
trying to be very dialed in, Iknow that these are ways to
utilize AI in creating is yourexpectations and build it out to
(14:42):
a point where I can add thesevideos made and it will be
reiterated in all the trainingvideos that I have.
And not only is it a lotsimpler than hiring somebody to
(15:04):
come in and do this video andthen you know, it lives like
this until we redo it.
We have the ability to say youknow what I don't like this part
, and I can go in there andchange it.
And it takes, you know, as muchas it does to upload and
correct that part or subtractthat part and add another part
to do it.
I know those two sites werejust something that I came
across right away, but I meantalking about making your life
(15:26):
easier as far as creatingtraining videos, as far as
creating your things to say insituations that I wouldn't know
what I'm doing.
You're creating these salesscripts for people who are brand
new and they don't understandreally, kind of how to get out
of their own shell.
You know, and they're new.
That's amazing to me.
You know, back in the day therewas no way that's if we wanted a
(15:47):
training video, we were goingto sit in front of a camera.
You're going to sit in front ofa camera and record it, right,
and then you're going to do it acouple of different takes
because, even though you knowwhat you want to say, you've got
to read it from theteleprompter the right way.
You've got to make sure thatyou set it the way you want to
say it.
You don't want to screw it up,but then right now I can type it
.
However, I type it as long asI've got good typing skills,
which I guess I can add to chatthat it's set up right and then
(16:10):
feed it into another system, andthat's kind of something I want
to get making life easier.
You know we did it in the lastpodcast.
We were talking about how do weuse different programs to make
our multitasking easier.
What do we do?
We actually went to the AI andasked for more AI based
situations that make it better.
You can take one AI and feedanother.
Is that something that you do?
(16:32):
Do you do that on a regularbasis?
Have you taken the ideas andrefed it?
Daniel Hajduk (16:36):
That's what you really need to do, because I
don't want to just take from onesource because, again, it's
only given what it's fed anddifferent companies have
different approaches of whatthey're putting in there, what
their focuses are.
So take from different places.
We haven't done that too much,but that's great.
That's why I said balance itoff each other, whether it's all
right, this is my take on it.
(16:57):
What's AI's take on it and whatcan it balance with mine?
All right, not just this AI,but what do they think about it?
Let's ask a question here.
So I'm going to pull up chatGBT and I don't have a paid
version of this, but before wedid, I used it for quite a few
(17:17):
things and it can do a lot.
Pete Shau (17:20):
You know, while you're looking for that, I've
tried to go down the rabbit holeof a lot of different things
that are already out there thatwe can use to make our lives
easier and rent to own, and Icame across scribe how Okay, and
scribe how was basically like,as you're saying, you know
you're going into ChatBee GBTand you're typing this in and
this is how you do it, but Imight not from where I'm sitting
(17:42):
.
You're handling that over there.
I don't see it.
Scribehow would be ability togo in and this is one of many
different places.
So I'm not paid for that.
I don't want anybody to thinkthat I'm getting paid by
ScribeHop, but what I'm sayingis you have these sites out
there that if you want to showsomebody how to do it, it will
take the actions that you do andput it in a format that shows.
(18:02):
I went to this page, I went tothis link, I put in this
information and this is what Igot out of it.
I mean, talk about training.
We're just talking about videos.
Now I want you to go in andtake a payment.
I want you to go in and make arental order.
I want you to be able to typeup an agreement.
This is how you do it and youtake this part of ai.
You go to scribe how or youwould go to a site like that and
(18:24):
go, boom, these are the stepsthat you have to take now.
Mind you, it's easy to go intoa book, right, and you can see.
This is the.
This is the processes.
Some people don't learn thatway.
Or how easy it would be towatch a video on the same screen
that you're trying to figureout how to type up the agreement
.
Oh, you know what, just put ithere and boom, this is how you
do it.
So, you know, I see things likethat all the time and I'm like
(18:45):
how to make it easier?
Is that not the best way?
What are we coming up with?
What do you get?
Daniel Hajduk (18:50):
we're gonna ask google what are the most
important things to considerwhen selling?
Selling what?
What do you want to sell?
Pete Shau (19:04):
uh, we're gonna say a , a living room set like sofa
and love.
Let's, let's make it morespecific.
A sofa and love, I want to sayliving room sex.
I probably wouldn't know what Italking about.
