The APRO Board isn’t just a panel of figureheads – your Directors work hard to keep the RTO industry strong, sustainable, & vitally valuable
It was a typically balmy fall day in Austin, Texas, when the APRO Board of Directors gathered for its final scheduled meeting of 2022. This year’s annual two-day work session began with a catch-up lunch before launching into a sum-up of APRO’s activities and performance, a board orientation and training by an association expert, and a deep dive into the APRO Strategic Plan.
And if all that sounds like a grownup in a Charlie Brown special (the droning wanh waaanh wanh wanhwanh wanh) to you, then it’s time put on your listening ears so you can hear the encouraging sound of your (volunteer!) industry leaders bolstering, tending, and standing up for rent-to-own to ensure its long and prosperous existence.
In attendance at the late-October meeting were board members Dennis Adams [Full-O-Pep Appliances Inc., dba American Rental], Treasurer Trent Agin [SKC Enterprises Inc., dba Rent One], President Michael Bennett [Buddy’s Newco LLC, dba Buddy’s Home Furnishings], Mark Connelly, [Arona Corp., dba Arona Home Essentials], Past President David P. David [Full-O-Pep Appliances, dba American Rental], Daniel Fisher [Majik Enterprises International Inc.], Chad Fosdick [CR Fosdick Ent. Inc., dba Premier Rental-Purchase], Vendor Liaison Bill French, [O’Rourke Sales Company], Rachel George [Aaron’s LLC], David Harrison [Rental Concepts LLC, dba RNR Tire Express], Vendor Liaison Mike Helton [Rivero, Gordimer & Company P. A], Christine Hesse [PROG Holdings Inc.], 2nd Vice President Shirin Kanji [Impact RTO Holdings, dba Rent-A-Center], Jerry Marshall [KAPPA Investments LLC, dba Buddy’s Home Furnishings], Bryan Pechersky [Rent-A-Center Inc.], Gopal Reddy [Action Development Corp., dba Aaron’s], Secretary Jonathan Rose [RNR of Virginia LLC, dba RNR Tire Express], and 1st Vice President Adam Sutton [RNR Tire Express].
APRO Chief Executive Officer Jill McClure, having now led the organization for five-and-a-half years, provided a brief overview of APRO’s evolution under her leadership [please see “Five Years of Flourishing,” page 12], as well as a 2022 review.
“Despite lingering COVID-related challenges and a looming recession, this has been another successful year for APRO as it serves our industry,” says APRO Board President Michael Bennett. “With Jill’s vision and guidance, the APRO staff continues to streamline costs, simplify processes, and update technologies, always working to give members the greatest value possible.”
“We work very hard to be faithful stewards of this industry,” McClure affirms. “The APRO team is laser-focused on providing member value – including developing additional membership benefits designed to advance the industry as a whole, while helping our individual members outpace the rising costs of doing business.”
The APRO Strategic Plan – a three-year initiative created in spring 2021 and currently halfway through its duration – includes key SMART [Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timebound] goals, as well as priorities and strategies for reaching each of them. In addition to traditional standing committees, the Board of Directors has formed four workgroups to ensure progress on these agreed-upon objectives.
The Value workgroup – led by Sutton, with David, Fosdick, Helton, and Reddy as members – focuses on tangible benefits for APRO members, like member content, info, and news, as well as the Legal Hotline, which received 86 inquiries over the past year. This group is continuously in search of new ways to serve, and new products and services to offer to the APRO membership.
The Virtual Rent-to-Own (VRTO) workgroup – led by Pechersky, with members Fisher, George, Hesse, and APRO General Counsel Ed Winn – works on connecting with VRTO businesses, and exploring commonalities and potential collaborations between them and traditional brick-and-mortar stores. APRO currently has seven VRTO members, including newly elected board member Christine Hesse’s company, Progressive Holdings Inc. With expertise in government relations, Hesse is now playing a key role in this workgroup, exploring APRO’s value proposition and how to incorporate VRTO businesses into its advocacy strategy.
The State Network workgroup – led by Connelly, with members Adams, French, and Rose – continues to strengthen the network of state rental- dealer associations by supporting active groups and reactivating groups that have gone dormant. Currently, there are 20 active state associations representing 27 states, and 16 inactive state associations covering 21 states nationwide, as well as two states that have never had a state RTO group. Active state associations are crucial to APRO’s industry advocacy – they are RTO’s grassroots superpower, helping coordinate efforts across the country, and providing boots-on-the-ground constituents to work with elected officials on any issues that might arise.
Last, but definitely not least, the Resources workgroup – led by Agin, with members Bennett, Harrison, Kanji, and Marshall – acts as the steward of APRO’s finances, history, and data. The group works with APRO Data Analyst Eddie Flores to help the association serve as a data hub for the whole industry – collecting info through the annual Industry Health Survey, as well as via occasional Fast Five surveys gathering input on current challenges, issues, and trends.
A longside the Board of Directors workgroups is APRO’s all-important advocacy work. Spearheaded by Winn, APRO advocacy includes daily legislative and regulatory monitoring, legislative alerts (16 have been sent to members this year), informational webinars, Winn’s annual Legislative Update at RTO World, and the APRO Legislative Conference – which the board voted to revive as an in-person event in 2023.
