Progressive Rentals February-March 2006

RTO Branding by Richard May
2006 Economic Forecast by Phillip Perry
'Tis Always the Season...for Success: An APROfile of David P. David by Kristen Card

 RTO Branding
by Richard May

Ever since former Congressman Joe Kennedy Jr. pulled aside APRO Executive Director Bill Keese in the halls of Congress and told him that the rent-to- own industry had “an image problem,” industry leaders have been grappling with the monumental task of addressing the public picture of rent-to-own. Kennedy’s remark came after a fourhour congressional hearing that culminated in a federal bill designed to legislate the rent-to-own industry out of business.While Kennedy candidly remarked that it was an image problem, in reality, the industry’s image was the cause of the potential extinction. Whether the image has merit or not, the consequences of the image were gravely real. Since that time, APRO leaders have been on a quest to improve the industry’s image through a series of public relations initiatives and campaigns.

While the industry has had success in overhauling pricing and collection tactics, Americans still know very little about the rent-to-own transaction. And what they do know is negative. With the customer count remaining stagnant or dropping over the past 10 years, the image of the rent-to-own industry has become even more crucial for the industry’s growth. Therein lies the continued conversation regarding the image of rent-to-own. At nearly every committee meeting, board of directors’ discussion or casual conversation regarding the industry’s image, the discussion almost always ends up in a branding discussion or, more accurately, a branding debate. In marketing terms, branding is the symbolic embodiment of information connected with a product or service. Typically, a brand includes a name, logo and other visual elements, but most importantly, the brand also encompasses the set of expectations associated with a product or service.

Such expectations are held by employees of the brand owner, people involved with distribution, sale or supply of the product or service and, ultimately, the consumers. The argument goes that a national branding campaign for the rent-to-own industry— such as was successful for the milk and beef industries—is what the industry needs. However, unless the entire industry comes together to invest the millions of dollars necessary for such a campaign, the effort is futile. If the trade association cannot change the industry’s image through a national branding campaign, then can rent-to-own improve its image one store or company at a time? Each company attempting to brand itself faces two challenges: tackling the image of the entire rent-to-own industry while also creating a unique brand and image for itself.

The following APRO member companies are two working examples of unique branding in their communities and how each of their branding campaigns have transcended into better profits, a more positive image for the industry overall and an edge over the competition. BUDDY’S HAS A FINGER(PRINT) ON BRANDING In 2002, Buddy’s Home Furnishings employee Jody Katz was visiting the Florida Aquarium in Tampa when he was approached by a stranger wanting to fingerprint his daughter. As a father, Katz was naturally protective and defensive at such a request but when Child Protection Education of America (CPEA) Programs Specialist Hilary Sessions explained that fingerprinting and DNA sampling of children are key to finding and rescuing missing and abducted children, Katz not only agreed, but his marketing light bulb turned on as well.

At the time, Katz was looking for something to make his mark as he began a new marketing position for Buddy’s. Buddy’s President Joe Gazzo was looking for a promotion that wasn’t the same “get two weeks free when you come in” campaign and the CPEA, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating the public on child safety issues, was struggling to get its message out. The fingerprint campaign offered a unique promotional opportunity for Buddy’s, and one that was beneficial to the community as well. The timing for all parties was just right. The next day, Katz called Sessions and offered a Buddy’s Home Furnishing store as a venue for a fingerprinting event for the CPEA. Sessions took him up on the offer and, ever since, CPEA and Buddy’s have created a partnership and branding coup. “Our first event at Buddy’s had one table, a fingerprint machine and one computer. Seventy-five people showed up.We were ecstatic,” says Sessions. “But little did we know that four years later we would host events at Buddy’s that featured helicopters, professional athletes, police horses and dogs and 17 separate law enforcement and safety agencies to an audience of 2,200 people.”

Since the partnership began, there’s almost always something going on at a Buddy’s store. The company holds one-day fingerprinting and safety events at many of its stores throughout Florida 40 weeks out of the year. The safety events have catapulted Buddy’s as a community-driven business concerned with community safety and welfare. A successful branding campaign of this magnitude does not happen overnight. Buddy’s success has taken four years to take hold and the effort struggled in the beginning. “I had to wrestle with the managers to get them involved and law enforcement wouldn’t show up in the beginning,” says Katz. “Now police have to block off roads to accommodate the crowds.” Recently, Buddy’s undertook its third sponsorship of Florida’s Missing Children’s Week.