Daniel Hajduk (19:13):
So the first answer it gave me consider
factors like brand condition andage.
A good rule of thumb is toprice your furniture at 50-70%
of its original price, adjustingbased on its condition.
Offering a fair price attractsmore buyers and increases your
chances of a swift sale.
Let's go ask that same exactquestion, though, to Claude, and
this is why I said it's.
It's.
It's like anything in your lifedon't ever just look at it from
(19:36):
one perspective and you're justblind.
The AI.
You got to look at it frommultiple angles and see what the
different things are.
See, this is.
This is where the beauty ofchat a real chatbot comes in.
List it out here.
The factors consider whenselling a sofa and love seat
price factors, and it broke down.
Material quality, frame,construction, brand reputation
and warranty, current marketprice for similar sets, seasonal
(19:57):
timing, customer needs broke itdown.
Technical specifications brokeit down.
Additional features would youlike me to elaborate?
So that's something it can godown to the fine.
Pete Shau (20:10):
Fine.
So that's the differencebetween a chat gpt and a clock.
Daniel Hajduk (20:13):
That was google that was I can't pull, but
that's what it pulled up for me.
So I'm going to ask it.
Like we said, we'll take whatone says and give it to the
other.
So I'm going to give it exactlywhat Google gave me.
So it's very nice.
I'm curious to hear yourperspectives on this.
What factors do you think aremost crucial in selling yourself
a love suite from your, fromyour experience working with
customers, and what have youfound?
(20:33):
So it broke it down and do a?
That's an excellent andpractical approach.
I like how you focus on the key, tangible factors that actual,
actually drivers resale value.
Let me build on your insights.
So, again, I started somewhereand everyone has their own
thoughts and opinions.
It can build onto it.
So you might know well I liketo sub these sell well, because
(20:56):
everyone needs it at this timeof the year.
Well, why figure out the why?
And that's what I can help youdo figure out the why.
That's a great, that's a greatstatement because, again, we're
just well you know, they alwayssell before these, uh, new
things always sell before schoolgoes back in the year.
Well, why?
And then break it down into whymore.
It's kind of goes into thesquare root of everything or
(21:20):
whatever you want to call it.
Pete Shau (21:21):
Well, the why is what we do?
It right, the why is what we do, you know.
Another thing that I noticed iswhen we're going over these
situations where, how does ithelp me better?
It can help me make videos, itcan help me come up with sales
scripts, it can help me figureout what time and what date
would be better to sell whatproduct.
(21:41):
Right, I think that this, youknow, I won't be able to sell
snowmobiles in the middle ofsummer and I won't be able to
sell Christmas trees at the sametime either.
But then vice versa, when isthe best time to sell a
fireplace?
Well, probably not on July 4th,right, it'd probably be, you
know, grills and other things.
But then you can utilize that.
And when we talked about it,you know, off off camera.
We talked about AI being thatoffice manager, almost like that
(22:05):
, that side person that helpthat.
You know that Robin to yourBatman.
Well, you don't have to do allthe heavy lifting, but you'd
have to do something to be here.
So, well, you don't have to doall the heavy lifting, but you'd
have to do something to be here.
So, as we come across it now,we would.
I think we talked about itpreviously.
But you're talking about workschedules.
We can get it to do a workschedule, figure out how to best
utilize 40 hours on aproductive week or 45 hours, or
(22:28):
how do I manipulate a holidayinto that situation.
How do I figure that out?
I mean, when I think about allthe different ways that it could
make it easier, we just have toreally utilize what's out there
and then continually build onthat, either by feeding it what
we've already learned or feedingit from what it's telling us,
but building up on that and kindof giving it those.
(22:51):
This is my experience from thesituation.
Now, when we're talking aboutAI and we're talking about
experience, we're talking aboutyou had mentioned it in a
previous podcast situationswould be based on historic
values.
Normally this happens duringthis time of year.
Normally that happens this timeof year.
That would be more of anintegrated situation where I
(23:13):
would probably have to have amore integrated AI in order to
cover all of the instances andthe counts that I used to have
and things like that.
But when we're talking aboutscheduling, we're talking about
calendar events, the thought ofusing we usually do okay, we're
going to do a first quarterreview, a second quarter review,
(23:33):
but now I can probably do a365-day review based on my
experience and what I know, onan entire calendar for every
single holiday that wouldactually affect my store up
front.
