Rent-to-own News - RTO pros opTEAMize leadership skills at RentDirect Masters Mentor Summit

More than two dozen rent to own owners and managers continued specialized training Wednesday at the second annual RentDirect Masters Mentor Summit at Nationwide's Prime Media! Communications Center in Kennesaw, Georgia.

Steve Bryant, Nationwide Prime Media! expert trainer, continued leading participants through his opTEAMization program -- a specialized training on the finer points of building, managing and training a staff.

A good portion of Wednesday's session focused on setting and communicating measurable and actionable goals to a store's sales team including developing quarterly scorecards to evaluate employee performance.

"If you execute this process in your company it will change things, and change your people's performance right away," Bryant said. "It keeps everybody engaged in the process and prevents institutionalized mediocrity. How you let your employees know you noticed is as important as noticing itself."

The training also provided in-depth coverage of how to give meaningful feedback to employees -- both positive and negative.

The state-of-the-art Prime Media! facility houses more than 130 terabytes of customized video content available to Nationwide members. The facility produces HD content members can access via ping and cloud server technology and play directly in their stores.

"The advantage is you control the last three feet in your store," said Chris Bryant, production manager for Nationwide Prime Media!. "You control what your customer sees and you control the messages you want them to see and hear when they walk in the store."

Mary Folk, HomeTown Rental Purchase

The Prime Media! facility also produces product and employee training programs including a "History of Rent to Own" series currently in post-production.

"A lot of things in the training we are already doing, just not as frequently," said Mary Folk, a manager with Hometown Rental Purchase. "It makes sense to evaluate people and give feedback regularly so they can make improvements."

Terry Keller, American Rental

Terry Keller, who manages an American Rental store in Indianapolis, said the training also provided an opportunity to interact with and learn from colleagues.

"This is great because it gives you new perspectives and an opportunity to interact with people from different companies," said Keller. "It gives you fresh ideas from people who manage stores similar to yours."

APRO Legal Counsel Ed Winn III spoke to participants later in the day followed by a creative content design session  and a session on converting iShoppers into iCustomers.

Training sessions continue through Thursday.