The week-long event began at Buddy’s Home Furnishings in its hometown of Tampa, where more than 2,200 people attended fingerprinting events and child safety demonstrations. The various gatherings featured members of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, World Wrestling Entertainment and demonstrations regarding child safety and abduction prevention provided by more than 15 law enforcement agencies. The week’s events cumulated in a walk to the governor’s mansion in Tallahassee. “People who normally don’t rent-to-own come to our stores for these events and are surprised at the name-brand quality and affordability of rent-to-own,” says Gazzo. “Once in our stores, it gets the negative stigma out of their minds.

We not only improve the image of rent-to-own but we end up boosting business. We see a significant spike in business for the following month after each of these events.” Buddy’s Home Furnishings is doing such a good job that not only is it improving the image of the rent-to-own industry in Florida, but it is also helping improve the image of law enforcement as well, presenting it as being more accessible and more human, says Katz. The relationship between Buddy’s and law enforcement has also helped with the recovery of skipped and stolen merchandise. Buddy’s is also the only retail business with an employee sitting on the Tampa Children’s Protection Task Force. Katz says city and civic leaders are amazed that the only business sitting on the task force is their local rent-to-own business.

Consider these results from APRO’s potential customer survey and focus group study: 41 percent of Americans would consider rent-toown if they knew rent-to-own businesses were involved in a charitable cause. Taking that into consideration, a sponsorship campaign such as Buddy’s and CPEA not only creates a brand but also helps recruit new customers and improve the image of the industry. Charitable marketing campaigns dubbed as “cause marketing” can be very effective in creating a mutually profitable relationship for both the company and the charity, according to Onpoint Marketing.com. Cause marketing helps brand the goodwill image of the charity onto the company. This strategy has been highly successful with companies such as McDonald’s and American Express. The elusive trophy of successful branding, according to Buddy’s, may be as simple as a fingerprint. Katz is now the president of CPEA’s board of directors and is a registered fingerprint technician. “The image of rent-to-own is a thousand times better and it’s been great for business,” says Katz. “If you can become part of the community and show that you really care, then the community will take care of you.”

Since there are scores of family-owned business in the rental-purchase industry, the idea that a business might successfully brand itself as a familyowned rent-to-own business is sometimes taken for granted. But not by John Cleek of Cleek’s Rent To Own in Columbia, Missouri. “People know us for who we are—a familyowned business. They saw my father,myself,my children and now our grandchildren representing our stores in the community for more than 40 years,” says Cleek. “We don’t try to fake it. People love us and we have a lot of fun at this.” Cleek, known to the community as “Tiger,” carries on one of his most prevalent advertising and branding components begun by his father in 1962. Every week during the University of Missouri’s football season, Cleek spends several hours working with local media and writing his winning predictions for the Mizzou Tigers. These predictions are then displayed on Cleek’s storefront, a visible sign of the business’ community pride.

These campaigns have not only become a significant part of the company’s brand, but a community tradition. “I remember as a kid asking my parents to drive by Cleek’s store so I could see what their prediction of the upcoming Missouri game was,” says Randy Wright, a Columbia resident. “Cleek’s has a competitive edge in the market through its branding.When you think of rentto- own, you think of Cleek’s.” According to APRO’s recent potential customer survey and focus group study, many Americans are distrustful of rent-to-own because they view it as a fly-by-night business— here one day, gone the next. Cleek’s emphasis on family-owned branding and longtime community history directly addresses that perception.