The ability to say you know,president's Day is probably a
day that we sell more bedding,you know you had the 4th of July
where you probably sell moregrills.
(23:54):
You have back to school in thistime frame this week, this week
and this week.
Spring break usually happens inthe month of March or April,
early April, whatever.
I guess that depends on whereyou're from.
How do I utilize that to bettermy sales and my staff output?
These are things that I neverreally thought about as time
(24:16):
goes on.
So what is the best way, inyour opinion, that you've
started using this now, and Voxis kind of being led in that
direction?
I know you guys are in one ofthose growth phases where you
need to learn.
You want to learn how to usethese AIs in your everyday on
top of always growing, because Imean, I've heard 100% of the
(24:36):
time in RTO, if you're notgrowing, you're dying.
Daniel Hajduk (24:38):
Right.
Pete Shau (24:39):
If you're not getting somewhere, you're already done.
Yeah.
Daniel Hajduk (24:47):
How do you guys utilize it as far as your office
situations go?
Just basic management, whetheror more on the sales side, of
how we're going to follow up fora certain thing.
That can lay it all out.
Instead of having someone planout, we're using this time to
call here and follow up here forthis event.
We're going to schedule it outall there.
It's going to help usautomatically with our CRM.
It's going to basically justpartner with us and tell us
(25:08):
exactly what we need to do forthis.
Just kind of an event schedule,like you said.
Like hey, we know, the otherday we were planning out our Q1
marketing plan and what we'redoing.
There's different stuff we'retraveling for.
The different stuff we're doingonline, the different stuff
we're doing ourselves and whatour focus is based off, what we
know we can do.
It's overwhelming the amount ofdata that's getting back, which
(25:31):
is something to be careful with.
You're going to get overwhelmedwith the amount of stuff it's
going to give you, because it'snot you, it's not well.
I can only type out a page aday of different sales stuff.
That's going to give youthousands of pages if you wanted
to.
So that's been one thing.
Is our planning for next year orwhenever this podcast is out,
for Q1 of 2025.
(25:53):
We're planning out our marketingfor each month, incorporated
with the different shows andevents we're at.
So, whether it's meeting of theminds that we're going to be at
in February, or another showthat we're going to be at in
Vegas in March, or the events wehave locally, all throughout
those three months helping usplan around that and it was not
just us guessing, because we'reall just going to guess you're
going to miss.
What can I do before meeting ofthe minds to market right, how
(26:17):
long before?
And what should I do before theshow in Vegas?
When should I start sendingemails out?
I'm planning that out andincorporating everything else,
so I'm having to think about itwhen it's oh crap, it's a month
out and now I'm just going toscramble to get something
started.
We're always scrambling forsomething.
Why not use the thing to helpus plan out better?
Now, again, it takes initiativeand you have to give it
(26:38):
something and you have to startdoing it, but it'll help you a
lot there.
Pete Shau (26:42):
I mean execution is always the key right.
It's only going to execute whatyou want to do, to say what
we're going to do or to do whatwe want to do.
Of course, the execution isalways like I have to do it and
I have to utilize it on aregular basis.
But creating these things sofar and I know that I would hear
somebody going, yeah, but I'mnot going to plan that out
because you never know what'sgoing to happen True, right, but
(27:03):
if I'm going for a timeframe,if I'm going for a basis, I'm
looking for the bones, right,I'm looking for the bones of a
timeframe.
I would say, okay, yeah, Imight not want to really get
down and dirty on what's goingto happen on the last two
quarters of the year, but togive me a timeframe, you know
what I?
That's going to end the way itdoes, and that particular month
will probably have a differentrevenue scheme than this and it
(27:23):
would cause me to have moremarketing during that particular
point in time.
And then, the more you get intoit, the more you go down that
rabbit hole.
And talking about AI andutilizing it as the office
manager, right, not necessarilythat it's going to tell you what
to do, but giving it theseoffice tasks that will allow you
to utilize your time more onone-on-one tasks that the things
that the AI can't do, becausewe're constantly talking about
(27:46):
what can AI do?
How can it help it better?
Well, the one thing it can't dois be us.
The one thing it can't do isbuild that relationship.
The one thing that it can't dois give a warm smile and ask the
kids hey, how are you doing?
Do you want a lollipop?
And talking to mom and, oh, I'mhaving a bad day.
