February 10, 2026 • 53 mins
A budget shortfall, a hostile hearing, and a tax threat big enough to sink an industry—this conversation with APRO legend Bill Keese reveals how Rent-To-Own survived and matured. We open with Bill’s unlikely path from state legislator to executive director and move straight into the fiscal triage that rebuilt APRO’s foundation: cutting costs, rethinking staff, and—crucially—resetting dues so the largest chains paid their share. That quiet, early fix powered a bold advocacy playbook when the IRS and Congress turned up the heat.
Bill walks us through the two-track strategy that changed everything: choosing a dealer with pristine records to fight in tax court while running a coordinated push for legislative clarity. The team hired a firm anchored by the former chief judge of the U.S. Tax Court and mobilized dealers for high-impact, face-to-face meetings on the Hill. The payoff was decisive—a Revenue Procedure confirming lease treatment for tax purposes, preserving cash flow, jobs, and customer access. Alongside policy, we dig into perception: how a single comment about an “image problem” sparked a PR overhaul, national-quality ads for small dealers, and smarter media choices that stopped bad narratives before they spread.
From there, we map the steady climb of state RTO laws, the tension between federal uniformity and local control, and the realities of consolidation—keeping one-store operators and national chains equally invested in the association’s mission. Bill shares candid stories about congressional skirmishes, unlikely allies, and the grassroots stamina that still anchors the industry. He closes with field-tested advice for owners and operators: reinvent every five years, stay visible in your community, and treat advocacy like essential maintenance. Subscribe, share this episode with a colleague, and leave a review with the one lesson you’ll act on this quarter.
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Peach Cow.
(00:02):
You may know me from the Art'sGo Show podcast, but today, I'm
doing something a little bitdifferent.
Apro and Wildbrands havelaunched a special project to
bring the story of our industryto life like never before.
They've asked me to sit downwith some of the true legends of
Red Zone.
After their stories, theirimpact, and their vision for the
future.
And now, I get to share thoseconversations with people.
Right from the legendsthemselves.
(00:25):
A new book.
The Red Zone Revolution isdefinitive history, advocacy and
historic, written by AprilStudios called Intimate, and
Wild Red Studio Wildcraft.
The book explores the grassrootsof RTO, the advocacy that is
defined, and the future thatwe're building together.
Here's where you come in.
We're giving away free copiesonce the book is released.
(00:46):
Just head over tortorevolution.com and sign up
for a chance to receive a copyin early 2026.
Don't miss the chance to beamong the first to hold this
piece of RTO history.
That's rtoorevolution.com.
Check it out and become a partof RTO History.
(01:15):
I'm your host, Pete Chow, andtoday I have the honor of
talking to another Rent to Ownlegend.
And I can honestly tell you thatthis one gets me very excited
because this is some tenureshift that you just see in
legend, and that's why we havethis legend series.
I'm here with the legendary BillKeys, who has done quite a bit
(01:35):
in his tenureship with Rent2Own,including the director of April
for 27 years.
27 amazing years, from what Iunderstand.
What I'm being told by the otherlegends.
Bill, how are you doing today?
How's everything going?
I'm doing great.
Thank you very much for asking.
SPEAKER_01 (01:52):
It's a pretty day here in Galveston.
SPEAKER_00 (01:54):
All right.
I love Texas.
I love Texas.
If I wasn't in Florida, Ipromise you, I would be in
Texas.
SPEAKER_01 (02:00):
There you go.
SPEAKER_00 (02:02):
So I gotta know, you you did 27 years as the
director, the executive directorof APRO.
How did you first hear about therent-to-owned industry and what
put you on that path to becomingthe executive director?
SPEAKER_01 (02:20):
Um actually, a high school friend of mine was first
hired by uh uh APRO to be theirgovernment relations director,
named Ron Waters.
He and I went to high schooltogether.
We also serve in the legislaturetogether, so uh uh kept up all
these years.
He uh he got the job and he wastelling me that that uh uh they
(02:42):
wanted to hire an executivedirector and that he wanted the
job.
But it came about and I uh sawit in the paper.
I applied, and and not too longout of distance, I got a a call
to be interviewed by theexecutive committee.
It was uh it's in the uh uhApril office.
They had a uh office with acommon boardroom for everybody.
(03:03):
Dick Grow was president.
There was Mac Hinnigan, WayneChambers, Dave Egan, Ted Wilson,
and uh Wayne and Wayne Chambersall present.
And it was a very niceinterview, very good interview.
I felt very relaxed, verycomfortable around these guys.
I thought this was reallysomething that I could be a part
of and enjoy for a long time.
The one funny part of it isafter they quizzed me, they
(03:26):
asked me if I had any questionsfor them.
And I said, sure.
Is this a financially stableorganization?
And uh I should have guessedbecause they all started looking
around at each other.
Finally, Ed Wynne said, sure, wehave a$1.2 million budget.
After I was uh hired, I foundout quickly that we had$700,000
revenue coming in.
(03:47):
So it was uh that was my firstbig challenge is put April on a
financial uh solid financialfooting.
SPEAKER_00 (03:54):
So I'm glad you got into that because we were going
to approach that later on.
I actually do have a lot ofquestions on that because I did
find out recently through theother legends that there was
some issues that when you cameaboard, not anything that you
had done, but what you had takenover, because I really want to
know some of the approaches thatyou took.
But was this the first time asyou go into this board meeting,
you read about this job, is thisactually the first time you
(04:14):
you've heard about rent to ownand APRO as a whole?
SPEAKER_01 (04:17):
Yes, I didn't uh know anything about APRO, didn't
know APRO existed.
I had uh very little informationabout rent to own.
I remember back as a kid uhhearing some of Chuck Sims' TV
and radio ads, and that's aboutthe only exposure I had.
So uh it was I was come inblind.
SPEAKER_00 (04:33):
So you said Ron Waters and yourself had gone to
high school together, and thatyou were in the legislature
together?
Did I hear that right?
Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_01 (04:42):
Uh uh I've I've had a prior to April, and one of the
questions that the executivecommittee had was, you seem to
have bounced around a lot, Bill.
Is that something we should beconcerned about?
After high college, I went towork for the state treasurer's
office.
After that, I had an opportunityto buy a little restaurant in a
small town in central Texas.
I moved there with my family,bought this restaurant for the
(05:05):
sole purpose of meeting a lot ofpeople in a hurry so I could run
for the legislature.
My goal had always been to be inpolitics since I was seven years
old.
And this was my opportunity.
So I bought this little cafe inSomerville, Texas, and after a
year I announced I was runningfor election against the
incumbent.
And there was a former incumbentin the race also at the time.
(05:26):
And of course, nobody gave me asnowball chance to win.
But I outcampaigned them.
I uh touched the nerve and uhmade it in the runoff.
And a month later I beat theincumbent and was uh had no
opposition in the fall.
So I I served three terms in thelegislature.
Wonderful experience.
(05:47):
It was just uh, I mean, I stillhave great friends from that
period of time.
Uh and look back with fondmemories and the battles and the
war scars that we had together,and some fun times too.
But uh it was plenty on runningfor state treasurer uh when my
marriage fell apart, and Idecided that uh I wanted to be a
(06:08):
part of my daughter's life.
So we had a legal battle endingup in a five-day jury trial, and
I won custody of her.
So I couldn't do a whole lot inpolitics with a four-year-old
daughter.
But it was great.
It was a great honor for me anda great privilege in my life to
have a child and raise her asclosely as I did.
After that, I uh um went to workfor Schlosski's uh as the home
(06:32):
office.
I was vice president offranchising for Schlosski's for
five years.
Then I um a friend of mine frommy legislative days uh was
putting in a railroad, luxurypassenger railroad from Denver
to state Denver StapletonAirport to Aspen, Colorado.
And he contacted me and asked meif I would run the campaign for
(06:54):
him.
Uh so uh uh as uh time wouldhave it, I decided, you know,
living in Aspen might not be toobad.
So I uh took the job, moved toAspen, and had an unlimited
expense account.
And I was the uh uh the voiceand the image of the railroad.
It was a six-month battle, anduh we won the right to pull the
(07:15):
railroad in.
We won an election both countyand in city to allow the
railroad to come in.
Uh, and that was quite anexperience, as you can well
imagine.
After that, uh I went back towork for the Attorney General's
office for a little while in thebudgeting department and heard
about this opportunity, and anduh I explained this to the
group, and that's when WayneChambers said, Well, you bounced
(07:37):
around a lot, and we haveconcerns about that.
And I said, No, I think thatgives me great experience to do
what you need to have done.
They bought my line and you knowwhat I mean.
SPEAKER_00 (07:46):
That's exactly what I agree with you 100%.
I because you not you had theexperience in the legal, you
know, when you're talking aboutthe legislator and you're
talking about the government,and that that's really what APRO
does, and that's the role youstepped in.
And I think that's that thatwould say why you did so well
for so many years, because youhad that experience dealing with
(08:09):
it.
SPEAKER_01 (08:10):
One of the fun things, my first convention was
in Washington, D.C., when Aprilwas kicking off their uh federal
legislative effort.
Um, at the main party, I wassupposed to be there, but I had
a friend who uh was thepersonnel director of George
H.W.
Bush's White House.
And uh he called me up and said,Well, you're in in town, why
(08:32):
don't you come have dinner atthe White House?
So I had to talk to Dick Growand see if I could have
permission to not be at the mostimportant party of the
convention and go over to theWhite House to have dinner.
And of course, he agreed thatthat was a very important thing
for me to do.
So uh I missed the party, but Iestablished it.
SPEAKER_00 (08:51):
Yeah, yes, I completely agree.
Well, I tell you what, that's uhthat's quite a story.
So make it, and I've got to say,just a little bit of a side
note, I have daughters myself,and I can appreciate the fact of
understanding what needs to comefirst.
The family is something that youcannot replace, the time you
cannot replace, the people youcannot replace.
(09:12):
And so I definitely understandmaking the decision to put that
first.
And I, you know, I I've got tosay, from from a fat one father
to another, I understand yourdecision, and I'm glad you made
it.
SPEAKER_01 (09:22):
Um, thank you.
You know, I a little bit later,and I see a little bit later, I
had uh the Speaker of the House,Jim Wright, in Congress,
Washington, call me up and askedme if I'd run for Congress from
that district.
Uh he would uh back me and he'dprovide all the financial
support for me.
But my by that time my daughterwas nine years old, and I said
being in Congress was a lifelongdream, but no thanks.
(09:43):
I have to raise my daughter.
And she's 50.
SPEAKER_00 (09:47):
Yeah.
And I'm sure she's doingwonderful at this point in time.
She is.
Great family.
Awesome.
So now comes 1989.
You see the ad, you go in, youget through this interview,
which seems like you know, youwhen you mention these names,
you have an amazing set of namesin front of you.
(10:08):
$1.2 million budget and a$700,000 income.
So now you've got thisshortfall.
You you've got quite a, I mean,$500,000 is quite a difference.
You know, some of the otherlegends had mentioned, I think
Kevin Quinn had mentioned at acertain point, there were there
was a time when April was introuble.
And there were people eitherbacking away or kind of coming
(10:31):
out of the idea that maybe Aprilwasn't the organization that
they needed to be a part of.
Yet it is a strivingorganization now.
What did you do at that timeframe?
How did you recognize some ofthe shortfalls that were
happening?
And what did you do to overcomewhat was going on at that point
in time?
SPEAKER_01 (10:49):
Well, the first thing was overcoming the
immediate shortfall.
I had to take the budget and cutit.
It was not a budget that I puttogether, but one that was I
inherited.
I had to make the cuts where Ithought necessary, rearrange the
personnel, brought in some, uh Ihad a bookkeeper on full staff.
I let her go.
I brought in uh CPA in thebackground who would then uh
(11:10):
help me hire an accountingstudent at UT and uh he would
fill out some forms for the CPA,and the CPA did it for a third
of the cost that the uh staffwas charging me.