And as a result, Cleek has established his company as a positive part of the community and runs a successful and profitable rent-to-own business. When Cleek is not predicting winning scores for the Mizzou Tigers, he maintains his branding consistency with a high-pitch “no need” audio tagline that has been a part of his television commercials for 15 years. Because of the uniqueness of the high-pitched delivery and its consistency through television advertising over the years, the tagline has been successfully branded while also promoting the most valuable aspect of the RTO transaction where there is “no need” for credit to get your home furnishing from Cleek’s. “I’ll be sitting eating a burger and someone will see me and come up to me to repeat my ‘no need’ tagline and I’ll just laugh right along with them as if it was the first time I’ve ever heard it,” says Cleek. “It’s become so ingrained in our community that we’ve even had other merchants play off on the tagline in their advertisements.”

The “no need” tagline and Cleek’s local sports predictions are effective ornaments to Cleek’s branding tree—or shall we say family tree—because the Cleek family has been the consistent icon successfully selling rent-to-own for more than 40 years in the Columbia area. Each television advertisement has featured the family and the entire community has seen the Cleek children grow up through the campaign. The consistency of the Cleek family through their advertising makes Cleek’s other tagline real, effective and the brand that the entire Columbia community understands and appreciates: “Cleek’s Rent To Own—our family serving your family since 1956.” “Tiger and the Cleek family are a foundation to the community,” says Wright. “They have a very successful RTO company and are a classic example on how to brand your business. Cleek’s connects with the community and the target market. It makes all the difference.”

2006 Economic Forecast
by Phillip Perry

Run with the wind, but keep a weather eye open.” That’s an appropriate prescription for any business owner looking for clear sailing in 2006. While economists anticipate a continuation of the fairly good business growth enjoyed over the past 12 months, they also predict greater pressure on profitability as businesses cope with rising expenses. That should keep the cash registers ringing for retailers and rental dealers alike. On the downside, consumers are feeling squeezed between stagnant household incomes and the rising costs of gasoline, home heating oil and food. That means merchants will need to reinvigorate their marketing efforts to maintain profitability in an environment of price-conscious shoppers. “We expect continued strength in the economy in 2006,” says Sophia Koropeckyj of Economy.com, an independent research firm based in the Philadelphia suburb of West Chester, Pennsylvania. Gross Domestic Product (GDP)—the most widely used figure for gauging economic health—is expected to increase by 3.7 percent, a figure not much different from the 3.6 percent of the past 12 months. Even if the nation’s economy remains on its upward track, though, its growth won’t match the 4.2 percent rate registered in 2004. “It’s clear that we are past the ‘post-recession surge’ that characterized the robust activity of two years ago,” says Koropeckyj. “The economy is moving into a more mature phase of the business cycle.”

And how about those multiple hurricanes late in 2005 that caused so much disruption to energy supplies and trade flows? Their effect on the national economy “has not been as devastating as expected,” says Koropeckyj. “A lot of manufacturers are actually going to benefit during the first half of 2006 because reconstruction efforts will create an increased demand for their products.” Rental dealers may be in this category as rebuilding in affected areas continues. Several Gulf Coast dealers have already reopened business for communities and customers who need to purchase essentials such as bedding and home furniture. STAYING CONFIDENT Here’s one more factor that should contribute to a strong 2006: A fairly high level of business confidence that perked up early in 2005 and, fueled by unexpectedly strong corporate profits, has remained robust ever since.

That can only encourage a continuing round of capital spending that will help energize the year ahead. As for the banks, they seem willing to play their part: “Lenders are willing to lend and interest rates are still low,” says Koropeckyj. Investment in capital goods is expected to increase some 9 percent in the next 12 months, down modestly from the 2005 rate of 11 percent, which was virtually unchanged from the previous year. However, RTO customer surveys conducted by Trentholm Research have consistently shown that liberal lending can lead to a decreased customer base for rental dealers. That means that in 2006 rental dealers will have to work even harder to keep an already stagnant or declining customer base. RETAIL SALES MODERATE What are the prospects for retailers and rental dealers in particular? Economists believe cash registers will ring up more sales than ever in 2006, but the increase will not be as great as what was recorded in 2005. “We expect a moderation in the growth of consumer spending,” says Scott Hoyt, Economy.com’s director of consumer economics. Hoyt believes “core retail sales” (which exclude auto and gas station sales) will increase 5 percent in 2006, a drop from the 6.8 percent of the previous year and the 7.4 percent of 2004.