Oh, you know how you doing,margaret.
Why don't you tell me what'sgoing on?
Because it doesn't make adifference.
But in the background of that,to be able to say I can work a
(28:08):
calendar from today for the next60 days, I can put in all these
things that I need, and whileI'm telling Ms Jones how
important she is to my businessand trying to build that rapport
so that I can sell somethingthat I just learned off of chat
TPT, that it can tell me, okay,these are the better days.
It's either the days that yousell more or sell less.
These are the days that youprobably want to be overstaffed
(28:29):
and not understaffed.
You think Wednesday is a badday for you.
Well, guess what?
Historically it's not.
You've told me for the last sixweeks you get more sales on
Wednesday than you have everbefore because you have this
paid plan versus it's not paidplan or whatever the case is.
And as you, as you go on, youbuild your, you build your staff
with an extra AI member.
(28:49):
That doesn't really cost youthat much.
Daniel Hajduk (28:52):
Yeah, it's for anyone that's ever wanted a
secretary that it's not smart tohire one at a certain point.
This is where you can startuntil you get to the point in
your business where you trulyneed a person doing that job.
This is everyone's personalassistant with that.
Pete Shau (29:09):
What type of investment?
Daniel Hajduk (29:10):
does it take to have AI at work?
Is it just the computer?
It's an internet connection,like I said, show you here.
You need an internet or data onyour phone.
Like I said, that's even thebeautiful thing.
You don't need internet if youcan do it on your phone, right?
So just have an account, putyour email in and get started.
It takes zero dollars to getstarted.
Like we said, in all thesethings whether it is your sales
(29:31):
or your task management, foranything, and, like you said,
it's not going to do itperfectly and it's not going to
always go to plan, no matter howmuch effort you could spend a
whole day on planning out thismonth's plan for everything
we're going to do within ouroffice, in our store, whether
from the marketing, the sales,the organization days, the admin
days.
We live in an imperfect world.
(29:52):
Things are going to come upevery single day, but giving it
that structure is going to helpyou tremendously and that's what
it can deliver.
Pete Shau (30:00):
You know, I think on one of the other podcasts you
mentioned the FLDC, and that'swhat they can deliver.
You know, I think on one of theother podcasts you mentioned the
FLDC and remind me again whatthat stood for it's the
Franchise Leadership DevelopmentConference.
And so during that conference,you know, and you guys had this
roundtable and you sat down andyou kind of were talking about
some big name people in thatsituation.
What did you take out of it?
What are they doing now?
(30:21):
That's that, with AI, that'skind of really changed them.
Daniel Hajduk (30:26):
And are they really looking to implement it
more?
What's the coolest thing or themost interesting thing?
Not really cool is.
Everyone's got a different ideaon it or at least at that time,
that was October of 2024,everyone's got a different
perspective of it.
There are some that are like I'mnot using it at all, and these
are some guys that are, I wouldthink, that are pretty high up
with making decision of whatthey do, whether they're the
(30:47):
head of franchise sales andthey're like we're not using it
at all, versus some guys thatare like I said, they're using
it on their zoom meetings,they're using it for their
management.
He's using it to write a socialcopy, every single thing, to
plan out all of his marketing,everything versus the guys are
just trying things out.
I'm not really sure.
That's.
What I took away is thatthere's plenty of people.
(31:09):
At any point you're at with AI,whether you're using it to
check your emails or you'reusing it to plan out everything
you do there's someone at apoint you are, so don't be
overwhelmed that you're behind,because there's always someone
else and there's always someoneelse to learn from, from a
starter to an expert, no matterhow much technology you use.
That's one of my biggesttakeaways.
Pete Shau (31:31):
As you're sitting at the table right.
You're sitting at the table andyou're saying we got some big
names.
What's a big name?
That's not using it right now.
Daniel Hajduk (31:39):
I want to call them out, but I think
Whataburger is a pretty big namefor not to be using it.
Okay, but want to call them out, but I think whataburger is a
pretty big name for not to beusing it.
Okay so, but they had adifferent perspective on it, um,
and they called out others intheir space of the fast food
space of one big thing.
The most controversial thing wasthe uh ai drive-thru stuff, the
automatic drive-thru.
So you're not even talking to ahuman anymore.
That's messing up your order.
(32:00):
You're talking to a robot right, we talked about that.