And you know, uh I had I had toreview the bills due every day.
There were times when I went aweek or two after my pay period
for me to get my paycheck.
(11:31):
Uh I made sure my staff got paidon time, and I made sure that
the important bills were paid.
But there was a about six, eightmonths where we had some vendors
calling us up and saying, Well,where's our check?
And I they jumped to the head ofthe head of the line, top of the
head, uh top of the mountainmountain there, uh, to get paid.
(11:51):
But it was kind of touching togo there for a while.
The big thing was I noticed youwant to review what the
membership looks like at firstand who's participating, uh, how
many stores they had.
We had a dues uh budget that wasbased on um revenue.
And uh but it had a cap of$7,700.
(12:12):
And I found that Rena Center hadgone public by that time.
They had uh I think 1,200stores, and it came out where
they were paying about$35,$36 astore, where the one store
operators are paying$250 astore.
And uh didn't think that wasquite fair.
So Dave Egan uh with Rena Centeras a general counsel, became a
(12:35):
good close friend of mine.
I went to him and said, Dave,you know, y'all have to pony up.
You need to pay a little moredues.
He took it to Tom Devlin andthey agreed.
So they didn't quite pay thesame per store as uh the one
store operator did, but uh theythey knuckled under and paid a
lot more money, but they shouldhave.
So that got us out of the manyfinancial problems.
(12:57):
That was in '89 and '90.
About that time in 1990, IanChambers had uh been snooping
around the industry and in hisown books and the federal
government.
And he uh called me up and said,you know, we have a real tax
liability problem uh that coulddestroy the industry if we don't
(13:18):
jump on it and fix it.
The IRS uh could have uh taxedus uh for all revenue at one
time when we just get a weeklypayment in at a time.
Uh and that would our memberscouldn't pay the the dues, the
taxes.
So I called for a uh a meetingin Atlanta, and uh the board was
(13:39):
there and we put out a call toevery rental dealer in the
country to come to it, and mostof them did.
And Wayne laid out the situationfor everybody and said, you
know, we need we need to fixthis, and we need to fix this
quickly.
We started that.
We we started a uh a fund, alegal and legislative uh defense
fund, and we asked members tocontribute to that.
And they were very generous.
(14:00):
They raised uh we raised a lotof money each year for that.
We had a two-year jump on thefact that uh the IRS hadn't seen
what Wayne had seen, and weweren't being taxed at the uh at
the full price.
When that came about, when theyuh it first came about when
Henry B.
Gonzalez, a congressman from uhSan Antonio, Texas, and chairman
(14:21):
of the House Banking Committee,uh decided that he wanted to
have an investigative hearing onthe rent owned industry.
Well, you can imagine that sentshockwaves through the industry.
And we're being investigated byCongress now.
So uh uh we had a lobby firmthat was representing us, and I
didn't think much of them.
A guy reached out to me, JohnRafielli, who was the lobbyist,
(14:45):
um, and a young lobbyiststarting out, and I met with
him.
He flew down to Austin, I metwith him, and I just had this
feeling that he was the rightguy.
He was hungry.
Uh lobby firm we had were in DC,and and they were the
three-piece suit guys, and andthey had uh platinum uh clients,
(15:05):
and uh we needed somebody tofight for us.
So I fired uh the that our firstuh uh lobby firm and then hired
John.
He led us through a lot ofbattles, and I attribute a lot
of our success to John.
When Gonzalez had this hearingand got there, I I testified
along with Mamie Harkler.
And before we got there, I wentup to Joseph Kennedy Jr.
(15:29):
He was on the uh uh thecommittee and I'd met him in my
met him during my political lifeseveral times.
So I went up to him and said,Congressman, uh, you know, I
hope uh we can explain to youwhat our our industry is like
and uh hope we can get you onour side.
He said, Bill, I I um I know theindustry, and it's uh it's not
(15:53):
the transaction, it's you guyshave an image problem.
And that led to later things,which I'll get to in a little
bit.
But that hearing went well.
We had enough strength on thecommittee to block Gonzalez's
bill.
We had a bill in that committee.
Gonzalez blocked our bill.
And playing defense like that,you you consider that a win.
That went on a long time.
Henry was was uh a dog againstus, just really wanted to get
(16:17):
us, but uh never could get us.
Raphaelli helped us navigatethose uh terrains real well.
Um and we we fought, we uhorganized our legislative
conference, annual legislativeconference.
We sent rental dealers up toWashington to go meet with their
members.
We covered so many of thembecause we had such a great
turnout of our members.
(16:39):
And I always knew thatgrassroots campaigning is the
most effective you can have.
So they explained what theirbusiness was and how important
their business was to theircommunities, how many people
they serve, the uh benefit tothe customer they provide, that
the customer has really no otheralternative.
And we started gaining a lot ofa lot of uh sympathy, a lot of
(16:59):
trust, and a lot of support inCongress.
About the same time, the IRSsent out a notice that they were
looking at our transaction froma tax perspective perspective.
This was two years after Waynebrought it to our industry's
attention.
Ed and I went to Washington,D.C.
to interview a law firm to helpus.
We had a two-part strategy.
(17:21):
One, we were going to pick arental dealer that had great
records and challenge this inthe uh tax court.
And the other uh, but alongsideof that, we were going to have a
legislative effort where we tryto get the legislature, Congress
to declare us a lease for taxpurposes, not a sale.
That was an interestingdichotomy.
(17:41):
Dick Grell was the rental dealerthat we selected.
He at that time had a fairlylarge, had about 35 stores, and
was one of the ones that uh wasreally highly computerized at
the time, way before most of therental dealers were
computerized.
And he had uh a couple yearsworth of uh data for him.
So he agreed to um be audited bythe IRS, which was a bold move
(18:05):
on his part.
And we wouldn't have beensuccessful had not he agreed to
do that.
That went through the courts.
When Ed and I went up toWashington, we looked at several
law firms to represent us.
And the one that I liked Ed andI differed at first on this, but
I liked Vincent Elkins.
They're a big law firm out ofHouston.
They have offices in D.C.
(18:26):
and around the world now.
But Judge William Sterrett uhhad just retired as a chief
judge of the tax court, thefederal tax court.
And he was uh uh working forVincent Elkins in Washington.
And uh we had got him torepresent us.
Who better to represent us thanthe former Chief Justice?
So uh uh You don't get muchbetter than that.
(18:49):
That that was uh that was anamazing thing.
I think Ed came around and sawthat this was the right move to
make.
He had the political connectionand you know, a lot of people,
even today, don't understand theimportance of political
connections.
In in anything you do, I used totell my daughter uh when she was
in grade school that everythingis political.
And you need to sit in front ofthe teacher's desk and wear the
(19:10):
nice clothes the first couple ofweeks and set us set a tone for
it.
But when we had uh JudgeSterrett as our uh
representative against the IRS,and then we had a mountain of
grassroots support from ourmembers for our legislative
effort.
Dick Shelby was the senator, wasa senator of the Senate Finance
uh uh committee.
(19:32):
We were working on him a lot, uhgood man, and uh we raised a lot
of money for him.
At one point we had a big uhaffair in in Washington, D.C.
and gave him some money.
We thought it was quite a bit ofmoney, and he said, gosh, folks,
uh I was expecting a uh brinktrucks to pull up here and
unload some more money for me.
But uh that didn't happen.
(19:52):
But he uh he stuck with us andwe solved the problem.
Uh we were almost ready to go totax court uh when uh the IRS
commissioner needed$900 millionfor a new computer system for
the IRS.
And it just so happens that JohnRaffielli's wife worked for the
(20:12):
commissioner of the IRS.
We knew that from the verybeginning.
So she accompanied, John's wifeaccompanied the commissioner of
the IRS to Senator Shelby'soffice.
And John prepped Senator Shelbyon this, and the uh commissioner
said, Senator, you know, we'rein need of$900 million for the
computer system.
(20:33):
And Shelby leaned back in hisdesk and said, uh, well, I'll
take that in advisement.
Uh what are you gonna do aboutthe rent owned boys?
And uh she said, Well thought aminute said, uh we can the IRS
can issue a Rev proc uh nextweek saying that they're uh uh
they're a lease for uh a rentalfor tax purposes.
So she got her$900 million andwe got a Rev Proc saying that we
(20:57):
were a lease.
Uh that was that is amazing.
That was a great time.
That was a great celebration bythe end of the day.
SPEAKER_00 (21:06):
John Raffielli's name has come up several times,
and you know, talking with someof the other legends, I think it
was Bill French that said this.
Bill was like, you know, it'sit's crazy that we went through
what we went through with HenryB.
Gonzalez because we've had somemeetings and we've had some uh
conventions in the Henry B.
Gonzalez building in Texas.
So it's just one of thosethings.
(21:26):
It's ironic.
Well, yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_01 (21:30):
I know at some point uh John, if you if you want a
fascinating interview, get Johnand have have him on podcast.
SPEAKER_00 (21:39):
We're gonna try to do that.
I I'm sure the stories he couldtell us.
So I got a question.
You mentioned Ted Wilson comingon around the same time, and
you've mentioned him later on.
How did Ted Wilson's arrivalcoincide with yours?
And how did you guys worktogether?
How was that dynamic?
SPEAKER_01 (21:55):
Well, it was interesting.
When I was first hired, DickGrella was a President of APRO.
I was hired three weeks beforethe convention.
By the time convention cameabout, um Ted was uh being asked
by several people to run againstDick for president of APRO, and
(22:16):
Ted agreed to it.
Now I didn't know Ted very wellby that time, but I'd had three
weeks with Dick Grow.
And uh Dick had made some greatpromises to me about uh my
future.
And so I was I stayed out of it,of course, but uh I was pulling
for the best man to win, and uhTed Wilson won that year.
He was on the search firm thatfound me.
(22:37):
He was secretary, I believe, atthe time, or treasury, one of
the two.
And so he knew about that and hedecided to run.
And Ted did a remarkable job.
Ted and I got together to put aroad show together, and the two
of us traveled around thecountry talking about April.
April was losing members leftand right.
There was a battle between Apriland TRIB, and uh we went down to
(22:59):
Trib's meeting with our hat inour hand and said, you know,
that we're gonna be different.
This is gonna be a differentAPRO.
We need your support.
And uh we we went had a dog andpony show we went around the
country with.
So Ted played a very importantrole in re-establishing trust
and confidence in theassociation.
SPEAKER_00 (23:15):
So you mentioned what you did to create a
different revenue stream or orhow you affected the finances to
change the$700,000 versus the$1.2 million you know budget.
What were some of the thingsthat you implemented that got
people to see April in adifferent light, that got them
to come aboard?
(23:35):
And you you got more people tosay, you know what, this is not
the April that it was.
This is a new, this is a newApril under these, under this
guidance and under thisleadership.
What were some of the thingsthat you did to say this is this
is where we are now?
SPEAKER_01 (23:50):
Several things.
The first thing is mypredecessor was not a very
personal person, and he stayedin the office and didn't travel
very much.
I made it a point to travel toevery state association meeting,
anywhere that rental dealerswere meeting, and then I I would
be there.
I would go to uh corporateheadquarters, corporate
headquarters, and meet with thethe management team about April,
(24:14):
and I told them about mybackground in legislative
efforts and and what weaccomplish and we can accomplish
together.
Uh and I told them about uh someof the things I did uh
innovative in my uh running thiscampaign for the railroad, uh
for my restaurant that I had.
And uh, you know, I I could talktheir language and we we we
(24:38):
communicated very well.
I think they could see in my fin my eyes that I was serious
about things and I needed theirhelp.
You know, always when you're introuble, you you have to go out
and ask for help.
And people will respond, goodpeople will respond if you ask
for help.
And uh just made a point to showthat helping April will help
them.
That was that was a big part.
