Jeff Smith has IT expertise & experience in hotels, pharmacies, & video stores – but it’s rent-to-own that keeps calling him back home
Sports has been an essential element of Jeff Smith’s life for as long as he can remember. As a kid, Smith played a lot of sports himself – baseball, basketball, football, soccer. As an adult, he’s a bigtime fan – especially of the New York Yankees and Chicago Bears – and even writes a weekly fantasy football newsletter.
“I’ve always had such a respect particularly for football players, the toughness it takes,” Smith says. “In ‘midget football,’ coaches wanted me to be a lineman because I’m a big guy, but the first time the other guy came at me and hit me, I was just like, ‘Nope. Not for me.’ You’ve got to be tough to succeed in football, and I’ve always admired that. And I think it correlates to business – you’ve got to be tough to succeed in business, too.”
Indeed, though Smith comes across as even-tempered to the point of seeming almost impassive, his story reveals a man whose strength, resilience, and determination – aka toughness – have guided him into not only success in the rent-to-own business, but also newfound leadership in the RTO industry.
YOU might not guess it, but Jeff Smith is actually an Englishman by birth (fancy!). Born in Lakenheath, England, while his dad was serving in the U.S. Air Force, Smith also lived in Phoenix, Arizona, and Oscoda, Michigan, before his family settled in Jamestown, New York, when he was eight; today, he remains about 15 minutes south of Jamestown.
Smith spent the first couple of years out of high school in a smattering of small jobs, then hit his stride when he was hired at a local Holiday Inn as a front-desk clerk. Over the next four years, he rose through the ranks to become Rooms Division Manager, responsible for the front desk and housekeeping departments. Smith also met and courted an attractive hostess at the hotel restaurant – Naomi; the couple married in 2002.
In 2000, Smith left the hospitality business to become an account manager and delivery person for a local rent-to-own store, making a whopping $8/hour. Not a fan of literal heavy lifting, he quickly worked his way up to store manager.
“Next, I moved to a company called House of Television, and ran a store for them until 2006,” recalls Smith. “Then, I left to work for a Blockbuster video location. My schedule there permitted time for me to go to college at Alfred State University, where I earned my degree in Information Technology Management.”
Just a couple of years later, House of Television’s IT person quit, and the owners invited Smith to rejoin their team as an info-tech specialist. He accepted, and stayed with House of Television for the next 11 years. But in 2019, Smith left RTO again to become a systems administrator for Pharmacy Innovations, a compounding pharmacy operating in six states.
But no worries – Smith couldn’t stay away from rent-to-own for too long.
In 2021, two of Smith’s House of Television colleagues approached him about joining their new company, Your Hometown Rent To Own Inc. dba Hometown Rent To Own. Matt Radecki and a partner who has since exited the company were seeking to expand Hometown from their single store in Salamanca, New York, but didn’t have the know-how to do it; they wanted Smith to run a second store up in Jamestown.
“I wasn’t interested in getting back into the business in that capacity,” explains Smith. “But I agreed to buy into the business as a partner. Naomi and I refinanced our house so we could invest in our own company, and we’ve been growing in leaps and bounds since.”
TODAY , Hometown has grown to four stores, all within about an hour’s drive of each other, and Smith and Radecki have their next two locations already selected. Based upon input from other RTO veterans, the pair intends to continue growth at the pace of one new store per year.
“We’ve been told one store per year is a manageable, sensible pace,” Smith relates. “If you grow too big too fast, then it can be counterproductive. We’re thinking we’ll grow to maybe 20 stores at most.
I’ve worked at big corporations where I was Employee #45621, and I’ve worked for House of Televisions where I knew the guy who signed my paychecks. I want to know my employees face-to-face, know who they are, what they’re about.
I want to be able to walk into a store and if a delivery tech walks by me, then I want to be able to say, ‘Hey, Joe, how’s the family?’ I believe if you get too big, then you lose that kind of relationship.”
Smith understands rent-to-own is a relationship-based business, so keeping it personal is paramount. He feels his imperturbable temperament and his complementary partnership with Radecki cultivate an important sense of balance for Hometown’s employees.
“I could have just won a million dollars, or my dog could have just died, and I come across the same,” he chuckles. “It’s crucial for our employees to have that stability, consistency, and approachability. But Matt mostly takes care of the front of the house – staffing, operations, and audits – while I scout locations, take care of the financing, and do all the IT stuff. Our skills offset each other, and we respect what we both bring to the business in our own ways.”
Smith and Radecki both value employee longevity, so they pay well, offer abundant benefits and profit-sharing, and try to facilitate a healthy work-life balance for their team members. Additionally, they endeavor to embrace employee empowerment and reject micro-management.
