By Rufus Mudsucker (bio)

Most people don't know it, but before Albert Einstein became a Swiss patent clerk in 1902, he worked as an account manager for his father at Hermann's Rent to Own. Young Albert's first assignment was to find out why the shop next door, Sven's Rental Emporium, was taking Hermann's customers. Reduced to its basic form, the question was; "How can 2 competitors operate next door to each other, offer the identical merchandise for identical rates, and not perform identically?"

As any good mathematician does, Albert searched for differences. He questioned many customers and kept hearing about  "Value." "Wasn't value just a function of price and quality?", he wondered. "And weren't his father's rates and quality identical?" It must be something else. There must be a third variable; some heretofore unknown substance that was unseen, yet exerted great force on a customers choices.

Albert began pouring over the data and found that the primary difference between the two competitors was the relationship with customers. Sven outperformed Hermann because of the relationship he had with his customer's.

Relationship was the "Dark Matter" of the rent to own universe. A variable that, like gravity, is impossible to measure directly, but has a greater effect on a rent to own business than any other. Albert set about reducing his knowledge to an equation. Up until this time, the rent to own world looked at value as containing only 2 variables; Rate and Quality. It was not until 1901 that Albert Einstein hit upon the basic formula of rent to own success that governs the industry to this day; V=RQRe² . (Value = Rate x Quality x Relationship²).

Relative to your direct competition, (your rental rates) X (quality of merchandise) X (your relationship with your customers squared) = the value you represent to customers. Albert proved mathematically what good salespeople have known instinctively since the dawn of time..."customers rent from a person, not a company. All other factors are secondary." Use the form below to calculate your Value Quotient VS your competition.