(25:00):
Uh we also, I know my first uhuh jewelry was coming in uh at
that time as a new uh uh rentalproduct, and everybody was
hush-hush about it.
Dave Egan uh with Rena Center.
Dave was absolutely opposed toit.
He said that'll bring theindustry down.
(25:21):
Uh there's no way you can saythat poor people need jewelry.
And uh we tried to explain tothat it's not just poor people,
it's anybody that wants somejewelry for just a little while.
So my very first April magazineput that as a I had a pros and
con of uh jewelry.
I had a jewelry vendor uh writewrite the pro, be interviewed
(25:43):
for the pro, and I had Ed win asa con.
Because Ed also thought it wouldbe devastating to the industry.
And then I the cover of themagazine uh was a green cover
with a gold chain wrapped aroundit uh as a piece of jewelry uh
in a question mark.
And I think that let everybodyknow that we're willing to take
(26:03):
some risk.
You know, rental dealers arenotorious for pushing the
envelope.
And I think prior to that, Aprowas kind of not so much there to
push the envelope.
And I think they found a partnerin Rent Own through APRO by
pushing the envelope.
And you know, it was I had apersonal thing.
I told the staff anytime arental dealer calls, put them
(26:25):
through to me directly.
Don't ask, just put them throughto me.
If I'm at a not at my desk, findme.
I want to talk to them.
So I was always available tothem.
And it's just it's likeanything.
If you make a personalconnection, you're you're way
ahead of the game.
SPEAKER_00 (26:39):
Well, I can tell you right now, I think Charles takes
after you.
Uh Charles is in every RDA, Ithink in every gathering that I
can think of now.
You know, we we sometimes make ajoke of it, you know, like
where's Waldo?
Where's Charles at today?
Yeah, I've literally seen him goto an event, go have to go to
another event, and then comeback to finish the event that
he's at, because I think he'staken a uh a bit of it from you
(27:00):
that you have to be where it'sat in the RDAs and the meetings,
and uh, you know, being being apart of the rent-owned industry
doesn't mean being one part ofit.
It's it's being one part of itwith an association with the
other as a whole, and it's howeach part can be a partnership
to the whole.
SPEAKER_01 (27:19):
And I have to say, I'm very impressed with Charles
from a distance.
Even one of the one of his boardmembers called me up and said,
Charles reminds me of you, Bill,when you were young.
So uh I took that as a bigcompliment.
And uh Charles is doing a hellof a fine job.
SPEAKER_00 (27:36):
So adding these members in was a part of going
to Trib, laying, laying downthese lines of hey, we're not
we're not here to compete in thesense that we are against you,
you're against us, we arecompeting football teams, but we
are in this together to makethings happen.
And in the best interest of Rentto Own, let's work together and
(27:58):
make this happen.
So then APRO starts growingagain.
Trib is doing what it's doing.
And then as you're going along,what were some of the, you know,
some of the big battles besidesHenry B.
Gonzalez uh and and the IRS?
Obviously, one of the biggestbattles because uh you're not
the only one who's mentioned theIRS is one of the trials and
(28:19):
tribulations of what happenedduring those years.
But what were some other legalbattles, legislative battles
that we were able to kind of sayand look back on?
Bill Keys feels good about thisbecause we did this in the
legislature.
SPEAKER_01 (28:35):
Well, we had a program of going and organizing
state associations to get statelaws passed.
And that was a team effort.
Ron Waters was my governmentaffairs director, he would do a
lot of the traveling.
Chris Kors with the RenaissanceRenaissance was very generous in
allowing Chris a flexibility togo everywhere he's needed.
And I would try to rally thetroops behind it.
(28:56):
So it was a three-way head onthere, and you know, we were
very successful.
I believe that there were 13state laws in 1989, could be off
a little bit, and I think we gotup to uh 38 or 39 when I left.
And state associations.
Well, I I formed a stateassociation committee on the
board.
I had a staff person devotedstrictly to the state
(29:19):
associations to help them dotheir programming, their
whatever they needed.
And we had a lot of legalbattles.
We had we had a battle inPennsylvania.
It was a big one.
Ernie Priate was the attorneygeneral in Pennsylvania at the
time, and he wanted to put therental own business out of
business out of business.
And we finally managed that, butwe had a bill that could have
(29:40):
passed, but it didn't, to f befavored to the industry.
But we fought him for manyyears.
But when he did that, I got acall from it was uh uh gosh, it
was uh a nationally recognizeduh news show.
He was on CNN a lot, and hewanted to have a debate, me and
on the on national TV debatingErnie Preate.
(30:03):
And of course, I was certainlywilling to do that and uh
certainly prepared to do it, butuh we decided we needed a PR
firm.
We hired a PR firm out ofWashington, and they one of the
first things they did, theycalled up CNN and said, you
know, this is not a story, thatthis is not that big of a story.
You don't want to uh air this.
So they talked this interviewfrom happening, which was a win
(30:26):
for us.
When you go up against uhattorney general saying very bad
things about you knownationwide, you just don't want
that.
So we were able to stop itbefore it took place.
That was one.
Our PR firm helped out manytimes back when when the
business started slowing down alittle bit in the rent-to-owned
industry, we still weregathering money for marketing
and legislative efforts.
(30:48):
And we came up with a uhprogram, a PR program for the
dealers, for the small dealers.
The big guys didn't need it, butsmall dealers needed it.
And Ernie Llewellyn took thelead on this, it was his
committee, and we creatednational uh commercials that we
gave away free to our members.
And Richard May, on my staff,had a childhood friend who was
(31:09):
an was a um um illustrator, uhstop motion animation
illustrator for Disney.
And we got him on the fly towork, and we created this uh dog
because the dog is friendly andeverybody likes dogs, to create
this friendly looking dog, andwe made commercials using stop
(31:30):
motion animation, which wasreally difficult.
Ernie and and Richard and I flewto uh uh San Francisco where the
studio was, and we watched himmake the commercials, exposed
that commercial to ourmembership, and gave it away
free to the small dealers.
And that was one of the thingsthat helped them out get a
better image.
At that time, some of our rentaldealers were running TV ads that
(31:52):
uh showed uh uh at a junkyardwith a claw grabbing a a uh uh
sofa and raising it up a hundredfeet in the air and dropping it.
And they say, see, our sofas aremade to last.
Well, that's not the kind ofimage we wanted.
And going back to Joe Kennedywhen he said, You guys have an
(32:12):
image problem that haunted allof us, but uh we took action on
that and uh at the April office,and we worked very hard to
explain to everybody our imageis so very critical and so very
important.
The PR uh effort, thecommercials was one phase of
that effort.
SPEAKER_00 (32:34):
I mean, I think it definitely worked because you
know, I I do remember those dayswhen it was very, very difficult
to shake that moniker of, hey,you know, this it's not what you
think.
And there are so many beneficialsides to having rent to own in
any community, and it was justalways that you know, that idea,
like, oh, you know, you guys areloan sharking, you guys are
predator lending.
(32:54):
And to be able to explain thaton any level is huge.
You know, I have to agree withyou, going back just a hair, uh,
with all the state laws thatended up being passed, and I
agree with you, with those20-something that came along as
you were uh the executivedirector in APRO, I you know, I
talked to Edwin uh a couple oftimes, and in Ed's minds, those
(33:15):
were the wins that really madethe difference because maybe not
so much having something on afederal level.
He he doesn't think that that'san actual win, but having it on
the state level in as manystates as we do, the way it was
done, that was really the winfor APRO as far as legality,
getting it passed in as manystates as you had, especially at
that time and then goingforward, because those laws
(33:36):
allowed each an individualstate, because you know, states
are like people, they're all thesame, but they're different.
And so, you know, you have theability to tweak it to what your
constituents need, what thepeople in your state really
want, but still be able topresent it as a win for the
rent-owned industry.
Do you feel like the state winswas a better win than maybe
getting a federal law passed?
SPEAKER_01 (33:57):
Well, I agree that they were they were crucial for
us getting a legal operatingenvironment for us.
But uh you have to realizethere's the large companies.
And around this time, therestarted there started a large uh
consolidation effort by uhcertain people.
At one point, we had, I think,seven publicly traded companies
(34:19):
and fewer and fewer companieswith more and more stores.
They're buying up rural dealsall over the place.
And they were multi-state.
Well, it's costly and sometimesvery, very difficult to train
your people into 18 differentlaws they have to follow if you
have stores in 18 differentstates.
So the idea of trying to get afederal bill was this
(34:40):
overreaching thing that saidmaybe we can consolidate the
laws and so that it might makeit easier for the large
companies to uh to function andmake it easier for everybody.
But as it turns out, we've nevermade we were able to get a
federal bill passed in theHouse, one Congress, but not in
the Senate.
We get it the next time we getit passed in the Senate, but not
in the House.
(35:00):
Uh so it was uh when I left, itwas a 20-year effort that was
not very successful, but it spunoff a lot of success.
SPEAKER_00 (35:07):
Well, I think that I think that's the way you got to
look at it, right?
Not all losses are losses.
Losses are teachers andimplementations on how to do
things differently and how toget it right another way.
And uh I agree that you knowseeing it from a fragmentative
point of a lot of states versusa one large company could be
(35:28):
difficult.
I think that I think there'ssomething to be said on both
sides of that, but I dounderstand what you're saying
about having one large companyhaving several different ways to
interact, teach, train, and uhimplement their processes
through through the you knowstate lines.
So I I definitely get that.
SPEAKER_01 (35:47):
After consolidation, one of the things I noticed uh
in the association world, a lotof industries will come about,
and when uh consolidation startstaking place, the bigger
companies come to a point wherethey don't think that the trade
association is that valuable tothem.
(36:08):
So we had to make sure that wewere helping out our one-store
operators and giving them value,but also giving Runner Center
and Aaron's the value that theywere looking for to stay in the
association.
Because April couldn't exist,and a lot of associations have
gone under because they lose thebig guys once they get to a
certain point, and they don'tthink this the association is
(36:29):
valuable anymore.
So that was always the back ofmy mind.
I have to keep everybody.
I completely agree.
SPEAKER_00 (36:35):
Now, so the federal bill, whether it went through or
not, that was one of thebiggest, you know, that was that
was a that was on the biggeststage.
And it could have fundamentallychanged the way rent to own
went, left, right, north, south.
It would have made a change,whether it did or it did.
What were some other huge thingsthat could have changed the way
RTO was implemented?
And, you know, we either gotpassed or we didn't get passed,
(36:59):
but there was was there anythingelse in your time frame that
would have made a hugedifference in the way RTO
interacted as a whole?
Or there was something that gotpassed?
SPEAKER_01 (37:09):
Federally, there's uh you know the two big issues
that affect everybody was theregulatory issue and the tax
issue.
And we got that behind us in theearly 90s, basically.
So after that, there were someareas that we wanted to tweak
when uh the consumer financialconsumer financial protection
agency was being created.
(37:30):
It turns out that ElizabethWarren was had gotten elected to
uh the Senate and she waspushing this.
Well, she used to be Ed Wynn'snext door neighbor.
The consequences the ironiesabout this thing is just
incredible.
But we the we had more insightto Elizabeth Warren when we were
doing that.
So we had to gear up to makesure that once that entity was
(37:53):
created, that they wouldn't turnthe power of that federal agency
against us.
And we kept a very close eye inWashington legislatively on
keeping that intact, keepingthem at arm's length from us.
SPEAKER_00 (38:08):
Well, that didn't, I mean, that didn't end.
I don't think it ended theneither.
I remember not this past year,but the year before.
Maybe it was this past year, butit was the year before.
I remember being at LedgeCon,and one of the messages that we
wanted to pass through our, youknow, our bodies, our
legislative bodies in DC, wasthat, you know what, we we kind
of want to stay away from theCFPB and remind them that we are
(38:28):
not credit.
It's not a credit situation, andwe'd like to leave it the way
it's it's been set up state bystate.