Pete Shau (32:02):
we that we talked about it.
Checkers has that.
Daniel Hajduk (32:04):
And I learned a lot of how in the fast food
space, how different everyone'sapproaching it.
You have some taking it oncompletely.
I've seen Wendy's do it a lotand they're doing it pretty well
.
And I also heard thatMcDonald's has canceled some of
their orders.
Again, I don't know how truethat is, but that's what I was
told.
But you hear big name playerslike McDonald's.
They're even struggling with itand you feel like McDonald's
(32:25):
does everything because they'reeverywhere and everyone knows
who McDonald's is.
They're not perfect and someare adapting it better than them
.
Checkers isn't bigger thanMcDonald's, but did you think it
was a good experience?
I thought it was greatno-transcript I want.
Pete Shau (33:07):
I just only thing I want is my order to be right and
you don't overcharge me and youdon't have a lot of talk, extra
talk, that's not necessary.
Daniel Hajduk (33:12):
So that's a good point.
So where are you going to eat?
Right?
And now they used AI to ensurethey can give you you can order
fast and get your food fast.
Now, people aren't using it asmuch in those ways if they can't
figure out how to do that andit's messing that up, so how can
you use AI to deliver what youdeliver or you say that you
(33:35):
deliver?
That's how they're using it.
Pete Shau (33:36):
Yeah, and I think it goes back to the.
You know, you have that officemanager, that office secretary
probably would be a better termfor it, like you said and it's
not to do everything.
So we're giving you ideas onexactly what we think you can
utilize it for, but it doesn'tmean you need utilization in
that area.
If you have it taken care ofand you're good in that area,
(33:57):
then use it for the areas thatyou don't have it.
Use it for an area where you'renot prolific or you don't have
somebody on there that can dothat job very well, or in
yourself.
Right now I might be able to doit, but today I can't because
I'm either short staff somebodycalled out there's something
going on that needs my attention.
I can't solve a car accidentthat happened with my truck and
somebody pulled out in front andit's nobody's fault, it was
(34:19):
just a bad accident.
I've got to go out there.
Well, there are things that Igot to do that I need to catch
up on.
That day might be differentthan other days, so you know the
thought of utilization when yousay Whataburger didn't have it,
but then I'm sure there arereasons why they don't.
Daniel Hajduk (34:33):
So not every store, or they're being very
careful at least they might havea test restaurant for the
drive-thrus, but it's not athing that you're going to run
into, because they're just notthere yet.
Pete Shau (34:48):
And I think that's a huge part of it is being
selective, right?
You don't want to turn overyour whole life to.
I'm coming to work and I'mgoing to have this AI driven
store.
I'm not going to come in and-.
Daniel Hajduk (34:54):
Your customers will notice it Right.
Pete Shau (34:55):
My AI is going to make my sales and my AI is going
to take my payments and AI isgoing to set up my showroom and
all I'm going to do is kind ofzombie through this thing,
because that's not anywhere nearwhat we want to talk about.
Daniel Hajduk (35:05):
No.
Pete Shau (35:06):
But we have to say that that's there.
There is that issue where somepeople have backed off of it,
and it's for good reason,because you don't want to get
stuck in that loop of that echochamber of AI, AI, AI, AI, AI.
And then I come to work one dayand I'm like I really don't
know what to do, unless somebodytells me what to do.
Daniel Hajduk (35:23):
Right and then you're not delivering what you
can Exactly.
Pete Shau (35:32):
But to utilize AI in a way that will help you doesn't
mean it's the same thing everysingle day.
It's not this cookie cutterthing where every single day I
need to do it exactly like thisand it's very possible to say I
have AI that I utilize indifferent ways because of the
needs that I have of that day.
So as I say that I don't wantthe rent-to-own community to be
like, well, you know, you'rejust going to come in and flip
over, switch over and nobody'sgoing to have a rent-to-own
company like that, I 100% agree.
(35:54):
I don't think I'd want one.
But to be able to say I in needor how do I get my guys to
utilize the tools that I haveright now to make the best of a
40-hour week.
Now, very recently I wasspeaking at a buddy's home for
an convention about when theyhad to get together about time
(36:14):
management.
It was something that I hadalso pulled off talking about in
one of the previous conventions.
In Rent to Own, time managementis huge.
It's important why?