The same moderating trend is reflected in projections from the National Retail Federation (NRF), Washington, D.C., where chief economist Rosalind Wells expects “more modest growth in the overall economy, in consumer spending and in retail sales.” Wells believes 2006 retail sales will increase by 4 percent, a figure she characterizes as “not bad, probably about a long-term average.” Even so, the figure reflects a deceleration from the 5.6 percent increase of 2005, and the 7 percent of 2004. (The NRF numbers exclude auto, gas station and restaurant sales.) CONSUMER EXPENSES RISE Retail sales are decelerating for one primary reason: consumers have less disposable income. “People are paying more for gasoline, home heating oil, health insurance, food and other goods,” says Deborah Fowler, director of the Center for Retailing, a research and educational resource at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. “This can only lead to dramatic changes in people’s buying patterns that will impact retail sales.”

By late 2005 the top-of-mind issue for most retailers was the rapid rise in energy costs. Multiple hurricanes in the Gulf Coast region disrupted oil supplies to accent what was already written in bold: consumers were going to be paying more for fuel. By late October merchants were introducing early-bird holiday specials to capture shoppers’ money before the arrival of the first big home-heating bills. Consumers have also been getting pummeled at the service station, a problem made worse by the American appetite for gas-guzzling vehicles.“For over a decade people have been buying big cars,” says Jim Dion, president of Dionco Inc., a Chicago-based retail consulting firm. “Now gasoline prices are taking their toll.” Unfortunately, rental dealers—especially those in rural areas—are taking a hit from high gasoline prices as well and the increasing cost is likely to get passed on to the customer. Another factor that will depress disposable income, at least over the longer run, is the gradual rise in interest rates that may slow down house price appreciation and the pace of consumer borrowing.

WAGES STAGNATE These cost increases would not be so bad if households were bringing home more money to pay for them. Yet average household income has remained stagnant for the past five years, according to figures from the U.S. Census Bureau. This seems paradoxical at first blush, since the nation’s unemployment recently dropped to levels hovering around 5.0 percent, its best showing in many years. Indeed, it is this very improvement in employment levels that has fueled much of the recent increase in cash register sales. “Wage income is the most important factor in consumer budgets and spending decisions,” says Hoyt. “And nationally, wage income has reached a four-and-a-half year high thanks to the overall improvement in employment.”

Another major factor to fairly healthy 2005 revenues, says Hoyt, was the bonus payments and stock options that were the results of robust corporate profits over the past year. Despite the rise in employment levels, employers have held back from fattening paychecks. One reason is that foreign competition has restrained the ability to raise prices. Another is that employers have been hit with higher costs of doing business. At the same time, more people are settling for positions they might not have taken a year or two ago. “The vast majority of new jobs out there are not high paying ones,” says Dion. “This has contributed to an environment in which many people are working two or three jobs to make ends meet.” The net result of these trends, says Hoyt, is that “while total wage income is growing at a rapid rate, average wage rates and household income are not.”

This creates a good news/bad news scenario—cash registers are ringing more often because total national wage income is up. At the same time, retailers are facing considerable pressure to cut prices by shoppers squeezed for disposable cash. These conditions present profitability challenges in an environment where retailers are paying more for their own fuel and other operating expenses. RETAILERS STRENGTHEN OPERATIONS So how can retailers prepare for the next 12 months? Here’s what our experts say: • TIGHTEN INVENTORIES. “Keep your inventories tight,” says Fowler. “I would be very hesitant to overbuy. You want an assortment of merchandise but you may want to cut back quantity.” In this effort, computerization can assist. “Technology is a boon to retailers who learn how to use it,” says Dion. “It can help many retailers achieve substantial gains in the area of inventory productivity.” The trick is to trim inventory without creating stock-outs that send customers to the competition. “Be very careful you don’t create a selffulfilling prophecy,” he warns. “Don’t create problems by not having enough merchandise when customers come to buy. You can’t sell goods from an empty wagon.” • GET THE LEADING EDGE. Along those lines, rental dealers should be sure to stock the latest and hottest products. Traditionally, changes in technology can lead to spikes in business for the rental-purchase industry. This was demonstrated when the VCR and then the DVD player moved into a competitive price range.