“APRO’s greatest value to our members is as the watchdog for our industry,” notes Bennett. “After three years of being absent from Capitol Hill due to COVID, our presence is necessary in Washington, DC – not only as a way to reestablish ourselves and our business in lawmakers’ minds, but also as an ideal way to build unity and teamwork among our membership.”
The APRO Vendor Advisory Committee (VAC) also met in Austin and – in addition to mixing and mingling with the Board of Directors over dinner and drinks – stressed the success of RTO World as the industry’s biggest event of the year.
“We can’t wait to bring rent-to-own together again next summer in San Antonio, Texas,” Bennett concludes. “When it comes to networking, sharing, learning, selling, buying, Tex-Mex-ing, and River-walking, we hope everyone will remember the Alamo City!”
‘22 TOO TERRIFIC
Here’s just a sampling of stats illustrating some of APRO’s successes this year:
15 member surveys
94% member retention
29 APRO Scholarships awarded
Association revenue 7% over budget
Association expenses 3% under budget
$62,000 total scholarship funding awarded
71 participants at the APRO Cybersecurity Webinar
$18,000 in RTO Employee Disaster Relief granted
Over 35% of rental dealers responded to the Industry Health Survey
22 State Association Presidents attended APRO state leadership meetups
Five+ Years of Flourishing
Five-and-a-half years ago, APRO had its first leadership transition in 28 years.
Unbeknownst to many at the time – including then-new CEO Jill McClure – the association needed some crucial changes to prepare for what was to come (Pandemic? What pandemic?).
Since 2017, the APRO team has strengthened and modernized APRO’s brand, business strategy and systems, and value to its members.
Here are some of the notable changes APRO has made over the past five years.
Headquarters
In 2017, concern emerged from the long-tenured staff about the condition of the aging APRO office building, where most team members worked full-time. A professional inspection revealed the building was in significant disrepair with a critical need for remediation and restoration — estimated at twice the amount that the association had in reserves at the time. Through consensus-building, the Board of Directors voted to divest the property.
This decision led to another major transition: the APRO staff becoming a virtual-hybrid team, with most people working remotely most of the time. This was the first of many moves bringing APRO into the 21st century.
Operations
By 2018, APRO completed its first-ever business continuity plan and began moving away from outdated processes and antiquated technologies to collaborative and cloud-based solutions. The plan established a centralized digital filing system, a new staff messaging software for improved communication, and — soon after the hiring of Jamie Powers, VP of Operations — a new “right-sized” database system, saving the association $30,000.
Sustainability
In 2018, the APRO Board worked to develop a Strategic Plan — the organization’s first in 14 years; to reinstate an annual Industry Health Survey — the first in eight years; to adopt the organization’s first-ever investment and reserves policy; and to define APRO’s Value Proposition, outlining the key roles the association plays in the rent-to-own industry.
Pandemic
All of that foundational work formed the underpinning for an agile and rapid response to the 2020–21 COVID-19 crisis. While most organizations were figuring out how to operate remotely, the APRO team quickly turned their whole focus toward what needed to happen to keep APRO members in business.
APRO established RTO companies as “essential” — tracking 182 executive orders and issuing 63 legislative alerts, hosting 10 webinars about emerging pandemic-era issues, putting together resource letters, and setting up a resource clearinghouse webpage which allowed members to keep on operating during the initial nationwide lockdown and throughout the pandemic.
Forced to cancel the 2020 APRO Legislative Conference and pivot RTO World 2020 to an entirely virtual event, the association negotiated over $300,000 in cancellation fees down to zero, and attracted more attendees to its first-ever virtual convention than it had seen at live events in more than a decade.
APRO has run in the black for the past five years, never once needing to dip into the association’s reserves – even during the pandemic.
State Associations
One of APRO’s passion projects over the past five years has been building its support of state RTO associations by expanding state services, coordinating legislative action, working to revive and reactivate dormant state organizations, and creating a multi-tiered menu of services specifically designed to provide foundational operations logistics for state presidents who are volunteering their time.
APRO’s expanded services enhance state organizations’ consistency and sustainability. One such solution is a digital archive, constructed especially to house state association documents, easing the transitions between volunteer leaders. As a result of APRO’s state association initiative, the number of state groups APRO provides services for has grown 64% over the past five years.
VP of Membership Jen Troke was hired in 2021 in part to devote more service hours to the RTO industry’s state associations.
“The APRO Board of Directors has had to make some difficult decisions along the way, but our goal is always to do what’s right before what’s familiar, easy, or comfortable.”
Publications
RTOHQ: The Magazine has been streamlined to two full-bodied annual issues that are no longer costing the association financially. Through trial and error, the team found a balance between production methods, rich content, and advertising sales.
The publication also earned a Gold Honor for Print Media at the international MarCom Awards.
“The last five years for APRO have been both challenging and rewarding,” McClure concludes. “The APRO Board of Directors has had to make some difficult decisions along the way, but our goal is always to do what’s right before what’s familiar, easy, or comfortable. Ensuring the full success and long-term sustainability of both APRO and its members must remain our compass as we continue to move forward and make progress as an industry.”
Kristen Card has been a contributing writer for RTOHQ: The Magazine for more than 15 years.