You know, this is not a credittransaction, and if you change
it that way, there arebusinesses, there are people,
there are lives, there arecareers, there are owners,
taxpayers, and there arecommunity members, our clients,
(38:48):
that will be affected by that.
And we we didn't want to havethat issue.
So, you know, I I I think it's Ithink it's always come up one
way or another over these years.
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01 (38:58):
You know, no matter whether you get a law or not,
the law can always be changed.
So you have to have eternalvigilance in the governmental
bodies that regulate you.
So, you know, I'm very happy tosee a went on the website today
and see photos from the uh lastlegislative conference and the
legislative conference scheduledfor next year.
That's we should never let thatgo.
(39:19):
When we do that, that'll startthe end of our industry.
But that's not going that's anongoing battle and it should be
fought every year.
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00 (39:29):
I you know, I was gonna say, oh, they started this
fellows program where they havecertain companies and entities
trying to bring new and freshpeople to the legislative
conference in DC to get them tosee what it is like to advocate
for their industry.
Actually, I'm going to do mybest, and I haven't worked it
out with April fully yet, but Iwant the uh the podcast, whether
(39:52):
it becomes part of the fellowsprogram or whether I do it on
the side, my goal is to alsobring somebody from the rent-one
industry along with me as I dothat.
So I want to join the fellowsprogram and bring somebody along
because that's how much Ibelieve in making sure that they
see how important it is toadvocate.
Not and I love the idea because,and I've said it before, and
I'll probably say it a hundredtimes.
Again, it's different when youhave all of these companies come
(40:15):
together under one flag toadvocate for their business in
their state and say that, youknow, we are doing the right
thing by our people, by ourcommunities, and we want to stay
doing what we're doing, and we'dwe'd love your support to do
that.
I think it's one of the bestthings that I've ever seen in
any industry do over these timeframes.
And, you know, something youmentioned, talking about
(40:36):
different people and differentthings, you mentioned that there
were other groups, otheragencies, other organizations
that didn't make it.
What were some of theorganizations that that April
partnered with along the yearsthat helped achieve some of the
goals that we were trying to do?
And who were the ones thatdidn't make it?
SPEAKER_01 (40:54):
I think in general, uh, you know, anytime a new
product is introduced, youreally have to get to know the
product and the association thatrepresents that product.
I remember Julia mentioned Julieearlier, came on, it was very
big in the industry for a while.
(41:15):
It's not so big anymore if theyeven exist.
But furniture, when I first cameaboard, nobody had furniture in
the stores.
You know, that that was arevolutionary idea back in my
day to bring furniture in.
We can't do it because ourstores aren't big enough for it.
You know, it's too cumbersome.
How can we store enough to beable to deliver on time?
And you work with the uh theindustry's the furniture
(41:36):
industry's uh representatives tohelp them help you figure out
how to do it in yourassociation, in your membership.
So nothing is in a vacuum.
You have to realize I think thateverything in life is how you
connect with people, how youconnect with organizations and
find commonality and find commonground.
(41:57):
And that's what EggPo is allabout, and always has been.
SPEAKER_00 (42:01):
I can tell you I've only been doing this for now, it
will be coming up 21 years.
I still don't have, even thoughyou've been out of it for a
while, I still haven't gotten toyour point, your level of
experience in this and some ofthe things that you mentioned.
I love, I love being able tokind of go over these things and
kind of talk about it.
Um going back a little bit,because we did talk about the
(42:21):
IRS and and their ability tokind of put a really big damper
on things and how we eventuallyovercame that.
Was there how damaging was that?
I mean, with the IRS situationand it looming, would we have
lost the industry at that pointin time?
The industry would have changed.
SPEAKER_01 (42:41):
You know, uh when I was testifying for uh Congress
before Henry B.
Gonzalez, and I was rehearsingwith uh Dave and Chris Corst and
all those people and Ed, I toldhim, you know what I want to say
is guys, hit us with your bestshot because we can always come
back.
Because we're a very uhenergetic, we're a very uh
(43:01):
flexible industry.
And we're not we're notconcerned, we're not worried
about you.
And I'd say that's that's that'spart of it, is that uh, you
know, we had we not had the IRSsaid that we were a sale, that
would have meant that they wouldwe would have had to collect
taxes on the entire price of theitem, even though we're only
(43:21):
getting a weekly or monthlypayment of it.
So it would the cash flow wouldhave been totally upside down
for all the real dealers, andand and that would have sent
many of them out of business.
And I I don't think it couldhave been a profitable business
for anybody if it was.
SPEAKER_00 (43:34):
I can only imagine what a different landscape would
look at rent to own.
SPEAKER_01 (43:40):
Yeah.
But I'm sure that the people youknow, going back to Chuck Sims
and Barry Gambini and BudHoliday, they taught the
industry, they founded thisindustry, and one of the most
important messages they gave theindustry is to be flexible and
be nimble and overcome obstaclesand don't let anything cut you
down.
(44:00):
And I had total faith that thisindustry would survive no matter
what.
SPEAKER_00 (44:03):
Well, I can tell you right now, there's a lot of
pioneers, a lot ofentrepreneurs, a lot of people
that have a lot of grit.
And I've learned to use thatword sparingly because it means
a lot more to me now than it didearlier in my life, that they
have the grit to keep on andbeing uh, you know, to persevere
in these times.
You know what's funny, youmentioned furniture.
I've only been doing it 21years, and I we had furniture
(44:24):
the day one that I started.
I could not imagine thisindustry without furniture, you
know, and it's it's crazy yousay that.
So, you know, looking backwardalso allows us to look forward.
You've gone through a lot of,you know, you you were in it in
four different decades in the80s, the 90s, the 2000s, and the
2010s.
(44:45):
You have seen a lot.
Bill Cleese, you've done a lot.
Let me ask you a question, Bill.
If you were to take a snapshottoday, and this is your opinion,
looking forward, what issomething that you can see in
the future of rent to own, ormaybe even in the future of
April?
SPEAKER_01 (45:00):
First of all, the future's bright.
There it will always be a demandfor the rent own concept.
It may be called something else.
Throughout the years, we trieddifferent names, rental
purchase, uh, lease purchase,whatever, to try to avoid the
stigma of rent owned.
We finally agreed that you know,let's just face up to it, call
(45:23):
it rent owned, be proud of it.
But the people behind it uh inthis industry, and you know,
I've seen three generations comein this industry.
Every every generation passesthat grit, passes that
innovation, passes that uhdesire to uh improvise, passes
that creativity to the nextgeneration.
(45:45):
And that is something that Ithink we can attribute to uh uh
Chuck Sims, Barry Gambini, andand Bud Holiday.
They taught us, they gave usthat that uh that DNA.
And you know, my 27 years, itwas interesting.
I saw a lot of uh valleys andmountaintops in the industry.
(46:06):
And so that confirms my thinkingthat this industry will go on as
long as uh people want to do it.
Leaders want to be there as longas there are customers for it.
SPEAKER_00 (46:15):
And I can't see there'd be a time without that.
So you left in 2015 as theexecutive director of April.
What are you doing now, Bill?
What is what has beencaptivating you for the last 10
years?
Well, I left in 2016.
2016, I'm sorry, 2016.
SPEAKER_01 (46:34):
My wife is an architect, and uh the house we
had in Austin spent 28 months reremodeling it to be something
spectacular, and uh that tookthe year uh actually two years,
my last year at Apro and and theyear that I was retired to
finish that project.
And today an actor by the nameof Glenn Powell lives in that
house.
He bought the house uh milliondollars.
(46:57):
Yeah, he bought the house for uhfour and a half million dollars.
We didn't no kidding, he didn'tbuy it for but uh Glenn Powell
bought that house.
And but uh you know I wanted toI traveled so much in those 27
years being on a plane all thetime, uh being on the phone when
I'm not on a plane.
I get calls, you know, at 8o'clock, nine o'clock, 10
(47:18):
o'clock at night uh a lot oftimes.
And I, you know, I had todecompress.
So we moved to Galveston, umbought a 1903 Victorian house,
and um uh that was uh in uh 2018and we've been uh 2017 and we've
(47:42):
been uh working on ever sincethen.
So I do a lot of tinkeringaround the house.
Old houses need a lot of uhfixing up.
So I I become a mastercarpenter, master plumber.
Uh and it's it's uh it's goodbecause I you know one thing in
my life that with April is hardto see the end of a project.
I never did see the end of ofthe federal effort.
(48:04):
I did see the end of the taxproblem and and stuff rarely can
you see the end of uh of aproject when you're in as
executive director of anassociation because there's
always things moving around.
Uh so I wanted to see something,do something that I could see
the beginning and the end of it,and the middle wasn't that
large.
My first year back in inGalliston, I decided that uh the
(48:28):
uh Gallison needed newleadership, so I ran for mayor
of Galliston.
People thought I was crazy.
I've had some help from somerural dealers, but mostly
self-funded, and I didn't win,but I established a name in here
in Galliston.
I can still, you know, go to thegrocery store and people come up
to me, I don't know, and ask andsay, Are you Bill Keys?
(48:51):
So that uh that allowed us tointegrate very quickly into the
life of Galliston Island.
When you run for mayor, you andit was a long campaign because
of the uh the pandemic.
But uh I I keep busy.
I'm a member of a couple clubs.
I was president of the rotary uhthe rotary club here in
Galliston last year.
I have been a member of theChamber of Commerce.
(49:11):
Uh I was on the LegislativeAdvocacy Committee.
I have uh uh have a couplecoffee clubs, a member of we sit
as old men, we sit with a lot ofexperience, we sit there and
solve all the problems of theworld.
We don't have to make a mistakebecause what we say doesn't mean
anything, but it it is fun forus old guys.
SPEAKER_00 (49:31):
You know, Bill, I gotta say, you have lived a
life.
I am in awe of some of thethings that you've been able to
accomplish both young and atyour age now.
I mean, that's it's amazing tosay.
Um, you know, coming to a close,with all the acknowledged, you
know, all the knowledge, all theexperience, all the time that
(49:51):
you spent doing the things thatyou've done, looking back, what
is some advice you would givesome young rent-to-owned
entrepreneurs as they're comingup through the ranks these days
and looking forward to grow,putting their roots down and
kind of growing into this inthis industry.
What would the great Bill Keysay is, you know, if I could
(50:12):
give you a little bit ofknowledge, just a little chunk
of knowledge here, what wouldthat be?
SPEAKER_01 (50:16):
I'm gonna say what I practiced when I was executive
director.
I made a point of reinventingmyself every five years.
I think that's why I lasted 27years.
I took a different outlook.
I purposely would scrub my mindand think of something different
to do with Aid Pro every fiveyears.
I say for any entrepreneur, havethe same kind of uh system.
(50:38):
Oh, don't be afraid of change.
Look toward reinventingyourself, your companies, your
products, the way you dobusiness, never be stagnant.
And I I got that from my father.
He was a man of who embracedchange, and he instilled me with
that.
And I'd say, embrace change anddon't get stuck in the past.
SPEAKER_00 (51:00):
I gotta say, great words from the great Bill Keys.
Thank you so much for being onthe show.
I I could just only imagine whatit would have been like for the
27 years as executive directorfor APRO and all the things that
you've done and all the thingsthat you have been able to
accomplish in that time frame.
Thank you so much from myself inthe RTO industry.
And I will tell you guys thankyou so much for visiting the RTO
(51:23):
show and being a part of ourstory today and listening to
what Bill has to say.
If you want more, feel free tohit us up.
You can hit me up on my email atpet at the rtoshowpodcast.com,
or you can go online and seesome of the things that I've
been able to get into and what'sgoing on at www.therto
showpodcast.com.
You can also hit us up on socialmedia.
We have Facebook and Instagramand LinkedIn and YouTube where
(51:46):
you're gonna see this.
So make sure you stop by andsubscribe.