Because in time management,rent-to-own has traditionally
been a 48-hour or 45-hourbusiness where they cut back,
and we found out that in mostcases and not all, but in most
cases.
After the issue with whathappened and the pandemic and
(36:38):
everything that happened, a40-hour workweek was not only
conducive to people being ableto be home more and having a
better work-life flow, but mostjobs could be done in that
timeframe.
Again, I'm not going to say all, but so then it pushes the term
.
How do we get the most out ofour 40-hour week?
Ai would make a big difference.
If I can use 1.25 or 1.5 of aperson, right, that one person
(37:03):
plus their helper, their AIhelper, whether it's on their
phone, whether it's scheduling,whether it's being able to say
I'm going to put these 17different addresses in my map
and find out the quickest,fastest way to get there.
That's going to route me notonly around time, distance and
accidents, but what makes sense?
I'm going to go this way, gothis way, go this way.
I'm not going to repeat and goaround the same block three
(37:24):
times.
I'm not going to hit the samezip code all the time.
This is a one-way versus atwo-way versus.
This is a paid highway and allof a sudden, within five minutes
, I have the best way to go.
That's going to save me 40minutes of travel time, and so
(37:45):
you know, and the thought of AI,and how does it make it better?
Well, the idea is you have tofigure out how it's going to
help you and then learn thedifferent ways to make that
happen.
Now, I know in the last show,the APRO show 2024 in Orlando,
there were guys there that hadthis software that I think is
also integratable with VersaRent.
That says you know, it's adrive map software where if you
put in names and address and itcan kind of pull from what you
(38:07):
already have.
I believe you know I'm sayingthis very loosely, but you know
you can enter a name and if it'salready integrated it will have
the add, the current addressand how to get there, and the
more that you enter in you cancheck off for delivery or
service or whatever the case is,and it maps this out for you.
Would I say that I would alwaysutilize that?
No, I would not always utilizethat.
There are days that we're goingout for one TV and I only need
(38:29):
one guy to do that and it'lltake 30 minutes.
But there are days where I havefour deliveries, two services
and a pickup and I've only gotso much time, yeah, and you can
plan that out, and AI just doesthis great job of being able to
do that.
So, on top of just making iteasier, it's a tool, and I think
the best thing that we canalways say about AI is
regardless if you're good at it,regardless if you know where to
(38:55):
utilize it, more or less, it'sa learning tool, just like
anything that you have in frontof you.
The more you use it, thesharper you are at using it, and
I think that there is no way,shape or form that we go in the
next five years of rent to ownand not utilize this tool.
I mean, could you imagine notusing it for Vox in the next
year If we took away all thosetools?
Could you imagine what it wouldbe like to not have those tools
(39:17):
?
Be blind, it's crazy.
You said the horse and thecarriage.
Could you imagine going back topulling?
You know?
Daniel Hajduk (39:24):
that's what people are doing.
It's that's the whole.
Being scared of something is wehave all these inventions and
things for a reason.
There's people that inventthings, not just to make more
money and become richer.
Innovative is to truly makepeople's lives easier.
Why do people do things?
To make it?
Either to solve a problem orbecause they simply just want
something or they love something.
That's why people buy things orcreate things because they
(39:45):
simply want to try something newor because they're in love with
it.
It's the same thing there.
Pete Shau (39:52):
I mean, I know that we talk about a lot of outside
retailers already using things.
The reason that I talk about itnow is because I feel like
rent-to-own is always on thatcurve.
We're always on the backside ofthe bell curve, and I don't mean
anything by that.
It's just that rent-to-own hasalways been there, and the
utilization of these tools onour day-to-day would make so
much difference in what we cando and what we can't get done
(40:13):
with the same amount of peoplethat we always have.
And hiring has been difficultin my area.
I don't know how difficult it'sbeen for 2024 in anybody else's
area.
It's been hard here.
So the question is how do I getmy guys to not only be able to
do more but not put so much onthem that they're like, okay,
you know what You're paying mefor 40 hours, but I'm doing 60
hours worth in 40 hours and I'mdone by the time I get home, and
(40:36):
that's not a position that Iwant to be in, all right.
So then, how do I help themutilize AI?
How can I get their littlesections of area that they're
not being 100% productive,because it's not always your
fault.
Sometimes you go to thebathroom, sometimes you got to
answer the phone.