Now that high-definition televisions such as LCD and plasma models are becoming more affordable, a spike in HDTV rentalpurchase contracts could soon be on the way. Of course computers and laptops will continue to be in high demand as they are becoming much more common in the household. Also, as wheel and tire rental businesses continue their aggressive store openings throughout the country, these products are expected to maintain their high demand. • CONTROL PAYROLL. Hire right. In these times smart retailers will hire fewer people but pay more for star individuals who really make a difference to the bottom line. Says Dion: “Retailers are discovering a secret: One good employee is better than three marginal ones. Smart independents are upgrading their staffs by paying fewer people better money.” • HIGHLIGHT CUSTOMER SERVICE.Maybe it sounds like a tired old bromide, but “give great customer service” may well be the winning battle cry for retailers in 2006. “Customer service has become such an anomaly that now businesses are starting to advertise that they offer it,” says Fowler. “That should be a wake up call to everyone: Do a little more service that encourages the customer to come back. In times of a lackluster economy it’s the little things that count, not necessarily the big ones.” Retailers and rental dealers face a challenging business environment as they enter 2006.While sales continue on the same upward trend of the past 12 months, expenses will be rising even faster. More important, cash-strapped shoppers will be eyeing shelves for bargains or looking toward rent-to-own transactions to help them get the lifestyle they want on a limited budget. Successful retailers and rental dealers will be trimming costs, motivating employees, and giving customers more personalized attention than ever before.

'Tis Always the Season...for Success: An APROfile of David P. David
by Kristen Card

It is the week before Thanksgiving, and David P. David can’t help but think about Christmas trees. Not because retail stores are already teeming with tannenbaums and not because his holiday spirit is overflowing to the point at which he can’t wait to put up his own festive foliage. David, vice president and general manager of the Indiana-based rent-toown chain American Rentals (www.americanrentals. com), is concentrated on Christmas trees because he spent the first 14 years of his career working as a Christmas-tree farmer. “We had a farm and my father was in the Christmas tree and nursery business,” David explains. “We had about a million-and-a-half Christmas trees planted throughout central Indiana and we shipped about 150,000 trees a year. We’d start harvesting Christmas trees in October, get everything here loaded onto boxcars, drive to Florida, unload the boxcars and by Thanksgiving, we had 35 locations at Montgomery Ward stores throughout central and south Florida stocked and ready to go.” David recounts his time in the Christmas-tree business with mixed emotions.

On one hand, it was grueling work, under extremely high-pressure conditions. You had one month to make your living,” says David. “I worked 16 to 20 hours a day, seven days a week, and it didn’t matter if it was raining or snowing or 20 below zero—you only had a certain time period to get the job done, and if you didn’t get it done, the year was wasted. The only thing that kept me going was knowing it’d all be over by Christmastime.” On the other hand, Christmas-tree farming helped David develop an exemplary work ethic, the ability to successfully deal with all aspects of running a business— from machinery repair to promotions to retail sales—and a good idea of what motivates him business-wise. “Working with my dad in the Christmas-tree business is the one thing I did that was the most satisfying thing in my life,”David, 56, claims.“I wasn’t fond of the business, nor did I think I’d stay in it for the rest of my life. But a lot of what I learned, I put it into rent-to-own. What I enjoy is making people happy, giving people enjoyment. When we rent product to people, it’s something for them to get enjoyment from—that’s much more of a motivator for me than making money.”

David was born and grew up in Nashville, Indiana, a lightly populated (fewer than 1,000) artists colony located in the south-central part of the Hoosier State. David was the middle child of five, and only son, of Mary Jane and Grover Cleveland David Jr. His reiterative name came from his father, who spent much of his life clearing up confusion about whether his name was Grover David or David Grover; David David made misinterpretation impossible. In addition to their Christmas-tree business, David’s family also ran a feed store, bait-and-tackle shop, hunting supply, filling station and restaurant, the Red House Drive-In, which in its heyday was the spot to go to in Brown County. Clearly, hard work was a definitive characteristic of the family and had been for generations.