Make sure you go to the website,buy some swag.
Bill, I really appreciate youbeing in here today.
You've got it's just been anamazing conversation.
Uh, thank you so much.
And I will tell you guys asalways, I appreciate you.
Make sure you get yourcollections low to get your
sales high.
Have a great one.
Hey everyone, it's Pete Chowhere from the R2 Show Podcast,
(52:09):
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(52:51):
I trust it, and I think you willtoo.
Hi, I'm Peach Cow.
(00:02):
You may know me from the Art'sGo Show podcast, but today, I'm
doing something a little bitdifferent.
Apro and Wildbrands havelaunched a special project to
bring the story of our industryto life like never before.
They've asked me to sit downwith some of the true legends of
Red Zone.
After their stories, theirimpact, and their vision for the
future.
And now, I get to share thoseconversations with people.
Right from the legendsthemselves.
(00:25):
A new book.
The Red Zone Revolution isdefinitive history, advocacy and
historic, written by AprilStudios called Intimate, and
Wild Red Studio Wildcraft.
The book explores the grassrootsof RTO, the advocacy that is
defined, and the future thatwe're building together.
Here's where you come in.
We're giving away free copiesonce the book is released.
(00:46):
Just head over tortorevolution.com and sign up
for a chance to receive a copyin early 2026.
Don't miss the chance to beamong the first to hold this
piece of RTO history.
That's rtoorevolution.com.
Check it out and become a partof RTO History.
(01:15):
I'm your host, Pete Chow, andtoday I have the honor of
talking to another Rent to Ownlegend.
And I can honestly tell you thatthis one gets me very excited
because this is some tenureshift that you just see in
legend, and that's why we havethis legend series.
I'm here with the legendary BillKeys, who has done quite a bit
(01:35):
in his tenureship with Rent2Own,including the director of April
for 27 years.
27 amazing years, from what Iunderstand.
What I'm being told by the otherlegends.
Bill, how are you doing today?
How's everything going?
I'm doing great.
Thank you very much for asking.
SPEAKER_01 (01:52):
It's a pretty day here in Galveston.
SPEAKER_00 (01:54):
All right.
I love Texas.
I love Texas.
If I wasn't in Florida, Ipromise you, I would be in
Texas.
SPEAKER_01 (02:00):
There you go.
SPEAKER_00 (02:02):
So I gotta know, you you did 27 years as the
director, the executive directorof APRO.
How did you first hear about therent-to-owned industry and what
put you on that path to becomingthe executive director?
SPEAKER_01 (02:20):
Um actually, a high school friend of mine was first
hired by uh uh APRO to be theirgovernment relations director,
named Ron Waters.
He and I went to high schooltogether.
We also serve in the legislaturetogether, so uh uh kept up all
these years.
He uh he got the job and he wastelling me that that uh uh they
(02:42):
wanted to hire an executivedirector and that he wanted the
job.
But it came about and I uh sawit in the paper.
I applied, and and not too longout of distance, I got a a call
to be interviewed by theexecutive committee.
It was uh it's in the uh uhApril office.
They had a uh office with acommon boardroom for everybody.
(03:03):
Dick Grow was president.
There was Mac Hinnigan, WayneChambers, Dave Egan, Ted Wilson,
and uh Wayne and Wayne Chambersall present.
And it was a very niceinterview, very good interview.
I felt very relaxed, verycomfortable around these guys.
I thought this was reallysomething that I could be a part
of and enjoy for a long time.
The one funny part of it isafter they quizzed me, they
(03:26):
asked me if I had any questionsfor them.
And I said, sure.
Is this a financially stableorganization?
And uh I should have guessedbecause they all started looking
around at each other.
Finally, Ed Wynne said, sure, wehave a$1.2 million budget.
After I was uh hired, I foundout quickly that we had$700,000
revenue coming in.
(03:47):
So it was uh that was my firstbig challenge is put April on a
financial uh solid financialfooting.
SPEAKER_00 (03:54):
So I'm glad you got into that because we were going
to approach that later on.
I actually do have a lot ofquestions on that because I did
find out recently through theother legends that there was
some issues that when you cameaboard, not anything that you
had done, but what you had takenover, because I really want to
know some of the approaches thatyou took.
But was this the first time asyou go into this board meeting,
you read about this job, is thisactually the first time you
(04:14):
you've heard about rent to ownand APRO as a whole?
SPEAKER_01 (04:17):
Yes, I didn't uh know anything about APRO, didn't
know APRO existed.
I had uh very little informationabout rent to own.
I remember back as a kid uhhearing some of Chuck Sims' TV
and radio ads, and that's aboutthe only exposure I had.
So uh it was I was come inblind.
SPEAKER_00 (04:33):
So you said Ron Waters and yourself had gone to
high school together, and thatyou were in the legislature
together?
Did I hear that right?
Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_01 (04:42):
Uh uh I've I've had a prior to April, and one of the
questions that the executivecommittee had was, you seem to
have bounced around a lot, Bill.
Is that something we should beconcerned about?
After high college, I went towork for the state treasurer's
office.
After that, I had an opportunityto buy a little restaurant in a
small town in central Texas.
I moved there with my family,bought this restaurant for the
(05:05):
sole purpose of meeting a lot ofpeople in a hurry so I could run
for the legislature.
My goal had always been to be inpolitics since I was seven years
old.
And this was my opportunity.
So I bought this little cafe inSomerville, Texas, and after a
year I announced I was runningfor election against the
incumbent.
And there was a former incumbentin the race also at the time.
(05:26):
And of course, nobody gave me asnowball chance to win.
But I outcampaigned them.
I uh touched the nerve and uhmade it in the runoff.
And a month later I beat theincumbent and was uh had no
opposition in the fall.
So I I served three terms in thelegislature.
Wonderful experience.
(05:47):
It was just uh, I mean, I stillhave great friends from that
period of time.
Uh and look back with fondmemories and the battles and the
war scars that we had together,and some fun times too.
But uh it was plenty on runningfor state treasurer uh when my
marriage fell apart, and Idecided that uh I wanted to be a
(06:08):
part of my daughter's life.
So we had a legal battle endingup in a five-day jury trial, and
I won custody of her.
So I couldn't do a whole lot inpolitics with a four-year-old
daughter.
But it was great.
It was a great honor for me anda great privilege in my life to
have a child and raise her asclosely as I did.
After that, I uh um went to workfor Schlosski's uh as the home
(06:32):
office.
I was vice president offranchising for Schlosski's for
five years.
Then I um a friend of mine frommy legislative days uh was
putting in a railroad, luxurypassenger railroad from Denver
to state Denver StapletonAirport to Aspen, Colorado.
And he contacted me and asked meif I would run the campaign for
(06:54):
him.
Uh so uh uh as uh time wouldhave it, I decided, you know,
living in Aspen might not be toobad.
So I uh took the job, moved toAspen, and had an unlimited
expense account.
And I was the uh uh the voiceand the image of the railroad.
It was a six-month battle, anduh we won the right to pull the
(07:15):
railroad in.
We won an election both countyand in city to allow the
railroad to come in.
Uh, and that was quite anexperience, as you can well
imagine.
After that, uh I went back towork for the Attorney General's
office for a little while in thebudgeting department and heard
about this opportunity, and anduh I explained this to the
group, and that's when WayneChambers said, Well, you bounced
(07:37):
around a lot, and we haveconcerns about that.
And I said, No, I think thatgives me great experience to do
what you need to have done.
They bought my line and you knowwhat I mean.
SPEAKER_00 (07:46):
That's exactly what I agree with you 100%.
I because you not you had theexperience in the legal, you
know, when you're talking aboutthe legislator and you're
talking about the government,and that that's really what APRO
does, and that's the role youstepped in.
And I think that's that thatwould say why you did so well
for so many years, because youhad that experience dealing with
(08:09):
it.
SPEAKER_01 (08:10):
One of the fun things, my first convention was
in Washington, D.C., when Aprilwas kicking off their uh federal
legislative effort.
Um, at the main party, I wassupposed to be there, but I had
a friend who uh was thepersonnel director of George
H.W.
Bush's White House.
And uh he called me up and said,Well, you're in in town, why
(08:32):
don't you come have dinner atthe White House?
So I had to talk to Dick Growand see if I could have
permission to not be at the mostimportant party of the
convention and go over to theWhite House to have dinner.
And of course, he agreed thatthat was a very important thing
for me to do.
So uh I missed the party, but Iestablished it.
SPEAKER_00 (08:51):
Yeah, yes, I completely agree.
Well, I tell you what, that's uhthat's quite a story.
So make it, and I've got to say,just a little bit of a side
note, I have daughters myself,and I can appreciate the fact of
understanding what needs to comefirst.
The family is something that youcannot replace, the time you
cannot replace, the people youcannot replace.
(09:12):
And so I definitely understandmaking the decision to put that
first.
And I, you know, I I've got tosay, from from a fat one father
to another, I understand yourdecision, and I'm glad you made
it.
SPEAKER_01 (09:22):
Um, thank you.
You know, I a little bit later,and I see a little bit later, I
had uh the Speaker of the House,Jim Wright, in Congress,
Washington, call me up and askedme if I'd run for Congress from
that district.
Uh he would uh back me and he'dprovide all the financial
support for me.
But my by that time my daughterwas nine years old, and I said
being in Congress was a lifelongdream, but no thanks.
(09:43):
I have to raise my daughter.
And she's 50.
SPEAKER_00 (09:47):
Yeah.
And I'm sure she's doingwonderful at this point in time.
She is.
Great family.
Awesome.
So now comes 1989.
You see the ad, you go in, youget through this interview,
which seems like you know, youwhen you mention these names,
you have an amazing set of namesin front of you.
(10:08):
$1.2 million budget and a$700,000 income.
So now you've got thisshortfall.
You you've got quite a, I mean,$500,000 is quite a difference.
You know, some of the otherlegends had mentioned, I think
Kevin Quinn had mentioned at acertain point, there were there
was a time when April was introuble.
And there were people eitherbacking away or kind of coming
(10:31):
out of the idea that maybe Aprilwasn't the organization that
they needed to be a part of.
Yet it is a strivingorganization now.
What did you do at that timeframe?
How did you recognize some ofthe shortfalls that were
happening?
And what did you do to overcomewhat was going on at that point
in time?
SPEAKER_01 (10:49):
Well, the first thing was overcoming the
immediate shortfall.
I had to take the budget and cutit.
It was not a budget that I puttogether, but one that was I
inherited.
I had to make the cuts where Ithought necessary, rearrange the
personnel, brought in some, uh Ihad a bookkeeper on full staff.
I let her go.
I brought in uh CPA in thebackground who would then uh
(11:10):
help me hire an accountingstudent at UT and uh he would
fill out some forms for the CPA,and the CPA did it for a third
of the cost that the uh staffwas charging me.
And you know, uh I had I had toreview the bills due every day.
There were times when I went aweek or two after my pay period
for me to get my paycheck.
(11:31):
Uh I made sure my staff got paidon time, and I made sure that
the important bills were paid.
But there was a about six, eightmonths where we had some vendors
calling us up and saying, Well,where's our check?
And I they jumped to the head ofthe head of the line, top of the
head, uh top of the mountainmountain there, uh, to get paid.
(11:51):
But it was kind of touching togo there for a while.
The big thing was I noticed youwant to review what the
membership looks like at firstand who's participating, uh, how
many stores they had.
We had a dues uh budget that wasbased on um revenue.
And uh but it had a cap of$7,700.
(12:12):
And I found that Rena Center hadgone public by that time.
They had uh I think 1,200stores, and it came out where
they were paying about$35,$36 astore, where the one store
operators are paying$250 astore.
And uh didn't think that wasquite fair.
So Dave Egan uh with Rena Centeras a general counsel, became a
(12:35):
good close friend of mine.
I went to him and said, Dave,you know, y'all have to pony up.