You're not really doinganything but being on the phone,
but that backs up the otherhours that you have, because now
(40:57):
I have to multitask a hugeamount in this particular
timeframe because Ms Jones hadme on the phone for 30 minutes.
Whether it was productive ornot, right, we're still building
the relationship, and so how dowe get those in-betweens to
count for more?
This is the only way I canthink of yeah it's figuring out.
Daniel Hajduk (41:15):
are people again like I've told you, are people
really just busy or are theyactually working really hard?
And that can help you solvethat issue.
We've run into one thing wherewe've had not seasonal pickups
but huge increases of certainareas at Vox where it's like
crap.
Do we need to hire moreemployees to help them with this
or do we need to hire more ofthem?
(41:37):
Do we need more deliverydrivers and more trucks or do we
just need more people helpingload up the van at the end of
the day so the delivery driverisn't loading up the van for an
hour or the truck for an hour.
They're being able to load itup in 15 minutes.
Then they can get out on theirroutes.
Then they're not stuck out lateor stuck in rush hour when they
didn't want to leave.
They're not agitated anymorebecause they were able to get in
(41:58):
the truck, able to deliver, getback, do more deliveries.
It's something like that.
It's helping you figure outwhat you can do.
On that note of hiring, it'sreally good at laying out job
descriptions.
I've done it lately for acouple and again, give it what
you need because you want tomake sure you're including the
legal stuff, whatever yourcompany things are.
(42:19):
But rinse and repeat with jobdescriptions, that's another
thing.
So really figuring out what youneed from an employee and
laying that out in a bolted PDF,it can do that really well.
Pete Shau (42:32):
I mean that's actually a great point, because
I completely didn't even thinkabout that.
But let me tell you, 2024 hasbrought its unique challenges
through and through, and one ofthem is hiring.
It's been difficult for a lotof different reasons, and I'm
not blaming or saying one thingor the next.
We have a very difficultsituation.
(42:53):
People in rent to own do a lot.
It's not that you can't learnit, it's that there's a lot.
One day you might be in sales,one day you might be in
collections, one day you mightbe on the road, one day you
might be in management and oneday you might be doing all of
the above in the same time frame.
You don't know how tocommunicate that right in what
they see, and so being make itsound like you are the president
of the United States.
(43:20):
And just be able to do that Ithink, I think that's, that's
the great part of AI is thatthere's?
No judgment in there.
Daniel Hajduk (43:25):
No, and it could give you.
It's a.
It's a storyteller.
So, again, like it's.
You want to make a deliverydriver job or a collections
manager job sound like the mostimportant thing in the world?
You can.
Or you want to make it soundlike, hey, I want them to sound
like they're the cool guy orwhatever.
Whatever personality you wantto give it, put that into there
(43:46):
and it'll give it.
So it's communicating what youneed to make.
It's covering your bases, whichis the most important thing,
which I feel like hiring AI cangive you that Cover all your
bases.
This is everything I need toinclude in here.
How can I communicate this tostand out?
How can I make this sound fun,even if it's the most boring
stuff in the world?
Pete Shau (44:04):
You know we're talking about all the aspects
that we can change or havesomething non-personal right,
Somebody who's not a person dothe heavy lifting right.
I need to create this.
I know it's something you don'twant to do.
I don't want to knuckle, dragthrough this.
Give it to the chatbot, Give itto the AI, Give it to something
(44:28):
that really doesn't matter ifit's doing it, and tackle the
things that you're going to getthat are going to stimulate the
mind and get you going and beproductive on your day when
you're at Vox.
I know that you guys haverecently got is it Moxie?
That's the new mascot the newmascot.
So Moxie the new mascot issomething that came up.
Where did that come from, andwill Moxie be AI driven now?
Daniel Hajduk (44:52):
There's points of it are, but it's kind of the
best of both worlds what we candevelop with it.
It's just part of building ourbrand more and being more what
our brand is, um, and what theox represents, with everything
that's strong and bold anddaring, whatever um stands for.
A lot of what vox is and beenaround for almost 30 years, and
(45:13):
what we do, um.
You can read our latestcreative position, going into
2025, on our new website, and sowe developed that and now we're
able to take that and we cancome up with the marketing
points just based off that aux,based off what it really means,
breaking it down.
So an aux just isn't an aux.
What does it mean to be?
(45:33):
How does it relate to ourcompany?
And so, yeah, you can developit.