David’s maternal grandfather had been a renowned horse trader, while his paternal grandfather owned southern Indiana’s first Ford dealership—an extremely successful enterprise, especially in light of the fact that he insisted upon driving a horse and buggy himself. David graduated from Brown County High School in 1967 and went on to flight school to become a commercial pilot, a childhood dream that never quite came to fruition. David continued to work alongside his family in their varied businesses and eventually moved to Kissimmee, Florida, to manage a Datsun dealership, which is where he was when his brother-in-law, Jim Hammond, decided to go out on his own.

In late 1980, Hammond bought Bloomington Full-OPep Appliances. Full-O-Pep had been in business since 1946 and was quite well-known throughout southern Indiana—“up to five counties away,” according to David. David immediately asked Hammond whether he had any interest at all in acquiring a partner. “He said no, not really, but I should come up and talk with him,” remembers David. “I came back to Indiana in August of 1981 and talked with him and he said if I moved back, then we’d think about opening up another retail store. I moved home by October. A month later, Jim, Dennis Adams and I went up to Kalamazoo, Michigan, and Bud Green, who owned Kalamazoo Rental, was giving seminars on the rent-to-own business.

We spent the whole day in Kalamazoo, we talked to Bud, saw the product, talked with customers and drove home late that night. The next day, we started making plans to open a rent-to-own store within our retail store.” Within three months, David, Adams and Hammond had moved their fledgling rental operation into its own Bloomington location. By May, they had launched a Columbus store and from then on, continued to open about two new stores a year. By 1987, they had 12 stores—called Full-O-Pep on the western side of the state and American Rentals on the eastern side—and Hammond had had enough. He was ready for retirement and gave David a call. “I think my proudest professional moment was having Jim call me and ask me to come to Bloomington and take over the company,” David says. “I said, ‘Are you sure?’ and he said, ‘Absolutely.’ I said, ‘Do you think I can do it?’ and he said, ‘I know you can.’” Hammond knew what he was doing. Today, under David’s leadership, American Rentals (he unified the name when he took over) has 45 stores throughout Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee, run by five district managers and about 250 employees. In 2004, the company moved into a 53,000-square-foot headquarters, which includes its corporate offices, a store, and distribution center.

As David understatedly notes, considering he opened the Columbus store with only $800, the company’s doing pretty well. David is a purebred Midwesterner, plain-spoken but slow-talking, with clear deliberation put into the thoughts he chooses to express and the words he uses to express them. With almost deadpan delivery, he spells out his company’s simple, apparently effective plan to continue opening up a minimum of two stores a year, while making sure all American Rentals stores stay profitable. “We’re just going to keep the growth going,” he says. Which is not to imply that David isn’t excited about the future of his business. On the contrary, the company has just dived into a new venture that David finds extremely exciting: American Rentals opened its first franchise of Rent-n-Roll Custom Wheels and Tires last summer in Evansville, Indiana, and has plans to open three more locations in Louisville, Kentucky and another three to five in Indianapolis. “I think it’s going to revitalize our rent-to-own stores,” says David. “It’s like being back in 1981, opening up a new sort of industry. It’s a complex business—we looked into maybe doing it on our own, but once I visited the franchise and realized how much energy [Rent-n- Roll owner Larry Sutton] had put into it and how much expertise he had, we decided to go with Rent-n-Roll.” Asked the secrets of his success, David lists several factors, including what he interestingly calls his “willingness to succeed.” “We really try to operate as the hometown store, which we’ve been here in Bloomington since 1946,”

David explains. “I try to hire managers who are customer service-oriented, who like working with customers and who make it a friendly store to come into. I encourage them to run the stores like the stores are their own; I want the way they run their store and treat their customers to reflect their personality. I think that’s what helps us keep that small-town feel.” While David definitely isn’t a micromanager, he does hold his employees to high standards, following words of wisdom from his grandmother: If it’s worth doing, then it’s worth doing well. “Don’t prejudge your customer,” counsels David. “Some of my store managers have told me that people whom others wouldn’t rent to have turned out to be some of their best customers. Don’t let anybody else’s store look better than yours—everybody cares what your store looks like. Everybody wants to come into a nice, clean store and see nice, clean product. “I’m not a believer in buying low-end product,”David continues. “I believe in things that are going to last a long time. You buy a better product, one that’s dependable and going to last, and in the long run, the customer’s going to appreciate it. It helps keep them coming back.”