“We don’t stand over them with a magnifying glass and crack their knuckles with a ruler every time they miss something,” attests Smith. “We want to be a desirable place to work, because at the end of the day, your employees are going to make or break you. We and our competitors all sell the same stuff – Samsung TVs, Whirlpool washers, Ashley furniture. It’s the people behind the counter who make the difference – and I think we’ve got some of the best in the business.”
Smith says it all begins with the right hires, and the number- one characteristic Hometown seeks in new candidates is positivity.
“We have a zero-tolerance policy on negativity,” states Smith. “If anyone’s got a negative attitude or is being toxic in the store, they’re going to be replaced. We’re just not putting up with it. I’ve heard on average, 10% of your team are As, 80% are Bs, and 10% are Cs – and if you’re not careful, that 10% of Cs will ruin the other 90%. Negativity can poison the whole well and turn a whole store for the worse. So our company culture reflects high-energy, positive, smiling people.”
JUST about two years ago, Smith and Radecki ventured into a TRIB Group Meeting of the Minds event out of curiosity, and left fully inspired by the openness, sharing, and support they witnessed among their industry brethren.
“I knew I wanted to be part of this,” Smith recalls. “And getting involved in TRIB and APRO has already been super-valuable. We wouldn’t be where we are as a company without it. We’ve restructured our whole staff, we’ve gained a ton of sales training, and gotten great ideas for how to reward our folks. Just the knowledge and the products and the relationships we’re gaining are invaluable.”
Smith has found his own way to facilitate those rent-to-own relationships; he’s launched a charity fantasy football league for rental dealers and vendors. Participants make a $50 donation to play, and the collected funds go to the season winner’s charity of choice. This year, players have agreed to contribute all proceeds to the Maria Fisher Foundation – a nonprofit honoring the daughter of RTO veteran Dan Fisher.
“There is no other industry that shares the way we do,” Smith notes. “We’ve been taking our management team along to some industry events, so they can see there’s more to this business than just being an entry-level employee in a rural Pennsylvania town or whatever. There are so many opportunities and so many jobs within this industry; they can take you wherever you want to go if you’re willing to put in the time and work.”
Speaking of time and work put in, Smith was elected to the APRO Board of Directors last August, and also agreed to lead the revival of the dormant New York Rental Dealers Association (NYRDA) – which has turned out to be a waaay bigger commitment than he expected.
“We all thought it was going to entail just holding a couple of meetings each year,” begins Smith. “But suddenly last spring, the New York State Legislature tried to pass companion bills that would basically eliminate rent-to-own (for more about the measures, please see “Coming Around Again,” page XX). So I’ve been working with lobbyists and folks from Aaron’s and Upbound [Rent-A-Center], and we’ve been collectively working to protect our livelihoods.
NAOMI Smith – who worked in membership and accounting at Sam’s Club, at the New York State DMV office, and as a credit union manager following her Holiday Inn restaurant gig – joined Hometown just over a year ago as the company’s Office Manager.
I knew nothing about lobbying or legislation or any of that stuff, but I’ve learned a lot, and now I can have a good conversation with almost anyone about what’s happening and what needs to be done. That work going on behind the scenes, like at the APRO Legislative Conference, is so underappreciated. That’s something I want to include my employees in on, too. It’s been quite a ride, but it’s been an awesome one.”
“I was taking care of the books and the ordering and trying to run the business,” Jeff insists. “When we went from two to four stores, it all just became too much. And I wanted Naomi to come along with me to tradeshows, and it was almost impossible for her to get off of work to do that, so this has worked out very well.”
The couple has no kids – except their Bichon-Poo, Daisy, who gets appropriately spoiled as an only child. Jeff and Naomi enjoy traveling together, both to work-related events and on vacations a few times a year; attending live concerts; and spending time with family – particularly their nieces and nephews, whom they refer to as their “bonus kids.” They also have a Camaro convertible you can find them cruising around New York and Pennsylvania in on the weekends.
As far as sports goes, Jeff loves to play golf whenever he can, and hopes to someday have a winter home down in Florida or Texas, so that he can golf year-round. In the meantime, he and Naomi go to a lot of ball games, and are working toward visiting all 30 Major League Baseball parks. And Jeff writes that e-newsletter for Dynasty League Football, which goes to about 20,000 readers each week.
While Jeff continues to feel that a certain amount of toughness is necessary for success, he’s also beginning to understand through the RTO industry that vulnerability is key to creating relationships – which is his favorite part of his work today.
“I see Hometown as sort of a spinoff of House of Television,” concludes Smith. “Matt and I have some guys who were exceptional employees there and who have been essential to our success here. And we’re getting second- and third-generation customers; people whose houses I actually once delivered to, they now have kids coming into our store and doing business with my company, and that is pretty awesome.”
Kristen Card has been a contributing writer for RTOHQ: The Magazine for more than 20 years.