You need to pay a little moredues.
He took it to Tom Devlin andthey agreed.
So they didn't quite pay thesame per store as uh the one
store operator did, but uh theythey knuckled under and paid a
lot more money, but they shouldhave.
So that got us out of the manyfinancial problems.
(12:57):
That was in '89 and '90.
About that time in 1990, IanChambers had uh been snooping
around the industry and in hisown books and the federal
government.
And he uh called me up and said,you know, we have a real tax
liability problem uh that coulddestroy the industry if we don't
(13:18):
jump on it and fix it.
The IRS uh could have uh taxedus uh for all revenue at one
time when we just get a weeklypayment in at a time.
Uh and that would our memberscouldn't pay the the dues, the
taxes.
So I called for a uh a meetingin Atlanta, and uh the board was
(13:39):
there and we put out a call toevery rental dealer in the
country to come to it, and mostof them did.
And Wayne laid out the situationfor everybody and said, you
know, we need we need to fixthis, and we need to fix this
quickly.
We started that.
We we started a uh a fund, alegal and legislative uh defense
fund, and we asked members tocontribute to that.
And they were very generous.
(14:00):
They raised uh we raised a lotof money each year for that.
We had a two-year jump on thefact that uh the IRS hadn't seen
what Wayne had seen, and weweren't being taxed at the uh at
the full price.
When that came about, when theyuh it first came about when
Henry B.
Gonzalez, a congressman from uhSan Antonio, Texas, and chairman
(14:21):
of the House Banking Committee,uh decided that he wanted to
have an investigative hearing onthe rent owned industry.
Well, you can imagine that sentshockwaves through the industry.
And we're being investigated byCongress now.
So uh uh we had a lobby firmthat was representing us, and I
didn't think much of them.
A guy reached out to me, JohnRafielli, who was the lobbyist,
(14:45):
um, and a young lobbyiststarting out, and I met with
him.
He flew down to Austin, I metwith him, and I just had this
feeling that he was the rightguy.
He was hungry.
Uh lobby firm we had were in DC,and and they were the
three-piece suit guys, and andthey had uh platinum uh clients,
(15:05):
and uh we needed somebody tofight for us.
So I fired uh the that our firstuh uh lobby firm and then hired
John.
He led us through a lot ofbattles, and I attribute a lot
of our success to John.
When Gonzalez had this hearingand got there, I I testified
along with Mamie Harkler.
And before we got there, I wentup to Joseph Kennedy Jr.
(15:29):
He was on the uh uh thecommittee and I'd met him in my
met him during my political lifeseveral times.
So I went up to him and said,Congressman, uh, you know, I
hope uh we can explain to youwhat our our industry is like
and uh hope we can get you onour side.
He said, Bill, I I um I know theindustry, and it's uh it's not
(15:53):
the transaction, it's you guyshave an image problem.
And that led to later things,which I'll get to in a little
bit.
But that hearing went well.
We had enough strength on thecommittee to block Gonzalez's
bill.
We had a bill in that committee.
Gonzalez blocked our bill.
And playing defense like that,you you consider that a win.
That went on a long time.
Henry was was uh a dog againstus, just really wanted to get
(16:17):
us, but uh never could get us.
Raphaelli helped us navigatethose uh terrains real well.
Um and we we fought, we uhorganized our legislative
conference, annual legislativeconference.
We sent rental dealers up toWashington to go meet with their
members.
We covered so many of thembecause we had such a great
turnout of our members.
(16:39):
And I always knew thatgrassroots campaigning is the
most effective you can have.
So they explained what theirbusiness was and how important
their business was to theircommunities, how many people
they serve, the uh benefit tothe customer they provide, that
the customer has really no otheralternative.
And we started gaining a lot ofa lot of uh sympathy, a lot of
(16:59):
trust, and a lot of support inCongress.
About the same time, the IRSsent out a notice that they were
looking at our transaction froma tax perspective perspective.
This was two years after Waynebrought it to our industry's
attention.
Ed and I went to Washington,D.C.
to interview a law firm to helpus.
We had a two-part strategy.
(17:21):
One, we were going to pick arental dealer that had great
records and challenge this inthe uh tax court.
And the other uh, but alongsideof that, we were going to have a
legislative effort where we tryto get the legislature, Congress
to declare us a lease for taxpurposes, not a sale.
That was an interestingdichotomy.
(17:41):
Dick Grell was the rental dealerthat we selected.
He at that time had a fairlylarge, had about 35 stores, and
was one of the ones that uh wasreally highly computerized at
the time, way before most of therental dealers were
computerized.
And he had uh a couple yearsworth of uh data for him.
So he agreed to um be audited bythe IRS, which was a bold move
(18:05):
on his part.
And we wouldn't have beensuccessful had not he agreed to
do that.
That went through the courts.
When Ed and I went up toWashington, we looked at several
law firms to represent us.
And the one that I liked Ed andI differed at first on this, but
I liked Vincent Elkins.
They're a big law firm out ofHouston.
They have offices in D.C.
(18:26):
and around the world now.
But Judge William Sterrett uhhad just retired as a chief
judge of the tax court, thefederal tax court.
And he was uh uh working forVincent Elkins in Washington.
And uh we had got him torepresent us.
Who better to represent us thanthe former Chief Justice?
So uh uh You don't get muchbetter than that.
(18:49):
That that was uh that was anamazing thing.
I think Ed came around and sawthat this was the right move to
make.
He had the political connectionand you know, a lot of people,
even today, don't understand theimportance of political
connections.
In in anything you do, I used totell my daughter uh when she was
in grade school that everythingis political.
And you need to sit in front ofthe teacher's desk and wear the
(19:10):
nice clothes the first couple ofweeks and set us set a tone for
it.
But when we had uh JudgeSterrett as our uh
representative against the IRS,and then we had a mountain of
grassroots support from ourmembers for our legislative
effort.
Dick Shelby was the senator, wasa senator of the Senate Finance
uh uh committee.
(19:32):
We were working on him a lot, uhgood man, and uh we raised a lot
of money for him.
At one point we had a big uhaffair in in Washington, D.C.
and gave him some money.
We thought it was quite a bit ofmoney, and he said, gosh, folks,
uh I was expecting a uh brinktrucks to pull up here and
unload some more money for me.
But uh that didn't happen.
(19:52):
But he uh he stuck with us andwe solved the problem.
Uh we were almost ready to go totax court uh when uh the IRS
commissioner needed$900 millionfor a new computer system for
the IRS.
And it just so happens that JohnRaffielli's wife worked for the
(20:12):
commissioner of the IRS.
We knew that from the verybeginning.
So she accompanied, John's wifeaccompanied the commissioner of
the IRS to Senator Shelby'soffice.
And John prepped Senator Shelbyon this, and the uh commissioner
said, Senator, you know, we'rein need of$900 million for the
computer system.
(20:33):
And Shelby leaned back in hisdesk and said, uh, well, I'll
take that in advisement.
Uh what are you gonna do aboutthe rent owned boys?
And uh she said, Well thought aminute said, uh we can the IRS
can issue a Rev proc uh nextweek saying that they're uh uh
they're a lease for uh a rentalfor tax purposes.
So she got her$900 million andwe got a Rev Proc saying that we
(20:57):
were a lease.
Uh that was that is amazing.
That was a great time.
That was a great celebration bythe end of the day.
SPEAKER_00 (21:06):
John Raffielli's name has come up several times,
and you know, talking with someof the other legends, I think it
was Bill French that said this.
Bill was like, you know, it'sit's crazy that we went through
what we went through with HenryB.
Gonzalez because we've had somemeetings and we've had some uh
conventions in the Henry B.
Gonzalez building in Texas.
So it's just one of thosethings.
(21:26):
It's ironic.
Well, yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_01 (21:30):
I know at some point uh John, if you if you want a
fascinating interview, get Johnand have have him on podcast.
SPEAKER_00 (21:39):
We're gonna try to do that.
I I'm sure the stories he couldtell us.
So I got a question.
You mentioned Ted Wilson comingon around the same time, and
you've mentioned him later on.
How did Ted Wilson's arrivalcoincide with yours?
And how did you guys worktogether?
How was that dynamic?
SPEAKER_01 (21:55):
Well, it was interesting.
When I was first hired, DickGrella was a President of APRO.
I was hired three weeks beforethe convention.
By the time convention cameabout, um Ted was uh being asked
by several people to run againstDick for president of APRO, and
(22:16):
Ted agreed to it.
Now I didn't know Ted very wellby that time, but I'd had three
weeks with Dick Grow.
And uh Dick had made some greatpromises to me about uh my
future.
And so I was I stayed out of it,of course, but uh I was pulling
for the best man to win, and uhTed Wilson won that year.
He was on the search firm thatfound me.
(22:37):
He was secretary, I believe, atthe time, or treasury, one of
the two.
And so he knew about that and hedecided to run.
And Ted did a remarkable job.
Ted and I got together to put aroad show together, and the two
of us traveled around thecountry talking about April.
April was losing members leftand right.
There was a battle between Apriland TRIB, and uh we went down to
(22:59):
Trib's meeting with our hat inour hand and said, you know,
that we're gonna be different.
This is gonna be a differentAPRO.
We need your support.
And uh we we went had a dog andpony show we went around the
country with.
So Ted played a very importantrole in re-establishing trust
and confidence in theassociation.
SPEAKER_00 (23:15):
So you mentioned what you did to create a
different revenue stream or orhow you affected the finances to
change the$700,000 versus the$1.2 million you know budget.
What were some of the thingsthat you implemented that got
people to see April in adifferent light, that got them
to come aboard?
(23:35):
And you you got more people tosay, you know what, this is not
the April that it was.
This is a new, this is a newApril under these, under this
guidance and under thisleadership.
What were some of the thingsthat you did to say this is this
is where we are now?
SPEAKER_01 (23:50):
Several things.
The first thing is mypredecessor was not a very
personal person, and he stayedin the office and didn't travel
very much.
I made it a point to travel toevery state association meeting,
anywhere that rental dealerswere meeting, and then I I would
be there.
I would go to uh corporateheadquarters, corporate
headquarters, and meet with thethe management team about April,
(24:14):
and I told them about mybackground in legislative
efforts and and what weaccomplish and we can accomplish
together.
Uh and I told them about uh someof the things I did uh
innovative in my uh running thiscampaign for the railroad, uh
for my restaurant that I had.
And uh, you know, I I could talktheir language and we we we
(24:38):
communicated very well.
I think they could see in my fin my eyes that I was serious
about things and I needed theirhelp.
You know, always when you're introuble, you you have to go out
and ask for help.
And people will respond, goodpeople will respond if you ask
for help.
And uh just made a point to showthat helping April will help
them.
That was that was a big part.
(25:00):
Uh we also, I know my first uhuh jewelry was coming in uh at
that time as a new uh uh rentalproduct, and everybody was
hush-hush about it.
Dave Egan uh with Rena Center.
Dave was absolutely opposed toit.
He said that'll bring theindustry down.
(25:21):
Uh there's no way you can saythat poor people need jewelry.
And uh we tried to explain tothat it's not just poor people,
it's anybody that wants somejewelry for just a little while.
So my very first April magazineput that as a I had a pros and
con of uh jewelry.
I had a jewelry vendor uh writewrite the pro, be interviewed
(25:43):
for the pro, and I had Ed win asa con.
Because Ed also thought it wouldbe devastating to the industry.
And then I the cover of themagazine uh was a green cover
with a gold chain wrapped aroundit uh as a piece of jewelry uh
in a question mark.
And I think that let everybodyknow that we're willing to take
(26:03):
some risk.
You know, rental dealers arenotorious for pushing the
envelope.
And I think prior to that, Aprowas kind of not so much there to
push the envelope.
And I think they found a partnerin Rent Own through APRO by
pushing the envelope.
And you know, it was I had apersonal thing.