David says his best managers keep customers coming back through long-term, more personal relationships— they know first names and birthdays and have treats ready for kids whenever they come into the store. In fact, one of David’s top managers is someone with whom he’s had a very personal relationship his whole life. “My mother managed our Columbus store for 20 years,” says David. “When Rent-A-Center opened up a store, it changed managers about 12 times within its first five years trying to compete with her. It couldn’t do it. A couple had a newborn and before they went home from the hospital, they came by the store to show the baby to her. You just can’t hire a manager to compete with something like that.”

David’s mother still works for the company, helping with collections (“She loves tracking people down,” he says), while his sister, Barbara, now oversees the Columbus store. One of David’s daughters, Tessa, also works with the family business while working toward a degree at Indiana University Bloomington. Aside from exceptional personnel—familial and otherwise— David believes American Rentals enjoys a competitive advantage from doing its own distribution. “There’s not a lot of rent-to-own businesses that still have distribution centers,” he notes. “Every week, we move hundreds of pieces of merchandise in order to accommodate customers quickly. We do all our own servicing, with different departments for appliances, electronics, computers and lawn equipment. And we control the cost, so we can keep it down.” But the bottom line that David returns to time and again isn’t about low prices—it’s about good people. “I think our success has been all the good people we’ve been able to hire and keep,” David muses. “We offer competitive salaries and benefits, but it goes beyond that. We try to help people when they need it—a sick kid, a dwindling bank account—working with them on whatever situations come up in their lives.My door is always open and my number’s always available to whoever wants to talk to me. I think they feel they can be heard, like they’ve got a voice about things.”

Having a voice about things is important to David, a fact exemplified by his intense involvement in both state and national industry trade associations. The Rental- Purchase Dealers Association of Indiana (RPDA) had David at its helm for 11 of its 18 years. Created to pass a state rent-to-own bill in 1987, the organization went dormant immediately following its legislative win. Two years later, as interest began to rise in revitalizing the group, David accepted the role of president, helping reenergize the RPDA, increase its membership, and launch a highly successful annual trade show that helps fund the association’s lobbyist/legislative watchdog. At the Association of Progressive Rental Organizations, David has served as a board member since 1989; currently, he serves as board secretary and chairs APRO’s membership committee.

David says the information he’s gotten from other dealers at APRO events has been invaluable in building his business. “I think for a long time, I took a lot of information away [from APRO events], but I didn’t feel like I contributed a lot,” says David. “For the past five years or so, I feel like I’ve been able to give a lot more than I’ve taken. I think some [non-members] are waiting for APRO to give them something; they’re thinking ‘What’s it going to do for me?’ If they’d try to be a giver rather than a taker, then they’d see just how much will come around to them. They’d probably get a lot more than they ever expected. “APRO’s like an insurance company,” he says. “You might not always be happy when you’ve got to pay for it, but if you ever need to use it, then you’re glad it’s there. It just amazes me how this industry pulls together to make something happen.” David David is an industrious guy. In addition to opening up new stores, expanding into a new product area, serving as a board member and committee chair with APRO, and staying active in RPDA, David finds time now and then to golf, ride his bike and fly (he is licensed, but not for commercial aircraft).

The twice-divorced father of five—four girls and one boy total, ranging in age from 8 to 22—and grandfather of two tends to spend much of his leisure time with his family. His favorite activity with them is an annual summer trip to Michigan’s auto-free Mackinac Island. But lazy summer days seem long ago, as the holidays grow closer and David grows restless. It’s a hard habit to break, the relentless busyness of his growing-up years, the back-breaking push every December. So David doesn’t try to shake it; rather, he embraces it and incorporates it constructively into his life today. “The Christmas season is very important for our company,” stresses David. “We move product around like crazy the weeks before Christmas, to make sure customers have what they want for that special time of year.” And if he is helping make people happy, David’s happy, too.