I remember getting my first rto job right out of high school. When I was a kid we didn't have alot of money and I thought that $6.50 an hour and medical insurance was like winning the lottery.

The store managers at that time were on a $400 a week salary and another $50 if they worked a sixth day. I remember wanting to get that job as fast as possible because that was the BIG MONEY!

Over the past decade I have been lucky enough to see many things in rto good and bad. I enjoy the experience but the one thing that bothers me more that anything is the inability to show a distinct career path in our business.

I know I sound like a jerk right? Well, think about it. How do we attract MOTIVATED career-minded folks to our business if there is no way to keep them motivated?

How do we attract, train, and most important keep "Bob Newhire" the guy with the energy and excitement about this opportunity?

Or do we just admit that each and every person is a gear in a big machine and when that gear breaks we just replace it with another gear. Thank god for monster.com huh?

The company I started with was growing...FAST! We had to recruit our account managers to become store managers, we had to hire people that could "TAKE A STORE" and fast! There wasn't any time to mess around. Then we could find great store managers to run a small district and so on. The new people saw the opportunity so they either stepped up or sorted themselves out right away.

No career account managers doing just enough to not get fired while we pay them just enough so they won't quit. Thats a bad model.

I say that its time for a paradigm shift. We have been using industrial age ideas in rto. The problem is that rto is not now, nor ever was an industrial age business.

401k? Who is participating in a 401k if the company has 100% turnover every year? I think we all get real comfortable with the idea of letting customers go AND we treat employees the same way like they are just passing through.

I was guilty of it too during our golden years we could say and do whatever we wanted and there where still more employees and customers to get no problem.

NOT ANYMORE!


We need to stop teaching management and start teaching leadership! Start with the interview.

When we run an ad or call resumes from monster.com we will attract a whole bunch of joiners. People will join anything, they will save the wales or whatever! We attract joiners but we need to build winners.

Winners want to know this is tough...they don't want someone to con them into thinking our business is one way and then it isn't. I tell people "we have recruited thousands of people into our company and these are the people that make 100,000 a year...pretty slim odds but if you do what they did you will get what they got"



We need to stop begging people to join our companies. That is the wrong posture period! Your reading this and saying we don't do that...yes you do. I have seen a hundred "labor ready" folks get recruited by someone in the store. "You should come work here full time". I know your doing it...stop that right now. This is not a delivery service, in many cases you are representing a New York Stock Exchange Company and you need to start acting like it.

Harvey Mackay says "Dig your well before your thirsty" ...if you are only interviewing when you have a need for a new person then you will always hire the wrong people. Sorry its the truth, its your posture when your hiring from that point of view you can't hide it...they can smell it.



Number 2 - Why does anyone want to work for a company that doesn't let anyone dream bigger?

Ask yourself this question: How can I get each of my store managers making $100,000 a year? Thats the goal any less than that goal and there is a revolving door on the front of your store. Once you figure it out you need to
A)Never stop talking about it and
B)Recognize the people that have achieved it

There should be an award for these guys and girls. In my company we have "Ring Earners" and you better believe that whenever we talk about so and so we say that he is a $100k ring earner.

That shows the whole force whats possible and gives them a clear way to get there.

DO YOU HEAR ME? $100,000 a year at store manager not multi-store, most people will never get to mult-store but everyone can see the path to store manager.

Those $100,000 ring earners should be always talking about lifestyle...vacation with the family etc. but they need to always have the same message of where they came from and "If I can do it you can do it too"

RECOGNITION! Take your two dollar bills and paper certificates and shove em because no one cares. You need to recognize the steps to getting to six figures and have a strong recognition on the way there.

I have a box of two dollar bills and they don't mean jack...I can't buy a car with em so whats the point?

People aren't stupid they know that so and so only got the store because so and so quit and you don't have any one else to run it right? Thats not working so stop doing it, no more battlefield promotions. If you have a certain location that is eating up store managers don't just promote the account manager and let him go down in flames too, what good does that do?

Number 3 -

THE BEST COMPENSATION IN THE WORLD IS NOT HOW MUCH YOU PAY PER HOUR.

Smart people see hourly pay as the minimum they will make, "wastes of good polo shirts" see that as there "guarantee no matter how little work I do".

You have to stop working on your next big advertising budget right now, stop! If you thought you had any good ideas you wouldn't be reading these articles online anyway. Thats why you are here because you need a fresh perspective and here it is....

MULTI-TIERED AND RESIDUAL COMPENSATION PLAN!

You want to have the best people doing the best work? Take that ad budget and shove it in your file cabinet under "dumb ideas" and get ready here we go:

You have a 20% payroll and another 10%-20% in advertising and marketing expenses.

Take all that money and do this:

Each employee gets a small...SMALL weekly paycheck plus a potential huge multi-tiered and residual paycheck! HUH?

Like this:

Store Manager 5% of rental revenue
Assistant Manager 4% of rental revenue
Account Manager 5% of rental revenue
**************************************************
CONFUSED?

Lets say the store runs at $40,000 per month rental revenue.

You have two account managers (who also do the deliveries and pickups in a store that size)

They each have 200 BOR so...

Each account manager would get 5% or $1,000

The Assistant Manager would get 4% of the whole total since he/she is managing the account managers or $1,600

The Store Manager who is the leader of the entire operation would get 5% on the whole total which is $2,000

Is there any reason to grow the store? YES! And its not just because my market manager told me too either.

At 800 BOR the "per account manager" would stay the same but the Assistant Manager money would go to $3,200 and the store manager money would go to $4,000

Do you think that good account managers might drop a few more flyers at the neighbor when they do a delivery?

Do you think that the entire store would be more interested in getting and keeping customers on rent?

Do you think that a new hire can see a clear way to get to the top money spots in an organization?

Do you think that an account manager might be willing to "stretch" an manage 300 bor instead of 200 bor?

What about collections? Well, you can't get a percentage of total rental revenue unless you collect that revenue on time.

What about "add on sales" is the person taking the payment going to try to add on if they can see the money coming right at them?

Do you think the showroom will be stocked? Clean? priced? "rent ready"

Do you think our employees will ask for referals?

Solicit the references on a rental order?

Tell friends about the store, the company, the program?

Help find good people to work in the store and build the business.

Start using phrases like "my customer" again


THE BEST PART......RESIDUAL INCOME! You make a sale one time and every week and every month you get paid on that sale over and over again. How would you like to say that to a sharp looking prospect during an interview?


I know what all the grizzled old rto veterans are thinking..."that won't work" well it is working everyday in america right now.

It's called MULTI-LEVEL MARKETING and even though people want you to think its a scam or a pyramid its really just another great business model that works! Some of the old grizzled rto veterans will remember that franchising was called a pyramid scheme when it was first introduced and now many great rto dealers are owning their own businesses because of franchising.

It's really your choice...You can be a company like UPS where you have to know someone that works there just to get on a waiting list to get an interview

or

You can keep hiring anyone that passes the drug test and watch our level of service continue to decline industry wide.

And for those that aren't sure they could get anyone to work under this pay plan?

Call me, I'll start on monday and you can keep your weekly check, I'll do it just for the 5% AND I'll be your first $100,000 ring earner!

See you at the top!
tswprez@hotmail.com

Contact:
Jim Tanner
518-209-6697
tswprez@hotmail.com
website