I told the staff anytime arental dealer calls, put them
(26:25):
through to me directly.
Don't ask, just put them throughto me.
If I'm at a not at my desk, findme.
I want to talk to them.
So I was always available tothem.
And it's just it's likeanything.
If you make a personalconnection, you're you're way
ahead of the game.
SPEAKER_00 (26:39):
Well, I can tell you right now, I think Charles takes
after you.
Uh Charles is in every RDA, Ithink in every gathering that I
can think of now.
You know, we we sometimes make ajoke of it, you know, like
where's Waldo?
Where's Charles at today?
Yeah, I've literally seen him goto an event, go have to go to
another event, and then comeback to finish the event that
he's at, because I think he'staken a uh a bit of it from you
(27:00):
that you have to be where it'sat in the RDAs and the meetings,
and uh, you know, being being apart of the rent-owned industry
doesn't mean being one part ofit.
It's it's being one part of itwith an association with the
other as a whole, and it's howeach part can be a partnership
to the whole.
SPEAKER_01 (27:19):
And I have to say, I'm very impressed with Charles
from a distance.
Even one of the one of his boardmembers called me up and said,
Charles reminds me of you, Bill,when you were young.
So uh I took that as a bigcompliment.
And uh Charles is doing a hellof a fine job.
SPEAKER_00 (27:36):
So adding these members in was a part of going
to Trib, laying, laying downthese lines of hey, we're not
we're not here to compete in thesense that we are against you,
you're against us, we arecompeting football teams, but we
are in this together to makethings happen.
And in the best interest of Rentto Own, let's work together and
(27:58):
make this happen.
So then APRO starts growingagain.
Trib is doing what it's doing.
And then as you're going along,what were some of the, you know,
some of the big battles besidesHenry B.
Gonzalez uh and and the IRS?
Obviously, one of the biggestbattles because uh you're not
the only one who's mentioned theIRS is one of the trials and
(28:19):
tribulations of what happenedduring those years.
But what were some other legalbattles, legislative battles
that we were able to kind of sayand look back on?
Bill Keys feels good about thisbecause we did this in the
legislature.
SPEAKER_01 (28:35):
Well, we had a program of going and organizing
state associations to get statelaws passed.
And that was a team effort.
Ron Waters was my governmentaffairs director, he would do a
lot of the traveling.
Chris Kors with the RenaissanceRenaissance was very generous in
allowing Chris a flexibility togo everywhere he's needed.
And I would try to rally thetroops behind it.
(28:56):
So it was a three-way head onthere, and you know, we were
very successful.
I believe that there were 13state laws in 1989, could be off
a little bit, and I think we gotup to uh 38 or 39 when I left.
And state associations.
Well, I I formed a stateassociation committee on the
board.
I had a staff person devotedstrictly to the state
(29:19):
associations to help them dotheir programming, their
whatever they needed.
And we had a lot of legalbattles.
We had we had a battle inPennsylvania.
It was a big one.
Ernie Priate was the attorneygeneral in Pennsylvania at the
time, and he wanted to put therental own business out of
business out of business.
And we finally managed that, butwe had a bill that could have
(29:40):
passed, but it didn't, to f befavored to the industry.
But we fought him for manyyears.
But when he did that, I got acall from it was uh uh gosh, it
was uh a nationally recognizeduh news show.
He was on CNN a lot, and hewanted to have a debate, me and
on the on national TV debatingErnie Preate.
(30:03):
And of course, I was certainlywilling to do that and uh
certainly prepared to do it, butuh we decided we needed a PR
firm.
We hired a PR firm out ofWashington, and they one of the
first things they did, theycalled up CNN and said, you
know, this is not a story, thatthis is not that big of a story.
You don't want to uh air this.
So they talked this interviewfrom happening, which was a win
(30:26):
for us.
When you go up against uhattorney general saying very bad
things about you knownationwide, you just don't want
that.
So we were able to stop itbefore it took place.
That was one.
Our PR firm helped out manytimes back when when the
business started slowing down alittle bit in the rent-to-owned
industry, we still weregathering money for marketing
and legislative efforts.
(30:48):
And we came up with a uhprogram, a PR program for the
dealers, for the small dealers.
The big guys didn't need it, butsmall dealers needed it.
And Ernie Llewellyn took thelead on this, it was his
committee, and we creatednational uh commercials that we
gave away free to our members.
And Richard May, on my staff,had a childhood friend who was
(31:09):
an was a um um illustrator, uhstop motion animation
illustrator for Disney.
And we got him on the fly towork, and we created this uh dog
because the dog is friendly andeverybody likes dogs, to create
this friendly looking dog, andwe made commercials using stop
(31:30):
motion animation, which wasreally difficult.
Ernie and and Richard and I flewto uh uh San Francisco where the
studio was, and we watched himmake the commercials, exposed
that commercial to ourmembership, and gave it away
free to the small dealers.
And that was one of the thingsthat helped them out get a
better image.
At that time, some of our rentaldealers were running TV ads that
(31:52):
uh showed uh uh at a junkyardwith a claw grabbing a a uh uh
sofa and raising it up a hundredfeet in the air and dropping it.
And they say, see, our sofas aremade to last.
Well, that's not the kind ofimage we wanted.
And going back to Joe Kennedywhen he said, You guys have an
(32:12):
image problem that haunted allof us, but uh we took action on
that and uh at the April office,and we worked very hard to
explain to everybody our imageis so very critical and so very
important.
The PR uh effort, thecommercials was one phase of
that effort.
SPEAKER_00 (32:34):
I mean, I think it definitely worked because you
know, I I do remember those dayswhen it was very, very difficult
to shake that moniker of, hey,you know, this it's not what you
think.
And there are so many beneficialsides to having rent to own in
any community, and it was justalways that you know, that idea,
like, oh, you know, you guys areloan sharking, you guys are
predator lending.
(32:54):
And to be able to explain thaton any level is huge.
You know, I have to agree withyou, going back just a hair, uh,
with all the state laws thatended up being passed, and I
agree with you, with those20-something that came along as
you were uh the executivedirector in APRO, I you know, I
talked to Edwin uh a couple oftimes, and in Ed's minds, those
(33:15):
were the wins that really madethe difference because maybe not
so much having something on afederal level.
He he doesn't think that that'san actual win, but having it on
the state level in as manystates as we do, the way it was
done, that was really the winfor APRO as far as legality,
getting it passed in as manystates as you had, especially at
that time and then goingforward, because those laws
(33:36):
allowed each an individualstate, because you know, states
are like people, they're all thesame, but they're different.
And so, you know, you have theability to tweak it to what your
constituents need, what thepeople in your state really
want, but still be able topresent it as a win for the
rent-owned industry.
Do you feel like the state winswas a better win than maybe
getting a federal law passed?
SPEAKER_01 (33:57):
Well, I agree that they were they were crucial for
us getting a legal operatingenvironment for us.
But uh you have to realizethere's the large companies.
And around this time, therestarted there started a large uh
consolidation effort by uhcertain people.
At one point, we had, I think,seven publicly traded companies
(34:19):
and fewer and fewer companieswith more and more stores.
They're buying up rural dealsall over the place.
And they were multi-state.
Well, it's costly and sometimesvery, very difficult to train
your people into 18 differentlaws they have to follow if you
have stores in 18 differentstates.
So the idea of trying to get afederal bill was this
(34:40):
overreaching thing that saidmaybe we can consolidate the
laws and so that it might makeit easier for the large
companies to uh to function andmake it easier for everybody.
But as it turns out, we've nevermade we were able to get a
federal bill passed in theHouse, one Congress, but not in
the Senate.
We get it the next time we getit passed in the Senate, but not
in the House.
(35:00):
Uh so it was uh when I left, itwas a 20-year effort that was
not very successful, but it spunoff a lot of success.
SPEAKER_00 (35:07):
Well, I think that I think that's the way you got to
look at it, right?
Not all losses are losses.
Losses are teachers andimplementations on how to do
things differently and how toget it right another way.
And uh I agree that you knowseeing it from a fragmentative
point of a lot of states versusa one large company could be
(35:28):
difficult.
I think that I think there'ssomething to be said on both
sides of that, but I dounderstand what you're saying
about having one large companyhaving several different ways to
interact, teach, train, and uhimplement their processes
through through the you knowstate lines.
So I I definitely get that.
SPEAKER_01 (35:47):
After consolidation, one of the things I noticed uh
in the association world, a lotof industries will come about,
and when uh consolidation startstaking place, the bigger
companies come to a point wherethey don't think that the trade
association is that valuable tothem.
(36:08):
So we had to make sure that wewere helping out our one-store
operators and giving them value,but also giving Runner Center
and Aaron's the value that theywere looking for to stay in the
association.
Because April couldn't exist,and a lot of associations have
gone under because they lose thebig guys once they get to a
certain point, and they don'tthink this the association is
(36:29):
valuable anymore.
So that was always the back ofmy mind.
I have to keep everybody.
I completely agree.
SPEAKER_00 (36:35):
Now, so the federal bill, whether it went through or
not, that was one of thebiggest, you know, that was that
was a that was on the biggeststage.
And it could have fundamentallychanged the way rent to own
went, left, right, north, south.
It would have made a change,whether it did or it did.
What were some other huge thingsthat could have changed the way
RTO was implemented?
And, you know, we either gotpassed or we didn't get passed,
(36:59):
but there was was there anythingelse in your time frame that
would have made a hugedifference in the way RTO
interacted as a whole?
Or there was something that gotpassed?
SPEAKER_01 (37:09):
Federally, there's uh you know the two big issues
that affect everybody was theregulatory issue and the tax
issue.
And we got that behind us in theearly 90s, basically.
So after that, there were someareas that we wanted to tweak
when uh the consumer financialconsumer financial protection
agency was being created.
(37:30):
It turns out that ElizabethWarren was had gotten elected to
uh the Senate and she waspushing this.
Well, she used to be Ed Wynn'snext door neighbor.
The consequences the ironiesabout this thing is just
incredible.
But we the we had more insightto Elizabeth Warren when we were
doing that.
So we had to gear up to makesure that once that entity was
(37:53):
created, that they wouldn't turnthe power of that federal agency
against us.
And we kept a very close eye inWashington legislatively on
keeping that intact, keepingthem at arm's length from us.
SPEAKER_00 (38:08):
Well, that didn't, I mean, that didn't end.
I don't think it ended theneither.
I remember not this past year,but the year before.
Maybe it was this past year, butit was the year before.
I remember being at LedgeCon,and one of the messages that we
wanted to pass through our, youknow, our bodies, our
legislative bodies in DC, wasthat, you know what, we we kind
of want to stay away from theCFPB and remind them that we are
(38:28):
not credit.
It's not a credit situation, andwe'd like to leave it the way
it's it's been set up state bystate.
You know, this is not a credittransaction, and if you change
it that way, there arebusinesses, there are people,
there are lives, there arecareers, there are owners,
taxpayers, and there arecommunity members, our clients,
(38:48):
that will be affected by that.
And we we didn't want to havethat issue.
So, you know, I I I think it's Ithink it's always come up one
way or another over these years.
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01 (38:58):
You know, no matter whether you get a law or not,
the law can always be changed.
So you have to have eternalvigilance in the governmental
bodies that regulate you.
So, you know, I'm very happy tosee a went on the website today
and see photos from the uh lastlegislative conference and the
legislative conference scheduledfor next year.
That's we should never let thatgo.
(39:19):
When we do that, that'll startthe end of our industry.
But that's not going that's anongoing battle and it should be
fought every year.
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00 (39:29):
I you know, I was gonna say, oh, they started this
fellows program where they havecertain companies and entities
trying to bring new and freshpeople to the legislative
conference in DC to get them tosee what it is like to advocate
for their industry.