You could develop a mascot forany kind of store.
Again, make it fun.
We have a picture on the backwall in our office area behind
our printer, and it has moxiewith ox behind it or a print
shop.
(45:53):
Now we have a mascot.
We really need that.
Um.
I have another client whothey're doing the same thing and
you would never think of thisclient needing a mascot, but
it's the city we were in andthey're developing their own
mascot that they're going tohave at events and it's making
it personal, it's making it funfor kids, it's giving it some
(46:14):
character to it and you're ableto develop that more with AI and
give it some storytelling to it.
You can tell stories with it.
Pete Shau (46:22):
Did you guys develop your Moxie with AI?
Daniel Hajduk (46:24):
I think, to a certain point.
Obviously, we have some verycreative people at Vox.
Yes, that's, true I think theOx kind of came from it.
But if you're looking to kindof get an idea of what can my
mascot be, it can tell you that,based off what your company
represents, where are youlocated, what do you sell, what
do you do, what are your brandstandards?
Pete Shau (46:46):
It can kind of do that.
I mean, the reason I ask isbecause you know we have these
different times of the year thatcome up right.
So you have St Patrick's Dayand that, of course, is themed a
certain way, and your 4th ofJuly is themed a certain way,
and you know MLK Day is themed acertain way and you know
Veterans Day is themed a certainway.
Utilize that point of interestto get sales or to get clicks or
to get sales scripts out.
I mean, the idea behind it isso big that I think you know we
(47:32):
had mentioned before on adifferent time and I think we
were off the podcast, but ifit's not AI-driven today, it
will be AI-driven tomorrow.
Personally, do you feel likethat's where everything's going?
As much as you've been involvedin AI now and as you've seen
(47:53):
the progression of Vox fromgoing non-using to using it in
your Zoom and using it, you know, clawed to kind of help you?
Is that a tangible statementthere?
Daniel Hajduk (48:05):
It will become like everything else we use on a
daily basis.
That once wasn't a thing, in myopinion.
I don't think it's going to besomething like.
It's going to be a shiny toyevery day in everyone's life.
It's going to become your carin some sort of form.
Whatever that car is to you,it's going to become that.
It's going to become yourelectricity, whether you use the
(48:27):
electricity to plug yourcharger phone or to keep your
fridge on or to watch TVwhatever you use that for, it's
going to be that.
But it's also very powerful andit's not just a yes or no thing.
It can kind of develop on itsown.
So what is it really going todo?
We don't know yet.
Is AI going to become its ownthing and become its own
(48:50):
superior thing to humans?
We don't know that.
So that's where the fun part ofit is is learning what it can
do, but also comes with thecontrols, and there's smart
people out there doing that andlearning how to do it right.
So just look it up, findarticles on what these people
are doing, all these people thatare developing, and there's
some really smart peopleinvolved with this, and I've
created things that 10 years agoyou probably said you're crazy
(49:12):
for some of these things comingout so absolutely it's.
It's just it's going to become apart of your everyday life,
just as much as your phone has.
And your phone's alreadychanging.
You can already see how muchdifferent phone you're.
Like I said, you go on Googleand you notice how it's already
different.
It's there.
Don't hide from it, becauseyou're gonna, you're gonna have
to use it Now I'm not sayingit's going to become your eyes,
(49:36):
ears, mouth, nose, but make ityour glasses to help you see.
Pete Shau (49:42):
Well, I think that it's a tool that we're going to
continue to talk about, a toolthat we're going to continue to
use.
Guys, we appreciate you beingon the show.
I wanted you guys to know againmake sure that you get the red
shirts for your company.
They are just doing everythingthey can to give back to our
military, especially ondeployment.
So you can get your red shirtat voxpopulicom.
(50:03):
If you want to follow the RTOshow and get series like this,
absolutely find out about us.
You can go to Facebook,instagram and LinkedIn, find us
on YouTube and you can alwayshit me up at the show, at Pete,
at the RTO show podcastcom.
Don't be afraid to hit me up.
If you have any questions forDaniel, you can always hit me up
there, or you can reach out tohim directly at voxpopulatecom
and ask the questions that youreally want to know.
(50:25):
If we get enough of those, wecan actually come back and
readdress them again and Ilisten.
This is.
This is a great thing.
We are on part three.
Look out for part four comingto you soon and I will tell
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