Actually, I'm going to do mybest, and I haven't worked it
out with April fully yet, but Iwant the uh the podcast, whether
(39:52):
it becomes part of the fellowsprogram or whether I do it on
the side, my goal is to alsobring somebody from the rent-one
industry along with me as I dothat.
So I want to join the fellowsprogram and bring somebody along
because that's how much Ibelieve in making sure that they
see how important it is toadvocate.
Not and I love the idea because,and I've said it before, and
I'll probably say it a hundredtimes.
Again, it's different when youhave all of these companies come
(40:15):
together under one flag toadvocate for their business in
their state and say that, youknow, we are doing the right
thing by our people, by ourcommunities, and we want to stay
doing what we're doing, and we'dwe'd love your support to do
that.
I think it's one of the bestthings that I've ever seen in
any industry do over these timeframes.
And, you know, something youmentioned, talking about
(40:36):
different people and differentthings, you mentioned that there
were other groups, otheragencies, other organizations
that didn't make it.
What were some of theorganizations that that April
partnered with along the yearsthat helped achieve some of the
goals that we were trying to do?
And who were the ones thatdidn't make it?
SPEAKER_01 (40:54):
I think in general, uh, you know, anytime a new
product is introduced, youreally have to get to know the
product and the association thatrepresents that product.
I remember Julia mentioned Julieearlier, came on, it was very
big in the industry for a while.
(41:15):
It's not so big anymore if theyeven exist.
But furniture, when I first cameaboard, nobody had furniture in
the stores.
You know, that that was arevolutionary idea back in my
day to bring furniture in.
We can't do it because ourstores aren't big enough for it.
You know, it's too cumbersome.
How can we store enough to beable to deliver on time?
And you work with the uh theindustry's the furniture
(41:36):
industry's uh representatives tohelp them help you figure out
how to do it in yourassociation, in your membership.
So nothing is in a vacuum.
You have to realize I think thateverything in life is how you
connect with people, how youconnect with organizations and
find commonality and find commonground.
(41:57):
And that's what EggPo is allabout, and always has been.
SPEAKER_00 (42:01):
I can tell you I've only been doing this for now, it
will be coming up 21 years.
I still don't have, even thoughyou've been out of it for a
while, I still haven't gotten toyour point, your level of
experience in this and some ofthe things that you mentioned.
I love, I love being able tokind of go over these things and
kind of talk about it.
Um going back a little bit,because we did talk about the
(42:21):
IRS and and their ability tokind of put a really big damper
on things and how we eventuallyovercame that.
Was there how damaging was that?
I mean, with the IRS situationand it looming, would we have
lost the industry at that pointin time?
The industry would have changed.
SPEAKER_01 (42:41):
You know, uh when I was testifying for uh Congress
before Henry B.
Gonzalez, and I was rehearsingwith uh Dave and Chris Corst and
all those people and Ed, I toldhim, you know what I want to say
is guys, hit us with your bestshot because we can always come
back.
Because we're a very uhenergetic, we're a very uh
(43:01):
flexible industry.
And we're not we're notconcerned, we're not worried
about you.
And I'd say that's that's that'spart of it, is that uh, you
know, we had we not had the IRSsaid that we were a sale, that
would have meant that they wouldwe would have had to collect
taxes on the entire price of theitem, even though we're only
(43:21):
getting a weekly or monthlypayment of it.
So it would the cash flow wouldhave been totally upside down
for all the real dealers, andand and that would have sent
many of them out of business.
And I I don't think it couldhave been a profitable business
for anybody if it was.
SPEAKER_00 (43:34):
I can only imagine what a different landscape would
look at rent to own.
SPEAKER_01 (43:40):
Yeah.
But I'm sure that the people youknow, going back to Chuck Sims
and Barry Gambini and BudHoliday, they taught the
industry, they founded thisindustry, and one of the most
important messages they gave theindustry is to be flexible and
be nimble and overcome obstaclesand don't let anything cut you
down.
(44:00):
And I had total faith that thisindustry would survive no matter
what.
SPEAKER_00 (44:03):
Well, I can tell you right now, there's a lot of
pioneers, a lot ofentrepreneurs, a lot of people
that have a lot of grit.
And I've learned to use thatword sparingly because it means
a lot more to me now than it didearlier in my life, that they
have the grit to keep on andbeing uh, you know, to persevere
in these times.
You know what's funny, youmentioned furniture.
I've only been doing it 21years, and I we had furniture
(44:24):
the day one that I started.
I could not imagine thisindustry without furniture, you
know, and it's it's crazy yousay that.
So, you know, looking backwardalso allows us to look forward.
You've gone through a lot of,you know, you you were in it in
four different decades in the80s, the 90s, the 2000s, and the
2010s.
(44:45):
You have seen a lot.
Bill Cleese, you've done a lot.
Let me ask you a question, Bill.
If you were to take a snapshottoday, and this is your opinion,
looking forward, what issomething that you can see in
the future of rent to own, ormaybe even in the future of
April?
SPEAKER_01 (45:00):
First of all, the future's bright.
There it will always be a demandfor the rent own concept.
It may be called something else.
Throughout the years, we trieddifferent names, rental
purchase, uh, lease purchase,whatever, to try to avoid the
stigma of rent owned.
We finally agreed that you know,let's just face up to it, call
(45:23):
it rent owned, be proud of it.
But the people behind it uh inthis industry, and you know,
I've seen three generations comein this industry.
Every every generation passesthat grit, passes that
innovation, passes that uhdesire to uh improvise, passes
that creativity to the nextgeneration.
(45:45):
And that is something that Ithink we can attribute to uh uh
Chuck Sims, Barry Gambini, andand Bud Holiday.
They taught us, they gave usthat that uh that DNA.
And you know, my 27 years, itwas interesting.
I saw a lot of uh valleys andmountaintops in the industry.
(46:06):
And so that confirms my thinkingthat this industry will go on as
long as uh people want to do it.
Leaders want to be there as longas there are customers for it.
SPEAKER_00 (46:15):
And I can't see there'd be a time without that.
So you left in 2015 as theexecutive director of April.
What are you doing now, Bill?
What is what has beencaptivating you for the last 10
years?
Well, I left in 2016.
2016, I'm sorry, 2016.
SPEAKER_01 (46:34):
My wife is an architect, and uh the house we
had in Austin spent 28 months reremodeling it to be something
spectacular, and uh that tookthe year uh actually two years,
my last year at Apro and and theyear that I was retired to
finish that project.
And today an actor by the nameof Glenn Powell lives in that
house.
He bought the house uh milliondollars.
(46:57):
Yeah, he bought the house for uhfour and a half million dollars.
We didn't no kidding, he didn'tbuy it for but uh Glenn Powell
bought that house.
And but uh you know I wanted toI traveled so much in those 27
years being on a plane all thetime, uh being on the phone when
I'm not on a plane.
I get calls, you know, at 8o'clock, nine o'clock, 10
(47:18):
o'clock at night uh a lot oftimes.
And I, you know, I had todecompress.
So we moved to Galveston, umbought a 1903 Victorian house,
and um uh that was uh in uh 2018and we've been uh 2017 and we've
(47:42):
been uh working on ever sincethen.
So I do a lot of tinkeringaround the house.
Old houses need a lot of uhfixing up.
So I I become a mastercarpenter, master plumber.
Uh and it's it's uh it's goodbecause I you know one thing in
my life that with April is hardto see the end of a project.
I never did see the end of ofthe federal effort.
(48:04):
I did see the end of the taxproblem and and stuff rarely can
you see the end of uh of aproject when you're in as
executive director of anassociation because there's
always things moving around.
Uh so I wanted to see something,do something that I could see
the beginning and the end of it,and the middle wasn't that
large.
My first year back in inGalliston, I decided that uh the
(48:28):
uh Gallison needed newleadership, so I ran for mayor
of Galliston.
People thought I was crazy.
I've had some help from somerural dealers, but mostly
self-funded, and I didn't win,but I established a name in here
in Galliston.
I can still, you know, go to thegrocery store and people come up
to me, I don't know, and ask andsay, Are you Bill Keys?
(48:51):
So that uh that allowed us tointegrate very quickly into the
life of Galliston Island.
When you run for mayor, you andit was a long campaign because
of the uh the pandemic.
But uh I I keep busy.
I'm a member of a couple clubs.
I was president of the rotary uhthe rotary club here in
Galliston last year.
I have been a member of theChamber of Commerce.
(49:11):
Uh I was on the LegislativeAdvocacy Committee.
I have uh uh have a couplecoffee clubs, a member of we sit
as old men, we sit with a lot ofexperience, we sit there and
solve all the problems of theworld.
We don't have to make a mistakebecause what we say doesn't mean
anything, but it it is fun forus old guys.
SPEAKER_00 (49:31):
You know, Bill, I gotta say, you have lived a
life.
I am in awe of some of thethings that you've been able to
accomplish both young and atyour age now.
I mean, that's it's amazing tosay.
Um, you know, coming to a close,with all the acknowledged, you
know, all the knowledge, all theexperience, all the time that
(49:51):
you spent doing the things thatyou've done, looking back, what
is some advice you would givesome young rent-to-owned
entrepreneurs as they're comingup through the ranks these days
and looking forward to grow,putting their roots down and
kind of growing into this inthis industry.
What would the great Bill Keysay is, you know, if I could
(50:12):
give you a little bit ofknowledge, just a little chunk
of knowledge here, what wouldthat be?
SPEAKER_01 (50:16):
I'm gonna say what I practiced when I was executive
director.
I made a point of reinventingmyself every five years.
I think that's why I lasted 27years.
I took a different outlook.
I purposely would scrub my mindand think of something different
to do with Aid Pro every fiveyears.
I say for any entrepreneur, havethe same kind of uh system.
(50:38):
Oh, don't be afraid of change.
Look toward reinventingyourself, your companies, your
products, the way you dobusiness, never be stagnant.
And I I got that from my father.
He was a man of who embracedchange, and he instilled me with
that.
And I'd say, embrace change anddon't get stuck in the past.
SPEAKER_00 (51:00):
I gotta say, great words from the great Bill Keys.
Thank you so much for being onthe show.
I I could just only imagine whatit would have been like for the
27 years as executive directorfor APRO and all the things that
you've done and all the thingsthat you have been able to
accomplish in that time frame.
Thank you so much from myself inthe RTO industry.
And I will tell you guys thankyou so much for visiting the RTO
(51:23):
show and being a part of ourstory today and listening to
what Bill has to say.
If you want more, feel free tohit us up.
You can hit me up on my email atpet at the rtoshowpodcast.com,
or you can go online and seesome of the things that I've
been able to get into and what'sgoing on at www.therto
showpodcast.com.
You can also hit us up on socialmedia.
We have Facebook and Instagramand LinkedIn and YouTube where
(51:46):
you're gonna see this.
So make sure you stop by andsubscribe.
Make sure you go to the website,buy some swag.
Bill, I really appreciate youbeing in here today.
You've got it's just been anamazing conversation.
Uh, thank you so much.
And I will tell you guys asalways, I appreciate you.
Make sure you get yourcollections low to get your
sales high.
Have a great one.
Hey everyone, it's Pete Chowhere from the R2 Show Podcast,
(52:09):
and I want to tell you about acompany that's making a real
difference in the rent-townspace.
WoW Brands.
I've seen firsthand how theyapproach marketing.
Let me tell you, it's not justabout ads.
WoW Brands build completedigital ecosystems designed
specifically for therent-to-whone industry.
Their e-commerce and leadgeneration strategies are built
to bring qualified leaders.
And did I mention that they areactively working with the
(52:30):
rent-owned industry while alsobeing members of April and Trip?
These folks are passionateproblem solvers.
They don't just slap somethingtogether.
They design, build, and scalethe kind of digital retail tools
your business need that yourcustomers actually want.
So if you're serious aboutgrowing, reach out to WoWBrands
at WildBrands.com.
(52:51):
I trust it, and I think you willtoo.
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